LXXXVIII
NYLAN TAPPED THE brick level on the mortar and troweled away the excess mortar. That finished the base of the forge. Sometime, Huldran and Cessya and the others could set the roof timbers. He had to finish the forge and start making more weapons ... for more killing.
"Need more mortar, ser?" asked Huldran.
"No." He glanced toward the west, but the sun was just above the peaks, and they wouldn't have much time before the evening triangle rang. He rubbed his shoulders. After a year, things should be easier, but it didn't seem that way. He paused as he saw Ayrlyn hurrying toward the unfinished smithy. "I sense trouble."
"We've got more than enough, ser," said Huldran. "That new one, Desain, she thinks that showers are unhealthy, and the other one, Ryllya, she had a fit when the healer cut her hair. Said her strength was in her hair. Things like that remind me how strange this place is."
"It is strange." Nylan wondered what was driving Ayrlyn.
"Here comes the healer," announced Huldran.
"Gerlich is gone," Ayrlyn announced even before she stepped inside the brick-framed doorway of the smithy. Her face was flushed.
"How do you know?"
"Day before yesterday, he said he'd be gone for two days-that he'd been having trouble finding game. He took a mount and the old gray for a pack animal. Llyselle found that out when she was cleaning the stables. She told me, and I told Ryba. Today, I happened to look at his space, and both bows were gone. There were rags folded where his clothes were. I started checking, and he took all the coins in the strongbox I had hidden on the fifth level." Ayrlyn wiped her forehead. "Ryba has the golds somewhere, but that's a lot of silvers, and a bunch of coppers. He also made off with a handful of blades-the poor ones in the back of the chest."
Nylan nodded. "He's also been sneaking arrows out of the tower."
"You didn't say anything?"
Huldran's eyes widened as they moved from Ayrlyn to Nylan and back again.
"I didn't know. All I knew was that every time he went hunting he came back with a few arrows missing, sometimes more than a few shafts. Then the morning he left, Fierral told me he'd taken fifty shafts hunting. I just thought he was a poor shot, but didn't want to admit it. Now ..."
"It makes sense," pointed out Ayrlyn.
"Narliat's departure was no accident, either, then," Nylan continued. "That bastard Gerlich has something arranged." He turned to Huldran. "Can you clean up? The healer and I need to find the marshal."
"Yes, ser."
The engineer and the healer headed toward the tower.
"Where is she?" asked Ayrlyn.
"Up in the tower, I think. I carted Dyliess around this morning. Bricklaying is slow with an infant strapped to you, but she liked the motion, I only had trouble if I stood still."
Nylan and Ayrlyn found the marshal on the fifth level, working with one of the newcomers. Saryn sparred with another and Fierral with a third. At a break in the sparring, Nylan motioned to Ryba.
The marshal stopped. "With two of you, it must be serious." Ryba turned to Saryn. "Desain needs to stop letting her wrist droop."
"I can manage that." Saryn laughed.
"And Fierral," added Ryba. "Nistayna doesn't have any follow-through. She's afraid she'll hurt someone. If she doesn't, they'll kill her."
Ryba racked her wand, and the three walked up the stone steps.
On the top level of the tower, Ellysia sat in the rocking chair, holding Dephnay on her knee with one hand and rocking the cradle containing Dyliess with the other, the cradle that now rested at the foot of the two separated lander couches.
"Thank you, Ellysia," said Ryba. "You can go now." She crossed the room and opened both windows wide.
Behind her Ellysia shivered as the wind gusted into the room, then stood and picked up Dephnay. Dyliess started to murmur the moment the unattended cradle began to slow.
As Ellysia, shivering, her face flushed, started down the steps, Ryba eased Dyliess from the cradle. "You're about to wake up anyway, little one."
Ryba sat in the rocking chair and unfastened her shirt. Dyliess began to nurse, as greedily as always, reflected Nylan.
"What is this problem?" asked the marshal.
"Gerlich is gone," said Ayrlyn. "He also took all the silvers from the lower strongbox."
"I checked the golds this morning. They're all here," Ryba said flatly. "He doesn't have enough coin to do that much."
"He still stole close to four golds in silver and copper," pointed out Ayrlyn.
"He took everything he could sneak out, including more than fifty arrows, a packhorse, and some of the more battered blades," Nylan added.
"Those blades he took are worth close to five golds. He could buy close to a score of armsmen," explained Ayrlyn. "Hired blades are cheap here."
"Life is cheap here," said Ryba. "Look at those cairns." Her head inclined toward the open tower window.
"You think he'll do that?" Nylan's guts already gave him one answer.
"He will, and he will be back, with an army behind him," agreed Ryba tiredly, shifting Dyliess from one breast to the other.
"You see this?" asked Nylan.
"Not all of it, just a fragment, just enough."
Ayrlyn frowned, but said nothing.
"What Gerlich took won't be enough, and he knows it," Ryba pointed out.
"Narliat left earlier than Gerlich," said Ayrlyn.
The triangle rang for the evening meal.
"He's acting as Gerlich's advance agent. Gerlich tries to let someone else face the dangers first." Ryba looked down at Dyliess. "Easy there ... easy ..." A rueful smile crossed her face.
"Should we beef up the standing guard?" asked Ayrlyn.
"For how long? We still need food. We need to get more things working, like the smithy, and possibly a few cows or goats. Not every guard can nurse, and we won't always have guards with infants at the same time. Guards have to work and guard, or Westwind will fall. I don't know when Gerlich will try his attack. The only thing we can do is make sure that all the guards have their weapons at hand, whatever they're doing. Fierral can build a permanent watchpost on top of the ridge, with another warning triangle. Outside of that. . ." Ryba shrugged.
Nylan and Ayrlyn exchanged glances.
"What can we do, besides what we're already doing?" asked Ryba. "Let's go eat." She slipped Dyliess from her lap into the carrypack, stood, and headed down the stairs. "You've eaten, little pig. It's your mother's turn."
Ayrlyn glanced at Nylan and shrugged.
He shrugged back.
As they entered the great room, guards were still straggling in. Nylan almost stopped short at the third table below the first two. It only had one bench, but three of the new guards sat there, flanking Istril and Weryl.
Nylan paused. "Hello there, young fellow."
Weryl gurgled. Nylan patted his shoulder.
Istril smiled. "He's good."
"I'm sure he is." Nylan returned the smile, hiding a certain dismay. How had he ended up with three children born within a season of each other? His eyes flicked to Ryba's back, but he kept smiling as he nodded to the three newcomers before turning. One was called Nistayna-that he remembered.
A spicy scent Nylan had not smelled before filled the area, and he looked toward the big pot that Kadran set in the middle of the table.
"Something new," announced the cook. "You take one of those flat biscuit things and pour a ladle of this over the biscuit."
"It better be good," muttered Weindre, loud enough for those at all three tables to hear.
"It's too good for you," snapped Kadran.
Even the newcomers at the third table smiled briefly.
Ryba slid into her chair, and Nylan and Ayrlyn sat on the benches across from each other.
When the woven grass basket came to Nylan, he broke off a piece of bread, sniffed it, and drew in the spicy aroma. "This even smells good."
"That's Blynnal's new bread," mumbled Relyn from beside Ayrlyn. "It's much better."
"It tastes like real bread," added Huldran.
Nylan took a thick biscuit and then two ladles full of the main course, a thin stew or thick sauce filled with chunks of meat and assorted chunks of other things, presumably roots or other vegetable matter, and poured it over the flat biscuit.
He looked at the brown mass dubiously, then sniffed. Nothing smelled burned or rancid. In fact, the aroma was pleasant, somewhere between minty and something else. Finally, he took a mouthful of meat, sauce, and biscuit.
Ayrlyn and Ryba watched.
"You're braver than I am," murmured the healer.
Nylan nodded, chewed, and swallowed. "It's good. I can't tell what's in it, but it's good." As he spoke, he could feel his forehead warming, then his face, and then his mouth and throat. "Whewww!" He reached for his mug and downed the cold water. It didn't help, but the bread did.
"Do you still think it's good?" asked Ryba with a smile, patting Dyliess's back as she squirmed in the chest carry-pack.
Nylan nodded, and took a second mouthful, a much smaller one.
"Another Blynnal special?" Ayrlyn asked Relyn.
He looked puzzled.
"Did Blynnal cook this?"
"Yes. She is a good cook. You are fortunate to have her." Relyn ate without water, and without apparent discomfort.
"They clearly like food hotter than we're used to," observed Ryba.
After taking a very small bite of her dinner, Ayrlyn nodded.
Nylan broke off another chunk of bread, but kept eating, ignoring Ayrlyn's amused smile.