Exile's Valor v(-2

by Mercedes Lackey

  Well, except for the occasions when he had an excuse to let off some of his tension by breaking a few heads. Hmm. This Festival just might give him a chance at that form of relief—

  He quickly sealed that thought away from Kantor.

  :She can be impartially charming right back to any would-be suitor without giving any of them hope,: Kantor agreed. :I wish that more of them were worth being charming to.:

  :So do I.: The fact that so many potential mates had been systematically disqualified by Selenay in public meant that anyone who was dredged up and hauled in for the Ice Festival was bound to be marginal at best. Unsuitable in the extreme, unless some distant cousin out of the back of beyond happened to get dragged out of his manor, Chosen on the spot, and proved to be the man of Selenay’s dreams. If she even had any dreams on the subject. It was hard for Alberich to tell. Selenay’s mind was often opaque to him; he didn’t have a great deal of experience with young women. Come to that, he didn’t have a great deal of experience with women in general.

  :And whatever suitors are hauled in will probably be stone-deaf and ninety at worst,: Kantor sighed. :Poor Selenay! It will be a shabby lot of dancing partners she’ll be getting.:

  Another aspect that hadn’t occurred to him. With things so subdued at Midwinter, she hadn’t seemed to want any dancing. The Selenay he remembered had loved dancing. Well, maybe he could do something about that.

  :I think at an occasion like an Ice Festival, she ought to dance every other dance with a Herald, don’t you?: he asked Kantor. :In fact, isn’t there some sort of mandate about that, somewhere? So that no highborn can claim two dances with her in an evening?:

  :If there is, Myste can find it,: Kantor replied, with a chuckle. :And if there isn’t—:

  :Myste can still find it,: he replied, thinking with real pleasure of how Myste and Selenay together had foiled the entire Council plan to get her safely betrothed to someone of their choice. It had been a thing of beauty, according to Myste. He was just glad that he had kept himself out of it, so that when he’d been asked, he’d been able to truthfully disclaim any knowledge of it all.

  Not that he’d wanted to be anywhere near the room at the time the entire thing unfolded. Whenever certain members of the Council were thwarted, they always looked at the Karsite as the source of their troubles. Funny. They suspected his hand behind even this without his being anywhere near the Council Chamber that day; they’d entirely overlooked Myste. :I’m not entirely certain about all those cross-cousin links Myste was finding. Surely the highborn of Valdemar aren’t that closely inbred.:

  :Chosen! You don’t think Herald Myste would concoct information, do you?: Kantor asked, pretending to be aghast at the thought.

  :You’re forgetting she was a clerk before she was a Herald,: he replied. :They spend a quarter of their lives writing things down, a quarter finding what other people have written down, a quarter in hiding what was written down, and a quarter in making sure if it should have been written down and wasn’t, it is now.:

  Kantor had no real reply for that, but Alberich didn’t really expect one. And no, in the case of something important, he really did not think that Myste would stoop to forgery. But in the case of something like this, where nothing was hanging on a little judicious creativity but Selenay’s all-too-rare pleasure, Myste could and would unbend her rigid ethics in order to ensure that the “tradition” existed, even if it hadn’t been a tradition until a few moments ago when he’d thought of it.

  Apparently Kantor agreed. :Consider it a tradition that’s been in place for centuries. You know, Myste is very good at aging documents.:

  Well, she had to be; she had to know how to forge them in order to detect forgeries. And it wasn’t as if she’d be doing anything really unethical, like forging the Great Royal Seal. She could just insert it in a list of protocol from the last Ice Festival, hand it to the Seneschal as the guide to how he should conduct the feast at the end, and no one would be the wiser. And Selenay would get dancing partners that she could relax with. In fact, he’d handpick them. Or rather, he’d hand-pick them after consulting with someone who knew which Heralds were adequate dancers.

  Which reminded him of something else.

  :Don’t the wretches generally sneak off to some private, Heralds-only party as soon as they can when there is an enormous fete like this one?: he demanded, recalling that they had done just such a thing at Selenay’s Coronation.

  :Um—: Kantor began, with overtones of guilt.

  :Well, not this time, and that is an order, and have Talamir enforce it,: he said firmly. :Not until Selenay is ready to leave. By Vkandis’ Crown, if she doesn’t get to enjoy most of this affair, it’ll be no fault of mine, and it won’t be for lack of good company, friends among the rest, as well as dancing partners!:

  :Yes, sir!: Kantor replied, for once, with no hint of mockery or irony whatsoever in his mind-voice.

  Hmph. He settled into his book with a feeling of satisfaction, as Kantor and the other Companions—and whatever Heralds would be involved in the plot—coordinated themselves. Myste, Talamir, the Seneschal’s Herald, presumably. Those here at the Collegium who were young enough to make decent conversation with her, good dancers, or both—

  —and he wouldn’t have to worry about a Herald as a risk to her safety either. Not that it was likely that anyone would try anything in so great a throng, but—

  Grand, something else to worry about.

  :What about—: Kantor interrupted his pretense at reading. :—if we concoct another point of protocol? That any final-year Trainee of appropriate age and gender can serve as the Queen’s dance partner?:

  He thought about that for a moment; it would effectively double the number of young faces at the occasion, and what was more they would be people Selenay already knew and would feel comfortable around. It wasn’t that long ago that she’d been a Trainee herself.

  Perfectly reasonable. While we’re at it, throw the doors open for the Bards and Healers as well. No reason why they can’t be included. Every reason why they should be.: And Bards and Healers were just as trustworthy as Heralds. With any luck, there would be so many of them that no one else would even get a chance at taking a dance with Selenay.

  He felt Kantor’s approval. :Good. Bards make better dancers anyway.: And, once again, he sensed Kantor’s withdrawal.

  He felt himself smiling; there was something to be said for this particular kind and purpose of conspiracy. It made everyone who was involved in it feel good. And it got their minds moving in directions that had been sadly unfamiliar for far too long. Poor Selenay had been spending the last six moons and more thinking only of the welfare of those around her and dependent on her. It was about time that they all returned the favor.

  :If Keren and Ylsa are going to be her bodyguards, shouldn’t she have an official escort?: Kantor said, coming “back” from wherever he’d “been.”

  Good God, another sticking point, another point of vulnerability. Not one of the suitors—oh, no. That would be opening the door to all sorts of potential trouble and danger. But who? :Since this is a Festival, what about a Bard?: he asked, thinking about all the really handsome-looking Bards he’d seen in and around the Collegia. :Besides, with a Bard around, you never lack for conversation. It’s their job to be witty.:

  :Good idea. Then she can’t be accused of favoritism for the Heralds, but she won’t be stuck with one of the suitors.: Kantor “vanished” again, and Alberich was left alone with his book.

  He might even manage to get a page or two read, in between thinking of yet more security holes, and coming up with schemes to block them. While she was up here, behind her walls, she was secure. But down there, for the God’s sake, out on a solid sheet of ice—

  But her people love her. Even down there, in the worst part of Haven, there was anger when that whore tried to make trouble. He had to take comfort in that; had to remember that this was not Karse and Selenay could move among her people without fear.


  Most of them, anyway—

  He sighed, and put down the book. No point in trying to read now. It was time to start making some lists, or his mind would be buzzing and he’d get no sleep at all this night.

  “When do you sleep?” “Infrequently.”

  He sighed, and fetched a pen and paper.

  5

  Clear sky of a brilliant, cloudless blue, and it was cold enough to freeze the—Well, it was colder than Alberich had ever been without also being wet clear through. It got cold in Karse, but never quite like this, a dry, biting cold that didn’t penetrate so much as stab. He was grateful for the extra pairs of socks he was wearing, as well as for the peculiar contraptions that Keren had cobbled up for everyone at the Collegium, leather straps with five or six tacks in them that you could strap on over your boots to give you traction on the ice. She said that people used them for ice-fishing on Lake Evendim. Well, he would take her word for it, because if it was cold enough to freeze that lake this thick every winter, he never wanted to go there.

  He’d never learned to ice skate, and at this point in his life, he was a bit dubious about the odds of his success if he started, so it was a good thing he had these so-called ice cleats on his feet. They kept him from measuring his length on the slippery river ice more than once.

  He just wished there was something for sun glare off of ice and snow that made him wear a squint that was beginning to feel permanent. He had his hood up and a hat on top of it to shade his eyes, but that did nothing for the reflected glare. It was also beginning to give him a headache.

  Still, this Ice Festival was something to be seen, and worth the cold and the rest of it. He didn’t often get out during the day down in Haven in one of his disguises, and for once, he wasn’t even down here on “business.”

  Whoever the jolly lad had been who’d been paying for people to foment dissension over the Queen, evidently getting his hireling arrested had frightened him off. Not a rumor, not a sign, not a breath of trouble had there been since then. Talamir reckoned that the whole scheme had been hatched up to create a distraction at some point—and that the hatcher of said plot had gotten cold feet when his agent had been unmasked.

  Maybe, maybe not—but thanks to the Festival, Selenay’s star was very high with the common folk, and grumbling was going to get someone’s head broken. And that would quickly bring the City Guard and constables, which meant that Alberich’s job was being done for him, at least in part. So—if this excursion, intended so that Alberich could listen to people talking, spend some time in and around the places where liquor flowed freest and tongues were loosest, wasn’t entirely pleasure, it wasn’t entirely business either.

  As he traveled with the flow of the crowd down the improvised “street” of booths that had been built on the solid ice of the Terilee, he was covertly watching the reactions of those around him to his current guise. This costume represented more of a middling class of working man, someone who was, unlike many of his personae, not a particularly dangerous fellow, and he wanted to make sure he had the nuances down. The last thing he needed to do was to alert people when what he wanted was for them to be careless and at their ease around him. Normally he would have worn a clever cosmetic paste that covered his scars, but that wouldn’t pass muster in the daylight. Fortunately, it didn’t have to, not when he and almost all of the other people down here had their faces wrapped in scarves against the cold. He was experimenting with false beards and other facial hair, but those didn’t stick too well in the cold.

  That meant a lot of work on his part: moving easily, schooling his eyes and eyebrows into a vacantly pleasant expression. People reacted to the language of body and expression without even realizing that they were doing so; he knew very well how to read those things now. He’d been good as an officer, but now, thanks to no end of schooling, he was very, very good. That instruction had been not only at the hands of his mentor Dethor, but with the help of Jadus, who before becoming a Herald had been a Trainee of Bardic Collegium, where the Trainees were taught drama and acting as part of the curriculum. It had taken him years to get to this point, where he was willing to try going about among the middle classes, attempting to be unnoticed.

  He thought, judging by the way that he was jostled, shoved, and occasionally grumbled at, that he was succeeding. None of his bully-boy personae would have been blundered into like this; the folks of the daylight hours would have taken one look at him and given him a wide berth. Assuming they didn’t report him to the City Guard as a suspicious person. It was too bad he couldn’t find a thief, especially a pickpocket, to teach him how to blend in. If there was one person whose very life depended on blending in, it was a petty thief.

  He’d been on the lookout for those, just to keep his hand in at spotting them, but oddly enough, he hadn’t seen any. Possibly that was because they were keeping to the nighttime hours in order to work the crowd in more safety, but possibly the issue was that they were no better on the ice than he was. If you had to run for it—well, you couldn’t run for it.

  :If I was a petty thief,: Kantor observed, :I would work the booths on the bank and stick to the nighttime. A couple of hours past sunset, and it’s not only dark enough to make a good getaway, people are a lot drunker than they are now.:

  :Glad you aren’t out here?: Alberich asked.

  :Profoundly. I shudder to think of me on the ice. Keren hasn’t yet come up with cleats for us, and neither has the blacksmith managed shoes that will work out there.: Kantor did not mention how much he disliked the cold; that was a given. Alberich had taken pity on him, and hadn’t even ridden him down to the Bell today; he’d borrowed an ordinary horse from the Palace stables.

  Alberich snugged the hood down around his ears, adjusted the scarf, and pulled the floppy felt hat down tighter. There was another thing to feel grateful for, and that was the quality of his costume. The good, thick, homespun wool with the old-fashioned hood was better than anything that the young bucks were sporting out here, and his clumsy-looking boots had room for three pairs of socks in there.

  As he had predicted, the Councilors had thought the idea of the river freezing solid enough to hold the Ice Festival extremely amusing when Selenay brought up the idea before them. They ignored it in Council, and chuckled as she issued the proclamation in front of the Court. Well, the ones that weren’t Heralds did, anyway; the Heralds already knew it was going to happen, but nothing would have convinced the Councilors of that. The news got down into Haven, and with a feeling of anticipation, people began making quiet preparations.

  Then the cold wave rolled in silently at night, and everyone woke to find ice in the water jugs on their bedside tables, ice so thick on the glass of windows that you couldn’t see out, and down along the river, reports that it was frozen over.

  And all of the townspeople, who had, of course, been certain that anything the Queen made a proclamation about would come to pass, had sent watermen out to test the thickness of the ice daily. It had taken three days until everyone was certain that it was strong enough for the festivities. No one wanted accidents, however much they wanted a holiday.

  Then, overnight, an entire Fair sprang up, with the more timid arraying their tents on the banks, and the bolder setting up right on the ice. Predictably, the merchants on the ice were heavily weighted in favor of hot food and drink stalls, while the ones on the banks featured fairings and other goods. The Midwinter Fairs, not only in Haven but all around the countryside, had been something of a failure, for the weather had been bleak and no one had had much heart for frivolity; this was going to more than make up for it, if the merchants had any say in the matter.

  There were stalls doing a brisk business in crude skates, basic wooden blades with simple straps to hold them to the soles of the shoes. They could be made for you right there on the spot and fitted to your shoes or boots. There were several more booths set up to wax or smooth the blades. Then there was a knife grinder who’d set up to sharpen the blades of good steel skates
. Those were blacksmith-made, of course; no one in the crowd that Alberich was moving in now could afford such things. Those with the money for steel skates who hadn’t already gotten a pair were queuing up to get theirs, though, and the blacksmith who’d had blades going a-begging at Midwinter was getting double the price for them now. There were two kinds; you could get the ones that strapped on as the wooden skates did, or, if you really had money to spare, you could bring the blacksmith a pair of your boots or shoes, and he’d fasten the blades permanently to the soles. Anyone with those, though, was someone dedicated to the sport.

  A kind of protocol had sprung up in the first day of the Festival about who got what part of the ice, since there were both skaters and walkers among the booths. Skaters got the middle of the lane, and those who were slipping and staggering about on their own shoes kept to the sides. The lane had been laid out wide enough that there was room for both, though occasionally a skater would go careening into the crowd, and the walkers would curse and try to cuff the skater. Most of the time people took it in good part, and if they saw someone skidding toward them, they often did their part to rescue him before he cracked his skull.