Fall of Angels (The Saga of Recluce #6)(57)

"I suppose you're right." Nylan stood. "I have to be. I'm the marshal. You have to, also. You're the mage. Now that we've settled that, let's see if breakfast is remotely palatable." She started down the steps, the hard heels of her boots echoing off the harder stone, and Nylan followed, trying not to shake his head. A daughter, for darkness' sake, and Ryba had named her, and seen her in a vision of her own death. At that, he did shake his head. The Roof of the World was strange, and getting stranger even as he learned more.

They walked toward the pair of tables stretched out from the hearth. In a room that could have handled a dozen or more tables that size with space to spare, the two almost looked lost. The benches had finally been finished, and for the moment everyone could sit at the same time.

Ryba marched toward the head of the table, but Nylan lagged, still looking around the great room, amazed that they had completed so much in barely a half year. Of course, the tower was really not much more than a shell, but still... He smiled for a moment.

Breakfast in the great hall had gotten regularized-a warm drink, usually a bitter grass and root tea; cold fried bread; some small slices of cheese; any meat left over from supper-if there had been meat served-and something hot, although it could be as odd as batter-dipped and fried greens or kisbah, a wild root that Narliat had insisted was edible. Edible kisbah might be, reflected Nylan, but something that tasted like onions dipped in hydraulic oil had little more to recommend it than basic nutrients. It made the heavy fried bread seem like the best of pastries by comparison. So far the few eggs dropped by the scrawny chickens had gone into the bread or something else fixed by Kyseen.

"Good morning, Nylan," said Ayrlyn.

"How did you sleep last night?" the engineer asked the redhead, who huddled inside a sweater and a thermal jacket and sat on the sunny south casement ledge that overlooked the meadow and fields.

"Not well. It's getting cold. When will the furnace be finished?"

"Not until after the shutters," he answered.

"The shutters won't help that much."

"Unless we cut a lot more wood and finish the shutters, the furnace won't be much use," Nylan pointed out.

"Don't we have any armaglass at all?" Ayrlyn shivered inside the jacket.

"There's enough for six windows." He put his lips together and thought. "Maybe eight. Most of them ought to go in here. These are south windows."

"That's why I'm sitting here trying to warm up. I'm not a Sybran nomad," Ayrlyn pointed out, turning slightly on the stone so that the sun hit her back full on. "Saryn and I could make simple frames that would go on pivots if you could mortar the pivot bolts or whatever in place. Can you cut the armaglass?"

"If the laser lasts." Nylan laughed, then frowned as his stomach growled.

"You need to eat."

"I can hardly wait." The engineer glanced toward the table where Ryba was serving herself.

"It's not bad this morning-some fried meat that has some taste, but not too much, if you know what I mean, and there's a decent hot brew. Narliat showed Selitra a bush that actually makes something close to tea. Bitter, but it does wake you up."

"All right. Bring me a window design, and we'll see what we can do." He started toward the table.

"We need salt, demon-damn!" Gerlich's voice rose from the end of the table nearest the completed but empty hearth. "Without salt, drying meat's a tricky thing, and I don't want to smoke everything."

"I'll have Ayrlyn put it high on the trading list." Ryba's voice, quieter than Gerlich's, still carried the length of the room.

Gerlich strode by, wearing worn and tattered brown leathers rudely altered to fit his large frame and carrying a bow and quiver. "Good day, Nylan."

"Good day. How's the bow going?"

Gerlich stopped and shrugged. "It doesn't shoot far enough, or with enough power, but it's good for some of the smaller animals-the furry rodents." He grinned. "I'm tanning those pelts-Narliat told me some of the roots and an acorn they use-and by winter I might have enough for a warm coat." The grin faded. "There's not much meat on the fattest ones, and I don't know how good the hunting will be when the snow gets deep."

"I don't, either." Nylan paused. "Let me think about it."

"Do that, Engineer." Gerlich raised the bow, almost in a mocking salute, and began to walk toward the main door. "I'm going to try my luck at fashioning a larger bow."

"Good luck, Great Hunter." Nylan made his way to the table and sat down across from Ryba.

"It's not bad," she said. "The meat, I mean."

"What is it?"

"I didn't ask."

"One of those rodents, baked and then fried," said Kyseen, replacing the battered wooden platter with another; half-filled with strips of fried meat. "The stove makes all the difference, and the bread even tastes like bread now. The eggs help, but those chickens don't lay them fast, and I'm letting 'em hatch a few, 'cause we'll need another cock, a rooster"-the cook flushed-"before long."

"If we had windows and that furnace," suggested Siret, with a shiver, "that would help, too."

Nylan glanced at her, and she looked away.