Bastion

than they bring in with taxes—”
    “ Aha! Very good! Very perceptive!” Jakyr cheered. “And entirely correct. They do. You’d have been told that in the classes that prepared you for your first Circuit. These border villages, out here where banditry and other problems are a constant hazard, are supported by the taxes that people pay in the cities and towns and far more peaceful villages.”
    “Huh. So . . . why do it?” Mags wanted to know. “Why keep ’em in the Kingdom at all?”
    “Well, for one thing, you can’t raise sheep or grow wheat and barley in a town, and we need them to supply us with food and other things you can only get from those who are living in the country,” Jakyr chuckled. “But for another, eventually, these places will stop having problems all the time, settle down, come to have only an occasional problem, and become less of a burden.” He shrugged. “And for a third, because eventually they will come to deserve being protected. They’ll willingly send us their youngsters for the Guard. They’ll supply Heralds and Bards and Healers. Their children who went to the Guard will return home and train their neighbors to defend themselves. They’ll begin to protect each other, taking some of the burden of doing so off the Crown. It’s how these things happen, once they realize that no one can survive alone, that we all depend on the work and willingness of each other.”
    “And if they don’t?” Mags persisted.
    Jakyr shrugged. “Then if they still persist in being a problem and claiming they don’t want us, we cut them off permanently, the way you cut off a rotten branch. Sometimes you have to prune to save the tree. That takes a Crown edict, but it’s been done, though it’s rare. I’ve never seen a case of that in the Archives where the village survived for more than a few years after being cut off.”
    “Well,” Mags said after a bit, “I surely would like to see a sound branch at some point. I’m gettin’ truly tired of the bad lots, and that’s a fact.”

12
    I n the next village—much more “town” than “village,” in Mags’ estimation, he got his wish.
    The first indication that all was well came when they rode up to the Waystation, which looked like a charming (and untenanted) little cottage. They opened the door on the latchstring and found it to be well-maintained and well-stocked, as good on the inside as on the outside, complete with provisions that looked as if they must have been placed there as soon as the weather turned cold enough that insects would not be a problem and the cold would help keep them sound. Dallen was delirious to find there was a small barrel of apples, as well as oats, sweetfeed, and this year’s hay—and a couple of extra blankets. Inside, there was the barrel of apples, a couple of bags of fresh root vegetables that would hold all winter, a smaller barrel of pickles, a string of onions. In a sealed chest was a crock of pickled cabbage, bacon, cheese nicely sealed in wax, smoked meat, smoked fish, dried summer vegetables and dried fruit. They didn’t even need the tree-hares that Mags had shot on the way in, by way of precaution, in case this Waystation proved to be as poorly provisioned as the first. They used them, of course, but in a tasty hare pie, rather than the grilled hare spitted over the fire that Jakyr had planned on making.
    When they arrived at the town the next day, children ran out to welcome them at the sound of their bridle bells. As soon as they stopped in the village square, the Mayor was there with a list of all of the things he needed their help on. He took them to the village hall, which doubled as the Guild Hall. There was a stableman each for Dallen and Jermayan to take them to stabling at the biggest inn.
    They’d barely settled the Companions and returned to the village hall, and already there was a line to get in to hear the reading of the laws and the news. The hall was packed. Everyone listened in attentive silence.
    People smiled to see them. Young girls flocked to the stable to pet and spoil the Companions. The contrast with the last two towns could not have been greater.
    It took all day to read the laws and the news, because only so many people could fit in at any one time, and the Mayor was anxious that everyone over the age of twelve got to hear. He confided in Mags that this was considered something of an important date in a child’s life, the day that he or she was first taken