Brightly Burning Read online

  Tuck and Lan were going to be gone themselves within a candlemark; Lan had already packed up his clothing and personal gear last night. All that remained in the wardrobe were a couple of clean outfits for when he got back, and the resplendent Formal Grays.

  Although he had never considered himself to be particularly interested in clothing, he opened the wardrobe to admire the Formal Grays one more time. When he’d asked Housekeeper Tori for a set of Formals, he hadn’t expected anything near that nice; the only way they differed from Formal Whites was in the color—which, unlike the everyday Trainee Grays, was a deeper color, very nearly his favorite charcoal gray. This, so the housekeeper told him, was to make it very clear on formal occasions who the Trainees were. This was meant to keep them from getting involved in situations that they were not yet ready for; in an emergency, the paler color used in the everyday Grays might be mistaken for white. The housekeeper, on learning what he wanted the uniform for, had even brought him to the sewing room for several fittings. The Collegium seamstresses tailored it carefully to him and it fitted impeccably, to the point that his mother would probably be impressed by the figure he cut. It was not new, though it looked it; some other Trainee had needed it, and it had passed through the hands of two or three other Trainees before it came to Lan. Each had worn it once or twice, so for all intents and purposes it was as good as the day it had first been made. The housekeeper had a dozen sets of Formal Grays packed away in an aromatic chest to keep off the moths, and when he was finished with this set, she’d let out the alterations, clean it, and put it back in the chest for the next Trainee near his size who needed it.

  Lan closed the wardrobe on the splendid, silver-trimmed Grays, then picked up his packs and wrapped himself up in his cloak. He slung the packs over his shoulder and met Tuck at his door, and the two of them headed for the stables.

  The Companions themselves arranged for these staged departures; they were quite a bit more organized than their Chosen. About the time that a Trainee had picked up his packs, his Companion would present himself at the entrance to his stall. That was a signal to the stable hands to tack up that particular Companion, and if everyone got the timing right, the Companion would meet his Chosen at the entrance to the stable, all ready to go. Under ordinary circumstances, a Trainee was responsible for doing his own saddling, but during the crush of holiday departures it was deemed wiser to have as few people crowding the stables as possible.

  The first rush was always among those who were getting extra leave for their travels, so sometimes those in that lot had to wait or take the option to saddle up their Companions themselves. By this time, though, the Trainees were leaving in a slow trickle, so Lan was gratified to see Kalira and Tuck’s mare Dacerie waiting for them, all tacked up in their travel gear.

  :Let’s go!: Kalira called, doing a little dance in place. :I can’t wait to see something besides Companion’s Field for a change!:

  Lan laughed, and threw his packs across her rump, fastening them to the back of the saddle. In no time at all, he and Tuck were in the saddle and out of the gate, with a cheerful wave to the Gate Guard. As Kalira had predicted, the Guards had gotten weary of watching him several weeks ago, and there was no longer anyone shadowing his movements. Now the Guards no longer noted him as anything other than another Trainee; the Guard stationed at the gate in the special uniform of Palace duty gave him nothing more than the same wave he had given to Tuck.

  Outside the walls, they found themselves in the oldest section of Haven, where the houses of some of the highborn with the longest lineage stood. These impressive manses were positively ancient, built in an archaic and very ornate style, covered with carvings, stone lacework, and peculiar little statues in niches, dark with age and weather. The gardens here were not as extensive as those on the other side of the Palace grounds, but their age was easily read in the size of the trees and the thickness of the hedges surrounding the gardens. Lan could only imagine what those gardens looked like—nothing at all like the bare patch behind his parents’ house, surely.

  It was quiet here, with a real sense of age. Oddly enough, although the Palace predated these mansions by centuries, these places seemed older. He surveyed them with a sense of cynicism. Perhaps it was because they were ossified, preserved like flies in amber in a casing of unchanging tradition and petrified pride. The Palace was always alive with change; it looked to Lan as if no one dared so much as move a rock in the garden of one of these places.

  “I love coming through here,” Tuck said, his eyes shining with enthusiasm as he admired the buildings, the height of which was only rivaled by the ancient trees in the gardens. “These places are so solid, you know? You can feel the history and all the lives and events that have passed through their rooms; it’s wonderful!”

  Lan looked over at him in surprise. “I would have said stifling, myself. I should think that anyone who lived here would be as boring and dusty and moth-eaten as an old stuffed bird, and just about as flexible.”

  Tuck shook his head. “No, no, no—it’s not stifling at all! Well, you know, Daria, don’t you? And if you know her, I know that you like her!”

  Lan nodded slowly. He did, indeed, know Trainee Daria, a tall brunette with a slow smile; she was in the year-group just before his. Nothing she ever did or said drew attention to herself; she was quiet, vaguely pretty, but not outstanding in any way but one. And that one—was simply amazing. She was the most competent person he had ever seen. She never put a foot wrong; when something was needed, she was the first person there, with the required object in her hand. When she didn’t know the answer to a question or problem, she invariably knew who did. And although self-effacing, she was so quietly friendly and cheerful that, as Tuck had said, everyone who knew her liked her.

  “Well, she grew up right over there.” He pointed to a particularly matronly manor. “Her blood’s near as blue as the King’s. And she’s not petrified!”

  “I have to admit you’re right, there,” Lan replied. “Huh.”

  “Daria’s going to take me to see the place one of these days, come spring, and let me rummage through the family papers,” Tuck went on, fired with enthusiasm. “You know, some of these older Great Houses had their own Chroniclers? They’ve got records going back centuries, some right back to the Founding! And antiques and artifacts stored up that are nearly as old! Just think about it—stuff like that just brings how the people lived right to life when you look at it and handle it, read their letters, see how they lived!”

  “You sound like the Herald Chronicler yourself,” Lan teased, only half joking.

  “I’d like to do that,” Tuck replied, not joking at all. “I’d like that a lot. But I’ve got a long way to go before I’m ready for that, and a lot of circuit riding! My only Gift is strong Mindspeech, so it’s not like I have anything special to teach when it’s time to retire from field duty.”

  Lan blinked, a little surprised by this unexpected depth to his friend. “To tell the truth, I don’t know what I want to do. What I really wanted was to be in the Guard, but when my parents put their feet down on that idea, I kind of gave it up. Then I thought that I’d like to be a Caravan Master, but I guess that’s out of the question now—”

  “Riding circuit on the Border, that’s what you want,” Tuck said firmly. “You work with the Guard a lot, and you help local villages organize militia if there’s a local problem. You make sure that if there’s a noble estate near enough to help that the lord or whatever is doing his duty to help protect his people. Plus there’s all the usual circuit-riding stuff.”

  “And eating my own food—bleah!” Lan teased, as both Companions whickered their own form of laughter.

  “Then you’d better learn to cook better!” Tuck retorted. “If you don’t want to ride circuit, there’s always working with the Guard directly. Then you’d get army rations.”

  “Hmm.” Lan considered that notion as they left the last of the Great Houses behind, crossed through a gate beneath an
ancient wall, and entered a section of newer estates with more extensive grounds. “I hadn’t thought of that.”

  “If you’ve got a Gift that makes you really useful to the Guard, that’s probably what you’ll be doing after you do your internship circuit,” Tuck told him with an emphatic nod. “And if it’s really, really useful to the Guard, you may do your internship with one of the Guard Heralds on the Border itself.”

  “Really?” This was the first Lan had ever heard of such a thing, and he smiled, slowly. If he could do that, it would not only be his childhood dream come true, it would be better. “I’d like that. I’d like that a lot.”

  “I wouldn’t, but it takes all kinds, eh?” Tuck grinned broadly. “Me, I’d be happy if they’d let me teach History here, maybe run messenger or courier in an emergency, and apprentice to the Herald Chronicler.”

  “All right, apprentice—what can you tell me about all of these places?” Lan waved his arm at the walls surrounding the road, over which much newer buildings looked down at them haughtily.

  “Not much history here—and these places are more like to change hands than the Great Houses,” Tuck said, in a dismissive tone. “Newer nobles, Kingdom Guildmasters, and the very wealthy. I wish they’d pay more attention to their own history, actually, but they seem determined to leave it all behind them once they build or buy in this quarter. It’s like they want to become someone entirely different and turn their backs on where they came from.”

  “But they aren’t the same people anymore—” Lan objected.

  Tuck gazed at him with an unusually solemn expression. “Oh? And would you say that you aren’t the same person you were before you were Chosen? You can’t just forget all that and discard it—it made you what you are now! Erase it, try to forget it, and what do you get? Nothing but pretense! And that’s just phony, and more pretentious than just enjoying what you’ve made of yourself, I think.”

  “I guess I can see that, sort of. I mean, I don’t always get along with my folks, but they don’t pretend that they sprang out of nowhere, or that they’ve got some sort of fake blue blood in their background.” Lan considered that. What would that do to a person’s head? Could you remake yourself in another image? And if you did, what would you have? Wouldn’t it just be a false image?

  “And if these people discard what they were, what does that make them?” Tuck persisted. “If they try to convince themselves that their own past has no relevance anymore?”

  This was the most philosophic that Tuck had ever been, and it aroused an equally thoughtful mood in Lan.

  “Not . . . much,” Lan thought aloud. “Kind of hollow. No substance, no debt to the past.”

  “My point exactly,” Tuck said with satisfaction. “And maybe that’s why so many of their children turn out badly. Too much of trying to give their children what they didn’t have, and not enough giving their children what the did have that made them so successful and prosperous.”

  And maybe that explains Tyron and his bullies, Lan thought, with a twist of his gut. “You’re unaccountably wise today, Tuck,” he said lightly, changing the subject a trifle. “I hardly know you!”

  Tuck laughed. “That’s ’cause most people don’t pull my history string and find out what’s attached to it. Pure passion, I’m afraid; it’s the one subject that I can go on about for days at a time. Blame yourself; you could have started me on bad puns or limericks instead, but nooooo—”

  “That,” Lan replied with mock-solemnity, as they passed the last of the mansions and turned down a street lined with shops, “would have been worse. Or should I say, verse?”

  Tuck pulled off his cap and hit him on the shoulder with it, as Lan ducked and laughed. A few of the folk walking along the side of the street heard their laughter, turned their heads, and smiled to see two Trainees in such high spirits.

  The farther they went from the Palace, the more crowded the streets became. At first, all of the traffic was on foot, but before long they were sharing the pavement with ox-carts, pack-laden donkeys, and a few horsemen. Their pace was leisurely, but was never so slow that either of them felt impatient, and both Companions gazed in every direction with great interest. Lan rather enjoyed looking around; this was yet another part of the city he hadn’t yet had a chance to see. In this weather, there were few open stalls, but the shops seemed to be doing a brisk business. The stalls that were there tended toward hot food and drink: handfuls of roasted chestnuts; hot tea and cider; mulled ale; hot pies. The only aromas on the cold air were savory—stewing meat, the spices of mulled ale, the hearty scent of hot chestnuts, the sweet intoxication of pastry. Pie vendors also walked the street with trays of pies. One of them approached the boys, and Lan bought a pair of apple pies to share with Tuck. A small child ran up with a gift of a carrot for each Companion. They munched the spicy treats as they continued on out of the city. The streets were very narrow here, and quite noisy. Besides people talking at the tops of their lungs, oxen lowing, donkeys braying, hooves clicking on the pavement, and wheels clattering, there were the sounds of commerce. Butchers wielded cleavers or made sausage with much clanking of gears, tinkers mended pans, blacksmiths shoed animals or beat out utensils, knives were sharpened, wood hewn, furniture built. From the taverns, singing and laughter drifted out every time a door opened. From cookshops, a hundred different dinner dishes added their aroma to the breeze, and a hundred cooks and all their helpers added to the clamor.

  Lan loved it. This was his home village writ large; he adored the bustle, the fact that there were things to be seen no matter where you looked. He could have spent an entire day just watching the people at all their myriad activities.

  Gradually, the bustle ebbed, the buildings were spaced farther apart, and traffic eased. There were still plenty of people around, but they didn’t have to shout to be heard. Children shrieked and played; there wasn’t much snow around, since most of it had been trampled hard or swept away by now, so they bobbed along, bundled up like so many balls of clothing ready for the laundry, in clumsy, complicated games of tag.

  Then, suddenly, a final wall loomed up in front of Lan and Tuck, this one attended by a pair of Guardsmen in the lighter blue and silver of the regular troops. It was taller than any of the buildings around it, a real defensive structure, with watchtowers at intervals and more Guards patrolling atop it. The Trainees passed beneath it, and were out into the country.

  This was not one of the more heavily-trafficked roads into Haven, so there weren’t any of the big wagons that brought in farm produce or carried away goods. Instead, there were a few small carts on the road, and one or two riders, and the two of them. A wide meadow, snow-covered and dotted with sheep and milk cows, stretched on either side of the road all the way up to the wall. It was kept cleared to prevent anyone from approaching without warning. This was common land, and anyone who wished to could tether a cow or a sheep, or run a flock of geese out here. Many folk clubbed together to put their animals under a common shepherd, cowherd, or goose girl. There were no geese out here now—a sign that the Midwinter Feast was near. They were being fattened on grain in pens, in preparation for their appearance on many a table.

  “Want a gallop?” Tuck asked, now that they were out in the open.

  For answer, Kalira launched herself like an arrow from a bow, Tuck’s Dacerie following her with great enthusiasm. Lan bent low over Kalira’s neck, laughing, as Tuck caught up with them.

  This wasn’t a race. Instead, they were matching their paces, so perfectly that they could probably have traded mounts in mid-gallop. Full Heralds with more practice could do just that, and before he and Tuck finished their riding lessons, so would they.

  The Companions slowed to a fast walk as they reached the end of the common land and reached the first farms. Neither of the Companions were even breathing heavily, and Tuck and Lan were laughing with sheer exhilaration.

  “Now that is something we’ll be able to do as much as we like!” Tuck promised. “Da and Ma don’t
mind, as long as we don’t scare the stock!”

  “We’ll just stay out of the milch-cow pastures,” Lan promised. “I’ve been a country boy, too, you know, and I don’t think it’s particularly amusing to stampede the cattle. But—how’s the hunting?” He waited hopefully for the answer.

  “Good bird hunting, especially pheasant,” Tuck replied, smiling at the gleam in Lan’s eye. “We don’t bother the foxes unless they go after the yard fowl. If you really want to go after something big, we can organize a deer- or a boar-hunt, but we’re careful about how many we take from the home woods.”

  “I’d like that, but I’ll be satisfied with rabbit and birds,” Lan replied truthfully. “We’ll only have a fortnight, after all, and I don’t want to intrude on your time with your family.”

  “Oh, don’t worry, you won’t!” Tuck chuckled. “And I’d better warn you about Merry, my little sister. She’s just discovered boys, and she falls in love every time she meets a new one. You’re not bad-looking and you’re going to be a Herald, so she’ll probably start making calf eyes at you the minute you cross the threshold.”

  “I’ll try not to hurt her feelings,” Lan promised.

  :And I’ll try not to tease you about it too much,: Kalira chimed in.

  “We can always stay out of her way most of the day, and Ma won’t let her make too big a loon of herself in the evenings,” Tuck chuckled.

  The farms they passed looked virtually identical; thatch-roofed, snow-covered buildings with big stone barns, hedges dividing the fields with wooden stiles built for humans and dogs to cross, cattle and sheep pawing through the snow to get at the grass or feeding from bales of hay left out for them. In the farmyards, chickens and ducks jostled each other for grain and vegetable peelings while pigs grunted hopefully in their sties attached to the barns. Some farms boasted a pond full of geese and ducks as well. The figures of the farm folk, made small by the distance, made their way among the buildings at their chores.