Valdemar 06 - [Exile 01] - Exile’s Honor

by Mercedes Lackey

  “Ideal?” Alberich suggested. “An idealist, I never was.”

  :Liar,: Kantor objected mildly. :Who was it, agonizing over the fate of the border villages just now? Who is it that values honor above everything else?:

  :Hush: He flexed his shoulder muscles; they felt tense. Something was coming; he was just beginning to make out the shape of it, and he wasn’t certain he was going to like it. “You have a thought.”

  “More than one. Actually, I have—we have—a job that needs doing. It’s something I used to do, before I got too crippled up,” Dethor said, with just a hint of . . . regret? Bitterness, that he was no longer what he had been? “I don’t know that you’d have the stomach for it—but I’ve got to tell you, Alberich, for all your skill you’re the last person I’d have looked to for this, except for one thing. Taver trusts you. He thinks you can do this, so Talamir says.”

  “Taver said to ask you,” Talamir added, and sighed, his brow furrowed with concern and uncertainty.

  :Taver might have made a suggestion, but Talamir is not completely certain how good an idea it is,: Kantor put it.

  Well, that was clear enough.

  Talamir cleared his throat awkwardly. “You saw the Lord Marshal’s man—you know that there are such things as—agents. Well, we Heralds have them as well—and we need another.”

  He nodded warily, but might have prevaricated, except that in that unguarded instant, Kantor simply edged into his mind and showed him what it was that Dethor and Talamir wanted him to do.

  “Agent” was too small a word to encompass the task.

  In fact, Alberich was more uniquely suited to the job than even Dethor had been, because of his foreign origin. There were places where Dethor would always stand out—because Dethor was nobly-born for all that he pretended he was common. What you’d been born and bred to was difficult to hide, especially when you were under stress. But Alberich was as common as clay, and used to moving in the lowest of circles. Under stress, he slipped into that world as easily as a bottomfish slipping into the muddy river bottom.

  Mostly, Dethor had collected information—in the Court and out of it, from the servants’ common room in the Palace, to the vilest alleys near Exile’s Gate, to the scented rooms where courtiers fenced with words.

  Mostly—But a time or two, Dethor had done more than collect intelligence and pass it on to Talamir. A so-called “agent” who was also a Herald had an extraordinary degree of freedom to act as he saw fit, and once, Dethor had used his knowledge of traps to cause a single fatal “accident.”

  And he had agonized over that murder, for murder it was, and never mind that the man had been the hidden heart of a vile trade and no one had been or would be able to bring him to justice. Dethor had murdered and knew it, and still agonized over it.

  :As you would. As you would act, if there was no other way, and you would be decisive about it.:

  Yes, he would, on both counts. But although he would regret murder, for he hated killing, he would not allow such a thing to ride him with guilt afterward. He felt his pulse throbbing in the hollow of his throat, and his collar felt too tight. Yes, he would. Some things had to be done—and was it better to stain innocent hands with blood, or add one more stain to the sleeve of one already steeped in it?

  The King could have “agents” like the Lord Marshal had, men who would take their orders and carry them out, and leave the question of whether the orders were morally justified to someone else. The King did not want that. He wanted a Herald; he wanted someone who did not simply take orders. He wanted someone who would think—weigh—and act. And agonize over it afterwards perhaps . . . because there would be that necessary question when it was all over.

  But it had to be a particular kind of Herald, and such folk did not emerge from among the children—children with their shining certainty of right and wrong—that came with their Companions to fill the rooms of the Collegium every year. He would not besmirch those pure hearts, would not twist them into something that they were not.

  It took a Herald like Dethor, like Alberich, who was Chosen as an adult, full-grown, who knew about moral ambiguities and difficult choices. Like Dethor—who had himself been one of the Lord Marshal’s agents, before he was Chosen. Like Dethor’s master, the Weaponsmaster before him, who had grown up a child of poverty, seen the evils of the world very young, wiser than his years, though his parents had sheltered him from what they could.

  No such man (or woman, though perhaps it would have been harder for a woman) had come to Dethor and Talamir until now, and they were not altogether certain that Alberich was the right material for this task. But he was what they had . . . and they were in terrible need of some man for the job. Talamir was altogether too recognizable and too desperately needed to have the time for such covert walkings, and as for Dethor, who could barely hobble to the Collegium for a Council meeting or a meal now and again—well.

  All this poured into his mind as the other two sat quietly, waiting for him to assimilate it all. Did they know what Kantor was showing him?

  :Of course they know. It is our way. I can show you in moments, what would take them days to explain.:

  Ah. Expedience . . . so the Companions knew it, too. Somehow that made him feel more akin to Kantor, not less.

  He took a deep breath, and regarded both of them with somber eyes.

  “It is much of me, that you ask,” he said slowly. “It is surprised, I am. When I have here been—how long?”

  “Conscious or unconscious?” Dethor retorted and shrugged. “You’ve been a real part of things for maybe a fortnight. And I would never in a hundred thousand years think to trust you with this—except for Taver.”

  :Why Taver?: he asked Kantor silently. :Why, if Companions are as fallible as any other?:

  :Because Taver can make mistakes, but never that kind of mistake. Never, ever, a mistake in judging a person’s character, his heart, and soul,: came the reply—and then he got the sensation that Kantor was conferring with someone else.

  Talamir and Dethor watched him closely, weighing his least expression, just as Kantor added, :Come outside, if you trust me. There is something more you need to have that Taver wishes to share with you. And not just for making this decision.:

  There were so many overtones to that deceptively simple statement that it was Alberich’s turn to start with surprise. There was more than a hint that this was something as important as anything that anyone had ever told him in all of his life—something life-shatteringly important. And a subtle shading that this was something Taver had never shared with any other Herald.

  Not even Talamir. Not even Talamir.

  Suddenly, he had to know what this thing was. “Rude, I do not wish to be,” he said abruptly. “But think on this—with no eyes on me—I must, for a little.” He stood up even as he said this, and the other two Heralds watched him measuringly, but with a leavening of understanding.

  “You don’t have to give us an answer right away,” Talamir said, as if making up his own mind about it. “But if you would consider it—”

  “Tedrels—and now this—” Alberich shook his head. “I must think alone. But consider it, with all seriousness, I will. And—I will answer you soon.” He did not define “soon.”

  The other two remained in their seats as he stalked off, head swirling dizzily with a dozen contradictory thoughts.

  He wanted to go back to Karse. The very notion of the Tedrels being near there made his skin crawl. He wanted to hide here, and never hear of Karse again. He didn’t want this new job that Talamir and Dethor had suggested, and yet, if he didn’t take it, the tasks would be done, but by men who left their thinking and their morality in the hands of others, and merely followed orders . . . and never cared what the repercussions would be, never wondered if they had done the right thing, never thought at all. The bare idea was repugnant.

  And he wanted to see just what this secret that the Companion Taver held could be. And how could it possibly, possibl
y, have any relevance to him?

  Taver was waiting outside, just out of sight of the windows of Dethor’s sitting room, with Kantor beside him. The sun was setting, and the air lay thick and sweet and still among the trees around the salle—but there was a hint of the bitterness of dying leaves in the sweetness, and the poignant suggestion of autumn coming soon, soon.

  :Thank you for coming,: Taver said gravely, directly into Alberich’s mind, startling him. Taver’s mind-voice was distinctive; rich and deep, with a little breath of echo to it. There was a certainty and a stillness to it, as if Taver was a great tree, with his head in the clouds and his roots reaching down to the bedrock. And powerful, without ever making Alberich feel the power as anything other than potential.

  “You are welcome,” Alberich replied awkwardly, pulse hammering in his throat, feeling as if he was the one being granted the favor. This was strange. This was very strange. Perhaps the strangest thing that had happened to him since he had arrived here. That odd thing that they called his Gift fluttered in the back of his soul with something that was not—quite—warning.

  :I think—I hope—that what I have to show you will make many things clearer for you,: Taver said, with infinite gentleness. :Please, come and place one hand upon my neck and look into my eyes.:

  Puzzled, Alberich did as he was told. He touched the electric softness of Taver’s neck—looked into living blue—

  And paradise engulfed him, as the heavens opened up and spilled out glory.

  And when he came to himself again, he was lying on the grass, staring at the hooves of the two Companions—silver hooves, why didn’t I notice that before?—with a mind so full it felt as if it couldn’t possibly fit in the narrow confines of his head.

  Mortal men should not look into heaven. If they do, they should not be surprised when all they can remember is that they were there, for one brief, radiant moment. He certainly was not.

  But that moment had given him something he had needed, and had not known he needed, until the need was not there anymore.

  He sat up slowly and felt the back of his skull gingerly. But the lump he expected to encounter, and the headache he anticipated, were not there.

  :I took your body, and caused you to lie down, rather than fall down, Alberich,: Taver said, as Kantor whuffed at his ear. :I knew what would happen, and it was no thought of mine that you take hurt from it.:

  Alberich stared at the Companion—who was more, so much more than he appeared that it made him dizzy even to nibble at the edges of the thought. “You’ve never done this to Talamir?”

  :Talamir never required it. He is of Valdemar, blood and bone. You—were floundering, drowning, without a foundation. I think you were not even aware of it, except that you sought for it desperately, without knowing what you sought for. Have I given you what you needed?:

  He had been looking, and yes, desperately—Taver was right. He thought that he’d been thinking, but he’d really been cluttering up his head with the minutiae of his new life here so that he didn’t have to think about anything deeper. But if it came to that, he’d been looking for that foundation all his life. He’d tried to make his honor into a place to stand, but honor needed something to be based in.

  :Ah.: There was contentment in that thought. :Good.:

  Good? Oh, this was so much more than good. He had been drowning, with no land in sight. Yet, suddenly, Taver had put firm ground beneath his feet. Uncertainty that had been with him for so long it had become an uneasy part of him had been dispelled, popped like a bubble, exploded like the inflated bladder that it was. The monster in the closet was gone. And something so much better had taken its place. . . .

  Taver nodded his graceful head. :Alberich, will you trust me again?:

  Alberich blinked at such nonsense. Trust him? Trust him? Trust to so pure a spirit—a being so near to the divine that he could scarcely believe there was no glow of holiness about him? Trust a being that he should, by all rights, be worshiping?

  Taver shook his head and mane, and whickered a laugh. :Oh, come now, Alberich, I am not so much as all that—a servant only, nothing more.:

  A servant! “As much a servant as—as the Firecat of legend!” he whispered, hardly daring to speak. “As the Guardian of the Gates of Paradise!”

  :Exactly so. No more than that.: Taver bent to touch a soft—and very, very material nose—to Alberich’s ear. :Come, stand—put your hand to Kantor’s neck, and look into his eyes as you did mine. And this time, open your heart to him, as you have not yet done. Give up your walls, Alberich of Karse. Take them down, and let him inside.:

  He could fight the command of one of Vkandis’ Priests—he could no more stand against the same command as given by Taver than he could have fought a whirlwind. He did as he was told.

  He looked deeply into those sapphire eyes, and opened his heart. And Kantor stepped gracefully into it, and filled it, and until that moment, he had no notion how empty it had been, nor how lonely he had been.

  And as all of the knowledge and understanding and revelations that had come to him in the past few moments settled into place like doves coming to rest on their proper perches for the night, he knew, truly and completely, that there was Something above them all, call it Vkandis Sunlord or any other name. He could no more understand that Something than a flea could understand a man—but it was there. He would continue to have other doubts, other fears, but that one was gone.

  And there was something else, much nearer and homelier, that would also be with him as a certainty as rock-solid as the earth beneath him and undoubted as the sky above. No matter what happened, in the next moment, or moon, or year, or lifetime—he and Kantor would never be alone or lonely again.

  “Chosen—” he whispered, and buried his face in Kantor’s mane.

  :Chosen,: Kantor replied, with all the love that great heart could hold.

  And it was—oh, yes—it was more, so much more, than enough.

  PART TWO

  THE TEDREL WARS

  8

  ALBERICH heard a sound that once would have prompted curiosity, and now only brought a dull, aching despair. Wagons were coming up the road to the Palace Gates, enough of them that the rumbling noise was audible even from the practice ground outside the salle. He knew what that meant. These days, there were no more fetes and celebrations at the Court that needed fancy foods, wines, and decorations. The burdens these wagons bore were grimmer by far. More grievously wounded folk, soldiers and civilians alike, coming from the battlefields to the south, where the forces of Karse grappled with those of Valdemar. People too badly hurt for their own Healers to tend, who had been sent here, in hopes that the masters at Healer’s Collegium could make them whole—or, at least, mend as much as could be mended.

  All the fault of the Tedrels . . . the Tedrels, who had been set against Valdemar after all. It had been no rumor that Karse was hiring them, and once the lands lost to the Menmellith Province of Rethwellan were retaken, to be used as the Tedrel base, it had been Valdemar’s turn to face them, face Karsite troops and Karsite Sunpriests backing the most ruthless mercenaries this world had ever seen.

  All of Valdemar—except himself—was of a single heart and mind in this situation. Everything must be done to defeat Karse. And had the enemy been anyone other than Karse, no doubt he would be feeling the same.

  But it was Karse, and he was torn, heart and soul, ripped in half between honor and desire. He wanted to go to the front lines himself, to put his considerable skill and knowledge to serve Valdemar. But there was a chance if he did, he would be fighting and killing his own people, and he wouldn’t know it until it was too late. The Tedrels had no livery except among their own blood; it could be anyone in the front lines. He would not have cared, if only it had been the Sunpriests and the generals that served them that he slaughtered, but it wouldn’t be, would it? They would be safe in the rear, or far, far away, and he could not depend on anything except that it would not be only Tedrels he helped to kill. No,
mixed in among the Tedrels, and certainly serving them in their camps, would be ordinary people, simple people, who had no quarrel with Valdemar and would have been happy if they had been left in peace. His people, the ones he had pledged himelf to serve.

  And besides, even if he found a way to help without facing his own folk across the edge of a sword, he wouldn’t be allowed to go. If he set foot outside of Haven, there were powerful people who would be certain that he was doing so to betray Valdemar. And having deserted Karse, how could he blame them for that assumption? When a man turned his coat once, it took no great stretch of the imagination to think he might do so again.

  Whenever his mind wasn’t otherwise occupied, it was thoughts like these that came flooding in, and with them, a tide of guilt and depression. People who had become his friends, his brothers and sisters, were going south into danger—and here he was, safe in the sunshine of high summer in Haven.

  He was glad that at least he had a task, something he could do honorably. Now he knew, only too well, some of the pain that Aksel must have felt when he remained training the cadets, while his trained cadets went off to do the fighting. And he knew the agony of being torn between desiring the best for his land, and knowing he could not support what the leaders of his land had joined hands with. Aksel himself must be feeling that same agony, for Aksel had given Valdemar’s spies some of the information that warned them that the rumors of the Tedrels’ hiring was true. It must have been by Vkandis’ will, surely, for the information had come well before the first attack on the border of Valdemar, with enough time to prepare for that attack and those that followed.

  These were not battles, these were wars—where the Tedrels moved into land opposite the Border, fortified it, then launched campaign after scorched-earth campaign from spring through autumn and then vanished, only to pick and fortify a new spot during the winter from which to pillage a new territory. Each time they did this, they effectively halted all farming, all commerce in that area, decimating it and leaving it barren and trying to recover. It was a diabolical plan, and there was nothing that Valdemar could do to thwart it without crossing the Border into Karse themselves, which Sendar (wisely) would not allow.