Umbo gave a shove to the past. He could still see Rigg and the mice. But when the mice nearest Rigg scampered away from him, they vanished; Umbo had no hold on them. Other mice, however, were still in the present moment, and so as they moved away, they remained as visible as ever.
Umbo brought Rigg back, and they assessed how many they had sent. Only about fifty or sixty were gone, the mice told Loaf.
“That means it’ll take about two hundred sendings,” said Olivenko. “If you’re going to do all ten thousand.”
“We need to,” said Loaf.
“Then we will,” said Umbo.
“Can you do it?” asked Rigg. “You look tired already.”
“I’ll do all I can, and then I’ll rest,” said Umbo. “What does it matter if we spread the sending across several days, as long as they all arrive at the same time and place?”
“I told them to head for those trees,” said Rigg. He turned to Loaf. “They do understand me when I talk, right?”
“They hear us just fine,” said Loaf.
As the day wore on to evening, they did another dozen sendings, each time with more mice attached. They had moved a good way along the knoll. But by then Umbo really was exhausted, and it was getting dark.
“We’ll continue in the morning,” said Rigg.
“I can do another,” said Umbo.
“These last two were smaller than the one before,” said Rigg. “You’re exhausted. We’re done for the day.”
Umbo was content to wait and rest.
Loaf had been cooking something over a fire he built. Umbo was vaguely aware that Loaf had gone down to one of the Odinfold houses and apparently he got food, because he had corn roasting and a loaf of bread and a quarter of a cheese. “They eat pretty simply,” said Loaf. “Not like what they fed us in the library.”
“That was simple fare,” said Olivenko.
“By the standards of Aressa Sessamo the library food was simple,” said Loaf. “And by the standards of O. But for this region of Odinfold, it would be a banquet. This is the best they have here. And speaking as an old soldier, I think it’s just fine.”
As Umbo, Rigg, and Loaf ate, Olivenko took his supper over to Param. A few moments later, Umbo heard distant weeping. He looked over to the edge of the woods where, sure enough, Param was sobbing into Olivenko’s shoulder.
She despises you, Umbo, he told himself. You’ll never be anything but a peasant boy to her. And what do you care? You stopped being in love with her months ago.
But seeing her holding on to Olivenko that way stabbed Umbo with jealousy all the same.
In the morning, Param ate breakfast with them, and formally apologized for her “petulant actions” the day before. Just as formally, Rigg and Umbo apologized in return. “I don’t know what we came back to prevent,” said Rigg, “but I have a feeling I behaved very badly.”
“Not in this version of history,” said Param.
But Umbo noticed that she hardly looked at him. Was it shame for having pus
hed him off the flyer ramp? Or contempt because he was just a peasant boy?
For your information, princess, I can make you a pair of shoes out of grass and rose thorns. I have a skill; I’m a cobbler’s son. Sort of.
It was the first time Umbo could recall ever being proud of something he acquired from his reputed father, the master cobbler Tegay. And it’s not as if Tegay ever praised Umbo for his prentice work.
Breakfast done, they went back to pushing mice into the past. They were done well before noon.
“Eleven thousand, one hundred ninety-one mice,” said Loaf.
“You’re joking,” said Umbo. “Why that number?”
“It’s a holy number here, too,” said Loaf.