Closer to Home: Book One of Herald Spy

by Mercedes Lackey

  :You’ll be fine. It’s the Princess. You can play that game where you say rude things about the people dancing attendance on her and both try not to laugh,: Rolan said with amusement. :Oh, the King gives you leave to relieve Duke Erdenval of his pocket-money at cards. Kyril says he’s overdue for a fleecing.:

  Well, that was something, anyway.

  She wondered how Mags was faring.

  —

  It was dark. It was cold. There was snow piled up on both sides of the street, which at least made it easier to see the sides of the street; you generally didn’t want to stumble too far to either side because of the gutters, and what they usually contained. Mags was holding up a very drunk heir to House Raeylen, as Brand sang a song in praise of Flora’s prettiest girl, declaring his love for her aloud between verses. Mags could only roll his eyes—and not just because Brand was very loud, and very drunk. Lelage was—at least by every account that Mags had heard—an extremely talented young lady in her chosen profession. She was also, by every standard, a stunning beauty, and she stayed with Flora in no small part out of loyalty and friendship, because she certainly could have gone out on her own, or to any of the really exclusive houses of amusement in the city. At Flora’s, her services were reserved exclusively for four and only four gentlemen, none of whom were Brand, nor were likely to be, since he couldn’t afford the services of an “exclusive” girl. But Brand had seen her and was smitten, and never mind that she was . . . well . . . a whore. At the moment, enflamed with desire as he was, that apparently didn’t matter.

  Then again, for people in Brand’s circles, the difference between a girl who sold her services and a girl whose marriage was a commercial commodity was, at least in Mags’ mind, largely semantics. It might be that Brand was either clever enough, or cynical enough, to see it the same way.

  Still, even as beautiful as Lelage was, Mags couldn’t quite figure out why Brand was so obsessed with her. There were plenty of girls at Flora’s who were pretty, and “talented,” and were inclined to give a handsome young man a bit of a discount because he was more pleasant to deal with than some of their other customers.

  Maybe it was just that she was unattainable. Maybe it was because she accepted his compliments, and his serenades, without even hinting that she found them laughable or distasteful. She had made it quite clear to Brand that she could not, and would not, reciprocate in any way.

  Maybe the fact that she didn’t outright tell him to bugger off makes him think that he has some sort of chance with her. Though the gods only know what he thinks he would do with her. He can’t afford her, and she’s not going to take him on for what he can afford.

  “Listen, my lad,” Mags said, his breath steaming in the cold air, when Brand came to the end of the last verse, and finally fell silent, and his steps became a bit firmer. “Your father is not going to like hearing any of this nonsense. Not the whoring, but that you’re in love with a whore. That’s all very well, just don’t say it out loud.”

  “But Magnus . . .” Brand groaned. “She’sh driving me mad!”

  “Madder, country-boy. You were already mad.” Mags slapped Brand’s cheeks lightly with his free hand. “I’m not saying you can’t be in love with her, I’m saying you need to shut your face about it. Just keep it to yourself. Remember that once you’re married, you’ll have your own household and your own money and you can do what you like with it. And if you’re still in love with Lelage, that’ll make things very different.”

  As he had expected, Brand was not drunk enough or in love enough to even consider marrying Lelage. The reminder that marriage would make it possible for him to become one of Lelage’s exclusive clients—or even her only client—cheered him up immediately. Lord Kaltar had one kept woman himself on his estate, tucked away in a snug little cottage where his wife would never find her. Mags knew this, thanks to his own ghosting around the manor and eavesdropping on conversations all over the domicile. His Lordship would not deny his only son the same. And any wife who found out about his dalliance would probably just be grateful that her husband was keeping a courtesan, and not sleeping around the Court itself. For a young man as handsome as Brand, the latter would be pitifully easy and could cause all sorts of unpleasant complications.

  Brand was of the darkly-handsome-and-brooding sort, although his looks belied his temperament; he wasn’t “broody” at all. In Mags’ experience, until he had seen Lelage, Brand was generally very cheerful. And why shouldn’t he be? He was the only heir, he was an only child, his mother gave him anything he wanted and his father—well, Mags had seen no evidence yet that his father had any intention of curbing his son’s activities as long as they remained within reasonable bounds. Certainly Brand’s purse was heavy enough when they all went out drinking or to Flora’s, and that silver could only be coming from his Lordship.

  Now Brand was cheerfully singing what he could remember of snatches of other songs, rather than that ballad to the beauty of Lelage. Not exactly love-songs, or at least, not the sort that a well-bred young man would sing to an equally well-bred young lady. Still, Lelage, if she could hear him now, would probably be amused. And would probably top his bawdy ballads with one of her own.

  At least his singing was no longer at the top of his lungs. Although this wasn’t an unsafe neighborhood, it wasn’t a safe one either. And tonight, it was just Mags and two of Brand’s cousins, rather than the ten or a dozen he usually brought along on his trips into Haven. Mags wasn’t tired, not even half-supporting Brand’s weight, but he had been hoping to make better time through this part of town.

  I’m going to be glad when we get up to—

  The sounds of footsteps on the pavement made him look up. And his hackles went up.

  The street ahead had just been blocked by five men.

  “And what have we here? A songbird!” said the one in front sarcastically.

  From the way that they had spaced themselves out, and the way they held themselves, they were practiced fighters. Five men with hoods casting their features into shadow, and scarves wrapped around the lower halves of their faces. Two of them had cudgels, two had knives, and the one in front had a cheap sword.

  Hell.

  Brand suddenly stopped singing, and straightened, pulling away from Mags. Not completely sober . . . but the shock of being accosted by street thugs had sobered him up, at least somewhat.

  This wasn’t necessarily a good thing. The last thing Mags wanted was for him to tangle with street fighters. He was in no condition to handle himself, and although he was something of a brawler, as Mags knew from practicing with him, he had no notion of the sort of dirty tricks these thugs would pull. And the two cousins with them were not in much better shape than Brand.

  “I’d ask for the contents of your purses, but from the state of you, I expect you’ve spent them bare.” The leader gestured with his sword, pointing to his own feet. “So instead, you four can come along with us, like good boys, and tell us who your parents are. Don’t worry, it won’t be uncomfortable, and I am sure you’ll be back with them by—”

  :Dallen.:

  :Understood.:

  Mags didn’t bother to pull out his own sword; that would take too long and would telegraph that he was sober. Instead, while the leader was still speaking, he made a running leap at the leftmost thug, tackling him and bringing him to the ground before the man could bring up the cudgel. The back of the thug’s head hit the cobblestones with a crack, but Mags took no chances; he struck the thug’s chin with the heel of his right hand, driving it back onto the stones a second time, then he rolled to the left, off the body and onto his feet. He just barely grazed the snowbank on the left doing so.

  It’s a damn good thing there’s a full moon.

  Now he drew his sword, and used it to fend off one of the two with knives as the thug recovered from his surprise and charged. These men were brutal street-brawlers, and Ma
gs had no intention of giving any of them second chances. He parried the second thug’s overhand blow, spun with the momentum, and brought the sword up in a savage cut at the wrist of the man’s knife hand. He didn’t chop the hand off—his sword wasn’t heavy enough to do something like that—but the thug dropped his knife with a shriek and staggered away, clutching at the spurting wound.

  Lucky shot for me. Got the artery. Not so lucky for him.

  But now the other thug with the knife, and the leader with the sword, were coming at him. He dropped under the sword-swing, and reached for the wrist of the knife-wielder, who was charging from the side. Twisting on his own axis, he pulled the knife-man into an uncontrolled fall, and cut at the side of the swordsman at the same time. The swordsman barely parried the blow; the knife-man was so off-balance that he went face-first onto the street. He was out of the fight for the moment, leaving Mags to concentrate on the leader.

  By this time there was shouting at both ends of the street. Dallen—or the Heralds he’d warned—had roused the Guard and the Watch. Mags parried another swing from the swordsman, got a moment of breathing room and kicked the head of the prone knife-man to make sure he stayed down. Out of the corner of his eye he could see Brand’s cousins tussling with the remaining cudgel-man. He wasn’t worried about that one; it was two-to-one, and unless one of the cousins was wildly unlucky, the worst that would befall them was a broken bone.

  There was more shouting, and it finally dawned on the swordsman that the shouting meant he was in trouble. He cast a look full of venom at Mags, disengaged and took to his heels, leaving behind his four companions-in-crime.

  Mags reversed his grip on his sword, ran the few paces to where the cousins were still fighting with the last of the thugs, waited until he got a clear shot, and smacked the would-be kidnapper behind the ear with the pommel-nut. The man went down like a stone.

  The cousins staggered back, panting heavily, and that was when the first of the Watch reached them, along with a Guardsman. “Sir! Are you all right?” the Guardsman asked urgently, peering at him in the moonlight.

  Dress well, and they will always assume you are the victim, not the perpetrator, Mags thought cynically. But at least tonight that was working in their favor.

  “We’re uninjured, which is more than I can say about these blackguards. The leader went that way,” Mags said, pointing down the street. “But you’ll never catch him. He probably knows the back alleys like a cat.”

  “Don’t matter, sir. We’ll find out who he is from his friends here,” said the Guardsman, as the Watch set about securing their prisoners. “Robbers?”

  Mags nodded. “I’m afraid we were making ourselves a little too obvious,” he said ruefully, as more of the Watch and a couple more Guardsmen arrived and began collecting Mags’ victims. “My friend was serenading the moon, after celebrating with a good deal of wine.”

  “This part of town, milord, if you are going to be . . . ah . . . obvious, you had better do so with a couple of bodyguards or in a larger group,” the Guardsman said tactfully. “Still, you seem to have come off all right.”

  “Largely because they were expecting all of us to be drunk,” Mags replied. “By the time they realized I wasn’t, I’d laid two of them out. Thanks for the timely rescue; their leader is a swordsman, and probably wouldn’t have been as easy to handle as his thugs.”

  One of the Watch fetched a torch, and another made notes in a book as Mags gave his account of what had happened, and a now-more-sober Brand and his cousins corroborated it as best they could. The Watch offered an escort of two of their number back up as far as where the streets became—as the Watch put it—“more polite-like,” and Brand accepted it.

  No longer needing to lean on Mags to steady himself, Brand walked silently next to him for several blocks before speaking.

  “You—”

  “Don’t say I saved your life, because I didn’t,” Mags interrupted. “You heard him yourself; he had no intention of doing anything other than holding us briefly for ransom. He’d have sent his demands to Lord Kaltar, and we’d have been found, safe and probably tied up and possibly unconscious, within a couple of candlemarks of ransom being handed over. I just saved you some inconvenience.”

  “And acute embarrassment, and explaining myself to my father, and the tedium of thereafter having to take an escort with me wherever I go. So I am still deeply in your debt,” Brand replied. “Magnus, where in the name of the gods did you ever learn to fight like that? You moved like a cat!”

  “Here—” Mags replied, waving a hand to indicate the streets around them. “All of your fancy swordmasters aren’t worth a clipped copper out here. This isn’t the first time I’ve put down a footpad. Although—” he added, with a frown “—it’s the first time one’s threatened to kidnap me for ransom. I wonder where they got that idea from?”

  “Well it’s one I hope you nipped in the bud,” said one of the two cousins, who was nursing a bruised shoulder.

  “So do I,” Mags agreed.

  :Though we know very well where they got that idea from,: Dallen said grimly. :The Sleepgivers put a lot of notions into the heads of the local criminals; notions I would just as soon got driven out again.:

  Dallen was most probably right. Kidnapping had been almost unheard of here in Haven until the Sleepgiver assassins had turned up. Mags didn’t like it at all. :Tell Amily about this through Rolan,: he told his Companion. :The King needs to know; in the morning when she meets with him is probably soon enough, but I’ll let her be the judge of that.:

  :Done,: Dallen replied.

  “You’re very quiet,” Brand said at that moment.

  “Catching my breath. And thinking. It’s probably best if we take this good fellow’s advice from now on.” He nodded at the Watch who had come with them. “It’s not that hard to convince the rest to come with us. Is it?”

  But here Brand sighed heavily. “Harder than you think,” he said. “The Midwinter parties started tonight. Not—” he added “—that they’re things that are anything but dead boring, most of them. But the lads have parents and the parents are expecting them to be trotted out to show their paces and their teeth.”

  Mags nodded sagely. “That’s not anything I have to worry about,” he admitted. “I live on the generosity of my uncle. I’m not exactly a shining matrimonial prospect.”

  Brand sighed heavily. “Well . . . I am. So I’ll have to go to some of these things. But my father laments that they are not the best ones. I assume by this he means that the families giving the best ones are a cut or two above us, and wouldn’t deign to invite us.”

  Mags laughed at that. “So? We invite ourselves! If you want.”

  Brand looked at him incredulously. “You can do that?”

  :Dallen, can we do that?:

  :It’s done all the time. You wear masks, and don’t stay long, and don’t get into trouble. The guards at the door look you over, and if your clothing is fine enough, they’ll let you in without an invitation.:

  “It’s done all the time, as long as you wear a mask and don’t cause any trouble,” Mags said, repeating what Dallen had told him. “After all, in our circles, these parties are all about marrying daughters off. There are lots of girls, not so many men. Having a brief surge of mysterious young men come in to dance and flirt harmlessly and have some wine takes the tedium out of the evening for everyone. You just don’t stay long.”

  “That sounds like fun, actually,” Brand admitted. “More fun than being an actual guest.”

  :We can get a list of what parties are when, and where. The evening ones, anyway.:

  “I can get a list of what’s being given, when and where,” Mags told him, with a slap on Brand’s shoulder. “You just leave it up to me. It won’t be nearly as much fun as a night at Flora’s, but your father will probably approve. And you might get a look at some pretty thing you wouldn’t
mind being leg-shackled to, and put a word in your father’s ear about her. The girls of a family all go in a gaggle, like a flock of sparrows, and even though you won’t have a chance with the eldest, you might with one of her younger sisters.”

  “Huh!” said Brand. “I might at that!” He grinned at Mags, just as they reached the area the Watch deemed safe, and their escort turned back with a salute. “Magnus, you are the best fellow I’ve met since I got here!”

  “Happy to be of service,” Mags said, with only a touch of irony.

  8

  The little dressing room was warm, very well lit and . . . a bit dazzling, since there were four gowns hanging on the wall, besides the one that Lydia had finally chosen, and all of them were stunning. And there was a casket of jewelry open on the dressing table that had made Amily blink. Of all of the things that Amily had expected to do when she became King’s Own, overseeing the dressing of the Crown Princess was not one.

  But it was certainly the most pleasant job she’d been set since she got the position. And, at least at the moment, the most relaxing. She hadn’t really had to do anything except suggest that, given the huge crowds that were going to be in the Palace tonight, the lightest of the gowns that Lydia’s handmaiden had selected was probably going to be the most practical. Lydia herself, having grown up in the household of a Guild Master, had a fine eye for fabric, color, and design. There was not a gown that she owned that was not flattering.

  It’s kind of a relief to be a Herald, Amily reflected. I never have to worry about what to wear, or the color of it.

  In this case the gown in question was deep blue, trimmed in silver, and all the jewelry Lydia was wearing was silver with sapphires. She watched as Princess Lydia’s servant put a beaded veil with a simple coronet over her hair. Now that she was married, like all married women, Lydia was expected to keep her hair beneath a coif or a veil of some sort. Only Heralds, Bards and Healers could escape that particular custom, at least among the women at Court. “I know this is horrible of me to ask you to help me with all the guests,” Princess Lydia said, apologetically. “But you know how awful my memory is.”