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

by Mercedes Lackey

  The right-hand guard made a choking noise, and Selenay swiveled just in time to catch him screwing up his face in an attempt to keep from laughing aloud. She knew him very, very well, indeed; he’d played Companion to her Herald too many times to be counted when she was little. In that, he had been more fortunate than most patient fellows who allowed toddlers to bounce on their backs; Companions were expected to have minds of their own, and didn’t wear bitted bridles. And they didn’t suffer being drummed upon by little heels when they didn’t move fast enough. He’d bounced her off a time or two when she exceeded the bounds of the allowable.

  She made a face, but didn’t comment, because there was great relief in being ordered to do what she wanted, but had been too guilty to pursue.

  “Beggin’ your pardon, your Highness,” the Guard said, composing himself. “But I believe that sounded like an order. I’d obey the King, if I was you.”

  He stared straight ahead, but his eyes were twinkling.

  She gave a theatrical sigh. “Orders are orders,” she agreed, and with a wink, turned and headed for the nearest exit.

  :Caryo, I’m on my way!: she Mindcalled, feeling just a bit giddy, as if she’d been released from classes for an unexpected half-holiday. :I’ll need—:

  :Done. Your Alberich’s been ordered off to gallop out his

  megrims by the MindHealers,: Caryo replied cheerfully. :Perhaps your father knew that already when he ordered you out. It wouldn’t surprise me. You can both do with an outing.:

  It could well be; there wasn’t much that Sendar didn’t know. It saved her hunting up her bodyguard and trying to determine whether he could be pried away from duties of his own, of which he seemed to have rather too many. If she’d been ordered away, she wanted to leave Haven altogether. She hadn’t been outside the walls in—well, ages. Certainly not since the Wars began. They wouldn’t go far, not far enough that anyone could rebuke him for leaving the city. Not that he had a choice if he was guarding her, and she would point that out if anyone dared to say anything.

  By the time she reached the stables, Alberich was waiting, with both Companions saddled and bridled. As usual, it was impossible to read him, and she had long ago given up trying.

  “A destination, you have?” he asked, though it was more statement than question.

  “Outside Haven. The Home Farms,” she replied. The so-called “Home Farms” actually belonged to the three Collegia, and supplied the needs of hearth and table. There was a separate farm, the Royal Farm, that took care of the Palace; it wasn’t much larger, but it had twice the staff, for the Palace tables required something more sophisticated than the vast quantities of plainer fare devoured by the Trainees. Selenay was in the mood for simple, and besides, the Home Farms had the river flowing along beside them, and she had a notion to go fishing. After all, Sendar had told her not to come back until her nose was sunburned, and there was no better way of doing that than “drowning a worm,” as the old gardener who’d taught her used to say.

  Alberich just nodded; evidently both Caryo and Kantor were more than ready for an excursion, because off they set at the trot. They took a shortcut across the velvety lawn, briskly heading for the Palace, curving around the New Palace and getting onto the paved drive in front of the Old Palace. This was the side of the Palace that the working Heralds rarely saw, and the Trainees, almost never. The facade of the building was interesting, showing as it did the old “fortress” face of the building, with its doors meant to hold against a battering ram. But it had been softened by a planting of formal cypress trees in enormous tubs, and was fronted by a paved courtyard centered by an octagonal pool and a geometric granite fountain, and Selenay had no idea what the material paving the courtyard and drive were. The paving dated from just after King Valdemar’s time, when the need for defense had begun to take a secondary place to other Palace functions. It wasn’t cobbles or bricks, for there wasn’t a sign of seams or joins. It was a solid pale gray, very nearly identical to the color the Trainees wore, from edge to edge, and the feel of it was slightly springy. The entire pavement was surrounded by a wrought-iron fence, tall and formidable, like a row of linked pikes twice the height of a man, with the wide drive of the same substance as the courtyard leading up to it and through a pair of gates that were usually left ajar. Nevertheless, there were Guards stationed here, on either side of it, with little boxes to keep the weather off them when it was truly awful.

  Alberich led her past them, his back absolutely straight, his seat so easy that there was no doubt in anyone who knew cavalry that it was in the cavalry where he’d learned to ride. For their part, the Guards did not seem to pay any attention to them, staring straight ahead. She knew better, though. They weren’t there as ornaments.

  The drive went toward the tall proper-walls, that surrounded the entire complex, velvety grass on either side of it, but no plantings other than a row of cypresses right up against the wall itself, the same sort of cypresses that were inside the fence. And there were yet more of them, planted in boxes arranged with mathematical precision on either side of the drive. The cypresses softened the look of the stone wall, and probably helped give the guards up there a little protection from the wind in winter, and shade in summer.

  There were more Guards on the wall and on either side of the passage that led through it, both inside and out. This was still defensive; there were portcullises on both ends, and a rather nasty murder-hole in the middle, through which all sorts of unpleasant liquids could be poured down upon a would-be invader. Not so incidentally, the murder-hole had made a good place for a young Princess to drop petals and peas down on unsuspecting visitors, with extra points awarded for the pea that landed squarely in the middle of a fashionable hat without the wearer noticing.

  There was no one up there to drop peas upon them now, and they trotted through the cool shadow and out into the sunlight and down into the city.

  Nearest to the Palace, predictably enough, were the enormous mansions of the highborn, each a smaller palace in itself. The farther one got from the Palace, the less expensive (and more crowded) the buildings, until by the time they passed out of the final set of gates and walls—for the city had outgrown its walls several times, and a new set had been built around the new construction that had spilled over on the other side—the final set on this road were a mix of shops with apartments above, stables for hire-horses, and inns and taverns. The road was not, however, a straight line to the final city gate; there were no straight lines to the complex within Haven. Everything had been laid out like a maze, so that if the city ever did come under attack, the defense could be fought street-by-street.

  Before the Wars, that very notion had seemed laughable. Not anymore. Though it would probably take having the Tedrels appear at the gates before the citizens of Haven believed that.

  Out yet another set of gates with yet another set of Guards they went, following the river which ran under the walls at this point. Here, the transition went abruptly from the urban to the rural, for this was where all market gardens that supplied the city with fresh eggs and vegetables were located. While the urban had edged out past the final walls outside other gates, here it had not, for the profit to be derived from such well-watered and fertile property was not to be trifled with. And here, in the midst of market gardens, suddenly loomed a true farm, the Home Farms, so named in the plural because they had been several smaller farms at one time. All of the buildings from each of these separate farms had been thriftily disassembled and reassembled in a central location; all of the cottages joined into one big building where the farm workers lived, all of the barns ranged around a single yard and each allocated to one form of livestock. Even the henhouses had been moved, and were lined up in a neat little row, free-ranging chickens efficiently pecking up every bit of stray grain in nearly every weather, and cleaning up insects in summer.

  Here the river curved away from the main road, and the lane leading to the Home Farm’s buildings ran alongside it. Behind the
Home Farms, also watered directly by the river and situated on this lane, was the Royal Farm—but that wasn’t Selenay’s destination. The Royal Farm was a show-place of its kind, the chickens segregated by meat-birds and layers, kept separate to keep their breeds pure. Everything on the Royal Farm was a purebred, from the chickens to the plowhorses; every building was spotless and immaculate. The hothouses were there, for forcing flowers, fruit, and vegetables out of season. Pens of gamebirds were there and exotic food plants too difficult to grow in quantity. Ponds of delicately-nurtured fish for the Royal table, even.

  Too formal for Selenay today.

  The lane was clear, with not so much as a turtle on it, and both Companions broke into a canter that took them all the way to the farmhouse. Selenay found herself grinning as they pulled up with a flourish in the yard in front of the building, and even Alberich looked a little less mordant. The farm manager, an ancient fellow indeed, hobbled out to determine what they wanted, and when Selenay explained her wish to fish for the benefit of the Collegium tables, was happy to direct them to a shed where the fishing tackle lay.

  “Eels,” Selenay muttered to herself, selecting the appropriate tackle, knowing very well that the Collegium cooks made a fine eel pie. She looked askance at Alberich, who was examining the poles dubiously.

  “You do know how to fish, don’t you?” she asked.

  He turned solemn eyes on her. “No.”

  :Doesn’t mince words, does he?: Caryo chuckled.

  “Then it’s time you learned,” Selenay told him ruthlessly, and with a touch of glee. “It’s a standard skill all Heralds are supposed to know. You might have to find your own food in the wilderness, after all.”

  “And I, in wilderness will be allowed? Not likely, that.” He sighed with resignation. Or disgust. Or both, perhaps. She didn’t care. He might as well learn to fish; it wouldn’t do him harm, and it might do him good.

  She spent the next candlemark or so in a position every Trainee ever schooled by the Weaponsmaster’s Second would probably have given his last hope of the Havens for. Schooling the infamous Alberich, playing stern and implacable tutor to the Great Stone Heart himself! And it was highly entertaining as well.

  She presented Alberich with his pole, and had to show him how to bait the hook—and the formidable Alberich proved to be very reluctant to touch the bait!

  “Now don’t be so squeamish,” she ordered, pulling a worm out of the earth of the bait pail and handing it to him. “I’ve shown you what to do, it’s not that difficult.”

  He took the worm in his thumb and forefinger, and held it stiffly in front of him. “Must I?” he asked in a strangled voice.

  She suppressed her mirth, and instead fixed him with the same sort of gimlet-eyed stare he gave reluctant Trainees. She didn’t even need to say anything.

  He barely skinned the worm onto the hook, and she knew it wouldn’t stay. Sure enough, the third time he pulled the hook up out of the water to check on it, the worm was gone.

  He glanced aside at her; she was pulling in eels at an astonishing rate and already had a bucketful. She just gave him that look again, and nodded toward the bait bucket, without saying a word.

  With a long-suffering expression on his face, he probed the loam with a reluctant finger for another worm.

  By the end of the afternoon, she was highly satisfied with her half of the expedition. She had a fine mess of eels, far more than a mere bucketful, certainly sufficient to provide Heraldic Collegium with an eel-pie supper. She had a properly sunburned nose (but not so much that it was going to hurt later) and Alberich was—

  Well, it was comic. The incredibly competent Alberich did have something that he couldn’t do. He had caught exactly two fish, both of them little sun-perch, and neither big enough to keep. He had lost most of a pail of worms, and it was a good thing that he hadn’t hooked anything large, or Selenay suspected he’d have lost the rod as well. He, who couldn’t miss a target, couldn’t cast a line to save his life. He, who was so dexterous with any weapon of any sort, tangled his line with appalling frequency.

  Mind, he had managed to relax, if only by cursing under his breath at his pole, his line, the wretched fish that stole his bait. Practicing with his students out of doors as much as he did, he hadn’t had a clerical pallor, but there weren’t quite as many frown furrows cutting across his scars.

  She put up her gear with a sigh of regret; he put his up with a sigh of relief. The old man came to take charge of the tub of eels, which was as well, since she couldn’t exactly take them back to the Collegium in her saddlebag. Together they rode—at a walk, this time—back down the lane to the road.

  “How did you manage never to learn how to fish?” she asked him, after they rejoined the traffic on the road heading into Haven.

  “I should learn, where?” he asked. “When very young, helping in the inn, I was. Then it was in the Academy, and fishing, a sport for gentleman is, or a subsistence for the poor. No part has it in training for a cavalry officer.”

  He must have been very young when he first began to work, then. . . .

  :And very poor,: Caryo told her, knowing that she needn’t say more. Although fishing was traditionally a way for the poor to add another source of all-season food to the larder, the poor also had to have the time to fish. Which, clearly, Alberich had not. The very poor also might not have enough to spare for hook, line, and bait.

  “Besides,” he added meditatively, “where lived I and served I, no great rivers there are. Swift streams only. Trout, have I heard of, which great skill takes. Wealthy man’s sport.”

  “Well, you’ve got the knack now,” she replied cheerfully, and was rewarded with his sour look.

  “Then best it is that to Haven I am confined,” he said. “And should fish be required of me, purchased at market they can be. Else, it would be starvation.”

  She couldn’t help it; she tried to hold back her snickers, but they escaped. He looked—pained.

  “Oh, really, Alberich, it’s so nice to find something you can’t do!” she exclaimed.

  “Glad I am, that such amusement given you I have,” he told her crossly. “Perhaps a new title, I should have? Herald-Jester?”

  She couldn’t help it; he looked so irritated now that the giggles just burst out all over again. And finally, one corner of his mouth began to twitch, then both corners, then, although he didn’t actually laugh, he unbent enough to admit that the joke, although on him, actually was rather funny.

  And it wasn’t until he had delivered her back to her father, sunburned nose and all, that she realized that she had-n’t thought about the Wars once all afternoon. But what was truly satisfying, she also understood in a flash that in wrestling with worms and hooks and poles that would not do what he wanted them to, neither had Alberich. And that Sendar had sent her off to “do something” at the same time that someone in authority over Alberich had evidently decided that he needed some distraction.

  So perhaps her father was even cleverer than she’d thought. No, there’s no perhaps about it, she decided, making her way back toward the Royal Suite. He’s much cleverer than I’d thought.

  However, of all the thoughts that had occurred to her today, that was, perhaps, the very least surprising.

  11

  OUTSIDE the tavern, a storm raged, effectively ensuring that no one would be leaving or coming in any time soon. Water poured off the eaves of the tavern in sheets, like a waterfall, as the gutters overflowed. The rain spouts added to the mess, spouting like geysers, sending a torrent of water over the cobbles. It was cold out there, the temperature had plummeted, and the rain felt like icewater.

  Inside the tavern, those who were stuck here nursed the last dregs of their drinks and contemplated another. Or perhaps, a nice pigeon pie or a good slice of mutton. . . . The innkeeper, anticipating the needs of his customers, had started a kettle of mulled cider, even though it wasn’t the season for any such thing, and the spicy scent began to drift through the inn, tu
rning heads and sharpening appetites. It was unexpectedly cozy in here, with a small fire going, just enough to take the chill off the air. And the ambiance was a million leagues away from the atmosphere in the last tavern Alberich had been in.

  Alberich had come out of the secret room at the back of the stables here at the Companion’s Bell, only to find that the storm which had been threatening all day had finally broken. Since he was effectively trapped here and starving, he decided to make a virtue of necessity and avail himself of the little private room reserved for Heralds and their guests.

  Of course he was starving; he’d left before suppertime, and you just didn’t eat what was offered in, say, the Broken Arms. Not unless you wanted to have an intimate and detailed knowledge of the inside of the privy, sooner or later, when your stomach objected to what you’d put there. Granted, the indoor water closets at the Collegium were fine things, but not as a place for an extended stay.

  He’d already had his fill of watching people tonight; on the whole, he’d rather just sit back on a comfortable settle alone, and watch the storm. Here, once he was out of that secret room where he changed his identity from that of a Herald to any one of half a dozen personae he wore in this city and back again to a Herald, he felt almost as secure as at the Collegium itself.

  It wasn’t only the wretched neighborhoods he prowled, as a cheap thug-for-hire, as a ne’er-do-well of dubious reputation, as a sell-sword. No, he had some respectable personae as well; he was a small merchant in imported knives, he was a votary of some obscure god whose cult was so tiny that no one had ever heard of it (for good reason, since it didn’t exist), he was an honest caravan guard. . . .

  But most of his time was, admittedly, spent in places most Heralds never saw but the city constables and Guard were all too familiar with. And most of it was spent accomplishing very little but waiting for one or another of his patiently-laid traps to catch something. Far too much of it was spent in places that could be called “taverns” only because they sold alcoholic drinks. And he thought he’d been served some wretched brews as a Karsite officer! At least those had been drinkable; rough, strong enough to lift the hair on your arms, but drinkable.