Valdemar Books

by Lackey, Mercedes

  "I intend to, since it will be myself at this gathering, as guard to Selenay with Talamir," Alberich replied. "I wish you at the door into the Herald's Wing at the dishwashing bell."

  He turned and retreated into the shadows of the salle, and Skif whirled and ran for the Collegium.

  He got his bath—lukewarm, but he hardly noticed—and ate without tasting his supper, in such haste that he came close to choking once. He was in place long before the bell rang, and Alberich, arriving early, smiled to see him there. And to see him in the uniform of a page, the pale-blue and silver that all of Selenay's pages wore.

  "Come," was all he said, and he didn't ask where Skif had gotten the uniform. As it happened, he hadn't stolen it, he'd won it, fair and square. Another little bet. He'd had the feeling that he might need it at some point, and he was still small enough to pass for one of the pages without anyone lifting an eyebrow.

  Won't be able t'pull that much longer, though, he thought with regret. He'd learned a lot, impersonating a page in Lord Orthallen's service, and he hoped to learn more, slipping into the Palace proper.

  "I trust you know how to serve," Alberich murmured, as they walked together down the corridor, servants whose duty it was to light the lamps passing by them without a second glance.

  Skif just snorted.

  "I should like to note," Alberich went on, as they made a turn into the second half of Herald's Wing, "that I specified you be in a place of concealment."

  "Hide in plain sight," Skif retorted. "When does any highborn look at a page?"

  "Unless it is his own kin—a point you have made. Well, this may serve better than having you lurking in the rafters." Alberich nodded a greeting to a Herald just emerging from his room; the other saluted him but showed no sign of wanting to stop and talk.

  "Can't see nobody's face from the rafters," Skif pointed out.

  They made another turning, into a section that looked immensely old, much older than the Collegium or the Wing attached to it. Skif looked about with avid curiosity; they must be in the Old Palace now, the square building upon which all later expansions had been founded. The Old Palace was rumored to date all the way back to the Founding of Valdemar, and it was said that King Valdemar had used the old magics that were only in tales to help to construct it. Certainly no one in these days would have attempted to build walls with blocks of granite the size of a cottage, and no one really had any idea how the massive blocks could have been set in place to the height of six stories. There were even rumors that the blocks were hollow and contained a warren of secret passages. Unlikely, Skif thought, but it would be impossible to tell, unless you knew where a door was, because the outer walls were at least two ells thick, and you could tap on them until you were a graybeard and never get a hollow echo.

  Alberich stopped, just outside a set of massive double doors. "This, the reception chamber is. The reception will be in slightly less than a candlemark. Your plan?"

  "Set an' ready," Skif said boldly. "You go do whatever you're gonna do, an' leave me here."

  Alberich nodded, and continued on his way. Skif checked the door of the chamber, and found it, as he had expected, unlocked.

  He slipped inside.

  The walls were plastered over the stone, and the plaster painted with scenes out of legends Skif didn't even begin to recognize. Candle sconces had been built onto the walls to provide light later, and there was an enormous fireplace truly large enough to roast an ox. There was no fire in it now, of course, but someone had placed an ox-sized basket of yellow, orange, and red roses between the andirons as a kind of clever fire substitute. The room looked out into the courtyard in the center of the Old Palace; here the walls were not of the massive thickness of the outer walls, and the windows ran nearly floor to ceiling, with a set of glass doors in the middle that could be opened onto the courtyard itself. There were sideboards along the wall, covered with snowy linen cloths, set up to receive foodstuffs, though none were there yet except two baskets of fruit. Candles and lanterns waited on one of the tables, though none had been put in their sconces and holders, nor lit. Skif took a tall wax taper, and went out into the corridor, lighting it at one of the corridor lamps. He then went about the room setting up the lights, quite as if he'd been ordered to do so. There seemed to be too many lanterns for the room, so after consideration, he took the extras out into the courtyard and hung them on the iron shepherd's crooks he found planted among the flowers for that purpose.

  Roughly a quarter-candlemark later, a harried individual in Royal livery stuck his head in the door and stared at him. "What—Did I order you to light the lamps?" he asked, sounding more than a bit startled.

  Skif made his voice sound high and piping, more childlike than usual. "Yes, milord," he replied, with a bob of his head. "You did, milord."

  The man muttered something under his breath about losing one's mind as the hair grayed, then said, "Carry on, then," waving a hand vaguely at him.

  Skif hid his grin and did just that. It was one of the things he'd learned impersonating a page at Lord Orthallen's. If a boy was doing a job (rather than standing about idly), people would assume he'd been set the task and leave him alone. Even if the person in charge didn't recall setting the task or seeing the boy, that person would take it for granted that it had just slipped his mind, and leave the boy to carry on.

  When the upper servant appeared again, with a bevy of boys clad just as Skif was in tow, Skif was relieved to see that none of them were the boy he'd won his uniform from. That had been his one concern in all of this, and with that worry laid to rest, he paid dutiful attention to the servant's instructions. He actually paid more attention than the real pages, who fidgeted and poked each other—but then, they were yawningly familiar with what their duties were, and he wasn't.

  The food arrived then—tidbits, rather than a meal, something to provide a pleasant background to the reception. He managed to get himself, by virtue of his slightly taller stature, assigned to carry trays of wine glasses among the guests. That was a plus; he'd be able to move freely, where Alberich would be constrained to go where the Queen did.

  When all was in readiness, the doors into the courtyard (now nicely lantern-lit, thanks to Skif's efforts) and the doors to the corridor were flung open, the page boys took their places, and the guests began to trickle by ones and twos into the room for the reception.

  17

  ALBERICH stood at Selenay's right hand as she circulated among Lord Orthallen's guests. He wore his formal Whites, something he did only on the rarest of occasions. He was not at all comfortable in what, for the first two decades of his life, had been the uniform not only of the enemy, but of the demon lovers. Only three people knew that reason, however; to tell anyone but Selenay, Talamir, and Myste would have been to deliver a slap in the face to those who had rescued and cared for him and taken them into their midst.

  Sometimes, though, he did wear the uniform, when the need to do so outweighed personal discomfort. In this case, he wore his Whites because he would be far more conspicuous in his favored dark gray leather than in his Heraldic uniform.

  Talamir stood at Selenay's left, where he could murmur advice into her ear if she needed it. Alberich stood on her right, where his weapon hand was free.

  He watched everyone and everything, his eyes flicking from one person to the next, and he never smiled. This evidently bothered some, though not all, of Lord Orthallen's guests—the ones who had never seen Alberich before and only knew of him by reputation. Those who frequented Court functions were used to the way he looked at everyone as if he saw a potential assassin.

  He did, however. Everyone was a potential assassin. Of course the likelihood that any of them actually were assassins was fairly low. But he was the Herald who had saved Selenay from death at the hands of her own husband, cutting the Prince down with the Prince's own sword. He saw treachery everywhere, or feigned that he did, and when he looked at someone he didn't know with suspicion in his eyes, that person tende
d to get very nervous.

  Sometimes he wished that he didn't have quite so formidable a reputation. Sometimes he wished that he could just look at someone and not have them flinch away.

  That was about as likely at this point as for him to turn as handsome as young Trainee Kris.

  That was what Herald-Chronicler Myste said, anyway, looking at him from behind those peculiar split-lensed spectacles of hers that forced her pull her head back to peer down her nose when she was reading and tilt her chin down to peer through the top half when she was looking at anything past the length of her arms. "What do you expect?" she'd ask him tartly. "The man who'll cut down a prince wouldn't hesitate at putting a blade in the heart of a man of lesser rank. But for the gods' sake don't ever try smiling at them. You aren't any good at faking a smile, and when you try, you look as if you were about to jump on people and tear their throats out with your teeth."

  A pity Myste was perhaps the Herald who was the most inept with weapons in the entire Circle. He could do with a dose of her good sense here tonight. Not that she'd enjoy it, of course. She would far rather be where she could avoid all this interminable nonsense, in her quarters, either writing up the current Chronicles or going over old ones, a glass of cold, sweet tea at her elbow.

  Where she would probably knock it over at least once tonight. Hopefully when she did, the glass would be empty. If it wasn't, well, at least the papers on her floor were discards, unlike the ones piled all over Elcarth's office.

  Alberich pulled his attention back to the reception. The heat wave had finally broken, though the thick stone walls of the Old Palace kept every room in it comfortably cool even during the worst of the heat. With the doors open, there was a pleasant scent coming from the roses in the courtyard. No one had gone out there, though, for Selenay and Orthallen were in here. No matter how tired anyone's feet got, he wouldn't leave where the power was.

  If Alberich's gaze rested more often than usual on a particular page, circulating among the guests with a tray of wineglasses, probably no one was going to notice. It was a very ordinary-looking boy: small, dark, curly-haired. If he moved more gracefully than the usual lot, that wasn't likely to be noticed either. Alberich was pleased with the way he was looking up at the people he was serving—not staring enough to make him seem insolent, just paying respectful attention. Very good, very smooth. The boy must have done something like this before, many times, though Alberich doubted it had been for any purpose other than to filch food from whatever noble household he had infiltrated.

  Lord Orthallen, on whose behalf this reception was being held, also circulated among the guests quite as if he was the one who was the host, and not the Queen. This particular festivity was a reward for those who had helped Orthallen to conclude a set of delicate negotiations that would ultimately benefit the Crown substantially, according to Myste. Alberich was not at all clear on just what those negotiations were, only that they had involved a number of men (and a few women) of vastly disparate backgrounds, many of whom had personal differences with each other.

  One thing they all had in common, though. They were all very, very wealthy.

  That much showed in their costumes, rich with embroidery and of costly materials, and in their ornaments, heavy gold and silver and precious gems. The details didn't matter to Alberich, though Myste would have been studying them with the eye of one who would be recording every subtle detail later in her writings. That was the problem of living around a Chronicler; he never knew just what detail, what secret that he assumed was just between them would end up in one of her Histories, to be goggled at by some other generation of Heralds to come.

  Right now, he was in the unusual position of having part of his attention devoted to something other than Selenay and her welfare. He watched that one small boy, not as a hunter watched prey, but as the prey watches a hunter, alive to every nuance in his behavior, waiting for the slightest sign that the boy recognized a voice he'd only heard once.

  When he told the boy that he could arrange for him to hear words spoken in tones of condescension, he had not been promising more than he could deliver. Although these people had worked together for Orthallen's cause, they had not forgotten rank and perceived rank and all of the tangle of quarrels that had made it so difficult to get them to work together—they had merely put those things aside for the moment. And although they were now basking in the unanticipated presence of Royalty, those things still remained. Where the Queen gazed, all was harmony, but the moment that she took her attention away, the claws were unsheathed, though subtly, subtly, with a care not only for the Queen's presence, but for the watchful eye of her guardian.

  Who might misinterpret what he saw. And in Alberich's case—

  Well, no one wanted Alberich to misinterpret anything.

  So rather than bared claws and visible teeth, there were mere hints of rivalries and competitions, mostly carried out in tone and carefully chosen words.

  Oh, there would be condescension in plenty, among those able to read tone and words so exactly that they could choose to ignore what they heard or exaggerate the offense. Small wonder the crude bully Jass hadn't heard what the boy had read in his master's tone. The wonder was that the boy had read it so accurately.

  Well. Every Herald, every Trainee, is a wonder, small or great.

  It could be that this boy was—or would be—more of a wonder than most. There were still those—not Heralds, mostly—who doubted the wisdom of having a thief as a Trainee. And the boy was not yet committed to becoming a Herald; Alberich, so apt at reading the unspoken language of gesture and tone, knew that better than any. If it had been a case of trusting to the boy by himself to come around, to learn to trust, to understand what it was they were doing, Alberich would have been the first to say, "No. He is a danger to us, and cannot be trusted past his own self-interest." But there was more than that; there was the Companion. And so, Alberich was always the first, not the last, to say "Peace. He will be ours, soon enough."

  The boy was good; very good. Alberich had no difficulty in imagining him moving through a crowd of just about any sort of folk save, perhaps, the highest, and remaining completely unnoticed. He was, after all, a pickpocket; that was the way of the game. The unobtrusive prospered; the rest wound up in gaol. Watching the boy was the only entertainment he had, though, and in the end the reception was, as such things generally were, deadly dull. These people were small; in the normal course of things, no matter how wealthy they were, they would never have seen Selenay except from the back of the Audience Chamber, or at most, stood before her for a few, brief moments while she passed some judgment in their favor or against them. They would never have watched as she bent that cool, thoughtful gaze on each one alone, never have heard her inquiring as to the details of their lives. For that moment of reflected glory, they were content to be restrained and to keep their masks firmly in place, their smiles unwavering.

  And although the boy had shown a moment or two of hesitation, there was no sudden recognition. The reception came to its predictable end when Selenay had had a private word with each and every one of Orthallen's guests, and withdrew, along with Talamir and Alberich. And after that, the guests would depart swiftly, there being nothing there to hold them. The boy Skif would have to extricate himself from the toils of the Page Master as best he could.

  And when he did—just as swiftly as Alberich had reckoned he would—he found Alberich waiting for him in his own room.

  Alberich had taken some thought to the needs of boys and had brought with him something other than the things, good though they were, that lay in Mero's free pantry. He had gone down to the Palace kitchen, and commanded some of the dainties that Selenay's Court feasted on. He calculated that having had such things paraded beneath his nose all night, the boy would not be emotionally satisfied with bread and cheese, however good those common viands were, and if he was anything like Alberich had judged him, he had not filled himself at dinner.

  So when Skif pushed ope
n his own door, there was Alberich, beneath a lit lantern mounted on the wall, sitting at his ease in the boy's chair, the covered platter beside him on the desk.

  The boy started, but covered it well. "Didn' think t'see you afore the morrow," he said matter-of-factly as he sat down on his bed.

  "Good service demands immediate reward," Alberich replied, and uncovered the platter.

  Then pulled out the two glasses and half-bottle of wine from beneath the chair. The boy gaped at him—then shut his mouth and looked at the wine. There was a brief flash of greed there. But thankfully, no need. Good. That was one thing that Alberich had worried about. Trouble with drink started early among those who lived near Exile's Gate. Alberich had seen children as young as ten caught by the addiction of drink, there.

  "I didn' think we was allowed—" Skif began, though his nose twitched as Alberich uncorked it, and he was young enough that his yearning showed, a little more. He must be getting very weary of the spring water, fruit juice, ciders, teas and milk that were all the Trainees were ever offered.

  "It is only half a bottle, and I intend to share it with you," Alberich replied, pouring the glasses full and handing him one. "That is hardly enough for even an innocent to be drunk upon. I suspect you've had a deal stronger in your time, already."

  The boy accepted the glass and to his great credit, took a mouthful and savored it, rather than draining the glass. "So this's what all the fuss is about," he said, after he allowed the good vintage to slip down his throat. "This is what the good stuff's like."

  "It is," Alberich agreed. "And now, I fear, it is spoiled you'll be for the goat piss that passes itself off as wine near Exile's Gate."

  "Dunno how you drunk it, and that's for certain-sure; I allus did my drinkin' a little higher up the street," Skif replied, putting his glass down and reaching for the nearest tidbit, a pasty stuffed with morels and duck breast. Of course, he didn't know that until he bit into it, and as it melted on his tongue, the boy's face was a study that very nearly made Alberich chuckle. He didn't, though; children's dignity was a fragile thing, and this lad's rather more so than others.