Mercedes Lackey: Brightly Burning

Lan knew that was what he'd thought, since he'd said so often enough. His mother didn't seem to resent being thought of as a sort of commodity, in fact he sometimes wondered if the negotiation and speculation had been as one-sided as his father thought.

He stared out the glass window at the sorry substitute for a forest—a stand of six dwarf fruit trees, an arbor covered with brambles and roses, which would later yield fruit and rose hips, and gooseberry bushes, all neatly confined in wooden boxes with gravel-covered paths between, for a minimum of work. The rest of the garden was equally utilitarian; vegetables in boxes, herbs in boxes, grapevines trained against the wall. The only flowers growing there were those that were also edible.

With an intensity that left a dry, bitter edge around his thoughts, Lan longed for his wild, unconfined woods. In all of Haven he had yet to see a spot of earth that had been left to grow wild; every garden of every house around here was just the same as this one. The only variations were in whether or not the gardens were strictly utilitarian or ornamental. The parks around which each "square" of town houses were built were carefully manicured, with close-cropped lawns, precise ponds or fountains, pruned trees, and mathematically planned flowerbeds.

He wanted his horse. He wanted to saddle up and ride until he found a tree that wasn't pruned, a flower not in a planned planting, even a weed. But that was impossible; his horse had been left back in the country. There was no stable here, and even if there had been, he would not have been allowed his horse. The two carriage horses the family had brought with them were kept in a stable common to the square, and cost (as his father liked to repeat) a small fortune to keep fed and cared for. Only the nobly born could afford to keep a riding horse in the city.

He could have hired a horse to ride—there was a stable with horses for hire and a bigger park to ride them in—but what was the point of that? You weren't allowed to take the beast any faster than a trot, you had to stick to the bridle paths, and the riding park was just a bigger version of the tiny park of their square. Riding in the park was nothing more than a way for girls to show themselves off for young men, and young men to assess the competition. It wasn't even exercise.

Lan hated Haven; he had since he'd arrived, and he hadn't seen anything yet to change his mind. But he was in the minority, because the rest of his family had taken to life in the city with the enthusiasm of otters to a water slide.

His mother was at the Guildhouse every day, her daughter with her at least part of the time. Lan's younger sister Macy took after her mother in every way, and it looked as if Nelda would be handing the reins of her position in the Guild over to her daughter when the time came that she wished to step down. Macy adored every facet of city life, and so did Lan's younger brother, Feodor. Feodor tagged after their father the way Macy trailed behind Nelda, absorbing every aspect of the business of a cloth merchant as easily as a towel soaked up water. Lan's oldest brother Sam wasn't even in the equation—he spent so much time at his Master's that Lan scarcely even saw him.

A proper little copy of Father, he is, Lan thought cynically. And how nice for him that is. Same for Feodor. They never got into trouble just for existing; they never got the long looks of disgust or disappointment. Not once. Back home, that hadn't mattered; Lan was out at dawn and not back until dark, and if his parents were disappointed in him, at least he was able to avoid them.

Why can't they just send me back home? he thought longingly.

It wasn't as if they couldn't afford it, not with all the silver his father was throwing around lately. They kept saying that it was time he grew up and took on some responsibilities and made something of himself....

Why? Highborns don't have to! There are plenty of people with well-off parents who aren't expected to go out and "make something of themselves."

The only thing he really wanted to do was out of the question, of course. Given a choice, he'd have entered the Guard. He knew he rode well enough to get into the mounted troops; he certainly didn't fancy marching for leagues and leagues on his own two feet. He rather thought he'd look good in the Guard uniform of dark blue and silver, and it was an admitted magnet to attract pretty girls, or at least it had been at home. Even foot soldiers got attention when they passed through Alderscroft.

The one and only time he'd mentioned his ambitions, there had been such an outcry he hadn't dared say anything about it again. And without family support—well, he could pretty much forget about getting into the mounted troops, at least for a long while. If you brought your own horse and passed the riding trials, you went automatically into the cavalry, but if he didn't have family support, he wouldn't have a horse. And he wasn't so desperate that he cared to just run off and join the ground troops.

Definitely not. Without some weapons'-training, real training with a Weaponsmaster, he'd go straight into training with that most basic of front-line weapons, the pike. It would be months before he got his hands on a bow or an edged weapon, and all his time would be spent on grueling marches and drills.

I might as well be a woodcutter, it would be as much work and more interesting.

And anyway, he couldn't even run off to join the Guard for another two years. Even if he lied about his age and identity, his parents would probably find out where he was and drag him home again.

Nobody would believe I was sixteen anyway. Skinny and lanky he might be, but he was also undersized. He didn't even look fourteen. Feodor looked older than he did, and was certainly taller.

Of course, as his father pointed out constantly, a lack of height didn't matter to a merchant or a Guildsman.

By this time he had brooded himself into a truly black humor, and the moment he heard the housemaids come giggling into the kitchen for their late breakfast, he bolted up the stairs for his room, now carefully polished and scrubbed, any trace of him erased. He took a perverse pleasure in pulling the curtains shut on the morning sunshine and undoing their work by casting himself on the bed, boots and all.

He closed his eyes, nursing his bitterness in silence, wishing that he could will himself back home to Alderscroft.

*

HE didn't realize that he'd dozed off until he started awake to find his mother shaking him and the curtains pulled wide open again to admit the midday sun.

"Wake up!" she said crossly, the dreaded frown lines making deep creases between her brows. Her face, a perfect oval framed by the braids she wore wrapped around her head, was the very portrait of parental annoyance. Her hazel eyes narrowed with suppressed anger. "When I told you to find something to do, I didn't mean to go take a nap! Here—"

She thrust the same forgotten roll of tools at him that the Guildmaster had forced on him last night, and Lan suppressed a groan. Was he never to be rid of the blasted thing?

"Did you hide this in the cushions last night?" she accused.

He blinked and began to dissemble; she cut him off before he'd gotten more than a word or two out. "Don't bother to lie," she said acidly. "You do it very badly. You did. It's just a good thing that the Guildmaster thought Feodor was older than you—he offered to take Feo as his 'prentice, so Feo can use these, and he won't be offended to see that you've given Feo your present."

Relief must have shown on his face, for his mother's lips tightened. "Tidy yourself and get downstairs. Your father and I have something to tell you."