“How did—”
:Same way we talk in your head. Only at a distance. It takes another of us, or some human who is very strong in this power.:
Oh. Well, if we were seven days from the first vestiges of civilization, then we were probably farther than that from whatever this help was. I didn’t imagine that these white monsters were all that thick on the ground, even here.
:Exactly.:
I gritted my teeth for a moment. I was beginning to resent their ability to read my thoughts.
“What’s a Herald?” I asked, finally.
The beast snorted, tossed his head, and walked off. Great.
The first voice sort of—murmured at me. :Ah, I’m Ardred. Sorry about Destin. He’s touchy, and right now, he’s feeling very angry at himself for what happened to Millissa. I’ll be happy to answer your questions.:
The horse wasn’t in sight. I sighed. This was going to take a lot of getting used to. And meanwhile, well . . . the girl was going to need food and drink eventually, and I needed a bed, and although there is a style I am accustomed to, I’m not altogether incapable of some basic tasks, provided that I’ve not been dropped nearly naked into the middle of a howling wilderness. “Fine,” I said aloud, going out to fetch the packs, mine included. “Let’s start with, ‘What’s a Herald?’ ”
The first thing that Millissa did when she woke up was try to knock out my brains with a dish. I could see why she and Destin were paired.
By this time there was a small fire in the cottage—excuse me, “Waystation”—fireplace, and there was food of a sort cooking over it. That was thanks to Ardred, who talked me through how to make it. My knowledge does not include cooking. There was tea brewing—that, I knew how to make myself. I had a bed in another of the boxes—Ardred had been kind enough to show me where there was some bracken that wasn’t home to insects, and I did have a cloak to lay over it. All the gear was in the Waystation. I knew, more or less, what a Herald was and what a Companion was. It didn’t entirely make sense, as in, I wasn’t at all sure why anyone would trust the dealing out of laws to creatures as ill-tempered as Destin was, much less something that looked like a horse for the gods’ sake, but, well, not my kingdom.
So I had put down a dish on the side of the girl’s bed as I leaned over to check on her, and the next thing I knew, she’d grabbed it with her good hand and broken it over my head. Fortunately it was a very cheap dish, so it broke easily and without braining me, but I ended up on my behind on the floor, staring at her.
“Ow,” I said, very much aggrieved. “What did you do that for?” I completely forgot where I was and spoke Hardornen.
She stared back at me, wild-eyed, as if she were going to find something else to hit me with. Then, as if someone had inserted a different person into her body, her expression changed, and she flushed and winced a little. “Ah . . . oh. Sorry,” she said in passable Hardornen. “I forgot where I was and I thought you were attacking me.”
“I was going to feed you,” I pointed out, crossly, rubbing my head. “We’re now short a dish, thank you.”
“There’re metal ones in my pack,” she retorted.
“As if I were going to go rummaging through your pack,” I scoffed. “I have standards, you know.”
“Which you refuse to rise above,” she murmured, then said, louder, “Well, go ahead, you have my permission. It’s the one with the frying pan handle sticking out of it.”
Lovely. She had a frying pan. Which she would doubtless use to brain me if she got the chance. I made a note to keep it well out of her reach. But I did go rummage and got out the dishes she mentioned. I didn’t give her the . . . well whatever the mess it was I had cooked . . . in them though. I’d use the metal ones, she could use the pottery. One less thing for me to worry about.
I wondered if she would ask me what was happening, but the changing expressions on her face led me to believe that the damn horses were just talking to her directly, and I wouldn’t need to say anything. I’m sure the mean one was giving her an earful. Mindful. Whatever.
Bastard.
I thought hard about glue, dog-food, and fiddle bows.
I could have sworn I heard a snicker.
She was a little apologetic later. But when I tried my signature smoldering look on her, she threatened me with another dish, so I gave up that as a bad idea. Obviously she was going to be immune to my considerable charms.
Perhaps she favored other women . . . ?
:Or maybe you aren’t as charming as you think.:
I grimaced sourly, and the gall was even more bitter when she giggled. Obviously that miserable bone-rack Destin hadn’t bothered to keep his thoughts “private.”
Was there no way to keep my thoughts private?
A very faint “whisper,” almost so unobtrusive that I didn’t even “hear” it, drifted into the back of my head.
:Order him to stay out of your mind.:
I didn’t wait; I just looked out the night-darkened doorway and barked, “Stay out of my head, dammit! A man is entitled to some privacy! Talk to me if you want, but keep your snooping out of my thoughts!”
There was a sense of shocked silence. I looked over at the other bunk, where the girl was nursing a cup of some sort of noxious medicinal tea that she’d told me how to brew. She was looking back at me. With a certain amount of approval.
“He’s right, you know,” she said aloud. “Just because you’re Companions, that doesn’t give you the right to breach Mindspeaking ethics.”
Well, that was a bit of a surprise.
“Do they often do that sort of thing?” I asked tentatively. “Rummage around at will in a stranger’s head, that is.”
She took another difficult gulp of tea before answering. “Not usually. In fact, Companions generally don’t Mindspeak to anyone but their Chosen Herald. Destin’s something of a law unto himself, though, and I can’t always predict what he’s going to decide to do.”
I rolled my eyes. “Fabulous. And this is what you have laying down the law of the land?”
“Not . . . exactly,” she said, finishing the tea. “Let me see if I can explain. Or at least, better than they did.”
Her explanation did make better sense, and I could see now why the gods of this kingdom would have figured out a way to properly answer the particular prayer they’d been petitioned with. And it did prevent some pretty awful abuses of power. I mean, I did know history, and for every good monarch, you generally get a nasty one and an entire herd of mediocre ones. This at least made for a stable form of government.
What? You don’t think I should have an interest in politics? I promise you, you would be amazed what constitutes pillow talk for some women.
Still, I don’t think I would be even remotely comfortable with something rummaging around in my head on a regular basis. A man likes to keep some secrets.
After that, Millissa and I started to get along a bit better. I was feeling positively brotherly toward her as we both drifted off to sleep. Or at least, I was able to feel a lot more sympathy for her. She was putting up with injuries that would have had most people incoherent with pain and was not really complaining about it. Some of that was the tea, but most was that she was either really quite brave or really quite well controlled. In either case, I admired her.
Now, I am not the sort that tends early to bed and early to rise, so the cold, wet nose shoving insistently at me at the crack of dawn came as a literal rude awakening. The kind that makes you start up out of sleep with an incoherent noise.
: Up,: said the cross voice in my head. :We need sleep.:
He needed sleep? I needed sleep! Evidently that didn’t matter, and I knew better than to try to just turn over and attempt to ignore him. He was quite capable of hauling me out of the bed just as he had hauled me over to the cabin.
Now . . . I’ve been a little less than honest. Just because I haven’t done the usually lowly chores you’d need
