Convergence (27 page)

"Excuse me," a woman's voice interrupted his mental rambling, and Lorand looked down at a rather plain girl who had apparently come out of the house they'd stopped near.

"You
are
one of the applicants for High practitioner, aren't you?"

"Well, yes," Lorand admitted, feeling confused. "Was there something you wanted to ask me?"

"Actually I was wondering why you aren't getting out of the coach," the girl confessed shyly, her cheeks faintly pink. "You
have
been assigned to this residence, haven't you?"

Lorand began to deny that with a laugh of ridicule, but then he remembered being told that the coach would take him to the place he was supposed to stay. He hadn't expected anything like
this,
but a lot of things were happening lately that he hadn't been expecting.

"I suppose I
have
been assigned here," Lorand replied, now feeling slightly foolish. "I didn't mean to sit here and daydream—"

He broke off the lame excuse before he made himself look even more like a backward hick, took his case, and left the coach. After closing the door he meant to ask the driver how much the ride would cost him, but the driver got the coach moving again before he could even open his mouth.

"It seems the coach drivers are paid in advance," the girl ventured, apparently knowing what Lorand was thinking about. "At least the other coach drivers all did the same thing this one did
...
If you'll follow me, I'll show you to your room."

"Is this house yours?" Lorand asked as he followed the girl. "I mean, does it belong to your parents or husband or someone like that?"

"Oh, no, I just work here," the girl answered with a timid laugh and another faint reddening of her cheeks. "I'm the companion of the lady of the house, and she's an applicant, too. I'm Warla."

"And I'm Lorand Coll," Lorand answered, suddenly distracted by the incredible number of expensive things arranged all over the entry hall. He couldn't judge the value of everything he saw, but just by the gold and jewels alone . . . half the farms in his county were worth less. Lorand had the definite urge to drag his feet while he stared openmouthed, but the humiliation of doing that would have been unbearable. He
had
to get rid of these small town reactions he kept coming up with, or he'd put his foot in his mouth for sure.

The girl Warla was already climbing the beautifully grand staircase, so Lorand hurried to follow even though the idea of any sort of stairs still disturbed him. His hurry lasted for all of three steps upward, and then he was forced to remember how little strength he had left. He was also forced to slow down, but Warla didn't try to lose him the way his previous guide had. She waited at the top of the stairs until he'd joined her, and then she led him to the left.

The door she opened was the second one up the hall on the left, and the room it opened into threatened to take Lorand's breath away. It had
real
furniture rather than handmade make-dos without the least amount of craftsmanship, and the size of it was three times what Lorand had lived in at home. The curtains and quilts and linens were all embroidered, and the incredible bed stood on a real carpet. They'd had a carpet in their visiting room back home, but it was older than his brother Mildon and had probably been threadbare even when it was new . . .

"I'll leave you to get settled in now," Warla said, and Lorand turned quickly to see that she stood just outside the door. But she wasn't laughing, even though she must have seen him gaping like a fool. "If you should happen to need anything, just ask one of the servants."

Servants.
Lorand nodded mutely and watched her close the door,
then
he went to a wide chest against one wall and put his case down on it. He should have known there would be servants in a house like that, and he didn't know how to behave with servants. Obviously he would soon find out, but the prospect wasn't as appalling as it should have been. If he managed to live long enough to win to High, he'd eventually have servants of his own.

Whether or not that meant Lorand had decided to continue on with the testing was something he didn't care to consider at the moment. His first and most pressing need was a bath and a change of clothes, but he hadn't seen any bath houses in the neighborhood. He'd have to ask someone, but the nearest bath house had better not be too far away. If it was, he'd find a stream or something and use that instead.

Lorand unpacked a change of clothes, then went downstairs again and found someone to put his question to. Happily the man misunderstood, and answered, "Yes, sir, I certainly can tell you where the bath house is. Just follow this hall to the back of the house, and step outside. A few feet to your left
is
the pathway to the bath house, which stands between this house and the gardens."

Lorand thanked the man and began to follow the directions, but how he managed to keep from muttering, "A private bath house. A
private
bath house!" was a complete mystery. He was really beginning to hate the way everything he saw impressed him, but he didn't know how to make the feelings stop. He
was
a hick from the boondocks, and as humiliating as that truth was, it also couldn't be denied.

The gardens made their presence known as soon as Lorand stepped outside, but his energy was draining out of him again and only the sight of the bath house interested him now. He headed for the building as fast as possible, happy that using it would cost him none of his small hoard of silver. He'd been told he had to pay for his own meals, and right now he felt as if he could eat himself copperless. If he hadn't needed a bath fractionally more, he would have asked about places to eat. The cheapest places possible . . .

He walked into the bath house wrapped in thoughts about just how little he could afford to eat without losing vital strength, but was yanked back to reality when he saw the series of cabinets to the left of the door. Soap and towels must be in there, but Lorand had no idea of what would be where. In the public bath house, he'd been given soap and a towel when he'd paid his use fee. Here, the only thing he could do was search.

Lorand was in the midst of doing just that, when a voice said, "Good day to you, friend." He whirled around to see that someone was already in the bath, a man he hadn't noticed when he'd first come in. The stranger continued, "I'm sure you're in need of this bath water as badly as I was, so please don't hesitate about coming right in."

The man was obviously trying to be friendly, so Lorand ignored the faint tone of condescension in his voice and tried to be the same.

"I didn't intend to hesitate," he answered, going back to the undressing he'd started after finding the towel and soap. "You startled me because I thought the bath house was empty, but it isn't as if I've never used a bath house before. Our town has a large one for the use of the public, and week's end night usually had the place filled to capacity."

Lorand wasn't in the habit of boasting, and certainly not about something as foolish as having used a bath house, but something in the other's manner had pushed him to it. The stranger's expression seemed to demand that Lorand justify his being there, but his choice of justification turned out to be another backwoods mistake.

"You've used a public bath house?" the stranger immediately demanded, sounding as if Lorand had confessed to murdering helpless women and small children.
"With
crowds
present?
But surely your own home had a bath house?"

The stranger made the lack of a private bath house also sound like a crime against nature, and Lorand suddenly found
himself
very annoyed. He'd been struggling not to look like a backward hick, but this easily-shocked stranger turned his mood perverse.

"In summer we used the creek's swimming hole, and in winter we used a tub in the kitchen," he returned with the most outrageously bucolic picture he could think of. But his need for a bath hadn't lessened, so he headed for the water as he added, "What's the difference
where
you bathe, as long as you come out clean?"

The stranger didn't seem to have an answer to that, so Lorand used the opportunity of his silence to duck completely underwater. It felt wonderful to be wet all over, but it felt even better to know that the stranger had believed him. Lorand's family had a tub installed in one corner of the barn, and that cramped area was where they all bathed. There was a small hearth near it to heat the water, which they'd used in the winter to also warm the area. It was crude but usable, which had always been his father's standard of good enough.

Pushing away thoughts of his father, Lorand headed for a corner of the bath where there was clearly a molded resting area. He'd never had the chance to try relaxing in one, not with all the older men in the bath house claiming the comfort first, but now he could. He had just gotten himself settled into it when the stranger decided to try starting a conversation again.

"I assume you're weary because of what was necessary to pass your test," he said, this time managing to make it sound as if Lorand had probably jumped up and down a little before being
given
the passing of the test, rather than having earned it like this very self-important stranger. "What did they do to force
you
to participate? I'm Lord Clarion Mardimil, by the way. Air Magic"

It had been obvious that this Mardimil was also an applicant, but the title he'd added suggested it, and the name.

would
be familiar to anyone with the least pretensions of being civilized. The title meant little to Lorand, and he'd never heard of the man—happily!—but he
had
heard the rest of what he'd said and that got to him.

"Lorand Coll, Earth magic," Lorand responded with automatic courtesy, then dove straight to the really important part. "What do you mean, how was I
forced?
I didn't have to be forced to
participate,
I wanted very much to try."

"You
want
to be here?" Mardimil demanded, once again declaring Lorand guilty of some horrible crime as he rose to his feet. "Well, I don't know why I'm surprised. Of course someone like you would be eager to fight for that
nonsense,
it's worlds above anything you're likely to get under any other circumstance. A pity they don't believe in taking
all
their applicants from the lowest segment of our society."

That sneering ridicule was more than Lorand was willing to put up with. His home town might be small, but it still had its share of monied snobs who considered themselves too good to breathe the same air as common folk. Their children had been just like this Mardimil, but Lorand hadn't been allowed to tell them what he thought of them. His father had been afraid of reprisals and had refused to "mix in," but his father wasn't here right now.

"At least I'm not from the
useless
segment of our society," he growled at Mardimil, who was in the midst of leaving the bath. "If
I
end up without a High position, I'll still be able to contribute more than I use up. If
you
end up without one, all you'll be able to do is go back to being a worthless sponge. If you suddenly lost all your mountains of gold, you'd starve to death in a week. Since I'd survive no matter what, I'd say you need to rethink your conclusion about which of us is really the lowest."

Lorand expected the man to come back at him with
something,
but Mardimil maintained an infuriated silence while he dried and dressed, then left the same way. His anger had been perfectly clear, and Lorand wondered why he hadn't said anything in his own defense, even a flat refusal to concede Lorand's points. Mardimil could have laughed and called Lorand a jealous fool, and there would have been no easy way to defend against the charge. So why had he done nothing more than dress and leave? It made no sense, unless . . .

"Unless I told him something he'd been suspecting was true," Lorand muttered, suddenly more disgusted with himself than with Mardimil. He'd been in a self-embarrassed mood, so he'd let the man's attitudes push him into speaking a very cruel truth. There was no denying that the vast majority of offspring from wealthy parents were useless, but most of them were perfectly happy to have it that way. What must it be like to be one of the minority, aware of feelings of worthlessness, but refused the chance to do anything about it?