He knew where the stable was already, for he had been to visit Dallen several times there. This time, when he pushed open the door tentatively, and stood blinking in the horse- and straw-scented gloom, he saw one of the Guards was ahead, pulling tight the wide strap that held Dallen’s saddle on his back.
He stood back uncertainly. The Guard didn’t seem to know he was there. :Now what do I do?: he thought.
:You ask Tennit to help you onto my back.: Dallen cast an amused glance at him out of one blue eye, and the Guard turned.
“Heyla,” the man said in a friendly enough tone. “Got this lad all tacked up and ready for ye. Are ye gonna be needin’ a bit of help, then?”
Relieved that the man understood without Mags having to say anything, the boy nodded.
“Right ye are. So, ye come over here, yah? Then ye get yer left foot inta this thing, yah? ’S called a stirrup. Now ye grab that there—that there is the pommel of the saddle. If ye was alone, ye’d haul yerself up, but since I’m here, ye step inta my hands, ya?”
Awkwardly, Mags did so, gingerly putting his right foot into the man’s interlaced hands. And suddenly, he found himself shoved right into the air, practically over Dallen, saddle and all, and it was only by hanging onto the pommel thing for dear life that he avoided going right over Dallen’s back to fall in the straw on the other side of the Companion.
With a thud, he landed in the saddle and awkwardly fitted his right foot into the other stirrup.
The man fussed about with the stirrups for a moment, shortening the straps holding them to the saddle. Finally he was satisfied, as Mags sat there feeling unbalanced and precarious—and very far from the ground. “Right then, off ye go! Have a good ride!” He patted Dallen on the shoulder, and before Mags was ready, the Companion was moving.
Once again he held to the pommel of the saddle for all he was worth, and the feeling that he was never going to get the hang of this riding business, that he was going to fall off at any moment and break his skull, and that Dallen was surely laughing at him.
:And why would I laugh at you?: came the indignant response.
:I dunno, ’cause ... ’cause ...:
:I would much rather make a decent rider of you before we have to start on our journey to Haven. So, Chosen, you are sitting there in my saddle like a bag of grain. Let me show you ...:
And now, Mags felt something he had not experienced until this moment. It was as if he and someone else were sharing the same body. But the second person understood exactly how to ride, and ride well, ride expertly in fact. And that person lent to Mags the experience of how a good rider felt in the saddle. It was a very, very strange sensation. A little like sharing his body with a ghost. But as Dallen continued to move at a brisk walk, Mags shifted his weight, his posture, even small things like how his legs gripped Dallen’s body, until what he was feeling matched what the ghostly presence had experienced.
In a moment of brilliant epiphany, it all came together. Mags no longer felt as if he was going to tumble off at any moment. As Dallen kicked his way through fluffy, sparkling snow, still moving at a brisk walk, Mags began to feel elation. It was like the first time he chipped out a really big sparkly without damage. Only better.
Now Dallen started moving in and around the trees surrounding the Guard building, curving his body first one way, then the other. Mags felt his balance changing and followed that intangible guide to get it back. Then Dallen changed to a different gait, a bouncy sort of movement.
That was painful at first. Mags and Dallen were no longer moving at the same rate, and the first couple of paces, Mags hit the saddle hard enough to jar.
“Ow!” he exclaimed indignantly. “What’re ye doin’ that for? Why’d ye change?”
:You have to learn how to ride at all my paces, Mags. This is the trot. And this is how it feels.:
His confidence slipped a good deal at that point; he could tell what he was supposed to do, but he couldn’t figure out how to get there, and Dallen was not letting up on him and going back to the walk. Mags gritted his teeth, clutched the pommel, and concentrated on making his body move the right way. And then, finally, he and Dallen were moving together again. And muscles he was not aware that he had began faintly protesting.
:If you think this is bad now, wait until we have been on the road for an entire day,: Dallen said mercilessly.
“A day!” Mags exclaimed, aghast. He could not begin to imagine what riding for an entire day would be like.
:It is more than seven days to Haven,: Dallen replied, appalling Mags even further.
From the trot, Dallen moved to the pace, then the canter, all the while keeping up those weaving patterns in and around the trees, coming so close that the fabric of Mags’ coat caught on the bark. He was going fast, too, by the time they got to the canter. But Mags wasn’t afraid now, he couldn’t be. He was so busy thinking about what he should be doing that he had no time for fear.
Finally, as the bell that summoned them all to the noon meal sounded, Dallen slowed down to a walk again, and turned around to head back to the stables. Mags heaved a sigh of relief, even as he winced from the pain in his legs. When they arrived, the same Guard was waiting for them.
He helped Mags down out of the saddle and caught him as he almost fell with an involuntary groan of pain. “Ah, lad, ye’d better be getting’ yer horse-legs an’ get tough,” the Guard called after him, as he limped off toward the building gain, thinking of nothing more than yet another hot bath and maybe, only then, some food. “Heralds spend their whole lives a-horse.”
:And if someone had told me that ...: He didn’t finish that somewhat sour thought. Dallen’s sympathetic chuckle managed to soothe his injured spirit, if not his legs.
6
THAT night, Mags was sore, despite a good hot soak. The next morning he woke in considerable pain. He wasn’t about to complain, however; he had actually expected the pain. Every time he’d been set to a new task by the Pieterses, he’d hurt, from simple soreness to being in agony. That was just the way it was; you did something new, you used muscles you hadn’t before, and you hurt. And he knew what to do about it, too. He crawled out of bed, with his legs screaming at him, and slowly began to stretch. When his legs were only whimpering, he went to breakfast, then went back to the barracks room and stretched some more. Dallen noted this with quiet approval, and sent him in search of the Healer, who gave him a bitter tasting tea to drink and a bottle of something that smelled rather like pine sap to rub on. And both helped. By afternoon, most of the worst of the pain was gone, which was when Dallen summoned him to riding practice again.
On the one hand, he wanted to rebel. On the other ... well, there was no doubt at all in his mind that this was not something he could refuse to do. He knew from all of his reading and all of the things he had picked up, listening to gossip around the Guard Post, that Heralds rode, and spent most of their time in the saddle. It wasn’t just the long ride to Haven, whatever that was—if he was going to stay with Dallen, he would have to learn to be a Herald. If he was going to be a Herald, he would have to learn how to ride, and ride well.
For something had changed inside him, when Dallen had shown him that intricate web of lives all linked together, lives that now included his. He had made a commitment without even having to think about it. It had begun when he had accepted Dallen, all unthinking, understanding only dimly that he would never be alone again. Now he had extended that acceptance to other Heralds and Companions, and to all that it meant, all he would have to do to become a Herald. Again, it was unthinking, because it was right. Not that this was something he was somehow “meant” to do, but because it was the right and proper thing to do.
So complaining, and rebellion, were irrelevant.
Out he went, in his oversized coat. This time, under Dallen’s direction, he got one of the Guardsmen to help him put all of Dallen’s stuff on him, and tell him the names of the things as he put them on. Then it was off into the snow again, for a repetit
ion of yesterday’s lesson.
This time he was so tired that after a hot soak and more of that pine-scented liquid outside of him and the bitter tea inside of him, he went to lie down. He didn’t exactly sleep, but he wasn’t entirely awake either, when one of the men came to tell him that Jakyr was looking for him. Hastily, he sat up and tried to get his fuzzy head working, then limped to the library.
Jakyr was standing at the window, looking out. “I thought you would like to know what is going to happen to Cole Pieters and his mine, Mags,” Jakyr said, without turning around. “The evidence was presented and relayed to Haven, but the local Court has already decided that there is more than enough there to warrant removing him and his family from the property. Administration will be taken over by Lord Astley, who was genuinely horrified to discover the extent of his abuse. The children are to be taken away at once, and given into the custody of a Temple on Lord Astley’s property. From there, good homes will be found for them, which is what should have been done in the first place. The adults will be given a choice of continuing to work at fair wages or going elsewhere.”
Mags frowned and tried to put all the pieces of that together. It just wouldn’t come clear in his mind, as if it wasn’t real. Still ... “They won’ leave,” Mags felt impelled to tell him. “They don’ know nothing else. Some of ’em are crazy.”
“I have no doubt of that.” Now Jakyr turned to face Mags, and his face wore a look of grim triumph. “The mine will probably be shut temporarily, and only reopened when it has been determined what can be done with the adult miners, and what should be done with Cole Pieters and his family. Pieters does own the mine; that is clear enough. We can’t dispossess him and his family of it without a legal cause. Even if we punish him, the law in this land is such that we have to determine just how much guilt is on the heads of the rest of the family. If there are guiltless minor children, it is entirely possible that the profits will be kept for them in trust while those who are guilty get turned out to find a more honest way of making a living. It is going to get very complicated, and I wanted you to know that. This could stretch on for a year or more ... but ...”
Mags tilted his head to one side, waiting. All this felt as if he was reading about it.
“... if we find bodies where you say we will, it is very likely that Pieters and at least one of the sons will be charged with murder.”
Mags considered that. His brow creased, and he felt that cold jolt of fear again, until Dallen comforted him. “It’s only my word ’gainst theirs,” he said finally, willing his hands to stop shaking. “Ain’t no one else gonna say nothin’, ye knows that.”
Jakyr lost the look of triumph, and he nodded. “That is not all, because he will have time to get rid of the bodies, and thus, the evidence. That surely occurred to him when I took you out of there. He knows what Heralds are, even if none of you children did. He might well guess that I would have these things out of you, one way or another. That is why right now I am speaking with the Justiciars about whether we should pursue the murder charges. I fear that unless he was very careless and remains so, he will get away with murder, literally.”
Mags just shrugged. It was very hard to muster up any sort of emotion about all this except the dread of what might happen if Cole Pieters found all this out. Mostly, he just felt odd. He supposed he should be angry that Master Cole would probably get away with the worst of what he had done, or feel elation that he had helped find the man out, but he just couldn’t. Besides feeling odd, he was still deeply uneasy, as if there was someone standing behind him, ready to strike him down when he least expected it. It was hard to believe that Pieters would be unable to exact some sort of revenge.
Jakyr looked at him curiously. “Is something the matter? I thought you would be pleased about the other youngsters, or angry with Cole.”
Mags struggled to understand his own feelings, or lack of them, and put it all into words. “I guess ... I dunno. Like I don’ feel anythin’ strong about it. Like this ain’t finished yet, an’ till it is, no point in thinkin’ anythin’.” He pondered. “It’s good the kiddies is got away, and it’s good Master Cole cain’t keep on, but anythin’ other than that ...” He shook his head. “It’s like somethin’ in a book. I know it’s real, but it don’ feel real. It don’t feel finished.” He shook his head uneasily. “Y’ know, it wasn’t smart t’ get too friendly with nobody. You tell half them kiddies m’ name, they won’t know who I am. Mebbe that’s it.”
Jakyr sighed, and got up to walk to the window. “And the ones that died?”
Mags felt badly then. He knew he should have been angry about it all. When it happened, though, he had to be honest—it scared him, it terrified him, in fact, but he had never been angry. “I reckon I’m a bad lot, sir,” he sighed, feeling a sick sinking in his stomach. “I reckon yer gonna tell me so.”
“Why?” Jakyr asked.
“’Cause when people died? All I could think was I was glad it weren’t me. I’m still glad it weren’t me. Them as is dead, is dead, an’ nothin’ is gonna make ’em not dead.” He hung his head. “Reckon’m as bad as Master Cole.”
Jakyr turned to stare at him. “Good gad, Mags, I certainly don’t think that!” When Mags looked up at him, it was his turn to struggle for words. “Look, I think what you are feeling is a great deal like what I felt when I was a young man in the Guard, and I was in battles. I mostly did not know my fellow soldiers, there was no time to get to know them and, Mags, when they died, I felt the same. I was glad it wasn’t me.”
He swallowed, and searched Jakyr’s face for a hint of falsehood. He found none. “For true?”
Jakyr nodded. “For true.” The Herald looked away again. “It may have been a battlefield for you your entire life, Mags. How can I think you are a bad person because of how you handled it?”
Mags swallowed. It was comforting, and yet ...
Oh, well.
“Well, is it important to you to actually see it? See the man get his punishment?” Jakyr seemed to be finding something very interesting outside that window to look at.
Mags shook his head dismissively. “Nossir. It don’ matter. Not a bit. I guess ... I dunno why, it just don’ matter. ’S like the Mags you hauled outa there an’ me, they’re two different kiddies.” He shrugged again. “The ol’ Mags, he woulda danced on Master Cole’s grave. The new one ... Cole don’t matter. I got stuff to do, and Cole don’t matter. ’Cept that he’s trouble. I cain’t ’splain it any better nor that.”
“Then I’ll take your word for it.” Jakyr nodded decisively, just as the bell rang for supper. He seemed satisfied. “Go nurse your aches and get fed. The sooner you can ride well, the sooner we can be gone.”
Mags limped off.
He himself was more than a little puzzled about his own lack of emotion. Once, nothing would have pleased him more than to see with his own eyes Master Cole being humiliated at worst, and punished terribly at best. Now ... now he had other things to think about. His mind was so crowded with all of those things that, no, it just didn’t matter.
Well, all but a feeling of warmth when he thought about the other kiddies, especially the youngest, being taken somewhere that they were getting the same sort of care and treatment he was. And he had been the instrument of that. That felt good.
And if Cole Pieters got away with the worst of the things he’d done, at least there was this much: he would never be given a free hand in the running of his own mine again. No new kiddies would be slaving in the tunnels. He would have to pay miners an honest wage.
Last of all ... there was the thought that Cole Pieters was, indeed, trouble. And the farther Mags got from him, the better Mags felt. He didn’t want Master Cole to ever think about Mags again. Cole Pieters was a bad, mean man, and Mags hoped that Cole Pieters would forget about him entirely. The sooner that happened, the happier Mags would be.
He thought all that over while waiting for his aching muscles to settle down and let him sleep, and it occurred t
o him that being at the mine and having to run it the proper way, actually being forced to part with his money to pay his workers, was possibly the worst punishment that could be devised for Master Cole.
Mags fell asleep with that thought in his mind, and it gave him at least a level of satisfaction.
And even though he ached, he knew it wouldn’t be for long. He was used to hard work and sore, tired muscles. In a few days, even if he still wasn’t a good rider, he would be fit enough to stay in the saddle all day. Then they could leave, and Master Cole would be left far, far behind.
His dreams were disturbed only once, by something too vague to be called a nightmare, a dim dream of hunting for something, or someone, knowing that there was something else dark and dangerous that was hunting for the same thing. And knowing that if the other hunter found that thing ... something terrible would happen.
———
The way to Haven unrolled before them, there was a good breakfast in Mags’ belly, and the air held the scent of snow to come. If Mags was not sitting in the saddle with the easy and careless grace that Herald Jakyr had, at least he was no longer sitting in the saddle like a sack of grain about to fall off. And if Herald Jakyr was worried about him being able to handle the long travel, he didn’t show it.
Those were all the positive things. Also positive—since the night he had had that dream of hunting something, all of his fears, while still in the back of his mind, seemed to have been pushed to the back of his mind. He had no good reason to feel so—so trusting. Well, other than that Dallen kept telling him that he could and should be. But it didn’t seem to matter that he had no reason for feeling this way; it even felt a bit is if he was dreaming while wide awake. As a consequence, he was feeling good; a sort of drowsy contentment, like the aftermath of one of those once-a-year feeds when he was full and warm and allowing himself the incredible luxury of not thinking about the next day And maybe that was stupid, but right now, it didn’t matter.
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