L. Modesitt - Arms-Commander

“You haven’t looked?”

“I’ve been occupied.”

“What do you have against him?” asked Istril gently. “You’re the one who saved him.”

“He looks at me as if…I don’t know.”

“As if he’s grateful? As if he’s trying to prove to you that he was worth saving?”

“Something like that,” Saryn admitted.

“Little Adiara accepts him, without reservations, and she lost her family to the Gallosians he was ostler for. Why can’t you?”

Saryn didn’t have an answer. Finally, she shrugged. “I don’t know. There’s…something there.”

“Well…he is handsome in his own way,” Istril pointed out with a mischievous smile.

“I know, but it isn’t that.”

The healer nodded. “He’ll be able to do without that splint in another few eightdays.”

“And?”

“That’s all.” Istril smiled again.

Saryn couldn’t read what lay behind the smile, not with the shields that the healer had raised, and that bothered her. “Thank you.”

When she left the tower, Saryn walked directly up the road past the smithy. She glanced to her right as she did, seeing a good half score of guards working on setting and mortaring stones on the barracks wall, under Daerona’s direction. She paused. From where had the mortar come? Dealdron? At that thought, her vision vanished.

She took several deep breaths, then walked more carefully. After perhaps ten yards, she could see again. Once she reached the quarry, she found Siret busy dressing stones, but the stonecutter and healer stopped and motioned Saryn toward her.

“How is Aemra coming with her sculpture of her mother?” asked Saryn.

“She’s polishing it. It should be finished by full summer.” Siret paused. “He’s over at the other end, setting wedges.”

“He’s helpful, I take it?”

“Good enough that I can spare Daerona to do the stone-setting and mortar on the barracks walls. Aemra helps up here with the stone dressing.”

“Where did the mortar come from?”

“Where do you think it came from?”

Saryn shook her head, ruefully. “How is the stonecutting coming? Will you have enough to finish the new barracks before winter?”

“If we don’t run into trouble. We’ve got almost enough for the rear wall now. Daerona claims she’ll have three courses set all the way around by the end of the eightday. After that, things will slow because we’ll be out of mortar.”

“He’ll have to go down to the canyon and make more. That will slow the quarrying.”

“For now. He’s working with a couple of the Analerian women who are strong enough to handle the quarrying. By midsummer, they might be some real help.” Siret nodded.

Saryn understood. She was just slowing Siret’s work. “Thank you.” She turned and walked to the west end of the quarry.

When Dealdron saw Saryn standing there, he set down the heavy sledge and walked to meet her. “Arms-commander.”

“Were you the one who made the mortar while most of the guards were gone?”

“It was not that hard.” Dealdron shrugged. “No one was using the kilns, and there is a thin layer of limestone in the lower cliffs. It is almost buried under the other rock. Many stones were cut and waiting to be placed in the barracks walls. Without mortar, the walls could not be built. The girls helped me cut the wood. It would have been better to make charcoal first, but it can be done with green wood. I showed them how.”

Saryn tried to sense what he was feeling…and discovered that trying to do so was like trying to peer through mist. Why? He wasn’t a mage, and he didn’t have unseen darkness clinging to him the way Istril and Siret, or even Ryba, did, although the Marshal’s talents did not seem to run to manipulating order or chaos. Was it just that he was what he claimed to be, a simple ordered man? And that simplicity and order made it hard for Saryn to sense his feelings? Or was there just a hint of order-darkness?

“Ser?” prompted Dealdron. “Have I offended you? Or failed in some way?”

Saryn realized that she’d just been looking at him, saying nothing, and she forced a pleasant smile. “No. You have worked very hard. Even the Marshal has said that you have made yourself very useful, and from her, that’s high praise.”

“I have tried to follow what you told me.”

“You’ve done well,” Saryn admitted. “I should have told you that sooner, but I…my thoughts have been elsewhere.”

“You were worried about Arthanos.” His words were but a statement of fact. He smiled. “I did not think he would prevail.”

“Why not?” asked Saryn, genuinely curious.

“No one in Candar, perhaps in all the world, can stand against you and the Marshal. That I have seen.”

Even through the sense-mist that was not quite an order shield, Saryn could make out the conviction and belief behind the words. “We’re not that powerful.”

“The guards said you tore down the side of a mountain and flung it at Arthanos’s men.”

“It wasn’t exactly like that,” Saryn tried to explain. “There was already a crevice in the rock, and we used explosives…and other skills…to weaken it so that it fell and rolled down the mountainside and over the Gallosians.”

Dealdron frowned. “Could anyone else have loosened part of a mountain and let it fall on an army?”

Saryn forced a laugh. “I wouldn’t know, and I don’t think I’d like to find out.” After the briefest pause, she asked, “How is your leg?”

“The healers say that I will not need the brace before long.”

“You’ll still have to be careful.”

“I will take care. I haven’t done anything the healers told me not to do.”

“Good.” Again, she paused. “That’s all I wanted to talk to you about. Just keep up the good work.”

“I can do no less, Arms-Commander.” He inclined his head politely.

Saryn sensed there were words not spoken, but she did not press. Instead, she turned, but she could feel his eyes on her back as she began the walk back to the smithy, where she needed to check with Huldran on the progress in forging replacement arrowheads for all those lost in fighting the Gallosians.

Over the next eightday, matters remained quiet on the Roof of the World. The air warmed into summer, and Dealdron headed down into the lower canyon with the trio and other guards to make more lime for mortar. The less-severely-wounded guards resumed their duties, and progress on the new barracks, which would be, in time, the lower level of a much larger complex, continued. Saryn had very few losses of vision, and only for a few instants. Just after midday, she was standing outside Tower Black, enjoying the sunshine and taking a break from what she had been doing-sharpening blades.

“Saachala had a little girl this morning,” said Istril as she joined Saryn.

“How are they?”

“Both are fine.”

“Ryba will be happy with that.”

“So is Saachala. She still wishes she could have ridden against the Gallosians.”

Saryn could understand Saachala’s hatred, considering the reason the young woman had come to Westwind pregnant. “She’ll have years of dealing with them.”

“How long do you think they’ll behave?” asked Istril.

“Another ten years, fifteen if we’re fortunate.”

“You’re as cynical as the Marshal.”

“Realistic,” countered Saryn. Even in the UFA, she’d seen the subtle discrimination against women. Had a man accomplished what Ryba had done as commander of the Winterlance, he would have been a flotilla marshal at the least, and the UFA was almost chauvinism-free compared to Candar. But then, Candar hadn’t had to deal with Sybran warrior-women, and the UFA had. “Cultures don’t change easily, sometimes never, unless great force is applied, and Ryba can’t do that yet, except once in a while.”