Ogric did indeed have the key, though we had to go out into the storm to use it, for the lockroom opened onto the oasthouse courtyard. Still, it was in a sheltered corner, so I did not bother rewrapping myself before opening the door and peering into the closetlike space, floored and walled with square stones, a handspan to a side. “Is it sound?” I asked, holding out my lantern to survey it.
“D’rocks tall as me, everone in wall, everone in floor. Top slab, d’tooken ten umoxes lif ’ it.”
I nodded, half smiling to myself as I calculated mentally: each rock a handspan square, each one a man’s height long, laid so that the walls were a man’s height thick, the interior space two man’s heights high, one wide, one long, the slab on top a veritable mountain. It had taken only fear to move these northerners to this prodigious labor and only stupidity to go to all that trouble, then put a wooden door on the place.
“Ah,” I murmured. “So it’s tight, is it?”
“Aye…ma’am, dad’is. Comes ere ragin’ crazies mid ice, we drow’m in dere. Dey stay. Dairn’d nodin geddin ou’vit.”
“I’ll take the key,” which I did, from a hand that trembled slightly before Ogric turned and fled back to warmth, leaving me alone in the dim light of the lantern. I stepped inside with my basket, shutting the door behind me. A short time later I stepped out without the basket, shut the door firmly, and locked it behind me, then put my ear to the heavy, ironbound planks to listen for what sound might come from within. Hearing none, I took a deep breath, and another, pushing all the stench of it from my lungs, gasping as I replaced foul air with clean. Finally, I picked up the lantern and made my way back to the oasthall, now bereft of the greater number of its former occupants.
“Ruinous on business, envoys,” B’Oag was saying to his son when I entered. He looked up and flushed. “Meaning no disrespect, ma’…that is, Envoy.”
“I take no offense, Oastkeeper. We are not good for business. We are not supposed to be. Comfort yourself with the knowledge that if I find what I seek, I will not be here long.”
“And that would be…?”
“Do not trifle with me, Oastkeeper. You know what I’m here for and probably where it is and who has it. It’s likely everyone in the district knows, including the children in their cradles. I have no doubt the whispers began the day he or she brought it home, whoever that person may be.”
B’Oag mimed innocence, widening his eyes and pursing his lips. “Envoy, I have no idea…”
I turned away from him impatiently. “I left my burden in your lockroom, Oastkeeper. When my task is done, I’ll go my way, taking it with me. If my task is weary and long, it will grow tired of its imprisonment, and then…then you will wish you had made it easy for me.”
Without waiting to judge the effect of this threat, I went to the table by the wide, bell-shaped copper that hung over the heat source: a hot spring, a little fumarole, maybe a boiling mud pot, though it didn’t smell like a mud pot. The copper funneled the heat upward into coiled flues that ran first through the oasthall, then into the rest of the place, including the spaces for animals. The laundry probably had its own source, preferably a hot spring that provided hot wash-water for clothes and linens.
The cider was already on the table, along with a plate covered by an overturned bowl to keep warm a dish of stewed meat, legumes, grain, and herbs. I took off the scarf, then the coat, hanging them on the back of a nearby chair. I wore boots to my knee, and trousers above that, thick with padding to keep out the cold. I stripped off my gloves and my padded jacket, becoming smaller as each layer was removed. At last I sat down in my shirtsleeves. I knew what they saw. A slender woman not yet of middle years, pale brown hair in many tiny braids making up a complex pattern that ended in a beaded knot at the nape of the neck, golden eyes glittering in the firelight, skin reddened by the unaccustomed heat. I must have looked quite ordinary, except for the eyes and the gold Siblinghood diadem with its jewel blooming upon my forehead as though it carried fire within itself.
Something moved at my throat, and I took it from beneath my shirt, a tiny feathered thing that blinked in the firelight before settling itself on the table beside my plate. I beckoned, and B’Oag came to my side. “A pinch or two of raw grain, Oastkeeper. I found this little one in the snow, barely alive. Do you know what sort it is?”
“Chitterlain: one that waited too long to go south.”
“Well, I am of no mind to let it freeze.”
He fetched the grain, a small handful, and scattered it on the table where the chitterlain lay. It stirred itself to peck at the offering, at first doubtfully, but then with renewed energy, stretching its four wings, first one pair, then the other. I poured a bit of water into a saucer and put it where the creature could drink from it.
B’Oag whispered to his son while I ate, the others in the room kept their voices down. Several times, all speech stopped when sounds came in from outside, a ragged howling, a snuffling at the summer door, a low growl, almost like a purr, a shrill yap or two followed by shriller yips. Dire wolves and their pups. Ice cats and their kits. The great ape-bears had already gone deep into their
