Closer to the Heart

by Mercedes Lackey

  “I wantcher ter galumph ’long this-a-way,” he said, and proceeded to scamper about the yard on all fours at an astounding pace. He stood up after a few moments of this, and regarded her with a slight smile. “It be ’arder nor it looks.”

  “I can already believe that,” she said . . . but still. . . .

  I might not be as unsuited to this as I think. I used to have to crawl everywhere. . . .

  Well, it wasn’t easy, and it used all manner of muscles she wasn’t used to using, but she could certainly see how this would be crackingly useful for scampering about on steep rooftops. She couldn’t get to Renn’s speed, but she did manage a lot better than a crawl, although after a while her muscles began complaining bitterly and cramping, and she got a hideous stitch in her side.

  “I’ve got to stop,” she said, panting and looking up at the boy.

  “Ye done better nor I recked,” said Renn. “Yer wanter stretch oot. Then we’ll get ter next thin’.”

  She nodded, and slowly stood up, groaning a little. This muscle pain was not something that came as a surprise to her; the moment that Renn had told her to run on all fours, she had known she was in for a genuine workout. The only thing that had come as a surprise to her was that Renn seemed to be as serious and dedicated an instructor as the Weaponsmaster and any of his assistants up at the Collegia. It was impressive to see someone that young who was as focused and disciplined as an adult.

  Then again, his livelihood depended on this. The boys were in great demand as message runners and package deliverers because they could be counted on to let nothing stop them. They would cut through yards, go over walls, and even run on the rooftops. And most of the younglings here had been rescued from a gang of thieves by Mags, and running the rooftops at night had been part of their business.

  These children were really not “children” as she knew them at all. At a far too early age, they’d been forced into adult responsibilities. And I should begin treating them that way, she realized. And thinking of them in that way as well.

  So she took care with stretching out the muscles that felt strained and sore, and only when she thought they were ready did she turn back to him and say, obediently, “And now what, Renn?”

  “Thet, there,” he said, pointing to a piece of wood no wider than the width of her thumb, and about the width of two fingers tall, running from one side of the yard to the other. “Yer balance an’ walk it. No fallin’ off! Then yer turn in place, an’ come back.”

  This was actually not so bad; a lot of learning to use her mended leg had involved balancing along boards like this one. She felt a great deal better about her performance balancing on the narrow bit of wood than she had with running about on all fours. When she had performed this action to Renn’s satisfaction, making nice, quick, tight turns at the end, he agreed she was ready for the third exercise.

  “Now yer gonna learn ’ow t’jump, proper,” he decreed. But he did not have her jump onto and off of anything. Instead, he had her making precision jumps at ground level, jumping to and from a series of cobbles in the yard that were lighter colored than the rest. Slowly she began to notice that there was a proper way to jump. And that she certainly had not mastered it.

  He noticed her chagrin, coached her on her form and how to set her feet and bend her knees, and when she stopped to rest, patted her arm gently. “No worries, m’lady. Yer doin’ better nor I thought ye might.”

  She was soaking wet at this point, and needed to at least go inside and dry off a bit before she walked back up to the inn. And she was exhausted, so if she went traipsing about in damp clothing, she’d be likely to catch something.

  :And you are going to ache in the morning,: Rolan observed. :I suggest a hot bath as soon as we return to the Collegium:

  “Yer go in, yer don ’nuff fer t’day, m’lady,” Renn decreed. “Want yer t’practice thet stuff up on Hill fer three days. Iffen yer figger yer ready fer next part, ye come down agin. I be ’ere. I be trainin’ the wee ’uns, the new ’uns we got, t’be new runners. They’s three on ’em now, but I reck there be six soon.”

  “Thank you, Renn, I will,” she promised, determined she would master such seemingly simple movements by the time she saw him next. “You are uncommonly kind to take on such a clumsy wench as I.”

  He patted her again. “Yer no worse’n some, an better’n some,” he reassured her. “Yer in good shape. It’ll come faster. Le’s go in, ye git dry, so’s ye don’ ketch nothing; an’ ye kin git ’ome agin.”

  At least he isn’t throwing his hands in the air and proclaiming me useless, she thought later, as she headed back the way she had come, toward the stable where Rolan was. There’s comfort in that.

  She felt Rolan snort in the back of her mind. :You are in good physical condition as all Heralds should be,: he reminded her. :A Herald that can scamper about on rooftops like a stray cat is a rare one. But I do agree with the boy; you should become one of those rare ones. You never know when such a skill will be needed.:

  :True, oh wise one,: she thought back at him. :No learning is ever wasted. Especially when it comes to us.:

  • • •

  Three days later she returned to Renn, and he proclaimed himself satisfied with her progress. Now he added more variations on jumps to the previous exercises.

  Using the same colored cobblestones as her targets, he had her leaping off on one or two feet, landing on one or two feet, jumping from the start of or at the end of a run across the yard, jumping from a standing start, across a gap, or at an odd angle. He also added jumping off and on relatively low objects, and jumping from object to object.

  Last of all he tested her ability to fall, or fall and roll. Fortunately that was one of the first skills she had ever mastered, back before her lame leg had been mended. After all, back when she’d been unable to walk, she could not always count on someone being around to help her if something happened and she fell. He was very impressed with her falling skills, which soothed her somewhat wounded pride.

  Once again, he sent her away with the direction to return in three days. “Yer doin’ dem good, m’lady.” Then he hesitated a moment. “Ye heerd aught’a Harkon?”

  She smiled as he looked up at her anxiously. “Every morning and every night. He’s fine. Well, other than having his bones rattled for days in a coach. They arrived at their destination today. I understand your friend Coot is having quite the adventure. It seems he has seen many things he never saw before. This morning he saw a fox, for instance. And last night he heard a wolf pack howl.”

  Renn’s eyes grew big. “Wuz they gonna eat ’im?”

  She smiled. “I think they were busy hunting rabbits. Unless they are starving wolves will generally leave you alone if you leave them alone.”

  Renn looked dubious. “Take yer word fer it, m’lady. I be seein’ ye i’ three days agin. Keep practicin’.”

  • • •

  Attlebury was a country market town, in the middle of country full of gem mines. That made things a bit different than any other country market town in Valdemar.

  To begin with, there was the quality of the buildings, which was high. For another, there was a Guild Hall in the middle of it that was the equal of any in Haven. Most country market towns would probably boast a market square, which might or might not be paved in some manner. This one boasted, not only a paved market square, but a large central livestock structure which was roofed. This was where the finest livestock went to be looked over and eventually sold; the best horses, the prize sheep and cattle. Animals that were intended for breeding. Real money was the norm here, not barter. There was a goldsmith, a silversmith and a coppersmith. There was more than one butcher. Several houses of worship were here, devoted to different deities, most of them having to do with either mining or farming; most market towns were lucky to have one. And they all seemed to be prospering.

  Another thing t
hat was different; most market towns had one public pump or fountain; this one had several, four in the market square alone. And cobblestone paving on all the main streets. And the fact that the best inn in the town had an entire floor that could be taken that would not have been out of place in one of the highborn’s town-houses. Mags and Jorthun knew all this of course; Mags had seen a lot in his year or so on circuit, and Lord Jorthun was, Mags suspected, vastly experienced in wanderings over the face of Valdemar.

  Needless to say, that inn was where they were now; it was huge, easily as big as the one in Haven that played host to the theater company from which some of Nikolas’s pawn-shop crew had been drawn. It was four full stories tall, and L-shaped, with a yard for horses and carriages in the crook of the L and an enormous stable and bathhouse. The bottom floor was the common room and taproom, the kitchen and the living quarters of the innkeeper and his family. The attic was for storage and cramped little garrets right under the thatch where the staff slept. The top floor was common rooms, where people slept several to a bed, the third individual rooms. The second floor was actually made up of suites. The two largest were four rooms each, the two smallest were two rooms each.

  The large suites were sumptuous indeed. Mags suspected that the furniture had been acquired over time, as the wealthy mine-owners divested themselves of “old things.” The two small ones were quite as comfortable as any set of rooms in the Collegium. After sharing beds with herdsmen, traveling tradesmen, bards on their Journeyman circuit, and assorted other folk whose occupations were not immediately obvious, it was a relief to have not just one, but two rooms to himself. He installed his traveling trunk, took out and hung up clean livery to air out, and disposed some of his personal things around the room, then went to check on Coot.

  Coot scarcely knew what to do with himself. He had never had a room to himself, much less two.

  It was fairly obvious to Mags that the suites he and Coot had been given were intended for people higher in rank than mere servants. In fact, it wouldn’t surprise him if they were normally used by Heralds. And the innkeeper clearly thought the same, as he had delicately hinted that “the help” could “find accommodations elsewhere.” “Elsewhere,” of course, would be those little garret rooms. Obviously.

  But Lord Jorthun had stared down his nose at the poor man, and asserted that he was “not accustomed to having to do without” his own servitors, and wanted them to be near at hand “so they could respond with no inconvenience.” The innkeeper reflected on this, then named a price, tentatively. Jorthun agreed to it with impatience. Keira solidified the innkeeper’s opinion of them as easy marks by exclaiming that she had much preferred that there were no strangers about during the hours of repose.

  Mags could almost see the speculative thoughts running behind the innkeeper’s eyes as he regarded Mags, then Keira, then Mags again. He didn’t make any attempt even to skim the man’s surface thoughts, but they were easy enough to divine.

  Let him assume whatever he likes.

  So Coot and Mags had gotten their own suites, each consisting of a small bedroom with a very nice bed and a bit of a sitting room with a fireplace. Coot sat on his bed and stared at his surroundings with wide eyes, once he and Mags got the luggage upstairs and stowed in the proper suites.

  “I ain’t nivver seen th’ like, Harkon,” Coot managed. They had all agreed to use Mags’ street-name from Haven. Harkon was common enough as a name, and Mags . . . was not. Someone might remember the slavey that Master Cole Pieters lost to the Heralds—shortly before he lost his mines for mistreating and murdering his mine workers. “What’m I s’pposed t’do wi’ all this room?”

  “Well, this’s pretty out’a th’ ordinary fer the likes of us, lad,” Mags told him. “Mostly ye an’ me’d be sharin’ a bed, or I’d git a bed and ye’d get a truckle ’neath it. An’ one room. Or like ’keeper said, we’d be tucked up like afore, w’ some’uv th’ inn folks. Ye gonna be all right alone?”

  He knew from personal experience that someone who was used to sleeping in a pack often had difficulty getting to sleep and staying asleep the first few nights in their own bed.

  Coot scratched his head. “Reckon so.” He looked at his nails and made a face. Mags smiled to himself. Aunty Minda was very strict about cleanliness, and Coot had gone from a boy who had been an entirely different color under all his dirt and grease, to one who thought the highest form of luxury was a good hot bath and felt abused if he didn’t get one on a regular basis.

  “Inn this big, there’ll be a bathhouse,” he told the lad. “Lemme go find out.”

  Actually, he went to discover, not only if there was a bathhouse, but if it had one big common room or several small rooms—or both.

  There was a bathhouse, and it had both. He bespoke two of the private rooms, one each for Lord Jorthun and Keira, because after a week on the road, that would be expected of him. He tentatively arranged for bath attendants as well, and went back up to inform them that their baths would be ready momentarily.

  Lord Jorthun looked up as Mags tapped the side of the doorframe. “I’ve bespoke a bath for you, m’lord,” he said politely. “Would ye prefer us t’be assistin’ ye? M’lady’ll have to make do with the inn-girls.”

  “I’d prefer for you and the boy to get the grime off of you,” said Lord Jorthun, in a lofty tone of voice—but with a wink. “Tell the innkeeper we require attendants while you do so.”

  “Aye m’lord. An’ I’ll hev dinner sent up an’ waitin’ for ye, when ye get out.”

  “Excellent.”

  Mags informed Keira, who dimpled at him, and waved him off, then went back downstairs as ordered, and made sure that Lord Jorthun’s wishes were carried out. Only then did he fetch Coot, get fresh, clean livery for both of them, and take him down to the common bathhouse.

  At this hour, right at the dinner hour for most folk, it was empty. Like most such bathhouses, both sexes used it without any pretense at modesty. You scrubbed off to one side of the big tub, above a grate in the floor, using soap that could range from just a bare grade above that used on floors to something that would not be out of place in a lady’s bathing room, depending on the quality of the house. You rinsed off there, and the dirty water drained away through that grate in the floor. And then you went and soaked in the common tub until you were good and relaxed. There would be a similar arrangement in the private bathing rooms—with better soap and towels of course, and attendants to help you.

  Getting really clean was a godsend. Getting into the hot tub was heaven. Mags sighed as his bruises encountered the hot water and felt his muscles finally relaxing. Coot looked utterly blissful; Mags reflected that as bony as the poor lad was, the coach rides must have been harder on the boy than they were on him.

  He was just getting comfortable when five more people came in, two women and three men. All of them were dressed in what looked like the general costume of the inn servants, so he assumed that was what they were, and their conversation confirmed it.

  “. . . took the whole floor, they did!” said the older of the two women, evidently resuming a conversation. “And they got a coach and all! I have never seen the like!”

  “But what brings ’em here, I’d like t’know?” asked one of the men, sounding genuinely puzzled. “They’re takin’ the rooms for a moon at least, Master says, an’ what’s there to see here?”

  Mags pondered for a moment, and decided that this was the time to ingratiate himself with the locals.

  “M’lady Keira,” he said, and they all started, because he and Coot were deep in the steam and they probably hadn’t been noticed. “is widowed and jest out’a mournin’. M’lord Jorthun’s ’er father. They took a notion to travel away from th’ sad ’ouse of death fer a while an’ away from far too many so-called frien’s that ain’t nothin’a’ th’ sort, an’ jest go where fancy took ’em. They like this ’ere town. They partic’larly like this i
nn. So here we be.” He waved to the dumbfounded and silent people on the other side of the tub. “I be Harkon. The lad’ll be Coot. At yer service.”

  He was hoping that his overtures would be accepted. They might not have been in a smaller, more insular town. Here, well, it was obvious that by all rights he and Coot could have put on airs, being the servants of highborns who were wealthy enough to just take a fancy to hail off into nowhere on a whim. Technically, he and Coot outranked every servant in this inn. But he wasn’t putting on airs. He was meeting them halfway, as equals. And he gave them a great deal of information they could now use in gossiping with the others. That disposed them to like him.

  “Good e’en to ye, Harkon,” said one of the men, finally. “I be Darvy. This’s Klem, an’ this’s Jon. The ladies be Jone an’ Bet.”

  “I reck we should all be friendly-like, since M’lord recks t’stay here about a moon, mebbe longer,” Mags replied, nodding to each of them in turn. “’E’s a good man, is M’lord, and M’lady was leg-shackled to a bedridden invalid an’ weren’t nothin’ but a nurse an’ never got no chance to go outside the four walls’a Hartcliff Manor for year’n. Reckon she wants t’kick up ’er ’eels a bit, an no blame to ’er for it. ’Ardly outa leadin’ strings when she got ’itched to m’lord.”

  “No blame atall, atall,” chuckled Jone. “Though it’ll be tame for heel kickin’ ’ere.”

  “Mebbe not.” Klem finished his wash and eased himself down into the hot water, and the others followed. “We got all them mine owners, ’ereabouts, an’ plenty sons. Plenty money ’round ’ere. Reckon a purdy widder might could do worse’n one of ’em. Get yer sparklies direct, eh? An’ no frettin’ ’bout iffen ’e’s marryin’ fer money.”