"I don't know why." He slid an arm around her shoulder and it surprised her so much she didn't even knock him over. "But having met you, I can guess."
Here it comes. "What? What would you guess?"
"Kelsey—I told you that I was the son of a noble, and as it's not important, I won't tell you which one. But if Arana hadn't come to me, hadn't Chosen me, I would have become embroiled in the politics of the nobility, and would have done very little of any good to the people of the Kingdom as a whole. I like to think I would have ruled my own people well, but... it's not easy.
"And Lyris? Much as I love him, he'd have probably wound up as a second-rate thief—or a corpse. Not much good there either."
She was very quiet.
"You don't have a Companion, yet if not for you, the people of this caravan would have been slaughtered like sheep at the Crown Princess' wedding." He caught one of her hands in his good one. "I've got to get some sleep, if I can. So do you. But think about it."
"I will."
Kelsey had spent many sleepless nights in the cold of a dying fire, and this one was to be no exception. What did it mean? What did it really mean? She looked at her hands, seeing both the calluses and the dried blood of the injured that she'd helped the doctor with. They were good hands, strong enough to do what was necessary.
I'm not a Herald, she thought, as she stared at them. And I never will be. She turned it over in her mind, and for the first time in her life, she accepted it without sorrow. I never will be Chosen.
She stood up as the embers faded. But if I can't be one of the Chosen, I can be one who chooses. And 1 choose to do what I must, when I'm needed.
Heralds couldn't do everything for themselves; she knew how to run an inn—maybe, if she proved worthy of it, she'd be allowed to run a school. Everyone needed to eat—surely the Heralds would need a cook? And that close to the thick of things—that close to Heralds, Companions, possibly the King himself—there was certain to be a lot for Kelsey to do.
She smiled; the sun was on the fringe of the horizon.
"Carris!"
If she expected him to be sleeping, she was wrong; he was awake, and a strange little smile hovered around the corner of his lips. "Yes?"
"I'm coming with you to the capital, and I won't take no for an answer. You're still injured, you probably still need someone to watch your back, and you—"
"And I'd love your company."
He didn't, come to think of it, look at all surprised. Made her suspicious, but it also made her, for the first time that she could remember, completely happy. She had done with waiting; it was time to start the life that her grandmother had always promised her she could choose to live.
Song of Valdemar
by Kristin Schwengel
Kristin Schwengel is an avid fan of Mercedes Lackey's work, and leaped at the opportunity to write about Valdemar. This story is her first published work. She lives in Green Bay, Wisconsin with her fiance, John Heifers, whose work also appears in this collection. They have no cats (yet), but they do have a collection of wolf and wildcat paraphernalia, which will have to do for now.
"Revyn," Eser called quietly, "I need some more of those bandages over here. And a splint."
The young trainee trotted over to the Master Healer, arms full of soft fabric, fingertips barely clutching the smoothly carved pieces of the splint. Eser took the wood from his hands just before he dropped it, smiling gently.
"Now, lad, I don't need you bringing so much that you lose it before you can do any good with it," he teased, a smile lighting his faintly lined face. Revyn smiled thinly back at him, acknowledging the mild rebuke, and watched with feigned disinterest as the Healer carefully set the broken leg.
"Do you think you could do the same, hmm?" Eser asked when he had finished, glancing up at his pupil.
Revyn avoided Eser's eyes as he lifted his shoulders slightly, carefully hiding the surge of affirmation that raced through him.
"I—I'm not sure. It seems easy enough, but... I wouldn't want to cause more harm than is already done." He spoke awkwardly, trying to seem all nervousness and uncertainty.
Eser's lips thinned as he stood smoothly, stretching his back to straighten out the knots that he got from hunching over the pallet. He still moved with a fluidity and grace belying his forty years, but every so often his body chose to remind him of his true age. He studied Revyn's averted face carefully. What was wrong with the young man? Was there more than he himself was aware of? Eser shrugged mentally, knowing that answers would come eventually, one way or another. Now, they had more important things to take care of. Eser gestured to his apprentice to follow him and moved down the halls of the House of Healing to the storeroom.
"Well, Revyn, you're going to set a leg now. Teral wasn't the only one caught in that rockslide. More bandages and another splint, lad, and follow me."
Revyn nearly gasped aloud at Eser's words, staring at the older man's parting back. What if he finds out? he thought frantically. I can't hide much longer, but I can't keep refusing either. Taking a large breath to relax his nerves, he scurried along the halls of the House of Healing after his teacher, nearly spilling the extra bandages again in his haste.
Finally, Eser stopped and gestured for Revyn to precede him into the sickroom. Revyn paused in the hall-way to allow his heightened breathing to slow to a normal pace. "Never enter a sickroom in a hurry or in obvious panic," he heard Eser's voice in his head, "for that is the best way to hinder the Healing you wish to encourage." Gently, he laid his hand on the door and slowly pushed it open. The well-oiled hinges made barely a sound as the two of them slipped into the room and closed the door carefully behind them.
Glancing at the blanket-covered figure on the low pallet, Revyn was barely able to contain a low gasp of shock and surprise. It was just a boy! A boy, no older than his sister Chylla. The lad was clearly fevered, for he tossed his head restlessly under the effects of the herbs that had taken away his pain and put him to sleep so that the Healers could work on him. Looking uncertainly up at Eser, Revyn received no encouragement other than a small nod. Taking a deep breath, he knelt on the floor by the side of the pallet and lifted the blanket from the boy's thin legs.
Carefully, Revyn moved his hands gently over the skin of the broken leg, exploring the shape of the bone and determining how much movement would be needed to line up the two edges so that the splint and bandages could do their work. Thankfully, he had just to pull slightly on the boy's foot to straighten the bone, and the pieces moved easily into place, seeming to straighten almost of their own accord. Silently, Eser crouched next to him and maintained the tension on the foot so that Revyn could place the splint and swiftly bandage the leg tightly, making sure the bone would heal as straight as before. Standing, he met the Master Healer's eyes and was surprised and intensely pleased by the approbation he saw there.
"He will sleep easier now that his bones are in line, and the healing herbs can take better effect. Well done," Eser said softly. "We are finished here, but I would speak with you."
Revyn was no stranger to the sudden sinking feeling in his stomach. He had often felt this way before one of his older brother Myndal's chastising sessions—those that had involved swift beatings and usually the destruction of at least one of his own precious treasures, few though they were. He had thought he had done well with the young boy's leg—no, he knew he had done well. Eser's own words had told him that. What could have gone wrong? He followed the Healer out of the House, trying to control his concern.
Eser slowly shut the door to his room and turned to face his student, a swift touch to his temples easing the tension headache that was already building.
"Why, Revyn?" he asked. "We both know that you have a strong Healing Talent. Why do you resist it so?"
Revyn looked down at the floor, shuffling his feet slightly. How could he put it so that the Healer would understand? He didn't want to be a Healer, at least he hadn't wanted to until—He broke off his thoughts an
d tried to answer.
"I—I don't know. I just don't want to... hurt anyone when I try to help them. And I seem so clumsy sometimes that it seems that all I can do is just to make a mess of what I put my hands to, and..." The hurried flow of his speech stopped as he ran out of words, and he glanced uncertainly up at Eser. The older man had turned to look out the window at the autumn golds and reds in the garden, just visible beneath the dusting of the second snow.
"Revyn, you've been here at Haven for almost a year now, and most of that time you have spent with the Healers. You should be farther along in your studies than you are now. Your skill today, handling that broken leg without even asking advice, proves that you are not as clumsy as you say. Yes, I know you nearly dropped the splint this afternoon," Eser laughed, holding up a hand to stop his student's protest, "but that was only because you took more than you could easily carry, through no fault of your own."
The Healer paused for a moment, thinking, then turned to look his student straight in the eye. "Just because one dream won't come true for you doesn't mean that you should stop dreaming, should stop thinking of the good you can do for yourself and others." He would have continued, but Revyn, choking as if the words he wanted to say were stuck in his throat, had already turned and fled.
How can he know? Revyn thought furiously. He's just a Healer. He ran to his room, paused only to snatch his letters from his desk and stuff them inside his tunic, and hurried out to the garden. He only knows Healing. He wouldn't know who has the Gift and who doesn't. "But Bard Keryn would," a small voice in his head reminded him, a voice that he crushed as he had so many times before. Keryn could be wrong, he told himself. Sometimes Gifts don't show until later, like with the Heralds. Some of them aren't Chosen until they're older than I am. There's still a chance that I could have a Bardic Gift, he told himself, refusing to listen to the voice that told him otherwise.
Revyn settled himself in a private grotto in the garden, the one farthest from the buildings, and pulled the two letters, each with the seal of Hold Elann, from the front of his tunic. Even though he had been receiving these letters roughly every month since he had come to Haven, each time he opened them his heart raced in anticipation.
My dear son,
It is good to hear that you have learned so much in your time in Haven. Perhaps soon you can return to us. Your brother Myndal seems to have come to terms with your leaving, as he allows us to write to you openly now. If you come back to us, surely he would respect your skills with your professional training.
Your sister writes you as well, so I will not speak to you of her, save that she misses you greatly. We are all well here in Hold Elann, though we miss your music. Myndal begins to speak of finding a wife and raising children to carry on the mastery of Elann. He hopes for a daughter of one or another of the nearby landowners. Young Aislynn, whom you surely remember, grows ever prettier. If you were to return soon, before someone else snatches her up, I think the two of you could make a match of it.
The dogs are well, though Tygris is aging. I fear she has raised her last batch of pups this summer, for she will likely not survive the coming winter. I run out of paper, and so I close with best wishes for your continued health and hope that you return soon, the Bard I always knew you could be.
Your loving Mother
Revyn bit his lip, wishing that there were some way he could tell his family what his situation truly was. How could he say that he was no longer a Bardic student? That he was now in the Healer's Collegium? Chylla would be so disappointed. She had always wanted him to compose a song for her when he tried to reach Master Bard rank. She wanted him to write a ballad about Valdemar, a song that put everything that was best about their homeland into words. On his journey to Haven he had begun a draft of it, but ever since that interview with Bard Keryn he had tried to forget about it, the sheets of paper covered with his brief notations buried in the back of his desk.
His mind flashed back to that day Keryn had spoken with him, only a few weeks after he had come to Haven and been brought from an inn to the Bardic Collegium by Keryn herself.
"Revyn, you'll make a superb Minstrel, better than most even here in Haven. You're one of the most talented students we've ever had. But I'm afraid that you don't have the Bardic Gifts. Some of us think that you might be Gifted in Healing, however, and... Revyn, I'm sorry," Keryn had said softly.
The hurt of hearing Keryn's words still tasted bitter in his mouth, even months later. She had tried to be kind, tried to tell him about his Healing Talent, but it had all added up to the same thing. He could never be a Bard. Those first few weeks of living and studying in the Bardic Collegium had easily been the happiest time of his life. Hearing Keryn affirm his worst doubts and fears had torn his joy away from him, leaving an aching empty spot where his long-cherished dream of being a Bard had been, a spot he had thought could not be filled. And then Eser had come and taken him to the House of Healing....
Revyn brought his mind back to the present with a quick mental shake, avoiding the thought of being a Healer as he had tried to avoid it for the past year. He broke the seal on the second letter with a smile, thinking of his fair-haired sister, and her laughter that sounded like summer's golden sunshine would.
Revy—Oh, how I miss you still. Hold Elann isn't the same without you. You probably said that when Minstrel Des died, didn't you? Well, now I know how you feel. Did Mother tell you? Myndal is letting us write you openly. Maybe that means you can come back soon.
Speaking of Myndal, that oaf actually thinks he can find a girl stupid enough to marry him. He tried for Aislynn, but she had too much sense for him. Besides, she told me she wanted to wait for you to come back. Even though she's two years older than me, she doesn't act like it, and we're still friends.
1 think Myndal also wants to set up a marriage for me, it being as I'm getting to be old enough. Think of it, Revy, your Chylla the matron of a household—at fourteen and a half! Sometimes I can't think of it for laughing. I hope he goes to Hold Gellan. Edouard, the younger son, is unmarried and only a few years older than you are, so he's not too old for me. And he's handsome, too!
Your horse misses you, the dogs miss you (Tygris has faded in health ever since you left), Mother misses you, and I miss you most of all. I hope you get to Journeyman rank soon, so you can come to see us.
Love and hugs, your own Chylla
Revyn leaned back against the sun-warmed stone of the grotto, closed his eyes, and smiled, laughing with his merry sister. He could see her now, just the way she had been on the day he told her he was leaving Hold Elann.
"But what will Mother and I do without you?" Her lips were quivering, and she bit them so hard he was sure she would cut them. She looked at the ground then, turning away from him so he wouldn't see her tears.
"You'll have to take care of Mother for me, Chylla. You know how hurt she'll be when you tell her where I've gone." He smiled and gently touched her thin shoulders. She turned abruptly back to him, taking a deep breath.
"Take me with you, Revy. Please. I can cut my hair. You can tell the traders I'm your little brother. Please don't leave me here, not alone with Myndal."
"Better that you stay with Mother," he had answered gravely. "Mother will need you more than you will need me. Besides," he said, smiling cheerily, "I'll come back for you, little one. You know I will, and everything will be fine."
If only she could be here with him now, everything would be fine. She would understand about him being a Healer if she just saw him, if he could just talk to her and show her how he felt, but he didn't know how he could write it to her. It seemed to him that to tell his family would make everything just that much more final. Telling them that he wouldn't be a Bard would mean that he would have to give up his dream and become a Healer.
"You know you want to be a Healer, too," came the insistent voice in his head, the second self that chose times like this to scold him. This time, however, he didn't slap it away as he would a biting gnat. "You hav
e Talent. You know it, Eser knows it, the rest of the Healers know it, too. You're just afraid."
Revyn thought about that one for a while. What would I be afraid of? he asked himself.
"You're afraid of losing your last hope of being a Bard. As long as you stay in the House of Healing without making any progress in using your Healing Talent, there's a chance that a Bardic Gift might show up. If you become a full Healer, you might have to leave Haven, and you couldn't continue your musical studies like you have been. Like Eser and Keryn have indulgently allowed you to."
The voice was a sting of conscience, sharply reminding him of how ungrateful he had been to those who were trying to help him and teach him. He squirmed suddenly, trying to avoid his self-recrimination. But the voice, once unleashed, refused to be fettered again.
"You know it's just your own pride. Keryn said you could be a good Minstrel—and you already are one, even if it is 'just' around the circle of other Healing students. And a Healer who can play music to soothe and calm the nerves is a rare thing. You're just too stubborn to accept that. You won't accept being anything less than the best, anything less than what you decided you had to be without even knowing what you could and couldn't be. You—"
Enough! he "shouted" at the voice, squelching it into silence. You've made your point. Leave me alone for a while. I just need to think, to figure out what I want.
Some weeks later, Revyn hurried down the hallway of the House of Healing ahead of Eser, anxious to get to young Seldi's room for a few quick minutes of conversation in the course of the morning rounds. The boy's broken leg had been healing well, and Revyn expected that Eser would soon allow the lad to return to his family's holding with his older brother, who had arrived in Haven this day to fetch him.
"Good morning, Seldi," he said cheerfully as he entered the room, smiling at the first patient he had ever treated on his own.
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