Bastion

But at least Bear and Lena would have an expert with them from the beginning.
    “So as I said, this is the front.” Ard gestured to what looked like a little porch with a door in the middle. There was a fold-down seat currently locked in the “up” position for the driver and fold-out steps that were in the “down” position between the shafts. “As you can see, driver is all cozy, or as cozy as you can be driving in bad weather, which I would advise against. Horses won’t like it, and you’re better off losing a day. The storage boxes on the outside are for supplies, so you can keep clothes and the like on the inside, out of the weather. The boxes are all waterproof, I just checked ’em myself, which is why they ain’t loaded up now. Canvas bags for fodder and wood on the top, or anything else that’s light and easy to haul up or throw down.”
    The more Ard spoke, the more admiration Mags had for him. He definitely took his job extremely seriously.
    “The boxes on the top are going to be lashed into place. Don’t take ’em down unless you have to. They will have canvas, stakes, and rope. Two bow tents, a skirt for around the bottom of the wagon and a floorcloth for under the wagon, if there’s more than six to sleep, and they’d rather sleep under the wagon.” He raised an eyebrow. “As I said, she sleeps six, but it’s a tight six, and if the weather ain’t bad, the last lot to take her out preferred to have two sleeping below. With four, it oughta be fine. Yer teacher and the assistant can use the benches. I reckon, women don’t seem to toss as much as men. Oh, there’s a cupboard-box that bolts in under the rear; that’s for your pots and pans you use over the fire. They’ll get black and nasty and stay black and nasty, and you won’t want ’em in the wagon ’cause they’ll get smuts all over everything. Now, go on up into her.”
    He gestured that they should go up the stairs and into the wagon itself.
    It was bigger than Mags had expected. Inside it was all handsome varnished wood, which should be easy to keep clean. The middle part of the roof was both raised and bowed, with thin sheets of horn inset along the sides of the raised part, bringing in a lot of light and giving far more headroom than he would have expected. Not even Jakyr was going to have to stoop in here.
    “Two of your beds are there at the rear,” Ard went on from the door. Mags craned his head around to look. Sure enough, two beds had been built into the rear, one above the other, with the bottom one on the floor and a small cupboard built above the upper one. Both had little windows looking rearward, also with horn panels. “Those windows open for air, but if it’s snowing, you won’t want em open, obviously. Shutters on the outside to close up against bad weather. Shutters on all the windows except the mollicroft up here.” He tapped the narrow windows up in the roof. “Mollicroft windows open, see?” He demonstrated by unlatching one and opening it on a hinge at the bottom. “Two more of your beds are built on this side.” He slapped the right side, where Mags had already seen two very narrow bench-type beds, with cupboards over and under them. There were a series of horn windows here, too. “Plenty of room for four.”
    There was literally not a bit of space that wasn’t in use. Cupboards, some hardly big enough to hold a few knives or spoons, or maybe a mending kit, had been fitted in anyplace there was some useable space.
    “This side, as you can see, nearest the door, there’s a nice metal hearth and chimbley.” He slapped what looked like a tiny metal fireplace with a cast-iron pot in it, standing on three legs. “What you do is, you fill that there pot with coals, and she heats the wagon at night. Come morning, you make sure to dump that pot, I’m sure I don’t need to tell you. Also, more storage for your things.” The rest of that side was, indeed, cupboards. “And that’s your wagon. She can be fixed when she breaks by just about any blacksmith or wheelwright. But treat her right, and she shouldn’t break unless you have mortal bad luck.”
    Ard backed down the steps and off the wagon; the rest of them followed. This wasn’t going to be impossible, not by any means, but. . . .
    :But we had all better work on our temper-keeping skills,: Dallen chuckled. :And I suspect that unless it is bloody freezing cold, those tents are going to be getting some