Brightly Burning (25 page)

He stood up to meet them; his father extended his hand stiffly, as if Lan had become a stranger. Lan took it gingerly.

“How are you?” his father asked, anxiously. “How are you now, I mean? Are you feeling better? Do you remember anything of what happened to you?”

Lan shook his head, not trusting his voice. “Mostly the fire,” he said truthfully, “and not much of that.”

His parents exchanged an unreadable glance, and some of the tension ran out of them. It was his mother, though, who flushed an unbecoming plum color, and said, “I—Lan, I'm very sorry that I didn't believe you.”

That was the closest she was ever going to come to an apology, and Lan knew it. He also knew how much it cost her to say that much, and he sensed a different sort of strain building up among the three of them.

:Hold out your arms, silly,:
Kalira whispered in his mind, as he stood there awkwardly and feeling completely at a loss for what to do or say next. Clumsily, he obeyed her, and that did, indeed seem to be what they were waiting for. They both embraced him, just as awkwardly as he.

The embrace didn't last long, but he felt much better after they broke it. He even managed a tentative smile for them.

“So. You're going to be a Herald, then.” His father rubbed the back of his neck with one hand, and looked from him to Kalira and back again.

“Not immediately,” he told them both, and scrubbed the toe of his gray boot in the dirt a little. “I have an awful lot to learn first.”

“Still.” His father smiled slowly; his mother didn't exactly beam at him, but she certainly gave him a healthy dose of silent approval. “A Herald! We're proud of you, Lan, that we are! It's hard to think of you being a Herald, but there you are in your uniform, and with your Companion and all—”

“Her name is Kalira,” he replied proudly, and Kalira stepped to his side and nodded her head to both of them.

:Suggest that you all walk in the garden,:
Kalira prompted.

“Why don't we all take a walk while we talk,” he echoed. “There in the garden—” He waved his hand vaguely in the direction of the Palace gardens with their ornamental torches.

His father gaped. “Us? Walk in the Royal gardens?” he stammered.

“I don't see any reason why not,” Pol put in casually. “That's what they're there for.” He turned his attention pointedly to Lan. “A walk for about a candlemark wouldn't be too taxing for you, and I have some things I must do that will keep me for about that long. I'll meet you back here when I'm finished; you go show your parents where you'll be living for the next couple of years.”

Herald Pol took himself off as quickly as his daughter had—little doubt where she'd gotten
that
trait from—and Lan was left alone with his parents and Kalira.

He took a deep breath, and stood up as straight as he could manage.

“Well,” he said to them. “Shall we go?”

W
ITHIN a week, false summer had collapsed, and autumn returned with a vengeance. There were no more afternoons sitting in the garden for Lan, but Pol found plenty of things to occupy his time. A storm in the night blew most of the leaves away, and Pol began to look forward to the day when he could move Lavan to the Collegium; his own walks to and from Healer's were bleak and uncomfortable.

Meanwhile, he tested Lan on a variety of subjects to figure out what classes he needed to take. One area surprised him; the boy knew the maps of Valdemar as thoroughly as any full Herald, and how to dead reckon by the stars or sun equally well. All in all, Lavan Chitward was no farther behind or ahead than any other Trainee his age.

On a cold, gray, windy day, Pol helped his young Trainee move into his room at Herald's Collegium.

A carter had brought a box of Lan's personal gear the day before, a luxury many of the Trainees never had. Lan was inclined to tire more quickly than he
thought
he should, largely because he attempted more than he was ready for, but the Healers were confident that he was ready for the active regime of classes and training. A stack of new uniforms and other basic necessities waited for him in his new room, and Pol had walked him all over the Collegium the previous day. He met Pol at the door to the gardens, and the two of them bent to the wind and plodded cheerfully enough to his new home.

A ground-floor room had just fallen vacant, and Pol had quickly claimed it for Lan before anyone else did. The window opened onto a sheltered nook of the garden, so if it became necessary at any time, Kalira could even be temporarily housed there, right within reach. The view was somewhat restricted, but he didn't think that Lan would mind.

In fact, Kalira watched them with great interest through the window as Pol introduced Lan to his new quarters, with the still-packed box in the middle of the room. It was very much an average room, depersonalized by the removal of the belongings of the previous occupant who was now on her first circuit in company with an older, experienced mentor. A small but adequate fireplace in the center of the right wall held a cheerful, clean-burning fire of seasoned oak, protected behind a metal fire screen. The furnishings were entirely utilitarian: bed, desk, chair, bookcase, and wardrobe. The bed was tucked in beneath the window with a pile of Trainee Grays and linen piled atop it, the wardrobe and desk arranged on the left wall. The bookcase, which had done double duty for the previous Trainee as a nightstand, was still next to the bed. Lan's class books were already in it, and a candlestick atop it. There was one oil lamp on the mantle, and a second on the desk. The walls themselves were whitewashed plaster—freshly whitewashed for the new tenant. White canvas curtains covered the window, and when pulled back, hid the shutters that could be closed against the worst storms, although in this sheltered corner it wasn't likely that Lan would ever use them. The youngster looked around, and smiled slowly.

“I like this place, Herald Pol,” Lan said. “I like it better than my room in my parents' house; this one has a view. All I saw from my old room was the wall of the next house. Better than that—it's a view with trees in it.”

“Good, I'm pleased to hear it,” Pol replied. After learning just how well-to-do Lan's parents were, he'd been a bit apprehensive about the boy's reaction to what was a very small and unexceptional room. Some of the highborn Trainees reacted poorly to being assigned to live in something that was the size of a closet by their normal standards.

On the other hand, the largest houses in the well-off Merchants' Quarter were not likely to come vacant, which left a newly-wealthy merchant the option of either taking a relatively smaller house in the fashionable district or building a bigger one in an unfashionable district where no one of any note would ever see it. His parents must have opted for the former.

“Your schedule is on the desk there, and a map of the Collegium—” Pol nodded toward the small stack of notes resting on the surface. “I've already given you the tour, so you know where everything is, and you'll start in your classes tomorrow. Don't hesitate to ask anyone you might meet for directions or help, and if you need me, you know where to find me.”

He wanted to encourage independence in the youngster, and the best way to do that was to leave him to his own devices before he developed any dependencies.

:He'll be fine,:
Satiran said.
:He's got my daughter, after all.:

“Thank you, Herald Pol,” Lan said, and offered another of his slow, careful smiles. He opened the door himself, and waited politely for the Herald to take himself out, a good sign that the Trainee was ready to stand on his own feet.

Which was a very good thing, since Pol had a class to teach. No matter what disaster transpired, no matter who descended on the Collegium, the classes went on.

WHEN Pol closed the door behind him, Lan turned his attention back to organizing his new room, although with Kalira right outside it already felt more like home than the place he had inhabited since arriving in Haven. The one thing that he didn't have to put up with was his mother's hand at decoration.
She
wanted reds and yellows, relentlessly cheerful colors that irritated him rather than raising his spirits.

He wasn't particularly neat by nature, but he didn't want to start things off with a bad impression, so he quickly stowed away all the clothing in the wardrobe, the towels on the wardrobe's shelf, and made the bed with the linens he found folded there. Virtually everything was spotless but showed some wear, and that was oddly comforting, suggesting that no one was treated with any more deference than anyone else here.

Once the things on the bed were put away, he reflected, looking at the clothing hanging in his wardrobe, that he was going to have a little difficulty getting used to wearing something other than faded black. At least it wasn't as grindingly cheerful as the things his mother tried to make him wear. And as a color, gray wasn't that bad . . . though he still couldn't get his mind wrapped around the notion of himself in pure white. The uniforms were comfortable, and the boots, so he'd discovered, were the one things that were made exactly to the measure of every Trainee. Ill-fitting footwear was worse than none at all in the active life of Herald or Trainee, and boots were never handed down. He had one pair on his feet now, and two more in various stages of construction in the cobbler's workshop.

That left the still-unpacked crate in the center of the room, which by the weight had been stuffed with far more than the few things he had requested.
:At least it won't be clothing,:
Kalira pointed out mischievously.
:No matter what they've sent you, even your mother won't dare send Bardic or Healer colors to a Heraldic Trainee.:

He untied the latch, reflecting that the sturdy wooden crate itself would be useful for storage, and threw the top back on its hinges.

“Huh!” he said in surprise, examining the wealth of blankets and a down comforter that graced the top few layers. They were all brand new—and, thank the gods, in reasonable, muted earth colors, mostly shades of gray and gray-brown. But he hadn't been brought up in a cloth-merchant's household without recognizing that these bedclothes were made of the very finest of materials. The comforter was stuffed with pure goosedown and protected with a soft cover of wool plush. The blankets were woven of chirra wool, patterned in wide stripes and checks.

He wondered what had prompted such generosity—not that he was going to object! With a bed placed right underneath a window, the more warm coverings he had, the better. Still, he doubted that his parents indulged even themselves in such luxury; such things were for the highborn and the astronomically wealthy. Granted, there was a great deal of profit figured into the prices of such luxuries, but that didn't make them cheap, even for a cloth merchant.

“Maybe they're trying to make up for not listening to me,” he muttered to himself.

:A guilt offering? That's certainly possible,:
Kalira agreed.
:In fact, I think that's probably the answer. They were not very apt at apologizing the other day; this may be their apology. At least it came in a useful form!:

He removed the bedcoverings in heavy armloads and laid them on his plain, rough-woven linen coverlet, then tackled the next layer. Cushions, this time, three of them that fluffed up fat and soft, and as luxurious as the blankets. Then a lighter bedspread of ramie and linen, also new, probably for summer. Then, at last, the books and personal keepsakes he had asked for.

After distributing these objects on desk, window ledge, and wardrobe top, he turned back to the box again. The one final layer proved to be rugs and small tapestries—geometric designs rather than pictures, something he recognized as weavings from the south-western Border. At first he laughed at the idea of putting things up on the walls; wasn't that just like his mother to want to priss things up for him?