about that, have I? Well, it’s only been recently, the last half
year or so. I’ll tell you about it later.”
They retraced their steps to the poorer section of the village,
following a new roadway that was nevertheless as worn and
rutted as the others. After a short walk, they turned into a walk-
way that led up to a rambling stone and wood structure that
looked as if once it might have been an inn of some sort. It rose
three stories and was wrapped by a covered porch filled with
swings and rockers. The yard was bare, but clear of debris and
filled with children playing.
“A school?” Par guessed aloud.
Morgan shook his head. “An orphanage.”
He led them through the groups of children, onto the porch
and around to a side door settled well back in the shadows of an
alcove. He knocked on the door and waited. When the door
opened a crack, he said, “Can you spare a poor man some
food?”
“Morgan!” The door flew open. An elderly Dwarf woman
stood in the opening, gray-haired and aproned, her face bluff
and squarish, her smile working its way past lines of weariness
and disappointment. “Morgan Lean, what a pleasant surprise!
How are you, youngster?”
“I am my father’s pride and joy, as always,” Morgan replied
with a grin. “May we come in?”
“Of course. Since when have you needed to ask?” The
woman stepped aside and ushered them past, hugging Morgan
and beaming at Par and Coil, who smiled back uncertainly. She
shut the door behind them and said, “So you would like some-
thing to eat, would you?”
“We would gladly give our lives for the opportunity,” Mor-
gan declared with a laugh. “Granny Elise, these are my friends,
Par and Coil Ohmsford of Shady Vale. They are temporarily
. . . homeless,” he finished.
“Aren’t we all,” Granny Elise replied gruffly. She extended
a callused hand to the brothers, who each gripped it in his own.
She examined them critically. “Been wrestling with bears, have
you, Morgan?”
Morgan touched his face experimentally, tracing the cuts and
scrapes. “Something worse than that, I’m afraid. The road to
Culhaven is not what it once was.”
“Nor is Culhaven. Have a seat, child-you and your friends.
I’ll bring you a plate of muffins and fruit.”
There were several long tables with benches in the center of
the rather considerable kitchen and the three friends chose the
nearest and sat. The kitchen was large but rather dark, and the
furnishings were poor. Granny Elise bustled about industri-
ously, providing the promised breakfast and glasses of some sort
of extracted juice. “I’d oner you milk, but I have to ration what
I have for the children,” she apologized.
They were eating hungrily when a second woman appeared,
a Dwarf as well and older still, small and wizened, with a sharp
face and quick, birdlike movements that never seemed to cease.
She crossed the room matter-of-facdy on seeing Morgan, who
rose at once and gave her a small peck on the cheek.
“Auntie Jilt,” Morgan introduced her.
“Most pleased,” she announced in a way that suggested they
might need convincing. She seated herself next to Granny Elise
and immediately began work on some needlepoint she had
brought with her into the room, fingers flying.
“These ladies are mothers to the world,” Morgan explained
as he returned to his-meal. “Me included, though I’m not an
orphan like their other charges. They adopted me because I’m
irresistibly charming.”
“You begged like the rest of them the first time we saw you,
Morgan Leah!” Auntie Jilt snapped, never looking up from her
wo&. “That is the only reason we took you in-the only reason
we take any of them in.”
* ‘Sisters, though you’d never know it,” Morgan quickly went
on. “Granny Elise is like a goose-down comforter, all soft and
warm. But Auntie Jilt-well, Auntie Jilt is more like a stone
pallet!”
Auntie Jilt sniffed. “Stone lasts a good deal longer than goose
down in these times. And both longer still than Highland syrup!”
Morgan and Granny Elise laughed. Auntie Jilt joined in after
a moment, and Par and Coil found themselves smiling as well.