“Would you mind staying here for a little longer to help me clean and organize?” the Mender asked.

She didn’t sigh, but . . . those were servants’ duties, and she had been doing a lot of servants’ duties lately. Of course, that was because the servants had been doing a lot of other duties since they all got here. Well, even a young female servant was probably physically stronger than Delia was. And most of them had some acquaintance with the kind of work that needed to be done around the lake. And most of them wouldn’t complain about being asked to step outside of their old duties and pick up a shovel to dig latrine trenches, or a hand-scythe to gather grasses and weeds for the grazing animals, or help with mending or cooking. She couldn’t help but feeling a bit put-upon, but before the feeling had a chance to set in, something would happen, like she’d see Isla with the sleeves of her gown rolled up above her elbows, helping in their communal kitchen. And then she’d feel guilty for feeling put-upon.

Well, helping the Mender isn’t nearly as bad as trying to herd those three nephews of mine. Little Jon wasn’t bad, but Restil and his brother Hakkon could be like a pair of twin ferrets, into everything, and there one moment and gone the next. Freed from the duties of being pages, and because of their background, too young to really be put to any useful work, they were treating all this as the best holiday ever. She was very tired of being dragooned into “watching” them, because they treated her as a challenge to escape from, and when they disappeared, it was a given that within the mark she’d be summoned by someone who was very annoyed to “come get them out of their mischief.” They’d already tried to ride every beast short of a horse that was large enough to ride, and she shuddered to think what would have happened if the sow they’d tried to turn into their pony had had her piglets with her at the time. They poked their noses into the laundry and nearly got scalded for their trouble, they’d long since been banished from every communal kitchen for trying to filch food, and after the ram-riding incident none of the shepherds wanted them near the sheep and goats. The cowherds had threatened to drown them if they bothered the cattle again. The goose-girls had set the ganders on them, and the roosters had defended their flocks with spurs, so they were at least keeping clear of the fowl on their own. They each seemed to have the energy of six Delias, and so far she hadn’t been able to think of anything that would occupy them safely. And even if she did, chances were if they saw a bird or a butterfly they’d run to chase it.

She couldn’t even hide from her sister in her own boat—because it wasn’t just “her” boat anymore. Just as her three nephews had been quartered with their parents—fully filling up that barge—she’d had five female servants put with her. So there was absolutely no privacy, and no escaping the fact that if Isla was heard to call Delia’s name, there would be at least five people who would be sure to tell Isla that “I’m sure I saw your sister in her barge.”

Well, I am halfway around the lake from Isla right now, and I’d rather help the Mender than run my feet off after those boys. So she smiled. “If another pair of hands is useful to you, then I am all yours.”

“Very much so when working on a Doll as badly hurt as that one was,” the Mender said, coloring a little, and making her think he probably didn’t have much experience being around girls. “Your Gift was exactly what was needed to hold things without obstructing my vision. A pair of invisible hands is extremely useful.” The two of them began picking up all of the varied and somewhat odd things he needed when he was mending a Doll. She’d done this twice before, and knew where everything was now. “May this be the last time we Mend a Doll here at Crescent Lake,” he said, as she carefully retrieved every thread of magical fluff and stowed it away. “I wish we could stay, but I can easily see why we can’t.” At her glance of puzzlement, he elaborated. “I’m Landwise. That might be why I’m good at putting the Dolls back together. I can feel the stress so many people all in one place is putting on this area. To be honest, the best thing we can do for this lake is leave it before we’ve started ruining it.”

“Well, the local farmers like us well enough,” she pointed out. And it was true. Several farmers would arrive with wagons every day to collect all the excrement of humans and their animals that would otherwise soon have overwhelmed the area.

“Well, as one of them told me, ‘No farmer has ever complained of having too much manure,’ though I suspect they would if Kordas had made the decision to stay.” The Mender shrugged. “Once we’re out of here, the land will rest over the winter, and everything will be fine again.”

“Do you ever—” She hesitated, but the Mender seemed a kind young man, and maybe he wouldn’t mind letting her talk about things. “Do you ever wish we could go back to the way it was?”

He sat back on his heels, and rolled up the leather case that held his instruments. “For myself? No. There was always the chance I’d be snatched up by the Emperor’s people if anyone had ever found out about all the mages that the D—I mean, Baron, was harboring. And—” His eyes lit up. “I had no idea that the Dolls were something that was even possible! I love being able to help them. They let me study them as much as I want. And I am going to miss them dreadfully when we finally figure out how to release them.”

“We will miss you too, Mender,” said the Doll they had been helping. They both turned to look at the Doll with a little surprise, since most of the Dolls were not much given to spontaneous expressions of any sort. “You are a considerate and skilled man. We appreciate you.”

“Well . . . thank you.” The Mender blinked rapidly, as if he was trying not to cry. “I’m exceedingly touched . . .”

“Have you a need for an assistant such as this one?” the Doll continued, hesitantly. “This one would enjoy serving you.”

“Uh—you mean that’s possible?” the Mender replied, clearly taken aback.

“This one is a bit handicapped,” the Doll pointed out, raising their mitten-like hands. “Fine manual dexterity is, alas, out of the question. But this one can fetch and carry, hold things, pass you instruments, and keep track of your supplies and belongings. If nothing else, this one is a pincushion.”

“No, I meant, is it possible that I’d be allowed to have your services?” the Mender corrected. “I was under the impression that you Dolls were a sort of common labor pool, and no single person could—uh—require your help.”

“The Baron has told us repeatedly that we may do as we please,” the Doll said. “And this one would be pleased to serve you.”

“Well, I guess it’s settled, then.” The Mender licked his lips and thought for a moment. “Do you have a name?”

“This one has not chosen a name. Would you like this one to do so?” the Doll tipped their head to the side.

“Yes. And if you don’t mind, I’d like to make you look more—unique.” He now looked at Delia. “I’m kind of . . . helpless with hair . . .”

“We’ve got wool without any sand in it,” she pointed out. “That will do for hair.”

It took quite a bit of time, which Delia was actually happy about, since it meant no one was looking for her to do some other unskilled chore to release someone who actually had skills for other work.

But no one sent for her (and all Isla had to do was ask the nearest Doll to tell her to come back) and no one brought in another broken Doll to be worked on, so she and the Mender and the Doll had a rather relaxed, interesting time together. The Doll settled on a name—Dern—and a look—androgynous—and they went to work. When they were done, Dern had a wig of sorts, sewn into the canvas “scalp,” of short brown curls from a brown-fleeced sheep. Dern also had a face delineated with that dense Imperial ink and a feather. The Mender had a rather delicate touch for that.

“Your face looks better than the painted ones I’ve seen, Dern,” Delia observed, as the Mender corked his bottle tightly and gave Dern the feather, which Dern promptly stuck in their brown curls like an ornament.

“Technically the faces are painted on cloth attached to the Doll—barely anything but the most pigmented ink sticks to them. I always think that the people who had faces painted on their Dolls were going a bit too far,” the Mender replied. “It’s too close to real, yet not real enough. It makes me all uneasy when I look at them. This is better.”

“Is it? That’s good,” Dern replied. “This one does not wish to be the cause of distress.”

Delia sat back on her heels to study the effect of their work. “It is good,” she agreed. “Attractive. And now that you’ve been decorated, I think we need one more thing that will identify you as having allied yourself with the Mender. Can you think of anything?”

Silence from both of the others, while she thought about it herself. What would work for that sort of thing? Kordas’s Dolls all had the tabard with the Valdemar “V” and horse head on them. All of the Dolls who had assigned themselves to the Healers wore a green leaf painted on their tunics or shirts.

“Well, I suppose I am a sort of Healer,” the Mender said finally. He took back the feather from Dern and inked a brown-colored leaf with oak-gall ink on the front of Dern’s shirt, then handed the feather back. “Even if people don’t know what that means, they’ll think twice about trying to command your services.”

“Which are to be used for what, right now?” Dern asked, tilting their head to the side in mimicry, Delia supposed, of the same gesture humans made.

“Organizing and packing up my tools and things, then stowing them in my barge. We’ll start with things I’m not likely to need before we set out, and end with the things I’ll need in an emergency.” The Mender shrugged at Delia. “Sorry, I think I won’t need you now, Delia. But thanks.”

“That’s all right,” she replied, although all right was not exactly what she felt. “I’ll see if the other mages need help.”

She quickly came to discover that the answer was “no,” since each of the mages seemed to have their own Dolls, or at least, there were teams of Dolls helping them, as they, too, got ready for the migration. “I can’t think of anyone that needs help except those two apprentices that are on latrine-trench duty,” Sai told her, as he supervised the Dolls packing up the bricks that made his bread oven preparatory to stowing them as ballast. She sighed with regret at that. She was going to miss Sai’s bread. “They don’t have Dolls and they’re probably sick of the work by now.”

The two apprentices had been taught a spell that pulled all the water out of what it was cast on, and their job was a full-time walk of the latrine trenches, desiccating everything that was in there. Servants that were used to dealing with manure, like stablehands and gardeners, went out with the herds, collecting everything the animals dropped and bringing it to the trenches as well. From there the local farmers collected the now-dry and easier-to-handle fossilized feces and carted them away to be added to their compost piles. She’d thought this was ridiculous, and that the servants’ time could be utilized much better elsewhere, until she got a look at just how much waste fifteen thousand people and exponentially more animals could produce in a day. Without things like the compost heaps and cesspits they had back home to handle it all, well, it wouldn’t be pretty, and people would be getting sick faster than the Healers could help them. The farmers, meanwhile, were stockpiling what was as good as gold to them, and they were making compost piles out of it that would keep their fields well-manured for the next several years at the least. And those that didn’t actually have many animals themselves were positively giddy at this unexpected bonanza.

She was pretty sure they’d have been less enthusiastic if it had been in its native state. But they probably would have taken it anyway.

She wanted to dawdle, but there was always the chance that someone would see her making her slowest possible pace back to the family boats, and people being people, someone would take great glee in telling Isla about it. Isla wouldn’t say anything, but she’d give Delia that look that said I am disappointed in you, and that was worse than being scolded.

But it was hard not to drag her feet when she knew she was going back to another round of chores until well after dark. Her boat was in good order, and ready to be towed, but somehow the boys were managing to drag practically everything they could out of its proper place, and often out of the boat entirely. And she always seemed to be the one tasked to restore order out of chaos.

I swear, I will never, ever, ever have children.

Sure enough, as soon as she arrived back at the boats, Isla thrust a basket of clean clothing with mending materials on top of it into her hands and said, “Find a place to sit. These need to be mended before dinner,” and vanished into the boat she and Kordas shared with the boys.

With a sigh, she looked around. Her boat was full of the maids stowing everything away in the most economic way possible, so she opted for a spot on the stern, where there was full sun and a nice warm spot on the decking. On top of the basket was a keeper made of felt with three precious needles in it, and a single spool of thread. At this point, no one was paying any attention to the color of thread clothing was mended with, or even the kind of thread it was. This looked like light wool, the kind you mended stockings with. And it was gray; the clothing in the basket was literally every color except gray.

But at least when I am doing this I am not trying to chase down those boys.

I wish I was home . . .

Her hands stilled for a moment, and she was startled by the tight feeling in her throat and an upwelling of tears. With her back to everything and everyone, and no one to see her and ask her sharply what on earth she was crying about, she let the tears spill over her cheeks, mourning her past life. Mourning her home. Mourning the little room that had been hers, and hers alone. Mourning a world where “needlework” meant working beautiful images in thread, not sewing on a patch to cover a hole in the seat of someone’s trews. Where every meal was carefully prepared and full of variety, not pottage for breakfast, bread and cheese for the midday meal, and the same stew, either fish or meat, served in a small round loaf you were supposed to eat when you finished. She’d helped in the communal kitchens; every possible scrap, from peel to leaves, from bones to organs, was chopped up and put in that stew, and the Healers had said to chew up the softened bones and eat them, which was . . . ugh. Nothing was wasted. Nothing.

And things will probably get worse from here. Food would run out, until they were left with nothing but grain pottage, flavored with herbs and salt or maybe some dried fruit if she was lucky. Winter was on the way, and she was sure there was no way that a boat could be made as cozy as a sturdy building. And who knew what was out there? Her imagination was quite good at populating the blank map with all manner of horrors.

Well, no one was going to know how she felt, if anyone even cared. She might as well just let the sadness and the frustration have their way. So the tears fell on her mending, and she cried in silence, as her hands worked.

Kordas could hardly believe his luck when he got back to the family barges and found Isla—astonishingly!—alone. Isla was working, of course; everyone worked now, often from dawn to dusk, but her ears were certainly free, and he spied her through the rearmost windows of the barge. She was all the way back in their personal barge sitting on their bed. The boys were elsewhere, and since she was making ordinary shirts into quilted shirts for winter, that was something he could actually help her with. He couldn’t sew, but any fool could pick rags apart into tiny bits of thread for stuffing, so he eeled his way to their “bedroom.” He sat down without a word beside her and began doing just that with the tiny rags, stuffing the resulting frizz into a rough bag she had for the purpose. She had turned a shirt inside out and, with the padding and carefully cut patches, all of identical size and shape, was doing the quilting in small squares in a neat pattern, not unlike the “checked” pattern in heraldry. The resultant quilted shirt could be worn with the original side out, or the patchwork side out, if the original got too stained to be presentable. It would be infinitely warmer than two simple shirts.

“I heard some rumors you were beating someone,” she said casually, sewing a brown square down onto the padding, then carefully turning the edges under and sewing it in place next to a beige square.

“Rumor flies faster than a bird,” he said ruefully. “It’s quite true. Doll Rose came to get me because someone was deliberately torturing another Doll. By the time I got there, he’d broken every limb with a sledgehammer.”

She stopped sewing for a moment with a swift intake of breath. “I’d have done worse than beat him,” she said flatly, looking up at him. “Perhaps it’s just as well Rose came for you instead of me.”

He didn’t ask her what she would have done, because he already had a shrewd idea of what it would have been, and besides being exiled, the idiot would probably have been singing soprano for the rest of his days. “Well, he had the bad sense to resist me with his face,” was all he said. “And I took my temper out on him.”

“If you are having trouble with your temper, it’s best to find a target worthy of getting it in the face,” she agreed.

He snorted. “In the face, and the gut, and the face again. The face a lot, actually. I broke his jaw. And I exiled him. He’ll be going through the Gate on no pass before we take it down. The evilest part of me hopes he ends up in the Capital.”

Isla side-glanced at Kordas’s bound-up hand. “And broke your hand doing it, it appears. Healed?” Kordas nodded and held it up. She nodded slowly. “You did the right thing. Next time it could have been a child, or someone else who couldn’t defend themselves. I assume there is going to be a speech?”

“I can’t leave this at rumor. And I want to make sure everyone knows where they stand on this—and on some other things. That way anyone who is having second and third thoughts about staying with the migration can use what I am about to tell them as an excuse to leave without looking like a coward.” He half smiled at her, and she chuckled.

He relaxed all over. Truth to be told, he liked this version of Isla rather more than “Lady Isla, Duchess Valdemar.” She was a lot closer to his old childhood friend than she had been in years. All the fancy gowns and every bit of jewelry had been stowed in the most inaccessible places in the storage barges or in this one, and these days you were just as likely to find her in a heavy knitted tunic and a pair of soft canvas trews or breeches as you were a gown. And if it was a gown, it would be a sturdy thing, meant to take abuse and dirt and be washed clean in the lake and dried on a bush. She wore her hair in a single braid down her back, though unruly dark tendrils inevitably escaped around her ears.

“I’d be lying if I said I didn’t think you need to do that. In fact, you’re right to, and this is exactly the right moment for you to make a speech about it. People here have never seen you in a fury until now—and—” She shrugged. “You know people. There are probably some who think you’re soft, or too busy with other things to pay attention to what’s going on below you. And without a shadow of a doubt there are quarrels brewing quietly, people looking to take advantage of you, or what they see as your inattention, and—well—it’s like balancing all that among the manor staff, only on a vastly larger scale. I think it’s definitely time for them to learn that there are things you won’t put up with, and that the penalty for doing those things is serious. People have already grouped together with people they knew before, and you’ve already appointed leaders for each group, and you have those leaders reporting to your new Guard officers, so not only will you establish a proper code of conduct, this will be telling those leaders what you expect them to do.”

“I need to think about what I am going to say, so if you don’t mind, I’ll keep making stuffing for you.” He paused a moment. “I told Rose that I was sorry we hadn’t found a way to free them yet. But the truth is, right now—we need them too much, and if the Mender ever does figure out how to get the vrondi out of those shells—can we afford to let them go?”

“Have you asked them how they feel about it?” she replied sensibly, as the boat rocked ever so gently with the small movements they were making and the wavelets of the lake. It was still warm enough during the day that the shutters were open on the windows, and the hum of voices up and down the shore combined with the sound of the waves and the rising and falling of the boats’ hulls was quite soothing. It made a lovely sound to go to sleep to—although he had to admit that the times there had been a storm on the lake and the barges had rocked violently and banged together had not been so pleasant. It was a good thing that the material they were made of was as tough as steel.

“Well, not in so many words,” he admitted.

“Then remember what you tell me all the time. When you want to know what people are thinking, don’t spin yourself into knots about it, just ask them.” The sound of footsteps—the peculiar, too-even, too-precise, too-measured steps that only a Doll took—echoed off the hull from the front of the barge, and they both stopped what they were doing. Kordas felt a dim sense of apprehension. Now what? he thought.

But it was Rose; like the three Dolls who had assigned themselves to him, Rose wore trews of stiff canvas and a shirt of the same coarse cloth grain-sacks were made of, both of which would have been scratchy and supremely uncomfortable for a human, but which the Dolls assured him caused them no problems. Clothing was mostly to make them fit in with the humans, Rose had said; they did not feel cold or heat, and didn’t actually need covering. Over the outfit, Rose wore the blue-painted canvas tabard with the Valdemar “V” and horse head that had always been associated with his family, rather than the more elaborate Ducal crest of the winged horse. Rose’s once-bare head was now covered in a crop of woolen curls that had taken Isla the better part of three evenings to knot into Rose’s canvas “scalp,” and she had been painted with a rather sweet face by Jonaton. Rose no longer needed that little rose sketched into her forehead for him to tell her from the other Dolls. Though she did wear a rose that someone had made for her out of a scrap of red ribbon in her wooly hair.

And—he was thinking of Rose as “her,” not “it.”

“The Doll who was injured is fully mended, has taken the name ‘Dern,’ and has tied themselves to the Mender,” Rose said. “Rumors are spreading about what happened. Fundamentally, people approve of your actions, Lord Baron.”

“Then I should definitely make that speech tonight while they haven’t had a chance to think too much about it,” he said. Then took a deep breath. “Rose, I am sorry we have not been able to find a way to free you. But—I am also not sorry, not entirely. This is very selfish of me, but we need you. You can do things humans can’t, you don’t need food or sleep, and you can tolerate things and conditions humans would fold under. I—”

To his astonishment, Rose actually held up a hand to stop him from saying anything further. “We are of one mind in this, Lord Baron. Regardless of when you find a way to free us, we will serve you until you no longer need us. That is a promise from all of us. Hopefully, that will occur before you become too accustomed to depending upon us.”

“Hopefully,” he said hesitantly. We don’t dare become dependent on them, or I’ll never get people to allow them to go, and they’ll just be enslaved all over again. We can’t have that. That will start us down the road to replicating the Empire.

“You freed us from a terrible slavery. Life among you has been . . .” She cocked her head to the side. “Pleasant. Very pleasant, for the most part. And there is an overwhelming likelihood that you will find a way to free us, and do so before we feel we need to remind you of your promise.” She straightened her head. “So now, I will leave you to your thoughts, and go to collect some food for you from the kitchens.”

She turned and left, leaving both of them to stare after her. “Well. That was unexpected,” he managed. But Isla had noticed something he hadn’t.

“Did Rose just call herself ‘I’?” she said incredulously.

Word was spreading around the encampment that Kordas was going to make a Speech, so people were getting through their evening chores as quickly as they could. Meanwhile, he set up the old family heirloom, the stately telcaster—seldom used for anything except entertainments on the estate for the last couple of generations—that allowed him to conjure up an image of himself that was twenty feet tall from the surface of the lake, and broadcast his words around the shore, and probably a lot further. It didn’t seem to bother the birds and animals, at least not after the first few times they’d used it, so he didn’t worry about what else was hearing him.

They’d been using the antique instrument for some time now, every night when the weather was fine, to update the entire camp on what had happened, what was scheduled, and what weather to expect. And immediately send telcaster-amplified warnings by bugle and shout—like the time a bear had gotten past the perimeter guards and headed for one of the kitchens.

That bear had become stew, rather than partaking of the stew. He often wondered if it was the same one that had chased Jonaton’s enormous black cat Sydney back through the first Gate they had established here. If so, Sydney had probably especially enjoyed his dinner of bear gravy and innards.

Every night after the news and any other pressing concerns for the camp were disposed of, there was entertainment. No great Bards had made the trek here—his court hadn’t been notable enough to attract even a minor Bard, and Merrin’s Bard had elected to stay with the new Duke—but in fifteen thousand people, there was bound to be plenty of talent. Musicians, or at least people who could make a pleasant noise, tell a good tale, dance, or do something else that entertained others volunteered, however odd their talents may be. One family juggled goslings, one troupe did a serialized puppet comedy, and yet another couple showed ways to cook, which was an unexpected hit. They all got their chances on what was probably the biggest stage anyone could ever have imagined. And if sometimes their audience drowsed or talked through their performance, well, they’d never know, because all they could see was a group around them that was about the size of an audience in their village. Kordas smiled a moment thinking of it, because it drew a tear to his eye every time the camp joined in on an anthem or ballad, thousands of voices echoing around the lake. Whatever differences or complaints they might have, they were united in song.

The telcaster had been in his family for generations, and it wasn’t an uncommon sort of object to have among the nobles of the Empire. It was considered a sort of toy, rather more backward than some of the advanced objects of its type had been back in the Capital. Among other things, when one had guests, having a telcaster ensured that no one was slighted by getting an inferior view of any entertainers. It required a mage to work it, of course, but the rulers of the Duchy of Valdemar had been mages all the way back to the first Duke, and apprentices had been taught its use.

The bigger, fancier versions went by the name of illusionarium.

Kordas preferred the humbler term “telcaster.”

Before he could set it up, he made himself a little three-sided enclosure with a sheet pinned to the branches of one of the trees nearby, and hung a mage-light where it would give the most flattering light. He’d done this so many times he could have set up everything in his sleep, and didn’t need Ivy’s help, although he always accepted it. Right now, no Dolls were around him, only the black-furred bruiser watching him. Sydney’s tail flicked, though the rest of him was studiously relaxed. If one knew cats, one would recognize that such a well-practiced calm meant mayhem would strike at any moment.

The last stage was setting up the object itself. It was portable, though not small. Zebrawood casing held arrays of crystals adjusted by brass rods at the front, with similar controls for sound on the other side of its “eye.” Brass plates labeled what each rod did, though few laymen could have understood them. When it was time, the front cover was merely flipped back (carefully!), and its mirrored surface showed whatever was in front of it. Once the lights inside warmed up enough, it wasn’t very long before the telcast would begin. Its center looked not unlike one of the black bowls used for scrying. As usual, he had to pull Sydney out of it. The bowl was always warm, and Sydney liked to sleep in it. Occasionally, since it was old, the thing would come on by itself for a moment using whatever residual magic was nearby, and the entire camp would get a fine view of Sydney licking his balls until someone noticed and shut the telcaster off.

In this case, Sydney had seen what Kordas was up to, and had placed himself in the eventual focus of attention. Now, removed from it, the cat realized he needed very much to be over there very quickly, for some reason, and darted away.

Jonaton’s cats—the mage had somehow brought all of them—had made themselves citizens of the entire camp, with over half attaching themselves to families, and the rest roaming boat to boat. They avoided the shore for the most part, probably because of the smell of the livestock and trenches. Thanks to lake effect, those were seldom upwind from the boats.

While Kordas set the telcaster up and tuned it, Isla, the children, Delia, and anyone nearby who wanted to see the actual Baron making the speech rather than watching the illusion settled down on blankets in front of him.

He took a deep breath, composed himself, and began.

“Folk of the Valdemar Expedition,” he said, trying to project both strength and warmth. “I’m sure by now you all have heard about today’s incident. I need to speak with you about that—and so much more.”