Eye Spy

by Mercedes Lackey

  “You mean they’re going to make a slot for you?” he asked. “I’ve never heard of them doing that before!”

  “I have, but it isn’t done often,” Mama replied. “You have to have something quite special to bypass the queue to get in, but I suppose a Gift that allows you to tell when a bridge is dangerous would certainly qualify.”

  “That’s a lot of math,” Trey said doubtfully. Kat hit his shoulder.

  “You trying to say you think she can’t do it?” Kat demanded, as her oldest brother rubbed his shoulder.

  “Not so hard!” he protested. “I’m just saying I couldn’t do it, is all!”

  “I’m not bad at math,” Abi said slowly. “I just didn’t see much use for it before. It’s not as if anyone was going to invite me into the Artificers.”

  “Well, now they have,” Niko pointed out. “Do you think you can do it?”

  She pondered that a while. “They said math is a matter of practice. So if you idiots can manage to practice hard enough in six months to hit the bull’s-eye nine out of ten, I expect I can practice enough to do math well.”

  Niko smirked; the fact that he and Trey had brought their archery skills up from abysmal to top of their group in half a year was a point of pride for both of them. They hadn’t cared enough to bother about it, pointing out that it wasn’t as if the Heir and the Spare were ever going to be allowed out of Haven where they’d need archery, until Kat had shamed them both by being good enough to be made an instructor.

  “But is it what you want to do?” asked Tory, simply.

  She thought about the question a moment, then shrugged. “Don’t know yet, because I haven’t tried it. I guess I’m going to find out!”

  Her mother nodded. “Meanwhile, being in classes is going to keep people from wanting to trot you around the kingdom like a living flaw-detector,” she pointed out. “And that includes Heralds, because every one of them in the field is going to want your help. Perry had enough adventure at a young age for the entire family, and I’d much rather you didn’t emulate him, at least until you are much older.”

  She nodded, although she had mixed feelings about that statement. On the one hand—Perry’d had an amazing time, and he’d seen and experienced things that likely no one else would, ever. Including real magic. On the other hand, he’d almost died. She was not sure even the most amazing adventure was worth that kind of risk. Today she had come much too close to death to ever want to feel that terror again.

  Her mother was watching her closely, as if she could read Abi’s mind—which she couldn’t, since her Gift, like Perry’s, was Animal Mindspeech. But she was awfully good at reading faces, and what she saw in Abi’s made her lips relax and curve up again.

  “Well, on that note, who’s going to volunteer to run down and get the pocket pies from the Heralds’ Collegium kitchen?” she asked, and looked at the four Royals. “Your mother’s given permission for you to have supper with us.”

  “She can’t even look at anything but fruit and vegetables and bread and jelly,” Kat said wisely. “Father will have dinner with the Court, and he’s not mean enough to make us do that with him on pocket pie night. I’ll go. Trey, Niko, Perry, you can go with me.”

  “You can use Larral as a backrest,” Perry said generously to Abi, as the kyree got to his feet, padded around to Abi, and flopped down behind her. She relaxed into the curve of his body. He was lovely and warm and didn’t smell at all “doggy,” more like a bed of pine needles and ferns. “We’ll be back as fast as lightning!”

  All things considered, Abi thought contentedly, life is awfully good.

  2

  Herald Trainees wore gray. Healer Trainees wore a light green. Bardic Trainees wore a sort of dark reddish orange. But there were people who attended classes here at the three Collegia who weren’t Trainees at all. And this particular classroom was full of them, so there wasn’t a trace of any of those colors to be seen here. Abi had taken a desk at the back of the room, the only place that was open, and what she saw was a lot of blue-clad backs that matched her own brand new blue tunic and trews.

  Abi was used to the Collegia classrooms; they all looked pretty much alike, whether they were in the Heralds’, Healers’ or Bardic Collegium buildings. Each room held about twenty bench seats and simple slanted wooden desks for the students, a larger desk and actual chair for the instructor, with a slateboard at the front of the room, another at the back, and one on the side facing the wall. The remaining side was all windows. There was a door at the front of the room with a transom over it, so on hot days there was a breeze coming through the open windows and the transoms. The floor was polished wood, the ceiling whitewashed plaster. The room smelled of wood polish, chalk dust, and ink. Abi had been taking lessons in rooms like these since she’d been about six, just like her older and younger brothers and Kat and her siblings.

  Most of the young people taking classes here who weren’t Trainees were the offspring of those highborn or wealthy families that didn’t want to bother with personal tutors for them. That was a smaller number than people might think, as Abi well knew. If you were highborn, and especially if you were wealthy, you didn’t want people to think you couldn’t afford private tutors for your sons. So generally the only highborn or wealthy boys taking classes at the Collegium were those whose abilities had outstripped most tutors . . . or, of course, whose parents actually couldn’t afford private tutors. There were very few girls among the highborn coterie of the Unaffiliated students; the vast majority of highborn girls were here at their parents’ manors or living at the Palace itself solely for the Serious Business of getting husbands, and they were expected to invest all of their time in activities that would bring them to the attention of eligible males or the mothers of eligible males. Taking academic classes was not on the approved list of such activities, unless it was dancing lessons, or etiquette, or a little rudimentary lute or harp playing.

  Abi had heard that there were a couple of highborn girls studying seriously here, but she hadn’t met them yet. She might never, if they weren’t associated with the classes that the Artificers took.

  All the Unaffiliated students were supposed to wear uniforms in a blue that was about two shades lighter than Guard blue and tailored to match the Trainee uniforms. That was something more often seen in the breech than the observance with the highborns or moneyed. Yes, their expensive outfits were blue . . . and they might on occasion be in the correct shade. But mostly, they weren’t, and they definitely did not match the simple tunics and trews of the three sets of Trainees. And there were always a few who wore whatever they wanted to.

  That accounted for a small number of the so-called “Blues.”

  But the Unaffiliated students were much more than a place to put an academically inclined younger son because you didn’t want him to sit idle and get into mischief. Almost all of the girls, and a great many of the boys, were not from highborn or moneyed families at all. They were here on their own merit, and since most of them couldn’t afford uniforms, the appropriate uniforms in the right color were supplied to them by the Crown.

  They came from all over the Kingdom and had generally been sponsored by some temple or other in their home towns and villages, since most formal schooling was supplied by temples large and small. And the majority of the boys were in the Artificers—the students who would, at the conclusion of their studies, go out and do things with their knowledge. Build. Invent. Improve. Granted, you didn’t have to graduate from the Artificers to learn how to do the same things—there were apprenticeships available in all the Trades that did that sort of work, such as the Building Trades. But apprenticeships were expensive, and even when the student’s parents could afford such a thing, apprenticeships were limited by the scope and interest of the master and did not encourage innovation. Everyone knew that if you were going to go out and do new things, you had to come to the Collegia to learn the tools to let
you do that.

  There were more Unaffiliated students with interests outside the Artificers and the highborn, who were also in the blue uniforms and also sponsored here by various temples. But they were fewer than the Artificers, and were pure scholars, studying history, literature, the arts. It wasn’t likely that Abi would ever run into any of them.

  Right now she was sitting in her first Artificers class, at the back of a classroom full of boys mostly in those standard blue uniforms. In this class at least, there were no girls. Some of the boys were ignoring her. Some, surreptitiously watching her. Some watched with curiosity, some with resentment. She completely understood the resentment. There was a waiting list to get in here, and a special place had been made for her, jumping her ahead of others who had been waiting, sometimes for years. Probably most of these boys assumed she’d gotten that place because her mother was King’s Own and both her parents were Heralds. The story of the collapsing bridge that had swept through Haven and Hill like wildfire had featured Kat as the heroine, not her.

  People like things simple, and Kat is a Princess as well as a Herald Trainee, she thought, as she and the others waited for their instructor to arrive. They don’t like stories with two heroes or that involve a Gift no one has ever heard of.

  And it wasn’t as if Kat hadn’t actually been a hero. She could have been killed out there; she’d done half of the saving and done it well. And it wasn’t as if Abi begrudged her the attention—it was attention that she hadn’t wanted for herself, and the story was doing good things for the popularity of the Royal children.

  But it would have been useful if these boys had known why she’d gotten this special place before she turned up here.

  That’s all right. Dealing with a lot of resentful lads is a whole lot easier than infiltrating a magic city taken over by a crazy cannibalistic magician. I’d rather be doing this than dealing with that.

  The instructor, Master Morell, entered and immediately commanded the attention of the room. He was a short, balding man with a prominent nose and piercing green eyes. He had with him, curiously enough, a box that seemed to contain pieces of wood. “I assume that all of you are aware of the new student, Abidela. I also assume that all of you are making the assumption that she is here because her mother is the King’s Own.”

  He waited for a moment, and some quiet murmurs made it clear that his assumption was correct.

  “Rather than simply tell you why you are all wrong, I’m going to have Abidela demonstrate,” he said, as he began taking the pieces of wood out of the box and assembled them into what was apparently a bridge model. “You all already know the answer to this particular problem, but she does not. Abidela, come show me the weak spot on this model.”

  She got up from her desk and moved to the front of the class. This wasn’t as easy as it looked—the model was small, all the pieces were painted the same dun color to hide what they were made of, and the strain in it wasn’t anywhere near as obvious as it had been every other time her Gift had been at work. In fact, she had to slowly move her hand over and around the model before she sensed it, as a very faint unease, so faint she wouldn’t have noticed it if she hadn’t been concentrating. “Here,” she said, pointing to one of the under-supports. “That can’t take more than the weight it’s already carrying.”

  Murmurs arose again, this time of surprise, as she went to sit down at her desk again.

  The instructor swept all the pieces back into their box. “You all know about the bridge collapse, of course. What isn’t common knowledge is that Abidela was not only there, she is the one that sensed the bridge was about to collapse and helped Herald Trainee Princess Katiana get people off the bridge before it fell. And that is why a place was made for her here, among us.”

  Now every one of those boys turned in their seats to stare at her. She licked her lips nervously. She’d never faced this much scrutiny before.

  The instructor wasn’t helping; in fact, he stood there with his arms crossed as if he was waiting for her to say something. She swallowed and gave it her best.

  “I’ve . . . got some kind of weird Gift nobody ever heard of before. The Princess was running an errand for the Queen, and we’re friends, so I came with her to help.” That sounds a whole lot less pretentious than ‘I came along to guard her,’ which they won’t believe. “My mother’s Companion let me ride him so we wouldn’t stand out as anything other than a couple of Trainees. So when I felt the bridge start to go, he picked that up from me, and told Ka—the Princess and her Companion, and we chased everybody off the bridge before it fell. That’s all.” She shrugged. “Really, it was the Companions that did everything. We just stuck to the saddles like a couple of annoying burrs.”

  That got a couple of reluctant smiles.

  “Anyway, they want me to train as an Artificer while they figure out how to make this Gift reliable, and I guess when I know how to do repairs and reinforcement they’ll send me out on bridge and building inspections.” That was pure speculation on her part, but it did make sense, and the instructor nodded approvingly. It also doesn’t sound like someone who wants to make a big reputation for herself. You don’t make a reputation doing bridge inspections, you make one designing famous temples and expensive manor houses. If she was going to help her father, a reputation was the very last thing she needed or wanted anyway. Except, maybe, a reputation for keeping her mouth shut and getting the job done.

  “But that’s not fair!” whined someone at the front of the room where Abi couldn’t see him. “She’ll know how to tell where models are bad without having to work at it!”

  “She’ll be required to show her work just as the rest of you are,” the instructor snapped, in a tone of voice that told Abi very clearly that he didn’t care for this particular student.

  Among the many, many useful things she’d learned from both her father and her mother so far, one of them was what they called “reading a room”—seeing where the power dynamics were. You didn’t need Gifts to do that; all you needed was a pair of eyes, a mind, and careful observation. The moment that whining complaint emerged from the complainer’s mouth, the room sorted itself in front of her eyes.

  It was quite clear that the complainer was someone who expected not only to be listened to but to have any implicit orders obeyed. She could see right off that three of the boys in this room were his personal sycophants, as their own little nods of agreement or sullen expressions showed. The rest of the boys were not at all impressed, and in fact, the complaint had thrown them over to her side.

  Interestingly the instructor was no more impressed by the complainer than she herself was, and she got the distinct feeling that if he could be rid of this student, he would happily throw him out. But that arrogance, that assumption of power, said the boy was either highborn or very wealthy.

  Now, it was vanishingly unlikely that any of the highborn would have a son in this set of classes. Builders were Tradesmen, and while you might allow your second or third daughter to marry one who was sufficiently wealthy, you certainly would not let your son become one. That meant that this boy’s parents were not highborn. But the fact that he expected to be heard and obeyed meant that they were very wealthy. These were all interesting things to know and take note of.

  “Now we’ve wasted enough time satisfying your curiosity about Abidela. It’s time to return to the reason we are here. Abidela, I expect you to keep up, and if you have questions, ask them. Now—”

  Abi hadn’t expected a class as specific as this one, which was entirely about the structural strength and flexibility of various materials in minute detail—what they were most useful for, and how to calculate the load-bearing potential for each one. She’d probably missed a few that the class had already covered, but she had a good idea that she could catch up on those if one of the boys would lend her his notes. Which meant she had to make friends.

  Well, Master Whiner had already gi
ven her a head start on that.

  She still hadn’t gotten a good look at the whiner by the time the lesson was over, just a sense that he was taller than most of the rest, and a look at the top of his head, which sported blond hair. But luck, of a sort, was with her. She kept one eye on that particular head and saw from his body language that he intended to intercept her as they all filed out of this classroom and headed for the next.

  Lovely. So he’s a bully as well as a whiner.

  He was not what she expected, though she had already known he was tall. She’d expected someone large, bulky—bullies usually were—but he wasn’t especially muscled, and he did look very soft, quite in keeping with her assumption that he was wealthy. It didn’t look as if he ever needed to lift a hand to do anything for himself. He had a perfectly square face, a shock of blond hair, small eyes, a pouty mouth, and oddly small hands. He smirked as he made brief eye contact with her, and she sighed. This was either going to be a verbal confrontation or—a physical one.

  The boy does not know what he is shoving his face into.

  There was some jostling as two of his sycophants pinned her between them for a moment, blocking Master Morell from seeing her and what was happening to her, and he grabbed for her breast under cover of the crowd. There was a sudden rush of anticipatory energy as she recognized what he was doing and a surge of indignation. She, however, was a lot faster than he was, and she had been learning dirty tricks since she was old enough to train with Master Leandro. She knew exactly what to do because she’d practiced doing it so often she could make the move without even thinking about it.

  Before he or his toadies had any idea she already knew what he was up to, she intercepted his hand, got a firm grasp on the little finger, and twisted her hand quickly to the side and down. Feeling the bone snap, she released his finger before anyone else had any idea that he’d reached for her, much less that she had retaliated against his assault—released it before even his nerves has registered pain. In fact, she wasn’t even sure his toadies understood she’d made a move at all before her part in the little dance was over.