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.”