Mercedes Lackey - Foundation

“Ever been down into th’ city?” he finally asked, as Bear toyed with his food and they both waited for Lena.

Bear shook his head.

“Herald Caelen said t’ go.” He shook his head. “Never seen that many people in m’ life. Never seen that much stuff neither.” After the Midwinter Eve vigil and Midwinter Day celebration, he and Marc and Dia had gone back to the Midwinter Market—and since he now had some money to spend, he’d gotten something for Lena and Bear. He’d brought the presents with him to—he hoped—cheer them up. “Since Jakyr give me coin, got ye somethin’.”

He pulled the cloth bag that held the present out from under the cloak folded on the bench beside him. Bear finally seemed to wake up a bit.

“Mags, you shouldn’t—you shouldn’t spend money someone gave you on presents for others—”

“Why not? ’S mine now, right? S’pose to get things as make me happy? Well, gettin’ you an’ Lena somethin’ makes me happy.”

With a nonplussed look on his face, Bear opened the bag, revealing the sheepskin mittens that Mags had gotten him.

“I hardly know what to say—this is exactly what I needed!” Once again, Mags got the feeling there was more behind that statement than he could properly comprehend. But some of it slipped out. “I think you know me better than my own family, and we haven’t been friends for more than a couple of moons.” The last was tinged with bitterness.

:Oh, dear ...:

:Mebbe families ain’t all shiny an’ flowers.:

:Sometimes not even with the best of intentions.:

Fortunately, what could have been a very uncomfortable moment indeed was salvaged by Lena’s arrival. She did not look happy, but she didn’t look as miserable as Bear was.

She helped herself to the food, but Mags could not help noticing that she took less than half of what she usually did. If only he had something he could talk to them about, something to distract them!

Oh, wait—he did!

“Ye know them nasty bodyguards? Them furriners?” he began. “Well, hang if they ain’t actin’ strange.”

He went on to tell them what he had overheard, then what he himself had seen. Bear and Lena both perked up—with a certain amount of very unsympathetic comments—as he gave some pretty elaborate descriptions of their behavior, helped out by Dallen.

He didn’t have to figure out how to tell the story of the “haunted” ax, though. Lena suddenly looked as if something had occurred to her.

“Oh, Havens!” she exclaimed. “I wonder if—”

“What?” Bear asked before Mags could.

“Well, there is a rumor going around that the Palace is haunted. Some wild story about weapons flying off of walls and cutting things in half. I wonder if this has anything to do with why those bodyguards are so nervous?” Her eyes sparkled. “I wonder if it is the ghost of some Royal Guardsman who is offended by them?”

“Where d’ ye hear these things?” Mags asked, both amused and puzzled. Amused because at least he wouldn’t have to figure out some way of telling the story without revealing how he had learned it.

“Bards hear everything, because anything could lead to a new song,” she replied, now actually eating instead of shoving her food about on the plate.

“And Bards gossip worse than a pack of old women,” Bear added, but with a smile. “Do you really think it’s a ghost?”

“Well, I ’spect they do,” Mags put in. “They sure act like it.”

“I can’t think of why something like that would happen otherwise.” Lena’s eyes were shining now. “There aren’t any classes for another two days, I am going to poke around and see what else I can find out. A mystery! I love mysteries!”

Now that she had cheered up, Mags felt it was a good time to give her the present he had gotten her. He reached into his tunic and brought out the pretty little wooden box that Lydia had helped him pick out to hold it. “Went t’ the Midwinter Market. Jakyr come in late an’ only stayed a day, I reckon ’e felt guilty, so ’e give me some money an’ I reckoned I’d get ye both summut. So ... ’ere.” He handed her the box, which had a harp carved on the top of it. She exclaimed over the pretty thing, then opened it. Mags was very pleased with that find, which had been a stroke of pure luck. Just as there were merchants who tried to pass off inferior articles as more valuable than they were, there were also those who didn’t know what they had. He had found, in a secondhand dealer’s booth, this very pretty string of deep red beads. The merchant thought they were glass, but his expert eye had seen that they were, in fact, garnets.

“Oh, Mags!” She pulled the beads out of the box and ran them through her fingers. “Please tell me they didn’t cost you a fortune!”

“Bah, this’s me!” he scoffed. “I got help bargainin’.” In fact, it had been Lydia who helped him bargain for that, and for the pretty carved wooden charms he had attached to all the page-markers. “I still got coin fer me.”

Thus reassured, she flung her arms around his neck and hugged him quickly. “It’s so pretty! And Bardic Scarlet, too! Thank you!”

“Show ’er yer mitts, Bear,” Mags urged, and Bear displayed his mittens. “Can’t have his precious fingers froze, now c’n we?” he teased, and she laughed.

“He needed mittens like those on our trip,” she said. “He had to borrow a pair of mine, and they weren’t nearly as nice and warm as these. His poor fingers kept getting cold and stiff.”

Then she snapped her fingers. “And that reminds me of something else. On the way home, Bear and I were talking, and—Mags, do you want to find out what really happened with that raid on the bandits where you were found?”

That came as such a complete surprise to him that all he could do was gape at her and say, “Wha—” He stared stupidly at her for a moment, then gathered his thoughts. “Uh, I—guess—”

“Well, we can do that. The records of all the Guard reports are kept here, and Bards get access to everything but the sealed stuff. All we need to do is find the report of that raid and see what it says.” She looked at him in triumph. “What’s the worst that can happen? We find out you are just what that horrible man claimed you are, a bandit child, which is scarcely your fault. But I think he lied. I think we should look into it.”

Mags felt a little thrill of mingled apprehension and excitement. Could he—

::I think you should, too, Mags.:

Well, that settled it.

“We’ll do it,” he said decisively.

__________________________

With both boys in tow the next morning, Lena went in search of where and how to get at the Guard Archives, and that was when they ran into their first snag. Although Bards had access to the Guard reports, Bardic Trainees needed special permission.

“You’ll have to get one of your teachers to give you a letter stating that you need to use the Archives for research, Trainee,” said the stolid old man in Guard Blue sitting behind the desk at the entrance to the Archives. “We can’t have every young Trainee in here poking around just to satisfy her curiosity or to win a bet. Those are the regulations.”

Lena sighed, but she didn’t push the subject. “I’ll be back with that letter,” she said firmly.

“And when you are, I’ll let you in. Not before.” The man crossed his arms and gave her a stern look. “There is sometimes sensitive and personal information in those reports. Things other people would rather not have bandied about. As a courtesy to them, we don’t let just anyone come in here and start reading through things.”

It was witheringly clear that he was not going to budge an inch on this. Mags tapped Lena on the shoulder. “’S all right, we c’n come back later,” he said. Reluctantly, she nodded.