Mercedes Lackey - Intrigues

:More than that, Rolan and Nikolas really didn’t think Chamjey was up to anything more than a minor peccadillo—oh, it would be worthy of getting him to resign from the Council in embarrassment, but nothing more. Instead we caught him in a major scandal.: Now Dallen sounded pleased again. :This is good, this is very good. The only thing that would have been better would have been if you had recognized who it was that was meeting with him.:

“Oh—hellfires. Should we go back?” Mags swung around in the saddle to look back down the road.

:No need. This is important enough that they are about to be intercepted. We’ll find out soon enough who it is.:

MAGS made it back to the Collegium in time to make his last two classes—or rather, one class and one exercise. Sadly, the class was the languages one. Happily, the exercise was riding. He didn’t even have to think about riding anymore, and even though the wind was strong and bitter enough to cut right through his clothing, he and Dallen just romped over the entire course, staying warm enough through pure exertion.

Riding just felt right, in a heart-deep way. He knew what Dallen was going to do before the Companion actually did it. Dallen knew what he wanted the moment he decided on a direction. The two of them were physically melded so close together that they might just have been a single entity.

It was glorious. Even though they made a few mistakes—missing two jumps by knocking down the bars, and having to go around a scramble, losing time—it was still glorious. If this had been all they had to do, life would have been perfect.

Of course, it wasn’t. But at least for that slice of time, it was as close to perfect as Mags could get, or had ever gotten.

He washed up at the Collegium, where there was all the hot water he could want, and tubs for soaking in when he had the time. The washing facilities at the stable were about the same as at the mine, the only difference being that the water came from a pump rather than the stream or the sluice. Once clean and feeling more civilized, he then went in to supper. Bear was there, but not Lena, who was still not talking to her friends.

:It’s only been three days,: Dallen reminded him.

“Three days is a long time to sulk,” he said out loud, and Bear looked at him oddly.

“Lena?” he said finally.

Mags flushed. “Aye. Sorry. Talkin’ t’ Dallen.”

Bear shoved a bit of meat pie into his mouth and chewed thoughtfully. “She wants to impress her da,” he said, after swallowing. “I mean, really impress him. Make him sit up and take notice. Been working at that all year. Hardly ever does anything but work on being a Bard. And then he shows up and doesn’t even know who she is, which, when she’s thinking he’s at least seeing the reports on her and maybe seeing she’s living up to him—”

Mags blinked, finally understanding what Lita meant. Trust Bear to put it into simple language even a dunderhead like him could understand.

“Oh... ” he replied.

“So, likely she thinks she hasn’t done enough. Or hasn’t done the right things. Or, you know, she’s done all the right stuff, but she’s just not good enough to impress him.” Bear gulped his tea, a glum look on his face.

“That ain’t fair,” Mags said slowly.

“It isn’t fair and it isn’t true, but that’s what she thinks.” Bear put his mug down. “I guess I know something about not being able to impress your folks,” he added bitterly.

Belatedly, Mags remembered that Bear came from a family of Healers, of which he was the only member that did NOT have a Healing Gift. He licked his lips awkwardly.

“Well, she’s here, not at home, and maybe the Bards can sort her out,” Bear concluded. “Probably. I mean, after half Bardic Collegium listened to her pa getting the skin pulled off him, maybe she’ll figure out that not everybody is as impressed with him as he is with himself.”

Mags decided that a little duplicity was in order. “Bard Marchand? Getting’ the skin pulled off him? What?”

Bear cheered up a little and proceeded to describe in detail the dressing-down that Lena’s father had gotten. It was a lot more accurate than Mags had expected—but then, Bards were supposed to be able to memorize things that happened on the spot, so they could repeat them back accurately in song or story form later, so maybe that wasn’t altogether shocking. That was cheering, too. It meant that, really, Marchand had no one to blame but himself for the tale getting around. Mind you, with someone like him, he’d probably look for any scapegoat rather than accept responsibility for his own stupid behavior.

Well at least this meant that Bard Marchand would not be looking for a single Heraldic Trainee to blame for word of this getting out. More like Trainees in his very own Collegium.

“I hope that cheers ’er up,” Mags said, when Bear was done.

Bear just shrugged. “You never know what people are going to think when something like this happens to kin. Sometimes there’s this, ‘serves you right, I’m glad you got what was coming to you’ feeling, sometimes there’s this ‘glad it was you and not me’ and sometimes there’s this ‘how dare they say that about my pa’ thing. Just no telling. Doesn’t change that he didn’t know her, either.”

“No.” Mags sighed. “Wish she wasn’t so... easy t’ hurt.”

“That’s Bards, I reckon, at least at the beginning.” Bear shoved away from the table. “But they need to get a thick skin before they get into Scarlets, or they’re gonna spend all their time maundering about feeling hurt by people what don’t like their work or Bards that are better’n they are, or how their family don’t understand ’em, and not getting the job done.”

Mags couldn’t have put it better himself. He nodded. “Well I hope she stops feelin’ so poorly. I miss ’er.”

“Me too,” Bear said shortly. “See you later.”

Mags sat there wondering what had made Bear so out of sorts. Maybe the same not-quite-spring crankiness that seemed to be affecting so many of the others. He stared at the remains of his pie and wondered if he ought to try and get to Lena and talk her around to a good humor.

In the end, though, the thought of the mound of study waiting for him back in his room decided him. He couldn’t make anything better for Lena than he already had; sending her somewhat misspelled notes affirming that he (and Dallen) would like to take her out for a ride or a walk or just have a game of draughts or something. Not saying anything about needing her help with classes, because that would seem as if he only valued her for that help. What else was there to do?

Bah.

But when he got back to his quarters, there was a piece of folded paper waiting on the top of his books that he had not left there. He hoped it was from Lena—

But it was from Herald Nikolas.

Please come to my quarters after dinner. I need you to report what you overheard Chamjey saying for the King’s ears.

Nikolas wanted him to report to the King.

To the King.

He was flooded with panic.

No, no, no—how kin I—I cain’t—th’ King—I nivver—

Suddenly, in the middle of the muddle, he felt Dallen in his head, coming in and firmly just squashing all that panic down for a moment, as if the Companion had actually sat on it, physically.

:He’s just another Herald.:

“But he’s the King!” Mags said aloud, his voice breaking at the end.

:Only in the Throne Room. That is why Nikolas asked you to come to his rooms. There, Kiril will just be another Herald.:

“But I dunno how to talk t’ him!”