Winter 2007 5

Weft duly told her that phrase, and also "shut up, Weft".

Why the word mongrel might have upset her, he didn't figure out.

"Thank you, Weft," Helmine said a hint icily.

Nico put two and two together, and considered of the two likely results that of Helmine's bloodline getting gravely insulted repeatedly more likely.

Oh, better change the subject. "Well, something else you might need when looking for lodgings would be 'for one night', 'for two nights' and that." She provided that in Interworld, seguing into numbers in general.

Daaren nodded at Suitov's explanation, finding nothing to add. He raised an eyebrow at the temporarily changed tone of the other conversation. He was a bit surprised Weft rather than Nico seemed to have misstepped.

Numbers. Numbers were good. She ran out of paper before long, of course, and wasn't too happy about it. She wasn't too fussy about grammar, but asked more and more about vocabulary. People could figure out grammar on their own -- words were a bit different. "What about 'hands up where I can see them'?"

In between Nico passed around the warmed up apple balls in their small bowls, along with forks. The leaf covering was not edible. The filling was mostly apples, peeled and diced, then stewed with some butter and sugar, raisins, and ground almonds.

Daaren declined, claiming it was too sweet.

When Helmine ran out of paper she also dug around in the dregs of her sack, and produced a lonely sheet of paper which only had writing on a quarter of one side - a checklist of what she should pack.

It was too sweet for Suitov, too, but otherwise good, so he ate as little as was polite.

After asking carefully about the ingredients, Weft accepted a bowl. He did not appear to notice the sweetness. It did prompt him to teach Helmine a selection of common foodstuffs, noticeably biased towards meat and fish. Chicken, however, was absent.

"We grow a lot of apples around my home," Suitov told Daaren. "Field crops too, and some grazing livestock. Is it anything like that in your area?" It took a little careful thinking to phrase closed questions with optional room for expansion. He didn't mind taciturn types, really, as long as they didn't mind him.

That lonely sheet of paper got a lot of attention and resulted in a thank you. "What about chicken?" Helmine asked Weft, finding that the offered dish was not too sweet at all.

Perhaps the avian aversion wasn't genetic, then.

And yes, the question did raise a slight twitch. "Ch-- chicken is, um, 'chickenmeat'. And 'it tastes like chicken' is 'the tastes of this and chickenmeat are similar'."

Daaren answered, "There were many apple trees in Fenmairna, and other fruits. Not not so much back home in Gendos. They grow better further down, where it's warmer.

Field crops, and animals, mostly goats and some sheep. And timber. I did more hunting than farming, though."

Nico meanwhile was fussing with the crockery for a moment, barely listening to what Weft was teaching Helmine. Absentmindedly she started singing a children's song, relatively quietly, in a language that happened to most likely be unknown to anyone else present. The song was about chickens, and involved clucking twice at the end of each line.

Weft stared at Nico, his eyes as near to fully open as they ever got except when being hostile. The clear message was You're a loon and I'm not sure I should be sitting so close to you.

"Ah, hunting," Suitov said. "Is that hobby or profession?" He noted the past tense on did.

"Profession," Daaren answered immediately, giving Suitov a look suggesting it had been a stupid question.

Nico noticed Weft's look after a while and raised her eyebrows. "Hmmm?" Remembering Helmine in time, she continued in Wessian, "Is there something on my nose?"

"Very well," Suitov said. "I knew a lot of people who did it for fun. Flew hawks, too. Some went out on horses and tried to spear things. Particularly strange tradition, that, and very dangerous."

He mentally compared it to the -- very different -- contemporary methods of cavalry warfare. Hmmm...

"You were clucking like a chicken," Weft accused Nico. Then said the sentence again in interworld for their pupil's benefit. This got a brief glance from Suitov.

"Chicken," Helmine repeated.

"I don't like the hunt treated like a game. It is too important, for both sides," Daaren commented matter-of-factly.

Nico gave Weft a long, confused look, and went, "Sooo?"

"Y--es. Very, um, good," Weft said to Helmine. He wasn't going to get used to hearing that word from that face. It was wrong. Wrong!

Or at least mildly offputting.

He looked at Nico, started a couple of times to say something, then gave up.

Nico resisted the urge of offering Weft to crow like a rooster instead by giving Helmine the vocabulary for "rooster", "chick" and "egg", just in case.

"Mh, any interest for terms for family relations?"

"Not in particular," Helmine said stiffly. "I wasn't planning on getting one."

Weft told her the words for 'friend', 'enemy', 'target', 'associate' and 'neutral acquaintance'.

Nico anwered Helmine's answer with an unconcered nod. Noting that Weft included 'enemy' as well as 'target' made her wonder...

"Did we cover everything in the 'hands up where I can see them' corner? 'Move and you're dead', ah, 'Don't kill me, I'm not armed', 'I surrender'..."

"Don't move. That one might be helpful," Helmine said, writing some of these things down. Some were left out.