Magic's Pawn v(lhm-1

by Mercedes Lackey

  He reined Star in once they were past the Forst Reach village, not wanting her to tire herself so early in the journey, and not wanting to give the armsmen an excuse to order him to ride between them.

  Father's probably told them that they 're to watch for me trying to bolt, he thought cynically, as Star fought the rein for a moment, then settled into a more-or-less sedate walk. And indeed, that surmise was confirmed when he saw them exchange surreptitious glances and not-too-well concealed sighs of relief. Huh. Little do they know.

  For once they got beyond the Forst Reach lands that lay under the plow, they entered the completely untamed woodlands that lay between Forst Reach and the nearest eastward holding of Prytheree Ford. This forest land had been left purposely wild; there weren't enough people to farm it at either Holding, and it supplied all of the wood products and a good half of the meat eaten in a year to the people of both Holdings.

  It took skilled foresters to make their way about in a wood like this. And Vanyel knew very well that he had no more idea of how to survive in wilderland than he did of how to sprout fins and breathe water.

  The road itself was hardly more than a rutted track of hard-packed dirt meandering through a tunnel of tree branches. The branches themselves were so thick overhead that they rode in a kind of green twilight. Although the sun was dispersing the mist outside the wood, there were still tendrils of it wisping between the trees and lying across the road. And only an occasional sunbeam was able to make its way down through the canopy of leaves to strike the roadway. To either side, the track was edged with thick bushes; a hint here and there of red among the green leaves told Vanyel that those bushes were blackberry hedges, probably planted to keep bears and other predators off the road itself. Even if he'd been thinking of escape, he was not fool enough to dare their brambly embrace. Even less did he wish to damage Star's tender hide with the unkind touch of their thorns.

  Beyond the bushes, so far as he could see, the forest floor was a tangle of vegetation in which he would be lost in heartbeats.

  No, he was not in the least tempted to bolt and run, but there were other reasons not to run besides the logical ones.

  There were - or seemed to be - things tracking them under the shelter of the underbrush. Shadow-shapes that made no sound.

  He didn't much like those shadows behind the bushes or ghosting along with the fog. He didn't at all care for the way they moved, sometimes following the riders on the track for furlongs before giving up and melting into deeper forest. Those shadows called to mind far too many stories and tales - and the Border, with all its uncanny creatures, wasn't all that far from here.

  The forest itself was too quiet for Vanyel's taste, even had those shadows not been slinking beneath the trees. Only occasionally could he hear a bird call above the dull clopping of the horses' hooves, and that was faint and far off. No breeze stirred the leaves above them; no squirrels ran along the branches to scold them. Of course it was entirely possible that they were frightening all the nearby wildlife into silence simply with their presence; these woods were hunted regularly. That was the obvious explanation of the silence beneath the trees.

  But Vanyel's too-active imagination kept painting other, grimmer pictures of what might be lurking unseen out there.

  Even though it became very warm and a halt would have been welcome, he really found himself hoping they wouldn't.make one. The armor that had so far been proof against pressure from without cracked just a little from the pressure within of his own vivid imagination. He was uneasy when they paused to feed and water the horses and themselves at noon, and was not truly comfortable until they saddled up and moved off again. The only way he could keep his nerves in line was to concentrate on how well he had handled Lord Withen. Recalling that stupified look he'd last seen on Withen's face gave him no end of satisfaction. Withen hadn't seen Vanyel the boy - he'd seen a man, in some sort of control over his situation. And he plainly hadn't enjoyed the experience.

  It was with very real relief that Vanyel saw the trees break up, then open out into a huge clearing ahead of them just as the woods began to darken with the dying of the day. He was more than pleased when he saw there was an inn there, and realized that his guardians had been undoubtedly intending to stay there overnight.

  They rode up the flinty dirt road to the facade of the inn, then through the entryway into the inn yard. That was where his two guardians halted, looking about for a stableboy. Vanyel dismounted, feeling very stiff, and a lot sorer than he had thought he'd be.

  When a groom came to take Star's reins, he gave them over without a murmur, then paced up and down the length of the dusty stableyard, trying to walk some feeling back into his legs. While he walked, one of the arms-men vanished into the inn itself and the other removed the packs from the mules before turning them and their cobs over to more grooms.

  It was at that point that Vanyel realized that he didn't even know his captors' names.

  That bothered him; he was going to be spending a lot of time in their company, yet they hadn't even introduced themselves during the long ride. He was confused, and uncomfortable. Yet -

  The less I feel, the better off I'll be.

  He closed his eyes and summoned his snow-field; could almost feel it chilling him, numbing him.

  He began looking over the inn, ignoring the other guard, and saw with mild surprise that it was huge; much bigger than it had looked from the road. Only the front face of it was really visible when he rode up toll; now he could see the entire complex. It was easily five times the size of the little village inn at Forst Reach, and two-storied as well. Its outer walls were of stone up to the second floor, then timber; the roof was thickly thatched, and the birds Vanyel had missed in the forest all seemed to have made a happy home here, nestling into the thatch with a riot of calls and whistles as they settled in for the night. With the stables it formed two sides of a square around the stable yard, the fourth side being open on a grassy field, probably for the use of traders and their wagons. The stables were extensive, too; easily as large as Lord Withen's, and he was a notable horsebreeder.

  Blue shadows were creeping from the forest into the stableyard, although the sky above had not quite begun to darken very much. And it was getting quite chilly; something Vanyel hadn't expected, given the heat of the day. He was just as glad when the second armsman finally put in an appearance, trailed by a couple of inn servants.

  Vanyel pretended to continue to study the sky to the west, but he strained his ears as hard as he could to hear what his guardians had to say to each other.

  "Any problems, Garth?" asked the one who'd remained with Vanyel, as the first bent to retrieve a pack and motioned to the servants to take the ones Vanyel recognized as being his own.

  "Nay," the first chuckled. "This early in th' summer they be right glad of custom wi' good coin in hand, none o' yer shifty peddlers, neither. Just like m'lord said, got us rooms on second story wi' his Highness there on t' inside. No way he gets out wi'out us noticin'. Besides we bein' second floor, Ts needful we just move t' bed across t' door, an' he won't be goin' nowhere."

  Vanyel froze, and the little corner of him that had been wondering if he could - perhaps - make allies of these two withdrew.

  So that's why they're keeping their distance. He straightened his back, and let that cool, expressionless mask that had served so well with his father this morning drop over his features again. I might have guessed as much. I was a fool to think otherwise.

  He turned to face his watchers. "I trust all is in order?" he asked, letting nothing show except, perhaps, boredom. "Then - shall we?" He nodded slightly toward the inn door, where a welcoming, golden light was shining.

  Without waiting for a reply, he moved deliberately toward it himself, leaving them to follow.

  Vanyel stared moodily at the candle at his bedside. There wasn't anything much else to look at; his room had no windows. Other than that, it wasn't that much unlike his old room back at Forst Reach; quite plain,
a bit stuffy - not too bad, really. Except that it had no windows. Except for being a prison.

  Inventory: one bed, one chair, one table. No fireplace, but that wasn't a consideration given the general warmth of the building and the fact that it was summer. All four of his packs were piled over in the corner, the lute still in its case leaning up against them.

  He'd asked for a bath, and they'd brought him a tub and bathwater rather than letting him go down to the bathhouse. The water was tepid, and the tub none too big - but he'd acted as if the notion had been his idea. At least his guardians hadn't insisted on being in the same room watching him when he used it.

  One of them had escorted him to the privy and back, though; he'd headed in that direction, and the one called Garth had immediately dropped whatever it was he'd been working on and attached himself to Vanyel's invisible wake, following about a half dozen paces behind. That had been so humiliating that he hadn't spoken a single word to the man, simply ignored his presence entirely.

  And they hadn't consulted him on dinner either; they'd had it brought up on a tray while he was bathing.

  Not that he'd been particularly hungry. He managed the bread and butter and cheese - the bread was better than he got at home - and a bit of fresh fruit. But the rest, boiled chicken, a thick gravy, and dumplings, and all of it swiftly cooling into a greasy, congealed mess on the plate, had stuck in his throat and he gave up trying to eat the tasteless stuff entirely.

  But he really didn't want to sit here staring at it, either.

  So he picked up the tray, opened his door, and took it to the outer room, setting it down on a table already cluttered with oddments of traveling gear and the wherewithal to clean it.

  Both men looked up at his entrance, eyes wide and startled in the candlelight. The only sound was the steady flapping of the curtains in the light breeze coming in the window, and the buzzing of a fly over one of the candles.

  Vanyel straightened, licked his lips, and looked off at a point on the farther wall, between them and above their heads. "Every corridor in this building leads to the common room, so I can hardly escape you that way," he said, in as bored and detached a tone as he could muster. "And besides, there's grooms sleeping in the stables, and I'm certain you've already spoken with them. I'm scarcely going to climb out the window and run off on foot. You might as well go enjoy yourselves in the common room. You may be my jailors, but that doesn't mean you have to endure the jail yourselves."

  With that, he turned abruptly and closed the door of his room behind him.

  But he held his breath and waited right beside the door, his ear against it, the better to overhear what they were saying in the room beyond.

  "Huh!" the one called Garth said, after an interval of startled silence. "Whatcha think of that?"

  "That he ain't half so scatterbrained as m'lord thinks," the other replied thoughtfully. "He knows damn well what's goin' on. Not that he ain't about as nose-in-th'-air as I've ever seen, but he ain't addlepated, not a bit of it."

  "Never saw m'lord set so on his rump before," Garth agreed, speaking slowly.

  "Ain't never seen him taken down like that by a lord, much less a grass-green youngling. An' never saw that boy do anythin' like it before, neither. Boy's got sharp a'sudden; give 'im that. Too sharp?''

  "Hmm..No - " the other said. "No, I reckon in this case, he be right." Silence for a moment, then a laugh. "Y'know, I 'spect his Majesty just don't want to have t' lissen t' us gabbin' away at each other. Mebbe we bore 'im, eh? What th' hell, I could stand a beer. You?"

  "Eh, if you're buy in', Erek - "

  Their voices faded as the door to the hall beyond scraped open, then closed again.

  Vanyel sighed out the breath he'd been holding in, and took the two steps he needed to reach the table, sagging down into the hard, wooden chair beside it.

  Tired. Gods, I am so tired. This farce is taking more out of me than I thought it would.

  He stared numbly at the candle flame, and then transferred his gaze to the bright, flickering reflections on the brown earthenware bottle beside it.

  It's awful wine - but it is wine. I suppose I could get good and drunk. There certainly isn't anything else to do. At least nothing they'll let me do. Gods, they think I'm some kind of prig. "His Majesty" indeed.

  He shook his head. What's wrong with me? Why should it matter what a couple of armsmen think about me? Why should I even want them on my side ? Who are they, anyway ? What consequence are they ? They 're just a bare step up from dirt-grubbing farmers! Why should I care what they think? Besides, they can't affect what happens to me.

  He sighed again, and tried to summon a bit more of the numbing disinterest he'd sustained himself with this whole, filthy day.

  It wouldn't come, at first. There was something in the way -

  Nothing matters, he told himself sternly. Least of all what they think about you.

  He closed his eyes again, and managed this time to summon a breath of the chill of his dream-sanctuary. It helped.

  After a while he shifted, making the chair creak, and tried to think of something to do - maybe to put the thoughts running round his head into a set of lyrics. Instead, he found he could hear, muffled, and indistinct, the distracting sounds of the common room somewhere a floor below and several hundred feet away.

  The laughter, in particular, came across clearly. Vanyel bit his lip as he tried to think of the last time he'd really laughed, and found he couldn't remember it.

  Dammit, I am better than they are, I don't need them, I don't need their stupid approval! He reached hastily for the bottle, poured an earthenware mug full of the thin, slightly vinegary stuff, and gulped it down. He poured a second, but left it on the table, rising instead and taking his lute from the corner. He stripped the padded bag off of it, and began retuning it before the wine had a chance to muddle him.

  At least there was music. There was always music. And the attempt to get what he'd lost back again.

  Before long the instrument was nicely in tune. That was one thing that minstrel - What was his name? Shanse, that was it - had praised unstintingly. Vanyel, he'd said, had a natural ear. Shanse had even put Vanyel in charge of tuning his instruments while he stayed at Forst Reach.

  He took the lute back to the bed, and laid it carefully on the spread while he shoved the table up against the bedstead. He curled up with his back against the headboard, the bottle and mug in easy reach, and began practicing those damned finger exercises.

  It might have been the wine, but his hand didn't seem to be hurting quite as much this time.

  The bottle was half empty and his head buzzing a bit when there was a soft tap on his door.

  He stopped in mid-phrase, frowning, certain he'd somehow overheard something from the next room. But the tapping came a second time, soft, but insistent, and definitely coming from his door.

  He shook his head a little, hoping to clear it, and put the lute in the corner of the bed. He took a deep breath to steady his thoughts, uncurled his legs, rose, and paced (weaving only a little) to the door.

  He cracked it open, more than half expecting it to be one of his captors come to tell him to shut the hell up so that they could get some sleep.

  "Oh!" said the young girl who stood there, her eyes huge with, surprise; one wearing the livery of one of the inn's servants. He had caught her with her hand raised, about to tap on the door a third time. Beyond her the armsmen's room was mostly dark and quite empty.

  "Yes?" he said, blinking his eyes, which were not focusing properly. When he'd gotten up, the wine had gone to his head with a vengeance.

  "Uh - I just - " the girl was not as young as he'd thought, but fairly pretty; soft brown eyes, curly dark hair. Rather like a shabby copy of Melenna. "Just - ye wasn't down wi' th' others, m'lord, an' I wunnered if ye needed aught?"

  "No, thank you," he replied, still trying to fathom why she was out there, trying to think through a mist of wine-fog. Unless - that armsman Garth might well have sent
her, to make certain he was still where he was supposed to be.

  The ties of the soft yellow blouse she was wearing had come loose, and it was slipping off one shoulder, exposing the round shoulder and a goodly expanse of the mound of one breast. She wet her lips, and edged closer until she was practically nose-to-nose with him.

  "Are ye sure, m'lord?" she breathed. "Are ye sure ye cain't think of nothin'?"

  Good gods, he realized with a start, she's trying to seduce me!

  He used the ploy that had been so successful with his Mother's ladies. He let his expression chill down to where it would leave a skin of ice OB a goblet of water. "Quite certain, thank you, mistress."

  She was either made of sterner stuff than they had been, or else the subtler nuances of expression went right over her head.