Мерседес Лэки - Passages

Still, Haven was even more full of chaos than usual. Students in Grays bustled here and there, and Healers walked quickly, sometimes burdened with herbs. What had Kenso said? The rumored Border war was coming soon? The last two weeks where she had been were, if anything, slightly quieter than most.

No one seemed to be waiting for her as she rode into the stables. That meant no one saw her wince as she slid down. She stripped her own tack and turned Hannra loose to find her dinner without anyone to see how her hands shook as she undid the girth. But now what was she to do?

She sighed in relief when a young girl came around the corner of the barn, saw her, and helped her rack and store her tack. “Thank you,” Marjom told her, smiling.

“My pleasure. You came from the Border?” The girl was blonde, with merry brown eyes and a round face over a sturdy frame. She looked too young to be Chosen, but she wouldn’t be wearing Grays without a Companion. “What’s it like there? I heard it’s terribly hard.” She picked up Marjom’s saddlebags and slung them over her shoulder as if they were feathers. “I’m Candry. We were told to watch for . . . returning Heralds, but tomorrow.”

“My name’s Marjom.”

“Hi, Marjom.” Candry’s smile spread across her face like light. “I’ll take you to your quarters and bring you dinner.”

“No need. I don’t have regular quarters in Haven. I’ll just take one of the rooms for Circuit Heralds.”

“Oh, no, ma’am. I know where to take you.”

Ma’am? And how did the girl know where she was supposed to go? Marjom frowned but followed as the girl headed through the wide barn doors.

Candry stopped and let Marjom catch up. “When did you get your Whites?”

What a thing to be asked! Marjom had to do the math twice before she believed the answer. “Forty-six years ago.” She stepped carefully around a stray dog. “I was twenty-two. I wasn’t chosen until I was eighteen.”

Candry smiled. “I was fourteen. There’s one boy here who was chosen at twelve.”

So young. Was that due to the coming war? “How old are you now?”

Candry led Marjom down a street lined with newly planted purple snapping dragon flowers. “Seventeen. I’m to ride my first Circuit soon.”

Marjom wrinkled her nose at the strong smell of fresh compost rising from the planting beds. “That’s exciting.” She remembered how she’d felt the same year. Apprehensive. Certain that she’d fail. “Are you worried?”

“No.” Candry turned her head toward Marjom. “I think it will be grand. I was born in a small town. Shedsville. Perhaps you’ve heard of it?”

“I’ve been through there. It’s nice.” It was, and small was a good description. There was a single inn with six beds, but enough tables to feed fifteen families. Maybe no more than about thirty families total in the farms around it. Shedsville was far enough away from the Border that it felt safe, if poor. “I liked it.”

“Good.” Candry stopped, waiting for Marjom to catch up again. “It’s not much farther.”

Marjom gave in and asked, “Where are we going?”

“The new wing. Just around the corner.”

Marjom stopped. She hadn’t known they were building a new wing. “I haven’t been here for years.”

Candry stopped again, the saddlebags swinging easily over her strong shoulders. “Would you like a hand?”

As in, Could she walk faster if someone held her hand? “I’m fine.” Marjom straightened and managed to make her stride a little longer.

They rounded a corner, and their likely destination loomed in front of them. Even though the last of the day’s light softened the edges, the housing looked fresh and new, just whitewashed, and somewhat hastily assembled. Two stories tall, a little imposing, but pleasant. The planters near the big, welcoming doorway hadn’t yet been planted, although fresh dirt sat in piles beside them, also smelling of compost.

Candry was already forging ahead and through the open door.

Marjom recognized an older Herald, Chalena, who had once taught her how to fix saddlery. Chalena leaned against the doorframe. Her hair had thinned and whitened, and her hands bore the distinctive dark spots and bruising of very old age. She had seemed old when she was teaching Marjom how to use a hammer and a spike to open holes in leather on a bridle or saddle that needed to be field-fit. So she was, what—twenty years older than Marjom? At least. Chalena’s cheeks looked like they were trying to hide from her eyes, and her lips looked smaller and thinner than Marjom remembered. In spite of her body’s obvious betrayal, her eyes had the same warm and slightly worried look, and her voice still spit steel. “Welcome home.”

“Home?”

“Yes. We’re almost roommates. You’ve been assigned a room just down the hall from me.”

Marjom’s reaction was unbidden and immediate. “I’ll be leaving again in a few days.”

A look of pained sympathy crossed Chalena’s face and then disappeared. Kind of like the look Kenso had given her.

Marjom’s voice trailed off as she continued, “Back to the Border. I’ve . . .”

“Let me make tea.”

“I don’t want tea.”

Chalena shrugged. “We have stronger medicines. But wine is no good for your bad feet.”

“Who told you about my feet? I’ll take the wine.”

Chalena smiled. “The kitchen is this way. We just opened a week ago. We’re calling the place Heritage Hall. Do you like it?”

“I . . . I can’t possibly . . .” The pale blue walls of the entry transitioned to a soft yellow, and toward the ovens and fire, a beautiful orange. Tapestries on the far wall by the head and foot of a long dining table softened the look further. A window ran the length of the table, displaying what would clearly become a garden, although now it was mostly mounded soils and empty raised beds. Red clay pots underneath the window held young oregano, marjoram, and other herbs healers carried with them. A prettier place by far than the tents and poor inns she’d been frequenting for the last twenty years. Prettier than the usual Circuit rider’s housing in Haven. “It is beautiful. Maybe I will want to be here one day. But I’m needed at the Border.”

Chalena hesitated briefly. “You need to sleep. You’ve had a long day. Can I pour you that wine now?”

Maybe she should have asked for tea. “Yes, wine would be great.”

The wine was far better than the fare they got at taverns and inns. Just like everything else about Haven. Softer and nicer, and a reminder of the differences in wealth between Valdemar’s capital and the Border towns. She grimaced, but she drank it. Wasting wine because it was too good made zero sense. “So, who called me here?”

“Selenay.”

“Surely not.” Marjom would have known that. A command from Selenay would have come with her seal, and besides, Marjom had never met the queen. She’d seen her riding inspection on troops and speaking at a multitude of events, but Selenay wouldn’t know Marjom from an ant.

“There are two more Heralds coming in tomorrow. You arrived a day earlier than we expected.”

Marjom laughed as the wine began stealing her unease. “Border Heralds don’t have time for grass to grow under their Companion’s hooves. We move all the time, sleep little, almost never in the same place. I can’t imagine sleeping in the same bed for a week!” She took another sip of wine. “We’re expected to be everywhere at once.”

“You’ll like it here,” Chalena said in a tone Marjom remembered from when the older Herald needed her to finish her homework years ago. Part promise, part threat. “Your room is the last one on the right.” It sounded like a dismissal, but Marjom sat still, unmoving, staring ahead.