Aruendiel swore briefly under his breath. “An expensive journey that turned out to be. And I bought horses there, too—how much did Toristel get for them?”
“He sold the gray but not the bay. It brought”—she thought a moment—“a dozen and three beetles.”
“I paid almost twice that in Semr,” he said gloomily. “Why didn’t he sell the bay?”
“He thought you might want an extra mount. For Nora. If she was to travel again.”
“What? The horse deserves better on its back, someone who can actually ride. Tell Toristel to sell it at the next horse fair.”
Mrs. Toristel coughed and looked past Aruendiel’s head. He chose to ignore the signal. If Mistress Nora was in earshot, she had already heard his views on her riding. After a pause, the housekeeper began again: “Six dozen
When she came to the end, the earnings from the harvest totaled two dozen dozen seven beetles and two dozen four beads. Aruendiel drummed his fingers on the table and tried to work out whether it would be enough to pay the king’s tribute and cover the household expenses until next spring’s shearing. He still had some cash from the work done for the merchant last summer. Thinking it over, Aruendiel decided that they would make it into the next year, but it would be close. He exhaled loudly. “Thank you, Mrs. Toristel.”
“You’re welcome, sir. Would you like to go over the internal stores, as well?”
“Later, please. I have had enough ill news for one day.”
She nodded and went into the kitchen. As Aruendiel rose, he turned to find himself face-to-face with Nora.
“Good afternoon,” he said, making a step to brush past her.
“Good afternoon,” she said, moving with him. “You know, I didn’t want to correct Mrs. Toristel, but I think she might have made a small mistake when she was adding up those numbers. It’s actually two dozen dozen six beetles and eleven beads.”
“How would you know?”
“I couldn’t help listening, and I added the numbers up in my head. I believe I’ve gotten the hang of your number system.” The girl looked ridiculously pleased with herself.
“I believe I asked you, once before, to allow me to conduct my own financial affairs.”
“That’s true. I apologize,” she said. She did not look sorry. She was still smiling. “There’s just one other thing—” she went on, pulling out a dark object that had been hidden in the folds of her skirt. “I wanted to show you this.”
“Ah.” He took the bowl from her and ran his fingers over the glazed surface, smooth, annealed. “It is the same bowl, the one that was broken?”
“Yes.”
“You mended it yourself?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“I don’t know, precisely.”
Aruendiel raised an eyebrow.
“This morning I was shuffling the broken pieces around and they all came together. It happened in a second.”
Aruendiel turned the bowl over in his hands, considering. A fine accomplishment for a beginner. But what did it signify? The result was too random, more likely the product of lucky inspiration than intelligent technique. She did not understand yet what she had done.
He hurled the dish against the floor.
“No!” Nora cried, throwing out her arm, too late. She knelt and fingered the broken pieces, then looked up at him. “Why on earth did you do that?”
“You fixed it once. Do so again, and this time have the wit to tell me exactly how.”
She said something in her own language, but he had no trouble understanding her.
“Bring it to me when you are finished,” he directed. “I will be in the tower for the rest of the day.”
I should have known he would do that, Nora told herself as she put the shards of the dish into her apron. It’s just the sort of thing he would do—and oh, merry hell, how on earth did I do it before? They don’t want to fit together at all now, do they? It was so simple this morning, it was like magic. Well, it was magic, she thought with a small flare of pride.
It had something to do with what Aruendiel had said the other night about sympathy, understanding the materials. That was a big hint; she had been mulling over his words ever since, as she played with the fragments of the bowl, wondering how to develop sympathy with a clay pot. Evidently she had succeeded. But how? She tried to recall exactly what she had been thinking just before the bowl sprang back to life, as it were, under her fingers.
Mrs. Toristel came into the great hall and reminded her that the chamber that Lady Pusieuv had occupied needed tidying.
If the magician had truly expected that she would return with the mended bowl that afternoon, he was mistaken. It was not until the evening of the second day, as she sat up in bed, playing with the pieces of pottery, her hands half-remembering the shape and heft of the old, unbroken dish, that she felt the fragments somehow organize themselves, take hold of one another, and choose to be a bowl again.
Nora exclaimed aloud. Only connect. She laughed.
She looked out the window of her room, up at the tower, where a light still burned, then shook her head. She knew what his response would be. She looked at the bowl for a few minutes, admiring its completeness, the way the candlelight melted and swam in the glossy, unmarred glaze. She got out of bed, took the bowl over to the hearth, and gave it a good, swift blow with the poker.
Aruendiel was eating breakfast in the great hall when Nora put the bowl on the table, next to his mug of ale. There were dark smudges under her eyes and mad wisps of hair escaping from her braid, but her mouth was set in a calm, decisive curve.
“Here it is,” she said.
Aruendiel looked up from his oatmeal. “Yes?” he said, sounding bored. He hardly glanced at the bowl she had deposited. “Is that all you have to say for yourself?”
Nora was still not sure how to explain what she had done. “I know how to mend it now.” That was not quite right. “The bowl can mend itself.” Still not right. “The fragments remember the shape of the bowl. I touched them, and they knew me, and I asked them to remember, to reconfigure, and they were willing. That’s all. They were waiting, and I asked, and they were willing.”
Aruendiel watched her closely with his wintry eyes. Then he raised his eyebrows and took a swallow of ale. “I see,” he said, but his voice was no longer bored. It held a rumble of what might have been approval.
He reached for the mended bowl, but Nora was too quick. She snatched it away and smashed it against the floor. The pieces had hardly stopped shivering on the flagstones before she was on her knees, gathering them, fitting them back together. She clambered to her feet and put the bowl on the table again, whole and entire.
A smile flickered at the corner of Aruendiel’s mouth. He spooned up the last mouthful of oatmeal in his own bowl, one of the red-and-white set from Barsy, and then handed the dish to Nora. Hesitating for only a second, she broke it against the flagstones.
At first she thought she was not going to be able to mend this one. It felt utterly different, the fragments alien to her touch. For a few long minutes she scrabbled helplessly with the myriad pieces. Then suddenly it was all right, they were at ease with her, she had only to drop a mild hint, and the red-and-white bowl had reconstituted itself in her grasp. She handed it back to Aruendiel and then pointed to his mug.
“May I?” she asked.
He lifted the mug and poured the ale inside carefully into the air. The liquid hung above the table in an amber bubble, foaming slightly, as Nora smashed the mug and put it back together again. Aruendiel let the ale drain into it again, then took a thoughtful sip.
“What else?” Nora said, smiling, challenge in her voice. “I’ll break all the dishes in the kitchen and then
