Bram was still chuckling as he put away the last of the wicks. He held up a new boot for Nahamkin's inspection. "Yes, the lord's son is so prosperous that his poor, crazy, penniless aunt had to buy him boots for his birthday!" Bram frowned suddenly, sorry he'd dogeared the day.

Nahamkin's gnarled hand came up to pat Bram's head. "Ah, yes. That's why I asked you here today. Twenty-one, isn't it?" He steered the young man toward the door, pushing Bram's head down to avoid the low archway. "And here you are, spending your birthday dipping candles with an old man."

"I-I enjoyed it, really, Nahamkin," Bram assured him. "It was better than plowing a field without an ox. I don't have much opportunity to do things like this."

"Not since you took over your father's duties, anyway." Nahamkin couldn't hide his scorn.

As usual whenever criticism of Cormac came up, Bram was torn between defending his father and acknowledging the truth. "He does the best he can," the nobleman said.

"Well," said Nahamkin, anxious to change a subject he hadn't meant to bring up, "just wait until you can plant these seeds I've been saving for you."

The old man took Bram's arm and guided him outside and around to the back of the cottage, beating back a path through the brambles that leaned against the structure. He looked down at a long, rectangular box built against the house, nestled in the last snow and frozen leaves. "I've been wanting to show you my newest invention for getting a jump on the weather."

Following his gaze, Bram looked down, then quickly away as a hot glint of reflected sunlight caught him square in the eyes. "What is that?" he howled.

Nahamkin knelt stiffly on one knee and lifted from the top of the box a large, expensive pane of good- quality glass. "I call it a hot box," he explained, setting the pane carefully to the side.

Bram dared another glance. The box was filled to its last inch with clay pots, and in each were tender little sprouts reaching for the sunlight. He recognized fuzzy, hand-high tomato plants, among many others. Bram was stunned. The earliest he'd ever seen annuals break seed and germinate was during the last days of Chisl- mont, and then only after an unusually warm winter.

"Got the idea at the Red Goose Inn last month. I was sitting by the one window, and the afternoon sun came pouring in. If it was hot enough to cook me through glass, I reasoned it could cause a seed to sprout. Picked the glass up from Jessup Lidiger's wife, after the weaver ran off for the city," explained Nahamkin. He cupped a willowy tomato seedling in his tough palm, sending up a cloud of fresh, acidic scent. "I'll have tomatoes ripe on the vine by Argon, mark my words."

Bram ran a hand lovingly around the box's frame. "I've got to make one of these at the castle," he breathed. "Do you realize I could grow herbs year round with this hot box of yours?"

Nahamkin half nodded. "Maybe not year round. I'll wager Aelmont and Rannmont are a touch too cold and dark to generate enough heat even through the glass, but you could certainly extend your growing season." He held up a hand expectantly, and Bram pulled the farmer to his feet, old knees popping and cracking.

"You can draw up some plans if you like while I sort through my seeds for your birthday present." Nahamkin leaned heavily on the young man's arm as they headed back through the brambles to the cottage's front door. Bram looped an arm over his friend's sloping shoulders. "A man's twenty-first birthday used to mean something, a coming of age."

Bram stopped before the door and looked over his shoulder at the dilapidated village. "Nowadays people are more concerned with surviving than marking the passage of time."

"That's so," Nahamkin grudgingly agreed.

The sound of dripping snow water inside the cottage had slowed with a late afternoon drop in temperature. The room had grown dark, except for the faintly glowing fire. The old man slit the loop that connected two new candles and held one wick to the smoldering coals. Shuffling over to an old chest, he rummaged around in it and extracted a seldom-used quill and ink pot, as well as a slip of curling, golden parchment.

"The size of your box should be determined by the glass you have," he said, placing the items, including the lit candle, on a lap desk before Bram.

The nobleman nodded. "I know where pieces have been salvaged from some of the castle's more neglected wings." He wasted no time dipping the quill to scratch an illustration of the support bars and spacers.

Nahamkin lit another candle and, for lack of a better holder, put it in the top of an empty, narrow-necked bottle. He set the light on a cabinet that he kept farthest from the fire, then pulled the handle of a long, narrow drawer. Inside were neatly catalogued parchment packages containing seeds saved from last year's crops. He flipped through them, withdrawing some well-marked favorites to divide and share with his young friend. They worked in happy, companionable silence, Bram sketching, Nahamkin sorting.

The old man was about to suggest Bram stay for some of yesterday's soup and bread, when both men heard frantic footsteps and labored breathing on the path outside. A knock came, quick and demanding.

"Bram DiThon, are you still in there?" a voice rasped through the drafty door. "I saw you walking through the town earlier."

Surprised, the young nobleman flew to his feet and opened the door. Young Wilton Sivesten, the miller's son, stood wheezing in the doorway.

"Thank my lucky stars you're still here," he said, still struggling to catch his breath. "Ma sent me to find you, what with Herus attending a death in Lusid."

Bram recognized the name of the coroner, a cavalier by training who doubled as the village physicker. "Is your mother ill?" he asked.

Wilton shook his sweat-drenched head. "It's my father. Yesterday he had the fever real bad, and today he's even worse."

"It's probably just the mild influenza that's been going around," Bram suggested in a kinder tone. "I can give you some herbs-"

"That's what Ma thought, until today." The boy's slight frame shuddered. 'Today he started scratching and thrashing, and whole patches of skin are coming off." Wilton trembled again. "You just gotta come and see for yourself."

Bram was shaken by the boy's news. He'd never heard of the influenza causing someone to lose skin. Maybe it was a new strain. "I'm no physicker," he thought, surprised to hear himself saying it aloud. "I don't even have any herbs with me."

"You're the best we got with Herus gone," the boy said, pulling desperately at Bram's hand. "My ma's about to lose her mind. You gotta come, or she'll wallop me and say I never bothered to find you."

"What will you need for fever, Bram?" Nahamkin asked, his face creased with concern.

"If it's just a fever…" the nobleman mumbled, his mind a jumble. "Uh, I don't know. Elderflower, or maybe some yarrow."

Nahamkin snapped his fingers and shuffled off to the dry sink. He offered up a cork-stoppered crock to Bram. "Dried yarrow I have." Helping Bram into his cloak, the old farmer clapped his young friend on the shoulder.

Smiling his thanks, Bram raced out the door in the tow of the miller's anxious son. He shook off the boy's desperate hand after they both stumbled over unseen rocks and roots in the dusky path. The air felt cold enough to snow, and yet none fell. They arrived at the mill before many moments had passed.

"This way," Wilton panted, snatching at Bram's arm again to lead him toward a small door on the far side of the mill. The nobleman had been to the mill many times, brought his own grain here for grinding. The storehouses, the strong scent of the donkeys who powered the massive wheel, the creaking and grinding were all familiar to Bram, but he'd never even wondered where the family lived.