Valdemar Books

by Lackey, Mercedes

  “Bright Lady, catling, you’re going to break all my ribs!” Talia protested, returning the hug with interest. “I got your message from Keren—I take it Skif did tell you I got in last night, didn’t he? I rather expected to find you on my doorstep.”

  “I had foal-watch last night.” One of the duties imposed on the students was to camp in Companion’s Field around the time of a foaling, each taking the watch in turn. Companions did not foal with the ease of horses, and if there were complications, seconds could be precious in preserving the life or health of mare and foal.

  “Skif told me you were here, and that he’d given you my screech for help—-so I knew I didn’t need to worry anymore, and I certainly didn’t need to disturb your sleep.”

  “I heard Cymry dropped. Who else?”

  “Zaleka.” Elspeth grinned at Talia’s bewildered look of nonrecognition. “She Chose Arven just after you left. He’s twenty if he’s a day, and when Jillian was here during break between assignments—well, you know Jillian, she’s as bad as Destria. Seems her Companion was like-minded. We haven’t half been giving Arven a hard time over it! Zaleka hasn’t dropped yet, but she’s due any day.”

  Talia shook her head, and slipped an arm around the Heir’s shoulders. “You younglings! I don’t know what the world’s coming to these days—”

  Elspeth gave a very unladylike snort, narrowed her enormous brown eyes, and tossed her dark hair scornfully. “You don’t cozen me! I’ve heard tales about you and your year-mates that gave me gray hairs] Climbing in and out of windows at the dead of night with not-so-ex-thieves! Spying on the Royal Nursemaid!”

  “Catling—” Talia went cold sober. “Elspeth—I’m sorry about Hulda.” She met Elspeth’s scrutiny squarely.

  Elspeth grimaced bitterly at the name of the nursemaid who had very nearly managed to turn her into a spoiled, unmanageable monster—and came close to eliminating any chance of her being Chosen.

  “Why? You caught her red-handed in conspiracy to keep me from ever getting to be Heir,” she replied with a mixture of amusement and resentment—the amusement at Talia’s reaction, the resentment reserved for Hulda. “Sit, sit, sit! I’m hungry, and I refuse to have to crane my neck up to talk to you.”

  “You—you aren’t angry at me?” Talia asked, taking a seat beside Elspeth on the worn wooden bench. “I wanted to tell you I was responsible for her being dismissed, but, frankly, I never had the courage.”

  Elspeth smiled a little. “You didn’t have the courage? Thank the Lady for that! I was afraid you were perfect!”

  “Hardly,” Talia replied dryly.

  “Well, why not tell me your end of it now? I just got it secondhand from Mother and Kyril.”

  “Oh, Lord—where do I begin?”

  “Mm—chronologically, as you found it out.” Elspeth seized a mug of fruit juice from a server and plumped it down in front of her seatmate.

  “Right. It really started for me when I tried to get to know you. Hulda kept blocking me.”

  “How?”

  “Carrying you off for lessons, saying you were asleep, or studying, or whatever other excuse she could come up with. Catling, I was only about fourteen, and a fairly unaggressive fourteen at that; I wasn’t about to challenge her! But it just happened too consistently not to be on purpose. So I enlisted Skif.”

  Elspeth nodded. “Good choice. If there was anybody likely to find out anything, it would be Skif. I know for a fact he still keeps his hand in—”

  “Oh? How?”

  Elspeth giggled. “Whenever he’s in residence he leaves me sweets hidden in the ‘secret’ drawer of the desk in my room. With notes.”

  “Oh, Lord—you haven’t told anybody, have you?”

  Elspeth was indignant. “And give him away? Not a chance! Oh, I’ve told Mother in case he ever gets caught—which isn’t likely—but I swore her to secrecy first.”

  Talia sighed in relief. “Thanks be to the Lady. If anybody other than Heralds found out ... “

  Elspeth sobered. “I know. At worst he could be killed before a Guard knew he was a Herald and it was a prank. Believe me, I know. Mother was rather amused—and rather glad, I think. It can’t hurt to have somebody with skills like that in the Heralds. Anyway, you recruited Skif ...”

  “Right; he began sneaking around, and discovered that Hulda, rather than being the subordinate as everyone thought, had taken over control of the nursery and your education. She was drugging old Melidy, who was supposed to be your primary nurse. Well, that seemed wrong to me, but it wasn’t anything I could prove because Melidy had been ill—she’d had a brainstorm. So I had Skif keep watching. That was when he discovered that Hulda was in the pay of someone unknown—paid to ensure that you could never be Chosen, and thus, never become Heir.”

  “Bitch.” Elspeth’s eyes were bright with anger. “I take it neither you nor he ever saw who it was?”

  Talia shook her head regretfully, and took a sip of fruit juice. “Never. He was always masked, cloaked, and hooded. We told Jadus, Jadus told the Queen—and Hulda vanished.”

  “And I only knew that I’d lost the one person at Court I was emotionally dependent on. I’m not surprised you kept quiet.” Elspeth passed Talia a clean plate. “Oh, I might have gotten angry if you’d told me two or three years ago, but not now.”

  There was a great deal of cold, undisguised anger in the Heir’s young brown eyes. “I still remember most of that time quite vividly.”

  Talia lost the last of her apprehension over the indignation in Elspeth’s voice.

  “There’s more to it than just my being resentful, though,” Elspeth continued, “Looking back at it, Talia, I think that woman who called herself my ‘nurse’ would quite cheerfully have strangled me with her own hands if she thought she could have profited and gotten away with it! Yes, and enjoyed every minute of it!”

  “Oh, come now—you weren’t that much of a little monster!”

  “Here, you’d better start eating or Mero’ll throw fits at us when we get downstairs to clean; he’s fixed all your favorites.” Elspeth took some of the platters being passed from hand to hand, and heaped Talia’s plate with crisp oatcakes and honey, warm bacon, and stir-fried squash, totally oblivious to the incongruity of the Heir to the Throne serving one who was technically an underling. She had indeed come a long way from the Royal Brat who had been so very touchy about her rank. “Talia, I lived with Hulda most of my waking hours. I know for a fact she enjoyed frightening me. The bedtime stories she told me would curl the hair of an adult, and I’d bet my life that she got positive pleasure out of my shivers. And I can’t tell you why I feel this way, but I’m certain she was the most coldly self-centered creature I’ve ever met; that nothing mattered to her except her own well-being. She was very good at covering the fact, but—”

  “I don’t think I doubt you, catling. One of your Gifts is Mindspeech, after all, and little children sometimes see things we adults miss.”

  “You adults? You weren’t all that much older than me! You saw a fair amount yourself, and you’d have seen more if you’d been able to spend more time with me. She was turning me into a little copy of herself, when she wasn’t trying to scare me. Once she’d cut me off from everyone else so that there was no one to turn to as a friend, she kept schooling me in how I shouldn’t trust anyone but her—and how I should fight for every scrap of royal privilege, stopping for no one and nothing on the way. There’s more, something that turned up after you left. When they told me the truth, I got very curious.”

  “Which is why I call you ‘catling’—” Talia interrupted with a grin, “—since you’re fully as curious as any cat.”

  “Too true. Curiosity sometimes pays, though; I started going through the things she left, and doing a bit of discreet correspondence with my paternal relatives.”

  “Does your mother know this?” Talia was a bit surprised.

  “It’s with her blessing. By the way, I get the feeling that Uncle-King Faramentha li
kes me as much as he disliked my father. We’ve gotten into quite a cozy little exchange of letters and family anecdotes. I like him, too—and it’s rather too bad we’re so closely related; he’s got a whole tribe of sons, and I think anybody with a sense of humor like his would be rather nice to get to know ....” Elspeth’s voice trailed off wistfully, then she got back to the subject at hand with a little shake of her head. “Anyway, now we’re not altogether certain that the Hulda who left Rethwellan is the same Hulda who arrived here.”

  “What?”

  “Oh, it’s so much fun to shock you. You look like somebody just hit you in the face with a board!”

  “Elspeth, I may kill you myself if you don’t get to the point!

  “All right, I’ll be good! It’s rather late in the day to be checking on these things now, but there was a span of about a month after Hulda left the Royal Nursery in Rethwellan to come here where she just seems to have vanished. She wasn’t passed across the Border, and no one remembers her in the inns along the way. Then—poof!—she’s here, bag and baggage. Father wasn’t among the living anymore through his own stupid fault, and she had all the right papers and letters; nobody thought to doubt that she was the ‘Hulda’ he’d sent for. Until now, that is.”

  “Bright Lady!” Talia grew as cold as her breakfast, thinking about the multitude of possibilities this opened up. Had the unknown “my lord” she and Skif had seen her conspiring with brought her here? They had no way of knowing if that one had been among those traitors uncovered and executed after Visa’s murder, for neither of them had ever seen his face. They thought he had been, for there were no other stirrings of trouble after that, but he might only have gone to ground for an interval. Had even “my lord” guessed that she was not what she seemed? And where had she vanished to after she was unmasked? No one had seen her leave; she had not passed the Border, at least by the roads (and that was an echo of what Elspeth had just detailed), yet she was most assuredly gone before anyone had a chance to detain her. And who—or what—had given her warning that she had been uncovered? A danger that Talia had long thought safely laid to rest had suddenly resurrected itself, the cockatrice new-hatched from the dunghill.

  “Mero is going to have my hide,” Elspeth warned, and Talia started guiltily and finished her meal. But she really couldn’t have told what she was eating.

  “—and that was the last incident,” Kris finished. “The last couple of weeks were nothing but routine; we finished up, Griffon relieved us, and we headed home.”

  He met the measuring gazes of first Elcarth, then Kyril. Both of them were shocked cold sober by his revelation of the way Talia’s Gift had gone rogue—and why. They had evidently assumed this interview was going to be a mere formality. Kris’ tale had come as an unpleasant surprise.

  “Why,” Kyril asked, after a pause that was much too long for Kris’ comfort, “didn’t you look for help when this first happened?”

  “Largely because by the time I knew something was really wrong, we were snowed into that Waystation, Senior.”

  “He’s got you there, brother.” Elcarth favored the silver-haired Seneschal’s Herald with a wry smile.

  “By the time we got out, she was well on the way to having her problems solved,” Kris continued doggedly. “She had the basics, had them down firmly. And once we got in with people again, we found that those rumors had preceded us. At that point, I reckoned we’d do irreparable harm by leaving the circuit to look for other help. We’d only have confirmed the rumor that there was something wrong by doing so.”

  “Hm. A point,” Kyril acknowledged.

  “And at that point, I wasn’t entirely certain that there was anyone capable of training her.”

  “Healers—” Elcarth began.

  “Don’t have Empathy alone, nor do they use it exactly the way she does—the way she must. She’s actually used it offensively, as I told you. They rarely invoke the use of it outside of Healing sessions; she is going to have to use it so constantly it will be as much a part of her as her eyes and ears. At least,” Kris concluded with an embarrassed smile, “that’s the way I had it figured.”

  “I think that in this case you were right, young brother,” Kyril replied after long thought, during which time Kris had plenty of leisure to think about all he’d said, and wonder if he’d managed to convince these two, the most senior Heralds in the Circle.

  Kris let out a breath he didn’t even realize he’d been holding.

  “There was this, too,” he added. “At that point, letting out word that we, and the Collegium, had failed to properly’ train the new Queen’s Own would have been devastating to everyone’s morale.”

  “Bright Goddess—you’re right!” Elcarth exclaimed with consternation, his eyebrows rising to meet his gray cap of hair. “For that to become well known would be as damaging to the faith of Heralds as it would to that of nonHeralds. I think, given the circumstances, you both deserve high marks. You, for your good sense and discretion, and your internee for meeting and overcoming trials she should never have had to face.”

  “I agree,” Kyril seconded. “Now, if you’ll excuse us, Elcarth and I will endeavor to set such safeguards as to ensure this never happens again.”

  With a polite farewell, Kris thankfully fled their presence.

  In the hour after breakfast, Talia covered a great deal of ground. She first left the Herald’s Collegium and crossed to the separate building that housed Healer’s Collegium and the House of Healing. The sun was up by now, though it hadn’t been when she’d gone to breakfast, and from the cloudless blue of the sky it looked as if it were going to be another flawless spring day. Once within the beige-brick walls, she sought out Healer Devan, to let him know of her return, and to learn from him if there were any Herald-patients in the House of Healing that needed her own special touch.

  She found him in the still-room, carefully mixing some sort of decoction. She entered very quietly, not wanting to break his concentration, but somehow he knew she was there anyway.

  “Word spreads quickly; I knew you’d gotten back last night,” he said without turning around. “And most welcome you are, too, Talia!”

  She chuckled a little. “I should know better than to try and sneak up on someone with the same Gift I have!”

  He set his potion down on the table before him, stoppered it with care, and turned to face her. As a smile reached and warmed his hazel eyes, he held out brown-stained hands in greeting.

  “Your aura, child, is unmistakable—and right glad I am to feel it again.”

  She took both his hands in her own, wrinkling her nose a little at the pungent odors of the still-room. “I hope you’re glad to see me for my own sake, and not because you need me desperately,” she replied.

  Much to her relief, he assured her that there were no Heralds at all among his patients at the moment.

  “Just wait until the Midsummer storms South, or the pirate-raids West, though!” he told her, his dark eyes rueful. “Rynee will have her Greens by winter; she’s got every intention of going back South to be stationed near her home. You’re back in good time; you’ll be the only trained mind-Healer besides Patris here when she leaves, and it’s possible we may need you for patients other than Heralds.”

  Next she returned to the Herald’s Wing for an interview she had not been looking forward to.

  She knocked hesitantly on the door to Elcarth’s office; and found that not only was Elcarth there, but that the Seneschal’s Herald was with the Dean.

  During the next hour she reported, as dispassionately as she could, all that had happened during her internship. She did not spare herself in the least, admitting fully that she had concealed the fact that she was losing control over her Gift; admitting that she did not confess the fact until forced to by Kris. She told them what Kris had not; that she had nearly killed both of them.

  They heard her out in complete silence until she had finished, and sat with her hands clenched in her lap, waiting for their
verdict on her.

  “What have you concluded from all this?” Elcarth asked unexpectedly.

  “That—that no one Herald can stand alone, not even the Queen’s Own,” she replied, after thought. “Perhaps especially the Queen’s Own. What I do reflects on alt Heralds, and more so than any other just because I’m so much in the minds of the people.”

  “And of the proper usage of your Gift?” Kyril asked.

  “I—I don’t really know, entirely,” she admitted. “There are times when what I need to do is quite clear. But most of the time, it’s so—so nebulous. It’s going to be pretty much a matter of weighing evils and necessity, I guess.”

  Elcarth nodded.

  “If I have time, I’ll ask advice from the Circle before I do anything irrevocable. But most of the time, I’m afraid I won’t have that luxury. But if I make a mistake ... well, I’ll accept the consequences, and try and make it right.”

  “Well, Herald Talia,” Elcarth said, black eyes bright with what Talia finally realized was pride, “I think you’re ready to get into harness.”

  “Then—I passed?”

  “What did I tell you?” Kyril shook his head at his colleague. “I knew she wouldn’t believe it until she heard it from our lips.” The iron-haired, granite-faced Herald unbent enough to smile warmly at her. “Yes, Talia, you did very well; we’re quite pleased with what you and Kris have told us. You took a desperate situation that was not entirely of your own making, and turned it around, by yourselves.”

  “And we’re satisfied with what you told us just now,” Elcarth added. “You’ve managed to strike a decent balance in the ethics of having a Gift like yours, I think. So now that you’ve had the sweet compliments, are you ready for the bitter? There’s a Council meeting shortly.”

  “Yes, sir,” she replied. “I’ve been ... warned.”

  “About more than just the meeting, I’ll wager.”

  “Senior, that would be compromising my sources—”