Mercedes Lackey - Changing the World - All-New Tales of Valdemar

“Clearly it’s not ordinary at all, it’s an exceptionally intelligent and well- trained horse—which means it can almost do as much as an exceptionally well- trained dog,” she said tartly. “He probably paid a pretty sum for it. So, the problem is, he has these people wrapped around his fingers, they’ll look at his fancied-up horse and not see any differences between it and your Companions, and you don’t know how to prove to these people what’s what without—what?”

“We can’t force a Truth Spell on anyone who’s not been brought up in judgment,” Sendar said gloomily. “Right now it’s our word against his. And they think he’s a Herald.”

“Had you considered kidnapping?” she asked.

They both blanched. “Breaking the law is not an option,” Callan replied faintly.

She shrugged. “All right. Then I might have a plan.”

They rode into town and headed straight for the inn where Danet was holding court. He looked startled to see two real Heralds, but the expression didn’t last long and quickly turned to his usual self-confidence.

He has the high ground here, and he knows it.

His expression slipped when she slid down off from behind Callan, however. He went absolutely blank.

“Hello, Danet,” she said pleasantly. “I see that you have convinced all these people that you are really a Herald. I wonder if they would still believe that if they knew you had taken Elise Garen’s silver locket. After you slept with her, of course. And you ‘borrowed’ over forty coppers from Tulera that you never intended to repay.” She went down the list, adding, sadly, all too frequently “After you slept with her, of course,” and paid close attention to the faces of some of the women around him. Doubt was creeping in. Not much, but—

“Of course, you must be a Herald now,” she went on, doing her best to sound perfectly calm and even. “Because look, you have the uniform, just like Herald Callan and Herald Sendar. And you have the Companion . . .” Now she turned to where the rather lovely white horse was peacefully standing, quite untethered, a few feet away. She had to admit he had managed a rather good imitation of a Companion. If you didn’t look too closely. “Of course you do.” She took a few steps nearer. “Or . . . do you?”

Before anyone could move to prevent her, she dashed forward. As she had expected, the horse was too well trained to shy away, although it did throw up its head in surprise and snort.

She lunged, and the hand she had held concealed in the folds of her dress slapped the flank of the horse, the wad of rags saturated with dark walnut dye leaving a huge brown smear on its white hide.

“Of course, everyone knows that Companions are white because dirt and all just evaporates right off them,” she continued as Danet and his little knot of admirers stared in shock. “So, to be fair, I should do the same to the others. With the same dye, so you can’t claim that I’ve used something different on them.”

She turned and wiped the dye off on the other two, creating identical swaths of stain on their satiny hides. “Now, let’s just see—oh, look.”

The two Companions had gotten a look of curious concentration on their faces the moment the rags touched them. And the dye was already fading!

Within moments it was gone, and their coats were as pristine as they had been before. Meanwhile the large, ugly brown stain remained on the flank of the oblivious horse.

“Goodness me,” she said sweetly. “It looks as if your Companion is a fake, Danet. And if your Companion is a fake—what does that make you?”

Danet looked wildly about for help, but his former admirers were backing away from him with expressions ranging from doubt to accusation. She had a fair notion that the accusatory ones were the women he had already slept with.

Herald Callan stepped forward and clamped one hand on Danet Stens’s shoulder.

“Danet Stens, I am taking you into custody to answer to one hundred and seventeen counts of theft, thirty- five counts of fraud, three counts of breach of promise . . .”

Danet could only stand there, looking stunned.

The Guards had arrived just as the Heralds had said they would, and they took Danet into custody. They did not take the horse. Marya put a claim on it, and since no one seemed willing to contest her for it, she got it. She immediately dyed all the blue tack a nondescript brown. She thought about further dyeing the horse, and decided to turn the streak into a patch, adding another couple just to make it look more natural. And significantly less like a Companion.

With Callan and Sendar to escort her back home, she got the hang of riding a real horse fairly quickly. And they could actually have conversations, riding three abreast, better than they had when she’d been pillion. She talked, for the first time, about her father. How devastated her mother had been when her letters were never answered. How miserable her childhood had been. They were troubled, apologetic, and on the whole their reaction came as close to satisfying her as much as anything ever would.

She was grudgingly coming to the conclusion that Heralds might not be so bad, when they reached Silver-gate just as the first hard frost hit. By that time she was glad to see her own cottage again. She made arrangements with innkeeper Stens to board her horse with him. She had plans for that horse. She had decided that she liked travel. She had it in mind that from now on, she just might deliver her tapestries herself, now and again.

She had just gotten the cottage opened up, warmed by the fire, and fit to live in again when—

There was a knock at the door.

She opened it. Callan and Sendar were there . . . with a wooden dispatch box.

“When you told us about your father, well, it didn’t sound right,” Callan said without preamble. “So we sent off to Haven to find out what we could. And . . . there is no other way to put this: What you and your mother always believed was a lie.”

She felt as if she had been slapped, and Sendar quickly added, “Not what you are thinking! He was Chosen to be a Herald. But he never abandoned you. Not willingly. Here—” He thrust the box at her. “Here are all the letters he tried to send, which your grandmother turned back. He was never allowed to contact your mother. He tried, but he was also in training, and he couldn’t leave Haven and the Collegium until the Midwinter celebrations and the holidays, and then—”

“Then it was too late. He got sick. A lot of people got sick that year. And he died.” Callan shook his head, sorrowfully. “The Collegium tried to contact your mother one last time, but they were turned away again.”

Marya blinked, too stunned to actually feel anything yet. Finally, she stammered, “Come in,” and took the box to the table.

There she took out all the letters, all the wonderful, loving, and then increasingly desperate letters, and read them carefully. That was when she knew, suddenly, exactly why her grandparents had done what they had.

Marya’s mother had been doing the bulk of the weaving. Marya herself was showing early promise even as a toddler. But if they left to join their husband and father—

Rage filled her one last time, a terrible rage that swept through her—

And then exploded into tears.

She wept for her mother, herself, and the father she had never known. She wept for the bitter, selfish old man and woman who had kept their daughter miserable in order to keep her. She wept, first on Callan’s shoulder and then on Sendar’s, until she couldn’t weep any more, and allowed herself to be led to her bed, where she fell asleep fully clothed and awoke in the morning feeling—empty. The anger was gone.