“Good, let me see it.” Randale read it carefully, as he always did. “Your usual thorough and lawyerlike job, Van.” He looked up at Vanyel, and smiled. “I hope you brought the pen with you.”
“I did.” Vanyel laid the bottom of the document over a book and held both so that Randale could initial the appropriate line. Blowing on the ink to dry it more quickly, he took the paper over to the desk and affixed the Seal of the Monarch. “What about the mages coming across the Border?” he asked over his shoulder.
“Unhindered passage via guarded trade-road into Rethwellan,” Randale told him. “But I don’t want to offer them sanctuary. This would be a good opportunity for Karse to get an agent into Valdemar. We can’t know which are blameless, which are hirelings, and which are spies. Send them on, unless one of them happens to get Chosen.”
“Not likely.” Vanyel left the paper where it was, and returned to Randale’s side. “How has today been?”
“Shavri’s beginning to understand what it is that young Bard of yours actually does,” Randale replied. “She’s able to do a bit more for me. But yesterday was bad; I’d rather not give audiences today, because I don’t think I can get past the door right now. No strength left.”
Vanyel touched his shoulder; Randale sighed, and covered Vanyel’s hand with his own. “Then don’t try,” Van said quietly. “Anything more I should do about Karse?”
“Get us inside information, then get our Herald operatives out of there,” Randale replied. “Then send a few non-Gifted agents to deliver aid to the rest, then insinuate themselves into the trouble. And let’s get moving on the Rethwellan situation.”
By this time, the corners of his mouth were tight and pinched, and he was very pale. Vanyel felt a lump rising in his throat. Randale was proving a better King than anyone had ever expected; the weaker he became, the more he seemed to rise to the challenge. As his body set tighter physical limits on what he could do, his mind roved, keeping track of all of the tangles inside Valdemar and out.
Vanyel swallowed the lump that caught in his throat every time he looked at Randale. “Anything else?” he asked. “There’s a lot of matters pending.”
Randale closed his eyes and leaned back into the pillows. “Compromise in the Lendori situation by offering them the contract for the Guard mules if they’ll cede the water rights to Balderston. Their animals are good enough, if priced a little high. The Evendim lot has their own militia; feel them out and see if they might be willing to spare us some men. Tell Lord Preatur that if he doesn’t either take that little minx he calls his daughter and marry her off or send her back home, I’ll find a husband for her; she’s got half my Guard officers at dagger’s point with each other. That’s all.”
“That’s enough.” Vanyel touched one finger to Randale’s hot forehead, and exerted his own small Healing ability. Shavri had told him that every tiny bit helped some. “Rest, Randi.”
“I’ll do my best,” the King whispered, and Vanyel took himself out before he started weeping.
Pages and acolytes were flying about Everet’s rooms like leaves in a storm, while Everet stood in the middle of the chaos and directed it calmly. Vanyel dodged a running child and handed Everet the document.
Everet read it through as carefully as Randale had. “Excellent. Enough authority to cow just about anyone I might need to.” He intercepted one of the acolytes and directed the young man to pack the document with the rest of his papers. “Thank you, Herald. Let’s hope I don’t need to use it.”
“Fervently,” Vanyel replied, and returned briefly to the Council Chamber to give the Seneschal the rest of King Randale’s orders.
• • •
Sunlight on the water blinded him a moment. :I feel like the Fair Maid of Bredesmere, waiting for her lover,: ’Fandes Mindsent.
Vanyel squinted against the light, then waved to her; she was standing on the Field side of the bridge spanning the river separating the Palace grounds from Companion’s Field. :Well, you’re all in white,: he teased as he approached the bridge. :And there’s the River for you to get thrown into.:
:Just try it, my lad,: she reared a little, and danced in place, the long grass muffling the sound of her hooves. :We’ll see who throws who in!:
:Thank you, I’d rather not.: He ran the last few steps over the echoing bridge, and took her silken head in both his hands. “You’re beautiful today, love,” he said aloud.
:Huh.: She snorted, and shook his hands off. :You say that every day.: But he could tell by the way she arched her neck that she was pleased.
:That’s because you are beautiful every day,: he replied.
:Flatterer,: she said, tossing her silver waterfall of a mane. Since they weren’t in combat situations anymore, she’d told him to let it and her tail grow, and both were as long and full as a Companion’s in an illuminated manuscript.
“It isn’t flattery when it’s true,” he told her honestly. “I wish I had more time to spend with you.”
Her blue eyes darkened with love. :I do, too. A plague on reality! I just want to be with you, not have to work!:
He laughed. “Now you’re as lazy as I used to be! Come along, love, and let’s get ourselves settled so we can make a stab at reaching Kera.”
At one time there had been a grove of ancient pine trees near the bridge—the grove that had been destroyed when Herald-trainee Tylendel had lost control of his Gift in the shock following his twin brother’s death. There was nothing there now except grass, a few seedlings and a couple of trees that had escaped the destruction. The dead trees had long since been cut up and used for firewood.
Since that night had been the start of the train of events that led to Tylendel’s suicide, it would have been logical for Vanyel to shun the spot, but logic didn’t seem to play a very large part in Vanyel’s life. He still found the place peaceful, protective, and he and Yfandes often went there when they needed to work together.
There was a little hollow in the center of what had been the grove; Yfandes folded her legs under her and settled down there in the long grass. There wasn’t so much as a breath of wind to stir the tips of the grass blades. Vanyel lowered himself down beside her, and braced his back against her side. The warm afternoon sun flowed over both of them.
“Ready?” he asked.
:When you are,: she replied.
He closed his eyes, and slid into full rapport with her; it was even easier with her than with Savil. He waited for a moment while they settled around each other, then Reached for Kera.
She couldn’t know when someone was going to try to contact her, but Kera had to realize that they were going to do so eventually. Vanyel was counting on that, on the receptivity. He’d worked with Kera before this, so he knew her well enough to find her immediately if he could reach that far.
He strained to Hear her; to sort her out of the distant whispers on the Border of Karse. Most of those mind-voices were strident with anger; a few were full of panic. It was by the lack of both those traits that he identified Kera; that, and the carefully crafted shields about her. Savil’s work, and beautiful, like a faceted crystal.
He stretched—it was like trying to touch something just barely within his grasp; the tips of his “fingers” brushed the edge of it. :Kera.: He offered his identification to her shields, which parted briefly and silently.
:Who?: came the thought; then incredulity. :Vanyel?:
She knew where he was and the kind of strain it was to reach her. Hard on that incredulity came the information he needed: exactly what was going on over in Karse, everything Kara knew about the Prophet, and that he was, indeed, backed by the full force of the Karsite Crown and the priesthood of the Sunlord.
:Get out of there,: Vanyel urged. :Go over White Foal Pass if you have to, or get out through Rethwellan, but leave. Warn the others you’re leaving if you can. With a Companion around you, however disguised,
you’re the most likely to be uncovered.:
Fear, and complete agreement. Evidently she’d had some close calls already.
:Go,: she told him, courage layered over the fear. :I’ve got my plans, I was just waiting for contact.:
He released her, and dropped into clamoring darkness.
• • •
When he opened his eyes again, the last of a glorious scarlet sunset was fading from the clouds. Crickets sang in the grass near his knee, and he shivered with cold.
Not a physical cold, but the cold of depletion. Yfandes nudged him with her nose. :I got it all, and I passed it on to Joshe’s Kimbry, and Joshe passed it to the Seneschal.:
“Good, ’Fandes,” he coughed, leaning on her warm strength. “Thank you.”
:I never suspected you had that kind of reach. You outdistanced me.:
“I did?” He rubbed his eyes with a knuckle. “Well, I don’t know what to say.”
:I do,: she replied, humor in her mind-voice, :You’re going to have a reaction-headache in a few more breaths. I suggest you stop by Randale’s Healers on the way to your room.:
“I’ll do that.” He got to his knees, then lurched to his feet. She scrambled up next to him, glowing in the blue dusk.
:Have you forgotten you’d invited young Stefen to your room tonight?:
“Oh, gods. I had.” He was torn, truly torn. He was weary, but—dammit, he wanted the Bard’s company.
:He wants yours just as badly,: Yfandes said, with no emotional coloring in her mind-voice at all.
“Oh, ’Fandes, he’s just infatuated,” Vanyel protested. “It’ll wear off. If I told him to leave me alone—assuming I wanted to, which I don’t—it would just make him that much more determined to throw himself in my way.”
:I think it’s more than infatuation,: she responded, and he thought he caught overtones of approval when she thought about the Bard. :I think he really cares a great deal about you.:
“Well, I care about him—which is precisely why I’m going to keep this relationship within the bounds of friendship.” Vanyel tested his legs, and found them capable of taking him back to the Palace, though the threatened reaction-headache was just beginning to throb in his temples. “He doesn’t need to ruin his life by flinging himself at me.” He stroked her neck. “Goodnight, sweetling. And thank you.”
:My privilege and pleasure,: she said fondly.
He began the trek back to the Palace, dusk thickening around him, his head throbbing in time with his steps. Friendship. Oh, certainly. Havens, Van, he chided himself. You know very well that you’re just looking for excuses to see more of Stef.
Now, finally, a breeze blew up; a stiff one, that made the branches bend a little. He had warmed up quite a bit just from the long walk, but although the cool air felt good against his forehead, it made him shiver. Well, there’s no harm in it, except to me. I’m certainly exercising all my self-control. . . .
The depth of his attraction to the Bard bothered him, and not only because he felt the lad was still pursuing him out of hero-worship. As night fell around him and the lights of the Palace began to appear in the windows, he realized that over the past few weeks he had become more and more confused about his relationship with Stefen. Stars appeared long before he reached the doors to the Palace gardens, and he looked up at them, wishing he could find an answer in their patterns.
I don’t understand this at all. I want to care for him so much—too much. It feels like I’m betraying ’Lendel’s memory.
He turned away from the night sky and pulled open the door, blinking at the light from the lantern set just inside it.
He entered the hall, and closed the door behind him. Great good gods, the boy should be glad I’m not ’Lendel, he thought, with a hint of returning humor. ’Lendel would have cheerfully tumbled the lad into bed long before this. Gods, I need that headache tea—
Evidently the gods thought otherwise, for at that moment, a page waiting in the hallway spotted him, and ran to meet him.
“Herald Vanyel,” the child panted. “The King wants you! Jisa’s done something horrible!”
• • •
The child couldn’t tell him much; just that Jisa had come to Randale’s suite with Treven and a stranger. There had been some shouting, and the page had been called in from the hall. Randale had collapsed onto his couch, Shavri and Jisa were pale as death, and Shavri had sent the page off in search of Vanyel.
An odd gathering waited for him in Randale’s suite: the King and Shavri, Jisa and young Treven, the Seneschal, Joshe, and a stranger in the robes of a priest of Astera. And a veritable swarm of servants and Guards. By this time, Vanyel was ready to hear almost anything; a tale of theft, murder, drunkenness—but not what Jisa flatly told him, with a rebellious lift of her chin.
“Married?” he choked, looking from Jisa to Treven and back again. “You’ve gotten married? How? Who in the Havens’ name would dare?”
“I did, Herald Vanyel.” The stranger said, not cowed, as Vanyel would have expected, but defiantly. As he raised his head, the cowl of his robe fell back, taking his face out of the shadows. It was no one Vanyel knew, and not a young man. Middle-aged, or older; that was Van’s guess. Old enough not to have been tricked into this.
“I wasn’t tricked,” the priest continued, as if he had read Vanyel’s thought. “I knew who they were; they told me. No one specifically forbade them to marry, and it seemed to me that there was no reason to deny them that status.”
“No reason—” Vanyel couldn’t get anything else out.
“The vows are completely legal and binding,” Joshe said apologetically. “The only way they could be broken would be if either of them wanted a divorcement.”
Treven put his arm around Jisa, and the girl took his hand in hers. Both of them stared at Vanyel with rebellion in their eyes; rebellion, and a little fear.
Randale chose that moment to turn a shade lighter and gasp. Shavri was at his side in an instant, and in the next, had him taken out of the room into their private quarters.
“No reason,” Vanyel repeated in disbelief. “What about Treven’s duty to Valdemar? What are we going to do now, if the only way out of a problem is an alliance-marriage?”
He addressed the priest, but it was Treven who replied. “I thought about that, Herald Vanyel,” he said. “I thought about it quite a long time. Then I did some careful checking—and unless you plan to have me turn shaych, there isn’t anyone who could possibly suit as a marriage candidate, not even in Karse—unless there’s some barbarian chieftain’s daughter up north that nobody knows about. Of the unwedded, most are past childbearing, and the rest are infants. Of the wedded who might possibly lose their husbands in the next five years, most are bound with contracts that keep them tied to their spouse’s land, and the rest are the designated regents for their minor children.” Despite his relatively mild tone, Treven’s expression boded no good for anyone who got in his way. “I didn’t see any reason to deny ourselves happiness when we know that we’re lifebonded.”
“Happiness?” Shavri’s voice sounded unusually shrill. “You talk about happiness, here?” She stood in the doorway, clutching a fold of her robe just below her throat. “You’ve put my daughter right back in the line of succession, you young fool! Do you have any idea how long and hard I fought to keep her out of that position? You’ve seen what the Crown has done to Randi, both of you—Treven, how can you possibly want that kind of pain for Jisa?”
:Shavri doesn’t want the Crown, so she thinks her daughter shouldn’t, either,: Yfandes observed. :Your objection is rational, but hers is entirely emotional.:
Jisa ignored her mother’s impassioned speech, turning to Vanyel and the Seneschal. “If there’s pain, I’m prepared to deal with it,” she said calmly, addressing them and not her mother. “I don’t blame Mother for not wanting the Crown—she doesn’t want t
hat kind of responsibility, she doesn’t like being a leader, and she isn’t any good at it. She says that the Crown means pain, and it does, for her—but—my lords, I’m not Mother! Why should she make my decisions for me?”
The priest nodded a little, and Shavri’s face went white.
“Mother—” Now Jisa turned toward her, pleading. “Mother, I’m sorry, but we’re two different people, you and I. I am a leader, I have been all my life, you’ve said so yourself. I’m not afraid of power, but I respect it, and the responsibility it brings. There’s another factor here; Treven will be the King—I’ll be his partner. We will be sharing the power, the responsibility, and yes, the pain. It will be different for us. Can’t you see that?”
Shavri shook her head, unable to speak, then turned and fled back into the shelter of her room.
Arved was red-faced with anger. “Who gave you the authority to take it upon yourself to decide who and what was a suitable contract?” he snarled at Treven. The young man paled, but stood his ground.
“Two things, sir,” he replied steadily. “The fact that Jisa and I are lifebonded, and the fact that a marriage with anyone except my lifebonded would be a marriage in name only, and a travesty of holy vows.”
“In my opinion,” put in the priest, “that would be blasphemy. A perversion of a rite meant to sanctify. Lifebonding is a rare and sacred thing, and should be treated with reverence. It is one thing to remain unwedded so as to give the appearance of being available, provided it is done for the safety of the realm. It seems to me, however, that to force a young person into an entirely unsuitable marriage when he is already lifebonded is—well, a grave sin.”
Arved stared at the priest, then looked helplessly at Vanyel, and threw up his hands. “It’s done,” he said. “It can’t be undone, and I’m not the one to beat a dead dog in hopes of him getting up and running to the hunt.”
Joshe just shrugged.
Shavri had fled the room, Randale had collapsed—the Seneschal and his Herald had abrogated their responsibility. It was going to be left to Van to make the decision.
The Last Herald-Mage Trilogy Page 84
