“Huh,” said Mags.
They went out, leaving the poor man to his horde of invisible tormentors.
12
T
HE moment Mags woke up, he knew by the sinking feeling in his chest that there was trouble, and it was aimed at him. Again. And once he knew that, he could feel it all over again, that pressure of unfriendly, accusatory regard out there.
:Wha’ happened whiles I was asleep?:
he asked Dallen immediately. He squeezed his eyes closed, forcing down the nausea that this called up in him. Dear gods, he hated, hated this. In a way it was worse than anything he’d endured at the mine. There, at least, no one had actually hated him.
:The damned Foreseers had more of their visions,:
Dallen replied with disgust.
:Still just as vague, except that one of them said he saw you, specifically, with your hands covered in blood, and nothing but you. And it was someone who’d come to see the Kirball game and knows what you look like, so we can’t wonder if it is a case of mistaken identity. So it’s all to do all over again.:
Mags tightened his jaw.
:Dammit.:
He felt his spirits sinking lower, felt that certainty that it just wasn’t even worth getting out of bed anymore.
:Knew it couldn’ last.:
Maybe what he ought to do is just give in to the depression and curl up in bed and never get out again.
:That’s all right, we’ll weather this. Just do as you did before. Keep quiet and stick with the team. They all know you, better than anyone but me. You can do this, Mags, don’t let these fools make you give up. As long as your team is around you, no one will do or probably even say anything.:
If Dallen was picking up on his despair, the Companion wasn’t actually addressing it directly.
:But they’ll think it,:
Mags replied, the nausea, the ache, all coming back.
:An’ they’ll talk about it behind m’ back.:
He got the sense that Dallen would like to help, but had no idea how to. It was the same old thing all over again, with the difference that this time he’d been “seen” with blood on his hands. Blood on his hands? Was it a metaphor? If it was, then in a sense every Herald had or would have blood on his hands. They were often responsible for life and death decisions. Their judgments condemned people. What they uncovered condemned people. Messages they carried condemned people.
And of course, they fought in battles alongside the Guard. That, after all, was what Kirball was about, preparation for war. So all Heralds would have blood on their hands, eventually.
For that matter, he’d already been responsible for people dying. There were the murdered mine kids he hadn’t been able to prove were even dead. And most of all there was that crazy killer that had kidnapped Bear. That man was dead literally at his hands. Who was to say that this so-called vision wasn’t about the past rather than about the future?
It was so unfair.
For a long, long time he contemplated the idea of just not bothering anymore, of turning his face to the wall and telling the whole world to hang.
But . . . Dallen wouldn’t let him. And anyway, if he just sank into depression and gave up, what would that do to Dallen? That would pile being unfair to the one creature that had always been good to him on top of the general unfairness of the universe.
He dragged himself out of bed reluctantly, and prepared to face the ordeal of breakfast.
It was not quite the ordeal it had been the first time all those wretched Foreseers had spread their stories, since the Trainees of his team had already gotten wind of what was up, and had filled in the others as they waited for Mags. But once again, he was getting the suspicious looks, and once again, certain folk who were dubious of anything that was not Valdemaran were allowing their prejudices free range.
How stupid was that? Why should where your parents came from have anything to do with whether you were a good or a bad person? Especially when you couldn’t even remember them?
Unfairness piled on top of unfairness.
He managed to get through the day, unconsciously taking that hunched-over, defensive, hunted posture the whole time. He didn’t even realize what he was doing until he straightened up for Kirball practice and felt his muscles unkink. But that didn’t stop his mind from sending his body right into that same posture again once practice was over.
Over the next two days, things remained the same, with the same waking-to-sleeping tension. The only good thing was that the weather was warming up enough that when he wasn’t in class or at practice, he could study out of doors. So that was where he took his books and stayed until there wasn’t enough light to read by, hidden in some little cluster of bushes in Companion’s Field. That kept him out of his room in the stable, where he would sense the thoughts of everyone who came near the stable.
It was very peaceful out there. Any sounds from the Palace and Collegia were muffled, any spilled-over thoughts too distant to bother him.
Actually, it was more than peaceful—even though it was a bit lonely. Still, he’d always been lonely, and only during the past half-year had he been anything but lonely. You just didn’t make friends at the mine. Even the kiddies he’d sporadically helped hadn’t been friends.
As he packed up his books to go back to his room and try to sleep, he thought about that. This time last year, he was at the mine. He remembered very well how he had welcomed the warmth after the killing cold, and welcomed other things too—because spring meant all sorts of things were edible that were not, later. And if you could get away into some of the forest around the mine and you knew what to look for, you could find them.
Strange how last spring he had been as close as he ever got at the mine to being happy. But he’d had a belly full of greens almost every night, and back at the mine, a full belly meant you were happy. Lion’s-tooth was sweet when it first came up, not bitter, and it was one of the heartiest weeds there was, so there was a lot of it. Cattail root was delicious, but impossible to harvest in the winter unless you wanted your feet frozen solid, and you had to be sure you were getting it, and not water iris, which was poisonous. There were tiny wild onions too, mushrooms (though you had to be careful of those as well), sorrel, the tips of birch twigs, brooklime, clover, cow-pea, mustard, violets, pigweed, sow-thistle, jewel-weed, shepherd’s purse, pokeberry, plaintain, knotweed, and very young nettles. There were other things you could eat if they were cooked, but how could any of the mine-slaves get a fire, much less a pot? So they had to confine themselves to what could be eaten raw.
With so many years of mine workers foraging nearby, there were no berries within a reasonable distance of the mine, and the most obviously edible things were also long ago grubbed up and eaten. But if you knew what you were looking for and you were prepared to graze like a goose, spring was the one season when you could actually go to sleep with a full belly if you could slip away for a while.
Now, this spring, he could sleep with a full belly every night—if only his belly wasn’t so knotted up with tension that it was hard to eat anything at all. Such irony.
As one day turned into another, he found the Field to be his new sanctuary, safer even than his room or the Heraldic Archives.
As he would sit studying, sometimes his attention would be taken by one of the things he would immediately have pounced on and devoured this time last year, and he was reminded that no matter how uncomfortable things were, they were so much better than they could have been. He might not have survived this past winter. Even if he had, right now he would have been half starved, always tired, always afraid.
But it was hard, very hard, to try to keep his spirits up. The constant weight of unfriendly regard on him wore his spirit down.
It was harder still to have to come to meals and the occasional study session with Bear, and see poor Lena. Lena had gone from bright and happy—even if her happiness had a false cause, it was real happiness—to crushed and bewildered.
That first little “informal concert” had been the last that Mags had been invited to. And, he supposed, the last that Lena had been invited to participate in. With the dark stories in the wind again, Bard Marchand had pulled back from Mags abruptly, not even acknowledging that he knew the Trainee if they happened to cross paths. And that meant Lena was no longer of any use to him. She didn’t say anything, but Mags could tell, by the way she drooped and looked forlorn, that her father had once again abandoned her as well as Mags.
He actually felt worse for her than he did for himself.
He wouldn’t have said anything to Lena about it, though, but Bear brought it up. Actually, Bear brought it up several times and finally, one night, wouldn’t let go, asking her “What’s wrong?” until she finally answered.
“I never see Father anymore,” she said unhappily. “I don’t know why, or what I did to offend him but I never see him at all now, and he doesn’t reply to my notes.”
And again, Mags wouldn’t have said anything, but Bear had evidently had enough of this. He got that stubborn look on his face, pushed his lenses up on his nose with one finger, and leaned over the table.
“He won’t see you because Mags is in people’s bad books again, and therefore, Mags isn’t on the list of people he looks good knowing,” Bear said, bluntly. “All he ever wanted was to meet up with Mags and make it look as if Mags was a friend of his. You were nothing more than his way to get to Mags easily. He just doesn’t care about you, Lena; all he ever cared was that everyone would know that he knew the Kirball star and the hero of the hour, because he collects people like that just to get an advantage.”
Lena turned shocked eyes on him. “How—why would you say such a thing?” she cried, looking as if she was about to cry. “Father never—Father wouldn’t—he’s a famous Bard, why would he do something like that?”
Mags sighed. He couldn’t leave Bear to take this one alone. “He’s sayin’ it ’cause it’s true,” he said. “Nobody wanted t’ tell ye, but thet’s what he’s like.”
Lena looked from him, to Bear, and back again, stricken dumb.
“Lena, what has he ever done for you, for your family, besides remind them once a year how lucky they are that he married into your house?” Bear urged. “Where does his money come from? Your family, and whatever gifts he gets from his patrons. Does he ever send any of that back? No. Who got you your first music lessons? Him? No. Your ma. Who saw to it that a Bard heard you play and sing so you could get sent here, him? You’d think that would be natural, wouldn’t you, once he found out you were a musician? But no. It wasn’t him, it was your grandpa, you told us that yourself. Had he ever heard you sing and play before you got here? No.”
“Did ’e even recognize ye when ’e sent me off on that errant?” Mags added softly. “Not thet I noticed. In fact, you was pretty upset ’bout it at th’ time, an fer a goodly while after. I’ fact, you was upset ’bout it right up till he started payin’ ’tention to ye. Aye?”
Bear took Lena gently by the shoulders and shook her a little. “Lena, think. Think about it. Haven’t you felt him using the Gift on you a little, and using his personality on you a lot, to get you to forget all that? Haven’t you felt him pressing you to worship him the way Amily worships her pa?” He didn’t let her answer; he looked at Mags instead.
:Tell her I have,:
Dallen said sadly.
:Of course, that is unethical, but he used his Gift so little that he could always claim he didn’t realize he was doing it because he wanted his daughter’s regard back. And he would probably be believed.:
“Dallen says he has,” Mags told her. “ ’Cept, of course, Amily’s pa deserves thet sorta worship, aye? Ye jest have’ta see ’im with her, how much he takes care’a her, how he makes sure she’s all right afore he goes an’ does things. Mebbe he gotta think’a Valdemar an’ th’ King first, but he makes sure someone is lookin’ out fer Amily. Like Master Soren an’ Lydia. Yer pa? He ever make sure ye got so much as a spare harpstring? He ain’t done nothin’ t’ deserve nothin’ from ye, if ye was t’ ask me. He never done nothin’ t’ get ye here, an’ aside of that one concert, never done nothing for ye when ye got here. Never made sure you was all right. Never made sure there was someone t’ watch out fer ye.”
“You have the Gift too, Lena,” Bear urged. “Use it! Shake off what he did to you and see him!”
A hundred emotions, all negative ones, chased themselves across Lena’s face—and then her face crumpled, she buried it in her hands, and sobbed.
“I thought he loved me!” she wept into her hands. “I thought he finally loved me.”
Both Bear and Mags made a move to hold her; Mags pulled back and gestured to Bear to comfort her. Pushing his lenses up on his nose, he pulled her into his shoulder and let her sob.
“One day someone is going to not get charmed and beat the stuffing out of him,” Bear said, in a growl. “And the sooner that day comes, the better. But let me tell you something, Lena. One day, when people say ‘Bard Marchand,’ it will be you they are thinking about and not him. And one day, when someone says ‘Tobias Marchand,’ others will wrinkle their foreheads and say, ‘Don’t you mean Lena?’ and they’ll have to be reminded that Tobias happened to be the father of the really, truly famous Bard Marchand.”