Valdemar 03 - [Collegium 01] - Foundation (28 page)

And that game was
fun.
He was not the best at it, but he was not the worst by any means, it stretched his observational ability and his deductive reasoning, and it was
fun.
Lydia's stories were
fun
, too.

Master Soren did not serve regular meals at this ‘'open house,” preferring instead to have tables spread with food that was constantly renewed over the course of the afternoon and evening, rather like what was being done up at the Collegia right now. Except, of course, that the food on these tables was a cut or more above that which was being put out for the workmen and those few Trainees, Heralds, Bards, and Healers that were still here instead of going home or had not made other arrangements. Mags hardly ate anything at the Collegia now, knowing what was waiting for him when he got to Master Soren's place.

There were roast fowl, for instance, brought there so fresh from the roasting oven that their skins were crackling and still sweating golden droplets of fat—roasts of beef and pork—entire hams. These would have been perfectly delicious had they stood there long enough to grow cold, but there were so many people in and out that they never got a chance to drop below “warm.”

There were plenty of breads of many kinds—the usual wheat loaves that Mags was used to, barley bread that was utterly unlike what had been served at the mine, pungent rye bread, golden egg bread, hard-crusted rolls covered in seeds, sweet bread almost as tasty as pastry.

And then there was the cheese. Mags was used to seeing two or three kinds of cheese at a time up at the Collegia (if one could say that someone who had been starved most of his life could ever “get used” to such a thing)—Master Soren served a dozen or more. And, oh, those cheeses! Mild white ones. Sharp yellow ones. Smoked cheese. Pungent cheese with veins of blue running through it. Cheese that crumbled at a touch that was meant to be sprinkled over things. Hard cheese grated and also meant to be sprinkled on things. Soft cheese meant to be spread on bread . . .

Mags loved cheese. This was heaven.

Then there were several kinds of sausage. Sliced thin hard sausage, meant to be eaten cold. Tiny sausages kept warm over candles. Sausage stuffed in pastry. Sausage on skewers with vegetables, and ground sausage stuffed into other good things.

And there were dozens of other tidbits, whole trays that got rotated out as they emptied or grew cold. Vegetables rendered into crunchy little snacks. Tiny meat pies, equally tiny egg pies. Hard boiled eggs and eggs in crust.

Then there were the sweets, an entire table of pastry alone. Cookies, tiny pies and tarts. Tiny cakes, some iced, some stuffed with candied fruits, some so rich they didn't need anything. Candied nuts, fondant balls flavored with spices, little jellies, and syrups poured over clean snow.

The drinks were just as plentiful, although none were terribly strong. Dallen had told him that very strong drink was a hallmark of some of these Midwinter parties, as was the associated intoxication. Mags was just as happy about that; when the Pieters men got drunk, things always turned out . . . ugly. Master Soren's table was meant for tasting, not gulping. There was beer and ale, mulled wine and cider, hot tea of many sorts.

What the guests didn't eat, Mags came to discover after the third day, was gathered up thriftily and delivered at the back to priests of a charitable order who in turn delivered it to the poor. Even the bones and scraps were gathered up and sent off to make soup. Master Soren had strong feelings about waste, and equally strong feelings about the obligations of those who had means to those who did not.

Small wonder he had covertly allied himself with the King's Own.

In any event, Mags was not going hungry by any stretch of the imagination, although he was missing two of the three meals served at the Collegia. In fact, Lydia had discovered a few of his favorite things and made sure that when he left to go back up the hill, he had a little basket made up with them “just in case you get hungry studying tonight.” Which was a great kindness, since he
did
study nearly every night, and did get hungry doing so. It seemed as if studying was as much work as the physical practice he was doing.

Even then, when he was done studying, his day still wasn't over. When he was ready to close his books, he would let Dallen know that he was finished for the evening. And not long after that, Herald Nikolas would slip into the stable and take up yet another sort of lesson with him.

These were lessons in how to be unobtrusive, and in how to observe. Interestingly enough, the lessons in “how to be unobtrusive” were not always about being quiet. He was learning how to gauge the mood of people around him, what Nikolas called “reading the room,” and when being somewhat boisterous would be more useful, how to counterfeit looking careless, devil-may-care, and utterly oblivious to what was going on around him.

He was hardly the master of any of this, of course. These were like the beginning lessons in weapons work, except this was nothing he had a special aptitude for. So it was going slowly. On the other hand . . . Herald Nikolas appeared to feel that he was progressing well.

“I hope ye ain't disappointed in me, sir,” Mags sighed one night, after repeated attempts to look as if he was more interested in examining a broom (standing in for a young lady) than his “target” had repeatedly failed.

“Not even close,” Herald Nikolas replied, with a ghost of a smile. “You are no worse and no better at this than I was when I started. It is very easy to get one noticed; it is a lot harder to remain unnoticed. And you don't have to be perfect at this for a good long time. Right now, most people overlook you because you are a mere Trainee, a callow youth, because your accent and way of speaking give you away as poor and rural, and because you are inoffensive looking.” He smiled slightly. “I hope you take no offense at this, but in short, you are no threat at all—in fact, you are beneath the notice of most people.”

Mags nodded. He pretty much had counted on all of that to keep him out of trouble since he had gotten here. “Sir, what about m' Gift? You 'spect that I use that, too?”

That . . . troubled him. It seemed like a terrible invasion. And yet, it might be the only way to learn if someone was wearing a mask over his true thoughts.

“Sit down, Mags. I expected you would ask me this sooner or later.” Mags sat down on one side of the table he used to study and eat on; the Herald sat down opposite him. Nikolas drummed his fingers on the table a moment, then scratched his upper lip with his index finger. “That is an interesting ethical question. The answer is ‘sometimes.' Using Mindspeech in that way is intrusive, and you are essentially forcing other people to allow you to see what they do not want you to see. Or, if you wished to use that Gift for misdirection, you would be forcing them to see what
you
want them to see. From there it is a short step to forcing other things on them. On the other hand . . . if you should happen to be in a room full of potential enemies, and you know that they are dangerous to you—and I mean physically dangerous—you would be foolish not to use your Gift.”

“So—” Mags began. Nikolas interrupted him with one of his rare smiles.

“For right now, unless something changes drastically, the answer is ‘no, it would be wrong.' ” The right side of his mouth quirked up in a rueful smile. “I will make a point of speaking with Herald Caelen about some more lessons I would like you to have—specifically, one which will be less a class and more a series of ethical puzzles.”

Mags scratched his head. “Not sure I follow—what's a ethical puzzle?” He knew about puzzles, of course, and riddles. Those were games; he had been introduced to riddle games by his new friends. But why would you take a class in such things?

Nikolas chuckled. “Questions like you just asked me. Ethics—that is the slippery side of ‘right and wrong.' Some things are very obvious, but some aren't—like when it is ethical to use your particular Gift. You are by no means the first youngling to be concerned with this sort of thing. Normally, Bards and Healers take these classes—they are confronted with the need to make ethical decisions about how to use their Gifts all the time. The Bardic Gift, for instance, is the ability to use music to influence people, make them understand or feel the song you are playing. And that can be a good thing; it causes your audience to connect with you and with the music. But if you use it to influence someone
outside
of that music—well, your result as well as your intention must be very pure indeed. So we require
all
Bards with the Gift to take this class.”

Mags' brow wrinkled. “But wouldn' that make me stand out? Thought we didn' wanta do that.”

Nikolas nodded. “That is correct—but anyone with Mindspeech as strong as yours should attend these exercises, too. There will probably be at least one other Heraldic Trainee there, and maybe more, depending on whose Mindspeech is looking strong enough to need something like this. We can't disguise the strength of your Gift, since nearly everyone that is a Herald is already aware of it. The very best thing we can do, in fact, is to make it very clear that
you
are strongly aware of how it can be used and misused. And after that—we trust the Companions. As long as the Companions are sure you are still trustworthy, then you should be treated as such by every Herald, at least.” He sighed. “Even if some of us are convinced that the rest of us are so wrongheaded about the founding of Heralds' Collegium that we should have our ears boxed.”

Mags looked at him soberly, very much troubled. “Sir—there be
that
many Heralds bein' at odds with each other? With what's happenin'?”

Nikolas closed his eyes as if in pain and pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. “That is just the problem, you see.
I don't know.
Some of them have very vocally come up and told me off to my face, but others . . . there are surely others festering in silence. And I would not care about dissent if I knew that it would result in healthy dialogue. I do not in the least mind a good argument, and I think the mere fact that the Companions are in favor of this idea should weigh heavily with those who are in dissent and will eventually sway everyone. But it is possible that some of them may be used by other people whose motives are anything but pure. We Heralds don't know everything, our Companions don't know everything, and very clever people who are good at manipulation can use peoples' resentment against them, and against the rest of us. I'm not out to expose or expel anyone, Mags. I just want to keep an eye on the people
around
them, so I can, I hope, head off any dangers.”

He hates this,
Mags realized and, obscurely, that made him feel better.

Then Nikolas looked up and smiled wanly. “And hopefully this will all prove to be the workings of my overstrained imagination and my tendency to worry about everything.”

Mags nodded somberly. “Hope so, sir.”

“Now, let's try that exercise again. . . .”

THE days of the holiday flew by. What he had thought were going to be empty and lonely times turned out to be neither. When Herald Jakyr did not appear until Midwinter's Eve, Mags had actually forgotten he was supposed to come at all, and his arrival came as something of a surprise.

For once, the salle was empty. The mercenaries, so the rumor at breakfast said, had gotten into a drinking contest down in a tavern in the city. They had won—barely—but two workmen who had seen them brought back up again in a hired wagon told everyone within earshot that it was unlikely they would be moving swiftly this morning. If at all. From the condition they had been in, and the fact that they were brought up just at dawn, well, the workmen were taking bets on whether they would be seen in public at all that day.

So Mags had the salle all to himself, which he rather liked. He'd been able to set up an archery target inside, something he rarely had a chance to do, which was a vast improvement over standing in the snow to shoot. When he had shot his required fifty arrows, and had decided that throwing knives at his current skill level was going to be hazardous to the big glass mirrors, he switched to simple exercises to round out the workout. He was working out against the pells alone when he heard someone enter the salle. He didn't look up, however, until he heard a familiar voice say, “Fancy trying your skill against me, youngling?”

And then he whipped his head around and grinned with delight. “Herald Jakyr! I—”

What he was about to say was
I forgot all about you coming,
but fortunately he stopped himself. That would be—very impolite. Jakyr weighed a practiced blade in one hand and said, with a look of embarrassment touched with a bit of apprehension, “I know you were expecting me, but I was detained. And I can't stay—”

“Well, you come at last, so I c'n give ye my little somethin'!” Mags replied happily, resolutely tightening his shields against Jakyr's thoughts. He didn't want to know what the man was thinking . . . but guilt gave them such force that a little of it leaked through anyway.
. . . not someone else, clinging to me, strangling me . . .

“Little something? Mags, you didn't get me a Midwinter Gift—” Jakyr betrayed more apprehension, although if he hadn't been getting those lessons from the King's Own, Mags probably wouldn't have seen it. “That is really unnecessary.”

“Come on, 's just a bit of nonsense, but Dallen said ye might like it.” He put up his practice blade and headed for the door, and Jakyr had perforce to follow. “I was makin' stuff for m' friends for Midwinter, 'cause Dallen said 'twas the thing to do, an' he reckoned ye'd like these. I got two good friends who are Trainees—ye'd laugh t' see us—one's Healer, one's Bard.” He chattered on about Bear and Lena, and watched Jakyr's tension slowly ease, in the set of his hunched shoulders that straightened, and in the uncreasing of his brow. So. Jakyr probably had delayed his arrival because he had been afraid that Mags was going to be . . . needy. He had assumed he would be the only “friend” Mags had.