Arrows of the Queen (12 page)

“Help yourself, that's what it's there for. Just remember not to wait too long before you take your bath, or all the hot water will be gone. I'll come by for you in the morning.”

Sherrill clattered down the stairs and Talia climbed cautiously upward.

 

Sherrill was grateful that dishwashing took so little time, and equally grateful that Mero let her off early when she told him that the Dean needed to speak with her. Elcarth would not have given her the signal he had—in fact, he would have said what he intended to openly, in front of the child—had he not felt that there were things he needed to discuss with Sherrill that he would rather Talia were not privy to.

As she had pretty much expected, Sherrill found him waiting for her in the cluttered little room attached to his suite that served him as an office of sorts. It was hardly bigger than a closet, and piled high with everything under the sun, but he would never move to anything more spacious, claiming the clutter would “breed” to fill the space if he did so.

“Any problems getting away?” he asked, removing a pile of books and papers from one of the chairs, a comfortable, padded relic as old as Elcarth.

“I had dishwashing—it made a convenient excuse. Right now Talia's probably having raptures over the Library,” Sherrill replied with a half-smile, taking her seat as Elcarth perched himself behind a desk heaped with yet more books and papers.

“Good; can I take it as given that you don't mind being her mentor? She needs one rather badly, and you're the only student with the kind of background that's close to her own.”

“Poor little thing—no, Dean, I don't mind at all. Although I don't think my background is all that close,” Sherrill frowned slightly, thinking about the little that Talia had allowed her to learn. “You know Evendim clans, we're all noise and push, and we're almost incestuously close. I got the feeling she's been sat on so much that now she's afraid of being punished for breathing—
and
I got the feeling nobody's ever bothered to give the poor thing a little love. She holds everything inside; it's hard to read her, and I don't recall much about Holderkin from class.”

“There you've hit it. The fact of the matter is that we just don't
know
that much about Holderfolk. They're very secretive; they keep almost totally to themselves and they don't encourage long visits or curiosity from strangers. Until we heard Talia's story, we didn't even know that they don't tell their children about Companion's Choice!”

“They
what?”
Sherrill was shocked.

“It's quite true; she hadn't the vaguest idea of what it meant when Rolan Chose her. I'm fairly certain she still isn't entirely aware of what his true nature is. This is what I need to talk to you about. You're going to be dealing with a child who seems to have had a very alien upbringing. I can make some educated guesses; she seems to be afraid of men, so I can assume she tends to expect punishment from them. That would fit in with what I do know about Holderfolk; their familial life is patriarchal and authoritarian. She seems to be constantly repressing her emotions, and again, that would fit in with what I know of her people. They frown on any sort of demonstrative behavior. At the same time, she always seems to be—almost at war with herself—”

“Holding herself back, sir?” Sherrill offered. “As if she wanted to make overtures, but didn't quite dare? She seems to be wary all the time, that much I can tell you. I doubt that she trusts anyone at this point, except maybe Rolan.”

“Exactly. The first moves are always going to have to be yours, and I think she'll continue to tend to keep her feelings very much to herself,” Elcarth replied. “It's going to be up to you to discover if there's anything bothering her because she'll never tell you on her own.”

“Gods,” Sherrill shook her head. “Just the opposite of my people. I don't know, sir; I'm more used to dealing with folk who shout their minds and hearts to the world. I'm not sure I'm good enough to read the signs of trouble, assuming she'll give me anything to read.”

“Do your best, that's all I ask. At least you both came from Border Sectors; that will be a bond.”

“Why are you turning her over to Alberich so early?” Sherrill asked curiously. “I realize why she'd best learn self-defense as soon as possible, but I should think, with the kinds of insecurities she seems to have, that he would be the
last
person you'd want to expose her to. I mean, Jeri would be a much less threatening figure to deal with.”

“I wish there were some other way, but she knows absolutely
nothing
about self-defense; I know that Jeri is very good, but she isn't the kind of experienced teacher Alberich is. He's the only one likely to be able to teach her with the speed that's necessary. If a mob of troublemakers should corner her—or, Bright Lady forbid it, someone should decide that a knife in the dark solves the problem of the new Queen's Own turning up....

He let the sentence trail into silence.

“And I can't be with her all the time. Well, I hope he gentles his usual routine with her, or she may drop dead of fright on the practice field and save an assassin the trouble.” Sherrill's tone was jocular, but her eyes held no amusement.

“I've already spoken with him, and he's not as unsympathetic as you might think. He was my year-mate, you know. I have reason to believe he'll be quite soft-handed with her.”

“Alberich, soft-handed? Really? Tell my bruises that some time, sir.”

“Better bruises now than a fatal wound later, no?” Elcarth grinned crookedly. “I could wish one of Talia's year-mates was another girl; I could wish we had someone more likely to understand what she won't let us see. You're the closest I could come. Well, that's all I have to tell you. It isn't much—”

“But it's a start. Take heart, Dean. Companions don't Choose badly, and look how long it took Rolan to find her. She'll manage. And I'll manage. Heralds always do.”

 

At the head of the staircase Talia opened a door that led into a single enormous room filled with bookshelves. There were cubicles containing desks and chairs at the ends of the rows of shelves along the walls. She had been expecting perhaps twice or three times the number of books in her Father's library—twenty—but nothing prepared her for this. There were hundreds of books here; more than she ever dreamed existed, all colors, and all sizes. It was more than a dream come true—it was a vision of heaven.

Dusk had fallen while they'd been eating, and lanterns had been lit at intervals along the walls. Talia peeked into the nearest cubicle and saw that there were candles on the desk, and a permanent holder affixed to one side of it.

She heard footsteps approaching from the farther end of the library, and she turned to see who it could be, hoping for someone she knew.

“Hello!” said a cheerful tenor. “You're new here, aren't you? I'm Kris.”

The young man who stepped into the circle of light cast by the lantern was in Whites and as incredibly beautiful as the Herald Talia had met outside the city had been homely. His features were so perfect they didn't seem to be real, every raven hair was neatly in place, and his sky-blue eyes would have been the envy of any Court beauty. Talia immediately felt as awkward and ungainly as a young calf—and more than a little afraid as well. Dealing with her older sib Justus had taught her that beauty could hide an evil nature. Only the fact that he was a Herald—and there simply
wasn't
any such thing as an evil Herald—kept her from bolting outright.

“Yes,” she replied softly, blushing a little and staring at her boot-tops. “I'm Talia.”

“Have you been up here before?”

She shook her head, beginning to relax a little.

“Well,” he said, “The rules are very simple. You can read anything you want, but you can't take the book out of the Library, and you have to put it back exactly where you found it when you're done. That's pretty easy, isn't it?”

Talia could tell by his patronizing tone of voice that he was feeling just slightly superior. Yet he seemed to be friendly enough, and there hadn't been anything in his manner to indicate that he was ill-tempered. The patronization annoyed her, and she decided it was safe to get a little of her own back.

“Y-yes,” she said softly. “As simple as stuffing a chicken.”

“Ouch!” he laughed, clapping one hand to his forehead. “Stung! Isn't there
anybody
that hasn't heard that story? I deserved that—I shouldn't have talked down to you. Well, enjoy yourself, Talia. You'll like it here, I hope.”

He turned with a parting grin and exited through the door she'd just used, and she heard his footsteps descending the staircase.

She wandered through the forest of bookcases, losing all track of time, too overwhelmed by the sheer numbers to even begin to make a choice. Gradually, however, she began to notice that the books were arranged by category, and within each category, by title. Once she'd made that identification, she began perusing the bookcases with more purpose, trying to identify what groups there were, and where they were, and marking the locations of particular books that sounded interesting. By the time she had it all clear in her mind, she found herself yawning.

She made her way to her own room, found one of her new bedgowns, and sought the bathing-room. Sensholding had possessed the relatively new indoor latrines, so those hadn't surprised her any when Sherrill had shown them to her. However, all hot water for bathing back at the Holding had needed to be carried in pots from the kitchen. Here at the Collegium there were several charcoal-fired copper vessels for heating water, each at least the size of one of the tubs, with pipes at the bottom to take the hot water to the tubs and a pump to refill them with cold water from the top. This arrangement positively enchanted her; being neither little nor adult, she'd rarely ever gotten a really hot bath. The littlest littles were always bathed first, and the adults waited until later when all the kettles of water had been filled and heated a second time. Those who were too old to be bathed but too young to stay up late and bathe with the adults had to make do with whatever was left after cleaning the babies—which wasn't often much, or very warm.

There were several girls and young women there already, and all the bathtubs were in use. Talia took her turn at the pump, after being hailed by “you must be the new one” and shyly giving her own name.

“I'm glad you turned out to be a girl,” one of the ones near her own age said, pumping water vigorously. “The boys outnumber us by too many as it is. Every single one of the other new ones has been a boy! That's why our side's smaller.”

“Well, my sister's at Healer's, and it's the opposite there,” a voice replied out of the steam.

“Besides, it's quality that counts, not quantity,” the second bather's voice was half covered by vigorous splashing. “And it's quite obvious that we women have the quality.”

The rest giggled, and Talia smiled tentatively.

“Sherrill told me there were fifty-three of us,” she replied after a moment, reveling in the fact that she was one of the fifty-three. “How many of each are there?”

“Thirty-five colts and eighteen fillies,” replied the girl at the pump. “And I'm referring to the human foals, not the Companions. It wasn't quite so bad until those four new boys came in, but now they outnumber us by almost two to one.”

“Jeri, you're betraying your youth,” said the young woman who was climbing out of the nearest tub. “You may not be old enough to appreciate odds like that, but Nerrissa and I
are
. In my part of the Kingdom, women slightly outnumber the men, and I like it much better the other way'round. I'd much rather be the one being courted than the one doing the courting. Whoever's next, I'm done.”

“Is it like that where you're from, Talia?” Jeri asked, looking at her curiously as she claimed the now-vacant tub.

“I—I suppose it must be,” she said, momentarily distracted from her shyness, mentally trying to count the distribution of the sexes in the Holdings she knew. “I'm Holderkin.”

“Where's that?” the young woman called Nerrissa asked, folding a towel around her wet hair.

“East—on the Border,” Talia replied, still thinking. “I know it's rather dangerous off the Holdings themselves. More men die every year than women; there are lots of wild animals, and raiders come every winter. I think there's nearly twice as many women as men, at least on the farthest Holdings.”

“Havens! You must be knee-deep in old maids.”

“Oh, no—if you don't go to the Goddess, you
have
to get married. My father had eleven wives, and nine are still living.”

“You can have my tub, Talia,” Nerrissa emerged from the steam. “Why do females
have
to get married?”

“W-why women can't Hold a Steading, or speak in Council or—anything important. It wouldn't be seemly,” Talia said in astonishment.

“So-ho! That must be why they never send female Heralds to the lower Eastern Border. They wouldn't be listened to. Talia, it's very different here. It's going to take a lot of getting used to, and it's going to seem strange for a long while. We reckon a person's importance by what they are, not by what sex they are,” Nerrissa told her. “There's no such thing as ‘seemly' or ‘unseemly.' Just doing the job you're given.”

Talia nodded thoughtfully, immersed in her tub. “I-it's hard to think this way. It j-just doesn't seem natural. I-I-I think
I
like it. Most of my Father's wives would hate it, though. Keldar for sure, and Isrel would be miserable without someone to give her orders.”