The only beverage was water. They had a choice of bitter tea in the morning and water at night. The engineer wondered how long it would be before they might have something else.
Hryessa looked blankly at the barely smoothed wood of the tabletop while conversation continued. As Nylan started to eat, the local woman helped herself to another hefty portion of meat and dumpling noodles. She ate slowly, as thoughshe were full, but could not believe that she would eat the next day.
Nylan refrained from shaking his head and took a second bite. By the time he had swallowed the mouthful of meat and dumplings, the sweat had beaded up on his forehead.
He drained his mug and refilled it, then blotted his forehead.
“The bread works better than the water,” said Ryba dryly.
Across the end of the table, Ayrlyn nodded.
He took a mouthful and chewed. They were right. The burning faded, and he took another mouthful. After more bread and some water, he asked, “Is this the latest way for Kyseen to stop complaints about the food? How can you complain if it’s too hot to taste?”
“I think it’s good,” offered Gerlich.
“He never had any taste to begin with,” suggested Ayrlyn in a whisper.
“He still doesn’t,” muttered Nylan, adding more loudly, “You always liked things hot and direct.”
A wave of laughter rolled down the table. Hryessa ignored the humor; Relyn frowned slightly, still struggling to eat with his left hand; and Nylan reminded himself that he had wanted to craft something for Relyn’s stump.
“Better than cold and indirect,” countered Gerlich.
Only a few chuckles greeted his remark, then small talk resumed around the two tables, especially at the end away from the hearth where Huldran and Cessya sat.
Nylan overheard a few of the phrases.
“ … bathing when there’s ice on the walls …”
“ … better than stinking …”
“ … cares? No one but the engineer, and you know how dangerous that’d be …”
Nylan glanced toward the corner of the first table where Narliat sat beside Denalle, who was attempting to practice her Anglorat on the armsman. Narliat’s face was bland, although Nylan sensed the man was fighting boredom.
Nylan concentrated on finishing his meal, although he requiredtwo more large chunks of bread to get him through the last of the spiced meat.
“No sweets?” asked Istril, her voice rising above the murmurs around the tables.
“What kind of sweets?” replied Gerlich.
“Not your kind, Weapons. You’re as direct as that crowbar you carry. That’s hard on a woman.” Istril stood and walked toward the steps to reclaim the composite bow.
Relyn, sitting beside Ayrlyn, watched the slender marine. He pursed his lips, opened his mouth, then closed it. “How …? No maΔn would accept that in Lornth.”
“This isn’t Lornth, Relyn,” said Ayrlyn. “This is Westwind, and the women make the rules. Gerlich crossed the marshal once; she took him apart. She used her bare hands and feet to kill a marine who crossed her.”
The young noble glanced at Nylan. “What about you, Mage?”
“Gerlich is better at the martial valors than I am, I suspect.”
“You’re better with a blade,” said Ryba, “for all of his words about his great sword.”
Gerlich’s eyes hardened, but he turned and smiled to Selitra, then rose and bowed to Ryba. “It has been a long day, Ryba, and we will be hunting early tomorrow.”
Ryba returned the gesture with one even more curt. “May you sleep well.”
Gerlich smiled, and Nylan tried not to frown. He liked the man less and less as the seasons passed.
“You are a strange one, Mage,” said Relyn slowly. “You are better with a blade than most, yet you dislike using it. You can wield the fire of order, and yet you defer to others.”
“Too much killing leaves me unable to function very well.”
“But you are good at it.”
“Unfortunately,” Nylan said. “Unfortunately.”
Later, in the darkness, Nylan and Ryba walked up from the great hall, slowly, the four sets of steps that led to their space on the sixth level.
“Some nights, I get so tired,” said Nylan. “It’s easier to chop wood and do heavy labor than to use the laser these days. It’s beginning to fail.”
“Can you do any more of the bows?”
“I did six. I might be able to do some more, but I haven’t cut all the stone troughs for the bathhouse and showers. I did get the heater sections done.”
“A heater?” asked Ryba.
“It’s not really a water heater, but I figured that I could put a storage tank with one side on the back of the chimney for the heating stove, because not many people will bathe in ice water in a room without heat. It probably won’t get the water really hot, but it might make it bearable, and the back stone wall is strong enough to hold a small tank.”
“You’re amazing.”
He shrugged in the gloom of the third-level landing, almost embarrassed. “I just try to make things work.”
“You won’t always be able to, Nylan.”
“Probably not, but I have to try.”
“I know.” She reached out and squeezed his hand, briefly, then started up the steps again.
When they reached the top level, Nylan paused. Framed in the right-hand window, the unglazed one, was Freyja, the ice-needle peak faintly luminescent under the clear stars and the black-purple sky. Nylan studied the ice, marveling at the knife-sharpness of the mountain.
Ryba kicked off her boots and eased out of the shipsuit. Nylan turned and swallowed. Lately, Ryba had been distant, oh-so-distant. He just looked.
“You don’t just have to look,” she said in a low voice. “Today is all that is certain.”
He took a step forward, and so did Ryba, and her fingers were deft on the closures of his tattered shipsuit.
“You need leathers,” she whispered before her lips touched his. “Leathers fit for the greatest engineer.”
“I’m not-”
“Hush … we need what is certain.”
Nylan agreed with that as his arms went around her satinskinnedform, still slender, with only the slightest rounding in her waist, the slightest hint of greater fullness in her breasts.
Later, much later, as they lay on the joined couches that they still shared, Nylan held her hand and looked at Freyja, wondering if the peak had a fiery center like Ryba.
“I’ll be back,” Ryba whispered as she sat up and pulled her shipsuit over her naked form. She padded down the stairs barefoot, after picking up an object Nylan-could hot make out, night vision or not, from beneath the couch.
As the cold breeze sifted through the open windows-both the single window with the armaglass and the one with shutters alone were open-the engineer pulled the thin blanket up to his chest, and waited … and waited.
His eyes had closed when he heard bare feet, and he turned and asked sleepily, “What took so long?”
“I ran into Istril, and she wanted something,” Ryba said. “I’m never off-duty anymore, it seems. I was able to help her, but it took a bit longer than I’d thought. She thinks a lot of you.”
“She’s a good person,” Nylan said, stifling a yawn and reaching out to touch Ryba’s silken skin, skin so smooth that no one would have believed that it belonged to an avenging angel, to the angel.
“Yes. All of the marines are good. That’s one reason why I do what I do.” Ryba let Nylan move to her, but the engineer felt the reserve there, the holding back that seemed so often present, even at the most intimate times.
And he held back a sigh, only agreeing with her words. “They all are good, and I do the best I can.”
“I know.” Those two words were softer, much softer, and sadder. “I know.” But she said nothing more as they lay there in the cool night that foreshadowed a far, far colder winter-as they lay there and Ryba shuddered once, twice, and was silent.
Hryessa’s words ran through Nylan’s mind, again and again. “But she is the angel.”