Changing the World: All-New Tales of Valdemar

That seemed to be a good, sound plan to her, so she kept silent while they worked out the details of their new religion. Sendar did point out with some humor that it would be important that it didn’t look attractive. The last thing they wanted to do was to create followers for a made-up religion. So aside from the vows of poverty, abstinence, and chastity, they decided that complete vegetarianism was probably going to be the most effective against country folk wanting to join up. She agreed. “Country folk like our meat and cheese and eggs,” she said. “And in case you get some odd little fervent duck who decides this is all very lovely anyway, make it a requirement that the entire family join this religion before any single member can.”

“Ah, yes, the unity of the family is of the utmost importance,” said Sendar, pulling a grave face. “Only when the family is united can such serious matters be properly decided.”

They knew they were catching up to Danet when, as they entered village after village, certain timid souls would come up, quietly, as they sat at a meal. “Pardon, Herald,” the diffident speech would be begin, “But I wonder if . . . well, this just didn’t seem right, somehow . . . do you know of a Herald Danet?”

And thus would begin the revelations. Small things mostly. Suspicion of taking a bribe. A girl’s dazzled infatuation with the white uniform taken advantage of. Sometimes things gone missing. Occasionally, instead of a quarrel being solved, having it fanned into a feud.

These things delayed them, though not, to Marya’s mind, intolerably, since she didn’t have to do much but listen and verify that no, Danet wasn’t a real Herald and yes, he’d taken similar advantage of most of the people in her own village. Free from the need to keep her mouth shut over it, there was a certain relish in being able to name names and reveal a great many indiscretions. It felt a little like revenge, in a way.

And a strange thing began to happen. She found herself becoming the recipient of similar sad little stories. Rather than confiding them to the Heralds, perhaps out of embarrassment, people seemed much more comfortable telling their tales to someone who was just like them, but whom they would never have to see again. A confluence of commonality and anonymity, perhaps. She began to take careful notes, turning them over to the Heralds at the end of the day. When Danet was found, would these things serve to determine his punishment?

She hoped so. His crimes against her were . . . well, not crimes at all. Breach of promise? But there had never been any actual promise. He never stole anything from her but her happiness. But this was certainly a way in which she could exact revenge for that.

Each place they stopped and had to sort things out, Danet was “nearer” to them in time. He had been there two months ago . . . a month ago . . . a fortnight . . .

It was clear he was not aware he was being followed, and it was time for the two Heralds to scout ahead in their guise of humble priests. They claimed they had also summoned help. How, she was not at all sure, since they hadn’t sent any messages back that she had seen. But they wanted the people of Springdale to be convinced that Danet was a fraud first, so that he had no way to make them rise up against the real Heralds and whatever “help” was coming.

They left her behind in that village, still coaxing stories from people, and this time, having to do something new: She had to urge them not to follow in the false Herald’s wake, and try to summon him to justice themselves.

“Think about what you would have said when he was among you,” she pointed out. “The bastard has a charm that is almost magical. When he is around you, he can talk you into thinking almost anything he wants. You like him and want to believe him. If you go after him, all that will happen is that he will turn the people of Springdale against you—you’ll be the outsiders, and outnumbered, and he will easily persuade them that you are, for one reason or another, disgruntled over his judgments. Sore losers.”

Somehow she managed to persuade them. She wasn’t quite sure how, because she had not been very diplomatic about it.

Actually, “not very diplomatic” was an understatement. She’d been her usual blunt self. She usually sat them down at a table near the fire in the inn and ordered beer for them. After all, why not? The king was paying for it. Then she began with, “Don’t be an idiot,” and ended with, “I know because he did it to me.” Some people started off a little bristly, but when it become clear that she wasn’t being personal, eventually they ended up nodding their heads and going away, if not satisfied, at least prepared to allow the real Heralds to handle it. It might have been her powers of persuasion, but she was more inclined to think it was the beer.

When the two Heralds returned nearly a week later, she knew from their guarded expressions that they had discovered just how powerful Danet’s charm was.

“We found him; he went off the road to a smaller village, but we finally found him. He has definitely begun entrenching himself, and they all consider themselves privileged to be hosting him over the winter,” Callan told her, over a gloomy dinner. “I must apologize to you, Marya. I thought you were exaggerating his ability to charm people. If anything, it is more potent than you described. There might even be some form of Gift at operation here; I don’t have the ability to tell.”

“Or he has simply gotten better with practice,” she replied, dismissing the whole notion of these nebulous “Gifts” with a wave of her hand. “Tell me what he’s done.”

As Callan and Sendar talked, she listened carefully. It was clear that neither of them had any idea how to counter Danet’s hold over an entire village. An enormous part of that hold was the white horse that he, or someone at least, had trained. The animal was amazing. It did things that neither man had thought possible for an “ordinary” horse.

“Clearly it’s not ordinary at all, it’s an exceptionally intelligent and well- trained horse—which means it can almost do as much as an exceptionally well- trained dog,” she said tartly. “He probably paid a pretty sum for it. So, the problem is, he has these people wrapped around his fingers, they’ll look at his fancied-up horse and not see any differences between it and your Companions, and you don’t know how to prove to these people what’s what without—what?”

“We can’t force a Truth Spell on anyone who’s not been brought up in judgment,” Sendar said gloomily. “Right now it’s our word against his. And they think he’s a Herald.”

“Had you considered kidnapping?” she asked.

They both blanched. “Breaking the law is not an option,” Callan replied faintly.

She shrugged. “All right. Then I might have a plan.”

They rode into town and headed straight for the inn where Danet was holding court. He looked startled to see two real Heralds, but the expression didn’t last long and quickly turned to his usual self-confidence.

He has the high ground here, and he knows it.

His expression slipped when she slid down off from behind Callan, however. He went absolutely blank.

“Hello, Danet,” she said pleasantly. “I see that you have convinced all these people that you are really a Herald. I wonder if they would still believe that if they knew you had taken Elise Garen’s silver locket. After you slept with her, of course. And you ‘borrowed’ over forty coppers from Tulera that you never intended to repay.” She went down the list, adding, sadly, all too frequently “After you slept with her, of course,” and paid close attention to the faces of some of the women around him. Doubt was creeping in. Not much, but—

“Of course, you must be a Herald now,” she went on, doing her best to sound perfectly calm and even. “Because look, you have the uniform, just like Herald Callan and Herald Sendar. And you have the Companion . . .” Now she turned to where the rather lovely white horse was peacefully standing, quite untethered, a few feet away. She had to admit he had managed a rather good imitation of a Companion. If you didn’t look too closely. “Of course you do.” She took a few steps nearer. “Or . . . do you?”

Before anyone could move to prevent her, she dashed forward. As she had expected, the horse was too well trained to shy away, although it did throw up its head in surprise and snort.

She lunged, and the hand she had held concealed in the folds of her dress slapped the flank of the horse, the wad of rags saturated with dark walnut dye leaving a huge brown smear on its white hide.

“Of course, everyone knows that Companions are white because dirt and all just evaporates right off them,” she continued as Danet and his little knot of admirers stared in shock. “So, to be fair, I should do the same to the others. With the same dye, so you can’t claim that I’ve used something different on them.”

She turned and wiped the dye off on the other two, creating identical swaths of stain on their satiny hides. “Now, let’s just see—oh, look.”

The two Companions had gotten a look of curious concentration on their faces the moment the rags touched them. And the dye was already fading!