Now they were in a very familiar little room with several narrow windows on each of the four sides. The windows had been arrow slits, originally, though now the entire structure acted as a windcatcher, cooling the rooms of the Palace below it during the worst of the summer months. That was why the floor of this room was an iron grate instead of a solid floor, and their hair blew almost straight up to a comical effect. But that effect was exactly what they both needed right now, given that they were both sweating like a couple of racehorses. Heavily shielded lanterns going all the way down to the ground floor gave more than adequate light to see by—safety was paramount, given that Guards used the ladders in here three times a day to get to their post on the top of the tower. Can’t have our Guards breaking their necks on a regular basis. They’re hard to replace.
They plopped down on the grate at almost the same time and just enjoyed feeling cool—and then, actually cold—for the first time that day, although earlier in the day the uprush of air had felt merely pleasantly cooling. He and Kee had been up here after weapons practice to take advantage of the artificially created wind.
That had been just a bit naughty. Technically you weren’t supposed to be up here to cool off; in fact, most people in the Palace didn’t even know about this room, assuming it was some sort of Guardroom, so they didn’t know the potential for cooling you off on a hot day. Tory was always of the opinion that it was better to apologize than to ask permission, so on blistering days like today, he and his sibs and the Royals could often be found up here when they were done with weapons practice or the heat was unbearable.
In winter, of course, the last thing you wanted was anything stealing the heat out of the building, so in winter the slits were sealed with tight-fitting wooden plugs and wax seals, not to be opened again until late in the spring. Even then, given the howling winds outside and the fact that the tower was cold stone, the inside of the tower was anything but pleasant in the winter, and the guards that used the ladder to get to their post had to beware of ice on the rungs. Not a place to linger.
When Tory finally felt up to anything besides breathing, he nudged Kee’s knee with a toe. “Shall we do our nightly nursemaiding now?” he asked.
“I’m up to it,” Kee agreed. And as one, the two of them closed their eyes and fell into a unique rapport with each other.
Unique, because although neither of them was Chosen, they had a rather major Gift. Unique, because that Gift was shared and didn’t operate unless the two of them were together. Together, they could “look in” on any member of the extended families of either of them, as if they were Farseeing, no matter how distant that member was. And since those members were indeed scattered across the landscape of Valdemar, it was a very useful and comforting Gift indeed.
Well, “Gifts.” So far as the Heralds had been able to tell, Tory was the actual Farseer, or at least the stronger and most reliable of the two. Kee was able to boost his range to . . . well, certainly anything within the borders of Valdemar. And together they could both See what Tory could reach. That was useful, because that meant there were two sets of eyes on whatever Tory was looking at and two minds analyzing the scene.
They located and dismissed King’s Own Herald Amily, Tory’s mother, and Herald Mags, his father. Both were in attendance at a social gathering of the Court out in the Pleasure Gardens that neither of the two boys had any interest in at all. The Crown Prince, Trey, was with them, and he didn’t look bored only because he and his wife seemed to be having some private game going; they kept whispering to each other and occasionally smiling with a conspiratorial air.
They also located and dismissed Rafi and Sofi, Kee’s younger siblings, both of them in the Royal Suite, sharing a table with a tutor, their heads bent over lessons. Perry was next—in a tavern, somewhere down in Haven, outwardly gaming, actually intent on overhearing the conversation of a couple of men two tables over. They paused there for a moment, but it didn’t look to Tory as though Perry was in any danger at all of being found out. And anyway, his kyree was “sleeping” in the shadows just outside the tavern, pretending to be a wolfhound. Anything that monster couldn’t battle his way past to get to Perry’s side was—well, it wasn’t something that would be found in a tavern in Haven. And the ruckus would bring the local constables or the Guard long before an expert dirty fighter like Perry got into any difficulties.
Next, they checked on Niko, who was on a mission from the King to Duke Farleigh’s Court. Also nothing to be concerned about; the Duke was a fervent loyalist, and Niko appeared to be having a fine time at a late dinner with the Duke and Duchess. Niko would, without a doubt, return not only triumphant but with some pretty thing for the young lady he was slowly courting. Neither Niko nor his lady seemed to be in any hurry to wed, even though it was clear to everyone Niko had met his match in her. She wasn’t a Herald, but that scarcely mattered; she obviously understood the bond between Herald and Companion and wasn’t in the least jealous of it. That was a rarity in anyone who wasn’t themselves a Herald.
Kat, as Tory would have predicted, was eyes deep in some wrangling. Kat was the King’s “problem solver.” Whenever there was something going on that distant negotiation couldn’t resolve, Herald-Princess Kat went there in person and applied whatever was most effective—reason, persuasion, negotiation, or browbeating. She usually didn’t have to resort to the last, and from everything Tory saw, she wasn’t doing any browbeating tonight. No, this was more like some spirited bargaining with what looked like a Lord Mayor and several Guild Heads.
And last of all, they searched for and found Abi, Tory’s sister, the Master Artificer. Of all the members of their joint families, she was the only one who looked worried. She bent over a table scattered with sketches of walls and towers and tables of figures, weighted down with many samples of small slabs of stone that were broken in half. By that, Tory surmised that the construction of the walls and guard towers to replace the wooden palisades around the distant northern town of Westmark was not going well. Abi would probably be there a while. They could probably expect a message from her in the next fortnight, complaining about the lamentable weakness of local materials.
Tory heard Kee chuckling and looked up to see his friend grinning. At that point, of course, their concentration was broken, but they’d completed the nightly familial survey, and all appeared to be well.
“Poor Abi!” Kee said. “What’s she going to do?”
“Think of something,” Tory replied. “Like she always does. Oh, and probably yell at stonecutters for passing off inferior merchandise as adequate to the job.” He thought for a while. “If it’s the worst case, she’ll just build a double wall with rammed earth between the walls. It’s a lot more labor, but she’s not going to build anything inferior. She’ll build them a proper defensive wall even if she has to drag everyone in town up onto the walls to ram the earth herself.”
“If she has to do that, won’t she be there until maybe next spring?” Kee asked.
Tory just shrugged. “I don’t know. She’ll probably tell us in the letter she will, without a doubt, be sending us to vent her ire.”
Kee laughed, his eyes sparkling with mirth. “Let’s get downstairs. We’ve done our duty for the night. I’d like some wine.”
“So would I after that run,” Tory agreed.
With their hair still flying around their faces, they took the metal ladder down the inside of the tower until they reached the door at the base, standing open, with a Guard to make sure no one went up there who shouldn’t, although that had never stopped Tory and the Royals. Adventurous pages and squires were the ones to be deterred mostly. Tory was pretty sure most of the highborn, even if they had known what purpose the tower served, wouldn’t be caught dead climbing a ladder up so many stories and chance ruining their expensive clothing. I have to wonder, though, how many fellows have tricked girls down this corridor to open the door and watch their skirts fly up?
>
They made their way to the suite of rooms still used by Mags and Amily, though two thirds of their children were living elsewhere. They both knew that if they went to the Royal Suite, the two youngest children would see their presence as an excuse to stop studying and would try to tease them into a game of cards or double-draughts, and trying to wrangle those two back into studying would be futile. Then they’d get a tongue lashing later when the tutor complained about their effect on discipline.
Besides, this was better. The two of them would have the King’s Own’s suite all to themselves.
When they entered, it was dim, with only two candles illuminating it. That suited Tory just fine. It had been a long day of physical training, capped by his run against Kee. This is a good life, he thought to himself with great content. Mind, I don’t mind change, as long as it’s for the better, but this is a damn good life. Half of the room was taken up by the big table that served not only for meals taken away from Court and Collegium, but also for games, planning sessions, and even the occasional architectural planning session when Abi was here. The other half was a jumble of rugs, cushions, padded chairs, and settles.
As Tory had hoped, there was a bottle of wine chilling in the porous pottery cooler on the mantelpiece at the “jumble” end; he appropriated it and put in another. By the time his parents got away from all their Court nonsense, the new one would be cool. Kee got a couple of cups from beside it, and Tory popped the cork and poured for both of them.
They sprawled out on the floor in the main room, with cushions behind their backs and rugs under them. They left the door open for more breeze. “What are we going to do with the rest of the summer?” Kee asked, sipping his wine in the dim light.
“Same thing that we do every summer, Kee. Train. Run the usual watch for agents and troublemakers at Midsummer Fair. Train some more. Do anything that my father or yours asks us to. Hope for something exciting to happen.” He waggled his eyebrows roguishly, although the effect was probably lost in the dark. “Flirt with the ladies.”
“The ladies think you and I are shaych,” Kee said sourly.
Tory snickered. He knew that, of course. It had probably been inevitable, given how close the two of them were. He chose to find it funny. “That rumor has whiskers a league long. Besides, that makes it all the better. They think we are safe to flirt with. We can get away with anything.”
“Only when there ain’t Companions ’round t’tell on ye,” said his father Mags, just coming in the door. Amily was right behind him. “What’re you two sittin’ around i’ the dark like conspirators for?”
“Conspiring,” Kee replied promptly. “Where Companions can’t hear us. Good evening Heralds. You will be pleased to hear that all is quiet on all fronts.”
“Except Abi’s tearing her hair out about something involving her walls,” Tory added.
“I’m sure we’ll be hearing about it in a fifteen-page letter soon, then,” Amily replied, as she and Mags divested themselves of all their hidden weapons. Which was . . . quite a lot. Almost as many as Tory carried. The various knives and instruments of mayhem made soft thuds as they laid them out on the table. “Did you drink all the cooled wine?”
“We put a new bottle in the cooler,” Tory replied. “I knew you’d skin us both if we didn’t.”
Amily went around the room lighting a few more candles as Mags opened the second bottle of wine and sniffed it. “Rosehip summerwine. Good choice. I f’rgive ye for drinkin’ the first one.”
Amily ended her rounds by slipping into the bedroom and emerging in loose white trews and a shirt, barefoot. “What were you two doing, lurking up here anyway?”
“Escaping being made the babies’ excuse for not studying.” Tory took an appreciative gulp of his own wine as his mother settled on her favorite chair by the cold fireplace. The fireplace served very nicely as a windcatcher itself during hot weather, and the good breeze stirring everyone’s clothing proved that. “Other than that, taking our well-earned rest after our nightly wall-run.”
Mags returned from the bedroom wearing roughly the same as Amily. “Ye know the hazard they never warn ye ’bout as a Herald playin’ Royal bodyguard?” he asked, settling down next to Amily with a cup of his own. “Half-drunk nobles stumblin’ ’bout sloshin’ overfilled wine cups.”
Amily giggled. “I really thought Lord Bannin was going to tip a whole cup over you at least three times, the sot.”
“Well, ’e don’ care. Niver seen ’im less’n half soused. An’ wi’ ’im wearin’ half th’ clothes in ’is wardrobe, if ’e spills on hisself, ’e just needs t’ peel off the top layer an’ toss it t’ a page t’be set t’ rights agin,” Mags replied, with a smirk.
“Maybe that’s why he dresses that way,” Kee offered.
“Maybe it’s because he’s always afraid the King will get tired of his nonsense and toss him out, and wearing half his clothing will save time in packing,” Tory snickered. Lord Bannin was not a favorite among the Heralds; his utter selfishness combined with an appalling attitude toward anyone who didn’t look, think, and act exactly like him and his inner circle made the most xenophobic Holderkin look like a welcoming innkeeper. He fancied himself an intellectual, but his ideas, so Tory had been told by several acerbic scholars, were like summer thunderstorms—all flash and noise and nothing productive.
And he treated Heralds as if they were something he’d just scraped off his boot, probably because even the densest of them could see through him to what he really was.
“It’s not fair to make fun of Lord Bannin,” Kee deadpanned. “He can’t help it. He’s suffering from a terrible condition. His face looks so much like his ass that his bowels don’t know which way to push.”
Amily nearly spilled her wine all over herself, she started laughing so hard. And Mags almost choked.
“All right,” she said finally, “On that note, I am off to bed. If I drink any more, I’ll be tipsy, and that never ends well in the morning.” Suiting her actions to her words, she did just that, after making sure all the windows on the outer wall of the suite were flung wide open, regardless of the moths that came flitting in, attracted by the candles. At least the fireplaces at both ends of the suite gave the bats that followed a good, safe way to exit.
After a long interval of silence, enlivened only by the antics of the bats chasing the moths, Mags cleared his throat gently.
“So, did we innerupt anythin’?” he asked.
“Nothing of any importance,” Kee admitted, pouring the last of their wine into his cup, collecting Mags’ bottle, and placing both in the basket by the door for empties. “We were just wondering what we’d do this summer.”
Mags nodded, with an expression of sympathy on his face. But he didn’t say anything, which was actually a lot better than if he’d made some remark. Instead, he let things sit for a moment, then his expression changed to one of deep thought.
“I got a notion,” he said, finally. “But if you two don’ like it, we won’t pursue it no futher.”
Well, Tory had to admit that sounded promising.
“What’s the notion?” asked Kee, perking up with interest and combing his hair back over his forehead with one hand.
“Likely yer father wouldn’ much care fer it,” Mags said to the Prince. But the sly look Mags got only made both of them want to hear it even more.
“What the King doesn’t know isn’t going to hurt him in this case,” Kee pointed out. “If we can’t trust you, we can’t trust anyone.”
“I got me a head full’o assassin-stuff put there by th’ Sleepgivers,” Mags said. Tory nodded; he certainly knew the story, and so did Kee—how Mags was the lost son of the heir to the leadership of a very large clan or very small nation of professional assassins known as the Sleepgivers. How in the course of doing work in Valdemar on behalf of the Karsites, they had discovered their missing heir. How subsequently they
had attempted to kidnap him and convert him to their ways by magically overlaying his mind with the minds and personalities of dozens of Sleepgivers past. . . .
How thanks to his Companion, Dallen, that hadn’t worked. At all.
But this was the first time that Tory had heard that some of those memories and skills had stuck. If that was what his father was implying—
“Lots’o assassinn-tricks. Not partic’ly useful on account of I don’t act’lly need to kill anyone that often, but . . . inneresting. Some I passed on t’ Perry, but not most uv it. Seems a shame to waste it though. Reckon you two’d like to learn some uv it?”
Kee licked his lips with anticipation. “You’re right. Father’d be appalled. I love it.”
Tory nodded. “Me too. Thing is, I bet we can make a lot of that stuff less than lethal if we want. Even things like poisons, because surely you’ve got the antidotes in your memory?”
“Fer th’ most part, aye,” Mags agreed. “But a lot uv it’s gonna mean some real serious new trainin’ on yer parts. I got the direct mem’ry of how t’do the tricks straight from th’ source, muscle-memory an’ all. I kin do most uv it jest by thinkin’ ’bout it. Ye’re gonna haveta learn ’em the hard way.”
“Like what kind of tricks?” Kee wanted to know.
Instead of answering directly, Mags put down his cup, got up, and went over to a corner of the room, studying the crown molding around the intersection of wall and ceiling. And before Tory could ask what he was doing, suddenly his father was no longer standing in the corner, he was right up in the corner, back to the ceiling, somehow braced up there. Looking down at them with just a bit of a smirk.
Then he dropped straight down with a muffled thud—much quieter than Tory would have thought possible—landing in a crouch with knees flexed.
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