Mercedes Lackey: Changes

Mags nearly choked on his laughter, coughing so that Gennie had to pound on his back, and when he had recovered, they followed in Dallen’s limping wake.

Mags was scarcely likely to let Dallen limp his way up to the Companion’s Stable alone, nor leave him in the hands of the hostlers, no matter how competent they were. He saw to Dallen’s comfort himself, of course, making sure he got a good rubdown before he went off himself to a cold-water wash under the pump—anything but a hardship in this blistering heat—and a change into clean Trainee Grays. He stripped as close to bare as he could get and did the job thoroughly. Every bit of him was itchy with drying sweat.

The grounds of the Palace had been cordoned off quite properly, and only those who actually lived within the Palace walls were being allowed to get past the watchful eyes of Guardsmen who knew them all by name. But the rest of the grounds had the atmosphere of a fair. This was aided and abetted by the food and drink tents and the various demonstrations by Trainees of all three Collegia. There was a big official Bardic concert scheduled for the last event of the day, but there were Bardic Trainees scattered all across the grounds, alone or in groups, happily showing off their prowess. The game had been the big event for the Herald Trainees, but quite a few of them were ambling about the lawns with their Companions, making themselves available for questions. And as for the Healers—Healers’ Collegium had an open clinic, where anyone could come for treatment; simple cases were treated by the Trainees, more complicated ones by the Healer teachers. And many of the Healer Trainees had little booths set up to teach people about the signs of various illnesses in humans or animals and how to prevent as much disease as possible.

Mags’ best friend Bear had one of these booths, demonstrating the use of his standard herb kit. It had been very popular all this week; it made sense to people that there were things they could do for themselves, and some parents and relatives of Trainees had come from places where there simply wasn’t a Healer nearby. These were the very people who needed Bear’s instruction the most.

He had spent all week demonstrating things it didn’t take a Gift to do—how to set a bone, treat cuts and other injuries, how to handle common, non-life-threatening ailments, and, most importantly, when to recognize early enough to do something about it that what you were facing needed an expert.

One of the full Healers was with him, of course, but in the background. Most people probably wouldn’t notice he was there, and if they did, they would probably just be relieved that Bear obviously had Collegium approval. The packs had proven themselves over the winter in Guard stations and in the hands of Heralds on circuit. Now it was time to distribute them more widely, so that every farrier and midwife and priest who cared to could make use of them.

Not that he had the approval of every Healer out there... there were those who thought the packs—and this instruction, had they known about it—were an unmitigated disaster in the making. These highly conservative Healers were not unlike the highly conservative Heralds who did not approve of going from the old system of Trainee-plus-Mentor to a Collegium education over a five year period, with a just a year with a Mentor after being put into Whites. Never mind that there were not nearly enough Healers to fill the need. And never mind that Healers mostly stayed at their House, requiring the patients to come to them, rather that riding circuit as Heralds did.

Which’s pretty hard on th’ feller what’s far off, Mags reflected. Ain’t like he kin wait, like a judgment can. Things had to be rather dire before a Healer would leave a House of Healing or his own home village to attend a remotely situated patient—this was on the logical grounds that if he went riding about, no one would know where to find him in an emergency. The unspoken rule was that the patient came to the Healer, not the other way around.

As with so many things in Valdemar, that had been all right before Valdemar got so big that the Healers were stretched as thin or thinner than the Heralds were. And now, well, it did make sense to keep a scarce resource in one place at all times. It made sense, but in Mags’ view, and Bear’s, and evidently that of the Collegium itself, if you were going to put people without a local Healer in the position of “stay put and die, or be moved and suffer,” you had better be prepared to offer them an alternative for things that they could handle themselves so long as you showed them how.

Unfortunately, some of those highly conservative Healers were Bear’s own family.

He’d fought them once over the packs—they had been using the “scandalous and foolish” invention as the reason to haul him home so he could marry some neighbor girl. Unlike the rest of the male members of his family, Bear did not have a Healing Gift. He was a pure genius with herbs and had the skill of a prize-winning seamstress with knife and needle, but that seemed to matter not at all to Bear’s family. Mags suspected that the only reason they had allowed him to attend the Collegium in the first place was with the vague notion that the Collegium might trigger something dormant in him to make him like the rest of them.

Like a Gift’s contagious or somethin’. Or like soot, an’ it c’n rub off on ye.

When it didn’t—and when the Collegium began to foster (with considerable delight) Bear’s very real abilities with herbs, surgery, and bonesetting, their solution to the “problem” was to bring him back to breed to a willing girl, in the hopes that one of his children would have the Gift that he did not.

Which’s stupid an’ mean-spirited an’ treats him an’ thet poor gel like a couple’a prize cows.

Mags approached Bear’s booth quietly; it was, on this last day of the “festival” even more popular if that were possible. Like the other booths, it was a half-tent, providing welcome shade for those who came to be instructed and issued a voucher for the kits that would be going out soon with the Guard supplies. Today people were not only listening attentively, they were asking questions. From where he stood, Mags couldn’t hear most of them, but the Healer kept nodding slightly with approval and had a slight smile of satisfaction on his face.

No, it was far more than just satisfaction. This was the look of someone who was not just satisfied, but proud of his pupil.

Mags stiffened, suddenly, as he sensed someone who was not. Who was, in fact, in a towering rage. He turned slightly, to see a man in Healer’s Greens to his right and behind him, whose face was utterly rigid, and every muscle tight. He did not have to lower shields to know why; although he had never actually met one of Bear’s family, there was no mistaking the features. The shape of the bones beneath the skin was the same, especially about the cheekbones and chin. The hair was the same chestnut brown, and the man had the same sturdy build, with added muscles that Bear would no doubt acquire with age and work.

Mags did not hesitate. This man was so angry with his young relative that he wasn’t even thinking of the damage giving free rein to his temper could cause. The confrontation he was about to start was going to turn into an Incident, one that would cause a great deal of harm, not only to Bear, not only to the Healers, but to all three Collegia.

He half-closed his eyes and concentrated on the Healer overseeing Bear. He didn’t know the man, but after all, his Gift was to Mindspeak into anyone’s head, whether or not they had the Gift themselves. Meanwhile, Dallen would be doing something on his own—possibly alerting the King’s Own’s Companion, Rolan. He didn’t even have to tell Dallen what was going on; they lived in each other’s heads so much that unless either of them blocked out the other, what one knew, the other did. Maybe not everyone would care for that sort of closeness and lack of privacy, but Mags liked it, and it certain made things easier at times like this.