Valdemar 06 - [Exile 02] - Exile’s Valor (21 page)

“Probably,” he agreed, feeling relieved and irritated at the same time. Cadets would never have been allowed such foolishness. But then again, as he had noted before, Heraldic Trainees were not Karsite Cadets. . . . “I had noted that on the river, the players of the broom-ball game required much drinking of wine and beer to continue the game past the first few goals.”

“And without that, it isn't
nearly
as much fun.” She chuckled. “Right. That's what I'll tell the others. They were afraid it was going to take over the Collegia.”

He thought about that for a moment. Thought about the fact that a certain level of madness seemed to come out of the confinement of winter. And thought about all the high spirits generated by the Festival. “It will, probably, for a short time,” he decided. “But that gives a painless punishment as well. For those of the Collegia at least, who will not settle and study,
forbid
them from playing. Make playing contingent upon good marks. Blues, we can do little about, if they are highborn children. But then again—time, they have, to waste. At least melees on ice harm them only.”

“Oh—ouch. Very good indeed,” Myste laughed. “That should do the trick.”

They finished dinner quickly; so much time spent out in the cold used up a lot of energy, and he was wolf-hungry.

Only after they had cleared the dishes away into the hampers did it occur to him to wonder why she had come there tonight. It couldn't have been because she wanted his company—could it?

At that thought, he got a very odd feeling in the pit of his stomach. Not unpleasant, no, but—fluttery. It disconcerted him. It disconcerted him so much that he just blurted out what was in his head.

“Why are you here?” he heard himself saying, and could have hit himself for how it sounded.

But she didn't seem to take offense at his words or his tone.

“Well—” she began, and hesitated. “Mixed motives, actually. I wanted to find out what you'd done with the youngsters. I must say that the ones who
had
gotten your lesson were nicely subdued for my classes; it was only the ones that hadn't gotten to ‘play' that were wound up like tops. And, um—” another hesitation, “—I, um, enjoy your company. And one other thing—” she added, hastily, before he could decide if she was blushing or not. “Keren slipped a little. Well, she didn't really
slip,
so much as I browbeat it out of her when she brought me a dress, of all things, to mend for her.” She laughed. “I mean, Keren? In a
dress?
Please! That was odd enough, but a dress that looked like
that?
”

“Like what?” he asked, unthinking.

“A dockside whore,” she replied, with cheerful bluntness, and it was his turn to flush. “She said she didn't want to take it to the Collegium seamstresses, because it was supposed to be a secret, and then tried to backtrack. Well, needless to say, I got the whole story out of her.”

“So you know?” he asked, feeling a little guilty that he hadn't told her before this, seeing that he'd been thinking about asking for her help anyway.

“Hmm. I guessed, before this. Too many evenings when you weren't here in the Complex, too many times when you knew things you shouldn't have about parts of Haven you weren't supposed to have ever visited,” she said thoughtfully. “I mean, I can put two and two together—and unlike some of our colleagues with some rather lofty ideas about Heraldic duties and honor, I know a bit about the practicalities of life. Anyway, I just wanted you to know that if I can help, without getting in the way, I'd like to. Keren might fit in some of the wilder parts of Haven, but I know the craftsmen's districts inside and out.”

That stopped him cold. It hadn't occurred to him that Myste might want to
volunteer.
Or that she would actually have some inside knowledge that he
didn't.
He'd thought he would have to persuade her, then train her.

“It's not as if I'd have to act a part, like Keren,” she continued. “I'd just have to be what I was before I was Chosen. An accountant, a clerk, ordinary. Believe me, people like me are just invisible as long as we keep our mouths shut. No one thinks anything about having us around. We're a kind of servant, and no one ever pays any attention to the servants.”

He didn't know how true the latter statement was, but the former was true enough. “There could be danger in this,” he warned.

She raised an eyebrow. “You might not think it, but there's danger in being an independent clerk. You don't always know just who is hiring you, or for what—or at least, not until they ask you to run two sets of books, or you get a look at papers you weren't supposed to see. That never happened to me, personally, but I know those it did happen to. And there's stories about people turning up missing after taking certain jobs.” She chuckled weakly. “Well, that's probably what most of the people who knew me think is what happened to me. I know for a fact that none of them realize I was Chosen.”

Well, she was on that last battlefield for the Tedrel Wars, and she'd volunteered for that, too. She'd faced danger there, certainly enough. “I might then ask you for help,” he said carefully.

“Ask, and you'll have it,” she said. And then seemed at a loss for anything else to say.

But he didn't want her to leave. They sat in awkward silence for a long time. And when the silence was broken, they both broke it at once.

“Can you tell me—”

“What of interest have you—”

They both broke off, flushing. Alberich was just a little angry—at himself. Surely he was more than old enough to have a simple conversation with an interesting woman without blushing like a boy! Particularly this one, that he had shouted at, cursed at, and forced to learn things she adamantly did not want to learn!

“You first,” she said, gesturing.

He paused. What
did
he want to say? It suddenly occurred to him that there was a lot he didn't know about her. He might as well start with that.

“So. What was Myste, the clerk, like?” he asked. “What was her life?”

She laughed. “Boring. But—” Her eyes grew thoughtful behind those thick lenses. “But you don't know much of anything about the ordinary person in Valdemar, of the middling classes, do you? I know a lot about all of that, in Haven, in particular. So even if I'd be bored by it—”

“Please,” he said, with a slow smile. “Tell me.”

And so, she did. And being Myste, she got as much about Alberich of Karse out of him, as he did about Myste of Haven.

It was, on the whole, an equitable exchange. And perhaps, best of all, it was one that would take some time in telling.

T
HE Ice Festival had taken place a fortnight after Midwinter. Now, another fortnight later, the deep cold finally broke with a gray day, vastly warmer than the ones that had brought the Ice Festival, and with a dampness to the air that warned of snow. By a candlemark after sunrise, the snow had begun, and it fell, thick and soft, all day and into the night. Alberich, for one, was very happy to see it, for it meant that all the frozen ponds were covered over, and at least until the would-be athletes shoveled them clear again, there would be no more ice melees.

Or, as the Trainees had decided to call it,
Hurlee.
Yes, they had given it a name. They had agreed on that much, and more. It had taken on a life of its own.

He had, unwittingly, created a monster. Yet at the same time, it was a very useful monster. If, at times, it seemed that the vast majority of the free time of both Trainees
and
young courtiers was taken up with creating rules and scoring for this combative game, and arguing over both endlessly, at least they were learning about teamwork, cooperation in combat, and negotiation. If they seemed obsessed, at least, as several teachers said with a sigh, there were worse things to get obsessed about, and the slightest
hint
that falling marks would occasion being forbidden to play or even
discuss
the game often worked miracles.

Still, it seemed that there was nowhere in Court or Collegia that one could go to
escape
the wretched game. Even some of the younger Guards had started to take it up. For all Alberich knew, it was spreading down into Haven by now, and many older members of the Court, decidedly unamused by the racketing teams of youngsters surging here and there and practicing on every open bit of ice, or even
creating
unauthorized bits of ice to practice on, often gave Alberich unfriendly glares when he saw them.

The cushion had been replaced by first a child's bean-bag, then a tough leather ball filled with heavy buckwheat in its husks, of the sort that jugglers practiced with. The staves now had small scoops on one end. The holes in the snow were now nets, and the teams had been stabilized at five members each, one of which was supposed to guard his team's net.

Combat with the staves was still very much allowed; Alberich had the feeling that no few little feuds were being worked out during the games. Half-helms of padded leather and elbow, kidney, and kneepads had been agreed upon. Skates were
not
allowed, on order of the Healers, who didn't want to deal with the results. Other additions were being argued about, or rather, forcefully argued
for
by Healer's Collegium, which did not want an influx of Trainees and other youngsters with missing teeth or broken jawbones. At this point, Alberich had washed his hands of the entire project and disclaimed any involvement with it. Like the other instructors,
he
had declared that inattention and falling marks would be grounds for being forbidden to play.

He was rather desperately hoping that a thaw would put an end to it, and depressingly afraid that, given the new changes in it, they would be able to play without ice.

At least, by this point, it was very clear that no more than half of the Heraldic Trainees, and substantially, very substantially
less
than a quarter of the Healers' and Bardic Trainees, were going to actually be playing this game. The rest lacked the coordination and, after the initial excitement was over, the inclination. That did not, however, mean that the rest weren't interested. Oh, no. They were still just as mad about watching it as the rest were about playing it.

But he could not spare much time to worry about a mere game. He had decided to start taking Keren out on some of his prowls through Haven. And he had yet to come up with a plan to let him discover just what Devlin and that actor were up to.

The main stumbling block was that he could not think of a way to shadow the young courtier
or
the actor without alerting them to the fact that someone was watching them. For one thing, he was more than a little wary about trying to disguise himself around the actor, at all. He could fool ordinary folk, but an actor? The fellow might have a style that was ridiculously flamboyant, and exaggerated, but that, Alberich suspected, was for the benefit of his audience, which was not going to react to a subtle performance. The man could not have come up with so clever a plan for passing information if he was not clever and subtle himself. And if Alberich tried to pass himself off as someone who had business being around either Devlin or the actors—

It seemed impossible; Alberich was certain he'd be caught. He might be able to pass off his Karsite accent as Hardornan or Rethwellan down in the slums, but actors had an ear for accents, and might even be able to correctly identify his. And just how many Karsites were there in Haven? Not many; not many that still had their accent. The paste he used to disguise his scars passed muster after dark, but actors knew about makeup and false hair—he'd never get by an actor without him noticing. How many Karsite Heralds were there? A sufficiently clever man could easily put two and two together.

As for getting in close, that
was
impossible. The man—
finally
Alberich had learned who he was (Norris Lettyn), and where his troupe was operating from (the Three Sheaves in the Cattle Market area)—seldom went anywhere outside of the inn, and never consorted with anyone except his fellow actors and exceedingly attractive, buxom, adoring women. Neither of which Alberich was—nor were Keren or Myste. They might be able to feign the adoration, but the kind of ladies that Norris kept company with were the sort that made men turn in the street and stare after them.

Not surprisingly, no few of them were ladies of negotiable virtue, but the price they placed on their services was very, very high. They were nothing like the common whores of the Exile's Gate neighborhood. And Alberich could not make up his mind if Norris was paying for their company, or getting it on the basis of his reputation, popularity, stunningly handsome face, and muscular body. If he was paying for it—where was a mere actor getting the money? On the other hand, someone who looked like Norris did generally had women fawning on him, and Alberich saw no reason to suppose that expensive courtesans were any less likely to fawn than supposedly “honest” women.

Thanks to Norris' face and flamboyant style, the troupe was certainly prospering, as was the inn to which they were attached. They didn't even have to give plays every day for the public anymore. Once every two days, the courtyard was packed with spectators for one of the repertoire of plays they put on, and it certainly wasn't because of the high literary standards of the things. Moving to that tent on the riverbank during the Festival had been a shrewd move—putting on their play there spread their reputation to the entire city, and the city evidently followed them back to their home ground when the Festival was over. Norris even was beginning to get something of a following among the highborn of the Court—while the plays they put on for the public were hardly great literature, evidently they had in their repertoire a number of classical works, and the troupe had been hired to give private performances at least twice now. There would, without a doubt, be more of those, though how lucrative they were in contrast to the public performances, Alberich had no way of telling.