Heralds of Valdemar (A Valdemar Omnibus)

by Lackey, Mercedes

* * *

  After that, though there were occasional brief lapses, the child was able to maintain her good behavior with very little effort. Throughout the hot days of that summer, she rapidly became the pet of the Collegium, although she was never in any danger of being spoiled as everyone remembered only too well what the Brat had been like.

  Rather than simply watching things, she began volunteering to help. At archery practice she brought water and arrows to replace those broken, at weapons practice, chalk and dry towels. She did her best to help groom Companions and clean tack, and not just Rolan and his gear, but turning a hand to help anyone who happened to be there. When it was Talia’s turn at chores during “their” afternoons, Elspeth even insisted on doing her share; Mero the Cook soon began looking forward to having her in the kitchen and always had a special treat for his helpers on the days that she and Talia shared the work. Elspeth even had a certain fascination for the mending chores, never having known before how it was that torn clothing came to be repaired. She was not very good at it, though, not having the patience for tedious work, and preferred to do something active, like sorting the clothing into piles of “still good enough,” “wear only to work out,” and “hopeless”—her own terms, quickly adopted by the rest. “Hopeless” was a particular favorite—the mender in question enacting mourning scenes over the offending garment. It got to be a regular game, one all of them enjoyed to the hilt.

  By the time the leaves were turning, no one could imagine the Collegium without Elspeth running about with the trainees.

  * * *

  One chilly afternoon, with the last desiccated leaves blowing against Talia’s window, there was a quiet knock on her door. When Talia opened it, Sherrill was standing there—in Whites.

  Talia was speechless for a moment—then hugged her friend as hard as she could, exclaiming breathlessly, “You did it! You did it!” Sherrill hugged back, one happy tear escaping from her eyes. “I guess I did,” she said when Talia finally let her go. “You’re the first to know, except for Elcarth.”

  “I am? Oh, Sherri—I don’t know what to say—it’s wonderful! I’m so glad for you! When are you leaving on your assignment?”

  “Next week,” she said, seeming to feel more than a little awkward suddenly, “and I had another reason for coming here—seeing as I’m sort of your mentor—well—there’s something I have to tell you about before I leave.”

  “Go on,” Talia replied, wondering why her friend was so ill-at-ease.

  “Well—what do you think of—boys?”

  “I never really thought about it, much,” she replied.

  “I mean, do you like them? You seem to—like Skif a lot.”

  “I’m not like Keren, if that’s what you mean.”

  “No, it isn’t.” Sherrill squirmed in frustration. “You know—about babies and all that, right?”

  “I should hope so, seeing as they’d planned on marrying me off before I came here!” Talia replied with some amusement. “And I think I’ve helped Keren with more foals than you ever have in just one year on foal-watch! I think they wait for me!”

  “Well, do you know how not to have them? I mean, you must have noticed that you don’t often see a pregnant Herald, and we’re hardly a celibate bunch…”

  “Yes, in answer to your second question,” Talia said, thinking wryly of the nocturnal activities of her next-door neighbor Destria. “But no to your first!”

  “We’ve got something the Healers make up for us,” Sherrill said, obviously relieved that she wasn’t going to have to explain the facts of life to her young friend. “It’s a powder—you take some every day, except when you’re having moon-days. It doesn’t even taste bad, which is truly amazing considering the way most of their potions taste. You can also use it to adjust your cycles if you have to, if you know you’re going to be in a situation where having your moon-days would be really awkward, for instance. You just stop taking it earlier, or keep on longer. I figured I’d better tell you about it, or it was possible no one would. I know you haven’t needed it yet—but you might want it soon if the gleam I’ve been seeing in Skif’s eyes means anything.”

  “You remembered to tell me this on the day you got your Whites?” Talia asked incredulously, ignoring the comment about Skif. “Oh, Sherri, whatever did I do to deserve a friend like you?”

  The powder worked just as well as the little sponges Sherrill had shown her how to use in place of the rag-clouts for moon-days, and Talia was more than grateful to Sherrill for telling her about it. Being able to adjust her cycles was wonderful in and of itself—which was just as well, since she never really got a chance to test the efficacy of the other application.

  She and Skif were so often thrown together that Talia had lost any self-consciousness around him, and had certainly long since unconsciously relegated him to the category of “safe” males, especially after the help he’d been with the Hulda affair. It helped that they were much of an age and size and that the normally rowdy Skif muted his voice and actions around her, as if being aware how easily she could be startled or frightened by a male. They had started out being quite good friends—but now he was being attracted to her in another way, as his mealtime behavior had so ardently demonstrated. So what occurred next between them was hardly surprising.

  After Talia had so nearly died in the icy water of the river, Alberich had assigned Sherrill to give her the same kind of swimming lessons a child of the Lake would have. Sherrill’s last act before going out on her internship was to surprise Talia on the bridge and toss her into the same spot she’d been thrown before. The water was almost as cold, though the ice was scarcely more than a thin skin among the reeds. Sherri stood ready to haul her out if she had to, but Talia “passed” this impromptu exam with flying colors and chattering teeth.

  Skif met her coming back to her room, laughing, shaking with cold, barefoot and dripping and wrapped in a horseblanket.

  “Holy stars!” he exclaimed in shock. “What happened to you?”

  “Sherri pushed me in the river—no, wait,” she forestalled his rushing off to mete out the same treatments to the innocent Sherrill. “It was on Alberich’s orders. She’s been teaching me what she knows, and she wanted a foolproof way of testing whether I’d learned or not.”

  “Some test,” Skif grumbled, then to Talia’s surprise, picked her up and carried her to her room.

  “They don’t ever let up on you, do they?” he complained, helping her out of her sodden clothing and building up the tiny fire in her room.

  “Holy stars, you do twice the work of the rest of us, and you never get a break, and then they turn around and do things like this to you…”

  She turned unexpectedly and stumbled. He caught her, and she found herself staring into his brown eyes at a meager distance of an inch or two. He froze, then seized his opportunity and kissed her.

  They broke apart in confusion a long moment later.

  “Uh, Talia…” he mumbled.

  “I like you, Skif,” she said softly. “I like you a lot.”

  “You do?” He flushed. “I—you know I like you.”

  “And you know who my next-door neighbor is. Nobody’d notice if we—you know.”

  “You mean—” Skif could hardly believe his ears. Or his luck. “But you’ve got your good uniform on—you’re going somewhere. Tonight maybe?”

  “I’ve got a Council meeting, but after that…”

  Alas for poor Skif—the Council meeting was long and boring, and Talia was a good deal more tired from Sherri’s “trial by water” than she realized. She arrived at her room a little before him and sat down on her bed to rest. By the time he got there, much to Skif’s chagrin, she was fast asleep.

  He bit his lip in annoyance; then his expression softened. He covered her carefully with a blanket and gave her a chaste kiss on one cheek; she was so weary she didn’t even stir.

  “No matter, lady-o,” he whispered. “We can try again another time.”

  * * *<
br />
  “Bright Havens, little one!” Jadus exclaimed, seeing Talia’s strained expression as she arrived for her nightly visit. “What ails you?”

  “I—I’m not sure,” she replied hesitantly. “But everyone’s so angry—I thought I could keep it out, but it won’t stay out—”

  “You should have said something sooner,” he scolded gently, using his own Gift to reinforce her shielding. “Elcarth could have helped you.”

  “Elcarth was busy, and everybody else was too angry to get near. Jadus, what’s wrong with everyone? I thought Heralds didn’t get angry—I’ve never felt anything like this before!”

  “That’s because you weren’t in any shape to sense the mood of the Collegium last winter, dear heart.”

  “You’re changing the subject,” Talia said, a bit tartly. “And if this affects Selenay or Elspeth, I need to know what it’s all about.”

  Jadus hesitated, then sighed and concluded that she was right. “It’s not a pretty tale,” he said. “There’s a young Herald named Dirk who became infatuated with one of the Court beauties. That’s not too uncommon, especially the first time a Herald is assigned to the Court or Collegium, but she apparently played on it, built it into something a great deal more serious on his part. And all the time she was simply toying with him—intended using him for the rather base end of getting at a friend of his. When she was found out, she said some very cruel things—deliberately came very close to destroying his fairly fragile ego. She totally shattered his self-esteem; she’s got him convinced he’s worth less than a mongrel dog. He’s been sent back to his home for a while; hopefully in the company of his family and friends, he’ll recover. I pray so; Dirk is a good lad, and a valuable Herald, and worth fifty of her. I knew his father at Bardic, and the lad did me the service of visiting me now and again to pay his respects. The anger you feel is largely due to the fact that we are legally and ethically unable to mete out to that—woman—the punishment she richly deserves. And child, we do get angry; we’re only human—and it hurts to know we are helpless to avenge what has been done to one dear to us because we obey the spirit and the letter of the law.”

  Talia left Jadus deep in thought, wondering if she’d ever truly be worthy of that kind of caring.

  * * *

  Skif slipped Talia a note at breakfast. “My room, tonight?”

  She smiled and nodded very slightly.

  He arrived at his room, Talia and the proposed rendezvous temporarily forgotten. He was battered, bruised, and sore from his head to his heels, and all he was really thinking about was whether or not he could coax Drake or Edric into bringing him something from the kitchen so that he wouldn’t have to drag his weary body to the commonroom.

  He blinked in surprise to see food and hot tea waiting on his desk. He blinked again to see Talia sitting on his bed.

  “Oh, Lord of Lights—Talia, I forgot!”

  “I heard,” she said simply. “But I thought you could use food and a friend—and we’ll see if we can’t get you in shape for other things with those two.”

  “He’s a sadist, that Alberich,” he moaned, lowering himself, wincing, into the chair, and reaching for the tea. “‘Time you had some responsibility,’ he said. ‘You’re going to be my assistant,’ he said. ‘It’ll give you less time for picking of pockets and evil habits.’ He didn’t say he’d be giving me extra lessons. He didn’t say that he was going to make me the sparring partner for hulking brutes who’ve already gotten their Whites. He didn’t tell me I was going to be teaching three giants who never saw anything more sophisticated than a club. Holy stars, Talia, you should see those three! They were farmers, or so they tell me. Farmers! Talia, if you asked directions from one of them, he’d probably pick up the plow, ox and all, to point the way!”

  Talia murmured sympathetically, and massaged his shoulders.

  “I hurt in places I didn’t know I had,” he complained, eating his dinner with what, for him, was unnatural slowness.

  “I might be able to help with that,” Talia smiled, continuing to massage his aches.

  It was a short two steps to his bed; she got most of the clothing off him—and not so incidentally off herself. She had gotten hold of some kellwood-oil and warmed it to skin temperature, using it to help get the knots out of his bruised and battered muscles. Under her gentle ministrations he was even beginning to feel somewhat revived; then he made the mistake of closing his eyes.

  Talia realized it was hopeless when she heard his gentle snores.

  She sighed, eased herself out of his bed, tucked him in like a child, and returned to her own room.

  * * *

  This Midwinter, she stayed at the Collegium quite gladly, enjoying the unusual freedom to read until all hours of the night if she chose, and greatly enjoying Jadus’ company. She discovered that this year Mero and Gaytha were remaining over the holiday, along with Keren and Ylsa, and the six of them often met in Jadus’ room for long discussions over hot cider.

  Keren and Ylsa took her out with them on long rides into the countryside outside the capital. They even managed to persuade Jadus to accompany them on more than one of these expeditions—the first time he’d been off Collegium grounds for years. The three of them had found a pond that had frozen with a black-ice surface as smooth as the finest mirror. While Ylsa and Jadus stayed by the fire they built on the shore, laughing at the other two and keeping a careful eye on the rabbit and roots they were roasting for a snow-picnic, Karen taught Talia how to skate. With runners made of polished steel fastened to her boots, Keren glided on the surface of the pond with the grace of a falcon in flight.

  Talia fell down a lot—at least at first.

  “You’re just trying to get back at me,” she accused. “I never got a sore rear from riding, so you’re trying some other way to make it hard for me to sit down!”

  Keren just chuckled, helped her up again, and resumed towing her around the pond.

  Eventually she acquired the knack of balancing, then of moving. By the time they quit to return home, she was thoroughly enjoying herself, even if she looked, as she said, “more like a goose than a falcon!”

  They repeated this trip nearly every other day, until by Midwinter itself Talia was proficient enough to be able to skate—shakily—backwards.

  Once again they shared the revelry in the Servant’s Hall, this time with the other four as additions to the group. It was altogether a most satisfactory Midwinter holiday.

  * * *

  When classes resumed, she added one in law and jurisprudence and another in languages and lost the free hour in the library. Often it seemed as if there simply weren’t enough hours in the day to do everything, but somehow she managed.

  Her bond with Rolan, if anything, continued to deepen; now it seemed as if he was always present at the back of her mind. She knew by now that he was the source of some of the wisdom that she’d had spring unbidden into her mind when the Queen needed it, and that it had been Rolan who had guided her when she’d needed to bail Skif out of Orthallen’s ill graces. Rolan, after all, had the benefit of living in the mind of a man of great ability—the former King’s Own, Talamir—for all of Talamir’s life as a Herald, and made all of that wisdom available to his new Herald. Yet some of it, at least, was all Talia’s own; the instinctive judgment that only the Monarch’s Own Herald possessed.

  Before she realized how much time had passed, the trees were budding again. There was a new crop of trainees, and Talia was amazed at how young these children looked. Sometimes she was just as surprised, when looking in a mirror, at how young she still looked—for she felt as if she must appear at least a hundred years old by now.

  Spring did bring one respite; Keren had taught her all she knew. There would be no more equitation classes, as such. From time to time she would help Keren with the younger students who needed individual help, but it was not the steady, draining demand that the class had been.

  Now that Keren was no longer Talia’s teacher, their relati
onship ripened into an incredibly close friendship, closer even than the relationship Talia had had with her sister Vris. For all of the difference in their ages—Keren was slightly more than twice Talia’s age—they discovered that the difference was negligible once they really began to talk with one another. The closeness they had begun over the Midwinter holiday began to deepen and strengthen. Talia found that Keren was the one person in the entire Collegium with whom she felt free to unburden herself—perhaps because Keren was strongly sympathetic to the weight of responsibility on the shoulders of the Queen’s Own, having had that burden in her own family. Being able to say exactly what she pleased to somebody made life a great deal easier for Talia.

  As for Keren—Talia was one of the few people she’d ever met, even in the Heraldic circle, who was willing to accept her, her relationship with Ylsa, and all that this implied, without judgment. Once Talia’s loyalty was given, it was unswerving and unshakable. Most Heralds liked and admired Keren, but many were uneasy about getting too close to her, as if her preferences were some kind of stain that might rub off on them. Talia was one of the few who gave her heart freely and openly to one she considered to be her best friend. And with Ylsa so often away, life up until now had been rather lonely—a loneliness Talia did much to alleviate, simply by being there.

  Talia learned something new about her friend, something that few guessed. The outward strength and capability of the riding instructor masked the internal fragility of a snowflake. Her emotional stability rested on a tripod of three bonds—the one with Teren, the one with Dantris, her Companion, and the one with Ylsa. It was partially because of that that the Circle had assigned the twins to teaching full-time at the Collegium when the advance of middle years made it time to think of taking them from field duty (although the primary reasons were that they were experts in their areas—Keren with equitation and Teren for his talents in dealing with children and true gift for teaching). There was very little chance that anything untoward would occur to either Dantris or her brother here. Ylsa had been given her own assignment as Special Messenger because of the unusual endurance of Felara, second only to Rolan’s—though it was true that the duty of special messenger was not as hazardous as many of the others, which had again been a minor consideration. Still, Talia often thought with a vague dread that if anything ever happened to Ylsa, Keren might well follow.