Foundation

could do something that let them know when someone was lying, but it was getting so that he could tell without that—whatever it was. “Truth Spell.” Dallen seemed to think this was remarkable, but very useful.

Mostly, when he heard voices on the other side of his door, he just tried to ignore them. He had a great deal of practice at ignoring things, once he was able to decide that what was being talked about didn’t matter to him. Back at the mine, there were times when your life, or at least your health, depended on “not hearing” things. He’d “not heard” the boys messing about with the kitchen- and housemaids, for instance, plenty of times. He’d “not heard” the boys saying ugly things about their father. And here and now, he was careful about all those careless, feckless lovers, and careful about Trainees blurting out things they probably shouldn’t have. It harmed no one to forget all about those little secrets. But there were some conversations he couldn’t just put aside and forget. And one of them started one evening with two mature voices coming into audible range as he was doing sums.

“... Holden, I’m telling you, this Collegium idea is criminally stupid.”

The man had been speaking too quietly for Mags to make out what he was saying for some time now, though it had been obvious from his tone that he was arguing. But this was a rather startling statement for a Herald to make. He assumed it was Heralds, and Dallen confirmed it.

“That’s a bit of a leap,” came the reply. Evidently the fellow he was arguing with agreed with Mags.

“No? Have you seen how these younglings are being taught? In classrooms! Out of books!” Incredulity warred with indignation in the man’s voice. Mags wondered what was wrong with learning things out of books. Surely when you did things that way, you didn’t stand nearly as much risk of making the same mistakes as someone else. “A Herald doesn’t need books to show him what to do, he needs another Herald! You don’t learn that sort of thing out of books. You learn this sort of thing by seeing it, doing it—hands on, Holden! We’ve always been hands on!”

“What they’re learning out of books are things I wish I had known,” the other replied mildly. “I scanted my History, and not to mention that I knew nothing about anyone’s religion but my own. Besides that, it’s a plain fact that we’re getting younglings who are functionally, if not actually, illiterate. Younglings that can barely read simple words and write their own names. You can’t teach someone something that basic without tying up an enormous amount of your own time. Our Chosen aren’t all coming from the educated folk anymore. I know, I know!” he added, when the other seemed to be about to protest. “I know it’s the law that all younglings are to get a basic education! But we’ve nearly doubled the size of the Kingdom in last few years, what with petty princelings deciding they’d rather have Valdemar’s protection than a foreign army on their door, and plenty of those petty princelings thought that pig-ignorance was the proper lot of the peasant.”

“Gods, I hate it when you’re right,” the first man grumbled. “I just got off riding one of those circuits.”

“Well, we are getting Chosen from those very places. Which is a good and proper thing, since a Herald from the borderlands is going to be able to tell us how to keep from offending.”

“Holderkin!” the first man groaned. “Oh, blessed gods, may I never have to ride that circuit again. Even with that briefing—they are as touchy as a hive of hornets, and you would think that I was the enemy, not the Karsites!”

“You see my point. We have young Chosen coming in now that need elementary education, and we need to make sure they have the tools to do their jobs before we turn them out on an unsuspecting public.”

“Bosh! We did well enough before!” the first man said savagely. “We had Chosen who were as ignorant as butterflies! They got education over at Bardic, but they were under the eyes of their mentors every waking moment. Now what? Now what have we got? No mentors until they go into Whites! Using the Bardic model! They’re going to be all shoved together in their Collegium without a single adult present most of the time!”

“It works for the Bards,” the second man said mildly.

“Works? Works? Good gods, those Bardic students get into more mischief than a basket of ferrets! And now you want us to do the same with our Trainees? Who’s going to serve as the check on their antics? Who’s going to serve as an example? We’ve always run things this way—a couple of Trainees and a mentor, proper chaperoning, and instruction every waking hour. But this! The gods only know how these youngsters are going to turn out!”

“They have their Companions,” the second man pointed out. “It’s not as if they’re unsupervised.”

The first man snorted. “They might just as well be. What’s a Companion going to do if his Chosen gets into mischief? Mindspeak him and nag him? And what if the Companion doesn’t think it’s mischief?” He groaned. “They might as well admit to what is going to go on and install a midwife in the Collegium, because they are going to need one before the first year is out!”

But that second man only laughed at him. “Kyle, the Trainees have been up to that sort of mischief from the time of King Valdemar, and no looming mentor ever held them back from it. And I cannot believe you are not aware of that fact—”

“Well, other mischief, then,” the first man said stubbornly. “If the Bardic Trainees are worse than a basket of ferrets, ours will be worse than a basket of ferrets with hands and wings. Oh, I have no doubt their intentions will be relatively innocent, but the result will be calamity. This whole Collegium idea is going to be the ruin of the Heralds! Let the Bards and Healers have their schools, but we should stick to what has always worked in the past!”

“Good gods, Kyle, where are all these mentors that you want going to come from?” the second man finally retorted. “And where in Haven are we going to put them? We’ve been assigning the Trainees three and four to a Herald, and there just are not enough of us! The latest influx—that would put us at a Trainee to every Herald, and I mean every one of us, even on the most dangerous of assignments. For the ones with ordinary routes, it could be up to six, and how the hell is someone supposed to go riding circuit with a pack of younglings at his heels? You want mischief? What about those four that went out with Herald Elyn? Good gods, that was worse than mischief, if they hadn’t had the luck of the blessed, they could have been murdered by that old man! And that was only with four Trainees! It can’t be done, Kyle. It just cannot be done.”

“—but—”

The second man had clearly warmed to his subject by this time. “And how about those who should never be entrusted with an impressionable young mind? What about Baren? The man never intends harm, and he’s brilliant at cutting straight through a difficult situation, but his sarcasm has put adults into a killing rage or tears, so what do you think prolonged exposure to him would do to a Trainee?”

“Ah—toughen them?”

“Or break them! Or Bella! There is no one I would rather have in charge of victims,