“What’s in the basket?” the boy asked B’Oag, in a voice I could hear clearly, his curiosity overcoming his prudence.
I saw B’Oag go white again, lips pinched. “Ojlin, hush, or I’ll hush you! We don’t mention it! We don’t question it! We don’t know about it! It’s not of us, it’s of them!”
The opening of the icelock door went unnoticed among the howling and growling outside until a chill draft announced the cracking of the inner door to admit a tall form, as thickly bundled as I had been. From the corner of my eye I saw him removing his gloves one finger at a time, slapping them against his thigh to remove the ice crystals, laying them on the nearest table while he unbuttoned the thick coat, furred outside with a shag woven of the long, curly winter locks of adult mountain gnar, furred inside with the soft woven fleece of the young. Beneath it were seemingly endless layers of other clothing, which he merely unbuttoned in series, all the while looking about himself, ceiling, floor, shuttered windows, the hot copper with its armspan wide coil of metal flue above it, both hood and flue radiating welcome heat.
I ignored him and went on with my meal.
“Oastkeeper?” he asked at last, through the scarves still hiding his face.
“B’Oag Thenterson,” he said. “An ’ow may we serve you, sir?”
“Food. Whatever she’s having smells good. And a pitcher of cider, if you have it.”
“This early in the icetime, we’ve got it,” said B’Oag, as the stranger paced slowly across the floor.
Before I realized what he was doing, he was at my shoulder, leaning above me. “Envoy?” he whispered, almost in my ear.
I turned, startled, looking up into a face I remembered as in adream. “Fernwo…” I breathed. “Where did you…what are you…?”
“Hush,” he murmured. “There’s a roomful of ears about us, don’t you know? Ears ready to mishear, noses to smell conspiracy where none exists, mouths to twist good intentions into evil certainties. We know all about it, Envoy. We were told often enough.”
“Sit down,” I quavered, taking a deep breath. Then, more evenly, “You’re being conspicuous.”
“Thank you, yes. I’ll sit here next to your friend. Chitterlain, isn’t it? A bit far from its kindred. But then, so am I. It’s been a long road, finding you.”
I set my spoon down, lifted my glass to sip at the cider it contained, willing myself to appear impassive. Envoys were always impassive, facing life or death with the same quiet comportment, the same emotionless mien. This wasn’t death. It was suddenly too much life, but appearance could be everything.
B’Oag arrived with plates, bowls, a pitcher of cider, another glass. He stood uncertainly nearby.
“Put it here,” said the new arrival. “The envoy is an old acquaintance, and I’ll sup with her.”
The oastkeeper had only waited for the word. The plates came down with purposeful clatter, Fernwold pulled out a chair and sat facing me. I had again dipped my spoon.
“Good?” he asked.
“Passable,” I said. “Anything made with smoked or salted meat is passable at best. This is dried in the smoke, not too salty, and the oastkeeper has traded for seasonings, too, which some of them up here don’t bother to do. They figure people get hungry enough, they’ll eat anything.”
“Including envoys?”
“I doubt they consider envoys among the general run of people who frequent oasthouses.”
“And you’re here for…?”
“In pursuit of duty, Fernwold…”
“Ferni,” he suggested, smiling. “You called me Ferni.”
“Fernwold,” I said again firmly. “Why are you here?”
“I learned you were sent. I had some time and a reason or two. I decided to offer assistance to my old friend, Margaret.”
I shuddered, only slightly. How long had it been since I had heard that name? “Say it as B’yurngrad says it, if you say it at all. I am M’urgi, shaman of B’yurngrad steppes. You are Fernwold, seeker and assessor. I am, from time to time, given the crown of an envoy—as are you, I’ve been told—and we’re not allowed assistance.”
“We’re not allowed to ask for it. It can be given, and it often is.”
“By whom?” I whispered. “I’ve never had help!”
He shrugged, took a great gulp of the steaming cider, belching slightly as it expanded the cold air in throat and belly. “Perhaps they never thought you needed it until now. No. Perhaps I knew you never really needed it until now. Don’t go all proud on me, love. We know one another too well for that.”
“Knew,” I breathed. “Once.”
“We need one another’s help, whether you know it yet or not. And everything we knew of one another, we still know, Shaman, and it was a good deal more than can be dismissed as ‘once.’ I told you then what I tell you now. I knew you the moment I saw you. We are mates, M’urgi, whether we meet once a lifetime, once a decade, or every day. Nothing changes when we are apart.”
My hand on the pitcher trembled only slightly. “Some of that is right.”
“Which part?”
“Nothing changes when we’re apart. It’s when we’re together things must change. Ferni, where have you been!”
He gritted his teeth. “My recent life has not been one I wanted to drag you into. Or thought I had the right to. I worry about the parts of my life I don’t remember!”
I paled. “The Siblinghood wiped your mind?”
“Perhaps they. Or someone, something else that’s left me missing a few years here and there. I remember everything since meeting you, however. And before that, the academy, I remember that.” He drank again. “Are you carrying?”
I bared my wrist, letting him see the round sucker marks where it had drunk my blood, not much of it, just a little every day, enough to keep it from going dormant, but not enough to give it the power to
