Page 17 of Into the West

He laughed. “No, nothing like that. But I do think she’s been bored. The only things she’s had to do around here are menial tasks anyone could manage, and I think she sees this as a chance to make her own adventure, maybe even make her own mark on our landless Barony.”

“Hmm. Well, why not?” Isla put everything away, wiped off the table with a rag and a drop of vinegar, cleaned his spoon and handed it back to him, and waved him toward the back of the boat. “Your audience awaits, Lord Baron.”

He chuckled, rose, and went all the way to the stern of the barge, where all three boys were crowded onto one bed, leaving a conspicuous place for him to sit. He took the hint and sat down, putting his arms around all of them.

“Well now, what kind of story would you like to hear?” he asked.

“Tell us ’bout de Empwess,” Jon said, sticking a finger in his mouth. “I wike de Empwess. I want a pig like her when I grows up.”

He knew very well they did not mean the late Emperor’s wife.

“I can do that,” he agreed. “So, let me tell you about the time that the Squire’s rival in piggery decided that he was going to turn the Empress loose. Have I told you that one yet?”

All three shaggy little heads shook vehemently, and all three boys leaned forward to catch every word. It’s a good thing no one from the Emperor ever got a good look at them, because there would have been no doubt at all who their father was. They look just like me.

“Now, this is actually about the current Empress’s grandmother,” he began. “And I had not yet been sent to the Capital. I was staying with the Squire because my father had Imperial visitors, and he thought it best to give the impression that I was so unimportant to him that he’d shoo me off to stay with a pig farmer.”

“The Squire’s not just a pig farmer!” Hakkon said with emphatic indignation.

“Well, we know that, but the Emperor’s spies and flunkies didn’t,” Kordas told them, and went on with the story, doing his best to make it funny and light, through the moment when they saw the Squire’s rival running for his life with the angry Empress in surprisingly hot pursuit, right up to the conclusion where they finally found the Empress sedately making her way back to her luxurious sty with one trews-leg dangling from her mouth. This, of course, made the boys squeal with laughter. When they calmed down, he asked them about their day, listening attentively as they each took turns narrating what they had done in great detail.

He probably would not have believed it if someone had told him before all this happened that he would not only listen to little boys natter on about every single stick they had picked up, and every single errand they had run, he would welcome listening to it.

But he did. And he loved every minute of it.

Father used to do this, he remembered. As long as he was sure there was no one spying on us. The memory made him feel warm inside, and not for the first time, he wished that his father had lived to see this day. Not just because the people of the Duchy had finally escaped the claws of the Empire, but because he would have been able to smother his grandchildren in unfettered and open love as he had not been able to do for Kordas.

Not that he doubted how much his father had loved him, and he had certainly loved the old Duke right back. But it had all been choked by the need to make it look as if the Duke thought nothing of his heir . . . and in fact, there had been deceptive ploys on everyone’s part to make it seem as if the old Duke just might cut his own son out in favor of Hakkon.

Heh. I just realized that Hakkon is a better actor than I ever considered. He pulled that off—and then he pulled off the ruse that he and Isla were having a torrid affair when I was in the Capital.

When the boys had finished telling him about their archery lessons, their words had started to slur, and it was clear their eyes were getting heavy. He kissed all three of them and said, “I am going to go help your Mama with making lists. But do you know you can practice things like archery just by thinking about them?”

All three of them perked up. “You can?” replied Restil.

“Absolutely. You need to lie quietly, and think, very carefully, and very slowly, about every action you need to take to shoot an arrow. Picture yourself putting the arrow to the string. Picture yourself drawing the arrow back to your ear. Remember how it feels to hold that bow firm, and the arrow loose in your fingers—not holding it, remember. You pull the string, not the arrow. The arrow should just float between your forefinger and middle finger. Picture the target. Then picture yourself loosing the bowstring, and see it hitting the center ring.” That would keep them quiet and busy until they fell asleep.

And it had the added benefit of being true. The more you practiced something mentally, the better you got at it. From practice, to second nature, to first nature.

They all scrambled into their nightclothes and then into bed. There was no evening entertainment tonight, nor would there be—well, for a while. Tonight everyone was considering what they were going to need close at hand for a journey through the winter, and trying to remember where those things were all packed. And tomorrow the scouts would go through, getting a head start on the rest of the migration.

He slid the door between their roomlet and the rest of the barge closed, and, with a sigh, joined Isla on their bed. He felt absolutely exhausted, but then, he felt that way every day. There was just too much to do, and not enough time to pack it all into, especially as the days got shorter and shorter. He knew that he was going to lie in bed staring into the darkness, trying to think of what he might have missed, rather than getting the sleep he needed.

Isla was already in her nightgear—not the lovely, delicate shifts she used to wear to bed, but soft lambswool tunic and leggings—and was already in bed, though not asleep. Thinking longingly of the hot baths he used to enjoy regularly, he did his evening “spot-wash” and pulled on an identical set of nightclothes, as she pulled the blankets aside for him to crawl into. With a flick of a finger, he extinguished the mage-light in the ceiling, but alas, he could still hear the boys talking sleepily to each other.

“You’re going to lie there staring at the ceiling trying to figure out how you can be three people at the same time, aren’t you?” Isla asked in a low murmur. She put her arms around his shoulders and pulled his head down to her chest, like he was a child. That actually made him relax a little.

“You know me too well,” he replied into the darkness.

“It’s not all on your back, you know,” she said, with just a touch of remonstrance. Then he felt her shrug. “But you wouldn’t be the man your father raised, the good man I married, if you didn’t carry on as if it was.”

“It will get better,” he told her, though that, of course, was much more of a wish than a promise. “I have to do a lot now, but once everything is in order and we are on the move, I can take time to rest.”

“So—never, you mean,” she snorted. He loved that about her. She never held back with him. “I could almost be grateful for that bastard who hurt the Doll. He made things come to a head to the point that we were able to shed the bad apples, the uncertain, and the wavering before it was too late and they became a drag on us.”

“Most of them, anyway,” he agreed. “I’m sure there are enough people in the group that there are a few bad apples left.”

“I’ll have a long talk with Rose,” she said, as she rested her head atop his. “I think the Dolls can help there. First, they can always tell when someone is lying, and second, they are far more observant than anyone but the mages and you and I give them credit for. I mean, I hate to say I am going to set them to spy on everyone, but in essence, I think we have to. When we know there are problems brewing, we might be able to do something about them before they are more than a faint irritation.”