Time and time again, the same scene played out. They would try to lay hands on him, or even deliver some kind of blow; he would evade hands and blows alike, without ever seeming to move much. Each time, he left a hand or an arm out temptingly for them, hoping that one or more of them would lunge after it. Finally, the tallest of them grew tired of the game, and did make a rush at him. This time he not only evaded being seized, but with what looked like a gentle brush of his hands, landed the foreigner several arm lengths away, facedown in the snow. What he had actually done was to lure the attacker off-balance, and then, while the young man was still off-balance, continued him in that direction with the slightest of shoves.
He came up, not spluttering as Mags had expected, but angry—and disgusted.
“Bah!” he said, wiping melting snow from his face. “He is cheating, using one of their White Rider magic tricks. There is no point to this.”
And with that, just as abruptly as they had begun their attacks, they broke it all off. They turned their backs on him, stalking toward the Palace, leaving Mags to stare after them, numb and shaking.
11
THE Herald that had attacked Mags left him alone—and then left altogether, out on circuit.
Why this had come about, Mags did not know. Dallen was silent on the subject. But Mags could not help but notice the occasional careful stare at him that other Heralds did not hide. He was not able to sense any menace, but ... there was not much doubt in his mind that these Heralds, if they did not actually blame him for their colleague’s abrupt departure, were certain that the “encounter” was the cause.
He was not quite sure what to make of that, but he did know what felt most comfortable, and that was to make himself even less noticeable, if that was possible, than before.
The mercenary bodyguards were still in residence, and still showed up at the salle, but the Weaponsmaster made sure to allow them to pair only with each other or with Guardsmen at least as skilled as they were. Mags kept a wary eye on them when they were there, but avoided them whenever it was possible. Dallen came to get him from the salle now, so even if all of them had tried to swarm him at once, it would not have been possible to touch him without causing a serious incident. Laying violent hands on a Companion inside the Palace grounds—No matter what anyone thought of Mags, no one would stand for Dallen being threatened. They must have known that, since there were no further incidents involving him.
But aside from his teachers, no one really seemed to know what to make of him. He still kept very much to himself, and although no one was unfriendly, the other Trainees seemed inclined to keep him at as much of a distance as he kept them. Word of his confrontation with the older Herald had spread out to the general population of the Collegia, and Mags suspected there were plenty of wild rumors about what had caused it. The man’s abrupt departure did nothing to quell those rumors, since as a rule, one was allowed a minimum of a month between circuits. No one ever told him what those rumors were, but it was obvious from the way people looked at him that they must range from near truth to wildly unlikely. He shrank from those looks.
Lena was his only human friend, although living in the stable and being as strong a Mindspeaker as he was, he had made friends with several as-yet-unpartnered Companions. He would happily have stayed out in the stable all day, but he was required to attend his classes. Outside of those, however, he scarcely left the building except to eat, and he had contemplated asking Lena to bring him food to be heated in the stable ovens when she decided to take matters into her own hands.
He knew he was in for—something—when he heard how she was walking as she came up behind him. There was determination in her step, and as he brushed out Dallen’s mane—unnecessarily, since it was already as silky and tangle-free as a pampered girl’s hair—she seized his elbow.
“There is someone I want you to meet,” she said abruptly. “So come on!”
“But—” he began, but there was no stopping her in this mood. She marched him out into the snowfall. There was another snowstorm just starting, not a violent one, but from the way the fat flakes were drifting down through the air, and the look of the sky, it was going to pile up deeply before it was over. He found himself hoping that it would be so deep that classes would be canceled and he could spend the whole day reading alone in his warm, safe room.
Well, Lena was not going to let him do that just yet; this much was clear.
She pulled him along the path that led, not to Heraldic or Bardic Collegium, but to Healers’. Alarmed at what this might mean, he began resisting. “Lena—just ’cause I don’ like t’ mingle with folk, that don’ mean I need a Healer!” he exclaimed. “Serious, now, I’m fine—”
To his intense relief, although she kept tugging, she giggled. “Silly! I’m not taking you to a Healer for you, I want you to meet my friend Bear!”
“Bear?” Bear? Who would name someone that? And why? The name conjured up a big man, intimidating, fierce and frowning. Dangerous. He must have a temper. Why did Lena want him to meet such a person? It would be worse than—
“Bear!” Lena called, waving her free hand. The figure bent over some dormant rosemary plants, all huddled in a green cloak, straightened and peered at them through the falling flakes.
And every bit of Mags’ apprehension melted like those snowflakes falling on the hot brick of the ovens.
This young man, with a pair of ground-glass lenses perched on his nose, could not be less imposing. He was a little taller than Mags, and looked to be about a year older, and he did indeed look like a bear—but a sleepy, affable bear, with a round face, untidy short brown hair, small but friendly eyes, a pug nose, and a generous mouth that looked as if it smiled often. He stood with a little bit of a stoop, as if he spent a lot of time hunched over. When he smiled at Lena, Mags had to smile back. There could not have been a sweeter smile in all three Collegia.
“I was just making sure the rosemary was going to be all right,” he explained to Lena, and looking over at Mags, made him feel welcome with the same smile. “So this is Mags? It must be interesting to be a Mindspeaker. Some of the Healers here are, too.”
Bear didn’t give Mags a chance to reply to that.
“Come on inside,” he said instead. “Lena said she would help me with studying the same things she’s helping you with. I arranged to have some supper brought up to my rooms, so we won’t have to go out in the cold.”
Rooms? At a time when the Heraldic and Bardic Trainees were practically being stacked like cordwood, this young fellow had more than one room to himself? Mags blinked, but he followed the other two inside quietly. They went up four steps to a separate entrance from the rest of the Collegium and the areas for the sick and injured and stepped inside.
And Mags immediately felt like a fool. For the “rooms” were actually a greenhouse with panes of thick, wavy glass, each about the size of his hand and leaded together into a floor-to-ceiling window facing south and a glass roof, with pots and pots of plants everywhere they could catch the light, and two small rooms off it, one of which was clearly used for dealing with the plants. It was very warm and cozy in here, and Mags wondered if it was heated, as his room was, by a big oven built into the wall ....
“Fire’s below,” Bear explained, with a smile and a shrug. “Knew you’d ask, everyone does. Furnace’s below, heats the floor, then the hot air and smoke goes up through flues in that wall.” He pointed to the back wall shared by both small rooms. “There’s some herbs has got to be fresh to use, so we grow ’em here all year.”
“Except no one could get them to grow in winter until Bear came,” Lena put in, eyes dancing. “That’s what you never tell anyone, Bear!”
Bear just shrugged. “Someone used to, or these rooms wouldn’t be here,” he pointed out logically. “Stands to reason. Anyway, it isn’t a Gift or anything of the sort, I just am careful with ’em, make sure I know what they need, and make sure they get it. Easy. Anybody could do it. Only, I don’t have a Gift, you
see, so I’ve got to have the knack for taking care of these little beauties, ’cause that’s how I Heal folks.”
He gestured at the back of the greenhouse room, where a rough wooden table had been set with three places; a basket of bread and a bubbling pot over a coal brazier waited. “Lena, you said you wanted to try this, so I asked Cook to help me make it up.” He grinned. “I think you’re gonna like it.”
“It,” when Mags peered curiously at the pot, was a softly bubbling concoction, much thicker than gravy, of a creamy yellow. Bear sat them all down around the pot, picked up one of the rolls, tore it in half, and dipped the end in. “Careful, it’s real hot,” Bear cautioned, blowing on the end, as Mags and Lena followed his example. Bear was not exaggerating, it was hot enough as he dipped his bread that he was certain a drop of it would probably raise a blister.
“It” turned out to be melted cheese. But ... such melted cheese! There was a slight bitterness to it that was not at all unpleasant, and a suggestion of herbs and beer. It was so very good that it made him impatient for the stuff to cool on his bread, and it was pretty clear from the way that dainty little Lena was tucking in that she felt the same. Nor was Bear at all behind. And when they were done and he took the pot off the coal, there was a nice crust of cheese that he lifted out with a knife and divided among the three of them that added a crunchy finale to the feast.
“Oh, that was so good!” Lena sighed.
“Even better when the pot’s on the hearth,” Bear said complacently, dumping a mug of water on the coal. Now Mags saw he had improvised a stand with a wrought-iron pot stand of the sort that were raising pots above the ones in front of them so all the plants could get sun. “Sometimes we make it with white wine, ’stead of beer—”
It looked as if he was about to wax eloquent on this dish, when there was a knock on the door. Without waiting for an answer, the knocker opened the door. Ignoring Lena and Mags, he addressed Bear.
Mags could not even begin to follow the question, but Bear, who must have been twenty years this man’s junior, listened and nodded, then went to the workbench in one of the two smaller rooms and began to take things from various jars. He also came back out for a few leaves from a couple of the live plants. All these things he ground together, then presented the results to the Healer who had interrupted them. The latter took the jar with thanks and hurried back out again.
Bear seemed to take this as a given sort of thing, but Mags was amazed. He grew even more amazed as the evening of studying went on. Bear was just as clueless about history as Mags was ... but four more times that night, full Healers, many years Bear’s senior, interrupted them to ask for some herbal remedy or other. After the third time, Bear turned to them both and shrugged ruefully. “See, now,” he said. “This’s why I didn’t want to study over there at the library, you ken? It’s like this about every night.”
Mags studied him a moment. “Kin I ask somethin’?”
Bear grinned. “I got no secrets.”
Somehow, Mags was sure that was nothing more nor less than the literal truth.
“How come you got all these people comin’t’ ye for yarbs, when they kin—y’ know—just Heal.” That was what was baffling him. There was no reason, so far as he could see, for anyone to be messing about with leaves when all they needed to do was put their hands on someone and will them better.
“Well,” Bear said slowly. “There’s folks as don’t want a Healer muckin’ about with ’em like that. I know it don’t make sense, but that’s how they feel and they feel pretty strong. Then there’s stuff that don’t respond real good to that kind of Healing. Herbs and medicines actually work better and faster. And sometimes, you just gotta have both. Which is a good thing.” He shrugged, with a rueful grin. “See, my whole family is Healers. Every one of them. They all have the Gift but me, and I wanted to be a Healer bad, so I started learning this stuff. Big thing I can learn here, besides cures I didn’t have the books for at home, is cuttin’ and stitchin’ and boneset-tin’. You got to have those even if you got a Gift. And if you don’t—you can still do stuff someone with a Gift can’t. You know?”
Mags didn’t, but he was willing to take Bear’s word for it.
Despite the interruptions, they got some good study in. Bear kept them all going with kettles of herb teas with subtle flavors, and when he finally bid them good night, he gave them a final cup of something that tasted like nothing so much as summer.
“You get into bed soon, now, ’cause that’ll put you to sleep right fast,” he advised with a smile, as they went out into the still-falling snow.
The falling snow reflected all the light from all the buildings around them, so that the air itself seemed to glow faintly. As they trudged through the new-fallen stuff, Mags scratched his head. “How’d you an’ him—” he began.
“He was looking for a tutor, and they recommended me,” she said modestly. “But then we realized we have a lot in common.”
“Uh ... you do?” Mags couldn’t imagine how.
“Of course.” Lena sighed. “People expect really big things from both of us.”
“Oh,” he replied, feeling stunned that he had not realized this. Of course. He already knew how she felt about those expectations. Sometimes he found her almost sick with anxiety over it.
It was at that moment that he realized how much she must envy him. Not just having a Companion; she would love that, of course. But because no one expected anything of him. For that matter, they appeared surprised when he actually accomplished something.
Poor Lena. He couldn’t imagine how it must be to be her, with everyone watching her all the time. And by extension-poor Bear.
“It don’t seem fair,” he said at last, and got a grateful smile from her. “Not to neither of ye. Well, I guess I can put up with bein’ interrupted if you want to be helpin’ both of us.”
By that point, they had reached Bardic Collegium. “I do, and that would be wonderful, Mags!” she exclaimed. “And I’ll see you tomorrow.”
She scampered through the snow and disappeared into the building, leaving him to trudge through the stuff to the stables, feeling oddly warm inside.
———
There was a growing sense of anticipation in the Collegia, though for the life of him, Mags could not imagine why. He overheard whispered questions in class—”Where are you going for Midwinter” and “Did your get your Midwinter present for so-and-so yet?” But none of these questions made any sense to him. Midwinter was only the shortest day of the year; there was nothing special about it. At least, there had not been, in his world—not unless a blizzard had locked the kiddies in the barn, which was hardly a cause for celebration, since the only way they would get food would be if they dug themselves a way to the kitchen.
He didn’t like to ask questions, though. It would only draw attention to himself, attention that he did not want. He thought about asking Lena or Bear, but examinations were scheduled, and all three of them were studying very hard for them. Lena scarcely even came by the stable to see Dallen.
It didn’t occur to him to ask Dallen until the Companion finally volunteered the answer himself. Two of the Bardic Trainees in his History class were whispering rather urgently together about presents while the instructor’s back was turned, and he almost turned to ask them what they were going on about, when Dallen spoke up in his mind.
:Midwinter holidays are a fortnight long, which is long enough for most of the Trainees to go home for a visit,: Dallen said. :For most of Valdemar, Midwinter is a big celebration, with a feast on Midwinter’s Day and a party on Midwinter’s Eve.: With that, came a series of images that made Mags blink and then feel a surge of raw envy. No wonder everyone was excited! And then, he immediately felt the heavy hand of melancholy bow his shoulders. The more he was around the regular Trainees, the more he realized just how much he didn’t have. Not things; he didn’t need things—he never went hungry, never went cold, and all the things he was learning! How could he ever want mo
re than that?
But family and home—he had Dallen, of course, and he would rather die than lose Dallen—but that was all. He had never known before that family could be a good, even a wonderful, thing. Certainly the Pieterses were ... well, the only thing he imagined Cole Pieters feeling about his children was that they were adequate additions to his workforce. But these pictures that Dallen showed him—things and stories that Bear and Lena had told him—
And he had no one. His throat ached a little.
:Are Bear and Lena going home?: he asked, a further sinking feeling coming over him. They would, of course, how could they not? If this was a time when families made a point of drawing together, then they must go home. Leaving him alone here.
:I’m afraid so. And I am afraid it has not occurred to either of them that you are staying here.: Dallen said apologetically, then added, :But Jakyr will be here; I expect him in the next few days. So there will be one familiar face at least.:
It didn’t help much, but he decided to put a brave face on it. They were his friends, after all. And Midwinter seemed to mean a season of giving. :Should I do something about Midwinter presents for them, then?: he asked, wondering where he was going to get the means to produce such a thing. In the past, the only presents he’d had to give were the grass shoes he wove, or a bit of food. He couldn’t give food, and why would anyone want his grass shoes?
But Dallen seemed prepared for the question, and had an answer ready, :Yes, but leave that to me. I’ll manage it, and it will be from both of us. They will like that.:
Mags blinked, but accepted the assurance at face value. After all, it wasn’t as if Dallen hadn’t managed seemingly impossible things before. Sometimes he wondered if the Companion was ever surprised by anything.
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