Oswald smiled, amused, and nodded. “So you should be, my boy. Days of strife are coming for this land. It will be well for a man to know how to use a sword, and you could have no better teacher than Captain Pike.”
Ian looked up at Gar, astonished. He hadn’t known the freelance was a captain!
Oswald cocked an eyebrow at Gar. “Have you fed?”
“Not for hours,” Gar said, grinning.
“Well enough, my lad,” Oswald chuckled, “though you’ve called me an old mother hen often enough.” He thrust back his sleeves. “Naetheless, I think we can fill that belly of yours, even if ‘tis with naught but porridge. Come along.”
He led them down a short flight of stairs, and Ian found himself marveling. This was the second time in his life he had seen such a staircase, the first having been in the Stone Egg. What a fine thing it was to be a gentleman!
They came down into a hall walled with rough plaster. Oswald turned to his right and led them through a narrow door into a kitchen. A lean woman with a sharp chin leaned over a pot, eyes narrowed against the smoke.
“Two more for breakfast, Matilda!” Oswald called. “We would be grateful for the porridge, Matilda,” Gar said. “I have journeyed all night on your master’s business, and the least he owes me is a hearty meal.”
The old cook gave him a gap-toothed smile, which seemed surprising in so severe a face. “Eh, seat yourself, Master Gar. I’ll have your porridge shortly—another pot for me master.” She squinted, peering at Ian. “And who is this?”
“My new apprentice,” Gar said easily. “His old master thought him too quarrelsome to be a weaver.”
Matilda frowned. “A blankshield soldier, taking an apprentice?” She hobbled over to Ian and bent down to peer into his face. Then she grinned again and turned back to her stove, cackling and shaking her head. “Aye, he’s naught but your apprentice, Master Gar! Aye, surely!”
“How now, you old hag!” Gar’s voice was still good-natured. “He is my apprentice, nothing more and nothing less, I say!”
“Aye, aye.” Matilda nodded, stirring her porridge. “Your ‘prentice and nothing more, I’ll be bound, and no reason to take him save to aid a poor weaver who had a ruffian on his hands! Oh, aye, Master Gar! And there is none of your blood in him, as these old eyes can see!”
“Well…” Gar contrived to look embarrassed, and cleared his throat. “You have caught me fairly, Matilda. He is, my, uh, nephew.”
“Oh, aye.” Matilda looked up at him wide-eyed, then nodded wisely. “Bless thee, Master Gar. Oh, how you could have fooled me.”
Ian looked up at Gar in surprise. Could there really be any resemblance between himself and the swordsman?
Then he realized that the cook was old, nearsighted, and probably half-blind, and the resemblance was probably more in her mind than in his face.
Gar squeezed his shoulder, and Ian looked up to see the freelance wink and smile. He grinned back. If the cook believed the story Gar had intended to tell anyway, so much the better.
“Seat yourselves,” Matilda called, tilting the pot and scraping out two huge bowlfuls of porridge. “Sit and eat your breakfast, before it sets.”
They ate in a room just for dining, with Master Oswald—and they ate hugely, with milk and honey on their porridge. Ian could scarcely believe his eyes, or his mouth—milk and honey were for the lords, and thick porridge was only for the gentry! His own breakfast, as long as he could remember, had been only thin gruel.
He ate his fill and a little more, until the bowl was empty; then he sat back with a great sigh and a very full stomach.
Gar looked up and smiled. “Had enough, lad?” Ian nodded and blinked. Suddenly, he felt very sleepy. He yawned hugely, and Gar chuckled. “Aye, I’m beginning to feel the night’s strains a bit myself.” He turned to the cook. “Where shall my nephew doss down?”
“In the attic, good soldier,” the cook answered. “He can fall asleep on a pile of straw, like any other young ‘prentice.” She hobbled over to Ian and scooped him out of the chair, more by gesture than by strength, and ushered him out into the kitchen.
Once there, though, she paused, pursing her lips. “Nay, I think not—the other ‘prentices will be just waking as you’d be lying down. Bad for them, that—give them ideas of laziness, it would. Besides, you’ll need long sleep, after being on the road all night, with Master Gar.” She glanced down at Ian. “You did ride by night, didn’t you?”
Ian wasn’t sure whether or not he should tell her, then realized he couldn’t dissemble much if he were going to sleep during the day. “Aye, mum.”
“So I thought.” Matilda thrust her lower lip out and sucked on her few remaining teeth, considering. “We’ll put you in the pantry for the day. Let me see, now—what stores will I need? A sack of potatoes, another of flour, and two measures of dried pease.” She nodded, satisfied, and pushed him toward the door at the back of the kitchen. “Bring me those, then settle yourself!”
Ian made two trips of it, reflecting that this fetching and carrying didn’t guarantee him a sound sleep. Matilda was bound to think of something she’d forgotten, and come bustling in to fetch it, or to send her scullery maid, if she had one—and she might make a second trip, or a third. Ian determined that he would sleep soundly no matter how much noise she made. He brought the sack of flour last, and could just barely manage it—it was very heavy. Matilda blinked at him, surprised. “Well, then, manikin! Master Gar may make a soldier of you yet!”
But Ian scarcely heard her; he had already turned away to the pantry, nodding. He threw himself down on three huge bags of flour, and was instantly asleep.
Ian was awakened by a loud clatter of dishes and Matilda scolding at her scullery maid. He sat bolt upright, startled by the noise, then realized what it was, smiled, and lay down. The sun was coming in the eastern window; he could only have slept a few hours. He closed his eyes and settled himself for sleep again…
“But how did the boy find the entrance to one of the Safety Bases?”
Ian opened his eyes, surprised. He frowned and looked over the side of his improvised bed. There was a crack between the floorboards; through it, he could see Master Oswald’s bald head. Was there a secret room beneath him? No, surely not, he chided himself—only a very ordinary, and un-secret, cellar. Surely. He heard Gar’s voice rise in answer to the draper: “It must have been an accident. He certainly could not have reasoned out how to open the hatch.”
Ian squirmed. It wasn’t right to eavesdrop. He was sorely tempted, but he resolved to be good. He forced himself to turn over, face away from the crack in the floor, and closed his eyes tight, willing himself to sleep.
However, he might have been willing, but sleep was not, and he couldn’t shut out the voices—nor could he come out into the kitchen after so short a while. What would he say if Matilda asked him what he was doing up and about when he’d been told to sleep? That he was turning away from the voices? When he wasn’t even supposed to know about them?
“How could they have known he was there?” It was Master Oswald’s voice. “They must have, for they came to bring him back.”
“He must have activated the beacon by accident,” Gar answered. “Certainly a boy from this culture would never have figured out a control panel by himself. Serfs can’t even read.”
“True,” Master Oswald rumbled. “Even the freelance who hid there with me couldn’t figure it out, and he was a gentleman, who had had some education, or what passes for it in a medieval culture. But how do you know this boy isn’t a spy from the lords, who does know how to operate such controls?”
Ian stiffened. Could Master Oswald really think such of him? But no—Captain Gar’s voice indicated that by its tone, as he answered. “Possible, of course—but unlikely, since he’s a child. And if he were, why would he have come out before his help arrived?”