Closer to the Heart

by Mercedes Lackey

  But . . . there was another scent as well, the rich and mouthwatering scent of a good thick soup or stew. And that was when Mags noticed that this was really two kitchens in one. To one side, the kitchen where all the things that would feed the gentry were being prepared. To the other, a smaller kitchen—smaller, because what was being made was much, much simpler—where the food for the servants and possibly even some of the workers was being made. And the Head Cook was weaving his way back and forth between the two of them.

  The Cook was concentrating most of his oversight on the corner of the kitchen where the sweets were being made. A few moments after Mags took up his position, the Cook summoned a couple of servants and loaded up their trays with sweets and wine, and shooed them off.

  Aha. Time to entertain Lady Keira.

  As soon as he had seen to that, the Cook took a huge breath, slowly turned around to survey the entire kitchen, and spotted Mags.

  “You there! Here!” he gestured and pointed at a little table in another out of the way spot, between two of the pillars supporting the ceiling. Mags obeyed him immediately, knowing the legendary tempers of Master Cooks, and knowing that it was not wise to arouse such tempers.

  “You’re hungry. Young men are always hungry. Sit!” The Cook grasped his shoulders and pushed him down onto a stool. “Maree!” he called, and gestured at one of the cooks on the “staff” side of the kitchen.

  A round, red-faced woman turned, spotted both of them, and quickly filled a bowl at one of the great pots on the hearth. A moment later she had not-quite-slammed a wooden bowl of that stew he’d been smelling, a wooden spoon, and a healthy chunk of bread down in front of him. She dashed away and came back with a pitcher of cold water and a wooden mug, dropped those in front of him as well, and sped back to her work.

  Well, all right then. Mags picked up the spoon and took a taste. Then another, and another, and soon was eating the stew as fast as he could get it into his mouth. Before he was done with the bowl, he had definitely identified several different kinds of meat in it—rabbit, pork, some chicken, possibly some venison, perhaps some squirrel. At a guess, these were pots that were kept going all day long, and filled in the morning with whatever meat was left over from the day before, with lots of vegetables added. Probably any game brought in that the gentry didn’t want got quick-cooked then thrown in the pot as well. Thrift, of a kind, but smartly done. And kindly done. There were households in which the same procedure was followed but only when the meat had gotten too aged to put before the masters in any form. This was good meat, no one had shirked on the herbs, and there was no stale taste to it, which would have told him the pots were allowed to remain with whatever was in them overnight, and new added in the morning. That was a common enough practice even in otherwise good kitchens, but that kind of thrift led to sickness.

  The bread was good; nothing special, but well made, not burned and not doughy in the middle, and of the dark, heavy sort usually reserved for people who were not of the gentry. It soaked up the gravy well enough, so what more could you ask?

  When he finished his food, he looked around, and spotted the sink where a couple of industrious scullery maids were hard at work. He brought them his dishes and eased his way out of the door, carefully avoiding all the people rushing around doing what needed to be done. It was plainly evident that the only talking going on in the kitchen at the moment was confined to the business of getting the next meal in front of the gentry. Gossip would happen after the gentry’s dinner was served, when the kitchen staff was eating their own, not before. He wouldn’t learn anything here he hadn’t already gotten by pure observation.

  And after all, Tiercel had invited him to take a look at the village. So that was exactly what he intended to do. He strolled down the lane to the village, casting a more careful eye over it than he had been able to on the way in. It was a very fine village, from all he could see. He saw nothing to find fault with in the buildings or in the people busy about them.

  But he was not expecting to be ambushed as soon as he set foot within the village bounds.

  It came as a complete surprise when he was spotted by a couple of boys, and they came running straight at him. Shouting. It took him a moment for him to make out what they were saying.

  “Oi, meester! Meester! Ye coom fra Haven?”

  By this time they were standing in front of him, and fairly dancing with impatience. They were not like any children he had ever seen on mine property before—the mine slaveys had worn nothing but rags, and Cole Pieters’ children were simply not to be seen before they were adults and able to work on the property as well. These children were dressed like the ones at the sluices but without the smocks—soft canvas trews and linen shirts. They were also barefoot rather than wearing clogs, but Mags suspected that was their choice, for what boy would ever wear shoes on a bright spring day who didn’t have to? “Oh aye,” he replied. “I coom fra hereabouts as a wee lad, but I bin in Haven many a year now.”

  “I tol’ ye!” one said to the other, jigging in place. “I tol’ ye! Didn’ I tell ye?”

  “Oh aye, now shet yer pie-hole,” said the second, who looked to be about ten to the other’s nine. By now other children were gathering about him, all dressed like the first two, girls and boys alike, and their mothers were finding ways to leave their chores and drifting along behind. The mothers were all dressed more colorfully than their children, in skirts of soft tones of pale blue, pale green, or pale brown, with white, embroidered aprons over them, and embroidered smocks over their linen blouses. Most of them wore their hair up rather than loose, often under an embroidered cap.

  :Mags, do you see what I am seeing?: Dallen interjected while the children whispered urgently to each other, probably deciding who got to ask the next question. They were crowded so closely together around him he couldn’t possibly have gotten past them without rudely shoving them out of the way.

  :Just tell me, I’m a bit busy.: He didn’t mean to sound impatient, but having all these children about him when he wasn’t in Herald’s Whites and thus accorded a fair amount of deference was distracting. He’d never attracted this many children, ever, not even when his little horde of messengers was flocking around him, wanting to tell him things to earn their extra pennies.

  :These folk are making enough money at the mine that they have perfectly ordinary families. Families, Mags. The only family at Pieters’ mine was Pieters’ own.:

  But Mags didn’t have a chance to think about that, because the littles had decided that rather than take turns, they were all going to pelt him with questions at once.

  And of course, what they wanted to know about was Heralds, and Haven. . . .

  And Kirball.

  He’d expected the first two, but not the third. Where in the names of all the gods had they ever heard of Kirball? He’d thought that no one outside Haven knew about the game!

  “Kirball?” he replied, “Oh aye, but ’ow d’ye know about that?”

  As he questioned them, it turned out that there was a pair of Kirball teams headquartered at Attlebury—not the kind that the Collegium fielded of course, but the simplified sort that didn’t need Heralds and Companions.

  “Master Hara an’ Master Laon, they went ter Haven, on account’a theys gots ’Eralds in ter fambly! An’ they seen Kirball! An’ they gots the rules fer Kirball an’ brung ’em ’ome an’ started playin’!” One of the girls babbled all that out in a single breath, and when she paused to gasp, the boy next to her took it up.

  “We seen it! We seen it at Harvest Fair! Oi! Don’t it be grand, does Kirball! Ain’t noothin’ like!”

  “Tell us’n meester! Tell us’n! Whazzit like wi’ ’Eralds an’ all?”

  One of the women extricated him from the mob of youngsters and sat him down in her front garden. There everyone in the village who could get free, it seemed, gathered around to hear him talk.

  He
talked himself dry answering questions, and another woman brought him a tall mug of home-brewed ale. Then he continued, with the questions haring off in every possible direction, but always coming back to Kirball, like a bird coming back to its nest.

  Finally one of the women asked him, “And did ye e’er play yon game, Lady Keira’s man?” She smiled at him coaxingly. Likely I’m the most exciting thing to come here all year . . .

  “I be Harkon,” he said, finally having an opening to supply them with his name. “And aye. I played horseman.” Well, it ain’t quite a lie.

  At that, the littles around him jumped about like crickets. “There be twa teams i’ ’Bury!” one of them finally got out. “Ye gonna play? Ye gonna play?”

  He managed not to roll his eyes. “That be ’tirely up t’ m’lady,” he said untruthfully. “Or maybe mi’lor’,” he added, with more truth, because if Jorthun thought that there was a good chance of getting some information that way, then by all the Gods, Mags would play. Even if he did have to trust his safety to a mere horse, and not Dallen.

  “It do be fair rousin’, they says,” said one of the women wistfully, wiping her hands on her apron. “I ain’t never seen, but them of us as has say it be grand. Like tournament, an’ there ain’t niver been one’a them here, ever. Master Rolmer, he do say might brin’ thet Kirball here, mebbe. I’d bid fair t’see un.”

  Mags really didn’t know what to say to that. It wasn’t as if it was in his power to get their Master to arrange for a Kirball match for the inhabitants of his village to watch. And anyway, this wasn’t his business in the first place! He was here to get information, not chase a Kirball around a field!

  “Harkon, are you boasting about your Kirball prowess? Or merely recounting the tales of exciting games as if you hadn’t been on the winning team? If I know you, I’d bet on the latter.” Mags turned around abruptly to find Keira and Tiercel standing behind him, separated from him by that crowd of villagers. There was a devilish sparkle in Keira’s eyes, and Tiercel looked both amused and bemused.

  What in the name of the gods can she be thinking? he wondered. Of course, he could have gone snooping in her mind, or even her surface thoughts, to find out, but anything other than surface thoughts would have been unethical, and she was very good at keeping most of her thoughts to herself.

  And she’d probably kill me if she found out I had . . .

  “Aye, m’lady, jest bin answerin’ the liddles . . .” he said, ducking his head a little as if shamefaced.

  “You were really a Kirball player in Haven, Harkon?” Tiercel asked, sounding extremely impressed.

  “Aye, sir. On Collegium team, sir. Lord Jorthun, ’e liked me to.” A truth, a truth and a half-truth.

  “A Collegium team!” Tiercel’s eyebrows rose. “They play a rough game, those Heralds.”

  “Not s’much rough, sir, as ’tis ’ard. Badder field, belike, ’tisn’t smooth, ’tis full’a obstaculars. ’Tis like huntin’ a-horse, or steeplechase. Hummocks an’ dropoffs, bushes an’ bits’a hedge. Bit of a stream runs acrost. An’ th’ goals ain’t fer the faint; liddle stone forts, they be, ’alf buried. Nobbut could do it but Companions, blisterin’ good riders an’ Guard. We be lucky we ain’t had more ’urt.” All true, that.

  Now Tiercel was getting a wicked twinkle in his eye. “I’d imagine that you’d find our flat field and canvas goal quite tame.”

  Mags shook his head. “Differ’nt kinda trouble, sir, when’s jest riders an’ plain ’orses, an’ none’a thet there Mind stuff. Not tame, attall. More dangerous, even, mebbe.”

  “So you wouldn’t be interested in playing a game here, then?” Well, that explained the wicked twinkle in Tiercel’s eye. “That would be too bad. One of the riders on Master Hara’s team broke a wrist, and there’s not going to be any Kirball at all until it heals, it’s said. I could never get the teams to play here so my all people could watch, and not just the ones that could get to Attlesbury, because I never had anyone to place on a team. . . .”

  “That’d be milady and milord t’say, sir,” Mags replied, not sure if he wanted to kiss Keira for a clever idea or box her ears for a stupid one. “’Tis on’y me an’ young Coot t’do fer ’em. Were I breakin’ somethin’ it’d be Coot tendin’ ’em alone, an’ mebbe tendin’ me, too.”

  “I’ll have a word with father, Tiercel,” Keira said gaily. “I’m sure something can be worked out!”

  • • •

  “We’ll have to weigh all the points for and against this little plan of yours, Keira.”

  Keira had, thankfully, kept quiet about the whole scheme once she’d said “something can be worked out.” She’d had a tour of the sprawling Great House, then an early dinner with the Rolmer family—early by Court standards, anyway. Mags had eaten in the kitchen with the staff; shepherd’s pie, and excellent it was, too. Unfortunately, he’d learned nothing of any import because everyone was talking about Kirball. . . .

  Then they’d ridden back to the inn, arriving just before the last light of twilight faded from the sky.

  Now they were all gathered in Lord Jorthun’s section of the suite, with fruit and wine and a night of consolidating information ahead of them.

  “Well, the first thing I can think of ’gainst the idea is me gettin’ hurt,” Mags pointed out. “What’ll ye do iffen yer roof-runner’s down? An’ Coot ain’t bad at hearin’ stuff, but ’e ain’t got my experience.”

  “That is absolutely true,” Keira admitted, swirling the wine in her goblet as the sound of crickets singing came in through the open window. “How risky is that?”

  “I’d need t’see th’teams,” Mags admitted. “An’ play wi’ ’em, a bit. I mebbe have a edge, belike. I cain’t ride Dallen, but . . . I mebbe can use m’Mindspeech.”

  “How ethical would that be?” asked Lord Jorthun, soberly.

  “Well, thet’s the thing, ain’t it?” He sighed. “Surface thoughts, that’s all right. Dallen might could do somethin’ with whatever horse I’d ride. Enough, maybe, I could figger out what people are gonna do afore they do it, an’ get outa the way. An’ I’m a damn good Kirball player.”

  “So let’s count that as tentatively addressed,” said Jorthun, passing over a plate of sliced apples. “Your next objection?”

  “Thet it’d be a waste’a my time,” Mags said bluntly. “I ain’t gonna jest jump inter a team an’ say, all right, let’s play. I’m gonna haveta practice. I’m gonna haveta train m’horse, ye cain’t jest take any ol’ horse an’ go play Kirball. All thet’s gonna take time I won’t be usin’ t’snoop ’round.”

  “But the only way you are going to be able to snoop around the other mines is to go there,” Keira pointed out. “And that means you’ll have to go there with me, which means I will need invitations. Mind you, I don’t think they’ll be difficult to get, but still . . . But my little discussion with Tiercel revealed that the riders are all sons or cousins of the mine owners. Which should not be a surprise to you, since as you know, a Kirball match requires four or five horses for each rider, and only the mine owners could afford that many horses for something so frivolous. So while you won’t be able to snoop around the mines, while you are training and playing, Jorthun and I can snoop around the young men and the owners.”

  “Next objection . . . I don’t know that investigating these men away from their properties is going to bear any fruit,” Jorthun put in.

  “We also don’t know that investigating them on their properties is, either.” Keira nodded to emphasize her point. “Let’s say, just for the sake of argument, that one or more of them are taking the large gems, passing them off to a common party, and having them sold elsewhere, out of Valdemar perhaps, to make the money to buy the arms. There simply won’t be any records that the gems even existed, except, perhaps, in the memories of some miner who brought it out, or a crusher who found it in a large rock. The only way you are goi
ng to find that out, is if you are talking to that particular miner or crusher, and can compare his memories with the records at the Assessment House.”

  “Wait, the what?” Mags and Jorthun both asked at once.

  Keira dimpled. “My afternoon with Tiercel was very educational. Once I passed his test by not begging shamelessly for that Royal Purple amethyst he showed us, and I evidenced interest in learning all about the business, he and his father opened up to me like spring flowers.” She sat back in her chair and sipped her wine. “Mags knows all about how the gems get from the mine to the owner. I know what happens next. First, they are gathered in bags, each bag a particular value range as established by the sorters. Then, they are taken under guard to the Guildhouse, where they come under the eye of the Assessor. The least valued go immediately to Apprentice Gemcutters who make them into beads or cabochons, either irregular or regular, according to the value of the gem. The cheapest become beads, the ones a bit above that become irregular cabochons, the ones above that become regular cabochons. The intermediate grade get sorted in the same way, except that the beads are likely to be faceted instead of merely ground round, in order to make them more valuable, and the most valuable of the intermediates are also faceted. The most valuable are sent on to the Master Gemcutters, who give them especially brilliant cuts. When they are out of the hands of the Gemcutters, they are re-evaluated, and that is when they are sent out for sale. The mine owners pay the Assessor and the Gemcutters through the Guild, so everyone is treated fairly and equally. And when the gems are sold, the King’s tax is taken from the sale.”

  “That’s all very interestin’,” Mags said, rather puzzled as to where this was going. “But—”

  “But you see! There are only a few places where a large and valuable gem can slip right out of the knowledge of anyone!” Keira exclaimed.

  “Oh . . . when the bags is made up.” Now it dawned on him.

  “Or before that. A very large and clear gem is going to be brought to the attention of the supervisor before the miner puts it in with the sorters,” Keira pointed out.