Changing the World: All-New Tales of Valdemar (Mercedes Lackey) читать бесплатно онлайн полную версию книги

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright Page

Acknowledgements

The One Left Behind

For Want of a Nail

Softly Falling Snow

The Reluctant Herald

A Storytelling of Crows

Waiting To Belong

The Last Part of the Way

Midwinter Gifts

Wounded Bird

Defending the Heart

Matters of the Heart

Nothing Better to Do

The Thief of Anvil’s Close

Twice Blessed

Be Careful What You Wish For

Interview with a Companion

RAVES FOR THE PREVIOUS VALDEMAR ANTHOLOGIES:

“Fans of Lackey’s epic Valdemar series will devour this superb anthology. Of the thirteen stories included, there is no weak link—an attribute exceedingly rare in collections of this sort. Highly recommended.”

—The Barnes and Noble Review

“This high-quality anthology mixes pieces by experienced

author and enthusiastic fans of editor Lackey’s

Valdemar. Valdemar fandom, especially, will revel in

this sterling example of what such a mixture of fans’ and

pros’ work can be. Engrossing even for newcomers to

Valdemar.”

—Booklist

“Josepha Sherman, Tanya Huff, Mickey Zucker Reichert, and Michelle West have quite good stories, and there’s another by Lackey herself. Familiarity with the series helps but is not a prerequisite to enjoying this book.”

—Science Fiction Chronicle

“Each tale adheres to the Lackey laws of the realm yet provides each author’s personal stamp on the story. Well written and fun, Valdemarites will especially appreciate the magic of this book.”

—The Midwest Book Review

NOVELS BY MERCEDES LACKEY available from DAW Books:

THE NOVELS OF VALDEMAR:

THE HERALDS OF VALDEMAR

ARROWS OF THE QUEEN

ARROW’S FLIGHT

ARROW’S FALL

THE LAST HERALD-MAGE

MAGIC’S PAWN

MAGIC’S PROMISE

MAGIC’S PRICE

THE MAGE WINDS

WINDS OF FATE

WINDS OF CHANGE

WINDS OF FURY

THE MAGE STORMS

STORM WARNING

STORM RISING

STORM BREAKING

VOWS AND HONOR

THE OATHBOUND

OATHBREAKERS

OATHBLOOD

THE COLLEGIUM CHRONICLES FOUNDATION

BY THE SWORD

BRIGHTLY BURNING

TAKE A THIEF

EXILE’S HONOR

EXILE’S VALOR

VALDEMAR ANTHOLOGIES:

SWORD OF ICE

SUN IN GLORY

CROSSROADS

MOVING TARGETS

CHANGING THE WORLD

Written with LARRY DIXON:

THE MAGE WARS

THE BLACK GRYPHON

THE WHITE GRYPHON

THE SILVER GRYPHON

DARIAN’S TALE

OWLFLIGHT

OWLSIGHT

OWLKNIGHT

OTHE R NOVELS :

GWENHWYFAR

THE BLACK SWAN

THE DRAGON JOUSTERS

JOUST

ALTA

SANCTUARY

AERIE

THE ELEMENTAL MASTERS

THE SERPENT’S SHADOW

THE GATES OF SLEEP

PHOENIX AND ASHES

THE WIZARD OF LONDON

RESERVED FOR THE CAT

And don’t miss:

THE VALDEMAR COMPANION

Edited by John Helfers and Denise Little

DAW Book Collectors No. 1494.

DAW Books are distributed by Penguin Group (USA).

All characters and events in this book are fictitious.

All resemblance to persons living or dead is coincidental.

The scanning, uploading and distribution of this book via the Internet or any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal, and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage the electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

First Printing, December 2009

DAW TRADEMARK REGISTERED

U.S. PAT. AND TM. OFF. AND FOREIGN COUNTRIES

—MARCA REGISTRADA

HECHO EN U.S.A.

eISBN : 978-1-101-18498-1

S.A.

http://us.penguingroup.com

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Denise McCune

The One Left Behind

by Mercedes Lackey

Mercedes Lackey is a full-time writer and has published numerous novels, including the best- selling Heralds of Valdemar series. She is also a professional lyricist and licensed wild bird rehabilitator.

Marya was doing her shopping when the Heralds rode into the village, and the flash of white and sudden turning of heads in the corner of her vision made her stomach twist into an angry knot, her jaw tighten, and her fists clench. She knew what it was. Only one thing could be that white in the middle of a village in the middle of a rainy spring.

“Done,” she said, cutting off her bargaining abruptly and leaving Druk Pelan, the egg seller, open-mouthed in astonishment. She shoved the coppers at him, took up her basket and the eggs, and strode quickly back toward her house at the east edge of the village without getting any of the other things she’d meant to buy.

The house, inherited from her mother, which had been her parents’ before her, was really more of a cottage. They hadn’t needed much space: the loft bed for her, the bedroom her mother had slept in once she inherited the place until the day she died, and one big room that served as kitchen and work space and held her baskets of yarn and the big loom. So far as Marya knew, the cottage had been built around the loom; she couldn’t imagine how some of the big beams had been brought in otherwise. The windows were all positioned to give the person sitting at the loom the best possible light, all day. The kitchen was almost more of an afterthought; more often than not, Marya, her mother, and her grandparents had eaten food cooked at the baker’s or cold meats, raw vegetables, bread and cheese. Well she would have to make do with what she had, now.

The plain linen warp was half full of colorful woof threads now, with the cartoon beneath, for Marya was not just any weaver; she was a weaver of tapestries. So her mother and grandparents had been. People sent commissions to her from all over Valdemar, mostly from extremely wealthy households, for when you wanted to really impress people, there was nothing like an enormous tapestry hung against the wall. Ordinary arras hangings would do to keep down drafts, but a tapestry! That meant something.

This one was of some fancy family or other’s coat of arms, a pair of stags fighting on their hind legs. Some tapestry weavers sent out for their cartoons or used images that they kept carefully folded and put away. Up in the loft, there were stacks of those, some going back a hundred years or more. Her family had relied on such aids since they had begun weaving.

Not Marya. Marya drew her own. The sketch she’d been sent had been no bigger than her hand. The cartoon was twice the length of the loom, and that was only half of it. She’d flip it for the other half, the mirror image of the stag she was working on now, and carefully sew the two halves together for the finished whole. And an impressive backdrop to a head table that would be, too.

But she was not thinking of that. She was thinking of the Heralds in the village square and wondering angrily how long they were going to be in the village. Not long, she hoped. Because she had no intention of leaving her house while they were here, or she just might be tempted to—

She froze at the polite knock at her open door.

Surely not.

She turned slowly, but the reflection of white in the pots on the kitchen wall told her who it was before she actually finished the turn.

“Marya Bannod?” the older of the two Heralds asked.

She nodded curtly, unable to trust herself to speak.

“We’d like to ask for your hel—” he began.

She exploded. “Oh, you’ve a lot of nerve coming here and asking for my help!” she hissed, hands balled into fists at her side. “Whatever it is, you can damned well just go and take care of it yourselves, you with your great minds and fine ways! Get off my stoop!”

And she slammed the door in their astonished faces.

Then she let out a breath. That had felt good. Not as good as flinging some kitchen things at them, but good. Now they’d go away, and get on their white horses and—

There was another knock.

Surely not—

She opened it. They were still there.

Briefly, she entertained a fantasy of snatching up the beater from the loom and driving them down the street with it, cudgeling their heads and shoulders the whole time. But . . . no. These particular Heralds hadn’t done her any harm.

Just Heralds in general.

“You’re not wanted here,” she said, folding her arms over her chest and glaring at them. “Get out.”

“Perhaps you didn’t—”

“You think I’m feebleminded?” she snapped. “I understood perfectly. You’ve got some sort of tangle. You think I can sort it out for you and save you some time and effort. No. I realize that you don’t hear that very often. Perhaps you should; it would do you good. No. What part of no do you not understand?”

She slammed the door again. This time when the knock came, she didn’t answer it. Instead, she went to her loom and began work on the tapestry, singing out the color changes as loud as she could to a tune of her own invention. It helped her concentrate, and it soothed her nerves a little.

She heard the sound of voices at her door; four of them. She sang louder. Eventually the talking stopped; then there were footsteps going away.

She kept working.

She didn’t stop until it became too dark to distinguish between different shades of the same colors. By then her arms were weary, and her back was stiff. She didn’t usually work that long at a stretch on the loom without taking breaks, but she had been so angry that she hadn’t dared stop, or she was sure she would have smashed something.

She had started a fine pea soup with a ham bone in it this morning; it would be ready now. She’d wanted fresh bread to go with it but . . . oh well. She’d just have to bake her own bannocks or griddle cakes until the Heralds left. She was not leaving her house, and they couldn’t make her.

The soup was perfect. She ladled herself out a bowl, set some tea to steep, and was about to sit down when—

There was another knock at the door, and her anger flared like lint caught in a fire. She snatched up her frying pan and stalked to the door, flinging it open. “I told you—”

“Now, now Marya—” The mayor of the village, Stefan Durst, held up both hands placatingly. “Don’t go hitting me with that. I need the few wits I have left.”

She snorted, but she let the hand with the pan in it fall to her side. “I suppose you’ll be wanting to come in and explain to me why I need to do what their lordships think I should.”

“Well . . . in a word, yes.”

“You can come in. But I’m having my supper, and I’m not feeding you.” She glared at him. “You eat better than I do.”

Stefan just sighed and looked put-upon. She moved out of the way to let him in but closed the door firmly behind him, lest some Herald think he could sneak in when she wasn’t looking.

She sat back down at her tiny table and began to eat her soup. Stefan looked about for some place to sit, and eventually he took the loom bench. Stefan, a balding, plump man with mouse-colored hair, looked down at his well-groomed, clean hands.

“Marya, they’re Heralds,” he said plaintively.

“I know they’re Heralds,” she snapped. “I’m neither blind nor feebleminded.”

“They’ve got the Queen’s mandate.” There was a whine to his voice. He’d been whiny as a child, and he hadn’t lost the habit.

“They can have the Queen’s crown and underwear for all I care. I’m not helping them.” She put her spoon in the empty bowl and glared at him again. “And you, of all people, should know why. What have Heralds ever done for me but make my life a misery?”

He moved his hands a little, helplessly. “Yes, but—”

“Do you have any idea what it was like to grow up without a father? To have every other child in this village mock me by telling me he’d run off to rid himself of me and mother? To watch my mother write letter after letter that was never answered, and go from hopeful to hopeless to bitter?” She’d held this pent up for too long. “And then, then, when a man from this village takes a shine to me, and there’s talk of weddings, along comes another one of those damned white horses, and there am I left in the rain like my mother, and the letters start to say ‘You wouldn’t understand,’ and then they stop coming altogether.” The very words were bitter on her tongue. “At least I wasn’t left pregnant and alone. Just alone.”

She got up and washed the bowl and spoon in the sink.

“Well . . . that’s what they’re here about. Danet, that is.”

She turned, slowly. He was twisting those too-clean hands together and staring at them. With guilt, she thought.

“What do you mean, they’re here about Danet?” Her voice was dangerously soft.

“All I know is what they told me,” he replied, cringing a little. “They’re here about Danet, and they need your help. That’s all.”

“You can pick yourself off that bench and you can march yourself back to them, and you can tell them from me that Danet Stens can rot in hell for all I care, and there’s an end to it!” She was unaware that she had picked up her sharpest kitchen knife and was holding it, until Stefan’s eyes went to it, and he gave a little yelp. She slapped it down on the table. He jumped. She pointed with her chin. “The door’s that way.”

He took the hint and scuttled out.

She moved her chair closer to the fire and took up her knitting. It was soothing; she never did patterns and never had more than one color on the needles, although she would use up all the little ends of her weaving by making them into crazy-colored knitted blankets and scarves. After all the intricate pattern weaving she did during the day, it was restful to be doing something with no pattern and no counting except to cast on. She made smocklike sweaters out of rectangular shapes that needed only to be sewn together. In winter she could layer on as many of those as she liked to keep warm. It wasn’t as if anyone cared what she looked like.

It wasn’t as if she wanted anyone to. One heartbreak in a lifetime was enough.

Oh, she remembered Dan, all right. Handsome, witty, charming . . . everyone liked him, and she had been so flattered when he started to pay attention to her. Though her mother had eyed him with suspicion and disfavor whenever he showed up, she’d been absolutely and utterly sure that her mother was suspicious for no reason at all. Who wouldn’t love Dan?

Oh,it was true that he didn’t seem to do a lick of work, but why would he need to? He did what he did best for his father, bring in business to the little tavern with his ready stories and skill at games. He didn’t get paid for that, of course, but that didn’t matter. She was already doubling the family business with her weaving. Once it became widely known that she wasn’t just copying old cartoons for her tapestries, that she was making original images, she’d be turning business away. He could do what she couldn’t: flatter and please the customers, so she could concentrate on the weaving.

She had it all planned out in her mind.

And then, between one day and the next, he was gone.

There had been some talk about some thefts—she dismissed them out of hand, and then the whole village had been forced to do the same when letters came back telling how he had been carried off by a Companion to be a Herald. The whole village had been forced to admit that they’d misjudged him, and although she got her letters with some misgiving at first, still, she was getting letters. She was not replaying her mother’s story all over again.

But then the letters began to change. It seemed as if every other line ended with “. . . but of course, you wouldn’t understand.” At first it made her anxious and bewildered. Then, as the tone grew more and more patronizing, it made her angry. “Then explain it!” she demanded, more than once. It wasn’t as if she were stupid! If he thought she didn’t understand, well, if he would just—

But the letters grew fewer and fewer and finally stopped altogether.

By that time, her feelings had turned as bitter as her mother’s. She threw herself into her work. Her mother died in the middle of that winter, but at least Marya could congratulate herself that she’d had every possible comfort. Not even the mayor’s wife had such a fine goosedown bed, pillows, and comforter. Not even the mayor was served such savory morsels when she could bring herself to eat. It was all that Marya could do for her when the bitter love had turned again to anguish in her mother’s last illness, and she spent her last breaths weeping and calling for her lost lover.

Oh, how she hated the Heralds.

Her anger made the needles fly, and row after row of knitting grew beneath her hands. Stefan was an idiot. But then again, the entire village was Herald- mad. Probably all of Valdemar was Herald- mad. Little girls and boys made white stick horses and played at being Heralds. You found decorations of Heralds and Companions everywhere. There were more ornamental white horse heads than there were representations of the actual arms of Valdemar. The one and only commission she had ever turned down was for a tapestry of a Herald and Companion—the noble family of someone whose son had been Chosen. She had used the rather specious argument that she would never be able to get the Companion and the uniform white enough, and that the white wool would soon become dingy. They had countered that they would send her Companion mane and tail hair to make into yarn, hair that would never get dingy, because Companions literally shed dirt. She had replied (without attempting it) that Companion hair could not be made into yarn and that she could not in all good faith take on such a commission knowing that Herald and Companion would soon become a grayish yellow. She never heard from them again.

And I would starve to death before I—

There was a knock at the door.

She did not rush to get up. She put up her knitting, made sure the fire was burning cleanly, while another couple of knocks came, and only then did she get up to answer it. Stefan could just wait out there with the night insects biting him.

Serve him right if he was covered in welts tomorrow.

She opened the door, intending to tell him brusquely to be off and slam it in his face again. But it wasn’t Stefan who was out there.

It was the two Heralds.

A moment of shock and rage held her rigid. And that was when the older of the two said the one thing that kept her from slamming the door in their faces.

“Danet Stens is not a Herald.”

They sat stiffly side by side on her weaving bench. She sat stiffly in her chair, hands uncharacteristically idle.

But she was listening. And what she heard from the two Heralds—

“. . . as far as we can tell, he did not begin by deciding to impersonate a Herald,” the older of the two—Herald Callan—was saying. “He sent back letters that he had been Chosen, we think, largely to cover up the thefts he’d committed here. But approximately a month later, he seems to have understood that if he actually put the full ruse into motion, he would have a free hand to do virtually anything.”

She nodded, slowly. “But why keep on sending letters back?” she asked suspiciously.

“Until we find him, we can only speculate as to why,” said the other, who had not yet given his name. “We have a lot of guesses—the most likely is to keep people from associating him with the thefts until enough time had passed that the losses were forgotten or at least the victims had given up on finding the thief.”

She shook her head, puzzled. “I’d heard rumors of thefts but—you talk as if these were something large, and I certainly didn’t hear anything about that—”

The Heralds exchanged a look. “I can’t speak for the victims,” the elder said, after a moment. “But . . . given the circumstances . . . I believe the items were purloined in a way that would have been very embarrassing to the victim if it had been made pub—”

That was when the younger interrupted. “He was sleeping with women—and one or two men—and making off with small valuables. Most of them were married.”

Shocked for a moment, she sat there, blinking. She thought about some of her mother’s comments. She thought some more about the curious silence that had followed Danet’s disappearance. And still more about the times when he’d said he had something or other to do for his father . . .

“How did you—”

“When we began tracking him, we knew where he had come from, and we had an old list of things that had been reported as missing to the Guard,” the younger said bluntly. “We’ve been interviewing the people who reported them stolen all day. Enough time has passed that when we told them that Danet is not a Herald, we usually got the truth out of them.”

“Well, and the reports had generally come from the husband, but when we interviewed the wives . . .” Herald Callan blushed, visible even in the firelight. “Let’s just say that they were less than happy. They were able to rationalize that he had taken the things to remember them by, when they each thought she were the only one. When we let it be known that this was far from the case . . .” He shook his head. “The spouses, of course, had no idea and had reported the items stolen independently. Most everyone assumed that it was a tinker or a gypsy or the like.”

“We haven’t enlightened the partners,” the younger Herald said, with a quirk of his lips. “That would be adding insult to injury.”

She unclenched her jaw. “I still don’t see what this has to do with me,” she replied stiffly.

They exchanged glances again. The elder cleared his throat awkwardly. “We were hoping you would come with us.”

At this point, her emotions had been up and down so often her reaction was less rage and more incredulity. “You people are insane,” she finally said, flatly. “Why in the name of everything considered holy would I want to do that?” Before they could answer her, she continued on. “I have a commission to finish. I have two more to start. This is how I pay for my food, my chopped wood, my wool. No one is going to give me these things.”

She didn’t mention that she had a very tidy sum tucked away safe and that if she wanted to, she could probably live on it for several years without taking another commission. In the first place, that was none of their business. In the second place, that was meant in case she became ill or injured or otherwise incapacitated. And in the third place, it was none of their damn business.

“And what makes you think I can or will do anything more than you can?” She leveled the most evil glare she could manage at them.

“We thought because you knew him best—” Herald Callan began.

“Well, I didn’t know he was sleeping with half the village women and stealing their valuables, and I didn’t know that he never intended to marry me, so I obviously didn’t know him very well, did I?” The bitterness in her words was so palpable that both of them winced. “Thank you for telling me the truth about him. You can leave now. No—wait—”

She got up and stalked to the little chest where she kept her few keepsakes and pulled out a bundle of letters. She didn’t know why she had kept them instead of burning them. Maybe this was why. She thrust them at Callan. “Here. Maybe you can make out something you can use against him.”

The Herald took the letters as gingerly as if they were on fire. “But . . . can you think of what he is likely to actually do? Anything? Anything at all? So far, all we have are complaints from what seem to be random isolated communities—that a Herald Danet comes through, makes a mess of things, and when he’s gone, there are valuables missing. By the time we get the reports, he’s long gone. This has been going on for two years now.”

So, he’d been at it from the moment he’d left her. Oh, she should have known better. Really, she should have known better all along. He was years younger than she was. What handsome young man would ever have been truly interested in a dried up old spinster like her, anyway? It had seemed too good to be true, and so it was.

And that was when the final humiliating thing occurred to her.

Until either he had seduced one too many women, or the wrong woman, or someone was starting to make noise about missing items, he probably had intended to marry her. After all, she was making fine money. And she would have demanded very little of him. He could have gone right on sleeping with anyone he cared to, and she wouldn’t have noticed. Or if she had, a few sweet words of contrition from him and she would have forgiven him. Over and over and over.

And meanwhile, he would have been living better than anyone in the village while continuing to do as little actual work as possible. As good as he had been at pulling the wool over her eyes, she’d have probably considered it her privilege to support him.

She went hot, then cold, then hot again with shame. Especially when she thought about how often she had daydreamed of the long winter nights they would spend together, cuddled up in each others’ arms by the fire . . .

That was when it occurred to her that there was one thing she knew about him that they probably did not.

“If you can find his trail, it will end at a place where he intends to spend the winter,” she said. “He won’t travel in winter. He hates the cold, the rain, and the snow worse than a cat. That’s all I know. You can get out of here now.”

Reluctantly, they left.

Unfortunately, they did not take what they’d put into her head with them.

If it had been daylight, she could have lost herself in her weaving. Instead, she picked up her knitting; the needles flew at a furious pace, but they could not still her thoughts.

It had been bad enough when she had thought he had just gotten tired of her. When she had been left to wonder if she really was that dull, that stupid, truly unable to comprehend what being a Herald was all about.

It was worse now. She really had been stupid, but in an entirely different way. She’d been manipulated. Made a fool of. Now she knew the reason for the pitying glances she sometimes caught from some women in the village. All this time she’d thought it was pity for having been jilted.

Oh, no.

It was pity for being such a fatuous fool as to believe a handsome young man could ever want her. All those women that Danet Stens had slept with had felt the superior sort of pity that you do for someone who doesn’t know she’s living in a fool’s dream.

Well, I got the last laugh, she thought bitterly. Now all of them know they were played for fools too. It didn’t help.

Mother probably guessed. Or at least she guessed that Danet was only interested in the money I made.

That would be about right.

Finally, as the fire burned down, and the thoughts in her head would not stop buzzing about like angry hornets, she realized that she was not going to get any sleep, any sleep at all, without help.

She went to the cupboard and got out the little bottle the Healer had given her for her mother, to help her through the bad nights. She carefully measured out the right number of drops into a cup of lukewarm tea and drank it down. She had expected it to be bitter, but it had a kind of blossomy taste. Strange but pleasant. She went back to her chair and put away her knitting, noting sardonically that anger was good for one thing, at least. She’d finished the panel. She’d bind it off in the daylight and start another. Firelight was no good for binding off; you were asking for dropped stitches.

As she did every night, she carefully hung her clothing on the chair next to the bed, the bed that her grandparents, and then her mother, had slept in—though the mattress had been made new for her mother in her last year. She got into a flannel nightrail. The nights were turning cold now. Fall was not far off. If those damned Heralds did their job properly, they’d find the wretch soon.

She got into the warm goosedown bed and wondered what he was doing right now. Probably getting into an equally warm goosedown bed with a pretty, plump woman who was someone else’s wife. Not a thin, ugly stick like her.

She fell into strange confused dreams in which the Heralds and Danet chased each other around and around a copse of trees, until the snow fell and a trio of beautiful women came and carried him off on a flying sheep. All three of the women laughed and pointed at her as they flew away. She woke up feeling entirely out of sorts. For the first time that she could recall, ever, she was so very out of sorts that she didn’t want to work on her tapestry.

Instead, she decided that she wasn’t going to get any creative work done, she might as well give the place a thorough cleaning. She did have the very bad habit of leaving things she knew she would want later piled up next to her chair, beside the bed, or on the table. She hadn’t organized the yarn since spring. For that matter, she hadn’t done more than give the place a cursory sweep and dust since spring.

She spent the morning turning things inside out. The floor got a scrubbing, the mattress was turned, aired and the bed remade, the blankets all came down out of winter storage and got a good wash. Every surface got a scouring. She reorganized the yarn properly. She stacked all the rectangles of knitting in order on a little table beside the chair so she could finally sew them together. She went through her clothing, relegating a few things to be given away since they had shrunk or never actually fitted in the first place. She brought in all the dry blankets and laid them in lavender in the blanket chest at the foot of the bed. She looked at the number of knitted tunics she had and decided that her next project was going to be to use up the yarn ends in making another blanket.

By noon, the little cottage was clean, but her temper was still high. She decided that since the wretched Heralds hadn’t let a closed door stop them from pestering her, she was going to finish her interrupted shopping. Serve them right if they turned up again and she wasn’t there.

She was close-mouthed to the point of monosyllabic with the village merchants, but they were used to that. Usually it was because she was, in her mind, still back at her loom. It wasn’t often that her temper was as frayed as it was today. But as she bought her bread and meat pies, her winter squash and her cut oats for porridge, her fruit and her soap and candles, she noticed that the shopkeepers were just as preoccupied as she was.

It was abundantly clear why. The entire village was abuzz with talk about Danet. And now, of course, everyone had suspected the worst of him. Even his own father, who held court in the taproom of his inn, holding forth about how his ne’er-do-well son had been a devil from the day he was born, and how no matter how hard he was beaten, all he did was shrug the punishment off and go and do what he liked.

This much, at least, Marya knew was a lie. Danet’s father had never so much as laid a willowwand to his back. Everyone knew how Danet could charm his way out of any scrape he got into. But Innkeeper Stens brewed the only decent ale and beer to be had in the village and imported the only mead and wine, so no one wanted to nay-say him. And as for the innkeeper, well, he was making sure that memories were being “corrected” by pouring with a freer hand than usual and forgetting to charge now and again.

So the only one in the village today who wasn’t singing the new song was Marya. And of course, everyone remembered that Danet was supposed to marry her. Looks both superior and pitying were cast on her, and plenty of curious ones too. But no one asked her anything. Perhaps they had already heard about the reception that Stefan and the Heralds themselves had gotten. Perhaps the black storm behind her eyes was more obvious than she had thought.

The upshot of it all was that she went back to her little cottage in the same temper that she had left it—and behind that temper was a sinking feeling. This was going to be a prime topic of conversation for the entire winter. And there was not one thing that she could do about it. Until something just as sensational took their minds off it, she’d be gawked at and talked about and whispered over until the thaw and hard work took peoples’ minds off scandal.

She put her purchases away, put the eggs to boil, cleaned out a squash and tucked it into a corner of the fireplace to bake, then stood at her window and found that she was torn between wanting to sit down on the floor and bawl like a child, and wanting to break something. She and her family had always been odd ducks here—the only people whose income came from outside the village, and the only ones who made things that no one in the village could afford. They had always kept to themselves, and when Marya’s father had gone off to be a Herald—

—and had he gone off to be a Herald, after all?—

That isolation had only increased.

She had reacted to the mocking as a child by throwing herself into the work—she did truly love the act and art of the weaving, the more intricate the better—and by going off somewhere no one would bother her and crying. This was often the dyeing shed; since the only way to get a big batch of a consistent color was to dye it yourself, that was what they did. Usually the shed was empty when a big tapestry was being made, so it was a good place to go to cry. Later, when she had mastered the craft of dyeing and was old enough to be trusted alone among all the boiling pots of dye and mordant baths, no one questioned why she wanted to take the job over. It was unpleasant in winter, hot in summer, and some of the dyes stank. Your hands turned colors, and it didn’t wash off, it had to wear off. Her mother was just happy not to have to do it herself.

It looked as if the mocking—in adult form—was about to begin all over again.

Never had she so agreed with the philosopher’s bitter observation, “The more I know of humanity, the more I appreciate my dog.”

Maybe she should get a dog.

As she stood in the middle of the now neatly organized room and contemplated forcing herself to the loom, there was another tap on the door. More diffident this time.

She answered it.

Both Heralds stood there, the elder, Callan, holding out the packet of letters. “We wanted to return these,” he said. “And thank you. They have been of incalculable help.”

She made no move to take them. “You might as well keep them,” she replied, her stomach twisting in knots that did not bode well for the squash baking at the fire. “I can’t imagine how they helped you.”

“We only got reports on what was happening as people sent them to Haven, which meant they weren’t in order of when Danet was in the particular village,” the second one—she still didn’t know his name—explained. “By the time we got a report, people had forgotten when, exactly, he was there, as well. So there was confusion as to dates by the Guard, confusion as to dates by the victims. When we tried to plot his movement on the map, it didn’t make any sense.”

“But he very kindly dates his letters to you,” Herald Callan pointed out wryly. “And although he doesn’t necessarily mention the place he is in by name, he usually lets something slip that has let us identify it. Now we know where he was, when. His course of travel is quite clear. He’s making his way south and west, by the easiest route.”

She frowned. “He’s not stupid. He can’t be planning to carry on this scheme forever.”

“We don’t think so, either,” Callan replied. “We think he intends to go to Rethewellan. His thefts by themselves have not been very large—the things he has taken have all been valuable, but not the sort of thing that someone would raise a huge hue and cry over. When he has defrauded people of money, it has not been large amounts. But impersonating a Herald, he has no expenses. People rush to give him food, shelter, anything he needs.”

She nodded slowly. “So all those little bits are adding up to a right tidy sum.”

“By the time he gets to Rethwellan, he’ll have enough to—” Here Callan paused. “Well, I am not sure I know what he plans.”

She thought it over for a moment, the same way that she thought over the design for a tapestry when it wasn’t something straightforward, like the family arms. She let her mind go blank and waited for all the pieces to come together.

When they did, she was glad she didn’t have anything breakable in her hand, for she would surely have thrown it.

“He’s going to trick himself out like a rich man or a noble,” she growled. “Then he will go looking for a woman with a lot of money, probably one older, or ugly. He’ll be very clever about how he approaches her so that she never suspects what he wants. He’ll make sure that in the end, it appears that she is courting him, rather than the other way around. He might marry her. He might just live off her, then disappear one day . . . and go find a new victim.”

“Now you see why we want you to come with us,” Callan replied. “You know how he thinks.”

She opened her mouth to give him a sharp retort, but then the memory of her neighbors’ pitying and smug faces rose up before her.

To have to face that for the next several weeks or months . . .

The tapestry she was working on would not be done before winter came and made it impossible to transport, and the owners were not expecting it before spring. She had no pets, no livestock, nothing that depended on her to care for it. She could just lock up the cottage and leave.

She had never been outside the village. Suddenly, she wanted to.

“All right,” she growled. “But I won’t be staying in any of your Herald shacks.”

“We would never expect you to!” Callan said hastily. “They aren’t build to hold more than two anyway. How soon can you leave?”

“No longer than it takes me to pack.” She didn’t need much, either. She wasn’t some fancy lady that needed fuss and bows and scent. Just her clothing, her brush and her toothscrubber. She turned her back on them and went into the cottage. How hard was it to pack, after all? It wasn’t as if she had clothing she had to go through. What she wore for every day was good enough.

To keep the Heralds busy while she packed, she took the squash out of the fireplace corner and set it in front of them with salt and pepper on the table. And even though she had never packed for an overnight trip before, it really was no great task to have everything in a neat bundle in a short period of time.

They weren’t even finished eating by the time she was done. So she ate one of the meat pies, then put the rest of the food in her basket well wrapped up and put it next to her bundle.

To her surprise, without prompting, the Heralds cleaned up after themselves and washed all the dishes to boot.

“We’ll get our things and the Companions,” said the younger. And so they went off, leaving her to tidy what little there was left to do, and shut and lock the door. They didn’t leave her waiting on her stoop long, either. They must not have unpacked their own bags. Long before she became impatient, they came riding up to her door, a pillion pad behind Callan.

Without a word, the younger got down, boosted her up behind Callan, and showed her how to hang on. He took her bundle and basket up and tied them up on top of his own bags, and they were off.

Being up on the back of an animal was a new sensation. It made her nervous at first, but after the first few paces she began to enjoy it. It was quite odd, being half again taller than she was used to. And the astonished looks that the villagers gave her as they rode through were altogether gratifying.

This might not be so bad, after all.

They stayed in inns, and not nasty ones, either. She’d heard about the nasty ones from some of her suppliers of dyes and the yarns and threads she couldn’t get locally and from the merchants who carried away her commissioned tapestries. No, these were nice, tidy places where she wasn’t afraid to sleep in the bed for fear of being carried off by vermin. The food was decent, not fancy, but she didn’t particularly trust food that came all covered in sauces and spices and hiding inside crusts. She got her own small room. There was always a bathhouse. The younger Herald—she finally learned his name the third day out—also made sure that she put her laundry with theirs. For the first time since she was a young child, she was fed by someone else, housed by someone else, waited on by someone else, taken care of by someone else. It was a way of life she suspected she could get used to very quickly.

She noticed that the Heralds “paid” for these stays with some form of paper scrip, and she finally wondered aloud how Danet was managing this without leaving some trail behind.

Sendar, the younger of the two, just shrugged. “They are not that difficult to forge; no one bothers because until now no one has ever tried to impersonate a Herald. All he had to do was get his hands on one, and if he is a decent copyist and could carve a copy of the Circle stamp, he could make as many as he liked. So many are turned in we’d never find the forgeries among the real ones.”

She sniffed a little at that. It seemed rather too chancy a system to her.

She’d heard that riding was hard, that people were generally aching and sore when they weren’t used to it. But maybe the people who had told her that were not used to working at a loom. She was a little stiff and sore, but it wasn’t bad; then again, she was riding on a Companion—maybe they were different.

She began to pay attention to the Companions. Aside from their brilliantly white coats and blue eyes, a suspicion began to dawn on her. On the fifth evening, when Callan and Sendar had finished their plotting and planning over another nice, plain supper, she voiced it.

“Your Companions can’t do anything a really good trained horse can’t do,” she said, perhaps a bit more tartly than she had intended.

Two sets of startled eyes met hers. “Well,” she insisted, “They can’t. Or at least, a really good trained horse can make it look as if he’s doing the same things. Five years ago, an animal trainer came through at Fair time, and his horse could do just about anything. Sit up like a dog, lie down, follow any command he gave it, count, add. I was watching, and he gave it signals, because I gave him a complicated sum, and the horse got it wrong just as he did. But Danet saw the same trainer. All he had to do was find a white horse trained that well, and get it to take signals from him, and there you go! Companion. Just keep painting the hooves silver when no one is watching, and plenty of white horses have blue eyes.”

She thought a long moment more, while the truth of her words penetrated to them. “It makes me wonder now if he didn’t plan this all along. Maybe he even had a horse ready for him when he ran off.” That thought didn’t help her at all; if anything, it made the deception even more bitter, because he clearly had never intended any of the things he’d promised her, and she’d had the wool pulled right over her eyes. But she wasn’t one to lie to herself.

“If he planned that far ahead,” Callan said, slowly, “Then he has surely planned for the moment when real Heralds confront him.”

“He’ll brazen it out long enough to buy himself some time, then bolt while you’re dealing with all the people that think he is the real one and you are the imposters,” she pointed out. “He doesn’t need long.”

There was silence. “This is why we asked you to come along,” Callan said, ruefully. “You know how he might think, and you point out things that we would not consider—”

“Like trained horses?” She shrugged. “I hope you can work out some sort of plan to deal with this. I’m just a weaver.” And with that, she took herself up the stairs to that extremely comfortable little room.

When she came back down in the morning to enjoy a truly fine breakfast, they still hadn’t come up with much of a plan other than, “We are going to have to scout this out without him finding out we are Heralds.”

“And what are you going to pose as?” she asked.

They both blinked. “We hadn’t gotten that far,” Sendar said.

She sighed and dug into a really outstanding slice of egg-and-bacon pie. “He won’t have set up in a town. When he settles in for winter, he needs a small village so he can charm everyone in it. And the one or two who are suspicious will keep their mouths shut for fear of antagonizing their neighbors. That means everyone will know everyone else, and you cannot impersonate someone local.”

“We could be peddlers—” Sendar began.

She laughed. “Where is your cart? Your packhorse? Do you know anything about the sorts of things that a peddler who visits a small village is likely to carry? Do you know the right prices? What a fair trade would be? I doubt that either of you knows the first thing about mending a pot, so posing as tinkers is not going to work either.”

As they began to look nonplused and flustered, she helped herself to biscuits and butter. Finally she took pity on them. “Instead of trying to do something you don’t know anything about, what can you do?”

They exchanged looks again. “We’ve never thought about it,” Callan finally replied.

She bit back the reply of “Well, then start thinking about it!” and just left them to it.

They discussed it for far too long in her opinion, coming up with all sorts of things that were likely to fall apart the moment someone in the village asked a few questions. She was actually learning a lot about them, although they were probably utterly unaware of the fact. It became clear to her that neither of them had ever done what she would consider “work” in their lives. Which meant they were both from some highborn family or other, the sort of people who commissioned her tapestries.

Usually they managed to knock the legs out from under each others’ schemes, which at least showed a modicum of good sense in her opinion. Once in a while she had to remind them of what life in a small village was like, how everyone knew everyone else, and how Danet, once he had ingratiated himself, would have the upper hand.

But finally it was Sendar who came up with something even she had to approve of.

“We make up a religion and become monks or priests of it,” he said, finally. “Something humble, inoffensive. Vows of poverty, nonviolence, all that. We can crib things from any religion we care to, and it won’t matter—no one can say we got it wrong because no one will recognize it, and we can exclaim about how wonderful it is that our god says the same as the other god if anyone notices the cribbing.”

“Why would you be traveling?” she asked. “People will want to know.”

“We’re going from one remote chapter house in Valdemar to another in Rethwellan,” Callan said with confidence. “I’m from up near the Iftel border, and I doubt your Danet will know anything about that area. We’ll say we’re from up there, and just make up another village in Rethwellan.”

That seemed to be a good, sound plan to her, so she kept silent while they worked out the details of their new religion. Sendar did point out with some humor that it would be important that it didn’t look attractive. The last thing they wanted to do was to create followers for a made-up religion. So aside from the vows of poverty, abstinence, and chastity, they decided that complete vegetarianism was probably going to be the most effective against country folk wanting to join up. She agreed. “Country folk like our meat and cheese and eggs,” she said. “And in case you get some odd little fervent duck who decides this is all very lovely anyway, make it a requirement that the entire family join this religion before any single member can.”

“Ah, yes, the unity of the family is of the utmost importance,” said Sendar, pulling a grave face. “Only when the family is united can such serious matters be properly decided.”

They knew they were catching up to Danet when, as they entered village after village, certain timid souls would come up, quietly, as they sat at a meal. “Pardon, Herald,” the diffident speech would be begin, “But I wonder if . . . well, this just didn’t seem right, somehow . . . do you know of a Herald Danet?”

And thus would begin the revelations. Small things mostly. Suspicion of taking a bribe. A girl’s dazzled infatuation with the white uniform taken advantage of. Sometimes things gone missing. Occasionally, instead of a quarrel being solved, having it fanned into a feud.

These things delayed them, though not, to Marya’s mind, intolerably, since she didn’t have to do much but listen and verify that no, Danet wasn’t a real Herald and yes, he’d taken similar advantage of most of the people in her own village. Free from the need to keep her mouth shut over it, there was a certain relish in being able to name names and reveal a great many indiscretions. It felt a little like revenge, in a way.

And a strange thing began to happen. She found herself becoming the recipient of similar sad little stories. Rather than confiding them to the Heralds, perhaps out of embarrassment, people seemed much more comfortable telling their tales to someone who was just like them, but whom they would never have to see again. A confluence of commonality and anonymity, perhaps. She began to take careful notes, turning them over to the Heralds at the end of the day. When Danet was found, would these things serve to determine his punishment?

She hoped so. His crimes against her were . . . well, not crimes at all. Breach of promise? But there had never been any actual promise. He never stole anything from her but her happiness. But this was certainly a way in which she could exact revenge for that.

Each place they stopped and had to sort things out, Danet was “nearer” to them in time. He had been there two months ago . . . a month ago . . . a fortnight . . .

It was clear he was not aware he was being followed, and it was time for the two Heralds to scout ahead in their guise of humble priests. They claimed they had also summoned help. How, she was not at all sure, since they hadn’t sent any messages back that she had seen. But they wanted the people of Springdale to be convinced that Danet was a fraud first, so that he had no way to make them rise up against the real Heralds and whatever “help” was coming.

They left her behind in that village, still coaxing stories from people, and this time, having to do something new: She had to urge them not to follow in the false Herald’s wake, and try to summon him to justice themselves.

“Think about what you would have said when he was among you,” she pointed out. “The bastard has a charm that is almost magical. When he is around you, he can talk you into thinking almost anything he wants. You like him and want to believe him. If you go after him, all that will happen is that he will turn the people of Springdale against you—you’ll be the outsiders, and outnumbered, and he will easily persuade them that you are, for one reason or another, disgruntled over his judgments. Sore losers.”

Somehow she managed to persuade them. She wasn’t quite sure how, because she had not been very diplomatic about it.

Actually, “not very diplomatic” was an understatement. She’d been her usual blunt self. She usually sat them down at a table near the fire in the inn and ordered beer for them. After all, why not? The king was paying for it. Then she began with, “Don’t be an idiot,” and ended with, “I know because he did it to me.” Some people started off a little bristly, but when it become clear that she wasn’t being personal, eventually they ended up nodding their heads and going away, if not satisfied, at least prepared to allow the real Heralds to handle it. It might have been her powers of persuasion, but she was more inclined to think it was the beer.

When the two Heralds returned nearly a week later, she knew from their guarded expressions that they had discovered just how powerful Danet’s charm was.

“We found him; he went off the road to a smaller village, but we finally found him. He has definitely begun entrenching himself, and they all consider themselves privileged to be hosting him over the winter,” Callan told her, over a gloomy dinner. “I must apologize to you, Marya. I thought you were exaggerating his ability to charm people. If anything, it is more potent than you described. There might even be some form of Gift at operation here; I don’t have the ability to tell.”

“Or he has simply gotten better with practice,” she replied, dismissing the whole notion of these nebulous “Gifts” with a wave of her hand. “Tell me what he’s done.”

As Callan and Sendar talked, she listened carefully. It was clear that neither of them had any idea how to counter Danet’s hold over an entire village. An enormous part of that hold was the white horse that he, or someone at least, had trained. The animal was amazing. It did things that neither man had thought possible for an “ordinary” horse.

“Clearly it’s not ordinary at all, it’s an exceptionally intelligent and well- trained horse—which means it can almost do as much as an exceptionally well- trained dog,” she said tartly. “He probably paid a pretty sum for it. So, the problem is, he has these people wrapped around his fingers, they’ll look at his fancied-up horse and not see any differences between it and your Companions, and you don’t know how to prove to these people what’s what without—what?”

“We can’t force a Truth Spell on anyone who’s not been brought up in judgment,” Sendar said gloomily. “Right now it’s our word against his. And they think he’s a Herald.”

“Had you considered kidnapping?” she asked.

They both blanched. “Breaking the law is not an option,” Callan replied faintly.

She shrugged. “All right. Then I might have a plan.”

They rode into town and headed straight for the inn where Danet was holding court. He looked startled to see two real Heralds, but the expression didn’t last long and quickly turned to his usual self-confidence.

He has the high ground here, and he knows it.

His expression slipped when she slid down off from behind Callan, however. He went absolutely blank.

“Hello, Danet,” she said pleasantly. “I see that you have convinced all these people that you are really a Herald. I wonder if they would still believe that if they knew you had taken Elise Garen’s silver locket. After you slept with her, of course. And you ‘borrowed’ over forty coppers from Tulera that you never intended to repay.” She went down the list, adding, sadly, all too frequently “After you slept with her, of course,” and paid close attention to the faces of some of the women around him. Doubt was creeping in. Not much, but—

“Of course, you must be a Herald now,” she went on, doing her best to sound perfectly calm and even. “Because look, you have the uniform, just like Herald Callan and Herald Sendar. And you have the Companion . . .” Now she turned to where the rather lovely white horse was peacefully standing, quite untethered, a few feet away. She had to admit he had managed a rather good imitation of a Companion. If you didn’t look too closely. “Of course you do.” She took a few steps nearer. “Or . . . do you?”

Before anyone could move to prevent her, she dashed forward. As she had expected, the horse was too well trained to shy away, although it did throw up its head in surprise and snort.

She lunged, and the hand she had held concealed in the folds of her dress slapped the flank of the horse, the wad of rags saturated with dark walnut dye leaving a huge brown smear on its white hide.

“Of course, everyone knows that Companions are white because dirt and all just evaporates right off them,” she continued as Danet and his little knot of admirers stared in shock. “So, to be fair, I should do the same to the others. With the same dye, so you can’t claim that I’ve used something different on them.”

She turned and wiped the dye off on the other two, creating identical swaths of stain on their satiny hides. “Now, let’s just see—oh, look.”

The two Companions had gotten a look of curious concentration on their faces the moment the rags touched them. And the dye was already fading!

Within moments it was gone, and their coats were as pristine as they had been before. Meanwhile the large, ugly brown stain remained on the flank of the oblivious horse.

“Goodness me,” she said sweetly. “It looks as if your Companion is a fake, Danet. And if your Companion is a fake—what does that make you?”

Danet looked wildly about for help, but his former admirers were backing away from him with expressions ranging from doubt to accusation. She had a fair notion that the accusatory ones were the women he had already slept with.

Herald Callan stepped forward and clamped one hand on Danet Stens’s shoulder.

“Danet Stens, I am taking you into custody to answer to one hundred and seventeen counts of theft, thirty- five counts of fraud, three counts of breach of promise . . .”

Danet could only stand there, looking stunned.

The Guards had arrived just as the Heralds had said they would, and they took Danet into custody. They did not take the horse. Marya put a claim on it, and since no one seemed willing to contest her for it, she got it. She immediately dyed all the blue tack a nondescript brown. She thought about further dyeing the horse, and decided to turn the streak into a patch, adding another couple just to make it look more natural. And significantly less like a Companion.

With Callan and Sendar to escort her back home, she got the hang of riding a real horse fairly quickly. And they could actually have conversations, riding three abreast, better than they had when she’d been pillion. She talked, for the first time, about her father. How devastated her mother had been when her letters were never answered. How miserable her childhood had been. They were troubled, apologetic, and on the whole their reaction came as close to satisfying her as much as anything ever would.

She was grudgingly coming to the conclusion that Heralds might not be so bad, when they reached Silver-gate just as the first hard frost hit. By that time she was glad to see her own cottage again. She made arrangements with innkeeper Stens to board her horse with him. She had plans for that horse. She had decided that she liked travel. She had it in mind that from now on, she just might deliver her tapestries herself, now and again.

She had just gotten the cottage opened up, warmed by the fire, and fit to live in again when—

There was a knock at the door.

She opened it. Callan and Sendar were there . . . with a wooden dispatch box.

“When you told us about your father, well, it didn’t sound right,” Callan said without preamble. “So we sent off to Haven to find out what we could. And . . . there is no other way to put this: What you and your mother always believed was a lie.”

She felt as if she had been slapped, and Sendar quickly added, “Not what you are thinking! He was Chosen to be a Herald. But he never abandoned you. Not willingly. Here—” He thrust the box at her. “Here are all the letters he tried to send, which your grandmother turned back. He was never allowed to contact your mother. He tried, but he was also in training, and he couldn’t leave Haven and the Collegium until the Midwinter celebrations and the holidays, and then—”

“Then it was too late. He got sick. A lot of people got sick that year. And he died.” Callan shook his head, sorrowfully. “The Collegium tried to contact your mother one last time, but they were turned away again.”

Marya blinked, too stunned to actually feel anything yet. Finally, she stammered, “Come in,” and took the box to the table.

There she took out all the letters, all the wonderful, loving, and then increasingly desperate letters, and read them carefully. That was when she knew, suddenly, exactly why her grandparents had done what they had.

Marya’s mother had been doing the bulk of the weaving. Marya herself was showing early promise even as a toddler. But if they left to join their husband and father—

Rage filled her one last time, a terrible rage that swept through her—

And then exploded into tears.

She wept for her mother, herself, and the father she had never known. She wept for the bitter, selfish old man and woman who had kept their daughter miserable in order to keep her. She wept, first on Callan’s shoulder and then on Sendar’s, until she couldn’t weep any more, and allowed herself to be led to her bed, where she fell asleep fully clothed and awoke in the morning feeling—empty. The anger was gone.

What was going to take its place, she didn’t know. But the anger had been washed away on the tide of tears.

She reread the letters, knowing that she would do so many more times to come, reread them with a heart open to what was in them. And as she put the last of them back in the box, there was a knock at the door.

It was Callan and Sendar again, this time loaded down with all the shopping she would need for the next week and more. “We thought it was the least we could do,” Sendar said cheerfully. “We’ll be going back to Haven, but we wanted to thank you. We never could have managed without you.”

“You certainly could not have, you highborn babies,” she said, tartly, but with a bit of a smile. “No more notion of what common people are like than the man in the moon. And thank you, thank you very much. But you can do me one more favor. Since that’s your direction.”

“Certainly,” Callan nodded. “We owe you a very great deal, still.”

“Take this message to Lord Poul Haveland in Haven.” She held out the folded paper. “I’ll be taking that commission he wanted me to do after all. And I would be obliged if some of that Companion hair could be sent along in the spring so the creature can be the proper white and not a fraud.”

And if the Herald in that tapestry looked something like her misty memories of her father . . . well. That would not be bad, either.

For Want of a Nail

by Rosemary Edghill and Denise McCune

Rosemary Edghill has been a frequent contributor to the Valdemar anthologies since selling her first novel in 1987, writing everything from Regency romances to science fiction to alternate history to mysteries. Between writing gigs, she’s held the usual selection of weird writer jobs and can truthfully state that she once killed vampires for money. She has collaborated with Marion Zimmer Bradley (

Shadow’s Gate

), Andre Norton (

Carolus Rex

), and Mercedes Lackey (

Bedlam’s Bard

and the forthcoming

Shadow Grail

). In the opinion of her dogs, she spends far too much time on Wikipedia. Her virtual home can be found at

http://www.sff.net/PEOPLE/ELUKI/

(Her last name—despite the efforts of editors, reviewers, publishing houses, her webmaster, and occasionally her own fingers—is not spelled Edgehill.)

Denise McCune has been writing since she was eleven—which was (coincidentally?) right around the time she fell in love with Valdemar. She has worked in the social networking industry for nearly a decade, and not having enough to do writing novels and short stories, she decided to launch Dreamwidth, an open source social networking, content management, and personal publishing platform. Denise lives in Baltimore, Maryland, where her hobbies include knitting, writing, and staying up too late writing code.

Navar was an ordinary man. A soldier, and a good one, rising from common foot soldier in the Baron’s levy to sergeant of his company, but his true gift was to go from here to there unseen; and so Captain Harleth had used his talents for scouting, for the Barony of Valdemar was beset on every side by enemies. Not those that came by day, for all knew that the Eastern Empire was at peace, but those that came by night, for the Iron Throne ruled by fear and blood and dark magic, so that no man might call his soul his own.

In later years, many claimed to have known Baron Kordas Valdemar’s mind, to have plotted with him for their exodus into the unknown West. Navar was not one whose status gave him entry into the councils of the good and the great, but he thought that such words were no more than idle tavern talk, the speech of men who wished to be seen as greater than they were. True enough that Soferu, who wore the Wolf Crown and sat upon the Iron Throne, was but a man. True as well that he was not a man like any other, for lust for power ran as hot as magery in Soferu’s veins, and so the Iron Throne was an iron boot upon men’s necks, and an iron collar about men’s throats, and an iron chain about men’s minds, and only a fool would sow treason farther than he must.

And Baron Valdemar had been no fool.

Only he, and Juuso Beltran, whose line had served Valdemar’s as seneschal since the lands had first come into Valdemar’s hands, and Terilee, Valdemar’s lady, brave and bright as a swordblade, had known all Lord Valdemar’s heart and mind. The three of them had warded their plans with subtle spells (so Navar heard later, and this tale he was moved to credit)—not wards that would draw the attention of the Hellhound Mages of the Imperium, but layer upon layer of subtle shields of misdirection, a deception as artful as a swirl of autumn leaves concealing a doe from the hunter’s bow.

Of the journey to freedom itself, Navar knew as much as any man, for a scout’s skills were as vital as a mage’s when one must make one’s way through lands first hostile, then unknown. They brought with them not merely the household troops that a barony was permitted to arm and muster, but nearly all who dwelt within Valdemar’s bounds—all save for the baron’s eldest son. Lord Dethwyn, fostered as was the custom at Soferu’s court as hostage against his father’s obedience, would have willingly ascended to his father’s honors across his father’s grave were he granted the slightest chance. When Valdemar’s second son Restil came of age, he was meant to join his brother at the Wolf Court. It was not unknown for the sons of inconvenient nobles to perish at court so that their fathers’ lands might return to the emperor’s gift, and it was—perhaps—the thought of losing both his sons as much as anything else that caused the baron to move when he did.

It was the work of a year—hard travel, and sometimes terrifying; through the empire, then (by stealth and misdirection) across the kingdom of Hardorn, and at last into the western lands, which Hardorn did not claim—that brought them to haven. And Haven it was in truth, the city that they built upon the banks of the river that Valdemar named for his lady. Some had died on that journey, but their numbers were greater at the end of it than at the beginning, for the rumor that their fellowship journeyed to a freedom beyond the persecution of the Empire had spread, and those who did not join them in the first days of their exodus followed them in the sennights and moonturns that followed. To all who came seeking asylum, Valdemar—now King Valdemar—granted it, for the work of building a kingdom was the work of many hands.

For Valdemar now ruled a kingdom. The lands Baron Valdemar could now claim as his own were vaster by far than those that he had once ruled at the emperor’s pleasure, and he ruled now at no man’s pleasure save his own. And just as Valdemar’s lands had grown, so had the army grown into a great force of many companies, many captains, many sergeants, and Harleth now styled general over them all.

That growth was the reason Navar was now uneasy.

The days in which Navar had known every man and woman with whom he served were long gone—had been gone since before they had come to rest in their Haven. Thirty years ago, when he had been new come to the baron’s levy, he had known everyone his duties brought him near, both holder and servant alike. He had been able to measure the hearts and minds of all who sought to command him. Any soldier knew that just as there were good orders and sensible orders, there were bad orders and senseless orders, and it was a good soldier’s duty to evaluate each given order to see where it fell. He had seen countless lives saved by a swift-witted sergeant playing sunstruck at precisely the right time, and he had kept his own list (in his mind, never written where agents of the Iron Throne might see, for no one would think to look within the thoughts of a common sergeant, and Navar played the fool better than most when there was need) of those whose orders he himself would “lose” for precisely long enough to ease their disaster.

In Baron Valdemar’s holdings, that had been possible. In King Valdemar’s country, it would not be possible for long. In the moonturns since they had settled here, many men and women had stepped forward to take places of service, and that was well and good, for the tally of things to be done to create their safe haven was so great that no one man could oversee them all. King Valdemar could direct their work from long before sunup to long past sundown and still not make every decision that must be made.

Thus far all of them had proven to have hearts as good and as kind as King Valdemar himself. But how long, Navar wondered, before someone with honeyed words and subtle magic stepped forward to cloak a desire for power in a promise that his actions were in Valdemar’s best interests? Had they made this long and frightful journey only to stand vulnerable at the end to one who would seek to rebuild the empire with themself at its head? King Valdemar was a good and honest man and would likely raise young Restil to the same values, but—after him?

How long until Valdemar’s people had to flee tyranny once again?

Navar kept his suspicions quiet, for lessons learned in the shadow of the Iron Throne would take longer than a single year of flight and a few moonturns of safe haven to fade away. They had reached their new home in autumn and suffered through their first winter scrabbling to feed and shelter themselves, for provisions ran as low as spirits ran high. But if nothing else, there was good timber and good grazing in plenty, and what began as a bedraggled city of camp tents in the first weeks of autumn was a crude (though growing) settlement of wooden huts by spring. Stakes and stone cairns marked the location of future streets and roads, so that the building could progress in an orderly fashion. All through the fall and winter, those who could be spared from the labor of building and hunting had ridden out to map and explore, for the new kingdom of Valdemar was an unknown place. Navar had been among them, for no longer was he Baron Valdemar’s only scout, nor yet one of a dozen. Four score served in the King’s Army who had once been the baron’s huntsmen, or his spearmen, or common farmers, and (as all the army) they wore, not the uniform of the baron’s guard, but ordinary clothes, with nothing to mark them out save a gray brassard worn upon their left arms. Yet both caution and weather dictated that the scouts did not go far from Haven.

When the snow was gone, and Navar’s labor was no longer needed to help put the first crop into the fields, Captain Arwulf—he who had charge of the scouts now that they numbered a whole company of men and women—summoned Navar and asked him to command an expedition to scout the great forest to the western edge of the lands Valdemar’s people had claimed. “See what we can use there,” Captain Arwulf said, “and if there are any people who have claimed that land. I’ll send a mapmaker with you. We need to know more about our neighbors.”

It was a mark of King Valdemar’s new teachings—for he had chosen as the motto of his kingdom the words “No one way is the true way”—that Navar felt that he might refuse this order did he think it was a task beyond his ability; and true it was that never had he commanded men and women in the field, though he was well liked by his fellow soldiers. Navar’s skills had always been set to tasks where he must only command himself. Yet it was a needful task and one he did not think beyond his ability, and so he asked merely to choose those who would accompany him. And to this request Captain Arwulf made no demur, saying only that there was no better mapmaker than the one he had already chosen.

Almost did Navar reconsider his audacity at accepting such a great undertaking when, on the very day he and his dozen chosen soldiers were to depart, he first met young Doladan. The lad seemed to him hardly older than Prince Restil, and he frankly admitted—after he’d fallen off his mule while attempting to adjust his cloak, greet Navar, and repack his saddlebags all at the same time—that he’d never held sword or bow in his life. In the old Valdemar, he’d been the Master Gardener’s chief assistant, and when several of Navar’s soldiers dared to laugh at this admission, he pointed out hotly that the baronial gardens had covered several hundred acres, and without detailed mappings of what was planted where—and what should be planted where—the gardens would have been a wilderness.

“I wouldn’t be so high and mighty if I were you,” Doladan said fiercely. “If Mistress Karilgrass weren’t here now to tell everyone what plants were safe to eat, you louts would have had a leaner winter than you did.”

“True enough,” Navar said, for the beginning of a journey was no time to set a grudge. “We’ve all become more than we were in the last year and more. And if you’ll oblige me by learning a bit of swordwork, why, Torimund and Felara here will learn a bit of gardening.”

Doladan, Navar realized, was quite beautiful when he laughed.

They followed the river north and west, for rivers were natural roads, and any threat to come to Haven would come more swiftly along the water road. At each stop, Doladan sketched tirelessly, filling page after page with detailed notes, and taking samples of plants and leaves as well.

Navar had hoped to be back in Haven by high summer, but the expedition took longer than he had planned, for the forest proved to be dark and dangerous, full of twisted creatures. When Torimund died, Doladan said angrily that that the name of the forest should be “pelagir,” a word that meant “danger” in one of the Old Tongues, and Pelagiris Forest it became: Forest of Dangers. But if Torimund was the first casualty of the journey, he wasn’t the last: they lost six of their twelve soldiers before they won their way home again with the first frost nipping at their heels.

When he and his company staggered back into Haven with the maps and surveys they had paid for with the lives of half their comrades, Navar was shocked to see that the settlement he’d left—crude wooden huts and houses—had been transformed through equal application of magecraft and sweat to a city that rivaled—

Well, perhaps not High Ashuel, the Eastern Empire’s capital. But certainly one of the smaller cities in the empire they had left behind them.

And, well, King Valdemar and Queen Terilee and Lord Beltran, now King Valdemar’s Chancellor, were all mages, and mages could work miracles overnight where mere men would require moonturns of backbreaking work. But Haven now was larger than Navar had ever thought it could be—and as much stone as wood.

“I am so glad to get home,” Doladan said. He gestured at the young city before them. “And only look, Nav! Walls—and roofs—and floors! And neither of us had to build any of them! We’ll sleep warmer this winter than last, I’ll wager.”

“If we can find our own roofs by first snow,” Senard grumbled from behind them. “I hope they’ve built barracks as well as all these houses.”

“I hope they’ve built a tavern!” Rusama chimed in. She glanced across the stubble of the fields. “Good harvest means good beer.”

Navar let their chatter wash over him as he brooded on the sight before him. Seeing Haven flourishing so impossibly, Navar realized his greatest fear had never been for some future that he would not live to see but of a present that he most certainly would: if this fragile new kingdom grew past the ability of the great and the good to watch over it, who would defend it from Soferu’s plots? Hardorn had ever been the empire’s enemy. It would be a great coup for the Iron Throne to gain a foothold on Hardorn’s western border.

He feared that day had already come. Who was governing the city? Who was making sure that the right decisions were being made?

No matter what else might happen in Haven, Harleth and Arwulf were competent soldiers, and so there were sentry riders set beyond the far bounds of the town. One of them came to direct Navar’s little company to the new stables and barracks and to tell Navar where he could find Captain Arwulf. He’d hoped to make his report there and be released from his duties, for it was Doladan’s report that King Valdemar would wish to hear, not his. But Arwulf had merely grunted when he presented himself and told him that General Harleth would want to see him at the palace.

“Not a patch on what it’s going to be,” Arwulf said. “But well enough for now. Praise the All that Valdemar’s prayers were answered.”

“Prayers?” Doladan asked, his eyes bright and shining as he drank in all the changes that their moonturns away from Haven had wrought.

“You’ll see,” Arwulf said.

Haven had been no more than a mean scrabble of lean-to shelters and tattered tents when Navar had ridden out. Now, though the air was filled with the scent of new-cut timber and the buildings that greeted their eyes as they walked in the direction Arwulf had indicated were all sharp and raw and new, they were sturdy and well-made. Perhaps Master Rilbard had built the sawmill that he’d talked of all the winter, for Navar could think of no other means by which so much good cut timber could have been procured in so short a time. There were even sturdy plank walkways edging the wide packed-earth streets, and that would be a great boon come the rains. The air was filled with the sound of hammering and sawing—and with the laughter and song of children as well. When Haven was being designed, on the dark days of winter when little else could be done but plan and wait for spring, parks and playing grounds had been thought as necessary to Haven as common gardens and proper drainage.

Soon enough they reached the far end of the city and what would someday be the royal palace.

For now, the palace barely deserved the name, though it was grand enough, considering their circumstances: a three-storied manor house of mage-cured wood rivaling, if not the baronial palace Valdemar had left behind, then certainly a manor house of one of his more prosperous underlords. It stood in the middle of a vast open parkland upon the banks of the river Terilee, its fields straddling the river and stretching away to forest left yet uncleared. Beyond it, where gardens might otherwise have stood, stonemasons had outlined the footings of what Navar could tell would become the permanent palace, and many workers were coming and going in good cheer. It was a busy place, full of industry, with children watching the goings-on with interest.

Navar could see several horses standing free in the fields on the river’s far banks, their coats brilliant white and shining in the autumn sun. He wondered if wild horses had been found by another scouting party, tamed, and brought back for breeding stock. His group had seen nothing of the sort on their travels, either in the northern valley or in the heart of the forest that had tried so hard to claim their lives with its menace, but Captain Arwulf had surely sent others in directions other than to the west.

General Harleth, when found, proved to be one of the men hauling stone for the palace’s foundation, stripped bare to the waist and sweating even in the cooler air of late fall. One of the bright-shining horses was lingering nearby, watching the proceedings with what Navar would swear was an assessing look on its face, and Navar revised his earlier thought uneasily. This was surely no new-tamed wild horse—its every line spoke of quality and breeding. Navar had friends among Valdemar’s ostlers, and in his many visits to the former-baronial stables he had never seen horses with such a glow to them.

When he gained Harleth’s attention, Navar gave his report upon the spot as tersely as possible, for he could feel Doladan vibrating beside him with excitement. Doladan had learned some measure of grace during their travels, but his ebullience was undimmed.

Before Doladan could move to spread out his pages of sketchings on a stone-wall-in-progress to show them off, Harleth snickered at some thought Navar could not guess and clapped Doladan on the back. “Come,” he said, shifting his gaze to Navar to include him in the invitation. “The king and queen and the Heralds’ Council are eager to hear your report.”

The phrasing made Navar wince inwardly, for Harleth had never before seemed the type of man to take it upon himself to speak for the baron-turned-king. Heralds’ Council? Had the worst of Navar’s fears come to pass, and King Valdemar had been influenced into letting power pass from his control so quickly? And who, of the men and women who had been moving to secure their position in Valdemar’s new kingdom, had been named to such a governing council, and how had Valdemar judged them worthy? How could any man be satisfied that he had properly taken the measure of another without resorting to the same mind- magic coercion the empire had used so freely and King Valdemar had decried so fiercely? Had King Valdemar set principle aside for expedience?

Have we fallen so far, so quickly?

Doladan either did not notice or did not think General Harleth’s words troublesome, for he simply fell into step beside Harleth as the general reached for his discarded tunic and set out for the manor house. Navar would have chosen rather to wash and change his travel-stained clothes before showing himself before the king, but Harleth seemed to see no reason for delay. He led them straight to where King Valdemar and Queen Terilee were holding court, and the moment their small party stepped into the salon, Valdemar rose and held out his hands. “Welcome back!” he said, in his warm and booming voice that always inspired such trust and confidence in those who heard it. “We had feared you lost!”

“Not lost,” Navar said, his mind unquiet, looking around to see who was in the room. He recognized but half of the two dozen men and women present, and his heart sank further at the sight of so many, for how could so many have fairly been judged? It seemed frighteningly likely that Valdemar had chosen but one or two or five, and they had filled his court with their own partisans, for of those he recognized, half were those he would not think to name to any council he would be comfortable obeying, and he could name at least as many more who he would have thought should be present and weren’t.

Juuso Beltran was there, of course, now King’s Chancellor, and young Prince Restil, now entering his fifteenth year, and those were to be expected. But so was Mistress Emolde, who had been wetnurse to both Restil and Dethwyn, his elder brother. Lorton, one of Valdemar’s journeyman- mages, was present, but not Blydel or Imryn, the others. Mistress Karilgrass, the chief gardener and Doladan’s old master, was present, but Captain Arwulf was not.

It was not that Navar thought all of those present were poor choices. How could he? He did not know them all. Yet it seemed that these people were King Valdemar’s chosen Council. How could so many who had joined the exodus as it proceeded have risen to such power?

“Tell us everything,” King Valdemar urged. “What of your travels? Is the danger containable?”

And that was a curious thing to hear from the King, for Navar had mentioned the loss of his men and women to General Harleth, but he had not had time to speak of it here. Perhaps King Valdemar had been able to intuit the danger from the fact that their return had been so delayed.

Or perhaps King Valdemar was listening to his mind even now.

Navar blanked his face and did all he could to bury his thoughts, reporting briefly on what they had found. In contrast to Navar’s taciturnity, Doladan chattered so energetically it seemed he scarce drew a breath. His maps were passed from hand to hand, and each man and woman who saw them had some thoughtful thing to contribute. Lorton pointed out a range of hills that might prove to contain iron for mining; a woman whose name Navar did not know spoke of the possibility that the valley to the north might be suitable for a farming settlement in another year or several. Navar could fault none of the questions or observations made, but neither could he shake the sense of unease that surrounded him like a cloak’s mantle.

He listened carefully, and he watched even more carefully, for since the day that Captain Harleth had taken him from the ranks of Valdemar’s household guard and set him the task of going forth and gathering information—not spying, never that, for spying was quite another matter than simply walking over the land and seeing what was to be seen—Navar had been able to see all before him and remember what he saw. And as he watched Doladan’s speech before Valdemar’s new Council, Navar saw a great riddle lying at the Council’s heart.

It was not merely that they spoke of sharing Doladan’s report with those absent, for any might do that, or that they spoke names he did not know, for even now he did not know all the inhabitants of Haven. It was that they spoke of these others as if they were present now. Again and again he heard, “Ardatha says—” or, “Kyrith thinks—” and whoever they were—for those names, too, were strange to him—they were obviously held in high regard, for their advice was always heeded.

Doladan would have willingly talked the sun out of the sky, so on fire was he to tell of all he had seen and learned, but at last King Valdemar broke off with a rueful laugh. “But Ardatha tells me I am being very rude to keep you standing and talking, when you are undoubtedly tired and thirsty and wish for nothing more than a hot meal and a clean bed. I am certain Juuso can see you lodged. Be certain, though, that we hope to hear more of your journey.”

Even the most informal court was a court nonetheless. Navar said nothing as he and Doladan followed Lord Beltran from the salon, but when the doors had closed behind the three of them, he cleared his throat.

“Meaning no disrespect, but I’d as soon go back to barracks. I’d be more comfortable there than in a palace.”

Lord Beltran did not answer immediately. He seemed to be listening to words Navar could not hear, and whatever they were, he found them amusing. “Indeed, there have been many changes in Haven since you left us. I hope you will find them to your liking.”

And if I do not? Navar wondered. “We’d thought the western lands were empty,” he said carefully. “It’s good to see we’ve found friends here. I saw their horses, I think, as I walked through the park.”

To his surprise and consternation, Lord Beltran threw back his head and roared with laughter. “Horses!” he said, when he could draw breath again. “Oh, they have the look of horses—I grant you that—but the Companions are the answer to a prayer.”

“Aren’t they horses?” Doladan asked, before Navar could make some polite demur to get the two of them out of there. Whatever madness had taken the new kingdom for its nursery, Chancellor Beltran was obviously its nurserymaid.

Lord Beltran clapped Doladan on the shoulder, and Navar bristled with the helpless need to protect one who had become dearer than self in the past moonturns. “Come,” the King’s Chancellor said. “Let us share a cup of wine—or a stoup of new ale—and I shall tell you both of how fortune and all the good gods have smiled upon our kingdom.”

The ale was good—and Beltran was no fool, for he provided bread and cheese as well. The food and drink went down Navar’s throat with more ease than the tale he was told.

Their band of refugees had grown to twice its original size during their flight from the Eastern Empire. During Navar’s absence, the kingdom of Valdemar had grown again, for Valdemar’s legend had taken root, and all knew that the new king meant his land to be a haven of freedom tempered by law—one that would fall equally upon the shoulders of high and low, mage and commoner. Navar had heard the inevitable problems whispered about: that not merely law-abiding exiles and fugitives would flock to Valdemar’s banner, but every stormcrow and wolfshead and gallowglass that Velgarth held, men and women who would make of their refuge a sanctuary for lawlessness and depravity. In fact, many such had attempted to join them, seeking protection from well-deserved justice—only to find that they had leaped from the cooking pot into the cook-stove itself. And so, one spring night, when a new band of refugees had arrived, petitioning to become citizens of Valdemar, King Valdemar had prayed to all the gods and goddesses that his kingdom would be saved for all time from corruption such as he and his people had fled, so that Valdemar would never fear to be a haven for the innocent nor a judge of the wicked.

His prayer had been answered—so Lord Beltran would have it—by the appearance (from a copse of woodland in the palace park) of a shining creature in the shape of a horse—save that its hooves were of shining silver and its eyes of deepest blue. These horses—or, as Lord Beltran would style them, Companions (for there were now nearly twenty of the creatures in Valdemar)—were able to speak directly into the minds of their Chosen, though not directly to any other. They were as smart as any man or woman but infinitely wiser and more good.

“I should like to see one,” Doladan said yearningly.

“And Kyrith is eager to meet you as well,” Lord Beltran said, smiling, “but without a Companion of your own, what conversations you might have would be more than a little one-sided. Tomorrow we will go to Companion’s Field and speak to him.”

Doladan opened his mouth to reply, and Navar feared that his next words would be a request for a “Companion” of his own. Already Navar’s heart was troubled enough, for it seemed to him that he had never seen Lord Beltran, as Baron’s Seneschal or King’s Chancellor, look so much at his ease, as if a great burden had been lifted from him. He spoke up quickly, saying they had kept Lord Beltran from his duties long enough and would be on their way.

“You all but dragged me out of there by the hair,” Doladan complained, once they were in the open air once more.

Navar looked about himself. Several of the white horses were in sight, but none close enough to hear. “I wonder how it is you lived to grow up,” he said with a sigh. “The king surrounds himself with an outlandish court—Lord Beltran tells a tale of otherworldly guardians in horse shape who come in answer the king’s prayers and that can speak into the minds of the folk? It is but a small step from speaking to overshadowing—and we have but Lord Beltran’s word that these beasts are good and wise.”

“But—King Valdemar is a great mage!” Doladan sputtered, nearly skipping in his agitation and his need to keep up with Navar’s long strides.

“There is no mage so great that he may not meet a greater one,” Navar said grimly.

The barracks had been half built even before they’d left, as dormitory buildings were the quickest and most efficient way of getting Haven’s population out of tents and under roofs, but they weren’t the cheeriest lodgings to be had. Navar was spared that this night, for on his way back there—Doladan at his heels—he spied proof that Haven had become a city in truth: a tavern.

There was not yet a royal mint established, or any coin circulated, but the tavernkeeper was willing to take Navar’s signed chit in payment. The “Journey’s End” had all they might have found elsewhere, and one thing more.

Gossip.

This was not the only tavern in Haven—Navar was surprised to discover there were four—but it was the oldest by three moonturns, and the largest, and the nearest to the new palace. Men and women came here to drink beer and cider, to get a hot meal, and to exchange the news of the day.

That news was as grim as the news that Lord Beltran had relayed. Word of these “Companions” were on everyone’s lips, from those who wished to be Chosen themselves to those who simply wished to give thanks that King Valdemar’s prayers had been answered. None had anything less than full praise to deliver for these Companions’ supposed wisdom and goodness, which merely raised Navar’s suspicions further. One hallmark of life, learned through painful lessons: There was naught so good that someone would not despise it. For none to speak ill of these Companions spoke less of the quality of Valdemar’s prayers and more to Navar’s worst fears.

Doladan sought to discuss what they had learned, but Navar bade him hold his tongue, for he had already decided. This Haven had turned to nightmare, and Navar would not remain to be overshadowed in turn. They would leave at first light, he and Doladan, and make their way up the river Terilee until they could find a suitable place to winter, where they would be sheltered from forest’s dangers. Come spring, they would continue pressing west, or perhaps south, until they found another settlement—one that bent knee to neither Iron Throne nor white spirit-horses.

He outlined his plans to Doladan in a quiet voice, masked by the sound of revelry in the tavern as drunken men grew more drunken, and Doladan looked as though he held back protest. Navar kept his eyes moving around them, looking for any signs that someone was paying more attention to them than he should. “I’ll slip out after we’ve retired and find a storehouse to provision us,” Navar said, while trying to decide if the barmaid was showing too much interest in their bowed-head conference.

:I do so wish you wouldn’t.:

“It’s the only way we can be sure to have sufficient supplies for a winter,” Navar said, trying to bite back his anger that Doladan would question him. Hadn’t he proven his ability to plan and execute a long journey already? “We don’t know how harsh the winters of this land will be.”

Doladan ducked his head. “Can’t we stay here and see what will happen? What if these—these Companions aren’t a sign of something bad? What if they’re exactly what people say they are?”

“You never suffered beneath the boot of the Iron Throne.” Navar dropped his voice even further. “I have seen what power drives men to do, and I tell you: Freedom is sweet. I will not fall beneath a madman’s subjugation a second time.”

Navar brought Doladan back to their room and impressed upon him the urgency of remaining where he was, then dressed himself in his darkest clothes and smeared ash from the firepit across his cheeks and forehead as though he had simply failed to bathe after a day’s long labor. It was well past midnight when all in the tavern’s front room had finally retired for the evening and he could slide noiselessly through the tavern’s doors.

The night was clear and cold, and the moon was barely a sliver. After years of scouting, it was second nature for Navar to remain in the shadows where an onlooker’s eyes might pass him by. He wished he had had more time to learn the lay of the city, for the only storehouse whose location he could be sure of was the one that served Valdemar’s army, and that was perilously close to the palace grounds. But every instinct was telling him to be gone by sun’s rising, and that meant he could spare no time creeping from door to door until he found somewhere with sufficient wealth to serve their needs.

And besides, he had served Baron Valdemar for thirty loyal years. True, he had been well- paid for them all, but he did not think Valdemar would begrudge him the cost of what he would take as a parting gift, while his conscience would not let him steal from another.

The army’s storehouse was locked, of course, and Navar spent a moment praying to all the good gods that it was not locked by magecraft, for he no longer had the tools King Valdemar had betimes equipped him with for defeating the mage-lock of an enemy. His luck was with him, though, and so he knelt before the lock to work at it with two scraps of wire he had brought with him for that very purpose.

:You are the stubbornest man I have ever encountered.:

Navar’s nerves were well- hardened against shock, and so he did not leap in fright to hear someone speak to him, merely turned his head to see whether he was at swordspoint or whether he had a chance of winning free. It was no man who spoke to him, though. At least, not in his ears. As he rose slowly to his feet, he saw one of the spirit-horses staring at him, near to the turning that would lead to the palace, and he would have sworn it beckoned him to come near.

And was that not proof of sorcery or mind- magic being applied? For Navar found himself following, without thought to his own safety: through the streets, across the grounds of the palace, over the bridge to the fields beyond, without struggling against the witchery—

Another voice sounded, different than the first. :He thinks we’re bewitching him. He doesn’t realize his heart truly wants him to follow.:

:Is he still being stubborn?: Yet another voice this time, and Navar realized that they were sounding not in his ears, but in his mind. The realization made panic rise in his throat, for to hear voices in the mind meant sorcery, and sorcery meant that he was far too late—

:Silence, all of you. You’re frightening him. Navar, this is no sorcery. You have the ability to hear us all; it is a skill, nothing more.:

:Tell him—:

The spirit-horse that had led him stamped its foot as yet another voice interjected, and all of a sudden Navar’s mind was silence again. He looked around, startled to find that he had crossed the bridge across the River Terilee, into the field beyond, into the copse of trees that waited there.

:This is Companion’s Field,: the voice that had bade the others to silence said. Looking at the spirit- horse that had led him, Navar realized it must belong to the voice, or the voice belong to it. He was certain enough of it that when the voice continued, it seemed in response to that new understanding. :And yes, I am Ardatha, King Valdemar’s Companion. And I have led you here because we can’t let you go running off until you’re satisfied that we are no demons, nor pawns of some great sorcerer, and Valdemar is not overshadowed by some other mage. We need you. Valdemar needs you. King and kingdom alike.:

“And I am to believe that?” Navar said, his voice rough. Well he knew that a man’s anger was a blade set at his own throat, yet he could not keep himself from feeling it. He thought of Doladan, awaiting him in their bed at the tavern—Doladan, who trusted too quickly and too easily. He thought of the hope that he might live in freedom and under law, a hope that had kindled from a fragile spark to a great blaze over so many moonturns—

:It is for this hope that we have come,: Ardatha said.

“To crush it,” Navar growled, for he had discovered that it was far more painful to have a dream destroyed than to live without dreams at all.

:No. Never.: And though Ardatha’s face was a horse’s face, in his mind Navar could feel the Companion’s emotions as if he could see them on Ardatha’s face: horror, and disgust, and anger, and an utter repudiation of the thought of tricking King Valdemar into a tyrannous rule.

Navar desperately wanted to believe. And he knew that faces and voices could lie.

But for the first time since he had discovered that Valdemar had become infested by mind-controlling spirit-beasts, it occurred to him to wonder: If these “Companions” were, in fact, the answer to King Valdemar’s prayer to keep his kingdom free of tyranny and corruption, just how were they going to go about it?

:We Choose,: Ardatha said. :And those we Choose are good men and good women, who will govern, and lead, and administer the laws of Valdemar wisely.:

“That’s all?” Navar asked after a moment. “You just pick people?” It didn’t seem like much.

He had the sense that Ardatha was clearing his throat in mild rebuke, though he could not say how he came to have that sense. :We Choose,: Ardatha corrected. :And we advise our Chosen, speaking to them mind-to-mind, as I am to you, though you are the first who can hear all of us. Each whom we Choose has some Gift of Magery, though perhaps so small that it has never been noticed before. To be Chosen is a great responsibility.:

“You haven’t Chosen me, have you?” Navar asked in alarm. If he could hear Ardatha . . .

The silvery laughter of a dozen Companions filled his mind, until Ardatha stamped his hoof. :I have Chosen Kordas, and our bond shall endure until one of us dies. You and I merely speak together through your Gift of Mindspeech, as I hope to persuade what is surely the stubbornest man in all Valdemar not to leave.:

“You could tell the king to order me to stay,” Navar said.

:I could ask Kordas to ask you,: Ardatha corrected. :He would not compel you to remain against your will. Nor will I. Nor will any of those who have been Chosen compel you to stay: Prince Restil, or Herald Beltran, or Herald Peralas. They will but ask. As do I.:

Peralas, Navar recalled, was General Harleth’s milk-name. He thought of the Herald’s Council and its unlikely membership.

It seemed to him—standing here in the freezing dark, beside a horse that was far more than a horse—that this was no more than a dream. But Valdemar itself was a dream—the best dream the hearts of men could hold, rather than the uneasy nightmare of oppression and tyranny they had fled. He thought of the Pelagiris Forest, and he knew there would be no sanctuary for him and for Doladan there. And a man might live rough for one moonturn or even a dozen, but in the end, all that might be found in a solitary life in the wilderness was starvation and an early death. Worth it to die in freedom.

Foolishness if he fled merely from shadows in his own mind.

“I am nothing and no one,” he said at last. “I can hardly threaten your plans for Valdemar.”

Ardatha seemed to sigh in exasperation. :Hardly,: the Companion said. :But you can make them a reality—if you have the courage.:

“Courage?” Navar asked. His voice was hard, for no one had ever questioned his courage.

:Not even a . . . oh, what did you call us? ‘Mind-controlling spirit-beast infesting Valdemar and tricking Kordas—poor simple-minded Kordas!—into placing his people under a tyrannous rule.’: The voice in Navar’s mind was a new one. Somehow as feminine as Ardatha’s was masculine. It belonged to the white horse—the Companion—who walked from the stand of woods behind Ardatha and stood at his side. :If you believe that King Valdemar is so weak and foolish, it’s a wonder you followed him all this way,: the new Companion added.

“I believed,” Navar said simply.

:Then believe in him still,: the new Companion said, more gently now. :Help him. He needs good men. And yes—stubborn ones.:

“To do what?” Navar asked roughly, taking a step toward her.

:What is right,: she answered. :Always—only—what is right.:

Her words were feast after famine, water in the desert. In the east, the baron had been accounted a good man, but to keep his people safe, he had been forced to turn a blind eye to injustices done outside his own borders. So many times in his service to the barony Navar had been forced to balance what was right against what was safe—or politic—or possible—and the actions he had taken had caused him to armor his heart so that he could deafen himself to its promptings.

The reality was so simple, now that he could see it. He had lived so long in that chambered silence that he had nearly succumbed to the greatest folly of all: of believing in evil and refusing to believe in good.

He had believed in Valdemar’s dream when it had seemed dangerous and impossible. He would believe now.

He took a last step forward and reached out his hand. The not-horse placed her soft muzzle into it. :My name is Tisarand, Navar. I would Choose you for my Companion, if you would have a mind-controlling spirit-beast.:

It was as if the sound of her name had unlocked a floodgate within his own mind. His answer—promise and agreement and avowal—came faster than he could form words, conscious choice and automatic answer all at once. Navar took another step forward, wrapping his arms around her neck and burying his face in her silken mane. His body shook with reaction—he had come so close to stealing away into the night thinking Valdemar had been taken over by monsters! Not monsters at all, but something far greater.

Hope.

:I might have gone after you to bring you back,: Tisarand said. :And I would have disliked that very much. We have a great deal of work to do here, Navar.:

“Yes,” Navar said. “Yes, we do.” He took a deep breath. “And the first thing we have to do is get back to the tavern before Doladan comes looking for me. He’s a man of many gifts—including that of getting hopelessly lost within a few yards of his own doorway.”

Tisarand’s mirth sounded like silver bells within his mind, and Navar’s voice sounded strange in his own ears. It was a moment before he recognized the new note in it.

It was joy.

Softly Falling Snow

by Elizabeth A. Vaughan

Elizabeth A. Vaughan writes fantasy romance; her most recent novel is

White Star

, part of the Star series. At the present, she is owned by three incredibly spoiled cats and lives in the Northwest Territory, on the outskirts of the Black Swamp, along Mad Anthony’s Trail on the banks of the Maumee River.

“I believe that is the last issue before us today?” Queen Elspeth the Peacemaker kept her face composed as she rose stiffly from her seat, thus cutting off the possibility of further discussion. Her knees creaked as she straightened up. She’d had more than enough for one day. “The council is adjourned. My thanks, my lords.”

Chairs scraped back as the councilors rose and bowed as she swept out of the room, the full skirts of her Royal Whites brushing the floor.

As Queen’s Own, Lancir had the privilege of accompanying her back to her chambers. He extended his arm, and she placed her fingers lightly on his wrist, as custom dictated.

“The private audiences now, I believe.” Elspeth tried to make her voice regretful, but Lancir had her measure. He arched an eyebrow as they walked toward her chambers.

“Only one, Your Majesty. For some reason, not many seek a private audience with you during this season.”

“True enough. And those that do, don’t linger.” Elspeth agreed. “Refreshing, how they get straight to the point.”

“I am sure,” he said dryly. “I’ll have one of the Herald trainees escort Lord Wolke to you.”

She gave him an impish look, and he quirked an eyebrow at her. A few paces before her door, he stopped, and bowed.

The guards opened the doors on her approach, and they also bowed as she moved past. She nodded to them both as she stepped into her antechamber, only to meet with a flock of bright songbirds. Or so it seemed to her. Her handmaidens, all daughters and wives of her councilors, were fluttering about, dressed in all the colors of the rainbow. She towered over most of them, like the thin old stick she was. Some days it made her feel as plain as a pin to wear her plain Royal Whites, with the black trim of mourning.

Her Companion stirred in the back of her mind and sent an image of a mink, the black tip of its tail twitching.

Elspeth sent back a pulse of laughter. She might not have mind-speech, but they’d communicated very well this way for all the many years since she’d been Chosen. She wondered if her dear one was warm enough.

The feeling of a warm blanket draped over her shoulders, and she knew that all was well. She turned her attention back to the room and the chorus of voices that resounded around her.

“You can’t, Your Majesty!”

“Don’t go out there, you’ll catch your death.”

“It’s snowing!” one of the youngest cried out, and the flock circled and wheeled around the room to press their faces to the windows, looking out over her private gardens.

Meredith, her maid of many years, stood nearby. “I’ve your boots warming by the fire,” she said quietly. “Do you need assistance?”

Elspeth gave her a grateful nod. “Yes, please.” It wasn’t easy to admit that she needed some help with dressing, but Meredith understood and made no fuss.

Elspeth sank onto one of the chairs closest to the hearth and drew her petticoats and skirt up. Meredith knelt down and gently eased off her slippers. “Don’t linger too long, Your Majesty,” she said softly. “There’s a formal court dinner tonight.”

“I’ll remember,” Elspeth said with a smile.

Meredith gave her a knowing look as she laced up the boots, but she said nothing more. She just helped Elspeth with her heavy winter white cloak, the hood lined with white fur. She retrieved the matching white furred muff for her hands.

Elspeth smiled at her. “Warm as toast.”

“Mind you stay that way,” Meredith whispered, with the ease of an old friend. “I’ll send out tea for you and your guest.”

Elspeth turned to the garden door, smiled blandly at her protesting women, and stepped outside. She closed the door firmly behind her and took a deep breath of cold air.

Silence, blessed silence. The cold air stung at her flushed cheeks, and she took another breath, watching the vapor rise.

Her private garden lay deep in a blanket of snow. The trees were frosted like cakes, and the ground sparkled as if diamond dust had been blown over the crust of white.

Her spirits lifted after a morning spent in an overheated council chamber. Oh, how she loved winter.

A path had been stamped out, and she followed its curve as it angled away from the door. Her skirts brushed along, swishing against the edges of the path. There, in what was normally a rose bower, sat two benches opposite each other, a brazier set between, filled with glowing coals. The rosebushes, cut back for the season, protruded from the snow like thin black fingers.

She settled on one with a sigh of pleasure and looked about at the trees. The sky was a pale blue, with just a few clouds that promised more snow later on. But for now, there was only the occasional fat fluffy flake falling to rest on the fur of her muff.

The snow made everything look different. Perfect, with the covering of white and the glint of ice. Cold and lovely. Her Herald-Mages had offered to set up a warm shelter or cast a warming spell on the benches, but she had refused. They didn’t seem to understand that the entire point was to be cold.

Well, that and keeping these private audiences short and sweet. No one lingered with petitions and political maneuvering in this kind of weather. Elspeth had been too long on the throne to actually chuckle, but she smiled inside.

Two pages approached, bundled up and carrying a tray and a small table. She offered them thanks as they set the table down and poured her a large mug of tea. She slipped her bare hands out of her muff and carefully took the hot mug in her hands, enjoying the warmth.

“Please let the Queen’s Own know that I am ready,” Elspeth smiled at the pages.

The two young lads bowed slowly, then ran off down the path to the door. Elspeth sipped her tea, enjoying the white perfection of the cold stillness.

She heard the door open, and one of the Herald trainees appeared, with Lord Wolke in tow. The trainee hadn’t bothered with a cloak, and he walked briskly toward her. She plastered on her court smile, setting her mug down on the bench next to her.

“Your Majesty.” The trainee looked so serious and so very young as he bowed. But all the trainees looked younger to her every day. “Lord Wolke.”

Lord Wolke bowed as well, his cloak wrapped tight around his body. Such a handsome young man, with charming manners, or so she’d been told.

Elspeth smiled as the trainee left them alone. “Sit, Lord Wolke. May I pour you some tea?”

“That would be most welcome, Your Majesty,” he sat on the stone bench gingerly, as if afraid he’d freeze off something valuable. “You honor me.”

“Not really, I’m afraid.” She handed him his mug and then refreshed her own. “This is an ‘honor’ my court avoids at all costs. I can’t seem to convince them of the loveliness of the garden after a snow. Even my Companion prefers a warm stable.” Elspeth cast her mind in that direction, to be met with a sleepy, comfortable response.

“Their loss is my gain, Your Majesty.” He flashed her a smile. Oh, yes, there was charm there indeed. No wonder half her ladies had lost their heads over him.

“Aren’t you nice,” she laughed lightly. “I’ve always loved to come out into a clear, cold day and enjoy the sun. I am so glad you could join me.”

Wolke shifted his weight on the bench and tried to adjust his knees so they wouldn’t come into contact with the brazier. “I’ve been at court for some time, Your Majesty.”

“Yes,” She picked up her mug and gave him that same smile. “Without a summons or invitation. Let us discuss that, my lord.”

Elspeth watched as young Wolke retreated down the path, moving as fast as dignity allowed.

The afternoon shadows had lengthened in the garden, and thin clouds had moved in. The snow had turned a pale bluish color, the tree branches blacker in contrast. The lights from the window cast a glow over the drifts in front of the windows. Night would fall soon enough. Still, she sat, deep in her furs and white leathers, and stared into the glowing coals of the brazier.

The pages approached again with more fuel and tea. She watched as they fed the coals and filled her mug.

“I do not wish to be disturbed. I will come in when I am ready.” Elspeth said, and they bowed, and ran off, back to the warmth of the palace.

They probably thought her mad or eccentric. Lancir understood, as did some of the older members of her council. They knew it wasn’t so much the cold or the snow that drew her out of the warm palace.

Snow meant that armies were not moving to mass at the border to threaten Valdemar. The cold kept feuding lords at their hearths. Bandits did not attack settlements or raid the herds of cattle, since any fool could track the transgressors in the snow.

Ice cloaked the roads and paths in treacherous footing. Rivers froze, the ice uncertain. Various religious holidays and celebrations kept people busy with other tasks, rather than killing their neighbors. The lack of daylight concealed the world, keeping those with malice inside, their lights burning bright.

They might plan and plot, connive and ponder, but they stayed within.

Winter was peace made manifest.

She dreaded spring. Oh, not the warmth or the violets with their lovely scent. It was a joy to watch the garden come alive again. Small green leaves and delicate flowers emerged from the soil almost overnight. But the land wasn’t the only thing astir.

The fragile network of agreements that she’d built over her reign always trembled under the strain of spring. She could already see problems looming . . . she stared at the fire and wondered if she’d have the strength to deal with it all.

She heard the door open and the crunch of footsteps on the path. Her eyes weren’t what they used to be, but she recognized the stride of the man coming toward her, his scarlet uniform a stark contrast to the snow. As he grew closer, she could see his face, one that still stirred her heart after all these years.

He approached and then made a formal bow with a flourish of his hand. “Your Majesty,” he said, as he knelt in the snow, his tone a mocking one. “The Queen’s Own has asked that I inquire as to your welfare.”

“Bard Kyran,” Elspeth glanced toward the door. “I take it, then, that they can see us from the windows?”

“Why else would I be on my knee in the snow, beloved?” Kyran looked up, his eyes twinkling. “Some of the younger handmaidens are pressed to the farthest window, watching to see if I can convince you to come in and get warm.”

Those eyes . . . she’d fallen for those eyes so many years ago, those eyes that seemed to glow for her and her alone. The years had not dulled their sparkle. “Sit with me for a moment,” she said, gesturing to the bench so that the watchers knew she had given her permission.

“You’ve a formal court dinner this night,” Kyran reminded her as he rose with grace and settled on the bench. “Ah. Still warm from young Wolke’s ass.” He held his hands over the brazier and rubbed them together. “He blew through the chamber without a word or a nod to anyone. Are we rid of him then?”

“Yes,” she tucked her hand back into her fur muff. “I sent him back to his lands. Young fool.”

“The ladies of the court will be crushed. He’d charmed almost all of them.”

“Idiot,” Elspeth growled. “To think he thought he could claim a position on my council. I should have boxed his ears.”

“Now, there would be something to sing about,” Kyran chuckled. “Gather now, my children, for you should truly hear, of the night that Elspeth Peacemaker, boxed young Wolke’s ears . . .” He raised his eyebrows. “There’s still time. I doubt he’s left the palace yet.”

She stared at him, a sudden sorrow welling up in her chest.

He frowned, concerned. “Elspeth?”

“Was it worth it, beloved?” She choked out, tears beyond her control filling her eyes. She clamped down on the pain to protect her sleeping Companion.

Understanding filled his face. “Oh, my love, what brought this on?”

“I don’t know,” Elspeth closed her eyes, letting the tears fall. “I woke this morning, and I felt so tired. So very tired. I do not think I can bear the spring, Kyran. I just wanted to lie there, in my warm bed, with my soft pillows, and sleep forever.”

“Elspeth,” Kyran whispered.

“No,” Elspeth blinked her eyes, not daring to lift a hand to wipe the tears away. “Since the day I took the throne, I’ve fought, argued, beguiled, and struggled to keep the peace.” She looked away from him, up to the snow-covered trees. “I turned from you, my love, to marry a man I didn’t love, for the sake of an alliance.”

“Elspeth,” Kyran grew somber. “So long ago . . .”

“Even after his death, I used my mourning as a political tool, fending off other offers of marriage, playing them off against each other.” Elspeth held herself still on the bench, not moving a hand or making a gesture that would give the watchers any information. “And then Darvi . . . my son. My beautiful boy. Dead.” Her voice caught in her throat, and for a moment, they sat in silence and shared pain. She looked down at her muff, where a few tears were clinging to the hairs of the fur, small diamonds against the white.

“Which brings to mind a bit of gossip from the city.” Kyran’s voice was rough. “Seems that one of the crafts-men of the city recently died. In his will, he took advantage of that new law of yours.”

“The one about the statuary?” Elspeth choked out, all too willing to change the subject.

“That’s the one. Seems he was fair well off, being of a thrifty bent. He’s endowed a statue of himself, to be built in the city, and provided for its upkeep.” Kyran cleared his throat. “Has the nobility in a bit of a snit.”

“How so?” Elspeth asked. “I placed no limits on—”

“Well, the dead gentleman has apparently snagged one of the busiest crossroads in the city. So very soon, there’s to be erected a statue with a water fountain, for any and all to drink from. And not just humans—there’s a lower font for animals.”

Elspeth knew Kyran well. She titled her head and waited for it.

“Well, it seems our craftsman is fairly short of frame and rather round. And bald. I understand he was well known for his cheerful countenance. So in among the heros of the realm and the proud members of the noble bloodlines, he will stand, smiling happily, holding the tools of his trade. Much to the horror of the noble lords and ladies.” He laughed, that easy laugh she loved so well.

“I should have named you Laureate,” she watched as a few flakes settled in his thinning hair.

“Me?” He widened his eyes in mock horror. “Wear a coronet, and attend all those interminable council meetings?” He shook his head. “And have the entire court and kingdom speculate on our relationship? Elspeth, it would not have worked. Besides, I have had all that I wanted,” He drew a deep breath. “Do you remember?” His voice was low, a gentle caress. “Your first formal court dance?”

Elspeth nodded. “I was so nervous. Father and Mother and the entire court watching me. You walked over, held out your hand and asked me to dance, a dashing young Bard-trainee. How could I resist?”

Kyran laughed. “I was so startled when you took my hand and let me draw you onto the dance floor. A Bard-trainee, and not an ounce of noble blood in my veins. I thought all the lords and ladies would have brain storms, they were so enraged.”

“It was a lovely dance,” Elspeth said.

“It was, and my last for quite some time. I was hustled out of there and informed in no uncertain terms that just Was Not Done.” Kyran’s laughter echoed off the stone walls. “And well and truly punished by the Bardic Council—fifty copies of ‘My Lady’s Eyes’. Do you know how many lines that song has? Add in the instrumental parts . . .” Kyran shook his head. “I thought the cramp in my hand would be with me until the end of my days.” He focused on her again. “Then I got your note.”

“I couldn’t believe they punished you,” Elspeth rolled her eyes. “For a dance!”

“ ‘Meet me in the Collegium Library’,” Kyran quoted. “You apologized—you! Standing there, in your grays, cursing the Bardic Council. I think I fell in love right then and there, with your dark hair and flashing eyes and the scent of violets . . .” Kyran tilted his head back, so very serious as he looked up into the trees. “Why is it that we remember the pain of our lives more than the joy?”

Her breath caught in her throat. “I don’t know, beloved.”

“Then know this, Elspeth, Queen of Valdemar and my love,” Kyran’s voice was low and strong. She hung on every word, as he intended, no doubt. “Valdemar has been at peace since your father’s time, and you are the reason. Everything you have done, everything you have suffered, has been worth every moment. Your people are safe and prosperous, your kingdom secure.”

Elspeth shrugged. “I worry that it will end on my death. I worry that my grandson will not be able to—”

“Randale will be fine,” Kyran said firmly. “You’d worry a wart off your hand.” He spread his hands over the coals. “Do you suppose your father worried that you’d ruin the kingdom?”

“I doubt that,” Elspeth snapped. “He knew that I’d always put Valdemar first above all else.”

“Would Randi do less?” Kyran asked.

Elspeth caught her breath, then scowled. “Do you have to be so . . . so . . .”

“Irritating? Aggravating?” Kyran smirked. “Rational? Accurate?”

Elspeth growled, trying to stay angry, but he just gave her that innocent carefree look. “It’s why you love me,” he assured her.

“I suppose . . .” Elspeth said.

“Well, that and my lute.” Kyran wagged his eyebrows.

Elspeth laughed out loud. “Your lute’s not quite as in tune as it once was, my love. Any more than my sagging breasts and wrinkled skin.”

“Alas, time’s passage takes its toll. Still, it’s ever yours to command. And finger. And fondle, if your majesty so desires. And as to your breasts—”

“Enough,” Elspeth snorted. “I cry mercy.”

“Then I cry enough melancholy, my love.” Kyran said. “All the years, all the pain and the joy—I would not change a thing for fear I’d change what lies between us.”

The tears started again, but not with sorrow. “I love you.”

“And I, you.” Kyran said. “And on the morning when you do not wake, I’ll not be far behind.”

Elspeth’s heart leaped in her throat, but then common sense intervened. “You’re freezing.”

“I am. Come. You’ve a court dinner and even Queen Elspeth the Peacemaker had best not anger the cooks.” Kyran stood and offered his arm.

She stood, stepped close to him.

“You still smell like violets,” Kyran whispered. He held out his arm.

Elspeth placed her hand on his wrist, stroking his cold skin with her fingers tips. As they started down the path, Kyran flipped his hand, and for a brief, sweet moment their fingers intertwined, before returning to their proper places.

“Meredith is on duty in my inner chamber tonight,” she offered the bit of information with a sly look.

“Really?” Kyran arched an eyebrow at her. “Meredith likes me. If an old worn out Bard were to appear at your chamber door late at night, she’d open it and none the wiser.”

“True,” Elspeth said. “I’d even welcome an old, worn-out Bard to my chamber, away from prying eyes and whispering tongues.”

Figures moved in the glow behind the windows. As they grew closer, the door opened, letting warm air wash over them.

“I’ll let you strum my lute,” Kyran whispered as he bowed her into the room, eyes bright.

Joy rose in her heart as Elspeth laughed.

The Reluctant Herald

by Mickey Zucker Reichert

Mickey Zucker Reichert is a pediatrician, parent to multitudes (at least it seems like that many), bird wrangler, goat roper, dog trainer, cat herder, horse rider, and fish feeder who has learned (the hard way) not to let macaws remove contact lenses. Also she is the author of twenty-two novels (including the

Renshai

Nightfall

Barakhai

, and

Bifrost

series), one illustrated novella, and fifty plus short stories. Mickey’s age is a mathematically guarded secret: the square root of 8649 minus the hypotenuse of an isosceles right triangle with a side length of 33.941126.

Lubonne’s wooden sword cut through the ice-grained air of early spring, and his feet stamped evergreen needles deeper into the muck. Sharp, brown burrs clung to his britches and the hem of his tunic, prickling through the fabric as he moved. His bandy legs switched directions with sharp precision, their shortness belying their strength and speed. His relatively long arms supplied a reach that never failed to surprise opponents. The practice blade skipped around his homely features: his eyes small and pallid, his nose broad and overarching, his mouth thin lipped but wide. Mouse-brown hair, cut short, framed his features, unwanted curls fluffing it at the back.

A voice interrupted Lubonne’s solitary practice. :Hello there.: It left an impression of femininity and strength, yet it felt strangely ephemeral, as if he sensed rather than heard it.

Lubonne hid his startlement behind a feigned-deliberate sword stroke. It bothered him that while he practiced martial maneuvers, he had allowed someone to sneak so close through his defenses. He had heard stories of fey and magical creatures inhabiting these and other woodlands, tales of spirits and drakes, of humans taking beast-form and -nature, yet none of them involved friendly voices shocking through a young man’s mind in broad daylight. Keeping the mock weapon raised, he glanced around the clearing.

As usual, Lubonne squinted, the sun painful in his too-light eyes. Trees and shrubbery flashed through his vision as he turned, then something brilliant white seized his full attention. It was large and horse-shaped, its forelock and mane snagged with the same type of burrs that clung to his clothing. One enormous blue eye, nearly as pallid as his own, studied him. His gaze went immediately to its back, where no rider or saddle perched, not even a dirt-smudge to suggest one ever had. It wore no bridle or halter, either.

Lubonne lowered his sword. “What’s this?” He had seen only one animal this magnificent: the stallion Herald Walthin rode whenever he came to town. Has something happened to Walthin? Suddenly alarmed, he called out sharply, “Herald Walthin! Are you all right?”

:Walthin has decent hearing, but I doubt your voice will carry all the way to Valdemar.:

Lubonne went utterly still, his next shout frozen on his lips.

The voice in Lubonne’s head recited the answers to questions he had not yet thought to ask. :Yes, a white horselike creature is speaking to you. No, there’s no other human around. Yes, I’m speaking directly into your mind.: It paused, apparently hoping he would take his turn.

Lubonne found himself still incapable of action, except to pinch himself through the fabric of his britches, where his buttock met his right leg. He idly wondered where this convention had originated and how it had become cliché. Surely, a man could dream he had pinched himself, a detail far less shocking and strange than what faced him at the moment.

The creature seemed to read his mind. :Oh, and don’t risk injuring your backside. You’re not dreaming, Lubonne.:

That finally jarred his jaw loose, though Lubonne asked the least important of the myriad questions now bounding through his mind. “How do you know my name?”

The animal studied Lubonne. :Why do you ask? Is it a deep dark secret?:

“Of . . . of course not. I just . . . don’t have the . . . um . . . pleasure of . . . of your . . .” Lubonne looked around, wondering if someone was playing a cruel joke. His brothers probably crouched, snickering, behind a nearby bush.

:Carthea.: The beast bowed, one long leg extended forward, the other curled beneath its broad chest. Lubonne could no longer convince himself that the voice came from any other source. :I’m your Companion.:

“Well, yes. At the moment, I suppose you are,” Lubonne managed to sputter out, marveling at how stupid he suddenly seemed to have become. What does one say to a talking horse?

:Your Companion,: she repeated. :With a capital “C”.:

“Oh.” Still stupid. Lubonne pinched himself again, with the same result. Even if I am dreaming, I can at least try to act like I have something more substantial than rocks in my head. Discovering no more words, he left the conversation to the Companion again.

The beast stomped a snowy hoof. :This is the part where you squeal, “Oh, I’ve always dreamed of the chance to become a Herald of Valdemar, leap joyfully upon my back, and take a smooth and magical journey to the Collegium to train.”:

“It is?” Gah! I still sound like a total moron. Lubonne shook his head, trying to clear it.

:It is.: Carthea bobbed her head once, forcefully and with finality.

At last, Lubonne discovered his wits. And his tongue. He bowed, as if to royalty. “No, thank you.”

The Companion merely stared. :What do you mean, “No, thank you?”:

Now who sounds like a moron? “I wasn’t aware that ‘no, thank you’ required explanation. I appreciate your generous offer, but I decline it. While you are an inarguably beautiful animal with clear, amazing abilities, I have no wish to ride to Valdemar, to attend a Collegium, nor to become a Herald.”

Carthea planted all four feet in the mud left by the spring-melted snow. :You can’t refuse. I’ve Chosen you.:

Lubonne waved and started to turn. “I’ll forget it, if you will. Just go and choose someone else. Who will be the wiser?”

:It doesn’t work that way.:

Lubonne sighed and reluctantly looked back. Real or dream, he hated to disappoint what seemed like a wonderful and decent animal. “Listen, Carthea. My answer is ‘no,’ and I won’t change my mind. I have the perfect life here. I’m the third son of wealthy parents. My older brothers inherit the land and the responsibilities that go with it. I get money and no duties, free to spend it as I please. I’m engaged to an exquisite woman. My life is happy, and I have no intention of changing it.” With that, he turned on his heel and left, intending to walk out of Carthea’s life forever.

Lubonne never looked behind him as he strode toward the village, the wooden sword tucked rakishly into his belt. His route took him from forest to beaten path to cobbles; and it was not until he reached the latter that he heard the steady clop of hoofbeats behind him. He stepped to the side and stopped, making room for the rider to pass him. But, the instant he went still, the noise ceased as well. I’ve got horses on the mind. Lubonne continued on his way. With his first new step, the hollow, unmistakable sound of hoof on stone resumed.

Lubonne whirled to find himself nose to nose with Carthea. She studied him curiously through one eye, neck gracefully arched, head tipped. “Perhaps I didn’t make myself entirely clear—”

Carthea raised her well-muscled neck and snorted. :You did.:

Lubonne glanced around to make certain no one could hear him talking to a horse. Seeing no one all the way to the edge of the village, he continued, “Then why are you still with me?”

:Because you are mine, Chosen One. And I am yours. We are a team, bonded until—:

“No!” Lubonne waved his hands in broad gestures. “We are not a team. We are . . . barely nodding acquaintances.”

:Ride me.:

The temptation was great. Lubonne had known how to ride a horse as long as he could remember, most often bareback and on boyish whim. He suspected he had molded the shape of his buttocks from Old Rinny’s back. He knew a great animal when he saw one, and Carthea’s conformation impressed him mightily. He could imagine the powerful legs bunching beneath him, the silky mane stroking his face, the thrill of its wild gallop, the closest thing to human flight. “I certainly will not ride you. You’ve already told me you’d carry me off to Valdemar.”

:Yes!:

“Well, I’m not going to Valdemar. Or anywhere. I’m happy here. It’s home.”

:Home is where your heart is. And, I, Dear One, am your heart.:

Lubonne rolled his eyes, sighing. “No, ma’am. I’m pretty sure my heart is that familiar beating thing lodged firmly in my chest.” He started back down the road toward his parents’ mansion. “Please. The sooner you leave me be, the sooner you find your rightful partner.” Without another glance, deliberately deaf to the drum of hoofbeats, he headed toward home.

And Carthea followed.

A nudge awakened Lubonne with an abruptness that sent him leaping from his bed. Blankets tangled around his legs. His foot mired on a misplaced bedsheet, and he tumbled to the wooden floor. The familiar sights and smells of his bedroom surrounded him, but those seemed to disappear as he focused on the one oddity: a furry white head shoved through his only window. Carthea stared at him, head cocked, twin puffs of breath smoking in the cold air.

“What the hell are you doing?” Lubonne scrambled to his feet and attempted to wrap the blankets around himself. In the process, he wrenched a corner from directly under his foot and wound up sprawled on the floor a second time.

:I’m sorry,: Carthea sent. :Did I wake you?:

In a whirl of surprise, anger, and uncertainty; feeling awkward as a toddler, Lubonne resorted to sarcasm. “No, no. I’m still asleep. I’m thoroughly accustomed to massive animal heads popping through the window to shove me onto the floor.” He rose more carefully and twisted the blankets around his half- naked body. He could barely comprehend the discomfort he felt beneath her stare. Surely a mare, even one intelligent enough to speak, had no intention of judging or worrying about a human’s exposed privates.

:You don’t have to mock me. I can read your moods, you know.: Only then, Lubonne realized that she had sent him more than just words. He read a mixture of emotions radiating from Carthea as well. She was clearly young, little more than a filly, uncertain, and definitively frustrated. :And you don’t have to talk at me. You’re quite capable of Mindspeech.:

I am? Lubonne shook the thought aside. Of course, I’m not. I’ve never heard Herald Walthin or his stallion. I’ve certainly never mastered reading what any woman is thinking.

:That’s because you’ve only just met me.:

Lubonne squawked and covered his head, as if this might protect his mind from the Companion’s intrusion. “Get out of my mind!”

:You have other Gifts, too. Strong ones, in fact. You’d just never realize them without a Companion to enhance them.:

“No, no, no!” Lubonne wrapped both arms around his head, trapping the blankets in place with his elbows. “Stop enhancing me. Quit bothering me. Go away!”

:But—:

Lubonne would hear nothing more. “Go away!”

The horsy head retreated from the window and disappeared into the night. Lubonne replaced his sheets, respread his blankets, and tried to get back to sleep.

Servants, decorators, and cooks filled the mansion, and Lubonne escaped into the stable as quickly as decorum allowed. Though excited about his upcoming engagement party, Lubonne withered under the constant flurry of questions. He had no opinion on the menu, saw no need to add flourishes to the already spectacular décor. He had selected his suit weeks ago. What others wore did not interest him; he would not refuse a friend fresh from a spar, sweating profusely and swathed in filthy rags.

To Lubonne’s relief, the groomsman, Vannath, had his bay mare saddled and bridled. Smiling, he stirred the star on her muzzle, revealing pink skin beneath the spot of white fur. Idly, he wondered if Carthea’s hide was pink throughout and swiftly banished the thought. He wanted nothing to do with the creature who named herself his Companion. “Ready for a ride, Rinny?”

“All ready, Master Lubonne,” Vannath replied.

Giddy with anticipation, Lubonne joked, “Why, Rinny, old girl. Your voice has deepened. You sound positively masculine.”

Vannath chuckled dutifully. “I knew you’d want to get away from that, sir.” He gestured vaguely toward the manse. “Engagement party preparations.” He shook his grizzled head. “It’s no fit place for man or beast.”

Lubonne agreed. “Wall-to-wall womenfolk. They actually seem to enjoy it.” He stepped into the left stirrup and swung his right leg over Rinny’s red-brown back to settle into the weathered saddle. “Well, I’m off to find Honoria. Better make sure she’s still crazy enough to agree to marry me before we seal the engagement.” He walked the sturdy bay from the stables and into the late-morning light.

Vannath’s voice chased him. “Good luck, Master Lubonne.”

With a backward wave of acknowledgment, Lubonne trotted across the grounds. He dared not look at the mansion, hoping no one recognized him from behind and demanded his return. He rode, unaccosted, to the gate and bent for the latch. Years of practice allowed him to swing it open and closed without dismounting, the latches bent and battered from all the previous efforts of himself and his three brothers. A perfectly measured push sent it swinging back into place, and he heard the satisfying clang of its proper falling and engagement. No dismount necessary this time. He mentally applauded himself. Yes.

Rinny stood placidly and patiently while he worked. Accustomed to the brothers’ antics, she took loud noises, fidgeting riders, and waving sticks and swords in stride.

:Insecurity is not a crime.: Carthea’s voice came out of nowhere.

Lubonne nearly crawled out of his skin. Instinctively, he whirled, only to find the Companion just off Rinny’s left flank. “What?”

Carthea stepped out fully from behind the neighboring smithy. :Some of our most heroic and gifted Heralds initially believed themselves unworthy.:

“I’m not insecure.”

Every eye in the street went suddenly to Lubonne, reminding him he was no longer alone. He waved cheerily to a friend headed for the tavern and tipped his hat toward the smith’s young wife. Carthea had said he could use Mindspeak, and this seemed the perfect time to try it. He focused heavily on each word. :I . . . AM . . . NOT . . . INSECURE!:

Carthea shook her head, falling into lockstep with Rinny. :Stop shouting. I heard you the first time.: She timed her steps to the bay’s, so that it sounded as if one giant horse walked the cobbled street instead of two smaller ones.

Lubonne reined toward the woodland path, preferring to take the back route to Honoria’s home over trying to explain the presence of the Companion to every passerby. He could imagine getting stopped every few steps as someone new admired the white mare and questioned him about her presence. He tried to put together mental words without the emphasis, wondering how much thought the creature could read. :I’m sure I told you to go away.:

:You did.:

:But you’re still here.:

That being self-evident, it scarcely needed acknowledging; but Carthea obliged him. :I am.:

:Why?: It surprised Lubonne how easily Rinny accepted the presence of a strange horse. Usually, such a meeting would result in sniffling, sharp whinnied challenges, sometimes even a bit of mock battle.

:Because, Chosen One, you are my heartmate, my soulmate, my lifemate.:

Lubonne suppressed a scream. As they moved from cobbled road to wooded dirt, he returned to regular speech. It felt more natural. “Exactly how many times, and in how many ways, do I have to say ‘no’? Find another heartmate, Carthea. I’m not it.”

:But you are.:

“I’m not.”

:And you have to undergo your Herald training.:

“I don’t.”

:You must come—:

“I mustn’t.”

Carthea pulled up directly in front of Rinny, perpendicular to the path, and the bay pranced to a stop. :You can do this, Lubonne. You really can.:

Lubonne sighed. Drawing Rinny to the left, he walked around the living road block. “I told you, I’m not insecure. I know I can do it. I’ve got decent weapons training, and I’m a damn-sight smarter than Herald Walthin, bless his kindly heart.”

Carthea followed, drawing abreast of Rinny again. A quaver entered her sending. : All right. Perhaps it’s me who’s insecure, then. I’m only three years old.:

Lubonne looked at Carthea. “Three years . . . you’re just a baby.” A fluttering wave of guilt and empathy passed through him, and his patience softened. He felt abruptly sorry for the persistent creature.

:You take that back.: Carthea’s lips tightened, and her wide nostrils flared. :I’m not a baby! I’m big enough and strong enough to carry a grown man.:

“I’m sorry,” Lubonne said sincerely. He had not intended to offend her. “Look, Carthea. I’m just not the heroic type, all right? I’m a bit spoiled, somewhat of a gadabout, and satisfied with my life the way it is. If I didn’t wear this face . . .” He waved a hand in front of his homely features, “I’d probably be a carouser, like my little brother. As it is, I’m lucky to have my beautiful Honoria.” He could not help smiling.

Emotion clearly crept through in his voice or thoughts. :You love her, this Honoria.:

“I do.” Lubonne sat back as the trees bounced by them, unnoticed. “We’re getting engaged, officially, tonight. We’re having a party.”

Carthea tipped her head toward him. :And what, exactly, is wrong with your face?:

Lubonne stared at the Companion. “My nose is . . . well, like a second head.”

:I don’t see anything wrong with your nose.:

“Of course not. You’re a horse. Your nose is your head.”

:Hey!:

“I’m not being mean. It’s what a horse is supposed to look like. On a horse, a giant honker is sweet and soft, it’s ideal.” Lubonne had come to grips with his appearance long ago. “I have a nickname: Hawknose. My brothers call me Beaky. I’m cursed with pale, squinty little eyes, too, that only make the nose more obvious; and I’ve never found a way to tame this crazy hair.”

:Me, either.: Carthea tossed her matted, burr- filled mane.

“Ah, but a simple grooming will make yours shine like the stars. Brushing just makes my hair fluffy.”

Carthea rolled back the eye on the side of her head toward Rinny to look directly at Lubonne. Her ear went with it, pressed nearly flat to her head, while the other cupped forward to catch upcoming sounds. :Why quibble over features? All humans look essentially alike to me on the outside. It’s the inside that matters; and your insides, my Chosen, are the insides of a Herald.:

Lubonne’s small eyes ratcheted to slits. “That sounds . . . utterly disgusting.”

Carthea raised her head as if to trumpet out a whinny; but no sound emerged. :I’m not talking about your bowels, Beloved Idiot. I mean your soul. It’s gorgeous . . . : The words came with a wash of love bordering on awe. :And you’re more Gifted than I initially guessed. Look how quickly you picked up Mindspeak.:

The Companion’s words gave Lubonne pause, but only for a moment. Just call me Hawknose Gorgeoussoul, a Collegium trainee. It all seemed a ridiculous fantasy. “Look, Carthea. Those sound like lovely compliments, aside from the ‘idiot’ part. It’s not a matter of whether I’m capable of becoming a Herald; I’ll take your word that I am. It’s just that . . . I’m happy with my current life. I want to live it out fully and completely. And I made a lifelong promise to Honoria.”

Carthea’s gait went stiff. She clearly wished to say something, and a hint of an unidentified emotion that seemed rough and unkind slipped through the mental contact. However, she remained silent.

Rinny did not need guiding to take the left fork toward Honoria’s family home.

“Do you understand?” For the first time, Lubonne actually wondered what Carthea might have been thinking, what cruel words she had kept to herself.

:Responsibility. Heroic devotion.: Carthea seemed to be thinking aloud. :These are the virtues, and the curse, of a Herald.: She bobbed her head. :I understand.:

Lubonne heaved a sigh of relief. “Then you’ll leave me alone?”

Carthea melted into the woodland shadows, but the mental contact left a lasting impression.

Lubonne scarcely dared to believe that, this time, it might actually, finally, be over.

A private, sunny picnic with Honoria drove all thought and concern about the Companion from Lubonne’s mind. Their engagement felt so right, so normal, as opposed to the odd conversations he had shared with the magnificent horselike creature moments earlier. Though barely a day’s ride away, the country of Valdemar seemed like another world in another time, and its self-named city even more so. Lubonne could almost convince himself that Carthea had merely appeared to him in a series of weird and consecutive dreams.

It took most of the afternoon for Honoria to pick out her dress, the process every bit as tedious as the decoration of the feasting hall. Blurry-eyed and bored within the hour, Lubonne found himself saying the same flattering words over and over until they sounded insincere even to himself. Then Honoria’s sisters combed and cut and perfumed the couple’s hair until Lubonne thought he could stand it no more. In the end, he looked exactly the same, at least to his own eyes, but he complimented the girls to the sun and beyond just to get them to finish.

Dusk darkened the horizon by the time Honoria’s parents and sisters rode off in their small, family carriage. They lived a modest life, their fortune more meager than Lubonne’s own. Honoria planned to use Lubonne’s inheritance to fix up the small piece of soupy land that served as her dowry. Then he would secure a guarding job in the city to support her and their forthcoming family.

Honoria perched delicately behind the saddle while sure, steady Rinny picked her quiet way across the packed earth roadways through the forest.

“Must we go this way, my darling Hawk?” Honoria asked sweetly. “I’m afraid things falling from the trees might muss my hair.”

The thought had occurred to Lubonne, but he still worried about the need to explain Carthea. The Companion had left him to his own devices since he had chased her away that morning, but she had a habit of turning up inconveniently. Lubonne removed his coat and held it over Honoria’s head with one hand, the other clutching Rinny’s reins. “Here. Use this.”

Honoria looked up. “I don’t want your coat stained, either. I want a perfect entrance.” Nevertheless, she took the coat in both hands and held it over her hair to protect it from the wind, leaves, and elements.

“Perfect entrance, eh? Then I’ll have to walk in backward,” Lubonne quipped. “Or this nose will precede us and spoil everything.” He expected Honoria to laugh, but she did not.

Instead, she muttered, “At least our children won’t have to worry about it.”

Lubonne’s brow furrowed as he tried to make sense of the comment. “About what, my darling?”

At his back, Lubonne felt Honoria stiffen. “Nothing.”

Nothing? Lubonne frowned, wondering what she had intended to say. “Our children will have your stunning beauty. No one will even notice the size of their noses. But even should one inherit my beak, it’s not such a bad thing. I’ve done well enough with it.” He reached back to pat her hand. “I’m blessed enough to have you as my future wife.”

Honoria gripped his hand. Released on one side, the coat flapped over her. “My darling, Hawk.”

Rinny bunched beneath them; but, accustomed to boys’ play, she did not shy at the noises the wind made of his coat. Honoria let go of Lubonne’s hand to grab up both sides of his coat again, and the fluttering sounds ceased. Soon, however, Rinny’s walk slowed to a crawl as she navigated jutting roots, rocks, and pocks in the makeshift roadway.

As the earthern path met the cobbled one, Lubonne pulled Rinny up to wait for two servants to assist a cousin’s family from their coach. As the cousins headed for the house and a groomsman led their horse and vehicle away, Lubonne reined Rinny at the gate.

Vannath took the bay’s reins, while a servant Lubonne did not recognize helped Honoria dismount. Apparently brought in by one of the hires, the young, handsome man seemed to enjoy his duty a bit too much. He cradled Honoria in his arms as he carried, more than assisted, his grin containing a hint of interested leer. “My lady, you shouldn’t ride in a gown like that. Horse hair doesn’t become anyone, and the stench of the beasts is hardly perfume.” Without so much as a glance toward Lubonne, he held out the young lord’s coat.

Lubonne accepted it curiously. “What’s your name, groomsman?”

The young man finally spared Lubonne a haughty glance. “Haralt, sir. And I’m not a groomsman. I’m a server. I’m just helping until my job comes up.”

Lubonne pursed his already thin lips into a taut line. “Well, Haralt. You may place my bride on the ground now. Last I checked, she did have feet, small and delicate though they are.”

Honoria giggled coquettishly as Haralt obeyed. “Yes, sir.” Turning on a heel, the servant walked stiffly back toward the house, while Vannath took Rinny to the stable.

Lubonne crooked a brow, uncertain how to feel about the exchange. “Do you know that man?”

“Of course I do. A friend of my family. He’s sweet, really.”

“Sweet, maybe.” Lubonne pulled on his coat absently. He watched the man’s back as he headed up the walkway, fine blond hair splashing over muscular shoulders. “But he certainly took a few liberties.”

Honoria hit Lubonne’s arm in mock irritation, then set to work preening her dress and hair back into proper order. “Oh, please. Don’t be so priggish. You’re not going to be the kind of husband who lords over me and bridles every time a man looks in my direction, are you?”

“That was hardly looking in your direction.”

She hit him again, a bit harder. “You’re going to have to get used to it. When you marry an attractive woman, men are going to stare.”

Stare, yes. Lubonne knew better than to contradict Honoria aloud. But I don’t expect them to carry off my bride. He shook his head at his own concern. I love her; she loves me. I won’t let the antics of a poorly trained servant distract me from our own party. He took Honoria’s arm, reveling in the silken touch of her skin. “You smell lovely.”

“Not like horse sweat?” Honoria pulled at the back of her gown.

“Nothing like horse sweat.” Lubonne took a deliberate sniff. “A nose like mine never lies. You carry the delightful scent of Honoria, freshly laundered lace, wind, and that fragrance your younger sister spilled on your head.” And even if you did smell like Rinny, I love the smell of sweet old Rinny.

Servants met them at the door, fussing with collars, brushing off bits of twig, leaf, and horse hair. One stepped forward to announce loudly through the din of conversation, “Presenting Master Lubonne and his lady, Honoria.”

The talking ceased, as if choked; and silence fell over the ballroom. The clapping began in one corner, where Lubonne’s parents stood and swiftly spread in a wave that morphed into thunderous applause. Honoria curtsied gracefully, then started up the marble staircase that arched over a balcony and into the ballroom below. Head high, grinning at his bride-to-be, Lubonne climbed proudly at her side.

A noise behind him caught Lubonne’s attention, and it took force of will to remain focused on Honoria and the crowd below them. Then, suddenly, someone cursed, and the hollow sound of hoof falls on marble clattered through the chamber. Grin wilting, Lubonne whirled. Carthea marched up the steps at their heels, looking for all the world as if she belonged there.

“What are you doing?” Lubonne shouted before he could think to hold his tongue. “What the hell are you doing?!” Only then, he thought of Mindspeak. :Mother throws a fit when Father’s dogs come in the house!:

The light of every torch and candle seemed drawn to Carthea, and her burnished white coat gleamed so brightly that Lubonne found himself squinting again. Someone had combed the burrs from her mane and forelock, and it fell around her neck in glossy waves. Her pale eyes looked as gentle and innocent as an infant’s.

Murmurs rose from the crowd. Then, before Lubonne could think to stop her, Honoria gasped in utter delight and hurled herself at him. “Oh, thank you, thank you, my darling Hawk. She’s beautiful!”

Honoria’s warmth stunned him. They had embraced before, but she had always felt woodenly reluctant, shy and demure.

“No woman has ever had a more wonderful engagement gift.” Releasing him, Honoria caught Carthea around the neck.

Carthea took two careful backward steps, teetering on stairs designed for human paces. :Get her off me!:

Honoria’s grip tightened, and she buried her face in the smooth white fur.

“No, Honoria. You don’t understand.” Lubonne lunged for his betrothed as Carthea’s balance wavered. “You know I’d give you the moon and stars, if they were mine to give. But they’re not, and neither is—”

Honoria was not listening. Lubonne could see Carthea’s delicate hooves slipping. The sounds of the crowd grew louder.

“Honoria!” Lubonne grabbed her as Carthea wheeled. She struck Honoria’s a glancing blow and sending her staggering breathlessly into Lubonne’s arms. Carthea sprang the length of the stairs, toward the door. For an instant, she hovered in midair, a massive yet strangely agile bird in flight. Then, she landed on the parquet, scrambled helplessly for a moment, somehow caught her footing, then raced for the still-open door. She disappeared through it in a flash of snowy white, leaving the attendants ashenfaced and slackjawed.

“My horse!” Honoria wailed, loud enough for the whole assemblage to hear her. “My magnificent, perfect engagement present.” She buried her face in Lubonne’s coat.

Lubonne could do nothing but hold her and curse the Companion who seemed hellbent on ruining his life. “Honoria, please. If you want a horse, I’ll find you the finest my money can buy. But that one does not belong to me. Do you hear? She’s not mine to give you.”

“I . . . don’t . . . want . . .” she sobbed. “ . . . any horse. I . . . want . . . that one.”

Lubonne had never seen his beloved like this. “Honoria, please. We’ll talk about this after the party.”

“No, no!” Honoria refused consolation. She pulled away from Lubbone, rubbing tenderly beneath her bosom where the hoof had grazed her. “Is no one in this hall man enough to catch her for me?” Her gaze roved over the gathering to land directly on the servant who had helped her from Rinny’s back.

Now impeccably dressed in caterer’s livery, balancing a loaded silver tray, Haralt looked tall, lean, and remarkably muscled. Fine blond curls swept from chiseled features: his forehead uncreased, his chin heroically squared, and his nose flawless. Placing his burden on a nearby table, he bowed prettily and gazed up at Honoria. “I’d be honored to assist, my lady.” Without another word, he headed up the stairs, edged around the bridal pair, and strode through the open door.

Scattered and hesitant applause followed Haralt’s action. Honoria clamped her hands together and watched him leave. “Isn’t he wonderful?” She continued to rub absently beneath her breasts, oblivious to a smudge the hoof had left there.

Lubonne could think of no appropriate reply. “Sure. Wonderful.” He placed his hand on hers, stopping it. “Are you all right? Do you need to see a healer?”

Honoria let her hand fall into Lubonne’s. “I’m fine. She barely hit me.”

Lubonne wanted to drop the whole matter but needed to say one more thing. “You know, even if he finds her, he’ll have to let her go. She doesn’t belong to him or to us.”

Honoria straightened her dress and plastered a smile back on her face. “For now, let’s just enjoy our party.”

And enjoy they did. Lubonne did not awaken until nearly midday, and he did not attempt to visit Honoria until the following day. He found her out, though no one could say where. And though she returned that night after his visit, when he came for her the next morning, she had gone away again.

Preparing for the wedding, Lubonne tried to convince himself, but doubts plagued him. He could not forget the way his betrothed had sought assistance from the selfsame servant who had swept her so majestically off of Rinny’s back. He could see any woman falling prey to Haralt’s striking appearance. A beautiful woman like Honoria deserved a beautiful man; yet Lubonne knew she loved him. No mere servant, no random pretty face, could steal her away from him, and Honoria deserved a better life than Haralt could possibly give her.

Alone with his thoughts, Lubonne walked the edge of the forest, headed for his favorite river bank. There, he could lose himself in the bird calls, the rustling of the wind through reeds, and the occasional plop of fish and frogs in the water. Whenever he paused there to skip stones and revel in the sunlight, happy boyhood memories invariably swept away his adult worries.

A faint call touched Lubonne’s mind. :Help me!:

Lubonne stiffened, turning. Only one creature could communicate with him in this way. “Carthea?” He had not seen her since the party, either. “Where are you?”

He received no direct reply, just a repeat of the indistinct, soft call. :Help me, Chosen. I need you.:

Lubonne focused on mental words, this time deliberately shouting. :WHERE . . . ARE . . . YOU?:

A flood of relief accompanied the next communication, apparently over finally reaching him. He wondered for how long she had been calling him. :The clearing where we first met. Hurry!:

Lubonne hesitated. He could run back home, get Rinny and a weapon, and gallop back nearly as quickly as he could run straight to the clearing. In the end, he chose the shorter distance, running as fast as his bowed legs would carry him. :I’m coming.: Though it took no breath to answer, Lubonne found himself too focused on movement to concentrate on Mindspeaking. :What’s wrong? What’s happening?:

Carthea gave him only, :Come see.: Then, it seemed as if a wall had closed between their minds.

:Carthea!: Lubonne called. :Carthea!:

He got no answer.

He dodged between trunks, vaulted deadfalls, trying to save a few paces and hoping he did not corner himself and have to backtrack for his efforts. Brush tore at his tunic, and prickles scored his legs. :Carthea, answer me.: A vine entangled his ankles, and he tumbled into a bush. Damn!

He got nothing in return but the vague wonder of why it mattered. He was not a future Herald; he was not Carthea’s heartmate. He could not be. Yet she had done nothing worse than try to convince him. She had the same good soul she sensed in him, and he would not leave her in danger, especially if he might, indirectly, have caused it. He tore his way through the bush, ignoring the scratches and jabs that tore clothing and flesh alike. :Answer me, Carthea!: He staggered free.

Now, Lubonne could hear faint voices, punctuated by a boisterous whinny, the type horses use to call to lost herd companions. He quickened his pace, bursting breathlessly into the clearing.

Carthea was there, her coat dark with sweat and striped with filth. She held her head low, a rope winched around her neck, and bloody foam bubbled around a hard steel bit. More ropes circled each fetlock, the feathery hair shaved off by movement against them. A crude wooden saddle lay strapped to her back; and a tight rope bridle bit deeply into her cheeks. Gaze fixed on the Companion and her plight, Lubonne barely noticed the five humans who shared the clearing. Iron stakes, deeply pounded, held the ropes enwrapping Carthea’s hind fetlocks. Men struggled with the two in front, holding her splay-legged and, essentially, helpless. A third forced her head down, preventing her from rearing.

Fire boiled through Lubonne’s veins at the image of this proud and intelligent creature trussed up like the main course at a banquet. He opened his mouth to shout, then saw the other two humans in the clearing. A man and a woman oversaw the process, holding one another’s hand. Lubonne recognized them at once, Haralt and Honoria; and no words emerged. His mouth just kept silently opening, wider and wider, until he thought his jaw might touch the ground.

Honoria ran to Lubonne. “Darling, you’ve ruined the surprise.”

Lubonne doubted it was possible for him to be any more surprised. “Let her go,” he managed, the words strangely soft-spoken but still firm and controlled. He had intended to scream them.

Honoria took his arm, snuggling against him. “We’re breaking her for you, my darling Hawk. For us.”

For once, Honoria’s touch failed to move him. “No. I don’t want this.” Lubonne looked at the three men straining at the ropes. “Let her go.” He wanted to attack, to chase them all away from Carthea. How could anyone condone this cruelty?

Honoria ran a hand along his cheek. “It’s not what it looks like, my darling. We’re not hurting her.”

Haralt finally spoke. “Master Lubonne, she’s worthless as she is, but an exceedingly valuable horse once we break her. Sometimes—”

Lubonne snapped. “I don’t want her broken; I want her whole.” He shook off Honoria. “She’s perfect as she is, and I order you to release her.”

“—sometimes the process looks harsh, but I assure you it’s necessary to—”

This time, Honoria cut him off. “Forget it, Haralt. It’s not going to happen.” She turned to Lubonne, and her whole demeanor seemed to change. Where she had once seemed demure and dewy-eyed, she became as callous as any huntsman. “It could have worked out perfectly for all of us.” She shook her head, frowning. “You would have had your bit of land and your gorgeous, fawning wife despite your . . .” She made a gesture to indicate his face.

Haralt turned positively green. “Honoria, what are you doing?”

She persisted, undaunted. “I would have had my handsome lover, and our children . . .” She poked Lubonne. “ . . . your children . . . could they have been more stunning?”

Lubonne gritted his teeth as it all became clear. Honoria had never loved him; she had wanted only his status and his money, which she intended to use to make a home for them. Then, while he was out, she would entertain Haralt, pass off his offspring as legitimately Lubonne’s, and live out her life in secretive happiness.

Honoria threw up her hands, as if Lubonne were the one who had just exposed a cruel scheme. “And we all would have lived happily, contented, if you hadn’t put an animal over your love for me.”

Torn between screaming and crying, between attacking and running, Lubonne stood his ground. He continued to speak gently, his tone flat to hide his building rage. “I could say the same for you, that you put your love for an animal . . .” Lubonne turned his gaze directly on Haralt, “ . . . over me. But, then, I would be granting this conniving servant the same status as Carthea, and he does not deserve it.”

Haralt drew himself up, clearly affronted. He did not speak, however, nor dare to approach.

“Let her go!” Lubonne roared, fists clenching and unclenching. He wished he had brought a weapon; even the wooden one he used for practice would suffice.

Honoria grinned wickedly, then started to laugh. “By what authority do you command this, Hawknose? You’ve admitted in front of an entire ballroom that you have no claim to this animal. You don’t own her. We have as much right to her as you. More so, because she is now in our possession.”

She was right, Lubonne knew, and his heart sank. He looked at Carthea, forcing himself to examine only her sweet, long-lashed eyes. If he took in the entire picture again, he could not have retained his composure. :With my help, can you break free?:

:I . . . don’t think so.: Carthea dropped her head further . :I’ve tried. They’re strong, and I’m exhausted.:

It’s up to me. Lubonne studied Honoria, wondering what had seemed so special about her in the past. Where once she had seemed flawless, he now discovered a million faults. Her external beauty seemed worthless, her gray eyes as welcoming as a rusty steel trap. “What do you want her for anyway?”

Honoria glanced at Haralt, who seemed suddenly engrossed in his own boots. “As Haralt said, she’s a valuable animal.” She headed back toward the servant.

“Once she’s broken,” Lubonne reminded, watching Honoria leave. He had never before noticed how she waddled when she walked. Which will never happen. “How’s that going so far?”

Carthea snorted, pale eyes like brimstone.

“We’ll break her,” Honoria promised. “No matter how long it takes.”

“Or,” Lubonne suggested, suddenly thoughtful. “You could sell her.”

Honoria shrugged. “We’ll have to now. We’ll need that money to fix up the land, build a house.”

Lubonne had heard those plans before, many times. But, always in the past, “we” had included him. Now, he felt certain, Honoria referred to Haralt.

:You knew all the time, didn’t you?: Lubonne accused his Companion.

:Knew what?:

:Knew what kind of person I had affianced myself to. Knew she didn’t really love me, that she would hurt me badly.:

Carthea snorted again. :I knew.:

:Why didn’t you save yourself this trouble and pain? Why didn’t you just tell me?:

Carthea rolled the one eye he could see. Her ears pricked forward. :You know why.:

:I do?: And, suddenly, Lubonne realized, he did. I wouldn’t have believed it. I would have thought she was lying to get me to join her.

Though he made no attempt to Mindspeak the thought, Carthea apparently received it. She bobbed her wise, white head once before the man holding the rope jerked it still.

At the violence of the movement, anger flared anew. I was so busy chasing fake love, I didn’t see the real thing when it thrust its huge, fuzzy head through my bedroom window. Lubonne turned his attention to Haralt and Honoria, driving all trace of malice from his tone and his features. “How much?”

“What?” The word was clearly startled from Haralt’s mouth.

Honoria had more experience in matters of finance. “You want to buy her from us?”

“Yes.”

Honoria’s smile broadened, and Lubonne wondered why he had never before noticed how dingy her teeth looked, the meanness in her grin. “It would cost you . . . your inheritance.”

“Sold!” Lubonne said, before she could change her mind or think to ask for more. He had no wish nor need to reduce the deal to writing. Honoria had four witnesses to corroborate her claim, and he had no intention of dishonoring his word. He claimed the ropes from each man in turn. Carthea remained utterly still while he unwound each rope, removed the offending bridle, and tossed the makeshift saddle to the ground.

:I’m not going to fall off, am I?:

Carthea turned him a withering look.

Using a deadfall for a step, Lubonne clambered upon his Companion, a Herald trainee astride his heartmate and bound for Collegium. “Tell my parents the money is yours. And that I’ve gone to Valdemar.”

Carthea bounded over a copse of berries in one smooth leap and settled onto the packed earth, forest road. :Home for your things?:

:And spoil this grand exit for a few possessions?: Lubonne made a broad gesture in the general direction of Valdmar. :I have my future and my Heartmate. What more do I need?:

:What more, indeed.: Carthea agreed.

A Storytelling of Crows

by Elisabeth Waters

Elisabeth Waters sold her first short story in 1980 to Marion Zimmer Bradley for

The Keeper’s Price

, the first of the Darkover anthologies. She continues to sell short stories to a variety of anthologies and magazines. Her first novel, a fantasy called

Changing Fate,

was awarded the 1989 Gryphon Award. She is now working on a sequel to it, in addition to short story writing and editing the annual

Sword & Sorceress

anthology. She has also worked as a supernumerary with the San Francisco Opera, where she appeared in

La Gioconda, Manon Lescaut, Madama Butterfly, Khovanschina, Das Rheingold, Werther

, and

Idomeneo

The horse wasn’t the first animal to come to Maia calling for help, but it was the first one with a human on its back. Not that Maia noticed the human at first. She sat in a clearing in the Forest of Sorrows, avoiding her older brother. She was listening to the chatter of the crows while working on the fletching of the arrows that she made and her brother sold to support them. Then the voices of the crows changed, warning her of strangers in the forest. This was followed by the sound of something large stumbling through the trees and then the sight of a white horse with an arrow protruding from a hind leg and a pile of arrow-studded red and white rags on his back.

:Help my Chosen!: His voice was very clear in Maia’s head; he spoke as if he expected a human to hear and understand him.

Maia been able to hear—and converse with—animals as long as she could remember, but this mental voice wasn’t like that of any animal she had encountered before. It sounded more like a human, which made her wary. Shortly after the death of her parents three years ago, the people of their village suddenly and inexplicably didn’t like her any more—and her brother had never liked her. Now she avoided people whenever possible. Living at the edge of Sorrows helped; she could retreat into the forest and be left alone.

Still, whatever this was, he was in distress, so she dropped the arrows and moved to his side.

“Help your chosen what?” she asked him.

:My Herald. Her name is Samina. I am Clyton.:

“Let’s get this arrow out of you, Clyton,” Maia said, “and then perhaps you can get closer to the ground so I can get her down without dropping her.” She looked at the arrow in his leg and frowned. “This looks like one of mine,” she remarked, grasping it firmly below the fletching and pulling it straight out. The horse cried out in pain, and Maia stared in horror at the arrow she was holding. It was one of hers, but the last time she had seen it the shaft had simply been sharpened to a point. Since then somebody had added metal barbs to the tip, and it had not slid out as she expected it to. Instead, it had ripped a chunk out of Clyton’s leg.

“I am so sorry,” she gasped. “It didn’t have barbs when I saw it last!” She snatched up a cloth she used to wrap supplies in and pressed it against his leg to stop the bleeding.

:It’s not that bad,: Clyton said, although she suspected him of being less than truthful. :At least we’re far enough into Sorrows that the bandits aren’t likely to track us here.:

“Probably not,” Maia agreed. “My brother won’t even come in here.” Still keeping pressure on the leg, she twisted to look at the woman on his back, who had at least four arrows in her. “Bandits?” she asked. “There are usually no bandits anywhere near here.”

:There are now,: Clyton said grimly. Suddenly she found herself looking through his eyes. She recognized the road leading to her family’s farm, not that it was much of a farm since her parents had died and her brother had sold all the animals and stopped working the land.

As Clyton and his Herald approached the farm, men fired arrows—all of them barbed—from the trees on both sides of the road and then moved into the road to surround horse and rider. She saw her brother’s face clearly for a moment as he reached to grab the left side of Clyton’s reins, but then everything blurred as Clyton put on a seemingly impossible burst of speed and broke out of the trap.

Maia blinked and found herself back in the present and seeing through her own eyes again. “Was that real?” she asked. “What I just saw, I mean.”

:Yes. That’s what happened to us. You obviously have Mindspeech if you can pick it up from me like that.:

Maia lifted the cloth carefully and looked at his leg. The bleeding had almost stopped. “I think you’ll be all right for the moment if you don’t try to move much,” she said. “I’ll just have to lift Samina down as carefully as I can and hope for the best. I can see four arrows in her back—do you know if there are any more?”

:I don’t think so, but check before you try to move her. And be careful removing the arrows!:

“Don’t worry,” Maia assured him; “I learned my lesson with the one in your leg!”

:Better my leg than her body,: Clyton sighed.

Maia felt around Samina’s body to check for additional arrows, but she didn’t find any more. She wriggled her arm and shoulder between Samina’s body and the saddle, took most of the woman’s weight, and went to the ground in something between a slide and a fall. At least Samina landed on top of her, and none of the arrows hit the ground. Maia positioned the Herald carefully so that the arrows were still pointing away from the ground. “I’ll need to cut them out very carefully,” she murmured, looking around for the knife she used to trim arrow shafts.

:There should be a medical kit attached to my saddle.:

“That would help,” Maia agreed, moving to examine the saddle. An impressive variety of items was attached to snaffles on the skirting. “It might be more to the point to ask what’s not attached to your saddle,” she remarked as she searched for and finally found the medical kit. In addition to a clean knife, there was a needle and thread to sew the wounds and cloths to bandage it after she was done. There was also a jar of something Clyton said should be put on the wounds to help clean them, and a powder that could be made into a tea to lower the fever that Samina was undoubtedly going to have. At the moment she was still unconscious, which made cutting out the arrows and cleaning and sewing her wounds easier, but Maia could feel Clyton worrying about Samina’s lack of responsiveness. She could see that the woman had lost a lot of blood.

But there was nothing she could do about that, so she unsaddled Clyton and put the saddle on a fallen log.

The crows came swooping toward her, calling that her brother was home and looking for her. The vision of her brother working with the bandits flashed back instantly, filling her sight. My brother is a bandit. No wonder the villagers hate us. She shuddered. “I can’t go back,” she said to herself. “He’ll know that I know.”

:What are you talking about? Who will know that you know what?:

“You can’t understand the crows?” she asked. “They said that my brother wants me.”

:Maybe he could help us?: Clyton asked hopefully.

“He was the one who tried to grab your reins,” Maia informed him, “so I really doubt it.”

:Your brother is a bandit?:

“He attacked you,” Maia pointed out. “Even if he wasn’t working with the bandits, he doesn’t like animals, and he’s not all that fond of me. He doesn’t like work, either.” She frowned, considering her brother’s past behavior. “He’s always taken the easy way—I just didn’t realize how bad it had gotten.”

:It’s not just bad,: Clyton pointed out, :It’s getting cold—and dark. You’re not dressed to stay out all night, and the bandits got our pack mules and all of our supplies except what I was carrying. We need to get to the Waystation.:

“You’re very smart for a horse—”

:I am not a horse. I am a Companion.:

“—but you don’t have hands. With your leg injured, you can’t move around much, and Samina can’t be moved at all. Can you tell me how to find the Waystation?”

:Unless you can see in the dark, it doesn’t matter what I can tell you!: He sounded exasperated.

“I’m trying to help here!” she snapped back. “And I don’t have to see in the dark as long as I have friends who can.” The crows retreated to the tree branches as an owl floated silently out of the darkening sky to perch on the log next to Clyton’s saddle.

:It’s worth a try, I suppose,: Clyton sighed. :If I show you the path to the Waystation, can you show it to the owl?:

“We can try,” she said, mentally linking with both of them. It was a struggle, because the Companion and the owl saw things differently, but finally she was satisfied that she and the owl knew the way. She pulled out her fire starter, gathered twigs, and started a fire near Samina. She walked quickly around the edges of the clearing to get dead branches to keep it going. “Can you add the branches to the fire as it starts to burn low?” she asked. “We need to keep Samina warm until I can get back with blankets—there are some at the Waystation, right?”

Clyton nodded, looking subdued. He didn’t need to say anything; Maia knew he was in pain and worried about his Chosen.

“I’ll be back as quickly as I can,” she promised. “In the meantime,” she continued, “since you don’t have hands, I’ll leave you with someone who does.” She sent out a mental call, and a few moments later a raccoon poked his head cautiously into the clearing. “Dexter,” she said, “this is Clyton, and the lady is Samina.” She handed Dexter a clean cloth. “Could you wet this in the stream and use it to cool her forehead, please? Also, if the bandages start to come loose, fix them, all right?”

Dexter assured her he would take care of her new friends. Maia looked at Clyton to see if he could hear Dexter, but apparently he couldn’t.

She prayed to whatever gods might be listening all the way to the Waystation and back.

When she returned, staggering under a load that was as much as she could possibly carry, the moon was high, and the clearing was bright with its silvery light. Samina was awake and fretting, despite Clyton’s attempts to calm her. “I need my arrows,” she insisted.

“I should think you’d had enough arrows for one day,” Maia remarked. Samina tried to twist to face her, with a notable lack of success.

“I need my arrows!” she repeated desperately. “They’re in a case attached to my saddle.”

“Where else?” Maia asked ironically.

“I’m already getting delirious—I have to send the message while I still can!” Samina insisted. “I woke up and saw a raccoon nursing me.”

“Relax,” Maia said soothingly. “If all you saw is Dexter, you’re not hallucinating yet.”

“Dexter?”

“The raccoon. I had to leave for a while, and he has hands—in fact, he’s quite dexterous.” She ignored Samina’s look of disbelief. “I’ll find your arrows for you.” She went to where she had left the saddle. Clyton limped over to join her and shoved at a cylindrical case with his nose. She unfastened it from the saddle and took it to Samina.

“Thank you.” Samina opened the case and removed three arrows. One had a green band and the other two had yellow bands. With shaking hands Samina bent several of the barbs on the fletching of each arrow and tied the arrows together so that they didn’t interfere with the patterns in the fletching. “Clyton,” she said, “These need to go to the Healing Temple—you know the one.”

“Clyton can’t take them,” Maia said. “He was shot, too; didn’t you notice that he’s walking on only three legs?”

Samina buried her face in her hands and moaned.

“Does he have to be the one to take them?” Maia asked. “Or will they be enough of a message if they just get there?”

“They’ll be enough by themselves, but how else can we get them there? Can you take them?”

Maia shook her head. “I know a faster way. Clyton,” she asked, “exactly where is this temple?”

“You can hear my Companion?” Samina asked in astonishment.

“Yes,” Maia said. “He says I’ve got Mindspeech.” A view of a road and the temple at the end filled her vision. She passed it on to the nearest group of crows. “Do you know this place?” she asked them. “Can you find it?”

About a dozen crows spiraled down out of the trees to perch in front of her, assuring her that they knew exactly where to go. “Take the arrows then,” she told them, “and make certain that nobody on the ground sees them. I recognized my brother, but I don’t know who his friends are or where they live. Fly safely.”

One of the crows grabbed the arrows, and they took off clustered together. Even knowing that the arrows were there, Maia couldn’t see them.

Maia didn’t know how many days passed before the crows returned with a healer. Clyton’s leg was obviously hurting, and Samina, despite Maia’s—and Dexter’s—best efforts, became feverish and delirious. Maia collected several bruises trying to care for her. She wondered, when she had a moment to think, if she would have done a better job if she actually knew anything about healing. “Just keep her alive till the Healer gets here,” she told herself. “That’s what matters.”

Finally she heard the chatter of crows escorting the healer. A woman in green robes arrived in the clearing riding double with another person dressed in white and riding a white horse, presumably another Herald and Companion.

The crows were all talking at once, telling her all about their adventure, but Maia was too tired to care. As soon as she finished telling the Healer what little she knew and what little she had done and explaining to the new Herald what she knew about the attack, she fell asleep and didn’t wake for days. By then the military units had rounded up her brother and his fellow bandits and taken them away for trial. The Healer explained that Maia would not be needed for the trial as she had not been present during the attack.

“I guess I’d sound pretty silly telling a judge that I saw the attack hours later through the eyes of a horse,” Maia told Samina later. Samina was recovering, but the Healer didn’t want her to move yet, so she encouraged Maia to sit and talk to her. Clyton was doing better also, but he still wasn’t up to galloping at top speed while carrying a rider, so they were still camping in the safety of Sorrows. It was a much more comfortable camp now; someone had brought three mules and a load of actual camping supplies, so they were no longer making do with what Maia had been able to scrounge from the Waystation.

Samina looked sharply at her. “You can see through Clyton’s eyes?”

“Only when he wants to show me something,” Maia clarified, “but when he does, I can see what he saw.”

“And you can communicate with the raccoon . . .”

“His name is Dexter,” Maia said.

“ . . . and the crows. Anything else?”

Maia shrugged. “I can understand pretty much anything that wants to talk to me. Why?”

Samina smiled. “It’s one of the Gifts. We Heralds call it Mindspeech. It appears that you have a strong aptitude for it.” She paused, and then asked, “Could you hear your brother?”

Maia shook her head. “Just animals. And Clyton. I didn’t even know that my brother wasn’t supporting us by selling the arrows I made, the way he told me. He was using them to rob people.” She frowned in thought. “Does that mean that my arrows aren’t good enough to sell?”

“I though they were very effective,” Samina said dryly. “They certainly made an impression on me.” Her face was straight, but Maia could tell that she was joking.

“Several impressions,” Maia agreed, keeping her face straight and as innocent as possible. “But I didn’t put the barbs on them,” she added quickly. “Did Clyton tell you that?”

“He did,” Samina reassured her. “He also said that you saved my life.”

“It was the least I could do, after having made the arrows that nearly killed you.” Maia shrugged off the praise and returned to her original subject. “I notice that you carry arrows. If my arrows are good enough, can the Heralds use a fletcher?”