Closer to the Heart

by Mercedes Lackey

  When Coot had eaten until he could not swallow another crumb, the girl took a moment and led them to the chamber they would share with other servants. There was one big bed; two fellows were already in there, and thankfully were not snoring. Mags carefully took off his trews and tunic, folded them, and put them at the head of the bed to use as a pillow. Coot watched him and did the same. “Outside or inside?” Mags whispered. Coot surveyed the strangers in the moonlight coming in through the window. “Outside?” he said, making a question of it. Mags nodded and took the inside. Both of them rolled up in their cloaks, then pulled the blanket on their side over the top of everything.

  He’d had worse beds. This one was vermin-free, not too lumpy; the blanket was warm enough when you added the cloak, and the other two men were like a couple of hibernating bears and didn’t stir. The rest, well, neither he nor Coot were carrying anything to be robbed of, so he calmly went to sleep.

  He woke when his bedmates rose before dawn. One of them touched his shoulder. “Best get a-movin’ iffen yer want fust brekker, mate,” said the fellow when he turned over.

  “Well, thenkee kindly fer the warnin’,” he replied, and shook Coot awake. All four of them pulled on their outer clothing, and trooped out into the common room.

  It was much less full this morning, what with the locals gone. The serving girl—a real girl this time, not much older than Coot—put bread trenchers down in front of them beside wooden bowls. The coachman joined them in time to get a bowl and a trencher. Moments later she came back and spooned pease-porridge into the bowls and slid bacon and fried onions onto the trenchers. She came back a third time with mugs full of hot ale, and then returned to the kitchen, not to be seen again.

  Everyone dug in. The bread was left over from last night, a bit stale now which was why it was being used as trenchers, but with the bacon grease and onion juice soaked in, it was tasty enough. Coot certainly didn’t look as though he intended to complain.

  Then the coachman went out to ready the horses, and they waited. And while they waited, Mags sensed Dallen prodding tentatively at his mind.

  :How was your night?: Mags asked.

  :Tolerable. There’s a Waystation, so I had a nice sheltered sleeping spot, and it’s not that hard to get into the feedbin even without hands.:

  Mags considered that. :Lord Jorthun says we’re taking a lodging of some kind in Attlebury; the local Waystation can’t be that far, and I can take Coot out and we’ll get you set up comfortably. After that, he’ll know what to do, and if I can’t get out there to make sure everything’s to your liking, he can.:

  :I knew you’d figure something out. How’s your backside?:

  :Wishing it was planted in your saddle. Why in the name of all the gods do the highborn travel like this? It’s torture!:

  :Because riding in the rain or snow on a common horse is worse torture. At least when it starts raining today, you’ll be dry and reasonably warm.:

  Mags did not ask Dallen how he knew it was going to rain. If Dallen said so, it probably would. He just hoped that the rain wouldn’t turn the road to mire. The last thing they needed was delay on this trip. He would have said something else, but he caught sight of Lord Jorthun in the doorway to the better rooms in the inn. He leapt to his feet.

  “Coot, go an’ tell Coachy his Lor’ship’s ready,” he ordered, then went to collect the traveling bags. He and Coot stowed them while Lord Jorthun and Keira lingered over a last cup of something.

  “Coach,” he said, when the bags were stowed. The coachman looked down from his perch on the box above the carriage. “Me bones say it’s gonna rain.”

  The coachman nodded, and cracked a smile. “Ta fer th’ warnin’, lad,” he replied, and extracted a waxed and oiled rain-cape from a storage place on the roof of the carriage, strapping it into the seat next to him to have at hand when the weather started. “If it be fine, an yon youngun’d fancy time up wi’ me, say th’ word. Iffen th’ road’s good, I’ll gi’ ’im a turn at the reins, belike.”

  Coot’s eyes went huge again. “You would?” he gasped. “Oh thenkee sor!”

  “Hark—m’lor’ an m’lady’s comin’,” the coachman warned, as Jorthun and Keira appeared in the doorway. Mags and Coot hurried to put down the footstool, help them both in, then stow the stool and hop in themselves. Then they were off.

  “Sleep all right, sir?” Mags asked conversationally. Jorthun and Keira looked at each other and burst out laughing.

  “I can only hope your neighbors were nothing like ours,” Keira said, when they stopped. “There is nothing on the face of the world I can compare to the chorus of snores we heard once dinner was over.”

  “First came the usual sort of thing,” Jorthun elaborated. “Except it was quite literally loud enough to rattle the walls. But then our neighbor began this high-pitched variation that came in fits and starts. Then it stopped, and we sighed in relief, and it started again.”

  “Then it stopped and we thought it was over for good, when the most hideous chorus of moaning began,” said Keira. “And when that finally ended and we thought that he was either soundly asleep or dead—and we didn’t care which at that point!—it all began again with that loud, low snoring!”

  “Keira finally made us earplugs of wax, and between those and putting pillows over our heads, we managed to get to sleep.” Jorthun chuckled. “I must say, this is a new experience for me. I’ve never encountered anyone with a repertoire like that.”

  “Our neighbors was quiet, an’ neighborly,” Mags replied. “Soun’s like you’d’a been just as pleased bein’ in servants’ quarters.”

  “Better pleased,” came the reply. “If that should happen again, I am sending Harras to my room and sleeping in the coach. Harras can sleep through anything.”

  “Does he know—” Mags said tentatively.

  “Everything. He’s been with me for dog’s years. We’ll rely on him for information from the other drivers and drovers.”

  “Good.” Actually, it was more than good, it was perfect. That meant Mags wasn’t going to have to try and get information out of a class of folks he knew absolutely nothing about—but who might be the ones who’d be able to guess if gems were being smuggled out.

  “Well, we have many leagues to go, and the best way to employ them is to fit ourselves for the parts we intend to play—and you, youngling, are the weakest at the moment.” Jorthun fixed Coot with a measuring gaze. “We created your story yesterday. Now let’s fill it out and get it so firmly in your head you cannot be surprised into a mistake.”

  And Coot stood right up to it. “Yessir,” he said, straightening in his seat. “Le’s get drillin’, sir.”

  Mags gave him an approving nod. Then they got to work, as a light rain began pattering the outside of the coach.

  The rooms at Healer’s Collegium seemed echoingly empty without Mags. She missed waking up to see his head on the pillow next to her, his unruly brown hair making him look like a sleepy mongrel puppy when he turned over to face her. She missed having to sort clean uniforms for two people. She missed his silly half-grin, and the sparkle in his brown eyes when she made a joke. She missed him reading over her shoulder, then asking incredulously, “An’ ye read thet fer fun?”

  And he’d only been gone two days.

  Amily actually had thought about moving back to her little room in her father’s suite at the Palace, when she realized that being there would be just as bad. When Mags left, Nikolas had headed south to the Border to find the armories that had produced the fateful weapons and learn what he could, which meant that he was gone for who knew how long. She was lonely and no matter how many friends she had here—and she did have many—all of them were busy, and none of them made up for the fact that Mags was gone.

  It was true that if she wanted she could have almost hourly reports on him by way of Rolan, whose limits on Mindspeech didn’t seem to h
ave been discovered yet, at least when it came to Mindspeaking another Companion. But that just wasn’t the same. He was the one person besides Rolan who could Mindspeak with her, because he was the only Herald she knew of who could Mindspeak with anyone, whether or not they had Mindspeech of their own. And hearing Rolan tell her what Mags had “said” just wasn’t the same as hearing his voice in her ear, or her head.

  Just before she went to bed, Rolan would tell her what had gone on that day. The first day, the coach had nearly rattled their bones apart, the second, they slogged through rain, but at least the roads weren’t terribly muddy, and nobody had needed to get out and push. And he missed her, but wouldn’t wish the coach ride on her no matter how lonely he got.

  At least now if something goes wrong, I’ll know. And as long as I don’t hear anything, it means things are boring and safe. That might have been the worst part of being the daughter of a Herald, with no Gifts of her own, especially a Herald like her father, who was prone to vanishing without warning. She’d never known what he was doing back before Rolan had Chosen her, and generally he did not tell her when he was leaving, where he was going, or when he would return. He could be gone hours . . . or days . . . or even a sennight or more, and she would have no idea what was going on for him. She could only have faith that as King’s Own, and partnered with Rolan, he would come back home safe.

  This was better. That didn’t mean she liked it, but there was a great deal about being a Herald that was just . . . hard. This made it a little less difficult.

  So she did her job, because she might be King’s Own, but that didn’t make her some special, privileged and protected hothouse bloom. She was a Herald, she had a job to do, and she did it, regardless of circumstances, just as every other Herald did.

  And that was how she spent the first two days without Mags. Much of her day, but not all, was taken up with the duties of the King’s Own . . . which in her case were not as “full” as she would have liked. The King’s Own was the King’s confidant and sounding board . . . but this King had not only her, but his Queen, his eldest son and his son’s wife, and his Inner Council. Kyril had had a long, long time to set up his support system, and do so in such a way that any one, or even several of them could be preoccupied for sennights or moons at a time, and the King would still have people he could trust around him. That was how her father had managed to go absent for so long, so often.

  This was the morning of the third day. Rolan told her that the rain had passed and Mags and company were already well down the road, having started at dawn. She paused in the hall outside the Council chamber. The King had just told her she could consider herself free for the rest of the day. It might be time to check on Mag’s crop of orphans.

  The thought was father to the deed, although she stopped to get something to eat before she ventured down into the city. Shortly after the noon bells rang, she and Rolan were nearly at the inn where the disguises were kept—after letting Kyril and Sedric know where she was going. If there was one thing that reading many, many books had taught her, it was that when someone like a Herald decided to go off somewhere by herself, it was sheer stupidity to do so without telling someone where you were going and what you were doing. Granted, Heralds had Companions, who presumably could relay the need for help if something went badly wrong—but that was only true if the Companions themselves were not incapacitated or extremely busy staying alive.

  Don’t divide your party, no matter how much more efficient it might seem, always check to make sure your equipment is working, and never go off on your own without making sure someone else knows where you are going. It was all very well to hinge a story on mistakes like those, but she had no intention of ever becoming a “bad example.”

  Spring was finally on the way. Bulbs were blooming in gardens and window-boxes, and the trees definitely had buds on them. Which meant there would be Spring rains soon. That wouldn’t matter to her, but she only hoped that Mags and Keira and Lord Jorthun got to their destination before the roads became mired messes. Streets here in Haven were paved by cobblestones or some process only the old Mages understood, so it wasn’t so bad here, and even the four main Trade Roads were paved. But once you got off the main Trade Roads . . . and they would be off them almost as soon as they left Haven . . . you were dealing with plain old dirt. Which would be rutted after the thaws, and in a rain, could turn into something that was not unlike a swamp. She did not envy them. He had had no idea what he was in for when he’d set off on this journey; she had, for she had traveled by coach and carriage quite a bit before being Chosen. I’ll bet he thought it would be like the caravan trip we took when he was making his first circuit to get his Whites. A coach traveling as quickly as the horses could pull it was nothing like as comfortable a ride as a caravan traveling at an amble over those roads.

  And if it turned really mucky . . . they could find themselves having to get out and push. Mags wouldn’t mind that, but Keira would be of little use, and she didn’t like to think of Jorthun putting his back into it.

  You’d think someone would notice all the Heralds coming in and not coming out here, she thought, trying to muster up a little amusement, as she left Rolan in his special box in the stable and headed for the secret room where her father, Mags, and now she kept their disguises.

  :With all the people that come through here?: Rolan pointed out :That’s why Nikolas chose this place. Hundreds of people come and go from this inn over the course of a day. Lots of Heralds come here to watch the players or hear the musicians, no one will notice one more or less. And I am watching out to make certain no one notices; that’s my job.:

  Well, that was certainly true. This was the largest inn in Haven, fully big enough to have its own small acting company that performed short comedies every night. And another room where a rotating group of musicians played all day and night. :You’re right, of course.:

  She changed quickly, and became the young street tough that she and her father had concocted. It wasn’t that hard; she was slender, and the right underpinnings took care of any betraying curves. Once she’d redressed, tied her hair back, and smudged up her face she made her way out into the open again. The character was surprisingly effective, actually; her swagger and the way she rested her hand on the hilt of her dagger—not her sword—convinced people that she knew how to use the weapons she carried. She rather liked the effect, actually. The way people glanced at her uneasily, tried not to catch her eye, or even moved across the street to avoid her was amusing.

  Once down in the poorer parts of Haven, the signs of Spring were not as decorative; people used window boxes to grow practical things like beans and peas. But there were tender shoots starting there. Windows were open just a cautious bit, and people were beginning to shed some of the layers of clothing they had worn all winter.

  She got to Aunty Minda’s and used her key. Those orphans who were not currently at their new jobs as maid and hallboys, or at their jobs as runners at inns, would be here getting luncheon. And some of those who were runners might be here too; if business was slow it was better to dash back here for some food than spend a precious coin on something at the inn.

  A dozen pairs of eyes riveted her as she turned after shutting the door behind her.

  “Ah!” Aunty Minda said, perking up as Amily took off her battered hat. “Herald Amy! How’s Harkon a-doin’ on his journey?”

  Amily did not correct her; she just smiled. “Hello Aunty Minda, I heard this morning he was doing well. Now, how are you all getting along? Do you need anything?”

  “The lads i’ Weasel’s takes care’a us nicely, thenkee,” Minda said. “But, act’lly, one’a th’ young’uns ’ere ’as a notion fer ye.”

  One of the boys stood up. “Aye. We ’as a notion. Iffen yer a-gonna do wut Harkon do, yer oughter be able t’be wut Harkon be.”

  She blinked at him, confused as to what he meant. There was no way she could judge gemst
ones as Mags could, and she rather doubted anyone wanted her minding the counter at Willy the Weasel’s. “Which is?”

  “Roof-runner,” the boy said, and grinned. “We reckon we kin teach yer.”

  Her initial reaction was to tell him such a thing was impossible—that she could not possibly, with her leg. . . .

  But she didn’t say that, and in the next moment she realized there was no reason why she couldn’t . . . because hadn’t she already managed to learn to fight with multiple weapons? This would be harder than that, yes, but why not at least try?

  “I’d like to try,” she agreed. “But I do have a leg that used to be lame. . . .”

  The boy shrugged. “We try, aye? No ’arm in tryin’.”

  “I agree.” She nodded decisively. “But can we find somewhere we can use in daylight? I am certainly not capable of trying any climbing in the dark.”

  The boy grinned even broader. “Oh, aye. Thet we kin.”

  • • •

  Well, this is . . . going to be interesting.

  Amily’s first lessons were to take place right here, in the back yards and on the rooftops of the orphans’ home and the pawn shop. “We be startin’ ye slow, m’lady,” the boy—Renn—told her. “Fust thing’s t’get ye jumpin’ about, like.” They had actually set up a sort of course, like the Collegium course, composed of what would otherwise have been obstacles, but different. She thought that Renn would start her on jumping on and off some of the objects out here, the bench, the broken bits of column, and so forth. But he surprised her.