Valdemar 03 - [Collegium 01] - Foundation (13 page)

It appeared that he and Jakyr were not the only people lodging with the Guard. An old man in bright scarlet asked how the road was to the east.

“Clear and clean; we got snow falling still, but naught like what's to the west. Yon Herald must've brought us luck,” laughed one grizzled fellow. “I tell ye, little as I fancy going out to look for strays, I fancy being snowed in here with no one for company but you ugly dogs a lot less.”

That earned the man a laugh and some remarks about where he was likely to be spending that night. That interested Mags not at all, so he went back to his food.

After eating his fill, and tucking a couple of apples into his pockets, Mags tiptoed into the room, got his now-warm coat, and went to check on the Companions.

:We will be moving soon,:
Dallen told him, after gleefully accepting the apple.
:As soon as Jakyr wakes, nearly. Jakyr wants to get back to Haven as soon as he can. So tell the stable keeper to feed and water us and make up our nosebags with sweet feed. While he is doing that, bring down the big packs, and go to the kitchen, and ask for traveler's pies, as many as they can spare, made up into two packets.:

Mags blinked at that, for he had seen the trays of waiting meat and apple pies in the kitchen. “We canna eat that many, and surely he don't mean to ride like he did yesterday!” he exclaimed. He was still moving stiffly, though his muscles were loosening.

:Oh, not at all,:
Dallen replied with amusement.
:Most of the pies will go with the rescue parties. Jakyr will just want to be sure that if we have to stay overnight in a Waystation, you don't starve. He is an excellent fellow, but he has one deep flaw. He cannot cook. In fact, he has been known to ruin boiling water.:

Mags shook his head, but went and did as he was told. And since Jakyr still wasn't awake, he decided to take advantage of the facilities and have a quick hot wash. Not a good soaking bath, though he would have liked one, but a thorough wash-up. No telling when he'd get another chance, and he was discovering that he liked being clean.

Dallen's words proved true. No sooner was Jakyr awake than he was fretting to be on the road. When the Guards asked if he could be of help locating stranded travelers, he regretfully shook his head.

“I've not got the Gift for it, I fear,” he told the Guard Captain who asked him. “I'm no better at it than you. And I'm overdue at Haven. I've gotten word I'm needed, and the sooner I get my charge there safely, the better.”

The Captain nodded wisely and made no further entreaties. Far sooner than Mags would have thought, they were both on the road again, riding through snow that fell thickly, but not with the fury of the blizzard that had pursued them here.

He set a hard pace, but not the grueling one of the previous day. And they did, indeed, spend that night in what Dallen had called a “Waystation,” a one-room structure reserved for Heralds traveling or “on circuit,” whatever that meant. Though small, it was stoutly built, and comfortable once they got a fire going on the hearth. Jakyr proved as much of a disaster at cooking as Dallen had foretold, and although Mags did not know a
great
deal about it, after the first two pies were burnt past the point where even
he
would eat them, he firmly evicted the older man from the hearth and took over the warming of the pies and the making of pease-porridge himself. Fortunately, Jakyr had not done too much damage to the pease-porridge before Mags intercepted him.

The remainder of the journey was uneventful and unvarying. They rose about dawn, whether they stayed in a Guard Post, a Waystation, or—rarely—in an inn. Mags cooked at need, Jakyr cut firewood, both tended their Companions, with Mags getting better at it all the time. Jakyr did not speak much; Mags got the sense he had something on his mind that had nothing to do with him. And in a way he felt isolated, but he was also relieved. So much of his time in life had been spent in silence that he was often hard-pressed to make the kind of conversation the Guards they stayed with found so easy.

But finally, after Mags had lost count of the days and nights—which wasn't hard, with all of them being much alike—Jakyr finally gestured to him to come up alongside and spoke.

“We're less than a candlemark from Haven,” he said, his eyes on the road ahead except for a single side glance at Mags. “Now, you know what that is, right?”

Mags nodded. Between his own reading and Dallen's memories, he did indeed know what Haven was. The capital of Valdemar, where the King lived, and where the Heralds were headquartered. Dallen's memory also gave him various views of the city, which must be bewildering and confusing; Mags could hardly imagine that many people all crammed together in one place.

“Now, I will get you to the Palace and the new Collegium. I'll make sure someone takes charge of you. Whoever it is, obey him. Or her. What I told the Guard is nothing less than the truth; there is a situation to the east that I am the best person to handle, so handle it I must. I don't like to abandon you in a strange place, but I don't have a choice.”

Mags nodded, not really sure of what he was feeling. True, Jakyr was the only person he knew here, but it wasn't as if Jakyr was his bosom friend. “I'll get by,” he said, since the Herald seemed to be waiting for him to say
something.

“Good lad.” That satisfied Jakyr, and he turned his attention back to the road. It occurred to Mags after a few moments, and somewhat to his surprise, that Jakyr must have come to the conclusion that Mags was not as stupid as he had first appeared to be.

That made him feel rather good. And that, in turn, was what kept him from panicking at his first sight of Haven.

Because Dallen's memories simply did not convey how overwhelming the place was.

He went into a kind of daze after a while, as Jakyr led him through the city on a winding path that he was sure he would never be able to retrace. And it was not just the sheer number of people either; it was, as they got deeper into the city, the
luxury
of the place. He had thought that the Guard Post was luxurious, and by his standards, it was. But some of the enormous buildings they passed, which Dallen informed him were lived in by single families and their servants, nearly stupefied him. More of Dallen's memories only made it more bewildering. These people had entire rooms as big as the eating hall of the Guard Post, that they only used to
dance
in. People slept by themselves in some of these rooms, sharing the space with no one else. There were rooms just for sitting in, rooms just for playing music in, rooms that went empty most of the time. And all these rooms were filled with things. He had the concept of money now, and had a good idea what the “sparklies” he had been digging out for years were worth, and to be aware that one ring with one jewel in it that one of these women mostly kept in a box was worth more than he could ever have made in three lifetimes . . .

His mind just couldn't quite encompass the idea.

Finally they came to a high wall, which Dallen told him surrounded the Palace and the grounds. This was where the Heralds were organized, for the King was always a Herald, too. It was where it had been decided to build a training center for young Heralds, to match the ones for Bards and Healers, so that all three sorts of folk could share learning.

And despite what he had been told, in the back of Mags' mind, he had somehow pictured something suitable for—at most—two or three dozen people.

But the scene of organized chaos they rode up to was enough to drive the enormity of the Palace itself quite out of his mind for the nonce.

Despite the fact that it was well into winter, there were workmen everywhere, but most were pounding away on two huge, unfinished buildings. There was a third building that looked in use, with people wearing white, green, red, and gray surging in and out of it. It looked very raw and new.

“That will be the
new
Healers' Collegium,” Jakyr said, pointing toward one of the unfinished structures, “And that will be the
new
Bardic. I hope to blazes they're done by this time next year. Meanwhile, we have all of you younglings crammed into the one building. Damn and blast Healers and Bards to perdition anyway!” He ran his hand through his hair in the first demonstration of irritability that Mags had seen from him. “Couldn't they just have waited—” He broke off and looked over at Mags with a rueful expression. “Never mind me, lad, I go off on a rant about this—”

“Aye, you do, Jak, and on any excuse whatsoever.” They both turned their heads at the sound of the voice, which had been pitched to carry. There was a woman approaching them, sauntering slowly toward them with her arms crossed over her chest. She looked about the same age as Herald Jakyr, but was dressed all in red, with a hooded coat rather than a cloak. “And I'm certain-sure he'll hear it all enough times to be sick of it. Is this the new lad that Dallen called for help in fetching?” She nodded at Mags, and a graying blond curl escaped from her hood at her temple.

Jakyr's expression went very stony. “Aye, Lita, it is. Now, if you don't mind, I've—”

“You've got to take him off to Caelen, and then you have urgent business to be off on,” she interrupted him, with just a touch of waspishness. “Which was precisely what you always have. Lots of urgent business taking you elsewhere, and none of it keeping you
here.
Which is why you are in that saddle and your bed is narrow and cold. Nah, be off with you on your urgent business!” she continued, as Jakyr's expression went from stony to stunned. “I'll take the boy to Caelen. You fair can't wait to shake the last of Haven dust from your feet, so be about it. It'd be a sad day when a Bard can't extend a bit of courtesy to a new Trainee.”

As Jakyr sat there, looking very much as if he could not make up his mind between going or staying, she added, “You think I'll eat him? You think the leader of the Bardic Circle can't be trusted to take one Trainee from here to Caelen's office?”

That made up Jakyr's mind for him. “Thanks, Lita,” he managed, as if he was strangling on the words. “I really do have—”

“Urgent business, aye, I know,” the woman sighed. “Go, and wind at your back. I'll not wish you ill, no matter what our differences.”

There was no other word to describe Jakyr's abrupt departure but “fled.” And when he was out of sight—which happened so quickly that Mags suspected he had deliberately chosen the route that would put buildings and trees between them the soonest, the woman looked at Dallen. “Well met, Dallen,” she said, reaching out and giving the Companion a friendly pat on the neck. “So you finally got you a Chosen?”

Dallen nodded. She smiled, and then looked up at Mags. “And what would your name be, then, lad?”

“Mags.” He stared down at her, feeling rather dumbfounded. Whatever had just happened here left him entirely in the dark.

“Don't mind Jak. He and I have some history betwixt us.” She sighed. “Not always good history, especially toward the
parting
end of it. And now I can't help myself. Whenever I see him, I goad him.” She shook her head. “Come along, we'll turn Dallen over to his minders and get you in the hands of yours.” She turned and headed up a stone-bordered, well-swept path, without looking back to see if he was going to come along.

Feeling rather as if all control of everything had been snatched out of his hands, Mags dismounted and followed.

M
AGS sat gingerly on the edge of a short wooden bench. Gingerly, on the edge, because the rest of the bench was taken up with a huge pile of books with a pillow balanced inexplicably on top. It was, however, the only available seat in Herald Caelen's office, as the rest of the room was also taken up with books. Herald Caelen's small desk, however, was immaculately clean, and the blocklike fellow gazed at the piles of books with distaste. Mags immediately got the sense that Herald Caelen had not put those books there himself, and the man's words confirmed that. “I don't know why
my
office should be the repository of every book that the librarian thinks is too valuable to keep in the library,” he said, aggrieved. “When it was only one or two, or even a dozen, I didn't mind . . . or at least, I didn't mind that much.” He shook his head. “My own fault. I'll deal with it. Now—you would be Dallen's new Chosen, according to Merlita—I didn't get your name? No, wait a moment—” He opened a drawer, pulled out a sheaf of paper, and leafed through it quickly. “Ah, yes. Mags. Just Mags. Mixed up in that business with the mine. Well, let's see . . .” He read some more. Mags tried not to squirm; his natural inclination at the moment would have been to make himself as unobtrusive as possible; Dallen had to keep reminding him that he was not in trouble, and that Herald Caelen might have his feelings hurt if Mags tried to hide from him. “Hmm. Hmm.” He looked up again, and Mags held himself very still; not quite the paralysis of fear, but not far from it. “You've probably gathered that we are chronically short of room. And, in fact, there
is
no room. I haven't got a bed to put you in. And if you were from some other background, I would never ask you to do this—but would you be willing to sleep in the Companions' stables? Not in a stall or anything of that sort,” the Herald added hastily. “There are some perfectly good rooms, with heating that makes them as cozy and warm as anything in this building and as clean and all, that the stableboys use. But it
is
the stable—”

Mags blinked. Here he was, someone who had, a few weeks ago, been sleeping in a hole under a barn floor—and this man was asking if he
minded
sleeping in a bed, in a warm room, just because it was in a stable. “Be fine, sir,” he said, in a voice just above a whisper.