Page 65 of Into the West

Alberdina was in charge today of making sure the soup was stirred at intervals, and that the fire didn’t get too hot and burn the soup. Delia had already Fetched enough rabbits to feed everyone for luncheon tomorrow, so after her practice with Briada, it would have been her turn to keep an eye on the soup. Except it sounded as if they were going to moor up soon.

“Kordas wants us to stop at a place Ivar found and let the rest catch up,” Briada told the Healer before Delia had a chance to say anything. “I don’t suppose you’re Landwise?” She sighed. “It would be great if this turned out to be the place we’re actually looking for, but only someone Landwise can tell us that.”

“I’m not, but Endars is,” Alberdina replied. “I won’t lie to you, the colder it gets, the more worried I become that Kordas will push us past the point where it would have been wise to stop, and backtracking a fleet upriver feels like more than we can handle.” She put the lid back on the pot. “We haven’t even had to face rough water, much less a storm.”

Delia refrained from saying something like Kordas wouldn’t be that stupid or careless, because really, determining that involved a very big unknown. How soon would the river ice start seriously impeding progress? That was the real question.

If it hadn’t been so bleak out there, Delia would have gone back on deck to see where they were and what the landscape was like. But as sharp as her curiosity was, the wind was sharper, and she was happy enough to climb into her bunk and peer out the little window there instead. It was a limited view, but truly, there wasn’t much to look at.

To her pleasure, this side of the river looked more promising than anything she had seen so far since they left Crescent Lake.

I wish we had never had to leave the lake, she thought wistfully. We could have used all this time we’ve been traveling to prepare and stockpile for winter.

But she already knew there wasn’t enough farmland for everyone at the lake. It was just a fact, and there was no getting around it.

It appeared that this was a wide valley between two sets of hills. The hills on the far side of the river were closer to the water, and from here, it did look as if there were cave openings here and there. There were actually groves of trees close to the feet of the hills on their side, and instead of unprofitable scrub, weeds, and brush, there was grass, and plenty of it. It looked as if it would be waist high if it wasn’t frost-killed and a bit flattened. Well, where grass that tall would grow, grain and other crops could grow.

“There’s grass!” she said aloud, and Alberdina came into the rear to look through her window.

“So there is, and that’s a blessing,” she agreed, and went back to minding the soup. “Even if all we do is winter-over here, the mages can keep the grass growing all winter long, and the stock will do fine.”

The practice session had come to an end before Delia even got her muscles warmed up, so for once, she wasn’t sweaty and tired. As she lay curled up next to her window, peering out of it and very much liking what she saw, she realized that for the first time in more days than she could count, she was actually on her soft bed, in the warmth, and she didn’t have to do anything. This was the closest she had come to a lazy, do-nothing, cozy moment since they’d left the Duchy.

The barge didn’t seem to be going as fast as it usually did—not that the pace was fast, but it was certainly a brisk walk for long-legged horses like Tight Squeeze, Buttercup, and Dandylion. This was more like an amble. With a sigh, she jumped down out of her bunk to see if there was something going on she needed to know about.

Chunks of ice in the water, and ice about a third as thick as her thumb clinging to the bank, told her exactly what was going on. The river was slower and much broader here than it had been on the other side of the hills, and while the horses weren’t having to pull as hard against the current, the lead barge was definitely having to break through ice.

I think that this is our sign. The ice is just going to get thicker and harder to break through from this point.

Hopefully Kordas will see this, too.

For the first time since they had left Crescent Lake, Kordas, the Old Farts, and his informal Council of the head of his Guard, several mayors, and a couple of Healers were all together in the same place.

One could generously even call that place a “building.”

Ivar had commandeered a work crew consisting of a couple of mages who were part of the grass-growing crew, and a motley lot of strong, bored young folks, and had created this place around a dead hardwood tree, which formed the first of many structural columns. He got the mages to thaw and soften the ground, had the labor crew dig it down to about waist deep, then ringed the circumference with upright saplings and slim branches placed so closely together it would have been hard to put a leaf between them. Then he used dead grass with mud made from the earth that had been dug out, and plastered those saplings inside and out until they formed a strong wall as thick as Hakkon’s thigh. The mages worked on drying and strengthening that wall until Kordas was quite sure it would stand up to a Poomer attack. Then Ivar built a support structure for a peaked roof out of tree trunks about as thick as a good piece of firewood, working around the center pole of the dead tree. He laid more branches over that structure—some kind of pine, by the looks of it, with thick needles—and plastered over that with more mud and grass, but this time only as thick as Hakkon’s bicep. There was a hole in the middle of the roof to let smoke out. And right now, a roaring fire, ringed in stone, fed gray smoke up through that hole. Outside, Briada commanded a crew completing a rudimentary palisade—uneven, but a start. It could become firewood if needed, but as a defensive measure, it would help channel threats through its wider gaps or hold bigger things out.

It certainly wasn’t an elegant “building,” and it was nothing at all like the manor, but it was a place where a lot of people could gather in relative comfort. With night falling soon, it was a palace for everyone who fit inside.

People had dropped off various things that could be used as chairs here—mostly pieces of sawn tree trunk. Convenient if the fire needed feeding. But the Old Men were not minded to sit on uncomfortable pieces of raw wood, so the Dolls had each brought the sitting pillows they used back at the manor. And Isla had come up with a neat folding wooden chair for Kordas, brought by a clerk who had inherited it with his pen sets.

Probably the closest thing I am going to find to a chair of state right now.

“Well, I’ve had all the Landwise checking this place to see if it will do for a permanent settlement,” Kordas said, when everyone had settled. “And I’ll cut straight to it: it’s not.”

Groans came from those who were not yet privy to that information.

“It floods in the spring, every spring,” he continued. “If you’ve got good eyes you can see the water marks on the bluffs on the other side of the river. The Landwise say it should be all right over winter, but that we’ll want to get out before those floods come.”

The farmers among them nodded agreement. “Horses and cattle can’t take constant wet feet at all, even if it’s only standing water,” someone spoke up. “We’ll lose ’em to thrush. If the current’s slow, pigs and goats might manage to walk around in it if it’s knee-high to a man, but sheep—their fleeces will just suck up water and they’ll drown.”

“Well, shear—” began one of the mayors.

“And they’ll die of cold,” came the flat response. The speaker did not add don’t be daft, but it was certainly implied in the tone of the response. “Come spring, there’s no telling if it’ll be warm or drop snow. And night will still get cold.”

“On the other hand, this is a good place to winter,” offered Ceri. “We have plenty of forage, and we can haul the barges onto the shore and put them back in the water with relative ease here.”

“Spring flood might put ’em back for you,” observed the same speaker, who didn’t seem to suffer with awe for Kordas at all.