He could hear Loaf barking orders to a field of clumsy oafs trying to master the use of the short spear. Apparently these were town-born recruits, because they didn’t even know the rudiments of quarterstaff and staff fighting that any child in Fall Ford would know just from rough play with the other children. Even privick girls learned how to defend themselves with the quarter, even if the full staff was too long for them to do more than vault streams with it.
Loaf would not be happy to be interrupted, so Umbo didn’t interrupt him. There was no urgency—Umbo had taken the flyer out of laziness and a desire not to expend more of his own life in meaningless walking, not because there was any time pressure. No matter how long this errand took, he would return to Larfold at the time he promised, or earlier.
Loaf noticed him right away, but Umbo deliberately looked off in another direction, then sat on the ground, sending a clear signal that he did not intend to interrupt. Loaf nodded to him, then returned to his work.
It was near sunset when he dismissed the weary, bruised, limping men to go off and have some of the glorious stew Leaky and her crew would have waiting for them. Some of the men complained about “stew every day,” but Loaf and Leaky had worked that out as the best way to make sure that food was always ready, no matter when Loaf dismissed the men from their training. Since other squads were training elsewhere, and would arrive for meals at different times, stew was the best solution for all.
And it wasn’t the same stew. Leaky made sure they had multiple cauldrons at multiple hearths, and when one stew ran out, she had the pot washed thoroughly. There were cooks who claimed that never washing the pot, merely adding new water and new ingredients, “enriched” the flavor of the stew. But Leaky said, “I wouldn’t serve my customers a stew with ingredients older than their grandmothers, which is why our roadhouse was worth building a town around!”
Loaf made his way to Umbo with much more vigor than any of his men showed. “Is Rigg in need of these men?” he asked. “Because they’re not ready.”
“No, no, I haven’t seen Rigg,” said Umbo. “Nor do I need them. Unless one of them has teats full of milk.”
“I beat that out of them, if any of them is heavy with milk,” said Loaf with a smile. Then he made the connection. “You were in Larfold. Is something wrong with Square?”
“I can’t believe you sent him to the Larfolders,” said Umbo. “The burden of staying on land for him is becoming onerous.”
“I assumed that they’d take turns,” said Loaf. “Auntie Wind could have said no.”
“She said yes,” said Umbo, “but others are now saying no, and I need to bring your answer to her earlier this afternoon.”
“Answer to what?”
“She wants to put a mantle on the boy.”
Loaf shook his head. “That would make him a Larfolder forever,” he said. “It would cut him off from his brother.”
“Hasn’t Leaky already done that?” asked Umbo.
Loaf nodded. “I love her, and she’s worthy of more love than I can give. But I admit that her rejection of Square took me by surprise. Even if she didn’t accept him as her true son, I thought at least she’d take care of him as an orphan.”
Umbo shrugged. “But he’s not an orphan, and that complicates everything.”
“The woman who bore him,” said Loaf, “will never exist in this timestream, even if she was named Leaky. I don’t know what to do. I can’t take Square to Ramfold again, because that makes him a hostage if Haddamander and Hagia ever find out who he is. And I don’t think I’d want him among the Odinfolders.”
“Auntie Wind said that some were saying we should entrust him to the mice that we allowed to infest Larfold,” said Umbo.
Loaf nodded slowly. “So. They noticed, and they’re not delighted.”
“I think that even though they don’t till the soil, they still thought of it as their own land.”
“Well, now it isn’t,” said Loaf. “I don’t think we’d have much luck if we tried to gather up the mice now.”
“We could ask them to stay out of a zone near the shore,” said Umbo. “I think they might.”
“Or they might say, Let the Larfolders make us move, if they want us gone.”
“With their mantles, the Larfolders are the only people in Garden who can all spot the mice no matter how they try to hide and make themselves small.”
“And the Larfolders are the only ones who can escape the mice completely, by going into the ocean,” said Loaf. “They’ll work it out, and we should stay out of it. But I can see Auntie Wind’s point. Their mantles are bred to be gentle with children, to grow up with them, so to speak. The child is master of his own body.”
“So you think Square should be given a mantle?” asked Umbo.
“I don’t want to try to raise a son who can hide from me under the sea,” said Loaf.
“So you do plan to raise him?”
“He’s going to know he has a father,” said Loaf. “Even if it’s an ugly old facemasker like me.”
“Why not keep him here?”
Loaf shook his head. “You know we tried it. But caring for the son of the… whatever I am… Sergeant-at-Arms, maybe… it was becoming bad for the women, bad for their husbands, and bad for the boy. Spoiled. I meant to leave him with the Larfolders for only a day or two, but I’m so busy here…”
“Auntie Wind isn’t angry,” said Umbo, “and the only person she’s critical of is Leaky, for reasons you can understand even though you don’t agree.”
“I do agree,” said Loaf. “By Silbom’s left elbow, you’d think Leaky would take the boy in for my sake, if not for his own.”
“But she won’t, and you don’t want to fight that war.”
“So I have no choice but to take him back here,” said Loaf, “even if it complicates camp life and keeps Leaky in a perpetual sulk.”
Umbo had suspected that all the other reasons for exiling Square had been a mask for this one—that as long as Square was in camp, Leaky was surly and that made Loaf nervous and edgy, which damaged his ability to work well with the men. It was as if Square were Loaf’s bastard child by another woman. Which he almost was, in a way, but definitely was not, in another.
“I think I should take as much responsibility for the boy as you,” said Umbo. “I’m the one who brought him home to you. I didn’t have to. I could have taken him to any number of childless couples.”
“You had to bring him to us because he was ours, he is ours, even if Leaky is too insane to understand that,” said Loaf. “Of course if you ever quote me as having said that, I’ll kill you. You can’t time-shift fast enough to get away from me.”
“Yes I can,” said Umbo, “but I would never tell her because Leaky would kill you, and then who would train these miserable revolutionary troops?”
“They’re more like refugees than an army, though a few of them are really trying to become more soldierlike. Fortunately, since all our attacks come as a complete surprise, coming previous to all the other attacks, we always win with very little fighting, just by showing our numbers and having men who look as if they know how to use their weapons, even if they don’t. If we actually had to fight, I fear any halfway competent regiment could slaughter these poor geese.”
“But then, Haddamander has a way of removing halfway competent officers because they might pose a threat to him.”