Brightly Burning (12 page)

:That's because I care if I offend people with my odor,:
Pol retorted.
:You might not mind smelling like a horse, but I do!:

He was rewarded by Satiran's mental snicker.

There was, after all, another and equally compelling reason for Pol to spend at least half his time here at the Collegium, and her name was Elenor.

His youngest daughter Elenor.

He smiled at the thought of her, as he always smiled, as anyone who ever encountered Elenor smiled. She was a child who seemed to have been created to bring happiness to everyone around her. She was neither pretty, nor plain, but her personality sparkled so that no one ever thought her anything but lovely. Her sunny disposition brightened the gloomiest day; no one bent on a quarrel could sustain anger in her presence. As a Mind-Healer she was fulfilling every expectation of her teachers at Healer's Collegium. Her mother Ilea was every bit as proud of her as her father was.

Her mother, however, was needed elsewhere at the moment. Like Heralds, Healers had duties that superseded their own personal preferences, and the need for Healers to tend the wounded on the Border with Karse was of prime importance at the moment. Although the conflict between Karse and Valdemar had not erupted into open warfare lately, there was constant skirmishing and a constant stream of wounded. All the Healers of the Collegium took that duty in turn; Ilea had been excused as long as her youngest child was below the age of thirteen, but once Elenor was well into puberty, the duty could be put off no longer.

Neither Pol nor Ilea wanted to leave Elenor totally without a parent's presence, so Pol had been very glad when he was called back to Haven.

He wondered now and again, though, if she really needed him. Elenor at fourteen was as cool and level-headed a girl as many twice her age. She seemed to have another Gift, that of good sense, and never got into the tangles and trials that the Trainees of all three Collegia of Heralds, Healers, and Bards, often found themselves embroiled in. In fact, Elenor was often found in the midst of their trouble, patiently sorting it before any of the adults realized that there
was
a problem.

My little girl is not so little anymore.
Maybe when this last pupil was thoroughly grounded and it was time to hand him off, Pol ought to volunteer for field duty again. There were never enough Heralds for all the work, and eventually Ilea would be back again.

Time never stood still; both of Elenor's sisters had grown up and gone off on their own, after all. Kaika was somewhere north of Haven, a Bard making the same sort of rounds that a Herald did, but with the difference that she was the collector and disseminator of information and entertainment. Or rather, information disguised as entertainment. She'd gotten her Bardic Reds a good three years ago. Her sister Amaly had gotten
her
Greens three years before that, and a husband to boot. She and Ranolf were raising their own brood and tending to the hurts of a fairly sizable village in the southwest. Both of them had their own lives now, and in the not-too-distant future, so would Elenor. He couldn't guide and protect her forever, no matter how much he wanted to.

You'd think that after two of them growing up and flying away, I'd have gotten used to the idea that children never remain that way,
he thought with a physical pang. He bit his lip to still the quiet ache in his heart.
But, oh, how I wish they did. . . .

:It's never easy to see them go, Chosen,:
came the soft words in the back of his mind.
:We both have reason to know that.:

Pol sighed and wordlessly agreed. Satiran had more reason to worry and grieve over his own offspring than Pol did;
his
eldest had come to a premature end, with his Herald, at the hands of the Karsites.

He turned his mind out of that path before he started to worry about Ilea. The Karsites didn't kill Healers, they weren't
that
barbaric, but they made major efforts to capture them. And Pol knew Ilea; she had a heart like a warrior, and never let danger keep her from rushing to the aid of the injured. He only hoped that Elenor's good sense was inherited from Ilea's side of the family as well as his, and that Ilea would know she would cause more harm than good by going into danger.

The water was cooling, and he thought briefly about running more hot water in—

But that
would
be slothful, and he pried himself up out of the tub, feeling unaccountably much heavier than when he'd gone in, and got himself dried, clothed, and presentable. It was nearly time for dinner; he'd have just about enough time to dry his hair before he had to join the courtiers.

And after dinner, provided his pupils left him in peace—he did have responsibility for more than just his little Animal Mindspeaker Kedd—he wanted to see if he could follow up some odd indications he'd felt over the past few weeks. It had
felt
like the first stirrings of a Gift, but if it was, it was a Gift unlike anything he had encountered before.

Pol was the one Herald who was at all sensitive to the odder Gifts, thanks to his own abilities, but since his strength was minimal, he couldn't reach much outside the walls of Haven, and about half the time, nothing much came of these vague sensations. Just because a Gift
began
to stir, it didn't follow that it would actually wake to full flower. Children often lost the use of Mind-Gifts as they entered puberty. The owner might successfully repress it and wall it off. Life changes might send a Gift into limbo again, particularly tragedy.

Still, Pol felt he had to follow up where he could, identify what the Gift he sensed was, if possible, and even find the owner. Usually, though, the Companions beat him to the last.

Pol sat in the open window of his room and combed his hair dry in the waning sunlight; he had a fastidious dislike of going out in public with wet hair. It was a comfortable little room, neat and well-ordered, shared most of the time with Ilea. With so much of white and blue surrounding him, and so much of green surrounding Ilea, Pol's personal tastes broke out in a certain peculiar rebellion in his furnishings. He preferred what Ilea called “earth colors,” which were warm browns, wheat golds, and smoldering oranges. Fortunately, so did she. Geometrically patterned weavings softened the white walls and served as curtains; heavier pieces carpeted the floor from wall to wall. His blankets, collected over the years from the most skillful craftspeople he encountered, were splendidly patterned and as soft as swansdown, made from the silky hair of chirras and the wool of lambs. An enormous coverlet, pieced together from the skins of brown, black, and white sheep, could have decked the bed of the King himself.

In fact, one very like it did; Pol had brought it as a gift from his last foray into the field.

Ilea's touch was present in the fragrant wreaths of grapevine and dried herbs, the knitted wraps folded neatly atop one of the chests, waiting to be snuggled into on a chill evening, needlework pieces on the walls, the embroidery basket in the corner. And, hidden behind the doors of the wardrobe, her store of a Healer's Green robes were keeping his Herald's Whites company.

He smiled a little at that. At least if
they
couldn't be together, their uniforms could!

When the sun faded into twilight, he moved to a stool in front of the fire. When his hair was finally dry, he bound it into a thick tail at the nape of his neck with a plain silver clasp, and went on to dinner.

All Heralds present at the Collegium automatically had a place at the uppermost table of the Court, directly below the High Table itself; not all of them availed themselves of that privilege, though. Some preferred to dine with the Collegium, Trainees and teachers together; some preferred a solitary (or not so solitary) tray in their rooms. Pol enjoyed dining with the Court, however; his Gifts were not so sensitive that being with so many unGifted rubbed him raw, and he derived a certain amusement watching the little dramas that went on around him. The Court was full of drama, and although Pol had very little to do with the courtiers themselves, that very freedom gave him an impartiality that allowed him to find the jousting for place altogether hilarious. He had a knack for spotting a piece of trouble abrewing; sometimes all he could do was to alert others to potential difficulties, but at least they had that warning.

He was in good time. People were just now filing into the Great Hall, and Pol joined the traffic with a nod to one or two of the courtiers he
did
know, and a smile for a couple of the other Heralds who were either highborn themselves or for their own reasons preferred to dine here.

He took his place at the Herald's table with the rest, settling into his chair with a glance at the High Table. King Theran and his young son Clevis were laughing at something that King's Own Herald Jedin had just said; Queen Fyllis wasn't in her chair, but that was hardly surprising since she was still suffering from the nausea that always plagued her in the first two months of a pregnancy.

Poor Fyllis!
Pol thought with sympathy; he knew the Queen quite well, better than most. The King and Queen both had been Chosen when Theran was still the Heir. At the time she (Herald-Trainee, the third daughter of the Duke of Brendan) met and fell in love with Theran, everyone had agreed that the marriage was the best possible match Theran could make; it created a strong bond of blood between the throne and a dukedom right on the far southeastern Border. She had been a pupil of Pol's; her odd Gift was Empathy. It was a very useful Gift for a monarch, but unfortunately, when she was in the first throes of pregnancy, sometimes she inadvertently projected her nausea to those nearest her, to the discomfort of her friends and family and the utter ruin of one formal dinner reception for the heads of the Craft Guilds back when she'd first been with child. That had been years ago; after that single disaster, she wisely absented herself from meals when pregnant. She drank most of her meals during the touchy months, soothing, smooth concoctions of milk, vegetables, fruits, and nuts, with a Healer nearby to help repress the nausea and make sure she actually got a well-balanced diet. Fyllis claimed it was a small price to pay, considering that the rest of her pregnancy was always a joy to her; being with child made her positively bloom with health and happiness.

The rest of her offspring weren't fit for the High Table yet; one was in the “terrible twos” and the other was still a baby. Clevis was a mere five, but was a very well-behaved boy as long as his father's eye was on him.

When it wasn't—well—bread rolls and pickles had been known to mysteriously acquire the power of flight, aimed unerringly at other children he'd been quarreling with earlier in the day.

The young mischief maker was firmly sandwiched between his father and the King's Own today, however, so it was unlikely there would be any food flights at this meal.

Court meals were slow and deliberate affairs, with each course punctuated and announced by musicians or other entertainments. This was part of what made coming to Court such an exciting and much-anticipated event for the nobles and achievers of Valdemar; even the meals were grand affairs for those who didn't often see professional entertainers. And as for major festivals—well, when those who spent a season or two at Court went home again, they generally talked about it for the rest of their lives.

It was costly for those who came here, in expenses for the elaborate garments considered appropriate, in lodging, and in any meals not taken in the Great Hall. Some, but by no means all, of the highborn had their own houses outside the Palace grounds, and a very few rated lodging in the Palace itself, but for the rest, suitable houses had to be found and leased, servants hired, and furnishings supplied for the few months of attendance at Court. This was an expensive proposition, multiplied manyfold when there was more than one female in the family, for women seemed to require more in the way of elaborate clothing than men.

For instance . . . to Pol's right sat the many-daughtered Lord Vertalays, with all of his offspring lined up on their stools beside him, like one of those sets of dolls that fit one inside the other. It was a good thing that he had a ready source of income from his wool and mutton; he'd need it, dowering six daughters. Lady Vertalays, a wise and clever woman, made a virtue out of necessity; she saved money when they came to Court by doing so in winter when she could cut a fashionable figure in
woolen
garments, rather than of lighter fabrics that would have to be purchased. She had all their Court dress made from cloth woven of the wool of their own sheep, and dressed the entire family in the same colors, saving more money on dyes, carefully choosing colors that suited them all. When she could, she did without dying the cloth altogether; they had a set of garments in white, in a heathered gray, in brown, and in black. Instead of velvet, their heavier gear was made of wool plush—an equally lush fabric, but one that could also be home-woven. Instead of silk, they wore knitted lace, made of threadlike yarn of lambswool. All the embroidery was done by the clever hands of the Lady and her daughters, and together they made quite a fine showing. Pol might be the only person present who knew of her clever shifts, since he had once ridden a circuit that included their holdings. They came to Court for the purpose of getting the daughters acquainted with some of the young men they might be betrothed to one day. The Lady felt it was better to wed someone you at least liked rather than a total stranger.

That was more than many parents felt. To Pol's left was a potential source of trouble, and he wondered when it would break out. Young Lady Leana's rigid posture betrayed what her pleasant face did not; the contempt that her husband of a year held her in.
He
was engaged in a torrid affair with someone out in the city; Pol didn't know who it was, although he would bet his last penny that the King's Own did.
She
seethed with frustration and jealousy, and from some of the heated glances he'd seen her exchange with one of the young rakes of the lesser nobility, her frustration was likely to break out into a full-blown affair of her own very soon. She would probably flaunt her conquest in her husband's face; a bad idea, since he was hot-tempered as well as hot-blooded, and altogether too likely to either punish his wife or challenge her lover.