Laurie Marks Elemental Logic 01 Fire Logic

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represented as pictures: in the case of this tavern a wheel and a hoe.
The tavern was empty. Willis shouted for ale.
�So what is this place named?� Emil asked Zanja, as they sat at a battered
table.
�Progress Through Hard Work,� she hazarded. �It seems rather an odd name for
a
tavern.�
It was an elementary reading compared to what Emil could do, but he nodded
approvingly. �There�s a humor in it�most people would miss the joke entirely
these days, and simply call this place the Wheel and Hoe.� A big,
light-footed
woman entered from the arched doorway that led to a steep stone staircase.
Down
its length echoed the wail of a baby.
�So sorry,� she said. �I didn�t know my husband had gone out.�
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She served them heavy mugs of ale and went into the kitchen to warm up some
pies
for them.
�Husband,� snorted Willis. When Zanja glanced at him curiously, he added,
�City
folk use it to mean something completely different from what it truly means,
and
then they call us backwards. These are the same people who let their kin live
on
the streets, like those beggars out there, rather than keeping them decently
clothed and fed.�
�Those beggars are smoke sick,� Zanja said.
�All the more reason why they need their families,� Willis snapped.
�So what would you call this woman�s man?�
�Not her husband,� Willis said obstinately. �Where is the household? Where
are
the other parents for the child? It�s just the two of them. That�s no family.�
Zanja took a swallow of the bitter ale she�d never developed a taste for, and
ate the greasy pork pie the alewife set in front of her. The woman�s husband
returned, and they had a brief, bitter argument behind the closed door of the
kitchen. When Willis�s brothers arrived, the ale husband came out smiling and
rubbing his hands, and wouldn�t leave them alone until Emil threatened to go
to
another ale house.
Willis�s brothers smelled distinctly of the stable. They were identical twins
who dressed alike and ate alike and finished each other�s sentences. When
both
of them turned their attention upon Zanja, she realized that they probably
made
love together as well, and she had to struggle to keep from revealing how
repellent she found the prospect.
There was a certain affliction that every member of Willis�s family seemed to
share, a single-mindedness that sorely tried her patience. �Tell me about
this
new commander,� Emil said. �You have at least seen her, haven�t you?�
�She�s young,� said one.
�And handsome,� said the other.
�How young? Is she one of this new breed, Shaftali-born?�
�She�s older than fifteen!�
Emil rather wearily reminded the brother that, though it had been fifteen
years
since the Fall of the House of Lilterwess, the Samnites had been a presence
in
Shaftal for a good fifteen years before that.
�I suppose she could be thirty,� said a brother. �Maybe a bit older.�
�What does it matter?� asked the other.
�The young ones sometimes speak our language, and they understand us much
better
than their fathers did. I think they are the more dangerous enemies because
they
don�t make as many stupid mistakes.�
The brothers looked at him blankly. �Sainnites are Sainnites.�
�Exactly,� said Willis impatiently.
Emil looked as if the three of them together were enough to give him a
headache.
The brothers told him that the soldiers reassigned from Rees had arrived all
at
once, before the thaw. There were too many of them for the brothers to notice
any one in particular. They complained at length about the great quantities
of
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baggage the two of them had carried that day. In particular, they remembered
some large, remarkably heavy trunks that the two of them had been unfortunate
enough to have to move into one soldier�s quarters. �Trunks full of rocks,�
they
said bitterly. �A lot of rocks.�
�Weapons,� suggested Willis.
�Oh, sure, it could have been ax heads or something made of iron, though what
one soldier wanted with so many of them I don�t know.�
�It was books,� said Zanja.
Willis and his brothers burst into raucous laughter. �Books! Even we don�t
have
books anymore, and at least we know how to read!�
But Emil said somberly, �Books? What kind of Sainnite would have such a
collection of books?
�Perhaps a Sainnite young enough to be fluent in both languages, so he can
read
Shaftali books.�
�And educated at least a little�though how that might happen I don�t know.
Some
of them must be able to read, but not in Shaftalese.�
�And he�s influential enough that his commander allows him to fill a wagon,
when
most soldiers have only one small trunk, and whatever they can carry on their
backs.�
Emil turned to the brothers. �Find a man like that,� he said. �A young
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