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  “Your pockets were full of cake crumbs,” Abi pointed out. “You want ants? That’s how you get ants.”

  “You ate the cake too!” he protested, but he turned out his pockets and shook them vigorously before he sat down, using two cushions, one to sit on, and one leaned up against the tree trunk as a backrest. “When I produce my Master Work and I’m a full Artificer, I am never going to sit on the ground again. I’m going to have a servant just to carry around a folding chair for me.”

  Abi just laughed, sat down herself, and read out the lesson. Rudi and Emmit took notes; Brice listened intently with a line of concentration between his brows. He really had the most extraordinary ability to remember what he’d heard, almost amounting to a Gift. Abi often thought that if he somehow did not manage to become an Artificer, this ability alone would make him invaluable to her father.

  Or maybe even if he does become an Artificer. It would depend on how he felt about it. She resolved to keep that in mind, for some time later, when the right moment came to ask him.

  When she had finished, it was just too nice outside to even think about going in. Especially since more cold rain was expected, at least, according to what Abi had heard. It had been a very unsettled spring. “I don’t want to go back inside,” Rudi grumbled, echoing her thoughts. He somehow made his eyes look big and pleading and turned them toward Abi. “The kitchen gives you anything you want. Could you go get us some food so we can eat out here?”

  She was tempted to throw a cushion at him, but instead, got to her feet and grabbed him by the elbow, hauling him to his. “Not if I have to carry it all. You’re the one who asked for it, so you get to be my beast of burden.”

  Emmit and Brice snickered, and she turned to them. “And don’t you get started, or you’re coming too.”

  “The problem is, you don’t know how to ask properly,” she told Rudi, as he followed meekly beside her. “You barge into the kitchen while everyone is busy serving and get in the way. Follow and learn.”

  She led him to the Collegium kitchen, rather than the Palace kitchen, which at this hour would be frantic with activity. They went in—or rather slipped in—through the entrance to the kitchen garden and waited, just out of the way of everyone. Finally an undercook noticed them. He nodded and waved at the platters of food being prepared to go up to the tables. Abi looked around, found a handy basket that had held bread, and grabbed it. She lined it with a napkin, darted in and made selections from half-filled platters, and darted out again. “And that is how you do it,” she said, covering the food with another napkin, and handing the basket to him. “Wait here while I get more.”

  She repeated the performance, and the two of them left without ever having made a nuisance of themselves.

  Emmit looked a little disappointed at the selection, but didn’t say anything—which was wise of him, as Abi would have reminded him that beggars could not be choosers. Besides, dinner tonight had featured big bowls of stew, which would have been very difficult to transport outside. The lads were going to have to be contented with buttered bread and cheese and crunchy raw vegetables. And she had gotten them honeycakes, after all!

  * * *

  • • •

  “So when do I get to meet your new friends?” asked Kat.

  The threatened rain had begun to fall just at sunset. As usual, Tory and Kee were playing in front of the fire, using Gryphon as a backrest. Perry was doing something for Papa, so that left Kat, Trey and Niko playing a game with cards with Abi. Not a card game as such, but a game where they built towers of cards, adding one at a time until the tower fell. They’d found that it wasn’t much fun for Abi to play actual card games with them, since try as they might, the three royal siblings couldn’t help occasional “leaks” to each other of which cards they held. On balance, Abi felt this was only fair. It wasn’t much fun for them to play any sort of game involving a ball and a paddle with her because her accuracy was uncanny. The ball always went where she wanted it to, without benefit of any Gift, just an unerring eye and deadly ability to aim.

  Abi was saved from having to answer that rather loaded question by the arrival of her father—whose entrance into the main room of the suite also created a draft that knocked down the half-built tower. “When I’m certain-sure they’re safe fer you,” Mags said, in that voice that told them all he was not going to accept any argument.

  “But—” Kat began anyway.

  Mags coughed and gave her a look that told Abi he was using Mindspeech with the Princess.

  “Yes, sir,” she sighed, and picked up the cards to begin the tower all over again.

  Abi knew exactly what her father meant; the lads were perfectly safe for her to be around, but when it came to the Royals, Mags was going to make sure there wasn’t anything lurking in their backgrounds that could cause a problem later. And he would be done only when he was completely satisfied that he had left nothing to chance.

  Or rather, he and Perry would be done, since Abi was pretty certain that this was what Perry was doing tonight. The lads were all housed in the same place, a kind of annex to the “palace” of the Archpriest of Kernos, not a stone’s throw from the Palace gates. It was an imposing edifice that would have been even more imposing if it weren’t the home to a swarm of lesser priests as well as the Archpriest, who conducted all of the business of the Order across the entire Kingdom of Valdemar and well into Hardorn from there. All of the male Artificer students recommended by the various Temples of Kernos were housed there until the student either failed in some way or created his Master Work and became self-supporting. Other religions had similar arrangements, except for a very few Blue Trainees who actually boarded at the Palace. Of that minority, the girls were two to four to a room in rooms next to the Queen’s Handmaidens—Mags’ little network of lady spies who actually acted as ladies-in-waiting to those female courtiers who lived in the Palace. The boys were lodged with the Palace squires.

  So it was almost guaranteed that Perry either had gotten actual permission to go over whatever records the Archpriest had on the boys or (far more likely) was getting at them covertly. And then he’d get his hands on the Archpriest’s household livery, pose as a servant, and observe them himself. And meanwhile, one of her father’s traveling agents would be checking back at the lads’ home towns or villages to find out whatever he (or she) could find out there.

  Because you just never knew. And what Mags didn’t know, he made it his business to find out, when it came to the Royals. Just as Grandpapa had done, and Lord Jorthun. And just as some other Chosen would one day be singled out by Mags to be trained to follow him. Maybe someday there would be a Monarch of Valdemar who—for whatever reason—did not have a Herald-Spy, but Abi sincerely hoped that she would never see that day. That was trusting to luck a lot more than she felt comfortable with.

  “Well, since I can’t meet your friends yet, what do you four do all day?” Kat asked.

  Abi laughed. “We’d bore you to bits,” she said. “Mostly we study and do a great deal of assigned work outside of class. The Artificer students aren’t like the highborn Blues. They’re in a hurry to get to the point where they can do their Master Work and start making money, because if they haven’t managed to do that by the time they reach twenty-one, they lose the support of their patrons and have to find a job any old where.”

  “Like where?” Kat asked.

  “Well, they c’n become private tutors,” Mags pointed out. “Not bein’ up t’ creatin’ a Master Work don’t make ’em dunces. But private tutors’re jest servants, and not even th’ kind’a servants who’ll have a job guaranteed with the family they serve ferever. If the master or mistress takes a dislike to ’em, or the children they’re hired t’ teach learn enough t’ satisfy the parents, it’s out the door an’ go find a new position, an’ good luck to ye.”

  “Kind of a sad comedown if you were thought good enough to get patronage to co
me here in the first place,” Niko observed, carefully placing a card.

  “Is that likely to happen to your friends?” Kat asked.

  Abi shook her head. “Not even Brice. He has trouble reading and writing, but there’s nothing wrong with his ability at math. Even Master Ketnar says he’s going to do well enough he can hire someone to read and write for him, and Master Ketnar finds fault with everyone. But they’re all anxious to learn everything as fast as they possibly can, because the younger you are when you make your Master Work, the more attention that gets you. I’m the only one that doesn’t have to worry about getting attention, because my Gift is going to do that for me.”

  “What’s a Master Work, anyway?” Trey asked, completing the third level of the tower.

  Abi looked at her father, who gave her a little nod. “Well, it can be an invention, something no one has ever seen before,” she said. “It can be something as small as a new windlass, or as big as a new water mill. Like the boiler system that we get hot water for the bathing rooms from—that was someone’s Master Work. But for us, who are going to be Builder-Artificers, there are always buildings and bridges and that sort of thing that need to be constructed for the Kingdom. So when our teachers reckon that we’re ready to do that, we’re assigned something of that sort, required to plan and design it without help, to oversee the actual construction. When it’s done, and the other Master Builders are happy with it, we get to call ourselves Master.”

  “Well, whoever signed off on that bridge that collapsed under us should be demoted,” Kat grumbled, adding her card to the fourth tier of the tower.

  “It ain’t gonna to be rebuilt,” Mags informed them. “At leastwise not at thet spot. One of th’ other bridges is gonna to be widened t’ make it big ’nuff for large drays.”

  “Probably just as well,” said Trey. “Though Father’s not going to hear the last of it until it gets done.”

  Abi nodded; that was the problem with subjecting the rich and the highborn to inconvenience; they had daily access to the King and would clog up the business of the realm with complaints that they couldn’t get their new gazebo built in a “timely manner.”

  “Amily or yer father’ll think of somethin’, I’m sure,” Mags chuckled. “Prolly appoint someone t’ be in charge of complaints ’bout it.”

  “And it probably wasn’t anyone’s fault that the bridge collapsed,” Abi felt moved to point out. “There may be something going on with the flow of the river water and the former foundations there that we just don’t know about. It’s an old bridge, and it’s possible that a newer one was built upstream that changed how the water flowed, and that undermined the foundations. You can’t blame the original builders for that.”

  Niko, Trey, and Kat all stared at her. Finally Kat said, “You really are learning a lot!”

  She flushed pleasurably. So often she’d hear about something the other three had done, especially things having to do with their Gifts or other specialized training, and she’d had nothing to show for herself—or at least things she was allowed to talk about. It was nice to have them throwing her looks of admiration for a change.

  * * *

  • • •

  “Don’t make a fool of yourself,” Emmit said to Brice for at least the fifth time. “Don’t start yammering on about nothing. Don’t highness them every other word. Don’t ask them personal questions. Don’t—”

  “Emmit, leave him alone,” Abi said, trying to make the rebuke sound as mild as possible. “As far as you know, they’re just Herald Trainees. Just treat them that way, all of you.”

  “Yes, but, Herald Trainees!” Brice burst out.

  “You see Herald Trainees everyday,” she pointed out.

  “But we never, you know, have anything to do with them!” he countered. “I wouldn’t dare go up and talk to one!”

  “You know, you’re an idiot,” Rudi said in a kindly tone to take the sting out of it. “Herald Trainees are just people. But Princes and a Princess?” He swallowed nervously.

  “But Companions!”

  “Shut up, they’re here,” said Emmit.

  The three Artificer students stood up nervously as Trey, Niko, and Kat approached them where they waited at a table in the library that took up the top floor of Heralds’ Collegium. At this hour and as nice as it was outside, no one else was here, which was what Abi was counting on to minimize awkwardness.

  Well, it had been a good plan, anyway. “Well,” she said, “Here they are. Fellows, this is Trey, this is Niko, and this is Kat.”

  “I’m the handsome one,” Trey said helpfully.

  “I’m the smart one,” smirked Niko.

  “And I’m the one that’s better looking than Trey and smarter than Niko,” retorted Kat, elbowing both of her brothers at once.

  “Hey!” said Trey and “Ow!” exclaimed Niko, both of them rubbing their sides, and the ice was broken all at once—which was probably exactly what the royal siblings had intended all along.

  Abi’s friends introduced themselves, although Brice still had stars in his eyes and a look about him that suggested he was smitten with Kat. “Well, here’s the thing,” Niko said, looking plaintive. “We’ve got an ulterior motive. We asked Abi to introduce us so we could ask you for help.”

  “Us?” squeaked Brice. “Help you?”

  “Math,” all three of them said at once, then Trey and Niko looked at Kat.

  “We’re in three different math classes, and there’s only one Abi,” Kat explained. “She can’t help all of us at once.”

  “We left our books and things at Abi’s rooms,” Trey said helpfully.

  Well, at that point there was nothing for it but for all seven of them to traipse down to the suite and take up slate and chalk. Fortunately no one else was there—and the siblings had, indeed, left books and supplies there. Abi had been more than halfway convinced this was a ruse, but a quarter candlemark later and she was convinced otherwise. Kat didn’t need that much help—and after all, Abi had been working with her ever since she had been enrolled in the Artificers—but Trey was definitely in need of some assistance, and Niko needed both Brice and Emmit’s help.

  “I thought you said you were the smart one,” Brice said, when Niko had finally gotten his head wrapped around the concept of calculating square acreage—and then conversions. Converting furlongs to lengths to arms’-lengths to thumb’s-lengths and back again. Clearly Brice was now comfortable enough with his new friends to tease.

  “I am, just not in math,” Niko replied, rubbing his head. “You’re my hero. I might be able to do the same problem and get the same answer twice in a row now.”

  Brice must have suddenly remembered who he was talking to, because he blushed a furious crimson, tongue-tied.

  “Want to come with us and help us groom our Companions?” Trey asked. “It’s about that time.”

  Brice was on his feet so fast he scattered the pages of their schoolwork and they had to pick them up and sort them out before they could go down.

  Normally, Abi would have helped Kat with Dylia, but she waited to see if Kat would invite Brice to help before she offered. Which was exactly what Kat did, before Trey or Niko could say anything.

  As always the “spy-wheels” in Abi’s head began turning. She concluded that there were two possibilities here. Either Kat was as interested in Brice as Brice was in her, or she was not interested in Brice and was going to use Dylia as a distraction while she felt her way through a conversation intended to (somewhat) disenchant him. She was satisfied with either of those answers and busied herself with collecting the mane and tail hairs from the special combs and brushes used only for that purpose.

  It was the habit of Heralds—and Trainees, for that matter—to braid little gifts for friends and loved ones out of the hair of their Companions’ manes and tails. One might think, given the huge numbers of Companions tha
t had passed through the gates of the Palace, that the Kingdom would have been flooded by such trinkets by this time, but as with all things mortal, even Companion hair turned brittle and fell to dust after a time, and so the demand for them was still high. There were plenty of unscrupulous people who sold plain white horsehair braids as the genuine article, but one look at the real thing showed the counterfeits to be what they were. The hair from a Companion was faintly translucent, with a silvery sheen, and the same pure white as new snow. The hair from white (more properly, “gray”) horses—was not.

  So Abi gathered up the hairs, made them into a tidy little skein, put a loose knot in the middle of the skein, and tucked the bunch into a little bag hanging from each stall meant for exactly that. It didn’t take long, but when she had finished, an unpartnered Companion wandered into the stable from Companion’s Field, walked over to her, and gave her a nudge with his nose.

  Since this sort of thing had been happening to her since she was tall enough to come here on her own, she knew exactly what he wanted. She followed him into his own box-stall, took up the brush and comb there and went to work.

  Even if he wasn’t her Companion, the job was a pleasant one. The stranger radiated pleasurable content even she could feel, thoroughly relaxing her. I should do this more often, she reflected. The Companion turned his head slightly and nodded at her.

  “You know,” she said aloud, raising her voice so everyone could hear her. “You can come in here and groom unpartnered Companions any time you like.”

  “We can?” gasped Brice.

  Kat laughed aloud. “Of course you can. Anyone up here on the Hill can, if you have the time to spare.”

  As if to underscore that, another unpartnered Companion appeared at the door to the Field and snorted happily when one of the King’s Squires came in through the door to the stable yard. “All right, keep your tail on,” the squire laughed. “Let me get your brushes.”

  Abi had completed her friend’s grooming to his satisfaction, and he nuzzled his thanks, backed out of the loose box, and went back to his friends in the Field. She picked out the mane and tail hairs and put them in his bag—Heralds and Trainees who didn’t have quite enough hair to finish a job generally helped themselves to whatever was in these bags. After all, it was still Companion hair.