"That axle will hold your weight, I think," he said, as Robin's nose turned cold and she shivered in the light breeze. "I wouldn't worry about sleeping or moving around in the wagon. I wouldn't trust it to take the abuse of the road, but sitting here on grass there should be no problems."
She had no idea how Harperus could tell all of this just by looking at the axle_or what little could be seen of the axle inside its enclosure_but she was quite confident that he was right. Deliambrens were seldom, if ever, wrong about something that was physical or structural.
"Thank you, Old Owl," she said with gratitude. "I don't know how we'd have managed if you hadn't come along _"
He cut short her speech of gratitude with a wave of his hand. "You are freezing, little one, and all this can wait until morning. I will go and see to our horses while you get something warm to eat and some sleep. Think of it as trade for the rumors you are going to track for me. You can thank me in the morning. All right?"
She nodded, with a tired sigh. Deliambrens as a whole were not very good at judging the strength of human emotions, nor the strength of the actions that emotions were likely to induce, but this time Harperus had gauged her remaining reserves quite accurately. "Right," she said, without any argument. "Talk to me in the morning and let me know what you want me to listen for tomorrow, what you want me to say to the others."
Harperus nodded and turned back to his own wagon, hurrying through the rain to the front, which was the only place on the vehicle with an entrance. The exterior lights went out as abruptly as they had come on as soon as she reached the door of her own little caravan. No matter; she knew where everything was, and lit the four real oil lamps by feel, filling the interior of the wagon with a mellow, golden light, and very grateful for the stock of sulfur-matches that had come with the wagon. They were precious and hard to come by; she only used one, then lit the rest of the lamps from a splinter she kindled at the first lamp.
Once again she lit the tiny charcoal stove, and waited for the place to warm up. The interior of the caravan was well-planned as far as usable space went. Their bed was in the front, just behind the drivers seat, and the door there slid sideways rather than swinging open, so that someone could lie on the bed and talk to the driver while the wagon moved down the road. And on warm nights, a curtain could be pulled across the opened door, giving privacy and fresh air. A second curtain could be pulled across the other side of the bed, giving privacy from the rest of the wagon. It was possible to sleep four, in a pinch; an ingenious table and bench arrangement on the right-hand wall under the side window could be made into a bed just wide enough for two. But the arrangement would not be good for long periods, unless the people in that bed were children.
There was storage for their clothing under the bed, more storage above it. The stove was bolted away from the wall in the rear beside the rear door, and had a cooking surface on the top of it. Storage for food was nearby and their pans and utensils hung from the ceiling above it. There were small windows surrounded by shallow storage cabinets on either wall, where they kept everything else they needed, from instruments to harness-repair kits. The table and benches, bolted to the wall and floor, were beneath the right-hand window, and a built-in basin above a huge jar for fresh water with a spigot on the bottom, were beneath the left-hand window. The basin could be removed from its holder, to be emptied out the window or filled from the jar.
Harperus' suggestion of hot food was a good one. How long had it been since they'd eaten? Certainly not since noon.
Still shivering, she made the simplest possible hot meal, toasting thick slices of bread and melting cheese over the top of them_and putting a kettle for tea on top of the stove. The activity kept her from feeling too cold, and by the time Kestrel returned, the wagon had begun to warm.
"I_got the h-horses_put up," Kestrel told her, as she stripped his sodden clothing from him and wrapped him in a thick robe made from the same material as their blankets. "And f-fed."
"Good_here, eat this, you'll feel better." She put a slice of toast-and-cheese in his left hand and a mug of tea well-sweetened with honey in his right. With a smile of gratitude, he started on both. "And next time, I can put the horses up and you can make dinner."
"D-done," he agreed, as he joined her on the bed.
"Thank goodness Harperus came along," she sighed. "We'd still be out there if he hadn't."
Jonny nodded. "I've n-never seen a D-Deliambren before. Are th-they all like h-him? So c-courteous?"
"Most of them." She sipped her tea, carefully; it was not that far from being scalding. "All of them would stop to help someone they knew, and most would stop to help a stranger. They can afford to. With their magic, there aren't too many people who would be a threat to them."
"Ah." He shifted a little more, and tucked his feet in under his robe. "I w-was w-wondering if they all are so_so_d-d-detached."
"As if Harperus is always observing the rest of the world without really being part of it?" she asked in reply, and at his nod, she pursed her lips. "They really are pretty much all like that," she told him. "All the Deliambrens I've met, anyway. They just don't understand our emotions, but they're completely fascinated by them. I think that's why they enjoy being around the Free Bards and the Gypsies. They like to hear the songs that we sing that are full of very powerful emotions, and they like to watch the emotional reactions of our listeners. It seems to be a never-ending source of entertainment for them."
Kestrel made a face of distaste. "L-like we're s-some kind of b-bug."
"No, not at all," she hastened to tell him. "No, it's something like the fascination I have for watching someone blow glass. I can't do it, I don't understand it, but I love to watch. This fascination of theirs gets them in trouble too_they are very apt to go running off into a bad situation just because it looks interesting. Wren had to pull Harperus out of a mob once, for instance, and another Deliambren we know nearly got disemboweled for asking one too many questions about a particular Sire's lady." She hoped Harperus had more sense than that. "It's not that they don't feel things, they just don't express them the way we do. Harperus has a very good sense of humor and tells excellent jokes_but he can't always tell when things have turned serious, and he can't always anticipate when serious things have turned deadly. They seem on the surface to be very shallow people, and I've heard some Churchmen call them 'soul-less' because of that."
Kestrel's expression grew thoughtful. "Th-the things the Church is s-saying, about th-the n-nonhumans? H-having no souls? And b-being d-damned?"
"Could be very, very dangerous for the Deliambrens," she said, catching his meaning. "And they don't even realize it. They have no idea how very emotional people can be when it comes to religion, and how irrational that can make them."
Kestrel finished his bread, took the last sip of his tea, and put the mug down on one of the little shelves built above the foot of the bed. "M-maybe. And m-maybe he d-d-does. He asked you t-to listen for r-rumors."
She licked her lips thoughtfully, then nodded, as a sudden flash of lightning illuminated the cracks around the doors and the shutters. The thunder followed immediately, deafening them both for a moment.