Passages

by Passages (epub)

  Now he closed his mouth and shook his head. “It’s orders. You have to go.”

  Her heart sank. She asked Hannra. :Do you know what they want?:

  :I’m sure it’s something good, Chosen,: Hannra replied. :They must need you. And maybe we can rest a bit.:

  :There’s no time for resting!:

  :Isn’t there?:

  Marjom frowned. :What’s changed? Last week you suggested I start planning for the summer, even though it’s barely spring. You mentioned we needed to get some lighter Whites. Besides, you dislike Haven as much as I do!:

  Whenever they’d been called back for any reason, both she and Hannra looked forward to getting back here, where smallholders struggled against nature and looked out for each other against common enemies like wild animals, raiders from Hardorn, and the weather. Simple enemies. Better that than the politics of Haven any day.

  :It will be fine. I’m sure of it.: Hannra was holding something back. Which meant Marjom wasn’t going to like it.

  She dipped back into her stew, trying to look calm, and then asked Kenso, “Is everything in Haven all right?”

  “Yes. As far as all right goes when you’re expecting a Border war any day. You’ll find it a little chaotic. But they were clear that I was to send you back. Five days!”

  He’d already told her that. She glanced at Graylan, and it was easy to see she’d have no help there. He’d been fine to ride Circuit with, but she’d often felt he’d prefer someone he could talk to more easily. Someone younger.

  If she started out at first light, she could get back in four days. She didn’t want to leave, and if she had to leave, there were better places to go than Haven. But Heralds served Valdemar, not themselves. Still, the stew had turned to sand in her mouth. She choked it down with the bad wine, then pushed herself up, her feet throbbing again. “I’ll go pack.” She glanced at Graylan. “Is there anything you want me to leave you?”

  Kenso spoke. “You’re to travel light. So just leave anything I’ll need.”

  She took a deep breath to force calm. “Anything else you forgot to tell me?”

  His eyes widened, and again she felt sure he was hiding something. Not that she could do anything about it. She could Mindspeak with Hannra, but not with other Heralds. So she nodded stiffly at him, also bobbing her head toward Graylan. “Very well, gentlemen. I’m tired.” She turned toward the stairs to hide the unexpected tear streaking down her cheek. No matter how badly she wanted to run up the stairs and shut the door behind her, age forced a sedate pace. She kept her head up and tried like hell to keep her shoulders back, too.

  There was no reason for her to be upset. Except the memory of that sympathetic look on Kenso’s face burned like a slap.

  * * *

  * * *

  Haven practically glittered as Marjom and Hannra neared it. Houses and shops spilled outward from tall walls. Travelers jostled her as a steady stream of people headed into the city. The golden light of a late spring afternoon filtered through the bright yellow-green of new leaves and the pinks of early tree-blossoms.

  Each day, the journey had been slightly easier, the roads wider and safer, and the houses and fields they passed in better condition. Well, Haven was richer than the Border and could afford to put on a nice show and fill its gardens with bulbs. But it still bothered her. Queen Selenay poured resources into the Border’s defense, but nothing Valdemar had been able to do made the Border feel so safe as this.

  Still, Haven was even more full of chaos than usual. Students in Grays bustled here and there, and Healers walked quickly, sometimes burdened with herbs. What had Kenso said? The rumored Border war was coming soon? The last two weeks where she had been were, if anything, slightly quieter than most.

  No one seemed to be waiting for her as she rode into the stables. That meant no one saw her wince as she slid down. She stripped her own tack and turned Hannra loose to find her dinner without anyone to see how her hands shook as she undid the girth. But now what was she to do?

  She sighed in relief when a young girl came around the corner of the barn, saw her, and helped her rack and store her tack. “Thank you,” Marjom told her, smiling.

  “My pleasure. You came from the Border?” The girl was blonde, with merry brown eyes and a round face over a sturdy frame. She looked too young to be Chosen, but she wouldn’t be wearing Grays without a Companion. “What’s it like there? I heard it’s terribly hard.” She picked up Marjom’s saddlebags and slung them over her shoulder as if they were feathers. “I’m Candry. We were told to watch for . . . returning Heralds, but tomorrow.”

  “My name’s Marjom.”

  “Hi, Marjom.” Candry’s smile spread across her face like light. “I’ll take you to your quarters and bring you dinner.”

  “No need. I don’t have regular quarters in Haven. I’ll just take one of the rooms for Circuit Heralds.”

  “Oh, no, ma’am. I know where to take you.”

  Ma’am? And how did the girl know where she was supposed to go? Marjom frowned but followed as the girl headed through the wide barn doors.

  Candry stopped and let Marjom catch up. “When did you get your Whites?”

  What a thing to be asked! Marjom had to do the math twice before she believed the answer. “Forty-six years ago.” She stepped carefully around a stray dog. “I was twenty-two. I wasn’t chosen until I was eighteen.”

  Candry smiled. “I was fourteen. There’s one boy here who was chosen at twelve.”

  So young. Was that due to the coming war? “How old are you now?”

  Candry led Marjom down a street lined with newly planted purple snapping dragon flowers. “Seventeen. I’m to ride my first Circuit soon.”

  Marjom wrinkled her nose at the strong smell of fresh compost rising from the planting beds. “That’s exciting.” She remembered how she’d felt the same year. Apprehensive. Certain that she’d fail. “Are you worried?”

  “No.” Candry turned her head toward Marjom. “I think it will be grand. I was born in a small town. Shedsville. Perhaps you’ve heard of it?”

  “I’ve been through there. It’s nice.” It was, and small was a good description. There was a single inn with six beds, but enough tables to feed fifteen families. Maybe no more than about thirty families total in the farms around it. Shedsville was far enough away from the Border that it felt safe, if poor. “I liked it.”

  “Good.” Candry stopped, waiting for Marjom to catch up again. “It’s not much farther.”

  Marjom gave in and asked, “Where are we going?”

  “The new wing. Just around the corner.”

  Marjom stopped. She hadn’t known they were building a new wing. “I haven’t been here for years.”

  Candry stopped again, the saddlebags swinging easily over her strong shoulders. “Would you like a hand?”

  As in, Could she walk faster if someone held her hand? “I’m fine.” Marjom straightened and managed to make her stride a little longer.

  They rounded a corner, and their likely destination loomed in front of them. Even though the last of the day’s light softened the edges, the housing looked fresh and new, just whitewashed, and somewhat hastily assembled. Two stories tall, a little imposing, but pleasant. The planters near the big, welcoming doorway hadn’t yet been planted, although fresh dirt sat in piles beside them, also smelling of compost.

  Candry was already forging ahead and through the open door.

  Marjom recognized an older Herald, Chalena, who had once taught her how to fix saddlery. Chalena leaned against the doorframe. Her hair had thinned and whitened, and her hands bore the distinctive dark spots and bruising of very old age. She had seemed old when she was teaching Marjom how to use a hammer and a spike to open holes in leather on a bridle or saddle that needed to be field-fit. So she was, what—twenty years older than Marjom? At least. Chalena’s cheeks looked
like they were trying to hide from her eyes, and her lips looked smaller and thinner than Marjom remembered. In spite of her body’s obvious betrayal, her eyes had the same warm and slightly worried look, and her voice still spit steel. “Welcome home.”

  “Home?”

  “Yes. We’re almost roommates. You’ve been assigned a room just down the hall from me.”

  Marjom’s reaction was unbidden and immediate. “I’ll be leaving again in a few days.”

  A look of pained sympathy crossed Chalena’s face and then disappeared. Kind of like the look Kenso had given her.

  Marjom’s voice trailed off as she continued, “Back to the Border. I’ve . . .”

  “Let me make tea.”

  “I don’t want tea.”

  Chalena shrugged. “We have stronger medicines. But wine is no good for your bad feet.”

  “Who told you about my feet? I’ll take the wine.”

  Chalena smiled. “The kitchen is this way. We just opened a week ago. We’re calling the place Heritage Hall. Do you like it?”

  “I . . . I can’t possibly . . .” The pale blue walls of the entry transitioned to a soft yellow, and toward the ovens and fire, a beautiful orange. Tapestries on the far wall by the head and foot of a long dining table softened the look further. A window ran the length of the table, displaying what would clearly become a garden, although now it was mostly mounded soils and empty raised beds. Red clay pots underneath the window held young oregano, marjoram, and other herbs healers carried with them. A prettier place by far than the tents and poor inns she’d been frequenting for the last twenty years. Prettier than the usual Circuit rider’s housing in Haven. “It is beautiful. Maybe I will want to be here one day. But I’m needed at the Border.”

  Chalena hesitated briefly. “You need to sleep. You’ve had a long day. Can I pour you that wine now?”

  Maybe she should have asked for tea. “Yes, wine would be great.”

  The wine was far better than the fare they got at taverns and inns. Just like everything else about Haven. Softer and nicer, and a reminder of the differences in wealth between Valdemar’s capital and the Border towns. She grimaced, but she drank it. Wasting wine because it was too good made zero sense. “So, who called me here?”

  “Selenay.”

  “Surely not.” Marjom would have known that. A command from Selenay would have come with her seal, and besides, Marjom had never met the queen. She’d seen her riding inspection on troops and speaking at a multitude of events, but Selenay wouldn’t know Marjom from an ant.

  “There are two more Heralds coming in tomorrow. You arrived a day earlier than we expected.”

  Marjom laughed as the wine began stealing her unease. “Border Heralds don’t have time for grass to grow under their Companion’s hooves. We move all the time, sleep little, almost never in the same place. I can’t imagine sleeping in the same bed for a week!” She took another sip of wine. “We’re expected to be everywhere at once.”

  “You’ll like it here,” Chalena said in a tone Marjom remembered from when the older Herald needed her to finish her homework years ago. Part promise, part threat. “Your room is the last one on the right.” It sounded like a dismissal, but Marjom sat still, unmoving, staring ahead.

  Chalena got up without another word and hobbled slowly down the hallway.

  It was a retirement home. She could smell it, see it. Only in Haven. No place like this existed in Border towns. The old died plowing fields or failing to outrun bandits. And they lived—lived—until the moment they died. Heralds did not retire. Not field Heralds. Not often. She looked around. This was not where she wanted to die. Maybe, maybe, she would die faster in the field. Being slow could hurt her there. But here? She’d have years of doing what? Gardening?

  Marjom stared at the window and the potted herbs and the sunny paint until she couldn’t keep her eyes open, and when she stood up, her feet screamed at her.

  She ignored them and walked as quickly as she could to find her room.

  * * *

  * * *

  The next morning, she slept late. The bustle of the city drew her outside to walk the streets. Haven still smelled of flowers and compost, but also of leather and fear. A page bumped into her with his arms full of boiled leather armor, and not five minutes later she dodged a stable boy carrying simple tack, the type she used at the Border rather than the flouncy stuff the rich merchants used. The attempts to get decorative spring planting done were halfhearted, as if Haven didn’t quite have the heart to acknowledge the season.

  An exhausted messenger galloped past her on a tired horse that could barely keep its head up. A group of armed men and women gathered by a gate, looking ready to head out to fight. Even though it was too early in the year for the day to be truly hot, it was bright and tiring. She found a bench in a small park and reached out to Hannra. :Are you well?:

  :Worried. There have been serious attacks against the Border in the last few days. Closer to Haven than we were, too. So it’s good to be here.:

  Marjom recalled the messenger. :We’ll leave soon.:

  Hannra didn’t answer.

  Marjom waited awhile, and then said, :I don’t intend to stay here and wait out the war. We are still useful.:

  :Of course we are.:

  If she hadn’t promised to be back for lunch, she’d go find Hannra in Companion’s Field and demand a more in-depth conversation. But she had, and Hannra had enough of a stubborn streak that it took work to pry secrets from her.

  Another messenger passed her, this one going the opposite way. Carrying a reply back to the Border, and thus to the front of the war with Ancar?

  Her stomach complained that she had been ignoring it, so she headed back. The Heritage Hall kitchen looked almost full. Three more Heralds milled about, waiting, while Candry and a male student who looked a few years younger carried plates of soft breads and bowls of dried bean and apple soup to the long table. Like her, the newcomers all had gray hair. Herald Jolsten, whom she had ridden two Circuits with, walked with a decided limp that was new to her. Herald Debda’s head hunched a little forward, and her hair had thinned considerably, but she was otherwise just as pretty as Marjom remembered her, with a tall, rangy form and a wide smile. She introduced herself to Herald Witman, a small, slight man who looked half the size of Debda but who had a strong handshake and brilliant blue eyes.

  To her surprise, Chalena didn’t invite them to sit, even though the table seemed to be set and the soup must be getting cold. Instead, she waited by the front door, fidgeting, watchful.

  Finally, the old Herald stepped back, and a small, redheaded woman with freckles spilling across her nose came in. Chelena looked like a cat who had just killed a bird as she turned. “I presume Herald Talia doesn’t need an introduction?”

  She didn’t. This was The Queen’s Own Herald, and seeing her was almost as surprising as seeing Selenay herself would have been.

  Talia smiled brightly, although she looked drawn and tired. But then, her job was to advise the Queen and keep her safe in the midst of one of the most dangerous times in Valdemar’s history. Of course she was tired.

  Talia sat at the head of the table, and Candry rushed to bring her water and a bowl of soup. Talia sipped the water and ignored the soup, gesturing for everyone else to sit. After the room was quiet, she cleared her throat. “I am very sorry that we didn’t tell you much. But Ancar has spies in many places. We were afraid that word would get out that we have called you home. That might have made you targets.”

  A bunch of old Heralds? Targets? That made no sense.

  Talia continued. “We are taking almost every Herald who is capable of fighting with us. That includes many of our teachers. We’re even taking some of the oldest students. Yet we cannot afford for the remaining students to sit untrained; Valdemar will have need of them as soon as they are ready.” Talia leaned forward,
catching the gaze of each of the people sitting around the table. “We need to supplement the teaching staff who are being left behind.”

  Marjom couldn’t help herself. “But I can fight. I was fighting five days ago.”

  Talia’s face softened. “And we thank you. We value all of the service each of you has offered Valdemar. Most of all, we value the tricks and ideas and experience you have learned in your long service. All of you have spent your life helping to keep Valdemar safe, and all of you have done it outside of Haven. That is of great value. We’ve called you back to create a corps of older Heralds who will work from here, collecting, writing down, passing on, and teaching what you alone know.”

  Marjom sat back in her chair. The words sounded good, but what they really said was she would never go back out to her beloved forests and smallfolk but would die here, inside the walls of Haven.

  She caught Talia’s eye, raising her hand a little, conscious that she was the only one questioning the Queen’s Own and that it probably wasn’t seemly. But she didn’t care. When Talia nodded, Marjom said, “What if we’d rather die at the Border? What if there are people out there who are counting on us?”

  Talia’s face stayed soft, but her words fell like stone. “Then you and they will both be thanked for your sacrifice. You are needed here.”

  Hannra wouldn’t take her out of Haven against orders from Talia. No way.

  Marjom was well and truly trapped. Heralds served where needed, and a real battle was coming. And now she had ended up on the sidelines.

  She’d have to find peace with this. But how?