Closer to the Heart

by Mercedes Lackey

  He did the same for all six of the ponies, as the stablemaster watched him. The stablemaster was working around him, puttering in the stalls, checking bits of harness and tack, trying not to look as if he was watching, but he was. Mags sensed surface thoughts of skepticism first, then a little surprise, then great satisfaction, and when he was finished with all six ponies and had left the last one’s stall, the stablemaster came straight up the aisle to him, with his hand stuck out. Mags took it, as the stablemaster coughed.

  “Wouldna thought it, city man,” he said, as he enthusiastically pumped Mags’ hand. “Wouldna thought it. I figgered ye was jest like them rich boys, get some ’un t’ find ye a good horse, an ride it ’thout knowin’ it. Ye knows yer way ’round a horse, ye do. That there was well done, an’ proper done. I be Jess, like yon pony.”

  “Harkon. Thenkee, Jess,” Mags said, releasing the man’s hand. He gave the stablemaster a slow, quiet smile. Looks like I have an ally. “I’m a-gonna trust m’limbs if not m’life on these liddle fellers. Allus did reckon thet if yer gonna do thet with horse or pony, best ye get t’know each other.”

  “Aye t’thet. But where’d ye larn thet gypsy trick’a breathin’ on ’em?” Jess scratched his head in puzzlement. “Thought I was the only man round hereabouts that knowed thet.”

  “From gypsies. I ain’t allus bin a city-feller.” Mags grinned now, and offered Jess a long, slow wink. “Spent almost a year-turnin’ in a caravan.” True. Just not with gypsies.

  The stablemaster sighed with what sounded like envy. Mags was just a little surprised. All the other times he had seen the stablemaster, the burly man had seemed as stolid and unimaginative as any of the cart horses he used for the heavy deliveries to the inn. “Times I wishet I’d gone an’ run off with them gypsies thet made me th’ offer when I was a lad.”

  “Oh, well now, the road’s a hard-luck life, which’s why I ain’t on it now,” Mags told him, leaning back against a support and crossing his arms over his chest. “Looks free an’ easy, but there’s them as’ll run ye off afore ye kin ast fer a night in meadow, an’ ridin’ along the road’s a nice thing when yer belly’s full an’ it’s Spring, but it ain’t so nice when yer belly’s empty an’ yer got snow up t’the horse’s belly.”

  The stablemaster put his index finger to the side of his nose, then pointed at Mags, a little gesture that Mags had only ever seen in this part of the world, and meant “You couldn’t be more right.” Mags had seen the stablemaster use a lot of those gestures with his stable-boys, possibly because he didn’t like to speak loudly and startle his charges. One of the cats that made the stable their home came walking along a stall partition at that moment, and the man absently reached out and petted her. She purred so loudly Mags could hear her from where he stood.

  “I’ll come by around dusk, an’ palaver with ’em a little again,” Mags told him. “If thet ain’t no trouble.”

  “No trouble ’tall. Make free,” the stablemaster told him, gave the cat one last long scratch, and finally sauntered off to his work. Mags aimed his feet in the direction of the inn, stopping at the horse pump to clean up a bit, as he smelled decidedly “horsey.” Well, that makes life a little easier. If I have to go sneaking about, the stablemaster’s now less likely to stop me or ask me questions.

  This morning he had been instructed to take Lord Jorthun’s boots down to just outside the kitchen today, and clean and polish them. All the boots, which was three pair, and would take him a good long time to do properly. This, of course, was an excuse to let people approach him and talk to him while he cleaned boots. So he sat down on a borrowed stool next to the kitchen door, and went to work. Shortly, one of the kitchen girls brought him a mug of water. Then one of the stable-boys offered to get him cleaner rags. As he worked, they’d come to him on some excuse, by ones or twos so they wouldn’t get accused of loitering, and talk.

  They wanted to talk about Kirball, of course. He asked about life in Attlebury, about the guests here, about local gossip, about anything he could think of that would teach him more about this town. And in the course of it, he insinuated questions about how some of the mines were doing, concentrating on ones he thought had the potential to give up some really outstanding stones.

  Dallen listened through Mags’ ears as the afternoon wore on, and he worked on those boots until they were as soft and supple as gloves, with the soft shine of satin. :I’m gettin’ the distinct impression that pretty much every mine that’s doin’ well has a lad in the Kirball riders,: he said, finally, as he packed up the boots and his polishing kit and headed back to Lord Jorthun’s suite.

  :Well, that only makes sense,: Dallen pointed out. :Who else can afford to keep eight or ten horses for one young man? It would have to be families that were doing very well for themselves.:

  He tapped lightly on Lord Jorthun’s door but got no answer, and left the boots outside, lined up, just as a proper servant would. :At least that helps us. I’m thinking Keira was dead right here. We’ve got all our targets in one place, an’ distracted. If I didn’ know better, I’d say she had a Gift.:

  :She does. The Gift of being a shrewd observer,: Dallen replied, as Mags went to his own room to get a bit of a better wash-up at the basin there. :I’m very glad she is on our side. She’s nearly as sharp as Amily and Lady Dia.:

  And that made him feel more than a little melancholy . . . because if there was one single person he would have wanted here, it was Amily, who had the knack of seeing things he missed, just as he had the knack of seeing what she missed. Together they were four times the Heralds that they were separately.

  And just at the moment, he didn’t have any progress to report.

  I hope she’s seeing more of this puzzle than me right now.

  • • •

  Music played distantly while courtiers stood about the Great Hall in small knots and talked, or, more likely, gossiped. Amily, in Formal Whites, stood at ease a little away from where the King was deep in a discussion of his own.

  Before her stood . . . an inconvenient and importunate young idiot, who thought very highly of himself.

  “Thank you, Lord Dalten, but my place is at the King’s side,” Amily said firmly to the third of a succession of useless young highborn who seemed to take Mags’ absence as the signal to come and pester her with invitations to . . . well, ostensibly to “listen to a Bard in the next room,” “join the dancers,” and “come for a walk in the gardens.” Kyril was taking no notice of them. He left her to deal with these idiots who should have known better on her own, as it should be. He was not there to rescue her; if anything she was there to rescue him, whether from someone he didn’t want to speak with or from an assassination attempt. Though mostly, she was there to provide him with information, should he need it. Right now he didn’t need it, as he was engaged with Master Soren, and there were things carefully not being said that were allowing Master Soren to read between the lines, so to speak.

  She was trying not to show her exasperation. It was one thing to appear to be harmless and even a little naïve in order to make others of the Court underestimate her; it was quite another when things like this happened. It made her long to pull the concealed poniard out of her bodice, stick it under the right young idiot’s chin, and hiss “This is the third time you’ve asked me. No means no!” before slipping it back into concealment before anyone else noticed she’d threatened him.

  But of course, she couldn’t do that. That would be . . . probably disastrous. Someone would notice, because he’d probably shriek and wet himself. Heralds didn’t do that sort of thing. Not even when provoked. And oh, how provoked she had been, tonight!

  And these same young idiots weren’t the least interested in me—in fact, they snubbed me entirely—back when I was just plain Amily, Nikolas’s poor crippled daughter. That rankled, actually. Not that she would have taken them up on whatever offer they’d made back then, or whatever co
ndescending notice they’d given her. But it rankled that now they were all over her like flies on a honeycake, when then, she’d been something they literally did not see.

  :And now, you are King’s Own Amily and single, as far as they are aware, and the next best thing to marrying the King’s daughter, if he had one, to get the ear of the King. Of course they’re taking Mags’ absence as the opportunity to try and work their wiles on you. When are they going to get another chance?: Rolan said, sounding rather too amused for her liking right now. :Like it or not, you are a honeycake. No one takes you seriously as a guard, and this looks like a good chance to draw you off and try and test the waters. You can’t blame them for trying.:

  Well, there Rolan was wrong. She could blame them for trying. They should know better, all of them. They all knew what the duties of the King’s Own were! And if they thought that a Herald of any stripe could be lured away from those duties, they were idiots!

  :And mind your temper,: he added, which . . . even though he was right, made things worse for a moment, as her temper flared dangerously high, making her cheeks flush and her eyes narrow—which the damn fool took for his work, making her blush and simper. His self-satisfied little smirk nearly pushed her over the edge.

  And then, finally, her wits woke up and she smiled sweetly at the young fool. “Besides,” she said, in dulcet tones, “I’m not stupid, my lord. No one who knows all about your special little pet at Mistress Bellamy’s Crescent Moon is going to have a scrap of illusion that you are interested in her, and not the potential access to the King that she represents.” She fluttered her eyelashes as he blanched. “Best that you retire gracefully, and drown your sorrows in her arms tonight. Do give Rosemiel my best, will you? I will say that at least you have exquisite taste. She’s flawless.”

  He got even whiter, if that was possible, bowed stiffly, and made a hasty retreat.

  The satisfaction she felt was tempered . . . a very little . . . by a slight guilt that she had taken a lot of pleasure in humiliating a young man who had himself humiliated her more than once.

  :An interesting ploy. If you are trying to seem harmless and naïve, why did you do that, may I ask?:

  There didn’t seem to be any hint of accusation in Rolan’s Mindvoice, so she answered him quite as seriously and unemotionally as she could. :Politically, he’s a nonentity. His father, however, is quite a different kettle of fish. He’s on the Greater Council. I killed two birds with one stone. I made it very clear to the young fool that I know far more than he dreams about his doings, and he’ll make it clear to his father, without revealing his secret infatuation with a courtesan, that there’s no point in dangling any sort of bait in my direction because I won’t bite. He absolutely cannot tell his father about his kept woman, so only he will be aware that I am not as harmless or simple as I seem. The old man will be left wondering about me, but one thing he will be sure of, and that is I cannot be seduced either by his son’s handsome face or the father’s wealth. With the implication, of course, that I might be female, but I cannot be bribed any more than a male Herald can be.:

  :Nicely done,: said Rolan, and he went back to lurking in the back of her mind.

  “Thank you, Soren,” Kyril said, just loudly enough to let her know that his private conversation was over. “That was most entertaining.” Soren chuckled, and bowed, and rejoined the rest of the crowd.

  “I don’t think we’ll extract anything more of any use out of the Court tonight, Amily,” the King said quietly. “Shall we retire?”

  “Certainly, my lord King,” Amily replied obediently, and followed him to the door in the Great Hall that led to the passage to the Royal Suite. As she opened the door for him, the passage stretching before them was completely empty. Meant for servants, but generally used as much by members of the Royal Family, it was relatively narrow and very plain; wooden floor, plastered walls and ceiling.

  As soon as the door closed behind him, leaving them in blessed, blessed silence, the King laughed quietly, and looked back over his shoulder at her. “Well done, by the way. Soren and I prolonged our discussion just to see how you’d handle him. There was silent applause from us by the way.”

  Now she flushed, and not with anger. “Three times in one night is above enough, Highness. And that’s not counting the last Court gathering. Or the one before that. Evidently . . . well I don’t know what he thinks. Maybe that any young woman without a male attached to her in some way is fair game.”

  “Soren thought you were going to take a dagger to him,” Kyril opined, as they reached the door to the King’s Suite and waited for the Guard placed there to open it for him. She was awfully glad the King had decided to leave when he did. She was beginning to get a headache, and the next young fool who decided to try that game with her might have gotten a dagger.

  “I was tempted,” she muttered, waiting for the King to enter and following behind him. The King’s Suite was surprisingly subdued, given that it belonged to a reigning monarch. Everything was of the finest quality, but nothing was ostentatious.

  When the door was closed, Kyril gestured to one of the chairs next to the fire, where a light wine and two goblets were waiting. There was a very small fire in the fireplace, which seemed to be more for the ambience than the warmth. One of the chairs was already occupied by the Queen, who was embroidering; her hobby was to create book covers for gifts. Amily gratefully dropped down into the one next to the Queen. Standing for candlemarks at a time still made her leg ache.

  “Nothing from Mags, I presume?” Kyril asked, as she poured him wine and handed it to him, then poured a goblet and offered it to the Queen, who waved it off with a smile, so she kept it for herself.

  “Only that he’s going to be in a Kirball game. Or games, he’s not sure how many there will be.” She sighed a little, this time with exasperation. She knew she probably should not be exasperated, that there was probably a very good reason why he was getting embroiled in sport instead of . . . finding things out . . . but it seemed to her as if he was taking this mission as a sort of excursion, while she was here, working. Just because he was there with Lord Jorthun and Lady Keira, that did not mean he should be wasting his time on . . . a stupid game!

  The King shook his head. “If he doesn’t find a game, the game finds him, I swear. Well, I am sure that he has a very good reason for this. And I am sure that he’s not doing this for any frivolous reason. After all, he can’t possibly play on Dallen, and that will put him at real risk for being hurt. He wouldn’t hazard that if there wasn’t the possibility of exceptional reward. Despite the fact that people think the Collegium games are dangerous, I think being out there without Companions and Heralds is probably a lot more so.”

  “Oh . . .” she said, chagrined that she hadn’t thought of that herself. “No, of course he wouldn’t.” Idiot! she scolded herself. Of course he isn’t doing this because he’s a games-mad thistledown-brained bumbler who is doing this so he can relive his days as a Kirball champion. Especially since he didn’t particularly like being a champion, he just enjoyed the game itself.

  “It’s certainly a fine way to ingratiate himself with the locals, and make them want to come to him, after all,” Kyril pointed out. “Well, I have some word for you. Your father sent a message that he has visited the first of the armories on the list, and they have accounted for every weapon they sent out in the last year. He’s moving on to the next. He said they seemed genuinely surprised that he should ask.” The King swirled the wine in his goblet and frowned.

  An idea occurred to her. It might be a stupid idea, but it seemed to her that it was worth proposing. “Is it possible that the weapons are counterfeit?” Amily ventured. “How hard would that be to do? Would there be a reason anyone would want to?”

  “Not especially difficult . . .” The King pursed his lips thoughtfully. “That is a good question. If I may think out loud for a moment . . . there might be several reas
ons why the weapons would have been counterfeited. The rebels themselves might have counterfeit them in order to embroil Menmellith with us and gain an advantage. There is always Karse, of course, who could have counterfeited the weapons and supplied them to the rebels in order to increase the chaos in Menmellith and cause us problems. I’ll see about that right now.”

  He closed his eyes for a moment, and Amily knew that he was doing exactly that; having Mindspoken conversations with the Seneschal’s Herald, the Lord Martial’s Herald, and possibly some senior Heralds who were here at the Palace but had not yet been given field assignments. She bit her lip a little, wishing she could join in on those conversations. It was to her eternal regret that the only way she could, was second-hand, through Rolan. There were advantages, she supposed. If she ever lost control of her Gift, the only person who would be affected would be her. And no one could wake her up in the middle of the night without physically coming to her door and knocking. But still, the disadvantages far outweighed the advantages. As far as she could tell, she was the only Monarch’s Own never to have had Mindspeaking as a Gift.

  Rolan laughed. :You aren’t missing anything. They’re just deciding who is to go where. And apologizing to each other that none of them thought of the counterfeiting possibility.:

  Amily glanced at the Queen, who kept on working on the goldwork embroidery she was doing, with a little smile on her face. It made Amily wish for something to do with her hands. But that probably wouldn’t look proper, having a Herald fidgeting with something, as if she found the situation she was in dull and boring. I guess she’s used to this by now, watching her husband get a blank look on his face while he has a long conversation in his head. . . .