Heralds of Valdemar (A Valdemar Omnibus)

by Lackey, Mercedes

  Kris felt absolutely helpless; this was not an area in which he had any expertise at all. He glanced entreatingly at his internee, who was farmbred, after all, and should have some notion of how to sort it out. Talia was looking a bit white around the lips and eyes, but otherwise seemed in control. He nudged Tantris up beside her, and whispered, “All right, trainee—you know more about this sort of thing than I do. Got any ideas?”

  She started just a little; possibly only someone watching for reactions would have noticed it. “I… I think so,” she said, slowly. “It’s like a dispute we had once back at Sensholding.”

  “Then take over. I’m out of my depth.”

  She asked a few questions of the disputants, then went among the rest of the villagers, making inquiries into the habits of each of the parties in question. It was generally agreed that, while the owner of the cow was parsimonious, he was far too stingy to have ruined his own fences just to save a stud fee. And the bull’s owner had a habit of allowing it to stray, being too lazy to fix breaks in his own enclosures until after the beast had escaped yet another time.

  But then she surprised Kris by asking a source he never would have considered—some of the children gathered at the edge of the crowd. After sidelong glances to be certain that no one was likely to tell them to hold their tongues, they told Talia that this particular cow was never kept in the field where the bull had supposedly found her. She was quite valuable, and her owner always kept her where he could keep an eye on her.

  Talia returned to the disputants.

  “This is my first judgment,” she said, slowly, and with an oddly expressionless tone. “There is no doubt that your bull did stray, and since it is quite probable that it did the damage claimed to the fences, you owe this man for the repairs he had to make.”

  The owner of the bull looked extremely disgruntled; the cow’s owner gloated. Talia did not allow him to gloat for long.

  “You, on the other hand,” she told him—not quite looking at him, “have never kept your cow in that particular field. You must have seen that the bull had broken in, and decided that since the damage was already done, you might as well save yourself the stud fee. So you moved your cow to the field where the bull was. Because of this, my second judgment is that you owe him half the stud fee he would normally have charged you.”

  Now both of them looked chagrined.

  “All things considered, I should think that you are probably even.”

  They grudgingly agreed that this was the case.

  “Don’t you leave yet!” she said, turning to the owner of the bull, and showing a little more animation. “You have been letting a potentially dangerous animal roam loose. My third judgment is that anyone who finds your bull roaming and confines it in a safe place for you to take home is entitled to have his cows serviced for nothing to pay him for his trouble. That should induce you to take better care of your stock in the future.”

  The grins creasing the faces of the rest of the villagers made it clear that they considered Talia’s rulings to have been equitable and appropriate—and they were certainly popular. Kris smiled and gave her a little nod of approval; she smiled back, tentatively, some of the strain gone from around her eyes.

  With children ranging along before and behind them, they continued down to the village itself, which was a slightly larger version of the first village they had served, and actually boasted a “town hall” of sorts. It was there that they set up shop in the single large room that served as a meeting hall, behind an ancient and battered marble-topped table that might well be the oldest object in the village. It was an improvement on the common room of the inn in that it wasn’t as smoky or cramped; but the fireplace did little to heat it, and Kris found himself hoping that they would be able to deal with their business and be on their way before he got frostbitten feet and fingers.

  But another dispute for arbitration landed on them almost immediately; a problem of the location of the boundary between two neighboring farms. The farmers themselves were not overly concerned about the matter, as they were old friends and had settled the problem over the years by sharing equally both the work and the fruits of the fields in question. They confided to Kris, however, that they feared this could not continue for very much longer; both had more than one son to be provided for, and they feared that tempers were already growing heated on the subject among their offspring. Kris, after a glance at Talia showed him she had no opinion in this matter, agreed that the matter should be settled now, before it developed into a full-blown feud. He promised that they would attend to it as soon as they had discharged their other duties.

  The disputants were obliged to be content with that. Kris called for the village records, and while each of them took a turn at relaying the news and the laws, the other searched the records provided by the village clerk for clues to the ownership of the properties in question.

  Regrettably, the clues were few, and contradictory. It seemed that both claims were equally valid.

  * * *

  Talia was increasingly reluctant to take any part in the affairs at hand. Her shielding was disintegrating, slowly, but steadily; she was positive of that now. What was worse, she was no longer certain that she was able to keep her own feelings from intruding and influencing those around her, for her instinct-level control over projection was going, too. Kris was trying to put her at ease, but she could sense his own doubts as clearly as if he were shouting them aloud.

  And when, the night before they were due to leave, they discussed the problem of the disputed fields at length in the privacy of the Waystation, she was keeping herself under such tight control that she knew she was going to have a reaction-headache from the strain.

  “The problem is that the stream they used as the original dividing line has changed its bed so many times that I can’t see any way of reconstructing what it was originally,” Kris sighed. “And you can’t cast a Truth Spell on a stream!”

  She hesitated a long moment, drawing invisible patterns on the hearthstone of the Station with a twig. “Do you suppose they’d settle for dividing it equally? You’ve talked with them more than I have.”

  “Not a chance,” Kris replied flatly, firelight casting ever-changing shadows across his face. “I’ve talked with the eldest sons, and they’re just about ready to come to blows over it. The fathers would be perfectly willing, but the children would never stand for it, and it’s the children who will make trouble if they’re not satisfied.”

  “I can’t see making this an all-or-nothing proposition,” she sighed, after a long pause.

  “Neither can I.” Kris stared into the flames, thinking. “Among the highborn the way to settle this would be to marry two of the younger children, then deed the land in question to them.”

  “There’s not enough land there to support even one person, much less a family,” Talia felt impelled to point out, “even if we could find two of the children willing to marry.”

  Kris played absently with one of the arrows from his quiver—then looked down at it suddenly, and smiled in inspiration. “What about the hand of Fate?”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “Suppose we each took a stand on the opposite sides of the area and shot arrows straight up—then drew a line between where they landed for the new border. If there’s no wind tomorrow, where they fall is going to be pretty much at the whim of the Lady. Do you think that would satisfy everyone?”

  “That… that’s no bad notion,” she said, thinking hard. “Especially if we have the priest bless the arrows, pray over the fields, that sort of thing. It wouldn’t be human decision anymore; it would be in the hands of the gods—and who’s going to dispute the will of the gods? I think both families will be willing to abide by it. Kris, that’s a wonderful idea!” She sighed, rather sadly. “I wouldn’t have thought of that.”

  “You did fine yourself, earlier,” he said, more forcefully than he had intended. “I was totally out of my depth.”

  �
��Well, I don’t like the idea of anyone allowing livestock to roam at will. Out here on the Border if cattle or hogs get into the forested areas, they’re likely to go feral, and then you’ve got a real problem on your hands.”

  “Hmn. I knew dogs gone wild could be a problem, but I never knew livestock could.” Kris filed that piece of information away for future reference.

  “It’s a fairly serious problem,” she replied absently. “When domestic animals go feral, they have no fear of man the way wild animals do, and what’s more, they’re familiar with how people act. There was more than one person among Holderkin killed or maimed by feral stock.”

  “Well, I repeat, you did fine. You shouldn’t be afraid to put your say in. That’s what this internship is all about.”

  “I—” she started, then shrank back into herself.

  “What?”

  “Nothing,” she replied, moving back into the shadows where he couldn’t read her expression. “I’m just tired, that’s all. We should get some rest.”

  That withdrawal troubled him badly… but there didn’t seem to be anything he could do about it.

  * * *

  On their way out of town the next day, they stopped to acquire the clerk and the priest; when they presented their solution to the two families in question, both sides were heartily in favor of it. The farmers themselves were willing to agree to any solution to the problem that would defuse the potentially explosive situation between their children. The children of both families were equally certain that the gods would be with them when the arrows flew.

  For something that had been under dispute for so long, the end came almost as an anticlimax. The priest blessed arrows, bows, Heralds, Fields, families—anything that could possibly pertain to or be interested in the problem. (“If it moves, I’m blessing it,” he told the Heralds with a twinkle in his eyes. “And if it doesn’t move, I’m praying over it!”) Talia and Kris each took a stand on the exact midpoint of the northern and southern boundaries of the disputed plot and launched their arrows; the priest marked the landing point of one, the clerk of the other. The landing places were permanently designated with stone cairns and newly-planted trees, the new border was made and drawn on the maps and deeds. Both sides professed themselves satisfied. The Heralds went on their way.

  * * *

  But by now Talia was so withdrawn that Kris could not read her at all; she might as well have been a statue of a Herald. She seemed to have wrapped herself in a cocoon of self-imposed isolation, and nothing he could do or say seemed to be able to break her out of it.

  And as for himself, he found himself wondering if both those disputes hadn’t been solved a little too easily. It would have been child’s play for her to have nudged the disputants ever so slightly into a more friendly—or at least less antagonistic—attitude toward one another. And once she was gone, if that was indeed what she had done, the quarrels would break out all over again.

  Had he been overly impressed with the way she had handled the first case? Had she been adjusting his attitude?

  There was simply no way of being sure… no way at all.

  * * *

  Talia was coming to realize that all her control had been on a purely instinctive level; that she really didn’t understand how her own Gift worked. The training Ylsa had given her was the sort given to Mindspeakers, and in the face of this disintegration of control, very little of Ylsa’s teaching seemed directly applicable to her current problem. The Healers she’d worked with had never said anything to her… perhaps because they’d seen the control and assumed it was conscious rather than instinctive.

  For that matter, her Gift might not be much like theirs except in effect. They certainly didn’t use their Empathy as primary Gift; it was used mostly as an adjunct to Healing.

  They certainly weren’t confronted with the ethical considerations she found herself facing. When they weren’t Healing, they simply shielded. And they didn’t work with law and politics.

  She longed to tell Kris—and feared to. It would only make things worse, and what could he do, after all? His Gift wasn’t even of the same type as hers, and what training he had been given could hardly apply to her.

  So she said nothing, endured in miserable self-doubt, and did her best to reverse a situation that was moving increasingly out of control.

  6

  There was little of note in any of the towns and villages they passed through on their meandering way to the Border. The worst that they encountered were three cases where the village headmen were obviously trying to cover something up; twice they were lining their own pockets with tax money, once the headman was deliberately omitting his farms and those of his kin from the survey and tax rolls. In all three cases they actually did nothing when the cheats were uncovered; that was not their job. Instead, they noted these facts on their reports. When the taxmen arrived in the spring, they would come armed with the truth, and the guilty parties would find themselves paying a stiff penalty. This kept the onus of tax enforcement off the Heralds.

  One thing was notable; the farther north they went, the greater the distance grew between communities, and the smaller the communities were. Now it was taking nearly a week’s ride to pass from village to village.

  Talia remained withdrawn and silent, responding only when spoken to, and never volunteering any opinion. She seemed to warm up a little when they were between villages. She’d talk to Kris then, on her own; she even could be persuaded to sing a little. But as soon as they came within a day’s ride of a populated area, the shutters came down, and she locked everything and everyone outside. When she spoke, she had an odd, flat, indifferent quality to her tone. She reminded Kris of himself the first time he’d walked the two-rope bridge on the obstacle course; there was that kind of tautness underneath the mask, as if she expected to fall at any moment. Tantris could tell him nothing, but even Rolan seemed unusually on edge.

  There was one other thing to observe about the countryside; these northernmost communities were not only smaller, but they kept themselves behind palisades of strong logs, with gates that were barred at night. There were wolves and other wild beasts prowling the winter nights—and some of those beasts were on two legs. The Forest of Sorrows didn’t keep everything out of this Sector, and couldn’t prevent outlaws from coming in from the three directions other than the forest Border. Talia and Kris rode with all senses alert and their weapons loose and to hand now, and they bolted the Waystation doors at night.

  All of which might have accounted for Talia’s nerves; except that she supposedly came from Border country herself, and should be used to keeping watch for raiders. Still, Kris reasoned, it had been a long time, and she had never been part of the defenders—she had been part of what was being protected.

  But that wouldn’t account for Rolan’s nerves. The Companions were both combat-trained and combat-experienced; they were more than guard enough for themselves, their Chosen, and the chirras. Kris watched Talia—unobtrusively, he hoped—and worried, and wondered.

  * * *

  They progressed through several towns and villages; Talia was beginning to feel as if she were falling to pieces, bit by bit. Her shields were eroding to the point where she had very little control over them, and nearly everything was getting through; she knew she was not only reading, she was inadvertently projecting, because Rolan was becoming as nervous as she was. Her only defense was to withdraw into herself as much as possible, and Kris seemed bound and determined to prevent that. She felt lost, and frightened, and utterly alone. There was no one she could turn to for help; Kris himself had said that he thought her Gift was unique. She was certain now that he couldn’t give her any advice on how to handle it; his own Gift was very nearly the kind that could be weighed and measured. Hers wasn’t even necessarily detectable. And now it was becoming utterly unpredictable. Her feeling of panic and entrapment grew.

  Finally, they reached the town of Hevenbeck, very nearly on the Border itself. Talia’s unhappiness wa
s a hard knot within her now; the petty problems of the townfolk seemed trivial at this point.

  In the previous village they’d had some of their messages catch up with them; one of them had been a brief note to Talia from Elspeth. She’d said only that she was doing well, hoped Talia was the same, and that Talia wasn’t to worry about her. And that added to Talia’s troubles. She had no notion of what prompted the note, or what could be happening back at the capital at this moment. Elspeth was in her first year as a trainee; like Talia she was the only girl in her year-group. She was probably confused—most certainly overwhelmed—and just entering adolescence to top it all off. And she would be having to cope with all the rumors Talia already knew, and whatever had sprung up in her absence. It was quite likely she needed Talia more now than she ever had since she’d been the Brat.

  Not to mention the effect of the rumors on the rest of the Heralds.

  Would they, like Kris, be tempted to believe them? Or would they dismiss them out of hand and ignore the matter—leaving Elspeth to face them alone?

  How was Selenay getting along without her? What if the Queen was turning to Orthallen for advice—Orthallen, whom Talia somehow could not bring herself to trust?

  She was so engrossed in trying to hold control and deal with these other worries that had begun occurring to her that she was paying scant attention to the petitioners before her—a grim and straitlaced couple who reminded Talia unpleasantly of her own Holderkin relatives.

  They were dressed in clothing of faded black and dusty brown; carefully mended and patched as if they were two of the town’s poorest inhabitants, although Talia and Kris had been informed by the headman that they were actually one of the wealthiest couples Hevenbeck boasted. Their mouths were set in identical disapproving grimaces as they harked over their grievances in thin, whining voices.

  Those voices irritated her no end; their petty spitefulness rasped at her through what was left of her shields, like having sandpaper rubbing over a sunburn. She was grateful when Kris interrupted them.