Ten

Well, there was one way, Talia knew, to keep herself under control—and that was to work herself into a state of total exhaustion. So in the morning she rose early, almost before the sun, and she began pressing herself to her limits—making each day blur into the next in a haze of fatigue. It became impossible to tell what day it was, or even how long they’d been there.

Talia usually woke first, at dawn, and would prod Kris into wakefulness. One or the other of them would prepare not only breakfast, but unleavened cakes with some form of soup or stew: something that could remain untended most of the day without scorching, simply because they both knew that by the time they came in, they would have barely enough energy to eat and perform a sketchy sort of wash before collapsing into bed.

After a hearty breakfast of fruit and porridge, she would wrap the Companions’ legs against the sharp edges of the ice-crust while Kris haltered the chirras, and all six occupants of the Station would troop out into the cold to begin the day’s work.

Rolan and Tantris would move up first, and break the crust of ice and the hard snow beneath by rearing to their full heights and crashing down on it with their forelegs, or backing up to it and kicking as hard as they could. They would move back, and Talia and Kris would then take their places; picking up the chunks that had broken off and heaving them to either side of the trail they were cutting. The chirras would use their powerful foreclaws on what remained until they were halted by snow too packed for them to dig or crust too slippery to get a grip on. Then the Heralds would move the chunks they’d dislodged, scoop up the loose snow, and let the Companions take over again.

They would work without a break until the sun reached its zenith, then take begrudged time for a hasty lunch. On their return, they would work until darkness. Each day the trips to and from the Station got longer; sometimes it was only that which kept Talia working. There were times, too many times, when their progress was limited to a few feet for a whole day of back-breaking labor; and she knew the Station itself was furlongs from the road. It was when their measured progress amounted to little more than a dozen paces that the temptation to give up was the strongest.

When darkness fell, Kris would tend the Companions while Talia groomed the chirras, checking them thoroughly for any sign of injury or muscle strain during the process of grooming them. Rolan and Tantris, of course, could be relied upon to tell their Chosen if they’d been hurt, but the chirras were another story. And if one of the chirras had to drop out of the work, their progress would be halved.

Finally Kris or Talia—usually Talia—would ensure that everyone was well supplied with food and water and blanketed against the night chill before they wolfed down their own dinners and sought their bed.

It was the hardest physical labor either of them had ever performed. The constant cold seeped into their very bones, and their muscles never stopped aching. It wore them down, a little more each day. They had strictly rationed their own supplies, and the food they were taking in was not equaling the energy they were expending. They were getting thinner, both of them, and tougher, physically. It was a change Talia hardly noticed, because it was so gradual, but once in a while she would think vaguely that her friends would have been surprised to the point of shock by the way she looked.

Kris continued to hammer at her through the first week of digging out, until centering and grounding had become reflexive. After that, he left her in peace, only offering an occasional bit of weary advice. Talia’s control over Empathic projection came and went, at unpredictable intervals, although Kris evidently never noticed her projecting involuntarily. If he had, he would have pounced on her, of that she was certain. Her shielding was returning now that she had something to form a firm base for it, but it was the thinnest of veils, hardly even enough to know that it was there. She worked at control with nearly the same single-minded obsession she was giving the physical labor of digging out.

The only pauses in their routine were the two occasions when they again ran out of clean clothing. Those two days were given over to a repeat of their washday, and to brave attempts to revive one another’s faltering spirits. As tired as Talia was, it was easy to become depressed. Kris wasn’t quite so much the pawn of his emotions, but there were times Talia found herself having to pull him out of despair. The endless cold did not help matters any, nor did the fact that they had, indeed, needed to cut green wood to use in their fire. The green wood, even when mixed with seasoned, gave off much less heat. Talia felt as if she’d never be warm again.

But one afternoon, nearly a month from the time they’d first reached the Station, she looked up from their task in sudden bewilderment to realize that they’d finally reached the road.

And the road was as drift-covered as the path out had been.

“Now what?” Talia asked dully.

“Oh, Gods.” Kris sat down on a chunk of snow with none of his usual grace. This was a scenario he’d never contemplated; he’d always assumed that once they broke out, the main road would be cleared as well. He stared at the icy wilderness in front of them and tried to think.

“The storm—it must have spread farther than I thought,” he said at last. “The road crews should have been within sensing distance by now, otherwise.”

He felt utterly bewildered and profoundly shaken— for once at a total loss for a course of action. He just gazed numbly at the unbroken expanse of snow covering the road, unable to even think clearly.

Talia tried to clear her mind—to stay calm—but the uncanny silence echoed in her ears. And that feeling of someone watching was back.

She glanced apprehensively at Kris, wondering if he was sensing the same thing she was—and in the next breath, certain it was all originating in her mind.

The feeling of being watched was, if anything, more intense than it had been before. And ever-so-slightly ominous. It was very much akin to the uneasy queasiness she used to have whenever Keldar would stand over her at some chore, waiting and watching for her to make the tiniest mistake. Something out there was unsure of her—mistrusted her— and was waiting for her to slip, somehow. And when she did— Panic rose in her, and choked off the words she had intended to say.

Kris stared at the unbroken ice crust as if entranced, unable to muster enough energy to say anything more. Gradually, though, he became aware of a feeling of uneasiness—exacdy as if someone were watching him from under cover of the brush beneath the snow-laden trees. He tried to dismiss the feeling, but it continued to grow, until it was only by sheer force of will that he was able to keep from whipping around to see who was staring at the back of his neck—

It wasn’t entirely an unfriendly regard . . . but it was a wary one. As if whatever it was that was watching him wasn’t quite sure of him.

He tried to shield, to clear his mind of the strange sensations, only to have them intensify when he invoked shielding.

And now he was seeing and hearing things as well— slight forms that could only be caught out of the corner of his eye, and slipped into invisibility when he tried to look at them directly. And there seemed to be sibilant whisperings just on the edges of his hearing—

All of which could well be from a single source. Talia had told him once already that she thought she was hallucinating; she could well be drawing him into an irrational little nightmare-world of her making.

“Talia!” he snapped angrily, more than a little frightened. “Lock it down!”

And he whipped around to glare at her, enraged, and just about ready to strike out at her for her lack of control.

Talia forgot the strange watcher; forgot everything except Kris’ angry—and untrue—accusation. She flushed, then paled—then reacted.

“It’s not me!” she snapped. Then, when he continued to stare at her with utter disbelief, she lost the control she had been holding to with her psychic teeth and toenails.

This time, at least, the Companions were prepared, and shielded themselves quickly. Kris, however, got the full brunt of her fear of the situation and her anger at him. He rose involuntarily to his feet and staggered back five or six paces, to trip and fall backward into the hard snow, his face as white as hers, and unable to do more than raise his arms in front of his face in a futile gesture of warding.

And the watcher stirred—

Talia froze; the feeling that some power was uncoiling and contemplating striking her down was so powerful that she was unable even to breathe. Somehow she cut off the emotion-storm—and simultaneous with her resumption of control, Rolan paced forward slowly, to stand beside her. He faced, not her, but the watching forest, his whole posture a silent challenge.

There was a feeling of vague surprise—and the sensation of being watched vanished.

Talia felt released from her paralysis and wanted to die of shame for what she’d nearly done to Kris. As he blinked in surprise, she turned blindly away from him, leaned against a tree-trunk and wept, her face buried in her arms.

Kris stumbled to his feet, and put both arms around her. “Talia, little bird, please don’t—” he begged. “I’m sorry; I didn’t mean—I lost my temper. It’ll be all right. It’s got to be all right—I’m sorry. I’m sorry—”

But dreary days of grinding labor and nights of too little rest had taken their toll of his spirit as well. It was only when the tears started to freeze on both their faces that they were able to stop sobbing in dejection and despair.

“It—that thing watching—”

She shook with more than cold. “I—don’t want to talk about it,” she said, looking uneasily over her shoulder. “Not here—not now.”

“It wasn’t you—”

“No. I swear on my life.”

He believed her. “All right, let’s handle what we’ve got; the storm was worse than we thought,” he said, getting control of himself again. “This is the very northernmost end of the road. They can’t be more than a few days away, and we aren’t running short of food yet. We’ll be all right—especially if we start rationing ourselves,”

“We won’t need as much food if we rest,” Talia said, drying her eyes on the gauze she’d used to protect them from sunglare.

“And we can plant a signal so that they know we’re here. I can get the crust to hold me a good distance, and you’re lighter than I am; about an hour’s scramble will do. Wait here,”

He mounted Tantris and the two of them headed back to the Station, vanishing from sight down the narrow little valley they’d cut. Talia waited for their return, occasionally looking warily over her shoulder. Whatever had been watching her had been within a hair of striking her; why she was certain of this, she had no idea, but she could not rid herself of the thought. She had no idea what had deterred it, but   , she did not want it to catch her unaware. She clung to Rolan’s neck, and waited, exerting every bit of control she had. For it seemed to her that the watcher had only acted when it appeared that she was attacking Kris. If that was the case, she had no intention of inadvertently invoking it agin.

It was at least a candlemark—and far too long for her peace of mind—before she saw Kris and Tantris trotting back. He carried four white arrows, two long branches, and some bright blue rags.

“These will show up at a distance. Here, pattern these, will you?” He dismounted and handed her two of the arrows, and began working on his two. “We tie the arrows to the stick, and plant the stick out in the middle of where the road is. When the crews find them, they’ll know we’re here, and still alive. They’ll even know for certain it’s us if they happen to have a Herald with them—surely anyone with them will have been given our patterns.”

“Why are we doing this?”

“If we don’t, they might not clear the road this far. This is just the northernmost loop; it isn’t strictly needed to get between Waymeet and Berrybay. It takes longer to go around than to cut through Sorrows, but nobody travels much in the winter except Heralds. And nobody knows where we’ve been ‘lost.’ “

He handed her one of his arrows in exchange for hers. Both of them tied the arrows to one of the branches, and made them as conspicuous as possible with fluttering rags.

“You go toward Waymeet, I’ll go toward Berrybay,” he said, preparing to climb up on the snow crust. “Plant yours at the First crossroads you come to, I’ll do the same. Hopefully the road crews will find one of them before they give up.”

“Kris—what if it snows again?”

“Talia, for the love of the Goddess, don’t even think that. Walk as far as you can, but be back here by dusk.”

Talia had never felt so lonely. There was scarcely a sound from the white woods on either side. She could hear the creaking sounds of Kris carefully making his way across the snow crust behind her, sliding his feet so as not to break it. Even so, she heard the crunch that meant he’d fallen through at least once before he got too far away for the sounds to carry to her. It was a measure of his own dejection that he didn’t even have the spirit to swear.

She set out herself, often having to detour around high drifts that she didn’t dare try and climb. Her eyes ached from tears and snowglare, and she was as tired as she’d ever been in her life. She was grateful that she was lighter than Kris; the snow crust was holding beneath her without any such mishaps as he had had.

The silence was eerie—frightening. As frightening in its way as the howl of the storm had been. Talia was shivering long before she reached her turnaround point, and not just from cold. There were no sounds of birds or animals, no indication that anything else lived and moved here besides herself. That horrible feeling of something watching might be gone, but there was still something uncanny about the Forest of Sorrows, something touched with the chill of death and the ice of despair. Whatever power held sway here, it was unsleeping and brooding; she knew it beyond doubt, and somehow knew she was feeling only the barest touch of its power—and she didn’t really want to trust to the supposed protection of her Whites by venturing too far alone. She was more than relieved to find a half-buried crossroads sign; that meant she could plant her gaudy staff in the snowcrust at the peak of a drift and retrace her steps.

She was never so glad to see another human being as she was to see Kris, picking his way across the snow, coming toward her.

Back in the Station, Talia surveyed what was left of their supplies. “They’d better come soon,” she said, trying to keep doubt out of her voice. “Even if we’re careful, we don’t have much. It’ll probably last for a week, but not much more.”

“If they’re as worried as I think—as I hope—they’ll be working around the clock, even by torchlight,” Kris said, sheer exhaustion making his voice toneless. “It just can’t be too much longer.”

“They may not recognize us as Heralds at all,” she replied, trying to joke a Hide. “I doubt they’ve ever seen Heralds looking so shabby. I’ve had to practically rub holes in my things to get them white again. Our appearance is hardly going to enhance the Heraldic image.”

She screwed her face up in imitation of an old man’s grimace, and croaked; “Heralds? Yer be not Heralds! Yer be imposters, for certain sure! Gypsies! Scalawags! And where got ye them whitewashed nags, eh? Eh?”

Kris just stared at her for a long moment, then suddenly began to laugh as helplessly as he’d wept earlier. Perhaps it was their weariness that made them as prone to near-hysterical hilarity as to tears. Talia began to giggle herself, then crow with laughter. They collapsed into their bed-nest together, legs too weak to stand up, and for a long time could hardly stop laughing long enough to breathe. No sooner would one of them get himself under control, and the other start to follow suit, when one look would set them both off again.

“Enough—please—” Kris gasped at last.

“Then don’t keep looking at me,” Talia replied, resolutely staring at a stain on her boots until she got her breath back.

“Berrybay has a Resupply Station,” Kris said, doing his best to maintain a serious subject. “We can get new uniforms there, and we can get our leathers bleached and re-treated. I’ll warn you, though, the sizes will only be approximate.”

“Just so that the Whites are white and not gray, or full of holes.”

“I don’t suppose you know enough sewing to alter what we get?” Kris asked wistfully. She could tell by his expression that his fastidious nature was mildly disturbed by the notion that he would be looking considerably less than immaculate in outsize uniforms.

Talia raised an eyebrow in his direction. “My dear Herald, I’ll have you know that by my third year at the Collegium I was making Whites. I may very well have made some of your wardrobe.”

“Strange thought.” He pulled off his boots, slowly. “It—it wasn’t you playing tricks on my mind?”

“No,” she replied. “Not until you shouted at me.”

“Gods—I think I must be going mad.”

She was rubbing her white, cold feet, trying to restore circulation. “Don’t—please—it’s the isolation, the worry,” she responded, with a clutching of fear in her chest. “Not enough rest, not enough food—”

“Are making me see things? Are you seeing things?”

“No,” she admitted, “But—it seems like the forest is—watching. Almost all the time.”

Kris started. Talia saw him jump, and bit her lip.

“It’s nothing,” he said. “Just—Tantris says you’re right. He says the forest is watching us. Dammit—I thought it was you, doing things to me. Sorry.”

“Kris—I lost it again—” Tears stung her eyes.

“Hey, not as bad as last time—and you got control back by yourself. Right?”

“Sort of. Whatever it was—when I turned on you, it suddenly felt like it was going to do something to me if I touched you. That was when I got scared back into sense.”

“And you got control back. However it happened, you got control back. Don’t give up on me, little bird. And don’t give up on yourself, either.”

“I’ll try,” she said, a faint tremor in her voice. “I’ll try.”

Leaden silence hung between them, until he took it upon himself to break it. “Jadus left you his harp, so I assume that you know how to play it, but I’ve never once heard you do so. Would you?”

“I’m nowhere near as good as you are,” she protested.

“Humor me,” he insisted.

“All right, but you may be sorry,” she curled into the blankets to try and keep a little warmth in her legs and back and took the harp from him when he brought it from its corner.

This was the first time she’d played in front of anyone but Jadus. The way the firelight caught the golden grain of the wood brought back those days with a poignant sadness. She rested her hands on the strings for a moment, then began playing the first thing that came to memory.

The song was “Sun and Shadow,” and Kris was very much aware from the first few notes that she performed it quite differently than he did. Where he and Dirk emphasized the optimistic foreshadowing of the ultimate solution to the lovers’ trials, and made the piece almost hopeful in spite of its somber quality, she wandered the lonely paths of the song’s “present,” where their respective curses seemed to be dooming the pair to live forever just out of one another’s reach. She was correct in insisting that she wasn’t as technically adept a player as Kris, but she played as she sang—with feeling, feeling that she made you hear. In her hands “Sun and Shadow” could tear your heart.

The last notes hung in the air between them for long moments before he could clear his throat enough to say something.

“I keep telling you,” he managed at last, “that you underestimate yourself.”

“You’re a remarkably uncritical audience,” she replied. “Would you like her back, or shall I murder something else?”

“I’d like you to play more, if you would.”

She shrugged, but secretly was rather pleased that he hadn’t reclaimed My Lady. Her mood was melancholy, and it was possible to find solitude by losing herself in the music—solitude that it wasn’t possible to create when he was playing or she was singing. She continued, closing her eyes and letting her hands wander through whatever came to mind, sometimes singing, sometimes not. Kris listened quietly, without comment. The few times she looked up, his face was so shadowed that she couldn’t read his expression. Eventually she ran out of music fitting her mood, and her hands fell from the harpstrings.

“That’s all I know,” she said into the silence that followed.

“Then that,” he replied, taking the harp from her, “is enough for one night. I think it is more than time enough for bed.”

She had doubted she’d be able to sleep, but the moment she relaxed, she was lost to slumber.

Three days later the Station seemed to have shrunk around them and felt very confining, especially to Talia, who had always had a touch of claustrophobia. Her temper was shortened to near nonexistence ... and she feared losing it. Greatly feared it.

“Kris—” she said, when his pacing became too much for her to bear. “Will you go out? Will you please go somewhere?”

He stopped in midstep, and turned to eye her with speculation. “Am I driving you out of patience?”

“It’s more than that. It’s—”

“That feeling of being watched. Is it back?”

She sagged with relief. “You feel it, too?”

“Not now. I did a little while back.”

“Am—I sending both of us mad?” She clenched her hands so hard that her nails left marks in her palms.

He sat on the floor at her feet, took her hands in his, and made her relax them. “I don’t think so. If you’ll remember, Tantris told me that the forest was watching us.”

“What is it?”

“I only have a guess; it’s Vanyel’s Curse. It’s made the whole forest aware somehow.”

“I don’t think it likes me,” she said, biting her lip.

Kris had the “listening” look he wore when Tantris Mindspoke him. “Tantris says that he thinks it’s disturbed by you; you’re a Herald, but you’re a danger to me, another Herald. It isn’t sure what to do with you.”

“So as long as I stay in control, it will leave me alone ...”

“I would surmise.” He rose to his feet. “And to keep you from losing control, I am going out.”

Kris had decided to flounder his way down the road toward Waymeet, in hopes of meeting with a road crew. He entered the Station to have an entirely unexpected and mouthwatering aroma hit him full in the face.

“I’m hallucinating,” he said, haif-afraid that once again he really was. “I’m smelling fresh meat cooking.”

“Pretty substantial hallucinations, then, since you’re going to have them for supper,” Talia replied, with a sober face. Then, unable to restrain herself, she jumped up from the hearth to throw her arms around him in a joyful hug. “Two squirrels and a rabbit, Kris! I got them all! And there’ll be more—the fodder is attracting them! I didn’t even lose or break any arrows!”

“Bright Havens—” he said, sitting down with a thump, hardly daring to believe it.

There was no denying the stewed meat and broth Talia ladled out to him, however. They ate every scrap, the first fresh food they’d had in weeks, sucking the tiny bones dry, then celebrated with exuberant loving. They fell asleep with untroubled hearts for the first time in many days.

They were awakened the next morning very early; the chirras were stirring restlessly, and both Companions seemed to be listening to something.

Rolan was overwhelmingly relieved and joyful, and Talia went deeper to find out why.

“Tantris says—” Kris began.

“There’re people coming!” Talia finished excitedly. “Kris, it’s the road crew!”

“There’s a Herald with them, too. Tantris thinks they’ll reach us sometime after noon.”

“Have they reached our marker yet?”

“Yes. The Herald had his Companion broadcast a Mindcali to ours when he found it. I might even have met them yesterday, if I hadn’t gone in the wrong direction—idiot that I am!”

“How were you to know? How many are there?”

“Ten, not counting the Herald.”

“Should we go out and try to dig the path out farther to meet them?”

“No,” Kris said firmly. “The little we can do won’t make much difference, and I’m still tired. We’ll pack up, straighten things up here, and meet them where the path meets the road.”

It seemed strange to see the Station barren of their belongings, with only the empty containers that the supplies had been stored in to tell of their presence there this past month. It took longer than Talia had thought it would to repack everything; they did not leave the Station until almost noon.

When they reached the road, they could see the newcomers in the far distance. They waved and shouted, and could tell by the agitated movements of the other figures that they’d been spotted. The work crew redoubled their efforts, and before too long— though not soon enough for Talia and Kris—the paths met.

“Heralds Talia and Kris?” The white-clad figure that was first through the gap was unfamiliar to both of them, though his immaculate uniform made them uncomfortably conscious of the pitiful condition of their own.

“Yes, Herald,” Kris answered for both of them.

“Praise the Lady! When the Guard learned that you hadn’t stayed at Waymeet and hadn’t arrived at Berrybay, and that you’d left on the very eve of the storm, we all feared the worst. Had you been caught in it, I doubt you would have survived even one night. This was the worst blizzard in these parts in recorded history. Oh, I’m Tedric. How on earth did you manage?”

“We were warned by our chirras in time to make the Waystation, but I doubt that we’d be in any shape to greet you now if it hadn’t been stocked by someone other than the regular Resupply crew,” Kris replied. “Whoever it was, he seems to have had an uncannily accurate idea of how much provender we’d need, and what kinds.”

“That’s the Weatherwitch’s doing,” said one of the work crew, a stolid-looking farmer. “Kept at us this fall till we got it stocked to her liking. Even made us go back after first snow with some odd bits—honey ‘n oil, salted meat ‘n fish. We had it to spare, praise Kernos, and she’s never yet been wrong when she gets one o’ these notions, so we went along with it. Happen it was a good thing.”

“Praise Kernos, in very deed! I see you’ve got your gear. Come along with me and I’ll have you warm and dry and fed before nightfall. I’m with the Re-supply Station outside of Berrybay. I’ve got plenty of room for both of you, if you don’t mind sharing a bed.”

“Not at all,” Kris replied gravely, sensing Talia struggling with the effort of maintaining what little shielding she had against the pressure of fifteen minds. “We’ve been sleeping on straw next to the hearth for warmth. Right now a camp cot would sound like heaven, even if I had to share it with Tantris!”

“Good. Excellent!” Herald Tedric replied. “I’ll guide you both back; these good people know what they’re doing, and they certainly don’t need me in the way now that we’ve found you.”

The members of the work crew made polite noises, but they obviously agreed with him.

“Fact is, Herald,” the red-faced farmer whispered to Kris, “Old Tedric’s a good enough sort, but he don’t belong out here. He’s too old, and his heart’s more’n a mite touchy. Waystation Supply post was supposed to be a pensioning-out position, if you catch my meaning. He ain’t the kind to sit idle, even though he hasn’t the health to ride circuit no more. We’re supposed to be keepin’ an eye on him, make sure he don’t overdo - job’s set up so’s he could feel useful, but wouldn’t have to do anything straining. Guard’s supposed to do all his fetching and carrying for him. But what with this storm and all, Guard’s busy clearing the roads, seein’ to the emergencies— when he found out you two was missin’, nothing would do but that he go out with us. Gave us a real fright a time or two, gettin’ short of breath and blue-like when we thought we might’ve found bodies. Good thing you turned up all right, or I reckon we’d have had a third body on our hands.”

This put things in an altogether different light. Kris felt a sudden increase in respect for the talkative and seemingly feckless Herald. On closer examination he saw that Tedric was a great deal older than he had first appeared, partially because he was bald as an egg, and partially because he had the kind of baby-soft face that tends not to wrinkle with age. His Companion cosseted him tenderly, flatly refusing to race headlong down the road so that he could prepare the Station for his guests.

Talia and Kris took turns telling him what had transpired from the time they discovered the plague in Waymeet.

“So you’re the Queen’s Own, the one with the Gift for emotions and mindHealing?” he asked Talia, peering at her short-sightedly. She could sense his faint unease around her, even through the shields Rolan was holding, and mentally shrank into herself. “I wonder if you could do something for the Weather-witch?”

“Considering that we obviously owe her our lives, I’ll certainly be glad to try,” Talia replied, trying not to show her own unease and her real dismay at being asked to use her wayward Gift. “Just who is she, and why do you call her the Weatherwitch?”

“Ah, it’s a sad story, that,” he sighed. “A few years ago, it would be, when I’d only just been assigned this post, there was a young woman named Maeven in Berrybay who’d gone and had herself a Festival child—that’s a babe that no one will claim, and whose mother hasn’t the faintest notion who the father might be. People being what they are, there was a certain amount of tsk-ing, and finger-pointing, until the poor girl heartily wished the babe had never been conceived, much less born. That’s what made what happened to her all the worse, you see. You know, ‘be careful what you ask for, you might get it’? I’m sure she often wished the child gone, and when the accident happened, she blamed herself. She was taking her turn working at the mill, and she left the little one alone for longer than she should have. Poor mite was just beginning to crawl about, and it managed to wriggle free of the basket she’d left it in. It crawled straight to the millrace, fell in, and drowned. She was the one to find the body, and she went quite mad.”

“But why ‘Weatherwitch’?” Kris asked.

“She must have had a Gift, and her going off her head freed it altogether, because she started being able to predict the weather. She’d be acting just as usual, dandling that rag-doll she got in place of her babe—then out of nowhere she’d look straight through you, and tell you that you’d better see that the beans got taken in because it was going to hail that night. Then, sure enough, it would. People in Berrybay and for a bit around took to coming to her any time the weather looked uncertain. She began to be able to See the weather that was coming days, then weeks, then months in advance. That’s why the villagers heeded her when she told them to stock the Station. I wish they’d told me, I’d have laid in a good deal more on my own.”

“You stocked it very well, and we’ve nothing to find fault with,” Kris replied reassuringly. “I’m afraid, though, that you’ll find we’ve used up just about everything that was there.”

“That will be no problem,” Tedric said cheerfully. “I’ll be glad to have a little task to turn my hand to. Most of my work’s done in the summer, and winter’s a bit of a slow time for me. But it looks to me as if you could use a full resupply yourselves.”

“I’m afraid so,” Talia said as Tedric shook his head over the state of their uniforms. “I don’t think the fabric is going to be good for much except rags.”

“I’ve got plenty of stock back at the Station, and I’m no bad hand with a needle,” Tedric replied. “I think I can refit you well enough so that you won’t be looking like crow-scares. I’ve got all the necessaries for bleaching and refinishing your leathers, so we won’t have to replace those, and your cloaks still look in fairly good shape, or will be after we clean them. If you don’t mind staying a bit, I can turn you out looking almost like the day you left to take this sector.”

“That sounds fantastic!” Kris said with obvious thankfulness.

“I can help with the altering, sir,” Talia added.

The old Herald twinkled at her. “But who tailors the tailor, then? And surely you wouldn’t deny an old man the pleasure of helping fit a pretty young lady, would you?”

Talia blushed, and to cover it, settled My Lady wrapped in her biankets in a new position on her lap. Without the harpcase to protect her, Talia elected to carry her personally.

“What’s this?” Tedric asked and brightened to learn it was a harp.

“Which of you is the musician?” he asked eagerly.

“We both are, sir,” Kris replied.

“But he really plays a great deal better than I do,” Talia added. “And Herald Tedric, we’d truly appreciate it if you could find someone to make a new traveling case for her while we’re here. We had to destroy the old one to make snow shovels.”

“The cabinetmaker would be proud to oblige you,” Tedric said with certainty. “In fact, he may even have something already made that will fit. Midwinter Fair is at the Sector capital in a few weeks, and he’s been readying a few instrument cases to take there, as well as his little carved boxes and similar trumperies. He’s known for his work on small pieces as well as furniture, you see. I’ll make a note to start stocking shovels in our Stations from now on. Not every Herald has harpcases to sacrifice.”

They passed the village of Berrybay just before sunset, Talia finding herself grateful for the shielding Rolan was supplying her, and reached the Re-supply Station with the coming of the dark. The place was much larger than Talia had expected.

“Bright Havens!” she exclaimed. “You could house half the Collegium here!”

“Oh, most of it isn’t living quarters—it’s mostly haybarn, warehouse, and granary. I do have three extra rooms in case some need should bring a number of Heralds this far north, but only one of those rooms has a bed; any more than two would have to make up beds on the floor. But let’s take first things first. I expect you’d both appreciate a hot bath. It will pleasure both of you to know I have a real bathing-room, just like the ones at the Palace and Collegium. While you’re getting washed, I’ll find some clean clothing for you to wear until we get your new outfits altered and your leathers cleaned. As soon as you’re feeling ready, there’ll be supper. How does that strike you?”

“It sounds wonderful—especially the part about the hot bath!” Talia replied fervently, as they dismounted in the station’s stable.

“Then take yourselves right in that door over there—I’ll tend to your beasts and friends. Go up the staircase, then take a sharp right. The copper’s all fired up. I’ve been doing it every day on the chance that we’d find you. The room you’ll be using is sharp left.”

They each took a small pack and Talia took her harp, and entered the door he’d indicated. Tedric hadn’t exaggerated, though it only held a single tub, the bathing-room was identical in every other way to the ones at the Palace.

“Which of us goes first?” Talia asked, thinking longingly of clean hair and a good long soak.

“You. You look ready to die,” Kris replied.

“I’m feeling the strain a bit,” she admitted.

“Then get your bath. I can wait.”

When tight muscles were finally relaxed, and the grime that had accumulated despite her best efforts ruthlessly scrubbed away, she wrapped herself in towels and sought their room. She found that Tedric had preceded them there; on the bed were laid out fabric breeches and shirts of something approximating their sizes.

The approximation was far from exact. It was obvious that if these articles were representative of the kinds of clothing held in storage, there was a great deal of work that was going to have to be done.

She stretched out on the bed for just a moment .. . only to fall completely asleep.

Kris had taken himself downstairs again to talk in private with Tedric. He hadn’t missed the older man’s initial unease around Talia—nor the fact that he had already know that Talia was Queen’s Own and what her Gift was. The identity of an internee was not supposed to be generally known, and the Gift of the Queen’s Own wasn’t generally even a matter of public knowledge among the Heralds themselves.

He decided that he was a bit too tired for diplomacy, and bluntly asked the older man where he’d gotten his information about Talia.

“Why .. . rumors, mostly,” Tedric supplied in astonishment, “Although I didn’t credit the half of them. I can’t imagine a Herald misusing a Gift, and I can’t believe the Collegium would allow anyone out who was poorly trained. And I’ve said so. But I must tell you, there are a lot of eyes and thoughts up here—and, I regret to say, some of them hoping to catch a Herald in failure.”

After a covering exchange of pleasantries, Kris climbed the stairs with a worried soul. He found Talia asleep on the bed, and took his towels without waking her.

He lay back in his hot bath to soak, his mind anything but relaxed. If anyone discovered the state Talia was in, not only her reputation would be finished, but the reputation of Heralds as a whole and that of the Collegium would be badly damaged. The faith Heralds themselves had in the Collegium would be shaken if they knew how poorly counseled she’d been.

For that reason, they dared not abort the circuit and head back; that would be the signal of failure certain critics of the system had been waiting for. Nor could Kris himself let any senior Herald know the true state of things and how poorly controlled Talia was—for that would lead to a profound disturbance in the ranks of the Heralds themselves, a disturbance that could only roll ail the way back to Selenay and Elspeth, with ail the attendant problems it would cause them.

It would be up to Kris, and to Talia herself, to get her back to the functional level she had before this whole mess blew up in their faces.

It was with that sobering reflection he finished his bath, and went to get dressed and wake her.

She woke from her nap in a fairly good mood, giggling a little at the way she looked in the outsized garments Tedric had supplied.

“It’s because two-thirds of the Heralds are men, little bird,” Kris replied. “And all the Resupply Stations get the same goods. So most of the clothing stored here will be made to fit men. I expect when he gets a chance to look, he’ll find some things closer to your size. If you think you look silly, look at me!”

The waist of his breeches was a closer fit than hers, but the legs were huge and baggy and much too long, and the sleeves of his shirt fell down far past his fingertips.

“I expect most of what he has is in two categories— large, and ‘tent.’ At any rate, it’s better to have to cut down than try to piece on more fabric.”

They descended the staircase to join their host; Kris barefoot and Talia in her sheepskin slippers, since their boots were so stiff from repeated soaking and drying that it was too much of an effort to try to pull them on. In any case, the dwelling was very well heated, and Kris’ bare feet caused him no discomfort.

They found the old Herald puttering about in a room that seemed to combine the functions of kitchen and common room. He chuckled to see them, looking like two children clothed in their parents’ cast-offs.

“I just took what was nearest to hand” he said apologetically. “I hope you don’t mind.”

“They’re clean, and dry, and warm,” Kris smiled, “And right now, that’s all we care about. I must say that what I smell would have me pleased to come to table in a grain sack, if that’s all there was to wear.”

Tedric looked very flattered, and seemed to have no recollection of Kris’s earlier interrogation. “When one lives alone, one acquires hobbies. Mine is cooking. I hope you don’t find it inferior to what you’re used to.”

Talia laughed. “Sir, what we’re ‘used to’ has been porridge, stew made with dried meat and old roots, half-burned bannocks, and more porridge. I have no doubt after the past month that your meal will taste as wonderful as your bathtub felt!”

Venison with herbs and mushrooms was a definite improvement over the meals they’d been making. A mental check assured them that Tedric had seen to Rolan, Tantris, and the chirras in the same generous fashion. Both the Companions were half-asleep, with filled bellies, drowsing in heated stalls.

When their own hunger was truly satisfied, Kris helped Tedric clear away the remains of the meal while Talia ran back upstairs for My Lady.

“You seemed so interested in which of us was the musician that I thought we’d repay you for your hospitality,” Kris said, taking the harp and beginning to tune her.

“One doesn’t hear a great deal of music out here.” Tedric replied, not troubling to keep the eagerness from his eyes. “I think it’s the one thing that I really miss by being stationed here. When I rode circuit I was always running into Bards.”

The old Herald listened with a face full of quiet happiness as they played and sang. It was quite plain that he had missed the company of other Heralds, and equally evident that he had told the simple truth about missing music out here on the Border. Of course, it was very possible that the traveling Bards had simply not noticed this Station, half-hidden off the road and placed at a bit of a distance from Berrybay. It was just as possible that Tedric’s work kept him so busy during the summer (the only time journeyman Bards were likely to come this way) that he could not spare the time to seek the village when Bards came through. Kris made a mental note to send a few words to that effect when they sent their next reports. Old Tedric should not have to do without song again if he could help it.

When they finally confessed themselves played out, Tedric instantly rose and insisted that they seek their bed.

“I don’t know what possessed me, keeping you up like this,” he said. “After all, I’ll have you here for as long as it takes to outfit you. Perhaps I’ll hide all the needles for a week or two!”

When they rose the next morning—somewhat reluctantly, as the featherbed they’d shared had been warm and soft and hard to leave—they discovered that he had already put their leathers and boots to soak in his vats of bleaching and softening solution. Talia helped him take some of their ruined garments apart to use as patterns, and they began altering the standard stock. Tedric was every bit as good with a needle as he’d claimed. By day’s end they were well on the way to having their wardrobes replenished, and it was not possible to tell that the garments had not been made at the Collegium; by week’s end they were totally re-outfitted.

Once their outfitting was complete, they set about discharging their duties to the populace of Berrybay.

The rest and the tranquillity had been profoundly helpful in enabling Talia to firm up what control she had gotten back over her Gift. She had enough shielding now to hold against the worst of outside pressure on her own; that wasn’t much, but it was better than nothing. And she felt her control over her projective ability would hold good unless she were frightened or startled—or attacked. If any of those three eventualities took place, she wasn’t entirely certain what she’d do. But worrying about it wouldn’t accomplish anything.

She almost lost her frail bulwarks when they entered the village. Kris had warned her that the rumors had reached this far north, but the knowledge had not prepared her.

When they set up in the village hall, she caught no few of the inhabitants giving her sidelong, cautious glances. But what was worse, was that the very first petitioners wore charms against dark magic into her presence.

She tried to keep up a pleasant, calm front, but the villagers’ suspicion and even fear battered at her thin shields and made her want to weep with vexation.

Finally it became too much to stand. “Kris—I’ve got to take a walk,” she whispered. He took one look at the lines of pain around her eyes, and nodded. He might not be an Empath, but it didn’t take that Gift to read what the people were thinking when they wore evil-eye talismans around one particular Herald.

“Go—come back when you’re ready, and not until.”

She and Rolan went out past the outskirts of the village. Once away from people, she swore and wept and kicked snow-hummocks until her feet were bruised and her mind exhausted.

Then she returned, and took up the thread of her duties.

By the second day the unease was less. By the third, the evil-eye talismans were gone.

But she wondered what the reaction of the villagers was going to be when they sought out the Weatherwitch on the morning of the fourth.

The depression surrounding the Weatherwitch’s unkempt little cottage was so heavy as to be nearly palpable to Talia, and to move through it was like groping through a dark cloud. The Weatherwitch sat in one cobwebbed, dark, cold corner, crooning to herself and rocking a bedraggled rag doll. She paid no heed at all to the three who stood before her. Tedric whispered that the villagers brought her food and cared for her cottage—that she was scarcely enough aware of her surroundings to know when a meal was placed before her. Kris shook his head in pity, feeling certain that there was little, if anything, that Talia could do for her.

Talia was half-attracted, half-repelled by that shadowed mind. If this encounter had taken place a year ago, she would have had no doubt but that she could have accomplished something, but now?

But having come, and having sensed this for herself, she could not turn away.

She half knelt, and half crouched, just within touching distance, on the dirty wooden floor beside the woman. She let go of her frail barriers with a physical shudder of apprehension, and let herself be drawn in.

Kris was more than a little afraid for her—knowing nothing, really, of how her Gift worked, he feared it would be only too easy for her to be trapped by the madwoman’s mind—and then what would he do? Talia remained in that half-kneeling stance for so long that Kris’ own knees began to ache in sympathy. At length, her breathing began to resume a more normal pace and her eyes slowly opened. When she raised her head, Kris extended his hand to her and helped her to her feet again.

“Well?” Tedric asked, not very hopefully.

“The gypsy family who died of snow-sickness two months ago—the ones in the Domesday Book report; wasn’t there a child left living?” she asked, her eyes still a little glazed.

“A little boy, yes,” Kris answered, as Tedric nodded.

“Who has him?”

“Ifor Smithwright; he wasn’t particularly pleased, but somebody had to take the mite in,” Tedric said.

“Can you bring him here? Would this Smithwright have any objection if you found another home for the child?”

“He wouldn’t object—but here? Forgive me, but that sounds a bit mad.”

“It is a bit mad,” Talia said, slumping with weariness so that Kris couldn’t make out her expression in the shadows, “but it may take madness to cure the mad. Just ... bring him here, would you? We’ll see if my notion works.”

Tedric looked rather doubtful, but rode off and returned less than an hour later with a warmly-wrapped toddler. The child was colicky and crying to himself.

“Now get her out of the house; I don’t care how,” she told Tedric wearily, taking the baby from him and soothing it into quiet. “But make sure that she leaves that doll behind.”

Tedric coaxed the Weatherwitch to follow him out with a bit of sweet, after persuading her to leave her “infant” behind in the cradle by the smokey fire. Talia slipped in when her back was turned. Seconds after that, a baby’s wail penetrated the walls of the cottage, and the madwoman started as if she’d been struck.

It was the most incredible transformation Kris had ever seen. The half-crazed, wild animal look left her eyes, and sense and intelligence flooded back in. In a few seconds, she made the transition from “thing” to human.

“J-Jethry?” she faltered.

The baby cried again, louder this time.

“Jethry!” she cried in answer, and ran through the door.

In the cradle was the child Tedric had brought, perhaps something under a year old, crying lustily. She scooped the child up and held it to her breast, holding it as if it were her own soul given back to her, laughing and weeping at the same time.

No sooner did her hands touch the child, when the last, and perhaps strangest thing of all, happened. It stopped crying immediately, and began cooing back at the woman.

Talia was not even watching; just sagging against the lintel, rubbing her temples. The other two could only watch the transformation in bemusement.

At last the woman took her attention from the baby she held and focused on Talia. She moved toward her hesitantly, and halted when she was a few steps away.

“Herald,” she said with absolute certainty, “you did this—you brought me my baby back. He was dead, but you found him again for me!”

Talia looked up at that, eyes like darker shadows on her face, and shook her head in denial. “Not I, my lady. If anyone brought him back, it was you. And it was you who showed me where to find him.”

The woman reached out to touch Talia’s cheek. Kris made as if to interfere, but Talia motioned him away, signaling him that she was in no danger.

“You will reclaim what was yours,” the Weatherwitch said tonelessly, her eyes focused on something none of them could see, “and no one will ever shake it from you again. You will find your heart’s desire, but not until you have seen the Havens. The Havens will call you, but duty and love will bar you from them. Love will challenge death to reclaim you. Your greatest joy will be preceded by your greatest sorrow, and your fulfillment will not be unshadowed by grief.”

“ ‘There is no joy that has not tasted first of grief,’ “ Talia quoted softly, as if to herself, so softly that Kris could barely hear the words. The woman’s eyes refocused.

“Did I say something? Did I see something?” she asked, confusion evident in her eyes. “Was it the answer you were looking for?”

“It was answer enough,” Talia replied with a smile. “But haven’t you more important things to think of?”

“My Jethry, my little love!” she exclaimed, holding the child closely, her eyes bright with tears. “There’s so much I have to do—to make it up to you. Oh, Herald, how can I ever thank you enough?”

“By loving and caring for Jethry as much as you do now; and not worrying what others may say about it,” Talia told her, motioning to the other two to leave, and following them quickly.

“Bright Havens!” Tedric exclaimed, a little uneasily, when they were out of earshot of the cottage.

“That was like old tales of witchcraft and curse-lifting! What kind of strange magic did you work back there?”

“To tell you the truth, I’m not very sure myself,” Talia said, rubbing tired eyes with the back of her hand. “When I touched her this morning, I seemed to see a kind of—cord? tie?—something like that, anyway. It was binding her to something, and I seemed to see that page in the report about the gypsies. I know outlanders aren’t terribly welcome here, so I took a chance that the survivor wouldn’t find a new home very easily. You confirmed what I guessed, Tedric. And it just seemed to me that what she needed was a second chance to make everything right. Am I making sense?”

“More sense than I hoped for. It’s hardly possible that he could be—hers? Is it?” Kris said hesitantly.

“Kris, I’m no priest! How on earth can I answer that? All I can tell you is what I saw and felt. The little one is about the same age as hers would have been and they certainly seem to recognize each other, if only as two lost ones needing love. I won’t hazard a guess after that.”

“This is a terribly callous thing to ask, I know,” Tedric said, looking a good bit less anxious now that the “magic” was explained away as rational common sense. “But—she won’t lose her powers now that her mind is back, will she?”

“Set your fears at rest; I think you and the people of Berrybay can count on their Weatherwitch yet,” Talia replied. “Speaking from personal experience, I can tell you that such Gifts rarely lie back down to rest once you’ve roused them. Look at what she said to me!”

“ ‘Love will challenge death to reclaim you,’ “ Kris quoted. “Strange—and rather ambiguous, it seems to me.”

“Prophecy has a habit of being ambiguous,” Tedric said wryly. “It’s fortunate that she’s able to be more exact when it comes to giving us weather-warnings. Come now; you and Rolan are tired and hungry, Talia, both of you. You deserve a good meal, and a good night’s rest before you take the road again,”

“And prophecy to the contrary, my heart’s desire at the moment is one of your venison pies followed by a convivial quiet evening and a good sleep in your featherbed, and I hardly think I need to seek out the Havens to find that!” Talia laughed tiredly, linking arms with Tedric and Kris, while Rolan followed behind.

Well, she had weathered this one. Now all she had to do was continue to survive.

Eleven

“Well, little bird,” Kris said lazily. “It’s almost Midsummer. You’re halfway done. Evaluation, please.”

Talia picked idly at the grass beside her. “Is this serious, or facetious?”

“Quite serious.”

The sun approached zenith, and a warm spot created when the white-gold rays found a gap in the leaves of the tree overhead was planted just on Talia’s right shoulder blade. Insects droned in the long grass; occasionally a bird called, sleepily. They were at the Station at the bottom of their Sector where they had first entered, back last autumn. Today or the next day a courier-Herald would make a rendezvous with them, bringing them the latest laws and news; until then, their time was their own. They had been spending it in unaccustomed leisure.

She thought, long and hard, while Kris chewed on a grass stem, lying on his back in the shade, eyes narrowed to slits.

“It’s been horrid,” she said finally, lying back and pillowing her head on her arm. “I wish this past nine months had never happened. It’s been awful, especially when we first get into a town, and they’ve heard about me, but. ..”

“Hmm?” he prompted when the silence had gone on too long.

“But . . . what if this . .. my Gift going rogue . .. had happened at Court? It would have been worse.”

“You would have been able to get help there,” he pointed out, “better than you’ve gotten from me.”

“Only after I’d wrecked something. Gods, I hate to think—letting loose that storm in a packed Court. . .” she shuddered. “At least I’ve got projection under control consciously now, rather than instinctively. Even if my shields aren’t completely back.”

“Still having shield problems?”

“You know so, you’ve seen me in crowds. There are times when I hate you for keeping me out here, but then I realize that I can’t go back until I have my shields back. And we can’t let anyone know about this mess until it’s fixed; not even Heralds.”

“So you figured that out for yourself.”

“It didn’t take much; if people knew that the rumors were at least partially true, they’d believe the rest of it. I’ve watched you playing protector for me every time we meet another Herald. And there’s something else. I can’t go back until I figure something out.”

“What?”

“Not just the ‘how’ of my Gift, but the ‘why’ and the ‘when.’ It’s obsessing me, because those rumors about manipulation come so close to the truth. I have used my Gift to evaluate Councilors, and I have acted on that information. When does it start becoming manipulation?”

“I don’t know .. .”

“Now I’m more than half afraid to use the Gift.”

“Oh, hell!” He flopped over onto his side, hair blowing into his eyes. “Now that bothers me. Hellfire, none of this would have happened to you if I’d just kept my mouth shut.”

“And it might well have happened at a worse time—”

“And might not have.” Those blue eyes bored into hers. “What’s gone wrong is as much my fault as yours.”

She had no answer for him.

“Well, the situation went wrong, but I think we’re turning it around,” he said at last.

“I hope so. I think so.”

“Well, you’re handling everything else fine.”

There was an uneasiness under his words; she was sensitive enough now to tell that it had something to do with her, personally, not her as a Herald.

Oh, Gods. She did her best to hide her dismay. She had done her level best to keep their relationship on a friendIlover basis, and not let her Gift manipulate him into infatuation, or worse. Most of the time she thought she’d succeeded—but then came the times like these, the times when he looked at her with a shadowed expression. She knew, now, that she didn’t want anything more from him, for as her need of him grew less, her feelings had mellowed into something very like what she shared with Skif.

But what of him?

“I wonder what Dirk’s up to,” he said, out of the blue. “He’s Sector-riding this term, too.”

“If he has any sense, being glad he’s not having to eat your cooking.” She threw a handful of grass at him; he grinned back. “Tell me something, why do you keep calling me ‘little bird’?”

“Good question; it’s Dirk’s name for you. You remind him of a woodlark.”

“What’s a woodlark?” she asked curiously. “I’ve never seen one.”

“You normally don’t see them; you only hear them. Woodlarks are very shy, and you have to know exactly what you’re looking for when you’re trying to spot one. They’re very small, brown, and blend almost perfectly with the bushes. For all that they’re not very striking, they’re remarkably pretty in their own quiet way. But he wasn’t thinking about that when he named you; woodlarks have the most beautiful voices in the forest.”

“Oh,” she said, surprised by the compliment, and not knowing quite how to respond.

“I can even tell you when he started using it. It was just after you’d fainted, and he’d picked you up to carry you to your room. ‘Bright Havens,’ said he, ‘she weighs no more than a little bird.’ Then the night of the celebration, when we all sang together, I caught him staring at you when you were watching the dancers, and muttering under his breath—’A woodlark. She’s a shy little woodlark!’ Then he saw me watching him, and glared for a minute, and said, ‘Well, she is!’ Not wanting to get my eyes blackened, I agreed. I would have agreed anyway; I always do when he’s right.”

“You two,” she said, “are crazy.”

“No milady, we’re Heralds. It’s close, but not quite to the point of actual craziness.”

“That makes me crazy, too.”

“You said it,” he pointed out. “I didn’t.”

Before she could think of a suitable reply, they heard a hail from the path that led to their Station and scrambled to their feet. It was their courier— and their courier was Skif.

“Welladay!” he said, dismounting as they approached him. “You two certainly look hale and healthy! Very much so, for a pair who were supposed to have come near perishing in that Midwinter blizzard. Dirk was damned worried when I talked to him.”

“If you’re going to be seeing him sometime soon, or can find a Bard to pass the message, you can tell him that we’re both fine, and the worst we suffered was the loss of Talia’s harpcase,” Kris said with a laugh.

“If? Bright Havens, I haven’t got any choice! I’ve been flat ordered to find him when I’m done with briefing you, on pain of unspecified torture. You’d have thought from the way he was acting that neither of you had the mother-wit to save yourselves from a wetting, much less a blizzard.”

Kris gave Talia another odd, sidelong glance.

“You’d best bring your Companion and whatever you’ve brought for us on up to the Waystation,” she said. “It’s going to take you a while to pass everything to us, and to make sure we’ve got it right.”

“A while, O modest Talia? With you, I’ve got no fear that it’ll take long,” Skif grinned. “I know quite well that you can memorize faster than I can, and Kris was my Farseeing teacher, so I know he’s just as quick. I’ll turn Cymry loose and let her kick her heels up a little; I can lead the pack mule afoot.”

“We’ll take her tack for you,” Kris offered. “No use in you carrying it when we’re unburdened.”

Skif accepted the offer gladly, and they strolled up the path toward the Station together; Kris with the saddle and blanket balanced over one shoulder, Talia with the rest of the tack, Skif with the saddlebags.

“I’ve brought you two quite a load,” he told them as they approached the station, “Both material and news. Hope you’re ready.”

“More than ready,” Talia told him. “I’m getting pretty tired of telling the same old tales.”

“Don’t I just know! Well, I’ve got plenty of news, personal and public, and more than you may guess. Do you want your news first, or your packs?”

“Both,” Kris said with the charming smile of a child. “You can tell us the personal news while we gloat over our goodies.”

“Why not?” Skif chuckled. “I’ll start with the Collegium and work my way outward.”

The first bit of news was that Gaytha and Mero had surprised nearly everyone by suddenly deciding to wed. They had had themselves handfasted just before Skif had left, and were to be wedded in the fall. Kris’ jaw sagged over that piece of news, but Talia, recalling things she’d seen over holidays while still a student, nodded without much surprise.

Keren had broken her hip during the past winter. She’d slipped and taken a bad fall trying to rescue a Companion foal from beneath a downed tree (the foal was frightened silly, but otherwise emerged from the ordeal unscathed. The same—obviously— could not be said for poor Keren). Sherrill had taken on Keren’s duties as riding instructor as well as her own scheduled classes. When Keren’s bones were healed, she decided that it was getting to be time to think about training a successor anyway, so they were currently sharing the classes.

Alberich had at last retired from teaching all but the most advanced students; to no one’s surprise, he had appointed Jeri to take his place.

Companions had Chosen twenty youngsters this spring, the largest number yet. For the first time in years the Collegium was completely full. No one knew whether there should be rejoicing or apprehension over this sudden influx of Chosen; the last time that the Collegium had been full had been in Selenay’s father’s time; there had been the Tedrel Wars with Karse on the Eastern Border shortly thereafter and every one of the students had been needed to replace those Heralds that had sought the Havens when it was over.

Elspeth was doing unexpectedly well, and Talia rejoiced to hear it. Elcarth had taken her heavy schedule and lightened it by a considerable amount, and she had responded by working like a fiend incarnate on those classes that were left. She seemed determined to prove that she was not ungrateful for the respite, and that she did not intend to shirk her remaining responsibilities.

There was little news of the Court, but none of that was good. The rumor-mills had been churning away; mostly working on the grist of Elspeth and the absent Talia. About half of it was elaboration on the rumors they already knew, the rest concerned Elspeth’s supposed unfitness for the Crown—that she was too pliant, too much of a hoyden, not bright enough— and too dependent on the Heralds in general and Talia in particular to make all her decisions for her.

Kris noted without comment the brief shadow of pain that veiled her face.

“But I’ve told anybody who’s bothered to bring up the subject that whoever started these tales had holes in his skull. Elspeth’s nothing but a normal tomboy— like Jeri, and they were perfectly willing to consider Jer as Heir! And I told ‘em nobody who knows you would even consider the idea that you might be misusing your Gift! So that’s that. All right, it’s your turn,” Skif ordered. “You two have to tell me the whole tale of your blizzard. I’ve been strictly charged by half the Circle to bring back every detail. If you leave one thing out, I’m not entirely certain of my safety when I get back!”

Kris told most of it, from the plague at Waymeet to the arrival of Tedric—leaving out the disintegration of Talia’s control.

“Sounds grim,” Skif said when they’d finished. “I’m surprised you didn’t tear each other’s throats out—from boredom if nothing else. Of course, you were too busy digging out to have time to be bored.”

Kris inhaled his wine, and nearly choked to death trying to keep from laughing.

Talia covered her blushes by pounding his back— then took over the conversation with a stern glance in his direction that almost sent him into another fit.

“It was a good thing we had the harp with us,” she said, firmly restraining the urge to set both her hands around his throat and strangle him. “Music did a lot to keep us going. And we discovered something really strange, Skif. Did you know that those stories the Northerners kept telling us about how chiiras sing are true?”

“You’ve been on circuit too long,” he replied with a disbelieving grin.

“She’s telling the truth, Skif,” Kris asserted. “Chirras do sing—well, hum is more like it. They do it intentionally, though, and I’ve heard worse harmonics coming from human throats.”

“Can you prove this? Otherwise I’m going to have a hard time convincing anyone else, much less myself.”

“Are you planning on spending the night with us?”

“So long as I’m not in the way.”

“You can stay if you clean up dinner,” Talia teased. “We’ll cook for you, but you’d better do your share of the work.”

“Anything is better than having to eat my own cooking!” Skiff replied with a hearty sigh. “When I was interning, Dirk absolutely refused to let me cook anything after the first two meals I ruined. I don’t blame him. I’m the only person I know that can boil an egg for an hour, and have it turn out half scorched and half raw.”

“Then you’ll get your demonstration after dinner.”

When they had finished their evening meal, Talia called the chirras up from the lake to the Waystation and gave the demonstration Skif had demanded. As the first notes rose from the packbeasts’ long throats, Skif’s eyes widened in disbelief. A quick look around, however, soon proved to him that there was no trickery involved. After the first two songs he relaxed and admitted that he found the wierd harmonics quite pleasant, if at first starding.

When they tired of singing, they began trading road-tales. Skif had by far the largest stock of funny stories, since his assignment as courier put him in contact with a wide variety of situations (in one case, he’d had to rescue his contactee at the meeting point from an amorous and overly enthusiastic cow). But in the midst of what Skiff had thought was one of his more amusing anecdotes, Talia suddenly excused herself and walked out into the night with some haste.

“Did I say something wrong?” Skif said, bewildered, since she had been giving every evidence of enjoying the story until then. “What’s the matter with her?”

“I have no more idea than you—” Kris started to say. Then he thought of something.

“Just wait a moment.” He closed his eyes and Mindcalled to Tantris. The answer he got made him half-smile, although he spared a flash of pity for Talia.

“She’ll be back in a little while,” he told the puzzled Skif. “When she’s less—shall we say—uncomfortable.”

Skif was annoyed. “Just what is that supposed to mean?”

“Skif, your Cymry’s a mare.”

“That was fairly obvious.”

“Rolan’s a stallion, a stallion that hasn’t been near a Companion mare for several months. Talia’s Gift, in case you’ve forgotten, is Empathy; and unlike most of us, she tells me that Rolan is always with her—’in the back of her head,’ she calls it.”

“What?” Skif was bewildered; then realization dawned. “Oh-ho. I forgot a little experiment we did. You can’t shield out your Companion with a bond that tight, can you?”

“That’s it—not on that level, you can’t. And with her Gift thrown in, it’s even more . . . overpowering. As I recall, you can barely Mindspeak, right? So you’re protected from Cymry’s sporting. Needless to say, the same is not true for Talia.”

Skif’s chuckle was just a touch heartless. “Too bad your Tantris isn’t a mare.”

“I’ve had that thought a time or two myself,” Kris admitted, joining the chuckle.

Skif sobered abruptly. “Look—Kris, I know it’s none of my business, but are you and Talia—you know—?”

“Damned right it’s none of your business,” Kris said calmly. He’d been expecting the question, assuming that Skif was only waiting to get him alone. “So why are you asking?”

“Kris, it’s part of my job to notice things. And I’ve noticed that while you aren’t cuddled up like courting doves, you’re both a lot easier with each other than I’ve ever seen either of you around anyone else.” Skif paused, then remained silent.

“You were obviously planning on saying more; go on.”

“I owe Dirk. I owe him my life; by all rights he should have left us when Cymry and I fell into that ravine while I was interning. He had no way of knowing we were still alive, and the trail was washing out under him with every second he stayed. But he didn’t leave; he searched all through that downpour until he found us, and if he hadn’t, we wouldn’t be here now. He’s been acting damned peculiar whenever anybody mentions Taiia. He was starting to act that way when you two left, and it’s gotten worse since then. Dear old I’m-indifferent-to-women’ Dirk came close to tearing my heart out and feeding it to me when I couldn’t give him any more information about you two than rumor—and I would bet my hope of the Havens that it wasn’t over your welfare. So if you two are more than friends, I want to know. Maybe I can break it to him gently.”

“Oh, Gods,” Kris said weakly. “Oh Gods. I don’t know, Skif—I mean, I know how I feel, which is that I’m quite fond of her, and that’s all; but I don’t know how she feels. I’m afraid to find out.”

“I have the suspicion that there’s a lot more going on here than you’ve told me,” Skif replied. “You want to make a full confession?”

“Gods—I’d better go back a few years—look, the reason Dirk pretends to be indifferent to women is because he was so badly hurt by one that he came within a hair of killing himself. It was that bitch, Lady Naril; it was when we were first assigned to Court. She wanted me, I wasn’t having any. So she used Dirk to get at me.”

“Don’t tell me—she played the sweet innocent on him. She tried working that one on me, but I’d had warning.”

“I wish Dirk had. By the time I knew what was happening, it was too late. He was flopping like a stranded fish. She used him to set up a meeting between us; and at that point she handed me an ultimatum; either I became her lap-dog, or she would make Dirk’s life hell for him. Unfortunately she hadn’t counted on the fact that Dirk was jealous as well as devoted. He’d stayed within earshot, and he heard the whole thing.”

“Good Gods!” Skif couldn’t manage more than that.

“Verily.” Kris closed his eyes, trying to shut out the memory of how Dirk had looked when he confronted them. It had been ghastly. Even his eyes had been dead. But what had followed had been worse. Kris had made a hasty exit, and when he’d gone, Naril had taken Dirk to pieces. If only he’d known, he’d never have left them alone—

“But—”

“He was shattered; absolutely shattered. I think it was only Ahrodie that kept him from throwing himself in the river that night. Now you tell me he’s acting like—”

“Like a man with a lifebond, if you want to know the truth. He’s close to being obsessed.”

“Talia was showing signs of the same thing, but now—I just don’t know, Skif. We—started sleeping together during that blizzard. There were a lot of other complications that I can’t go into, and now I don’t know how she feels. But I’m mortally afraid she’s gotten fixated on me.”

And he was Dirk’s best friend. Gods, Gods, it was happening all over again—

“Well, what are you going to do about it?” Skif asked.

“I’m going to break it off, that’s what, before it gets too serious to be broken off. If it is a lifebond, once the infatuation is nipped in the bud, she’ll swing back to Dirk like a compass needle. But for Lord’s sake, don’t let Dirk know about any of this.” Kris rubbed his forehead, feeling almost sick with remorse.

“No fear of that—” Skif broke off what he was saying to nod significantly in the direction of the door behind Kris.

Talia entered and resumed her abandoned seat, looking much cooler and more composed.

“Better?” Kris asked in a sympathetic undertone.

“Much,” she sighed, then faced Skif. “As for you, you troublemaker, I hope you’re prepared to cosset a pregnant Companion in another couple of months!”

“Now Talia,” he chortled heartlessly, “Cymry’s been at her games with every stallion I’ve rendezvoused with, and nothing like that has happened yet.”

“Every other stallion wasn’t Rolan,” she said with a wry twist to her lips. “Serves you right, too, for not warning me, you smug sadist. Or don’t you remember your history, and the extraordinary fertility of Grove stallions—-particularly the Companion of the Queen’s Own?”

“Kernos’ Spear! I never once thought of that!”

Both Kris and Talia laughed at the expression on Skif’s face.

“I’d be willing to bet a full wineskin that Cymry didn’t think of that either,” Kris added.

“You just won,” Skif said, reaching behind him into his pile of belongings, and throwing a leather bottle at the other Herald. “Oh, well—no harm without a trace of good. This will keep me off the road, but it will also keep me from having to do my own cooking. I’d better start thinking of ways to make myself useful around the Court and Collegium. Hope Teren likes being courier—he’s the only one free at the moment, now that the new babies are done with Orientation.”

He settled into his bedroll with a much bemused expression.

The next day was involved in memorizing all Skif had to impart to them. When both of them were letter-perfect, in the early afternoon, Skif packed up the few bits he had of his own personal gear and supplies, and headed back the way he’d come.

“How much did you tell him?” Talia asked, watching him depart.

“Only that we’ve had some complications I can’t go into; I had to tell him, he noticed you weren’t looking too well. That’s all.” He gave her yet another of those odd, sidelong glances.

“Lord—poor Elspeth, facing those damned rumor-mongers all by herself! Gods—I need to be there— and I can’t be there—”

“That’s right. You can’t. Going back now won’t do you any good, and might do her harm.”

“I know, but it doesn’t stop me from wanting to—”

“Look at it this way—with all the rumors that are bound to start about me and you, maybe they’ll forget about the others.”

“Oh, Gods—” she blushed, “—have I no privacy?”

“Not as a Herald, you don’t.”

They walked back to the Station; Kris was brooding about something, Talia could see it in the closed expression he wore, and sense it in the unhappy unease that lurked below the surface of his thoughts.

It was an unease she shared. She couldn’t tell exactly what was bothering him—except that it had to do with her and with Dirk. She wondered if this was a sign that her worst fear was true, that he had become far more involved with her than he’d intended.

She didn’t want to hurt his feelings—but damn it all, it wasn’t him she wanted! If only he’d talk to her. .. .

They read their letter-packets in silence; Talia’s was mostly brief notes, and not very many of them. But the last letter had Talia very puzzled; it was enormous, from the thickness of the packet, and yet she couldn’t recognize the handwriting on the outside. She frowned at it, recalling for a moment the evil days when virulent and anonymous letters were a daily occurrence. Then she steeled herself and broke open the seal, telling herself that there was no reason why she shouldn’t pitch it into the fire if it turned out to be of that ilk.

To her shock and delight, it was from Dirk.

The actua! letter was not very long, and the phrasing was stilted and formal, yet just to know that he’d written it gave her a delightfully shivery feeling. The content was simple enough; he hoped that her close association with his partner would lead to a closer friendship among the three of them, since they all shared the common interest of music. It was in light of this common interest that he had (he said) made bold to write her. He had been assigned to the Sector that contained most of the Kingdom’s papermills and printing houses and was the headquarters of the Printer’s and Engraver’s Guild. This meant that music and books that were difficult to obtain elsewhere were relatively common there. He had bought himself a great deal of new music, and had thought that Talia and Kris should have copies also.

It was what he hadn’t said’ that both excited and worried Talia. The letter was so bland that it could have reflected either polite indifference to her, or been an attempt to conceal the same sort of obsession that she was feeling.

Still, it was definitely odd for him to have sent the music manuscripts to Talia instead of to Kris.

Kris coughed uneasily, and she looked up to meet his eyes.

“What’s the matter?” she asked.

“Dirk’s letter,” he replied, “I’m usually lucky to get a page, maybe two—but this approaches perilously the size of an epic!”

“That’s odd.”

“That’s an understatement. He rattles on about nothing like a granny-gossip at a Fair, and it’s what he doesn’t write about that’s the most interesting. He dances verbally about doing his very best to avoid the subject of my internee. That’s not easy to do in a letter this size! He doesn’t mention you until the very end, and then only to say that he’s sent you some music that we all might like to try together some time. It’s as if he’s afraid to write your name for fear he’ll give something away.”

Talia swallowed a lump that had suddenly appeared in her throat.

“Here’s the music he sent,” she replied, handing him the packet.

“Bright Havens, this must have cost him a fortune!” Kris began sorting it into two piles, one for each of them—when something slipped out from amid the music manuscripts.

“Hm? What’s this?” He picked it up; it seemed to be a slim book bound in brown leather. He leafed through it.

“This—without any doubt—is intended for you,” he said soberly, handing it to her.

It was a book of ballads, among them, the long version of “Sun and Shadow.”

“How do you know he didn’t buy it for himself?” she asked doubtfully. “Or you?”

“Because I happen to know he has two copies of that same book, both bound in blue, which happens to be his favorite color. One he keeps at his room, the other travels with him. And he knows I have the book, I’m the one that showed it to him. No, it’s no accident that this was among the manuscripts—and it’s undoubtedly the reason why he sent them to you instead of me.”

“But—”

“Talia, I have to talk to you. Seriously.”

Gods—here it came.

“I—” he began, looking almost tortured. “Look, I like you a lot. I think you’re one of the sweetest ladies to wear Whites. And I probably should never have let you get involved with me.”

“What?” she said, unable for a moment to comprehend what he was trying to say.

“Dirk is worth twenty of me,” he continued doggedly, “and if you stop to think about it, you’ll realize I’m right about that. You’re seeing more in our relationship than exists—than can exist. I just can’t give you anything more than friendship, Talia. And I can’t let you ruin your life and Dirk’s by letting you go on thinking—”

“Wait just a damned minute here,” she interrupted him. “You think that I’m infatuated with you?”

He looked surprised by her reaction. “Of course,” he replied—in an insultingly matter-of-fact tone.

All the tension that had been building up inside her came to a head. She’d been putting up with his occasional air of superiority, the slight condescension he used whenever later evidence proved that some decision of his that she’d opposed turned out to be right. And there was an underlying resentment on her part at his unvoiced attitude that getting her Gift under control was now largely a matter of “will” and not the slow rebuilding of something that had been shattered past recognition.

It was that “of course” that had been the spark to set the pyre alight. She turned on him angrily, fists clenching unconsciously. “Of course? Just because every other female falls languishing at your feet? You think I’ve no mind of my own?”

“Well,” he replied, taken aback, and obviously intending to try to say something to placate her.

“You—you—” she was at a total loss for words. All this time, she’d been wasting, worrying about him, about hurting his feelings. And he had been blithely assuming that just because she’d been sleeping with him, she was obviously going to be fixated on him. Even now, he was still bewildered, perfect features blank with perfect astonishment.

She pulled back her right arm, and landed a perfect punch right on the end of that perfect chin.

Kris found himself staring up at her from the ground in front of the Station door, with a jaw that felt dislocated.

“You conceited peacock! Humor me, will you? At least—” she snarled “—you can’t accuse me of misusing my Gift this time!”

He lifted one hand and felt along his jawline, a little dazed. “No. That was a physical attack, all right . ..”

But by the time he answered, she had turned on her heel and stalked off toward the tiny lake, into the darkness. By the time he gathered his wits and came after her, there was no sign of her beyond a little pile of clothing next to the blankets they’d spread there earlier in the day.

Now he was beginning to become angry—after all, he hadn’t meant to insult her!—and a little worried, as well. He began stripping off his own clothing to go in after her. As he waded in through the shallows, he saw something moving across the lake, coming toward him. Before he had any idea of what she intended, she pulled both his legs out from beneath him and yanked him under the water. Coughing and spluttering, he broke the surface again to see her bobbing just out of reach.

She was laughing at him.

“Bitch!” he yelled, and dove furiously after her.

But when he reached the place where she had been, she was gone, and the surface of the pond was undisturbed. He peered around in the dim light, trying to locate her, when hands grasping his ankles gave him just enough warning to hold his breath this time. Once again he was pulled under, and once again she escaped without his laying a finger on her.

This time when he surfaced and gasped for air, he did not immediately set out after her. When he didn’t move, she called mockingly, “That’s not going to save you, you know,” and dove under, vanishing.

He waited for her to surface, ready to catch her before she’d fully located him. When she didn’t, he waited for currents that would tell him she was somewhere nearby, beneath the water.

Nothing happened, and he began to be a little concerned. She’d been under an awfully long time. He struck out for the spot where he’d last seen her.

He had no sooner begun to move when she erupted from the water immediately behind him. Hands on his shoulders drove him under. He kicked free and came thrashing back up, ????? her a bare fingerlength out of reach.

“Infatuated fool, am I? Stupid, am I? Then why can’t you catch me?”

He kicked off after her, windmilling the surface energetically. She didn’t seem to be expending half the effort he was, yet she sped through the water with ease, remaining out of reach with a laziness that galled. From time to time she’d vanish altogether, and this was the signal that he’d better hold his breath, because shortly after her disappearance he would find himself pushed or pulled under the surface again.

And no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t catch her even then.

Finally he took refuge in the shallows, and waited for her to follow. Now he was angry; humiliated, and angry, and ready to take her apart.

She rose, dripping, out of the water just out of reach. He glared at her—

And suddenly realized he’d put himself in a worse position than before. He was stark naked—he could probably pound her into the ground like a tent peg if he could get his hands on her—but if she could get even the tiniest amount of leverage to get a knee in—

Oh, she could hurt him.

Anger, frustration, and acute embarrassment chased each other around inside of him until he was nearly vibrating with conflicting impulses—while she glared back, just as angry as he was. Until something of his inner confusion communicated itself to her—and she collapsed to her knees, laughing helplessly.

His anger ran away like water.

He was completely exhausted; when anger stopped giving him an energy boost, he felt it. He turned his back on her, climbed out of the water, and dragged himself onto the waiting blanket without bothering to reach for a towel or his clothing.

As he lay face down, panting, he heard footsteps behind him.

“No more—please!” he groaned. “You’ve won; I’ve lost. I’m an idiot. And a boor. Truce!”

“You give up too easily.” Talia laughed deep in her throat, like a cat purring, “And you deserved what you got. Keren’s right; every so often you start to think you can have everything your own way, and you ought to have a lesson.”

She sat down beside him, and he moved his head enough to see that she’d donned her short undershift and was toweling her hair vigorously.

“Where did you ever learn to swim like that?”

“Sherrill,” she replied. “Oh, I’ve been able to swim since I was very little, but my efforts were a lot like yours; loads of thrashing to little purpose. After the time I was dumped in the river, Alberich detailed Sherrill to teach me the efficient way to swim, and how to keep from drowning under most conditions. Next winter she gave me a ‘final exam’ by pushing me off the bridge fully clothed. Obviously, I passed— though a pair of my boots is still probably residing at the bottom of the river. Good thing I’d almost outgrown them.”

“Remind me never to anger either of you while swimming.”

“Count Keren in on that, too. She’s just as good. Poor, abused Kris.” He could almost see her eyes sparkling with mischief. “Are you half-drowned?”

“Three-quarters. And completely worn out.”

“Forgive me, but I doubt that.” She ran a delicate finger along his spine.

He gritted his teeth and remained unmoving, trying his best to ignore the shivery-pleasant sensations she was causing. When he didn’t respond, except for goose bumps, she simply laughed again, and began stroking him delicately from neck to knees.

He was determined not to yield, and held himself as quiet as possible.

“Stubborn, hmm?” she chuckled.

Before he had any notion of what she intended, she began fondling him in such a way that his original intentions went flying off in every direction.

“Witch!” he said fiercely, and flipped over so quickly that he managed to get her pinned beneath him.

“I thought you were supposed to be worn out.”

“I’ll show you how worn out I am,” he muttered, and began tormenting her in return, playing teas-ingly with every part of her that he could reach. She simply chuckled throatily and returned kind for kind. He held out as long as he physically could—but the conclusion was foregone. It left them both dripping with sweat, and drained as well as sated.

“Lord of Lights,” he said when he was able to speak. “If that’s an example of what Rolan does to you, I’m glad Tantris isn’t a mare! By the time we finished this circuit, I’d be worn to a shadow.”

Instead of replying, she sighed, rose, and took the few steps to the water’s edge, plunging gracefully back into the pond.

When she returned, clean and dripping, she seemed to have regained a more tranquil mood. Kris took a brief dip himself, and by the time he got back she was dry again, wearing her sleeveless tunic against the cooling breeze. He dried himself off and handed her the bottle Skif had left with them. She took a long pull at it and gave it back.

“So it’s Midsummer’s Eve, hmm? We never celebrated Midsummer on the Holdings,” she said, “And I was always at the Collegium during holidays after I was Chosen.”

“Not celebrate Midsummer? Why not?” he asked in surprise.

“Because, according to the Elders, it has no religious significance and is only a frivolous and lewd excuse for licentiousness. That’s a quote, by the way. What do people usually do, Midsummer’s Eve?”

“Your Elders have a little right on their side.” He couldn’t help smiling. “On Midsummer’s Eve at sunset, there are picnics in the woods. People always begin in large groups, but by this time of night they’ve usually paired off. The excuse to sleep out tonight is that you need to sleep in the forest in order to find the freshest flowers in the morning. Believe it or not, when morning arrives, people do manage to pick flowers.”

She took a long pull on the bottle. “For their lady-loves?” She probably hadn’t meant it to sound cynical, but it did.

Kris was too tired to take offense. “No, for every female, no matter who. There’s no female of any age that lacks a garland or bouquet; those that have no relatives get them from anyone that can claim the remotest acquaintance with them. No one is left out, old or young. Women who have been or are about to be mothers get baskets of fruit as well. That day there are more picnics in the woods—family picnics, this time, with a bit more decorum—and music and tales in the evening. Bards love it; they’re sure to leave with their pockets full of coin, their hair full of flowers, and a young lady or gentleman on each arm. It’s rather like a Birthing-Day celebration, but on a bigger scale.”

“Holderfolk don’t celebrate Birthing-Days either— except to deliver a lecture on responsibility,” she said tonelessly.

“When is your Birthing-Day?” he asked curiously.

“Midsummer’s Eve. Tonight. Which is no doubt why I’m such a demon-child, having had the bad taste to be born on such a licentious night.”

“So that’s why you’ve been so off-color!” Kris snatched at the excuse to turn her mood around. “You should have told me!”

“I’m being more than a bit of a bitch, aren’t I? Fm sorry. First I get mad and knock you down, then I make a fool out of you, knowing damn well that I could probably swim rings around you, then I half-drown you, and I conclude by doing my best to ruin the rest of the evening by being sour. I’m being rotten, and I apologize.”

“You’ve put up with my moods often enough. You’re entitled to have off times yourself.”

“Well I think I’ve caught up for the next hundred years or so.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t talk to you about—you and me—before,” he said, as the bottle came and went.

“I wish you had. You’ve been leaving me in knots because I was afraid I’d manipulated you into being fixated on me. I couldn’t imagine why you’d be making love to me unless it was because my Gift had warped you. I’m not exactly the gods’ gift to men. And I’ve been mostly a problem to you on this trip.”

“Oh, Gods—” He was at a complete loss for words for a long time. Finally he handed her the bottle, and caught her hand when she moved to take it. “Talia, you are a completely lovable and lovely person; I care for you because you deserve it, not because your Gift manipulated me. Dirk may well be lifebonded to you—and if that’s true, I couldn’t be happier. It would satisfy one of my dearest wishes, that both of you should find partners who deserve you. And if those partners should be each other— that would make me one of the happiest people in this Kingdom.”

“I—” she said hesitantly, “I don’t know quite what to say.”

“Just don’t hit me again. That’s one response to being at a loss for words I’d rather you didn’t repeat. Now, what else is bothering you?”

“I’m tired. I’m tired of having to struggle for what seems to come easily to everyone else. I’m tired of having responsibility for the whole damned Kingdom on my back. I’m tired of being alone, and fighting my battles alone.”

“Well—”

“Look, I know it has to be this way, but I don’t have to smile and pretend I like it! And last of all, I’m feeling rotten because nobody has ever given me a Midsummer garland or a Birthing-Day present.”

“Makes sense.”

The bottle was more than half empty; they’d shared it equally, and Kris was beginning to see things through a very delightful haze.

“How does it make sense?” she demanded irritably.

“Because if you could have what you wanted, you wouldn’t be upset, but you can’t so you are.” It seemed like a brilliant deduction to Kris, and he examined the statement with delight.

Talia shook her head as she tried to reason it out. “That just doesn’t come out right, somehow,” she complained.

“It will after another drink.” He passed her the bottle.

When the last drop of liquor was gone, so was her ill temper.

“I—am fairy—very—glad that we’ve got something to shleep— sleep on right here,” Kris said carefully, “Ish—it’s much nicer, you can see the stars, and I can’t walk anymore anyway.”

“Stars are nice,” she agreed. “Not moving’s nicer.”

“See the Wain?”

“Who?”

“The Wain—those stars jusht over the big pine there. Five for the bed ln the axle, two for th’ wheels, three for th’ tongue.”

“Wait a minute,” she peered at the stars, trying to get them to form up properly, and was delighted when she finally did. “What’s the rest of ‘em?”

“Right next t’ the Wain’s the Hunter. There’s the two little stars for his belt, two more for ‘s shoulders, four for’s legs—” He realized by her steady breathing that she had fallen asleep.

He reached over for the second blanket and covered them both with it, without disturbing his floating head much. He lay back, intending to think a little—but a little thinking was all he managed, since he, too, was soon drowsing.

The next morning he woke before she did, and remembered the conversation of the night before. He moved very carefully, hoping that he wouldn’t wake her, and on being successful moved off into the woods on a private search.

Talia woke to an incredibly subtle perfume wreathing around her. She opened sleep-blurred eyes to see where it was coming from, to discover that someone had placed a bouquet by her head.

“What?” she said sleepily, trying to think why there should be flowers beside her. “Who?”

“A joyous Midsummer to you, Herald Talia, and a wonderful Birthing-Day as well,” Kris said cheerfully from a point behind her. “It’s a pity that more of your friends couldn’t deliver trifles, but you’ll have to admit that we are a bit far from most of them. I trust you’ll accept this one as a token of my profound apology for insulting you last night. I didn’t intend to.”

“Kris!” she exclaimed, as she sat up and took up the flowers, breathing the exquisite fragrance with hedonistic delight. “You didn’t need to do this—”

“Ah, but I did. It wouldn’t be Midsummer unless I gathered at least one bouquet. Besides, that scent you’re enjoying is supposed to be a sovereign remedy for hangover.”

“Is it?” she laughed.

“I have no idea,” he admitted. “Part of my hangover always includes a stopped-up nose. Look at the stems, why don’t you?”

Holding the bouquet together was a silver ring, of a design of two hands clasped together. It was the token a Herald only gave to the friends he loved best.

“Kris—I don’t know what to say—”

“Then say ‘Thank you, Kris, and I accept your apology.’ “

“Thank you, love, and I do accept your apology—if you’ll accept mine.”

“I would be only too pleased to,” he said, giving her a cheerful grin. “Dear heart, I’d intended to give you that at Midwinter, but since you said you’d never had a Birthing-Day gift, the opportunity was too good to pass by. And it had damn well better fit— you wouldn’t believe how hard it is to get someone’s ring size without them knowing! It goes on the right hand, little bird; the left is reserved for another purpose.”

Talia slipped it on, vowing to discover when Kris’ Birthing-Day was so as to return the gesture with interest. “It’s perfect,” she said as he sat down next to her with a very pleased expression.

She threw her arms around him, completely happy for the first time in months, and opened a tiny channel of rapport deliberately so that he could know what she couldn’t say in words.

“Hoo—that’s as intoxicating as what we were drinking last night, little bird!”

She took the hint and closed the channel down again, but she could tell that he had enjoyed the brief thrill.

“What are these flowers? I’ve never smelled anything so wonderful in my life! I think I could live on the scent alone.”

“A little deep-woods northern flower that only blooms at this time of year. It’s called ‘Maiden’s Hope.’ I thought you might like it.”

“I love it.” She continued to breathe in the scent of the flowers with her eyes half-shut. Kris thought with amusement that she looked rather like a young cat in her first encounter with catmint, and told her so.

“I can’t explain it—it smells like sunrise, like a perfect spring day, like the heart’s desire—”

“How about like breakfast?” he replied comically.

“Breakfast? Oh well, if that’s your heart’s desire—” She laughed at him and rose smoothly to her feet. “It is my turn, so I guess I’d better reward you for being so outrageously nice to me after I tried to murder you last night.”

“And since you seem so enamored of those flowers, I’ll see that you have some in your wedding garland if I have to nurture them in a hothouse myself.”

“I thought you had a black thumb.” She removed one of the creamy white blossoms and tucked it behind one ear.

“For you, little bird, my thumb will turn green. I never break my promises if I can help it, and this is one I definitely intend to keep.”

“Then I’d better keep my promise of breakfast. Where will I get my flowers if I let you wither away of starvation?”

They gathered their scattered belongings and returned arm-in-arm to the Waystation.

Twelve

Geese honked overhead, heading south. It had been one of those rare, glorious golden autumn days—far too lovely a day to spend indoors, so Talia and Kris had been hearing petitions stationed behind a wooden trestle table set out in front of the inn door. Their last petitioner had been a small boy leading a very large plowhorse, and he had given them a message.

Talia scanned the letter, and handed it without comment to Kris. He read it in silence, while the scruffy child who had brought it scuffed his feet uneasily through the pile of golden leaves at his feet.

Kris returned the message to her, as she braced her arm on the rough wood of the trestle table and leaned her chin on one hand. “How long ago did all this happen?” she asked the boy.

“ ‘Bout two days,” he said, combing dark hair out of his eyes with his fingers. “Feud, though, tha’s been on years. Wouldn’t be s’bad this time ‘cept fer th’ poisoned well. Tha’s why granther sent me. Reckons in settlin’ now, ‘for somebody gets killed.”

Talia looked up at the position of the sun, and added figures in her head. “I’m for riding out now,” she said, finally. “Advice?”

Kris brushed more leaves off the table, and glanced back over his shoulder at the inn behind them. “We don’t have any more petitions to be heard, but riding out to a place that isolated is going to take the rest of the afternoon. We’ll have to ride half the night to make up the time, and we won’t have the chance to reprovision until we get to Knowles Crossing.”

Talia’s shields chose that moment to go down; she felt the boy’s anxiety with enough force to make her nauseous while she fought them back into place. She couldn’t manage more than half strength; could still feel the child fretting after they were up. “I take it that means you think we should reprovision now, and wait until tomorrow morning.”

“More or less.”

“Well, I don’t agree; let’s wrap things up here and move out.”

She could feel his disapproval as they followed behind the child, perched like a toy on the back of an enormous, thick-legged horse that was more used to pulling a plow than being ridden.

“You let the boy manipulate you,” he said, finally, as their mounts and chirras kicked up swirls of leaves.

“I didn’t. A poisoned well is a serious business out here. It indicates a situation gone out of control. Are you willing to have deaths on your conscience because we dallied a day, buying supplies?” She whispered, but her tone was angry.

He shrugged. “My opinion doesn’t matter. You are the one giving the orders.”

She seethed. They argued frequently these days— now and again it was something a bit more violent than an argument. Kris often seemed to take a stand opposing hers just for sheer obstinacy.

“You bastard,” she said as the reason occurred to her. The boy looked back at her, startled. She lowered her voice. “You are just opposing me to see if I can be manipulated, aren’t you?”

He grinned, ruefully. “Sorry, love. It was part of my orders. Including manufacturing emotions, since you can sense them. Face it, if anybody is going to be able to warp your decisions, it would be your counselor. But now that you know—”

“You can stop giving me headaches,” she replied tartly. “Now, let’s get down to business.”

“You could have used your Gift back there,” he said, as they settled at last into their bed. It had taken a long, hard ride through the moonless, frosty night to reach their Station once the feud had been settled. And it had taken a lot of negotiating to get it settled.

“I—I still haven’t figured out the ethics of it,” she answered slowly. “Having it, and having people’s emotional states shoved in my face is bad enough. I still don’t really know when it’s right to use it.”

“Damn. What if it had been the only way to take care of the problem? Then what would you have done?” Kris was worried about this; he was afraid that if an emergency arose and the only way to deal with it was by exercising that Gift, she might well freeze. And if it came to using it offensively, the likelihood of her freezing was all the greater.

“I don’t know.” A long pause, as she settled her head on his shoulder. “The only other people I know of with Empathy are Healers—and they are never going to come into contact with the situations I have to deal with. Where are the boundaries?”

He sighed, and held her; that being the only comfort he could offer her. “I don’t know either, little bird. I just don’t know.”

Kris leaned his aching head against the cold stone mantelpiece of the Station fireplace. This had not been a good day. By now the rumors about her had spread everywhere they went. Although this was not their first visit to Langenfield, the villagers met Talia with unease and a little fear—and often wearing evil-eye talismans; they were obviously uncomfortable with her judgment and her abilities.

Talia had given no impression of anything but confidence, intelligence, and rock-steady trustworthiness, despite the fact that Kris knew that she had been trembling inside from the moment she passed the village gates.

This situation had been one she’d had to face over and over again, every time they entered a new town.

He felt Talia’s hand touch his shoulder. “I’m the one that should have the headache,” she said softly, “not you.”

“Dammit, I wish you’d let me do something about this—”

“What? What can you do? Give them a lecture? I have to win their trust, and win it so firmly that all their mistrust starts to look foolish in their own eyes.”

“I could make it seem like I’m the one taking the lead.”

“Oh, that’s a great idea. Then all they’ll do is wonder if I’m manipulating you like a puppet,” she retorted bitingly.

“Then I could back you up, dammit!” He met her anger with anger of his own. They glared at each other like a pair of angry cats, until Talia broke the tension by glancing down. Kris followed her glance to see that her hands were clenched into tight fists.

“Damn. I was all set to give you another love-pat, wasn’t I?” she asked, chagrined. “This—Gods, between my shields being erratic, and having to face this same situation over and over—I’m like a harpstring tuned too high.”

Kris forcibly relaxed his own tight muscles, including his fists. “I should know better than to provoke you. Intellectually, I understand. You have to face the battle and win it on your own. But emotionally— it’s a strain on both of us, and I can’t stop wanting to help.”

“That’s why I love you, peacock,” she said, putting both hands around his face and kissing him. “And— Havens! Wait here—it’s been such a rotten day, I totally forgot!”

He stared after her in puzzlement, as she dashed out the Station door and returned, brushing snow from her shoulders. “I left this in a pocket on my saddle so I wouldn’t forget it—and then I go and forget it!” She pressed a tiny, wrapped parcel in his hand. “Happy Birthing-Day.”

“How did you—” He was surprised. “I—”

“Unwrap it, silly.” She looked inordinately pleased with herself.

It was a ring, identical to the one he’d given her months ago. “I—” He swallowed the lump that had appeared in his throat. “I don’t deserve this.”

“In a pig’s eye! You’ve earned it a dozen times, and more, even if you do tempt me to kill you once a week.”

“Only once a week?” He managed a grin to match hers.

“You’re improving—or I am. Now I did remember to get a nice fresh pair of quail, honeycake, and a very good bottle of wine.” She slid her arms around his, stood on tiptoe, and kissed the end of his nose. “Now, shall we make this a proper Birthing-Day celebration, or not?”

Now came the stop she was dreading above all the others; Hevenbeck.

There hadn’t been a more pleasant winter afternoon on this entire trip; cold, crystal-clear air, sunlight so pure it seemed white, a cloudless and vibrant blue sky above the leafless, white boughs of the grove of birch they were passing through. Snow on the ground sparkled; the air felt so clean and crisp it was almost like drinking chilled wine. Talia let the cheer of the day and of the others elevate her own spirits; after all, there was no reason to think that the people of Hevenbeck would be any worse than the rest of what she’d dealt with. It was unlikely in the extreme that anyone except the old miser and his wife would remember her or that she’d nearly let her own troubles distract her from what could have become a serious situation.

They were several miles from Hevenbeck, when Talia was suddenly struck by a wall of fear, pain, and rage. She reeled in her saddle, actually graying out as Kris steadied her. She came back to herself feeling as if she’d been hit with a warhammer.

Kris was still holding her, keeping her from falling off of Rolan’s back. “Kris—” she gasped, “FarSee to Hevenbeck—”

Then it was her turn to steady him, as he willed himself into deep trance. Her head still rang with the fierce anguish of the emotions she’d encountered; she breathed deeply of the crisp air to try and clear it, and clamped down her shields—and for once, they actually worked, right up to full strength.

It hardly seemed as if he’d dropped into his trance before he was struggling up out of it again, blinking his eyes in confusion.

“Northern raiders—” he said with difficulty, still fogged with trance, “—though how they got past Sorrows—”

“Damn! And no help nearer than two days. How many?”

“Fifteen, maybe twenty.”

“Not too many for us to handle, I don’t think—”

“I’d hoped you would ride your internship without seeing any fighting,” he said hesitantly.

She jumped down off Rolan and headed for the chirras, her feet cruching in the snow. “Well, we haven’t got a choice; trouble’s there, we’d better deal with it.”

“Talia, I’m just a Herald, but you’re the only Queen’s Own we’ve got—”

“I also shoot better than you do,” she said crisply, sliding his sword and dagger out of his pack and reaching over the chirra’s furry back to hand them to him. “If it’ll make you feel any better, I promise not to close in for hand-to-hand unless I have to. But you handed over responsibility, and unless you overrule me, I say I’m going. Ten to fifteen aren’t too many for both of us—but they could be for one alone.”

“All right.” Kris began strapping his weapons on, while Talia led the chirras off the road entirely. With snow creaking beneath her feet, she took them into the heart of a tangled evergreen thicket out of view of the roadway. There she tethered them lightly, the scent of bruised needles sharp in her nostrils, and backed out, breaking the snow-cake to powder and brushing it clear of footprints with a broken branch.

She laid a gloved hand lightly on Rolan’s neck, as his breath steamed in the cold air. “Tell them to stay there until dark, loverling,” she murmured. “If we’re not back by then, they can pull themselves loose and head back to the last village.”

Rolan snorted, his breath puffing out to hang in front of his nose, and stared fixedly at the thicket.

“Ready?”

He tossed his head.

“How about you?” She looked to Kris, whose face was pale, and whose mouth was set and grim.

“We’d better hurry. They were about to break down the gate.”

She stripped the bridle bells from both sets of harness, and vaulted into the saddle with a creaking of leather. “Let’s do it.”

They made no effort to come up quietly, just set both Companions to a full gallop and hung on for dear life. White hills and black trees flashed past them; twice the Companions vaulted over fallen tree-trunks that the villagers had not yet cleared away from the roadbed. As they galloped up over the last hill, the sun revealed the plight of the village in merciless detail; black of ash, red of blood, orange of flame, all in high contrast against the trampled snow.

The raiders were just breaking through the palisade gate as they came galloping up. Enormous iron axes swung high, impacting against the tough iron-oak of the gate with hollow thuds. The noise the bandits were making covered the approach of the two Heralds entirely, between the sound of the axes against the wood and the war-cries they were shrieking. Three or four of their number lay dead outside the palisade, blood soaking into the snow about them. The gate came down just as the Heralds got into arrow-range—most of the rest surged through the gates and into the village. There were still a handful of reivers outside; to her relief, Talia saw nothing among them but hand-weapons—no bows of any kind.

Rolan skidded to a halt, hooves sending up a shower of snow, as Talia pulled an arrow from the quiver at her saddle-bow without looking, and nocked it. She aimed along the shaft, feeling her own hands strangely calm and steady, and shouted—her high, young voice carrying over the baritone growls of the raiders. They turned; she found her target almost without thinking about it, a flash of pale skin above a shaggy dark fur—and loosed.

One of the raiders took her arrow squarely in the throat; he clutched at it, crimson blood welling round his fingers and spotting the snow at his feet. Then he fell, and she was choosing a second target; there was no time to think, only to let trained reflexes take over.

Talia’s next two arrows bounced harmlessly off leather chest-armor and a battered wooden shield; Kris had not stopped when she had, but had sent Tantris hurtling past her, charging headlong into the gap where the gate had been while the reivers were busy protecting themselves from her covering fire. That seemed to decide the ones still left outside; they rushed her.

She got off one more shot, picking off her second man with a hit in his right eye. He went down; then Rolan warned her he was going to move. She clamped her legs tight around his barrel, as he pivoted and scrambled through the churned-up mud and snow along the palisade. When they were still within arrow-range he pivoted again, hindquarters slewing sideways a little, mane whipping her chest. She already had an arrow nocked; she sighted again, and brought down a third with a solid hit in his chest where an armor plate had fallen off and not been replaced.

A puff of breeze blew a cloud of acrid smoke over the palisade; she coughed and her eyes watered as she groped for another arrow. The remaining three men came on, howling, spittle flecking beards and lips, as her fingers found another shaft in the rapidly emptying quiver.

The nearest, bundled in greasy bearskins, stopped and poised to throw his axe. That was long enough for her to sight and loose. Her arrow took him in the throat, and he flung the axe wildly, hitting only the palisade, as he collapsed. Then Rolan charged the two that were left.

Talia clung with aching legs and arrow-hand while he reared to his full height and smashed in the head of the first one in his path. It was a horrible sound, like a melon splitting open; Talia felt the shock as Rolan’s hooves connected, heard the surprised little grunt the man made. Blood and fear and stale grease-and-sweat smell stank in their nostrils. The last one was too close for arrow shot. Talia felt at her belt for her throwing dagger, pulled it loose, and cast it at short range. This one had worn no chest-armor at all. He stopped short, his eyes surprised; his sword dropped from his hand and his free hand felt at his chest. He looked down stupidly at the dagger protruding from his ribs, then his eyes glazed over, and he fell.

Talia and Rolan raced for the gate; she glanced behind her for possible foes and saw they were leaving red hoofprints behind them.

She was met with a chaos of burning buildings and screaming people; they thundered inside, and skidded to a halt, confused for a moment by the fear and smoke. Talia felt, more than saw, a fear-maddened ox charging down the single street; saw out of the corner of her eye a child running straight into its path. Roian responded to her unspoken signal; whirled with joint-wrenching suddenness and leapt forward; she leaned out of the saddle, clinging to the saddle-bow, and scooped up the child as Rolan shouldered the oncoming animal aside. Then he leapt again, giving Talia the chance to deposit the baby on a doorstep. Kris was nowhere to be seen—but neither were the raiders.

Talia vaulted off Rolan’s back and began grabbing hysterical townspeople; without stopping to think about it she began forcibly calming them with her Gift, and organizing them into a fire brigade. All the while she fought the urge to flee away, to somewhere dark and quiet, and be sick. She kept seeing those surprised eyes—feeling the fear and pain just outside of her shields.

But there was no time to think—just to act. And pray that her shields stayed up—or she had no idea of what might happen under such a load.

Kris appeared when the fires were almost out; face smudged with smoke, Whites liberally splashed with blood, eyes dull. Tantris stumbled along beside him. Talia left her fire-brigade to deal with what was left, just as cheering villagers appeared in his wake, waving gore-encrusted scythes and mattocks. She limped to his side; only now was she noticing she’d sprained her left ankle, and wrenched her right shoulder when she’d caught up that child. He lifted his eyes to meet hers and she saw reflected in them her own bleak heart-sickness.

She took the bloody sword from his unresisting hand, fought down her own revulsion, and touched his hand; hoping to give him the ease she could not yet feel.

He sighed, and swayed; and leaned against Tantris for support. Tantris was as blood-speckled as Rolan, and had a shallow cut along one shoulder. “They wouldn’t surrender, and wouldn’t run,” he said, voice harsh from the smoke and the shouting. “I don’t know why. The Healer’s dead; that poor mad girl with him. There’s about ten more dead and twice as many wounded. Thank Gods, thank Gods, no children. That couple—burned to death trying to save their damned chickens. Three houses burned out at the other end of the village—” He stared at the townsfolk cheering and laughing and dancing awkwardly in the bloody snow and churned-up mud. “They think the battle’s over. Goddess, it’s just beginning—the ruined foodstores, the burned out houses, and the worst of winter yet to come—”

“It—it’s not like in the ballads, is it?”

“No,” he sighed, rubbing his eyes with a filthy hand. “It never is—and we have a job to do.”

“Then let’s get the chirras back and set about it.”

Their second stopover at Waymeet, by contrast, was almost embarrassing, Kris being hailed as the village’s hero for having remained behind to tend the ill while Talia went for help. It became necessary to remind the grateful people of the rules that governed a Herald’s behavior on circuit, else they would have been feasted at a different house every night, slept in the best beds in the village, and come away with more gifts than the chirras could carry.

That stop went a long way toward raising their spirits. Both their spirits—for there were no evil-eye talismans on display in Waymeet, and there were no odd sidelong glances at Talia. And her shields were holding—were still holding—

They stopped with Tedric at Berrybay; he proved to be more than delighted to welcome them, and a two-day rest with him—and a chance to cry out their heart-sickness on the shoulder of someone who would truly understand—completed their cure.

When they were back to making normal conversation Tedric mentioned, with the pleasure of a child in a new toy, that since their visit, the wandering Bards had taken to stopping overnight with him, and that scarcely a month went by now without at least one arriving on his doorstep.

Kris thought of his report, and smiled to himself.

Maeven Weatherwitch and her adopted child were thriving. Her ability to Foresee had actually grown. The grateful people of Berrybay allocated a portion of their harvests to her so that she need not take the chance of losing the Gift to hunger or an accident in the fields. Best of all, the local priestess of Astera was training her to become her own successor.

And Talia’s shields continued to hold.

They rode through the early Spring leaves (scarcely more than buds) on their last few stops for this circuit. Come Vernal Equinox, scarcely more than a month away, they would turn their chirras over to the next Herald assigned to this circuit and would be on their way back to the Collegium.

It was over—it was almost over. Talia felt her control was back, and more certain than before. Her shields were back, and stronger. Now if only ...

If only she could ease the aching doubt in her mind ... the rights and the wrongs. ...

The unanswered questions kept her up nights, staring into the darkness long after Kris had fallen asleep at her side. For if she could not find an answer for herself, how could she ever again dare use the Gift she’d been born with, except in utterly circumscribed circumstances?

Birds newly-arrived from the south sang in the budding bushes all around them; trees seemed to be covered with a mist of green. Talia was not expecting trouble, so when Kris asked her to deliberately drop her shields and cast her senses ahead to Westmark, what she encountered caught her completely off-guard. The force of emotion she felt sent her slumping forward as if from a blow to the head. Kris urged Tantris in close beside her and steadied her in the saddle as she shook her head to clear it.

“What is it?” he asked anxiously. “It can’t be—”

“It’s not raiders, but it’s bad. There’s death, and there’s going to be more unless I get there fast,” she said. “You bring on the chirras while I go ahead.”

She sent Rolan into his fastest gallop, leaving Kris and the packbeasts far behind. They flashed through beams oif sunlight cutting between the trees like spirits of winter come to invade the spring. She narrowed her eyes against the rush of greening wind in her face, and the whipping of Rolan’s mane, trying to sort out the images she’d gotten. She had touched the terrible, mindless violence of a mob, and two sources of fear—one, the fear of the hunted; the other, the fear of the hopeless. Underneath it, like a thin stream of something vile, had lurked a source of true and gloating evil.

Even above the pounding of Rolan’s hooves, she heard the mob as she neared the outer wall of Westmark, a sturdy and skilled piece of brick-layer’s work, dull red behind the pale mist of opening leaves. She heard the hair-raising growl long before she saw the mob itself. She had no need to be in trance to feel the turmoil of emotions, though by the grace of the Lady they hadn’t yet found their victim. She could almost taste his fear, but it wasn’t the panic of the caught creature yet.

As she came within sight of the mob, a single figure burst from under cover of the town gates and ran for his life straight toward her, his feet kicking up yellow road-dust as he ran toward her. At the sight of him, the people hunting him howled and plunged through the gates after him.

He seemed determined to cast himself under Rolan’s hooves if it was necessary to do so in order to reach her. With all the skill burned into both of them by Keren, she and Rolan avoided him and wheeled around in a wrenchingly tight circle, putting Rolan’s bulk between the fugitive and his hunters.

The stranger seized the pommel of her saddle in a white-knuckled death-grip and gasped: “Justice—”

She remained in the saddle, certain that if all else failed, she could have him up behind her and be away before any of the mob could react. But at the sight of her Companion and her unmistakable uniform, the crowd slowed, began muttering uncertainly, and finally stopped several feet away.

When she spoke, a silence fell upon them. “Why do you hound this man to his death?” she demanded, pitching her voice to be carrying and trumpet-clear.

The crowd before her, no longer the mindless mob now that their momentum was broken, stirred uneasily. Finally one man stepped forward; by his fine dark umber wool and linen clothing, prosperous, and no farmer.

“That trader’s a murderer, Herald,” he said. “A foreigner and a murderer. We reckon on giving him his due.

“Nay—” the man at her saddle panted, olive skin gone yellow-pale, large dark eyes wide with fear. “Trader, yes, and foreign. But no murderer. This I swear.”

An angry growl arose at his words.

“Hold!” she shouted, pitching her voice to command before they could regain their mob unity. “It is no crime to be a foreigner, and the Queen’s word grants Herald’s justice to anyone within the bounds of this Kingdom who would claim it. This man has claimed justice of me; I will give it to him. You who call him a murderer—did any of you see him kill?”

“The body was in his wagon, and still warm!” the spokesman protested, rubbing his mustache uneasily.

“So? And was the wagon then so secured that none could enter it but he? No? Then how can you be certain that the body was not put there to turn suspicion upon this one—already suspect because of being foreign?”

The dismay she felt told her that they had not considered the possibility. These were not evil people— that thread of viciousness she had sensed was not coming from one of them—they were only thoughtless, and easily led while in the herd-mentality of the mob. Confronted with someone who made them think, they lost their taste for blood.

“This will be done by the law, or not at all,” she said firmly. “Let every man, woman and child not bedridden assemble in the square. At this point there is not one of you above suspicion. Let the body be brought to me there.”

The man clinging to her pommel was slowly regaining his courage and his breath. “I have heard of your kind, Lady Herald,” he said, obviously nervous, by the sweat only now beginning to bead his generous forehead; but equally obviously willing to trust her. “I swear to you that I did not do this evil deed. You may put me to the ordeal, if you will.”

“There will be no ‘ordeal,’ and nothing to fear if you are truly innocent,” Talia told him quietly. “I do not know what you have heard of us, but I pledge you that you shall have exactly what you asked of me—justice.”

The trader walked beside her as she rode Rolan into the town gates, past the substantial bulks of the brick houses, and on to the cobblestoned square. Exactly as she had ordered, every ambulatory person in the town that day was assembled there. They had left an empty space for her in the middle, and in this space there lay a long, dark-draped bundle—plainly, the victim.

Talia picked out two dozen robust-looking, mortar-bespeckled citizens, and ascertained by questioning them under her Gift that they could not have had anything whatsoever to do with the crime, as they had all been engaged in moving the town wall outward. She set these men, armed with cudgels, to guarding the exits to the square, since once the killer realized that he or she was about to be uncovered, he might try for an escape and Talia did not intend that he should succeed.

Then she removed the blanket. The young woman— girl, almost—had been beaten severely, and her neck was broken. She had been pretty; her clothing was well-made, not badly worn, but had been ripped in many places. Whoever was guilty of this was brutal and violent, and nothing Talia sensed in the trader corresponded to the kind of mind that could batter a young girl to death. The crime did match that thread of evil she’d sensed before she confronted the mob, however.

“Who was this child?” she asked, after giving her own nerves a moment to steady.

“My stepdaughter.” A square-jawed, bearded man stepped forward, his face hard, his brown eyes unreadable. Talia noted that he did not address her with the honorific “Herald.” This might mean much, or nothing.

“When was she found, and by whom?”

“About an hour ago, Herald,” a thin, graying woman in a floury apron spoke up. “My boy found her. I’d sent him to the trader with the money for some things I’d asked him to set aside for me.” She pushed forward a lanky blond lad of about fifteen with a sick expression and greenish face.

“Tell me what you found, as exactly as you can remember it,” Talia ordered, pity making her move to shield him from view of the body.

“Ma,” he gulped, eyes fixed on her face, “Ma, she sent me like she said, with egg money for some fripperies she’d asked the trader to hold for her. When I got to the wagon, the trader weren’t there, but he’s told us to go in and wait for him times afore when he weren’t there, so I did. It were kinda dark inside, and I stumbled over something. I flung the door open to see what I were a-fallin’ over. It were Karli—” he swallowed hard, his face growing greener. “I thought maybe she were sick, maybe drunk even, so I shook her. But her head rolled so funny—” He scrubbed his hand against his tunic in an unconscious effort to rid it of the contamination he’d felt from touching a corpse.

“Enough,” Talia said gently. The poor child could never have seen violent death before, much less touched it. She remembered how she had felt after the fight at Hevenbeck, and tried to put her sympathy in her eyes. “Have any of you ever seen this girl with the trader before?”

Several people had, volunteering that she’d had huddled, whispered conferences with him, conferences that broke off if any came near. Feet scuffled uneasily on the cobblestones as she continued her interrogations as thoroughly and patiently as she could, and she could hear little whispers at the edge of the crowd. She wished she could hear them clearly, for they might tell her a great deal.

The man who claimed to be the murdered girl’s stepfather spat angrily and interrupted. “We’re wasting time! Anyone with eyes and ears knows the scum killed her! He wanted her, no doubt, then killed her when she refused him—or if she did not refuse, for fear she’d make him wed her after.”

Talia’s eyes narrowed. This hardly sounded like a grief-stricken parent.

“I am the instrument of the Queen’s Justice, and it is I and no one else who will decide when we are wasting time,” she said coldly. “Thus far I have seen nothing to implicate this man, beyond him speaking with the girl. I am sure she spoke to many. Did she not speak daily even to you? Does this make you a suspect?”

Was it her imagination, or did he pale a trifle?

“Trader, what say you?”

“May I speak all the truth?” he asked.

Now that was an odd way to answer. “Why need you ask?”

“Because I would not malign the dead before her kith and kin, but what I would say may not meet with the approval of those here.”

“Wait but a moment, trader,” she answered, and closed her eyes. She took a moment to pass deeply into trance and invoke once again the “Truth Spell.” There were two stages of this spell. The first stage could be cast by any Herald, even those with only a touch of a Gift. It caused a glow, invisible to the speaker, but quite apparent to anyone else, to form about the speaker’s head and shoulders. The second stage, (and one which required not just a Gift, but a powerful “communication” Gift), could, when invoked, force the speaker to tell only the truth, regardless of his intentions. Talia’s Gift was sufficient to enable her to bring both forms of the Truth Spell into play, and she invoked them now. As the blue glow formed about the trader’s head, she could hear a sudden intake of breath, then sighs of relief. These people might never have seen Truth Spell in action in their lives, but they knew what it was, and they trusted in the power of the spell and the honesty of the wielder.

“Tell all the truth freely. You cannot hurt her in the Havens, and it is your own life you are defending.”

“She came to me several times, yes,” he said. “She wished me to take her with me when I left here.”

“Why?” Talia asked.

“Because she wished to escape—what and why she would not say. She said that no one would believe her if she were to say what it was. She first offered me money, but I dared not risk the damage to my trade if these people were made wroth. Still, she persisted. In the end, she agreed that she would ‘disappear’ a day before I was to leave so that it would seem I had naught to do with it, and as payment she offered herself,” he sighed. “It was wrong, surely, but I am only flesh, and she was comely. It did not seem so evil that I should have pleasure of her in return for an escape she desired so badly. I was to have met her on the road outside of town tomorrow night, after dusk. After I spoke to her this morning, I did not see her again alive.”

The glow did not falter, nor did Talia feel the drain of energy that would have indicated that the trader was being forced to tell the truth. The crowd, which had been watching the glow intently, sighed again. Now it was obvious to everyone that the trader could not be guilty—but then, who was?

“Lies! All lies!” The stepfather broke free of his neighbors and plunged forward with the apparent intent of strangling the trader with his bare hands. Rolan reared, ears laid back, and snapped at him, keeping him away, as Taiia herself drew her dagger with a hiss of metal—and in the rush of his anger and—and yes, fear—Talia Saw the scene his emotions carried and knew the truth.

“Hold him!” she ordered, and several strong men rushed him and pinioned his arms against his sides, despite his struggles.

Despite what she knew, she could not accuse him solely on the basis of what she’d Seen. But from the rest of what she’d picked up, she might not need to.

“Karli’s sister—where is she?” Talia demanded, and many hands pushed the pale, shrinking girl forward, a girl of about fourteen, with a sweet, timid face and dark eyes and hair.

“I don’t want to force you to speak,” Talia told her in a soft voice no one else could hear, “but I will if I have to. Will you tell us the truth about this man who calls himself your father, and be free?”

She had cringed when shoved before Talia, but the Herald’s kindly voice and the reassurance she was trying to show revived her—and the last words, “be free,” seemed to set new courage in her. She stood up straighter, and stared at her stepfather with hate.

“Yes. Yes!” Her voice was shrill with defiance. “I’ll tell the truth. It was him—our so-kind father—that Karli wanted to escape from! And why? Because he has been making us lie with him every night since mother died!”

The accusing words rang in the sudden silence. The villagers stared at the girl and her stepfather in stunned amazement.

“Lying slut!” the man screamed into the shocked quietude, struggling against the hands that held him.

“I speak nothing but the truth!” she shouted back, her eyes dilated with fear—and something more, something of anger and rage and shame. “When we cried, when we fought, he beat us, then he raped us. Karli swore she’d escape somehow, but he found out, said he’d teach her to mend her ways.”

“She lies!”

“Do I? Then hold him for six months and wait,” she laughed wildly. “You all know he hasn’t let a male older than five near me since last winter. I would have gone with Karli, but how could I earn a copper, bulging with child? His child—his bastard!” She broke down, sobbing hysterically, and one of the women darted forward without hesitation to throw a shawl around her in a protective maternal gesture, followed by others, who formed a comforting circle around the girl, shielding her from the sight of her ravisher and glaring at him with hate-filled and disgusted eyes.

Talia confronted him, shaking with outrage, but somehow controlling her own revulsion. “You went seeking the child, and found her with the trader. You decided to confront her, teach her a lesson. You became angry when she defied you, thinking herself safe because she was in a public place. You beat her, and killed her, then hid her body in the trader’s wagon, knowing he’d be blamed, knowing that if he was killed before I arrived no one would ever look farther for the real murderer.”

She was transferring the Truth Spell to him even as she accused him, forcing him to speak his real thoughts when next he opened his mouth.

It worked more thoroughly than she had imagined it would. “Yes—and why not? Do I not feed and clothe them? Am I not their owner? They are mine, like their slut of a mother! She died without giving me my money’s worth, and by the Gods, it is their duty to fill her place!”

Talia was nauseated by the mind behind those words. No punishment seemed adequate to her to fit what he had done. An odd, disinterested corner of her weighed all the facts—and coldly made a thought-out, logical decision.

Her revulsion and anger built until she could no longer contain it—and then it found the outlet that matched the decision she’d come to. She forced rapport on him—not the gentle sharing she had had with Kris, but a brutal, mental rape such as she had not dreamed she was capable of. Then with a sidewise twist, she pulled the stepdaughter into the union— and forced her memories into his mind, forced him to be her through all her pain-filled and horrified experiences.

He gave a single gargling howl, stiffened, then dropped to his knees. His startled captors released him, but he was in no shape to take advantage of the situation. When they pulled him to his feet, his mouth hung slack and drooling, and there was no trace of sanity left in his eyes. Talia had locked him into a never-ending loop, as he re-lived, over and over, every waking moment that his stepdaughter had spent as his victim.

The villagers moved away from her, one involuntary pace.

Now she’d just shown them what she could do.

“Herald?” one of the men said timidly, looking at her with respect tinged with fear. They knew that she had punished him herself even if they had no idea how. “What must we do with him?”

“What you piease,” she said wearily, “and according to your own customs. Whether he lives or dies, he has been dealt with.”

As they took him away, one of the women caught her attention. “Herald, we have heard you have a mind-magic. Is there aught you can do for this girl? And—I am a midwife. Would you take it amiss if she should ‘lose’ the child? Though I am not Gifted, I learned my craft among Healers. It can be done with no harm to her.”

In for a lamb—she thought, and nodded.

The people were dispersing, too shocked and appalled even to whisper among themselves. Talia stumbled wearily to the knot of women, and knelt beside the shivering, sobbing girl. She eased into trance, and probed as Kerithwyn had taught her. She could “read,” though she could not act on what she read. It was as she had suspected; the girl was too young, the not-born malformed. She transferred her attention to the girl’s mind and began laying the foundation for a healing that time and courage could complete without any further intervention on Talia’s part— imprinting as forcefully as she could that none of this had been the girl’s own fault. Lastly, she sent the girl into a half-trance which would last for several days, during which the damage done to her body, at least, could be mended.

She stood, bone-weary, and faced the midwife. “What you suggest would happen eventually, and it will be easier on her body if it were to happen now. She hates what she bears as much as she hates the father, and the cleansing of her body may bring some ease to her heart. And—tell her that she was never to blame for this. Tell her until she believes it.”

The midwife nodded without speaking, and she and the others led the half-aware girl to her house.

Only the trader was left. His eyes brimmed with tears and gratitude; the proximity of his clean, normal mind was infinitely comforting to Talia. After the running sewer of the stepfather he seemed like a clear, sparkling stream.

“Lady Herald—” he faltered at last, “—my life is yours.”

“Then take it, and do good with it, trader,” she replied, burying her face in Rolan’s neck, feeling her Companion’s gentle touch slowly cleansing her of contamination.

The trader’s footsteps receded.

And the sound of three sets of hooves was approaching. They rang with the unmistakable chime of Companion hooves on stone—and were accompanied by the soft sound of gently-moving bridle bells.

Oh, Goddess, help me! she thought. No more—I can’t bear any more.

But the hooves continued to approach, and then she heard footsteps and felt hands take her shoulders. She looked up. It was Kris.

“I saw the end, and I heard the rest from the midwife,” he said quiedy. “But—”

“But—you made a judgment and a punishment, Herald,” said a strange voice, a female voice, age-roughened, but strong. Talia looked beyond Kris to see two unfamiliar faces; a woman about Keren’s age, but strongly and squarely-built, and a young man perhaps a year or two older than Kris, with mouse-brown hair. Both wore the arrows of Special Messengers on the sleeves of their Whites.

Special couriers—their Companions must have sensed the trouble, and brought them to help.

And they were senior Heralds. “You did use your Gift on that man, did you not?” the young man asked, somberly.

“Yes,” she replied, meeting their eyes. “I did. And I would do the same if the circumstances warranted it.”

“Do you judge that to be an ethical use of your Gift?”

“Is shooting raiders an ethical use of my hands?” she countered. “It’s part of me; it is totally in my control, it does not control me. I made a reasoned and thought-out decision—if the man ever accepts his own guilt and the fact that what he did was wrong, he’ll break free of the compulsion I put on him. Until then he will suffer exactly as he made his victims suffer. That seemed to me to be far more in keeping with his crime than imprisoning or executing him. So I judged, and meted out punishment; I stand by it—and I would do it again.”

She regarded them both with a certain defiance, and somewhat to her surprise, they both nodded with a certain amount of satisfaction.

“Then I think that we are not needed here after all,” said the woman. “Clear roads to you, brother— sister—”

They wheeled their Companions and rode back out the gates without a single backward glance.

That left only Kris.

“You did very well, Herald Talia,” he said gently.

She stood wearily in the firm grasp of his hands, with his voice recalling her to duty. She longed beyond telling to lay that duty on him, and she knew that if she asked, he would take it.

But if she laid it on anyone, she would be proving false to her calling. If this were a normal circuit, there would be no Kris to take up the burden of her tasks because she felt too worn, too sickened, too exhausted—and yes, too cowardly, too cowardly to face all those people and prove again to them that their trust was not misplaced, that a Herald could bring healing as well as punishment. And they must be shown yet again that though a Herald had powers the guilty had to fear, the innocent would never feel them. She must face the fear in those faces and turn it back into trust. Kris could not do that for her, and if he were not here, she would not even have the brief luxury of imagining that he could.

She sighed, and hearing the weariness, the pain in that sigh, Kris almost wished that she’d ask for him to take over. His heart ached for her, but this was the trial by fire that every Herald had to face, soon or late, and she most of all. No matter what the personal cost, a Herald’s duty must come first. She had proven that her Gift was under her control. She had proven that she was willing to accept the ethical and moral responsibilities that particular Gift laid upon her. Now she must prove she had the emotional and mental strength to carry any job she undertook to its end.

She had no choice, and neither did he. They had accepted this responsibility along with every other aspect of becoming a Herald. But—he hurt for her.

She looked up, and must have seen his thoughts writ plainly in his eyes.

“I’d better locate the Town Council, the Mayor and the Clerk,” she said, pulling herself up straight and schooling her face into calm. “There’s work to do.”

As Kris watched her walk away, head high, carriage confident, nothing reflecting her inner agony, he felt a glow of pride.

Now she was truly a Herald.

Kris preceded her to the Waystation nearest the town and had all in readiness when she rode up, shoulders slumped in exhaustion. The rules governing both of them allowed him to do that much for her, at least. She sought their bed long before he, and was apparently asleep by the time he joined her, but in the darkness he felt her shaken with silent tears, and gathered her into his arms to weep herself to sleep on his shoulder.

The second day she took reports and news, and began settling grievances. Kris winced to see how warily the townsfolk regarded her, like some creature from legend—powerful, and not necessarily to be trusted. It was well that this was such a large place, for after her performance of the previous day, it might have been difficult to find those willing to have her sit in judgment over them—except that there was no choice in the matter here. Anyone with a grievance to settle before a Herald in a place this size must register that fact in writing; with the witness of their own words, there was not one of them bold enough to deny his original will.

Talia had the right to choose the order of their judgments; normally she did not exercise that right, but she chose otherwise this time. Wisely, she picked those cases to settle that required tact, understanding, and gentleness to come first. Gradually the townsfolk began to relax in her presence, began to lose their fear of her. By the third day, they were laughing at the occasional wry jest she inserted into her comments. By day’s end, the fear was forgotten. By the fourth day, when she took her leave of them, she had regained their trust in Heralds, and more. Kris was so proud of her that he fairly shone with it as they rode on to their next stop.

The gods must have agreed with him, for they were kind to Talia in this much, at least. There were no further crises for the rest of the circuit.

“I can’t believe it’s over.”

“You’d better,” Kris laughed, “since that’s the rendezvous point ahead of us. And unless my eyes are deceiving me—”

“They’re not. That’s a Companion grazing, and I think I see two mules.”

“So tonight is the last we’ll spend in a Waystation for a while. Sorry?”

“That I won’t be eating your cooking or mine, or sleeping on straw? Be serious!”

Kris chuckled, and squinted against the light of the westering sun. “Hark!” he intoned melodramatically. “Methinks our relief hath heard the silver sound of our Companions’ hooves.”

“Or the rattling of your few thoughts in your empty head—” Talia kneed Rolan and they galloped into the lead. “It’s Griffon!”

Sure enough, it was Talia’s year-mate, who had gotten into Whites at the same time, but evidently finished his own internship early. She slid off Rolan’s back after both of them had pulled up beside him with a clattering of hooves and jangling of bridle bells, and delivered a hearty kiss and embrace that sent him blushing as red as ever she had. He greeted Kris with such obvious relief that both of them were hard put to keep from chuckling at his bashfulness.

“There’s an inn just a half hour down the road from here,” he told them, stammering a trifle. “They’re expecting you. I thought you’d probably rather sleep soft tonight, so when Farist caught the edges of Rolan’s sending, I rode down there and warned them.”

“Right, and thanks!” Kris answered for both of them, touched by the unexpected courtesy. “Seems like it’s been forever since we had real beds.”

“Not true,” Talia interrupted him. “We had a real bed just a bit over four months ago, with Tedric.”

“So we did, but it still seems like forever. That reminds me though; my first bit of advice to you is to always plan to stop at the northernmost Resupply Station; it’s right near Berrybay. Tedric is a good host, loves having company, and his cooking—!” Kris rolled his eyes heavenward in mock ecstacy.

“And my first bit of advice is to watch out for the other northernmost surprise—” Briefly Talia outlined the plague’s symptoms and described how it had decimated Waymeet.

They took turns detailing some of the hazards and pitfalls of this circuit, then turned their chirras and their remaining supplies over to him. Griffon helped them load their own gear on his mules, and by the time it was dusk, he was well settled into the Station and they were ready to be on their way.

As the lights of the inn shone through the darkness ahead of them, Kris sensed Talia’s involuntary shiver.

“I know,” he told her softly. “Now it’s over—and now is when it really starts to get hard. But you’re ready. Trust me, little bird, you are ready.”

“You’re sure?” she replied in a small, doubtful voice.

“As sure as I’ve ever been of anything in my life. You’ve been ready since Westmark. If you can handle that, you can handle anything; touchy nobles, Heirs with adolescent traumas, heart-wounded Heralds—”

“Mooncalf Heralds with lifebonds?” she asked with a tinge of sarcasm.

“Even that. Especially that. You haven’t let it get in the way of anything yet, and you won’t now. You’re ready, dearheart. And if you dare make a liar out of me—”

“You’ll what?”

“I’ll—I’ll commission a Bard to write you into something scathing.”

“Great Goddess!” she reeled in the saddle, clutching her heart as if stabbed, her high spirits restored. “A death worse than Fate!”

“See that you behave yourself then,” he grinned. “Now come on—there’s dinner waiting, and soft feather beds; and after that—”

“Yes,” she sighed, staring down the road to the south. “Home. At last.”