Last Herald Mage: Magic's Pawn Part 7

"That's the salle," she told him. "That's where we're going. They just built it last year so that we could practice year *round." She giggled. "I think they got tired of the trainees having bouts in the hallways when it rained or snowed!"

Vanyel just nodded, determined to show no symptoms of his weariness. She set off across the gra.s.s with a stride so brisk he had to really push himself to keep up with her. It was all he could do to keep from panting with effort by the time they actually reached the building, and his side was in agony when she slowed down enough to open the door for him.

Once inside he could see that the structure was one single large room, with a mirrored wall and a carefully sanded wooden floor. There were several young people out on the floor already, ranging in apparent age from as young as eleven or twelve to as old as their early twenties. Most of them were sparring - Vanyel was too exhausted to take much notice of what they were up to, although the pair nearest him (he saw with a sinking heart) were working out in almost exactly the weapons style Jervis used.

"This him?"

A woman with a soft, musical contralto spoke from behind them, and Vanyel turned abruptly, dropping a vambrace.

"Yes, ma'am," Donni said, picking the bracer up before Vanyel had a chance even to flush. "Vanyel, this is Weaponsmaster Kayla. Kayla, this stuff is all his; I guess he brought it from home. I've got to get going, or I'll miss my session in the Work Room."

"Havens forfend," Kayla said dryly. "Savil would eat me for lunch if you were late. Don't forget you have dagger this afternoon, girl."

Donni nodded and slipped out the door, leaving Vanyel alone with the redoubtable Weaponsmaster.

For redoubtable she was. From the crown of her head to the soles of her feet she was nothing but sinew and muscle. Her black hair, tightly braided to her head, showed not a strand of gray, despite the age revealed by the fine net of wrinkles around her eyes and mouth. Those gray-green eyes didn't look as if they missed much.

For the rest, Kayla's shoulders were nearly a handspan wider than his, and her wrists as thick as his ankles. Vanyel had no doubt that she could readily wield any of the blades in the racks along the wall, even the ones as tall or taller than she. He did not particularly want to face this woman in any sort of combat situation. She looked like she could quite handily take on Jervis and mop the floor with his ugly face.

Vanyel remained outwardly impa.s.sive, but was inwardly quaking as she in turn studied him.

"Well, young man," she said quietly, after a moment that was far too long for his liking. "You might as well throw that stuff over in the corner over there - " she nodded toward the far end of the salle, and a pile of discarded equipment, " - we'll see what we can salvage of it. You certainly won't be needing it."

Vanyel blinked at her, wondering if he'd missed something. "Why not?" he asked, just as quietly.

"Good G.o.ds, lad, that stuff's about as suited to you as boots on a cat!" she replied, with a certain amus.e.m.e.nt. "Whoever your last master was, he was a fool to put you in that gear. No, young man - you see Redel and Oden over there?''

She pointed with her chin at a pair of slender, androgynous figures involved in an intricate, and possibly deadly dance with very light, slender swords.

"I'll make Duke Oden your instructor; he'll be pleased to have a pupil besides young Lord Redel. That's the kind of style suited to you, so that's what you'll be doing, young Vanyel," she told him.

His heart rose to its proper place from its former position - somewhere in the vicinity of his boots.

Kayla graced him with a momentary smile. "Mind you, lad, Oden's no light taskmaster. You'll find you work up as healthy a sweat and collect just as many bruises as any of the hack-and-bashers. So let's get you suited for it, eh?"

If the morning was an unexpected pleasure - and it was; for the first time in his life he received praise for weapons work, and preened under it - the afternoon was an unalloyed disaster.

It started when he returned with equipment that weighed a third of what he'd carried over. He racked it with care he usually didn't grant to weaponry, and sought the central room of the suite.

Someone - probably the hitherto invisible Margret - had taken away the food left on the sideboard this morning and replaced it with meat rolls, more fruit and cheese, and a bottle of light wine.

Tylendel was sprawled on the couch, a meat roll in one hand, a book in the other, a crease of concentration between his brows. He didn't even look up as Vanyel moved hesitantly just into the common room itself.

Once again he got that strange, half-fearful, fluttery feeling in the pit of his stomach. He cleared his throat, and Tylendel jumped, dropping his book, and looking up with his eyes widened and his hair over one eye.

"Good G.o.ds, Vanyel, make some noise, next time!" he said, bending to retrieve his book from the floor. "I didn't know there was anyone here but me! That's lunch over there - "

He pointed with the half-eaten roll.

"Savil says to eat and get yourself cleaned up; she's going to present you to the Queen before the noon recess. Then you'll be able to have dinner with the Court; the rest of us get it on the fly as our schedules permit. Savil will be back in a few minutes so you'd better move." He tilted his head to one side, just a little, and offered, "If you need any help. ..."

Vanyel stiffened; the offer hadn't sounded at all unfriendly, but - it could be Tylendel was looking for a way to spy on him. Savil hadn't necessarily told the truth.

- if only - "No," he replied curtly, "I don't need any help." He paused, then added for politeness' sake, "Thank you."

Tylendel gave him a dubious look, then shrugged and dove back into his book.

Savil was back in moments; Vanyel had barely time to make himself presentable before she scooped him up and herded him off to the Throne Room.

The Throne Room was a great deal smaller than he had pictured; long and narrow, and rather dark. And stuffy; there were more people crammed into this room than it had ever been intended to hold. Somewhere down at the farther end of it was the Throne itself, beneath a huge blue and silver tapestry of a rampant winged horse with broken chains on its throat and legs that took up the entire wall over the Throne. Vanyel could see the tapestry, but nothing else; everyone else in the room seemed to be at least a hand taller than he was, and all he could see were heads.

The presentation itself was a severe disappointment. Vanyel waited with Savil at his side for nearly an hour while some wrangle or other involving a pair of courtiers was ironed out. Then Savil's name was called; the two of them (Vanyel trailing in Savil's formidable wake) were announced by a middle-aged Herald in full Court Whites. Vanyel was escorted to the foot of the Throne by that same Herald, where Queen Elspeth (a thin, dark-haired woman who was looking very tired and somewhat preoccupied) nodded to him in a friendly manner, and said about five words in greeting. He bowed and was escorted back to Savil's side, and that was all there was to it.

Then Savil hustled him back to change out of Court garb and into ordinary daygarb for his afternoon cla.s.ses. Mardic practically flew in the door from the hallway and took him in tow. They traversed a long, dark corridor leading from Savil's quarters, out through a double door, to a much older section of the Palace. From there they exited a side door and out into more gardens - herb gardens this time, and kitchen gardens.

Mardic didn't seem to be the talkative type, but he could certainly move. His fast walk took them past an l-shaped granite building before Vanyel had a chance to ask what it was, and up to a square fieldstone structure. "Bardic Collegium," Mardic said shortly, pausing just long enough for a couple of youngsters who were running to get past him, then opening the black wooden door for him.

He didn't say another word; just left him at the door of his first cla.s.s before vanis.h.i.+ng elsewhere into the building.

He was finding it hard to believe that Savil was going so far in ignoring his father's orders as to put him in lessoning with the Bardic students. Nevertheless, here he was.

Inside Bardic Collegium. Actually inside the building, seated in a row of chairs with three other youngsters in a small, sunny room on the first floor.

More than that, pacing back and forth as he lectured or questioned them was a real, live Bard in full Scarlets; a tall, powerful man who was probably as much at home wielding a broadsword as a lute.

At home Vanyel had always been a full step ahead of his brothers and cousins when it came to scholastics, so he began the hour with a feeling of boredom. History was the proverbial open book to him - or so he had always thought. He began the session with the rather smug feeling that he was going to dazzle his new cla.s.smates.

The other three boys looked at him curiously when he came in and sat down with them, but they didn't say anything. One was mouse-blond, one chestnut, and one dark; all three were dressed nearly the same as Vanyel, in ordinary day-clothing of white raime s.h.i.+rt and tunic and breeches of soft brown or gray fabric. He couldn't tell if they were Heraldic trainees or Bardic; they wore no uniforms the way their elders did. Not that it mattered, really, except that he would have liked to impress them with his scholars.h.i.+p if they were Bardic students.

The room was hardly bigger than his bedroom in Savil's suite; but unlike the Heralds' quarters, this building was old, worn, and a bit shabby. Vanyel had a moment to register disappointment at the scuffed floor, dusty furnis.h.i.+ngs, and fuded paint before the leonine Bard at the window-end of the room began the cla.s.s.

After that, all he had a chance to feel was shock.

"Yesterday we discussed the Arvale annexation; today we're going to cover the negotiations with Rethwellan that followed the annexation." With those words, Bard Chadran launched into his lecture; a dissertation on the important Arvale-Zalmon negotiations in the time of King Tavist. It was fascinating. There was only one problem.

Vanyel had never even heard of the Arvale-Zalmon negotiations, and all he knew of King Tavist was that he was the son of Queen Terilee and the father of Queen Les.h.i.+a; Tavist's reign had been a quiet one, a reign devoted more to studied diplomacy than the kind of deeds that made for ballads. So when the Bard opened the floor to discussion, Vanyel had to sit there and try to look as if he understood it all, without having the faintest idea of what was going on.

He took reams of notes, of course, but without knowing why the negotiations had been so important, much less what they were about, they didn't make a great deal of sense.

He escaped that cla.s.s with the feeling that he'd only just escaped being skinned and eaten alive.

Religions was a bit better, though not much. He'd thought it was Religion, singular. He found out how wrong he was - again. It was, indeed, Religions in the plural sense. Since the population of Valdemar was a patchwork quilt of a dozen different peoples escaping from various unbearable situations, it was hardly surprising that each one of those peoples had their own religion. As Vanyel heard, over and over again that hour, the law of Valdemar on the subject of wors.h.i.+p was "there is no *one, true way,' " But with a dozen or more "ways" in practice, it would have been terribly easy for a Bard - or Herald - to misstep among people strange to him. Hence this cla.s.s, which was currently covering the "People of the One" who had settled about Crescent Lake.

It was something of a shock, hearing that what his priest would have called rankest heresy was presented as just another aspect of the truth. Vanyel spent half his time feeling utterly foolish, and the other half trying to hide his reactions of surprise and disquiet.

But it was Literature - or rather, an event just before the Literature cla.s.s - which truly deflated and defeated him.

He had been toying with the idea of pet.i.tioning one of the Bards to enroll him in their Collegium before he began the afternoon's cla.s.ses, but now he was doubtful of being able to survive the lessons.

G.o.ds, I - I'm as pig-ignorant compared to these trainees as my cousins are compared to me, he thought glumly, slumping in the chair nearest the door as he and the other two with him waited for the teacher of Literature to put in her appearance. But - maybe this time. Lord of Light knows I've memorized every ballad I could ever get my hands on.

Then he overheard Bard Chadran talking out in the hallway with another Bard; presumably the teacher of this cla.s.s. But when he heard his own name, and realized that they were talking about him, he stretched his ears without shame or hesitation to catch all that he could.

" - so Savil wants us to take him if he's got the makings," Chadran was saying.

"Well, has he?" asked the second, a dark, sensuously female voice.

"Shanse's heard him sing; says he's got the voice and the hands for it, and I trust him on that," said Chadran, hesitantly.

"But not the Gift?" the second persisted.

Chadran coughed. "I - didn't hear any sign of it in cla.s.s. And it's pretty obvious he doesn't compose, or we'd have heard about it. Shanse would have said something, or put it in his report, and he didn't."

"He has to have two out of three; Gift, Talent, and Creativity - you know that, Chadran," said the woman. "Shanse didn't see any signs of Gift either, did he?"

Chadran sighed. "No. Breda, when Savil asked me about this boy, I looked up Shanse's report on the area. He did mention the boy, and he was flattering enough about the boy's musicality that we could get him training as a minstrel if - "

"If-"

"If he weren't his father's heir. But the truth is, he said the boy has a magnificent ear, and apt.i.tude for mimicry, and the talent. But no creativity, and no Gift. And that's not enough to enroll someone's heir as a mere minstrel. Still - Breda, love, you look for Gift. You're better at seeing it than any of us. I'd really like to do Savil a favor on this one. She says the boy is set enough on music to defy a fairly formidable father - and we owe her a few."

"I'll try him," said the woman, "But don't get your hopes up. Shanse may not have the Gift himself, but he knows it when he hears it."

Vanyel had something less than an instant to wonder what they meant by "Gift" before the woman he'd overheard entered the room. As tall as a man, thin, plain-she still had a presence that forced Vanyel to pay utmost attention to every word she spoke, every gesture she made.

"Today we're going to begin the *Windrider' cycle," she said, pulling a gittern around from where it hung across her back. "I'm going to begin with the very first *Windrider' ballad known, and I'm going to present it the way it should be dealt with. Heard, not read. This ballad was never designed to be read, and I'll tell you the truth, the flaws present in it mostly vanish when it's sung."

She strummed a few chords, then launched into the opening to the "Windrider Unchained" - and he no longer wondered what the "Gift" could be.

Because she didn't just sing - not like Vanyel would have sung, or even the minstrel (or, as he realized now, the Bard) Shanse would have. No - she made her listeners experience every word of the pa.s.sage; to feel every emotion, to see the scene, to live the event as the originals must have lived it. When she finished, Vanyel knew he would never forget those words again.

And he knew to the depths of his soul that he would never be able to do what she had just done.

Oh, he tried; when she prompted him to sing the next Windrider ballad while she played, he gave it his best. But he could tell from the look in his fellow cla.s.smates' eyes - interest, but not rapt fascination - that he hadn't even managed a pale imitation.

As he sat down and she gestured to the next to take a ballad, he saw the pity in her eyes and the slight shake of her head - and knew then that she knew he'd overheard the conversation in the hallway. That this was her way of telling him, gently, and indirectly, that his dream could not be realized.

It was the pity that hurt the most, after the realization that he did not have the proper material to be a Bard. It cut - as cruelly as any blade. All that work - all that fighting to get his hand back the way it had been - and all for nothing. He'd never even had a hope.

Vanyel threw himself onto his bed, his chest aching, his head throbbing - I thought nothing would ever be worse than home - but at least I still had dreams. Now I don't even have that.

The capper on the miserable day was his aunt, his competent, clever, selfless, d.a.m.n-her-to-nine-h.e.l.ls aunt.

He flopped over onto his stomach, and fought back the sting in his eyes.

She'd pulled him aside right after dinner; "I asked the Bards to see if they could take you," she'd said. "I'm sorry, Vanyel, but they told me you're a very talented musician, but that's all you'll ever be. That's not enough to get you into Bardic when you're the heir to a holding."

"But - " he'd started to say, then clamped his mouth shut.

She gave him a sharp look. "I know how you probably feel, Vanyel, but your duty as Withen's heir is going to have to come first. So you'd better resign yourself to the situation instead of fighting it."

She watched him broodingly as he struggled to maintain his veneer of calm. "The G.o.ds know," she said finally, "I stood in your shoes, once. I wanted the Holding - but I wasn't firstborn son. And as things turned out, I'm glad I didn't get the Holding. If you make the best of your situation, you may find one day that you wouldn't have had a better life if you'd chosen it yourself."

How could she know? he fumed. I hate her. So help me, I hate her. Everything she does is so d.a.m.ned perfect! She never says anything, but she doesn't have to; all she has to do is give me that look. If I hear one more word about how I *m supposed to like this trap that's closed on me, I may go mad!

He turned over on his back, and brooded. It wasn't even sunset - and he was stuck here with his lute staring down at him from the wall with all the broken dreams it implied.

And nothing to distract him. Or was there?

Dinner was over, but there were going to be people gathered in the Great Hall all night. And there were plenty of people his age there; young people who weren't Bard trainees, nor Herald proteges. Ordinary young people, more like normal human beings.

He forgot all his apprehensions about being thought a country b.u.mpkin; all he could think of now was the admiration his wit and looks used to draw at the infrequent celebrations that brought the offspring of several Keeps and Holdings together. He needed a dose of that admiration, and needed its sweetness as an antidote to the bitterness of failure.

He flung himself off the bed and rummaged in his wardrobe for an appropriately impressive outfit; he settled on a smoky gray velvet as suiting his mood and his flair for the dramatic.

He planned his entrance to the Great Hall with care; waiting until one of those moments that occur at any gathering of people where everyone seems to choose the same moment to stop talking. When that moment came, he seized it; pacing gracefully into the silence as if it had been created expressly to display him.

It worked to perfection; within moments he had a little circle of courtiers of his own flocking about him, eager to impress the newcomer with their friendliness.

He basked in their attentions for nearly an hour before it began to pall.

A lanky youngster named Liers was waxing eloquent on the subject of his elder brother dealing with a set of brigands. Vanyel stifled a yawn; this was sounding exactly like similar evenings at Forst Reach!

"So he charged straight at them - "

"Which was a d.a.m.n fool thing to do if you ask me," Vanyel said, his brows creasing.

"But - it takes a brave man - " the young man protested weakly.

"I repeat, it was a d.a.m.n fool thing to do," Vanyel persisted. "Totally outnumbered, no notion if the party behind him was coming in time - great good G.o.ds, the right thing to do would have been to turn tail and run! If he'd done it convincingly, he could have led them straight into the arms of his own troops! Charging off like that could have gotten him killed!"

"It worked," Liers sulked.

"Oh, it worked all right, because n.o.body in his right mind would have done what he did!"

"It was the valiant thing to have done," Liers replied, lifting his chin.

Vanyel gave up; he didn't dare alienate these younglings. They were all he had - "You're right, Liers," he said, hating the lie. "It was a valiant thing to have done."

Liers smiled in foolish satisfaction as Vanyel made more stupid remarks; eventually Vanyel extricated himself from that little knot of idlers and went looking for something more interesting.

The fools were as bad as his brother; he could not, would never get it through their heads that there was nothing "romantic" about getting themselves hacked to bits in the name of Valdemar or a lady. That there was nothing uplifting about losing an arm or a leg or an eye. That there was nothing, nothing "glorious" about warfare.

As soon as he turned away from the male contingent, the female descended upon him in a chattering flock; flirting, coquetting, each doing her best to get Variyel's attention settled on her. It was exactly the same playette that had been enacted over and over in his mother's bower; there were more players, and the faces were both different and often prettier, but it was the identical seript.

Vanyel was bored.

But it was marginally better than being lectured by Savil, or longing after the Bards and the Gift he never would have.