“Get them to move to where you are.” Savil shook her head. “I don’t know, Van. That may be harder than getting yourself transferred to Forst Reach.”
“That may be,” Vanyel said grimly, “but it has to be done.”
• • •
Dinner was a cold lump in Vanyel’s stomach, and his weariness made the lamplight seem harsher than it really was.
“. . . . I have no choice but to insist on this, Father,” Vanyel concluded, clasping his hands around his ale mug, and staring at the surface of the table. “I know you never want to leave Forst Reach—and the gods know you never asked to have a Herald-Mage for a son. I’m asking this because I have to. I can’t protect you, Savil can’t protect you, Randale can’t afford to keep a Herald here full-time to keep you safe; there aren’t enough of them, and nothing less would do it. You could hire all the guards you wanted to; none of them would do any good against a mage. Hire a mage, and whoever this is will send a better one. This enemy of mine knows me very well, Father. If you or Mother died because of what I am—I—I’d never get over it.” He looked up, at Withen’s troubled face and at Treesa’s frightened one. “There’s no help for it, Father. You’ll have to take up the Council seat for this district and move to Haven. Everyone would be glad to see you in it, and Lord Enderby never wanted it in the first place. You’d do a good job, and the Council could use your experience.”
Treesa sighed happily and lost her fear instantly; she had wanted to move to Haven for years, ever since the last of her children wedded. “Oh, Withen,” she said, her eyes sparkling, “You must! I’ve hoped for this for so long—”
Withen winced. “I think you mean you’ve hoped for a reason to make me go to the capital, and not that the reason would be that we’re in danger otherwise!”
Treesa pouted. She’d recovered very quickly, showing a resilience that Moondance called “remarkable.” “Of course that’s what I meant! Withen, for all that you like to pretend that you’re a plain and simple man, you’ve been running not only Forst Reach, but most of the county as well. And you very well know it. When something goes wrong, where’s the first keep they go to? Here, of course. And it isn’t to ask advice of Mekeal! I think Van is right; I think you’d make a fine Councillor.”
Withen shook his head, and took a long drink of ale. “Ah, Treesa, I hate politics, you know that—and now you want me to go fling myself into them right up to the neck—”
Vanyel put his mug down. I’m going to have to shock him into taking the seat, or he’ll go, and pine away with boredom. “Father, it’s either that, or move to Haven without anything to do but sit around the Court all day and trade stories with the other spavined old war-horses,” he said bluntly. “I was offering you an option that would give you something useful to do. You are going to Haven, whether or not you like it. I cannot afford to leave you here.”
Withen bristled. “So I’m a spavined old war-horse, am I?”
Vanyel didn’t rise to the bait. Withen expected him to try and back down, and he couldn’t, not with so much riding on his persuading Withen that he was right. “In a sense, yes; you’re too old to rejoin the Guard, even as a trainer. There’s nothing else there for you. But that Council seat is crying for someone competent to fill it, and you are competent, you’re qualified, and you won’t play politics with Valdemar’s safety at stake—and that puts you ahead of half the other Councillors, so far as I can see. And you, Father, are trying to change the subject.”
Abruptly, Withen put his mug down and held up both hands in surrender. “All right, all right. I’ll take the damned seat. But they’ll get me as I am. No Court garb, no jewels and furbelows. Treesa can dress up all she likes, but I’m a plain man; I always have been, and I always will be.”
Vanyel’s shoulders sagged with relief. “Father, you can be anything you like; you’ll be a refreshing change from some of the butterfly-brains we have on the Grand Council. Trust me, you won’t be alone. There are two or three other old war-horses—no more ‘spavined’ than you, I might add—former Bordermen like you, who have pretty much the same attitudes. And I say, thank the gods for all of you.”
Withen glowered. “I’m only going because you’ve got work for me,” he said, grumbling. “Meke may think he runs Forst Reach, but Treesa’s right: when there’s trouble, it’s me they all come to.”
All the better for Meke, Vanyel thought. Let him make his own mistakes and learn from them.
But what he said was, “Then it’s time to expand your stewardship, Father. More than time. I think you will serve Valdemar as well or better than you served Forst Reach.”
He started to get up, when Withen’s hand on his wrist stopped him. “Son,” his father said, earnestly. “Did you really mean that about how you’d be hurt if something happened to your mother or me?”
“Father—” Vanyel closed his eyes, and sank back into his seat, swallowing an enormous lump in his throat. “Father, I would be devastated. I would be absolutely worthless. And somehow this mage knows that, which is why it’s so important for you to be somewhere safe. Valdemar needs me, and needs me undamaged. And I need you. You’re my parents, and I love you.” He took a deep breath; what he was going to say was very hard, and it had cost him a lot of soul-searching. “I can’t change the past, Father, but I can manage things better in the future. You’ve been very—good—about my relationship with Stef. If it would make you feel better, though, I’ll see to it that he and I—don’t see much of each other. That way you won’t have—what I am—rubbed in your nose at Haven.”
Withen flushed, and looked down at the table. “That’s . . . that’s very good of you, son. But I don’t want you to do that.”
Vanyel bit his lip with surprise. “You don’t? But—”
“You’re my son. I tried to see to it that you learned everything I thought was important. Honor. Honesty. That there are things more important than yourself. It seems to me you’ve been living up to those things.” Withen traced the grain of the table with a thick forefinger. “There’s only one way you ever disappointed me and—I don’t know, Van, but—it just doesn’t seem that important when you stack it up against everything else you’ve ever done. I don’t see where I’d have been any happier if you’d been like Meke. I might have been worse off. Two blockheads in one family is enough, I’d say.”
Withen looked up for a moment, then back down at his cup. “Anyway, what I’m trying to say is—is that I love you, son. I’m proud of you. That youngster Stefen is a good-hearted lad, and I’d like to think of him as one of the family. If he’ll put up with us, that is. I can understand why you like him.” Withen looked up again, met Vanyel’s eyes, and managed a weak grin. “Of course, I’ll admit that I’d have been a deal happier if he was a girl, but—he’s not, and you’re attached to him, and any fool can see he’s the same about you. You’ve never been one to flaunt yourself—” Withen blushed, and looked away again. “I don’t see you starting now. So—you and Stef stay the way you are. After all these years, I guess I’m finally getting used to the idea.”
Vanyel’s eyes stung; he wiped them with the back of his hand. “Father—I—I don’t know what to say—”
“If you’ll forgive me, son, for how I’ve hurt you, I’ll forgive you,” Withen replied. He shoved his seat away from the table and held out his arms. “I haven’t hugged you since you were five. I’d like to catch up now.”
“Father—”
Vanyel knocked over the bench, and stumbled blindly to Withen’s side of the table. “Father—” he whispered, and met Withen’s awkward embrace. “Oh, Father,” he said into Withen’s muscular shoulder. “If you only knew how much this means to me—I love you so much. I never wanted to hurt you.”
Withen’s arms tightened around him. “I love you, too, son,” he said hesitantly. “You can’t change what you are, any more than I can help what I am. But we don’t have to let tha
t get in the way any more, do we?”
“No, Father,” Vanyel replied, something deep and raw inside him healing at last. “No, we don’t.”
CHAPTER 13
ORDINARILY STEF WOULD have been fascinated by the activities in the fields—he was city-born and bred, and the farmers at their harvest-work were as alien to him as the Tayledras, and as interesting. But Vanyel had been brooding, again, and finally Stef decided to ferret out the cause.
The road was relatively clear of travelers; with the harvest just begun, no one was bringing anything in to market. That, Savil had told Stef, would happen in about a week, when the roads would be thick with carts. This was really the ideal time to travel, if you didn’t mind the late-summer dust and heat.
Stef didn’t mind. But he did mind the way Van kept worrying at some secret trouble until he made both their heads ache.
And it seemed that the only way to end the deadlock would be if he said or did something to break it.
“Something’s bothering you,” Stefen said, when they were barely a candlemark from Haven. “It’s been bothering you for the past two days.”
He urged Melody up beside Yfandes, who obligingly lagged a little. Vanyel’s lips tightened, and he looked away. “You won’t like it,” he said, finally.
Stef swatted at an obnoxious horsefly. “I don’t like the way you’ve been getting all knotted up, either,” he pointed out. “Whatever it is, I wish you’d just spit it out and get it over with. You’re giving me a headache.”
He eyed Savil, who was riding on Vanyel’s right, hoping she’d get the hint. She raised one eyebrow at him, then held Kellan back, letting herself fall farther and farther behind until she was just out of earshot.
Though how much that means when she can read minds—Stef thought, then chided himself. Oh, she wouldn’t probe unless she had to. Heralds just don’t do that to people, not even Van comes into my mind unless I ask him. I’ve got to get used to this, that they have powers but don’t always use them. . . .
“It’s you,” Van said quietly, once Savil had withdrawn her discreet twenty paces. “I’m afraid for you, Stef. The way I was afraid for my parents, and for the same reason.” He shaded his eyes from the brilliant sun overhead, and looked out over fields full of people scything down hay, but Stef sensed he wasn’t paying any attention to them. “I have an enemy who doesn’t want a direct confrontation, so he’ll strike at me through others. Once it’s known that you and I are lovers, he won’t hesitate to strike at you.”
Gods. I was afraid I’d shocked or offended him. He’s so—virginal. And Kernos knows I’m not. “Ah,” Stefen said, relieved. “I was hoping it was just something like that, and not that—that I’d upset you or anything.”
Vanyel turned to face him with an expression of complete surprise. “Stef, you’ve just had a taste of what it’s like to be a target! How can you brush it off so lightly?”
“I’m not treating this lightly, but why are you bringing your parents to Haven if it isn’t safe there?” Stefen pointed out with remorseless logic. “I thought that was the whole idea behind making them move there.”
Vanyel looked away from him, up the road ahead of them.
It won’t work, lover. You’re never getting rid of me. Stefen had already made up his mind to counter any argument Van gave him, so he used Van’s silence as an excuse to admire his profile, the way his long, fine-boned hands rested on his saddle-pommel, his perfect balance in the saddle. . . .
“It’s safer,” Vanyel said, after a strained silence. “That doesn’t mean it’s safe. I don’t want you hurt.”
“I don’t want to be hurt,” Stefen said vehemently, then laughed. “You keep thinking I’m like a Herald, that I’ll go throwing myself into danger the way you do. Look, Van, I am not a hero! I promise you, I have a very high regard for my skin! Bards are supposed to sing about heroes, not imitate them—there’s no glory for a Bard in dying young, I promise you. I’ll tell you what; at the first sign—the very first sign of trouble, I will most assuredly run for cover. I’ll hide myself either behind the nearest Guard or the nearest Herald. Does that content you?”
“No,” Vanyel said unhappily. “But I can’t make you leave me, and that’s the only thing that would keep you safe.”
“Damned right you can’t,” Stefen snorted. “There’s nothing that would make me leave you, no matter what happened.”
“I only hope,” Vanyel said soberly, peering up the road at the gate in the city walls, “that nothing makes you eat those words.”
• • •
“I only hope nothing makes you eat those words.” Was it only a few months ago I said that? I knew it could come to this, but will he understand?
“I’m sorry, Stef.”
Vanyel spoke with his back to the Bard, looking out the window of his room as he leaned against the windowframe; he couldn’t bear to look at Stefen’s face. He didn’t know how Stef felt, though he expected the worst; he was so tightly shielded against leaking emotions that he couldn’t have told if Stef was angry, unhappy, or indifferent. But he didn’t expect Stef to understand; the Bard couldn’t possibly understand how a Herald’s duty could come ahead of anything else.
Maybe nothing would make you leave me, ashke, but nobody said anything about me leaving you. And I don’t have a choice.
“I can understand why you have to go—you’re the only real authority who can speak for the King. But why can’t I go with you?” Stefen spoke softly, with none of the anger in his voice that Van had expected—but Stef was a Bard, and used to controlling his inflections.
“Because I’m going to Rethwellan. They don’t like shaych there. Actually, that’s an understatement. If you came with me, they’d probably drive us both across the Border and declare war on Valdemar for the insult, if—when—they found out about the two of us.” Vanyel gripped the side of the window tightly. The beautiful late-autumn day and the garden beyond the open window were nothing more than a blur to him. “We need that treaty, and we need it now—and the Rethwellan ambassador specifically requested me as Randi’s proxy. I want you with me, but my duty to Valdemar comes first. I’m sorry, Stef.”
Arms around his shoulders made him stiffen with surprise. “So am I,” Stefen murmured in his ear. “But you said it yourself; Valdemar comes first. How long will you be gone?”
Vanyel shook his head, not quite believing what he’d just heard. “You mean you don’t mind?”
“Of course I mind!” Stef replied, some of the anger Van had expected before this in his voice. “How can I not mind? But if there’s one thing a Bard knows, it’s how Heralds think. I’ve known all along that if you had to make a choice between me and your duty, I’d lose. It’s just the way you are.” His arms tightened around Vanyel’s chest. “I don’t like it,” he continued quietly, “but I also don’t like it that you can speak directly to my mind and I can’t do the same to yours, and I’m learning to live with that, too. And you didn’t answer me about how long you think you’ll be gone.”
“About three months. It’ll be winter when I get back.” The silence lasted a bit too long for Van’s comfort. He tried to force himself to relax.
Stefen slid his hands up onto Van’s shoulders, and began gently massaging the tense muscles of his neck.
“I’ll miss you,” the Bard said, eventually. “You know I will.”
“Stef—promise me you’ll stay safe—” Van hung his head and closed his eyes, beginning to relax in spite of himself.
“I’m the safest person in the Kingdom, next to Randale,” Stefen chuckled. “Frankly, I’m much more concerned with knowing that you’ll keep yourself safe. And one other thing concerns me very deeply—”
“What’s that?”
“How I’m going to make sure tonight is so memorable you come running back here when you’ve got the treaty,” Stefen breathed into his ear.
> • • •
If ’Fandes wasn’t so bone-deep tired, Van thought through a fog of weariness and cold, I’d ask her to run. Ah, well.
Dull gray clouds were so low they made him claustrophobic; the few travelers on the road seemed as dispirited and exhausted as he was. Sleet drooled down as it had all day; the road was a slushy mire, and even the most waterproof of cloaks were soaked and near-useless after a day of it. Dirty gray snow piled up on either side of the road and made walking on the verge impossible. Van had stopped at an inn at nooning to dry off and warm up, and half a candlemark after they started out again he might as well not have bothered. Both he and Yfandes were so filthy they were a disgrace to the Circle.
:No one would be able to stay clean in this,: ’Fandes grumbled. :How far are we? I’ve lost all track of distance. Gods, I’m freezing.:
:I think we’re about two candlemarks out of Haven at this pace,: Vanyel told her.
She raised her head, a spark of rebellion in her eye. :To the lowest hells with this pace,: she said, shortly. :I’m taking a new way home.:
And with that, she pivoted on her hindquarters and leaped over the mounds of half-thawed snow that fenced the sides of the road. Vanyel tightened his legs around her barrel and his grip on the pommel with a yelp of surprise. He tried to Mindspeak her, but she wasn’t listening. After three tries, he gave up; there was no reasoning with her in this mood.
She ranged out about twenty paces from the road, then threw her head up, her nostrils flaring. :I thought so. This is where the road makes that long loop to the south. I can cut straight across and have us at the Palace gates in half a candlemark.:
“But—” he began.
Too late. She stretched her weary legs into a canter, then a lope. She was too tired for an all-out run, but her lope was as good as most horses’ full gallop.
“Look out!” Vanyel shouted. “—you’re going through—”
She leaped a hedge, and cut through a flock of sheep, who were too startled by her sudden presence to scatter. Something dark and solid-looking loomed up ahead of them in the gusting sheets of thick sleet. She leaped again, clearing the hedge on the opposite side of the field, then lurched and slipped on a steep slope. Vanyel clung to her back as she scrambled down a cut, splashed through the ice-cold creek at the bottom, and clambered up the other bank.
The Last Herald-Mage Trilogy Page 96