That evening Calima and her apprentice moved Fia’s things into an upstairs room, which would be warmer for the coldest part of the winter. Fia’s old room had been several doors away from the kitchen, and the only source of heat, whereas her new room was directly above it and had the large stone face of the chimney rising along one wall. The radiant heat would keep the bedroom nicely comfortable no matter the temperatures outside.

This room’s main window looked out over the barns and beyond, to the open slope that stretched to the patch of oaks, still a dull russet hue with their tenacious leaves. Calima said they would soon be falling, but for now they were among the last leaves in the forest.

Fia’s new bed was carved even more intricately than the former one, this time with scenes on the headboard and running on both sides of the footboard. The artistry of the work amazed her.

“Who carved this?” she asked, as she ran her fingers over the wood.

“Oh, that was my grandfather and my great uncle. They carved it together as a wedding present for their eldest brother and his bride. But he never used it.” She sat down on a chair with her armful of Fia’s under-dresses, and got that storytelling look in her eyes. Her apprentice grinned and tucked her feet up under her on the bed.

“Two days before the wedding he went into the woods and didn’t return. They searched high and low for him and when they found him he was already dead. He had somehow slipped on the path above a cliff face, and broken his leg. Being badly injured he had been unable to make it home and he had died of exposure.”

“How awful!” Fia gasped. “The poor bride, what happened to her?”

“She had come from a great distance and the family didn’t feel it was safe for her to travel through the mountains while the worst of winter raged, so she couldn’t return to her home until the spring. And by the time spring came she had found another reason to stay. My grandfather married her.”

“She’s your grandmother!”

The teacher smiled. “Indeed. Both lads had loved her from the beginning, but Grandfather had never told anyone, and his brother was the one who did the courting and the asking. She liked Grandfather best, but thought that he didn’t care for her, and so she persuaded herself to love the other. Grandfather was determined to overcome his feelings, and was happy thinking that the two would be happy together. Even when she was left alone he almost didn’t speak. Then, only days before she was to have left he came upon her crying her heart out and couldn’t stand it. He broke down and let his secret out, and the instant after was certain she could only despise him for his conduct. But she looked at him with her teary eyes and whispered, ‘You loved me all along?’

“They had to send letters to her family to explain the new arrangement and when they had received their blessing back again, they were married. Grandfather carved her another bed, all their own. I sleep in it now. And this bed was put for guests.”

Calima rose and handed Fia the clothing. “Well, I think we’re done then.”

The girl took the dresses from her and set them neatly into the bedside chest. They filled the space perfectly, and she closed the lid on them. Then they both went downstairs for another evening by the fire.

Fia’s hand slipped for what seemed the fiftieth time that day, slicing the delicate interlacings of the rose tendrils beyond repair. The entire day had been completely wasted with her reoccurring mishaps; this wax circlet that had started out as a blank had been successively repaired within an inch of its life, and her latest blunder had been the final insult. It had now been about a month and a half since she had arrived and begun training, and no day had gone so consistently wrong as this one.

“Nothing goes right!” she exclaimed as she laid her instrument down and put her head in her hands. “I can’t do it!”

Calima looked up. “What is it?”

Fia’s eyes stayed lowered as she nudged the circlet towards her teacher, ashamed for her to see it.

“Hmm,” she observed. She tipped it to catch the light, though that was not needed to show up her student’s mistakes. The careful eye of the master jeweler instantly knew every patch and repair, even the slight lumpiness from reworking the entire third rose from the left that Fia had neatly sliced in two half an hour ago.

Fia looked up at her.

“I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” she said. “I try to concentrate and I do, but I’m always ruining whatever I work on. I get done fixing one thing and go on to another, and I make another mistake. I can’t seem to do anything right.” She pointed out a half-blown rose. “That bud there, I was so nearly finished with it I thought I would really get it right, and then the blade caught this petal and took it cleanly off.”

“You did a very good repair on that,” Calima commented. She indicated the latest slip. “And this can be fixed.”

“I’m afraid to do it,” Fia admitted. “The last few times I fixed it, I did it wrong and I had to do it again three or four times before it came out right.”

Calima leaned close and peered at her.

“Well, it’s plain as day what’s wrong with you,” she announced matter-of-factly.

Fia’s eyes followed her teacher’s hands as she confiscated all her workings from the table, and then proceeded to stash them away in the extensive shelves.

“What?” Fia asked at last, in a small anxious voice.

“You spend too much time here. Too much strain on your nerves. You need fresh air; get out and get some exercise. Clean your thoughts out and free up your mind.” She pocketed the last tool in its proper cubbyhole and turned on her apprentice. “Get up, then! Come along.”

Fia knew there was no arguing the question with her teacher. She cast a desperate glance around the workroom before following her into the hall.

“Learn too fast and you’ll not learn well.” Calima’s words seemed to keep time with her quick steps. “You can study for a month and walk away without a thing of it, if you try to shove it all in on top of one another. Gets all mixed up every which way, and you never will make heads or tails of it.” She sighed. “I should have seen it sooner. I allowed myself to get caught up in my own work and forgot about yours. One of the reasons I don’t usually take apprentices; it takes so much time. It’s easier to just do what I do.”

“I’m sorry,” Fia said, low-voiced. She was rather an imposition, she supposed. She could just imagine what it might be like to have one’s sovereign request you to take on as apprentice some young fool he’d like to be rid of. It hadn’t hit home in quite that way before. Everyone had gone to such effort to make her feel so welcome and at ease that the main fact of it hadn’t occurred to her.

“Nonsense!” the jeweler retorted. “I just need to take my head out of the clouds every once in a while. It’s bad for the overall health… too much forgetfulness.”

They paused when they reached the door to the back stairway; she put a hand against it and pushed it open.

“I am sorry.” Fia took that moment to clarify. “That you had to take me.”

Calima gave her one of her rare serious looks.

“Not at all,” she replied, and there was truth in her tone. “Your apprenticeship was well paid and there’s every reason in the world someone should be benefiting from what we Olayins know. Andro could be among the best as far as skill, but he hasn’t got the fire, or the heart, anymore.” She shoved the door aside and laughed. “And I am beginning to like you.”

Her smile twinkled in the dimmed light of the stairwell as she continued, “Besides, it’s good for me to have another young person around, reminds me that the whole world is not getting as old as I am.”

She turned and descended rapidly, and Fia had to hurry to catch up to her before she turned the corner.

They came in the back part of the storage room, next to the pantry, and Calima strode straight for the kitchen.

Arethmay was outside the window winterizing one of the herb beds that lined the foundations of Olayin House, so the only one in the kitchen was Larna, rolling out a batch of dough. She didn’t look up when they arrived, but Fia knew she was well aware of their presence.

“Fia is going to spend the rest of the day outside,” her teacher announced to the kitchen mistress, as if she were addressing a court.

Larna calmly looked up without interrupting her work. She tipped an eyebrow and gave a dull look to the greatest jeweler in eight kingdoms, and didn’t speak a word.

“Where is Ilido?” the lady of the house continued, putting her hands together, as if her cook had responded with hearty approval and unrestrained praise.

Larna shrugged one shoulder and said nothing.

“Well, when he comes in tell him he is not to continue doing whatever it is he is doing, but to take Fia out into the woods and see to it that she climbs several hills and gets her mind distracted from all that concentrating. It’s not good for her… not good for anyone.” She waved her hand, dismissing the thought. “I must speak to my son. Fia, go change into a woods-walking dress. Hurry now!” She shooed the girl away.

Fia could see that she was determined, and so despite her own reluctance she decided to go quickly and get it over with. As she left the kitchen she heard her teacher continue, “Is Andro in the barns?”

“Last I knew,” Larna replied.

“Then send her down when she is ready, I’m going now,” she heard Calima say, and she closed the door to her room. She’d be ready in a minute.

A few melting banks of snow sided the way to the barns, the main part of it packed down hard and now soggy in the false warmth of a winter thaw. It was a well-trampled path that led to the barns. Fia had not been over it many times since she had arrived, being so busy in the house. Once she was feeling particularly lonely and had slipped away when she seemed unnoticed, and gone to sit in the hay manger in one of the stalls while she absently petted its respective horse. The cob’s furry head had enjoyed the free attention, and altogether had cheered Fia up considerably.

Long and tall, built of undressed timbers in much the same style as the house, the stable was massive enough to house a small army of cobs, and never seemed to be more than a quarter filled with the Olayins barn animals.

She noticed something was different today, almost as soon as she walked through the front double doors. The furry backs of about thirty cobs accounted for a great many more stalls than usual, their heads out of sight in their mangers. She knew that Olayin House had a large-sized herd, but the majority usually spent their time in the open meadow and the sheltered groves along the mountainside.

Andro and Calima stood halfway down the barn’s length, talking swiftly, and she headed towards them. She jumped a little as Ilido straightened up from beside a cob nearly abreast of her. He nodded, with a business-like half-smile, and then rounded to his small charger’s opposite side, bending to examine its legs and feet.

She moved on, a little uncertainly.

The two in the aisle were talking about something to do with Othira, but she hadn’t time to catch enough to tell why, or what about, before they paused as she came up beside them.

“Yes, there’s sure to be.” Calima seemed to be repeating something that had been said a great deal before. Then she brightened. “Well, that will all sort out with time. How about Ilido?”

“Certainly I can spare him. The fitting is done for now, and all there is to do is care for the others. I’ll do that myself, and they can have the afternoon off.” He smiled at his helper, a slow, pleased light in his eye. Then he said quietly to his mother, as if confiding a secret they both hoped for, “He’s done well.”

There was more to that statement than met the ear, Fia could tell, but what lay behind it she could not begin to imagine. Obviously, Andro was proud of his stable boy, but she could hear that it had more to do with the things she could not see than the things she could.

Later Fia led the way to what was fast becoming her favorite place on the mountain, the swift-moving stream with its flat rocks humped up above the rippling water. She hopped from one to the next, while Ilido stood on the bank.

“What’s wrong?” Fia asked. Ilido had been looking pensive since they left the barn. “Something’s bothering you.”

He chewed his lip and nudged a half-buried stick with his toe, shrugging. “Oh, it’s just there hasn’t been any word from Father for some time.”

“He’s…” She hated to say it wrong. “He’s fighting, isn’t he?”

Ilido nodded. “He usually sends us word every so often, but it’s been time for a message for a while now and none have come. It makes me worry.”

She nodded sympathetically. That would be horrible to have your father so far away and in such peril every day, and never know if he hadn’t been killed three days ago.

She thought quickly for something with which to change the subject. She latched onto the stable’s swelled number of occupants.

“What’s happening, with all the horses brought in?”

His expression lightened; this was a subject he enjoyed.

“They’re going to go over soon.”

“Over?” she queried.

“The mountain,” he responded.

“Over the mountain?” She paused and stared at him.

“Yes, don’t you know?” He wrinkled his brow. “There’s a group going to be ready soon.”

“In Othira?” She felt a little foolish, but if it made up for her earlier stupid question she wouldn’t mind.

“No one told you?” he asked. A withdrawn, puzzled look descended over his refined features for a moment. “I don’t know why not.”

Her heart fell. Secrets again. First at court and now even in the mountains. It grated on her nerves. Why was she always left in the dark? But maybe Ilido would share his knowledge if she responded correctly.

“They’ve never mentioned it.” She shrugged nonchalantly and balanced on the next rock.

He looked across the stream to the ravine’s forested slope. His face showed a bit of indecision. He felt uneasy with the position he was now in, and Fia felt sure he wasn’t going to tell her. Irritation rose along the back of her neck. Yes, she could sympathize with his situation, but to be always un-trusted rankled deep in her being. She was a dedicated subject of the crown, her father and mother had instilled in all their children a loyalty no one could break, and yet she was always running across secrets no one wanted to share.

Ilido glanced down apologetically.

“Well,” he said, his tone contrite. “Since I’m only a guest, really, perhaps you could ask Calima when we get back?” he suggested hopefully. “I’d appreciate it.”

At his careful words the angry tears inside her slipped away. His sincere handling of the situation made it impossible for her to feel insulted; he had shown in every word and tone that he knew how she might be going to feel, and he was trying to prevent it. But it was a difficult pass for him, who was not a principle player, to speak.  At this she could not be angered anymore. Rather, his consideration made her feel suddenly warmed.

“Then I suppose I’ll do that,” she said. Then quickly, to change the subject again, “Where can you see the Mountain the best?”

“We’re in the mountains,” Ilido scoffed.

“No, Crystal Mountain. It’s the tallest there is. I think it is the head and shoulders of all the Gerardels.” She shot him a lofty look, inviting him to be proud of the mountain, too.

He just smiled slowly, a little bemusedly. “You can see it fullest from Berni Outlook, but that’s a fair distance. The closest is from the hump two ridges over.”

“Well,” she lifted her head and drew in the crisp air, “Calima said I was supposed to climb some hills.”

“Come on, then!” He jumped from the bank to the second rock in one leap, as Fia hurriedly skipped onto the opposite bank to clear the path for him. “Let’s go!”

And they pelted up the partially damp slope among the massive pines, the ancient carpet of the forest giving off the heady scent of the mountains.

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