They had reached the Herald's Wing, that bright, wood-paneled extension of the Old Palace. Vanyel's room was one of the first beyond the double doors that separated the wing from the rest of the Palace. Vanyel held one of the doors open for Stef, then stepped gracefully around him and got the door to his own room open.
Stefen put his burdens down just inside the door, and arched his back in a stretch. “Brightest Havens -” he groaned. “- I feel as stiff as an old bellows. I bet I even creak.”
“You're too young to creak,” Vanyel chuckled, and pulled the bell-rope to summon a servant. “I don't suppose you play hinds and hounds, do you?”
Stefen widened his eyes, and assumed a patently false expression of naivete. “Why, no, Herald Vanyel - but I'd love to learn.”
Vanyel laughed out loud. “Oh, no - you don't fool me with that old trick! You've probably been playing for years.”
“Since I could talk,” Stef admitted. “Can't blame me for trying.”
“Since I might have done the same to you, I suppose I can't.” Vanyel gestured at the board set up on the table. “Red or white?”
“Red,” Stef replied happily. “And since you're the strategist, you can spot me a courser.”
Stefen moved his gaze-hound into what he thought was a secure position, and watched with dismay as Vanyel captured it with a lowly courser. Then, to add insult to injury, the Herald maneuvered that same courser into the promotion square and exchanged it for a year-stag.
“Damn!” he exclaimed, seeing his pack in imminent danger of being driven off, and taking steps to retrench his forces. The “hind” side of hounds and hinds was supposed to be the weaker, which was why the better player took it. It was usually considered a good game if the play ended in stalemate.
Vanyel beat him about half the time.
It looked as though this game was going to end in defeat too. Three moves later, and Stef surveyed the board in amazement, unable to see any way out. Vanyel's herd had trapped his pack, and there was no way out.
“I yield,” he conceded. “I don't know how you do it. You always take the hinds, and I can count the number of times I've won on one hand.”
Vanyel replaced the carved pieces in their box with thoughtful care. “I have a distinct advantage,” he said, after a long pause. “Until Randi got so sick that Shavri was spending all her time keeping him going, I helped guard the Karsite Border. I have a lot of experience in taking on situations with unfavorable odds.”
“Ah,” Stef replied, unable to think of anything else to say. He watched Vanyel's hands, admiring their strength and grace, and tried not to think about how much he wanted those hands to be touching something other than game pieces.
Ever since he'd stopped pursuing Van and started keeping things strictly on the level of “friendship,” he'd found himself spending most evenings with the Herald. He was learning an enormous amount, and not just about hinds and hounds. Economics, politics, the things Vanyel had experienced over the years - it was fascinating, if frustrating. Being so near Vanyel, and yet not daring to court him, overtly or otherwise - Stef had never dreamed he possessed such patience.
This was an entirely new experience; wanting someone and being unable to gratify that desire.
It was a nerve-wracking experience, yet it was not completely unpleasant. He was coming to know Vanyel, the real Vanyel, far better than anyone else except Herald Savil. That was not a suspicion; he'd had the fact confirmed more than once, by letting some tidbit of information slip in conversations with Medren. And Medren would give him a startled look that told Stefen that once again, he'd been told something Vanyel had never confided to anyone else.
He knew Van better than he'd ever known any lover. And for all this knowledge, the Herald was still a mystery. He was no closer to grasping what music Vanyel moved to than he had been when this all began.
Which made him think of something else to say after all.
“Van?” he ventured. “You hated it out there - but you sound as if you wish you were back on the Border.”
Vanyel turned those silver eyes on him and stared at him for a moment. “I suppose I did,” he said, finally. “I suppose in a way I do. Partially because it would mean that Randi was in good enough health that Shavri could take her own duties up again -”
Stef shook his head. “There was more to it than that. It sounded like you wanted to be out there.”
Vanyel looked away, and put the last of the pieces in their padded niches. “Well, it's rather hard to explain. It's miserable out there on the lines, you're constantly hungry, wet, cold, afraid, in danger - but I was doing some good.”
“You're doing good here,” Stefen pointed out.
Vanyel shook his head. “It's not the same. Any reasonably adept diplomat could do what I'm doing now. Any combination of Heralds could supply the same talents and Gifts. The only reason it's me is Randi's need and Randi's whims. I keep having the feeling that I could be doing a lot more good if I was elsewhere.”
Stefen sprawled back in his chair, studying the Herald carefully. “I don't understand it,” he said at last. “I don't understand you Heralds at all. You're constantly putting yourselves in danger, and for what? For the sake of people who don't even know you're doing it, much less that you're doing it for them, and who couldn't point you out in a crowd if their lives depended on it. Why, Van?”
That earned him another strange stare from the Herald, one that went on so long that Stef began to think he'd really said something wrong this time. “Van - what's the matter? Did I -”
Vanyel seemed to come out of a kind of trance, and blinked at him. “No, it's quite all right, Stef. It's just - this is like an echo from the past. I remember having exactly this same conversation with 'Lendel - except it was me asking 'Why?' and him trying to tell me the reasons.” Vanyel looked off at some vague point over Stefen's head. “I didn't understand his reasons then, and you probably won't understand mine now, but I'll try to explain. It has to do with a duty to myself as much as anything else. I have these abilities. Most other people don't. I have a duty to use them, because I have a duty to myself to be the kind of person I would want to have as a - a friend. If I don't use my abilities, I'm not only failing people who depend on me, I'm failing myself. Am I making sense?”
“Not really,” Stefen confessed.
Vanyel sighed. “Just say that it's a need to help - could you not sing and play? Well, I can't not help. Not anymore, anyway. And it doesn't matter if anyone knows what I'm doing or not; I know, and I know I'm doing my best. And because of what I'm doing, things are better for other people. Sometimes a great many other people.”
“This is loyalty, right?” Stefen hazarded.
“Only in being loyal to people in general, and not any one land. I could no more have let those farmers in Hardorn be enslaved than I could have our own people.” Vanyel leaned forward earnestly. “Don't you see, Stef? It's not that I'm serving Valdemar, it's that I'm helping to preserve the kind of people who leave the world better than they found it, and trying to stop the ones who take instead of giving.”
“You sound like one of those Tayledras -”
“I am. Moondance himself has said so more than once. Their priority is for the land, and mine is for the people - but that's at least in part because the land is so damaged where they live.” Vanyel smiled a little. “I wish you could see them, Stef. You'd want to write a thousand songs about them.”
“If they're so wonderful, why are people afraid of them?” Stefen asked. “And why aren't you and Savil?”
Vanyel laughed at that. “Let me tell you about the first time I ever worked with Moondance -”
The story was almost enough to make Stefen forget his frustration.
Six
Damn!” Medren swore, pounding the arm of his chair. “This is stupid! I swear to you, my uncle is about to drive me mad!”
The windows to Stefen's room were open to the summer evening, and Medren was trying to keep his voice d
own to prevent everybody in the neighborhood from being privy to their plight. Stef evidently didn't care who overheard them. “About to drive you mad?” Stefen's voice cracked, and Medren winced in sympathy. Stef was pulling at his hair, totally unaware that he was doing so, and looked about ready to climb the walls. He shifted position so often that his chair was doing a little dance around the room, a thumblength at a time.
“I know, I know, it's a lot worse for you. I'm just frustrated. You're -” Medren paused, unable to think of a delicate way to put it.”
“I'm celibate, that's what I am!” Stefen growled, lurching to his feet and beginning to pace restlessly. “I'm worse than celibate. I'm fixated. It's not just that Vanyel isn't cooperating, it's that I don't want anyone else anymore, and the better I know him, the worse it gets!” He stopped dead in his tracks, suddenly, and stared out the window for a moment. “I'm never happier than when I'm around him. I sometimes wonder how long I'm going to be able to stand this. There are times when I can't think of anything but him.”
Medren stared at his friend, wondering if Stefen had really listened to himself just now. Because what he'd just described was the classic reaction of a lifebonded. . . .
Stef and Uncle Van? No. Not possible; not when Van has already been lifebonded once... Or is it? Is there a rule somewhere that lifebondings can only happen once in a lifetime, even if you lose your bondmate?
A lifebonding would certainly explain a great deal of Stef's behavior. Medren had long ago given up on trying to second-guess his uncle. Vanyel was far too adept at hiding what he felt, even from himself.
“So, what have we tried so far?” Medren said aloud. Stef at least stopped pacing long enough to push his hair out of his eyes and count up all the schemes they'd concocted on his fingers.
“We tried getting him drunk again. He didn't cooperate. We tried that trip to the hot springs. That almost worked, except that we got company right when it looked like he was going to break down and do something. We tried every variation on my hurting myself and him having to help me, and all I got were bruises in some fascinating places.” Stefen gritted his teeth. “We tried my asking him for a massage for my shoulder muscles. He referred me to a Healer. The only thing we haven't tried is catching him asleep and tying him up.”
“Don't even think about that!” Medren said hastily. “Listen, first of all, you won't catch him asleep, and secondly, even if you did - you wouldn't want to be standing there if he mistook you for an enemy.”
Like the last time he was home, when that idiot with the petition tried to tackle him in the bath. Medren shuddered. I know Grandfather said he needed to replace the bathhouse - but that wasn't the best way to get it torn down.
“He wouldn't hurt me,” Stefen said with absolute certainty.
“Don't bet on that,” Medren replied, grimly. “Especially if he doesn't know it's you. I've seen what he can do, and you wouldn't want to stand in the way of it. If he wants to level something or someone, he will, and anything in between him and what he wants to flatten is going to wind up just as flat as his target.”
“No,” Stef denied vehemently. “No - I swear to you, I know it. No matter what, he wouldn't hurt me.”
Medren just shook his head and hoped Stef would never have to test that particular faith. “All right,” he said after a moment's thought. “What about this -”
Vanyel closed his weary eyes for a moment, and thought longingly, selfishly, of rest, of peace, of a chance to enjoy the bright summer day.
But there was no peace for Valdemar, and hence, no rest for Herald Vanyel.
:Take a break tonight, Van,: Yfandes advised him. :You haven't had young Stefen over for the past three evenings. And I think you can afford to let the Seneschal and the Lord Marshal hash this one out without you.:
At least the news out of Karse was something other than a disaster, for a change.
“So there's no doubt of it?” he asked the messenger. “The Karsites have declared the use of magic anathema?”
The dust-covered messenger nodded. It was hard to tell much about her, other than the fact that she was not a Herald. Road grime had left her pretty much a uniform gray-brown from head to toe. “There's more to it than that, m'lord,” she said. “They're outlawing everyone even suspected of having mage-craft. Just before I left, the first of the lucky ones came straggling across the Border. I didn't have time to collect much of their tales, but there's another messenger coming along behind me who'll have the whole of it.”
“Lucky ones?” said the Seneschal, puzzled. “Lucky for us, perhaps, but since when has it been lucky for enemy mages to fall into our hands?”
“Aye, it wouldn't seem that way, but 'tis,” she replied, wiping the back of her hand across her forehead, and leaving a paler smear through the dirt and sweat. “The ones we got are the lucky ones. They're the ones that 'scaped the hunters. They're burning and hanging over there, whoever they can catch. 'Tis a bit of a holy crusade, it seems. Like some kind of plague, all of a sudden half of Karse wants to murder the Gifted.”
“Good gods.” The Seneschal ran his hand over his closed eyes. “It sounds insane -”
“How did it start?” the Lord Marshall asked bluntly, “or do you know?”
The messenger nodded. “Lord Vanyel's turning those demons back on Karse ten years ago was the start of it, but the real motivator seems to be from the priesthood.”
“The priesthood?” Healer Liam exclaimed, sitting up straight. “Which priesthood?”
“Sunlord Vkanda,” the messenger replied. “And there's not enough news yet to tell if it's only the one priest, or the whole lot of them.”
At that moment, a servant appeared with wine. The messenger took it and gulped it down gratefully. Lord Marshall Reven leaned forward over the table when she'd finished, his lean face intent, his spare body betraying how tense he was.
“What else can you tell us?” he asked. “Any fragment of information will help.”
The messenger leaned back in her chair. “Quite a bit, actually,” she said. “I'm trained by one of your Heralds. The one that started this crusade's a nameless lad of maybe twenty or so; calls himself The Prophet. No one knows much else about him, 'cept that he started on that there was a curse on the land, on account of them using mages. That was a bit less than a month ago. Next thing you know, the countryside's afire, and Karse's got more'n enough troubles to make 'em pull back every trooper they had on the Border. That was how matters stood a week ago when I left; gods only know what's going on in there now.”
“Have we heard from any of our operatives in Karse itself?” the Seneschal asked Vanyel. The Herald shook his head. “Not yet.” He was worried for those operatives - there were at least three of them, one Mindspeaking Herald among them - but his chief reaction was relief. I cannot believe that we pulled the last of the mages out less than a year ago. There is no one in there now who should be suspected of magery. . . .
“You say this situation is causing some civil disorder?” Archpriest Everet had a knack for understatement, but he was serious enough. His close-cropped, winter-white hair was far too short to fidget with, so he fingered his earlobe worriedly instead. Beneath his bland exterior, Vanyel sensed he was deeply concerned.
Not surprising; while it might look as if this was unalloyed good news for Valdemar, that fact that it was a religious crusade meant the possibility of it spilling over the Border. There were several houses of the Sunlord within the borders of Valdemar. If they joined their fellows in this holy war against mages, not only would the Archpriest be responsible for their actions, he would be obligated to see to it that they were stopped.
Which is about all he's thinking of. He doesn't see how much chaos this could cause the entire country. If the followers of the Sunlord move against Heralds -
Some of us are mages; they might also count all Gifts as “magic.”
And we have the backing of other religious orders. If the Heralds were attacked, those orders might move
before the Crown and Archpriest could. What would happen if the acolytes of Kernos decided to take matters into their own hands and fight back on the mages' behalf? After all, the order is primarily martial . . . fighting monks and the like. And they favor the Heralds.
The situation, if it crossed the Border, could be as damaging to Valdemar as to Karse.
“The Sunlord's the Karsite official state religion,” the messenger reminded them. “If this Prophet has the backing of the priesthood, then he's got the backing of the Crown. When I left, that was what things looked like - but there's a fair number of people with a bit of magery in their blood, and a-plenty of hedge-wizards and herb-witches that do the common folk a fair amount of good. Not everybody can find a Healer when they need one; when the big magics are flyin' about, the lords tend to forget about the little ones that bring the rain and protect the crops. So not everybody is taking well to this holy crusade.”
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