Alight breeze brought a hint of incense from the Temple, which joined harmoniously with the fresh flowers some of the stallkeepers used as decoration. The sunshine warmed her with the promise of a fine spring to come. The annual village-wide spring cleaning had taken place only a few days earlier in preparation for the Spring Faire, and as a consequence, the entire village was as charming as a highborn child’s toy. Streets had been swept of all the winter accumulation of junk and debris, houses and fences were newly whitewashed, market booths all neatly mended. What a perfect scene this would be for a painter or a tapestry maker to reproduce, she thought, just as she came even with Shandi. This is how the highborn think all our villages look, all the time. Still, she shouldn’t be so cynical. It really is pretty - the red shutters, the pale gold of the thatched roofs, the rainbow colors of the flowers everywhere, the handsome white horse posing right at the end of the street -
- white horse ? There were no white horses in Errold’s Grove!
Keisha shook her head and looked again, but the vision didn’t go away; instead, it drew nearer. There was a blue-eyed white horse decked out in blue-and-silver riding gear at the end of the street nearest the bridge - and he was coming straight toward the market square. There was purpose in each and every step he took. He had no rider.
And - was he looking at her?
You had to have lived in a. cave all your life not to know what a blue-eyed white horse was, and meant, in this kingdom. This was a Companion, and alone like this, with no urgency in his demeanor, he hadn’t lost his Herald, nor was his Herald in trouble. No, he had to be on Search.
And that meant he was looking for a new Herald-well, Herald-trainee - the person to whom he would be bonded for the rest of both their lives.
It seemed that the entire market saw the Companion at the same time that Keisha did. Everyone stopped talking, and the silence that fell over the square was broken only by the soft chiming of bridle bells and the matching overtones of the Companion’s deliberate steps. He knew very well that all eyes were on him, too - he arched his neck and lifted each hoof so high he might have been on parade.
Keisha froze; out of the corner of her eye, she saw that Shandi had done the same. The Companion was looking neither to the right, nor to the left, and there were only two people of reasonable age for him to Choose from in the direction he was moving. Of course, Companions had been known to Choose full adults in the past, but it wasn’t usual. No, the only two people likely to be Chosen in this village who were present at the moment were Shandi - and Keisha.
For a moment, Keisha was stunned, too shocked to think. This was not supposed to be happening! But as the Companion moved closer, she wrenched herself out of her shock with a grimace, as dismay washed over her.
Don‘t you dare, she thought with annoyance bordering on anger at the Companion. Don‘ tyou dare try to Choose me! Her hands balled into fists as she stared into his eyes, willing him to hear her. Don’t even think about Choosing me! I have responsibilities here, you dolt! People here need me for what I can do, and I can ‘tjust ride out of here and leave them! Listen to me, you fool! Don’t -
Maybe staring into his eyes had been a mistake.
She felt the rest of the world vanishing around her as she fell into those twin pools of sapphire. But before she could drown in them, she bit her lip to bring her back to herself and hurled her denial at him.
I. Am. Not. Expendable! she thought, working up real heat at the thought that anyone, even a Companion, could march into her life and proceed to reorder it for her. I. Am. Not. Going!
She sensed surprise. Pick somebody else!
Now she sensed - amusement? Why amusement?
Her anger evaporated.
The eyes turned away from her, let her go. Had they ever really held her, or had that only been her imagination?
She didn’t get a chance to think about it, because movement beside her caught her attention. The Companion stood quietly, and now it was Shandi who walked with slow, entranced steps toward him.
She looked like a sleepwalker, and Keisha stifled the impulse to grab her arm and keep her where she was. Still. . . I’m not her keeper. If this is what she wants, she should try to make it work. She’s old enough to make up her own mind, just as I am, and live with whatever comes of it.
Although, it looked as if consequences were the last thing on Shandi’s mind right now.
Shandi stopped, just a step away from the Companion’s nose, and slowly reached her hand forward, as if she feared to touch him. Keisha waited, heart pounding, biting her lower lip. The Companion made short work of Shandi’s hesitation, craning his neck forward as his bridle bells chimed, and putting his nose in her hand. Then they just stood there for a long, long time, and Keisha’s breathing seemed very loud in the silence.
Then, as Keisha’s nerves wound tighter and tighter, like an overtuned harpstring, the spell - or whatever it was - finally broke. They both moved, the Companion tossing his head and sidling around so that his stirrup and saddle were in easy reach. Shandi reached for the cantle, then turned to her sister with eyes brimming with wonder.
That snapped everyone else out of their tense silence, and before Shandi could speak, she was surrounded by friends and neighbors, all of them contributing to a conglomerate of babble that sounded like a shouting match between a flock of hens and a gaggle of geese. As far as Keisha could make out, none of them had anything very intelligent to say, but they were all very intent on saying it.
Through a gap in the crowd, Shandi peered entreat-ingly back at her sister; Keisha sighed and pushed her way past everyone else to reach her.
Shandi paid attention to no one else, holding out her free hand entreatingly. “Keisha, I didn’t mean - I mean, I want to go, but I didn’t ask - I mean, I didn’t intend - ” Shandi was doing a good job of babbling herself, and Keisha reached out and gave her shoulders a friendly shake.
“Of course you didn’t mean for this to happen, you ninny,” she half-scolded, half-cajoled. “Choosings aren’t planned, everyone knows that - and it’s not as if you’d gone and made an appointment for this hairy beast to show up! I mean, if you could simply decide to be a Herald, what would be the point? Herald would be like any other job. You get Chosen because you’re the right person to be a Herald, you know that.”
And I, most certainly, am not!
Was it her imagination, or did the Companion swing his head around and wink at her, just as she thought that?
Oh, there’s probably a fly buzzing around his ears.
“But Keisha, I have to go, I mean I have to go now, and - ” Shandi looked at her, pleading with her to understand, tears brimming in her eyes and rolling slowly down one cheek.
“And if you didn’t have to go now, you know that Mum would find a thousand reasons why you couldn’t go, ever. I know that; Havens, probably everybody in town knows that.” Keisha tried to smile, but it was a great deal more difficult than she had thought it would be. “Shandi, that’s why it happens this way - I’ll bet that, otherwise, every single mother in Valdemar would have a thousand reasons why her child couldn’t go haring off into the sunset just on the say-so of a big white horse!”
“But - but - ” Shandi’s expression was painfully easy to read. Fix things for me, her eyes pleaded. This is more important than anything in my life, but I can’t go if you don’t promise to fix things forme!
Keisha closed her eyes for the briefest of moments, no more than a blink, stifled a sigh, and nodded. Just like always - it looked as if she was going to have to “pitch in” after all, and help clean up the mess. . . .
But that’s not being generous, and if it was me - oh, if Shandi could have substituted for me, I’d be at Healer’s Collegium now.
“Go,” she urged her sister, and meant it. “Go, and go now. I’ll take care of everything.”
Shandi believed her; Shandi always believed her. With a sigh of relief and a sudden smile like the sun emerging from a thundercloud, she kissed Ke
isha, hugged her tight, then fumbled loose the strings holding her belt-pouch to her belt. “Here - ” she said, pressing it into Keisha’s hands. “Take the dye, see what you can do with it, maybe it’ll be good for a medicine.” Then she turned away and mounted the Companion’s saddle with such ease and grace that it looked as if she’d been doing it all her life, never mind that she’d never ridden anything before but their aged pony. The Companion clearly was taking no chances; he gave Shandi no further chances for farewells or regrets. He danced a little, shook his harness, and pivoted in place on his hind feet. That got people to move out of his way, and pretty briskly, too. He moved out at a fast walk, allowing Shandi time enough only to wave good-bye before breaking into a canter at the end of the street. In no time at all, they were over the bridge, then lost to sight as the road was hidden by trees. Keisha let out the sigh she’d been holding in - and the exasperation. While the rest of trie villagers gathered in knots, still babbling with excitement, Keisha felt the weight of yet another burden fall on her shoulders. Let’s see - one hysterical mother, three heartbroken suitors, half a dozen friends left forlorn and a little jealous - I can handle that. I hope,
Keisha stood with her back to the wall in the warm, soup-scented kitchen, and wished she were anywhere else but there. Sidonie Alder had reacted to the news that her youngest daughter had been Chosen as a Herald precisely as she would have if Shandi had been abducted by barbarians. This made no sense, of course, but Keisha hadn’t expected anything else.
She tried not to wince when Sidonie’s voice rose to new and shriller heights. “I can’t believe you just let her go like that! How could you just stand there and let her be carried off?”
This was only about the hundredth time Keisha’s mother had repeated that particular accusation, and it didn’t look as if she were going to stop thinking Keisha was the villainess of the situation any time soon. Each time Sidonie uttered another outburst, before Keisha had a chance to say anything sensible in reply, she broke down into hysterical sobs and cast herself into the arms of her husband or one of her two oldest sons. This time it was her husband’s arms where she sought shelter from her traitorous offspring. He patted her back and said consolingly, “Now, Mother, you know that’s how it is.
Keisha couldn’t have done naught. That’s how they always do these Choosing things, I suppose, so they can make a clean break and all.”
“But she’s only a baby! She can’t take care of herself all alone!” was the inevitable reply, followed by a fresh spate of tears. Keisha wisely kept silent this time, since anything she’d tried to say until how had only brought on another outburst; her brother Garry was injudicious enough to put in his two bits.
“Aw, Mum, she’s not so little as all that!” Garry protested. “She’s old enough to take care of herself, and anyway, you know them Companions see to it the kids they Choose are right and tight. You’d have been losing her pretty soon, anyway. She’s had three beaus, an’ like as not, she’d have been married in a year or two - ”
Oh, no. Now he’s given Mum something else to weep about, Keisha thought with dismay.
She was right. “Now I’ll never see her wed!” came the wail, muffled by her husband’s shoulder. Keisha swallowed, as her stomach roiled. This was beginning to make her sick - literally.
But her father had a thoughtful look on his face, and it was pretty clear that he was thinking there was another side to all this, one that had a lot of advantages besides the obvious. Female Heralds, if they wed, generally married other Heralds; on the rare occasions they married outside the Circle, it was with men who asked nothing more of them than their company outside of duty, usually Healers or Bards. So if Shandi married, there would be no dowry to raise. If she wed, it would be with someone who would live far from Errold’s Grove - so there would be no need to put up with a son-in-law he disliked (and he disliked all three of Shandi’s suitors, each for a different reason).
The obvious reasons for being pleased about the situation were many, and he’d already brought them up to his wife, as had Keisha. Their daughter was going to be a Herald; they’d be the parents of a Herald. People would look up to them, they’d have new importance in the village; people would listen to what they said, even ask their opinions on matters of importance. Oh, of course she was going to be doing work that was often dangerous, but not for years yet, and it still wasn’t all that safe here in Errold’s Grove - after all, what if the barbarians came back?
Keisha could tell that her father had clearly come to the opinion that this was no bad thing; his thoughts might just as well have been written on his face for Keisha to read.
“Mum, she’s going to be fine,” Keisha said, once again, as her mother’s sobs quieted. “When have you ever heard of a newly Chosen Trainee coming to grief on the road? She’s going to be a very important person now, and people will look up to you because she’s your daughter. We might even get invited to Court someday and see the Queen! And if she decides to get married, what ever gave you the idea that she wouldn’t come here to do it?” This time - finally - this attempt at comfort wasn’t met with another outburst, and Keisha continued as soothingly as she could. “Mum, she’s going to be in the safest place in the world for at least four years - you just don’t get any safer than Herald’s Collegium. I mean, think! It’s right inside the Palace grounds! Think about that! Your daughter is going to be living on the Palace grounds, and not as a servant either! She’ll be back every long holiday, you know she will. After all, you couldn’t keep her away. Which one of us always throws herself into the holidays, hmm? Shandi, of course! Just because she’s going to be a Herald, that doesn’t mean she doesn’t love her family!”
Oh, but I’m getting very close to not loving my dear family right now. . . . All of this excitement had given Keisha a pounding headache; she felt as if all her nerves were scraped raw and someone was pouring saltwater on them. Her stomach was so sour she probably wouldn’t be able to eat any supper. But Shandi was the baby - my baby sister, the one I looked after and picked up after - and if I didn ‘t have to help calm Mum down, I’d probably be the one bawling like a bereft calf right now. I can’t do that, and make sure Mum gets through this and starts to look on the bright side -
But right now, given the least sign that her mother was getting over her hysterics - or at least that some of her mother’s friends were going to come help console her - Keisha would be only too happy to get out of the house and go somewhere - anywhere - else.
Evidently she had been good enough and patient enough that for once her unspoken prayers were answered. As if the thought had been a summons, relief came bursting through the kitchen door at that very moment.
“Sidonie! Ayver!” Three of the neighbor women came bursting into the kitchen like a force of nature, all three of them managing to squeeze in at the same time, not waiting to be invited inside. “Is it true? A Herald? A Healer and a Herald in the same family, how proud you must be!”
A Healer and a Herald! she thought, startled for a moment by the phrasing. Oh, my - bless them for noticing!
Like the people in the market, they were all talking at once, but since there were only three of them, they didn’t step all over each other’s sentences so much that it all turned into a confused gabble. They surrounded Sidonie and Ayver, faces flushed with excitement at being so close to the great event. “Oh, Sidonie, just think! Our little Shandi is going to be so important!”
Sidonie took her face out of her husband’s shoulder, and though it was tear-streaked and red with weeping, it seemed that the arrival of her friends pulled her the last few steps out of hysteria. She wiped her face with her apron, and began to look more like her normal self.
Keisha deemed it practical at that point to remove herself.
But she hadn’t gotten more than a single step out the door - in fact, she was still standing on the threshold - before she ran into another of the Fellowship women, one whom she knew well. Alys was in charge of the health of all of
the herds, and as such, she and Keisha had spent plenty of time together dosing the animals for a variety of illnesses and other problems. This afternoon Alys looked hesitant as she approached the house, and great relief spread over her blunt features when she saw that Keisha was just leaving.
“Oh, Keisha - I’m sure this is a bad time, but that chirra I was worried about has definitely got wet-tail - ” she began; Keisha didn’t give her a chance to say more. She took Alys’s elbow and pointed her toward the workshop, just as she spotted four more women bustling in their direction, heading for the Alder house.
“It’s always a bad time when a beast gets sick, you ought to know that!” she said, making a joke out of it. “They never choose reasonable times to have problems! No worry, I’m going to be the last creature Mum thinks about for a while. Not only will I not be missed, I can make you up what you need in no time; you’ve caught it early, so you should have a cure by tomorrow.”
The more distance she got between herself and the house, the better she felt, and chatting with Alys about the beasts of her herds was such a commonplace matter it could not have been a better antidote for the hysteria she’d just endured. Alys was a calming person to be around anyway; she had to be, as the animals she worked with were quick to sense agitation and become upset themselves. She was older than Sidonie by a year or two, sturdy, brown, and square, with a friendly face and open manner. Like all the women of the Fellowship, her workday clothing was fairly drab, not unlike Keisha’s, except that the tunic and breeches were of a better fit and not hand-me-downs.
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