“Ah, Herald,” the Healer said, quite as if she expected strange people to be in one of her patients’ rooms at odd hours. “If you’ll move off the bed—thank you,” she appended, as Amily hastily got out of the way.
But this seemed like a good time to get Lirelle out of there. I know she feels guilty about not stopping Katlie, but there’s no point having her falling asleep on her feet. “You go get some sleep,” Amily told Lirelle—then had an afterthought. “Wait a moment,” she added, and rummaged in her belt pouch for a pencil and a bit of paper. She scribbled a note to Lady Tyria about how Lirelle had been very helpful all night, and she very much appreciated her calm and good sense. “Here, give this to your lady-mother. I don’t want you in trouble.”
“Oh, I won’t be,” Lirelle replied, but took it anyway. “Mother has a rule about everyone telling people where they are going. I told her my friend was missing and I was going to be with you before I ran out to look for you. Then after we all got back, I went back to our rooms. She was still awake, so I made sure it was all right to stay with Katlie.”
Out of the corner of her eye, Amily saw Katlie’s face suddenly suffused with surprise and gratitude to hear herself called Lirelle’s friend. But at the moment, Amily was feeling no little amount of gratitude herself. “You—” she said, pointing a finger “—are entirely too sensible for your age. You and I are going to have a very long talk when I am done with Katlie. Also . . .” she scribbled another note “. . . give this to whichever Dean is in charge of you, I’m excusing you from classes today.”
“Oh thank the gods,” Lirelle groaned, finally sounding like a normal girl. “I don’t think I could add two numbers together and get the same answer twice right now.”
“Deliver your notes. Go to bed. Then to the river when it gets hot if you’re too warm to sleep. Then back to bed until dinner. You and I are having dinner together; I’ll come to the suite to fetch you.” Amily stated this in tones that would allow no argument, but it didn’t look as if Lirelle was inclined to give her one. She pocketed the two notes and slipped out the door while the Healer was still performing a complicated series of checks on Katlie.
“You are an extremely lucky girl, young lady,” the Healer said, finally, and sighed as Katlie cringed. “I am not going to berate you. I understand exactly why you felt as you did. But I am going to ask you to start believing in what real people, not anonymous bullies, are saying to you and about you. You owe the Healers, Herald Mags, Companions Dallen and Seraf, and your friend Lirelle that much. Understood?”
“Yes’m,” Katlie whispered.
“All right then. I, or someone else, will be back later with your breakfast. We expect you to eat it.” The Healer got up and left, but not without a significant glance at Amily.
Amily took the chair that Lirelle had vacated, and sat down in it. Great, I’m supposed to start . . . making her feel better. And I have no idea how to do that. I’m a Herald, not a Mind-Healer! “Let’s start with something simple,” she said, finally. “Where are you from?”
“You’d not know it,” Katlie whispered, shrinking into herself visibly.
Amily smiled, thinking of all those maps she had memorized. “Try me.”
Bit by bit, she pried Katlie’s story out of her. Her father and mother were smallholders, but their farm was in an area of poor soil, where every vegetable had to be coaxed to grow. She was the eldest of five living children—with the implication that several more children had died in infancy. She had been no good at farming, hopeless at spinning, knitting, sewing, or weaving, could not tell one plant from another, did not have enough beauty to make a good marriage without some sort of useful village talents, and until the village schoolmistress—who was a Priestess of Rimon—had discovered a gift for mathematics and mechanics in her, her parents had despaired, for they had no idea what they were going to do with her.
She had thought she might—do something at the Temple of Rimon. Learn some useful skill, something practical, like building, or repairing things. To her shock, she had been sent to Haven as a King’s Scholar, the first one anyone had ever heard of in all of the half dozen villages she was familiar with. Her parents were proud, but desperate. It was very clear to Amily as the girl spoke that they had filled her with the fear of failure even as they praised her and sent her on her way.
“. . . and every time I gots a letter, it felt like me brain was goin’ to pieces,” she said, clearly about to burst into tears again. “The letters’d say I’m goin’ ravin’ mad, an’ I thunk it was so. An’—I cain’t. I cain’t fail. I druther die! I—”
Amily seized both her hands, and gave them a little shake. “You are not going to fail!” she replied, trying to sound firm, but not scolding. “There is nothing wrong with your brain, and your teachers have all told me what a fine scholar you are.” That was a little bit of a fib; Amily hadn’t actually spoken to the girl’s teachers yet, but it was pretty obvious that this was a young creature that would keep throwing herself at a fence until she got over it, so she probably was doing well. “There is a vicious bully out there somewhere,” she continued, waving her free hand vaguely at the door. “We don’t know who he is, or where he is, but he gets great pleasure by hiding in shadows and tormenting people. He works at them until he finds their weak spot, and then he jabs and jabs and jabs at it until they bleed. He found yours, and that is what he did.”
She went on in that vein for quite some time, trying to convince the girl, and feeling as if she was beating her head against a wall. And then came a savior.
The door opened without anyone knocking, and there was one of the Sisters of Betane of the Ax standing there in her full armed and tabarded glory. “Forgive my interruptin’, Herald,” the young woman said, looking every inch the Holy Warrior. “But that’s exactly what this poisonous serpent does, all right.”
Amily glanced over at Katlie, who was staring at the Sister with nothing less than instant hero-worship in her eyes. The Sister smiled. “I’m Acolyte Asha, and I can see you recognize my tabard, don’t you?”
“You’re from th’ Temple of Betane!” Katlie breathed. “Yer what fought off them raiders whut tried t’ overrun us twa yearn agone!”
“So we are. Or at least, another of our Temple Sisterhoods is responsible for fighting for you.” Now the Sister—or rather Acolyte—lowered herself down to sit on the foot of Katlie’s bed. Gingerly, and with much creaking of leather armor. “And my Prioress sent me here to talk to you the instant she heard about what sad straits you are in.”
“Me? Why?” Katlie’s eyes had gone very round indeed. And Amily was just as interested to hear the reason this warrior had turned up as Katlie was. . . .
“Several reasons. First—” Asha held up one finger. “—you’ve been made a victim of the same serpent that tried to desecrate our Temple here in Haven, and for that reason, the Prioress has taken an interest in you. Second, we’re sibling-sects with the Temples of Rimon, and your Priestess would want us to look out for you. And third, we want to take you under our wing for a bit, where that sick . . .” Asha struggled with her words, then got her anger under control. “. . . sick, cowardly bully will not dare come at you again. And there’s a fourth.” Now she eyed Katlie with a raised brow. “Young lady, you’ve been half-starved on little but bread and porridge most of your life, your health was poor because of it to begin with, and now you spend entirely too much time indoors bent over books.”
Katlie blinked. “But—”
“Ah-ah! But me no buts,” Asha interrupted. “You will ruin that fine mind if you don’t also make your body strong. So you’re coming with me as soon as the Healers give you leave. The books will still be here when you get back to them. We’ll put pink in those cheeks, and lean muscles in those arms and legs, and you can come back in the fall fit to tackle your studies instead of feeling half-sick and always tired. Because you do, don’t you?”
Katlie’s mouth had fallen open at that. “Yes—but—how did you—”
“Pish, it’s written in the rings under your eyes, your ashy skin, and the trembling of your fingers,” Asha said, as if it were of no matter at all. “And don’t you worry about your parents. You’re still a King’s Scholar. You’ll just be getting a different set of lessons for a while. If they send you messages, you’ll get them. If they ask after you, the Heralds will tell them you’re making them proud.” Asha stood up. “Understood?”
“Yes’m,” Katlie said obediently. But there was relief there. Perhaps the relief that someone else was going to take charge of her, and tell her what to do for a while? Perhaps we assume too much of the Blues; assume they are as self-reliant as adults. I’d better talk to the Deans about this.
“Now, are you safe for the Herald and me to leave by yourself? Eat a good breakfast? Not do yourself any more mischief?” Asha demanded. “Promise me you’ll do as the Healer tells you, and wait for me to come fetch you.”
Katlie nodded. “Promise, on Rimon’s Tree,” she said, her pinched, round face looking very earnest.
Asha ruffled her dark hair. “Good enough for me. I’m thinking the Healers will let you go tomorrow. I’ll make all the arrangements and I’ll see you in the morning.” Now Asha looked at Amily. “Care to come with me, King’s Own?”
“Certainly,” Amily replied, so relieved to be rid of this problem for which she had no solution, she’d have swum the river uphill if Asha had asked her to. The Acolyte went out the door first, and held it for Amily.
Asha looked back at Katlie just before she closed it. “You remember that promise now,” she said with a smile.
“Yes’m,” Katlie said obediently.
The door closed, and Asha motioned for Amily to remain quiet as they started back down the hall. Once they were well out of Katlie’s hearing, even if she’d had the ears of an owl, Asha winked. “Herald Mags sent me,” she said, “Or rather, it went a little like this. Mags headed for our Priory, and meanwhile Rolan was lurking outside Katlie’s window and telling him everything that was going on in there with you and the other young wench. So by the time he and Dallen got down to our place, he knew all about the girl; he and the Prioress palavered, I got sent for, and he told me what I was to do on the way up.”
:I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner,: Rolan said contritely. :But I was rather busy being an accurate relay.:
For a moment, Amily was angry. They could have said something—couldn’t they?
But maybe not. When she used her particular form of Mindspeech, she had to lie flat in a bed or supported in a chair and not do anything. Mags had been riding furiously down into Haven—he had to have been to have gotten down there and back so quickly—and maybe he just couldn’t juggle listening to Rolan and riding like that and filling her in at the same time.
I’m tired, I’m already hot and it’s just past breakfast, I’m hungry again, and I’m frustrated and I really need to watch my temper.
“How much of what you told her was true?” Amily asked instead, holding the door at the end of the hall open for her. It was one of the ones that came out into the herb garden.
“Thankee. Most of it. The only shading of truth is that Herald Mags came directly to us and asked for help, rather than the Prioress volunteering it.” They both went out into the sun-drenched garden, and Amily sighed at the heat. “You’ll have to ask him yourself why he immediately thought of us, but I’m glad he did.” She pointed. “There he is now, waiting to take me back down.”
Amily caught sight of him, still on Dallen, waiting in the shade. “I have an idea. I’m starving. I know he’s starving. I bet you’re starving. Let’s beg some breakfast and take it somewhere cool to eat.”
“I do like the way you Heralds think,” Asha responded, as Rolan ambled up to join them.
• • •
Cold fruit juice, a basket of fruit, cheese, fresh bread, and butter made a more than adequate second breakfast. They took it to the grotto that Amily, Mags, Lena, and Bear used to share back when they were all Trainees. It was not just cooler than the air in the garden, it was actually comfortably cool there, and at this time of the morning there was no one using it. They spread their bounty out on the moss, and set to.
“How did you manage to think—” Amily began, looking at Mags.
“I didn’t. Dallen did. He said what that girl needs is a spine, and mebbe there’s one for her at the Temple of Betane. And I didn’ even have t’think twice ’bout it.” Mags shoved half a slice of buttered bread into his mouth. “For once the damn horse volunteered somethin’ useful.”
From outside the grotto there came an indignant snort.
“It’s a good plan,” Asha agrees. “We’ll put her with our Novices, but keep the exercises simple and easy until she builds up some strength. And—believe it or not, we may be a martial order, but we don’t neglect the mind. What is it she’s here for?”
“Math. Artificing. That’s as much as I know,” said Amily. “I gather she’s something fairly special along those lines.”
Asha ate a plum, neatly, with a care for the juice. “Hrrm. Not something we meddle in, usually, but I’ll talk to the Prioress about it. We’ll find something.” Then she got a sudden look of inspiration on her face. “Oh, wait, I know! Maps. Maps and navigation. Mapping requires all manner of calculations, and doing dead reckoning by sun and stars is an art form.” Her face cleared. “That’ll keep her busy enough until we can send her back up here again. And who knows, it may come in useful for her at some point.”
Amily pinched the bridge of her nose, trying to stave off a headache. “I wish it was as easy to figure out who this vile letter-writing creature is. I’m not sure it will be safe to bring her back here until we have.”
“I wouldn’t worry about that,” Asha replied with a dry laugh. “When we’re done installing that spine, if she gets another letter, she’ll either laugh it off or use it for target practice.”
• • •
By noon, it was almost unbearably hot, and to cap it all off, there was a storm threatening. People were snapping at each other; the only reason fistfights didn’t break out a time or two was probably because it was too hot to fight.
Those who had no reason to fight with each other were indulging in gossip that was actually malicious, and a lot of it centered around the water-rescue. Even those who knew nothing much about last night’s near-tragedy knew that something in the way of an accident had happened last night, and they were perfectly happy to make up whatever gained them a lot of attention. Rumors were flying all over the Hill; even being told that it was nothing more salacious than a Blue student falling into the river didn’t stop people from concocting the most ridiculous stories.
Or rather, they were stories that in other circumstances would have been taken as ridiculous, but with people sniping at each other, they became one more weapon in the ongoing gossip-battles.
Stories that one unspecified young lady, outraged over the fact that her betrothed was paying too much attention to another unspecified young lady (but everyone knew Helane was the one meant) had gotten into a hair-pulling fight on the riverbank, and one or the other had gone in and had to be rescued. Or stories that an older lady, having grown tired of her husband’s philandering ways, had confronted him and been pushed in.
These, of course, were piled on top of stories that had nothing whatsoever to do with what happened last night, just the usual vicious gossip that seemed to be echoing the Poison Pen. It was as if the horrible things in those letters had taken on a life of their own and were infecting everyone at Court.
Helane put on her prettiest gown and showed herself all over the Palace and grounds to shame those who were saying she was the one in the House of Healing, and to put the lie to the story she had been in an undignified fight. Mags thought all the better of her for that.
> Still, by suppertime, everyone was on edge, and Mags had to reinforce his shields just to keep all the anger-edged thoughts from scratching their way in to him. He was probably much too silent during dinner, and he could tell that Amily thought he was being quiet because of something she’d done—or hadn’t done—and she wanted to snap at him for it and he wanted to snap at her that he was just hot and tired and sick and tired of this Poison Pen business. But with every passing moment, it was getting harder and harder to keep from lashing out at something or someone, and she was the nearest. He had to keep batting down angry thoughts. They both managed to stop themselves from having an outright fight right there in the Dining Hall, and walked back to their quarters in complete silence.
Mags was seething. At Amily, and at himself. He should have been able to figure out more by now! But in order to do that, he’d have to use Mindspeech in a way he didn’t feel was right.
Worse than that, if people found out about what he’d done, they’d never trust a Herald with Mindspeech ever again.
As for Amily, he was pretty sure Amily was wondering why he hadn’t done anything by now, and blamed him for the fact this had gone on so long that poor Katlie had almost killed herself. And that was totally unfair. She should know better, since her father was King’s Own and the King’s spy! I’ll bet he never went poking around in random peoples’ heads because he could!
He could just feel the irrational anger building up in him, like it had back when he was still a Trainee and Amily wasn’t able to walk and he still hadn’t known where the Sleepgivers were coming from or why they wanted him or even their name. It felt as if he had hot coals lodged in his gut. If it hadn’t been threatening to storm, he might have been able to throw himself into the river to swim, or race Dallen around the Kirball field, but it was, and that would be stupid and he just . . . wanted . . . something . . . to hit . . .
He was all wrapped up in his thoughts when, half way back to their rooms, the storm didn’t just break overhead, it shattered.
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