Valdemar 06 - [Exile 02] - Exile’s Valor Read online

  Then it all stopped having anything to do with thought, as the mob closed in around them again, and he and Selenay fought side-by-side against the tightening circle. Kantor kept himself interposed as much as he could between the fighters and Caryo. He was armored; Caryo was not.

  Norris’ sword wasn’t much better than a Hurlee stick, but at least it had a pointed end and not a blunt one.

  And that was just about all that Alberich had time to think about.

  Then, for what seemed like forever, it was all shouting, blow and counterblow, screams and blood and last-minute parries, and far too many people trying to kill his Queen.

  Until suddenly the fighting melted away from in front of him, and those who were not on the ground groaning (or dead) were in full retreat, as the reinforcements came pounding up on their Companions with swords in their hands and rage on their faces.

  And it was at that moment that he looked down and realized that the last man he had bludgeoned to death with that pathetic excuse for a sword was the Prince.

  He had not even known who it was he was fighting.

  Mical had a broken wrist; there were some slices and cuts to the others, but his was probably the most serious injury. Alberich could have wept with relief; his gamble of putting them into armor had worked, for the Prince’s ambushers had foolishly worn none at all.

  Mical had done the impossible, and Norris’ phenomenal luck had run out just before the Prince’s had, for when Mical had hit him and taken him down to the ground, he had not been able to compensate for his attacker’s weight. All of his agility and training had, after all, counted for naught. He’d broken his neck as they hit the ground together.

  Alberich limped over to where Crathach was tending to the boy, who looked up at him, too weary and full of pain to care about much of anything. “That, one of your fool play-acting moves was,” Alberich growled. “Yes?”

  The boy nodded.

  “And practiced it, you have been?”

  Mical hesitated. “Um. Sort of. With a straw-man. Eloran and I didn’t think it was really going to work, so we’d kind of given up on it, but when we came up on the ambush and saw Norris with Selenay. . . .” He shrugged and hissed with pain. “I knew I couldn’t fight him; it’s not just stage-fighting he knows and he’s better than me. The important thing was to immobilize him long enough for you to get to her.”

  He would have said more, but Alberich held up his hand. “Enough. Good reasoning. Right action. Never do it again. Your neck broken, it could have been, not his.”

  Mical turned a bit green, and not from the pain. Alberich didn’t blame him. This was his first kill, and it had literally been with his bare hands; not an easy thing for a boy of fifteen to cope with. Alberich turned on his heel and left him with Crathach, who was better suited to helping him deal with the emotional ramifications than the Weaponsmaster himself was. Alberich went to find the rest of his team, make sure they were all right, and if not, see that they were under someone’s wing before he went looking for the Queen.

  He found Harrow last of all; the boy was staring down at one of the ambushers’ bodies, running his hands reflexively up and down the Hurlee stick. Just as Alberich came up to him, he looked at his hands and realized what he was doing. With an expression of repulsion, he threw the thing away.

  “I am never playing again!” he said to Alberich, who nodded, understanding all that the youngster could not put into words. That it wasn’t a game anymore; that it would be forever tainted for him. That he could never even think of Hurlee without knowing that he had killed at least one man with his stick.

  “Go to see Crathach,” was all he said, and then made sure that he did so.

  :Why do I think that Hurlee is now going to fade away into the mists that hold all old fads?: Kantor asked, rhetorically.

  :Oh, someone might revive it again, when this lot has gone on into Whites. Not until then. And that’s not a bad thing; it won’t be such an obsession when it comes around for the second time.: He, personally, wouldn’t be sorry to see it go. The business of the Collegia was learning, after all, not gamesmanship. And there were other ways to teach teamwork.

  Selenay was sitting a little way away, under a tree; when Alberich came up to her, Talamir was speaking earnestly to her in a low voice. Alberich caught the name “Norris” and the word “script” before they both looked up at him.

  She had been crying quietly, and she rubbed the tears from her face with the back of her hand. “So it was an act from beginning to end,” she said bitterly. “Every bit of it.”

  “Tailored precisely to you, Majesty,” Alberich agreed, since she seemed to be waiting for a reply. “Sorry, I am.”

  “I don’t want your pity!” she snapped, then wilted. “Damn. I apologize. It’s not your fault. And I probably wouldn’t have listened to you before—” The tears started again; she seemed unaware of them. “It’s not fair. I’m glad you killed him.”

  “Majesty, I am not,” Alberich replied, and she looked up at him, startled. “In death, he has escaped the consequences of his actions. And left you to deal with them. I am not glad. And what His Majesty of Rethwellan will say and do, I know not.”

  “Leave that to me,” Talamir said instantly. “Although, given not only what Karath claimed but what my agents have verified for me, there was definitely no love lost between the King of Rethwellan and his brother.” He brooded a moment. “No. No love lost at all. He seems to have been—more welcome in his absence than his presence, and it was not by his doing that he was not told of his own father’s death until it was long past the moment when he could have been recalled for the funeral.”

  Alberich nodded; that wasn’t much of a surprise. “So, King Faramentha, not so displeased to hear of this will be?”

  Talamir shrugged. “I believe that if we are discreet, or as discreet as we may be, having roused all of Haven, this will probably be no more than a matter of some delicate maneuvering. In fact, I suspect it will be of more import that it is clear that we do not hold His Majesty responsible for his brother’s actions than that we—were forced to eliminate a Prince of Rethwellan.”

  Alberich caught a little movement from the corner of his eye. Selenay was staring at him. “And when I think of what you’ve been doing so quietly all this time, Alberich—and to think that at one point I thought you were just jealous because he was as good a swordsman as you and that was why you weren’t up at the Palace anymore—you’re—”

  She was about to say it. He cut her off.

  “Selenay, no hero am I,” he told her firmly but gently. “For heroes, look to young Mical, who I think was certain he would be killed when the actor he attacked. Or Myste, who is no great dissembler, and could not have herself defended, had Norris discovered her intent.”

  “If you are no hero, then what are you?” she demanded.

  He managed a smile—the first genuine smile he had felt on his face since she’d married. “Your Weaponsmaster. Your Herald.” And he held out his hand. “I hope, your friend and brother. Nothing more.”

  She took it, and looked long and hard at him, and he knew then that at one point she herself must have had something of a crush on him, now long past—but that she was afraid that he might now be the one with secret feelings for her.

  It wouldn’t have been the first time such a thing had happened. He was just as glad that the whole notion was so absurd. “I always wanted a brother, growing up,” she said aloud, and let go of his hand.

  “Good.” He smiled again. “Then if my advice you will take, you will make of Myste and Mical great heroes, and let your Shadow Herald stay where best he is suited.”

  “And I will second that,” Talamir agreed, and gave Alberich a look that the Weaponsmaster had no trouble interpreting. You can go now.

  :Hmph. We know when we aren’t welcome.:

  :Don’t be absurd,: he chided Kantor. :Do you really want her weeping and raging at us? Then do you want to be embroiled in the political maneuverin
g this is going to cause?:

  :Well—: Kantor admitted. :No.:

  :Good.: He scratched his head, encountered a patch of someone else’s dried blood in his hair, and grimaced. :I want a bath. Let’s go home.:

  “I may never forgive you,” Myste said, her head on his shoulder. It was the first time she’d been in his quarters since the rescue, and he was mortally glad to have her there.

  He would be even gladder to have her in his bed—but not quite yet. For now, it was enough to have her in his arms.

  “For telling Selenay to make you a hero?” he asked, amused, and shifted a little on the couch so that his position was a little more comfortable. “Someone has to be.”

  “But why me?” she demanded.

  “Because you earned it,” he replied, staring into the stained-glass face of Vkandis Sunlord. “Because people need heroes. But primarily because you are the least likely hero I can think of.”

  “Well, there I agree with you, but wouldn’t that—”

  “Hear me out,” he interrupted. “People need heroes, and Heralds are that. But Heralds aren’t very ordinary.”

  “Hmm.” She did think about it. “I see your point. Most of them are athletic, and even if they aren’t handsome, the Whites at least make them look distinguished.”

  “But you, my dear Chronicler, represent someone who is just like them, or like people they know. And you went and did something very dangerous, something that your Whites would not protect you from, something that not even your Companion could have protected you from.”

  “Hmm.” She pushed her lenses up on her nose. “I see your point. And Mical?”

  “Everyone likes to have heroes who are young, handsome, and a touch reckless.” He laughed. “It won’t spoil him. He knows if he gets too much above himself it’s back to the glassworks for another couple of moons.”

  She chuckled. “To think all this began over a broken mirror! Isn’t that supposed to mean bad luck?”

  “It was bad luck,” he pointed out. “For Norris and Karathanelan. Because if it hadn’t been for Norris, the mirror would never have gotten broken in the first place.”

  She fell silent then, leaving him alone with his thoughts. Comforting as it was to think that they had closed the circle, he knew that this was not in the least the case. Someone had been Karathanelan’s patron, and Norris’; someone who was high in Court circles and privy to some very personal information about Selenay. And they still didn’t know who that was.

  No, the game wasn’t over yet. And if or when that person was uncovered, there would, without a doubt, be more troubles on the way.

  But at least for a little while, there would be some breathing space. And in the end, that was all anyone, Herald or Queen or ordinary citizen, could ask for.

  “Now,” he breathed into her hair, “would you like to find out how a hero is rewarded?”

  Her response was everything he could have wished for—and he knew that for a few marks, at least, the world would be completely all right for both of them. It would not remain that way for long—

  —but it was enough that it remain that way for now.