She soon saw that what had seemed like chaos was in fact as carefully orchestrated as any general’s field maneuvers. No one was allowed to stand idle for more than a moment or two, and yet the Cook had gauged his helpers’ abilities and stamina perfectly. They usually tired just as their tasks were completed, and one by one were sent to rest at a trestle table. Then, just as tired hands had recovered and tired legs were ready to move again, the dishes began coming out of the cupboard and the pots off the stove and out of the oven, and they began transporting the filled dishes to the hoist. When the last of them had vanished upward, they turned to find their table laid ready with tableware and food.
Talia edged over onto a corner, and discovered her seatmate was Jeri. “I like this job,” Jeri said, filling her bowl and Talia’s with stew. “Mero always saves the best for us.”
The cook grinned broadly, even his eyes smiled. “How else to insure that you work and not shirk?” he asked, passing hot bread and butter. “Besides, doesn’t the Book of One say ‘Do not keep the ox who threshes your grain from filling his belly as he works’ ?”
“What’s the ‘Book of One’ ?” Talia whispered.
“Mero’s from Three Rivers—there’s a group up there that believes there’s only one god,” Jeri replied. “I know it sounds strange, but they must be all right; ’cause Mero’s awfully nice.”
It seemed more than very strange to Talia, and she knew what the Elders would have said. Yet there was no denying the warmth and kindness of this man; he went out of his way to coax Talia into helping herself when she seemed too shy to dive in the way the others were. What Nerrissa had said last night was beginning to be something more than words.
But before she could begin to grasp this more than dimly, the Cook produced a hot berry pie from the oven with a flourish worthy of a conjurer, and all other thoughts were banished. Abstract thought takes a poor second place to berry pies when you’re only thirteen.
They were just finishing when the dishwashing crew arrived, and the Cook banished them all back upstairs. Remembering what Herald Teren had said about room inspections, Talia made haste to straighten hers before anyone could see the state she’d left it in that morning. She changed quickly into one of her older and more worn outfits for working with the Armsmaster before hurrying out to the practice yard.
By now the sun was high; the trees that ringed the practice yard gave very welcome shade. The “yard” itself was nothing more than a square of scuffed, yellowed grass, with benches along two sides of it, and a small well behind the benches. Just beyond the trees was a cleared area with archery targets at one end; there were racks of bows and arrows at the other end. As Talia watched, two of the students picked up several bows in succession, trying them till they found one to their liking; apparently no one had his own special weapon. She moved hesitantly to the practice yard itself, where the Armsmaster was currently holding forth; he seemed to be dividing his time equally between those who were shooting and the ones practicing hand-to-hand fighting.
She had been filled with dread at the thought of reencountering the fearsome Alberich, but she discovered that afternoon that having served as the butt of her older brother Justus’ cruelty had been useful after all. Alberich actually looked mildly pleased when she demonstrated that she knew how to fall without hurting herself and how to use a bow without ruining forearm, fingers, or fletching. So far as proficiency with the bow went, she thought she wasn’t much worse than the other students her own age and began to feel a tiny bit more confident. There were a lot more of them than she thought there would be, for mixed among the gray of her own Collegium were uniforms of the pale green of Healer’s and the rust-brown of Bardic. It did seem a bit odd, though, that she was the youngest to be receiving training with edged weapons. Most of the students her age were being put to stave-work or hacking away at dummies with dubs that only vaguely resembled practice-blades.
Once again Jeri was there; a familiar face was comforting, and Talia sat next to her when her turn at the targets was over. “Why aren’t there any Blues?” she asked curiously.
“Them?” Jeri gave a very unladylike snort. “Most of them have their own private arms tutors—at least the ones that aren’t learning to be scholars or artificers. The scholars don’t need weapons-work—the courtiers wouldn’t want to soil themselves among us common folk. Besides, Alberich won’t coddle them, and they know it. King or beggar, if you don’t lunge right, he’s going to smack you good and hard. Oh-oh,” she groaned, as Alberich dismissed the boy he’d been working with and nodded at her, “Looks like it’s my turn to get smacked.”
She bounced to her feet to take her stance opposite Alberich with her practice blade in hand. Talia watched her enviously, wishing she could move like Jeri did.
“Don’t let Jer fool you, young ‘un,” chuckled an older boy, who Talia judged to be about sixteen. “Her blood’s as blue as the Queen’s is. If she hadn’t been Chosen, she’d be a Countess now. She’s had a good share of the benefit given by one of those private tutors she was demeaning just now; that’s why she’s so incredible at her age.”
“And why Alberich treats her rougher than the rest of us,” put in another, a short, slim boy near Talia’s own age, with dark brown hair, bushy eyebrows and nearly black eyes, and a narrow, impish face. He had just finished a bout with another student, and dropped down next to Talia, mopping his sweating face with a towel. He winced as Alberich corrected Jeri’s footwork by swatting the offending leg with the flat of his blade.
“He doesn’t approve of private tutors?” Talia hazarded. “He doesn’t like nobles?”
“Starseekers! No!” the second boy exclaimed, “He just expects more out of her, so he rides her harder. I think he may have ideas about making her Armsmistress when he steps down—if she survives his training and her internship!”
“Believe me, with swordwork that good, by the time she gets her Whites the only way to take Jeri down will be with an army,” the first replied.
“Well, Coroc, if anyone would know, you would,” the second admitted, watching him step forward to replace Jeri. “His father’s the Lord Marshal, so he’s been seeing the best swordwork in the Kingdom since he was born,” he told Talia.
Talia’s eyes widened. “The Lord Marshal’s son?”
Her compatriot grinned, hanging his towel around his neck. “Whole new world in here, isn’t it? On your right, the Lord Marshal’s son, on your left, a Countess—and here we sit, a former thief and beggar—” he bowed mockingly “that’s yours truly, of course—and a—what are you, anyway?”
“Holderkin.”
“Farmgirl, then. Hard to believe, isn’t it? Like one of those mad tales we used to listen to. You’re Talia, right?”
She nodded, wondering how he knew.
“I’m Skif—if you were with the Dean when the Provost-Marshal came by, you probably heard plenty about me! It’s not fair, I know; we all know who you are just because you’re the only female face we don’t recognize, but you have fifty-two names and faces to learn! And as if that wasn’t bad enough, everything you’ve been seeing probably runs against all you’ve been taught at home, and you’re all in a muddle most of the time.” He reached out too quickly for her to flinch away and tousled her hair with a grin of sympathy. “As they kept telling me all during my first year, ‘this, too, shall pass.’ We’re all glad you’re with us, and we all most fervently wish you luck with the Royal Brat. Now it’s my turn to get whacked on by Master Alberich—with luck I’ll get a set of bruises to match the last batch he gave me. Take heart,” he ended, rising, “you follow me.”
Despite his own words, Skif seemed to give a good accounting of himself with the Armsmaster. Talia, in spite of her lack of experience in weaponry, saw that Alberich was drilling him in a style radically different to the styles Coroc and Jeri had used. Skif’s weapon was a short, heavy blade, as opposed to Jeri’s lighter rapier or Coroc’s long-sword. His bout seemed to include as much gymnastics as blade
work, and seemed to depend on avoiding his opponent’s weapon rather than countering it in any way. He bounced about with the agility of a squirrel—nevertheless, Armsmaster Alberich eventually “killed” him.
Skif “died” dramatically, eliciting a round of applause at his theatrics; then rose, grinning, to present Alberich with his own gloves—which Skif had filched from Alberich’s belt some time during the practice bout. Alberich received them with a sigh that said wordlessly that this was not the first time Skif had pulled this trick, then turned to motion Talia to take his place. She came forward with a great deal of trepidation.
“You were watching Skif closely?” Alberich asked. “Good. This is the style I wish you to learn. It has nothing of grace, but much of cunning; and I think it will do you more good to know the ways of avoiding the blade of the assassin in the arras than the duelist on the field of honor. So. We begin.”
He tutored her with far more patience than she had expected, having witnessed his outbursts of temper over some of his pupils’ mistakes. He favored her with none of the sarcastic comments he had heaped on the others, nor did he administer any corrective slaps with the flat of his practice blade. Perhaps it was her imagination, but he almost seemed to be treating her with a kind of rough sympathy—certainly he paid far more attention to the level of her spirits and energy than he had any of the others—for just when she was quite sure she could no longer keep her rubbery knees from giving way with exhaustion, he smiled briefly at her (an unexpected sight that left her dumb) and said, “Enough. You do well, better than I had expected. Rest for a moment, then go to work with your Companion when you are cool.”
She rested just long enough to cool down without stiffening up, then ran to Companion’s Field with an eagerness that matched the reluctance with which she had gone to arms practice.
As she approached the fence, she saw that Rolan had anticipated her arrival; she scrambled up the rough boards and swung from the top of the fence to his back without bothering to saddle him, and they set off across the field at a full gallop. It was intoxicating beyond belief; though she’d urged the farmbeasts to an illicit gallop many times, there was no comparison to Rolan’s speed or smooth pace.
The Field proved to be far more than that—almost a park, full of trees and dells and with streams running all through it. It was so large that when they were most of the way across it, the people near the fence on the Collegium side looked hardly bigger than bugs. At the far edge of the Field they wheeled and returned at top speed to the fence. She leaned into his neck, feeling so at one with him that it seemed as if it were her own feet flying below them. She gripped a double handful of the mane whipping about her face and whispered, “Don’t stop, loverling! We can take it! Jump!”
She felt him gather himself beneath her as the fence loomed immediately in front of them—she shifted her weight without thinking—and they were airborne, the fence flashing underneath his tucked-up hooves. It was over in a heartbeat, as he landed as easily as a bird, his hooves chiming on the paved court on the other side.
As she combed her own hair out of her eyes with her fingers, she heard a hearty laugh. “And I thought I’d have to coax you into the saddle with a ladder!” a rough voice said behind her. “Looks like you might be able to teach me a trick or two, my young centaur!”
Rolan pivoted without Talia’s prompting so that they could face the owner of the voice; a tall, thin woman of indeterminate age, with short, graying brown hair and intelligent gray eyes, who was clad entirely in white leather.
The woman chuckled and strode toward them, then walked around them with her hands clasped behind her back, surveying them from all sides. “No doubt about it, you have a very pretty seat, young Talia. You’re a natural. Well, you’ve shown me what you can do bareback, so let’s see what you can do in the saddle, shall we?”
Herald Keren (who proved to be Teren’s twin sister—which explained the grins he’d traded with Drake and Edric) was openly pleased at having so adept a pupil. She told Talia after the first hour that she intended Talia to learn everything she herself knew before too very long. What Keren could do with a horse was incredible and what she could do with her Companion was nothing short of phenomenal.
“Before you’ve got your Whites, m’dear,” she told Talia on parting, “you’ll be able to duplicate anything you can do afoot on the back of your Companion. You’re going to be a credit to both of us; I feel it in my bones. When I’m done with you, the only way anyone will be able to get you off Rolan’s back unwilling will be dead.”
Talia, much to her own surprise, felt the same instinctive liking for Keren as she had for her twin. It was disturbing; almost frightening. Her instincts were all telling her to trust these people—but everything she’d ever learned urged her to keep her distance until she could truly be sure of them. After all, she’d been hurt and betrayed time and time again by her own blood-kin. How could she expect better treatment from strangers? And yet, and yet—something deep inside kept telling her that her fears were needless. She wished she knew which inner prompting to trust.
Keren called a halt to the drilling when the sun was westering, insisting that both she and Rolan were tired—or should have been. “Just go out into the Field together for a while. Ride if you like, walk if you prefer, but be together—the bond that’s to build between you has a good start, but it needs nurturing. Don’t try to do anything, just enjoy each other’s company. That’ll be enough.”
Talia obeyed happily; she climbed over the fence and walked dreamily beside Rolan, thoughts drifting. There was no explaining why, but at this moment she could feel none of the tenseness and anxiety that had been a part of her for as long as she could remember. For now, at least, she was held securely in a place where she belonged’, and with that certain knowledge came another trickle of confidence. Being with the Companion erased all her doubts and stilled all her fears. She didn’t come to herself until she heard the double bell for the Cook’s helpers sound across the field.
She swung up on his bare back and they trotted to the enormous tack shed near the middle of the Field. Keren showed her where to find Rolan’s gear; she groomed him hurriedly, but still with care, and flew back to her room, having scarcely time to wash and change before sliding into a vacant place at dinner.
She’d thought she would be too excited to sleep, but to her own surprise found herself nodding over her plate. She had barely enough energy to take the prescribed bath—and was grateful that there was little competition for the tubs this early in the evening, for if she’d had to wait in the steamy room for long, she’d have fallen asleep on her feet.
This time she had no thoughts at all, for she was asleep when her head touched the pillow.
Six
Every day for the next week Talia followed the same schedule; she woke just after sunrise to the sound of the waking bell—which she’d somehow slept through her first morning. She would either bundle herself hastily into her uniform and run downstairs to help with breakfast, or spend a more leisurely hour in getting both herself and her room ready before the meal. After breakfast came the Orientation class, and other classes were added every other day as the time spent there was shortened. Her afternoons were given over to Master Alberich in self-defense class, equitation with Herald Keren, and, of course, in building her bond with Rolan. On the days she wasn’t helping with breakfast or lunch she spent long hours with several others mending a seemingly endless pile of gray uniforms.
At the end of the week Herald Teren dismissed them for the last time, but asked Talia to remain behind as the others filed out. She tensed without realizing it, her outward relaxation draining away as she waited, biting nervously at a hangnail, to hear the reason why he wanted to speak to her.
She watched him covertly as he leaned a little on his desk, not meeting his eyes except by accident. He looked worried and slightly unhappy, and in her experience that sort of expression on an adult face meant trouble for her.
Teren w
as uncomfortable with the situation he found himself in now; this poor, confused child was having more than enough problems in trying to come to terms with the Collegium and her new role, without having to cope with trouble from her family as well. He mentally cursed their cruelty, who could send a message so coldly calculated to destroy what little stability the child had gained.
“Talia—” he began; then hesitated, seeing her start from raw nervousness. “Childing, there’s nothing for you to be afraid of—I’ve just got some rather unpleasant news for you that I thought you would rather receive alone. It’s word from your family.”
“My family?” she repeated, her expression surprised and puzzled.
“We sent a messenger to them, just as we do with every child Chosen, telling them what had happened to you. Now usually no matter how angry they are, the honor of being Chosen seems to make every parent forgive whatever disobedience had occurred, and we thought that would happen for you, too.”
Now at last she was looking directly at him, instead of from underneath downcast lashes. He was uneasy beneath her stare, and oddly at a loss for words. “Talia, I wish things had gone as we’d expected; I can’t tell you how sorry I am—this is all the reply they gave us.”
He fumbled in his tunic pocket and pulled out a much-folded bit of paper and handed it to her.
She opened it, smoothing out the creases unthinkingly, while Teren waited in apprehensive anticipation for her reaction to what it held.
Sensholding has no daughter Talia, it read. The half-literate scrawl bore her Father’s mark.
She didn’t realize that she was weeping until a single hot tear splashed on the paper, blurring the ink. She regained control of herself immediately, swallowing down the tears. She hadn’t realized until this moment just how much she’d hoped that the Family would accept her because of her newly-won status. She hadn’t thought, though, that the Heralds would have told them—she’d expected that it would be she herself that would break the news; perhaps by riding one day into the Holding in the full formal array of Herald’s Whites. It was when she had first realized that she really was a Herald that she had begun to hope that the achievement would mean forgiveness—even, perhaps, a hint of approval. Holderkin did not condemn everything Heralds did and stood for, and even the most critical of them generally admitted that Heralds served an important function. Certainly the Holderkin welcomed their intrusion into their midst when the raiders came over the Border, or a feud needed settling! Perhaps, she’d hoped, her kin would realize now why she’d done things that were a bit unseemly—they’d realize she was only following her own nature. Surely now they’d understand. Perhaps they’d welcome her back, and let her have a place to belong.
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