Magic's Promise (29 page)

There was a glimmering, a hint of something else for a moment, then it was gone, slithering away before Vanyel could read it.
That
was frustrating in the extreme, but he certainly didn't want to set Tashir off again. So he slowly let his control over the youngster fade, little by little, until it was gone. Tashir slumped against the wall in total exhaustion, closing his eyes.

“
Here, lad,
”
Jervis stepped forward and took him by the elbow; the boy transferred his weight from the wall to Jervis; a sign Vanyel read with relief.
“
Come on, let's get you back to your room, hey? If what young Van here says is true, you're probably feeling like you've just gone through a round-robin tourney in weighted armor,
”

Tashir nodded, and let Jervis lead him out, stumbling a little with fatigue.

With Tashir gone, the tension left the solar, and everyone in it reacted to the relief differently. Treesa and her ladies were twittering in their corner like a flock of flustered sparrows. Vanyel found a chair and sat in it before his knees gave out on him. Withen suddenly seemed to remember the sword in his hand, and sheathed it.

“
Fine, we've got Tashir taken care of, now can
any
of you tell us what happened?
”
Vanyel asked wearily.

The women started, and stared at him - with fear. Even his mother. Everyone except Melenna.

Their fear hit him like a blow to the heart, making him feel sick. That fear -
Gods. They never saw me work magic before. The stories were just-stories. Now I've conjured myself from Highjorune in a night, brought a wizardling with me
-
dispelled
his
magic with a look. Now I'm Vanyel Demonsbane. I'm not anyone they know anymore. I'm not anyone they
could
know. I'm someone with powers they don't understand, someone to fear.

He could deal with this now - or let the situation worsen. He chose for the Heralds; chose to withdraw
himself,
Vanyel, inside a kind of mental shell and let Herald-Mage Vanyel come to the fore.

“
Ladies, please,
”
the Herald-Mage said, gently, and with a winning smile, exerting all the charm he had. “This is important to all of you if I'm to understand what set the lad off. The idea
is
to keep him from doing it again, after all.
”

One or two tittered nervously, the rest looked at him with wide, frightened eyes. Then after a moment during which his smile remained steady, they relaxed a little.

His heart sank when Melenna worked her way to the front of the group. He wasn't hoping for much coherency out of
her.

But she was surprisingly calm.
“
Lady Treesa found the young man with Medren,
”
she said quietly, her eyes downcast.
“
She's been
terribly
curious about him - well, we
all
were, really - so she ordered him to come with her to the solar and present himself properly right then. He didn't want to - well, that's what Medren said - but she ordered him, so he followed her. He was
very
polite, but even I could see that he was very unhappy, and the more Treesa asked about his family - because he told us who he was right off - the unhappier he got. As soon as Treesa noticed it, that was when she did - like she does with you, milord Van. You know, she gets sort-of flirty, but at the same time she starts getting very
mothering.
She got up and started to go to him, to put him at ease - and he sort of jumped back, and one of the couches jumped right between him and Treesa. It just - jumped, like a trained dog, or something. Lady Treesa nearly had heart failure, and she screamed, she was so surprised - that was when Tashir went absolutely white and everything in the room began flying around.
”

She paused, then looked up, very shyly, with none of her usual coquettishness.
“
We were terribly frightened, milord Van. I mean, I know you and milady Savil are magicians, and I'm sure it all seems very tame to you, but-we've never seen magic like that. Furniture - just shouldn't
do
that. I'm going to feel funny sitting on a chair for the next
week,
wondering if it's going to take it into its head to fly.''

Vanyel almost felt himself liking her, for the first time in years.
“
I can't say I blame you; I keep forgetting most of you have never even seen me do - oh,
this.'“

He made a tiny mage-light in the center of the palm of his outstretched hand. It was about all he had the energy for, and it impressed the ladies out of all proportion to its size. They ooh'd and ah'd, but they did not come any nearer.

“
Milord Van,
”
Melenna said, recapturing his attention,
“
there's something you really need to know.
Nothing hit anyone.
Nothing even came close. Even when those horrid cherubs hit the wall and shattered, no one was cut, no one was hurt. And do you know, that almost made the whole thing scarier.''

Vanyel nodded; this incident only confirmed his feeling that the youngster
couldn't
have been guilty of that wholesale slaughter in Lineas. If he didn't remember what had happened, it could have been sheer terror that made his mind hide the memory.

But he found himself seeing the other possibilities.

That works both ways. He
could
have done it, just as Lores pointed out. And because he's basically a
good
lad, the sheer horror of what he did made his mind hide the memory so deeply there was no sign of it.

He shivered, in a preoccupied way, and drifted out of the bower, ignoring the following gazes of Treesa, her ladies, and Melenna.

He dressed and ate, all in a fog comprised of weariness and preoccupation. It was hours later when he finally faced the obvious-that he'd put a very vulnerable young man in the hands of someone who had abused
him.

He wouldn't. Would he? Oh, gods.

He went looking for Jervis in a state of increasing alarm, and found him in the salle, working out against the pells. And by the time he found the armsmaster, he was ready to kill the man himself if Jervis had even
thought
of bullying the boy.

Bluff him. He doesn't know how worn out I am. If I go on the offensive right away, he won't have time to think.

Planting both feet firmly on the sanded wooden floor, he took an aggressive stance, arms crossed over his chest.

“
Jervis,
”
he called, loudly enough to be heard over the racket of practice blade against pells.

The armsmaster pivoted and pulled off his helm. He must have been at the exercise for some time; sweat beaded his brow, and dripped oif the ends of his hair.
“
Aye?
”

Vanyel did not move.
“
One word for you. I don't know what this game you've been playing with me means, and at this point I don't dare take any chances. I'm warning you now; harm Medren - harm Tashir - you'll be dealing with me.
Not
Herald Vanyel - plain Vanyel Ashkevron. And you know now I can take you; any time, any place; with magic,
or
without. And I
won't
hesitate to use any weapon I've got.
”

Jervis flushed; looked dumbfounded.
“Harm
'em?
Me?
What d'you take me for?
”

“
The man who broke my arm, Jervis. The man who's been trying to intimidate me on this very floor for the past week. The man that was too damned inflexible to suit the style to the boy - so he tried to break the boy.
”

Jervis flung his helm down, going scarlet with anger. The helm dented the floor and rolled off. “
Dammit,
you fool! Don't you see that was what I was tryin' t'do? I was
tryin'
t'learn
your
damned style - and
for
Medren! Hell-fire! A fool could see that poor little sprout Medren was no more suited t' my way then puttin' armor on a palfrey!
”

Vanyel felt as if someone had just dropped him into a vat of cold water. He blinked, relaxed his stance, and blinked again.
Feeling poleaxed is getting to become a regular occurrence,
he thought, trying to get his jaw hinged again. His knees were trembling so much with reaction that he wasn't certain they'd hold him.

Jervis saved him the trouble. He threw his gear over into his chest at the side of the practice area, stalked over to Vanyel's side, and took his elbow.
“
Look,
”
he said, gruffly,
“
I'm tired, and we've got a lot between us that needs talking about. Let's go get a damned drink and settle it.
”

I shouldn't be drinking unwatered wine this tired,
Vanyel thought, regarding the plain clay mug Jervis was filling with unease.

It seemed Jervis had already thought of that.
“
Here,
”
he said, taking a loaf of coarse bread, a round of cheese, and a knife out of the same cupboard that had held the mugs and wine bottle, and shoving them across the trestle table at Vanyel.
“
Eat something first, or you'll be sorry. Not a good idea t' be guzzling this stuff if you ain't used t' it, but there's some pain between us, boy, and
I
need the wine t' get it out, even if you don't.
”

They were still in the armory, in a little back room that was part office, part repair - shop, and part infirmary. Vanyel was sitting on a cot with his back braced against the wall; Jervis was on the room's only chair, with the table between and a little to one side of them, a table he'd cleaned of bits of harness and an arm - brace and tools by the simple expedient of sweeping it all into a box and shoving the box under the table with his foot.

The armsmaster followed his own advice by hacking off a chunk of bread and cheese and bolting it, before taking a long swallow of his wine. Vanyel did the same, a little more slowly. Jervis sat hunched over for a long moment, his elbows on his knees, contemplating the contents of the mug held between his callused hands.

“
Do you begin,
”
Van asked awkwardly,
“
or should I?
”

“
Me. Your father -
”
Jervis began, and coughed.
“
You know I owe him, owe him for takin' me on permanent. Oh, he owed me some, a little matter of watchin' his back once, but not what I figured would put me here as armsmaster. So I figure that put me on the debit side of the ledger, eh? Well, that was all right for a while, though it weren't no easy thing, makin' fighters out of a bunch of plowboys an' second an' third sons what couldn't find the right end of a spear with both hands an' a map. Your granther-he reckoned it best t'hire what he needed. Your father-he figured best t' train his own, an' that was why he kept me. Gods. Plowboys, kids, it was a damn mess. No, it weren't easy. But I did it, I did it - an' then along comes you, first-born, an' Withen calls in the
real
debt.
”

The former mercenary sighed, and wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. He gave Vanyel a measuring look before taking another drink and continuing.
“
I 'spect by now it ain't gonna come as a surprise t' hear your old man figured you for - what're they sayin' now,
shaych? -
yeah, figured you for that from the time you came outa the nursery. Times were you looked more girl than boy - gah, that stuck in his craw for sure. Hangin' about with Liss, fightin' shy of th' foster-boys - then you took up with music, an' gods, he was sure of it. Figured he could cure you if he made sure you never knew there was such a thing, and he got somebody t' beat you into shape. That somebody was s'pposed t' be me.
”

He stabbed a gnarled thumb toward his chest and snorted.
“
Me! Kernos' Horns! 'Make the boy a man,' he says. 'I don't care what you have to do, just make 'im a man!' An' every day, just about, askin' me how you was shapin' up. I been under pressure before, but
damn,
this was enough t' make an angel sweat. I
owed
that man, an' what the hell was I supposed t' do? Tell him I never saw no beatin's turn no kids from fey if that was how they was bent? Tell him there were no few of the meres his father'd hired was shieldmates, an' looked about as fey as me an' fought like hell's own demons?
”

“
You could have
tried -”

Jervis snarled a little.
“And lose my place?
You think there's jobs for old meres 'round any corner? I was flat
desperate,
boy! What in hell was I supposed to do?
”

Vanyel bit back his resentment.
“
I didn't know,
”
he said finally.
“
I didn't guess.
”

Jervis grimaced.
“
You weren't supposed to, boy. Well, hell, my style suited you, you poor little scrap, 'bout as well as teats on a bull. 'Bout the same as Medren.
”

“
If you knew that-
”
Vanyel bit back his protest.