Valdemar Books

by Lackey, Mercedes

  “Not until after the child is born,” Talamir sighed. “Crathach says that he doesn’t want any more stress on her right now; between matters of state and the Prince’s continuous pressure, she’s got more than enough on her. He’s playing the ’bereft orphan’ very convincingly, and of all of the acts he could contrive, that’s the one that will make her excuse him nearly anything.”

  Alberich counted up the months in his mind. “Spring, then,” he said with a sigh. “But the Prince himself will, perhaps, overstep before then?”

  But Talamir shook his head. “No, I think that this ’patron,’ whoever he is, has found a way to clamp controls down over the Prince. More than just Norris, I mean, or even young Devlin. Devlin can’t be more than a messenger. It astonishes me. And I wish I knew how real the threat to Selenay is.”

  Alberich nodded. There was the real question, truth be told. There were actually a number of interpretations that could be placed on what Norris had said to his control.

  First, it could be all bluster. It was one thing to say that the Queen was dispensable; it was quite another to actually act on those words. Norris was, when it all came down to cases, a commoner. Whatever he knew about life at Court he could only learn from brief glimpses and the rather unrealistic views of life among the highborn that he got from his plays, or just perhaps by whatever his patron told him—assuming the patron told him anything at all about life at Court. Selenay was surrounded night and day by Guards that Alberich himself had trained and could vouch for, and by the Heralds as well. To actually assassinate her, someone would have to get past them and Selenay’s own impressive self-defense abilities, and it was guaranteed that whoever tried would not survive the attempt. So the enemy would have to find someone highly skilled, clever, and suicidal—not an easy task. Poison was out of the question; Healers checked everything that she ate and drank, and even if someone managed to slip poison past them, there were no “instantaneous” poisons other than some rare snakebites; Healers would almost certainly be able to save her. Norris (and, presumably, his “patron”) might simply be counting on the hazards of childbearing to remove Selenay. To Alberich’s mind, that was as foolish a hope as finding an assassin; Selenay was in excellent health and by no means delicate. Women gave birth without complications every day without the small army of Healers to attend them that Selenay had.

  “I wish I could hazard a guess,” Talamir replied. “It seems a preposterous idea on the face of it. The ForeSeers are no real help either.”

  Alberich knew what that meant. Too many future possibilities to sort out. That, or so he had been told, was why he never got any visions inspired by Foresight that extended into the future by more than a candlemark. His Gift evidently operated in the same fashion as he did—if there were too many choices, his Gift elected not to show any of them, so that he could concentrate without distractions pulling him in a dozen directions at once. It only showed him things he could actually act on.

  “It is that I think, sometimes, our Gifts are more hindrance than help,” he said sourly.

  “Some of them, at any rate,” Talamir agreed. He looked broodingly off over Alberich’s left shoulder for a long moment, staring at nothing, but doing it in a way that tended to raise the hackles on the back of Alberich’s neck. What was he looking at, so intently, with that expression of focused detachment? Alberich was used to that “listening” look that Heralds got when they were conversing with their Companions, and this wasn’t that expression. It also wasn’t the absentminded look most people got when they were engrossed in their own thoughts. The closest analogy that Alberich could come to was that odd look that cats sometimes got, when they stared intently at something that apparently wasn’t there. It was a Karsite tradition that when they did that, they were looking at spirits. Talamir’s look was very like that.

  But if the Queen’s Own was seeing ghosts, he hadn’t said anything about it to anyone.

  Alberich repressed a shiver and coughed quietly to bring Talamir’s attention back to the present.

  Talamir blinked, and picked up the conversation where it had left off.

  “I have to think at this point that your actor’s conversation was a deliberate attempt on his part to remind his control and his patron that he knows where all the skeletons are,” Talamir said. “I think he was trying to extract more money from them to buy his silence in case anything did happen to the Queen.”

  Alberich thought that over. It was plausible. More plausible than any of his own theories. Norris might stay bought, but when you did that, there was less incentive for your “employers” to try to keep you in their pocket once they had what they initially wanted.

  And theaters were more expensive to maintain than a stable full of racehorses.

  “A dangerous ploy, that one,” Alberich observed. “He could be removed before a danger he becomes.”

  “Perhaps, perhaps,” Talamir admitted. “But that is the best fit for what you overheard.”

  Alberich nodded his agreement, but not without a sense of relief. If that was all it was . . . !

  They finished their business, and Alberich made his way back to the salle through the dark. Not alone, of course; the moment he crossed over the fence into Companion’s Field, Kantor joined him.

  :You’re still troubled,: his Companion observed.

  :I don’t like it, for some reason,: Alberich admitted. :Unfortunately, I don’t know why.:

  :Well, what can you do about it?:

  He pondered that for a moment, trying to think of all of the times Selenay could be vulnerable. Not when holding Court, not at Council meetings. Probably not in the gardens or in her own quarters, or at meals or entertainments—unless the harpists suddenly produced arrows and used their instruments as bows.

  Not very likely.

  But before the arrival of the Prince, Selenay had occasionally donned the working Whites of a common Herald, and gone off for a long ride, down to the Home Farms, outside the walls of Haven, usually accompanied only by Talamir and sometimes not even him. And then, if ever—

  :You know, I believe I am going to start attending the Hurlee practices,: he said slowly. :I believe I will begin working with the Hurlee players. She might object to an escort; she won’t object to a crowd of cheerful youngsters nattering about sport. In fact, she might even enjoy their company. But it will not take much to turn them from gamesmen to melee-experts.:

  :Hurlee is cursed like a melee already,: Kantor observed.

  :And that is the point,: Alberich replied. :Furthermore, unless she is really craving privacy, Selenay won’t think anything of a Hurlee team riding along with her. They’re only Trainees, not Guards.:

  :So she won’t object?:

  He smiled. :I believe she will welcome them.: Then he sobered. :The hard part will be in training them to be weapons at her side, without any of them realizing that is what I am doing.:

  :If anyone can,: Kantor said firmly, :you can.:

  He sighed, and hoped his Companion was right.

  20

  A harsh, cold wind blew across the Hurlee ground, rattling the last of the sere, brown leaves still clinging to the trees. A helm and neck-brace weren’t much help in protecting from the cold; the wind ripped gleefully down the Weaponsmaster’s collar and the sudden chill brought back memories of long patrols in the lonely hills of Karse in weather worse than this, when he would wake cold, patrol until he and his men were warm only where their bodies were in contact with their horses’ hides, then gather around smoking fires where you warmed little bits of yourself, while the rest stayed achingly cold. Now—well, he had come from a warm salle, and he would be going back to it; this was just minor discomfort, inconsequential.

  Alberich gravely surveyed the twelve best Hurlee players in the Collegium now gathered before him; in their turn they gazed fearlessly back at him. They were all superior athletes, all either in their last or next-to-last years, and all were old enough to give Alberich respect untempered with fear. They were pa
st that half-fearful, half-awestruck stage, past thinking him an unreasonable taskmaster. They knew him now, knew what he was about, knew why he did what he did with them. There were those that were this lot’s yearmates that still had not grasped those truths; that was why he had picked his candidates so carefully.

  And if they suspected what he was about with them now was going to be something more than turning them into vicious Hurlee players—well, he reckoned they only thought to the moment when they were to get their Whites, and assumed that he was fitting them better to be Heralds in some of the more dangerous sectors. And it was true enough that this training would serve that end, so they were not entirely wrong.

  The real purpose was a secret held by him, Talamir, Kantor and Rolan—and the Companions of these dozen young Grays. After careful consultation with Kantor, he and Talamir had elected to include the Companions, but not the Trainees, because of the risk that someone would let something slip. No secret was ever safer, and he and Kantor felt that to get the best result, he needed the informed cooperation of the Companions. Other than that, no one else had been told. Not even Myste knew, though of course, he would tell her eventually for the sake of the Chronicles. Just not now; later when the danger was past, and his fears were proved false—or true.

  The twelve sat shivering in their saddles, waiting for him to speak. They wore more than the usual Hurlee protections; shin, knee, and calf-guards, kidney-belts, elbow-guards, arm-guards, neck-braces. And they were finding, as he already knew, that none of these protections helped against the teeth of the wind.

  There were no observers today. No one wanted to sit in the cold, in the open, with no shelter on a day like this. Not even to watch the best Hurlee players in Haven. It seemed an especial irony that rather than being overcast, the sun shone down among swiftly-moving scuds of cloud in a mostly-blue sky. It gave no help against the cold.

  “Two teams of six for now,” he said, and pointed. “Harrow. You sit out, throw in the ball, referee. I will play this third and the next.”

  When Hurlee had first been turned into a game and not a form of exercise, it had started with as many players as could be crowded onto the field, but now the official tally was twenty-four on the field, twelve to each side. Two of the twelve were goaltenders, two played close to the goals, and another two were “rovers” outside the scrum, on the alert for a miss-hit ball or a pass from one of their own side. Alberich was paring the teams down again to two goaltenders and four others; four roaming players, one on the home goal, one on the shared goal.

  “A new rule,” he continued. “The Companion a fair target is.” He was counting on any ambushers being armed with swords rather than any other exotic weapons—it would be easy enough to incapacitate Companions by thrusting the shafts of spears among their legs in a melee—a broken leg would send a Companion down as easily as a horse. But it was still possible, more than possible, for a Companion to be killed by a sword thrust. He would have to teach them to avoid the possibility.

  And as for the stroke that had killed the King and his Companion, and killed Rolan’s predecessor—well, that would be coming in later lessons.

  “Yes,” he repeated, with a little more force. “The Companion a legal target is.” That startled them, though the Companions all nodded or snorted and pawed the ground to indicate willingness. Well, they knew, and knew why; this only surprised their Chosen. Startled, and shocked them, as if he had suggested that they should practice assassination techniques on infants. Still, they were all intelligent, and in a moment, they nodded too. And this probably confirmed their suspicions; that he was fitting them for dangerous missions, missions in which their Companions would most definitely be targets, the targets of people who were out to kill them, not incapacitate them.

  Well, he was. If he needed them, it would be facing people who would probably strike at their Companions first. The Prince might be willfully ignorant when it came to the Companions, but his comrades weren’t. And they would know what the Tedrels had known; kill the Companion, and the Herald is lost as well.

  “And Companions—you are to target opposing riders,” he continued, and he thought he caught a wicked glint in one or two blue eyes. “Pull them down, out of the saddle; knock them over. Chase them to the boundaries.” The Companions would be quicker to adapt than their Chosen; at least at first. The Companions of this lot were all full adults, more experienced than their riders.

  “So—” he held up his stick; the “traditional” beginning to a Hurlee game was for all players to raise their sticks and crack them together. Belatedly, the rest of them cracked theirs against his. “Harrow—throw in the ball and referee. Signal no fouls, only danger or hurt. We play.”

  Harrow had a whistle, but under these rules, he wasn’t to blow it except to start game play unless someone was injured. These were real no-holds-barred conditions, with the Hurlee stick becoming a weapon—club, spear, staff, whatever suited. As the two teams lined up against each other, staring at each other, waiting, it occurred to him to be amused at himself. Who ever would have thought that his impulse to give a set of overexcited youngsters something to burn off some energy with would have turned into this?

  Harrow’s whistle cut through the cold air, and the “game” began.

  As he had expected, the Trainees promptly forgot the new rule about targeting Companions. He hadn’t, though, and Kantor charged straight into the Companion of the opposing team’s captain, using his greater bulk and muscle to literally knock the other off his feet. The others scattered before that charge; Kantor in a full charge was a terrifying sight. Kantor angled sideways at the last moment, ramming the other with his chest, as Alberich thrashed at the rider with his stick, and missed, the rider ducking under the blow. The shock of the meeting jolted through him. The Companion went over, knocked right off-balance, his rider remembering his equitation classes and jumping free at the last minute, and as Alberich charged down on him, he brought up his stick defensively in time to deflect the blow Alberich was aiming at his head.

  Alberich and Kantor galloped past and Kantor whirled with a hip-wrenching reversal of direction, charging for the opposing team’s goalminder. Meanwhile, thinking just a little faster on his feet than the rest, Alberich’s shared-goal minder followed the Weaponsmaster’s example and slapped his counterpart’s Companion over the rump with his stick. Trumpeting indignation, the offended Companion leaped out of the way, giving Alberich’s team a clear shot at the goal.

  Which they took.

  Harrow whistled to stop play, and ran in to fetch the ball.

  The first play was over, and the only “casualty” was one rider unhorsed, one Companion slapped. And the second would likely not happen again. Alberich felt his heart swell with pride. They were good. They were more than good. They were brilliant: adaptable and clever.

  And before time to change came up, they were all playing by the new rules without having to think about it too much.

  Not that any of them had much of a chance against Alberich, because he was not holding back for their benefit. He wanted them to feel what it was really like, fighting against an adult, and an experienced and cunning one as well. He had tested the Prince’s skills himself, and he was not going to assume that the Prince’s chosen accomplices, should he try this thing, were going to be any less skilled. But unless the Prince somehow recruited people from the Tedrel Wars, none of them would have had anything like real combat experience, nor anything like what he and these Trainees were practicing.

  When change-up came and Harrow signaled them, for the sake of making it a bit fairer as far as scoring was concerned, he switched sides; Harrow came in, and a player from the other team came out. And the game began again, except that this time, they all were playing like they meant it.

  And at the third change-up, Alberich sat out altogether, and ran a critique from the sidelines. By this time, they were playing by the new rules without having to concentrate on them, and the riders suddenly found themselves co
nfronted by something that had never happened to them before.

  Their Companions were no longer entirely mindful of their Chosen. Not when they were busy avoiding dangerous blows themselves. That meant that there were moments out there when they were no better off than if they’d been riding a superbly trained horse. Those were the moments of greatest danger, just as they had been in real combat. Those were the moments when, if they thought about it at all, these young Trainees got their first taste of real, bone-chilling fear.

  When he brought the game to an end, they were all—himself included—absolutely exhausted, bruised, and battered. And there was a light of grim, ready-to-drop satisfaction in their eyes.

  :And you’re warm,: Kantor observed, with weary humor. :Though you won’t stay that way if you start making a speech.:

  Alberich ignored him. “Good,” he said, and their eyes lit up. “Very good. Look, you. This a special class will be. Every day, this time, until I say. For now, we Hurlee a-saddle, but the next step will be—unhorsed, and you Hurlee aground until you can get mounted again. And those mounted will try to separate you from your Companion. And you will be trying to take the Companion down from the ground. So be thinking on this.”