5.9

They departed shortly after breakfast. And much to Jewel’s consternation apparently only the four of them that were staying inside the strange temple-esque manor house had actually been woken up well before sunrise!

And it had been well before sunrise, they had been eating breakfast before dawn!

And The food was just as delicious as supper had been. But there was something awful about being cheated out of good solid hours of nighttime, even if they were edging out of the unpleasantly short summer nights and into the deeper and longer evenings of threshing turn.

In the proper dawn light, though, everything seemed even stranger in the narrow valley.

What trees were visible from the road through the village were still vibrantly green! And some were even still springing with summer blooms!

Among the meadows the shoots were hearty, smelling richly wet and healthy, dappled in morning dew.

The vibrancy of them speckled here and there and ringed the highest points along the sides of the grassy hillsides in blooms, all other land left to pasture meadow, still standing stalks of grain harvests or even a few fields of yet ripening wheat!

The hills set to pasture were alight in speckles of yellow, violet and delicate pink. Filling the air with a sweet scent almost like the spring of a new year instead of the last flowering at the end. Entire humming flocks of bees wove and danced through the air in the considerably warmer morning then Jewel had been expecting.

Counter to her initial guess, the day was clear, not utterly so, but with bright puffy clouds that hinted at gentle showers to come in mid day. The leaves seemed open in welcoming expectation of rainy summer instead of the golden or amber shade of autumn that had surrounded them from Rochford to here.

Tsugotholan was walking among the party as well.

Which was its own kind of unusual and demanded some discussion.

“What brings you among our party to walk, Sorcerer?”

Jewel shifted her shoulders a little. Smithson had done a good job but after two days walking already some of her pack was getting a little uneven from the weight lifted by her meals.

She would have to ask him to rearrange things at their noon break.

The Bog Wizard rolled their monocular gaze from one side of the valley to the other in a smooth twisting of the neck as they ‘walked’ beside them.

“What do you see in this valley, Lady?”

Not an answer to her question but apparently Tsugotholan was wanting to play wizard games today.

So Jewel replied in the manner she had found the least embarrassment in the past.

“I don’t know if I understand what I am seeing, Sorcerer.”

That brought in one of those bird neck swooping kind of nods that usually snuck out when Tsugotholan was particularly muddy or wet or agitated.

“A fair answer, but what does it look like you see?”

“Well it looks like I see a year being held at least a season past its time?”

Which got a solemn nod from the wizard sliding along the road beside the Dragon, the top of that wide brimmed pointy hat barely reaching midway up Jewel’s neck.

A trail of slick fading fast behind the wizard in the warmth of the morning light.

“Just as you see, just as it is. These god botherers have made a deal with their Silver Lady. for longer summers and softer winters. At a cost and condition of course. That’s how they always work.”

Jewel tilted her head a bit.

“They who?”

Tsugotholan chortled like frog calls.

“Have you not gotten to that in your books yet Lady Jewel? Or perhaps you missed it among all the nattering in that temple in your village?”

Jewel blinked almost as solidly and wetly as Tsugotholan did. Which got the Wizard to nod and chortle again.

“Gods, Lady Jewel. The brown robed hedge-magisters here have made a deal with a god for better weather.”

There was a gesture all around the far too vibrantly green valley and then a sudden stillness to their head. Then without turning their gaze a raised finger to point up at one of the peaks. Drawing Jewel’s eye to consider, it was quite high up on the mountain, taller than Jewel ever cared to fly even!

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

But some kind of structure of cut stone was visible up there on a peak amongst the snow and ice.

The wizards' round vowels and incredibly common drawl continued.

“And from the look of it, this is one from further into the sky then I’m comfortable sliding by the usual way. Can be touchy things about trespassing on their property gods. I’ll walk the obvious way out in the open precisely where they expect me to be until we are clear of their workings.”

Which was a thing that brought confusion and quite a bit of concern from Jewel.

She’d never seen any Wizard particularly wary of anything.

But then again, she’d never seen any of the Wizards attending Temple before either.

Or even going near it.

Wait...

“If this Manor was a Temple, and you're so concerned about gods, why did you go into it?”

Which prompted the bog wizard to twist their head around to fix her with an incredulous stare of their one eye.

“Why? Because I was invited and it would have been worse to refuse, of course. Just as why I announced myself to your father when we were guests. Gods are hardly much different than lords in that respect. The easiest way to avoid them being suspicious is to be precisely where they expect you to be.”

A hand wrapped in black gauzy cloth gestured to the path before them.

”Hence I walk with you where people are expected to walk.”

And Jewel supposed that did make some amount of sense, After all if a Wizard or Knight simply walked through Father’s Demesne without stopping by to say hello? Well that would be a concern and probably have required he go and find out himself directly and likely greatly annoy everyone involved even worse then the impromptu feast had.

After that they continued along through the village in companionable silence, picking up the rest of their party as they made their way from various houses and their own (comparably late) breakfasts.

But halfway through the road, just as the last stragglers were getting themselves up into the saddle, Tsugotholan started talking again.

“If I had more time or expected to deal more consistently with this Silver Lady of theirs I would study their doctrine and what books and arrangements they had made, consulted the village elders and other god botherers in the neighboring hills and gotten a proper idea of precisely what mannerisms and preferences this Silver Lady might have.”

Jewel nodded, yes that did sound like the right thing to do for a Lady of standing. In fact if Jewel was visiting the Wizard in Uloghai Bog she would certainly want to learn the proper way to address them.

Come to think of it...

“Tsugotholan? Are you a god?”

Which caught Father’s pledged Sorcerer in some amount of surprise considering they proceeded to jerk and expel silty water from their eye in shock.

“W-what?! Lady Jewel, NO! Absolutely not I am assuredly not some sky borne god! What are you reading in all of those books if you don’t even know that?”

Jewel recoiled a bit at that and a few of the closer footmen were peering curiously over at them. Even some of the peasants they passed along the street heading to their labors gave Jewel and Tsugotholan a considering eye.

“Well, most of the books in Father’s study have to do with the histories, proper weighing of coins for tithes and the care and stewardship of peasantry, livestock and other affairs of one's demesne.”

The wizard blinked in intense incredulity at her. And Jewel was reminded that while she liked to think others (including herself) could imitate the Bog Weird’s blinks it was always a far distant thing from the wet dribbble pop of the genuine article.

“Farming and livestock?! The learned House Rochford, most esteemed supplier of Vellum for the entirety of the County of Viznove. The family who has traded the treatises of every scribe and noble learned in word for craft in kind over generations?! The Scholar Baron Lord Rochford mostly keeps books on farming and livestock in their study?!”

Jewel glared at the wizard, they were usually far more polite than this. She decided this called for some of the way that Mother spoke when affronted but was still being polite. Or Jewel’s best attempt at it.

“Well, of course! What matters would be more important to him and his children’s learning than the proper care of the Rochford domain?”

Which brought a far less comfortable silence to the journey as they made their way along the fields and then finally crossed a prominent threshold.

Before them on the path were returned the bright golden yellow and orange leaves of the last harvest seasons, heralding the imminent coming of Swine Turn. The first season of autumn.

Behind them the green vibrancy of a far too late summer.

And with its passing was a colder breeze which set everyone (but Jewel) caught in its sudden gust to tighten up and shake themselves over.

Tsugotholan spoke again then. Gentler and far closer to their usual polite yet rounded drawl.

“As part of my service to your Father, it would appear that there is a need to give my Lady lessons in the wider world and to broaden her grasp of things vital to her station. I will confirm this with your Father and arrange which days will be taken with me or Muriel’s lessons on our return.”

And then with that, the Wizard was gone, sunk into a muddy squelch of muck from one stride to the next. Nothing but some green speckles of duckweed and an incredulous swamp thing that Jewel could not decide more resembled a fish or a frog.