Bastion

couldn’t make out what the whispering was about, but it sounded as if the boys were getting their way with the old man. Finally Cole growled, “Then you’ll be paying me for him.”
    The man barked a not-laugh. “Pay you for him? Slavery is illegal in Valdemar, Cole Pieters. You can be thrown in gaol for owning slaves, or selling them.”
    “I’ve spent a fortune feeding and clothing this boy!” Cole sputtered. “Eating his head off, taking my charity, giving back naught—”
    “A fortune is it?” The angry drawl was back. “What kind of a fool do you take me for? I’m neither blind nor ignorant. I can see from here what kind of slop you feed these children. A good farmer wouldn’t give it to a pig. And if there is a rag on their backs that isn’t threadbare and decades old, I will eat it. As for shelter, where are you having them sleep? I don’t see a house big enough for them. Are you keeping them in the barn? In a cellar?” His tone got very dangerous, and Mags shivered to hear it. “Exactly what have you been spending all the money given to you for the keep of orphans on?”
    What money? Mags thought, dazedly. But Cole was right on top of that one.
    “What money?” he sneered. “Nobbut one person wanted these brats. No fambly wanted ’em, no priest wanted ’em. And their villages couldn ’ford another mouth to feed. Charity! It was my own charity that took ’em in, useless, feckless things that they be! My charity that feeds ’em, and me own kids going short—”
    “Oh, that’s a bit much even for you, Cole Pieters.” There was a growl under the drawl. “If you are going to claim all that, then I think perhaps a visit from the Guard and Lord Astley’s Clerk of Office would be a very, very good thing.”
    There was a great deal more of that sort of thing, most of it so far over Mags’ head that it might as well have been in a foreign tongue. But the man was winning.
    Mags only wished he could tell if that was a good thing, or a bad one. Usually he would immediately have said that anything Cole Pieters was against was going to be good for him, but now, he wasn’t so sure.
    Finally, Pieters literally picked Mags up by the scruff of the neck, hauled him off the ground like a scrawny puppy, and shoved him over the barrier at the man, shouting “Take him, then! Take him and be damned to you!”
    Without a word, the man mounted one of the two horses, reached down and grabbed Mags’ arm and picked him up like so much dirty laundry, and dumped him on top of the other horse.
    Mags froze stiff with fear, his hands going instinctively around the knobby part of the thing he was sitting on, his legs clamping as hard as they could to the horse’s sides. But—but—but—
    “I dunno howta ride . . .” he tried to gasp out, but it didn’t come out any louder than a whisper, and anyway it was already too late. The man was off, the other horse right behind him, and Mags squeezed his eyes and hands shut, and his legs hard, and clamped down his teeth on the chattering they were doing.
    I’m gonna fall off. I’m gonna fall off and die.
    •   •   •
    As the memory flashed through Mags’ mind some of it must have shown on his face, for Jakyr grinned. “If I were to stand you and that scrawny, filthy little mine-slave side by side, I’d never know the two of you were the same person. The years have improved you out of all expectation, Mags.”
    “They’d kinda have had to,” Mags pointed out. “There wasn’t all that much of me to begin with. Anything would’a been an improvement.”
    Jakyr laughed. “This will be a first for both of us. I’ve never mentored anyone before.”
    “Well,” Mags said, and grinned back, “I been mentored, so when you mess up, I’ll be sure’n let ye know.”
    “Insolent brat!” Jakyr aimed a blow at Mags, but of course, he never connected. Or, rather, he turned the blow into a rough tousle of Mags’ hair. “Introduce me to the rest of your fellow sufferers, then.”
    “Everyone, this is Herald Jakyr,” he said obediently. “I ’spect you know Amily, Jakyr.”
    “By reputation, your father’s stories, and from afar, and I’m very pleased to see you looking fit and healed, milady,” Jakyr replied, and sketched a bit of a bow. “Also pleased to hear of your martial progress from our Weaponsmaster. I am completely confident in your ability to hold your own.”
    Amily flushed with pleasure and bowed a little herself.
    “This is