Magic's Pawn

Gods, he thought, seeing Vanyel so elated, he fades like an unwatered flower when he thinks I'm angry at him - and now this - you’d have thought I'd offered him a Bard's laurel. Does my opinion mean so much to him? Do I mean so much to him ?

The thought was a sobering one. And it was followed inevitably by another.

Maybe Savil 's right. . . .

'He said he wants to stay in touch with me anyway, just in case I hear something. I told him that was all right with me. In fact, I acted pretty eager about it.' He turned his head a little to one side, and offered, tentatively, 'I thought we could sort of tell him what we wanted him to hear.'

Ha. 'We,' not 'you. ' No, Savil's not right. He depends on me, but I depend on him, and if he's leaning on me a little, well, that isn’t going to hurt anyone. He's just not used’to making decisions on his own, that's all.

'That's perfect,' he said, leaning on the arm of the chair. 'Absolutely perfect. Now, after facing off the dragon for me, oh noble warrior, in what way can I ever reward you?' He batted his eyelashes at Vanyel, who laughed, and drew himself up as if he sat in a throne. 'I'll do anything - '

'Oh?' Vanyel replied archly. 'Anything?'

'Savil told me something funny today,' Tylendel murmured quietly into Vanyel's ear. His voice roused Vanyel out of the sleepy half-dream he'd been in ever since he and Tylendel had settled into their favorite spot in all of the Field.

It was the first time either of them had broken the silence since they'd entered the pine copse.

The suite had seemed far too stuffy for the warm autumnal evening, even with all the windows open. And Vanyel had scarcely left it since they'd staged their 'fight' - except for lessons and the obligatory evenings with Evan Leshara to feed him misinformation. And the appearances he had to make at Court to keep his circle of admirers happy and deceived.

It was moon-dark, and the chance of anyone seeing them heading out into Companion's Field together was practically nonexistent. So when Vanyel had looked up from his Religions text and tentatively suggested a walk, Tylendel had shut his own book and flung the garden door open with a mocking bow and a real grin.

It was inevitable that Gala should join them when they crossed the river; Vanyel had come to take her presence for granted on the precious few joint excursions they'd judged safe from detection. It was equally inevitable that they should seek 'their' pine grove; it drew them as no other place within walking distance could.

It was blacker than Sunsinger's despair beneath the branches on this moonless night, but Tyiendel had made a tiny mage-light once they'd gotten past the first line of trees and were safely out of sight. They'd just rambled for a long time, from one end of the peaceful grove to the other and back again; not speaking, but not needing to. Not touching, either - but again, not needing to.

It wasn't until they'd walked out the last of their end-of-the-day tensions that they'd finally decided to settle next to the oldest tree in the grove and just relax in silence. Gala provided a willing backrest, and the two of them leaned up against her soft warmth, with Vanyel resting his head on Tylendel's shoulder. Tyiendel had put out the mage-light, leaving them in near-total darkness. There were still a few crickets that hadn't been killed by the first frost, calling from a dozen different directions, and once Vanyel had heard geese crying by high overhead. But other than that, and the sigh of Gala's breathing, they might have been the only two living creatures in an endlessly empty, pine-fragrant universe.

Which was exactly the way Vanyel wanted it. This continual charade of theirs was proving to be both harder and easier than he'd thought it would. Easier, because he was no longer trying to block out his feelings, no longer trying to convince himself that he didn't need anyone. Easier, because the arrogant pose, the flirtation games, were no longer anything more than an elaborate set of games. But harder, because one single slip, one hint getting back to Withen of what was really going on, and he'd lose everything that was making his life something more than a burden to be endured. And harder, because of the double-game he was playing with Leshara. One slip there and Leshara would know what was really going on - and it would be child's play for him to use that knowledge as a double-weapon against Vanyel and Tylendel.

And there was no way of knowing how much - or how little - Evan Leshara believed out of all the things Vanyel was telling him. All he could do was trust that 'Lendel knew enough to seed the falsehoods with exactly the right amount of truth - because he certainly didn't know enough.

The pretense was a constant drain on his emotional energy, and it wasn't often that he felt safe enough to forget and enjoy the moment. The insecurity of the situation was the first thing on his mind when waking and the last when going to sleep.

That wasn't the only strain. Since the fight, he'd been virtually ostracized by the Bards, Heralds, and all their trainees. Tylendel was (somewhat to his own surprise) highly-regarded among the 'working' members of Queen Elspeth's High Court. But that meant that Vanyel was bearing the burden of their scorn for provoking the fight. And while his teachers remained within the bounds of polite civility, they were making no secret of their disdain. Lessons had become ordeals, and only Tylendel's insistence that he was going to have to continue if the charade was going to work had kept Vanyel persisting in the face of the hostility he was facing. The only one of his teachers that seemed oblivious to the whole mess was Lord Oden - possibly because the Lord-Marshall's second-in-command was pretty well indifferent to anything not involving the martial arts. Vanyel had ample occasion to reflect on the irony that his situation was now precisely the opposite of what he had endured at Forst Reach. There he'd been the pet of his tutors, except for the armsmaster, and despised by everyone his own age. Here - discounting the trainees - his peers were fawning on him, but his teachers were doing their icily gracious best to get him to give up and drop out of their lessons - except for his armsmaster. It was not his imagination that they were being harder on him than the others being lessoned; Mardic was in his Religions group now, and had confirmed his suspicions.

 'So what did Savil say?' he replied, closing his weary eyes, and shifting a bit so that he wasn't resting so much of his weight on Tylendel's arm. Tylendel responded by holding him a little closer.

'That she can't understand why we haven't had at least one fight,' Tylendel said, laughing a little. 'She says we're sickening.'

'She has a point,' Vanyel conceded, with a ghost of a chuckle. 'We are, a bit.'