Valdemar 06 - [Exile 02] - Exile’s Valor

by Mercedes Lackey

  :Leave that to us Companions,: said Kantor. :It’s what we’re good at.:

  The area around the salle was extremely quiet without streams of Trainees coming and going. When Dethor had moved out, Alberich had gotten the carpenters to put in a good, stout, one-Companion “stable” up against that oven wall for Kantor to stay in when he chose. It was immensely more convenient not to have to go all the way up to the Companions’ stable in order to tack him up—and this way, he and Kantor could come and go without any fuss or anyone noticing. Kantor himself always went up to the main stable to eat and drink, and Companions being Companions and not horses, the interior of this secondary stable didn’t need to be cleaned. Alberich being Alberich, he saw to Kantor’s tack himself, except for the fancy “show” or “parade” tack, so it wasn’t really any inconvenience to the stablehands, either, for Kantor to have his everyday kit down here. Alberich dismounted at the door of the little lean-to addition, and Kantor followed him inside. It was pleasantly warm, thanks to that brick wall.

  :I’m going up to the stable,: the Companion said, as Alberich took off his halter and he shook his head and neck vigorously. :I’m going to have some consultations.:

  Alberich bent to unbuckle the girth. :I’ll probably be here for the next mark or two. I want to think a few things over myself.:

  Kantor tossed his head, and when Alberich had a good grip on the saddle and blanket, walked out from underneath them. :I’ll let you know if anything gets started.:

  And with that, the Companion trotted back out into the snow, leaving Alberich to wipe down the tack and hang it up to dry.

  It was less quiet in the salle than Alberich had thought it would be. He’d forgotten that there was going to be a crew of cleaners making sure that there was not the tiniest bit of glass left behind, then setting the floor to rights again. The soft murmur of voices was rather pleasant. He slipped in without disturbing them and went back into his own quarters.

  The glory of his window took him by surprise—a blaze of gold and blue, color in a room that had been pale and faded in winter light before the window had been put in.

  It was going to be a while before he got used to the change, but the shock was one of pleasure, and he found that he liked it. He sat down where he got the best possible view of the glass, and was bathed in the golden light coming from the Sun-In-Glory.

  Ah. . . . It felt good. It felt right, to have the light of Vkandis about him. It felt like a blessing, and perhaps it was. If that was so, well, this was a good place for him to be when he was thinking about important decisions.

  Now, the question about Keren and Myste was, should he take one or both women into his confidence concerning his covert work? Myste had the better knowledge of Haven; Keren would fit into rougher places. As he weighed the abilities of one against the other, it became clear that if he was going to do this, it would, eventually, have to be both. Neither had the ability or the skills to move in all the places that he could. But he thought that he would approach Keren about this first. It was, after all, the rougher places of Haven where most of his prowling was done.

  That made him feel easier. Later, perhaps, he could ask Myste, if he thought he’d need her. She wasn’t much good at anything physical, and he wasn’t sure just how well she could conceal her feelings. He really didn’t want to involve her if he didn’t have to.

  No matter how good a notion Kantor thought it was. Companions weren’t always right.

  4

  “BLOODY hell!” Herald Keren said, in sheer admiration. She shook her head. “All this time? You’ve been running around in Hell’s own neighborhood all this time? By yourself? Bloody hell!” Keren had held Alberich in high esteem for his skill, but he sensed that this had not been anything she would have pictured him doing. “So where’s your wheelbarrow, then?”

  “Pardon?” he said, puzzled, as Ylsa choked. But neither of them explained, so he decided it was one of those colloquialisms he wouldn’t understand even if he knew what she’d meant, and dismissed it from his mind.

  Keren was probably Alberich’s age, though with someone from Lake Evendim it was hard to tell. They were all lean, tall, and had the sort of face that appears not to change a great deal between the ages of twenty and sixty. She had been a Herald for several years by the time Alberich came to Haven, and people swore she’d looked pretty much the same as she did now on the day she arrived. She was an oddity among the female Heralds, as she wore her brown hair cropped close to her head, but then, the only “hairstyle” she was interested in was how to braid up a Companion’s mane and tail for parade.

  “Since Dethor his Second made me, prowling the streets I have been,” Alberich confirmed. Keren grinned at him, with a glint in her eye that made her partner Ylsa sigh and cast a glance up toward heaven.

  Ylsa was cut of similar cloth to Keren, though her hair was an ash-blonde and her jaw square rather than Evendim-narrow. Apparently they had been together from the time they were yearmates as Trainees. Ylsa tended to be the one who exercised more caution than Keren did; hardly surprising, really, since Myste claimed the Lake Evendim fishers were all descended from pirates. “And just how often have you been doing this?” she asked.

  “Of late, perhaps every two or three nights. But during the worst of it, nightly, could I manage it.”

  “Bloody hell! When did you sleep?” Keren demanded.

  “Infrequently, apparently,” Ylsa muttered.

  He had known he would have to let Ylsa in on the secret of his double life the moment he’d decided to recruit Keren; he had learned as a commander that the only way to ensure perfect cooperation from his men—or now, his women—was to make certain their partners knew what was toward. And although by the strictest Karsite creed, what was between Ylsa and Keren was—not to be thought of—Alberich had been a leader of men for far too long not to know that things that were not to be thought of were commoner than the Sunpriests admitted.

  Back when he’d been a Captain of the Sunsguard, two of his men had had just such an “understanding” between them, though the rest of the troop had not known, and Alberich doubted that even the two in question ever realized he had discovered their association. They had been very good at keeping it all to themselves, but Alberich had been better at reading subtle body language than they were at concealing it from him. Never once had it affected their performance; never once had they allowed it to affect their behavior in the troops. After careful soul searching on Alberich’s part, he had finally decided that what did not affect the troops did not matter, and ignored it.

  Several more of the men had clandestine marriages with women in one or another of the villages—ordinary fighters were not permitted to marry, at all, under any circumstances, only officers. Needless to say, those “understandings,” too, had been kept very quiet. Strange, that whoring was tolerated, if preached against, but an honest marriage was absolutely forbidden . . . on the grounds that it was a distraction to the soldier.

  This had all conflicted with what the Sunpriests decreed, and as their leader, his responsibility was to report every irregularity to the Sunpriests. Except that if he did that, he’d earn the hatred of half of them, and see the other half cashiered before six months was over. Eventually he had come to a decision on his own about what the men did or did not do. If some behavioral trait of one of his people did not affect performance and honor adversely, it mattered not at all. If it affected performance and honor positively, it mattered a very great deal.

  So when confronted by similar “irregularities” as a Herald, he followed the same course, and that seemed to be the right way to go. It certainly fell right into line with the credo that “there is no one right way.”

  So far as he could judge, Keren and Ylsa were good partners. Keren gave Ylsa a boost to thinking imaginatively. Ylsa steadied Keren down, something that hellion badly needed. If they had lovers’ quarrels, they kept it to themselves, or at least, never involved anyone but a counselor. And although Keren was perm
anently stationed at the Collegium—there hadn’t been a better riding instructor in the past fifty years, so it was said—and Ylsa was a Special Messenger, which took her out of Haven all the time, neither of them complained about being separated far too often. If they’d been Sunsguard, he’d have called them fine soldiers, and written them up for commendations. As it was, since there was no such thing as officers in the Heraldic Circle and thus absolutely nothing he could say or do that would get them any advance in rank, he merely considered it a pity that there weren’t more Heralds like them.

  “And you want me to help you out?” Keren continued, still with that glint in her eyes.

  “From time to time. Not often. But there are some things women tell not to men. And some places men are welcome not.” He shrugged. “That there is the greatness of threat to Valdemar that there was once, I think not. That there is the threat still existing, however, I do think. I know not why there was that man paying for grumblings against the Queen, for instance, and this troubles me. Valdemar was not impoverished in the Wars as it could have been—”

  “Thanks to you,” Ylsa pointed out. “If you hadn’t gone after those children, and got the lion’s share of the Tedrel loot in the process, we would have been.”

  He waved that aside. “Still, seasoned fighters were lost; Valdemar hires not from the Mercenary Guild, so weakened will Valdemar be for some time. A weakened land is a land that others may seek—to exploit.”

  “Hmm.” Ylsa sat back in her chair, and stroked her chin speculatively. “That could be . . . though we’ve friends on the east and south.”

  “There is the north,” Keren pointed out. “Northern barbarians are always a danger, and the gods only know what Iftel might do—just because it’s been quiet for centuries doesn’t mean it won’t suddenly roar up and turn into a menace. And there’s always the west. Pirates on Evendim. Bandit bands large enough to qualify as armies. Weird stuff out of the Pelagirs. Gods only know what comes farther into the west than the Pelagirs.”

  “Even so.” Alberich nodded. “The Northern Border and the Western are—”

  “Fluid,” Ylsa supplied him. “And what’s more, Selenay inherited a Kingdom where war has allowed other problems to be ignored. And I suspect you know that at first hand.” She raised an eyebrow at him; Special Messengers saw a lot, and were chosen as much for their ability to keep their mouths shut as their riding prowess.

  He shrugged. “Indeed. The enemy I fear most lies within our borders. In Haven, the City Guard short-handed still remains. Opportunists come in all stripes, and all ranks. Perhaps this is why someone seeks to agitate against Selenay. While we look to that as trouble, we miss some other evil he may do. Where there are fortunes to be made, men will seek to make them, be the source never so vile.”

  “And once you start selling one vile thing, further vileness comes easier. Especially when the price is good enough.” Keren shook her head. “Well. How would you like me to start?”

  “By learning to act a part,” Alberich told her immediately. “The hellion will not always welcome be, where I would ask you to go. Sometimes, the serving wench. Sometimes, the whore.”

  Keren snickered at that. “Me! I’d never pass as a whore! Nobody’d look twice at me!”

  “You are not old, not raddled with drink, have all your teeth, most of your mind, and no disease,” Alberich said pragmatically, before Ylsa could jump in. “In the quarters where I go, that is enough.”

  Keren snorted. “Most of my mind! I like that!”

  Ylsa laughed. “You’re a Herald. You are volunteering to spy in the worst parts of Haven, dear. That’s not exactly anything I see sane people queuing up to do.”

  Keren made a face. But she didn’t argue.

  “So. There it is. Can you act a part?” Alberich asked. “Can you act those parts?”

  Keren scratched one eyebrow thoughtfully. “I’m pretty sure I can, at least, as long as you don’t expect me to bed anybody. Not for days and weeks at a time, but then, you aren’t going to want that, I suppose.”

  “No,” he agreed. “If it must come to days and weeks, another solution sought must be. Not you nor I can be spared our assigned duties. A few hours at most, is what we will need. And no—if the whore you play, it is my whore you will be.”

  “For a few hours, I can manage anything,” Keren decreed. “I suppose I could even manage pretending to be a lady.”

  “I’d pay money to see that!” Ylsa chortled.

  “If it is a lady I need, to Talamir I should take myself,” Alberich told them both. “Better to find one within the Court who is a friend—and I assume that he has more than one such already.”

  “Probably,” Ylsa agreed, and Keren nodded. “There are highborn Heralds, too—probably no one would tell them anything directly, and since everyone would know they were Heralds, they’d be useless as spies, but people do gossip, and gossip alone might be worth something.”

  So, there it was. He had agreement, not only from Keren, but from her partner—which basically meant that Ylsa agreed not to interfere. He felt a little of the weight lift from his shoulders. “Well, then, I thank you both.” He stood up, and motioned them both to remain seated. “I shall myself let out. Not soon will this be—nothing have I that needs a female, at the moment.”

  “Better to have the gaff in your hand before you try to land the sturgeon,” Keren observed. “Take me with you a time or two when you’ve not got something on the boil, and I can get used to playing your doxy.”

  “I shall,” he promised, and let himself out of their somewhat cramped quarters. They shared a room meant for one—well, it probably wasn’t as crowded as it could have been, since both of them tended to keep personal possessions at a minimum and Ylsa was often away. But it felt very claustrophobic to him.

  All things considered, he wasn’t unhappy about being down in the salle. If he wanted or needed more room, he could just add on, as apparently, generations of Weaponsmasters had done before him. Quarters in the Heralds’ Wing were best described as “tight” by his current standards, and he wasn’t at all certain he would care to have neighbors on either side of his walls either.

  That went very well, he decided, and knew that it could have turned out a flat failure. Keren might not have been interested—Ylsa might well have objected. And Keren’s suggestion of going about in persona when there was nothing particularly that he needed to do was an excellent one. It would establish her personae and allow him to correct her, if need be, at a time and place where breaks in the particular persona would not be dangerous. Better to clear all that up before it could be fatal. Prowling the slums when there was nothing in particular he was watching for could be tedious at times; at least with Keren along, it might be less tedious. And having her with him when he changed into one of his varied costumes would also be useful. She could double-check the face paint he wore to cover his scars. The stuff was a damned nuisance; it had to be peeled off when he was done with it, and in hot weather it itched, but it was the only way he could keep from being recognized.

  He’d better warn her about the food and drink in The Broken Arms, though, before they entered what passed for its door. There were some things even Keren’s famously iron stomach could not digest safely.

  Perhaps I should lure those whom I suspect there, and buy them meals. After a single bite I would have the truth out of them in no time.

  Selenay chased the last of her servants out and closed the door to her bedchamber, even though she hadn’t the least intention of going to sleep. It had been a long day, and unfortunately, it had also been a very dull one. It had not helped that every moment of it, she had been poignantly aware that just outside the Palace walls, virtually every creature of Court and Collegia—with the possible exceptions of the two scamps who’d broken the salle mirror—was taking the time to have some winter fun in the heavy snow. Even the oldest of codgers was out there, standing by one of the braziers, watching the younger folk skate or stage snowball fig
hts. It made her feel very forlorn.

  It had also made her miss her father very much. Sendar had loved the winter; had he still been alive, he’d not only have chased her out to play, he’d have contrived a way to join her. At night, during a full moon, he’d have huge bonfires in the gardens, and serve ice wine to the skaters. He was always the first one to inaugurate a sled run, and, as he said so often, “Royal dignity be damned.”

  She bundled up in a fur-lined robe over her nightdress, and took a book to the window seat in her bedroom, though she had no intention of reading it. Instead, she rubbed a clear patch through the frost on a windowpane with her sleeve, and looked out over the gardens.

  The moon was just up, shining through the branches of the trees as if it had been trapped there. It was just a half-moon, with a little haze around it, and a faint golden cast to its face. Light from other windows in the Palace made golden rectangles on the surface of the snow beneath, with the occasional shadow passing across them as she watched. She had retired early tonight, but life in the rest of the Palace went on as usual. Even as she watched, she heard a giggle from outside, and a vaguely feminine form bundled up in a cloak and hood ran across the snow, followed by a second, then a third, scudding across the white snow like clouds across the moon. Three of the young ladies of the Court, out for a moonlight frolic? Were they meeting young men, or just having some girl-fun? Slipping out to skate on the frozen ponds by moonlight? Or were they servants, or even Trainees? They couldn’t be Heraldic Trainees, for the cloaks had been too dark to be Grays, but they could be Bardic or Healer Trainees. . . .

  Perhaps not Healers, who tended to be very serious indeed, and not likely to be out for a moonlit frolic in the snow. But Bardic, perhaps. Or even—well, no, probably not three of the common-born female Blues, either, the ones who got into the Collegia on merit. Those young ladies, fewer than the males by far, tended to be even more serious than the Healer Trainees, spending their evenings in study, except for taking the rare night off to go to the Compass Rose. Their positions were hard-won; many of them had come here over parental opposition, and they were not going to hazard what they’d gained by frittering it away.