Last Herald Mage: Magic's Pawn Part 3

The renewal of hope did not bring a corresponding renewal of appet.i.te; the tension only made his stomach knot up the more. The room seemed far too hot; he loosened the laces of his tunic, but that didn't help. The flames of the lamps on the wall behind him made the shadows dance on the table, until he had to close his eyes and take several deep breaths to get his equilibrium back. He felt flushed and feverish, and after only a few mouthfuls of the thick, swiftly cooling soup that seemed utterly tasteless, he signaled to a servant to take it away.

He squirmed uncomfortably on the wooden bench, and pushed the rest of his meal around on his plate with one eye always on the high table and his father.

The high table was high; raised on a dais a good hand above the rest of the room, and set at the head of the low table like the upper bar of a "t." That meant that it overlooked and overshadowed the low table. Vanyel could feel the presence of those sitting there looming over him even at those few times when he wasn't watching them. With each course his stomach seemed to acquire another lump, a colder and harder one, until he finally gave up all pretense of eating.

Then, just at the dessert course, when he thought he might be saved, his father rose to his feet.

Lord Withen towered over the table as he towered over Vanyel and everything belonging to Forst Reach. He prided himself on being a "plain man," close enough in outlook to any of his men that they could feel easy with him. His st.u.r.dy brown leather tunic and linen shirt were hardly distinguishable from the garb of any of the hireling armsmen; the tunic was decorated with polished silver studs instead of copper, but that was the only token of his rank. The tunic strained across his broad shoulders - and across the barest hint of a paunch. His long, dark hair was confined in a tail at the nape of his neck by a silver band; his beard trimmed close to his square jawline.

Vanyel's changeling appearance, especially when contrasted with Mekeal's, may have been one reason why Withen seemed to be irritated whenever he looked at his eldest son. Vanyel was lean, and not particularly tall; Mekeal was tall and muscular, already taller than Vanyel although he was two years younger. Vanyel's hair was so black it had blue highlights, and his eyes were a startling silver-gray, exactly like his mother's - and he had no facial hair to speak of. Mekeal's eyes were a chestnut brown, he already had to shave, and his hair matched his father's so closely that it would not have been possible to tell which of them a particular plucked hair came from.

Mekeal made friends as easily as breathing - I never had anyone but Lissa.

Mekeal was tone-deaf; Vanyel lived for music. Mekeal suffered through his scholastic lessons; Vanyel so far exceeded his brother that there was no comparison.

In short, Mekeal was completely his father's son; Vanyel was utterly Withen's opposite.

Perhaps that was all in Withen's mind as he rose and spared a glance for his first-and-second-born sons, before fixing his gaze on nothing in particular. The lanterns behind Withen danced, and his shadow reached halfway down the low table. As that stark shadow darkened the table, it blackened Vanyel's rising hope.

"After due consideration," Withen rumbled, "I have decided that it is time for Vanyel to acquire education of a kind - more involved than we can give him here. So tonight will be the last night he is among us. Tomorrow he will begin a journey to my sister, Herald-Mage Savil at the High Court of Valdemar, who will take official guardianship of him until he is of age."

Withen sat down heavily.

Treesa burst into a tearful wail, and shoved herself away from the table; as she stood, her chair went over with a clatter that sounded, in the unnatural silence that now filled the Great Hall, as loud as if the entire table were collapsing. She ran from the room, sobbing into her sleeve, as Withen maintained a stony silence. Her fosterlings and ladies followed her, and only Melenna cast an unreadable glance over her shoulder at Vanyel before trailing off in the wake of the others.

Everyone in the silent room seemed to have been frozen by an evil spell.

Finally Withen reached forward and took a walnut from the bowl before him; he nestled it in his palm and cracked it in his bare hands. Vanyel jumped at the sound, and he wasn't the only one.

"Very good nuts last year, don't you think?" Withen said to Father Leren.

That seemed to be the signal for the entire room to break out in frantic babbling. On Vanyel's right, three of his cousins began laying noisy bets on the outcome of a race between Radevel and Kerle on the morrow. On his right, Radevel whispered to Mekeal, while across the table from him his youngest brother Heforth exchanged punches and pokes with cousin Larence.

Vanyel was pointedly ignored. He might just as well have been invisible, except for the sly, sidelong looks he was getting. And not just from the youngsters, either. When he looked up at the high table once, he caught Father Leren staring at him and smiling slyly. When their eyes met, the priest nodded very slightly, gave Vanyel a look br.i.m.m.i.n.g with self-satisfaction, and only then turned his attention back toward Withen. During that silent exchange - which n.o.body else seemed to have noticed - Vanyel had felt himself grow pale and cold.

As the dessert course was cleared away, the elders left the hall on affairs of their own, and a few of the girls-more of Vanyel's cousins - returned; a sign that Lady Treesa had retired for the night.

The boys and young men remaining now rose from their seats; the young usually reigned over the hall undisturbed after dinner. With the girls that had returned they formed three whispering, giggling groups; two sets of four and one of eleven - all three groups blatantly closing Vanyel out. Even the girls seemed to have joined in the conspiracy to leave him utterly alone.

Vanyel pretended not to notice the muttering, the jealous glances. He rose from the bench a few moments after the rest had abandoned him, making it a point of honor to saunter over to stare into the fire in the great fireplace. He walked with head high, features schooled into a careful mask of bored indifference.

He could feel their eyes on the back of his neck, but he refused to turn, refused to show any emotion at all, much less how queasy their behavior was making him feel.

Finally, when he judged that he had made his point, he stretched, yawned, and turned. He surveyed the entire room through half-closed eyelids for a long moment, his own gaze barely brushing each of them, then paced lazily across the endless length of the Great Hall, pausing only to nod a cool good night to the group nearest the door before - finally! - achieving the sanctuary of the dark hallway beyond it.

"Ye G.o.ds, you'd think he was the Heir to the Throne!" Sandar exclaimed, rolling his eyes and throwing up his hands. "Queen Elspeth herself wouldn't put on such airs!"

Eighteen-year-old Joserlin Corveau stared after the lad for a long moment, putting his thoughts together. He was the oldest of the fosterlings, and the latest-come. Really, he wasn't properly a fosterling at all; nor a close cousin. A true cousin, childless after many years, had decided on Joserlin as his Heir and (as he himself was not in the best of health) requested he be fostered to Lord Withen to learn the ways of governance of one's Holdings. He was broad and tall as any of the doors to the keep, and even Jervis respected the power of his young muscles. After a single practice session with young Jos, Jervis had decreed that he was old enough to train with Withen's armsmen. After seeing the way Jervis "trained" the boys, Jos had been quite content to have it so.

Some of the younger boys had made the mistake of thinking that his slow speech and large build meant that he was stupid. They had quickly discovered their mistake when he'd gotten them with well-timed jokes.

He liked to say of himself that while he didn't think quickly, he did think things through all the way. And there were aspects of this vaguely disturbing evening that were not adding together properly in his mind.

Meanwhile the rest of his group continued dissecting Withen's least-beloved offspring.

"He thinks he is the Heir to the Throne," giggled Jyllian, swishing her skirts coquettishly. "Or at least, that the rest of us are that far below him. You should see him, lording it over us in the bower!'' She struck her nose in the air and mimed looking down it while playing a make-believe lute. "But just try and get anything out of him besides a song! Brrr! Watch the snow fall! You'd think we were poison-vellis, the way he pulls away and goes cold!"

Mekeal snorted, tossing his head. "Thinks he's too good for you, I s'ppose! Nothing high enough for him but a lady of the blood-royal, no doubt! Think girls like you aren't lofty enough."

"Or not pretty enough," snickered Merthin. "Havens, give it a thought - none of you little lovelies are even a close match for His Majesty's sweet face. Can't have his lady less beautiful than he is, after all."

"I don't doubt." Larence put in his bit, coming up behind Merthin. "Well, he'll find he's not the only pretty face when he gets to the High Court. He just might find himself standing in somebody's shadow for a change! Take my word for it, dear little Vanyel is going to get a rude awakening when he gets to Haven."

"Dammit, it's not fair," Mekeal grumbled, face clouding at this reminder of Vanyel's destination. "I'd give my arm to go to Haven! I mean, think of it; the best fighters in the country are there - it's the center of everything!" He flung his hands wide, nearly hitting Merthin, in a gesture of total frustration. "How'm I ever going to get a - an officer's commission or any kind of position when n.o.body with any say at Court is ever going to see me? That's why they sent m'sister off to be fostered right near there! You have a chance to get noticed at Court!

She's going to be an officer, you can bet on it, an' best I'll ever get is maybe a Sector command, which means not one d.a.m.n thing! I need to be at Court; I ain't going to inherit! I'm the one that should be going, not Vanyel! It's not fair!"

"Huh. You've got that right," Larence echoed, shifting his feet restlessly. "Dammit, we're all seconds, thirds - we all need a chance like that, or we'll be stuck doing nothing at the end of nowhere for the rest of our lives! We're never going to get anywhere, stuck off here in the back of beyond."

"And think of the ladies," added Kerle, rolling his eyes up and kissing his hand at the ceiling. "All the loveliest darlings in the kingdom."

He ducked, laughing, as Jyllian feinted a blow at his head, then shook her fist at him in mock-anger.

"Dammit, think a bit," Mekeal persisted. "What in Haven's name has he done to deserve getting rewarded like that? All he does around here is play he's a minstrel, look down that long nose of his at the rest of us, and shirk every duty he can!" Mekeal glowered and pounded his fist into the palm of his other hand to emphasize his words. "He's Mother's little darling, but - there's no way she'd have talked Father into sending him off, you all saw how she acted! So why? Why him, when the rest of us would die to get a chance to go to the capital?"

Joserlin continued to stare off into the dark; he was still putting together what he'd been observing. Everyone looked expectantly at him when Mekeal subsided and he cleared his throat. They all knew at this point that he was not the bright intellectual light among his brothers and cousins that Vanyel was, but he had a knack of seeing to the heart of things, and they wanted to hear if he had an answer for them. He usually did, and as they had half expected, this time was no exception.

"What makes you all think it's a reward?" he asked quietly.

The astonishment in the faces turned to his, followed by the light of dawning understanding, made him nod as he saw them come to the same conclusion he had made.

"You see?" he said, just as quietly as before. "It isn't a reward for Vanyel - it's an exile."

Vanyel didn't have to control his trembling when he reached the safe, concealing shelter of the hallway, but he didn't dare pause there. Someone might take it into his or her head to follow him.

But what he could do - now that he was out of the range of prying, curious eyes and ears - was run.

So he did, though he ran as noiselessly as he could, fleeing silently behind his shadow through the dim, uncertain light of the hallways. His flight took him past the dark, closed doorways leading to the bower, to bachelor's hall, to the chapel. His shadow sprang up before him every time he pa.s.sed a lantern or torch, splaying out thin and spidery on the floor. He kept his head down so that if anyone should happen to come out of one of those doorways, they wouldn't see how close he was to tears.

But no one appeared; he reached the safe shelter of the servants' wing without encountering a single soul. Once there he dashed heedlessly up the stone staircase. Someone had extinguished the lanterns on the staircase itself; Vanyel didn't care. He'd run up these stairs often enough when half blind from trying not to cry, and his feet knew the way of themselves.

He hit the top landing at a dead run, and made the last few feet to his own door in a few heartbeats. He was sobbing for breath as he fumbled out his key in the dark and unlocked it - and the tears were threatening to spill.

Spill they did as soon as he got the door open. He shut and locked it behind him, leaning his back against it, head thrown back and resting against the rough wood. He swallowed his sobs out of sheer, prideful refusal to let anyone know of his unhappiness, even a servant, but hot tears poured down his cheeks and soaked into the neck of his tunic, and he couldn't make them stop.

They hate me. They all hate me. I knew they didn't much like me, but I never knew how much they hated me.

Never had he felt so utterly alone and nakedly vulnerable. At that moment if he could have ensured his death he'd have thrown himself out of his window. But as he'd noted earlier, it wasn't that far to the ground; and pain was a worse prospect than loneliness.

Finally he stumbled to his bed, pulled his clothing off, and crawled under the blankets, shivering with the need to keep from crying out loud.

But despite his best efforts, the tears started again, and he m.u.f.fled his sobs in his pillow.

Oh, Liss - oh, Liss - I don't know what to do! n.o.body cares, n.o.body gives a d.a.m.n about me, n.o.body would ever risk a hangnail for me but you - and they *ve taken you out of reach. I'm afraid, and I'm alone, and Father's trying to break me, I know he is.

He turned over, and stared into the darkness above him, feeling his eyes burn. I wish I could die. Now.

He tried to will his heart to stop, but it obstinately ignored him.

Why can't they just leave me alone ? He closed his burning eyes, and bit his lip. Why?

He lay in his bed, feeling every lump in the mattress, every p.r.i.c.kle in the sheets; every muscle was tensed until it ached, his head was throbbing, and his eyes still burning.

He lay there for at least an eternity, but the oblivion he hoped for didn't come. Finally he gave up on trying to sleep, fumbled for the candle at his bedside, and slid out into the stuffy darkness of the room. He grabbed up his robe from the foot of the bed and pulled it on over his trembling, naked body, and began crossing the floor to the door.

Though the room itself was warm - too warm - the tiled floor was shockingly cold under his feet. He felt his way to the door, and pressed his ear against the crack at the side, listening with all his might for any sounds from the corridor and stairs beyond.

Nothing.

He cautiously slipped the inside bolt; listened again. Still nothing. He cracked the door and peered around the edge into the corridor.

It was thankfully empty. But the nearest lantern was all the way down at the dead end.

He took a deep breath and drew himself up; standing as tall and resolutely erect as if he were Lord of the Keep himself. He walked calmly, surely, down the empty corridor, with just as much arrogance as if all his cousins' eyes were on him.

Because there was no telling when one of the upper servants who had their rooms along this hall might take it into their heads to emerge - and servants talked. Frequently.

And they would talk if one of them got a glimpse of Vanyel in tears. It would be all over the keep in a candle-mark.

He lit his candle at the lantern, and made another stately progress back to his room. Only when he had securely bolted the door behind him did he let go of the harpstring-taut control he'd maintained outside. He began shaking so hard that the candle flame danced madly, and spilled drops of hot wax on his hands.

He lit the others in their sconces by the door and over the bed as quickly as he could, and placed the one he was clutching in the holder on his table before he could burn himself with it.

He sat down heavily on the rucked-up blankets, sucking the side of his thumb where hot wax had scorched him, and staring at his belongings, trying to decide what his father was likely to let him take with him.

He didn't even bother to consider his instruments. They were far safer where they were. Maybe someday - if he survived this - he could come back and get them. But there was no chance, none at all, that he could sneak them out in his belongings. And if his father found them packed up - He'd smash them. He'd smash them, and laugh, and wait for me to say or do something about it.

He finally got up and knelt on the chill stone beside the chest that held his clothing. He raised the heavy, carved lid, and stared down at the top layer for a long moment before lifting it out.

Tunics, shirts, breeches, hose - all in the deep, jewel-tones of sapphire and aquamarine and emerald that he knew looked so good on him, or his favorite black, silvery or smoky gray. All clothing he wore because it was one tiny way to defy his father - because his father could wear the same three outfits all year, all of them identical, and never notice, never care. Because his father didn't give a d.a.m.n about what he or anyone else wore - and it angered him that Vanyel did.

Vanyel pondered the clothing, stroking the soft raime of a shirt without much thinking about what he was doing. He won't dare keep me from taking the clothes, though I bet he'd like to. I'll have to look presentable when I get there, or I'll shame him - and the stuff Mekeal and the rest scruff around in is not presentable.

He began rolling the clothing carefully, and stowing it into the traveling packs kept in the bottom of the chest. Though he didn't dare take an instrument, he managed to secrete some folded music, some of his favorite pieces, between the pages of the books he packed. Bards are thick as birds in a cherry grove at Haven, he thought with a lump in his throat. Maybe I can get one to trade an old gittern for a cloak-brooch or something. It won't be the same as my lovely Woodlark, but it'll be better than nothing. Provided I can keep Aunt Unsavory from taking it away from me.

It was all too quickly done. He found himself on the floor beside the filled packs with nothing more to do. He looked around his room; there was nothing left to pack that he would miss - except for those few things that he wanted to take but didn't dare.

Pretty fine life I've led, when all of it fits in four packs.

He got slowly to his feet, feeling utterly exhausted, yet almost too weary to sleep. He blew out all the candles except the one at his bedside, slipped out of his robe, tucked it into the top of the last pack, and climbed back into bed.

Somehow he couldn't bring himself to blow out the last candle. While there was light in the room he could keep the tears back. But darkness would set them free.

He lay rigid, staring silently at the candlelight wavering on the slanted ceiling, until his eyes burned.

All the brothers and fosterlings shared rooms; Mekeal had shared his with Vanyel until his older brother's broken arm had sent Mekeal down here a year early. And when Vanyel hadn't made the move down - Mekeal hadn't been particularly unhappy.

So for a while he had this one to himself, at which point he found that he really hadn't liked being alone after all. He liked company. Now, though - at least since late spring - he'd shared with Joserlin.

That had been fine with him. Jos was the next thing to an adult; Mekeal had been excited to have him move in, pleased with his company, and proud that Jos had treated him like an equal. And Jos talked to him; he didn't talk much, but when he did it was worth listening to. But he'd already said his say earlier tonight - so Mekeal had thought.

So he was kind of surprised when Jos' deep voice broke the silence right after they'd blown the candles out.

"Mekeal, why are you younglings so hard on your brother?"

Mekeal didn't have to ask which brother, it was pretty plain who Jos meant. But - "hard on him?" How could you be hard on somebody who didn't give a d.a.m.n about anything but himself?

" *Cause he's a - toad," Mekeal said indignantly. "He's got no more backbone than a mushroom! He's a baby, a coward - an' the only thing he cares about's his-self! He's just like Mama - she's gone and made him into a mama-pet, a shirker."

"Hmm? Really? What makes you so sure of that last?"

"Father says, and Jervis - "

"Because he won't let Jervis pound him like a set of pells." Joserlin snorted with absolute contempt. "Can't says as I much blame him, myself. If I was built like him, with Jervis on my back, reckon I'd find a hiding-hole, too. I sure's Haven wouldn't go givin' Jervis more chances t' hit on me."

Mekeal's mouth fell open in shock, and he squirmed around in his bed to face where Joserlin was, a dark bulk to his right. "But - but - Jervis - he's armsmaster!"

"He's a ham-handed lackwit," came the flat reply. "You forget, Meke, I was fostered with Lord Kendrik; I learned under a real armsmaster; Master Orser, and he's a good one. Jervis wouldn't be anything but another armsman if he hadn't been an old friend of your father's. He don't deserve to be armsmaster. Havens, Meke, he goes after the greenest of you like you was his age, his weight, and his experience! He don't pull his blows half the time; and he don't bother to show you how to take *em, just lets you fumble it out for yourselves. An' he don't know but one bare style, an' that one's Holy Writ!"

"But - "

"But nothin'. He's no great master, let me tell you; by my way of thinkin' he's no master at all. If I was Vanyel, I'd'a poisoned myself before I let the old goat take his spleen out on me again! I heard what happened this spring - about how he took after Van an' beat him down a half dozen times, an' then broke his arm."

"But - he was cheating!" Mekeal protested.

"No such thing; Radevel told me what really happened. Before that b.a.s.t.a.r.d managed to convince you lot that you didn't see Van getting beaten up *cause he bested the old peabrain. That weren't nothing but plain old bullying, an' if my old armsmaster had treated one of his pupils that way, he'd have been kicked off the top of the tower by Lord Kendrick hisself!''

Mekeal could hardly believe what he was hearing. "But - " he protested again.

"But Father - "

"Your father's a d.a.m.n fool," Joserlin replied shortly. "An' I won't beg your pardon for sayin' so. He's a d.a.m.n fool for keepin' Jervis as Master, an' he's a d.a.m.n fool for treatin' young Vanyel the way he does. He's beggin' for trouble ev'ry time he pushes that boy. Half of what Vanyel does he made him do - to spite him. You mark my words; I seen this before, only the opposite. Place next to where I was fostered at your age, old Lady Cedrys at Briary Holding. Old Cedrys, she was big on scholarly stuff; nothin' would do but for her oldest t' be at the books night and day.'Cept her oldest was like you, mad for the Guard. And the more Cedrys pushed books, the more Liaven ran for the armsmaster at our place, till one day he kept right on running and didn't stop till he'd signed up with a common mercenary-company, an' she never saw him again."

"But - Jos - you've seen him, the way he lords it over us like he was King of the G.o.ds or something - keeping his nose in the air every time he looks at us."

"Uh-huh," Joserlin replied out of the dark, "And some of it's *cause he's spoiled flat rotten by Lady Treesa. I won't deny that; he's one right arrogant little wart an' he sure knows he's the prettiest thing on the holding. Makes sure everybody else knows it, too. But I can't help but wonder how much he sticks that nose in the air around you lot *cause you seem so bent on rubbin' it in the dirt. Hmm?"

Mekeal could find nothing to say in reply.