Brightly Burning

:It's never easy to see them go, Chosen,: came the soft words in the back of his mind. :We both have reason to know that.:

Pol sighed and wordlessly agreed. Satiran had more reason to worry and grieve over his own offspring than Pol did; his eldest had come to a premature end, with his Herald, at the hands of the Karsites.

He turned his mind out of that path before he started to worry about Ilea. The Karsites didn't kill Healers, they weren't that barbaric, but they made major efforts to capture them. And Pol knew Ilea; she had a heart like a warrior, and never let danger keep her from rushing to the aid of the injured. He only hoped that Elenor's good sense was inherited from Ilea's side of the family as well as his, and that Ilea would know she would cause more harm than good by going into danger.

The water was cooling, and he thought briefly about running more hot water in—

But that would be slothful, and he pried himself up out of the tub, feeling unaccountably much heavier than when he'd gone in, and got himself dried, clothed, and presentable. It was nearly time for dinner; he'd have just about enough time to dry his hair before he had to join the courtiers.

And after dinner, provided his pupils left him in peace—he did have responsibility for more than just his little Animal Mindspeaker Kedd—he wanted to see if he could follow up some odd indications he'd felt over the past few weeks. It had felt like the first stirrings of a Gift, but if it was, it was a Gift unlike anything he had encountered before.

Pol was the one Herald who was at all sensitive to the odder Gifts, thanks to his own abilities, but since his strength was minimal, he couldn't reach much outside the walls of Haven, and about half the time, nothing much came of these vague sensations. Just because a Gift began to stir, it didn't follow that it would actually wake to full flower. Children often lost the use of Mind-Gifts as they entered puberty. The owner might successfully repress it and wall it off. Life changes might send a Gift into limbo again, particularly tragedy.

Still, Pol felt he had to follow up where he could, identify what the Gift he sensed was, if possible, and even find the owner. Usually, though, the Companions beat him to the last.

Pol sat in the open window of his room and combed his hair dry in the waning sunlight; he had a fastidious dislike of going out in public with wet hair. It was a comfortable little room, neat and well-ordered, shared most of the time with Ilea. With so much of white and blue surrounding him, and so much of green surrounding Ilea, Pol's personal tastes broke out in a certain peculiar rebellion in his furnishings. He preferred what Ilea called 'earth colors,' which were warm browns, wheat golds, and smoldering oranges. Fortunately, so did she. Geometrically patterned weavings softened the white walls and served as curtains; heavier pieces carpeted the floor from wall to wall. His blankets, collected over the years from the most skillful craftspeople he encountered, were splendidly patterned and as soft as swansdown, made from the silky hair of chirras and the wool of lambs. An enormous coverlet, pieced together from the skins of brown, black, and white sheep, could have decked the bed of the King himself.

In fact, one very like it did; Pol had brought it as a gift from his last foray into the field.

Ilea's touch was present in the fragrant wreaths of grapevine and dried herbs, the knitted wraps folded neatly atop one of the chests, waiting to be snuggled into on a chill evening, needlework pieces on the walls, the embroidery basket in the corner. And, hidden behind the doors of the wardrobe, her store of a Healer's Green robes were keeping his Herald's Whites company.

He smiled a little at that. At least if they couldn't be together, their uniforms could!

When the sun faded into twilight, he moved to a stool in front of the fire. When his hair was finally dry, he bound it into a thick tail at the nape of his neck with a plain silver clasp, and went on to dinner.

All Heralds present at the Collegium automatically had a place at the uppermost table of the Court, directly below the High Table itself; not all of them availed themselves of that privilege, though. Some preferred to dine with the Collegium, Trainees and teachers together; some preferred a solitary (or not so solitary) tray in their rooms. Pol enjoyed dining with the Court, however; his Gifts were not so sensitive that being with so many unGifted rubbed him raw, and he derived a certain amusement watching the little dramas that went on around him. The Court was full of drama, and although Pol had very little to do with the courtiers themselves, that very freedom gave him an impartiality that allowed him to find the jousting for place altogether hilarious. He had a knack for spotting a piece of trouble abrewing; sometimes all he could do was to alert others to potential difficulties, but at least they had that warning.

He was in good time. People were just now filing into the Great Hall, and Pol joined the traffic with a nod to one or two of the courtiers he did know, and a smile for a couple of the other Heralds who were either highborn themselves or for their own reasons preferred to dine here.

He took his place at the Herald's table with the rest, settling into his chair with a glance at the High Table. King Theran and his young son Clevis were laughing at something that King's Own Herald Jedin had just said; Queen Fyllis wasn't in her chair, but that was hardly surprising since she was still suffering from the nausea that always plagued her in the first two months of a pregnancy.

Poor Fyllis! Pol thought with sympathy; he knew the Queen quite well, better than most. The King and Queen both had been Chosen when Theran was still the Heir. At the time she (Herald-Trainee, the third daughter of the Duke of Brendan) met and fell in love with Theran, everyone had agreed that the marriage was the best possible match Theran could make; it created a strong bond of blood between the throne and a dukedom right on the far southeastern Border. She had been a pupil of Pol's; her odd Gift was Empathy. It was a very useful Gift for a monarch, but unfortunately, when she was in the first throes of pregnancy, sometimes she inadvertently projected her nausea to those nearest her, to the discomfort of her friends and family and the utter ruin of one formal dinner reception for the heads of the Craft Guilds back when she'd first been with child. That had been years ago; after that single disaster, she wisely absented herself from meals when pregnant. She drank most of her meals during the touchy months, soothing, smooth concoctions of milk, vegetables, fruits, and nuts, with a Healer nearby to help repress the nausea and make sure she actually got a well-balanced diet. Fyllis claimed it was a small price to pay, considering that the rest of her pregnancy was always a joy to her; being with child made her positively bloom with health and happiness.

The rest of her offspring weren't fit for the High Table yet; one was in the 'terrible twos' and the other was still a baby. Clevis was a mere five, but was a very well-behaved boy as long as his father's eye was on him.

When it wasn't—well—bread rolls and pickles had been known to mysteriously acquire the power of flight, aimed unerringly at other children he'd been quarreling with earlier in the day.

The young mischief maker was firmly sandwiched between his father and the King's Own today, however, so it was unlikely there would be any food flights at this meal.