but dear gods, a pack of Trainees would run right over the top of her, and they would have her in tears! Would you want to be responsible for that?”
“—ah—no—but—”
The two men moved out of earshot, leaving Mags thinking very hard. Finally, he ventured a quiet question to Dallen.
:I thought—I mean, Jakyr was angry only because the building was being delayed so that the Bards and Healers could get bigger Collegia. I thought ... He considered that statement, and amended it. :I didn’t think this was something anyone was against.: And why should he have? All he ever heard was eager talk about what would be done once the building was complete, and all the comforts that were going to be installed there.
There was the sense of a reluctant sigh. :No, I am afraid that not every Herald is happy with the changes,: the Companion replied .. In fact, some of them are ... very unhappy indeed. There are arguments about it every meeting of the Circle still, even though the King himself has sent down the ruling that this is how it will be. As you heard ... there are those that believe that Trainees should be very strictly attended to. And ... and they have good reasons for that. Some tragic things have happened when even mentors were not as attentive as they should have been. Now, with this new system in place, there is less supervision. Many think this is a bad thing.:
Mags chewed on the end of his pen. :So what d’you think?:
:I think that I trust my fellow Companions and I trust those they Choose. I think there will be neither more nor less mischief. I think mischief is not such a bad thing, though there are surely people who would be very angry at me for saying that.: Dallen sounded amused. Mags could almost see him smiling.
:Well ... I guess.: He wasn’t entirely sure just what qualified as mischief to Dallen. Back at the mine ... well, that word was generally applied when one of the Pieters boys did something that he was risking a reprimand for at best, and a horsewhipping at worst. It usually had to do with chambermaids, but sometimes it had to do with meddling in things Cole Pieters felt were his own particular prerogatives.
:This is the first year of the new system. And it has been a full year and nothing disastrous has happened.:
:So how did the old system work?: He worked out another couple of problems while he waited for Dallen to collect his thoughts.
:In the past, Herald Jakyr would have served as your mentor, since he was the one that found you and brought you in. If for some reason you just didn’t suit, or he couldn’t take you, someone else would have taken you on. Then one of two things would have happened. Either your mentor would be assigned to the Court or Haven and you would have spent all your time here as you will now, or you would have gone out on circuit with your mentor. In that case, you’d have spent as much time with him, away from this place, as you did here, attending classes. And it would have been his job to keep you at your lessons.:
Mags thought that over as well. :I’d’a gotten right lost, doin’ things that way.:
:Well, there wouldn’t have been a choice. The Heralds who actually stay in Haven are very few. They were already mentoring up to eight Trainees. And that was getting to be a strain, not much “better” than having you all in the Collegium. So you would have had to go out with someone who ran messages, served as an envoy and negotiator, or was on circuit. That’s what Jakyr does, by the way,: Dallen added by way of an afterthought. :He’s a negotiator. :
Mags picked up on what Dallen did not say. :And I’d’a been in the way.:
:I’m afraid so. But so would most Trainees. There just is no choice, Mags. As much as some of the Heralds want to keep the “old ways,” it just is not possible. Just think how much you are going to have to learn before you are to even to think of going with a mentor! And Beren and Lyr are even more uneducated than you. I have no doubt that at some point soon we will get a Trainee who is not even aware that the arts of reading and writing exist. How could a Herald-mentor hope to teach people like that and still continue to do his or her work?:
It was a good question, and one for which Mags had no answer. Nor did anyone else, he suspected.
It did open his eyes, however. Here was one issue on which the Heralds themselves were at odds. And in a way that heartened him. He had never quite believed in the attractive mental picture Dallen was painting for him. This cracked that facade. If they were at odds over this, chances were there were other quarrels of which he was not aware.
So even the Heralds were not perfectly in accord with one another. That made him, not uneasy, but conversely more secure. He trusted in his own senses to tell him when someone menaced him, and the fact that Heralds were not perfect, could disagree with each other, and still stay a somewhat coherent whole was a cause for relaxing, rather than raising, his guard. It meant that there was nothing worse lying behind the face they showed the world.
Dallen seemed baffled by the reason for his attitude, but accepted the change with guarded relief.
Only later did he realize that if the Heralds could be at odds with one another, anyone who wanted to, and knew how the various Heralds stood on important issues, could drive some serious wedges in the not-so-seamless front of the Heraldic Circle.
This didn’t change how he interacted with the other Trainees, of course. The habits of a lifetime were too hard to break. He still said little, listened much, and observed always. But that made him the perfect comrade for Lena. They met every day now, at meals, and often between classes. He would listen, and she would talk. Sometimes very little, and sometimes a lot; most of that was about home, her friends, her mother, the things she used to do. Gradually, he understood that she was bitterly homesick, and that at least having someone to talk about home with was comforting to her, even if all he did was murmur some innocuous word at intervals.
He didn’t mind, not in the least, because he found that he enjoyed having a friend. That was repayment enough for him.
But evidently it was not enough for Lena.
___________________________
“I want to help you,” Lena said earnestly over dinner. “With your studies, at night, after dinner.”
