early years. Granted he couldn’t know how many children had died, but he didn’t see any graveyards and the children especially looked healthy.
The one barnlike building Owen had not been able to figure out from the hilltop turned out to be the village workshop and school. The Orientalists had harvested the wood from the nearby forests and had fitted broad planks over a stout lattice to create a solid structure. They’d put a thatched roof on it, fitted it with windows for light- though no glass had made it that far west. The whole thing had been painted red on the outside, with the pigment coming from rusty earth.
Ezekiel proudly waved them through the broad doors. “Each of us shares what we can with each other and the children. Here they can learn to read, write, and cipher. They learn to carve wood and make furniture or weave, sew, and quilt.”
“Even the boys?” Rathfield looked over at a young man patching a pair of homespun pants, his tongue poking out of his mouth as he concentrated. “That’s women’s work.”
“Is it?” The older man smiled carefully. “In the Good Book, you’ll find Our Lord healing those who are sick, and yet that task usually falls to women. And His cloak was described as being seamless-meaning perfect. So He must have made it, since no one but God could create something perfect. Yet you would tell me that weaving and sewing are work meant for women. But if Our Lord could do them, are they not fit for men?”
Rathfield stared, but behind him Makepeace breathed a single word. “Amen.”
Ezekiel tousled the boy’s hair. “We have found, Colonel, that people tend to do a better job when they enjoy what they do. God lets us know what He wants us to do by the pleasure it brings us and that may change as time goes on. Out here we don’t always have the luxury of having someone to do a task for us, so we find that letting everyone learn a little bit of everything, then concentrate on what brings them joy works best. It’s one of the messages that God has for His people.”
Rathfield looked around, then frowned. “You don’t appear to have a gunsmith. I should think that would be a very vital trade out here.”
The Steward smiled. “Guns are not mentioned in the Good Book, so we prefer not to use them. Our people are quite proficient in using slings, bows, and even spears if we must hunt. As it is, God has blessed us with this land of incredible bounty.”
Owen looked up from where a man was using a draw-knife to scrape down what would become the seat of a chair. “How long has Happy Valley been here?”
“Ten years. It was only after Green River and Piety became established that we sent our petition to the Queen.” Ezekiel clapped his hands. “I hardly expected the Queen would actually send someone to us. But, please, come along, you must see our most important work.”
He waved them out of the workshop and toward the log fort. “Reading the Good Book led me to this place. I only had a handful of people with me, but others came out and joined us once they understood what our work entails. You see, the Good Book tells us that God has given us dominion over the entire world, but there are those who interpret this to mean they can despoil and ruin as they will. We, instead, choose to live in harmony with the land, much as the Twilight People do.”
Owen’s eyes narrowed. “How is that, exactly?”
Ezekiel stopped and swept a hand toward the terraces. “Each morning we collect nightsoil and use it to fertilize the fields. We start at the top. As the rain comes and water washes down to the lower fields, the nightsoil is not wasted. And when the water comes off the last field, it flows into the river below the settlement. In another two years we intend to dig out and reinforce the hilltops, then fill the basins with water. We will stock them with fish, and use the water there to irrigate the fields.
“And you may have noticed that we have no timber yards. We go into the forests and select the trees that need to be thinned. We take only what we need as we need it. In the workshop, as you saw, we would rather repair something than harvest new wood. We do not require much. Because we live in harmony with God’s Creation, He provides for us.”
Kamiskwa looked over at the Steward. “How is it you know which trees must be taken?”
The older man’s smile broadened. “When a deacon is called for such work, God blesses him with a knowing. He can walk through the woods and pick out the trees to take. God is very generous that way.”
Owen nodded. “So the bounty of your community would attest.”
“God is pleased. This is why He has granted us another great gift.” Ezekiel headed for the fort. “This is why He brought you to us.”
The five of them caught up with him, Rathfield in the lead. “If you don’t mind, Steward, what are you talking about?”
Ezekiel giggled, and were his voice not so full of delight, Owen would have thought him completely mad. “Up there, when God drained the lake, He did so to give us a great teaching. Two tablets, there in the tabernacle. Gold, written in His own hand.”
The man threw open the door to the fort’s main building. “I cannot translate them-I cannot even lift them, but my deacon, he can do both and is even now writing down what God wishes us to know.”
As they entered the room, a hulking man with a shock of red hair looked up from a table and the twin golden tablets thereupon. “Nathaniel Woods, as I live and breath.”
Nathaniel swung his rifle around with one easy motion. “That won’t be for long, Rufus Branch, not long at all.”
Chapter Twenty
10 May 1767 Prince Haven Temperance Bay, Mystria
Prince Vlad ushered his wife into his laboratory and bade her sit at a small table. It had been cleared entirely of books and specimen jars. Instead it had a wooden panel two feet tall clamped to the middle, and two small blocks of wood set between it and the chair Gisella lowered herself into. Each of those blocks had a small brass firestone retention collar fitted to it, and firestones trapped beneath the collars, ruby on the right, amber on the left.
She smiled up at him. “I am certain this will work.”
“As am I, which terrifies me.” The Prince pulled a blindfold from his pocket. “It is not that I don’t trust you…”
Gisella laughed. “Despite my father’s best efforts to keep me ignorant, I do understand certain things about the manner of Ryngian science. You must blindfold me so I cannot possibly react to anything I see.”
He kissed the top of her head. “Thank you.” He slipped the blindfold over her eyes and knotted it at the back of her head, being careful not to tangle any of her golden hair in the knot. “There, right hand on this block, left hand there.”
“I know, husband. When I feel heat beneath my palm, I am to raise that hand.”
“Perfect.” Vlad retreated to another table, similarly shielded. Behind his shield he had corresponding blocks with identical firestones. He also had a quill, an inkpot, paper, and a die. He rolled the die and it came up a five. Since it was an odd number, he touched the amber stone on the left. He triggered the spell to light a candle and pushed it into the firestone. Then he waited.
About four seconds later, Gisella raised her left hand.
The Prince continued through twenty trials, randomizing each time. In seventeen of twenty tries his wife raised the correct hand. The only failures came in the last five attempts, when he was so excited he wasn’t concentrating as well as he should have been. With shaking hands he capped the inkpot and set the quill down. “We’re done.”
She pulled off the blindfold, her blue eyes positively bright. “How did we do?”
“Seventeen of twenty.”
“Oh, I’m sorry, I shall do better. May we go again?”
He stood and crossed to her, taking her hands in his. “No, darling, that is a very good result, better than I expected.”
“Then what bothers you?”
