By morning the sun was shining in a cloudless sky of brilliant blue, reflecting off the white snow in blinding glory. Temperatures were rising quickly. From the small window of their room Alain could see people walking past on the road, carrying their coats as they waded through the rapidly melting snow.
They waited until the Mages had left, three robed figures walking alone, the crowd separating to give them a lot of space. Then the Mechanics departed in a large coach with a common driving the horses as they plunged through the diminishing snow. Finally, with most prying eyes gone, Mari and Alain went down to see the innkeeper.
The innkeeper calculated their rate for the tiny room and the food they had eaten, adding in a “storm fee” which made Mari mutter something about profiteering. But they could scarcely complain, since the innkeeper had taken them in without knowing whether they would be able to pay anything. The healer was staying another day to help a mother who had given birth during the storm, and she accepted Mari’s offering of payment gratefully. “Good luck,” the healer called after them as they left the inn, “and may your parents see wisdom!”
Alain looked at Mari. “Our parents?”
“We’re eloping,” she explained.
“I had not known.”
Mari laughed. “How long have you been hiding humor behind dry statements like that? Anyway, eloping is a good cover story. And you did propose to me. I don’t intend to let you forget that.”
Alain noticed his own spirits lift as he saw her happiness in being out of the inn and on the road in good weather. Mari was looking around at the melting snow drifts and the clear blue sky. “It’s clearing almost as fast as it hit. Amazing. It’s almost like that storm was aimed at us.”
“Perhaps it was,” Alain suggested. “To bring us to that inn, to come to some more understanding between us, to meet your friend Calu.”
Mari seemed to be torn between more laughter and disbelief. “Oh, yes, destiny. I’d forgotten. Alain, if destiny chose to create that great big storm while we were walking across the plains a few days ago just to get us into bed together, then all I can say is that destiny engaged in some serious overkill of its own, though I’m sure the male in you regards that event as being of huge significance.”
Alain shrugged. “Our sharing your bed may have been a minor step along the road we are to follow.”
“Oh, yes, it was also so we would meet Calu!” Mari laughed. “I think that could have been arranged with a little less effort.”
“You can be hard to direct at times,” Alain suggested.
Mari shook her head, grinning. “Aren’t you the diplomat?” Her grin faded, and she gave him a serious look. “That reminds me of something I’ve been meaning to ask. From what you’ve said of Mage schools, it’s everyone for themselves there. Who taught you to be a gentleman? Way back when, the first days we were together, why didn’t you start grabbing at me as soon as I was within reach?”
Alain felt the memories rushing in upon him, memories of solitude among many. “You are right. I was not taught to care for others in the Mage schools. I was taught that the wishes of others did not matter at all. Had I followed my teachings, I would have simply done what I wished with you and cared not for your feelings or whatever hurt it might have inflicted.”
She gazed at him somberly. “More than one Mechanic takes the same approach when it comes to commons, though I never let it happen if I could intervene. I never thought it was right to treat commons, or anyone else, poorly because I always believed their feelings and their dignity mattered. But you were taught those other people didn’t even exist, so what kept you honest?”
More memories of long ago, of animals and fields, of people he had spent years trying to put out of his mind. “My parents. My Guild tried to make me forget them, tried to teach me that they were only shadows, but always they stayed with me. Eventually, so strongly did the elders teach me to reject all that brought up feelings in me that I saw this as a weakness in myself, that I could not cease to care about them.” Alain had to pause, breathing deeply. His eyes felt strange and watery.
Mari’s hand gripped his arm and squeezed lightly. “Your parents must have been great people.”
“They were.” He whispered that, then looked up and spoke the next two words loudly before lowering his voice again. “They were. I will never try to forget that again. My father taught me to respect others, my mother taught me not to hurt others. It must have hurt them…so much…when I was taken by the Mages.” He felt tears leaking out and rubbed them away.
Mari’s hand left his arm and her own arm wrapped around his waist so that she held him as they walked. “I’m sorry, Alain.”
“No. You should never be sorry, for if not for you I would have kept those memories out of mind. I would have continued to reject my feelings.” He worked at it and managed to smile at her. “I think they would have liked you, Mari.”
Her own eyes seemed watery before Mari looked away. “I hope so. Do you have anybody else? A brother or sister? Aunt or uncle?”
“No brother or sister. I had an aunt, my mother’s sister, but I do not know what has become of her.” Alain kicked at a mound of snow, knocking pieces along the road, enjoying the feeling of release from acting on his pain. “My grandmother will have nothing to do with me. She looked upon me and saw only a Mage.”
“Maybe if she saw you now—”
“No. Her mind is fixed. I saw this. It hurt even when I would not feel hurt.” Mari stayed silent, and Alain felt questions coming to him. “Mari, your mother—”
“We will not talk about my mother.” Her voice had gone sharp and abrupt in an instant’s time.
“Do you…hate her?” He had to know whether or not that was so, whether this was part of Mari.
He felt her arm tighten on him, not affectionately but with tension. “I told you I won’t— No, I don’t hate her. I can’t. I tried, for years I tried to hate her, but I couldn’t. My father, too.” After a moment she spoke again, the words coming in a rush. “I just don’t understand. I’ve never understood. How could they do that? How could they pretend that I’d never existed? How could they cut me out of their lives like that?”
“Perhaps—”
“No! Don’t defend them!” Mari shook her head. “All the common parents did it when we were apprentices, just stopped writing and stopped caring. We were all so hurt and ashamed that we never wanted to talk about it. Now it doesn’t matter why. I don’t care about my parents anymore.”
It was obvious that she was lying. “Can I help?”
“You can stop talking about them.” Mari’s arm tightened around him enough to hurt for a moment, but she did not seem to be aware of it. “I’m sorry. Just drop it, please. It’s not your problem.”
“Your problems are my problems now. Is that not so?”
Another tightening of Mari’s grip, though this time it felt affectionate. “Thank you. But it’s not really a problem. It’s over, is all.”
“May I ask if you had a brother or a sister?”
There was a long pause, then he heard the loss in her voice. “No. Just me. Just as well, don’t you think? They couldn’t do to any other child what they did to me. Now, not another word about that, Alain. Please.”
He focused on the road, paying attention to the places where melting snow had exposed mud or the snow still lay drifted and must be walked around.
They reached a crossroads, traffic from the other road joining theirs, the surface under the snow now gravel, the snow itself packed down by the tread of many feet. Alain studied the snow, then spoke softly to Mari. “Part of a legion has traveled this way already. The boot marks are clear.”