Under The Vale And Other Tales Of Valdemar v(-105

by Mercedes Lackey

  “We’ll put you to work tomorrow, lad!” Cheeks flushed, his uncle clapped him on one shoulder; he looked a little surprised when Jors didn’t so much as sway and added, “I’m sure you’ve forgotten what hard work’s like.”

  Breakfast the next morning was porridge and berries–the berries offered slightly squashed from his nephew’s fingers. The boy shrieked with laughter as Jors pretended to eat the fingers too. When his mother ruffled his hair as she bustled past the long table, he realized too late he was becoming the Jors that was. The Jors they all still believed him to be.

  “You’ll work with your father and me,” Uncle Trey declared on the way out of the common dining hall..

  Jors paused, half into a borrowed jacket. “With both of you?”

  “Is that a problem?” Gran demanded.

  “I imagine you’ve forgotten most of your forest craft,” his uncle said.

  The day would be a test.

  Jors didn’t tell them he’d tracked harder quarry than pheasant and deer over the last few years–mostly because he couldn’t figure out a way to do it that wouldn’t sound like bragging. And while he’d done plenty of hard work as a Herald, he’d forgotten how hard this work was, so, as the day went on, he kept his mouth shut.

  “Let it go, Trey,” his father laughed at last. “My boy’s still the best tracker in the family for all he spends most of his time with his ass in a saddle.”

  “Wasted skills,” Uncle Trey sighed.

  When they stopped at midday, they’d nearly reached the western edge of the grant. Sitting together on a rock shelf, they divided up the food they’d been carrying and, when they were settled, Jor’s uncle smacked his arm with the side of his fist and nodded toward a stand of beech, four good-sized trees that had all been topped off. “What do you think, lad?”

  “No point saving them,” Jors noted, accepting a biscuit. “Best to take them down and open a hole for new growth. It’s beech. The mill will take them for short boards if you stack them now and come back when the ground is dry enough for the sled and the oxen. And there’s enough limb wood there to keep the ovens going.”

  “Well done,” his father crowed. “Couldn’t expect a better answer than that, Trey.”

  The other man snorted, straightened, and stared into the distance. “Pity we can’t see if you’ve remembered how to shoot,” he said. “Look at the size of that stag.”

  Jors stood up on the rock to give himself a better angle. Frowned. The distant silhouette was off slightly. “I don’t think that’s a stag. I think it’s a dyheli.”

  “Don’t be daft. We’re too far north. Puts on a pair of white trousers and suddenly everything’s got to be all mystical. You need to keep your head in the real world. Off you go and track it then.”

  Jors raised a hand as the dyheli disappeared into the trees and turned to see both men watching him expectantly. “No,” he said.

  Uncle Trey began a protest but stopped when Jors met his gaze.

  His father suddenly directed all his attention to the packs.

  “Well . . .” His uncle sounded as uncertain as Jors had ever heard him. “. . . we’d best be starting back then . . .”

  Hands wrapped around his empty mug, Jors watched his brother and his sister-in-law carry the sleeping twins out of the large family room in the settlement’s first building, his brother more than willing to leave their conversation when Tara beckoned him home.

  “Why are you sad?”

  He made room for Annamarin on the bench. “I’m not sad.”

  “You don’t look sad,” she said frowning up at him, “but under how you look, you’re sad.” Head cocked, she studied his face. “Is it a tragic love story?”

  A dying bandit girl and the knowledge that he was hers and always would be. He started to say it was more complicated than that. Started to say their time had been too short for a story. Watched the door close behind his brother and his brother’s family and said only, “Yes.”

  Annamarin nodded with all the wisdom of nearly twelve. “I thought so.” Reaching into her pocket, she pulled out a honey candy, picked off a bit of lint and held it out to him. “My mama makes these. When I had my heart tragically broken by Ternin at the mill, they helped.”

  “Thank you.”

  She dropped it in his hand, although it stuck for a moment to her fingers, and ran to join the children being herded off to bed.

  The candy melted on his tongue, so sweet it nearly made his eyes water. If it didn’t help, it didn’t hurt.

  Although, he realized, other parts of him did. Jors grunted as he stood, stretched out his back, and tried to work the knots from his right arm. Hard to believe he’d only been walking and using a hatchet. He hadn’t hurt like this since he’d first learned to ride.

  “Used muscles you haven’t for a while, lad!” Uncle Trey laughed. “Not so easy keeping up with an old man, is it?”

  “Leave him be, Trey; there’s a trick to walking on uneven ground,” Jors’ father called out. “I expect he’s lost the knack of it.”

  “He needs to come home more often,” one of his cousins called.

  “A few more days of honest labor, and he’ll be his old self again,” laughed another.

  :There’s someone coming.:

  A moment later, the geese sounded the alarm.

  “He went out yesterday looking for that damned ewe he’s so fond of. She’d slipped the dogs, late afternoon, and headed for the hills with her lambs.” One of Verain’s men sagged against the hands that held him as his horse, sides wet with sweat, stumbled and nearly went to her knees just inside the gate. “When the sun went down, he didn’t come in. Nearly had to tie Elane to the chair to keep her from heading out to find him. But he’s smart, Rodney is, and he’d have found a safe place for the night, yeah, and then he’d be back by day we told her, back with that damned ewe.”

  “But he wasn’t.” Jors stepped aside as Annamarin’s father pushed past, heading for the horse.

  “No. We looked, Herald, but we couldn’t find him, not even a body or sign of a struggle or the damned sheep, and Elane sent me to find you, and I damned near killed the mare but Elane . . .” He closed his eyes for a heartbeat, and when he opened them again, they shone with reflected pain, obvious even in the light of half a dozen flickering lamps. “She’s taking it terrible hard.”

  Jors closed his hand around the man’s shoulder, felt the fine tremble of exhaustion through shirt and jacket, felt the tension relax as he squeezed. Pivotting on one heel, he headed for the Herald’s Corner, not needing a lamp to find the way to where Gervais waited.

  “Jors!”

  Habit stopped his feet at the sound of his grandmother’s voice.

  “Where are you going, then?” She stood in the door they’d left open when they’d rushed outside, her hair, unplaited for the night spilling around her shoulders.

  “I’m going where I’m needed: to find Rodney.”

  Heads pivoted as the men and women in the courtyard turned their attention back to the old woman.

  “I understand you want to help, Jors, but it’s forest trail all the way. Wait till day and go then if you must. There’re men already searching for young Rodney who know the ground. What can you bring to the search that they can’t?”

  “Hope.” Bare feet sticking out from under her nightshirt, Annamarin moved to Jors’ side and swept a steady gaze over her family. “When a Herald of Valdemar rides, hope rides with him. Yes, they have men who know the ground, but with one of theirs lost in the forest for going on two nights now, what they need is hope.” She paused, then, just before the silence stretched to the breaking point, she spread her hands and added, “And they need the best tracker this family has ever had.”

  A further heartbeat’s silence, then a cheer.

  Jors bent and kissed the top of her head. :Heartbrother . . .:

  :I am well rested. We can be there before dawn.:

  “Oh, it’s so horribly tragic that one of the lambs died!”


  Jors sighed. “I tell you a story of a gallant ride through the night, beset on all sides by terrible dangers, finishing, with the sun barely up, in the kind of tracking that one person in thousands could do in order to save a man’s life, and you’re upset about a lamb?”

  “It died.” Annamarin released her grip on his sleeve to fold her arms. “And it was tragic.”

  Rodney had been returned to Elane from the bottom of a crevasse with a broken leg, the ewe and her remaining lamb had been returned to the flock, and Jors had returned to Trey Hadden’s settlement.

  Annamarin had met him on the track.

  :It seems that you want your family to behave in ways you do not wish to behave yourself.:

  :I don’t know what you . . . :

  Gervais gave a little buck. :The girl has Talent. Speak to your grandmother on her behalf.

  “A Bard?” Their grandmother swept a narrow–eyed gaze from Jors to Annamarin and back. “Are you certain?”

  “A certain as I can be, not being a Bard myself.” Jors watched her expression change, her hand begin to rise, and knew she had just asked herself, What would Jors know about Bards? “Gervais,” he added quickly, “is certain.”

  “Well . . .” She nodded slowly. “. . .that’s different then, isn’t it?” Reaching out, she took Annamarin’s hand and tugged her close. “Are you sure you want to be a Bard, child?”

  Annamarin rolled her eyes. “It’s not something you do, Gran, it’s something you are.”

  The old woman snorted. “It’s not something I am.”

  “Well, no,” Annamarin admitted. “But it’s like what Jors is.”

  “Please, child, he was Chosen. That has nothing to do with what he is and everything to do with his Companion.”

  “With his Companion finding him worthy.”

  “What?”

  Sighing, Annamarin tugged her hand free so she could gesture expansively. “There isn’t a Jors before and a Jors after, Gran, there’s just Jors. And Jors is a Herald.”

  :From the mouths of babes.:

  “My point exactly.” Gran grinned triumphantly and whacked Jors on the shins with her cane.

  When Annamarin frowned, Jors shook his head.

  “Try again when you’re older.” he told her later when they were walking away from the settlement, down the track toward Greenhaven.

  “It’s tragic she doesn’t understand!”

  “It’s a little annoying,” he admitted. “But, in the end, I know who I am.”

  :Outside the palisades.: Jors jumped as Gervais tail slapped against the back of his legs. :And staying away solves nothing,: the Companion added.

  :Not every problem can be solved. Or needs to be.: Out loud he said, “There’ll be Bards visiting this summer.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I’m a Herald.” He grinned. “I know things. And, in a couple of years, I’ll see you in Haven.”

  :You hate staying in Haven.:

  :I didn’t say I was going to stay. I just said I’d see her there.:

  :And then tragically abandon her?:

  :Stop it.:

  “You don’t look so sad when you talk to him in your head.” She planted her feet and struck a dramatic pose. “This is as far as I’m allowed to go. Can I hug you? I’m clean.”

  “You could hug me if you were dirty,” he told her.

  She shook her head, one plait falling loose. “That would be so tragically wrong.”

  Hugging Annamarin had nothing to do with being seven or ten or fourteen. When he hugged her, as her cousin and a Herald, he hugged the future, not the past.

  :You didn’t tell your grandmother she shouldn’t write to the Dean,: Gervais pointed out when Jors was in the saddle and there was nothing but open road before them.

  :I know. I was afraid it would only encourage her.:

  Gervais snorted. :You were afraid.:

  :That too. But the last thing I need is Gran and the Dean starting up a correspondence.: Jors twisted and looked back toward the settlement. Annamarin must have reached the end of the track because he could just hear the geese protesting her return. This is what made me. He settled back in the saddle. This is what I am.

  Birth family. Found family.

  :Come on, let’s go home.:

  Chapter 15 - The Watchman’s Ball - Fiona Patton

  Although the winter solstice wasn’t for another fortnight, the nights had already turned cold, laying a tracery of frost over the streets of the capital like a veil of croqueted lace. Leaning against the counter of Ismy Browne’s saddlery shop, Sergeant Hektor Dann of the Haven City Watch sipped a mug of hot tea, noting the extra touch of honey with a smile.

  “S’good,” he said. “Sweet.”

  Ismy cast him a shrewd glance. “You looked as if you could use it,” she noted. “Late night?”

  He nodded. “Stood the first watch. Would’ve stood the second, but Aiden made me go home.”

  “Your brother’s a wise man,” she replied in a stern tone. “You can’t do a proper day’s work if you’re also tryin’ to do a proper night’s work.”

  “They needed extra hands. It was the first night of the Watchman’s Ball.” When Ismy looked confused, he smiled apologetically. “Sorry. I forgot, only the Watch calls it that. It’s the first new moon’s eve before winter, an’ every year ‘round this time things . . .well, things happen.”

  “What kind of things?”

  “People runnin’ naked through the streets kind of things.”

  “You mean like the Lightning?” she asked in an exaggerated tone.

  “Like him, yeah.”

  “Oh, please, Hektor, don’t tell me he’s actually real.”

  “He’s real, all right. He’s been doin’ it for decades, but no one’s ever caught him. No one’s even got a good enough look at him to identify him, but every year we get dozens of reports of him all across Haven. The bet-tin’s four to one we’ll never catch him, an’ the Watch-houses bet each other on how many sightings we get every year, even every night. We had more’n seven on our patch this night last year alone. He’s a wily one, that’s for sure.”

  “My granther used to say that he was as fast as a streak of lightning; that’s how he got his name,” Ismy noted. “He said he even saw him once at the bottom of Anvil’s Close. I used to peer through my bedroom shutters when I was a little trying to catch a glimpse of him, but of course I never did.”

  “I did.”

  Her eyes widened. “You did not? Really?”

  He nodded, enjoying her reaction. “Once when I was first promoted up from runner to night watch constable. Uncle Daz an’ me saw him turnin’ the corner south of the Watchhouse, but by the time we got there, he’d vanished.”

  “Anyway,” he continued, setting the mug down on the counter. “Da named these three nights the Watchman’s Ball on account of the Lightning leading us a merry chase all night long, you see?”

  She nodded.

  “Problem is,” he continued, “just the thought of seein’ him sends folk out into the streets, an’ some of ’em carry on and pull all kinds of antics an’ pranks in his name. It’s never been too much, but it’s getting a bit more every year, and the new Captain wants him caught.”

  “Well, I should hope so,” Ismy agreed primly. “On a cold night like last night, he’d catch his death.

  “And don’t you laugh at me, Hektor Dann,” she admonished as he gave her an amused look. “If he’s been doin’ it for decades like you say, he must be an old man by now.” She took up the mug, wiping the ring away with a flick of her cloth before pushing him toward the door. “Now, off you go to work. And no standing any night watch tonight either. You just leave that up to your younger brothers; that’s their job, not yours, Sergeant Dann.”

  “Yeah, yeah, all right, I’m goin’.” He paused on the threshold. “Can I come by an’ see you after all this new moon’s nonsense is over?” he asked, suddenly hesitant.

  She nodded, equally s
hyly. “Do you want to come for supper?”

  “I’d like that.”

  “It’s just stew.”

  “I like stew.”

  “And biscuits, you know.”

  “I like biscuits too.”

  “Good, well . . .”

  They stood in awkward silence until the city bells began to toll the hour, then Hektor shook himself. “Good, well . . . supper. After. Yeah.”

  He turned and headed quickly up the street, ignoring the older merchants leaning from their doors and windows. A few called out greetings, a few asked if he’d caught the Lightning yet, but most just smiled knowingly as Ismy watched until he’d turned the corner and disappeared from view.

  There was a crowd of watchmen, both on duty and off, gathered about the night sergeant’s desk when he arrived at the Iron Street Watchhouse a few moments later. It parted for him eagerly, but Sergeant Jons took his time collecting his reports and putting them into two neat piles before glancing over at the much younger Day Sergeant.

  “Sergeant Dann,” he said formally.

  “Sergeant Jons.”

  “The night’s incident reports are as follows. Four counts of fighting. One outside the King’s Arms. You’ll know all about that one yourself, I expect, what with you and Aiden bringing ’em in yourselves. They’re still here, and the report’s are still to be filed. I figured since the Day Watch Sergeant made the arrest, the Day Watch Sergeant could do up the paperwork.”

  He glanced over the report at Hektor much as a schoolmaster might, but when Hektor gave him an even look in response, he retidied his papers. A ripple of annoyance passed through the crowd of watchmen, which he pointedly ignored. “Where was I? Oh, yes, fighting,” he continued. “Two domestic disturbances. No charges laid and no one taken into custody although Holly Poll did throw a chamber pot at Constables Jakon and Raik Dann.” He waited until the general laughter and ribbing at Hektor’s younger brothers died down before continuing. “But since it turned out that she was actually aiming at her husband, they let her off with a warning.”