Magic's Promise Read online

  He stabbed a gnarled thumb toward his chest and snorted. “Me! Kernos' Horns! 'Make the boy a man,' he says. 'I don't care what you have to do, just make 'im a man!' An' every day, just about, askin' me how you was shapin' up. I been under pressure before, but damn, this was enough t' make an angel sweat. I owed that man, an' what the hell was I supposed t' do? Tell him I never saw no beatin's turn no kids from fey if that was how they was bent? Tell him there were no few of the meres his father'd hired was shieldmates, an' looked about as fey as me an' fought like hell's own demons?”

  “You could have tried -”

  Jervis snarled a little. “And lose my place? You think there's jobs for old meres 'round any corner? I was flat desperate, boy! What in hell was I supposed to do?”

  Vanyel bit back his resentment. “I didn't know,” he said finally. “I didn't guess.”

  Jervis grimaced. “You weren't supposed to, boy. Well, hell, my style suited you, you poor little scrap, 'bout as well as teats on a bull. 'Bout the same as Medren.”

  “If you knew that-” Vanyel bit back his protest.

  “Yeah, I knew it. I just couldn't face it. Then you went all stubborn on me, you damned well wouldn't even try, an' I didn't know what the hell t' do! I was 'bout ready t' bust out, you made me so damned mad, an' your old da on me every time I turned around - an' if that weren't enough, gods, I useta get nightmares 'bout you.”

  “Nightmares?” Vanyel asked. He knew he sounded skeptical, mostly because he was.

  “Yeah, nightmares,” Jervis said defensively. “Shit, you can't live on the damn Border without seein' fightin' sooner or later. An' you likely t' get shoved out there with no more sense of what t' do t' keep yourself alive than a butterfly. Look, smart boy - you was firstborn; you bet I figured you for bein' right in th' front line some day, an' I figured you for dead when that happened. An' I don't send childer outa my damned hands t' get killed, dammit!''

  His face twisted and his shoulders shook for a moment, and he finished off the wine in his mug at a single gulp. Vanyel could sense more pain than he'd ever dreamed the old man could feel behind that carved-granite face. Somewhere, some time, Jervis had sent ill-prepared “childer” out of his hands to fight - and die - and the wounds were with him still. His own anger began to fade.

  “Well, that's what you were headin' straight for, boy, an' I just plain didn't know how t' keep it from happening. You made me so damned mad, an' then your old man just gave me too much leash. Told me I had a free hand with you. An' I - lost it. I went an' took the whole mess out of your hide.”

  He shook his head, staring at the floor, and his hands trembled a little where he was clutching the empty mug. “I lost my damned temper, boy. I'm not proud of that. I'm not proud of myself. Should have known better, but every time you whined, it just made me madder. An' I was wrong, dead wrong, in what I was trying t' force into you; I knew it, an' that made me mad too. Then you pulled that last little stunt - that was it. You ever thought about what you did?”

  “I never stopped thinking about it,” Vanyel replied, after first swallowing nearly half the contents of his own mug. The wine could not numb the memories, recollections that were more acid on the back of his tongue than the cheap red wine.

  He looked fiercely into Jervis's eyes. “I hated you,” he admitted angrily. “If I'd had a real knife in my hands that day, I think I'd have gone for your throat.” All the bitterness he'd felt, then and after, rose in his gullet, tasting of bile. He struggled against his closing throat to ask the question that had never been answered and had plagued him for more than a decade. “Why, Jervis, why?” he got past his clenched jaw. “If you knew what I was doing, why did you lie and tell Father I was cheating?”

  Silence; Jervis stared at him with anger mixed with shame, but it was the shame that won out. “Because I couldn't admit I was wrong,” Jervis replied, subdued and flushing a dark red. “Because I couldn't admit it to myself or anybody else. Couldn't believe a kid had come up with the answer I couldn't find. So I told Withen you'd cheated. Half believed it myself; couldn't see how you'd've touched me, otherwise. But I - I've had a lot of time t' think about it. Years, since you left. An' you turnin' out the way you did, a Herald an' all - shit, anybody turned out like that wouldn't cheat. Came to me after a while I never caught you in a lie, neither. Came to me that the only lies bein' told were the ones I was tellin'. Then when I started t' tell myself the truth, began t' figure out how close I came t' breakin' more'n your arm.”

  He hung his head, and he wouldn't look at Vanyel. And Vanyel found his anger and bitterness flowing away from him like water from melting ice.

  “Boy, I was wrong, and I am sorry for it,” he said quietly. “I told Withen the truth a while back, when they sent you out on the Karsite Border; told him everything I just told you. He didn't know what they was sendin' you to, but I did. Damn, I - if anythin' had happened, an' I hadn't told him -”

  He shuddered. “I told him more things, best I could. Told him that he's got a damned fine son, an' that there have been plenty of shieldmated fighters I'd'a been glad t' have at m'back, an' I'd “ye trusted with m' last coin and firstborn kid - an' just as many lads whose tastes ran t' wench-in' that I'd've just as soon set up against a tree an' shot. Told him if he let that stand between him an' you, he was a bigger fool than me. Did m' best for you, boy.

  Gonna keep on with it, too. Figure if I tell him enough, he might start believin' me. An' Van - I'm damned sorry it took me so long t' figure out how wrong I was.”

  There was profound silence then, while Vanyel waited for his thoughts and emotions to settle into coherency. Jervis was as silent as a man of rock, eyes fixed on the floor. The cricket in the salle broke off its singing, and Vanyel could hear the thud of hooves and sharp commands, faint and muffled, as Tarn took one of the young stallions around on the lunge just outside.

  Finally, everything within him crystallized into a new pattern -

  Vanyel took Jervis' mug from limp fingers and refilled it. But instead of giving it back, he offered the armsmaster his own outstretched hand.

  The former mercenary looked up at him in surprise, one of the first times Vanyel had ever seen the man register surprise, and began to smile; tentatively at first, then with real feeling.

  He took Vanyel's hand in both of his, and swallowed hard. “Thank you, boy,” he said hoarsely. “I wasn't sure you'd - you're a better man than - oh, hell -”

  Vanyel shrugged, and handed him his refilled mug. “Let's call it truce. I was a brat. And if you hadn't done what you did, I wouldn't be a Herald.” And I wouldn't have had 'Lendel.

  “Listen,” Jervis said, after first clearing his throat. “About Medren - that boy has no future here, a blind man could see that. What with all the right-born boys - an' I couldn't see that one bein' happy as anybody's dogsbody squire, you know? Figured the only chance for him was the way I came up; mere armsman. Lord Kernos knows he's got all the brains t' make officer right quick. So that's what I was tryin' to work him to.”

  “There was music.”

  “Yeah, his other shot was maybe music. I'd heard him, boy sounded all right, but what the hell do I know about music? Not a damn thing. But I figured, I figured I could make a damned fine armsman out of him, what with his reactions an' his brains an' speed an' all, if I could just figure out what they'd taught you over to Haven. Been

  tryin' - damn if I haven't been tryin'. Could not seem t'get it worked out, an' - shit, Van, hate t' use th' boy like a set of pells, but it seemed like th' only way t' work it out was to work it out usin' him. But,” Jervis held up a knotted finger, “just on th' chance th' boy was good at the plunkin' I been damned careful of his hands. Damned careful.”

  Vanyel's arm began to ache, and he put his mug down to rub it. “I never did get all the feeling back,” he said, still resentful, still feeling the last burn of the anger he'd nursed all these years. “If things hadn't turned out the way they did - even being careful you could have hurt him, and rui
ned his chance at music.”

  Jervis visibly stifled an angry retort, but in the face of Vanyel's own anger, winced and looked away. “Can't undo what I did, boy,'' he said, after an uncomfortable silence. “Nobody can. But the least I can do is keep from makin' the same mistake twice. An' I was tryin'. I swear it.”

  Vanyel sat on his anger.

  Jervis gulped his wine. “Truth now, between you an' me. Were you any good? Did I -”

  “No,” Vanyel said honestly. “I didn't have the Gift. And it's taken a while, but I learned how to make up for the lost feeling. You didn't take anything away from me, not really.”

  Jervis' shoulders sagged a little. “How about the bastard? Medren, I mean.”

  “I'm sponsoring him into the Bardic Collegium. He's better than I was at fifteen, and he's got the Bardic Gift.” Vanyel nodded at Jervis' swift intake of breath. “Exactly; he'll make a full Bard.”

  The memory suddenly sprang up, unprompted, of Medren and his succession of bruises - just bruises. Nasty ones, some of them, but not broken bones, not even sprains. No worse than Vanyel had seen his brothers and cousins sport, back in the long ago. And Vanyel began to look a little closer at those memories, while Jervis stared at him askance. Finally he began to smile.

  “It just occurred to me - Medren. With a full Gift. He has been manipulating me, the little demon, using that Gift of his. Doing it just fine, too, and with no Bardic

  training. Given that, I'd say he's going to be outstanding, and I think I'd better have a little word with him on the subject of ethics!”

  Jervis chuckled. “I don't think it's a - purpose; at least, I don't think he knows he shouldn't. He's another one that's good at bottom. An' let me tell you, even without havin' a decent style, he's no slouch with a blade!”

  Vanyel cut them both more bread and cheese, and reached for the wine to refill both mugs. He leaned back against the wall, with a feeling that something that had been festering for a long time had begun to heal. He didn't like Jervis, quite. Not yet, anyway. But he was beginning to see why Jervis had done what he'd done, and beginning to respect the courage that made the armsmaster admit - if belatedly - that he was wrong.

  “You know,” Vanyel said slowly, “he'll be taught blade right along with music; Bards end up finding themselves in some fairly unpleasant places from time to time. They’re in Valdemar's service no less than Heralds are, so being handy with a sword surely can't hurt. Hellfire, you should have seen Bard Chadran in his prime; he'd have been a match for both of us together!”

  Jervis looked up with interest. “Chadran - that the one that was s'pposed t' have got picked up by bandits, got 'em t' trust 'im, then fought himself an' a handful of prisoners loose?”

  “That's the one, only he went in on Elspeth's request.”

  When he finished that story, Jervis managed to coax the Shadow Stalker tale out of him, after half the bottle was gone. Most people never heard the real story. It took half a bottle before he was ready to face those memories. Before that tale was over and the bottle was empty, Vanyel had decided he had an ally he could count on. He was certain of it after Jervis' final words when Vanyel got up to leave.

  “Never understood Heralds before,” the armsmaster admitted. “Never could figure out what all the fuss and feathers was about. Didn't really have any notion of what you people did, until them stories about you started up. Never paid much attention t' who the hero was before, then I started noticin' that in the Valdemar songs most of the heroes turn out t' be Heralds. Somethin' else I started noticin' - most of the Heralds ended up comin' down with a serious case of dead in them stories. You come pretty close to it, a time or two, eh?”

  Vanyel nodded ruefully, stretching sore muscles. “Stupidity, mostly.”

  Jervis snorted. “My ass. Wasn't stupidity so much's puttin' yourself in harm's way. Right, so tell me this - a mere like me, he puts himself on the line for money. Knows what he bought himself into, knows what he'll get out of it if he lives. An' he only gives so much; what he was paid for, but not past it. But – you - you Heralds? What's in it for you? I mean, look at you right now - you've about wore yourself down to a thread, somethin' no mere would do. And you showed up here in th' same state. What for?”

  Vanyel shook his head. “It's hard to tell you; it's a feeling, more than anything. Something like a priestly vocation, I would guess.” He looked inside himself for the answer, an answer he hadn't really looked for since he first realized what it was that had made Tylendel need to be a Herald. “I do it because I have to. Because I'm needed. There isn't anybody - I'm not boasting, Jervis, you can ask Savil - there isn't anybody else in the whole Kingdom that can do what I can do. I can't give up, I can't just shrug things off and tell myself somebody else will take up the slack, because there isn't anybody else. There are too many people out there who need my protection; because I'm this powerful, I have an obligation to use that power. I'm the lone Guard at the Gate - I daren't give up, because there's nobody behind me to take up what I lay down.”

  Jervis' face went absolutely still. Vanyel wished he knew what the old man was thinking. “Nobody?” he asked.

  Vanyel shook his hair out of his eyes. “Nobody,” he echoed, staring into space. “I have no choice; it's that, or know my inaction dooms others. Sometimes lots of others. Too many times, others I know and care for.”

  Jervis's eyes grew deep and thoughtful, and Vanyel could feel them on his back as he left, headed for the bathhouse.

  There was a light tap at Vanyel's door that woke him from the nap he was trying to take - in part to make up for the sleep he had been losing to Melenna. It hadn't been a very successful attempt. He was still too on edge; his mind was too active. He yawned, and then grinned, identifying Medren by a stray thought-wisp. So we've recovered from the measles, hmm? And about to have a little moment of truth with Uncle Vanyel. Or rather, though he doesn't know it, Herald Vanyel.

  “Come,” he said, sitting up and stretching, then swinging his legs off the bed.

  “Vanyel?” Medren plodded into the room and sagged down into the window seat. “Can I hide up here? I just found out from young Meke that old Jervis is gonna have some 'special demonstration' this afternoon, and you know what that means.” The boy shuddered. “Good old Medren for pells.”

  “Actually, no, not this time,” Vanyel grinned. “It means 'good old Radevel for pells.' I've been teaching Rad my style, and the pells plan on giving Jervis as good as he gets. Then you and Radevel will have at each other while I coach so Jervis can watch. He says he wants to know my style 'because sooner or later he's going to get another puny 'un.' And some time this week, my young friend, you will have another sparring partner; once I recover, you and I are going to pair off. And I'll run you around the field for a while. And meanwhile we'll find out what Tashir is good for.”

  The boy's mouth dropped open, and Vanyel continued mercilessly.

  “This is for your benefit. Bardic Collegium includes bladework for Bards right along with the music lessons, and I wanted you to have as much of a head start as possible. A Bard's duty has been known to carry him into some dangerous places, and the Bardic Circle can't spare Guards to tag along behind you to keep you out of trouble.”

  The boy's mouth worked, but for a long moment, no sound emerged.

  “Oh -” he said weakly. “I – ah -”

  “Medren, I have a very serious question to ask you.” Vanyel let the smile drop from his mouth and eyes, and moved to stand over the boy. “When you were fishing for my sympathy, what else were you doing? And don't tell me that you weren't doing anything. We both know better than that.”

  “I...” the boy gulped, and dropped his eyes. “I was trying to make you feel sorry for me. That's why I was kind of ... playing while I was talking to you; singing but not singing, you know? Putting music behind what I was doing. I ... it feels sort of like when I really get taken up by a song. Like I'm pushing something. Only with the inside of my head.”

  “Did y
ou ever think about whether that was a good idea?” Vanyel asked, with no inflection in his voice.

  “No. Not really.” A long pause, then Medren hung his head. “It isn't, is it?” he asked, in a very small, and very subdued voice. “I was doing something I shouldn't have. I ... I guess it's something like being a bully because you're bigger than somebody, isn't it?”

  Vanyel nodded, relief relaxing his shoulders. Good. He knows, now. He saw it for himself. He'll be all right. But he spoke sternly. “It is. And if you do it at Bardic, they'll have the Heralds block your Gift, and they'll turn you out. That is your Gift; this ability to make people feel what you want them to feel through music. And there are only three times it's permissible for you to use that Gift: when you're performing, when you're helping someone who needs help, and at the King's orders.”

  “Yessir,” Medren whispered, head sunk between his shoulders, where he'd pulled it when Vanyel spoke of having his Gift blocked and being turned out of the Collegium. “Nossir. I'll remember.”

  “You'd better. On this, you get one chance. Now, come on, lad,” Vanyel said with a renewal of cheerfulness, urging Medren up out of his chair and propelling him out the door with a hand behind his shoulders. “Time for you to show those plowhorse cousins of yours how a real fighter does things.”

  Nine

  They returned to his room after practice; Vanyel had thought to give Medren another music lesson, but even though he hadn't done any fighting, he realized as he directed Medren's movements that he was drained - and that was long before the practice was over.

  Medren was no fool; he could see how exhausted Vanyel was. He suggested that the lesson be put off; he even offered to have servants bring Vanyel's dinner to his room.

  Vanyel accepted both offers; he bolted the food as soon as the servant brought it, and threw himself facedown on his bed again with a groan. The bed had somehow been made up in his absence, despite all the hurly-burly in Treesa's bower. Baby Heralds wrecking rooms, adult Heralds making magic Gates and then falling through them half-dead, a possible war on the Border, and still somehow the beds get made. What a world.