Valdemar Books

by Lackey, Mercedes

  "Good," Kris said with satisfaction. "That tallies with what I saw. I'm just as glad; I hate calling people out—even when it's blatantly obvious that they're lying to me," He noted both their observations on the cover page of the reports, and sealed them in a waterproof wrapper.

  To Talia's relief, he had not seemed to note how much strain she was under.

  "I didn't realize we took tax records, too," she said, attempting to distract herself—and him—with questions about routine.

  "Always, in Border Sectors; almost never in the interior. We take a duplicate of what they're supposed to give the taxmen when they come next spring. This way, if some disaster should destroy their records, they have at least a partial reckoning on file. It's to their advantage, since if there's a disaster of that magnitude, the village may have lost quite a bit more than the records, and the Queen will be able to judge what aid to give them based on what would have been taxed."

  She did not make the same mistake with the tea this night, but instead lay in the darkness of the Station, staring up at the blackness above her head, listening to Kris' quiet breathing and going back to her earliest lessons in shield-discipline. She thought, when she finally was weary enough to sleep, that she might have reinforced her shields enough to carry her through the final day.

  The fourth day they went over the clerk-storyteller's accounts of what they'd told him, making corrections or elaborations as required. When the fifth day dawned (much to Talia's relief), they were back on the road again; headed through the village on their way out, but not to do more than pick up their laundry and visit the village bathhouse.

  By the time they were well past the village and out into the wilds, it was growing noticeably colder, and both of them were wearing their heavier winter cloaks. The trees were now totally barren of leaves, and the warm, friendly scents of autumn were gone from the wind. Although it seldom rained anymore, the skies continued to be overcast—a featureless slate-gray. They crunched their way through a carpet of dead, brown leaves that had collected on the roadway. Most of the birds and beasts were gone, hibernating, or in hiding now; the loss of foliage and cover made them cautious and quiet, those that were left. The Heralds seldom saw more than the occasional rabbit or squirrel, and never heard much besides the wind in the naked boughs of the trees and the scream of a crow or two. The Companions' bridle bells made a lonely chime against the silence of the sleeping forest.

  So far as Talia was concerned, that was all to the good; at least she wasn't having to be continually on guard against her shields failing. But her nerves continued to fray; and as they traveled onward through the bleak woods, she wasn't sure which was worse, being alone in this gloom-ridden wilderness, where the gray and empty forest only fed her depression, or being surrounded by people, with shields slowly going to pieces.

  Kris wasn't much happier; he kept wondering if— and how much—of his general feelings of approval toward Talia were manufactured. Was she consciously or unconsciously augmenting them? He was beginning to examine every nuance of feeling, trying to detect if she had had a hand in it.

  He liked her—Bright Havens, he wanted to like her, she was so much like him in so many ways. She was a good partner, taking on tasks without complaining, without needing to be prompted, striving to be a full equal and pull her own weight ...and yet, and yet...

  Yet there were those rumors, and his own feelings that he could well have been tampered with without his ever noticing it. "No smoke without fire?" Perhaps. It was so damned hard to tell . .. and the way she was withdrawing wasn't helping.

  The next stop was two days distant, which meant an overnight stay in a Waystation midway between the two villages. Kris was no longer even thinking of his partner in terms of being female; now the strain on his nerves was because of his suspicions. They repeated their routine of the first night; Talia readying the shelter while Kris took care of the four-footed members of the party. His night-vision was much better than hers; it only seemed logical. And it gave him a chance to consult with Tantris without her around.

  Tantris was puzzled, and worried. :I haven't felt anything, little brother, but . . .:

  "But?" Kris asked aloud.

  :I am not certain that I would. Rolan is disturbed, and refuses to discuss it.:

  "Great."

  :He is senior to me, as you are senior to Talia. If he does not wish to discuss the private affairs of his Chosen, that is his business, and his right.:

  "I know, I know. Look, at least tell me if you pick up anything, all right?"

  :You have my word.: his Companion replied, :but I think perhaps…:

  "Perhaps what?"

  :You need more expert aid,: came the reluctant reply.

  "Tell me from where, and I'll get it! There isn't anybody in the Circle with a Gift like hers—and I rather doubt that Healer's Empathy is identical."

  :True,: came the sigh in his mind, and after that, he could coax nothing more out of Tantris on the subject.

  It troubled him deeply. If a Companion didn't feel up to the problem…

  And they did not even have time to reach the gate of the next village before they were met on the road by two different parties demanding justice.

  They saw it coming easily enough. "Steady," Kris said as they rode into a press of farmers in heavy brown homespun, who crowded up against the sides of the Companions with their petitions. Talia went pale and strained, and sat Rolan's back absolutely motionless and with lips tightly compressed. Kris did his best to sort out the arguments, then finally lost patience and sharply ordered them all to hold their tongues.

  When the clamor died down, he finally managed to ascertain that there were two aggrieved parties, both as alike to his eyes as a pair of crows—brown hair, thick brown beards, nearly identical clothing of brown homespun. After listening to both sides, and putting up with each one interrupting the other until he was ready to take a stick to both of them, he decreed that the argument was moot until third parries could be questioned.

  The dispute was a trivial one by his lights, over a cow and her calf. The facts were that a bull had somehow made its way into a field containing a cow in season; not surprisingly, the calf resulted. The calf was quite plainly the offspring of the bull in question, nor did the cow's owner deny this. What was under dispute was how the bull had gotten at the cow in the first place.

  The cow's owner claimed angrily that the owner of the bull had allowed it to stray, and that it had found its own way there, and thus he had incurred no stud fee. He pointed to the damage done to his hedges, and inquired with self-righteous wrath if anyone thought he'd ruin his own enclosure to save himself the fee.

  The bull's owner claimed just as vociferously that the owner of the cow had enticed the bull into the pasture with the express purpose of saving himself the stud fee.

  Kris felt absolutely helpless; this was not an area in which he had any expertise at all. He glanced entreatingiy at his internee, who was farmbred, after all, and should have some notion of how to sort it out. Talia was looking a bit white around the lips and eyes, but otherwise seemed in control. He nudged Tantris up beside her, and whispered, "All right, trainee—you know more about this sort of thing than I do. Got any ideas?"

  She started just a litde; possibly only someone watching for reactions would have noticed it. "I ... I think so," she said, slowly. "It's like a dispute we had once back at Sensholding."

  "Then take over. I'm out of my depth."

  She asked a few questions of the disputants, then went among the rest of the villagers, making inquiries into the habits of each of the parties in question. It was generally agreed that, while the owner of the cow was parsimonious, he was far too stingy to have ruined his own fences just to save a stud fee. And the bull's owner had a habit of allowing it to stray, being too lazy to fix breaks in his own enclosures until after the beast had escaped yet another time.

  But then she surprised Kris by asking a source he never would have considered—some of the chil
dren gathered at the edge of the crowd. After sidelong glances to be certain that no one was likely to tell them to hold their tongues, they told Talia that this particular cow was never kept in the field where the bull had supposedly found her. She was quite valuable, and her owner always kept her where he could keep an eye on her.

  Talia returned to the disputants.

  "This is my first judgment;" she said, slowly, and with an oddly expressionless tone. "There is no doubt that your bull did stray, and since it is quite probable that it did the damage claimed to the fences, you owe this man for the repairs he had to make."

  The owner of the bull looked extremely disgrunted; the cow's owner gloated. Talia did not allow him to gloat for long.

  "You, on the other hand," she told him—not quite looking at him, "have never kept your cow in that particular field. You must have seen that the bull broken in, and decided that since the damage already done, you might as well save yourself the stud fee. So you moved your cow to the field where the bull was. Because of this, my second judgment is that you owe him half the stud fee he would normally have charged you."

  Now both of them looked chagrined.

  "All things considered, I should think that you are probably even."

  They grudgingly agreed that this was the case.

  "Don't you leave yet!" she said, turning to the owner of the bull, and showing a little more animation. "You have been letting a potentially dangerous animal roam loose. My third judgment is that anyone who finds your bull roaming and confines it in a safe place for you to take home is entitled to have his cows serviced for nothing to pay him for his trouble. That should induce you to take better care of your stock in the future."

  The grins creasing the faces of the rest of the villagers made it clear that they considered Talia's rulings to have been equitable and appropriate—and they were certainly popular. Kris smiled and gave her a little nod of approval; she smiled back, tentatively, some of the strain gone from around her eyes.

  With children ranging along before and behind them, they continued down to the village itself, which was a slightly larger version of the first village they had served, and actually boasted a "town hall" of sorts. It was there that they set up shop in the single large room that served as a meeting hall, behind an ancient and battered marble-topped table that might well be the oldest object in the village. It was an improvement on the common room of the inn in that it wasn't as smoky or cramped; but the fireplace too little to heat it, and Kris found himself hoping that they would be able to deal with their business and be on their way before he got frostbitten feet and fingers.

  But another dispute for arbitration landed on them almost immediately; a problem of the location of the boundary between two neighboring farms. The farmers themselves were not overly concerned about the matter, as they were old freinds and had settled the problem over the years by sharing equally both the work and the fruits of the Fields in question. They confided to Kris, however, that they feared this could not continue for very much longer; both had more than one son to be provided for, and they feared that tempers were already growing heated on the subject among their offspring. Kris, after a glance at Talia showed him she had no opinion in this matter, agreed that the matter should be settled now, before it developed into a full-blown feud. He promised that they would attend to it as soon as they had discharged their other duties.

  The disputants were obliged to be content with that. Kris called for the village records, and while each of them took a turn at relaying the news and the laws, the other searched the records provided by the village clerk for clues to the ownership of the properties in question.

  Regrettably, the clues were few, and contradictory. It seemed that both claims were equally valid.

  Talia was increasingly reluctant to take any part in the affairs at hand. Her shielding was disintegrating, slowly, but steadily; she was positive of that now. What was worse, she was no longer certain that she was able to keep her own feelings from intruding and influencing those around her, for her instinct-level control over projection was going, too. Kris was trying to put her at ease, but she could sense his own doubts as clearly as if he were shouting them aloud.

  And when, the night before they were due, they discussed the problem of the disputed fields at length in the privacy of the Waystation, she was keeping herself under such tight control that she knew she was going to have a reaction-headache from the strain.

  “The problem is that the stream they used as the original dividing line has changed its bed so many times that I can't see any way of reconstructing what it was originally," Kris sighed. "And you can't cast a Truth Spell on a stream!"

  She hesitated a long moment, drawing invisible patterns on the hearthstone of the Station with a twig. "Do you suppose they'd settle for dividing it equally? You've talked with them more than I have."

  "Not a chance," Kris replied flatly, firelight casting ever-changing shadows across his face. "I've talked with the eldest sons, and they're just about ready to come to blows over it. The fathers would be perfectly willing, but the children would never stand for it, and it's the children who will make trouble if they're not satisfied."

  "I can't see making this an all-or-nothing proposition," she sighed, after a long pause.

  "Neither can I," Kris stared into the flames, thinking. "Among the highborn the way to settle this would be to marry two of the younger children, then deed the land in question to them."

  "There's not enough land there to support even one person, much less a family," Talia felt impelled to point out, "even if we could find two of the children willing to marry."

  Kris played absently with one of the arrows from his quiver—then looked down at it suddenly, and smiled in inspiration. "What about the hand of Fate?"

  "What do you mean by that?"

  "Suppose we each took a stand on the opposite sides of the area and shot arrows straight up—then drew a line between where they landed for the new border. If there's no wind tomorrow, where they fall is going to be pretty much at the whim of the Lady. Do you think that would satisfy everyone?"

  "That .. . that's no bad notion," she said, thinking hard. "Especially if we have the priest bless the arrows, pray over the fields, that sort of thing. It wouldn't be human decision anymore; it would be in the hands of the gods—and who's going to dispute the will of the gods? I think both families will be willing to abide by it. Kris, that's a wonderful idea!" She sighed, rather sadly. "I wouldn't have thought of that."

  "You did fine yourself, earlier," he said, more forcefully than he had intended. "I was totally out of my depth."

  "Well, I don't like the idea of anyone allowing livestock to roam at will. Out here on the Border if cattle or hogs get into the forested areas, they're likely to go feral, and then you've got a real problem on your hands."

  "Hmn. I knew dogs gone wild could be a problem, but I never knew livestock could." Kris filed that piece of information away for future reference.

  "It's a fairly serious problem," she replied absently. "When domestic animals go feral, they have no fear of man the way wild animals do, and what's more, they're familiar with how people act. There was more than one person among Holderkin killed or maimed by feral stock."

  "Well, I repeat, you did fine. You shouldn't be afraid to put your say in. That's what this internship is all about."

  "I—" she started, then shrank back into herself.

  "What?"

  "Nothing," she replied, moving back into the shadows where he couldn't read her expression. "I'm just tired, that's all. We should get some rest."

  That withdrawal troubled him badly ... but there didn't seem to be anything he could do about it.

  On their way out of town the next day, they stopped to acquire the clerk and the priest; when they presented their solution to the two families in question, both sides were heartily in favor of it. The farmers themselves were willing to agree to any solution to the problem that would defuse the potentially exp
losive situation between their children. The children of both families were equally certain that the gods would be with them when the arrows flew.

  For something that had been under dispute for so long, the end came almost as an anticlimax. The priest blessed arrows, bows, Heralds, fields, families— anything that could possibly pertain to or be interested in the problem. ("If it moves, I'm blessing it," he told the Heralds with a twinkle in his eyes. "And if it doesn't move, I'm praying over it!") Talia and Kris each took a stand on the exact midpoint of the northern and southern boundaries of the disputed dot and launched their arrows; the priest marked the landing point of one, the clerk of the other. The landing places were permanently designated with stone cairns and newly-planted trees, the new border was made and drawn on the maps and deeds. Both sides professed themselves satisfied. The Heralds went on their way.

  But by now Talia was so withdrawn that Kris could not read her at all; she might as well have been a statue of a Herald. She seemed to have wrapped herself in a cocoon of self-imposed isolation, and nothing he could do or say seemed to be able to break her out of it.

  And as for himself, he found himself wondering if both those disputes hadn't been solved a little too easily. It would have been child's play for her to have nudged the disputants ever so slightly into a more friendly—or at least less antagonistic—attitude toward one another. And once she was gone, if that was indeed what she had done, the quarrels would break out all over again.

  Had he been overly impressed with the way she had handled the first case? Had she been adjusting his attitude?

  There was simply no way of being sure ... no way at all.

  Talia was coming to realize that all her control had been on a purely instinctive level; that she really didn't understand how her own Gift worked. The training Visa had given her was the sort given to Mindspeakers, and in the face of this disintegration of control, very little of Visa's teaching seemed directly applicable to her current problem. The Healers she'd worked with had never said anything to her... perhaps because they'd seen the control and assumed it was conscious rather than instinctive.