“I wouldn’t say you needed to lose weight.”
Mags grinned a little and shrugged. “Kirball fer m’team is right after noon.”
“Ah!” Bear nodded back. “In that case, you’re doing the right thing. You could get really sick if you ate like you usually do, then went out to practice. I don’t think you’d impress anyone by losing your lunch suddenly.”
Mags shrugged. “Happen ye learn a mite or two ’bout eatin’ when ye ain’t got a lot t’ eat.” He turned his attention fully on Bear, for something about his friend did not seem quite right. “Happen I ain’t been payin’ much heed t’ friends lately . . . Bear, ye seem a bit fashet. Ye been frettin’ bout somethin’?”
Bear looked uncomfortable and actually squirmed a little in his seat. “It’s nothing,” he said starting to stuff a huge bite of cooked greens into his mouth. Mags kept looking at him steadily.
Bear shoveled three more bites in, pretending to ignore the stare. But then he stopped, and put the fork down, and sighed. “You’ve got no idea how lucky you are to be an orphan.”
Mags froze with the spoon halfway into his mouth. It felt like his mind was stuck in mud for a moment, because he could not imagine why Bear would have said anything like that. Finally he ate the soup, then put the spoon in the bowl. “Ye got any notion how crazy that sounds?” he asked.
Bear grimaced. “Very. But Lena’s not the only one with parents that . . .”
Mags waited. When Bear didn’t finish the sentence, he prodded. “What, I know they’re all Healers, be they pretendin’ ye don’t exist cause ye got no Gift?” He snorted. “The more fools them.”
Bear looked sick. “It’s worse than that. We got into it over the holiday—or rather, they all sat and lectured me, one at a time, and then all together. They think I don’t belong here, ‘taking up a space that a real Healing Trainee could use.’ They think if I were to leave here, someone from the provinces would get an open place. They won’t understand that it doesn’t work that way anymore, that anyone who can come here and be spared at home is free to come. They just refuse to believe that. They want me to pack up and come home and marry some . . .” he made a flailing gesture with his hands. “ . . . some neighbor girl I supposedly used to play with that I don’t even remember, so that I can maybe breed some children that will have the Gift.”
Mags felt his jaw dropping. “Where—what—” He got control of himself again, but he felt a little as if Bear had suddenly announced he was going to become an Artificer.
“The Dean of Healers is stalling them. I mean, they can’t exactly come up here and pull me out of the Collegium by the hair. They’d have to have my consent to come home. But . . .” Now Bear looked even sicker. “Here’s the thing. I’m not sure they’re wrong.”
Mags felt his jaw unhinge. “Now
you
are th’ one sayin’ crazy stuff.”
“No but look—most of what I do is with herbs. They generally won’t let someone without a Gift do any cutting, because someone without a Gift can’t See what they’re doing and where they’re going. So I probably won’t be learning surgery. I can set bones, sure, but someone with a Gift can do it better. So that leaves just the herbs. And what good is that here?” Bear’s face was bleak. “I can help a little, and I can take care of people who for one reason or another refuse to let a real Healer touch them, or the few people that Healing Mindmagic doesn’t work on. That’s all I can do, and I’m not sure I’m not wasting space. Maybe I’d be better going home and treating animals. Nobody would mind if I did surgery on them, and there just aren’t many animal Healers.”
“Didn’ you even lissen t’ Amily?” he asked, aghast. “She said ye had a Gift, an’ don’t ye think she’s right?”
“Of course she would say that,” Bear said bitterly. “She’s the ungifted crippled daughter of the King’s Own who has never been Chosen. She has to believe that people without Gifts are just as effective as those with them, or her own life would be unbearable.”
Mags had never heard Bear talk like this before, and he was somewhat at a loss for what to say. He felt a little sick, and a little like crying. Bear was so clever, and so kind, that to see him in this state made him want to jump up and do something right now, and of course there was nothing that he could do.
“Well, I got a Gift, an’ a Companion, an’ I say ye got a Gift,” he replied after a while, and laid his hand cautiously on Bear’s shoulder. “What’s more, I bet if’n ye ask the Senior Healers over there, they’d be tellin’ ye the same.”
Bear smiled wanly. “Thanks, Mags.” He stirred his cooling greens, gazing broodingly down at them. “Oh, what was in that note you left me the other night? I haven’t had a chance to talk to Lena, and I spilled a decoction all over it and it’s illegible.”
Glad to change the subject, Mags told him what he had uncovered in the Archives. “So all I know now is, I’m a furriner.”
He hadn’t made any effort to keep his voice down, although it wasn’t as if he had any great secret to hide. But suddenly he noticed that he was getting odd glances from everyone within range of the sound of his voice.
And Bear’s expression changed again, this time to wary. He hunched his shoulders and glanced furtively from side to side. “Aw hellfires, Mags, did you have to say that out loud?” he whispered.
“Uh . . .” Mags blinked. “There a prollem?”
Bear groaned. “Don’t you ever listen to any gossip? It’s all over the Collegia and the Court too.”
Mags shook his head. “Ain’t like I ever talk t’ too many people,” he pointed out. “An’ I been pretty busy past few days. Why?”
Bear carefully removed his lenses and polished them with his sleeve. “Because this morning a lot of the Foreseers got visions. They saw the King covered in blood, a shadowy figure next to him, and the sense that someone had tried to kill the King and the feeling that the shadowy figure was foreign born. Which . . . you are. And the feeling is that only someone known to the King or otherwise vouched for could get that close to him. It’s not as if he’s ever unguarded, and he’s a damn fine fighter on his own merits. So there’s been a lot of speculation about who could be foreign-born and be able to get to him, and there’s not a lot of people around that match those two things.”
Mags blinked, and felt something very odd. Resentment. And some anger, but he didn’t often feel resentment. “Well . . . that don’t make no sense!” he said indignantly. “They got somethin’ bad, the King in danger, an’ someun’ furriner an’ they know ’xactly that, an’ nothin’ else! Ain’t nobody got no brains ’round here? Mebbe the furriner’s there ’cause he came t’ help! Maybe the furriner’s there by accident! Mebbe nobody knows this feller is a furriner yet! Ain’t ’nough in that vision t’ make any kinda good guess ’bout what’s gonna happen, ’cept that the King’s prolly got an enemy, an’ when ain’t he got an enemy?”
Bear waved his hands at Mags deprecatingly. “Hey, I wasn’t the one leaping to conclusions, all right? But you know how some people are.”
Mags thought back to the Herald that had leapt to the conclusion that because he lived in the stable he was out there up to no good. Presumably with girls. Or liquor. Or both. Or worse things. “Aye,” he growled. “Well. I’d sooner cut off me own hand an’ bleed t’ death than harm the King, an’ there’s an end to it! If’n ye cain’t trust summun that’s been Chosen, then ye might as well take ’way the Whites and turn all th’ Heralds out. Right?”
He looked around defiantly at the people who were giving him sideways glances, and most of them looked away, flushing with guilt. A couple gave him nods of sympathy—but a couple of them gazed back at him with clenched jaws.
Great. Just fantastic.
:There have always been people like that here, Chosen. Idiots who can’t even accept the judgment of a Companion, including some Heralds, who really should know better.:
Dallen’s mind-voice was soothing.
:We just have to deal with them as we always have..:
Mags’ only reply was a wordless growl of frustration. Bad enough that he already felt deep down that he didn’t really belong here, but to have to deal with other people who felt the same? Unfair.
Then again, when was life fair? Ever?
“It’d be nice if some people’d think wi’ their heads, ’stead uv some other parts,” he muttered.
“If they did, the Healers would get a lot less work,” Bear replied, with a tentative smile.
“Aye t’that.” Mags sighed. “Well, reckon I gotta muddle ’long. An’ I got practice. Hope we kin keep from brainin’ each other.”
Bear pulled a long face. “So do I.”
Mags left his packet of food in his room. He reckoned he might just as well go down to the Kirball field armored up again; the worst that would happen would be that Setham would tell him to take it off.
So with Dallen saddled with his working saddle, he hoisted himself and his added burden up into place, and they trotted down to the playing field with Bear’s unwelcome news shoved firmly into the back of his mind.
And certainly when he got there, it didn’t appear that anyone else had heard the stories—or if they had, they certainly didn’t seem to care.
Foremost in their minds seemed to be the number of bumps and knocks they had taken yesterday, for they were arrayed in as motley an assortment of makeshift “armoring” as Mags had ever imagined.
“Corwin, you look like you robbed your mother’s kitchen,” said one of the foot-players, laughing.
“Very near did,” said the afore-mentioned Corwin, who was all but invisible behind all the stuff he had strapped to himself. “Half of this’s stovepipe. T’other half’s old bits of carpet. Thought of taking a pot for me head, but found a helm I could bang the dents out of.”
“Great Kernos!” excleaimed Setham, as he approached with someone in tow. “You all have been . . . creative.”
“That’s being generous, sir,” Gennie laughed.
“Well this is all rather interesting, because besides our first practice, I was going to get your help in designing what will be our specialized armor.” Setham nodded at the solemn-faced young man that was with him. “My friend here will draw it up for me, I’ll consult with the other coaches, who are doing the same, and we’ll have the armor made up before the first match.” He peered at Corwin’s helm. “That miserable excuse for a helm—is that Karsite?”
“Aye sir, I think ’tis,” Corwin replied. “Found it at a stall in the market.”
“Well get one from the armory; those Karsite buckets are notorious. A baby could dent it, and a good hard blow will crack your skull right through it.”
By this point, a cart had lumbered up, laden with what looked like the cast-offs and discards from the Guard armory. At least, it was all in dark blue and flaking silver.
“If you haven’t ferreted out your own, or want to replace something, rummage through that,” Setham said, waving a hand at it. “We can wait.”
Corwin was first at the wagon, probably being very eager to replace his bits of stovepipe with something less makeshift.
When everyone was suited up, Setham went over the rules for the game again. “Now, obviously, since you foot-players are less mobile, you’ll be guarding the goal, both the flag and the ‘castle,’ ” Setham said. “But don’t think you will be confined to that by the rules. If there is a way for one of you to get a ball in the other castle or steal the flag, then your Captain will suggest it and you should try it. We decided to make the only rules of this game about safety. So no pulling a rider out of the saddle for now—although as you get better, that actually will be allowed. Riders, no running the foot-players down. That will never be allowed, because we can’t trust the ordinary horses to do it safely.”
They all nodded. Of course.
Nobody follows no rules in a battle
, Mags thought.
An’ this’s battle-trainin’
.
The rest of the practice session was confined to some very simple exercises with an end toward making them a team and getting them used to working with each other. Setham seemed satisfied. There was a lot of ball passing: Gray to Gray, Gray to Rider, Gray to Foot, Rider to Rider, Rider to Foot, Foot to Foot. There was a lot of goal blocking, first by just the Foot, then by the Riders, then by the Grays. Mags was kept busy “shouting” Gennie’s directions into the heads of the UnGifted, though he quickly discovered that everyone reacted faster when he showed them a picture than when he used words. Useful, that. It was faster for Gennie to send a picture to him, and easier for him to send a picture out.
When they were dismissed, however, Mags was not done with the team. He approached young Jeffers, still on Dallen, before the latter could ride back into Haven. “Reckon ye still wanta learn weaponry?” he asked diffidently. “I made some ’rrangements, if ye do.”
Jeffers’ eyes lit up, and his tired horse even raised his head, as if sensing his rider’s excitement.
Mags held up a cautioning hand. “Got t’ warn ye. Gonna be tedious fer a goodly while. But I got t’ thinkin and I asked Weaponsmaster if he could be workin’ out exercises ye kin pass off as Kirball stuff, that’ll strengthen ye up i’ the right way for weapons, an’ ’e showed me some. This’s all stuff ye kin set up t’ do when ye’re at home. So e’en though ye ain’t actually practicin’ with sword or whatnot, ye’ll be practicin’ fer ’em at home.” He scratched his head. “Happen ye kin practice a-horse too, which ain’t a bad thing. Yon cob of your’n is steady ’nough in Kirball so far, he’ll be steady ’nough right off in this stuff.”