“A Herald’s place is in Haven. A Herald belongs to Valdemar, to the Crown, to the people.” She hunched one shoulder, as if hiding behind it. “After my mother’s death, the town allowed me to take her place as herbalist. I belong in Breyburn.”
Calli frowned. “There is no law that says otherwise, yet I think you are wrong. Thirteen was too young for you to be tied to such responsibilities, no matter how much you wanted to earn your keep. Surely there has to be more for you.”
“It does no good to dwell on it,” Shia responded at last. “It is as it is. Here, rub these together until they crack open for me.” She held out a handful of the dried pods to Calli, who looked at them for a moment, then giggled like a much younger girl.
“You’re just trying to make me
Shia only smiled, her hand still outstretched.
Of course, Teo came back to Breyburn, but only briefly, not even every Midwinter over the several years of his training. When he did, his time was taken up with his family, with the townsfolk at large, with the town council, and with the other Herald or Heralds he was usually in company with. And, of course, his Companion.
He was never there just as Teo, not anymore. He was Teo the Herald trainee, Teo the journeyman- Herald, soon to be Teo the Herald. He even looked like someone else in the gray clothing, especially when he suddenly grew several inches from one summer to the next Midwinter.
Unsure of how to approach this new person who looked so different and yet should be so familiar, Shia chose to retreat, keeping to herself in the solitude that had been hers since her mother’s death barely two years before Teo’s Choosing. If she was there at all when Teo came back to the town, she stayed to the rear of the crowd of townsfolk, ducking her head so her hair fell over eyes. She never noticed the concerned blue gaze of Teo’s Companion following her, nor did she see Teo’s eyes wandering restlessly over the faces when all were gathered together.
“Shia! Sheeeee-aaah!” Up on the mountainside, far from the town walls, where the winds sighed and roared by turns in the deep firs, there was no way that Shia should have heard a child’s thin cry. But hear it she did, in her head as much as her ears, and with that impossible sound came another impossible thing—a bone-deep knowledge that something was very wrong in Breyburn. She grabbed the last of her herb packs (how was it they were full already? what had she been gathering while her mind had been wandering who knows where?) and sprinted to where she had tethered her shaggy mare, stowing the pack and freeing the horse almost in the same motion. Without thinking, she reached up and broke off a small branch of one of the overhanging firs, tucking it and its three cones between the straps of the secured packs. She pulled herself up into the saddle and kneed the dun into the fastest trot she could safely take on the uneven mountain paths, letting the mare choose her steps as the early spring mountain- fog started to coalesce around them.
The knot in the pit of her stomach took on more solidity as she approached the town, although the urgency faded. She reined in the mare while she was still hidden beyond the treeline, looking down on the cleared lands of the townsfolk, and her guts churned. Smoke coiled upward from somewhere near the center of town, dark and thick, and the smell of it as it drifted towards her was wrong, wet and musty. She could see broken staves of wood near the main gate, and a few of the town guard nervously standing at attention beside the gate. Whatever it was had come and gone again, leaving the town in uneasy quiet as the day slipped towards evening. She kicked the mare to a canter, angling from the forest to ride onto the Old Quarry Road far enough down that the edgy guardsmen would recognize her well in advance as she approached—or would at least know Mirri’s stocky body and rough coloring.
The relief on Guardsman Fellan’s face as she rode up would have been amusing, were it not for the worry and fear that haunted the corners of his eyes.
“Bandits,” he said, before she even pulled up the mare. “Surprised, we were, and they seemed to know where to strike hardest. They knew who to hit, more’n what the usual raiders we’ve seen would know. Cap’n was first, then Sergeant. The merchants, too, they attacked and robbed, and then they were gone, quick as they came.”
“Dead or injured?”
“Four, five dead maybe, dozen or more injured. M’lady Stadres has got ’em all down to the chapel—they fired the inn.”
Shia swallowed, her heart quailing at the thought of that many injuries. Her mother had only known the basics of herbcraft and had often scolded her daughter for being an indifferent student. Apprehension of the severity of wounds she might face filled her, and despair clawed at her, tightening her stomach and freezing her blood in her veins. When the guardsman looked up at her, question in his eyes, she gave herself a mental shake. Healer she might not be, but she was the closest thing to one that the town had. She would have to do.
She nodded at the guards and angled Mirri down to the square, to the house across from the town’s one inn. As she neared it, she could see that the smoke was still drifting from the inn in slow coils, now held lower to the ground by the weight of the late afternoon fog that had started to roll down from the mountaintop. The building wouldn’t be lost, though, she thought. The rainy season was only just over, and the timbers hadn’t yet dried out, so they had been slow to catch and even then had smoldered rather than burned outright. It looked as though the townsmen had been quick enough to set up a water chain from the cisterns, and as she rode past, she could hear voices from the side of the building, assessing the damage.
She slowed Mirri as they approached the Stadres household. It was the only house in town large and elaborate enough to boast a chapel dedicated to Kernos, and the Stadres family were certainly the only ones wealthy enough to build one. Calli Stadres stood at the front door, her young daughter clutching her hand.
“I told you she would hear me!” Pira cried in triumph before her mother hushed her. Calli’s eyes met Shia’s in question, and Shia gave the tiniest of nods before dismounting. The impossibility of Shia hearing Pira’s voice was something that they would think about later—but Shia suspected that it would not be more than a few winters before Breyburn would have another white visitor.
“How many? How bad?” Shia started unloading her herb packs, glad that Calli had always been sensible. She was sure that most merchant’s wives Calli’s age would have been in hysterics, instead of calmly gathering the wounded into their own homes for care.
“Captain Nolan and two others were dead before the bandits left, but I think Sergeant Dara will be well soon enough. Several of the guardsmen can only have their pain eased, I think, but most of the others have lesser wounds. Twelve injured guardsmen, including the worst.”
Shia sucked in her breath. With three deaths, that was more than half of the town guard unable to act. No wonder those who remained were bewildered and uncertain. She handed two packs to Calli and swung the others over her shoulder, absently tucking the fir branch she had brought into the lamp bracket beside the door before she realized that she had harvested a silver pine, the tree of Kernos’ protection. She whispered a brief petition for the god’s hands to hold all those whose wounds she was about to tend, then followed Calli inside the house.
“And the others? The men at the gates said some of the merchants were attacked.” She reached out her hand to touch Calli’s arm as they hurried down the hall to the chapel. “Your husband? Is he—”
Calli’s breath hitched, but she kept walking. “Injured, but not the worst. Master Widthan may not last the night, though, nor Josette. And Master Riordan is gone.”
“Lord Corus will need to be informed, although I don’t know that he’ll be able to send any men from Torhold —the muster to Karse has spread his forces thin,” Shia said faintly. “He will need to send word to Haven, to the Heralds. His Majesty must also know of these new attacks, especially if they are organized. It might be they had help from Karse. Either way, if they met with what they deem success, they will be back. And Herald-Trainee Teo must be told of his father’s death.” She hoped her voice didn’t sound too strangled. Well, if it did, let Calli think that it was fear of more bandit raids that stole her breath. Even three years later, the strange empty ache that had blossomed as she watched him ride down the Old Quarry Road still swelled within her whenever she thought of him. “Take me to Sergeant Dara, first, then I’ll see the worst of the rest.”
For Shia, the next candlemarks passed in a blur of treating the wounded, moving from one injured person to the next. Thankfully, Calli was for the most part accurate in her assessment of the severity of injuries. Sergeant Dara had been knocked unconscious, but her other wounds were minor. She regained her senses while Shia was applying healing poultices to the cut that laced across her leg, and it was clear that she was in full possession of those senses. She began directing the remaining guard, propped up in her cot, the captain’s sword bared across her knees. She even dictated a message that two of the merchants’ sons would take down the mountain roads to Torhold on the fastest of the town’s horses.
