Intrigues: Book Two of the Collegium Chronicles (a Valdemar Novel)

by Mercedes Lackey

  :Ye kin paint a crow white, but that ain’t gonna make it a dove,: Mags replied shrewdly, nodding at one of the other Trainees as they passed each other in the hall.

  :I must remember that one. Well, there is a bit more to it than that. Besides his Gifts and talents, it is true that he has Projective Empathy, and he has used it in several crisis situations, making him something of a hero at the time.:

  :Huh,: Mags said. :Still—:

  :Indeed. Still. He did stop riots three times. And he did manage to save an innocent man from a mob. And he did hold an entire troupe of brigands spellbound until help could come, twice. But. The thing about Projective Empathy is that it is a very good tool to ensure that the wielder is safe.: Dallen’s mind-voice was more than a bit sarcastic. :If things start to go badly, you can just narrow your focus down to convincing your opponents that you are their new best friend.:

  :So it ain’t like throwin’ yerself inta harm’s way, then.:

  Mags could feel Dallen’s snort. :The average Guardsman sees more danger in a single incident than Marchand did in all six of his encounters together. Oh, I am not going to say he wasn’t brave, but it is easier to be brave when you know you have a gigantic shield to hide behind if you have to.:

  Mags plodded down the hallway and pushed open the door at the end that led into the Palace proper. :So people think he’s a big damn hero, an’ he’s an amazin’ Bard with a lotta Gifts. An’ he reckons now he’s back at the Palace, ’twere time ev’body realizes he’s the Second Comin’ of Stefan, an’ acts like ’tis a privilege t’ breathe th’ same air as him?:

  :In a nutshell. And again, I must be fair, part of this is a desire to see Bardic Collegium regarded with the same respect and value as Herald’s and Healer’s,: Dallen said reluctantly. :You’ve heard Lita on that subject.:

  It was Mags’ turn to snort. :But most on it is there ain’t ’nough space for him an’ his ego t’ be in th’ same room at th’ same time.:

  There was an astonished pause, then a flood of mental laughter. :Oh my. Oh my. I’m relaying that to the others. Mags, every once in a while you do have a way with words!:

  :Tell that t’me language teacher,: he replied ruefully, then he was at the door of Herald Nikolas’ small suite, and there was no time for chat.

  3

  MAGS was a little nonplussed. Although he had known he was going to escape a sort of interrogation about what he had heard, he had fully expected Nikolas to say something about the Bard, if only to assure his protégé that Marchand was not going to come looking for Mags in reprisal. And he had been morally certain that Nikolas was going to ask for Mags’ own thoughts on the matter, and correct them if Mags had come to the wrong conclusion. But aside from asking how Lena was, Nikolas appeared to have dismissed Bard Marchand from his mind entirely. It was odd. It seemed as if the Bard was obsessed with proving he was every bit the King’s Own’s equal, but the Herald was utterly indifferent to the supposed rivalry.

  Back at the mine, rivalries like this generally ended badly, when they weren’t dealt with firmly by a superior authority.

  Take the Pieters siblings, just as an example. The boys all seemed to have been born quarreling with each other and jockeying for position. They were always at each others’ throats, trying to gain ascendancy in their father’s eyes, and it was only the knowledge that their father would have the hide of anyone who interfered in what made the mine profitable that kept them confined to informing on each other or trying to make sure that the blame for anything that went wrong fell squarely on shoulders other than their own.

  Well, things were different here, and he was always reminding himself of that. Maybe—probably—the Bard would confine himself to petty annoyances that Nikolas could just shrug off.

  “I will say this much, that man does not deserve to have a child,” Nikolas said darkly. “It is heinous enough that he clearly spends so little time with his family that he cannot even recognize his own daughter on sight—but the fact that she is one of the more promising Trainees and he isn’t even aware of it is just—” Nikolas shook his head. “I have no words.”

  Mags nodded. Nikolas actually had a daughter of his own, a bit older than Lena. Amily was one of Mags’ few friends, and Mags knew how much the two cherished each other.

  “I dunno,” he replied. “I ain’t exactly real good at knowin’ what families supposed to be like.”

  Nikolas coughed apologetically. “Well . . . the reason I asked you here tonight is because I would like you to take some of your training outside the Collegia and do a bit of outright spying for me. You remember what I said about people ignoring a young lad like yourself.”

  Mags nodded. “Yessir.” This was sounding very interesting indeed. He hadn’t had any sort of overt assignment from Nikolas since the disappearance of the foreign envoys. Granted, he and Bear had spent some time recovering from nearly being killed, but they really hadn’t needed more than a fortnight for that. The lessons had resumed in Nikolas’ quarters after that respite, but they hadn’t taken place quite as often, and truth to tell, Mags had been a little disappointed.

  These had been lessons in how to be unobtrusive, and in how to observe. Interestingly enough, the lessons in “how to be unobtrusive” were not always about being quiet. Nikolas had shown him how to gauge the mood of people around him, what the King’s Own had called “reading the room.” He’d learned to tell when being somewhat boisterous would be more useful than being quiet, and how to counterfeit looking careless and utterly oblivious to what was going on around him.

  Or rather, he had just begun those sorts of lessons. He knew very well that he was a long, long way from mastering them.

  On the other hand, these were things he could practice on his own, and really should. He couldn’t expect the King’s Own Herald, who was, after all, the very literal right-hand man of the King himself, to spend hours tutoring him through simple practice. That would be as rude as—as what Bard Marchand had done.

  But there were a lot of times when he wondered if Nikolas had decided he wasn’t worth wasting any more effort on.

  “I’ve been watching you, and you’re coming along well. Well enough I think that for something simple like this, you can handle it on your own.” Nikolas smiled a little as Mags sat straight up, eagerly. “I’m counting on your youth, your appearance, and the fact that our quarry is the sort of man who regards servants as furniture.”

  Mags grinned a little. “There’s a mort’ o them, sir.”

  “True enough. Well, here is the situation. Councilor Chamjey is up to something, and I should like to find out what it is. He has gotten a virtual flood of messages lately, far more than is normal for him at this time of year. He has missed several Council meetings, and been late or left early for others.” Nikolas coughed. “Chamjey is not exactly subtle, or he wouldn’t have made such a series of fundamental mistakes.”

  Mags tilted his head to one side. “That don’t seem all that suspicious-like t’me, beggin’ yer pardon, sir. I mean, could be anythin’ from plannin’ a party t’ surprise ’is lady, t’ jest making a really good deal he don’ want anyone t’ know ’bout. I mean, he’s a merchanter, right?”

  Nikolas nodded. “That’s correct. And all of that would be in keeping with a merchant working some sort of shrewd bargain. The problem is two-fold. The first is that Chamjey is probably the one person least suited to being a Councilor on the Council; most of the others will at least make an attempt at altruism, and at thinking for the greater good of Valdemar. Chamjey has never let the greater good get in the way of his own personal interests in all of the time I have known him. The second part of the problem is that Chamjey has a habit of boasting about deals he has in the making to some of his colleagues, usually in the form of oblique hints. There has been nothing this time, although Soren says he has been incredibly smug of late. So both Soren and I are concerned. We want to know what he’s up to. It might be nothing. But if there is anything going on that is counter to the
interest of the kingdom as a whole, not only do we want to know what it is, we can use that to dismiss Chamjey, or demand his resignation, and have someone more honest put in his place.”

  Mags nodded. “Am I gonna need t’ get leave t’ skip some classes?” He both hoped for and dreaded the idea. Hoped for, because he would certainly not be at all averse to missing a complex maths class or two. And definitely not averse to missing a language class.

  Dreaded because if he did miss the classes, he would only have to make them up. Ugh.

  “Perhaps. I don’t know yet, but I’ll take care of the arrangements for you. In the meantime—” Nikolas handed him a slip of paper. “This is his address, if you care to scout it out. Perhaps it will give you some ideas for following him without being observed.”

  Mags took it, and smiled. The address was not far from Councilor Soren’s home, and the Councilor—and more especially, the Councilor’s niece Lydia and her friends—were acquaintances of his. No one would think twice about seeing him ride past, and he was overdue for a visit.

  Now he just had to somehow squeeze time in for that visit. From somewhere. And make sure Lena was all right. And help find some way to make her feel better if she wasn’t.

  And then there was that Kirball thing that Caelen wanted him to look into.

  He sighed. Things were just never simple. “Yessir, I’ll hev a look, soon’s I kin.”

  “Chamjey?” Lydia said, with curiosity. “Why don’t you ask uncle about him instead of me?”

  “Cause yer uncle’d tell me what he was. I wanna know what he does.” Mags grinned at her. It was pure luck finding her alone like this, and he’d snatched it up. “Yer servants all talk to ye, so I wanta know what they tol’ ye. They prolly wouldn’ tell me, cause I ain’t family.”

  He was “paying” for his information by serving as a yarn-holder while Lydia wound skeins of extremely fine, soft yarn into tight little balls for the lace shawl she was planning on knitting. Lydia and Soren had an unusual relationship with their servants—unusual by the standards of the wealthy, that is. They knew all of them by name, about their lives, and treated them as people rather than furniture. If there was anything more to Chamjey’s mysterious comings and goings than Nikolas already knew, the servants would certainly have told Lydia.

  “What he does, well, hmm,” she said thoughtfully. “Ana was telling me the other day that some of the servants think he is having an affair or keeping a mistress, but she doesn’t think so.”

  “Huh.” That would be a bit of a laugh on Nikolas if a clandestine affair was the cause of Chamjey’s behavior. “Why not?”

  Lydia smirked. They were sitting in her solar, with lovely sunlight pouring through real glass windows down onto both of them, and with a crackling fire on her hearth it was almost as warm as summer. Lydia had pulled back her tumble of red curls with a green ribbon, and was wearing a deceptively plain green wool dress to match. But Mags knew, thanks to Lydia’s own expert ongoing tutelage in such matters, that appearances were indeed deceptive. The wool was the finest of chirra underfur, the gown was expertly tailored, of a design that would not fall much out of fashion, ever, and green was a very, very hard color to dye. Only red was harder. Lydia’s “plain” gown probably cost more than some of the velvet and satin outfits that the highborn paraded around in at Court. This was the sort of thing that was passed down through generations as an heirloom, for it was easy enough to put it in fashion with a new collar, belt, trim, undergown or overgown.

  Lydia had even explained to him why it was that red, green, and white had been chosen respectively for the Bards, Healers and Heralds. All three colors were expensive and difficult to dye—or, in the case of Heralds’ Whites, to bleach and keep pristine white. All three were, as a consequence, immediately recognizable at a distance. And all three would be very, very hard to counterfeit properly, in no small part because they were expensive. People who were trying to pull scams generally spent as little as possible to do so. It wouldn’t be impossible for someone to try, but it would be unlikely.

  Even Lydia’s gown was not the brilliant green of Healers’ robes, but a much more muted, darker color.

  She set the ball of wool—dyed to match in the same batch as her dress, she had told him—down in the basket at her side, put another skein on his outstretched hands, and began winding again. “Well, the first thing is, according to my maid, Chamjey isn’t going out at an hour when his wife wouldn’t miss him. When he goes, he’s dressed very quietly, not his usual style.” She made a face, which told Mags that the “usual style” was probably flamboyant and ostentatious. “A man going to see a new mistress would dress up to impress her. He doesn’t bring any presents, either, which a man with a new mistress does. But the big thing is that Chamjey’s wife is sporting some very expensive new presents herself, and she is looking uncommonly satisfied about them. Now, that might mean that Chamjey has a new mistress, and his wife is getting expensive gifts in an attempt to mollify her. But that only works if the wife is perfectly happy with her husband going off with another woman. That’s not true of Mira Chamjey; she is very jealous, and if she knew about a mistress, she would scalp him and skin the woman. So he is bribing her, but it’s not to let him have his fun.”

  Mags nodded, now very glad that he had come to Lydia before he had scouted the ground himself.

  “So—” he prompted.

  “I think it’s a business deal, and I think it’s one that’s underhanded, and I think he’s trying to work it through a third party.” Lydia nodded decisively, the ball of wool growing in her fingers as if by magic. “The fact that he is trying to do it through a third party makes me fairly certain he thinks he would be in trouble if he got caught at it.”

  “See now, tha’s where yer losin’ me,” Mags admitted. “I dun see how a sharp deal could get a man in trouble wi’ Crown.”

  “It depends on what kind of a sharp deal it is,” Lydia replied. “Suppose—just suppose—someone had had an absolutely accurate idea of when that blizzard that caused us so much trouble this winter was going to strike, how long it would last, and how badly food and wood supplies would be hurt until everyone dug out. First of all, it would be his duty to report that, so that all of Haven could have gotten prepared. But let’s just suppose that he didn’t. Let’s suppose that instead, he got several warehouses and filled them up with staple foods and firewood and didn’t sell them until just before the blizzard was going to hit. And then he opened them up and began selling things at twice their normal value, and once the blizzard hit, then sold them at three times their normal value. That would be a sharp deal, but it would also get him in a lot of trouble.”

  Mags nodded. That made sense.

  “There are other things, too, that’s just one example. So have you got any ideas?” she asked.

  “Think mebbe. Reckon I’d better be right careful ’bout how I follow ’im. It’ll be hard t’ do it the usual way. This street ain’t crowded, so I’d stand out no matter what I looked like.” He scratched his head. “Round here, ev’ servant has house uniform, an’ ye cain’t jest wander about ’less ye got the right uniform, or ye look like ye belong here.”

  Lydia tilted her head to the side. “If that’s all that’s stopping you—” then she paused. “No, that wouldn’t work, would it? If Chamjey is doing something underhanded, seeing someone in uncle’s livery following him—”

  Mags chuckled. “Which’s why I ain’t asked ye,” he replied.

  “I’ll leave it to the expert then,” she said with a grin. He made a face at her.

  “Ain’t no expert. More like ’prentice. ’Prentice bein’ set his first task t’ do on his own.” He laughed self-deprecatingly. “So I reckon this ain’t anythin’ like—really important. More like t’ see if’n I kin find out anythin’ on m’own.”

  Lydia blinked solemnly at him. “I think you’re probably underestimating yourself, but—” She shrugged. “Well, maybe not, maybe you’re right. So how is poor Lena?”r />
  He refrained from rolling his eyes. “I dun know why she’s so upset. Weren’t like she ever saw her pa, or he saw her.”

  Lydia wound up the last of the wool deftly. “I’d say ask Amily. She has a father that’s just as famous, so maybe she can explain it.”

  With his hands now freed he could scratch his head. “Reckon I will,” he said. “And thankee, Lydia.”

  She grinned at him. “You made a very good winding spool, and a much more entertaining one than my usual. Good luck with this job, and I hope you impress Herald Nikolas.”

  He laughed, and took himself off to the stables where Dallen was waiting. :So what d’ye think?: he asked, as he saddled his Companion. :I’m thinkin’ that followin’ this feller ain’t gonna be too easy. Leastwise, not up here.:

  :I tend to agree. We need to do something other than the usual. Move the blanket a little higher on my withers, please.:

  Mags got the distinct impression that Dallen was waiting for him to come up with . . . something. Something creative. Something that wasn’t . . . usual.

  He sensed Soren’s head groom approaching from behind and reached back without thinking about it for Dallen’s bitless bridle. “Thenkee, Roben,” he said, and that was when it struck him.

  He always knew where someone was, if he knew that person. Was that some aspect of his Mindspeaking Gift?

  :Yes it is,: Dallen said promptly. :You don’t have to know what someone is saying to recognize his voice. He could be in another room and all you need to hear is the cadence to know it’s him. It’s the same with Mindspeech. You don’t have to know what they are thinking to know it’s them. So . . . :

  If he knew someone . . . he would know what they “sounded” like . . . so . . .

  He swung himself up into Dallen’s saddle. :So, it’d be all right if I followed Chamjey by that? So long as I didn’t actually listen in on what he’s a-thinkin’?: