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the confines of the peaked roof. They edged carefully around a last beam, and
saw slots of light from the eaves. Birds of Accord fed and nurtured impossibly
small, vocal hatchlings.
Silverquill shook his head, dumfounded.  This is unprecedented! The Birds may
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breed only in the branches of the Lifetree, and it was uprooted and destroyed
an age ago, when the Great Blow fell.
 Demonstrably untrue. Ferrian grinned wryly.
 Even so. But that is no explanation. They drew back, so as not to disturb
that amazing scene.
Ferrian was snapping his fingers distractedly.  The Birds roosted here when
their Lifetree was destroyed, and in all these years never bred. But now they
have; it remains to discern why. How long is it betwixt their mating and the
laying of eggs, and from that unto the hatching?
 Who may say? Yet, let us venture that those are much as with other birds.
What is your thought?
 I bethink me of only one incident here in any reasonable span of time, and
that is when Bey came, and we after him.
The Senior Sage stroked his trim beard.  Aye, yet what can that mean? Surely
the small glamour he used on Gil MacDonald cannot be the influence that has
affected the Birds. Nor can it be attributed to the Guardian, with its fiery
destruction, nor to Andre deCourteney s Dismissal; they are of no nature to
cause the Birds of Accord to beget.
 Perhaps the terror of the day? Many of them perished from that.
 All the less reason to think it made them bring forth young.
The Horseblooded s lips pursed.  What else then? I was wounded, and did not
participate in what came after.
Silverquill studied the weathered rafters, rubbing his thumb across his Adam s
apple.  The others came the next morning, the Trustee and her troops and Lord
Angorman. They all met together in the rose garden and conferred. Thereafter,
they parted ways.
 Hmm, that seems of no relevance either. Perhaps we are not 
 Hold! The savant s face lit excitedly.  There was another thing of it. All
those combatants were under arms, and I bade them put those aside; Ladentree
had seen enough of weapons. When Lord Angorman hesitated, the Trustee put him
at ease, laying her Crook of office with Red Pilgrim, against a trellis. I
remember seeing the Birds of Accord flitting round and round, alighting and
hopping about, even on the Crook itself.
Ferrian s brow knit.  You are theorizing that the Trustee s staff is hafted of
wood of the Lifetree? She never gave hint of that.
 True. Well, but, at least we have a glimmer of what drew the sorcerer here.
The Lifetree is connected with it; armed with that fact, we may plunge into
the assembled knowledge of Ladentree, and seek the rest.
The tall Horseblooded concurred eagerly. The Trailingsword had set many things
in motion, he saw.  Two men are often too many to keep a secret from Salamá;
more is too great a risk, for Bey may yet have ears here. This hunt across
paper and parchment falls to you and me, dear mentor.
Chapter Nineteen
For all, that here on earth we dreadful hold, be but bugs to fearen babes
withal, compared to the creatures in the sea s enthrall . . .
Edmund Spenser,  Faerie Queene
Committed to one more trial of war, the Mariners amazed Gil with their
unanimity.
Roping needles darted unceasingly, turning out hills of extra sail. Fish and
meat were salted, fruit and vegetables barreled or dried, medicines prepared
and leagues of line and hawser run from the ropewalks of the Outer Hub.
Shipwrights, pressed for impossible labors, delivered.
Forges clanged and glowed by day and night. From them poured new cutlasses,
arrow- and spearheads, shields, grappling hooks, axes and boarding pikes, and
armor and helmets hastily done up from metal lozenges on leather. Aboard the
ships that mounted them, fighting engines were refurbished. The Mariners
prepared their volatile fluid in giant vats for defense of the harbor. The
stuff s base appeared to be naptha, but the seafarers had their own combinant
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secrets.
Many crafts were racheted up the ways, or hove down in bustling shipyards for
swarming repair crews and caulkers. Cargo ships took Mariner treasure, to
procure supplies wherever they could. More came in each day with stores for
the fleet, and against blockade. Fresh water was rationed, to build a reserve
for the Hub and fill ships casks.
Gil stayed out of people s way, impatient to leave but fascinated by life
among the seafarers and the incessant buzz of their preparations. But Bey was
somewhere across the water, scheming, contriving, and that seldom left the
American s mind, even when he was wondering how Dunstan was or, as happened
with surprising frequency, when he thought of Swan.
Even Wavewatcher and Skewerskean were busy; the Prince of the Waves filled
their time with tasks, saying it was high time two such capable Mariners
shouldered more responsibility.
Less than two weeks after the advent of the Trailingsword, the Children of the
Wind-Roads sailed out again. It took hours just to maneuver into formation,
with Osprey in the lead and the larger vessels around her. Tubby cargo bottoms
were at the center, with lean brigs and barkentines flanking.
Gil, aboard Osprey, was billeted with his friends in the same little storeroom
they d used on the way but Landlorn had yielded, for now, to the partners [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]