The Towers of the Sunset - L. E. Modesitt [159]
Megaera raises an eyebrow. “I appreciate the sentiment, Aldonya, but this is not exactly paradise.”
“Oh, but it is, your grace. Living in Montgren was—but I should not complain, the Duke was so kind, when he was not ill.”
“Go on,” Creslin prompts gently.
“Waaaa . . .”
Aldonya slips out of the harness and cradles the red-haired infant, rocking her. “Now, now . . . we’re home. No more traveling, little Lynnya. No more traveling . . .”
Megaera smiles, and her smile warms Creslin. Then she flushes as she feels his pleasure. “You’re impossible,” she whispers.
Aldonya looks up from the wide-eyed baby. “I told you that he’s good at heart.”
Megaera flushes even redder.
“About Montgren . . .” Creslin prompts, as much to rescue Megaera as to hear what Aldonya had begun to say.
“Oh . . . it was like living under a storm. I mean—” her shoulders shrug even as she opens her blouse and lifts the child to her breast “—there is a storm coming, and there will be trouble, and everyone knows this, and no one will say anything. It was so sad, and I am so glad to be here.”
As she talks, Synder leads a chestnut mare off the Griffin. The squad forms a chain up the gangplank and onto the ship. A heavy cask is passed along the chain and set upon the pier stones, then another cask, and a third.
“It is good to see that you are happy. Lynnya and I will be happy with you.”
“Do you have any baggage?” Creslin asks.
“Oh . . . I forgot. Many things.” Aldonya grins at them. “Perhaps some . . . anyway . . .”
“Your graces?” interrupts Freigr, standing halfway down the gangway.
“Why don’t you talk to Freigr?” Megaera suggests.
“You’ll take care of Aldonya?” asks Creslin.
“I’ll see you at the keep later, after she’s settled.” Megaera pauses. “I arranged for the horses. We do need some stalls or a stable at the holding.”
“With Aldonya . . . I suppose so.”
“The Hamorian stoneworkers are through with the addition to the inn.”
“Fine. See if Klerris . . . someone . . . will rough out plans for the stable.”
“You can still walk to the keep if you want the exercise.” . . . stiff-necked . . .
He supposes he is, but he turns, and after easing past the guards and troopers still unloading the Griffin, he steps aboard the ship.
“Greetings.”
“Same to you, your grace.” Freigr is standing by the helm.
Creslin waves away the honorific.
Freigr looks across the pier at the bare-masted schooner. “You’ve done a good job with her.”
“I can’t say that I’ve had much to do with it. Byrem—he used to be a Nordlan mate, before the Hamorians captured him—has been handling the Dawnstar’s refitting. He tells us what he needs, and I try to figure out how to get it.” Creslin eyes the Griffin’s captain. “You interested in recruiting?”
“Don’t you have enough here, with the Hamorians and some of the refugees?”
“Close enough, if either you or Gossel want to captain her, assuming that Korweil won’t mind. But that’s not the problem.”
“Korweil doesn’t own either one of us.” Freigr laughs. “You keep thinking about the problems that haven’t reached you. Most of them won’t.”
“If we get another ship, we’ll need a crew.”
“You haven’t finished that one.”
Creslin looks at the Dawnstar. “If we’re going to make it here on Recluce, we’ll need more ships. I’ll have to figure out a way to get them, even if it means stealing them from the White Wizards.”
“That won’t exactly make them happy.”
“Has anything? Do you really think they’ll let us build up Recluce without trying something else?”
Freigr pulls at his chin. “Can’t say as I’d thought about it one way or another. After you did in the Hamorians, do you think they’d want to risk any of their own ships?”
Creslin steps to the railing, looking northward into the nearly flat green sea. “They don’t have to. We can’t grow enough food yet, and it will be a few years before we have enough sheep. Already you can’t supply what we need, and Korweil won’t let the Hypogrif cross the northern waters.”
“I wouldn’t either,” snorts Freigr. “Not enough freeboard, or a solid