Valdemar 06 - [Exile 01] - Exile’s Honor (18 page)

:Don't spoil her fun; she's been planning this for a fortnight,:
Kantor advised.

:But—to trust
me
with the safety of the Heir—:
He was utterly flabbergasted. He might have to look as if all this was just a matter of course, but at least he could drop any pretense of composure with Kantor, and he did so.

:Aren't you trustworthy?:
Kantor countered.
:I know you would be the best person for the task; no one would take it as seriously as you will, because the Heralds all have a blind spot where the safety of Selenay is concerned. They believe that no one realizes that “Trainee Selenay” and the Heir are the same person, which is ridiculous—it's not exactly a secret, and even if it
was,
you couldn't keep information like that secure for very long.:

Not very bright of them.
:And just because no one has tried to harm her, no one ever will, hmm?:
he replied.
:Perhaps it does take someone from outside to see the danger.:

:By that time you'll have proved yourself, and no one will think anything of it.:
Kantor sounded very certain of himself; Alberich wasn't certain of anything except that there would be repercussions.

But who would be the ones facing the repercussions? Not I.
No, that would be Dethor—Talamir—

“The King, your father—” he ventured. “Knows he of this?”

“Of course; he was the first one I suggested this to. I suppose you're ready?” Selenay asked, as calm and casual as if he'd asked what time of day it was.

“Ready?” What was he supposed to be ready for?

“You're coming down into the city with me, correct? As my bodyguard. You might as well start right now.” She looked him up and down, critically. “That set of Grays should do, I suppose; they don't
look
quite like Trainee Grays, but they'll be all right. Are there any particular weapons you'd like to carry?”

“Weapons I would like to carry?” he repeated, feeling as if he'd been run over by something. “Ah—knives. A sword?”

“Well, let's get them and get on our way.” Selenay waited for him to collect a set of plain knives and a common sword that he had just finished working on. He'd found them in that shed, and he had liked the balance immediately and had taken extra care with them, rewrapping the grips, cleaning, polishing, and sharpening. They were of sound make and good steel, and if old and much-abused, at least he knew they were in decent shape, with no hidden weakness in tang or blade. And he had never been the sort who got attached to a particular chunk of metal; as far as he was concerned, one blade was as good as another so long as it was balanced and sharp.

He'd never had any patience with those sagas wherein the hero found, was given, or created a famous blade with a name of its own. Ridiculous! These things were just pieces of steel, not something sentient. And when you focused too much on “my famous blade, Gazornenplatz,” you were apt to forget that it was a tool, to be used and as readily left behind if need be. Aksel had felt the same, and when he'd caught cadets naming their blades and refusing to use any other, he often took the weapons in question to the forge himself and had them melted down, if they happened to have come out of the common arsenal. There wasn't a great deal he could do about heirloom blades or gifts, other than to ban them from the salle, but that's exactly what he had done. Fortunately, the question hadn't yet come up here, but if it ever did, Alberich intended to follow Aksel's example.

Alberich got sheaths and a belt and armed himself while Selenay waited with no signs of impatience.

When they left the salle, he discovered that Kantor had managed somehow to get himself saddled and bridled, and was waiting with a Companion mare in similar tack. How had he done
that?

:Easy enough. When we show up at the stable door, the helpers know to get us tacked up. Don't forget,
here
everyone realizes very well that we aren't horses, and treats us accordingly:

Alberich shook his head a little and mounted; Selenay was already in the saddle. The two Companions wheeled and trotted away from the salle, toward the Collegium.

“I'm on a long-track internship, just as you are,” Selenay explained, over the chime of bridle bells. When he looked at her without understanding, she quickly explained. “When a Trainee is considered ready to become a Herald,
normally
they're given the white uniforms and they're sent out along with an older, experienced Herald as a mentor. At first, all they do is observe and discuss what the mentor did afterward. Then, over the course of a year and a half, they gradually begin to take on every task that the older Herald does, until
they
are doing all the work and it's the mentor that's observing. But I can't do that.”

“Not wise, the Heir out alone with only one other to have as guardian, and not possible,
ordinary
to be, a troop of guards trailing,” Alberich observed. “Not wise as well, the Heir to be out of reach, the countryside in, but worse, the Heir to be unguarded, a strange city within. Therefore,
here
the only option is.”

She nodded “Exactly. The Heralds and some of the Council assume that staying within the city is safe enough, but not even the most optimistic of them is mad enough to send me out in the field on Internship. And
because
I'm the Heir, once I put on Whites, I need to have every bit of the authority and experience of a seasoned Herald. The moment I'm a full Herald, I'll have a Council seat and a lot of responsibility. So instead of doing a regular Internship in Whites, I'm on a long-track Internship in Grays. I go sit in on Herald Mirilin's sessions of the Court of Justice, and every so often he asks me to make a judgment or take an action. Rendering justice is a lot of what a Herald does, you see, and you can study it all you like in books, but you never really understand it until you see it done and do it yourself. Justice isn't just
laws,
it's
people.
”

By this time they were approaching the graveled road that ran beside the enormous building of the Collegium. A Herald waited for them there, a nondescript man with long brown hair in a single braid down his back, and a small beard. He eyed Alberich with a stony expression.

“The new Trainee, Selenay?” he asked.

“And my bodyguard, Herald Mirilin,” she replied, with perfect composure. “This is Alberich, and actually, he's on a long Internship, just like I am.”

“I should think so,” Mirilin replied, giving him another stone-faced look. “I will be interested in trying a blade against you at some point, Alberich.”

Alberich just bowed slightly. The Herald wasn't being actively unfriendly, so there was certainly no point in taking exception with his passive hostility, when all that Alberich was there for was to observe and watch out for young Selenay. “At your convenience, sir,” he replied, making certain that his voice was absolutely neutral.

They rode down into the city in silence; Alberich didn't care that Herald Mirilin made no effort at conversation. Most of his attention was taken up with watching for trouble—for if the Council was nervous about Selenay going out in public unguarded, there must be at least
some
reason for their concern. What little of his attention was left over was involved in simple observation.

Even if he had not known very well where he was, he would have known immediately that this was not Karse.

Nearest to the Palace and the Collegium, just outside the complex walls, were the manors of the nobility and wealthy. In Karse, such buildings were the property of the priesthood, each holding the staff and acolytes of one or another of the high-ranking Sunpriests. There was a great deal of difference between these places that held secular families and those manses. For one thing—sounds.
No
sounds of prayer, chanting, that sort of thing. Dogs barking, occasional voices of children and young people, and also the sounds of domestic animals; some homes had music drifting from them, some the sounds of a party or friendly gathering coming out of the gardens.

The farther the three of them got from the Palace, following a road that wound back and forth in a manner of which Alberich strongly approved (defensively, it made sense not to have a direct path to the Palace), the less expensive and more crowded the buildings became. And soon after that, rows of shops anchored by taverns, cookshops, or inns began to displace houses, and temple facades poked in among the shops, with shrines in city squares or on corners. The noise level increased with increasing traffic and population, of course. But again, it was obvious that this wasn't Karse, because there were so many different temples and shrines, and, as he noticed on closer observation, not all of the things that had appeared to be shrines were anything of the sort. Some were public fountains, some statues that (so far as he could tell) had no religious significance whatsoever.

Some were clearly statues of Valdemaran heroes, and it was no surprise that a great many of them were Heralds (who were invariably shown with their Companions). Not all, however, which was interesting. Equally interesting were the statues that almost always surmounted the public fountains, which were not martial in any way. In fact, given that the figures were dressed in quite elaborate clothing and often held tools or implements, he had a guess—a quite astonishing guess, since nothing of the sort would have been permitted in Karse. Common artisans and merchants, no matter how wealthy or talented, should never be allowed to exalt themselves to the point of putting up public statues of themselves. Vkandis frowned on spending money putting up vainglorious statues when the same money could be given to the temple, and at any rate, exalting yourself or your ancestors in such a fashion was an indulgence in the sin of pride.

“That is who?” he asked finally, catching Selenay's eye and nodding at a statue of a round, balding little man, who clutched a plumb-bob and compass and beamed at passersby. Alberich rather liked his statue, for not only was there the usual spigot and basin of the public fountain, but the upper basin spilled over into a trough at street level, just the right height for dogs and cats to drink from.

Selenay followed his gaze and smiled. “I don't know
who
that is, but I know what he is, and why he's there,” she said. “These statues began going up in Elspeth the Peace-maker's time. Valdemar had been pretty much at peace for more than a generation, and a lot of people were getting very prosperous. So they started putting up statues of themselves, which rather annoyed my ancestor, who thought it was a silly waste of money. She made a law forbidding people to put up privately owned statues on public streets, so they'd have the statues put up, then
give
them to the city. So she had another law made that forbade the putting up of anything on public streets unless it served a practical use and was for the public good, and being able to tie a horse to it didn't count. Oh, and you had to leave money in your will to see anything you put up was kept clean and in working order.”

Alberich smiled at that. “Clever, that was,” he responded. “And good for the city folk.”

Selenay grinned. “Especially since the corners in the best part of the city went early, so people who wanted to do things had to take what they could get. Most people went for fountains and water pumps; the Queen said it was a pity that we were stuck with all those statues of a lot of vain old men, but at least now every street had a public water supply without taxes going to pay for it.”

Mirilin overheard them, and unbent enough to smile slightly. “A wise woman, your ancestor,” he said mildly. “If she had taxed them to pay for such things, they would have been calling for her head. But when they were able to make them into self-aggrandizing statuary, they were climbing all over themselves to oblige.”

“Probably.” Selenay shrugged. “I think she said something like that herself. At any rate, you'll find statues like that all over Haven now; when they aren't fountains and pumps, they can be almost anything useful. After a while, the artists that people hired to put up such things got to enjoy thinking up practical purposes. There's a clever basin over in the square where Pitcher and Bright cross where women can wash clothing—it was made that way on purpose. And there's dry mangers with stone canopies over them for feeding your horses or whatever at nearly every market square. There are covered benches, too, with inscriptions instead of statues, and an enormous public pigeon cote, which serves the purpose of giving poor people a place for birds for their pot, and gives the birds a place to go besides making nests in peoples' roofs.” Both of them looked at him, clearly expecting some sort of comment from him; he thought about the larger towns in Karse that he had been in. Nothing this size, of course, but the only public sources of water were the wells in temple court-yards, and to use them. . . .

To be fair, there were plenty of Sunpriests who encouraged all comers to take the water freely. But—well, it seemed to him there were fewer of the generous ones from year to year, and more who at the least, if they did not exact a tithe of work, cash, or goods for the water, insisted on daily attendance at one of the services
before
you got your water. That might not sound like much, but in the day of a busy woman, there were not many marks to spare, and in order to fetch her water, she might face a choice between leaving some task undone or walking farther to fetch water from another source. “One wishes,” he said slowly, “that all leaders like-minded were.”