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  Her expression softened, as if she had been bracing herself for him to object. “I’m glad you think so.”

  “I’m glad you’re glad.” He chuckled. “An’ if we’re done bein’ all serious and everything, I reckon I could use some pocket pies.”

  * * *

  Amily got tired sooner than everyone else, of course. She was still recovering from what had been a harrowing piece of Healing, and everything she did was still twice as difficult for her and took twice as much energy as it did for anyone else. Long before Mags was even thinking about sleeping, she was ready to rest.

  She came down out of the loft the same way she had gone up, and with the same care—but this time with greater enjoyment. “Would you like me to get Dallen?” he asked, when she was safely on the ground again.

  She shook her head. “I’d rather walk. Besides, being on Dallen would make me a bit obvious once we get nearer the Palace, and I’d rather not be obvious.”

  Mags paused a moment to let his mind drift to what Dallen was up to. “Seems he’s found some talk he wants to eavesdrop on, so he’ll thank you for that anyway,” he said thoughtfully. “Wouldn’t you think people could stop with the politicking and all for just one day?”

  The breeze lingered around them, stirring her skirts. “Court politics is all some people have in their lives,” she replied, then shrugged. “But since Dallen has so kindly decided to deal with this particular bit of it, we can probably let ourselves enjoy the evening without worrying about it. Dallen is as good at not being noticed as you.”

  :Wise woman,: Dallen commented, then went back to eavesdropping.

  It wasn’t a quiet walk nor a private one, what with all of the celebrants swirling about the grounds. Judging from the amount of reeling some of them were doing, not to mention what Mags could only think of as “drunken shenanigans,” there were going to be many, many sore heads in the morning. But as he held Amily’s hand, and they walked slowly toward the Herald’s Wing, he felt oddly as if they were somehow apart from all of that. It was a feeling he liked, as if the two of them were enclosed in a magical bubble through which they could watch what was going on if they chose, and yet were in a world away from it.

  They entered the Herald’s Wing, and the noise dropped precipitously as soon as they closed the door. There was no sign of anyone in the long, wood-paneled corridor, and the sound of their footsteps echoing down the hall was louder than the music and voices outside.

  When they got to the door of the quarters she shared with her father, however, things got a little . . . awkward. Just to begin with, there was her father. Nikolas was not only a Herald, and thus would certainly find out if they got up to any shenanigans of their own, but he was the King’s Own Herald, which meant he would probably find out about it from multiple sources.

  This did put a bit of a damper on romance. It was altogether awkward, in fact, since both of them were aware of it.

  At least the hallway was empty; in fact, it felt to Mags as though most of the wing was empty. So when they reached the door, he leaned over without warning to steal a kiss, and Amily wasn’t shy of reciprocating. He put both his arms around her when she did, pulling her closer, and felt her arms around his waist.

  “I don’t think there would be any harm if you came in,” she said huskily.

  “It’d probably be better than standin’ about in the hall,” he agreed.

  The little sitting room had been laid ready for the evening, though it wasn’t likely that Nikolas would set foot here before dawn. Two lanterns were lit in the sitting room, and the windows had been left open to the breeze, although the curtains had been drawn before them. They both sat down on the couch before the cold fireplace and listened to the distant sounds of celebration coming in through the open window.

  All right, Mags. Do manage to make some kind of talk, won’t you? He seized on the last thing she’d mentioned in the loft.

  “I might be able to help you with weapons’-work and all,” he said, “I’ve got some weapons I think’d suit you,” then blushed as she giggled. “I don’t think that came out right.”

  “Oh, you probably have a lot of weapons that would suit me, but we should confine ourselves to the ones my father would approve of,” she flirted, making him blush even more. But he liked this new side of her; she was so much more alive.

  They flirted a little more and kissed a little more, but eventually the fact that she was tired and the fact that Nikolas was very much a presence even though he was occupied elsewhere made him take his leave of her.

  He was by no means ready to call an end to the evening, which was still going strong in the gardens. By the time he got back to the stable loft, however, Bear and Lena were nowhere to be seen.

  :Don’t go looking for them,: Dallen advised. :And for Haven’s sake, don’t go knocking on Bear’s door for a nightcap!:

  Oh, so that was the way the wind blew . . . he’d had his suspicions for quite some time, but this was the first Dallen had confirmed them. He felt a flash of envy. Lena’s father was in no position to dictate anything to her, given that he was utterly in disgrace, and Mags rather doubted that her teachers would disapprove either of Bear as something more than a friend or of anything that would give her a little distraction from her studies. If anything, her teachers at Bardic Collegium had difficulty in getting her to think about anything other than music. Being in love would certainly give her perspective on love songs. And as for Bear himself, well, his parents were already so furious about his defiance of their wishes (with the help of Healer’s Collegium) that it was difficult to imagine how anything he would do short of murder would change their opinion for the worse. Bear already had the responsibilities of a full Healer in many areas, and even his teachers tended to regard and treat him as a full adult and peer.

  :Well,: Dallen said, commenting on his thoughts, :your case is a bit more complicated.:

  :It always is,: he sighed. :It’s bad enough that Amily has been a cripple for so long and all her friends feel protective of her. It’s worse her father is a Herald, so the chances of us actually keeping anything to ourselves is pretty low. But given that Nikolas is the King’s Own Herald . . . sometimes it feels as if every single person in Whites and half of the Companions thinks themselves her substitute parents. Awkward don’t begin to describe it.:

  :It could be worse,: Dallen observed. :You could be the Prince. No matter what he does, someone is bound to disapprove.:

  Mags snorted. But that was entirely too true.

  He nibbled a little more, drank a little more, mingled with his fellow Trainees and some of the younger Guard recruits who had managed to find the party, and finally decided to try his hand at dancing. If Amily was determined to dance by Midwinter, he’d better be ready to dance with her. On a night like tonight, the girls would forgive his mistakes, he reckoned.

  And so it proved. He danced a great deal, even if he didn’t dance well; he drank a little, and when Dallen turned up to shove him into his own room in the stable, he was tired enough and just light-headed enough, not to resist.

  2

  The morning was cool and the breeze still persisted, which was a good sign for the game that afternoon. Mags got himself an early wash, courtesy of the stable pump, knowing he was going to be wanting another before the day was over. The air was clear, the sky cloudless as he walked up to the dining hall that was shared by all three Collegia. He enjoyed the solitary walk; in a few hours, he wasn’t going to find anywhere but Companion’s Field that didn’t have a crowd.

  Breakfast—and, for that matter, lunch and dinner—for these three days was going to be a free-form affair, at least at the Collegia. He wasn’t sure how it would be managed at the Palace, and, of course, it would probably be just another day at the manors around the Palace, so far as the servants of the highborn were c
oncerned. But here, since every possible hand was needed, the Collegia servants had been somewhat conscripted. So at most of the meals during the wedding, cold food was laid out on the tables, and you were expected to help yourself.

  These were holidays for everyone except the servants. Amily had told Mags that there was going to be a separate set of holidays for the servants still on duty, some of them getting three days leave before the wedding and some getting three days leave after, which only seemed fair to him.

  And, of course, a great many things—even food—had been prepared in advance, so all the work wasn’t being done in these three days. But with so many visitors, and so much to be done on the festal days themselves, there were still not quite enough hands to cover all the work.

  There was, of course, a solution for that here at the Collegia. Not a bad thing if you asked him; after all, even the highborn Heralds, Bards, and Healers were going to, one day, be in positions and places where they had to do their own cooking and cleaning. Out in the Field alone, there were plenty of times a Herald would be living in a Waystation and not at an inn or a Guardpost. From the way Amily had talked, it looked as if the Deans had decided that they all might as well start learning how to tend to such common chores now. All the Trainees were taking a turn in the kitchen on cleaning duty, for instance; he had been on breakfast and dinner duty yesterday; they were letting him off today because of the game, and he had dinner duty tomorrow.

  He seemed to be one of the few up and awake this early. There was a Bardic Trainee who looked as if he hadn’t gotten to bed yet, another who seemed to be nursing a hangover, and a couple of Healers chattering away brightly enough to make the stricken Bardic Trainee wince. Mags went over to the food tables to see what had been laid out.

  After all that food last night and with a practice and a game ahead of him today, he left the sweet stuff alone and ate lightly: some fruit, a couple of hard-boiled eggs, a little bread and butter, tea. While he ate, he considered what the game this afternoon was going to be like.

  Gennie and Pip were the only Trainees from South Team on the Prince’s Choice, and Jeffers was the only horse-mounted player, or Rider. The rest were all people he had played against, never with, and a good solid practice was definitely in order before they went out against the King’s Choice.

  The two Bardic Trainees staggered out the door, leaving him and the Healers alone. The sun outside the windows suggested it could get very warm. That could be an issue. He knew how Gennie, Pip, and Jeffers reacted to heat, but not the others.

  Then there was strategy to think about. Mixing members from all four teams meant that strategies that had been worked out in the past were now flying completely out the window. The things that had worked for Gennie on their own team might work for this one . . .

  Of course, over on King’s Choice were Halleck, Meled, and Lord Wess, and Corwin and Beales of the South Foot.

  Both sides would have a good notion of the other side’s potential strategy. Unless both sides came up with something brand new, there would be no surprises, strategically. Provided nothing went pear-shaped, this would either be a lot of stalemate, or a very interesting game.

  The Healer Trainees left, and two more and a much more alert-looking Bardic Trainee came in. They applied themselves to food without much conversation.

  Mags, as was his nature, continued to worry at the possibilities ahead of him. When the picks had been made, everyone on Prince’s Choice had voted Gennie as Captain, so at least that much would be familiar. The hard part for Mags would be remembering just who else he was supposed to Mindspeak to—not to mention who he wasn’t.

  Good thing I haven’t got a mead head, for sure.

  Mindspeaking was his forte. Even before he’d been Chosen, even when he’d just been a grubbing digger in the mines, it appeared he had been a rudimentary Mindspeaker. Mags was a superb rider even by Herald standards, and his coordination with Dallen was phenomenal, but aside from that and athletic ability, what he really brought to the team was the fact that he could Mindspeak everyone, even those who didn’t have Mindspeech themselves. That was of tremendous value in the game—as it would be on a battlefield, one day, if he ever had to fight. Being able to relay orders directly into the head of a commander could mean the difference between losing and winning. Being able to give the order to every single one of his men could mean saving the day. Of course, in the game he had to be able to Mindspeak and play at the same time; in a battle situation, if it was at all possible, he’d be kept off to one side to concentrate.

  This was going to prove challenging with so many of his own people on the other side. He wasn’t going to be able to go by “feel;” he’d have to be absolutely sure he was talking to the right person. And looking wasn’t going to help. The only way to tell the two sides apart was by color; all the normal armor and padding was replaced with white for King’s Choice and with the deep blue the Guard wore for the Prince’s Choice. The colors weren’t remotely like the usual team colors of sky blue, red, green, and yellow; he’d probably hesitate a lot; overheated or otherwise confused, he might even find himself trying to recall if his own team was blue or white. Last of all, everyone was wearing full face shields. So he wouldn’t even have faces to remind him whom he was supposed to be communicating with.

  :Oh, don’t worry, I’ll keep you straight,: Dallen chuckled.

  He finished his meal and hurried down to the practice grounds. It was early enough still that almost no one was stirring except those who were cleaning up the gardens and lawns in preparation for the day’s continuing festivities. Many of those wore Guard Blue, and this was not punishment detail. Not only were they cleaning, they were also looking for signs that someone had been lurking about who shouldn’t have been there. After all the assassination and kidnapping attempts, no one was taking any chances that someone had gotten onto the grounds amid all the comings and goings of guests. Just because the assassins had vanished again, it didn’t follow they had given up. On the contrary, if past history was anything to go by, they were definitely still out there, and defeat only meant they were going to come back with someone more skilled.

  He and Dallen were early; only Gennie and Jeffers were waiting, with none of the King’s team in sight. He didn’t even need the nod from her to begin warming up; he and Dallen followed her over the course, going over the obstacles in a pattern they had established months ago. First at a gentle jog, then at increasingly greater speeds, and gradually the others joined them, catching up once they had warmed up their own muscles. Eventually Gennie was leading the entire team at a canter in single file. When everyone had turned up and gotten warmed up—and so had the other team—Gennie gathered them all in front of their own goal.

  They stood in a rough circle, with Gennie in the center, all dismounted, with the Trainees and Riders standing beside their mounts’ heads. Mags was very glad there was still a good breeze; there was no shade on the Kirball field at all, and the sun had gotten high enough to make itself felt. He rested his hand on Dallen’s neck, surrounded by the not-unpleasant smell of warm horse. Leather creaked as horses and Companions shifted their weight; a couple of the horses snorted their suspicion of one another. “Right, then,” Gennie said, when she had their complete attention. “Here’s the situation. As I am sure you already figured out, the Prince and the King are pretty shrewd judges of us players. We’re evenly matched in strength and speed, and I suspect it’s going to amount to the best use of skills and how well we manage coordination. No Fetchers on either side, and both sides have strong Mindspeakers. So it’s going to come down to playing the game.”

  And the heat. And accidents, Mags thought, but they all knew that.

  “What are their horses like?” Jeffers wanted to know.

  “Ah.” Gennie smiled with satisfaction. “Now that is where we are not evenly matched. Have a glance over there.” She jerked her
head in the direction of the other team, who had lined up, rather than huddling up, in front of their Captain. “The four Horse that the King picked are all mounted on light cavalry. Which makes sense when you think about it; light cavalry is what the King handled when he did his stint in the field. But the Prince commanded the Scouts, down in the hills on the southern Border. He knows our sorts of ponies.”

  Jeffers looked at his three fellow Horse, who all rode tough, smallish beasts, as he did. “Well, the Prince knows light cavalry too,” he pointed out, looking more cheerful than he had a moment before. “And he picked us.”

  One of the others nodded. “We’ve all faced those four in the game, but you Trainees might not remember them well. Us Guards though, we all train with ’em apart from the game, and if there’s one thing the Lights hate, it’s being crowded by things other than horses. Especially things they aren’t allowed to jump over. Good in the scrum, but they’ll shy from the fence.”

  All four of the Horse looked expectantly at Gennie. “Obviously we can use that,” she said. “But they know it, and they probably know we know, so they’ll do their best to keep off the fence.”

  “They’ll have no choice if they can’t keep the ball off the fence,” Jeffers pointed out. “And we’re closer to the ground and the ball than they are.”

  “Which is good on the fence,” said another of the Horse. “Only problem is that those beasts are taller than ours, with longer legs, so they’ll outrun us on the flat.”

  “So that’s the first part of our strategy, then,” Gennie said. “No races if we can help it. We don’t mind the scrum, I know your mounts can keep their tempers, and they don’t think twice about a fence. So we run to the fence as often as possible, and if we can scrum against it, all the better.”

  “Their Foot are good, though,” one of the others said doubtfully. “They’re all sneaky beggars.”