all wrong to me in a way I couldn’t put together at the time. We turned, and without a word or thought actually exchanged, I tossed her into Ardred’s saddle, where she stuck like a burr. “Run!” I urged him. “Don’t wait for us. Run!”
He did. The man was on his way back toward us; he was a huge bull of a man, in a towering rage, and . . .
I’m no fighter, but I knew it would be a mistake to leave him.
There was a shovel lying under the wagon seat. I leaned down and grabbed it.
:Are you thinking—: began Destin.
“Go!” I shouted, because the man was closing on us.
Destin launched straight into a gallop and was up to speed in a few paces more. I took a firm grip on the handle of the shovel, and as we charged down on the bastard that would beat a little girl black and blue, I summoned all my rage, stood up in the stirrups, and swung straight for his face.
I hit him so hard the shock nearly knocked me out of the saddle, and it broke the handle of the shovel. Out of the corner of my eye I saw him go down.
We kept going.
I didn’t look back.
Adred did wait for us, and the little girl clinging to his back looked at me with both hope and fear. “He’s never going to follow us,” I told her. “He’s never going to hurt you again.”
I certainly hoped he wasn’t, because my arms were still tingling from the shock of that hit. The little thing burst into tears,and jumped out of Ardred’s saddle for me. I realized it at the last minute, fortunately, and caught her, and she clung to me and cried. Ardred’s eyes rolled with alarm, but I just smiled at him. “It’s all right. She just needs someone to hold her.”
The gods know I’d held plenty of women in my time who’d just needed someone to hold them.
I held her safe all the way back to the Waystation. It took some coaxing to get her to let go of me, but between us, Millissa and I managed, and we—well, I—got her filthy rags stripped off her, gave her a wash, put her into one of my shirts (which was certainly big enough on her to be a dress) fed her, and put her to bed.
Over the next day, Millissa got her story out of her. The man had been some distant relative. When her parents died, he’d come and taken everything portable, and her. He’d beaten her and starved her, made her do work that was far past her strength and then beat her when she couldn’t manage it. She had whatever it was that made a Herald, and Ardred had heard her crying for him, but he had known he was never going to be able to get her away on his own, so he’d recruited Millissa to help.
Her name was Rose, and she stayed glued to me like a day-old chick to its mother. I did what I always do for a female who is hurt and frightened and mourning. I soothed her, I listened to her, I held her and let her cry, I promised her that Ardred would always take care of her, and I let her cry some more.
The next day, that help finally came. Another Herald and a Healer, who would stay with Millissa until she was fit to travel while the new Herald escorted Rose and Ardred to wherever these Heralds lived.
Then came the hitch. Rose refused to leave me. She clung to me and wailed, and I couldn’t persuade her to stop. Finally Ardred solved it. :I can carry two,: he said firmly.
So that was how I arrived in Haven, about a candlemark after sunset, with a weary little girl in my arms who, after a good two weeks of solid work from me, had finally decided that she didn’t have to be afraid any more and could start to leave the terror and learn to live.
I handed her over to the Collegium people, Ardred was led away, and—
And I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking I turned around, saw one of those blasted white busybodies, looked into her eyes and—
Nope. Didn’t happen. No interfering know-it-all with hooves. Just a tired but cheerful fellow in green robes who had come to see to Rose and now was standing next to me.
“Well,” he said. “I suppose you’ve figured it out?” My bewildered expression told him otherwise. He laughed. “Ah, right. You aren’t used to the Mind-Gifts where you come from, are you? All right. I’ll just tell you straight out. The reason the Companions could talk to you is that you’re Gifted. Like a Herald, but different.”
You could have knocked me over with a feather. “I am?” I said, feeling stupid.
He nodded. “I felt you at work from half a day away, and let me tell you, my lad, we are going to be right glad to have you if you care to stay and learn to use what you’ve got properly. You’re a Mindhealer, son. That’s what you’ve been doing all your life—using your Gift.”
“I thought—” Things I’d never put together began tumbling into place. Things Millissa had told me. The things I’d been doing. How I’d worked with little Rose . . . “Huh.”
Well, it wasn’t as if I had anything better to do. And there was nothing saying I couldn’t keep, well . . .
The Healer raised an eyebrow at me. “Oh, yes. You’re still going to be very popular with the women.”
I found myself grinning. He grinned back and clapped me on the back.
“Come along then, Healer Trainee Don. We’re just in time for supper.”
South of the Yvedan Hills, in the places where constant border clashes between Karse’s army and Valdemar’s defenders were merely worrisome news and not terrifying reality, the land softened, spreading itself into rolling hills and lush fields. North of the Jaysong Hills, the farmsteads were built more of wood than stone; the farmstead walls were built to stop wandering chickens and not armed raiders, and shutters were not barred with iron. Here no man or woman slept with a sword beneath the pillow to arm against danger that comes in the night.
North and east of the Jaysong Hills, near—but not too near—the Hardorn border, where the East Trade Road ran straight and smooth toward Haven, the tents of Summerfair sprouted each Midsummer. From full moon to full moon a city of tents and pavilions appeared in the cup of the Goldendale, a city to which all the north came to sell and to buy.
“Why are we here?” Elade grumbled.
Despite the fact that the Summerfair Peace hadn’t been broken within living memory—and despite the fact that her sword had been peacebound, as had every other weapon at the fair—her gaze roved over the fairgoers as though any might rise to menace them.
“Why is anyone anywhere?” Meran answered. His teeth flashed white as he smiled at her, and he hitched his bag higher on his shoulder. Seeing the fair in Elade’s company was a bit like taking a leopard for a walk. The other fairgoers gave them a wide berth, despite the knot of yellow ribbons that bound her sword to its sheath.
“You look like a—a—a—”
“Bard?” Meran asked, his eyes round with feigned innocence. “But I am a Bard, sweet Elade.”
Elade slanted a sideways look at Meran’s crimson tunic. “You don’t have to look like one,” she huffed.
It was true that no one would take Elade for anything but what she was. Short cloak, high boots, studded leather bracers, and chain mail tunic all proclaimed her identity as a mercenary soldier. Elade had no reason ever to conceal herself . . . unlike the rest of them. In the places they travelled—and with the work they did—it was far better he and the others not travel garbed in Bard’s scarlet or Healer’s green or . . . Not that we could ever get Gaurane into Whites without knocking him unconscious first, Meran thought.
“Why not?” he asked (it was fun to tease Elade). “It would be very wrong of me to do otherwise. Only think—I might enter all the competitions and carry off every prize.”
Elade snorted. “You’d have to be better than everyone else to do that, Meran,” she pointed out.
“Hey, Bard here,” he protested.
“Journeyman Bard,” Elade corrected, just as if she could tell the difference between the playing of a Journeyman and a Master. Elade insisted all music was nothing more than cat-squalling.
“Elade, it’s Summerfair.” Meran dropped the teasing and set out to convince her in earnest. “We have a whole fortnight where nobody’s trying to kill us. You should enjoy yourself. We’ll be back on the Border soon enough.”
“I like the Border,” Elade said. “You know who your friends are there. And your enemies.”
Only Elade, Meran thought, could say something like that and mean it, when our work is finding those whose minds had been warped by Karsite demons and working to save them, minds and lives alike. The Touched hid their damage from themselves, and the demons that overshadowed them were clever at concealing themselves. Often,
