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  But he did. And this time he retreated from the chaos still troubled. The man had never been more than a hedge-wizard, but had convinced himself that “someone” was thwarting him from advancing beyond that status. To that end he began stealing power from others, specifically those whose Gift was even weaker than his. But since he really wasn't terribly adept or adroit, he failed to clean that power of little bits of personality that came with it. ...

  For at least the past four years, he'd been going progressively closer to the edge of insanity. He'd have gone over eventually, of that Vanyel had no doubt. But he had still been clinging to the last shreds of rational thought, when he crossed the Border into Valdemar and used his powers to search for another victim.

  That had triggered Vanyel's Guardian spell, and the vrondi swarmed on him. It was at that point that he lost his grip on reality.

  “In other words,” he told the man, who stared at him blankly, “I might well be the one who sent you mad, in a roundabout fashion. Damn.”

  He crossed his arms, leaned back against the trunk of a tree, and thought over what he was going to have to do. Blackfoot snorted her disgust at being tied to a bush for so long with nothing she wanted to eat within reach. When Van didn't respond, she stamped her hooves impatiently. He continued to ignore her, and she heaved an enormous sigh and turned as much as her reins would allow to watch a moth fly past.

  “I guess I'm going to have to take you back to Forst Reach,” Vanyel said, reluctantly. “If I leave you with Father Tyler, he can find a MindHealer to set you straight - and power-theft is really more in the provenance of the clergy than it is mine, since you didn't actually do any of that inside Valdemar. I really hate to have to take you there, but there's no place else.”

  With that, he hauled the mage to his feet, ignoring the man's struggles. He'd learned a thing or two on the Border, and one of those things was the best way to immobilize a prisoner. Blackfoot snorted with alarm when they approached her, but Van ignored her alarm as well as he ignored the man's attempts to struggle free.

  At that point, Vanyel gave the man a taste of his own medicine; a touch of the paralysis spell he'd set on Van. With the man completely helpless, Vanyel was able to haul him bodily to lie facedown over Blackfoot's saddle, like an enormous bag of grain. He felt the curious touch of the vrondi, attracted by his use of the spell, but ignored the creature; when he didn't invoke magic again, it got bored and vanished.

  He was sweating and annoyed when he finally got the man in place; he considered using the spell to keep him quiescent during the walk back - but decided against it. It would be a waste of energy, since the ropes tying feet to hands under Blackfoot's belly would hold him perfectly well.

  With a glance of annoyance at him, and a swat for Black-foot, who decided to rebel against this unexpected burden, Vanyel took the reins and began leading the hunter along the game path, heading back to the manor.

  And he couldn't help wondering if every half-mage in the Kingdom was going to take it into their heads to go mad.

  The prospect was not an appetizing one.

  Ten

  “Lamentable,” said Father Tyler, regarding the trussed-up mage, who was propped against a corner of the low wall surrounding the father's stone cottage. From the look of things, the mage was neither happy nor comfortable, not that Van was inclined to wish him either of those states.

  Father Tyler shook his head again, his tightly-curled blond hair scarcely moved. “Most regrettable.”

  “I wouldn't feel too sorry for him, Father,” Vanyel said sourly, rubbing a pulled shoulder. The man had somehow gotten heavier when the time came to get him off Black-foot's back, and Van had wrenched his back getting the mage to the ground. “He brought at least two thirds of this on himself. Maybe more; mages aren't supposed to cross into Valdemar without registering themselves, but I doubt you'll find a record of this one. Be that as it may, his problem stems from power-theft. He's certainly guilty of that, and he's managed to do as much harm to himself as he ever did to his victims.”

  “Just how serious is power-theft?” the priest asked, rubbing his chin, a look of intense concentration on his long face. “I admit the seminary never covered that.”

  “Somewhere between rape and larceny,” Vanyel replied, absently, wondering if he could get Blackfoot back to the stables without running into his relatives. “Power becomes part of a mage; it has to, if he's going to be able to use it effectively. Because of that, having your power stolen is a little like rape; there's a loss of 'self that's very disturbing on a purely mental level. But that's why this fool ran into trouble. He wasn't good enough to cleanse the power he stole of all the personality overtones, and they became part of him. Pretty soon he never knew if what he was thinking stemmed from his own personality, or what was from outside, and he couldn't control what was going on in his dreams and random thought processes anymore. He put on tighter and tighter shields to stop the problem, which only made it worse. The pressure in there must have been intolerable. Then the vrondi started spying on him, and he snapped completely. But if he hadn't stolen the power in the first place, this never would have happened.”

  “Well, it is your job to judge, Vanyel,” the priest said, with a smile that made it clear he intended no insult. “But it is part of mine to forgive, and mend. I'll see what can be done for this poor fellow.”

  That only succeeded in making Van feel guiltier, but he smiled back and thanked the priest. He thought about warning him that the mage was strong and far from harmless -

  But Father Tyler was younger than Vanyel himself, quite as strong as any of the stablehands; besides, he was the successor to Father Leren. He had been part of the united Temples' effort at cleansing their own ranks and was probably quite well acquainted with all the faces of treachery.

  He'll be all right, Vanyel told himself as he made his farewell and took Blackfoot's reins. She was quite willing to go; in fact she tried her best to drag him to the stable. He would have been amused if he hadn't been so preoccupied.

  He held Blackfoot to a walk by brute force, and turned again to his personal dilemma. The problem of Stef was no closer to a solution. Van still couldn't see how he would be able to reconcile all the warring factors in his life.

  “What would you do?” he asked the mare, who only strained at the reins on her halter and tried to get him to quicken his pace. “Oh, I know what you'd do,” he told her. “You'd eat.”

  She ignored him, and tugged impatiently as they crossed the threshold of the stable. Several of the stalls that had been occupied were empty when Blackfoot hauled him back to her loose-box. So luck was with him - it looked like the masculine contingent of Forst Reach had taken themselves off somewhere, en masse. And since Treesa had Stef as a semi-captive provider of entertainment, she wouldn't be looking for her son.

  Vanyel unsaddled the mare and groomed her; evidently she was one of those animals that liked being groomed, as she leaned into his brushstrokes and sighed happily, behaving as charmingly as if she hadn't spent most of the ride fighting him. While he curried her, Van tried to think of somewhere about the keep he could go to think. What he needed was someplace where he could be found if someone really went looking for him, but a place no one would go unless they really were looking all over for him.

  Then it occurred to him: the one side of the manor that hadn't yet been built on was the side with that relatively inaccessible porch. It was tree-shaded and quite pleasant, but since the only entry was through a pantry, hardly anyone ever used it. It was too open for trysting, and too awkward for anything else. Which meant it should be perfect for his purposes.

  Blackfoot whickered entreatingly at him and rattled her grain bucket with her nose.

  “You greedy pig - I'm surprised you aren't as fat as a pony!” he exclaimed, laughing. “Well, you don't fool me. I know the rules around here, girl, and you don't get fed until after evening milking.”

  She looked at him sourly, and turned her back on him.
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  “And you don't get to lounge around in your stall, either,” he told her, as he swung the door to the paddock open. “It's a beautiful day, now get out there and move that plump little rear of yours.”

  He swatted her rump; she squealed in surprise and bolted out the open door. She dug all four feet in and stopped a few lengths into the paddock, snorting with indignation, but it was too late. He'd already shut the door.

  He laughed at the glare she gave him before she lifted head and tail and flounced out into the paddock.

  Then he turned tail himself, and headed back to the keep, and a great deal of thinking.

  Once he'd fetched his instrument from their room, Stefen expected Treesa to lead him straight to the solar. That room was normally the ladies' sanctum - or at least it was for all the ladies he knew. But she didn't head in that direction; in fact, she led him outside and down a path through the gardens. The path was very well-used, and led through the last of the garden hedges and out into a stand of trees that continued for as far as he could see.

  “Lady Treesa?” he said politely. “Where in Havens are we going?”

  “Didn't Van tell you?” she asked, stopping for a moment to look back over her shoulder at him.

  He shook his head and shrugged. “I am quite entirely in the dark, my lady. I expected you to take me to your solar.”

  “Oh - I'm sorry,” she laughed, or rather, giggled. “During the summer we don't work in the solar unless there happens to be a lot of weaving to do - we come out here, to the pear orchard. No one is working in it at this time of year, and it's quite lovely, and cool even on the hottest summer days. The keep, I fear, is a bit musty and more than a bit damp - who would want to be indoors in fine weather like this?”

  “No one, I suppose,” Stef replied. At about that moment, the rest of the ladies came into view between the tree trunks. They had arranged themselves in a broken circle in the shade, and were already at work. Sure enough, they had their embroidery frames, their cushions, and their plain-sewing, just as if they were working in the heart of the keep. Spread out as they were on the grass beneath the trees, they made a very pretty picture.

  They came up to the group to a chorus of greetings, and Lady Treesa took her seat - she was the only one with a chair, an ingenious folding apparatus-which, when Stef thought about it, really wasn't unreasonable given her age.

  Now Stefen was the center of attention; Treesa let her ladies stew for a bit, though they surely must have known who he was likely to be. After an appropriate span of suspense, Treesa introduced him as “Bard Stefen, Vanyel's friend,” and there were knowing looks and one or two pouts of disappointment.

  Evidently Van's predilections were now an open secret, open enough that there were assumptions being made about what being Vanyel's “friend” entailed. Stefen ignored both the looks and the pouts; smiled with all the charm he could produce, and took the cushion offered him at Treesa's feet, and began tuning his gittern, thankful that he'd put it in full tune last night and it only required adjusting now. The twelve-stringed gittern was a lovely instrument, but tuning it after travel was a true test of patience.

  “Now, what is your pleasure, my lady?” he asked, when he was satisfied with the sound of his instrument. “For giving you pleasure is all my joy at this moment.”

  Treesa smiled and waved her hands gracefully at him.

  “Something fitting the day,” she said, “Something of love, perhaps.”

  For one moment Stef was startled. She can't possibly have meant that the way it sounded. She can't possibly be alluding to Van and me, can she?

  Then a second glance at her face told him that she was just “playing The Game” of courtly love. She'd meant nothing more than to give him the expected opening to flatter her.

  Well, then - flatter her he would.

  “Would 'My Lady's Eyes' suit you?” he asked, knowing from Vanyel that it was Treesa's favorite.

  She glowed and tossed her head coyly, and he congratulated himself on reading her correctly. “It would do very nicely,” she replied, settling back into the embrace of her chair, not even pretending an interest in her needlework.

  Stefen smiled at her - only at her, as The Game demanded - and launched into the song.

  By the third song he had grown to like Treesa quite a bit, and not just because she was so breathlessly flattering to his ego, nor because she was Vanyel's mother. As Van himself had said, she had a very good heart. When he paused to rest his fingers, she asked him for news of Medren; and not just out of politeness' sake. Ignoring the sidelong glances of her ladies, she asked him several questions about her wood's-colt grandson after Stef's initial answer of “he's fine.”

  “Has he gotten advanced from his Journeyman status?” she asked, after several close inquiries to the state of Medren's health and progress - a question voiced wistfully, or so it seemed to Stef.

  He paused for a moment to think, as the breeze ruffled his hair and sent a breath of cool down the back of his neck. “Not when we'd left, my lady,” he replied, “But I honestly don't think it's going to be much longer. He's very good, my lady, and I'm not saying that just because he's my friend. The Council of the Bardic Circle is really waiting for the fuss to die down about my getting jumped to Master so quickly before they promote anyone else. And if you want to know the truth, I think they might have been waiting for me to leave so that no one could accuse me of using my influence to get him his full Scarlets.”

  “Bard Stefen,” she said, and hesitated, looking at him oddly. This time he was certain that expression was of hope. “Do you think when he gets it, he would be willing to come here for a permanent post?” She smiled, and blushed a little. “I'm perfectly willing to trade shamelessly on his family ties if you think he'd be willing. Forst Reach would never rate a Master Bard, else.”

  Stefen pondered his answer for a moment before replying. Treesa was entirely right; Forst Reach was too small a place to demand the attentions of a Master Bard. Certainly there would be no chance for advancement here, under normal circumstances. But Forst Reach was also on the Border, and within reach of the newly-combined “kingdoms” of Baires and Lineas which were now ruled by Herald Tashir. Remarkable things had happened here - in fact, the solving of the mystery of who slaughtered Tashir's family was the subject of Medren's own planned Masterwork - and it was entirely possible that more remarkable things might occur. These were the sort of events that the Bardic Circle really preferred to have a full Bard on hand to record.

  Furthermore, Medren had never shown the kind of ambition Stef harbored - he'd never talked about advancing in Court circles or gaining an important patron. It might well be that he'd be happy here.

  “I think it might be worth asking him, my lady,” Stefen replied with perfect truth. “And I know that if he wants it, the Circle would grant him leave to be here. Especially if you'd agree to share him with Tashir.”

  “I'd share him with anyone if it meant we'd have a Bard here,” Treesa exclaimed. “And Tashir is such a dear boy, I'm certain he'd work out schedules with me so that we wouldn't both need Medren at the same time. It shouldn't be that hard even for seasonal celebrations - if I scheduled ours a bit early, and he scheduled his a bit late. ...” Her voice trailed off, and she tapped her lips with one finger, obviously deep in thought. Stefen held his peace until she spoke again.

  “Then I'll request it formally,” she said aloud, and turned to Stef with both hands out in entreaty. “Would you -”

  “I'll speak to him, my lady,” Stefen assured her.

  The dazzling smile she bestowed on him showed him something of the beauty she must have had in her prime. He bowed slightly to her, reinvoking The Game before she could get him to promise more than he could deliver. He had the distinct feeling that if she exerted herself, she could do just that.

  He heard the sound of hooves on dry ground behind him at that moment, the steps slow and unhurried. He was about to turn to see who was riding out here, when Lady Treesa
looked over his shoulder and smiled a second dazzling smile.

  “And here is the other reason we meet out-of-doors in fine weather when Vanyel is at home,” she said happily. “Especially if we can get Van to perform for us, or we have some other musician available. Welcome, Lady Yfandes! It would certainly present some difficulties attempting to get you up to the solar, would it not?”

  Stefen turned; sure enough, it was Yfandes, who bowed - there was no doubt of it - to Lady Treesa, and whickered with what sounded like amusement. The Companion made her stately way to a spot that had evidently been left empty just for her, and folded herself down to it. That was the only way Stefen could think of the movement - it was a great deal more graceful than the way a horse would lie down, and was strongly reminiscent of a lady slowly taking a seat on the ground while minding all her voluminous skirts.

  “Lady Yfandes is as fond of music as I am,” Treesa told Stefen seriously. “When Vanyel finally told me that, the thoughtless boy, I couldn't see any reason why she shouldn't be able to join us when she wished.”

  Stefen realized then, with a bit of shock, that Treesa was speaking of Yfandes as if she were a lady-guest, and doing so completely naturally. It seemed she had no problem with accepting Yfandes as a “person” and not a horse.

  Which is a little better than I can manage at the moment, he thought ruefully. I have to keep reminding myself that she's not what she seems. And I'm a Bard, so I should know better!

  “Well, in that case, my ladies all,” he said, with a slight bow to Yfandes and another special smile for Treesa, “allow me to take up my gittern, and resume amusing you.”

  In fact, he was greatly enjoying himself. The entire little group seemed to be enthralled with having the talents of a full Bard at their disposal. Some of Treesa's ladies were quite pretty, and although Stef had no intention of following up on his flirtations, when they fluttered coyly at him, he preened right back. That was an accepted part of The Game, too. Best of all, none of this was work - he used only the barest touch of his Gift to enhance his performance, hardly enough for him to notice, unlike the deep-trance, draining effort he'd been putting out for the King.