Withen flushed, and looked down at the table. “That's . . . that's very good of you, son. But I don't want you to do that.”
Vanyel bit his lip with surprise. “You don't? But -”
“You're my son. I tried to see to it that you learned everything I thought was important. Honor. Honesty. That there are things more important than yourself. It seems to me you've been living up to those things.” Withen traced the grain of the table with a thick forefinger. “There's only one way you ever disappointed me and - I don't know, Van, but-it just doesn't seem that important when you stack it up against everything else you've ever done. I don't see where I'd have been any happier if you'd been like Meke. I might have been worse off. Two blockheads in one family is enough, I'd say.”
Withen looked up for a moment, then back down at his cup. “Anyway, what I'm trying to say is - is that I love you, son. I'm proud of you. That youngster Stefen is a good-hearted lad, and I'd like to think of him as one of the family. If he'll put up with us, that is. I can understand why you like him.” Withen looked up again, met Vanyel's eyes, and managed a weak grin. “Of course, I'll - admit that I'd have been a deal happier if he was a girl, but - he's not, and you're attached to him, and any fool can see he's the same about you. You've never been one to flaunt yourself -” Withen blushed, and looked away again. “I don't see you starting now. So - you and Stef stay the way you are. After all these years, I guess I'm finally getting used to the idea.”
Vanyel's eyes stung; he wiped them with the back of his hand. “Father - I -I don't know what to say -”
“If you'll forgive me, son, for how I've hurt you, I'll forgive you,” Withen replied. He shoved his seat away from the table and held out his arms. “I haven't hugged you since you were five. I'd like to catch up now.”
“Father -”
Vanyel knocked over the bench, and stumbled blindly to Withen's side of the table. “Father -” he whispered, and met Withen's awkward embrace. “Oh, Father,” he said into Withen's muscular shoulder. “If you only knew how much this means to me - I love you so much. I never wanted to hurt you.”
Withen's arms tightened around him. “I love you, too, son,” he said hesitantly. “You can't change what you are, any more than I can help what I am. But we don't have to let that get in the way any more, do we?”
“No, Father,” Vanyel replied, something deep and raw inside him healing at last. “No, we don't.”
Thirteen
Ordinarily Stef would have been fascinated by the activities in the fields - he was city-born and bred, and the farmers at their harvest-work were as alien to him as the Tayledras, and as interesting. But Vanyel had been brooding, again, and finally Stef decided to ferret out the cause.
The road was relatively clear of travelers; with the harvest just begun, no one was bringing anything in to market. That. Savil had told Stef, would happen in about a week, when the roads would be thick with carts. This was really the ideal time to travel, if you didn't mind the late-summer dust and heat.
Stef didn't mind. But he did mind the way Van kept worrying at some secret trouble until he made both their heads ache.
And it seemed that the only way to end the deadlock would be if he said or did something to break it.
“Something's bothering you,” Stefen said, when they were barely a candlemark from Haven. “It's been bothering you for the past two days.”
He urged Melody up beside Yfandes, who obligingly lagged a little. Vanyel's lips tightened, and he looked away. “You won't like it,” he said, finally.
Stef swatted at an obnoxious horsefly. “I don't like the way you've been getting all knotted up, either,” he pointed out. “Whatever it is, I wish you'd just spit it out and get it over with. You're giving me a headache.”
He eyed Savil, who was riding on Vanyel's right, hoping she'd get the hint. She raised one eyebrow at him, then held Kellan back, letting herself fall farther and farther behind until she was just out of earshot.
Though how much that means when she can read minds - Stef thought, then chided himself. Oh, she wouldn't probe unless she had to. Heralds just don't do that to people, not even Van comes into my mind unless I ask him. I've got to get used to this, that they have powers but don't always use them. . . .
“It's you,” Van said quietly, once Savil had withdrawn her discreet twenty paces. “I'm afraid for you, Stef. The way I was afraid for my parents, and for the same reason.” He shaded his eyes from the brilliant sun overhead, and looked out over fields full of people scything down hay, but Stef sensed he wasn't paying any attention to them. “I have an enemy who doesn't want a direct confrontation, so he'll strike at me through others. Once it's known that you and I are lovers, he won't hesitate to strike at you.”
Gods. I was afraid I'd shocked or offended him. He's so - virginal. And Kernos knows I'm not. “Ah,” Stefen said, relieved. “I was hoping it was just something like that, and not that - that I'd upset you or anything.”
Vanyel turned to face him with an expression of complete surprise. “Stef, you've just had a taste of what it's like to be a target! How can you brush it off so lightly?”
“I'm not treating this lightly, but why are you bringing your parents to Haven if it isn't safe there?” Stefen pointed out with remorseless logic. “I thought that was the whole idea behind making them move there.”
Vanyel looked away from him, up the road ahead of them.
It won't work, lover. You're never getting rid of me. Stefen had already made up his mind to counter any argument Van gave him, so he used Van's silence as an excuse to admire his profile, the way his long, fine-boned hands rested on his saddle-pommel, his perfect balance in the saddle. . . .
“It's safer,” Vanyel said, after a strained silence. “That doesn't mean it's safe. I don't want you hurt.”
“I don't want to be hurt,” Stefen said vehemently, then laughed. “You keep thinking I'm like a Herald, that I'll go throwing myself into danger the way you do. Look, Van, I am not a hero! I promise you, I have a very high regard for my skin! Bards are supposed to sing about heroes, not imitate them - there's no glory for a Bard in dying young, I promise you. I'll tell you what; at the first sign - the very first sign of trouble, I will most assuredly run for cover. I'll hide myself either behind the nearest Guard or the nearest Herald. Does that content you?”
“No,” Vanyel said unhappily, “But I can't make you leave me, and that's the only thing that would keep you safe.”
“Damned right you can't,” Stefen snorted. “There's nothing that would make me leave you, no matter what happened.”
“I only hope,” Vanyel said soberly, peering up the road at the gate in the city walls, “that nothing makes you eat those words.”
“I only hope nothing makes you eat those words.” Was it only a few months ago I said that? I knew it could come to this, but will he understand?
“I'm sorry, Stef.”
Vanyel spoke with his back to the Bard, looking out the window of his room as he leaned against the windowframe; he couldn't bear to look at Stefen's face. He didn't know how Stef felt, though he expected the worst; he was so tightly shielded against leaking emotions that he couldn't have told if Stef was angry, unhappy, or indifferent. But he didn't expect Stef to understand; the Bard couldn't possibly understand how a Herald's duty could come ahead of anything else.
Maybe nothing would make you leave me, ashke, but nobody said anything about me leaving you. And I don't have a choice.
“I can understand why you have to go - you're the only real authority who can speak for the King. But why can't I go with you?” Stefen spoke softly, with none of the anger in his voice that Van had expected - but Stef was a Bard, and used to controlling his inflections.
“Because I'm going to Rethwellan. They don't like shaych there. Actually, that's an understatement. If you came with me, they'd probably drive us both across the Border and declare war on Valdemar for the insult, if - when - they found out about the two of us.” Vany
el gripped the side of the window tightly. The beautiful late-autumn day and the garden beyond the open window were nothing more than a blur to him. “We need that treaty, and we need it now - and the Rethwellan ambassador specifically requested me as Randi's proxy. I want you with me, but my duty to Valdemar comes first. I'm sorry, Stef.”
Arms around his shoulders made him stiffen with surprise. “So am I,” Stefen murmured in his ear. “But you said it yourself; Valdemar comes first. How long will you be gone?”
Vanyel shook his head, not quite believing what he'd just heard. “You mean you don't mind?”
“Of course I mind!” Stef replied, some of the anger Van had expected before this in his voice. “How can I not mind? But if there's one thing a Bard knows, it's how Heralds think. I've known all along that if you had to make a choice between me and your duty, I'd lose. It's just the way you are.” His arms tightened around Vanyel's chest. “I don't like it,” he continued quietly, “but I also don't like it that you can speak directly to my mind and I can't do the same to yours, and I'm learning to live with that, too. And you didn't answer me about how long you think you'll be gone.”
“About three months. It'll be winter when I get back.” The silence lasted a bit too long for Van's comfort. He tried to force himself to relax.
Stefen slid his hands up onto Van's shoulders, and began gently massaging the tense muscles of his neck.
“I'll miss you,” the Bard said, eventually. “You know I will.”
“Stef - promise me you'll stay safe -” Van hung his head and closed his eyes, beginning to relax in spite of himself.
“I'm the safest person in the Kingdom, next to Randale,” Stefen chuckled. “Frankly, I'm much more concerned with knowing that you'll keep yourself safe. And one other thing concerns me very deeply -”
“What's that?”
“How I'm going to make sure tonight is so memorable you come running back here when you've got the treaty,” Stefen breathed into his ear.
If 'Fandes wasn't so bone-deep tired, Van thought through a fog of weariness and cold, I'd ask her to run. Ah, well.
Dull gray clouds were so low they made him claustrophobic; the few travelers on the road seemed as dispirited and exhausted as he was. Sleet drooled down as it had all day; the road was a slushy mire, and even the most waterproof of cloaks were soaked and near-useless after a day of it. Dirty gray snow piled up on either side of the road and made walking on the verge impossible. Van had stopped at an inn at nooning to dry off and warm up, and half a candlemark after they started out again he might as well not have bothered. Both he and Yfandes were so filthy they were a disgrace to the Circle.
:No one would be able to stay clean in this,: 'Fandes grumbled. :How far are we? I've lost all track of distance. Gods, I'm freezing :
:I think we're about two candlemarks out of Haven at this pace,: Vanyel told her.
She raised her head, a spark of rebellion in her eye. :To the lowest hells with this pace,: she said, shortly. :I'm taking a new way home.:
And with that, she pivoted on her hindquarters and leaped over the mounds of half-thawed snow that fenced the sides of the road. Vanyel tightened his legs around her barrel and his grip on the pommel with a yelp of surprise. He tried to Mindspeak her, but she wasn't listening. After three tries, he gave up; there was no reasoning with her in this mood.
She ranged out about twenty paces from the road, then threw her head up, her nostrils flaring. :I thought so. This is where the road makes that long loop to the south. I can cut straight across and have us at the Palace gates in half a candlemark :
“But -” he began.
Too late. She stretched her weary legs into a canter, then a lope. She was too tired for an all-out run, but her lope was as good as most horses' full gallop.
“Look out!” Vanyel shouted. “- you're going through -”
She leaped a hedge, and cut through a flock of sheep, who were too startled by her sudden presence to scatter. Something dark and solid-looking loomed up ahead of them in the gusting sheets of thick sleet. She leaped again, clearing the hedge on the opposite side of the field; then lurched and slipped on a steep slope. Vanyel clung to her back as she scrambled down a cut, splashed through the ice-cold creek at the bottom, and clambered up the other bank.
Van gave up on trying to stop her, or even reason with her, and hung on for dear life.
The sleet thickened and became real snow; by now Vanyel was so cold he couldn't even feel his toes, and his fingers were entirely numb. Snow was everywhere; blown in all directions, including up, by the erratic gusts of wind. He couldn't see where Yfandes was going because of the snow being blown into his face; only the tensing of her muscles told him when she was going to make another of those bone-jarring jumps, into or out of someone's field, across a stream, or even through a barnyard.
Finally she made another leap that ended with her hooves chiming on something hard. Presumably pavement; she halted abruptly, ending in a short skid, and he was thrown against the pommel of his saddle before he could regain his balance. When he looked up, the walls of the city towered over them both, and here in the lee of the walls the wind was tamed to a faint breath. Already snow had started to lodge in the tiny crevices between the blocks of stone, creating thin white lines around each of them.
She moved up to the gate at a sedate walk, bridle bells chiming cheerfully as a kind of ironic counterpoint to her tired pacing.
The Guard at the gate started to wave them through, then took a second look and halted them just inside the tunnel beneath the walls, with a restraining hand on Yfandes' bridle. This tunnel, sheltered from the wind and snow, felt warm after the punishing weather outside.
Vanyel raised his head tiredly. “What -” he began.
“You're not goin' past me in that state, Herald,” growled the guard, a tough-looking woman who reminded Van of his own sister, Lissa. “Old man like you should know better than to -”
Old man? He shook his head so that his hood fell back, and she stopped in midsentence, her mouth falling open.
“If there were any flies to catch,” he said, with tired good humor, “you'd be making a frog envious.”
She shut her mouth with an audible snap.
“Beg your pardon, milord Vanyel,” she said stiffly. “Just saw the white in your hair, and -”
“You did quite right to stop me, my lady,” he replied gently. “I'm obviously not thinking, and it's from cold and exhaustion. We're far from infallible - someone had better watch out for us. Now what were you planning on doing with me - aside from telling me what a fool I was to be out in this muck?”
“I was goin' to give you a blanket to wrap up in,” she said hesitantly. “Make you take off that soggy cloak. Gods, milord, it looks like you're carryin' half the road-muck 'twixt here and the Border on you.”
“I think we are, but the Palace isn't far, and that's where we're heading,” he said. “I think we can make it that far.” He managed a real smile, and she smiled back uncertainly.
“If you say so, milord.” She took her hand off Yfandes' rein, and stepped aside; he rode back out into the cold and snow.
But at least within the city walls they were sheltered from the wind. And it wasn't that far to the Palace. . . .
He must have blanked out for a while; a common enough habit of his, when he knew he was in relatively safe, but uncomfortable surroundings-riding on a patrolled road in the dead of winter, or waiting out an ambush in the pouring rain, for instance. The next thing he knew, he was in the dry and heated warming shed beside the stable; one of the grooms was at his stirrup, urging him to dismount.
:'Fandes?: he queried.
She turned her head slowly to stare at him, blinking. :Oh. We're home. I must have-:
:You did the same thing I did; the minute we crossed inside the city we went numb. Get some rest, love. I'm going to do the same as soon as I make my report.:
“Get her closer to the heat,” he told the groom, dismounting with
care for his bruises. The warming shed was heated by a series of iron stoves, and on very cold nights, the door into the stable would be left open so that the heat would carry out into the attached building. “Get her dry, give her a thorough grooming, then a hot mash for her supper.”
:Bless you.:
“Put two blankets on her, and take that tack away. It needs a complete overhaul.” He took the saddlebags from the cantle and threw them over his shoulder, mud and all.
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