The thought made him stop in his tracks. For just a moment, he was stunned. He had only been in this land a few short days, and already it was changing him.
He could not help but wonder where the changes would lead.
Nine
Ulrich returned to their rooms about the same time lunch arrived. He ignored the food for a moment to fetch a brown-leather document case from his room; Karal took just long enough to bolt his portion, then returned to his frantic note-taking. Ulrich watched him for a moment, then said, "If you would be so kind as to take a change in direction, I'd like your notes on the business of offering the skills of our weather-workers as a trade measure, and please tell me any observations you made on Herald Talia. The meeting is to be an informal and closed one, and I was specifically asked to come alone."
Karal stopped writing, his pen poised above the paper. "Do you think they believe me to be a spy? Do you think my function offends them?" he asked.
Ulrich shrugged. "I am not certain—remember, these people are more familiar with mind-magic than with true-magic, and as a consequence might believe that you are actually somehow speaking mind-to-mind with an agent outside. I shall attempt to determine what it is they think you do; in the meantime, complete your notes on the Court dignitaries, then relax until I return." He smiled. "I saw some of your books; I do not think you will have any trouble passing the time."
Karal flushed, because fully half of his books had been nothing more enlightening than popular romances and tales of high adventure. Ulrich chuckled.
"Please, Karal," he chided, "A young man who buries himself in scholastic tomes is learning nothing of life—and a young man who knows nothing of life will find ordinary people baffling. We can't have that, can we?"
"No, sir," Karal replied, still flushing. He turned quickly to his work and took out a fresh sheet of paper, making neat notes in the short version of Karsite hieratic script. It would be enough for Ulrich to use as a guide; he just wished that he was going to be there for this initial conversation. He would have to make notes based on whatever Ulrich remembered.
As he completed the page of notes and dusted it with sand to dry the ink, he looked up at his mentor. Ulrich was standing with his back to the room, looking out the window at the gardens below.
"A copper for your thoughts, Karal," his mentor said, without turning back to face his aide.
He looked at his list, remembering all the conversations they had shared with Rubrik. "Not very original, master," he replied. "Only that, even though we are so very different from these Valdemarans, there are fundamental things we have in common. And some of them I never expected—the Companions being like Firecats, for instance."
"Yes, although personally I am just as glad that the Cats are fewer in number than the Companions," Ulrich said with a chuckle, as he turned away from the window. "I am not certain I would care to share as much of my life and inner thoughts with any creature, as Solaris shares with Hansa."
Karal had nothing whatsoever to say to that; he knew that Ulrich had been a good friend to Solaris before she became the Son of the Sun, but he had not known that she continued to speak as informally with him as his comment just implied.
How important is he, then? Karal wondered. From the sound of it, Ulrich might well be the one person in all of Karse that Solaris trusted to speak authoritatively with her voice. So the elaborate robes and badges of rank actually meant something. Did the Valdemarans know this?
"I was hoping you would be thinking along those lines by now," Ulrich continued, going to the mage-sealed case he had placed on the table. "I have something for you to read besides those old books of law you brought with you."
He unsealed the case with a whisper of invocation and a touch of his finger. The seal glowed briefly, then parted; he reached inside and brought out a handful of small, dusty books. The bindings had all faded to a mottled brown with age, and the edges of the pages were yellowed. He opened each of them, glancing at the first pages, and selected three, replacing the rest in the case and sealing it up again.
"I think you are ready for these, now," he said, placing them beside Karal on the desk. "Let me know if there is anything in them you want to discuss. I suspect there will be quite a bit."
And with that, serenely ignoring Karal's surprise, he gathered up the pages of notes his protege had penned for him and left the room, allowing the door to close behind him with a quiet click.
Karal could not restrain his curiosity and snatched up one of the books as the door closed behind his mentor. To his vast disappointment, it was handwritten in very archaic Karsite, and difficult to puzzle out. The other two were similar, and it was quite clear that reading these things was going to require a lot of hard work on his part.
It was also going to take a great deal of time, and he did not have it to spare. With regret, he put the books aside and turned his attention back to his list of dignitaries. Duty must come before pleasure, or even curiosity, and his duty was to complete that list.
Several pages later, he put down the pen, feeling virtuous and ready for a little recreation. He thought about the adventure tales still buried in his luggage, but somehow the three dusty volumes still on his desk had more allure than the sword play and sorcery of "The Tale of Gregori."
He took the first of the books and moved over to the couch, curling up so that he got the full benefit of the sunlight.
A few moments later, he knew he had made the right decision. Not only was this a very old book, it was a copy of something that was much older, the personal journal of a Vkandis Priest.
With a shock of excitement that made his fingertips tingle, he spelled out the name of the Priest who had written the journal.
Hansa.
If what Ulrich believed was true, and the Firecat who sat at Solaris' side at this very moment had once been a Son of the Sun himself, then this book had been written by the same entity. And from the look of it, the Journal had been started when Hansa was a man no older than he, right after he took his vows as a Priest and long before he became the Son of the Sun. Was this very book where Ulrich and Solaris had found some of their revolutionary ideas? If so, how much more was in here that they had not yet revealed?
"The Tale of Gregori" could wait!
Several marks later, he put down the volume and rubbed his tired eyes. This was no scribe-made copy, but someone's handwritten version. The writing was tiny, crabbed, and barely legible in places; the archaic language more difficult to work through than he had thought. He hadn't read more than two pages so far, and he'd been forced to take notes in order to get that done.
On the other hand, there was still a thrill of excitement as he contemplated the closely-written pages of the book. It was definitely going to be worth working through this. The things he had already gleaned about the Priesthood back in those long-ago days were enough to widen his eyes. When had the order of the Priests of the Goddess Kalanel—the consort of Vkandis—disappeared, for instance? And when had Her statue vanished from its place beside Vkandis' in the Temples?
The door opened, and Ulrich walked in as Karal put down the book with a slightly guilty start. His master only dropped his gaze to the little volume in his hands and smiled.
"I see you have been putting your time to some good use," he said. "But before you wear out your eyes, I have some other duties for you to attend to, while I am at private meetings."
He must have looked disappointed, for Ulrich only chuckled. "Don't fret, they have little or nothing to do with negotiations. I'm going to meet with Lady Elspeth and Darkwind on a regular basis to analyze our various magics. I'll be doing the same with the representatives of the White Winds and Blue Mountain mage-schools. You would find all that very boring, and there would be nothing you could record that would be at all useful."
Karal sighed but nodded his agreement. His own mage-craft was minimal; barely enough to light a fire, and that only if he happened to be particularly hard-pressed. In ordinary circumstances
, he would be well advised to keep a firestriker on his person. "Yes, sir," he said with obedient docility. "What is it you wish me to do?"
"Attend classes," came the surprising reply. "I wish you to become as fluent in Valdemaran as you are in our tongue. There may be shades of meaning in our negotiations that I may miss otherwise. I do not have the time to spare for this, and you do."
Well, that was reasonable enough. He and Arnod had been able to make conversation last night, but it had been stilted and rudimentary, and both of them, had paused often to search for words. Someone needed to be able to understand all the talk going on around them. For that matter, he could pick up a lot of information from idle conversation if no one realized that he was exceptionally fluent in Valdemaran.
He nodded, but Ulrich wasn't finished yet. "You are going to spend far too much time sitting at a desk," he continued. "You need exercise, and more than that, you need to learn how to defend yourself. I can hold off an enemy with magic, but if you were ambushed by someone, what would you do?"
Karal opened his mouth to reply, then thought better of it and closed it again. Ulrich was right; what had served him at the inn and the Children's Cloister would do him no good here. He was no longer just another child, and anyone who intended to attack him here was likely to be trained and practiced, perhaps even an assassin. Yes, the Valdemarans had provided guards, but anyone who had weathered the war with Ancar knew that guards were not always enough. For that matter, there were probably plenty of people in the Valdemaran ranks who would like to see him dead as a means of starting hostilities again.
"I've arranged for Johen to come and take you to your weaponry teacher in a few moments," Ulrich said. "So you ought to change into something like your riding gear; something you can sweat and tumble about in, and do it before he arrives."
"Yes, sir," Karal replied and stood up quickly. He was all the way to the door of his room when he thought to ask a question.
"Who is going to be teaching me these things, sir, do you know?" he asked, as he looked for a clean set of riding clothes in the chest at the foot of his bed. In a way, he was hoping to hear that Rubrik was to be his language teacher. It made sense, and Rubrik was the one friendly, familiar face here.
"Well, there's only one person who is equally fluent in Valdemaran and Karsite," came the easy reply. "Herald Alberich, the Weaponsmaster. He's already agreed to the idea."
Clothing dropped from Karal's numb hands, and he felt as if his stomach had dropped right out of his body.
Alberich? The Alberich? The Great Traitor? The man whose very name was used as a synonym for traitor back home?
The man whose intimate knowledge of the Karsite Army and the Karsite Border had prevented Karse from gaining so much as a grain of sand or a word of reliable intelligence for twenty years and more?
The man who was the first that Solaris approached to arrange the truce, he reminded himself. The man she trusted to keep his word when she sent her agents in to negotiate for a Valdemaran envoy. He is not, cannot be, the enemy I was always told he was; if he was, Solaris would never have gone to him. She values honor above all else, except devotion to Vkandis. I have never heard the truth about him, nor why he deserted his post, all those years ago.
But still—Alberich? The very idea turned his blood to dust.
"As for your weaponswork," Ulrich continued, blithely unaware of Karal's shock and dismay, since he could not see Karal from his seat in the next room. "I had a volunteer before I even asked for one. Herald Captain Kerowyn."
Karal dropped his clothes again.
"Karal?" Ulrich called, when he said nothing.
Karal tried to move, forcing his shaking hands to reach for his riding clothes. It took him three tries to pick them up, and when he put them back down on the bed, it took him an eternity to get the fastenings undone on his Court robes.
"Karal, there is nothing to worry about," Ulrich said into the silence, finally divining the fact that Karal was disturbed by these revelations. "She is not going to drive you the way she does the young Heralds-in-training. She knows that you are never going to have to do more than defend yourself in an emergency."
But she is eight feet tall, his mind babbled, ignoring the fact that he had already seen her just this morning, and she was nothing like the creature that reputation painted. She eats babies for breakfast, and washes them down with nettles and wolves' milk! She can break warriors in half with one hand! She—
"At any rate, she's waiting for you now," Ulrich said cheerfully, as Karal fumbled his breeches on. "I'm really very flattered; she doesn't take individual pupils very often."
I'm not! I'd rather have some nice, quiet little under-trainer—
Oh, calm down, Karal. It could be worse.
It could be Alberich!
He pulled his shirt on over his head, and came out into the sitting room. Ulrich had his back to him, examining some papers, as Johen tapped diffidently on the door and entered.
Ulrich looked up to see who it was, then waved absently at them, returning his attention to the papers. "Off you go, then. I'll see you later, Karal. Try not to get too bruised; we'll be taking our dinner with the Court, and I'll need you to be presentable. I'll get a bad reputation if it looks as if I beat my secretary on a regular basis."
Karal staggered after the silent Johen, incoherent with nerves.
Try not to get too bruised! Oh, lovely, I shall....
Johen led the way down a set of stairs and out into the gardens. Under other circumstances, Karal would have enjoyed the impromptu tour, for the Palace gardens were nothing like similar gardens at home, and were full of trees and plants he didn't even recognize. But he was too numb to pay a great deal of attention, and it was far too soon for his peace of mind that Johen brought him to a large wooden building, standing very much apart from the rest of the Palace complex.
It didn't resemble any building Karal had ever seen before—but then, he had never had any occasion to find himself inside one of the army training halls. The windows were right up near the edge of the roof, which seemed very strange to him. He couldn't imagine the reason for such an odd arrangement.
But he got no chance to ask Johen about it, for the young man hurried on ahead of him as if he could not get his escort duty discharged quickly enough. Arnod might be friendly, but this young man certainly was not.
He followed Johen into the building; once inside, it proved to house, in the main, one huge room. The closest comparison he could come up with was that it was like an indoor riding area with a sanded wooden floor; with mirrors lining the walls, and benches placed in between the mirrors, pushed up against the walls. The fourth wall held racks of wooden practice weapons, and those benches were laden with what even Karal recognized as protective padding. He sniffed; the place held the mingled odors of sweat and sawdust, leather oil and dust. At the moment, it was empty of everything else.
A door at the back of the room opened, and Herald Captain Kerowyn stepped out into the room. She was not wearing that white livery that every other Herald wore, which seemed very odd to Karal; there was no way of telling that she was a Herald without that white uniform, since her Companion wasn't with her.
Huh. Maybe that's the point!
She was, however, dressed in a way that would have scandalized most good Karsites and not just because she was wearing "men's clothing." No one could ever mistake her for a man, in a brown leather tunic and breeches, both so tight-fitting that they showed every curve and muscle of a quite spectacular figure.
Karal swallowed, hard; she might be old enough to be his mother, maybe older, but there was no sign of those years on her body or in the way that she moved. There was also no question but that she was just as attractive as she was dangerous. He was very glad that his own tunic was long enough to hide his inevitable reaction, but he flushed anyway.
Then he paled, and his body lost interest, as she shifted her weight in a way that reminded him of her profession and her history. This was
Kerowyn, Captain of the Skybolts, mercenary fighter long before she became a Herald. If she didn't eat babies for breakfast, she certainly had a reputation for devouring certain parts of the conquered as a battlefield trophy feast!
She stood with her feet slightly apart, hands on hips, and studied him. Johen simply made a gesture toward him and left without a word. She tilted her head to one side, and he hoped that his trembling wasn't as visible as he thought.
"Be steady, youngster," she said at last, in heavily-accented Karsite. "I be not going to eat you. Not without good sauce, anyway; you be too stringy for my liking."
He flushed again as he realized that she was laughing at him. She knew he was afraid of her, and she was laughing at him! But his fear was a lot stronger than his anger, and his good sense at least as strong.
Let her laugh—if it keeps her from pounding me into the ground like a tent peg!
She paced toward him, slowly and deliberately. He stood his ground—mostly because he wasn't able to move. His feet were frozen to the floor, and he couldn't look away from her.
She circled him, looking him over from every angle, as if he was a young horse she was considering for purchase. He flushed even harder; he wasn't used to being given that kind of scrutiny by a woman, or at least, not by a woman like this one. Solaris had given him that kind of detailed examination, but there was nothing remotely feminine about Her Holiness; when Solaris sat on the Sun Throne, she was the Son of the Sun, and that was all there was to say about it. Kerowyn was as female as she was formidable.
"Right," Kerowyn said at last, as if answering a question, though he had said nothing. "Come here, boy. I be wanting to be testing the strength of you."
For a moment he hesitated. What was she going to do, feel his legs and arms, as if he was a young racing colt and she the prospective buyer? But she beckoned peremptorily, and he followed her, not daring to do otherwise.
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