Closer to the Heart (17 page)

Mags pondered for a moment, and decided that this was the time to ingratiate himself with the locals.

“M'lady Keira,” he said, and they all started, because he and Coot were deep in the steam and they probably hadn't been noticed. “is widowed and jest out'a mournin'. M'lord Jorthun's 'er father. They took a notion to travel away from th' sad 'ouse of death fer a while an' away from far too many so-called frien's that ain't nothin'a' th' sort, an' jest go where fancy took 'em. They like this 'ere town. They partic'larly like this inn. So here we be.” He waved to the dumbfounded and silent people on the other side of the tub. “I be Harkon. The lad'll be Coot. At yer service.”

He was hoping that his overtures would be accepted. They might not have been in a smaller, more insular town. Here, well, it was obvious that by all rights he and Coot could have put on airs, being the servants of highborns who were wealthy enough to just take a fancy to hail off into nowhere on a whim. Technically, he and Coot outranked every servant in this inn. But he wasn't putting on airs. He was meeting them halfway, as equals.
And
he gave them a great deal of information they could now use in gossiping with the others. That disposed them to like him.

“Good e'en to ye, Harkon,” said one of the men, finally. “I be Darvy. This's Klem, an' this's Jon. The ladies be Jone an' Bet.”

“I reck we should all be friendly-like, since M'lord recks t'stay here about a moon, mebbe longer,” Mags replied, nodding to each of them in turn. “'E's a good man, is M'lord, and
M'lady was leg-shackled to a bedridden invalid an' weren't nothin' but a nurse an' never got no chance to go outside the four walls'a Hartcliff Manor for year'n. Reckon she wants t'kick up 'er 'eels a bit, an no blame to 'er for it. 'Ardly outa leadin' strings when she got 'itched to m'lord.”

“No blame atall, atall,” chuckled Jone. “Though it'll be tame for heel kickin' 'ere.”

“Mebbe not.” Klem finished his wash and eased himself down into the hot water, and the others followed. “We got all them mine owners, 'ereabouts, an' plenty sons. Plenty money 'round 'ere. Reckon a purdy widder might could do worse'n one of 'em. Get yer sparklies direct, eh? An' no frettin' 'bout iffen 'e's marryin' fer money.”

“Well, thet ain't none'a my business, Klem, but, if it were, I'd agree wi' ye'.” Mags nodded sagely. “'Tis a good thin' when a lad an' a lass come t' terms an' ain't too much money overweightin' either side. She's a good an' kindly heart, has m'lady. She tookit this lad in from the wicket streets a'Haven, an' made 'im 'er page, an' she 'as a good eyen, 'cause 'e's a good lad.” He allowed just a hint of menace to come into his voice. “Like a liddle brother 'e is t'me, an' any'un thinks t'bully 'im'll be answerin' t' the back'a me 'and.”

The inn servants seemed to judge at that point that they had probably probed Mags for as much information as he was likely to impart for now, and they turned their conversation to details about the inn's inhabitants, and some of the townsfolk. Mags listened. There was a lot he could learn just by sitting here and saying nothing. Sometimes it seemed as if that was more than half of his job.

• • •

Lord Jorthun was perusing the stock of books at one of the local temples, with Coot in tow. Of course no temple would
loan out something as precious as a book to just
anyone,
but Jorthun's very generous deposits in the offer-bowls pretty much guaranteed him favors granted that had nothing to do with the state of his soul. Lady Keira and Harras, the coachman, were in search of riding horses to hire; the coach horses obviously would not do for that, and the only time they would take the coach out would be if they intended to be out after darkness fell.

That left Mags plenty of time to see to Dallen. The Companion's directions were quite clear, and the Waystation was not all that far out of town. It was a pleasant walk, and he could easily make the case that he was exploring the environs for his master and mistress.

His road led out of town to where the cobbles ended, across a little stone bridge, down a road with commons on either side, goats and milk-cows and geese grazing under the eyes of watchful children. Then it plunged into forest, but from the general state of things, he judged this, too, was common land. There were next to no fallen branches, and the underbrush had that semi-pruned look that suggested people were running pigs here in summer and fall, gathering deadfall for burning, and generally making as liberal use of the woods as they were of the common meadows.

He passed two side-paths, and at the third, heard in his mind,
:Yes, that is the one,:
and turned aside to follow it. It brought him to a snug little hut with a very nice stabling arrangement big enough for two beasts. The hut was shut up tight, but Dallen was waiting for him right beside it.

“How'd you pass the night?” Mags asked.

Dallen switched his tail and bobbed his head.
:Tolerably well. I'll be better when you can get the grain out of the Station and spread some of the straw for a bed.:

Mags grinned, and flipped the latch on the Waystation. It was obvious from the good condition it was in that these people
took care of their Heralds. He found a barrel of oats in a storage area, and rolled it out to the stable. “You want me to do anything special with this?” he asked.

:Just get the top off, and rig some kind of handle so I can put it on and pull it off myself. I don't fancy sharing my meal with mice.:
Dallen watched over his shoulder with interest as he pried the top off the barrel, bored a couple of holes in it, and affixed a loop of rope to it.

“Think that'll do?” he said, putting the top back on. Dallen tried it for himself, taking the top off and putting it back on again, and nodded with approval.

:Excellent. Now, that bed. . . .:

That was a matter of a few moments of pulling one of the bales of straw out of shelter, breaking it open and spreading it until Dallen was satisfied.

“I assume there's a stream? 'Cause there don't seem t' be a water bucket for ye.”

:A very nice one. I think it's spring-fed. This will be quite the little vacation for me.:
Dallen ambled into the bit of meadow in front of the Waystation, and dropped down for a roll in the grass—in the area where it was
much
shorter; obviously where he had grazed his fill last night.

Mags chuckled. “Don't put a curse on it, horse. Let's hope it stays that way. I'll leave the Station open, that way anyone that comes by will just think your Herald's off doing something. And if ye want to, ye can help yerself to those dried apples in the pantry cupboard.”

:They're not pocket pies,:
Dallen said wistfully, rolling to his feet again, with a daisy somehow stuck in his mane so it peeked over one ear.

“Play yer cards right, and ye might get some of them too,” Mags replied, then gave him a long and affectionate hug and turned to make the pleasant walk back to the inn.

A
mily stood uncertainly in the courtyard of the former brewery where Tuck and Linden's “shack” was. Before he had left, Mags had introduced her to Linden, but she had never yet encountered Tuck. She'd met Linden at the pawn shop; Mags had made certain that she and all three of Nikolas's former-actors-turned-agents knew
who
Linden was, what she and Tuck did, and that she could come to Amily or the pawn shop for help. He'd had Amily take off her hat and let down her hair so Linden would know her as a Herald. There hadn't been time for him to take her to meet Tuck.

She reckoned it was about time she did so. But now that she was here, she wondered—just how was she supposed to do this? Linden wasn't expecting her, and there had been no way to send a message. What should she do? Go straight up to the door of the shed and knock? Find someone to get Linden for her and explain she had come to see how the girl and her charge were doing? Mags had emphasized that Tuck was
timid and easily startled, and the last thing she wanted to do was disturb him. First, she didn't want to make him upset, and second, she had the notion that doing so would definitely make an enemy out of Linden.

The courtyard was full of laundry lines, and for the most part all she could see of the laundresses was feet moving among the flapping linens. The air was also full of the very pleasant aroma of extremely clean linens drying in the sun. One of the ladies hanging laundry came around to Amily's side of the lines, turned, and spotted her. Amily noted her strong arms and shoulders with respect. Evidently being a laundress was not for the weak. “Oi, Milady Herald!” she called, tucking stray bits of hair back under her cap. “Here t'see Linden?”

“Yes I am,” Amily replied. “If that's—”

Taking no notice of what she was trying to get out, the laundress marched across the courtyard, avoiding flapping shirts and shifts and other manner of garments, and pounded on the door of the shed with her fist. The door looked as if a single knock would break it apart, but it
sounded
as solid as bronze. “Linden!” she called cheerfully. “Lady Herald t'see yer!”

Linden's head—instantly recognizable by the tangle of curls that didn't look as if it was
ever
going to submit to taming—popped out of the shed door. Spying Amily, she beckoned, and Amily trotted across the courtyard, avoiding laundresses and baskets and ducking under line after line of clothing.

“Mags told me to make sure you and Tuck were all right while he's gone,” Amily said, as Linden pulled her into the “shed” and shut the door. “I thought it was time I came to see if you needed anything.” She looked around, impressed with the cleanliness of the place as well as the general look of it. It might have been a stable once, but it was certainly the equal of plenty of homes she'd been in, and virtually every
Waystation she and Mags had used. Whatever was on the outside was mere “decoration.” The real, load-bearing walls were the ones on the inside. They might have been pieced together out of scrap wood, but every piece was carefully fitted together and reinforced until the building could probably take having half a dozen cattle on the roof.

Tools were hung on the walls in a precise order; she couldn't tell what the rules for what went where
were,
but it was clear that Tuck knew. There was a loft above; that was probably where Linden and Tuck slept. Down below was the kitchen of sorts, and a lot of workbenches; one for each separate project, it seemed. The poor fellow himself was hunched over a workbench, humming to himself, evidently so deep in a project that nothing was going to disturb him except, perhaps, an earthquake.

“That's mightily thoughty'a 'im, Milady,” Linden replied. “We're doin' right well, what wi' thet man'a Lord Jorthun's makin' sure we got ever'thin' we needs. I do mean ever'thin'. He even ast us iffen we wanted ter move up ter 'is fine place, but no. Tuck, he don' like strange places. Makes 'im skeerd. So all I gots ter do is ast, an' we gots it.” She chuckled. “Who'd'a thunk it? Moons ago, we wuz jest makin' 'nough t'live on. Now?” she spread her hands wide. “We're in cream!”

“Cream?” Tuck turned around, attracted by the word. “Tuck likes cream.”

“An' Tuck'll hev cream,” Linden said fondly, going over to the big fellow and patting him on the arm. “Ye bin slavin' at thet there whassit all mornin', an' ye shell hev cream an' strawberries too, aye.”

Tuck's poor, perpetually puzzled face lit up. He got up from his stool and went to a chair at a little bit of a table, pieced together like a puzzle from all sorts and kinds of wood. Linden sliced a thick piece of bread into a bowl that had been broken and mended so successfully that the cracks in it were now a
kind of beautiful pattern of their own. She covered the bread with sliced strawberries, then took down a little jar from a shelf above a stone sink that must have weighed as much as she did, and was probably a relic from when this was a stable, and carefully poured cream over it all. She handed the bowl and a spoon to Tuck, who began eating the treat carefully, taking tiny, tiny bites and savoring them.

And that was when Amily nearly jumped out of her skin. Because she
heard
him. She actually heard Tuck! Not with her ears, but her
mind.

Tuck's thoughts felt . . . nearly exactly like those of a highly intelligent creature like a dog, or a
chirra
; not because he was dull, but because they were wordless. Right now, those thoughts were concentrated on the pleasure of eating, the overall taste of the unaccustomed sweet (which was something he had never tasted until a few days ago), the richness of the cream, and the comforting substantial texture of the bread. But there was more to it than the thoughts of an animal, even though his thoughts were experiential rather than in words. Tuck was perfectly intelligent . . . in his own, peculiar way.

She sat down next to him. “The strawberries are so good, aren't they, Tuck?” she said quietly. “The seeds on them crunch, and the meat is tender and sharp and sweet at the same time. The cream is smooth and feels in your mouth the way soft leather feels on your hand, and it makes you feel full and warm, too, doesn't it? And the bread soaks up the sweet from the strawberries, and the smooth from the cream, and holds everything together . . .”

Tuck stopped eating, his spoon halfway to his mouth. He looked straight at her, mouth open a little in surprise, eyes big and round. “You—” was all he could manage. “You!”

Linden stared at them both in confusion. She put her hand over one of Tuck's huge ones. “Yes, Tuck,” she said, smiling.
“I can
understand
you. I can hear you. Not your words. I can hear what's in here—” She tapped him lightly on the forehead, between his eyes.

And Tuck put down his spoon and burst into joyful tears. Amily could tell they were joyful, not fearful, or sad, because Tuck's thoughts were veritable thunderclaps of happiness.

Linden nearly upset the table trying to get to him and clasped his head to her chest. “It's all right, baby!” She crooned. “Milady Herald didn' mean—”

“No!” Tuck said, pushing her gently away. “Tuck no hurt! Tuck
happy!”
And he burst into tears again, but seized Amily's hand, mouthing the word “happy” over and over again.

“It's my Gift,” she said to the poor bewildered Linden. “I have a peculiar sort of Animal Mindspeech. I can't talk to them, but I can hear them, and somehow, Tuck thinks the same way animals do. He's as smart in his way as you or I, but he can't make that come out in words. Mostly he thinks in feelings and experiences rather than in words, like you and I do. I think it would be interesting to watch his thoughts while he's working on something. I heard him thinking about his treat, and I just said the same things in words that he was feeling.”

“So when 'e's too upset'r too flibberted t'tell me wut's goin' on, ye kin 'ear 'im an' tell me?” Linden asked, excitement clear in her face—a relief to Amily, since she had been a bit afraid that Linden would be jealous that someone other than her could understand her charge.

“I should be able to, yes,” she replied. “And . . . I should be able to explain to him what other people want from him, when he can't understand it.”

“Bloody 'ell!” Now
Linden
burst into happy tears, and Amily had to explain to the startled Tuck that Linden was all right, she was just happy that Amily could hear Tuck.

And when the waterfalls of tears were finally dried up, all
three of them were exhausted. Tuck and Linden from crying so hard from happiness, and Amily from being in the middle of it all. And all three felt the need of the simple comfort of more strawberries, bread and cream.

Amily left them, then, promising to be back at least once every two days, feeling drained but more satisfied by the morning's work than by anything she had accomplished earlier as King's Own.

Because she and everyone else seemed to be going in circles when it came to figuring out who was about to tip Menmellith and Valdemar into war. At least this morning there had been a straight line, and an accomplishment at the end of it.

Too many mysteries,
she thought, as Rolan came down the street to meet her half way.

:And probably politics as the cause of it all,:
he agreed, as she mounted.
:It's always politics, in the end.:

• • •

This was probably the best spring day to come along this season. It was too bad that Amily was halfway across the Tanner and Dyer's District. There was nothing “nice” about the air here, and the warmer it got, the more it stank.

Renn had been giving her instructions; today would be her first real test of her new skills. “Don' take too long 'bout it, but don' rush it neither,” Renn instructed. He and Amily were walking to some destination where he assured her she would be able to undertake her first attempt at “roof-running” unhindered and uninterrupted. “Ye watch me go fust, an' ye foller, doin' wut I'll be doin'.”

She nodded. Unlike Renn, she had some tools to assist her, things that the clever-handed Tuck had made for her. A little grappling hook on a slender but astonishingly strong rope, a thick, heavy belt with iron rings attached with rivets, and
fingerless gloves with abrasive palms. Now that she knew how to “talk” to Tuck, and more importantly, how to listen, it was a simple matter to explain what she needed and why, and let him come up with the solution for her needs.

Mags would be amazed to discover just how many effective little weapons she had hidden about her person, now that Tuck understood that
she
was supposed to protect people, that she had to do it while looking “pretty,” and she might have to kill someone in order to protect the good people. Tuck understood the concept of bad people and good people very well. Possibly better than many people up on the Hill. His instincts were incredibly good when it came to detecting those who hid evil intentions behind a smiling mask, at least in her experience so far. Tuck also readily understood the concept of death, although he understood it in the form of “and now this person or creature is done, and gone forever” and his grief at finding a favorite pigeon dead had nearly broken her heart.

On the other hand, that meant that when she had told him, solemnly, that “sometimes I have to make bad people go away forever,” he had known that she needed something lethal. And he had delivered it.

Right now, though, her weapons were the least of her concerns.

“Where are we going?” she asked Renn, for what must have been the tenth time. He finally relented.

“Temple, outside 'Aven. Burned down whiles ago, nobut ever bothered rebuildin' it. Folks sez it's 'aunted.” He chuckled. “That's cuz we 'aunts it an' keeps folks away so's we kin learn t' roof-run there.”

When he said that, she knew
exactly
what he was talking about, since practically everyone in the city knew about the “Haunted Temple.”

“But—” she began hesitantly, thinking of how dangerous it must be. Weakened roof-timbers, places where there was no
support on the roof and you could fall through, walls that could give way and collapse—there was a good reason why even if a fire got put out, most people just pulled down houses that had burned and started over.

“No worries,” Renn chuckled, as if he was reading her mind. “We knocked down anythin' that wuz gonna fall down or git knocked down long time gone. Ev'thin' there now's solider'n rocks. Alls ye haveta look out fer's the starlin's an' rooks.”

She finally was able to stop holding her breath once they got a street or two past Tanner's. She could certainly see why the rents were lower here than anywhere else in Haven, but she could not imagine how anyone could live here, even with the rents that low.

:I am told you get used to it,:
Rolan observed. She shuddered. She could not imagine how.