Мерседес Лэки - Passages

Chalena got up without another word and hobbled slowly down the hallway.

It was a retirement home. She could smell it, see it. Only in Haven. No place like this existed in Border towns. The old died plowing fields or failing to outrun bandits. And they lived— lived —until the moment they died. Heralds did not retire. Not field Heralds. Not often. She looked around. This was not where she wanted to die. Maybe, maybe , she would die faster in the field. Being slow could hurt her there. But here? She’d have years of doing what? Gardening?

Marjom stared at the window and the potted herbs and the sunny paint until she couldn’t keep her eyes open, and when she stood up, her feet screamed at her.

She ignored them and walked as quickly as she could to find her room.

The next morning, she slept late. The bustle of the city drew her outside to walk the streets. Haven still smelled of flowers and compost, but also of leather and fear. A page bumped into her with his arms full of boiled leather armor, and not five minutes later she dodged a stable boy carrying simple tack, the type she used at the Border rather than the flouncy stuff the rich merchants used. The attempts to get decorative spring planting done were halfhearted, as if Haven didn’t quite have the heart to acknowledge the season.

An exhausted messenger galloped past her on a tired horse that could barely keep its head up. A group of armed men and women gathered by a gate, looking ready to head out to fight. Even though it was too early in the year for the day to be truly hot, it was bright and tiring. She found a bench in a small park and reached out to Hannra. :Are you well?:

:Worried. There have been serious attacks against the Border in the last few days. Closer to Haven than we were, too. So it’s good to be here.:

Marjom recalled the messenger. :We’ll leave soon.:

Hannra didn’t answer.

Marjom waited awhile, and then said, :I don’t intend to stay here and wait out the war. We are still useful.:

:Of course we are.:

If she hadn’t promised to be back for lunch, she’d go find Hannra in Companion’s Field and demand a more in-depth conversation. But she had, and Hannra had enough of a stubborn streak that it took work to pry secrets from her.

Another messenger passed her, this one going the opposite way. Carrying a reply back to the Border, and thus to the front of the war with Ancar?

Her stomach complained that she had been ignoring it, so she headed back. The Heritage Hall kitchen looked almost full. Three more Heralds milled about, waiting, while Candry and a male student who looked a few years younger carried plates of soft breads and bowls of dried bean and apple soup to the long table. Like her, the newcomers all had gray hair. Herald Jolsten, whom she had ridden two Circuits with, walked with a decided limp that was new to her. Herald Debda’s head hunched a little forward, and her hair had thinned considerably, but she was otherwise just as pretty as Marjom remembered her, with a tall, rangy form and a wide smile. She introduced herself to Herald Witman, a small, slight man who looked half the size of Debda but who had a strong handshake and brilliant blue eyes.

To her surprise, Chalena didn’t invite them to sit, even though the table seemed to be set and the soup must be getting cold. Instead, she waited by the front door, fidgeting, watchful.

Finally, the old Herald stepped back, and a small, redheaded woman with freckles spilling across her nose came in. Chelena looked like a cat who had just killed a bird as she turned. “I presume Herald Talia doesn’t need an introduction?”

She didn’t. This was The Queen’s Own Herald, and seeing her was almost as surprising as seeing Selenay herself would have been.

Talia smiled brightly, although she looked drawn and tired. But then, her job was to advise the Queen and keep her safe in the midst of one of the most dangerous times in Valdemar’s history. Of course she was tired.

Talia sat at the head of the table, and Candry rushed to bring her water and a bowl of soup. Talia sipped the water and ignored the soup, gesturing for everyone else to sit. After the room was quiet, she cleared her throat. “I am very sorry that we didn’t tell you much. But Ancar has spies in many places. We were afraid that word would get out that we have called you home. That might have made you targets.”

A bunch of old Heralds? Targets? That made no sense.

Talia continued. “We are taking almost every Herald who is capable of fighting with us. That includes many of our teachers. We’re even taking some of the oldest students. Yet we cannot afford for the remaining students to sit untrained; Valdemar will have need of them as soon as they are ready.” Talia leaned forward, catching the gaze of each of the people sitting around the table. “We need to supplement the teaching staff who are being left behind.”

Marjom couldn’t help herself. “But I can fight. I was fighting five days ago.”

Talia’s face softened. “And we thank you. We value all of the service each of you has offered Valdemar. Most of all, we value the tricks and ideas and experience you have learned in your long service. All of you have spent your life helping to keep Valdemar safe, and all of you have done it outside of Haven. That is of great value. We’ve called you back to create a corps of older Heralds who will work from here, collecting, writing down, passing on, and teaching what you alone know.”

Marjom sat back in her chair. The words sounded good, but what they really said was she would never go back out to her beloved forests and smallfolk but would die here, inside the walls of Haven.

She caught Talia’s eye, raising her hand a little, conscious that she was the only one questioning the Queen’s Own and that it probably wasn’t seemly. But she didn’t care. When Talia nodded, Marjom said, “What if we’d rather die at the Border? What if there are people out there who are counting on us?”

Talia’s face stayed soft, but her words fell like stone. “Then you and they will both be thanked for your sacrifice. You are needed here.”

Hannra wouldn’t take her out of Haven against orders from Talia. No way.

Marjom was well and truly trapped. Heralds served where needed, and a real battle was coming. And now she had ended up on the sidelines.

She’d have to find peace with this. But how?

Talia nodded and hurried out. The others started in on their now cold soup. Marjom didn’t touch hers.

By the next morning, no one had arrived with any specific orders. But Marjom was a field Herald. She didn’t sit still. Before the sun had been up a full candlemark, she found herself back out in the city. But today, she wasn’t going to just wander the streets. She started at the stables. She passed Candry forking hay into a stall full of milk goats. She waved, wondering how the girl had drawn stable chores when she was clearly close to being a graduate. Candry waved back but didn’t stop to talk.

Marjom Mindtouched Hannra lightly, just enough to make sure she was comfortable in Companion’s Field, before she started looking for cleaning supplies. Even if she wasn’t going to need it for a while, she never left her tack to sit long without being oiled and checked for spots that needed repairs.

She sat in a stiff-backed wooden chair in the tack room, a rag in one hand and her reins in the other. Reins were mostly decorative for Companions, particularly in Haven, but Heralds used them outside, if just to make the Companions appear a bit more like horses. They could also be handy to hang onto, or to signal a Companion in full gallop if you didn’t have the attention for Mindspeaking. A twitch of leather reins took a second, and words took three or four seconds. That could matter.