Hedion would pit his strength against the impossible task he’d set himself until he dropped from exhaustion. No one man could stem the tide of damage the Karsite demon-callers caused. But Hedion Mindhealer would try. If not for Gaurane, Meran knew, Hedion would have broken beneath his burden already.
“She swore someone must have taken it,” Meran said. “The scentseller told her she’d handed it to her servant—”
“But she swore she had no servant,” Gaurane finished, in the tones of one who knows how the tale ends.
Meran nodded in agreement. “She was quite indignant about it, too,” he said dryly.
“So he could hardly have been her partner,” Hedion said. “She loses her coin, she doesn’t buy the scentseller’s wares, and the man escapes. A mystery.”
“The only mystery I’m interested in solving is how long I am to stare at the bottom of my tankard before it is full again,” Gaurane said.
It was certainly a mystery, but hardly one they were likely to solve. The Heralds of Valdemar were charged with keeping the peace and meting out justice, but Gaurane insisted he was no Herald, Rhoses’ presence notwithstanding. Meran doubted the man still owned a traveling uniform, much less a set of formal Whites. As for Rhoses’ saddle and silver-belled bridle . . .
. . . there were some things it was better not to wonder about.
No, they could hardly look to Gaurane to hunt their quarry. But Meran disliked thieves. It was one thing to steal when you had to steal or starve—he’d done that often enough, before Bard Meloree found him. It was another thing to steal for sport or out of greed. The man he’d seen with Mistress Theret’s purse looked well fed (and clean, which was more to the point), and his clothes had been of good quality and in good condition.
“If you want to be a Guardsman, I’m sure they’d take you on,” Elade said in a low voice.
“You didn’t have to come with me,” Meran answered.
“Easier than buying you out of the stocks. Gaurane would complain about the waste of coin, and Hedion would worry.”
“If you can get Hedion to worry, you’re doing better than Gaurane is,” he said absently, his gaze never leaving the crowds around them.
“Hedion worries,” Elade said. “As long as it’s about somebody else. I’m sure even you notice that.”
“Point,” Meran said.
He didn’t know what he was looking for—or rather, he did know, but he wasn’t sure he’d see it. Anywhere there was money, there was thievery, but the style of thievery varied from city to countryside. There might be a few cutpurses working a crowd like this, but it was unlikely the experts at that craft would travel all the way to Goldendale to ply their trade. Here you were more likely to find snatch-and-grab artists, horse traders selling spavined nags as sound, or even an old-fashioned mugging or two. What he’d seen the day before didn’t fit any of those categories. It was trickery, but what kind?
“There. See him? That’s the man.”
Meran kept his voice low—though there was no possibility of being overheard in the crowd’s noise—and nodded toward a pieseller’s stall. As he watched, the same man he’d seen yesterday walked up to the table and pointed toward the shelves. The pieman reached back and took down a pie. He handed it over, smiling. Though Meran watched closely, he did not see any money exchanged.
“Wait here. I’ll get him.” Elade took off like a hound that’s suddenly seen a rabbit break cover.
The man dropped the pie and bolted. He and Elade vanished into the crowd.
Meran sighed. Not the way he would have done it, but he had no doubt Elade would catch their culprit. Then they could ask him what he’d done with Mistress Theret’s purse. Since there was no chance of catching up to Elade, he settled himself to wait.
It was half a candlemark before Elade returned. She was alone.
“I can’t believe he outran you,” Meran said.
“What?” Elade asked blankly. “Oh, no. I caught up to him quickly enough. But he said he wasn’t the man I was after, so I let him go.”
For a long moment, Meran stared at her. “He said he was innocent, and you believed him?”
Elade simply stared back at him, looking cross. Then her eyes widened, and she looked utterly horrified.
“Come on,” Meran said, sighing. “It’s time to consult an expert.”
There was no place in all of Valdemar where a Herald and a Companion would not be made welcome. In fact, there were several Heralds at Summerfair, for one of a Herald’s duties was to hear disputes and give judgment, and another was to keep the peace, and those whose circuits brought them near the great fairs made sure to attend them.
The only time things became awkward was when one traveled with a Companion whose Herald flatly refused to acknowledge himself as a Herald.
They found Rhoses with three other Companions in an open space behind one of the larger pavilions. One of them was probably with a Herald Trainee on Progress, while the other two would be the Companions of the Heralds working the fair. In his time at the Collegium, Meran had become used to the sight of the dazzling white creatures who held the peace and safety of Valdemar in their charge, but no matter how much the Herald Candidates insisted they were easily distinguishable, he’d never been able to tell one Companion from another.
But it was certainly Rhoses who came walking over to them, ears pricked forward in curiosity. When he reached them, he nudged Hedion hard in the chest.
Hedion staggered backward. “Oh, not you too?” he said.
They’d had to find Hedion before coming for Rhoses. While Rhoses could hear them perfectly well, it would be a rather one-sided conversation, since no one but Hedion could hear him.
Not even Gaurane.
A pause. “I am!” Hedion protested. “Here I am, doing nothing at all!”
Meran had gotten used to listening to only half a conversation in the past several moonturns. It had never stopped him from being curious about the half he couldn’t hear.
“You know him better than I do,” Hedion said darkly. “Come on, then.”
Rhoses tossed his head, and once again Meran had the sense of a conversation taking place just beyond the range of hearing. Rhoses walked forward, and Hedion fell into step beside him. Few of those the little party passed gave them a second glance. Before he’d left Haven, Meran would have thought it impossible for anyone to mistake a Companion for a horse. But many of Valdemar’s citizens never saw a Companion at all—and many of those who did were woefully unobservant, at least in Meran’s opinion. A Bard was trained to observe, so that the things they saw could be used to add life and heart to the songs they crafted.
“You see,” Meran said—he’d quickly learned to speak to Rhoses in the same way he’d speak to Hedion, “we’ve run into something a bit odd. There’s a man here at the fair with the power to make Elade change her mind.”
Elade thumped him—hard—in the shoulder with her fist.
“Ow,” Meran said ruefully, rubbing the bruise. “And that part isn’t the problem. But he’s a thief. And I’m not sure how he’s doing it.”
“ ‘A Bard should know all the Mind Gifts.’ ” Hedion translated Rhoses’ reply. “ ‘Even if he is a mere Journeyman.’ ” A lifted eyebrow conveyed the irony Meran couldn’t hear.
Meran bowed mockingly without breaking step. “I did pay attention to my teachers, you know. All I can tell you is what it isn’t. Not Mindspeech, not Farspeaking, not even Overshadowing. People just . . . believe him.”
“‘Not Compulsion?’ ” Hedion (Rhoses) asked.
“You think I wouldn’t recognize the kissing cousin of the Bardic Gift?” Meran demanded indignantly. He sighed. “I only saw him up close once,” he admitted. “If he was using Influence, he did it faster and stronger than I’ve ever thought was possible.”
“Apparently he used it on Elade directly,” Hedion said, answering the silent question.
Elade scowled ferociously. “If that’s what it was, I’ll make sure he never does it again once I catch him. I chased him through the crowd. I caught him. He . . .” She hesitated, and her next words were spoken with obvious reluctance. “He told me I’d made a mistake—that he wasn’t the man I was after.”
“And?” Hedion prompted.
“And I let him go. I realized I’d grabbed the wrong man, and I let him go. I would have gone on thinking
