some getting used to for you, so I expect it’s all a matter of timing.”
“Good. So we’re um . . .” He tried, not entirely successfully, to pull her actual meaning from the cheerful flow of words.
Her smile broadened. “We’re good.”
“Okay.” Still, something felt not quite right.
He could almost see his Companion roll sapphire eyes.
Not so much advice as an unarguable instruction.
“So . . .” Jors brought his attention back to the younger Herald. “. . . there were some tax problems in the area we’re heading for next. We should go over them in case they come up again.”
“Jennet and I ran into a few problems just like this back last month. Well, not just like this, because that’s one thing I’ve learned since I’ve been out is that no two problems are exactly the same no matter how much they seem to be and . . .”
He let her words wash over him as he pulled the papers from his pack. So they were good. That was . . .
. . . good.
Why did he feel like he was waiting for the other shoe to drop?
Last year’s tax problems didn’t reoccur, but new problems arose, and Jors did his best to guide Alyise through them. She was better with people than he was and as summer passed into fall, he allowed her to hear those petitions that dealt with social problems and tried to learn from her natural charm as she learned from his experience.
Given her unflagging energy and exuberance, he felt as though he was running full out to stay ahead of her and he never felt younger or more unsuited for his position as her teacher as when he saw her in the midst of a crowd of admiring young men.
Not that she ever forgot she was a Herald on duty, it was just . . .
:You’re laughing at me again, aren’t you?:
No answer in words, just a strong feeling of amusement. Which was, of course, all the answer Jors needed.
Frost had touched the grass by the time they reached the tiny village of Halfrest, grown up not quite a generation before around a campsite that marked the halfway point on a shortcut between two larger towns. A shortcut only because the actual trade road followed the kind of ground sensible people built roads on rather than taking the direct route more suitable to goats.
Jors had a feeling that without the mule tied to her saddle, Alyise and Donnel would have been bounding like those goats from rock to rock, Alyise chattering cheerfully the entire time as they skirted the edges of crumbling cliffs.
The Waystation was brand-new, the wood still pale and raw looking. No corral had been built for the mules but a rope strung between two trees would take the lead lines, giving them plenty of room to graze. While there was no well, the pond looked crystal clear and cold.
“If you have a Waystation,” Jors said as they carried their packs inside, “you’re more than just a group of people trying to carve out an uncertain life. You’re a real village.”
“And that’s important to them, to be seen as a real village?”
“This was wilderness when the elders of this village came here with their parents. They’re proud of what they’ve accomplished.”
He reminded her of that again as they rode into Halfrest which was, in point of fact, nothing much more than a group of people trying to carve out an uncertain life. Livestock still shared many of the same buildings as their owners and function ruled over form. Only the Meeting Hall bore any decoration—graceful, joyful carvings tucked up under the gabled eaves gave some promise of what could be when they finally got a bit ahead.
“Because a real village has a Meeting Hall?” Alyise asked quietly as they dismounted.
He nodded and turned to greet the approaching men and women.
They had not had an easy year of it. There had been sickness and raiders and heavy rains, then sickness again.
“We had no Harvest Festival this year,” a weary woman told them, pushing graying hair off her face with a thin hand. “With so many sick, there were few to bring the harvest in so when the fields were finally clear the time was past. We had little heart for it besides. But there are two pigs fattening, pledged for the festival last spring. One came from my good black sow, and I feel I should be able to slaughter him for my own use.”
“He was pledged to the village,” an equally weary looking man interrupted.
“He was pledged to the festival!”
As there had been no festival it would seem sensible to give the pig back to the woman who had pledged it, perhaps requiring her to give some of the meat to those in need. But this was Alyise’s judgment and Jors sat quietly behind her, allowing her to make up her own mind with no interference from him. He glanced around the Hall, from the work-roughened and exhausted villagers to the sullen knot of teenagers clumped together by the door. No one looked hungry or ill used, just tired. They’d been working nonstop for weeks. It was no wonder they’d skipped their festival, all they probably wanted was a chance to rest.
“I have heard all sides of the argument,” Alyise said at last. “And this is my judgment.” She paused, just for a moment, and Jors had the strangest feeling the other shoe was finally dropping. “The pig was pledged to the Harvest Festival. Have the festival.”
“But the harvest has been in long since and . . .”
“The harvest is in,” Alyise interrupted, her smile lighting all the dark corners of the room. “I think that’s worth celebrating.” Before anyone could protest, she locked eyes with the woman who owned the pig. “Don’t you?”
“Well, yes, but . . .”
“The sickness is past. The raiders have been defeated. And that’s worth celebrating, too.” The man who had protested the reclaiming of the pig seemed stunned by her smile. “Don’t you think so?”
“I guess . . .”
“And the rains have stopped.” She spread her arms and turned to the teenagers by the door. “The sun is shining. Why not celebrate that?”
Shoulders straightened. Tentative smiles answered her question.
No one stood against Alyise’s enthusiasm for long. Soon, to Jors’ surprise, no one wanted to. The pigs were slaughtered and dressed and put in pits to roast. Tables were set up in the hall. Food and drink began to appear. Musicians brought out their instruments.
“I’d have thought they were too tired to party,” Jors murmured as half a dozen girls ran giggling by with armloads of the last bright leaves of fall.
“My mother has a saying; if you don’t celebrate your victories, all you remember are your defeats. The food they’re eating now won’t be enough to make a real difference if the winter is especially hard, but the memories they make, good memories of laughter and fellowship, that could be enough to see them through.” Alyise gestured toward the carvings. “They know joy. I just helped them remember they knew. You know?”
He did actually.
“You lied to me.” Alyise’s Whites were a beacon in the darkness. Which was good because he didn’t think he could find her otherwise. Except that she was on Donnel and that made it pretty obvious where she was now he considered it.
“What did I lie about?”
“You said that was apple . . . apple jush. Juice.”
She giggled. “It was once.”
“Jack. That wash apples jack.” He wasn’t drunk. Heralds did not get drunk on duty even at impromptu Harvest Festivals where the apple juice wasn’t. Which he wouldn’t have had any of had Alyise not handed him a huge mug just before they left to toast the celebration and the celebrants.
Now the night was spinning gently around him and he suspected that getting the Companions settled for the night was going to be interesting.
