“So,” he said at last. “You are how old? Thirteen? What physical training have you, child? Know you any weaponry? Tactics? Eh?”
She hardly knew how to answer—she really couldn’t make out what he was asking of her. Physical training? Did playing games count? Was the sling she’d used to keep wolves off the sheep a weapon?
At last he gave her a wooden practice knife, and stood with his arms crossed, still looking fierce and hawklike.
“Come you, then. Come at me—”
She still hadn’t the faintest notion what he wanted of her, and stood stonelike, arms stiffly at her sides, feeling clumsy and ridiculous.
“What ails you? I told you to attack me! Is it that women do not fight among your people?” he asked, his speech heavily accented, his brows drawing together into an intimidating frown. “Have you no weapons skill at all?”
“I can shoot a bow, a little,” she said in a small and shamed voice. “One of my brothers showed me. He wasn’t supposed to, but I begged him so hard—and I guess I’m all right with a sling.”
She thought with misery that she seemed to have gotten into the wrong again. It seemed that nothing she’d ever learned was appropriate here—except, perhaps, her housekeeping skills. And she’d never once read a tale that praised a Herald’s ability at peeling roots!
She waited, cringing, for him to dismiss her back to the building in disgust. He did nothing of the sort.
“At least you have sense not to pretend to what you have not,” he replied thoughtfully. “I think it is too late to teach you the sword. Fortunately, you are not likely to need to use one. Bow, of necessity, and knife, and hand-to-hand. That should suffice your needs. Return one hour after the nooning.” Then he did dismiss her, after staring at her long and broodingly.
Talia was very subdued and discouraged by this encounter; Sherrill managed to see this even though she tried to mask it. “Don’t feel badly,” she said, and Talia could clearly hear the encouragement in her voice. “You actually got off pretty easily. When he first saw me, he threw his hands up in the air and growled, ‘Hopeless! Hopeless! Let her throw nets and dead fish to defend herself!’ At least he thinks you’re worth working with. He left me to one of his assistants for months!”
“But—why d-d-did he say that ab-b-bout the f-fish?” Oh, that hateful stutter! No matter how confident she tried to appear, it always gave her away!
“Because I spent half my life on a boat and the other half in very crowded conditions; the last thing you want to do on a slippery deck or a floor thick with babies is run! I had to learn how to move freely, something you’ve always known.”
“It d-d-didn’t seem as if he th-thought I was worth anything.”
“He didn’t scream at you—that’s a wonder in itself. He didn’t tell you to get yourself back home and raise babies, either. I think maybe you won him a little by being honest about how little you know—an awful lot of new students try to pretend they’re more expert than they are, and he generally does his best to make fools of them in front of everybody by way of punishment.”
By now they’d reached the Collegium building again. Sherrill held the door open for Talia and stopped outside the first classroom door on the right. “Here’s where the rest of the new ones are. I’ll meet you for lunch.” With that, Sherrill vanished down the hall, leaving Talia to face the next ordeal alone.
She tugged the door open and tried to slip inside unobtrusively, but felt more like creeping inside than anything else when she felt everyone’s eyes on her. There seemed to be at least a dozen people there. There were no other girls. The boys were mostly her own age, and though they made her feel rather shy, didn’t arouse her unease; but the one who stood at the head of the classroom was one of those fearful creatures of ultimate authority, an adult male. As such, he made her wary immediately. She had to keep reminding herself that he was a Herald—and no Herald would ever do anything to harm anyone except an enemy of the Queen and Kingdom.
“Be welcome, youngling,” he said, perching casually on the front edge of his desk. “Boys, this is your fifth year-mate; her name is Talia. Talia, the red-haired fellow is Davan, the tall one is Griffon, the twins are Drake and Edric—and I can’t tell them apart yet.” He winked at them, and the twin boys grinned back, obviously very much at ease with him. “Maybe I should ask Alberich to give one of you a black eye—then at least I’d know which of you was which until it faded.”
Talia slipped shyly into an unoccupied seat and took a closer look at her teacher. Like Alberich, he was lean, but his brownish hair was only beginning to gray, and he had none of the Weaponsmaster’s hawkishness about him. He put her more in mind of a hunting hound, all eagerness, good nature, and energy. His eyes were hound-brown, and just as friendly. And there was something about him—once again she was reminded of Andrean; she wanted to trust him—something within her was prompting her to do so, and she was a little surprised at herself.
“Well, now that you’re here, I think we’re ready to start. First, let me explain what this class is all about. I’m here to help you understand what being a Herald really means; not the hero tales, nor the horror stories, nor the wild rumors of drunken debauchery—” he wriggled his eyebrows, and the twins giggled. “But rather what our job really involves. Davan is probably the only one of you who knows—or thinks he knows—what being a Herald is all about. That’s because both of his parents are Heralds themselves. So I’ll start Davan with the question I’m going to ask each of you: Davan, what exactly does a Herald do?”
Davan’s brow wrinkled in thought. “They dispense the Queen’s justice,” he finally replied.
“Good enough answer, as far as it goes, but how do they do that?”
“Uh, they ride circuit in their assigned areas, going through all the towns and villages, they deliver the new laws of the Kingdom and report on the acts of the Council and Queen. They see that the people understand the laws and act as judges, and sometimes lawgivers when something comes up that isn’t covered in Kingdom law or by local custom.”
“Bright Havens! You mean those poor people have to wait a year or more to get anything settled?” Teren asked in mock dismay.
“No, no! There’s regular judges, too.”
“So why not use them?”
Davan couldn’t seem to think of a good answer, but one of the twins was waving his hand over his head. “Herald Teren?”
“Go ahead, whichever you are.”
“Drake. Our village was too small to have a judge.”
“That’s a fair reason. But there’s another; sometimes it happens that the feelings of the local people—and that includes the judge—are too worked up for a case to be adjudicated fairly. There’s one reason for vou. Davan, you have another?”
“Heralds can do the Truth Spell; regular judges have no way of knowing who’s lying.”
“Good! But that works only if someone involved in the case knows what really happened, remember that. All right, Heralds are judges and lawgivers. What else, Drake?”
“They report on what they see on their circuits to the Queen and the Council.”
“Why should they do that?”
“So that the Queen knows the true condition of her Kingdom. Sometimes the mayors and headmen don’t always tell the whole truth in their Domesday Book reports. Heralds know what’s been reported, and how to look for things that don’t match.”
“Quite true. Edric, your turn.”
“They serve as ambassadors to other Kingdoms. While they’re there, they can see if there’s something wrong the Queen should know about, like maybe an army that’s awfully big for a country supposed to be peaceful. Since Heralds can’t be bribed, she can always trust what they say.”
“That’s correct,” said Herald Teren. “And there’s more; the kind of training a Herald receives here makes it possible for him to note little things that others might miss—things that tell him that there may be more going on than he’s being told. Griffon?”
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br /> “Heralds are the Queen’s messengers. There’s no faster, safer way to get a message across the Kingdom than to give it to a Herald, ’cause Companions run faster and for longer than any horse ever born. That’s why Heralds are called ‘the Arrows of the Queen.’ And they act as warleaders in an emergency, until the regular Army can arrive. That’s another reason for the name.”
“Very good. Talia, your turn.”
She had thought hard while the others were giving their answers. “They—make the Kingdom safe,” she said softly. “Sometimes they’re just what the rest said, and sometimes other things—spies, scouts, sometimes thieves—they do whatever needs doing so that the Queen knows what she needs to know to guard us all. They risk everything for that, for the safety of the Kingdom, and for her.”
“And that is why,” Teren said slowly, holding each of their eyes in turn, “about half of us don’t live to see an honorable old age. Being a Herald is important—the Queen has said that we’re the ‘glue that holds everything together’—and it can be exciting. For the most part we are very much honored in this Kingdom; but being a Herald can also be a fatal occupation. Hero tales aside, younglings, songs don’t help you much when you’re looking death in the face and you’re all alone. And being alone is another thing you are when you’re a Herald. There aren’t enough of us, and we get spread very thin. That puts you in the front line in a lot of very dangerous situations.”
His eyes clouded a moment. “The danger is in direct proportion to the importance of the job at hand and your own ability to see it through. It’s a sad fact that the better a Herald you are, the more likely it is that the Queen will set you risky tasks. I’m sure each of you has had a lazy fit now and again, sloughed some job off; but by the time you’ve earned your Whites, you will be totally unable to give anything less than your best to whatever is set before you. And when you’re in the front line—well, that white uniform makes a pretty obvious target. I’m telling you all this now because this is your last chance to leave the Collegium. No one will think any the less of you for it. Well? Anyone want out?”
Talia cleared her throat.
“Yes, Talia?”
“I never got to finish the tale of Herald Vanyel, sir. The tale said at the beginning that he nearly didn’t become a Herald at all because he was afraid—but he decided it was something he had to do anyway, that the job needed doing and he was the one chosen to do it. The last I read he was trapped by the Dark Servants, like he’d seen happening in a vision years before. What happened to him?”
“He died. The Dark Servants hacked him to pieces before help could arrive—yet he held them back long enough that his King was able to bring up an army in time to repel their invasion. But he still died, alone, and all the songs in the world won’t change that. Now I want you to think about that for a moment—really think hard. Does that frighten you? Any of you could be asked to pay Vanyel’s price. The Queen will weep that she had to send you, but that won’t stop her from doing it. Want to leave?”
“No, sir.” Talia’s voice was very small, her eyes very large.
“Doesn’t the idea frighten you?”
“Yes, sir,” she said, softly, biting her lip. “Only somebody awfully stupid wouldn’t be—”she stopped, groping for words.
Griffon found the words for her. “We’ve all heard the tales, sir—the ones with the bad, nasty endings right along with the ones that end with the hero’s welcomes and celebrations. And I got here right after Talamir was buried; you think we didn’t hear the talk then about poison? My own brother said right out he thought I was crazy to want to be a Herald. When we hear the bad tales, you best bet we get scared! But it’s still something we got to do, just like Vanyel. Maybe you can’t be made a Herald, maybe you got to be born one, and all this teaching you give us does is show us how to do better ’n easier the things we know we got to do anyway. Whatever. It’s like bein’ likker-cravin’ or something. You still got to do it, no choice; couldn’t stop, don’t want to.” He sat down with a thump, only then realizing he’d risen to his feet making his speech.
Herald Teren’s tense expression eased. “I take it that you all agree with Griffon?”
They nodded, very much sobered.
“Then I can only say that once again, as always, the Companions seem to have Chosen aright. Griffon, you have unexpected depths of eloquence in you. I think you ought to consider seriously taking Logic and Oration—you could be very useful as a diplomat.”
Griffon blushed, and looked down at his hands, murmuring a disclaimer.
“Now, having obliquely touched on the subject—you all know that it is the Companions that choose new Heralds, but do any of you know how they do it?”
They looked at one another in puzzled silence. Teren chuckled. “Nor do I. Nor does anyone. A few—the most sensitive to the bond that forms between a Herald and his Companion—have described that first encounter as ‘a feeling that I was being measured.’ But what it is that they measure, no one knows. All that we do know is that after a Companion has Chosen, there exists a kind of mind-to-mind link between him and his Herald that is similar, but not identical, to the kind of mind-link that exists between twins,” he said, sharing a grin with Drake and Edric. “You’ll learn more about that bond later, and how to use it. For now, it’s enough for you to know that it does exist—so if you feel something between you and your Companion, you know that you’re not imagining it or going mad. As you get older, you may develop one of the Gifts—what outsiders call ‘Herald’s magic.’ You’ll learn more about those later as well—but if you thought your Companion spoke to you when he Chose you, you were right. He did. No matter if you never have more than a touch of a Gift, your Companion will always speak to you in your heart at that moment—even if he never does so again. It wasn’t something you dreamed. And if you have the right Gift, one day you’ll learn to speak back.”
Talia breathed an unconscious sigh of relief, not noticing that all the others except Davan were doing the same.
“And there’s another thing about them that you should know,” Teren continued. “Never, ever, for one moment doubt that they are something considerably more than animals. Any tale you’ve ever heard is no more than a pale reflection of their reality. Now, to elaborate on that, do any of you know where the Companions first came from?”
Davan nodded. “My parents told me, sir.”
“Then tell the rest of us, if you would.”
“It goes right back to before this Kingdom ever existed,” Davan began. Talia gave him every bit of her attention, for this tale was all new to her. “It happened there was a good man who was living in a land with a bad King, ’way off to the East, right past any of our neighbors. His name was Baron Valdemar; he lived on his own Kingdom’s western border. His King was the kind who took what he wanted and never paid any attention when his lands and people suffered, and most of his nobles were like minded. For a while Baron Valdemar was able to at least protect his own people from the King; that was because he was a wizard as well as a Baron, and his lady was a sorceress—old magic, the kind that’s gone now, not Herald’s magic. But the day finally came when there wasn’t any way of stopping him short of outright rebellion. Baron Valdemar knew, though, that rebellion wasn’t the answer either; he couldn’t hold out against all the might the King could bring against him for very long at all. There were plenty of his neighbors who would be only too pleased to help the King destroy him for a share in his lands and goods after. So he did the only thing he could do; he fled away into the West, taking with him every last one of his people as were minded to follow. He led them on until he was sure there wasn’t anybody following; then right here where we’re sitting he stopped, and founded a whole new Kingdom, and those who’d come with him made him the King of it.” Davan paused for a moment to think. “There was a whole lot about all the hardships they went through, and I can’t remember that part too good.”
“You’re doing fine, Davan. You’ll all get more
detail later in your History classes; just go on with what you do remember.”
“Well, ’ventually they got this city built; they all started to have a pretty good life by the time King Valdemar was an old man. Right then is when he took the time to notice how old he was getting, and to think about the future. He hadn’t exactly had much time for thinking before this, ’cause there was too much to do, if you take my meaning. Anyway, what he thought was, ‘I know I’m a good ruler, and a good man; I’m pretty sure my son will be the same—but what about my son’s children, and theirs? How can I make certain that whoever takes this throne will be good for the people who support it?’”
“A good question. So what did he do?”
“Well, he waited till Midsummer’s Day; he went out into the grove that stands in the middle of what we call Companion’s Field now, and he asked every god he’d ever heard of to help him. An’ Mama told me in the version she’d read, it said he cast a special spell, too, ’cause remember, he was a magician—a real magician, not just Gifted. She says there used to be lots of real magicians down where he came from, and that there used to be lots here, too, but that Vanyel was the last Herald-mage.”
“That’s the tradition; go on.”
“Well, he started out at dawn; it wasn’t till sunset that he got an answer. Everything went kind of light all over, like when you get too much sun on snow, and all he could hear was the sound of hoofbeats—hoofbeats that sounded just like bells. When the light cleared away, there were three horses standing in front of him; horses with coats the color of moonshine and eyes like pieces of the sky. Old Valdemar hadn’t ever seen anything like them before in his life. And when he came up close to them, one of them looked him straight into the eyes—well, that’s all there was to it. Ardatha told him her name in his mind and bound them together—”
“And the first Companion had Chosen.”
“Right then his chief Herald—and a Herald was just a sort of mouthpiece for the King back then, didn’t do a tenth of what Heralds do today—came looking for him. The second Companion—Kyrith—Chose him. The King’s son, the Heir that was, he’d come along, and Steladar Chose him. When they all were in a mind to be thinking again, ’twas the King decided that the tide of Herald should be made to mean more than it did, since only one person can be King or Heir, but there could be lots of Heralds.”
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