Valdemar Books

by Lackey, Mercedes

  Sidonie shrugged. “Mandy had no idea - just somewhere outside the village, but on this side of the river. Far enough away that it won’t bother us, near enough that he’ll be able to work magic for us when we need it.” Her eyes widened, and she smiled broadly. “Think of that! We’ll have a real mage again! The Hawkbrothers will be mages, too, of course, but they’ll have their own concerns to deal with; Darian will be our mage.”

  “A Weather-Watcher,” Ayver said in satisfaction. “Damn, it’ll be good to know when there’s a monster storm on the way! Be even better if he’s gotten to be a Weather-Worker. We won’t have to fret about a lot of things, I reckon.”

  Sidonie sighed happily. “I’ll feel safer, that’s for certain sure. Oh - and Mandy says he’s going to have at least one gryphon with him, to come live at this place he’s building! Think of that!”

  A gryphon? Keisha felt her own eyes widening. For as long as she could remember, she had wanted to see a real gryphon, and now it appeared she was not only going to see one, she’d probably get to see one on a weekly basis! If this gryphon was going to patrol for danger from the sky, his flights would have to take him over the village at least that often.

  Those were all the facts that Sidonie had gotten; the rest was all speculation, and Keisha could do that on her own. While the others chattered, she ate the rest of her meal without tasting it, and after helping with the dishes, went out looking for more solid information.

  She didn’t have to go far; she simply followed her ears, A gaggle of folk had gathered in the village square just in front of the inn, and the murmur of their voices drew her to the gathering. The lantern over the inn door was lit, and underneath it, on the wall where anyone could read it, was an announcement with Lord Breon’s seal at the top.

  So this has come from Kelmskeep! That makes it official. How wonderful! Whatever Lord Breon has sent over will be solid truth, and no guessing.

  Keisha couldn’t get anywhere near the posted message herself, but that hardly mattered, since the priest, Father Benjan, was reading it out loud for the benefit of those whose reading skill was limited to the ability to keep an inventory. He’d evidently gone through it at least once already, for some of those who had gathered here were going off to their own houses, while newcomers pressed closer. Keisha had arrived just in time to hear it all from the beginning.

  “This is all under Lord Breon’s seal, see, there it is on the top, and it came over by messenger just this afternoon,” he was saying as Keisha got within earshot. His voice was a little hoarse now, from all the repeating. “What it says, with all the fancy language pared off, is that Mage Darian Firkin and some of the Hawkbrothers from Clan k’Vala are fulfilling the promise they made back when Darian left with them. They’re coming to settle outside the village, about halfway between us and Kelmskeep. They’re planning to stay permanently, and there’s going to be more mages than just young Darian living at this settlement, but they’ll probably all be Hawkbrothers except him. There’s going to be one gryphon at first, maybe more later on. There’s no date for when they’ll be settling in, just that it’ll happen by Harvest. What they’re doing is building a kind of Hawkbrother village, they call it a ‘Vale,’ and it’s going to be a place where people besides Hawkbrothers are welcome. They plan to keep an eye on all of us as part of their treaty with Valdemar, and the gryphon is going to be here to give us warning of anything nasty coming from a distance. This is going to be what Lord Breon calls a ‘formal presence inside Valdemar.’ What he means is that these people will be Hawkbrother envoys here, and that’s going to give us a lot more attention from the Queen.”

  “Well, that’ll be grand!” the blacksmith called out. “You think maybe they’ll be giving us our Guards back?”

  “There’s nothing about that here, but then Lord Breon wouldn’t know what they’ve decided in Haven,” Father Benjan replied. “At a guess, I’d say it’s likelier than not. Attention from the Crown is probably going to mean at least that much. Who knows? Maybe they’ll give us our own regional Herald in permanent residence. Maybe some mercenary guards because of the added trade.”

  There were little murmurs of relief all through the crowd, and no need to guess why. Those who had been here for the barbarian invasion - which was universally called “The Great War,” for it had certainly seemed like a war to this isolated place - had never quite gotten over it. Folk coming in from the Pelagirs were always closely questioned for any signs that the barbarians might be coming back, as were traders and travelers out of the north. No one quite had the courage to question the Hawkbrothers, but it was generally assumed after their initial intervention they would certainly give warning to Errold’s Grove, if warning were warranted. Still, having someone here to give that sort of warning sooner would allow everyone to sleep easier at night.

  Keisha walked back through the soft, warm dusk to her cottage, half listening to the crickets singing and trying to think out all the possible things this could mean to Errold’s Grove - and by extension, herself.

  One thing’s certain, she thought, as she settled next to the fire with the rest of her mending. People are going to suffer less from nervous complaints. Between the gryphon and the mages keeping watch for trouble, the folk of Errold’s Grove would no longer have to be quite so vigilant. I bet I get a lot fewer requests for nerve tonics and sleeping possets.

  By her reckoning, they would almost certainly get those Guards back - mind, they might well be men that were one step short of retirement, but they would be Guards all the same. If there was going to be a Hawkbrother embassy, for certainly that was what this “Vale” thing was, the Queen would want an armed presence in the trading-village nearest it.

  And a lot more traders will start coming, I bet. If they‘re certain to contact Hawkbrothers every time they come to our market, they‘ll come more often and start requesting specific things of them in the way of trade goods. More traders would mean more prosperity; that, too was a fine thing for the village as a whole.

  More prosperity means more people coming here to settle, though, and that means more injury and illness. Surely, surely someone would see that Errold’s Grove needed a fully trained Healer! I’d even share the cottage, if I could just become the Trainee instead of the primary Healer. . . . That could solve all of her problems at once - but only it someone in the Healers Circle decided that Keisha wasn’t capable of handling the increased work.

  But what if they think I am? Then things aren’t going to change at all. . . .

  She sternly told herself not to panic ahead of time. No getting upset. She wasn’t going to think about it. No use in creating trouble where there wasn’t any. She’d be like the silly girl in the story, crying over lost sheep she didn’t have, bought with the money from hens she hadn’t yet hatched, from eggs her two little half-grown chicks hadn’t yet laid!

  When she finished the last of the mending, she went out into her garden and took a seat on the bench there, looking up at the stars. A warm breath of a breeze carried the scent of honeysuckle past her, as crickets sang nearby and a nightingale in the Forest declared his love for his mate. The moon was a slender nail-paring of a crescent, and Keisha shook her hair back, letting the breeze cool the nape of her neck.

  Her thoughts circled around to the returning prodigal. I wonder what Darian Firkin is like. “Firkin” isn’t a name from around here. She’d have a general idea of what he looked like if she knew his family, but it seemed to her that she remembered he was an orphan. That’s right, that’s why he was apprenticed to the wizard in the first place. Whenever people talk about him, they talk about a boy, but he’s at least my age by now. Eighteen at the least. That’s a young man, not a boy.

  He’d be old enough to do all the things people expected of him, she would think.

  So by now he’s a mage, and he’s got a Hawkbrother bird. He‘ll have traveled more than everyone in the village combined! He’ll certainly have seen more of Valdemar than anyone here, except maybe Lord
Breon and his family and liegemen. They hardly count, though; we never see them except at Midsummer and Harvest Faire. He should make quite an impression when he gets here, especially when people realize he isn’t a young boy anymore.

  She smiled wryly. There was one thing that was as predictable as the sun rising; every unattached young woman in Errold’s Grove would be setting her cap for him. How could they not? He wasn’t so homely as a boy that anyone made note of it, so he could hardly have grown into an ugly young man - and he would not only have the cachet of being a new, unknown male, but an exotic and a traveler!

  The older folks might be thinking of him as a boy still, but the girls are going to add up years and figure he’s of courting age. There’s going to be a lot of sewing and embroidery going on for the next few months, she decided. I wish Shandi were here! She’d be right in the middle of it all, and tell me all the tales!

  Personally, she was just anticipating finally seeing a gryphon, maybe hearing it speak. It would bring a touch of excitement to the skies over the village if she could look up from time to time to see the enormous wings passing overhead, or see a momentary gryphon-shadow against the moon! That was all the magic that she needed in her world!

  The gryphon was a certainty; she considered other possibilities that the Hawkbrothers might bring. So the other thing this means is that if Hawkbrothers are coming to settle, they’ll be bringing more of their medicines and treatments. Would they bring a Healer?

  Now that was worth getting excited about. The Hawkbrothers were mages, everyone knew that, so any Healer they brought with them would - must! - have the secret to unlock those puzzling texts of hers!

  Steelmind’s from k’Vala; their chief Healer sent seeds through him to help me. So they already know that I’m here. Healers always work with other Healers, that’s part of the Clan. So if they bring a Healer with them, it’s bound to be someone who knows all about using Healer’s Gift and it’s bound to be someone who‘ll at least give me enough help to get me on my feet!

  This could be the solution to all of her problems; never mind Darian Firkin, and even the gryphon. Now she could hardly wait to meet the Hawkbrothers and learn if they did have a Healer among them!

  Whatever it takes, I’ll find the way to get him to teach me!

  She laughed out loud in relief, as a burden she had carried so long she hardly noticed it anymore lifted from her shoulders. No more mysteries, no more making excuses to Gil! It would only be a few short moons, and she would be learning the last skill she needed to consider herself & real Healer!

  With the lifting of the burden, after the initial feeling of giddy pleasure, came a sense of relaxation. A few moons? She could wait that long.

  And meanwhile, there were babies coming, childish illnesses to dose, broken bones to set, gashes to stitch. She would have her hands full enough to avoid fretting between then and now.

  She went to bed and slept the soundest sleep she’d had in years, waking with the birds, feeling as if she had been Healed.

  That day, after a round of children who’ d gotten bellyaches from eating too many half-ripe berries, she went out into the garden for some fresh mint. As she stooped to pick the pungent leaves, a strange shadow crossing the ground in front of her made her glance up.

  It was a gryphon. It couldn’t be anything else.

  It wasn’t alone either; there were more of them, carrying baskets suspended between pairs of them. She couldn’t make out what was in the baskets, they were too high, but there was no doubt of what they were.

  Keisha stared at them until they vanished over the trees, tending vaguely upriver, where the Vale was alleged to be. She all but forgot the mint in her hands until they were gone, and she realized she had crushed it.

  Eight

  The news that a new invasion of barbarians had been sighted changed everything, turning what had been leisurely planning into a spate of frenzied activity. Gryphons carried basketloads of hertasi to the new Vale to get it ready in advance, as the rest of those who had volunteered or been specifically requested to populate the place packed up their belongings and prepared to make the move to their new home. By the time everyone arrived, there would be quarters waiting for them; somewhat more primitive quarters than they were used to, to be sure, but living spaces that could be improved upon and enlarged until they met the standards of those accustomed to living in a long-established Vale. After all, it wasn’t even Midsummer yet; there were three more moons of warm and sunny summer weather to go, and another couple of moons before things got uncomfortably cold. A Vale full of hertasi and humans working together would have fine living quarters put together long before then, and the only improvements after that would be cosmetic.

  Darian alone of all of them didn’t have much to pack, so he was ready to go long before anyone else was. He tried to lend a hand to some of the others, but his help was always politely declined. That gave him time that he tried to fill as best he could, studying hard with Firefrost, working on further plans for his Vale, and (for a while, at least) spending as much time as he could spare from both those tasks with Summerdance.

  He paid very close attention to his feelings about her and tried his best to decipher hers for him; he didn’t want to leave without her if what tied them together was closer than mere friendship. Their dalliance on the night of the wedding had been an entirely new set of experiences for him, and like a child with a new tooth, he felt as if he had to probe his feelings constantly to see what they were.

  He might even have convinced himself that he and Summerdance were meant for each other as permanent partners, if it hadn’t been for the fact that she didn’t act any differently toward him than she did toward any other young man whose company she enjoyed. In fact, when it came to the company of young men, she was a great deal like the tiny blue butterflies that shared her use-name of Summerdance, going from flower to flower (or boy to boy) without spending very long with any of them. So, after careful consideration, he came to the somewhat reluctant conclusion that if a romance between himself and Snowfire’s cousin were ever to happen, it probably wouldn’t occur until after she got a new use-name - if then.

  He consoled himself with their friendship and her very clear enjoyment of his company. If he was not to be her great love, at least he was still a love! No sooner had he come to that conclusion than he found that was just as glad that she didn’t have any special feelings for him because she kept introducing him to friends, who apparently wanted to give the “Valdemar Hawkbrother” a memorable send-off! Life was very interesting during that time, and he simply enjoyed his new-found popularity, knowing that when his special teacher arrived, he would have little, if any, time for a personal life.

  For a time, it seemed as if the Hawkbrothers were never going to get themselves organized enough to make the move. Then, suddenly, everything was organized, packed up, and ready to go. The announcement came late one afternoon, taking him by complete surprise.

  He had returned from a lesson with Firefrost, followed by dinner, and was about to change for a hot soak followed by bed, when his room was invaded by a swarm of hertasi. Before he knew what was happening, the hertasi were carrying off his belongings and double-checking to make certain nothing would be left behind. Then they vanished, leaving him alone with the single set of clothes he pried out of their eager, stubby talons. He got his soak, all right, but only because he had changed into one of the communal lounge robes - he didn’t have any other clothing left but what he needed for the next day! He soaked until he thought he was relaxed enough to sleep, returned to his room, laid out the set of his old scout gear that the hertasi had left him and fell into his bed for his last night in k’Vala as anything but a visitor.

  The next day, he was awake before the hertasi came to fetch him, too excited to sleep anymore. He’d had dreams all night long about the new Vale and the journey to get there - and more ominous ones about his new teacher, who seemed to be a combination of Darkstone and everyone in Errold’s Gr
ove who’d ever disapproved of him. He took his time over breakfast, once he realized that the sun wasn’t in the sky yet; it might be a while before he enjoyed the kinds of food available in k’Vala. Ayshen was going to be in charge of the hertasi there, though, so even if it wouldn’t be possible to replicate the feast-day delicacies of the wedding celebration, it would still be good food.

  Finally a hertasi came to tell him that everyone was gathering to leave, and he mounted Tyrsell’s saddle for the first steps of the journey with the unsettled feeling that he wasn’t ready for all this.

  What am I doing ? I’m not a leader. How am I going to take charge of a new Vale? Maybe I should change my mind - maybe I ought to be staying here -

  But he shook off that momentary panic with self-derision; that was specious. He wasn’t going to be in charge for many years to come, not until Starfall, Nightwind, and Snowfire, the new Vale’s Elders, judged him ready to take his place with them. He had a lot to learn between then and now. They’d consult him, of course, especially on matters involving Errold’s Grove, Lord Breon, and Valdemar, and they’d involve him in discussions, but he wouldn’t be a leader for a long while.

  Eventually I’ll go back to Errold’s Grove; I wonder how they’re going to react to me? He wasn’t a boy anymore. In fact, if his memory served him correctly, he’d be a match for most of the men in the village. He was a better fighter; he’d been taught to fight in every style from bare-handed to bow, and with the men who’d been trained to be the village Militia all dead, there was probably no one left in the village who had been taught to fight. Not of the original villagers, at least. According to the Tayledras who went there to trade, the village had grown considerably since he’d left.