Moving Targets and Other Tales of Valdemar

She was reaching for the handle when she heard Olli boom out and Herda scream.

“Monster!” he yelled.

“No!” Herda’s cry ended in a strangled shriek.

Lelia stood with her hand over the handle, listening. Nothing followed the outburst. The silence was as disconcerting as the brief shouts that had preceded it.

Lelia cracked the door and peered out.

The stable doors were flung wide. Sunlight showed a floor strewn with splintered bones and hay. Something stood half in and half out of the stable.

It was not unlike the moment when her hand broke. Despite the evidence before her, Lelia was convinced this couldn’t really be happening. But the snake’s body and stubby legs, the amethyst eyes, the glittering silver scales—it could only be one thing.

The colddrake had its gaze fixed on Olli, who stood halfway between the house and the stable, trapped in the beast’s hypnotic stare. His wood-ax was raised over his head, his arms beginning to tremble from the strain.

“No!” Herda sobbed. “No, stop it.” She flung her arms around the monster’s neck—it was easily the size of a small pony. “You can’t! Be good, Snowglass, be good!”

It craned its neck around and looked at her. She gazed back, her eyes shining with tears. A fragile smile lit her face and, without a sign of hesitation, she reached out to stroke its cheek.

The colddrake bent forward and clamped its jaws around her arm.

No! Lelia thought, jerking forward as Herda screamed. The monster wrenched its head back, ripping her arm from the socket, the clay egg-flute going with it. The colddrake turned its gaze back toward Olli, Herda’s arm slowly disappearing down its gullet as it advanced on the helpless innmaster.

What can I do? What can I do? Panic and fear made Lelia’s stomach churn. The colddrake stood between her and the flute. She looked for weapons, but saw none. There was nothing—

Oh.

Lelia took a deep breath and threw the door wide.

“Hey!” she yelled, bursting into the yard. “Over here, you bastard!”

The colddrake’s head turning toward her, its tongue tasting the air. She kept her eyes fixed above the beast, and yet even so she felt a wave of something pound against her, compelling her to look.

Instead, Lelia sang.

Her Gift reached out as she sang the same five notes, over and over. The colddrake stopped advancing even as Olli staggered forward and Herda made mewling noises on the floor of the stable, crawling through the blood toward her pet.

The colddrake lowered, bowing to Lelia’s song. The amethyst eyes closed as the monster settled its head on the snow as if it were a pillow.

Olli raised the wood-ax. The beast never made a sound, but Herda keened like a wounded beast.

“When we set out from the inn, I remember telling him he was silly for bringing that ax along,” Lelia mused.

“Sometimes silly is good.”

“Don’t I know it.” She finished off her ale. “We staunched Herda’s bleeding and carried her back to Langenfield. Kerithwyn and Artel took her from there.” Lelia frowned down at the page, setting her quill aside. “Herda will always hate me.”

“Good time to leave town.”

“She’s not a bad person.”

“She was raising a colddrake.”

“She thought she could make it good.” Lelia shook her head. “She loved it, even when she realized that she loved something that could never be. She wanted to believe she could make it work.” Her throat knotted up, her vision blurring.

The Herald’s voice softened. “Do you still refer to Herda?”

Lelia sat in silence, and then smiled. “Oh, that’s a pretty sentiment, isn’t it?” She looked square into the face of her pain. “But that’s what I want to hear.” Her throat tightened. “You’ll never say that, Wil.”

She spoke it because it was true.

And because he wasn’t really there.

“The world hates a heartbroken Bard,” she said, the same thing the Ashkevron Bard had told her when he advised her to go south, go north, go anywhere that would take her away from what she couldn’t have.

“You can’t vie with a Herald’s first love,” he’d said. “The Kingdom needs him. You can’t compete with that.”

“Kingdom’s got far more acreage than me,” Lelia had replied miserably. It was meant to be a joke. It didn’t feel like it.

The comfort of a stranger’s ear had been too tempting, and she’d spent so many months of her journeyman days doggedly trying to cross paths with Herald Wil. She’d ended up telling the Ashkevron Bard all about her little obsession with her brother’s instructor. On Companion-back he and Lyle always outpaced her, but the Heralds often were mired in the local politics, giving her time to be at the next village when they got there.

The elder Bard had shaken his head. “You need to find a song. Find something.” He had patted her arm gently. “It’ll kill you at first, but you’ll be better for it.”

Lelia thought, I found my song, and it nearly did kill me. Or Herda, at least. I’ve found something else, though. Between a Bard with a broken heart and a girl who tamed a colddrake, I know which one folk want to hear about.

She took a deep breath and seized the quill again. “So, Wil, what would you ask?”

The Herald who was not really there replied without hesitation. “How’d a colddrake get this far south?”

Lelia nodded, filling the last page of the report. “Aa-and—was it just this colddrake, or can Herda’s trick be reproduced? Is anyone mad enough to try?”

The front door of the inn opened, and Olli walked in with an armful of wood. “Talking to someone?” he asked.

Lelia looked up at him and smiled. “Just me.” She plucked a page out of the collection and tossed it in the fire. “Making sure I answer the right questions. It’s a little game I play.”

“You talk to yourself?”

“All the time. Here.” She rolled up the notes and handed them to the innmaster. “Give this to whatever Herald shows up. Tell ’em that it’s an official Bardic record of the events. I signed it and everything.”

“Great.” Olli took the scroll, and then watched as she hoisted her pack. “I—we’ll miss you.”

“I know.” She hugged him tightly. “I am forever in your debt, Drakeslayer.”

He blushed. “Take care, m’lady Bard.”

“Will do, innmaster.” She winked and strolled out, heading north.

Artel found Olli sitting by the fire and poking the coals.

“Your sparrow has flown, I take it?” she asked.

He nodded.

Artel looked about the gloomy common room. “Time to get things ready for the evening, eh?”

He replaced the poker in the stand. “I almost had myself convinced she’d stay.”

She smacked his shoulder. “She’s a Bard, you besotted fool! You keep someone like that here, and everything good about her dies. Her first love will always be the road.”

Olli grimaced. “Where I can’t follow.”

Artel rolled her eyes and threw her hands in the air. “Bright Lady, lad, get yourself on top of a woman already, and forget the one that never paid notice to you!”

She stormed out. The innmaster roused not much later, rolling his stiff shoulders. He built up the fire and then went to pulling out tables and benches, placing plates and bowls of honey.

The fire burned merrily all the long night.

Live On

by Tanya Huff

Tanya Huff lives and writes in rural Canada with her partner Fiona Patton and five, no six, no seven ... and a lot of cats as well as an elderly chihuahua who mostly ignores her. The recent adaptation of the five Vicki Nelson books to television (

Blood Ties

) finally allowed her to use her degree in radio and television arts some twenty-five years after the fact. Her twenty-fourth and most recent novel,

Valor’s Trial

, came out from DAW in hardcover in June 2008, and she is currently working on

The Enchantment Emporium

, a stand-alone contemporary fantasy. In her spare time she practices the guitar and tries to avoid some of the trickier versions of a Gm7.

“Are you the young man who wrote that report about Appleby?”

Heralds didn’t tend to grow old. Even in times of peace, they lived lives that lowered the odds of them dying in bed to slightly less than negligible. It seemed that the elderly Herald who’d appeared at Jors’ side was the exception to prove the rule. His shoulders were hunched forward, his eyes were red rimmed and moist, he stood with his weight supported on a polished cane, and above the scarf he wore in spite of the heat of a sunny, late spring day, age had pleated his face into a hundred wrinkles.

“Are you deaf, boy? I said, are you the young man who wrote that report about Appleby! Are you Herald Jors?”

Age had roughened his voice but not lessened his volume.

People were beginning to gather, and Jors could see a trio of Companions heading in across the field to see what all the noise was about. “I am. I’m Jors.”

“Who taught you to write reports? Never mind. You leave too much out. That report about Appleby? All apples.”

“That’s pretty much all there is in Appleby.”

“What? There’s no people? No dogs? No cats? No buildings? No apple trees for pity’s sake?”

“Of course there are and ...”

“Of course there are,” the elderly Herald snorted. “Why didn’t you mention them, then, eh? You mentioned the apples, why not the apple trees?”

Jors smiled and spread his hands. “They didn’t do much.”

The rheumy eyes narrowed. “Don’t get smart with me, boy. I’ve had my Whites longer than your father’s been alive, maybe even your father’s father, and there has been a distinct disintegration, no, dispersing, no, erosion of writing ability over the last few years.” He shook a swollen finger at Jors—or perhaps he merely pointed and it shook on its own, it was hard to tell. “Reports used to say things. Give details. Tell stories. They used to bring Valdemar to life. Now it’s all apples!”

Since he seemed to be waiting for Jors to respond, the younger man ventured a reasonably sincere “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry. Do it right the next time. Honestly,” he muttered, turning and making his way toward the stables. “What are they teaching them when they’re in their Grays?”

Jors watched him go, watched him correcting a lateral drift every six steps or so, and wondered if he should have offered his arm.

“I see you’ve met Herald Tamis.”

He turned to see Erica, one of his yearmates, leaning on the fence, one arm stretched out over the top rail so she could scratch up under Raya, her Companion’s mane. “He doesn’t like the way I write reports.”

“As near as I can tell, he doesn’t like the way anyone writes reports.” She put a quaver into her voice. “It’s all business now, I tell you. No stories.” Then her expression changed. “Raya says we shouldn’t mock him.”

“I wasn’t.”

She smacked his shoulder with her free hand. “You would have.”

“Who is he?” Jors asked, climbing up onto the top rail so he could pay a similar attention to his own Companion. Who seemed to be sulking.

:I was not sulking,: Gervis protested, pushing against Jors’ leg almost hard enough to knock him off the fence. :You were ignoring me.:

:I wasn’t.:

:I had an itch.:

Jors rolled his eyes as he pushed a hand up under the silken mane and began to scratch. :Better?:

:Yes.:

“Tamis is a historian,” Erica told him. “He has rooms behind the library—I think they used to be storerooms until he took them over. He’s working on the history of the Heralds.”

“Why have I never met him?”

“Because you’re never here.”

Gervis snorted. :She’s right.:

:I don’t like cities. Circuits have to be ridden. I might as well ride them.:

:We.:

:We,: he repeated apologetically. And then something occurred to him. “Don’t histories usually get written after the fact?”

Erica shrugged. “It’s an ongoing history.”

“Let’s hope.”

Tamis had reached the stables and dealt with the heavy door by pounding on it with his cane until someone opened it from the inside. Obviously someone who’d opened the door for Tamis before as he danced back so the next blow missed him.

“How old is his Companion then?”

:She’s not young,: Gervis answered diplomatically.

His room still smelled slightly musty, as if no one had been in it for months. Since he hadn’t been in it for months, Jors wasn’t terribly surprised. Crossing to the window, he pried it open and brushed the two dead flies on the sill outside, allowing the living fly to leave under its own power.

On the top floor of the Herald’s Wing, his room had a wounderful view of the Companion’s Field but was so small—a little smaller, in fact, than the rooms housing the Grays—that no one had wanted it until he’d chosen it. Since he’d probably spent less than two months in it over the five years he’d had his Whites, Jors had no problem with the size. He didn’t see much point in claiming space he never used.

A trio of gleaming white figures galloped across the field, kicking up their heels and playing what looked like the Companion version of tag. Even at a distance, he could see all three of them looked distinctly coltish.

:Gervis?:

:What is it?: The young stallion sounded a bit petulant.

:I was just checking to see if you were all right.:

:I’m in the Companion’s Field, surrounded by Companions, on a beautiful day. Why wouldn’t I be all right?:

:I just ... :

:Don’t like being stuck in the city,: Gervis finished his sentence. :If it helps, don’t think of it as being stuck in the city, think of it as being stuck at the Collegium.:

:I’m not sure I see the difference.:

:Did I mention I had carrots?:

:No, you didn’t.:

:And that Raya is here?:

:And you’d like me to leave you alone?:

:Yes.:

Jors grinned. Gervis and the mare enjoyed each other’s company whenever they crossed paths. :You know where I am if you need me.:

:Companion’s Field, beautiful day, Raya ...:

:Yeah, yeah, I get it. You’re not likely to need me.: Still grinning, he let their connection fade down to the gentle touch that was always with him and drew in a deep breath. Probably his imagination that he could taste the population of Haven on the breeze, and there was no way he could hear the noise those same people had to be making on the other side of the walls.

His new Whites came in time for him to attend a spring garden party at the palace.

:I can’t believe this is what I’m reduced to,: he muttered, delaying the inevitable by lingering at the Companion’s Field for as long as possible.

:Things are quiet. Quiet is good. And you will not be the only Herald there,: Gervis reminded him. :Perhaps you should try enjoying yourself.:

“Most of the stains will come out.” Lips pursed, the laundress turned his vest around in her hands.” How on earth did you manage to make such a mess?”

Jors sighed. “My Companion suggested I enjoy myself. That seemed to involve Lord Randall’s eldest daughter, a full glass of wine, two rosebushes, and a dessert tray.”

Her brows rose nearly to her hairline. “That was you?”

“You heard about it?”

“Oh, sweet boy, everyone’s heard about it.” She patted his shoulder with a plump hand. “They’ll be telling the story in the kitchens for years.”

“Herald Jors?” The boy grinned up at him, seemingly oblivious to the bruise swelling his left eye shut. “The Dean wants to see you.”

“Thank you ... ?”

“Petrin.”

“What happened to your eye, Petrin?”

“Weapons training.” He grinned. “I forgot to block.”

Impossible not to grin back. “Now you know why you’re supposed to.”

“That’s what the Weaponsmaster said. Me and Serrin, that’s my Companion, Serrin, we can’t wait to get out on the road.”

Jors rubbed at the marks of thorns on the back of his right hand. “Yeah. I know how you feel.”

“I’ve got escort duty available, heading south to Hartsvale, a small village up in the hills east of Crescent Lake. Interested?”

“Havens, yes!” Jors felt his cheeks heat up as Dean Carlech raised both brows at his vehemence. “Sorry. Things are just ... I’m just better out on the road.”

“I suspect the palace gardeners would agree with you. Herald Tamis’ great-niece is to be married, and he wants to attend. Verati, his Companion, is also elderly and we don’t want them traveling that distance on their own, so your job will be to get them there and back.” He looked down at the papers spread over his desk, one corner of his mouth twitching within the shadow of his beard in an obvious attempt not to laugh. “Enjoy yourself at the wedding. Try not to demolish any topiary.”

“It was an accident.”

“Hellfire, lad!” The laugh escaped. “No one thinks you did it on purpose.”

“So, you’re the one who’ll be escorting us south.” Eyes narrowed, arms folded, Tamis raked a scathing gaze over Jors. “I’m not thrilled with the idea of a babysitter, just so you know. Verati and I have traveled from one end of this country to the other in our time, and we don’t need a Herald barely out of his Grays assigned to keep an eye on us.”

“I’ve been riding Circuit or Courier for more than five years.”

“Of course you have. I’ve had rashes longer. Verati and I, we’d be fine on our own, I’ve told Carlech that. Not that he listens, the young pup. Well, as long as you’re here,” he said, waving a hand toward the pack on his bed, “you might as well put those young muscles to use and carry that down to the yard for me.”

“Is this it, then?” Jors asked as he lifted the pack. He appreciated the older Herald’s ability to travel light. He never carried more than the bare necessities himself.

“Don’t be absurd, no silly, no ridiculous, boy. There’s three more already down there.” Fingers white around the carved head of his cane, Tamis wobbled out into the hall. “We’re not riding Circuit, we’re going to a wedding.”

Verati was the closest Jors had ever seen to a stout Companion.

:I wouldn’t think that quite so loudly, Heartbrother.:

Jors shot a near panicked glance at Gervis, standing saddled and waiting in the yard. :She can’t hear me, can she?:

:Of course not, but your face gives your thoughts away.:

Tamis lifted his forehead from where it had been resting against the creamy white forehead of his Companion and shuffled aside, steadying himself on the bridle. “Herald Jors, this is my lady, Verati.”

Jors bowed.

Verati inclined her head carefully so as not to topple her Herald.

:She says that was remarkably graceful considering your inclination to dive into rosebushes.:

:Why does everyone keep harping on that!:

:Because things are so quiet there’s not much else happening. And speaking of harping, one of the younger Bards has composed a rondeau. It’s quite good, although I’m not sure befores is actually a word.:

It took forever to get out of Haven as Tamis seemed to know everyone they passed.

“Move too fast and miss the point of travel,” Tamis snorted when Jors mentioned it. “Everyone has a story. And you’re thinking, ‘Why should I care about everyone’s story? What adventures could a cobbler, no a butcher, no a whore have that would be worth telling?’ That’s the trouble with the young. They think there’s only one story and they’re the hero in it.”

“I don’t ...”

“You’d be surprised,” Tamis continued, interrupting Jors’s protest. “Surprised, I tell you, if you took the time to listen. Back in my day, we listened or we got what-for. I remember Shorna, one of my yearmates; she’d never ridden before she was Chosen, and one day, during a class, she went right off over her Companion’s head, and Herald Dorian, she was the instructor, she said, ‘Well, at least it’s a nice day.’ Shorna was so mad Dorian would say it was a nice day after she landed on the grass like that.” He nodded so vigorously, he began to topple, and Verati had to side-step to keep him in the saddle. “It was a nice day though,” he added thoughtfully. “They’re all dead now, you know, except for me. It’s no fun getting old, boy. Although ...” he gave a wet cough that Jors realized, after a moment, was meant to be a chuckle.” ... it beats the alternative.”

:Speaking of old; how long can he stay mounted?: Jors wondered as Tamis greeted a water seller with a question about her father.

:Verati won’t let him fall.:

:Not what I meant. Riding, even riding a Companion, can’t be easy on old joints, and I’d like to at least be out of the city before we have to stop for the day.:

In the end, Willow, the younger of their two mules, got them moving, objecting to the crowd at the Hay-market with a well-placed kick. Jors made a mental note to thank her with a carrot at the first opportunity.

The South Trade Road offered a wide selection of inns between Haven and Kettlesmith, and, for a while, Jors was afraid they’d be staying in all of them. What had seemed like a ridiculously generous amount of travel time up in the Dean’s office now made more sense.

Tamis was an early riser but only because he napped for an hour or two after they stopped at midday and went to bed while the chickens were foraging for one last meal in the inn yards. Jors spent his evenings grooming both Companions. Verati had a disconcerting way of falling asleep the moment he put brush to withers, but then Verati had a disconcerting way of falling asleep whenever they stopped, her head falling forward until her breath blew two tiny, identical divots out of the dusty ground.

They let Verati set the pace, and Tamis either talked about Heralds long dead ...

:And Shorna was so mad Dorian would say it was a nice day after she landed on the grass like that.: Jors’ silent chorus followed the inflections of the older Herald’s voice exactly.

:Does he not remember he told this story?: Gervis wondered.

:I don’t think so.:

:He called me Arrin this morning.:

:At least Arrin was a stallion. He called me Janis.: ... or slumped back against the high cantle and dozed in the saddle. Dozing, Jors discovered, did not cut into actual naptime.

When they reached Dog Inn and the turn east to Herald’s Hill, Tamis decided to join Jors in the common room for their evening meal.

“Are you sure? Your digestion wasn’t too happy after lunch.”

“Stop fussing, boy. My digestion is none of your business, no responsibility, no concern.”

Given how early they were eating—Tamis’ digestion also had strong ideas about eating too late—even the presence of two Heralds couldn’t fill the room. There were four equally elderly locals playing Horses and Hounds at a table on the other side of the small fire and tucked into a corner, a merchant waiting with no good grace for the smith to repair a cracked axle on his wagon.

“That’s apple wood.” Tamis sniffed appreciatively as he settled. “Can’t beat the way it smells as it burns. Why didn’t you mention that in your Appleby report?”

“I never noticed it.”

“Of course you didn’t. What are you doing?”

He’d been pulling the crusts off the thick slices of brown bread. Unless there was stew or soup to dip them into, previous meals had taught him Tamis couldn’t handle crusts. Waving one of the slices, he tried to explain. “I’m uh ...”

Tamis snatched it out of his hand. “Stop fussing.”

“So, Heralds.” The innkeeper settled at their table expectantly. “What news?”

“It’s quiet,” Jors told her. “The borders are peaceful, trade is good, and even the weather has been fine.”

“He writes his reports the same way,” Tamis sighed. “Accurate but not exactly memorable.” He took a long swallow of ale—“Only ale worth drinking should be dark enough to see your reflection in.”—coughed a bit, then smiled at the innkeeper broadly enough to show he still had most of his teeth. “You want a story, I’m afraid you’re stuck with me.”

:Oh, no.:

:What is it, Chosen?:

:Tamis is about to tell a story. I bet you a royal it’s either Shorna or Terrik up the tree.:

It was neither.

“... and although he may have defeated the first rosebush, the second, I fear, was the victor. Everyone has a story, boy,” he added. “You can thank me for not mentioning your name.” He likely thought the laughter would cover the comment. Which it would have had Tamis’ voice not been at his usual compensating-for-being-mostly-deaf volume.

On the other hand, Jors reflected philosophically, even the merchant with the cracked axle seemed to have cheered up.

“... and Shorna was so mad Dorian would say it was a nice day after she landed on the grass like that.” Tamis gave his wet cough chuckle and tossed a stick into the fire. “I remember it like it was yesterday.”

:Gervis . . .:

:Verati does not see that there is a problem.:

:But . . .:

:She says age is not a problem. It just is.:

Jors glanced over at the elderly mare, providing a warm support behind Tamis’s back and wondered if, all things considered, she was the best judge. :What do you think?:

He felt Gervis’s mental sigh. :I think I’m tired of hearing that story.:

“I wanted to be a Bard, you know,” Tamis said suddenly. “Good thing my lady arrived when she did or all that wanting would have broken my heart.”

“Your family didn’t want you to be a Bard?” Jors asked after it became obvious Tamis wasn’t going to continue.

The old man started and peered across the fire at him. “What do you know about it, boy?”

“You said wanting to be a Bard would have broken your heart.”

“I did? Well, it would have. Couldn’t carry a tune if my life depended on it. I never forget a story though, and there’s so many stories that are forgotten. You wouldn’t believe the stories I found going through the old reports, stories about Heralds long dead who lived lives that should be remembered. Not because they made the great heroic gestures—those, they get put to music to inspire a bunch more damned fool heroics—but because they did what needed to be done. Those are the stories that should live on. But if you write a report that holds just the facts and has none of you in it, well, that’s you gone, isn’t it?” Tamis snorted. “Heralds don’t die in bed, now do they?”

“Well, you’re not dead yet.”

Verati opened one sapphire eye.

:She doesn’t think you’re funny,: Gervis translated helpfully.

At Herald’s Hill, Tamis stirred three spoonfuls of honey into his breakfast tea and told a full common room the story of the merchant they’d met at Dog Inn. Later, while loading the mules, Jors saw a carter in the inn yard checking his axles.

:Oh, look, the moral of the story.:

:Chosen, that’s ...: The pause continued long enough that Jors turned to look. Gervis tossed his head, looking a little sheepish. :Okay, it’s actually pretty funny.:

At Crescent Lake, Tamis told the story of a farmer he’d met back when he’d been riding Circuit and the girl he’d spent twelve years wooing.

:He remembers every detail about that but he can’t remember my name?:

:Or that he told us about Shorna falling off her horse?:

:What does Verati talk about while we’re walking?: Jors wondered, setting the pack on Willow’s pad.

:How the roads were straighter and carrots were sweeter when she was young.:

:And I bet mules were better behaved,: Jors muttered, dodging a flailing hoof.

On their own, even with a mule, Jors figured he and Gervis could have made Crescent Lake to Hartsvale in one long day. Tamis and Verati didn’t do long days.

When it started to rain about mid-afternoon. Jors pulled an oilskin cloak out of Tamis’ bag, tucked it around him, and gave some serious thought to riding all night. He wanted to get Tamis out of the damp as soon as possible.

:Do you think Verati could do it?:

:I think she would try for her Herald’s sake, but she is also very old. We’ve been traveling for some time, and she is more tired than she will admit to.:

:All right, then, I’ll build a lean-to.: He repeated his plans out loud as he dismounted.

“You’re fussing.” Tamis’s protest would have held more heat had he not begun to cough.

“Gervis hates getting wet.” Which had the added benefit of being the truth. His Companion had a cat’s opinion of water.

“You’re handy with an axe.”

“My family are foresters.”

“My family are foresters,” Tamis repeated, rubbing a gleaming drop of mucus off the end of his nose. “What kind of a story is that?”

“A very short one,” Jors grunted as he drove the first of the stakes into the ground.

No children ran out to greet them as they entered the north end of the village late the next day.

Gervis lifted his head. :I smell smoke.:

:So do I.:

Verati stopped so suddenly Willow trotted up her lead rope and smacked into a gleaming white haunch. Tamis, wrapped in every piece of dry clothing he had remaining, looking more like a pile of white laundry than a person, pulled his cane from the saddle ties. “Something’s wrong.”

Then a dog started barking and, between one heartbeat and the next, men and women spilled out of the houses, children watching wide-eyed from windows and doors.

“Heralds! Thank the Lady you’ve come, we’ve had ...” The heavyset woman out in front rocked to a halt and frowned. “Uncle Tamis?”

“Who were you expect ...” The querulous question turned into coughing, his cane tumbling to the ground as he clutched at the saddle horn with both hands.

“What happened here?” Jors snapped, pitching his voice to carry over the coughing and the babble of voices it provoked.

“Quiet!” The heavyset woman turned just far enough to see that she was obeyed, then locked her attention on Jors. “Raiders,” she growled. “They hit around noon, when most were out in the fields and no one much here to stand up to them. Eight or nine of them rode in and tossed a torch onto Kervin’s roof. Same group as has been hitting the farms—ride in and set a fire, grab a lamb here or a chicken there, and ride out thinking no one can touch them. But Bardi—that’s Merilyn and Conner’s youngest girl ...”

A man and a woman, neither of them young, pushed forward through the crowd and stared up at him with grieving eyes.

“... well, she’s a dab shot, and she put an arrow into three of them. Knocked one out of the saddle, hit one in the meaty part of the thigh, and the third up in the shoulder. Well, they didn’t like that, did they? And the one on the ground, I’m guessing he was a brother or something close to him they called their leader because when they saw he was down, and folk were starting to run in, they grabbed her.” Thick fingers closed around a handful of air. “Grabbed her and rode off.”

So much for peaceful and quiet. Jors cursed himself for thinking it ever had to end. “The raider Bardi shot, do the others think he’s dead?”

“No, he was thrashing and yelling.”

“So they’ve probably taken her to trade. Her for him.”

“Then why not do it? Then and there?”

“You said she injured two of them? It’s hard to drive a bargain when you’re in danger of bleeding to death. They’ve ridden just far enough to tend their wounds, and they’ll be back.” He glanced west, at the sun sitting fat and orange just above the horizon. “Tomorrow.”

“So we wait?” A voice from the back of the crowd.

“No!” Tamis answered before Jors could.

“No,” Jors agreed, cutting him off. There was no need for more detail than that. And everyone knew it. Twisting around, he untied the lead line and began tossing unnecessary gear to the ground. “Which way?”

“East. We tried to follow, but they’re on hill ponies, tough and fast, and we lost the trail in the rock. Nearly lost two of our own as well.” Her voice grew defensive. No one wanted the Herald to think they’d given up too soon. “The hills are treacherous if you don’t know them. They do.”

“We can handle the hills.” He checked that his quiver was full. “I’ll find them.”

“We’ll find them,” Tamis protested, struggling to free himself from his wrappings, Verati shifting her weight to keep him from falling. “When I was a boy, I all but lived in those hills. I know their stories!”

:Chosen . . .:

:I know.:

But fate intervened before Jors had to speak as another coughing fit nearly pitched the old Herald out of the saddle. Would have pitched him out of the saddle had the heavyset woman not moved close enough to support his weight.

“Take care of him,” Jors told her. He swept his gaze over the gathered villagers, who needed hope as much as anything. “I’ll mark the trail for those who follow.”

Then Gervis spun on one rear hoof and headed east.

Easy enough, even as the daylight faded, to see where a group of mounted men left the track, following a deer trail into the trees.

:What are you going to do when we catch up?: Gervis asked, barely slowing.

:Depends on what we find.:

:If that woman is right, there’s at least eight of them.:

:But two of them are wounded.: Bending low in the saddle, he tried not to think of what the others might be doing.

:Verati isn’t happy.:

:We were sent with them to keep them safe. Safe does not include tracking armed raiders through hill country at night. I know her heart is willing, but ...: Underbrush pulled at his boots. Gervis was larger than the horses they followed and was breaking a path a blind man could see. :We’ll bring them a story with a happy ending. That’ll have to do.:

When they emerged into one of the long ridges of rock that ribbed through the hills, the sky was a deep sapphire blue, and long, dark shadows hid the trail. Jors dismounted and found a scar where a hoof had scraped lichen off rock. :Southeast:

He nearly missed the point where they left the rock to go east again, but Gervis caught the scent of fresh blood, and a spattering not yet entirely dry showed the way.

:I smell smoke.:

:They must have lit a fire. They’ve made camp, then, and we’re close.:

The camp, when they found it, looked almost familiar. Jors checked his mental maps. Unless they’d traveled a lot farther from the village than he thought, they were still some distance from the border, but there was no mistaking the pattern of fire and picket line and the way the weapons had been set, butts to the ground, points crossed.

:They’re army, or ex-army. Hardorn lancers.: Bow in hand, he moved closer carefully. :I’m betting some bright officer came up with a way to use their troublemakers to their advantage. It’s why they took the girl. Why they’ll want their man back so badly. I bet their first order was not to get caught.:

:I don’t see the girl.:

:Neither do I. We have to get closer.:

He lifted a foot and set it down again as a rough voice growled, “I may miss you in this light, but I’ll not miss the big white horse. You keep him calm and you do what I say, and you might just survive this.”

:Gervis?:

:Crossbow bolt up in under my jaw. Point touching skin.:

Companions were fast and moved in ways a man seeing a horse wouldn’t expect. But were they faster than a finger tightening around a crossbow trigger? Jors couldn’t risk that.

:How did he move in so close?:

:I don’t think he moved in, I think we stopped right beside him.:

Not so much ex-army that they didn’t have a man on watch.

“Let me kill him, Adric.”

“He’s a Herald, you idiot.” Torso bare but for streaks of blood and a field dressing on his shoulder, Adric scowled down at Jors, who struggled up onto his knees. With Gervis’ life in the balance, he’d walked into the camp and been slammed to the ground with the butt of a lance. The point of that lance was now centered in his chest. “Kill one and they all come down on you.”

“Then we tie him and leave him here,” the first man grunted. “Take the horse with us, probably get a pretty penny for it.”

:Chosen!:

:I’m okay.: More or less. :You?:

:He hasn’t moved the bow away.:

They might not understand what a Companion was, but they’d dealt with Valdemar enough to know Jors wouldn’t provoke the shot.

“We’re not,” Aldric growled, “going anywhere without Lorne.”

“And that’s why we have the girl.”

Eyes adjusted to the firelight, Jors could see her now, sitting on the ground with her knees drawn up, gaze locked on his face. Fifteen maybe, no older, on that cusp between girl and woman. She looked frightened but determined. A boy, not much older, stood behind her, arms crossed, and a man with his breeches cut away and a bloody dressing on his thigh—the man who’d spoken—reclined beside her.

“Not the only reason, mind you,” he added reaching over and lightly smacking her cheek.

Bardi jerked away from his touch, provoking a shove from the boy behind her, but as near as Jors could tell, it hadn’t yet progressed beyond touching and threat. They’d got there in time and had provided, if nothing else, a distraction. Now, they just had to get away.

He’d seen six of the eight men—Adric, obviously their leader, the one who spoke first, the one with the lance, two by Bardi, the one with the crossbow on Gervis. The other two had to be behind him, but the point of the lance kept him from turning to make sure.

“You know, I’ve heard stories about Heralds. This one ... “A boot impacted with his thigh without much force, making the point that Jors was there to be kicked. “... isn’t much.”

Seven.

“He tracked us over rock in the dark,” Adric snorted. “What more do you want?”

“He got caught.”

“Yeah, well, you can’t sneak for shit wearing all that white. Get the rope, Herin, and tie him. We’ll leave him here when we move out,” Adric added as the kicking man moved toward the piles of gear, “but we’ll kill the horse. Drive it off a cliff. Everyone knows who the damned things belong to, and we don’t need that kind of trouble.”

“If you don’t need trouble ...” Jors forced himself to look in control regardless of position or lances or crossbows. “... then you should pack up and go now. You don’t think I came out here alone, do you?” He added as Adric’s brows pulled in. “You don’t think Valdemar is going to ignore Hardorn violating the border, do you?”

“I’ll give him violating,” the man with the thigh injury snarled, reaching for Bardi.

“Leave her be!” Adric snapped. “I want to hear this. Go on.”

Jors met his gaze and held it. “We were already on our way out to deal with you. When you took the girl, you just hastened the inevitable. Lorne is in custody, all you can do now is run for the border.” He was giving them an out. If they thought they were cornered ...

“All I see is you,” Adric told him.

“I was out front, tracking. I’ve marked the trail for the Heralds following behind me.”

He could hear men shifting position nervously, but he kept his eyes on Adric’s face. He thought for a moment he’d done it; then Adric shook his head.

“I think you’re telling me a story.”

“He isn’t!” Bardi tried to stand but the wounded raider dragged her back to the ground. “We sent for the Heralds after you burned down Kirin’s barn!”

:Smart girl.:

:We will free her, Chosen.:

Adric stared at her for a long moment. “How many?”

“Heralds?” She rolled her eyes. “How should I know? I was with you when they arrived!”

:Brave girl.:

:We will free her.:

“Two lies,” Adric growled, “do not make a story true.” He turned, firelight painting orange streaks on his torso. “Herin, the rope!”

“Got it.” Herin straightened, coil of rope on one shoulder, started back and paused, head cocked toward the surrounding woods. “There’s something out there!”

“Animal.”

“Something big.”

“Big animal,” Adric scoffed. “Now get your thumb out of your ass and get that rope over ...”

The sound of a large animal moving through thick brush was unmistakable.

:No one could have followed that quickly from the village.:

:Verati says Tamis says to be ready.:

:What?: That was all the protest he had time for as Verati charged out from between the trees, screaming a challenge as she galloped through the camp. Gone was the stout old lady who fell asleep being brushed, replaced by a gleaming white dervish ridden by a rider in white whirling a sword above his head.

A man screamed on the side of the camp, going down under her hooves.

Eight.

Diving forward under the lance, Jors took the man who held it to the ground as Gervis answered Verati’s challenge. A crossbow bolt slammed into packed dirt. The distinctive crunch of shattering bone was nearly drowned out by another scream.

Verati charged back out of the trees, closer to the fire, sending the raider with the wounded thigh rolling away from her hooves. Bardi seemed to be dealing with the boy. Jors got his hands on the lance, drove the butt hard into the lancer’s stomach, and twisted just in time to block a blow from behind. Gervis reared. Herin dropped the rope and ran.

“Call them off!”

Jors looked down to see a lance point driven into his stomach, the edge sharp enough to cut through his leathers. Pain caught up a second later as blood began to dribble out of the tear. “Call them off,” Adric repeated. “Or I’ll gut you.”

“It’s too late,” Jors told him. On the other side of the fire, the boy threw himself up onto a horse and rode out into the darkness. Adric was now the last man standing. “You’ve lost.”

“No.”

“It’s over.”

“No!” His eyes were wild. His chest heaved. Blood seeped through the bandage on his shoulder. “Not possible! We were riding against farmers! Shepherds! Stupid villagers!” He spun on one heel, shifted his grip, drew back his arm, and hurled the lance directly at Bardi, silhouetted in front of the fire, snarling, “Her fault.”

Bardi and the lance in flight. Then a white blur. The lance took Verati in the throat. Blood sprayed. She slammed to her knees, Tamis flying over her head.

Jors took Adric down, quickly, efficiently, not even thinking of what he was doing. Gervis was already there when he slid to his knees by Verati’s side. The blood had already begun to puddle, it was pouring so fast from the wound.

:You cannot save her, Heartbrother.:

:Maybe not her, but Tamis . . .:

The old man lay crumpled, reaching back weakly for his Companion. He still wore his scarf wrapped around his throat, and instead of a sword, his cane lay broken by his side. Jors had seen dying men before, and he knew he saw one now. He moved him, carefully, until he could touch Verati’s face. She sighed her last breath against his fingers.

Tamis smiled. “Every story,” he said, his voice barely louder than the breeze in the surrounding trees, “has to end.”

He moved a finger just enough to wrap a line of silver white mane around it. “Stop fussing,” he murmured. Then he closed his eyes. And never opened them again.

“My fault?”

Jors looked up to see Bardi standing on the other side of Verati’s body, the firelight glinting on the tears running down her cheeks.

“My fault?” she repeated.

“No.” He tried to put all the reassurance he could into his voice. “Not your fault.”

“I just ... I just couldn’t let them ride in and ride away. I just needed to do something. I just needed . . .”

She needed her story to start.

One of the raiders was dead, skull caved in by Gervis’ hoof; the rest they tied with their own ropes, trussed up by their own fire waiting for justice. Only the boy had gotten away, and Jors found himself hoping he made it safely to the border, that he carried the story home of how Valdemar’s borders were defended—farmers, shepherds, villagers not there for the plundering.

Bardi helped him take off Verati’s saddle, then watched as he tucked Tamis up against her side. “What do we do now?” she asked, wiping her nose on her sleeve.

“We wait until help comes,” Jors told her, moving to build up the fire. The villagers might not have followed him, but he knew, knew without a doubt, that they’d followed Tamis. One thing to let a young man in Herald’s Whites save the day and another thing entirely to let an old man do it. While they waited, he’d tell her a story. Practice the story he’d write in his report.

It wouldn’t be a big, heroic story, the kind that got put to music to inspire more heroics although, in the end, he supposed, it would be that kind of story too.

“He wanted to be a Bard, but he couldn’t sing. He liked his tea sweet and his beer dark and the smell of apple wood smoke, and he had a friend named Shorna ...”

Passage at Arms

by Rosemary Edghill

In addition to her work with Mercedes Lackey, Rosemary Edghill has collaborated with authors such as the late Marion Zimmer Bradley and the late SF Grand Master Andre Norton. She has worked as an SF editor for a major New York publisher, as a freelance book designer, and as a professional book reviewer. Her hobbies include sleep, research for forthcoming projects, and her Cavalier King Charles Spaniels. Her website can be found at

http://www.sff.net/people/eluki

.

Aellele Calot’s family were smallholders, with a farm in the Sweetgrass Valley, north of the Terilee River and east of the Trade Road. The land there was all farming country, settled and serene (too far north to ever have to worry about Karsite raiders, too far south and east to fear bandits). She was a middle child (two older brothers and one older sister, two younger sisters born a year apart—and a caboose set of brothers) and middling in every way: middling height, middling brown hair, middling eyes neither gray nor blue. She could spin a little, weave a little, play the gittern and the drum, make cider and churn butter, and she had always expected that when she grew up, she would either marry and run a farm somewhere in the Sweetgrass, stay here on hers and help her Ma and Da, or move to one of the nearby towns and become an independent guildswoman.

Or so she’d thought until the day that Tases came walking into her father’s dairy and said that she was Chosen.

Aellele had asked him if he was really sure he’d come for her (because there were seven kids besides her tumbling around the farm, not to mention apprentices and hired hands), as Heralds weren’t people you saw every day (Aellele was twelve, and she’d only seen a Herald up close in person twice). But the Heralds and everybody else right down to the head of the local Grange made sure that everybody knew what their duties and privileges were when a Companion on Search came calling. And he said (inside her mind, where she heard the words just as clearly as if he’d said them out loud) that he was sure, and that his name was Tases, and that it was her he’d come for, not any of her sisters or her brothers, but that she certainly had time to eat her dinner and have her Ma pack her a bag and say goodbye to everyone before she came away with him.

And she looked into his eyes, and they were bluer than jay-feathers or clear Harvest-tide skies, and she could feel something about him and something about her locking up together hand in hand. Aellele knew that it wouldn’t matter anymore whether the day was warm or cold; she’d always feel warm.

And that was how Aellele went off to Haven to become a Herald.

Only ... it wasn’t absolutely certain that she’d become a Herald, because being Chosen was really only the beginning. There were lessons—years of lessons. Some of them were simple, things she didn’t need so much but others did (reading and writing); and some were things she had a little bit of but now needed more of (math and history—not just Valdemar’s, but of every land that surrounded her—Karse and Hardorn and Rethwellen and Iftel); and others were things she didn’t know anything about at all (swordplay and diplomacy and legal codes and precedent). All meant to shape her and prepare her for the day when she and Tases would ride out on their first Circuit, accompanied by a senior Herald and Companion, of course, who would make the final judgment as to whether the two of them were ready to set off on their own.

Privately, Aellele was sure that day would never come.

She loved Tases (how could anyone not love Tases?) and she loved Haven and she loved the Heralds’ Collegium and she even loved some of her fellow students, because some of them were nobles (who knew it was their duty and honor to serve in this wonderful special way), and some of them were the sons and daughters of soldiers (who had been brought up to service in a different way), and some of them were from farming families just like hers (so it was almost like having her own family with her), and some of them were the children of tradesmen (who had led lives so different from hers that hearing about them was like hearing a Harvest Festival wondertale), and the ones she didn’t love, she liked.

And she was pretty good in her classes (except for combat and self-defense, and it was early days yet, and the older students said that nobody satisfied either Master Alberich or themselves in the first moonturns of classes).

But.

Heralds (she heard this morning noon and night, more from the senior students than from the instructors, and she already knew—in the back of her mind—that the reason she wasn’t hearing it from them was because they didn’t want to scare any of the First Years to death) had to not only be perfect and right all the time, but they had to be nice, too. And being nice meant not being petty or small-minded or cruel or deliberately handing down a false judgment or a less-than-the-best-judgment just because they could get away with it, or shirking their duty, or ...

The fact that Aellele knew that if she ever did such an awful thing she’d disappoint Tases horribly just made it all worse. And it didn’t matter how many times he told her she wouldn’t do something like that, that she was years away from ever even getting the chance to do something like that, well ... Aellele knew herself. Hadn’t she thrown a handful of feed at the head of the old rooster who’d pecked at her instead of scattering it properly—and more than once? And switched the salt for the sugar in the canister (making sure to leave a layer of sugar on top so the switch wouldn’t be noticed) when she’d known Saraceth was going to be baking something special for that boy she was courting? She’d said hurtful things—true things and flat lies both—more times than she could count, and gotten into fights, and stolen things (and lied about it), and when she came to reckon up all the bad things she’d done, it was a complete mystery to her why she was here at the Collegium at all.

Tases kept saying there was time enough—years—to get it all right, but it wasn’t the part about being right that had her worried. She figured he could help her out with that. It was the part about being nice. She didn’t think there was anybody under the sun—not even a Companion—who could help her with that. And the real trouble was, all of her new friends didn’t think that would be a problem—at least not once they’d finished their training. And none of them seemed to have any doubts that they would finish their training, and their Circuits, and become Heralds, either. She knew that.

That was the real joke.

Because every Herald had a Gift, some kind of Talent that set them apart. It wasn’t the whole reason they were Chosen, but it was part of it. Farsight, Foresight, Fetching, Mindhearing and Mindspeech, Magesight, and the almost unknown Firestarting ... these were all Gifts with which young Herald-Trainees might show up at the Collegium to have fostered and nurtured. Some with the barest whisper, some with Gifts so strong they’d been a burden to them until their Companions arrived.

And hers was Empathy.

Not strong and probably never would be (Tases said she was lucky at that, because strong Empaths spent their time puking their guts out or learning to Shield, or both). But strong enough for her to be able to put herself into somebody else’s shoes whether she wanted to be or not. To know just how they were feeling, and if it wasn’t quite as good as setting a Truthspell, she could at least tell (most of the time) whether somebody thought they were telling the truth. At least if she was close enough or they cared enough. And the more she learned about her particular Gift, the more Aellele had to figure: if knowing what somebody was feeling wasn’t enough to make her a nice person, then she suspected there wasn’t any power anywhere in all of Velgarth that could make her into a nice person.

That was depressing. Because being a Herald was important. And Heralds didn’t just maybe short the next farm on the egg count because the neighbor boy had thrown a rock at them last sennight or not bother to take the spoiled apples out of the bushel because they were too tired and didn’t care if the basket was half-rotten by the time it reached market. And she would pack right up and go home this minute except for the fact that she couldn’t take Tases with her and she couldn’t leave him behind; and there wasn’t anybody here she could talk to about it because they’d all say “time enough to worry about that later,” and Aellele knew damned well that all “later” meant was the chance to make really big mistakes instead of middling little ones, and nobody (even Tases) would tell her what they did with Heralds who just didn’t work out. It was probably something so horrible that there weren’t even stories. (Except that even when she was trying to work herself up into a good scaredy-fit, Aellele knew that was silly. They probably just found work for them here in Haven where they couldn’t make a mess of things and just didn’t tell anybody why.)

And four moonturns ago it hadn’t occurred to her to wish for being a Herald any more than it had occurred to her to wish for being a butterfly or a gryphon or a traveling Bard, but now that she got up every morning and put on Trainee’s Grays, the thing she wanted most in the world was to change out of them when the time came for Herald’s Whites and be able to ride her Circuit and have the people come up to her just like she’d seen them come up to other Heralds and know she could always be calm and fair and nice. And she was starting to think: “Well, maybe ...”

And then one day everything went wrong at once.

She had morning kitchen duty, and normally she enjoyed it, even if it meant getting up earlier than usual, but she’d been up late the night before studying, and she overslept. And Helorin (who was in charge of the floor) had to bang on her door and wake her up, and she’d already been late when she’d been hurrying to dress and wash, and her brush had caught on a tangle in her hair, and she’d flung it across the room in exasperation, and it hit the wall and broke her lamp, and then there was oil all over her course assignment and the rest of her half-done sennight’s work, and all over the floor, and when she looked, her brush was broken as well. By the time Aellele had cleaned everything up, she was too late for kitchen duty at all, and Tavis had to take her place, which meant she had to take Tavis’ task for the day, and Tavis had Linens, and Mistress Housekeeper was never pleased by anything (to the point that there was a brisk trade in desserts among the Trainees to avoid working under her).

She was scolded in the kitchens for not showing up for her work shift, and again in her morning’s class because her paper was unfit to turn in; she had to spend most of lunch recopying it (and she’d been told it would still be marked down for lateness), and weapons practice was after her stint with Mistress Housekeeper, and by then she was so out of temper that she threw her practice weapon across the floor when she missed an easy counter and had to spend the rest of the class running laps.

And all she could think of the whole time was that a Herald, a real Herald—someone who knew that lives might depend on whether she could keep her temper and keep her head—wouldn’t have thrown the damned hairbrush in the first place. Wouldn’t have thrown her sword across the floor. Wouldn’t, wouldn’t, wouldn’t.

She didn’t want sympathy, and she didn’t want advice. (She didn’t deserve the sympathy, and the only advice she was getting was “it’s going to be fine,” and she knew perfectly well that it wasn’t going to be.) So after dinner she took her pen case and her (new) lantern and a sheaf of fresh paper and the rest of her ruined coursework (which she fortunately had time to copy before she needed to turn it in tomorrow) to find a good place to hide.

Back home it would have been up in the hayloft. The Collegium didn’t exactly have a hayloft (well, it did, but it was the loft over the Companions’ stable, and that wasn’t anything like a haybarn, and it wasn’t very private, either), and any place the Trainees were allowed to be in their free time was fairly public. They could go to the Common Room, or the Library, or down to the stable, or out to the paddock, or to their own rooms, and there were people in all of those but her room, and anybody might poke a head into her room at any moment to see if she was there, what she was doing, how she was feeling. And she thought she might hit the next person she saw.

So since she couldn’t do anything else right today, Aellele figured she’d add trespassing to her list of sins, transgressions, and general total failures and go break in to one of the classrooms. It wasn’t exactly breaking in—since they weren’t locked—but she knew perfectly well that Trainees weren’t supposed to be in them outside of class hours. She blocked Tases out of her mind as well as she could (which wasn’t very, but she didn’t think she could bear his sympathy right now, and he was good about giving her privacy) and went off to find the one that was farthest from ... anywhere.

Her penmanship had always been good (one of the reasons that getting lectured this morning on a paper too messy to turn in had hurt so much), and one of the joys of coming to the Collegium had been having as much fresh paper to use and almost as much time to write as she wanted. Recopying the pages was actually soothing (an essay on the history of the evolution of the Karsite religion, another one on the system of tithes and land taxes in the Jaysong Hills), and once she was done, she could crumple up the oil-spotted pages and toss them into the nearest stove. Then there’d be nothing left to show what had happened today. Oh, except for the fact that she’d broken the hairbrush Saraceth had given her as a special present when she’d left home just because she couldn’t hold onto her temper any better than if she were a two-year-old child.

She looked up in surprise when the door opened, but the man coming in wasn’t anybody she recognized.

It was a long-standing joke around the Collegium that Kailyon had been here so long that they should just give him Whites and have done. Kailyon didn’t mind the teasing. He was never going to wear Whites—no Herald he—but you didn’t need to wear Herald White (nor Healer Green, nor Bard Scarler, nor even Mage Yellow) to serve. And he was proud of the work that he did here, for it was vital.

For every Herald (and Healer and Bard and Mage) and Trainee at the Collegium there were dozens of servants whose only task was to make it possible for those others to concentrate on their work. Some of the tasks were common to the four Schools and invisible (like the laundry), and some were specific to just one (like the small army of grooms who cared for the Companions when their Heralds could not, and in many cases, taught young Trainees who had never seen a horse—much less a Companion—what to do to keep their new friends comfortable), and some were similar in each of the schools but were managed separately (Bard or Mage or Healer or Herald, one must eat, but it was far more efficient to have separate kitchens and staffs for each). It was both an honor and a privilege to be in service at the Collegium, and it was a point of friendly dispute between the Collegium’s servants and the Crown’s servants (one that would never truly be settled) as to which staff held the more honored post. Certainly service to the Crown of Valdemar called for uttermost loyalty and uttermost discretion, but such qualities were required of those who served in the Collegium as well—from the lowliest laundress to the lofty and rarefied Collegium Seneschal, who was in charge of all of who served within the walls of the Collegium.

Such as Kailyon.

Kailyon had come to Haven as a child barely five years of age, gaunt and big-eyed and carried across a Herald’s saddle, brought to Haven along with news of sickness and a failed well. His earliest memories were of blue leather and silver bells, and of the world as it looked from the height of a Companion’s saddle, and the years after that were happy ones spent growing up in the household of one of the Collegium’s grooms. It was no surprise to anyone that he would seek to serve among those who had loved him and cared for him. And so he had, through King Sendar’s reign and into Queen Selenay’s, and if he was fortunate, he would continue to serve for many years yet.

Like most of the servants at the Collegium, Kailyon was an invisible presence to the Trainees. Some of them had grown up in houses filled with servants. Others had been servants, or been destined to be servants, before they had come here. It didn’t matter, since once they donned their Grays, all were equal within these walls. Though many of his fellow servants often grumbled—and loudly—about how completely they were ignored by the students (“They treat us as if we were furniture!” was a complaint he often heard), Kailyon never thought so. The business of turning a citizen of Valdemar into a Herald was a demanding task, and it left the young students little time to focus on anything else, and if they did not (for the most part) precisely notice the servants who made sure that their lives were comfortable and well organized, neither did any of them—from highest-born noble to orphan child of the streets—ever abuse the Collegium servants. That would be grounds for correction swift and stern, from teachers, senior students, and their Companions alike.

As for a greater recognition, well, over the years, some of those who had begun simply as anonymous bodies in Trainee Gray ricocheting in-and-out of Kailyon’s orbit (for if he and his fellow servants were anonymous to them, well, the young Trainees were just as anonymous to the Collegium servants, really) had gone on to become friends, and Kailyon had followed the news of their lives as they exchanged Trainee’s Grays for Herald’s Whites, had greeted them with pleasure when they sought him out upon their returns to Haven—for the Collegium was home to the Heralds as well as school for the Trainees—and on a few sad occasions had heard it whispered that someone’s Companion had returned—alone—to seek rest and healing within the Grove, and hearing the name of the Companion, knew that he had lost a friend.

In his youth (decades gone now) Kailyon had fetched and carried heavy loads, rebuilt toppled walls, and dealt with every matter that a strong back and a strong arm could serve. If those feats were beyond his grasp now, he was not quite useless (as he had told Master Seneschal not two years past), nor was he ready for his pipe and his pension and his mug of beer in one of the rest houses that the Collegium kept for those of its servants who had no families to go to. Not yet. Dust fell as surely as rain, and boots left scuff marks, and woodwork needed polishing, and that was work a man could do and be proud of the doing. If it was not so fine and grand as serving as a groom in the Companion’s stables, nor a thing where the absence of his labor would be noted instantly (as it would did he toil in kitchen or the pantry), it was still honest, necessary work, and Kailyon had lived and worked among Heralds long enough to know that there was no need to be noticed or praised or thanked for doing what needed to be done.

It wasn’t arduous work by any means. A wing of classrooms to keep clean, and the Library as well, and while the Library was a full night’s task that couldn’t fairly be started until after the students were out of it, old bones kept late hours, and Kailyon did not mind laboring through the long, quiet hours when others were abed. Truth be told, he liked the solitude, the time to spend with his own thoughts. Each new Trainee who came to the Heralds’ Collegium was both a puzzle for the present and a promise to the future. Some of them were children barely older than Kailyon had been when he had come, some of them were verging on adulthood. All uncertain, in one way or another, about what the future might hold and what their place in it would be. Over the years, he’d seen so many of them—from skittish, wide-eyed arrivals to equally skittish, young Heralds departing on their first Circuits—and they all had one thing in common: the fierce determination to be worthy of the trust being placed in them.

As soon as he opened the door to the next room on his cleaning schedule this night, he saw the glow of the lantern at the back of the room (heard the faint mortified squeak and the rustle of papers, too) and knew he wasn’t alone. No point to asking, “Who’s there?” as if he were a panicky grandmam hearing imaginary housebreakers in the night. If nothing else, the Companions would stop someone who shouldn’t be here before they even got onto the grounds, and though these days, the younger servants entertained themselves by scaring themselves sick with tales about what the Mages might do if one had a mind to, what Kailyon was pretty sure of was that what the Mages did do was make the Collegium safer. So he merely took his large lantern off the cart and hung it up on the hook by the door and opened its doors.

If it were merely a regular lantern, holding a candle or burning oil, it would hardly be enough to light his work. But it held, instead, a spell of Mage-light, and so when it was opened, it cast a glow bright enough for him to work by. Certainly it cast enough light for him to see who was here that oughtn’t be.

It was just as he’d figured. Sharp-boned and big-eyed, and here long enough to have Grays that had been made for her, but not long enough to have gotten herself to the point where she wouldn’t stare round-eyed at a lantern full of Mage-light.

There was silence for the space of several heartbeats while the child stared at him as if he were seventy Karsite demons in one skin. She knew full well she oughtn’t be here, and up to no more mischief than seeking out a quiet place to study, if that inkwell and pile of papers was any indication.

“It will be a nice change to have company,” Kailyon said mildly, and set to his work as if she weren’t there.

“I didn’t think anyone would be in here,” she said after a little while, and Kailyon grunted. “Place doesn’t clean itself, you know.”

“No, I ... I guess I never thought about it,” the girl said, sounding surprised and just a little put out. “We keep our rooms clean, and we do some of the clean-up in the Refectory and the Salle, and I never thought about the classrooms. My name is Aellele. My family has a farm near Sweetgrass Creek—oh, I know you won’t ever have heard of it ...”

“But you’re a long way from home, and you’ve been away from home for a long time, and you’re wondering if you’ll ever get to go back home again,” Kailyon said. Aellele looked at him in surprise, and he smiled. “The Sweetgrass Valley is north of here, isn’t it?”

She began to tell him about the farm—he’d heard many such tales over the years, from many homesick young Trainees—and broke off in the middle of her tale to offer to help him in his chores. Kailyon saw no reason to object—it stood to reason that a farm girl knew a little something about dusting and cleaning—and soon Aellele had her own dust rag and was working along beside him.

Kailyon had never been one to chatter, but he had the knack of listening without making it seem to the one who spoke that it was any great burden for him to do so. And in truth it was not, for Kailyon had not only spent his entire life in Haven but had spent most of it within the grounds of the Collegium itself. If the wider world was to come to him at all, it must come through the stories and voices of those who spoke with him. And so he listened willingly to Aellele as she told of the life that she’d left and the life that she’d found, and if what she had to say was almost entirely composed of things he had heard many times before, well, it was new to her, and he gave her the respect of offering her words his full attention. Besides, there was one thing here that he did not yet know, and that was the reason she had chosen to transgress the Collegium’s rules to the extent of placing herself where he had found her, for if the majority of the Trainees were anonymous to the servants, the scapegraces and troublemakers were not, and Kailyon knew already that Aellele was not one of these.

When they finished that classroom, they went on to the next, and went on working side by side. Aellele’s flow of words slowed, then stopped. “Master Kailyon, you have been here a very long time,” she said, after a long silence. “Do you know ... what happens to someone—if they’re Chosen and just can’t learn to be a proper Herald?”

The last words came out in a rush, and it was such an utterly foolish question that if long years hadn’t granted him wisdom (or at least prudence), Kailyon would have laughed out loud. If the child had given the question half a minute’s thought, she would realize that what she was asking wasn’t a question about Herald-trainees, but about Companions. Who chose those who wore Trainee Grey in the first place but the Companions? And how could anyone imagine that the Companions could ever Choose someone who couldn’t learn to become a proper Herald of Valdemar? (Although—Kailyon did grant—it might take years and tears to do the job up right, it was also true that the Companions never chose someone who couldn’t be turned out as a Herald ... eventually.)

But Aellele was far too young (and much too worried) to think things out logically, and to the young, their small sins often loomed as large and black as any villainy out of myth.

“Well,” he said, affecting to consider, “I suppose that would depend on why it was they couldn’t be a Herald.”

And now the truth of the matter came tumbling out—a litany of childish wrongdoing and temper fits (he’d done as much—and worse—at her age, but he hadn’t been looking toward an awful and glorious future as a Herald). And of course Aellele had the manners to try to keep her fretting to herself, and of course her Companion knew about it, and of course he (and everyone else who saw her worrying, and people would have seen it because the teachers and the older students and everyone whose business it was to care for the young Herald-trainees were neither fools nor brutes) would have told her not to worry, that there would be time later to worry, if worrying needed to be done. And she would have paid as little attention to all their well-meant advice as the weather paid to Mistress Laundress when she wanted to dry linens and it wanted to rain.

“—and a Herald has to be nice all the time—when they’re riding Circuit—and I can’t be—I know I can’t—not if I live to be a thousand years old—and oh! what will happen then? I don’t know!”

“Hm,” Kailyon said. He sat down on a bench—as talking was more work than thinking—and gestured for her to sit beside him. “Well. Here’s how I see it. And of course you needn’t pay any heed to me. I’m not one of your instructors. Not a Herald neither. Just an old man who polishes wood and mops floors. But I’ve seen a good few Heralds come and go.”

Aellele seated herself beside him and composed herself to listen, her face grave and solemn.

“Of course you mustn’t do something to shame the Crown or your Companion while you wear the Whites. Everyone will tell you that. They’ll be telling you that for some years yet. And some Heralds ride Circuit and some don’t, you know. Every Herald goes to work they’re best suited to. Still, you aren’t wrong. If you put on the Whites, there’ll come a time when you’re asked to give a judgment. I don’t brag to say I’ve known a Herald or two in my time, though, and not one of them has ever worried one tick about being nice, and every single one of them has worried about being right.”

Aellele regarded him with doubtful hope. “Everyone else seems to think that all we have to do is study everything in our books and—and—and—learn to ride and use a sword and a bow!”

“Maybe yes, maybe no,” Kailyon said. “Maybe they’ve got as many doubts as you do. Maybe they do think it’s just that easy—now. Those as think they know everything already are always the hardest to teach. They’ve got the most to learn, and it’s hard as hard to make them let go of what they think they know. You, now, you already know you’ve got a hard road to ride. So you’ll work just as hard as you need to in order to get yourself to the end of it. I’m no farmer, but a friend once told me there wasn’t any point to planning the harvest at plowing time.”

To Kailyon’s pleasure, Aellele actually giggled, then stopped and regarded him solemnly. “A lot can happen between planting and harvest,” she agreed.

Kailyon nodded, as much to himself as to her. He thought she had the look of someone who might be ready to hear what everyone had been telling her now, instead of just listening to it. “And now, I’ve a bit more dust to make away with, and it’s more than time for you to be in your bed, young Aellele.”

Aellele stood, and regarded him hesitantly. “You ... You wouldn’t mind if—if I came back and talked to you again some time, would you?”

“Just as you please,” Kailyon said, pushing himself to his feet with a faint grunt of effort. “And now, off with you.”

He watched as the young Trainee gathered her pen-case and papers and lantern from his cart and went skipping off in the direction of her dorm. So very young! But he knew that to him it would seem like sennights instead of years before he saw her riding out in Herald’s Whites. “Better too much doubt than too much confidence,” Kailyon quoted to himself. It was a proverb Aellele would not hear from her instructors for some time yet, and by the time she did, Kailyon suspected she would already have learned the lesson herself.

Aellele scurried back toward her room. For the first time since she’d been certain that she had it, her Gift was actually more of a comfort than an annoyance (and a rebuke, shaming her because even knowing how people felt couldn’t make her be nice to them). Because she’d been able to tell that Kailyon hadn’t been saying all those things he’d said just to make her feel better, or because he had to, or even just to make her go away, but because he thought they were true and were worth saying.

She didn’t know what hour it was, though she suspected—from the emptiness of the corridors—that curfew bell had already rung, and if she were seen, she would round off a day of disaster with demerits for being out after curfew. And while yesterday the thought would have devastated her, today it did not. If it happened, well, it happened. “A lot can happen between planting and harvest.” Tomorrow she would try to do better.

Tomorrow, and every day after that.

Heart, Home, and Hearth

by Sarah A. Hoyt and Kate Paulk

Sarah A. Hoyt was born in Portugal, a mishap she hastened to correct as soon as she came of age. She lives in Colorado with her husband, her two sons and a varying horde of cats. She has published a Shakespearean fantasy trilogy with Berkley/Ace, Three Musketeers mystery novels, as well as any number of short stories in magazines ranging from

Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine

to

Dreams of Decadence

. Forthcoming novels include

Darkship Thieves

and more Three Musketeers mystery novels.

Kate Paulk pretends to be a mild-mannered software quality analyst by day and allows her true evil author nature through for the short time between finishing with the day job and falling over. She lives in semi-rural Pennsylvania with her husband, two bossy cats, and her imagination. The last is the hardest to live with. Her latest short story sale, “Night Shifted,” is in DAW’s anthology

Better Off Undead

.

The air had a sharp bite, and Ree could smell snow even deep in the narrow earthen burrow, under the roots of a great oak tree, where he and Jem had taken refuge.

Winter is coming, Ree thought. There’s no escaping it. He felt Jem shake with coughing in his sleep and snuggled closer, trying to keep the younger boy warm. Summer had been all right for living wild and putting more and more ground between themselves and Jacona—and the Emperor’s soldiers.

Even though Jem was all human and didn’t have the sharper senses of the rat and cat that had merged with Ree during the Change-circle last winter, he’d got wicked good with a slingshot. With Ree’s animal instincts to lead the hunt, they’d rarely missed a meal. But the last few weeks, it had gotten so cold, and it seemed like all animals were either hibernating or had gone south for the winter. He could see Jem’s bones through his skin. Hells, he could see them through the rags that passed for his clothes. Jem was cold all the time, and the last three days he’d been coughing all the time and wheezing when they walked too fast.

Ree remembered being cold, back before the Change-circle, when he’d acquired thick brown fur, now growing a winter undercoat. He remembered how everything hurt until you couldn’t think, and you thought you’d never be warm. Jem had never been as sturdy as Ree had been, even as a human. Smaller and thinner, not eating enough, he couldn’t fight off this illness.

Ree sighed and wished he knew what to do. They’d kept to the forest-covered highlands and avoided the valleys where villages and farms clustered. Avoiding humans, like Jem. Because Ree wasn’t a human like Jem. He was a hobgoblin, part animal, to be killed on sight. He extended his hand in front of his eyes, in the almost total darkness of the burrow, and looked dispassionately at fur and claws.

If not for that, they could go to a farm and get food and clothes. And if Jem were a hobgoblin, like him, they could live here in the highlands and do okay. There were other hobgoblins here, and they seemed to survive well enough. Of course, most of them were older and looked meaner than Ree. And most of them would probably eat a sick human. Ree wouldn’t.

He put his arm over Jem and felt him stir. Jem’s human, pink hand, covered his. He coughed and asked, “Is it time to get up?”

Ree sighed. If they went on like this, he didn’t think Jem would survive the winter. Ree would, but ... he wouldn’t be him. He’d end up strung up on the walls of some city, a bad hobgoblin who’d killed people and maybe eaten them. Someone who no longer remembered he’d started out human. “We’re going to have to go to a farm,” he said. “We’ve got to steal you some clothes and decent boots. And food, too.”

“What?” Jem said, and half turned around, his blue eyes wide in shock. “Why? They’ll kill you.” His voice sounded like he was on the verge of tears, and Ree thought it showed how sick he was, how low his defenses were to cry so easily.

“Nah,” he said, trying to make his voice sound casual and hiding his fear. “We haven’t seen any soldiers for weeks. I bet we’re so far from anywhere that now that the magic’s gone, no one even comes here. They’ve probably never heard of hobgoblins.” Ree didn’t think that was likely. “The wild ones never go near towns. People might notice clothes and stuff disappearing, but they’ll just think it’s thieves. And no one’s going to brave the forest to find thieves.”

“Why do we have to?” Jem coughed, but he tried to make it silent, so Ree could only tell he was coughing from the shaking of his body and the sound like distant, muffled explosions. “We’re doing okay, Ree, really. We hunt and ... and stuff. We don’t need to go near people. Everyone knows hobgoblins. Everyone has edicts. They’ll kill you.”

“Hush now,” Ree said, enveloping him in his arms and rocking him slightly. “Hush now. They won’t. I can hear better than them. I’ll keep clear.”

Jem shook against his shoulder, and Ree knew he must go, and he must be successful. If he died it wouldn’t matter—Jem would be able to go back to the world of men. But Ree couldn’t go on without Jem. They had escaped Jacona together, and Jem had saved Ree’s life, killing the giant snake thing that would have devoured him. More important than that, Jem, by caring what happened to Ree, by needing him and treating him as if he were fully human, had saved Ree’s human heart.

Ree’s body might survive, but not his heart.

Jem said, “Something’s wrong.” He was almost impossible to understand, he was shaking so hard. They stood atop a hillock sparsely grown with thin pines.

Ree turned to look where Jem pointed. A narrow valley cut deep into the forest. Fences had fallen, and Ree could hear animals making what sounded to him like distressed noises. He could see three cows, one of them with horns, a horse, and possibly a goat. Squawking sounds like chickens suggested the farm had some, somewhere he couldn’t see.

“Maybe it’s been abandoned?” Ree didn’t really believe his own suggestion, but it was an excuse to try raiding the place. Jem had resisted it all the way here, and even now his lips were set in that straight line that was often the only indication of his steely resolve under his compliant exterior. Jem shook his head and didn’t try to speak.

“Come on. I can hide if I have to.” Ree didn’t like the way Jem’s breathing sounded and would have picked the younger boy up and carried him, if he thought Jem would allow it. At least this valley was isolated even from the other farms and villages. No one outside the farm would see them.

Jem leaned on him as they picked through cold mud and patches of burrs that caught in Ree’s fur and hurt his bare feet. Jem gasped the first time he stood on one of the burr patches; then he started coughing and couldn’t stop.

If that wasn’t enough, as soon as the cows saw them, they started bawling and hurried over to them, complaining as loudly as they could. Being sandwiched between the bodies of animals big enough to squash him wasn’t how Ree wanted to die. He held tight to Jem, his heart pounding in his chest while his nose twitched with the smell of food. They were too big. He had to stand on his toes to see over their backs. He tried to breathe slowly, to pretend he wasn’t scared. That was one thing he’d learned—you never let anything know you were frightened.

If he fooled the cows, they were dumber than the ugly hobgoblin he and Jem had found in the hills. But the animals didn’t do anything to stop them going to the farmhouse, and they didn’t try to hurt him or Jem. Ree almost cried when he saw the door. Jem was still coughing when Ree hauled the door open and pushed him inside. He slammed the door closed and put his back against it, panting. The cows were complaining outside, loud enough to wake the ...

Ree swallowed. The too-familiar reek of waste and sickness fouled the room. He blinked, and the shape on the floor a few paces ahead resolved into an old man whose face twisted into a grimace of pain but who still found strength to glare. But he wasn’t dead. And that was good. Or perhaps bad, as the grimace of pain became a concentrated look of something like hatred.

The rough wooden door at his back was the only thing that kept Ree’s knees from buckling. He swallowed again. Jem bent over, still coughing, his whole body shaken by those wracking coughs.

Jem. I have to look after Jem. He darted forward, his toe-claws clicking on the wooden floor and catching in a woven rug near where the old man lay. Catching the younger boy’s shoulders, he helped him to sit near a hearth large enough to stand in. Someone, presumably the old man, had piled wood in the center and topped the wood with a collection of twigs and fluffy stuff Ree didn’t recognize.

Ree looked at the old man. He vaguely remembered his mother telling him how old people always expected you to be polite. “Sir?” His voice trembled. “If you could tell me ... Is there a fire starter around here? My friend is sick. He needs warmth.”

The old man’s blue eyes softened. The hatred—Ree wondered if it had been hatred or fear—abated. “There on your right side, on the mantel,” he said in a raspy voice, as if he were holding back pain.

It took Ree several tries and some colorful curses to get enough of a spark from the flint to light the fire. First the fluffy stuff caught and burned in the blink of an eye, but by then the twigs were burning and the bigger logs were starting to catch.

Ree breathed in slowly, almost a hiss. An echoing hiss came from the fireplace, followed by a gray cat twice the size of any cats he had ever seen in Jacona. The animal sniffed, meowed. “Sorry,” Ree found himself saying. “I didn’t see you in there.”

The cat made a sound that could have been a complaint, then walked up to the old man’s face and rubbed its forehead against his cheek, meowing. Ree stared in amazement. Crazy animals inside and out. All he wanted was food and warm clothes for Jem.

But the old man wasn’t screaming or anything, and he clearly needed help, too. “Sir,” he said again, hesitating. “You ... are hurt?”

“Caught my feet in the hearthrug three days ago,” he said. “I ain’t been able to get up since, and the livestock to look to, and the snow coming down, and no way to light the fire.”

Ree hesitated. It went through his mind like lightning that the old man couldn’t even get up to light the fire. That meant he couldn’t chase them away or hurt them, or denounce them. He couldn’t defend clothes or food, and Ree could look after Jem and they could leave.

He looked at the old man, but the man was studying Jem, with an intent, concentrated frown. Not as if he disapproved of Jem, but more as if he were trying to add something together. And perhaps trying not to show his own pain. By the flickering light of the fire, it hit Ree that boy and man had the same profile. The man’s face was just aged and weathered and seemed to have frozen in that expression Jem only got when he was riding high on stubborn.

Jem looked back at the man, his eyes wide and guileless. “We’ll help,” he said, softly. “Won’t we Ree? We’ll stay till you’re back on your feet.”

What could Ree say to that? They could leave, could take clothes and food, enough to survive the winter, but in Jem’s eyes he’d never be the same. And perhaps not in his own eyes either, if he knew he’d left an old man to die. Much less an old man who looked like Jem. He’d killed a man once, but that was different.

So he crossed his arms and tried to look strong. “Of course. But first you need some warmth. He needs a blanket, sir. He’s got something that makes him cough. Cold too long and not enough food.”

The old man looked from Jem to Ree. “I lost two boys to consumption,” he said, and shrugged. “No healers for miles.” He pointed. “There’s beds with quilts in that there room. It was my boys’ room.”

Ree found a cold, empty-smelling bedroom with quilts piled high on two large beds. It looked like a metal stove had been added, probably to replace the magic ones that Ree remembered being sold at marketplaces. The hole in the wall where the stove chimney let out had been plastered over, but it looked crude and rough beside the faded paint on the rest of the walls.

Ree peeled two quilts off the bed and carried them back into the middle room. Now that his heart had stopped trying to leap out of his chest, and with firelight warm and buttery in the room, it looked almost cozy.

Jem huddled by the fire, with his ragged clothes and bones showing under his skin, wasn’t so good. Ree dropped one quilt around the younger boy’s shoulders; then he laid the other one over the old man. “Sir? You need food, too.” He was asking the old man’s permission to feed him as much as stating fact.

The old man sighed. “There’s stew in there.” He pointed into the hearth, where a pot of something hung on an hinge. “It’s been so cold, it’s probably still good. You can swing it over the fire and it will be bubbling nicely in no time. My wife’s recipe.” He cast a look at Jem. “He needs to eat. But you and I have something to do, before we eat.”

“We do?” Ree swung the pot over the fire. His stomach growled when he smelled it. He and Jem had tried to roast things over camp fires, but they hadn’t had real cooked food in ... much too long.

The man gave a cackle like a whiplash, and Ree wondered if it was just the pain making him mean. How could he look so much like Jem and act like he hated the entire world?

“This is a working farm,” he said. “Ain’t no one been working at it for days. The cattle will be starved, and the cows’ll need milking.”

Ree had a vague memory of going to a fair with his mother once, and a pretty lady who milked a cow and for a coin poured some milk in people’s cups for drinking. Ree’s mother had bought him some milk, and it was the best thing he’d ever tasted. But he was hungry now and stew would do. “Why do we need to milk them? We have stew.”

The old man looked at him, disbelieving, as if he thought that Ree was addled. Then he made a croaking sound that alarmed Ree until he realized it was laughter, or at least the laughter of someone who must be dying of thirst. “The cows need the milk out, boy, or they get infected teats, and eventually they die. You ain’t going to set there and eat while the animals starve.”

Ree remembered the gigantic creatures outside. Sitting here eating while they starved seemed like a good idea, but something warned him he shouldn’t say so. “I’m not?”

“No, you’re not,” the old man said, and continued studying Ree with an evaluating look that implied that, as far as his sums were concerned, Ree came up short. “I don’t suppose you know one end of a cow from the other?”

Ree shook his head, unable to speak. To make things worse, Jem had wandered away, still wrapped in the quilt, and now there was a creaking sound from the kitchen.

“Don’t you worry none. It’s the water pump. I guess he was thirsty,” the old man said, and rasped in a slightly louder tone, “I could use a cup of water meself.”

When Jem came back into the room carrying a water cup, the old man was giving Ree very odd instructions. They started with: “You get yourself out there and around the side of the house. The lean-to has ... a lot of stuff. There’s a wheelbarrow there. Bring it in.”

Ree left the old man sipping water and went to the lean-to—trying to ignore the desperate animals that surrounded him—and got the wheelbarrow, a sturdy thing with a big wheel, back into the room.

The old man was talking to Jem in almost confidential tones. “Brothers, are you?” Ree heard him say, as he pushed the door open.

“Uh, no. We’re ... friends,” Jem said, and that clear skin of his betrayed a raging flush.

Ree’s stomach tightened, but the old man only said, “Ah. My brother—” Then he saw Ree and said, “Ah, you got the wheelbarrow. Good.”

Thus started the strangest few hours of Ree’s life. Outside it was snowing hard, but the old man, wrapped in the quilt, sitting as comfortably in the wheelbarrow as the combined efforts of the three of them could make him, only said, “You might as well get snow on your fur now as later. It’s going to get much worse before it gets better this winter.”

“Go to the barn there,” he said. “That’s where their food is.” He gestured at the animals who surrounded them as soon as they were outside. Although he ignored the cows and the goat, he patted the horse’s head with his gnarled fingers, and his eyes looked almost wistful.

Ree pushed the wheelbarrow to the barn, where he opened a door that ran on some sort of track and required much less effort than he expected. Then he pushed the old man in.

Like a king on a throne, the man barked out despotic orders.

“Pump water for them now, then hit them on the nose if they drink too much.”

Ree pumped water from the biggest water pump he’d ever seen, which poured clear, cool liquid onto a trough. “Now, hit them on the nose. A cow will drink till it bursts, boy.”

So Ree hit them on the nose, all of them, even the maybe-goat, It tried to bump him back, causing the old man to unleash his cackle once more. But the respite didn’t hold. “Now up that ladder. Can those paws of yours climb ladders?”

Ree, whose arms already felt like they would fall off their sockets from pumping the water, could only nod. “Good. Up the ladder. There’s sacks of feed up there. Pour about half of one of them into the hopper.”

This was easier said than done. The sacks weighed enough for Ree wonder if the animals ate lead, but what poured into the hopper seemed to be some sort of grain.

“Now get your arse down here and milk the cows.”

Ree, sweat pouring down his body, under his fur, came down the ladder on legs that felt like they’d fall out under him. He’d walked for whole days and not been this tired. No wonder the farmers he’d seen in town were both muscular and cranky.

“The milking stool’s there,” the old man said, pointing with a finger that looked like the end of a branch, all brown and gnarled. “Milk the cows into that there pail. The cows, you fool, not the bull.” This as Ree tried to sit next to a cow who, on second look, displayed a rather prominent pair of balls.

“I guess he wouldn’t like it if I tried to milk him,” Ree said, weakly.

“I bet he wouldn’t. That’s right, sit there where Spotty can’t kick you. No, what are you doing? You don’t squeeze the udders like that.” The old man showed Ree the motion. It was simple, and yet harder work than it looked. His fingers ached by the time he was no longer getting any milk out of the teats. He retreated from the stall, shaking his hands to try to loosen his fingers. And people thought doing this was romantic and good?

He walked up to the second cow and almost cringed as the old man’s voice cracked out like a whip, “No, wait up.”

What had he done wrong now? Was this another type of cow that couldn’t be milked? He looked wearily at the old man.

“My hands ain’t broken. Just wheel me up to where I can reach the teats.”

Ree wondered if it was meant kindly, but he couldn’t tell with that gruff voice. Perhaps the man just thought he’d done it wrong, which he was sure he had. But then the almost-for-sure goat came bumping against his knee and the old man said in what was unmistakable amusement, “You milk Jesse. She never liked me. Was my boy’s pet.” Then in a more serious tone, “Goat milk is good for sickly young ones. We’ll warm up some for your friend, shall we?”

Ree didn’t like the emphasis on friend, but the old man looked as calm or as irascible as ever, and he seemed to want Jem to get better.

But before they took the milk in, they had to feed the chickens. This wasn’t such hard work, but Ree couldn’t understand how small creatures covered in feathers, creatures who couldn’t even figure out how to fly, could be so scary. They crowded around him like mobs when noblemen handed out food to the poor.

While they ate, the old man—Ree had parked him next to the nests—picked out more than a dozen eggs. “These will be good too,” he said.

When they got to the house, Jem had food laid out on earthenware bowls and the smell filled the air. Ree thought he was too tired to eat until he had his first mouthful. The old man watched them eat, his eyes intent, then said, “You two.” His voice still rasped, but less than before. “What’re you doing here?”

Jem almost dropped his milk, but Ree answered with only the slightest quiver in his voice. “We needed food and warmth, and we thought this place might be abandoned.”

“Ha!” The old man’s laughter was as harsh as his voice. “Ain’t abandoned while I’m here.” He turned his head to meet Ree’s eyes. “You’re one of them hobgoblins, ain’t you?”

Ree sighed. As if what wild magic had made of him wasn’t obvious. “Yeah. So what?”

“You got guts.” More of that rasping laughter. “There’s bad critters come out of the forest, and some of ’em look near as human as you. You’re lucky you never got a pitchfork in your belly.”

“That’s why we stayed in the forest.” Ree looked at Jem. The younger boy was so frail-looking, so thin. “But Jem needed warmth.” He nodded to the old man. “And it looks to me like you could use a bit of help.” His chest tightened at his daring.

The man matched his stare. “Yeah, I could. You’re a good worker, boy. Twice as good as many bigger men.”

It was said in such a gruff voice that Ree needed a while to absorb the compliment. Not just that he’d said he was good, but that he’d called him “boy” and compared him to men. That he wasn’t thinking Ree was an animal.

It didn’t mean he wouldn’t change his mind and denounce him when he got better.

For now, it was enough. Ree ducked his head and minded his manners. “Thank you, sir.”

“And you,” the old man said, leveling a finger at Jem. “Hurry up and get well so you can lend a hand around here.” Ree bridled, seeing the little tremor that shook Jem, and would have said something, only before he could, the old man added, “That’s your job, right now. Getting better.”

Later the old man—Garrad, he said his name was—had Ree wheel him into the other bedroom, behind the hearth. It was bigger, with a bigger bed. They arranged the man on the bed and covered him with quilts, set a candle on the bedside table.

As the boys turned to go, he said, “That, on the wall. That’s my wife and boys.”

On the wall was a painting done on a board, like the ones done by traveling painters before the magic disappeared. “We used to be better off,” he said.

The painting showed a blond woman and three little boys, maybe between ten and three. They all bore a startling resemblance to Jem.

“The oldest one, the Imperial army took him. Year my wife died. The other two were dead already. Of the coughing consumption. Buried out back.” He looked at Jem, his eyes dreamy in the firelight. “Where do you come from, boy?”

“Jacona, sir,” Jem said.

“And do you know your father?”

Jem shook his head, and the man sighed. “Ah, well,” he said. “Sometimes we have to trust the gods.”

“I think he thinks I’m his grandson,” Jem said later, as they snuggled under the deep quilts in the big bed in the room Ree had first entered.

Ree shrugged. “I think he thinks you could be.”

“I feel sorry for him,” Jem said, solemnly. “He doesn’t have anyone.”

“People would say we don’t have anyone, either.”

Jem gurgled a little laughter. “We have each other, silly.”

Ree nodded and cuddled closer. Perhaps it was a good thing Garrad liked Jem. That way even if he denounced Ree, Jem would be safe. That was really all that mattered.

The next morning, Garrad woke Ree up by calling his name, before the sun had got up enough in the sky to cast more than a mild glow. “You have to get the hay in,” he told him. “Before it’s all wet and rots. And we ought to chop up some more wood, in case we’re snowed in. I don’t like the look of those clouds.”

By the middle of the day, when Ree could no longer feel his arms, they’d gone in to a lunch that Jem had prepared. Bread and butter with milk and eggs. “Found out how to make bread in an old notebook,” Jem said.

“My wife’s book. She was a great cook, your Gr—” He cut it off abruptly and turned it into a cough, but Ree heard it and felt reassured that Jem would be looked after. He had to remember that when he felt like flinging off in the middle of work, whenever Garrad called him a fool or an idiot.

The old man started another complaint. “Ain’t been this helpless since I got the white fever years back.” His face twisted. “I suppose that damn cat’s been piling up food for me.” The cat purred as if recognizing its name and rubbed against Garrad’s legs.

To disguise his embarrassment, Ree extended a clawed finger toward the animal. It sniffed, then made an inquiring mew. “Yeah, I’m part cat these days.” Ree scratched behind the cat’s ears and smiled a little when the animal leaned into his tentative gesture. He nodded to the old man. “By the back door. Rats, mice, birds, and at least one rabbit.” He shrugged. “It’s a good thing it’s been cold.”

Garrad grunted. “Sounds about right. Damn cat thinks he’s got to hunt for me as well as himself.” He studied Ree before he added. “Looks like he likes you. Normally he’d scratch anyone as ain’t family.”

Ree wondered if he meant his family or the cat’s family. It seemed Garrad didn’t care for the affection of any creature he didn’t feel attached to. At least he liked Jem.

Garrad was right about the snow, which started coming down shortly after, carried on a harsh wind. Over the next few days Ree had to do everything needed to get the place ready for a hard winter, from getting the hay in, to chopping wood, to repairing the henhouse roof—all with the old man barking orders from a wheelbarrow.

Two weeks later, he was barking orders standing up and leaning on a stick, while that damn cat wended his way around his and Ree’s ankles. Jem wasn’t coughing as much, and his bones weren’t so obvious beneath the skin. He’d picked up on feeding the chickens and making bread every morning, too.

When Garrad tried to scold him for this, it set off a staring match between two identical sets of blue eyes, and Jem had won.

Jem and the horse were the only things the old man seemed to care for. He had not a good word for the people of the nearby town, and when Jem had said—after Garrad had spent half an hour telling Ree exactly what he’d done wrong when repairing the roof—that they could leave and he’d call the people of the town to look after Garrad, he’d started off a tirade. “Them? They never bothered even when I buried my wife. They let my son be taken off without trying to stop the Imperials. I’d rot in all the hells before asking them for help.”

Sometimes, amid the orders and complaints, Garrad talked of how his farm had been much more prosperous, how the forest had once been a hunting reserve for the Emperor himself, but no one took care of it or even tried to keep it safe any more. There’d been talk in Three Rivers that bandits claimed whole duchies for themselves and the Empire did nothing to stop them. Hobgoblins came out of the woods and killed people and livestock until they were killed, Garrad told him. He’d lost half his cattle to hobgoblins before he got a pitchfork in one’s guts and sent its companions running for safer prey. When Ree shivered at that story, the old man gave his rusty laugh. “You got lucky, boy. Really lucky.”

Ree couldn’t disagree, when he was warm and fed and had a safe bed for the first time in years, perhaps ever. His mother hadn’t lived so well, and the work was better than many of the things he’d done to survive. If the best he could hope for from Garrad was tolerance because of Jem, well, he could live with that. And he would, as long as he had it. Even though it made Ree sick to think about killing humans, he didn’t regret killing that one, no matter that he’d been too terrified to know what he was doing. The big bastard would have killed Jem, and Jem had brought back the little bit of human Ree still had.

During a break between snowstorms, two weeks later, Ree was using a pitchfork to shove hay down from the loft to where it could be spread in the animal stalls when he heard the horse scream. He raced out of the barn, fork in hand. A creature that might once have been a bear stood over Garrad, and the horse reared and danced back from it. The thing’s white fur made it almost invisible against the snow.

Before he could think, Ree found himself sprinting toward the thing. The fork left his hand, flew through the air.

He heard Garrad scream, “No, Ree, no.”

The three tines made a solid sound when they hit the creature and buried themselves deep in its chest. The horse fled, leaping the fence without slowing.

Ree caught the handle of the pitchfork and shoved with all his strength. Scarlet blood sprayed the white fur, and the beast swung paws as big as Ree’s head. Step by step, Ree forced it back, away from Garrad, until it shuddered and collapsed.

“Garrad?” Ree kept half an eye on the creature as he edged towards where the old farmer lay.

“Brownie.” Garrad sounded tired, not his normal half-growl. “I raised that horse from a foal.” He spoke between gasps, and his face had an unhealthy gray look. “Her dam was my boy’s horse. She’s all I’ve got left of him.”

“Get inside and rest.” Ree didn’t have to think about that. “I’ll go after the horse.”

“Not on your own.” Jem must have come from the house. “Not with things like that out there.”

Ree shook his head as they helped Garrad regain his footing. “Someone needs to look after Garrad, and you’re better at that than I am.”

Jem’s mouth tightened, and his eyes got that hard, determined look Ree hardly ever saw. He said nothing.

Rather than waste time, Ree slipped away while the younger boy was getting Garrad into his chair in the main room. If it started to snow again, he might never be able to follow the horse’s tracks.

He found the horse easily enough—the mare hadn’t run far. She stood by a stand of half-frozen grass, nipping the few green blades free. Ree smelled nothing worse than horse. The animal let him get close before she lifted her head and snorted into his chest. Ree sighed and caught a handful of mane. He should have brought rope for a halter. “Come on, girl.”

Ree kept talking softly as he walked her back through the dim, snow-covered forest.

The snow in front of him erupted. The horse shrieked and tried to rear, almost wrenching Ree’s arm out of its socket. He struggled to free his fingers while the mound of shaggy white fur unfolded arms and claws that could gut him without effort.

How did I miss it when I came this way before? Ree twisted from a clumsy slash, his head ringing and his arm and shoulder burning. The horse backed away, bringing Ree with it. Between the animal’s retreat and the white-furred beast’s attacks, Ree couldn’t untangle his hand from the horse’s mane. He struggled to avoid the creature’s claws—he couldn’t use his own.

The creature howled. It lurched a step toward Ree and the horse, spun away. A sharp crack made it howl and lurch again. Ree pushed himself and the horse to the side as the creature lost its balance and fell toward them. He heard his shirt tear, smelled blood.

By the time he’d got the horse standing still, his arm ached and he was shivering, but the creature lay on the snow with a pitchfork buried in its back. The handle quivered, but Jem stood steadily, reproach in his eyes. “You shouldn’t have left without me.”

Ree swallowed. He couldn’t talk.

“Oh, never mind.” Jem shook his head. “Let’s get back. I’ll bring ugly here—” He indicated the dead creature. “Fur like that should be worth something.”

Ree wrinkled his nose as he stirred the furs in the barrel. The ammonia reek of the tanning mix made his eyes water and burned his nose. His shoulder still ached, a dull pain that flared every time he shoved the wooden paddle against bulky fur.

He blamed Garrad’s sense of humor. “You killed ’em, boys, you can fix ’em.”

The sound of arguing echoed from the nearest road. Ree looked up. It looked like a group of men approaching. He stepped away from the barrel to where he could breathe cleanly.

Humans, none too clean. “Garrad, Jem! Company!” Ree returned to the tanning as soon as he’d called. He’d best not be too obvious.

Jem supported the old man—whom he’d taken to calling Granddad—as he hobbled out into the field, his other hand clutching the walking stick Ree had carved him.

The visitors reached the far fence at about the same time as Jem and Garrad did. Ree’s stomach tightened, but Garrad seemed unconcerned by the pitchforks and hoes his visitors brandished. “So what brings you folks up from the Rivers?”

“Monsters came out the forest and killed two of Kederic’s best pigs.” The speaker was younger than Garrad, with dark hair graying at the temples. “We chased ’em off, but they came up this way.”

Garrad snorted. “It took you all of a week to follow ’em? You’re a bigger coward than your da was, Meren Anders son, and that’s saying something.”

The leader paled, and then flushed, then cast about, clearly wanting to say something. “So where did these strangers you’ve got come from?” He looked straight at Ree.

Ree let the paddle fall and stalked over to where Garrad and Jem stood. “I’m not human enough for you?” His voice shook with a fury that surprised him. “You can see clear up this valley from town, I’m told. Three cold days without smoke and not one of you humans thought to see if anything was wrong? Not even for valuable livestock? Without us there’d be nothing alive here.” He spat the words out as though they tasted bad. “No need to worry about those creatures, either.” He turned his back on the men—a deliberate act of contempt that made the skin between his shoulders crawl—and stomped back to the barrel, where he used the paddle to heave one of the half-tanned furs out.

The white fur glittered in the cold light, sun catching on every drop of water. Ree let it drop back in with a splash.

Garrad spoke before anyone else could. “They’re not strangers. They’re my grandsons,” he growled. “My boy sent ’em to me. Being with the army, he couldn’t come himself, but he made sure I’d have someone who didn’t need to be nagged into seeing I was well. Who wouldn’t ignore others as needed help.”

The lead townsman gaped. “You ... They never came through town.”

“ ’Course not.” Garrad sniffed. “What with bandits and all, much too risky.” He raised his walking stick and poked the leader’s stomach with it. “So you can get yourself back to your Amelie and stop bothering me with your nonsense.”

If there was any more conversation, Ree didn’t hear it. His eyes stung. His grandsons, he’d said. Not just Jem, but Ree. Jem looked like the family. Jem might be a gift of the gods. But Ree didn’t even look human. Ree wasn’t anyone’s gift.

After a while, he heard Garrad’s limping gait approach. “Them furs should be fine a while without turning. Come on in and get something to eat.” Garrad paused a moment, then added, “Son.”

Ree swallowed. He had to blink several times before he dared turn to look at the old man. Jem’s smile made it harder. “Thanks.” He swallowed again. “Granddad.”

Haven’s Own

by Fiona Patton

Fiona Patton lives in rural Ontario, Canada, with her partner Tanya Huff, an ancient chihuahua, and a menagerie of cats. She has five heroic fantasy novels out with DAW Books:

The Stone Prince

,

The Painter Knight

,

The Granite Shield

, and

The Golden Sword

in the Branion Series and

The Silver Lake

, the first book in the Warriors of Estavia series.

The Golden Tower

, the second book in that series, is due out in September of this year. She has published thirty-odd short stories, most with Tekno.Books and DAW. She is currently working on the third book in the Warriors of Estavia series tentatively titled

The Shining City

.

There was no hint of smoke on the morning breeze. Standing in the window of the tiny back bedchamber he shared with three of his brothers, Hektor Dann of the Haven City Watch took a tentative breath of the crisp autumn air before staring out past the rows of tenements and shops to the blackened area at the far end of the street. A fire had swept through the crowded iron market a month ago, destroying many of the tents and stalls and killing half a dozen people, including Hektor’s own father, Sergeant Egan Dann. No one had known how the fire’d started but there were always rumors.

Reluctantly, his gaze turned to the roofs of Candler’s Row to the east. Iron Street and Candler’s Row had been at odds for years, with street fighting and vandalism breaking out every few months, but nothing like this had ever happened before. Angry mutterings of retaliation from the street’s more vocal hotheads had kept the watchhouse on full alert. Something was going to blow; everyone knew it. It was only a question of when.

As if on cue, a pounding on the door interrupted his thoughts.

“Move it, Hektor, or we’ll be late.” His oldest brother’s voice, the familiar impatient temper masking a more recent hint of barely controlled anger beneath it.

“I am movin’, Aiden.”

“Then move faster. The Captain wants us at the watchhouse early in case things get out of hand.”

“I know.”

“Then know faster.”

Aiden’s footsteps stomped down the hall and, with one last glance out the window, Hektor followed.

Avoiding the tottering charge of his three-year-old nephew, Egan, he made his way through the flat’s narrow hallway to the front room, accepting a cup of tea and a piece of bread and honey from his sister-in-law, Aiden’s wife, Sulia. Then, crossing to the main window, he bent down and kissed his mother on the top of the head.

Setting her embroidery to one side, she rose to straighten the collar of his blue and gray watchman’s uniform.

“Don’t forget today’s sweets day,” she reminded him, tucking a pennybit into his hand.

“I won’t.”

“Did Jakon and Raik remember to leave their money on the dresser before they went on shift last night?”

Hektor nodded. “I’ve got theirs an’ Aiden’s,” he answered, then frowned as Sulia handed him three pennybits, one each for her, Egan, and their youngest, Leila, who was just six months old.

“We’ve got plenty, Suli,” he offered. “You don’t have to put any in now.”

“Never you mind what I put in now,” she said sharply. “And don’t you let Aiden bully you into givin’ these back to me either. He paid the whole of the rent yesterday.”

“He did.”

As one, they glanced at the empty chair at the head of the kitchen table without speaking.

“You knew he would, Hektor,” Sulia said gently. “He’s the oldest. It’s his duty.”

“I didn’t know he would,” Hektor grumbled. Short-tempered and wild, Aiden had never been easy to get along with. Marriage and children had done little to change him, and since their father’s death, he’d been even more unpredictable. Aiden was also going to blow; it was also only a question of when. But hopefully it wouldn’t happen in front of the family.

Now, smoothing his own expression, Hektor turned and held his hand out to his only sister, Kasiath, sitting with their grandfather beside the small coal stove, blonde head and gray head bent over a bird tucked in a wooden box. She handed him a full penny with a serious expression that belied her thirteen years.

“Peachwing’s ailin’,” she said in answer to his questioning expression. “The herbalist is makin’ up a packet of medicines for her and one for Granther. Can you pick ’em up after your shift? We’d have asked Jakon and Raik, but they’re guardin’ the iron market rebuild first thing this mornin’,” she added quietly.

He nodded. “What’s wrong with her?” he asked, peering down at the bird.

“She misses her clutch. We moved ’em to the trainin’ coop yesterday.”

Beside her, their grandfather snorted. “I’ve told ye a thousan’ times, girl, birds don’t miss their littles when they leave. It’s mites.”

Kasiath just patted him on the arm. “Course they miss ’em, Granther,” she said. “They just don’t show it the same way people do. But she’s also got mites,” she agreed. “She’s s’posed to be lead messenger bird for the watchhouse next week,” she added, returning her attention to Hektor. “But she can’t ’less we get the mites cleared up.”

Hektor jiggled the money in his hand. “Can’t you pay the herbalist in eggs?” he asked. “Not from your messenger birds,” he added swiftly when both sister and grandfather gave him a dark look. “But your pigeons’ve gotta have few to spare?”

“Oh, aye, if you wants to go without your breakfast tomorrow,” his grandfather snapped.

“There are a few extra,” Kasiath allowed in a mollifying tone, “but we didn’t think you wanted to keep ’em at the watchhouse over your shift.”

“We didn’t think they’d still be there, is what she meant,” their grandfather snorted. “T’was different in my day. You could leave a fortune on the front step, and no one’d look twice at it. Nowadays, with your Da gone, there’s no order up there. Them greedy ba ...” He broke off at Kasiath’s reproachful look, hunkering down in his shawl with a barely audible mutter.

“I’ll get ’em,” Hektor promised, then turned with an attempt at a stern expression to his youngest brother, eleven-year-old Padreic.

The boy studiously kept his eyes on the pig’s bladder ball he was mending until Hektor coughed pointedly. “That’s all right, Hek,” he said without looking up. “I don’t need any sweets this month.”

“Don’t need?”

Padreic shrugged, then glanced up with a rueful expression. “I don’t have a pennybit,” he admitted.

“You got paid last week,” Hektor reminded him. “And I saw you put money on the mantle.”

The boy just shrugged again, and Hektor sighed. “You gave it away, didn’t you?” he asked.

“To Rosie.”

With a shake of his head, Hektor reached into his pouch for another pennybit, then stopped as Aiden’s hand came down heavily on his arm.

“Rosie earns her own money,” he said shortly.

Both younger brothers nodded in resentful obedience, but when Aiden turned his back, Hektor quietly added a pennybit anyway.

“Who’re we to stand in the way of true love,” he whispered, smiling as the comment caused Padreic to redden. “Are you sweepin’ up at the watchhouse today, Paddy?” he asked loudly to cover up the movement.

“ ’Course I am,” the boy declared at once. “Today’s postin’ day.”

“I thought you were doin’ deliveries for the bakery this mornin’,” their mother said with a frown.

“Traded with Ollie so as I could be at the watchhouse.”

“The captain may not post today,” Hektor warned him, casting a quick look for Aiden, but their elder brother was now deep in conversation with their grandfather and was at least pretending not to hear them.

“He’ll post,” Padreic insisted. “Aiden’ll make sergeant an’ I’ll come on as watchhouse runner, you’ll see.”

Hektor frowned down at him. “Maybe. But all the same, keep quiet about it till then, all right?”

“But Hek ...”

“No buts. Now hurry up or we’ll be late.”

Padreic obediently set the ball to one side and stood.

“Tell your brothers to be careful today,” their mother called after them as Aiden joined them at the door. “I don’t hold with double shifts, whatever the pay might be, and I don’t want ’em so tired that they slip up.”

“We’ll tell ’em.”

“And you be careful, too. Things might get out of hand out there.”

“We know.”

“Then know safer.”

The three Dann boys took the tenement stairs two at a time, emerging into the bright sunlight a moment later. The Iron Street watchhouse was ten long blocks away, and they walked quickly, nodding to their neighbors as they went. The Danns had lived on Iron Street for as long as there’d been a street and had served at the Iron Street watchhouse for as long as there’d been a watchhouse. Ordinarily the street would be bustling with people at this time of the morning, all talking and trading, arguing and calling out their own greetings, but the fire had cast a pall of nervous suspicion over the entire neighborhood. All eyes tracked their progress and Hektor did his best to ignore the growing sense of unrest until a burly figure stepped in front of them. Beside him, he felt his older brother stiffen.

“Mornin’, Linton,” Hektor said casually.

“Mornin’, Watchmen.” The large, beefy mastersmith cocked his head to one side.

“You an’ your brother gonna be guardin’ the iron market rebuild today, Corporal?” he asked Aiden pointedly.

Aiden’s expression hardened. “That’ll be up to the captain,” he answered in a neutral tone.

The smith spat a gob of spittle onto the cobblestones. “Yeah, well, the captain’s not from around here, is he? He’s only been on the job a few months. Hope he’s got enough sense to do what’s expected of ’im. I hear it’s postin’ day an’ all.”

“Maybe.”

“Figure he’ll name you sergeant now that your Da’s gone?”

Aiden gave a noncommittal shrug, but Hektor saw a muscle in his jaw begin to jump. “Hard to say,” he answered stiffly.

“ ’Course he will,” Padreic replied, then yelped as Aiden clipped his ear.

“I only ask ’cause the whole street wants to know,” the smith continued, ignoring Aiden’s warning expression. “The fire hurt a lot of families here. We wanna know there’ll be justice done on account of most folk think it was a Candler’s Row crew what set the fire in the first place.”

“The Guard investigated an’ said it was an accident,” Hektor said at once.

“An’ rumor-mongerin’ ain’t ’elpin’ any,” Aiden added darkly.

“It ain’t rumor-mongerin’, it’s belief. An’ a belief shared by half the Iron Street Watch if they was to own up to it,” the smith snarled in reply, jabbing a finger at him. “Your own Da suspected a Candler’s Row crew of sowin’ nails into the ground around the market last year what gave Charlie Woar the gangrene an’ lost him his leg. An’ as I remember, Aiden Dann, you wasn’t too high an’ mighty back then to go up there an’ settle the score with your fists.”

“That was then, Linton,” Aiden growled. “Times have changed.”

“Not by that much, they ain’t.”

“Then they’d better start. Anyone headin’ over to Candler’s Row is gonna get their heads busted by the Watch, you hear?” Aiden glared around the street, daring anyone to gainsay him.

“Your Da woulda seen to it by now,” the smith pointed out. “Course your Da woulda made captain afore the inquiry caused some fool incomer to be brought in,” he added. “That’s when all this trouble started.”

Aiden’s face darkened dangerously. “Get out of our way, Linton,” he grated.

The smith’s eyes narrowed, but he stepped aside as Aiden pushed past him. When the other two made to follow, he caught Hektor by the arm. “No one blames Aiden for your Da not gettin’ that promotion,” he hissed, “nor for the fire neither, but it’s up to you lot to do somethin’ about it; not the Guard, you, the Danns. Don’t forget where you live, boy.”

Hektor shook him off. “We live in Haven, Linton,” he snarled. “Don’t you forget that.” But his expression mirrored the smith’s as he followed Aiden up the street.

The Iron Street watchhouse was crowded with watchmen, both on duty and off, when they arrived. Gesturing Padreic toward a broom, Aiden stalked past them, but Hektor paused, glancing at the captain’s closed door with a frown. “Has he posted yet?”

As one, the gathered shook their heads.

“It outta be Aiden,” one of the older men said quietly. “Course, it’s anyone’s guess what the captain’ll do, bein’ ... you know, from outside and all, but it outta be Aiden.”

Hektor nodded, then turned as Jakon and Raik pushed their way through the crowd toward him.

“How’re the streets last night?” he asked in a quiet voice.

“Tense,” Jakon answered. “People are huddlin’ in the taverns, just sitting there an’ talkin’.”

“An’ everyone falls quiet when we go by,” Raik added.

“Everyone always falls quiet when we go by,” Hektor reminded them. “We’re the Watch.”

“Not like this,” Raik argued. “It’s like everyone’s watchin’ us, waitin’ to see what we’re gonna do about the fire.”

“Waitin’ to see what Aiden’ll do mostly,” Jakon amended.

“Aiden’s not gonna do anythin’,” Hektor said firmly. “It was an accident.”

“Nobody’s believes that, Hek. Hell, even I don’t believe it.”

“And maybe Aiden should do somethin’ about it, anyway,” Raik added. “I mean, we can’t just sit back and let this sort of thing happen again. We have to protect the street.”

“It was an accident,” Hektor repeated.

Neither brother looked convinced.

“Think the captain’ll post today?” Raik asked, changing the subject.

Hektor just shrugged.

“Think he’ll make Aiden sergeant after the inquiry an’ all?”

Hektor sighed. “I dunno, Raik,” he said.

“Anything you do know, Hek?”

“Yeah. I know Ma said to be careful.”

Both brothers gave an equal snort. “We will.”

With it clear that the captain was not going to post that morning, most of the watchmen disappeared swiftly. Hektor was on his way out the door with his patrol mate, Kiel Wright, when the captain stuck his head out his office door. Signaling Kiel to wait, he gestured Hektor inside.

Captain Travin Torell was an older man with a more refined air than most of the Iron Street watchmen. Originally from Breakneedle Street—one wall and an entire world away—he’d served as that watchhouse’s lieutenant before been being promoted to Iron Street’s captaincy last year after the inquiry into the events surrounding Charlie Woar’s injury. Hektor had done his best to avoid the tension between first his father and then his older brother, and the new captain. Now he closed the door, waiting to see what he wanted with as neutral an expression as possible.

“You’ve been with the Watch for some time now, haven’t you?” the captain said at once.

Hektor nodded cautiously. “Came on as a full watchman five years ago, sir,” he allowed. “I was a runner before that.”

“And before that a sweeper like your brother Padreic,” the captain added. “Like every Dann on the street, or so I’ve been told. A family tradition, yes?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Yes.” Staring out at the watchhouse yard beyond his window, the captain tucked his hands behind his back. “The Danns have been an integral part of the Watch since time immemorial,” he said almost to himself. “And I’m sure that, in the past, their methods served the city well enough, but times have changed, and so must all our methods.”

He turned. “The veterans speak highly of you. They say that you have an even temper and a decent grasp of the law. You should go far.”

Hektor’s eyes narrowed cautiously. “Thank you, sir.”

“And the Watch needs men with even tempers in these uncertain times,” the captain continued. “Men who can lead by the proper example. This trouble between Iron Street and Candler’s Row, for example; I doubt whether anyone even remembers how it began. But I will tell you this, Watchman, it’s going to stop.” He jabbed a finger in Hektor’s direction. “I won’t tolerate acts of retaliation, not by the populace and most certainly not by the Watch. Do I make myself clear?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Yes, well, on that note, I’d like to offer you the rank of sergeant. What do you think about that?”

Hektor blinked. “Are you postin’ my name, sir?”

The captain frowned impatiently. “No, I’m not, not yet.” He ran a hand through his hair. “I know what the Watch expects, what the entire street expects for that matter,” he said peevishly. “but I’m not running a popularity contest, and I don’t believe seniority should have the final say in something this important. Aiden’s a hothead. Last year’s events proved that.”

“Beggin’ your pardon, sir,” Hektor said, a spark of anger causing him to scowl. “But nothin’ of last year was proven at all.”

“Yes, I’m fully aware of the inquiry’s report, Watchman,” the captain answered stiffly. “And why it read as it did. But there’s no honor in covering up unlawful behavior.

“Now I understand that this might put you in an awkward position,” he continued before Hektor could voice another protest. “But I expect you to do what’s right by Haven and not just what’s comfortable for your family. I want your answer by the end of the dayshift.”

Hektor snapped to a sarcastic attention. “Sir.”

“And I will be posting your younger brother Padreic’s name for watchhouse runner,” the captain continued before Hektor could turn for the door. “He seems a diligent and hard-working lad who merits the position. I trust he’ll do his best to bring honor to the Watch.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“I am not out to get the Danns, Watchman, whatever the rank and file may think.”

“No, sir.”

“Yes, well, that will be all.”

“Sir.”

Hektor left the captain’s office with all eyes upon him. Shifting his expression to one similar to Aiden’s, he glared at them until they all found something else to do, then signaled curtly to Kiel and headed out the door. But it didn’t matter. The rumor mill had already begun to turn; the speculations would be all over the street by noon.

He fretted over what the captain had said—and what Aiden would say—for the rest of the day. Around him, the street seemed to be holding its breath, as if waiting for an approaching storm to break above the city. As his brothers had noted, the people fell silent as he and Kiel approached, then huddled together, talking quietly after they’d passed. As the afternoon sun touched the tops of the western roof-tops, the two watchmen turned their steps back toward Iron Street with visible relief and walked right into a smash and grab.

Two youths were squeezing past an elderly man in a heavy muffling cloak, arms overladen with packages. Just as they came alongside him, one of the youths seemed to stumble, falling against the old man, while the other threw out a hand with an exclamation of alarm to steady him. As one of the smaller packages disappeared into the first youth’s open shirt, Kiel gave a shout. The youth immediately took off running, and Hektor leaped after him.

The youth pelted down the street, but Hektor was one of the fastest runners in the Watch, and he gained on him quickly. Usually more than happy to partake in the hue and cry, the people made room for them, shouting encouragement. One single dive was all it took, and Hektor brought the youth down hard, knocking the breath out of him as they hit the cobblestones.

The crowd cheered. For a moment Hektor smiled; then as someone shouted “Iron Street!” his expression dropped to a frown once again.

By the time he returned, dragging the youth by the collar, Kiel had taken his accomplice into custody, and Aiden had arrived on the scene, trying to placate the old man, who was upbraiding him in an accent that showed plainly that he was not from the Iron Street area. A crowd of people had already begun to gather in response to the sound of indignant scolding.

“I am not inebriated, Corporal,” the old man now snapped, weaving slightly.

“No, sir, of course not, sir,” Aiden answered with exaggerated politeness, casting a jaundiced eye across the crowd as this statement provoked an murmur of laughter.

“And I do not require a Healer,” the old man continued. “I’m right as rain.”

“Yes, sir.” Aiden eyed the blood trickling down from an abrasion just visible above the old man’s hairline. “Pardon the liberty, sir, but rain isn’t always right.”

The old man drew himself up to glare at him through a pair of rheumy blue eyes. “And when isn’t it right, pray tell?” he demanded.

“When there’s too much of it, sir.” Aiden offered him his handkerchief with a neutral expression, and the old man took it in grumbling acceptance, pressing it against his forehead with an involuntary hiss of pain.

“At least let one of us see you home, sir,” Aiden offered. “The night comes on fast this time of year, and you’ll want to be indoors afore the sun goes down.”

His unspoken words hung between them, but the old man cast him a shrewd glance. “You mean you want me off your streets and safely home before the end of your shift, Corporal,” he accused.

“As you say, sir.” Aiden gestured at Hektor. “Watchman, see the gentleman home,” he ordered, piling the old man’s parcels into his younger brother’s arms until he could barely see over them.

As the crowd began to laugh, Hektor sighed. “Yes, Corporal.”

Leaning heavily on his shoulder, the old man directed them toward an area much more affluent than the ones Hektor was used to. It was slow going, but eventually they fetched up before a sturdy, well-maintained house with a small front garden planted with flowers. The old man fished a key from his voluminous cloak and, opening the door, gestured Hektor inside.

“Just set the parcels on the table there by the largest of the cages.”

Hektor did as directed, then stared about in undisguised awe. The front room was huge, more than twice the size of his own, and was crowded with large, ornate birdcages housing tiny yellow and brown birds that filled the room with music. Floor-to-ceiling book-cases marched along every wall, with complex bits of wood and metal and strange objects he couldn’t possibly identify competing with books, scrolls, and maps on every surface. A number of open doors hinted at more overstuffed rooms beyond.

The old man threw his cloak in the general direction of a chair stacked high with books. “A lifetime’s collection,” he said in response to Hektor’s expression. “I’m a bit of a pack rat, I’m afraid. Comes with the territory. I’m an Artificer ... was an Artificer ... am a retired Artificer. The sight goes with age,” he added, poking a finger dangerously close to one eye. “Couldn’t see a drawing now to save myself. But life goes on, doesn’t it?”

“Uh, yes, sir?”

The old man gave an amused snort. “You’re polite to say so,” he acknowledged. “Of course, I don’t expect you to understand that just yet, do I? No, later, when you’re older. That’s the thing about wisdom, it comes with age. Or at least it should. Now ...” He began rummaging in a huge golden oak desk piled with a similar number of strange items and papers. “You must let me give you something for your trouble.”

Hektor drew himself up. “No, thank you, sir.”

The old man chuckled. “Too proud to accept money like a porter, Watchman?”

Hektor blushed. He made to shake his head, but something in the old man’s friendly tone made him shrug instead. “S’pose I am, sir,” he admitted.

“An honest answer. No money, then, but, now where is it, where is it, ah yes, this might do, I think.” He plucked a small metal disc from a pile of similar objects. “Perhaps a bit premature, but I believe in the power of optimism. All Artificers do, or they wouldn’t attempt half the projects they take on.” He held it out. “You must accept it. It’s just a trifle after all, and it will keep me from insisting.”

Hektor took it reluctantly, stuffing it into his pouch without looking at it.

“And now tea is in order, I should think,” the old man continued.

Hektor shook his head. “I really can’t, sir,” he said, inching towards the door. “An’ pardon the liberty, but you outta get a Healer to look at that cut on your forehead.”

“What?” The old man dabbed at his head with a grimace. “Oh, yes, I shall, of course. And it just so happens that I have a Healer friend coming to take an early supper with me. I’m sure he’ll see to it then, but in the meantime, you must stay for a cup of tea.”

As Hektor opened his mouth to make a second protest, the old man waved a dismissive hand at him. “I insist. Besides,” he added with a mischievous smile. “I might suffer a terrible collapse as a result of my injury. You might say that it’s your duty to remain until my friend arrives. Sit.” Pointing at a chair covered in scrolls, he bustled into the kitchen, and with a sigh, Hektor did as he was told.

The room was stuffy and warm, the tea expensive and strong. A plate of fancy cakes sat on a silver tray by the teapot, and Hektor allowed himself to be prodded into eating several. The old man was interesting company, telling a short tale or two of his own life and inviting his guest to do the same. The sun had passed the window, casting the room into darkness before Hektor remembered his errands with a guilty start. He glanced surreptitiously at the door, but the old man caught the movement at once.

“Do you need to get away so soon?” he asked. “Surely your shift is over by now?”

“I need to report back to the watchhouse, sir,” Hektor answered, rising. “And I have errands to run before I go home.”

“Errands?”

“The sweetshop and the herbalist. One of my grandfather’s birds is ailing.”

“Well, I’m sure my friend will be along any moment. Just finish off that final cake, won’t you, or it will go stale. Now, you were telling me about this business of the iron market fire.”

With reluctance, Hektor sat back down again.

It was at least another half candlemark before they heard someone at the door. The old man called out a greeting, and Hektor rose at once as a heavyset man in the dark green cloak of the College of Healers entered the room. He came forward quickly to take the old man’s hand.

“I only just learned of your accident or I would have come much sooner, Daedrus,” he apologized in a gruff tone. “You should have sent for me.”

“Nonsense, Markus. I’m right as rain. You had lectures and rounds. Besides, I had my young rescuer here to keep watch over me. May I present Hektor Dann of the City Watch? One of Haven’s finest.”

Hektor started, and Daedrus began to chuckle. “Well of course I know who you are, boy. Do you think I’m just some lonely old man who lets anyone into his home? The Danns may not be known within the second gate, but they’re well known beyond it. And I do most of my shopping beyond it.

“We were just discussing the iron market fire, Markus,” he continued as the Healer began to examine the wound on his forehead.

“Oh?”

“Yes. A bad business, that. Young Hektor lost his father, you know, who was trying to bring people out. It’s caused a lot of bad feelings in the neighborhood.”

“Has it? Please stop moving your head, Daedrus.”

“Indeed. There’s even some fear that the citizens of Iron Street may take matters into their own hands if the issue isn’t resolved to their satisfaction. Or so I’ve heard in the marketplace.”

“Really?”

“Oh, yes. I suppose we should reconsider our supper at the White Lily if the streets are this unsettled.”

“Quite right.” The Healer straightened. “Well, your head needs to be properly cleaned and possibly stitched before we can even think about supper, and I’m sure the young watchman would like to get home for his own.”

Hektor moved immediately toward the door.

“You will come and see me again, won’t you?” the old man called after him. “I quite enjoyed our conversation, and I’m eager to learn the outcome of this latest drama.”

Making a mumbled promise, Hektor almost ran for the door.

It was full dark by the time he reached the watchhouse. The captain had long since left, and it was with some relief that he made tracks for the herbalist’s. Grumbling all the while, the woman stuffed two small packets into his hand, accepted his money, then shoved him unceremoniously out the door. He just managed to catch the smell of meat pies wafting from the back before the door was shut firmly behind him. With a sigh, he headed for the sweetshop.

It was closed, and no amount of pounding on the door could elicit a response. Glaring at the tightly locked shutters, Hektor turning toward home, imagining what his family would say.

The scene that greeted him was not what he expected. Kasiath met him at the door, her face beaming.

“Oh, Hektor, they’re wonderful. Such sweets. Come and see.”

He allowed himself to be dragged into the kitchen, where the family were all crowded about the table. An open package of untouched sweets, each one nestled in its own little piece of wax paper, sat in the center. Beside it, a small card held a single letter D. Egan hovered impatiently behind his father, a deeply aggrieved expression on his face as Aiden gave his younger brother a suspicious frown.

Hektor shrugged weakly, filling in the events of his evening as quickly as possible. “He must have known the shop would be closed,” he hazarded.

“And how did he know you would be going there?” his brother demanded.

“I told him. He wanted to talk, and you know how old men are, Aiden. I couldn’t get away.”

Both his brother and their grandfather snorted at that.

“We don’t take charity,” Aiden growled.

“It wasn’t charity,” Hektor retorted angrily. “I didn’t know he would send ’em, but it was a nice thought from a lonely old man.” Grabbing one of the sweets, he stuffed it into his mouth with a defiant expression.

Egan sent up a loud wail, and all eyes turned to Aiden, who finally threw up his hands.

“Fine, have ’em.” As the family pounced on the box, he scowled. “I’m goin’ out.”

Hektor turned, noting that his brother was still in his watchman’s uniform.

“Where?” he demanded.

“The iron market.”

“The captain set you on guard duty tonight?”

“No. What’s it to you?”

The family exchanged a worried look as Hektor gave a studied shrug.

“Nothin’, ’cept I’m comin’ with you.”

“I don’t need you.”

“I don’t care.”

The two brothers glared at each other; then Aiden threw up his hands again. “Do what you want.”

Jakon and Raik looked up. “Should we?” Jakon began, and Hektor shook his head.

“You’ll want to get some supper before your shift,” he answered. “We’ll be all right.” He glanced over at Sulia. “I promise.”

The two brothers walked along the darkened street in uncomfortable silence until they reached the stretch of fallow field where the iron market was being rebuilt. Aiden nodded at the two watchmen on duty by the ruined gates, then made for the far eastern end. Leaning against a newly built stall, he pulled out his pipe, clearly settling in.

Hektor cocked his head. “Why are we here, Aiden?” he asked. “There are guards.”

Filling the bowl of his pipe, Aiden just shrugged. “You’re here ’cause you don’t trust me not to start somethin’. I’m here to make sure no one else does.”

“The Candler’s Row folk?”

“Nope, our folk.”

“Then shouldn’t we be hoverin’ around the closes that lead to Candler’s Row?”

Aiden shook his head. “They’ll meet here at the iron market.”

“How do you know that?”

“ ’Cause this here’s where we always met.”

As his brother stuck a twig into the nearby lamp, Hektor stared into the darkness. “Got called into the captain’s office today,” he ventured.

Aiden just grunted in reply.

“He figures no one even remembers how the trouble ’tween us started.”

Aiden touched the twig to his pipe, drawing in a deep breath. “What would he know about it?” he said, once the pipe caught.

“Does anyone remember?”

“I doubt it. It was long afore Granther’s day. But it don’t really matter how it started; it’s here now, and we’ve gotta deal with it now.”

“Yeah, but how?”

Aiden blew a long trail of smoke into the air. “I got no idea,” he admitted. He glanced sideways at his younger brother. “So, what else did you and the captain talk about?”

Hektor started. “Nothin’ much else really,” he said a bit too quickly.

“Bollocks. He offered you the sergeancy.”

“I didn’t tell him yes or nothin’.”

“Then you’re an idiot.”

Hektor started. “What? But everyone knows it outta be you.”

Aiden gave a bark of derisive laughter. “Why? ’Cause I’m the oldest?”

“No, ’cause ... well, ’cause you’re ... All right, yeah, ’cause you’re the oldest. It’s your turn.”

“Bollocks.” Aiden stared out at the pale half moon. “I knew he’d never name me sergeant, Hek,” he said quietly. “Not after the inquiry an’ all.”

“Nothing was proven,” Hektor declared loyally, and Aiden chopped a hand down to silence him.

“Nothing needs to be proven. Everyone thinks they know what happened. They think I went to Candler’s Row that night to even the score for Charlie Woar.” He took a deep draw on his pipe. “And I shoulda,” he said more to himself than to Hektor. “Charlie and I are friends. It should have been me that went that night, not Da.”

“Da? But I thought ... everyone thinks ...”

“That he followed me? That he pulled me off a man on Candler’s Row? That the man almost died an’ Da an’ the Iron Street Watch covered the whole thing up ’cause I’m a Dann?”

“Well, yeah.”

Aiden stared out past the gates, his expression unreadable. “Sometimes you get boxed in by what people think,” he said. “So boxed in you can’t hardly breathe. It starts makin’ your choices for you. I wanted to do justice by Charlie, but not like that. I wanted to find the folk that sowed those nails and bring ’em in, but the street wanted revenge, an’ they wanted it fast or they’d get it themselves. Da knew that. That’s why he went. But he wasn’t thinkin’ straight neither. He was drunk an’ angry, an’ he jumped the first man he saw on Candler’s Row. If I hadn’t followed him, he mighta killed ’im.”

“So you covered it up an’ took the blame? Why?”

“Made more sense. Da was a respected member of the Watch, an’ I’ve been the family troublemaker since I was a little. Like I said, you get boxed in.”

“You coulda told folk the truth.”

“No one wanted to hear it, Hek. Just like now.” Aiden turned a suddenly intense look on his brother’s face. “You figure the fire was an accident?”

“The Guard said it was.”

“But do you figure it was?”

Hektor stared out at the blackened field. “I dunno. I guess not, probably,” he admitted.

“An’ if you figure not, what do you expect the street to figure? They figure it was set deliberate. An’ they want the score settled, an’ they want it settled by me, ’cause that’s what I do for ’em.”

“But the Candler’s Row folk ain’t stupid,” Hektor protested. “They gotta know it too, an’ they’ve gotta be waitin’ for you to make your move.”

“Right. But the longer I don’t, the more likely it is that Linton or someone else is gonna. Or worse,” he added, “someone from Candler’s Row’s gonna figure the best way to belay our strike is to make their own.”

“So what do we do?”

Aiden shrugged. “Folk expected Da to lead with his fists. They expect me to do the same. But they don’t expect you to, an’ that’s a good thing. It leaves you free to make your own choices. Maybe you can sort somethin’ out. You’re smart.”

“The captain said I had an even temper,” Hektor noted sarcastically.

“That’s just compared to mine. You’re a compromise, Hek. The captain don’t want any Dann promoted, but the Watch and the street does. He didn’t just post your name though, did he?”

“No, he asked me if I would take it first.”

“ ’Cause he don’t wanna to look like a fool if you say no. He wants things to look smooth, even if they ain’t.”

Hektor rubbed his face. “It’s all too complicated,” he complained.

“Then make it simple. Do what’s right by the family. Take the promotion. We need the money.”

“But what do we do about Iron Street and Candler’s Row? Do we ask a Herald to mediate or somethin’?”

Aiden snorted. “Mediate with who? They’re all shopkeepers and tradesmen by day. The Guard said it was an accident. That shoulda been the end of it, but it wasn’t, ’cause they’re all vigilantes by night. The Heralds can mediate all they like, but it won’t change folk, ’cause they don’t wanna be changed.”

“Then we have to make ’em change,” Hektor argued. “An we gotta start by provin’ the fire was an accident.”

“How?”

Hektor straightened. “By askin’ someone who knows about this kinda thing,” he said. “Someone they respect. We ask an Artificer.”

“And this is where the fire started?”

Standing in the charred ruins of the market’s one permanent forge, Daedrus turned an expectant look on Hektor.

“Yes, sir. There’s been a lot of rebuild around the perimeter, but not here in the middle. No one’s wanted to go near it as yet, I ’spect. The Fair Master died inside.”

“I see, yes, very interesting, very interesting indeed.”

The retired Artificer had been puttering about the iron market for over an hour, muttering to himself and drawing an ever-growing crowd of onlookers beyond the gates. “I think I should like to bring in a few of my colleagues as consultants if you don’t mind,” he said. “If you could send someone to the Compass Rose Tavern and have them bring back, oh ...” he waved a hand absently. “... whoever happens to be there.”

“Yes, sir. Paddy?” Hektor jumped as Padreic appeared at his elbow immediately. “You know where the Compass Rose is?” When the boy nodded vigorously, he gestured. “Off you go then on your first assignment.” As his brother took off at a dead run, Hektor turned back to the old man. “Was there anything else, sir?”

Tugging at the plaster bandage on his forehead, Daedrus nodded. “Well, it would help me to come to a more accurate conclusion if I could consult with someone knowledgeable in the circumstances under which this area would be made use of. Do you know of anyone like that?”

“Sir?”

“A smith, Watchman, who is familiar with the forge.”

“Oh.” Scanning the crowd, Hektor spotted a familiar face. “Yes sir, I do.”

It only took Linton a moment to understand what Daedrus required. Tipping his cap back, he scratched his head thoughtfully. “This be the market forge,” he explained. “The Fair Master’s in charge of it, though he don’t usually work it hisself. We all work it through the fair to cast a horseshoe or make somethin’ small as a customer might want.”

“And the Fair Master sets the forge schedule?” Daedrus asked. “He sees to it that every smith who needs it gets a chance to make use of it?”

“Every local smith,” Linton corrected. “Only Haven smiths can use the market forge. That’s tradition. If a smith from outside wanted somethin’, he’d have to ask one of us for it.” He snorted. “An’ good luck to ’im.

“My cousin Bri was Fair Master for years,” he continued. “Did a good job he did, too, keepin’ everything movin’ along smoothly. There weren’t never too much waitin’.” He frowned. “Come to think of it, with him gone, I reckon I’m Fair Master now.”

Daedrus nodded. “And so he, your cousin Bri, would know everyone who made use of the forge. As you will next year?”

“Yep.”

“So it would be very unusual to have a stranger lurking about unescorted?”

Linton snorted. “Wouldn’t happen at all. We keep an eye out; we all do.”

“I see. Ah, here come my colleagues.”

Daedrus turned as more than two dozen Artificers and students descended on the iron market. He’d set Hektor and Aiden to checker off the entire field with a ball of twine pulled from his voluminous cloak, and now he sent each of his consultants off to an individual square to take measurements and make notes. As the Artificers spread out, he returned his attention to Linton.

By late afternoon the Artificers had finished their investigation and were now clustered about the ruined forge, comparing their findings. Several other smiths had been drawn into the conversation, and, as the sun sent long fingers of shadow across the field, Hektor could hear their voices rising and falling as they argued over the events leading up to the fire. But one thing they all agreed on was that no one except a local smith was ever allowed near the market forge. After a particularly heated piece of debate, he heard Linton’s voice rise above the rest.

“ ’Course any fool can see it started by accident, right here. Sparks is what done it, sparks an’ wind. It’s happened before more’n two decades back; Bri told me hisself. Nearly sent the whole fair up that time.”

Shaking his head, Hektor turned to find Captain Torell standing beside him. He started.

“Sir.”

“It seems the street is close to its verdict,” the captain said dryly.

“Yes, sir.” Hektor shrugged. “Folk here don’t take too kindly to bein’ told what’s what.” He glanced over to where Linton was now jabbing another smith in the chest to emphasize his point. “They’d rather do the tellin’.”

“So I see. And I imagine the people of Candler’s Row are much the same.”

“I ’spect so, sir.”

“Do you have a plan that will take the wind out of their sails as well?”

“Sir?”

“Never mind, one crisis at a time.” The captain now turned as Daedrus called out to them.

“An accident,” the old man said once they’d joined the crowd of smiths and Artificers. “Tragic, very tragic, but avoidable in the future, I think. Yes, very much so. We have some ideas for the rebuild that will prove quite advantageous.”

Turning, he pulled a small metal disc from the depths of his cloak. “Does anyone have a ... oh, thank you.” He accepted one of the dozen small hammers that were immediately held out to him and, reaching up, affixed the disc to the forge with two tiny nails.

“Artificer’s seal,” he said in answer to Hektor’s questioning expression. “Usually we place them after the building is complete, but as this project was in fact an investigation, not a construction, I think it’s neither unreasonable nor premature to place it now, hm?”

A murmur of assent from the Artificers made him smile. “Good. Now, Fair Master Linton, do come by some time this week, won’t you? I’m eager to get started on our plans. Do you have my address?”

Linton chuckled. “I do, sir. I cast your nails.”

“Do you really? Well, they’re very fine work. What, hm?” He turned as the captain now cleared his throat.

“It’s growing dark, Daedrus. Time to lock up the field.”

“What? Oh yes, of course.” The old man waved at the gathered smiths and Artificers who began to leave the iron market still deep in conversation. “And will the young watchman be escorting me home again?” he asked with a twinkle in his eye.

The captain nodded formally. “Sergeant Dann will be only too happy to oblige you, after which he’s to report back to the watchhouse. Sergeant?”

Hektor looked up from the small metal disc he’d pulled from his pouch with a confused expression. “Sir?”

“Escort the Artificer home.”

“Yes, sir.”

“You’ll be at the White Lily tomorrow night, Daedrus?” the Captain asked.

The old man beamed. “I wouldn’t miss it, Travin.”

“Very good. Carry on, Sergeant.”

“Sir.”

Hektor glanced back at the metal disc in his hand, staring at the colorful Artificer’s seal embossed over Haven’s coat of arms, then up as Daedrus began to chuckle.

“Not so premature, as it happens,” the old man said with a smile. “Now, if you will be so kind.” He gestured towards the gates. “I have drawings to begin, and my eyes aren’t what they used to be.”

“Of course, sir.” Tucking the disc back into his pouch, Sergeant Hektor Dann of the Haven City Watch escorted Artificer Daedrus from the iron market.

Widdershins

by Judith Tarr

Judith Tarr is the author of a number of historical and fantasy novels and stories. Her most recent novels include

Pride of Kings

and

Tides of Darkness

, as well as the Epona Sequence:

Lady of Horses

,

White Mare’s Daughter

, and

Daughter of Lir

. She was a World Fantasy Award nominee for

Lord of the Two Lands

. She lives near Tucson, Arizona, where she breeds and trains Lipizzan horses.

Egil was as ordinary as a Herald could be. He was no hero or villain or Herald-Mage. In the Collegium he was solidly in the middle of every class. When he rode out on his internship, he did well enough, but nothing that he did was especially memorable.

Other people had dreams of greatness. Egil dreamed of peace and quiet, and time to read or write or simply sit and think.

Egil’s Companion was named Cynara. Like Egil, she professed no grand ambitions. She did love to dance when she had the chance, and Egil was happy to indulge her. It was the one thing at which he was truly distinguished, and as he said, it was mostly a matter of not getting in Cynara’s way.

Once Egil was past his internship, he was happy not to travel any longer. He settled in at the Collegium, teaching logic and history to the recruits and taking on whatever other tasks seemed most in need of doing. If there was anything that no one else had the time or inclination to do, Egil did it. He never complained, and he always got it done.

That, like dancing with his Companion, was a talent he had, but neither he nor anyone else thought overly much of it. “Not everyone can be a hero,” he liked to say. “Someone has to keep everything in order while the heroes are off saving the world.”

When the Mage Storms began, this was truer than usual. While the world tried to shake itself to pieces, Egil and Cynara helped to hold the Collegium together. It was thanks in part to them that after the Storms ended, there was still a Collegium in Valdemar and a place for Heralds and Companions to enjoy a well-deserved rest.

Now the world was safe, more or less, and for a while, Egil was content to disappear into his office and classroom. Most mornings as soon as it was light he went with Cynara to one of the riding arenas and danced. Sometimes people came to watch, but mostly the two of them had the oval of raked sand to themselves. It was their private time, a sort of meditation for them both.

One morning after an especially satisfying dance, Egil came back to his office to find a summons from the Queen.

He had met her, of course. All the Heralds had. She was one of them, after all.

He doubted she remembered him, and he had no particular desire to be remembered. The summons made no sense to him, unless he had done something wrong without knowing it; more likely this was a mistake and she had meant to summon someone else. The Herald Elgin, maybe. Or the Trainee who shared Egil’s own name.

Yes, that was probably it. He dressed carefully in any case, though he decided against formal Whites; if this had been a ceremonial occasion, the summons would have said so. It was more an invitation, really, bidding Herald Egil attend the Queen in her office. He had sent more than a few of those himself to students in need of discipline or extra tutoring.

Neat, clean, and as ready as he could be, he presented himself at the door to the Queen’s office.

Queen Selenay felt like a Companion. At a distance, she was naturally more Herald than courtier, but face to face across a desk piled high with books and papers, she was not so much a Herald as something ... stronger.

The realization put Egil more at ease than he had been since he received the invitation. Companions invited awe, but in a way that Egil understood.

Whatever important matters of state the Queen had been contending with before he came, she fixed her full attention on him while he was there. She studied him for some time in silence that he made no attempt to break.

Eventually she folded her hands and leaned forward. Egil managed not quite to feel as if he had been called into the schoolmaster’s office for a rebuke. She seemed interested, even intrigued, but neither angry nor disappointed.

“Your family breeds horses, I’m told,” she said.

That was not what Egil had expected. He could only think to bob his head like an idiot and answer, “Yes. Yes, madam.”

She smiled. It did not comfort Egil at all. “All’s well there, I understand, and your sisters report that this year’s foal crop is the best they’ve seen in years.”

Egil gave up trying to hide his confusion. “What is it, madam? Has Zara had her baby? Was one of the others Chosen? Though I would know about that. Wouldn’t I?”

“You would,” the Queen said. “I’m sorry; I don’t mean to torment you. I need a Herald with knowledge of both horses and riding.”

“All Heralds can ride,” Egil said. “Some are extraordinarily good at it.”

“I am told,” said the Queen, “that none is as good as you.”

Egil flushed. “I would hardly say that. I have some talent and a fair amount of training, but there are others who—”

“Not your particular kind of training,” the Queen said.

“I don’t understand,” Egil said.

“It’s little more than a rumor,” she said, “some odd stories and the occasional magical anomaly off the South Trade Road toward the Goldgrass Valley. What’s strange is that they seem to revolve around a riding academy.”

Egil’s brows rose. “A school of riding? In the middle of nowhere?”

“Not exactly nowhere,” the Queen said with the hint of a smile. “It’s horse country all around there, and certain elements of the court have taken a fancy to it: they’ve been buying land and building summer houses and stocking them with the finest in fashionable horseflesh.”

“And of course,” said Egil, “they’ll need trainers for the horses and instructors for their offspring, and if those should gather in one convenient place, so much the better.”

“Exactly,” said the Queen. “Your family has done much the same, I’m told, and done extremely well, training horse trainers and sending them where they’re needed.”

“You don’t think they’re involved with—”

“Probably not,” she said, “but now I’m sure you understand why I would like you to ride along the South Trade Road and see what there is to see.”

Egil did understand, but as sharp as his curiosity had grown, his love of the quiet life was stronger. There was also one inescapable fact. “Madam, I haven’t been in the field since I was an intern. Whatever skills I had in that direction are long since rusted shut.”

The Queen smiled in a way that told him she had heard every word, but not one had changed her mind. “It’s an easy distance, with inns at every reasonable stop, and the weather at this time of year is usually lovely. If it does happen that you have to camp for a night, you’ll have company who can do whatever is needed to make you comfortable. I’m sending an intern with you. She has some knowledge of horses as well and some interest in the art of riding. It should be a pleasant journey.”

There was not much Egil could say to that. The Queen had thought of everything, as she should. She was the Queen.

Egil had successfully avoided official notice for much longer than he had any right to. He was a Herald, and Heralds, as everyone knew, were the Arrows of the Queen. They flew wherever she sent them.

Egil heaved a deep sigh. “As you wish,” he said.

When Egil came out into the yard at first light, packed and ready to ride, and saw the intern he would be expected to advise and serve as an example for, his sigh was even deeper. Herald Bronwen had been Chosen at ten years old—younger than anyone in memory—but that had come as no surprise: she was Ashkevron, as Vanyel had been, and her family had been producing Heralds in remarkable numbers since the first Companion came into the world. Now at sixteen she had received her Whites and her first assignment, and it was clear she was as dismayed to see Egil as he was to see her.

Egil had no objection to Trainees who wanted to make something of themselves. He had helped more than a few to excel in the classes he taught. Some were arrogant; some had too much faith in their own talents and not enough consideration for anyone else’s. But he had always seen through the façade to the nervous child beneath.

Bronwen seemed to have no façade. The arrogance, as far as he had ever been able to see, went straight through to the core. She was born to greatness, she was destined for it, and she would achieve it. She had no doubts of that whatsoever. Any instructor in the Collegium who did not give her the highest marks for as little effort as she could be bothered to spare was clearly both benighted and deluded.

Egil had ranked her as she deserved. She had not thought so. Clearly, from her expression, she never had changed her mind.

He thought she might turn on her heel and stalk back into the Collegium. If she had, he would have done nothing to stop her. That made him a coward and a disgrace to his Whites, but if he acknowledged the truth, he was both already.

The one thing a Herald could not do was hide what he was. That was the reason for the Whites. No one and nothing could miss a Herald in the performance of his duty.

Egil had done his best to try. Now he had no choice but to ride out, for the first time in fourteen years. And he had to do it with the one student in fourteen years for whom he felt something close to animosity.

:For your sins,: his Companion said.

Cynara’s eyes were a very deep blue, the color of some horse foals’ before they turned honest equine brown. In most lights, in fact, they did look brown, so that people had been known to mistake her for an unusually pretty gray horse. Cynara, like Egil, liked to escape notice.

“You’re not blaming me for this,” he said.

:Not at all,: she said. He could detect no irony in the words, but he eyed her warily even so, before he gathered the reins and set his foot in the stirrup and swung lightly onto her back.

Bronwen was already mounted. Her Companion could not have been more visibly what he was: he was taller than any riding horse should rightly be, and his eyes were the color of the summer sky, a clear bright blue that no horse had ever had. He was as showy as his rider, with her long legs and her long braid of wheat-gold hair and her eyes as blue as her Companion’s.

They were every village child’s dream of the Herald and her Companion, and they knew it. Rohanan was as full of his own importance as Bronwen, until he ventured too close to Cynara. She put him in his place with a snap of teeth and a well-placed kick.

Egil was determined to be the mature and disciplined Herald that he had been trained to be. To that end, he resolved to remain neutral toward his intern unless or until she did something to incite judgment. So far she had not said a word. Her expression said a great deal, none of it in his favor, but he could choose to ignore that.

The weather was as beautiful as the Queen had promised. The gardens of the city were in full and fragrant bloom, but even sweeter was the scent of wild roses along the roadside as they rode southward. Traffic was light at this hour, and what there was gave way before the Heralds, bowing their heads and often smiling.

Egil would gladly have put a stop to that. Bronwen accepted it as her due.

Her Companion recovered quickly from Cynara’s strict discipline. While Cynara kept a steady and sensible pace, Rohanan crackled with restless energy, cantering ahead and then back, dancing in circles, sprinting off across the fields, leaping fences for the joy of it, snorting and blowing and tossing his mane.

Bronwen was an exceptionally good rider. Whatever her Companion did, she never moved. That took talent as well as skill.

That evening in the inn to which Cynara’s unhurried pace had brought them, while Rohanan snored in his stall and the locals dozed over their beer, Egil ordered dinner in the common room. Bronwen would have had a tray sent up to her room; she was in no way pleased when he instructed that her dinner be served with his.

“I thought you didn’t like to be noticed,” she said: the first words she had spoken to him since she stalked out of his class in formal logic three years ago.

“Some things are expected of us,” Egil said. He had his back to the wall, and the table he had chosen sat in the corner with the best view of both the outer and inner doors.

His training was coming back: how to carry himself, how to speak and act in front of strangers, where to sit and what to watch out for. It was a refuge of sorts, a set of ingrained habits that he could fall back on with no need to stop or think.

Bronwen sat across the table from him, frowning. Her back was to the room. Anyone or anything could creep up behind her and sink a knife in her back.

Egil pointed that out, gently. She made no move to change her position.

“There’s no threat here,” she said. “Everyone’s either in awe of us or so happy to see us he can hardly speak.”

“Not every threat will announce itself with a scream before it leaps,” Egil said.

She sniffed audibly. “This place is safe,” she said.

“You’re sure of that? Are you a Mage, then?”

Her eyes blazed on him. “No,” she said through clenched teeth. “I have eyes in my head. It’s as simple as that.”

Her vehemence told him a great deal about this girl who seemed so sure of her own destiny. Of course an Ashkevron of her character and talents would expect to be a Mage as well as a Herald. It must be a great disappointment not only to her but to her family that she had not inherited that particular combination of Gifts. “Come around and sit where you know you should sit,” he said mildly.

Their dinner came while he waited, and he began to eat, relieving her of the burden of his stare. After a moment in which he managed to take a bite of roast lamb, chew and swallow it, she dropped into the chair beside him, with her back against the corner’s other wall. He said nothing, only slid her dinner toward her and held up the cider jug in mute inquiry.

“No,” she snapped. Then, even more crossly, “Yes. Damn it, yes.”

He gave her time to cool her resentment and start thinking again, and also to eat as much of her soup and bread as it seemed she was going to, before he said, “We’ll be riding for another three days if the weather holds, but I think it’s time now to explain where we’re going and why.”

“I know that,” she said. “There’s odd magic coming out of a town called Shepherd’s Ford. It’s in the middle of Osgard Valley, where a good number of equestrian-minded nobles have their summer estates. We’re to go, investigate, and pretend we’re interested in the riding school in Shepherd’s Ford, while we find and eradicate the Mage or Mages who have been disturbing the balance of powers in the region.”

Egil finished savoring the last bite of his roast lamb—it had been excellent; he would be sure to compliment the cook—and sat back, as relaxed as Bronwen patently was not. She sat stiffly upright, like a student who had finished a recitation but not yet received the teacher’s response.

“Well,” Egil said. “It seems you’re much more fully informed than I am. I only know that we’re to investigate the riding school. There are Mages, too, you say?”

Her skin was very fair, and a blush showed on it like a flag. “There must be,” she said. “What else can it be?”

“Now that is a very good question,” said Egil. “Can it be something other than Mages?”

“Do you know what I hated about your classes?” she said. “You never would give a straight answer. Everything was questions in answer to questions and ‘Do you think ... ?’ and ‘What else can it be?’ Did you even know what the answers were?”

“Not everything has an easy answer,” Egil said. “This may be one that does, but we can’t know that until we’ve seen it for ourselves.”

She pushed her half-eaten bowl of soup away so hard it splashed on the table, barely missing her sleeve. “See? That’s what I hate. I need answers. Not more stupid questions.”

“The only stupid question is—”

“—the one that isn’t asked.” She glared at the puddle of soup in front of her. “Do you hate me as much as I hate you?”

She really was young, Egil thought. That kept him from letting her hear the first answer that came to mind. The second might not please her, either, but it was honest enough. “I don’t hate you. There’s a reason why we’ve been sent on this mission. We’re expected to work together and learn from each other. There’s nothing that says we also have to like one another.”

To his surprise, she did not fling herself away from the table and run off to her room in a temper as she would have done when she was his student. Apparently she had grown up a little, though she was still very much a child.

It was the child who muttered, “Good, because I can’t stand you.” But the older Bronwen, the one who had earned her Whites, added grudgingly, “We can work together. Rohanan says we have to—he’s in complete terror of Cynara.”

:True,: Cynara said from her vantage point in Egil’s mind. The smile had curved his lips before he thought to stop it. Again to his surprise, he saw a similar one on Bronwen’s. Her Companion must have said much the same.

They did not have to like each other. But they could share a moment of mutual amusement, Herald to Herald.

That was the last such moment they shared between the inn and the valley. Three days of riding in beautiful weather stretched to five as they turned off the South Trade Road and ran headlong into a siege of summer storms. Wind and lightning and torrential rains turned the roads and tracks to mire and made riding a misery, but Egil was oddly reluctant to find an inn or a farmhouse and wait it out. The worse the weather was, the more restless he became.

That, Bronwen declared early and often, was ridiculous. This was perfectly ordinary, early summer weather, a bit ill-timed but in no way unusual.

Egil could hardly disagree. Every Herald knew by now what hostile Magecraft looked like, and this had none of the signs. And yet there was that itch in the region of his tailbone, which nothing but riding onward could scratch.

Cynara had no objections to offer. She said nothing at all of praise or complaint. When the rain soaked her white coat until the black skin showed through, or the little stream she had begun to cross swelled suddenly into a chest-deep torrent, or the smooth road ahead turned out to be a sucking quagmire, she lowered her head and set her ears and slogged silently on.

So did Rohanan. Bronwen was by no means silent, but she did not turn back, either. She had the stubbornness that a Herald needed, the devotion to duty that could take her to the borders of death if need be.

Egil had not thought he was that devoted. For years it had been his secret shame. But in the wind and the rain and the occasional and increasingly rare moments of sun, he found he had no desire to turn back. The Queen needed him. Therefore, he would do as he was ordered.

By the sixth day, Egil had begun to wonder how many weeks it would take them to reach Shepherd’s Ford. The town must be flooded, if the weather there was anything like what it was here. Every stream they met was brimming over the banks, and while no bridges were out as yet, water was lapping over the highest of them.

They had had to camp in the rain the night before, and it seemed they would have to do it again tonight. The only inn along this stretch of road stood on the banks of a river, and its lower floors were flooded out. The best the innkeeper could do was direct them toward the nearest high ground and wish them luck.

The days were long at this time of year, and Egil could see clear sky ahead. Cynara was not averse to going on, though he was less sure of Bronwen. When they sloshed past the hill, on which a fair-sized village of tents had sprung up, she seemed hardly to notice.

He frowned. Was the girl ill?

:Rohanan says no,: Cynara replied, though he had not meant the question for her.

Egil trusted Cynara implicitly. Even so, he had the same strange feeling just then as he had about the weather. Something was odd and growing odder the farther he rode.

The promise of brightness floated ahead, always at the same distance. The rain slackened, but the clouds above the Heralds were as thick as ever. Thunder grumbled inside them.

Egil’s thought brought Cynara to a halt. Rohanan went on a few strides but then stopped as well, turning his weary head and drooping, dripping ears to stare at them.

“We’re riding in circles,” Egil said.

“We’re not.” Bronwen’s retort was pure reflex. But then she twisted in the saddle, staring as her Companion did, in a kind of baffled anger. “What do you mean? The road is as straight as it’s supposed to be. We haven’t repeated any turns.”

“We haven’t,” he agreed, which only baffled her the more. “Oddities, the Queen said. Strange things surrounding a certain valley to the south. We push on through storms that refuse to stop, moving slower and slower, and now we’re at a standstill. We seem to be moving, the land seems to be changing, but the horizon never shifts.”

“That’s what it does,” she said. “It’s the horizon. It’s always in front of us. We can’t ever reach it.”

“We can’t,” he said, “but what’s under the horizon ought to change. And it’s not.”

Comprehension dawned in her face. “It’s like one of your classes. Question after question, and the answer’s never any nearer.”

“It’s never any farther, either. The answer is always right in front of you. You just have to understand how to see it.”

“Well, how do we see this?” she demanded.

“We stop asking the same question over and over,” he said.

She did not understand, but her Companion did. His head came up; he snorted. His tail lashed like an angry cat’s. Even Bronwen’s unshakable seat rocked visibly as he launched himself upward toward the line of light that had tantalized them for so long.

Cynara gave her Herald more warning. It was the highest jump she had ever tried. The mud sucked at her; the rain and wind tried to beat her back. She shook them off with as much impatience as he had ever seen in her.

The storm rose like a wall, crested, and sank away. Egil braced for the landing—even a Companion might come down hard after such a leap.

She landed like a feather in a wash of clear golden light. Egil stared at the green field around them, the clear sky overhead, and the sun riding low over a line of deep blue hills. There was no sign of the storm.

None at all. Heralds and Companions were dry, warm, and unvexed by muddy feet.

“Now that was odd,” Bronwen said. “It must have been magic.”

“Or something like it,” he half-agreed. “This must be the Osgard Valley, which means that Shepherd’s Ford must be—”

:There.: Cynara’s head was up and her ears were pricked. The field rolled down from where she stood toward the setting sun, and a cluster of walls and roofs lay not too far ahead, with the glimmer of a river running through it.

The river was running high and quick, as it should in the spring, but it was well shy of flood stage. Wherever the rains had been, they had not caused trouble here.

The town was a clean and pleasant place. It was full of gardens, all in bloom, and there were two inns, both of which looked well and tidily run. Egil might yet find himself lodging at one or the other, but the tickle in the tailbone that had brought him here was urging him to look at the riding school before he went anywhere else.

It had been market day in the town, and a few booths were still up, selling spring lettuces and bright ribbons and an array of saddles so fine that even in his current state Egil would have stopped to admire them, if Bronwen had not pushed on past.

The last thing he needed was to lose his intern just before they reached their destination. She was drawing all the attention, as usual; people saluted or called greetings, and a few edged a little too close, trying to touch her Companion.

Cynara could have tolerated that, but Rohanan was young and a stallion and it was spring, and within a furlong he was ready to jump out of his skin. Bronwen did not look too comfortable, either.

Cynara established herself beside and a little behind the younger Companion, presenting her broad and well-muscled hindquarters to the next hand that tried to take liberties. Egil smiled down at the white-faced man who had felt a hoof pass within a hand’s breadth of his skull, nodded amiably, and rode on.

The word spread as quickly as he had hoped. Look, but don’t touch.

In some towns, that would not have been enough. This was a town of horsemen. People got the message. They even seemed not to resent it.

The riding school stood on the western edge of the town, surrounded by a patchwork of fields. Egil glimpsed horses grazing on the new spring grass as he rode past neatly kept fences toward the tall wooden gate. It was handsomely carved with scenes of horses at work and play, and riders winding in skeins through a chain of oval arenas.

He had little time to study the carvings. The gate swung open before he had a chance to pound or shout, showing a sandy yard within and a short and wiry man in well-worn riding leathers, whose face broke out in a broad and astonished grin. “Egil! Cousin! What in the world are you doing here?”

“I might ask the same of you,” Egil said.

His cousin Godric’s grin grew even wider. “I just came here a month ago. I’m in charge of training the young horses—they have so many, and such quality, you can hardly imagine.”

“I’ll be eager to see,” Egil said.

“Oh, you’ve heard of us?” Godric seemed delighted. He extended his welcome to the younger Herald and both Companions, calling stablehands out to look after the latter and herding the Heralds into what must, in its time, have been a baronial manor.

It still kept the grandeur of its carvings and stone-work, and the floor had been paved with mosaics. But the furniture had been made more for comfort than for looks, there were warmly woven rugs over the cold paving, and the once enormous rooms were broken up into clusters of apartments. The smell of leather and horses permeated the place in a way that Egil found quite pleasant.

The grand hall was now half library and half dining commons. Godric led the Heralds into a hubbub of voices, the clatter of crockery and cutlery and a mouth-watering promise of dinner.

The sight of two strangers in Whites stopped the conversation cold. There must have been fifty people in the commons, men and women of various ages and sizes and shapes, but they all had a familiar look, one that Egil had learned to recognize when he was small. They were all horsemen.

They saw it in the Heralds, too; their eyes warmed, and their faces relaxed. There was no head table; people seemed to sit in groups by age and apparent experience, but Egil judged that was more a natural human impulse than a school rule.

The table to which Godric urged him was one of those in the middle. Most of the people at it were young, around the age of senior Trainees, but several were older. One, a woman of middle years, as weathered and wiry as Godric, stood and held out her hand.

“Welcome to Osgard Manor,” she said. “It’s a great honor to see you here.”

“I believe the honor is mine,” Egil said.

He was not merely being polite. She was older than he remembered, but then he was not a wide-eyed boy any longer, either. She still had the perfectly erect carriage and the exquisite balance even on foot that had made her one of the great masters of the horseman’s art.

“Madame Larissa,” he said, bowing over her hand. “Now I understand why the world has gathered here to learn the art of riding.”

She accepted his homage graciously, as a queen should, but then she said, “Honor for honor, sir. It’s a small world we inhabit here, and you’re the first of the Queen’s own to grace us with your presence. Dine with us, please, and afterwards, if it’s not terribly presumptuous, might I be introduced to your Companions?”

The hunger in her eyes startled Egil. It was not that he had never seen such a thing before. Even as difficult and dangerous as the Herald’s life could be, few in Valdemar failed to dream that they, too, might be Chosen.

Another gift had chosen Larissa, one that Egil felt was at least as great: to dance with horses in ways that even Heralds might hardly dream of. Yet like any village girl, she yearned after the white beings that had, in their wisdom, taken the shape of horses for the defense of Valdemar.

It was a peculiar sensation to find himself envied by someone whom he had been in awe of since before he was Chosen. She served him with her own hands, picked out the best cuts of the roast and the last of the fresh bread, and sent a boy to the garden for a bowlful of spring greens and tiny carrots. She would have stuffed both Heralds as full as festival geese if she had not been so manifestly eager to meet the Companions.

Rohanan and Cynara were royally housed by true horsemen’s standards, in adjacent paddocks with three-sided shelters. There was fresh water in a stream that ran through the paddocks, and fresh green grass to eat, and a manger of oats and barley if they were inclined to indulge themselves.

No horseman would be so crass as to hang over the fence, but a remarkable number of people had found chores to do in the near vicinity. Egil doubted that any of the paddocks or the nearby barns had been as clean as they were that evening, or that the horses in them had been groomed so thoroughly since the last public exhibition.

Rohanan was taking advantage of his celebrity to dance and snort and arch his beautiful white neck. Cynara, never one to shout for attention, grazed peacefully in the waning light.