Professor Ochiba gave me a small smile. “Possibly,” she said, and let me go.
So Lan and William and I kept getting together whenever we could. We didn’t have a lot of time, to begin with. For the first few weeks of winter, all the scientists and magicians and survey people worked on organizing and tidying up all the notes we’d made since September, and all three of us were very busy. It was a slow process, because we didn’t want to waste paper — we had a long way yet to go, and we couldn’t get more if we ran out. The soldiers mended their personal gear and checked over the harnesses and saddles and wagon wheels to see if anything needed fixing or replacing.
After the first month, most of the urgent work was finished, and Mr. Corvales set up a sort of school for anyone who was interested in trading knowledge. It started off with Dr. Visser showing off his plant samples and then teaching everyone the basic spells he used to figure out whether or not people and animals could eat them. It was a lot more complicated than I’d thought. Some of the plants were fine for bison and mammoths, but they’d poison a person or a horse or a saber cat; others were only safe to eat once they’d been boiled. Then other people offered to teach whatever they were good at, from whittling to specialized cooking spells, and Lan and William and I finally had time to meet up more than once a week.
The other thing that happened once the work slowed was that a lot of the soldiers and survey men started hanging around the end of the longhouse where all of us women slept. The first time one of them tried to flirt with me, I was so surprised that I dropped the cup of coffee I was holding. Luckily, Sergeant Amy was standing right there; she laughed at him and sent him about his business. Then she took me aside and taught me a few things to say if I wanted them to leave, and a couple more things to do in case somebody wouldn’t take no for an answer. It was a lot more useful than Rennie’s nonsense about “taking care.”
I didn’t need any extreme measures, because all of the men on the expedition were pretty cheerful about leaving when we asked them to. Cheerful, but persistent; they left, but they kept coming back. Elizabet and Bronwyn took to going everywhere together, and Mrs. Wilson threatened to smack some of the men with the cooking ladle, as if they were two-year-olds.
The only one who wasn’t bothered at all was Professor Torgeson, and that was because the first time somebody tried to flirt with her, she ripped strips off him, up one side and down the other, right in front of the whole camp. Everybody looked a bit stunned, even Dr. Lefevre, who usually wasn’t impressed by much of anything, and after that all the men were very careful not to even look like they were thinking about taking any liberties.
Round about the last week in December, Lan came around and asked me a little awkwardly if the men were giving me any trouble. It took me a few minutes to figure out what he was on about, and then I could only shake my head.
“It took you this long to notice that the boys have been getting restless?” I asked him. Sergeant Amy called the soldiers “the boys,” and I’d picked up the habit from her.
“What? You mean they really have been … been making improper advances?” Lan sounded horrified, as much by having to say something like that to his sister as by the idea itself.
“It’s only a bit of flirting,” I told him. “And it started months ago, really. It’s just been getting more noticeable since there’s less to do.”
“Who?” Lan growled. “I’ll talk to them.”
“Lan Rothmer! You will do no such thing.” I wasn’t about to tell him that I was sort of enjoying all the attention, even though I knew that it was only coming my way on account of there only being seven women anywhere within a hundred miles and more. “It’s harmless, and if it ever looks like being more than I can handle, I have Professor Torgeson and Sergeant Amy and Mrs. Wilson and Professor Ochiba to help. And Elizabet and Bronwyn.”
“But I’m your brother. I’m supposed to take care of you.”
“You do. And if I need you, I’ll come ask. But please don’t start anything unless I do. You know it won’t end well.”
“All right, if you say so.” Lan actually sounded happy to have been talked out of taking any action, and I breathed a quiet sigh of relief. It had been a good long time since Lan lost his temper, and I wanted to keep it that way.
I didn’t think anything more of that conversation with Lan until two weeks later, when William came around. At first I was cross because I thought he was worrying about all the flirting, same as Lan, but then I realized that it was his own behavior he was fretting over. I was a considerable way past startled, and I said so. “And we’ve been friends for upwards of fifteen years!” I finished. “Whyever would you start thinking you were … taking liberties now?”
“I didn’t, really,” William said. “I just thought you might think so. We’ve spent a lot of time together, what with working on the spell tweaking and all.”
“Yes, and if there was any need for a chaperone, which there wasn’t, Lan’s been there nearly every minute.” I frowned. “Lan put you up to this, didn’t he?”
William hesitated. “No.” He started to add something, then closed his mouth.
I narrowed my eyes at him. “If it wasn’t Lan, who was it?”
“Roger Boden,” William said after a long minute. “He works with Lan in the survey section, and if he —”
“Roger!” I broke in. “Well, I like that! He hasn’t said two words to me since the expedition started, but he thinks he can …” I was so mad I couldn’t even keep talking.
William gave me a considering look. “You mentioned him in your letters a couple of times.”
“I didn’t mention him having any right or reason to be minding my business instead of his own, did I?” I took a deep breath. Then I took another. “I’m going to have to talk to Mr. Boden. Right away, I think. Where is he?”
“He went out with the hunters; everyone’s getting tired of dried meat, and the sentry saw a herd of wallers off to the north this morning, close enough to be no trouble to —”
“All right.” I knew William didn’t deserve to be cut off like that, but I needed to take out my temper somehow. “I’ll catch him as soon as he gets back. Don’t you warn him.”
For the first time since he’d started talking, William smiled just a little. “I wouldn’t dream of it.”
“And don’t you worry about that other, either. If you do anything that bothers me, I’ll tell you — but I won’t have to. You won’t do anything I don’t like.”
“I certainly hope not,” William said, and there was a funny note in his voice that I’d never heard before. I was too busy thinking about Roger to pay attention to it right then, but it lodged in my brain for later.
“We’re still going to practice tweaking after supper tonight,” I told him. “You and me and Lan. Whether I’ve talked to Roger or not.”
“Yes, ma’am!” This time William gave me a flat-out grin. I smiled back, pleased to have that settled, at least on his side. Now all I had to do was settle with Roger.
The hunting party was late getting back, but they’d brought a fresh-killed waller and a couple of sparklers, so nobody minded. Mrs. Wilson started a big kettle going to slow-stew most of the waller overnight and through the next day, and the mouthwatering smells filled up the longhouse in no time.
It took me until after breakfast the next morning to corner Roger. By then, my mad had gone down to just simmering, so I didn’t begin by laying into him good and proper, though part of me wanted to try out some of the things I’d learned from watching Professor Torgeson and Sergeant Amy taking people down a peg or six. I just told him we had to talk.
Roger looked surprised, but he found a spot along one wall of the longhouse that was a little out of the way, and we settled down. “What is it?” he asked.
“Why did you tell William that he was spending too much time with me?”
“He told you?” Roger looked appalled.
“William has been my best friend since we were fiv
e years old — I know when he’s not telling me something,” I said. “And I know how to get it out of him, so I did. Answer the question.”
Roger shifted uncomfortably. “Because he does. Spend too much time with you. Every few days, you go off together —”
“With Lan,” I pointed out. “Who is my brother. In order to work at Aphrikan magic.”
“If it’s a real project, why isn’t Professor Ochiba with you?” Roger said. “It looks bad.”
I studied him for a minute. “Oh, for goodness’ sake! You’re jealous!”
“Of course I’m jealous!” Roger snapped back. “I wanted — I still want to marry you.” He grabbed my hands. “We could — we don’t have to wait until we get back, you know. Captain Velasquez could perform the ceremony.”
“Roger.” I tugged at my hands; after a minute, he let them go. “You’ve been avoiding me for months, ever since the expedition left.”
Roger swallowed hard. “I thought if I kept away, you’d miss me and change your mind, or I’d change mine, or — I don’t know. I can’t stop thinking about you.”
“But thinking is all you’ve done, for months.” I shook my head. “How can you say you want to marry me?”
“I don’t know, but I do.”
“I believe you like the idea of me and of being married more than you like the actual me.”
“No! I told you, I think about you all the time. I can’t give up hope.”
I sighed. “I’d be happy to be your friend, Roger, but I won’t help you pin your hopes to something that isn’t going to happen. Maybe I wasn’t plain enough before, but I won’t marry you, not now and not when we get back to Mill City, and I’d purely appreciate it if you’d find something else to daydream about.”
“I can’t change how I feel.”
“You don’t have to change how you feel in order to pay me the compliment of believing that I mean what I say,” I told him. I knew that I wouldn’t be changing my mind. I’d thought of him a time or two since the expedition started, mostly to notice that he was avoiding me, but I hadn’t really missed his conversation or his company, and that was surely no good base for marrying a man.
Roger looked stubborn, but then his face fell and he nodded. I waited a minute more, but he just sat there looking dejected, so finally I stood up. “I meant what I said about being friends, too,” I told him. “But I understand if you don’t want to try that. Just think about it some.”
He nodded again, once, and I left. I was feeling shaky inside, so I slipped behind the curtain that separated off the women’s end from the rest of the longhouse, where there wouldn’t be so many eyes on me.
I sat in the back for what seemed forever, trying to think and not getting any further than a wagonload of iron rails sunk axle-deep in a mud hole. About an hour later, Sergeant Amy poked her head around the curtain. “Eff! Just the one I want to see. Come out to the storehouse with me?”
It was a bitter day, so cold that the sky itself couldn’t hold clouds. The sunlight was pale and frozen, but still enough to make me squint after the dimness of the longhouse. The sentries huddled on the platforms, with bison hides from the animals we’d killed wrapped overtop the layers of coats and sweaters. Even from the ground, I could see the ice that had condensed on their mufflers and eyebrows. I was glad I didn’t have to be outside for more than a few minutes at a time.
The storehouse was a lot darker than the longhouse; we’d only left two small openings to let in light when we’d built it. It was colder, too, though nowhere near as bad as outside. Wash told me that making the buildings half underground the way we had kept them warmer than above ground, because the cold didn’t get down so far and the snow piled up over the top and kept the heat in. We’d have to worry some about water when the snow started melting, but that wouldn’t be until mid-March, at the earliest.
Sergeant Amy didn’t light the lantern beside the door; she just plunked down on one of the flour barrels and waved me to the other one. “Best place in the compound for a chat, if you don’t want to be overheard,” she said when I looked at her.
I felt myself flushing. “You heard already.”
“About that little talk you and Roger had?” She nodded. “Next time you want a private talk, bring him here. Or the barn — the horses won’t repeat anything, and there are enough of them to keep it a little warmer just from their body heat.”
“If I’d thought I needed to be private, I would have.” I felt cross that everyone was talking already, even though I’d expected it, and even crosser because I couldn’t really lay the blame on anyone. “I thought I was just going to yell at him for being as interfering as my sisters, and it wouldn’t have been so bad for that to get around.”
Sergeant Amy laughed. “It might have put the others off making the same mistake, I suppose. That is, if anyone was likely to make it after you set your brother straight.”
“Everybody knows about that, too?”
“Of course they do. And there’s only one or two of the boys that would even think of romancing a lady who’ll talk back to a double-seventh son, and those two would think at least twice, and maybe more, believe me.”
“Lan’s my brother. I’ve been giving him what for whenever he needs it for all my life.”
“Yes, well, that just makes it worse, doesn’t it?” Her smile faded and she got a serious look. “The important thing is, what do you want to do now? About Mr. Boden.”
“You mean that part didn’t get out?” I said.
“If you mean the bit where you told him you weren’t having the captain do the marriage anytime soon, yes, that was clear enough,” Sergeant Amy replied. “What you meant by it — that’s another matter.”
“I meant what I said,” I snapped. “Roger is nice enough, but —” I lifted my hands helplessly. I hadn’t ever been able to convince my sisters that I wasn’t inclined to marry Roger. I didn’t see how I’d have better luck with somebody who’d known me for less than a year.
“Then you wouldn’t mind if I had a go at him?” Sergeant Amy’s tone was casual, but her gray eyes were fixed on mine, and they narrowed just a little at the corners as she spoke.
“You —” I shook my head. “I don’t have any say in what Roger does!”
“Of course not,” Sergeant Amy said, but she was still watching me with that concentrated expression. “But you’re close enough to be on a first-name basis, and from what I heard, this isn’t the first time he’s expressed an interest. You might be waiting until the expedition is over.”
“No.” I sighed. “But if you think so, I bet that’s what he thinks, too, drat it! You know, if you’re right about the way folks feel about Lan, maybe I should have him talk to Roger.” I didn’t think Roger would take it well, what with Lan being two years younger even if he was a double-seven, but I was starting to feel desperate.
“All right,” Sergeant Amy said abruptly. She sat back and smiled. “I’m glad. In my experience there’s nothing so likely to cause trouble as a woman playing games with two men who’re both hankering after her, and that’s back home where everyone can get away if they want to. We’re stuck out here for another year, at least, living in each other’s pockets. So I needed to know.”
“Two men?” I said incredulously.
Her eyes narrowed again. “You really haven’t noticed?”
“Erm. No. I — Who is it?”
“William Graham.”
“Oh, William.” I smiled in relief. “We’ve been friends since we were childings, that’s all. He’s not courting me.”
“No? From the way he watches you, I think he’d like to. I suppose I could be wrong.” She paused to give me a sharp look, but I just stared at her, feeling as if I’d gone swimming in a shallow creek and had the bottom drop out from under me all of a sudden. William was sweet on me? I had a hard time wrapping my mind around the notion, but I couldn’t truthfully say I objected to it. Certainly not the way I objected to the way Roger kept coming after me. In f
act, it made me feel warm and happy — assuming Sergeant Amy was right.
After a full minute of me not saying anything at all, Sergeant Amy shrugged. “All right; Annie and I” — she meant Mrs. Wilson — “will make sure word gets around that you were serious about not marrying Roger. And discourage further speculation.”
“Thank you,” I said fervently.
Sergeant Amy grinned suddenly. “And I think I’ll see if I can’t give Mr. Boden’s thoughts another direction. I’d been holding off because I thought there was something between the two of you, but since you’re really not interested —”
“I’m not,” I said. “But I don’t know how much luck you’ll have. He’s real stubborn.”
“Best kind. And they do say that the finest cure for a broken heart is a new interest.” She winked at me.
I hesitated. “He and Elizabet have been working together a lot, because of the level of magic along the river, and I did think that maybe —”
“Oh, Elizabet isn’t interested in Roger. Trust me on that.” Sergeant Amy stood up and smiled cheerfully. “Now, unless you have something to add, I think we’re settled. Give me a hand getting the ducks down — Annie wants six of them to bone for dinner — and then you can bring the onions and black rice.”
I followed her instructions in something of a daze, and we went back to the longhouse. I felt unsettled, and I begged off the session with Lan and William that we’d planned for after dinner. I wasn’t sure I could face either of them after that talk with Sergeant Amy, especially William.
Lan came around anyway, because he’d heard the gossip and wanted to know more than Roger would tell him. I dragged him out to the storehouse and told him that Roger had proposed even before I’d been asked to come with the expedition, that I’d turned Roger down, and that Roger was as stubborn about thinking he could change my mind as Lan had ever been.
“He doesn’t know you as well as he thinks he does, then,” Lan said, laughing. “When was the last time I actually got you to change your mind?”