complicated. Leino coughed, too, in embarrassment, and yielded the point: “This time, you’re right. I’m not supposed to put you in the rest crate.” Under his breath, he added, “No matter how tempted I am.” Pekka heard that, and coughed again; Uto, fortunately, didn’t.
Before any new arguments could start--and arguments accreted around Uto as naturally as nacre around of bit of grit inside an oyster--someone knocked on the front door. Pekka jumped, then hurried to open it. There stood Ilmarinen and Siuntio. Pekka went down on one knee before them, as she would have before one of the Seven Princes of Kuusamo. “Enter,” she said. “Your presence honors my home.” It was a commonplace greeting, but here she meant it from the bottom of her heart.
As the two elderly theoretical sorcerers stepped over the threshold, Leino also bowed. So did Uto, a beat slower than he should have. He stared at the mages from under his thick mop of black hair.
Ilmarinen laughed at that covert inspection. “I know about you, young fellow,” he said. “Aye, I do. And do you know how I know?” Uto shook his head. Ilmarinen told him: “Because I was just the same way when I was your size, that’s how.”
“I believe it,” Siuntio said, “and you haven’t changed much in all the years since, either.” Ilmarinen beamed, though Pekka wasn’t sure Siuntio had meant it as a compliment.
Gathering herself, she said, “Masters, I present to you my husband, Leino, and my son, Uto.” She turned to her family. “Here we have the mages Siuntio and Ilmarinen.”
Leino and Uto bowed again. Leino said, “It is indeed an honor to have two such distinguished men as my guests.” He smiled wryly. “It would be an even greater honor were I privileged to hear what they discuss with my wife, but I understand why that cannot be. Come on, Uto--we’re going next door to visit Aunt Elimaki and Uncle Olavin.”
“Why?” Uto had his eye on Ilmarinen. “I’d rather stay and listen to
“We can’t listen to these mages and your mother talk, because they’ll be talking about secret things,” Leino said. Pekka thought that only more likely to make Uto want to stay, but her husband retrieved the situation by adding, “These things are so secret, even I’m not supposed to hear about them.”
Uto’s eyes widened. He’d known his parents didn’t--couldn’t--tell each other about everything they did, but he’d never seen that brought home so dramatically. He went with Leino to Pekka’s sister’s house without another word of protest.
“A likely lad,” Ilmarinen said. “Likely to make you want to pitch him into the sea a lot of the time, I shouldn’t wonder, but likely the other way, too.”
“I think you’re right on both counts,” Pekka said. “Sit. Make yourselves comfortable, I pray you. Let me bring refreshments.” She hurried into the kitchen, then returned with bread, sliced smoked salmon and onions and pickled cucumbers, and a pot of ale from Kajaani’s best brewer.
By the time she got back, Siuntio had spectacles on his nose and a Lagoan journal in his hand. He set it aside willingly enough to eat and to accept a mug of golden ale, but his
“And what if I do?” Siuntio asked mildly. “This does, after all, touch upon our reason for coming to Kajaani.”
Not even Ilmarinen could find a way to disagree with him. “The vultures gather,” he said. “They clawed at the scraps of what we published. Now that we’ve stopped publishing, they claw at the scraps of what isn’t there.”
“How good a mage is this Fernao?” Pekka asked. “From the questions he asked me in his letter, he knows as much as I did a couple of years ago. The question is, can he ferret out the direction I’ve taken since then?”
“He is a first-rank mage, and he has Grandmaster Pinhiero’s ear back in Setubal,” Siuntio said, sipping at his ale.
“He is a sneaky dog, and would have stolen everything in Siuntio’s belt pouch had the two of them met,” Ilmarinen said. “He tried slitting mine, too, but I’m an old sinner myself and not so easy to befool.”
“He came to us openly and innocently,” Siuntio said. Ilmarinen made a rude noise. Siuntio corrected himself: “Openly, at any rate. But how many mages from how many kingdoms are sniffing at the trail of what we have?”
“Even one could be too many, if he served King Swemmel or King Mezentio,” Pekka said. “We don’t know yet how much power lurks at the heart of this link between the two laws or how to unleash whatever there is, but others with the same idea might pass us on the way, and that would be very bad.”
