Closer to the Chest Read online

  Mags gaped at him. “You surely don’ mean a Herald—”

  “That’s exactly what I don’t mean,” Steveral said dryly. “What, did you think that Gifts were exclusive to Heralds? Not a bit of it. Quite a few religions not only have people with Gifts, they seek them out. There are others who practice using their Gifts in other ways. Such things are not common, but really, my dear boy, the temperament to become a Herald is much, much rarer than Gifts are.”

  “You mean you’ve found folks hurtin’ others with Gifts?” Mags could scarcely contain his outrage. The very idea revolted him.

  But Lord Jorthun just shrugged. “Gifts are uncommon; many of them are probably undiscovered by the holders of them all their lives. Generally, when we discover people with Gifts who are misusing them, they are brought before a Healer with Mind-healing, and the thing is shut down so they can’t use it again.”

  Amily nodded, as if this was already known to her, but Mags blinked in surprise and no little shock. “You kin do that?”

  “We can,” said Lord Jorthun. “But that’s only if it’s being used for mischief. If someone can turn his hand to making an honest living of a Gift, or help out his neighbors, there’s no reason to interfere with that.” He pulled at his chin a little in thought. “Oddly enough, Mindspeech has never turned up as a ‘wild Gift.’”

  “That’d be because it’d prolly drive the person that had it insane without they got a Companion to help ’em and Herald’s Collegium to teach ’em to shield,” Mags said, after a moment of thought. “I know I would’ve gone balmy if I hadn’t.”

  “Very likely—and we’re getting a bit far afield. Back to the subject. I knew as soon as I read the letter to Violetta that a great deal of what this Poison Pen is writing about could have been learned by someone with a Farseeing Gift of the sort that allows one to look into the past, as well as the present. And this is terrible, especially for the ladies concerned, but this is not what has me worried at the moment.”

  “Which is?” Amily asked, although Mags had a good idea of what he thought Lord Jorthun was going to say. That there was going to be an eruption of rage and vitriol in the middle of something important that would leave alliances in shards and send the Court a hundred feuds instead of just one.

  “The point is, right now the Poison Pen is only using his knowledge and power to torment and shame. And yes, it is a terrible thing, and these poor women and girls certainly do not deserve any of this—and it is almost certainly going to cause an emotional lightning strike, probably in the middle of some crowded Court function, that is likely to leave everyone dazed and shocked. But the Poison Pen’s fixation on the sins of women is working to our advantage.”

  “I can’t see how—” Mags replied, doubting Lord Jorthun’s intelligence for the first time, ever.

  “Because as long as the Poison Pen is concerned with the morals of others, he’s not turning that Gift to look for State Secrets.” Jorthun sat back in his chair, and nodded at Mags’ thunderstruck reaction. “So now you see why I am concerned. Deathly concerned. We need to ferret this creature out now, not just for the sake of those he’s tormenting, but for the sake of the entire Kingdom.”

  “No pressure,” Mags muttered under his breath. If there was a way to discover when someone was using a Gift other than Mindspeech, he certainly didn’t know what it was.

  “Is Violetta all right?” Amily asked. “Yes, I realize that the Poison Pen could do damage later, but I’m concerned with what he’s doing now!”

  “She was very shaken, but she had the wit to bring the letter straight to me. Her parents are back on their estate, and it’s unlikely the Poison Pen will send anything there. He wants reactions he can see, here and now, and the one thing I’ve been told about Farsight is that it is limited. You have to actually know either the place you are trying to see, or the people you are trying to see,” Jorthun replied, and waved at the pile of papers on the table, as Mags emptied his wine goblet. Right now, he felt strongly in need of it. “These letters didn’t start to appear until after your wedding, and Violetta’s parents were long gone by then.”

  “We sent her away to one of Jorthun’s estates for a little rest in the country,” Dia added. “And we’re making sure she gets no letters or messages that have not been screened by our Seneschal there first. But Amily, like you, I am concerned for other vulnerable girls. I want this stopped, before someone is really hurt.”

  “What ’bout the Collegia?” Mags said out loud, as the thought came to him. The others all turned to look at him curiously. “If it’s got down into Haven—and it has—no reason t’think it ain’t got into the Collegia, too.”

  “It will be far easier to get the Trainees to cooperate than the girls of the Court,” Amily pointed out. “They trust Heralds, and they’ll trust we’re going to do our damnedest to get to the bottom of this. Mags and I will tackle the Collegia.”

  “I’ll continue having the Handmaidens work—and perhaps they can get some of these girls to confide in them,” Dia said thoughtfully. “That was part of the purpose of forming the group after all, to have someone in place trustworthy enough that the highborn women of the Court would take them as confidants.”

  “And I will see where my investigative skills will lead me,” Jorthun concluded. “One never knows what odd things lurk in peoples’ backgrounds. If we are very, very fortunate, I will uncover a link that ties all these letters together, and we’ll have our culprit. Rest assured, Mags, I’m going to make this my priority. Now—would you like some more of this excellent wine?”

  • • •

  Herald Caelen, Bard Lita, and the Dean of Healer’s Collegium, Healer Devin, sat in the silence of Mags’ sitting room and passed the unpleasant letters from hand to hand.

  Devin, new to the position of Dean, looked shocked. He was only middle-aged, but the expression on his face made him look older, as if he had somehow been personally betrayed.

  Lita looked angry; she was clearly doing her best not to throw the letters on the table, and if glares could convey heat, she’d have set the papers, and the table, on fire.

  Mild-mannered Caelen merely looked disgusted. Then again, Heralds did tend to see people at their worst as well as their best, so perhaps he was not surprised.

  When they had finished with the stack of letters, Caelen shoved them all into the document case. “Now you know why I figgered it would be better we meet here,” Mags said. “I wanted ye all t’see ’em at once, and here ye kin say anything ye want.” All three nodded. “What we’d like, is fer all of you to gather up the girls of yer Collegia, and put it to ’em, and see if they’ve been gettin’ letters like this too. Teachers, too.”

  “I think they probably have,” Lita replied, still livid. “It would account for some odd behavior on the part of some of my more promising Trainees.” She glared at the stack of letters on the table, and Mags again almost expected them to burst into flames under the heat of her stare. Then she looked at the other two Deans. “I think we can all manage, not just to talk to our girls, we can get any of them who’ve gotten letters to talk to you. Would you rather speak to them singly, or in a group?”

  “Whichever you think would make them the most forthcoming with us,” Amily told them, after a glance at Mags. “I wonder if it wouldn’t be easier for them in a group. Aren’t they used to supporting each other?”

  “In Healers’ and Heralds’ certainly,” Caelen put in. “But Lita—”

  “I’ve been making a point of cutting down on the emphasis on competition and emphasizing community instead,” Lita replied. “We all saw what competition fostered. We ended up with morons who thought nothing of stealing the work of talented youngsters who didn’t know any better.”

  They all nodded. No need to go into that again. The disgrace of Lena’s father the former Master Bard Marchand—he’d had his title and membership in the Bardic Circle stripped fr
om him—was something everyone remembered.

  “Well then, talk to ’em, then bring ’em here,” Mags told the three Deans. “We’ll make it all cozy like. We got our whole day cleared t’morrow, we kin get the next day, too, an’ we’re havin’ tea an’ cakes brought in.”

  “What’s the best way to handle this, do you think?” Caelen asked the other two. “The boys will be curious about why only the girls are being taken off to be talked to.”

  Lita leaned back in her chair, and drummed her fingers on the arm of it. “Is there any reason to keep any of this a secret from them?” she asked the other two. Some of her hair had come loose from the knot she’d bundled it into; Mags noticed that there were a couple of new white hairs in it. This’s likely to give her a few more.

  “I can’t actually think of a reason,” Caelen said, at last.

  “Nor I. In fact, I think keeping this a secret from them is going to ultimately be futile, and counterproductive,” Devin said, sounding and looking much more sure of himself than before. “After all, this—Poison Pen, as you called him—his goal seems to be to divide people. If we make our Trainees in the three Collegia united, then there will be nothing he can do that will harm any of them.”

  “That is a very good point.” Amily nodded, looking, if not happy, then less unhappy than she had been. “Well then; let’s tell them what has happened at breakfast.”

  Caelen chuckled a little. “Good idea. No one skips breakfast. We’ll just let people come in and not let anyone out until we’re sure we have everyone. We’ll be able to tell the teachers at the same time.”

  “There is a great deal to be said for not keeping secrets, at least among our Trainees,” Devin observed serenely.

  Lita snorted. “Yes,” she observed dryly. “Because secrets don’t stay secrets among the Trainees for long.”

  • • •

  The only “casualties” among the Trainees were two very young Bardic students who had burst into tears when they realized they were not alone in being sent those hideous letters. Interestingly, there were only three girls in Healers’ who had been so graced, perhaps because the Poison Pen considered Healing to be “womanly enough.” All of the girls in Bardic had gotten at least one, and often more than one. And so had the girls in Heralds’.

  After a swift consultation, a general holiday was declared; the boys were to do what they wished, the girls were asked to go fetch any letters they still had from their rooms. Amily and Mags would host the three girls from Healers and all the girls from Bardic in the morning, and the ones from Heralds’ in the afternoon.

  The sitting room was rather full, but the girls had no problem disposing themselves around the room, going so far as to fetch rugs and pillows from their own rooms to sit on. Every bit of flat space held a girl by the time they were done, and two senior girls from Bardic took it on themselves to distribute the tea and cakes. When everyone had settled, and the fresh lot of letters was in Mags’ hands, he nodded to Amily. He had the distinct feeling that the girls would respond better to questions from her than from him.

  “All right, the first thing I’d like to know is how you are all feeling about this,” Amily asked. “Both before we spoke to you this morning, and after. And if you have any ideas.”

  Mags could tell which of the girls had been talking about this among themselves long before they’d had the morning revelations. They were mostly sitting together in knots, and exchanged glances, evidently picking one person in each little group to speak for them.

  “Relieved, mostly,” said a girl who looked as if she was probably going into full Scarlets soon. “I suppose we’ve all been talking about this among our particular friends, but the little groups each thought we were being picked on . . .” she flushed. “. . . I regret to say that my lot thought it was someone in the new Trainees with a particularly nasty mind having a rag on us.”

  “And we thought it was you!” blurted one of the youngest girls, then clapped her hands over her mouth. “I’m sorry—”

  “Don’t be,” said the older one, with a toss of her head. “Obviously that’s what this nasty-minded bastard wanted us all to think, so we’d be at each others’ throats. Dean Melita is right. We really need to stop thinking of training as a competition. If we do that, we all win it, anyway.”

  The three girls from Healers’ shrugged, looking wry, and perhaps just a tiny bit smug. “We started talking about it as soon as the first letter turned up,” said the youngest of the three. “We made sure the whole Collegium knew about it. There’s speculation—”

  “Go on,” Amily urged. “I want to hear everything, nothing is outside the realm of possibility.”

  “Well, Kerl thought it might be a patient, or a former patient, or the relative of someone we couldn’t help.” That came from one of the other two. “But it didn’t seem as if any of the instructors or the other Healers had gotten anything of the sort, and surely if it was from a patient, they would have been getting letters before we were.”

  Mags nodded thoughtfully. These youngsters had good heads on their shoulders, and when presented with a problem, had not hesitated in tackling it. “We know now ain’t none of the Healers nor Healing instructors got anythin’,” he put in. “So reckon you’re prolly right, but we’ll still keep that as a possible.”

  “Dean Melita is talking to the instructors that got some in our Collegium,” said the first Bardic Trainee who’d spoken. Her dark brows creased suddenly. “I wonder why she didn’t get any?”

  Another of the Bardic Trainees snorted. “That’s not hard to guess. Anybody that knows anything about the Dean knows she would never keep anything like that a secret. And this slimy wretch’s plan to make us miserable doesn’t work unless we all think we’re the only ones being hurt and are suspecting each other.”

  The first girl’s expression lightened, and she even laughed a little. “Now that’s one of the truest things you’ve ever said. The Dean would have gone storming straight to the King with the letter in hand—”

  “The King already knows,” Amily told them. “He’s assigned me and Mags to deal with this as our first priority. But remember, outside this group and the Herald Trainees and your teachers, no one is to know. If the Poison Pen thinks his plan isn’t working and stops sending letters, we don’t know what he’ll do next, and it might not be pretty.”

  They all nodded.

  “Now, how are these letters coming to you?” Amily continued. “Dropped through open windows? Left in your books?”

  “Nothing so complicated,” said the first Healer Trainee who had spoken. “Each building has three baskets where you can leave notes for other people; one for each Collegium. Once a day servants come around, collect the notes in the baskets, and go about shoving them under our doors. All the Poison Pen letters have been glued shut with paste and a bit of waste paper. People do that all the time, and really, the only thing unusual about them was how poor the paper quality was.”

  “So anybody could’ve just dropped them letters into baskets at any of the Collegia?” Mags asked, and all the heads in the room nodded. Well, at least I can talk to the servants that do the collecting, and get them to hold out those letters for me.

  “All right then,” Amily said, taking charge of things again. “Mags, if you’ll take notes—I’d like all of you to start remembering, if you can, what was in the letters you destroyed.”

  With a sigh, Mags got out his notebook. This was going to take a lot of whiles.

  The Heraldic Trainees had, as anticipated, formed a united front after the breakfast meeting. So did the Bardic Trainees. The Healers had always been a close-knit bunch, so aside from every Senior Healer making sure none of the Trainee or junior women were being harassed, nothing much changed.

  To Amily’s relief, the current crop of female Heraldic Trainees turned out to be remarkably stable; and, in a pleasant change from years gone by,
every single one of them had come from normal families who were thrilled that their daughter had been Chosen. Of course, sometimes the reason they’d been thrilled was the stipend the Crown paid to a family whose child was Chosen, and sometimes the reason was because it meant that was one less mouth to feed, or one less dower to provide, but at least there were no emotionally damaged girls among this lot. Nothing but girls who had known all their lives that times were hard, the family had to work together, and it was their job to bring more food in than they ate. Which meant when they had gotten Poison Pen missives, they’d laughed, or snarled, and chucked them in the fire.

  Rolan had verified that with their Companions while the girls had been talking. This was a tough-minded bunch.

  “Do you want us to keep a watch on the baskets?” one of the middle-range Trainees asked, quite intelligently, during a pause in questions. “Between all of us, I think we could probably do that.”

  Amily hesitated, and looked at Mags. He shrugged. They’d talked about doing just this, after they’d spoken with the Bardic Trainees, and the problem was, if the Poison Pen realized a watch had been put on the baskets, he’d probably just do something else—or find another way of delivering letters.

  On the other hand, it would give these youngsters practice in putting a watch on something. “Talk with your teachers, have them show you how to do that,” she said. “Share the duty with the boys; they’ll probably be put out if you don’t. Don’t miss classes or skip anything. I’ll talk with the Deans and make sure the baskets are only set out after breakfast and taken away before dinner.” That would eliminate the potential problem of some of them deciding they had to watch overnight.

  After that, Mags just continued to take notes as the ones who had been targeted told him what they remembered of their letters, while the girls ate cakes and drank tea, quite as calmly as Amily could ever have wished for. When she shooed them all out, the room felt wonderfully empty again.