“We … we can … but it’s different …”

Others were rising now; some hurrying off in the direction of the cooking pit, others to their houses.

“I cannot stay much longer,” Dorrin said. “A royal courier arrived just as I was leaving; I must find out what the prince wants. I would share food with you before I go, if that suits you.”

“Oh, my lord Duke—” He was crying now. Another man came and took the bundle of bones from him; a third helped him up.

“’Tis good water,” one of the women said. She had dipped a waterskin into it without Dorrin noticing, and now took a swallow.

“Efla!”

“Well, it is. If the Duke brings water, shouldn’t we use it?”

“You should ask,” Sennet said, with a glance at Dorrin. “It’s the Duke’s water.”

“It’s the land’s water,” Dorrin said. “And it is returned to you by the gods’ grace; all I did was what they told me, to free it from a curse. But Sennet is right: as it is, with the wall broken, it is not safe. You should build the coping wall again, before a child falls in and drowns. It should not take long, I think?” She looked at Sennet.

“It will be done at once,” he said. “Aren—Tamis—” Men nodded and moved to stones Dorrin had piled. “And yes, my lord, we will share food with you. The men can set stones loose for now and mortar them tomorrow, will that do?”

“Quite well,” Dorrin said.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

The sun was almost down when she rode away, her own shirt—washed hastily in water from the well and spread to dry—on her back once more, her trousers almost dry, her boots still squelching a bit with every step. She had tasted everything; she had been hugged by grimy, bright-eyed children, thanked again and again by every adult. Her escort said nothing until they were well away from the village.

“What happened down that well?” Black Sef asked.

“Much that I don’t understand,” Dorrin said. An evening breeze wafted across the way and chilled her legs in the damp trousers.

“Did you know you could do all that?”

“No,” Dorrin said. “I just knew I had to do something.”

“I didn’t know magelords could move rocks.”

“It’s in the Chronicles,” Mattis said. Dorrin remembered he was Girdish. “Some battle, a magelord took the water from a river and made it come out a well and it drowned people.”

“That’s water, not rocks,” Black Sef said.

“Bucket of water’s as heavy as a rock,” Mattis said. “Lifting’s lifting.” He looked at Dorrin. “Captain—uh … my lord—if you could lift yourself and a rock up, why did we have to lower you down on the rope?”

“Would you step off a cliff if you had friends with a rope to lower you?” Dorrin asked, then legged her horse into a canter.

She came to the house just before dark. A strange horse grazed in the front field. Her belly clenched: trouble?—but the house was silent, light glowing from a few windows. Closer, she could see it was a red chestnut with a star and white stockings behind.