Closer to Home: Book One of Herald Spy

by Mercedes Lackey

  Of course Brand could hear Rolan coming nearer. Companion hooves rang like bells; they were unmistakable. Brand put spurs to his horse; the poor beast bucked and resisted; it couldn’t see, and it didn’t want to go dashing off into the dark.

  Violetta was crying, and her seat on the back of the horse shifted precariously. “Brand!” she was sobbing. “Brand, why did you do that? Brand!”

  She must be crying about her dog. Poor child, she loved that little pup, and Brand had essentially thrown it into the snow to die. It was only luck that it wasn’t dead already; luck that it had hit soft snow and hadn’t broken its neck or its legs in the fall.

  He ignored her, fought with the horse, and got him to canter. Then, impatient, he jabbed the beast with both spurs, viciously, digging them in as hard as he could. The pain lanced through Amily as the horse was roweled. The poor thing cried out, stumbled, broke into a run—

  She felt him trip over something, and felt his terror as he started to fall.

  Oh gods! She fled his mind before he hit the ground, knowing that he was going to be hurt at best, and at worst . . .

  Her heart beat like a bird’s wings as she came back to herself. Oh, gods, what had almost happened! :What would happen if I was in his mind when he died?: she asked Rolan, leaning over his neck as he put on yet more speed.

  :I don’t know,: Rolan said, soberly. :With humans . . . it is a shock. I don’t know what would happen with an animal.:

  She shivered all over and resolved never to have to find out.

  But at least now she knew where they were. On this road, up ahead, in the orchard. And she and Rolan were within a few heartbeats of the edge.

  And what do we do when we catch them?

  —

  The tiny part of him that was watching for others, for Heralds, felt them burst into the tent. Mags felt hands on his shoulders, familiar hands, and a familiar mind wordlessly supporting his. Nikolas . . . he thought, and let go of the killer’s mind, falling back into his own. And then Nikolas held him as he retched, and spit bitter bile, and retched, and spit, right there where he was crouched. It was all dry, and that didn’t make it any better. His stomach felt as if it wanted to throw itself out of his mouth. His chest and stomach muscles strained to the tearing point. He felt as if he would never be clean again. He felt as if he would never, ever be free of those horrors.

  But then . . . as someone brought him a cup of cold water, as body after limp body was carried out of the tent—people he had saved—he fought back. He remembered how he had dealt with the memories that the Sleepgivers had forced on him, and with Dallen’s help, he did the same to these. He . . . neutralized them. He’d never be able to forget them, but he and Dallen pushed and pushed at them until they weren’t his anymore. And the less they were his, the more they would fade.

  Finally, both mind and body stopped being in revolt. He sat up, with a nod of thanks to Nikolas, and drank the water down in a single gulp. He felt Dallen in his mind, still pushing the terrible memories into the background.

  Because they weren’t done yet. There was another emergency to deal with.

  “Amily,” he choked, and staggered to his feet, stumbling out of the tent. Dallen was right by the entrance; Mags hauled himself into the saddle, and Dallen launched into a gallop. Amily was out there . . . on the South Road. He wouldn’t reach her by the time she reached Brand—but damned if he still wouldn’t try.

  —

  :They’re all safe. Mags is coming. More behind him.:

  Amily nodded as relief gave her new strength. Now she could just concentrate on Brand. She had thought her heart couldn’t beat any faster, and yet, it did. She still didn’t know what she was going to do when she caught them; she only knew she had to keep Violetta safe, and keep Brand from escaping until he could be captured.

  Rolan leapt over the stiffening body of the poor horse and charged into the heavy snow under the trees. Amily could hear Violetta wailing somewhere ahead of them.

  A moment later, Violetta’s cries broke off, and she could see them. Brand had stopped trying to escape; he had his back to a tree, and Violetta held in front of him, like a human shield.

  Rolan came to a halt, the heavy snow helping, rather than hampering that. She stayed on his back, straightening up—not yet reaching for her bow and arrows. She needed to stay on Rolan, at all costs. It was her greatest advantage against his greater strength and more practice fighting against real opponents rather than in practice bouts. And she didn’t want to goad him into something terrible by drawing down on him.

  “Our fathers sent you, didn’t they?” he said, bold as brass, though he was panting with the exertion of trying to run through the snow. “Well, we love each other, and we’re not going to go through with that sham of a marriage. You can tell your King that. He can’t force us to marry anyone we don’t love. Right, my dove?”

  “Yes!” Violetta wailed, tears running down her face. “Why should Aleniel marry him? She doesn’t love him, and I do, with all my heart! Just let us go! All the King wants is for one of us girls to marry Brand, he can’t possibly care which one! Why should it matter? And I don’t care what my father says! Aleniel will be happier with Lord Peramir than I ever would be, and she’s better suited to him! We aren’t doing anything wrong, we were going to get married in the next village! Just let us go!”

  Amily was suddenly filled with an inarticulate rage at the way this young man had manipulated the poor child every step of the way. Taking advantage of her naïveté . . . what had he been doing to her in secret? From the way she acted, surely he had seduced her, slept with her, although that scarcely seemed possible. And now he had virtually kidnapped her, in a way that would make it look as if his murders of her family and his own was merely an “accident.” Things were starting to come together in Amily’s mind, very ugly things. “Violetta . . . step away from Brand,” she said, trying to keep her voice steady.

  “No!” the girl cried, pressing herself closer. “He hasn’t done anything wrong! He hasn’t stolen me away! I came with him because I wanted to! I told you, we are in love and we are getting married!”

  Amily realized, as she saw Brand’s slow, sly smile, that he didn’t know that his plan had been foiled.

  There was no way of getting the girl away from him at the moment without telling her what was going on. How her parents had nearly been burned to death at his orders. And Violetta would never believe anything that she said.

  But what if Brand said it?

  “You don’t know what you’re saying, Violetta,” she replied, speaking very slowly, stalling for time, as she half-closed her eyes, and recited that little rhyme in her head. Nine times; she had to get through it nine times, all the while envisioning that wisp of blue fog with blue eyes in the middle of it settling over Brand. “You know nothing about this man. You don’t know what he is, or what he is capable of, Violetta. He’s nothing but a mask over something terrible; a monster that was able to fool us all into thinking he was just an ordinary young man.” As she finished the last of her nine repetitions, Brand began to glow within a nimbus of dim, faintly pulsing, blue light. She had set the Truth Spell, that would show whether or not what he said was the truth. But that wouldn’t be enough. She would have to turn it coercive. She steeled herself, then she did what she had never done before.

  She envisioned that nimbus of light closing down on his head, the blue eyes superimposing themselves over his. She felt Rolan’s will joining with hers. Speak True, Only True, Even that which you shall rue!

  “Tell her, Brand,” she said, harshly, as the blue eyes opened and looked right into hers, and she got the distinct sensation of some strange intellect nodding at her. “Tell her what you did to all the betrothal guests. Tell her your plan.”

  Brand made a strangling noise, and then . . . suddenly started talking.

  “You can thank this stupid lit
tle goose for my plan,” he said, as Amily slowly got her bow off her back and nocked an arrow to it. She might need it. He would be forced to tell the truth, but if he realized what she was doing, he might try something. Violetta was still in his clutches. “If it hadn’t been for her ridiculous letter, I’d never have given her a second look when we invaded her father’s fete. But of course, when a girl throws herself at your head with such incredible enthusiasm, and your father has cut you off from the whorehouse, well, you take what you can get. I said sweet things at the fete, and sweeter things under her window. She wanted me, and who can blame me for taking advantage of that? She let me into her bedroom, then she let me into her bed, the silly little tart.”

  Violetta started, and tried to twist in his grip to look into his face. Her eyes grew as big as young plums when she saw the blue glow about him. “Brand—” she stammered.

  “Tell her how you really feel about her, Brand,” Amily ordered . . . wishing with all her heart that she didn’t have to. But Violetta needed to know the truth. She felt sick, physically sick, as Brand began to speak.

  “Feel? I don’t feel anything,” Brand replied. “She’s a pair of legs to spread, a passably pretty face, and an empty head. But she’s more tractable than that virago of a sister, and younger, so she’ll be easier to train to do what I want. I can get her to do pretty much anything I want as long as she thinks I love her. So long as the King’s gift comes with her, she’ll make a passable wife. And other people will think the story is all so very romantic.”

  Violetta’s face went white. “Brand?” she whispered.

  “When the Prince ordered you betrothed, what did you decide to do?” In the distance, Amily could hear Companion hooves at the gallop. Mags was coming. Beneath her, Rolan was as steady as a rock, and although she felt energy draining from her to fuel the Truth Spell, she felt energy flowing from Rolan to her to replace it.

  “I wanted to look over the intended bride first. One Chendlar bitch was as good as another, the way I saw it. But after I got a look at the sister, and realized what trouble she was likely to give me about having my whores, I started to think—why not figure a way to have the silly one instead? I thought, the King’s gift will come with her, no doubt of it. Then my dear father got into his cups and started talking about poisoning all the Chendlars at the betrothal feast or the wedding feast, so I’d have the Chendlar lands as well as the King’s gift. And like always, he bullied me about it, laughed that I wasn’t clever enough to have thought of that idea, taunted me that I wouldn’t be ruthless enough to pull it off.” His face contorted into a sneer. “Dear gods, how I hated that man. How I hated him. I wish I could have seen him burning alive. And that was when I thought, why should I settle for one estate, or two, when I could have three? Of course, there was the small matter of getting rid of the families in a way so that I wouldn’t get blamed. But when I saw that tent that they decided was perfect for the betrothal feast—it all came together.”

  Violetta looked as if she was going to faint at any moment. Brand was paying no attention whatsoever to her.

  “And how did you come to the notion of drugging the guests and then setting the feast tent on fire with them all in it?” Amily asked, quietly.

  “Well, I thought about poison, as father had. But poison . . .” He shook his head. “The Healers are too good at finding poison. And someone might survive it. But if I put a sleep drug in the special wine for the toasts, I knew I could send them all unconscious and the Healers likely wouldn’t be looking for that, so then . . . it was just a matter of figuring out how to kill them when they were asleep.” He paused, and his eyes stared off into the distance. “When I was a child there was a traveling show that worked out of a tent just like that one we took for the feast. One night, someone knocked a torch into a pile of hay next to it. The entire thing was engulfed in no time. They said that the wax that was used to waterproof the canvas turned it into a giant torch instead. You could see it for miles. Almost everyone inside was killed.” The unblinking blue eyes of the Truth Spell . . . thing . . . stared into hers. Behind them, Brand’s eyes were as hard and glittering as glass. “And that was when I knew what to do. Just hire a few killers, drug the betrothal toast wine, escape with this little tart so I had a lot of distance between me and the tent when it went up, and we’d be two, poor, pathetic orphans only deserving of pity. Everyone would probably assume a fight broke out, someone knocked over a torch, and they set fire to themselves. My wretched father would be dead at last. And I’d have three estates instead of two.”

  Amily heard and felt Mags ride up next to her and dismount. She wasn’t sure what he was planning to do, but she was starting to sense control of the spell slipping from her.

  “After all, no one was going to miss any of those idiots,” Brand concluded. “The King certainly wouldn’t; he’d never have to worry about the damned stupid feud again. I certainly would be happy to see my father in his grave. Leverance was a useless old man who couldn’t even keep his wife out of Talbot’s bed. And as for this stupid wench, I knew that all I needed to do to keep her quiet was to keep putting children in her belly. She’d be convinced I loved her, she’d mawk all over the brats the way she fawned all over that stupid dog, and I’d be free to spend most of my time here in Haven, rich enough to keep Lelage and any other whores I wanted.”

  And then, between the time he said those words and his next breath, Amily’s control over the spell broke.

  The blue eyes closed. The blue light faded and was gone. And Brand’s face underwent a terrible change, from calm and complacent to infuriated. “You—what did you do to me?” he screamed, trying to tighten his grip on Violetta.

  But he was too late. Rolan must have warned Mags that the spell was about to break. Mags was rushing him, and tackled, not him, but the girl, ripping her out of his grip. Mags turned the rush into a tumble, curling so that he took most of the fall himself, then managing to roll to his feet and put Violetta behind him.

  Brand screamed in fury, and pulled his sword from its sheath, charging after him.

  Only to stop, and look down, and stare, stupidly, at the arrow in his heart. He stood there for only as long as it took for Amily to draw a breath, then he dropped to the snow, blood staining the ground in a slowly growing pool beneath him.

  18

  The antechamber to the Greater Audience Chamber was cold and empty except for her. Thin, gray winter light came in through the windows on Violetta’s right. There was no place to sit, but then, she didn’t think she should sit; if she did, she was afraid she would never have the courage to stand up.

  Then came the words she had been waiting for, and dreading, delivered in a high, clear, boy’s soprano. “Lady Violetta of House Chendlar, come into the Court!”

  The page in royal livery who had made the announcement opened the carved wooden door to the Greater Audience Chamber, and stood aside. It seemed to be a league from where she stood to the open door. There were two banks of seats there, one on either side of the strip of carpet leading to the dais. She would have to pass between them to reach the foot of the dais, and both sides were packed for the inquest. One side had been designated as for House Raeylen, the other for House Chendlar, but every spare seat was taken. Violetta took a long, shuddering breath, clasped her hands together inside her muff, and took comfort in the presence of dear little Star inside it. Everyone had advised her to carry the muff, and the puppy, when she went to testify before the King, telling her that Star would help keep her steady. Well, “everyone” being Lady Dia and Heralds Amily and Nikolas.

  She kept her eyes on the floor, and took slow, careful steps as she walked up the strip of carpet to the throne, thankful that her footsteps weren’t echoing on hard floor. That would have been . . . very uncomfortable. As if I could possibly be more uncomfortable than I am now. She passed between the two ranks of seats for the courtiers, stopping at last at the dais. Only then did
she raise her eyes.

  The entire Royal Family was there; the King, Prince Sedric, and Herald Nikolas on her right, the Queen, Princess Lydia, and Herald Amily on her left. The contrast was . . . striking. And not because it was all women on the left, and all men on the right. To the right, everyone was dressed in Herald’s Whites. Extremely elaborate and ornamented Herald’s Whites, but absolutely recognizable instantly as the uniform. To the left, the Queen was in Royal Blue, the Princess in mourning black, and only Herald Amily was in Whites.

  She studied their expressions, looking for a clue as to how they felt about her, even though it was not she who was on trial here. They were sober-faced, but . . .

  What would they have looked like if everyone had died?

  A few people had died, despite the best efforts of the Healers; the drug that Brand had used had been too strong for them, or else they had drunk too much of it. Lord Kaltar, ironically enough, had been one; the rest had been cousins on both sides. The survivors were just lucky that the Healers had decided to purge them instead of letting them sleep off their dose.

  Actually, everyone was just lucky Herald Mags got there and stopped that awful man from burning them all alive.

  She shivered, thinking about how near a thing it had been, and glanced to the side, where her parents were. Both ranks of seats, to the right and to the left, were mostly full of people in mourning. Even though the Chendlar cousin that had died had been relatively remote, the House was still in full mourning for him.

  I wonder what Talbot is thinking now? Would he be gloating, because he had been right about Brand? Probably. She was glad he wasn’t here. She was not looking forward to encountering him again, and not just for that reason.

  She hardly knew how to look at her mother, who not only was in head-to-toe black, but was veiled in black as well, and had found a black cloak somewhere. Brand had been under the Truth Spell, forced to tell the exact truth as he knew it. And what he thought he knew was that Violetta’s mother had been going to bed with . . . Cousin Talbot. What was she supposed to think of her mother now?