Crossroads and Other Tales of Valdemar (19 page)

Silver shivered. “I was only thirteen that year and mostly I heard about everything—I wasn’t involved, except I did get to see the gryphons come into Haven. I remember
that
. So you must have only been twenty.”

Jocelyn closed her eyes. “I felt older.”

“And Dawn, how old was Dawn?”

“I don’t know. I suppose she was in her late twenties. Lisle couldn’t have been more than ten when she was Chosen, and women marry young out in the hill country like that. I bet she wasn’t ten years older than I was.”

Silver took a bite of cheese and reached for the wine. The last light had faded; Silver’s white face and light hair looked almost ghostly in the firelight. “But she listened to you, followed you, right?” She sipped the wine. “Because you were a full Bard?”

Jocelyn shook her head. “Not everyone follows you because you’re a Bard. Not in Haven, and not out here. You’ll learn that eventually.” She steepled her hands under her chin, musing on Silver’s question. “I think she needed someone, and maybe it mattered that I was a Bard, but maybe it mattered more that I had seen Dawn’s loss, and been there for her. I was young, and any other year, I probably wouldn’t have been a full Bard yet. I think a few of us were tested into full Scarlets because Valdemar needed us. That was a scary year with new-found Mages and Ancar’s army and the storms. Very little was done the way you’d do it in peacetime.” Jocelyn took her own sip of wine. Silver was right—she really had been young. Younger even than Silver, if just by a year or two.

Silver said, “You’ve traveled alone ever since. Didn’t you like having someone to travel with?”

The fire snapped and popped, holding Jocelyn’s gaze. The presence of the other woman did feel good. And Jocelyn wasn’t responsible for her. Even though Silver was younger, she was a full Bard. While Dennis was correct and Silver could learn from Jocelyn, they were more equal than Jocelyn and Dawn had ever been. Silver had education as well as enthusiasm, even if she had lived in the city her whole life. Maybe . . . maybe Silver could be a friend. Or more. Dawn could have been more, but there hadn’t been time. . . .

Jocelyn threw two new logs on the fire and watched it lick up their edges in bright tendrils, then bloom. The new light played on her feet. She didn’t have to decide whether or not to trust Silver, not yet. But she did have a story to tell. She finished eating and then slid down so her back rested against the log. Next to her, Silver took out her metal flute and started polishing it with a clean cloth until firelight glittered back from its bright surface. Jocelyn cleared her throat. “We had fires like this at night, small and cozy, and we talked. After a while, Dawn began to talk about Lisle and Drake. She told me doing something, even just helping me find my way from place to place, helped her to feel less lonely. Oh, I still heard her crying sometimes at night, especially when it was cold and wet and we shared a tent and lay close, each of us swaddled in blankets, but still near enough to share body heat. The coldest, scariest nights, we even held hands.”

She’d never told anyone that. But then, she hadn’t told the story at all for years. Oh, she’d told plenty of stories and sung plenty of songs to countless people she didn’t know. But this was different. It was like . . . like talking to Dawn had been.

“After we’d been traveling two weeks, we had two more towns to go, and then I was due to head back. I still planned to take Dawn with me. We came to the first of the last two towns, up over a hill, kind of like where you and I sat today when I started this story. The sky hung low and oppressive over us, a gray at midday that was almost black. Lightning flashed in the far hills. It wasn’t raining, but it had, and would, and the air itself felt full of water, as if drops might materialize all on their own. In the damp darkness, smoke filled the bottom on the valley, persistent and thick and ugly. Bright embers showed where the largest houses had once been. We walked down into it. We had to. Whoever, whatever, had burned the town did not seem to be there, and maybe there was someone we could help.

“Dawn clutched my hand when we saw the first two bodies. Children. Two children. They had been running, and fire had somehow caught them. Dawn’s eyes were huge, her face pale, and at first she stopped and her fingernails dug into my palm and her body shook. I had seen the dead before, but something seemed unnatural. The nearest burned building was quite a distance away. It looked like the children had just burst into flame running, not like they ran, flaming, from a fire. It sounds like a small difference when I say it, but it was a big difference to see. It struck us both silent. Part of me didn’t want to go any farther into the town, no matter what, didn’t want to take another step.” The memory hurt, the moment she should have, could have, changed her mind. Jocelyn stood and stretched and paced once around the fire and sat back down, keenly aware of her own restlessness. “But you know, when you’re out there, and there might be someone you can help, you remember you’re a Bard, that you’re more than just a court singer. You just are.”

Jocelyn looked up into Silver’s eyes. Did Silver understand this, in her bones? Did she know what life she’d chosen? Silver nodded, as if answering Jocelyn’s unspoken question.

“So we walked forward. We didn’t talk about it. We dropped each other’s hands, but we kept going, looking around. The stench—all the things that had burned but were never meant to burn—stuck to us, covering us, and I wanted the sky to rain and clean us off. It didn’t. The sky just glowered above us instead. We saw more burned bodies, crisped, dark. Some houses still smoldered, others stood untouched.

“A fat brown dog ran between two houses. It looked lost, but healthy. It stopped and stared at us, then it barked plaintively. And then . . . then it burned. Fire flashed alive on it and in it, a blanket of blue fire. It went from standing to burning.”

She swallowed. “Dawn screamed.” She paused, swallowed again. The words clawed their way out of her throat, dry and hot as flame. “And burned.” Tears ran down her cheeks. “And burned.” She gestured toward the fire. “Not like if that campfire caught my clothes, but completely. In seconds, I could see her bones. She didn’t . . .” Jocelyn choked. “She didn’t even scream for long. I ran. I didn’t scream. I . . . I just ran.”

Dawn’s arms—no,
Silver
’s arms—Bard Silver’s long slender strong arms, circled Jocelyn’s shoulders and Jocelyn turned her face into the other woman’s chest and burrowed, holding on. She should never have let Dawn go in there. She should never have let Dawn travel with her in the first place. She should have gone alone. She should have died instead, or at least died, too. Magic. She lifted her head, looked away, talking in broken words. “It was . . . she was killed by . . . a spell triggered by sound. That killed them all—the whole town—” Jocelyn wiped at her eyes and nose and reached for a waterskin. Her hands shook so hard Silver had to help her pull the stopper out. She drank deeply. “I learned that when I got back to Haven—learned sound started the spell, and learned that it faded quickly. If we’d come into town the next day, all the gruesome sights would still be there. But we could have talked or laughed or screamed. The Palace sent one of the White Winds mages to read the spell as soon as I got back to Haven and told my story. He said . . . he said it he thought it was Ancar’s mages testing a potential trap. They killed that whole town just to test a spell.”

“You know it wasn’t your fault she died,” Silver whispered awkwardly, earnestly.

Jocelyn pushed a little away from Silver, reached down to touch the dirt, to ground herself. She drew in the smell of the fire, of the night. “I know. My head knows. But I could have been more careful.”

Silver sounded confused as she said, “But wasn’t magic new to Valdemar? Weren’t you still inside the borders, where magic hadn’t even worked just months before? How were you supposed to know?”

Jocelyn didn’t answer. Her head said the same thing, all the time. But . . . but Silver was so young. And
she
was saying the same thing. Silver was a year older than Jocelyn. So . . . so Jocelyn really had been young that year. She hadn’t felt young. She’d forgive Silver if she made a mistake—she was on her first trip and couldn’t even walk a good day’s pace yet, even though by the end of their trip, today’s walk might seem short. If she could forgive Silver almost any mistake, why couldn’t she forgive her own younger self?

“Look,” Silver said, “I’m sure it doesn’t help to tell you Dawn died doing something she wanted to do. You must have heard that before. But you did the very best you could. And then you wrote her a song, and your song made a difference.”

“How? Dawn’s dead.”

“Right.” Silver’s voice was soft, musical. A Bard’s voice. Surer than Dawn’s had ever been. “But now, when kids are Chosen, now a lot of towns do something extra for the parents, or for the other family left behind.”

Jocelyn looked up. Was it true? Why hadn’t she noticed? “Really?”

Silver returned the smile. “Really.” Silver picked up her gittern, unwrapped it, and started the refrain for “Dawn of Sorrows:”

Jocelyn’s took a breath and opened her throat. She took up the first stanza, focusing on the notes, on her voice, on singing as strong as she could. By the end of the song, her voice sounded clear and steady.

This, she suddenly understood, was why Dennis wanted her to travel with someone. Maybe she’d write another song. It was too early to tell what that song might be, of course, but . . . maybe even a song about something that wasn’t quite so painful. There were, after all, happy moments in Valdemar.

She looked over at Silver. Tears glittered like gems on the younger woman’s smooth, pale cheeks but she sang through a wide smile, and her eyes were warm behind the wetness.

Warmth bloomed inside Jocelyn. It took her a moment to recognize it as happiness, to notice that she, too, smiled as she sang, even though tear tracks still stained her own cheeks.

T
HERE are places in Valdemar where the Heralds can’t go.

Well, actually, this isn’t true. Heralds and their Companions are welcome everywhere from Keyold to the Crook-back Pass. Heralds are the voice and hands of King Sendar—it’s Queen Selenay now, but it was Sendar who reigned when I put on my white leathers for the first time, and old habits are hard to break. Heralds bring news and gossip, defend the weak, embody the Crown’s justice.

Do good in the world.

It is a sacred trust to be a Herald, and it is a public thing. You are
always
on display whenever you are in public. People tend to think of Heralds as being more than human—as far removed from them and ordinary concerns as our Companions. Above pettiness, injustice, fear, and weakness.

The first lesson you learn from your Companion—and at the Collegium—is that you must never disappoint them.

Sometimes it is—was very hard. To be always watched, and always judged by a standard no human could possibly meet.

And because they believe such things of Heralds, the people behave differently when Heralds are among them. Some try to act as they believe a Herald would, and that can be a good thing. Some hide—both their bodies and their words—out of fear, out of awe, out of guilt.

Some lie. Some tell too much truth.

Even in Haven, where they see Heralds and their Companions daily, it is the same. The people turn a different face to the Heralds than they do to one another. They talk of different things.

And so, when I say that there are places in Valdemar that a Herald cannot go, this is why. If the Crown would know what the people speak of when the Crown’s greatest mystery is not before them in a glory of blue leather and silver bells, it must send other eyes.

I must go.

It has been twenty years since Shavanne and I rode over these roads on circuit. The bells that ring out my journey now are copper and brass, twined about my walking staff.

I walk everywhere now. I could not bear to ride.

 

When I returned to the Collegium after Shavanne was killed, everyone said I would be Chosen again—it was only to be expected. It was the last thing I wanted; for months after I was well in body I wandered the halls of the Collegium, soul-sick and, perhaps, half-mad at the death of my Lady Heart. Everyone said that, too, would pass; in time my soul would heal.

Even my fellow Heralds, those few who knew what it was to survive the death of that which should survive both death and age, said I would love and be loved again.

I had no desire for that. Shavanne had been life and joy to me. I could see no purpose in accepting anything less, and I could imagine nothing more.

Perhaps it would have been different if I had possessed one of the Great Gifts, or even a powerful one, but I had no more than minor Mindspeech and perhaps—no one was every quite sure—a trace of Empathy, enough to hear Shavanne’s voice, and with her death, even that was gone. I did not miss it.

I knew that she, of all beings, would not wish me to squander my life in vain regrets and hopeless yearnings, and I tried to honor what I knew were her wishes. The anger at my loss—Valdemar’s loss—faded, and even the bitterness, in time.