She shook her head frantically, unable to talk around the lump in her throat.
Keldar rose from her place with the scrape of a stool on the rough wooden floor and advanced on the terrified child, who was as unable to move as a mouse between the paws of a cat. Keldar took her shoulders with a grip that bruised as it made escape impossible and shook her till her teeth rattled. “What’s wrong with you, girl?” she said angrily, “You don’t want an Honorable Marriage, you don’t want the Peace of the Goddess, what do you want?”
All I want is to be left alone, Talia thought with quiet desperation, I don’t want anything to change—but her traitorous mouth opened again and let the dream spill.
“I want to be a Herald,” she heard herself say.
Keldar released her shoulders quickly, with a look of near-horror as if she’d discovered she’d been holding something vile, something that had crawled out of the midden.
“You—you—” For once, the controlled Keldar was at a loss for words. Then—”Now you see what comes of coddling a brat!” she said, turning on Father’s Mother in default of anyone else to use as a scapegoat, “This is what happens when you let a girl rise above her place. Reading! Figuring! No girl needs to know more than she requires to label her preserves and count her stores or keep the peddlers from cheating her! I told you this would happen, you and your precious Andrean, letting her fill her head with foolish tales!” She turned back to face Talia. “Now, girl—when I finish with you—”
But Talia was gone.
She had taken advantage of the distraction of Keldar’s momentary tirade to escape. Scampering quickly out the door before any of the Wives realized she was missing, she fled the Steading as fast as she could run. Sobbing hysterically, she had no thought except to get away. With the wind in her face, and sweating with fear, she ran past the barns and the stockade, pure terror giving her feet extra speed. She fled through the fields as the waist-high hay and grain beat against her, and up into the woodlot and through it, following a tangled path through the uncut underbrush. She was seeking the shelter of the hiding place she’d found, the place that no one else knew of.
There was a steep bluff where the woodlot ended high above the Road. Two years ago, Talia had found a place where something had carved out a kind of shallow cave beneath the protruding roots of a tree that grew at the very edge of the bluff. She’d lined it with filched straw and old rugs meant for the rag-bag; she kept her other two books hidden there. She had spent many hours stolen from her chores there, daydreaming, invisible from above or below so long as she stayed quiet and still. She sought this sanctuary now, and scrambling over the edge of the bluff, crept into it. She buried herself in the rugs, crying hysterically, limp with exhaustion, nerves practically afire, ears stretched for the tiniest sound above her.
For no matter how deep her misery, she knew she must keep alert for the sounds of searchers. Before very long, she heard the sound of some of the servants calling her name. When they drew too near, she stifled her sobs in the rugs while her tears fell silently, listening in fear for some sign telling her she’d been discovered. She thought a dozen times that they’d found some sign of her passage, but they seemed to have lost her track. Eventually they went away, and she was free to cry as she would.
Wrapped in pure misery, she hugged her knees to her chest and rocked back and forth, weeping until her eyes were too dry and sore to shed another tear. She felt numb all over, too numb to think properly. Any choice she made seemed worse than the one before it. Should she return and apologize, any punishment she’d ever had before would seem a pleasure to the penance Keldar was likely to devise for her unseemly and insubordinate behavior. It would be Keldar’s choice, and her Father’s, what would befall her then. Any Husband Keldar would choose now would be—horrid. She’d either be shackled to some drooling old dotard, to be pawed over by night and to be a nursemaid by day—or she’d be given to some brutal, younger man, a cruel one, with instructions to break her to seemly behavior. Keldar would likely pick one as sadistic as Justus, her older brother—she shuddered, as the unbidden memory came to her, of him standing over her with the hot poker in his hand and the look on his face of fierce pleasure—
She forced the memory away, quickly.
But even that fate would be a pleasurable experience compared to what would happen if they decided to offer her as a Temple Servant. The Goddess’s Servants had even less freedom and more duties than Her Handmaidens. They lived and died never going beyond the cloister corridor to which they were assigned. And in any case, no matter what future they picked for her, her reading, her escape, would be over. Keldar would see to it that she never saw another book again.
For one moment, she contemplated running away, truly fleeing the Steading and the Holderkin. Then she recalled the faces of the wandering laborers she’d seen at Hiring Fairs; pinched, hungry, desperate for anyone to take them into a Holding. And she’d never seen a woman among them. The “foolish tales” she’d read made one thing very clear, the life of a wanderer was dangerous and sometimes fatal for the unprepared, the defenseless. What preparation had she? She had the clothing she stood up in, the ragged rugs, and nothing else. How could she defend herself? She’d never even been taught how to use a knife. She’d be ready prey.
If only this were a tale—
An unfamiliar voice called her name—a voice full of calm authority, and she found herself answering it, climbing out of her hiding place almost against her will. And there before her, waiting at the top of the bluff—
A Herald; resplendent and proud in her Whites, her Companion a snowy apparition beside her, mane and tail lifting in the gentle breeze like the finest silk. Sunlight haloed and hallowed both of them, making them seem more than mortal. She looked to Talia like the statue of the Lady come to life—only proud, strong and proud, not meek and submissive. Behind the Herald, looking cowed and ashamed, were Keldar and her Father.
“You are Talia?” the Herald asked, and she nodded affirmatively.
She broke out in a smile that dazzled her—it was like a sudden appearance of the sun after rain.
“Blessed is the Lady who led us here!” she exclaimed. “Many the weary months we have searched for you, and always in vain. We had nothing to go on except your name—”
“Led you to me?” she asked, exalted, “But, why?”
“To make you one of us, little sister,” she replied, as Keldar shrank into herself and her Father seemed bent on studying the tops of his shoes. “You are to be a Herald, Talia—the gods themselves have decreed it. Look—yonder comes your Companion—”
She looked where the Herald pointed, and saw a graceful white mare with a high, arched neck and a knowing eye pacing deliberately toward her. The Companion was caparisoned all in blue and silver, tiny bells hanging from her reins and bridle. Behind the Companion, at a respectful distance, came all her sibs, the rest of the Wives, and all the servants of the Holding.
With a glad cry, she ran to meet the mare and the Herald helped her to mount up on the Companion’s back, while the Hold servants cheered, her sibs stared in sullen respect, and Keldar and her Father stared at her in plain fear, obviously thinking of all the punishments they’d meted out to her and expecting the same now that she was the one in power—
The sound of hoofbeats on the Road broke into her desperate daydream. For one panicked moment she thought it was another searcher, but then she realized that her Father’s horses sounded nothing like this. These hoofbeats had a chime like bells on the hard surface. As the sound drew nearer, it was joined by another; the sound of real bells, of bridle bells. Only one kind of horse wore bridle bells every day, and not just on Festival Days—the magical steed of legend, a Herald’s Companion.
Talia had never seen a real Herald, though she’d daydreamed about them constantly. The realization that she was finally going to see one of her dreams in actual fact startled her out of her fantasy and her tears completely. The distraction was too tempting to r
esist. For just this one moment she would forget her troubles, her hopeless position, and snatch a tiny bit of magic for herself, to treasure all her days. She leaned out of her cave, stretching as far out as she could, thinking of nothing except to catch a glimpse—and leaned out too far. She lost her balance, and her flailing hands caught nothing but air. She tumbled end over end down the bluff, banging painfully into roots and rocks. The wind was knocked out of her before she was halfway down, and nothing she collided with seemed to slow her descent any. She was locally unable to stop her headlong tumble until she landed on the hard surface of the Road itself, with a force that set sparks to dancing in front of her eyes and left her half-stunned.
When the grayness cleared away from her vision and she could get a breath again, she found herself sprawled face downward on the Road. Her hands were scraped, her sides bruised, her knees full of gravel, and her eyes full of dirt. When she turned her head to the side, blinking tears away, she found she was gazing at four silver hooves.
She gave a strangled gasp and scrambled painfully to her feet. Regarding her with a gentle curiosity was a—well, a Herald’s Companion was hardly what one would call a “horse.” They transcended horses in the way that panthers transcend alleycats, or angels transcend men. Talia had read and heard plenty of descriptions of the Companions before, but she was still totally unprepared for the close-hand reality.
The riderless Companion was in full formal array, his trappings silver and sky-blue, his reins hung with silver bridle bells. No horse in Talia’s experience had that slender, yet muscular grace or could match the way he seemed to fly without taking a single step. He was white—Companions were always white—but nothing on earth could possibly match that glowing, living, radiant white. And his eyes—
When Talia finally had the courage to look into those sapphire eyes, she lost track of the world—
She was lost in blue more vast than a sea and darker than sky and full of welcome so heart-filling it left no room for doubt.
Yes—at last—you. I Choose you. Out of all the world, out of all the seeking., I have found you, young sister of my heart! You are mine and I am yours—and never again will there be loneliness—
It was a feeling more than words; a shock and a delight. A breathless joy so deep it was almost pain; a joining. A losing and a finding; a loosing and a binding. Flight and freedom. And love and acceptance past all words to tell of the wonder of it—and she answered that love with all her soul.
Now forget, little one. Forget until you are ready to remember again.
Blinking, she came back to herself, with a feeling that something tremendous had happened, though she didn’t know quite what. She shook her head—there had been—it was—but whatever had happened had receded just out of memory, though she had the odd feeling it might come back when she least expected it to. But for now there was a soft nose nudging her chest, and the Companion was whickering gently at her.
It was as though someone were putting loving arms about her, and urging her to cry all her unhappiness out. She flung both her arms around his neck and wept unrestrainedly into his silky mane. The feeling of being held and comforted intensified as soon as she touched him, and she lost herself in the unfamiliar but welcome sensation. Unlike her lone crying in her cave, this session of tears brought peace in its wake, and before too long she was able to dry her eyes on a corner of her tunic and take heed of her surroundings again.
She let go of his neck with reluctance, and took another long look at him. For one wild moment, she was tempted to leap into his empty saddle. She had a vision of herself riding away, far away; anywhere, so long as it was away from here and she was with him. The temptation was so great it left her shaking. Then practicality reasserted itself. Where could she go? And besides—
“You’ve run away from someone, haven’t you?” she said quietly to the Companion, who only blew into her jerkin in answer. “I can’t have you, you could only belong to a Herald. I’ll—” she gulped. There was a huge lump in her throat and tears threatened again at the idea of parting with him. Never, ever in her short life had she wanted anything as much as the way she wanted to—to—be his, and he hers! “I’ll have to take you back to whoever you belong to.”
A new thought occurred to her, and for the first time that afternoon, hope brightened her for a moment as she saw a way out of her dilemma. “Maybe—maybe they’ll be grateful. Maybe they’ll let me work for them. They must need someone to do their cooking and sewing and things. I’d do anything for Heralds “ The soft blue eyes seemed to agree that this was a good idea. “They’re bound to be nicer than Keldar—they’re so kind and wise in all the tales. I bet they’d let me read when I wasn’t working. I’d get to see Heralds all the time—” Tears lumped her throat again, “—maybe they’d let me see you, once in a while.”
The Companion only whickered again, and stretching his neck out, nudged her with his velvet nose toward his saddle, maneuvering for her to mount.
“Me?” she squeaked. “1 couldn’t—” Suddenly, the reality of what he was and what she was came home to her. All very well to dream of leaping on his back; but in cold, sober reflection the very idea that she, grubby and ordinary, should sit in the saddle of a Companion shocked her.
The enormous, vivid blue eyes looked back at her with a trace of impatience. One hoof stamped with a certain imperiousness, and he shook his mane at her. His whole manner said as clearly as speech that he thought her scruples were ridiculous. After all, who was going to see her? And now that she thought about it, it was quite possible that he had come from a goodly distance away; if she insisted on walking, it was likely to take forever to return him.
“Are you sure you don’t mind? That it’s all right?” She spoke in a timid voice, unmindful of the incongruity of asking a horse for advice.
He tossed his head impatiently, and the bridle bells rang. There was little doubt that he felt she was being excessively silly.
“You’re right,” she said in sudden decision, and mounted.
Talia was no stranger to riding. She’d done so every chance she could, often sneaking rides when no one was looking. She’d ridden every horse of an age to bear her weight, broken or not, saddled or bareback. She was the oldest of the littles on the Holding, and hence the only one considered responsible enough to be sent to other Elders with messages or to the village on errands. She was usually a-horseback at least once a week legitimately. She was generally found sneaking rides at least three or four times that often.
But riding a Companion was nothing like any riding she’d ever done. His pace was so smooth a true little could have stayed in his saddle without falling, and if she’d closed her eyes she’d never have guessed he was more than ambling along. Her Father’s beasts had to be goaded constantly to maintain more than a walk; of his own volition the Companion had moved into a canter, and it was faster than the fastest gallop she’d ever coaxed out of any of them. The sweet air flowed past her like the water of the river, and it blew her hair back out of her face. The intoxication of it drove all thought of anything else clean out of her mind. It was as if the wind rushing past them had swept all her unhappiness right out of her and left it behind in an untidy heap in the center of the Road.
If this was a daydream, she hoped she’d die in the middle of it and never have to wake to the dreary world again.
Two
Within a single candlemark they were farther from her Father’s Holding than Talia had ever been before. The Road here ran parallel to the River; on one side of it was the steep bluff crowned with trees and brush, on the other was a gentler dropoff down to the River. The River here was wide and very slow; Talia could see glimpses of the farther bank through the trees that grew at her edge of it. These trees were huge willows that made a living screen with their drooping branches. There was no sign of any human habitation. All she could hear was birdsong and the sounds of insects in the branches overhead and to either side. All she could see were the trees and the oc
casional glimpse of the River, and the Road stretching on ahead. Although she couldn’t be entirely sure, Talia had a notion that the lands of the Holderkin were now all behind her.
The sun was still relatively high, and its warmth was very pleasant, not harsh as it would be later in the summer. The Road’s surface was of some material she had never seen before, since she had never actually dared to venture down to the Road itself even once in her life, and there was little or no dust. The scent of green growing things on the breeze was like wine to her, and she drank in every bit of her experience greedily. At any moment now she might come upon the Herald this Companion rightfully belonged to; her adventure would be over, and it wasn’t likely she’d ever get to ride a Companion again. Every moment was precious and must be stored away in her memory against the future.
As candlemarks passed and no Herald—in fact, nothing more than a squirrel or two—came into view, Talia began to fall into a kind of trance; the steady pace of the Companion and the Road stretching ahead of her was hypnotic. Something comforting just at the edge of her awareness lulled her into tranquility. She was lost in this trance for some time, and only came back to herself when the setting sun struck her full in the eyes. Her anxieties and fears had somehow disappeared while she’d ridden unmindful of her surroundings. Now there was only a calm, and a feeling of rightness about this journey—and a tentative feeling of excitement. But night was coming on fast, and she and the Companion were still alone together on the Road.
The shape of the landscape had changed while she rode unaware. The double drop-off had leveled off, very gradually, so gradually that she hadn’t noticed it. Now the woods and fields to her right were level with the surface of the Road, and the Road itself was only a foot or two above the lapping surface of the water. The River was a scant two horse-lengths away from the verge of the Road. The land had flattened out so much that Talia knew for certain she was no longer even close to the lands belonging to the Holder-folk that lay on the Border of the Kingdom.
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