Bastion

Hallathon doesn’t even claim them, they’re too far outside his holding.”
    “When we got to the Waystation, some fella had took it over,” Mags explained. “We caught ’im, and he acted like we was the ones at fault. Said his pa had given it to him.”
    The straw rustled as Amily startled. “Wait—what?” Amily replied. “But that’s illegal!”
    “Well, aye. We know that, but it seems like the fella we caught either don’t know it or don’t care. So we kinda need to know just how far this village has gone afore we come ridin’ in with him all trussed up like a hen fer the pot.” Mags rubbed his temple unhappily. “’Cause if most of this village reckons that Crown laws don’t hold, we could have ourselves a bigger piece of trouble than we thought. Reckon the people to find out are Lena and Lita. Lita mostly. If she ain’t found out already.”
    “I’ll go find out,” Amily said immediately, and stood up and ran off before he could say anything else. Not that there was anything much more to say, really. That left Mags still crouching in the straw, unhappy, and not getting any happier as the time passed. He was cold, he was uncomfortable, he was hungry, and he was acutely aware that he was surrounded by a village full of people who might very well consider him some sort of criminal.
    Not the most pleasant situation to be in at best. It was certainly not one he had envisioned himself to be in before they started this trip.
    Course, I could be trussed up in a wagon bein’ kidnapped again, ’bout to be drugged, and turned into some sort of . . . I dunno . . . shell for a ghost?
    There certainly was that. Given the options, this current situation was better. It wasn’t as if, even if the worst happened, he and Jakyr couldn’t mount up on their Companions and be out of there before anyone could blink. A handful of villagers, however angry, were not going to be able to prevail against a Companion in full fighting mode. Since the Bards, Bear, and Amily weren’t obviously connected with Heralds and had already been welcomed, they would be safe enough. The villagers were hardly likely to pursue as far as The Bastion, and they could continue on down to the Guardpost at need, bringing back retribution.
    But he didn’t want to do that. Jakyr didn’t want to do that either. That would, in many ways, just make things a whole lot worse. He wanted some way to work this out so that the fools who had done this realized how much they had transgressed and how much was at stake when they lost. Which they would. Bringing an armed Guard troop down on a bunch of poorly armed villagers—or even a bunch of well -armed villagers—would earn no credit for the Crown. Valdemar governed by cooperation, not by repression. Mags wanted this lot of empty heads and grabby hands to figure out they were the ones in the wrong.
    He wanted them, in short, to figure out on their own that they’d been idiots.
    Wish I could con ’em like Jakyr conned Lita; go to give ’em what they think they want, an’ they quick find out they don’t want it—
    Amily returned about a candlemark later. “Lita’s trying to find out what she can. She hasn’t seen any overt rebellion; these people are pretty much like the last village. She thinks that if there is a problem, it’s just the Headman getting above himself. Maybe since they don’t answer to Lord Hallathon, the Headman thinks they’re independent and don’t have to answer to anybody.”
    That sounded better. He and Jakyr might be able to work with that. “Lemme tell Jakyr. I’ll Mindspeak him. No point in my ridin’ all the way back just to turn around again.”
    “Do that, and I got you something to eat,” she said, pressing some bread and cheese into his hand. “I can’t warm you up here, but at least I can make sure you don’t faint from starvation.”
    “You’re a star,” he said gratefully. He couldn’t imagine how she had guessed how hungry he was. He’d been thinking about chewing on a handful of the horses’ oats at one point.
    “I just heard your belly rumbling,” she giggled, and kissed him, then sat back on her heels and let him work.
    He closed his eyes, reached out into the wilderness where the only minds were birds and animals, found Jakyr’s mind, and relayed what Amily had told him.
    :Stay there, we’re coming,: the Herald replied. :I’ll meet you at the edge of the village fields. One way or another, this is going to have to be