Valdemar 03 - [Collegium 01] - Foundation (25 page)

Mags waved the card to be sure that it was dry, and tucked it safely away. “I 'spect I'll have t' get permission,” he said, feeling a great interest in seeing this ‘'open house.”

Soren nodded. “And I expect that will be no difficulty for you. All right, Trainee Mags,” he said, standing up and offering his hand. “It has been a very great pleasure to be in your company, and thank you for the timely intervention—”

“Jes' a moment, Master Soren,” he interrupted, suddenly thinking of something. “Kin I see th' ring again?”

With an odd glance, Soren obliged him. Using a ray of sunlight that the windows were inadvertently concentrating, he turned the stone this way and that, peering at the flaw. Finally, he turned the ring upside down and looked at it from the back.

“Ha!” he exclaimed. “Lookit yon. She looks like a bird, flyin'. That there makes it more satisfyin', eh? Still a flaw, but now turns into an asset kind of flaw.”

“A bird?” Soren leaned closer, peering at the stone. “By the Havens, it does! You have helped me out twice today, my young friend, and now I am truly in your debt!”

Mags blushed again, a deeper crimson than before, and handed back the ring. “Ye won't say that if I c'n come to yer party, Master Soren,” he replied with a laugh. “ 'Cause I c'n eat a lot!”

Herald Caelen looked at the small piece of stiff paper with a look of absolute astonishment on his face. “Mags . . . do you know whose address is on this card?”

Mags shrugged. “Master Soren—”

“Who is the head of the Builder's Guild, which is in charge of everything to do with the construction of buildings, and who is one of His Majesty's advisors about matters of commerce!” Herald Caelen spluttered.

Mags blinked at him. A few fortnights ago, he would have had no idea what that meant. But now? Oh, he knew all right.

“But . . . he was just wanderin' in the Midwinter Market, lookin' fer . . .” He tried to think what a flawed stone would be, to one of the people who lived in those enormous houses near the Palace. “. . . a trinket. He was a-goin' t' get cheated, an' I warned 'im.”

Herald Caelen nodded. “He's the sort of man that would appreciate that. As soon as he heard you speak, he must have known that there was no way you would recognize him or his name, so there was no way that you would have done anything out of what is the ‘ordinary' for you.”

“Aye,” Mags agreed. “I'd save anybody from bein' cheated.”

“This could not be better for you and your friends from the mine.” Caelen didn't rub his hands together in glee, but he came close. “Now Soren will look into your case, since he has heard about it firsthand. He'll discover that not only did you not exaggerate the conditions, you actually didn't tell everything. You said he looked sad?”

Mags nodded.

“He abhors injustice. This will jump your case to the front of the queue. Or rather—” Caelen amended, “—the case of Master Pieters and his abuses.
You
are fairly well out of it right now. I doubt you will even be called as a witness. He might not ever have had an interest in this; it could have gone to one of the ordinary Justiciars. Now, it won't. Cole Pieters and his sons might very well find themselves working as laborers—at a fair wage—in what used to be their own mine.”

Mags pictured that in his own mind and found himself smiling.

Caelen paused, his face showing thought. “Let me tell you some things about Master Soren—although, given your Gift and your observational skills, you probably had figured out most of this already. He is unique among the King's advisors in that he does not have a great interest in ostentation, and I have heard rumors that he spends as much or more of his fortune on charitable efforts as he does on himself and his family. Since he doesn't make any sort of public display of his charity, these are still only rumors. I, for one, believe them, however. Because he is indifferent to social climbing and display, he seldom holds any sort of gathering except at Midwinter and Midsummer Festivals—and those, rather than being a series of parties at which it is important to be seen, are, as he told you, a sort of ongoing party, or 'open house,' to which he invites all manner of folk. Artists, writers, musicians and Bards, Healers, the highborn, priests and clerics of all sorts, philosophers and teachers—it really doesn't matter, the one common denominator is that he thinks they are interesting. As a result, despite this not being a social climber's event, there is a certain cachet to being invited. It means that Master Soren thinks you are intelligent and worth knowing.
Not
being invited, in the Palace circles, tends to carry with it the assumption that you are not very bright and uninteresting.”

Master Soren thinks I am worth knowing?
Mags was so astonished by this thought that he felt a little stunned.

Caelen tapped on the desk to get his attention. “Listen to me, Mags, this does not mean that you need to go to this thing prepared to entertain people with your conversation. Just be yourself, even if that means you are going to be quiet and observe as you usually do. Master Soren saw you being yourself and was impressed. So keep doing just that.”

Mags blinked. “So—I should go?” he replied tentatively.

“If you want to. I think you will enjoy yourself. I believe you will be less intimidated than you think.” Herald Caelen rubbed his chin a moment. “If I were in your place, I would go, and not just once. There will be all sorts of people there, plenty for you to watch and listen to.”

Mags felt encouraged by the fact that Herald Caelen talked about “watching and listening” as opposed to doing any talking himself.

Then he thought of something.

“I . . .” He flushed. “I cain't. I ain't got nothin' good enough t' wear. I'd be . . . I'd make th' Collegium look bad. Like we don' care enough t' dress right.”

He looked down at himself. The Trainee uniform was serviceable enough, but it had its share of places where it had been mended, and none of the others in his possession were much better. When he looked back up again, Herald Caelen was chewing his lip.

“Let me see what I can come up with,” he replied, and then smiled. “I think I have an idea.”

By this time it was well into the dinner hour; Mags went down to the kitchen to get something, not feeling much like eating in the dining hall. Paradoxically, it was very crowded, which might have made no sense until you realized that with the Trainees out of the way, workmen had been pulled in from all over Haven to help on the three Collegia, and part of the benefit of working over Midwinter holiday was being fed from the Palace. The food was no longer the same utilitarian fare of previous months. These workmen and -women were being treated very well to compensate for losing part of their holiday. Breakfast had meats and eggs as well as the usual bread and butter and porridge with various things that could be added to it. Luncheon was meat pies and sausage rolls, or cold sliced meat, cheese, and lots of bread and pickles and onions—the ideal sort of thing for workmen in a hurry. Dinner was generally roasts and hams—something that only happened once a week or so when the Collegia were in session—which then went to serve as the next day's luncheon. The kitchen fixed him up with a heaping plate that they put in a kind of shallow bucket with a lid on it to keep the heat in. This contrivance served very well indeed; his dinner was still piping hot when he got down to the stable.

Instead of taking it to his room, he made himself a little table and chair of a couple of bales of straw in Dallen's stall, and fell to.
:Wotcher think?:
he asked Dallen.

Mags stopped with the bite on his fork halfway to his mouth. He put it down.
:Wotcher mean?:
he asked cautiously.

:I mean . . . you should be with people, and in a place, where you are, for once, doing something only for the pleasure of it. You did a bit of that today, going with me down to the Midwinter Market, but I would like it if you could do more of that.:
Dallen nosed his hair affectionately.
:You are an awfully solemn fellow. Do you know, I have never heard you laugh?:

Suddenly he felt strangely sad.
:Ain't had much reason to,:
he responded gruffly.

:Not even here?:
Dallen heaved a huge sigh.
:No, you need not answer that. You have been so busy in trying to catch up to the rest of the Trainees, you have scarcely had time to breathe, much less learn how to laugh.:

Mags shrugged.
:I'm . . . good,:
he replied, and bit down on a butter-filled bread roll in sheer bliss.
:I got you, I got the best food I ever et, good stuff t'wear, warm bed . . . I got more'n I ever dreamed I'd get. Dunno as I need t' laugh.:

Dallen sighed again, but he said no more on the subject. Mags could tell, though, that he
wanted
to say more.

Quickly, he changed the subject, to a book he had been loaned by Caelen. Dallen seemed grateful for the change in topic. But as it happened, the book was genuinely engrossing, and Dallen knew a fair bit about the subject. Mags carried his plates back to the kitchen, then had a long, leisurely bath—something he rarely got to do. He reflected, as he soaked, on how far he had come. Bare moons ago, he had no idea that any such thing as hot baths existed. Now?

Mags' intention of being as lazy as possible didn't last any longer than the first day. He was just too restless to sit on his hands. He first embarked on a massive cleaning and organizing of his own room. Then he went out to the salle and practiced alone against the pells. And with bow and arrow. Then again against the pells. Finally, he and Dallen rode a grueling obstacle course which left both of them sore and tired. He gave Dallen a good rubdown, got another hot bath and a change of uniform, then went looking for some food.

It was late by luncheon standards, and it looked as if a plague of rats had overrun the table where the luncheon foods were laid out. There were mostly empty plates and crumbs, although those crumbs would easily have filled up one of the smaller kiddies back at the mine. But he found pieces of cheese here and there, the ends of a couple of loaves, a forgotten piece of ham and a few hard-boiled eggs, and plenty of pickles. He felt well satisfied with his gleanings, and was about to carry it all back to his room. That was when Dallen Mindspoke him.

Well, that was convenient. It was the first time that Dallen had done anything of the sort like that, relaying a message, but Mags could see how useful it was. He borrowed one of the baskets that had held the bread, wrapped his luncheon in the napkin that was still in it, and went on up to Caelen's office. Once again he was struck by how noisy the Collegium was, with the sounds of hammers and other tools echoing down the empty corridors.

“Mags!” the head of the Collegium greeted him, perhaps sensing his presence with some Gift or other, before he even came into view. “I told you I would sort something out about things to wear to Master Soren's Midwinter festivities, and I have. Come along, I have a stack of things for you.”

Curious now, Mags hurried to do as he was requested. The office was a good bit cleaner; the number of books was at least halved. Evidently, the workmen had been putting in good progress on the Collegium library.

Herald Caelen indicated a pile of folded gray fabric on one of the chairs. “Some of our Heralds have been highborn or very wealthy, you know,” he said with a smile. “And even though they are supposed to wear the same uniforms as the rest of the Trainees, you can't keep their parents from having nonregulation Grays made for them. I just canvassed the Heralds assigned to the City and those that were visiting their families here at Court until I found three sets of personally tailored Grays that I thought would fit you.”