Mercedes Lackey - Foundation

All three of them left the Guard barracks, which was some distance away from the rest of the complex of buildings, and trudged back through the snow to Healers. “D’ ye think you c’n get that letter?” Mags asked anxiously. Now that he had committed to finding out the truth, he wanted to get on with it.

Lena snorted delicately. “He’s making a big fuss about nothing. Hardly any of the Trainees want to come here; it takes a lot of work to read something in a Guard report and come up with a song. Everything has to match—you can’t change the story just because you don’t like the way it came out or the person that should be a hero is a really unpleasant person. That is why people trust Bardic news and Bardic history songs. It’s a lot easier to just make something up for a tale song. I can get that letter. I just need to figure out which of my teachers is most likely to give it to me.”

They pushed through the door into Bear’s quarters. And there was someone waiting for them. One of the Palace servants in the special blue-and-white livery rose from his seat, a look of relief on his face. “You’re the herb Healer?” he blurted.

“Trainee,” Bear corrected. The man waved that off.

“Everyone says that you are the one that knows everything there is to know about herbs. I need something to make people sleep. Those wretched bodyguards are demanding it for one of their masters.” The poor fellow looked exceedingly harried.

“Such things are dangerous—” Bear warned. “Too little and they don’t work, too much and they can kill. And you can become addicted to them.”

“Frankly, Healer, if that man doesn’t stop moaning about being watched all the time, I may kill him. He hasn’t slept in three nights. Please, give us at least one night of peace!” The man gestured entreatingly. “I’m begging you!”

Mags, Bear, and Lena all exchanged looks. “I’ll get my bag. My friends are coming with me.”

“I think that is a good idea, Healer. I don’t trust those men. I wouldn’t be alone with them for my own weight in gold.” He waited patiently while Bear gathered up his necessaries and loaded Mags down with them. Then he gestured to them to follow.

They followed him up to the Palace, with Mags struggling to contain his excitement at being asked, invited in, to see the very men he was supposed to be keeping a remote eye on. Lena did not even try to pretend to calm. Her eyes sparkled, and she almost skipped.

They went in through a door he would never have dared use if he had been here alone. It was, however, clearly a servants’ entrance, since it was plain and let out into a utilitarian hallway, not at all dissimilar to the ones in the Collegia. And, to be fair, Mags would not have known it was “utilitarian” if he had not had Dallen’s point of view to give him a comparison.

Shortly, however, he had a comparison of his own as they entered into a hall that clearly housed something other than servants.

Whitewashed plaster and black beams gave way to rich wood paneling. The wooden floors were polished to a soft gleam, and shiny metal polished lanterns were mounted at intervals along the walls. Though they were not lit at the moment, it was clear that this hall would be as brightly illuminated at night as anyone could wish.

This, of course, would allow the visitor to admire the beautiful little tables holding statuary that stood beneath each lamp, and the paintings between them. None of them got a chance to do anything of the sort, as the servant hurried them along as fast as he could manage.

He tapped once at a door in the middle of the hallway, and quickly ushered them all in. When Mags entered, he saw two of the bodyguards standing at strict attention, one on either side of the window, and a man huddled with his head in his hands, sitting on a padded chair beside a small table. This was so opulent a room that it made his head spin a little. It was completely carpeted, with stunning hangings softening the effect of the wooden paneling. He had thought that Master Soren’s house was the height of luxury. Now he had a new benchmark. This was the height of luxury.

There was a fourth man standing in the shadows. He emerged when the three of them entered with the servant. Now, Mags had heard of something called cloth-of-gold, but he had never actually seen anyone wearing it.

This man was.

He wore a tunic of peculiar cut, half black velvet and half a shining fabric that could only be cloth-of-gold. It was very short, and very tight, and with it he wore trews that were also half gold and half black, but on the opposite sides. He had the sort of face that, even had Mags not been getting the feeling of danger from him, would have made him cautious. It was an angry face, and the face of a man who is not used to being told “no.”

“Who are these children?” he barked at the servant, who quailed.

“The young man is the best herbalist at Healers’ Collegium,” the servant said, turning his wince into a bow. “The other two are his assistants.”

“And where are the Healers, the adults?” The man seemed outraged.

“Your man will not tell them anything, my Lord,” the servant replied. “And they tell me there is nothing wrong with him that their powers can heal. They suggested medicines. This young man can compound those.”

The man with his head in his hands moaned, and said something in a foreign tongue.

“What’s he saying?” Bear hissed.

“He’s saying something about eyes,” the servant whispered back, as the man in gold and black glared at Bear, looking him up and down with contempt. “The eyes, the eyes, always watching! That’s about all he’s said for the last three days.”

“The eyes,” Lena murmured. “Something about that sounds familiar.”

“Well, you think about it while I look at this fellow.” Paying no attention to how the apparent leader glared at him, Bear walked up to the man on the couch and forced him to sit up and take his hands away from his face. He peered in both eyes, together and separately, checked him for a fever, and then got out some instruments from his case and began doing other things with the help of the servant, who translated.

“Mags, would you get out the mortar and pestle, and start grinding up those herbs I brought with me? Lena, you keep them all separate in those dishes that are with the mortar and pestle.” Bear was tapping the man with a little hammer, though what purpose that could serve, Mags had not a clue.

Now grinding things was no new task for Mags. He’d been put to that sort of work about the time he first remembered being in Cole Pieters’ custody. So he fished out the implements and the little packets of herbs and started grinding. He left one sprig of each intact and put it on the pile of powder he spilled out into the dish Lena held out for him.

Meanwhile the man kept glaring, while Bear asked questions in a coaxing tone of voice and the man occasionally answered with something besides “the eyes.” And Lena had her brows creased and her lips pursed in that way that Mags knew meant she was thinking very hard indeed.

Bear left off his examining and questioning when Mags finished the last of the herbs. Motioning both Mags and Lena out of the way, he began measuring things into the mortar, added a bit of liquid from a little flask he took out of the bag, then began mashing it all together with the pestle until he had a paste. Then he took bits of the paste that he carefully scooped out with the tiniest spoon Mags had ever seen, dusted his hands with what looked like flour, and began rolling the paste, scoop by scoop, into pellets. And when he had finished everything in the mortar, he began his measuring and mixing again.