Exile's Valor

swiftly broke apart, to be absorbed into the milling crowd, some heading for the formal gardens, others on errands of their own.

Myste was one of the latter; Alberich gathered that she had some little wedding duties to attend to in the matter of protocol. He loosened his collar and, feeling heavy in spirit, swiftly separated himself from the throng and headed back down to the salle.

Once there, he stripped himself of the detested finery as quickly as he could, and donned a set of his oldest and most comfortable leathers.

:What did you have in mind for the rest of the day?: asked Kantor.

:I suppose—: he began, then heard footsteps on the path and looked up to see Elcarth approaching—with a bottle in one hand.

“We might as well stay out here,” he said, by way of greeting. “The others will be here shortly.”

“Others?” Alberich inquired, raising an eyebrow.

“You’ll see soon enough,” Elcarth told him, with a sardonic twist to his lips.

And within the candlemark, Jadus, Keren, and Ylsa all arrived bringing their bottles. And last of all, bringing up the rear, came Myste, with Healer Crathach, more bottles, and a hamper between them.

The last evidently came as a surprise to the rest; Myste and Crathach set down the hamper and the Healer surveyed them all, hands on hips, as they tried not to look guilty. “Myste advised me of what you were likely to do,” he said, and Alberich tried not to wince or feel betrayed. “Or shall I say, the state you were likely to get yourselves into.” But Crathach was only warming up to his theme.

“Now, all things considered, I am somewhat in sympathy with the idea of finding a bit of ease in drink, at this particular time. But I told her that you were not going to undertake this without me. We are going to get drunk,” he announced. “We are going to get genteelly drunk, pleasantly drunk, and we will remain in that state with careful application of food as well as drink. We will not drink ourselves sick, we will not drink ourselves stupid, or maudlin, or unconscious, and I will make personally sure that when we finally seek our beds, we will do so in a state that will permit us to sleep and wake without hangovers. Are you with me?”

They set out a kind of alfresco area under the trees, since none of them really wanted to be inside, and at any rate, Alberich’s little sitting room would have been horribly cramped with all of them crammed into it. “I certainly don’t need to be up there now. There are a couple dozen people who’ll be giving me their notes,” Myste said sourly, jerking her head in the direction of the gardens. “Including Talamir.”

“I can’t figure Grandfather on this at all,” Keren replied, waving vaguely at the Palace; Alberich wondered if she’d gotten a start on all of them back in her own quarters, for although she walked and moved perfectly well, and her speech was clear, she had a glazed quality to her eyes as she passed him a full mug of wine.

“Grandfather?” he asked. Keren had her nose in her mug, so it was Myste who answered.

“Talamir is Keren’s grandfather; her people marry off early, and it’s usually arranged between families,” Myste replied. “Since he was the only boy in his, he had to take a break during his Trainee period to go home and fulfill his—ah—obligation.”

“Four breaks, to be precise,” Keren added, with a smirk. “Fortunately for me, I’m half of a twin set, and traditionally only one of us had to do the duty. So when I was Chosen, that left my brother Teren as the one.”

“But is Teren also not a Herald?” Alberich asked, puzzled.

“He got Chosen after he’d provided the family with a litter,” Keren replied and shrugged. “What can I say? With so many close relational ties, my people have to be more pragmatic about marriage. You marry who’s available, and if it turns out there’s a love match, all well and good, but if not, nobody cares who you sleep with for love or pleasure as long as no one is harmed by it.”

“About your grandfather—Talamir,” Alberich prompted, wanting to change the subject back to its original topic.

Keren lay back on the old, worn rug she’d appropriated, and stared up at the branches waving overhead. “I don’t understand why he isn’t doing something about this,” she said finally. “I mean, it’s wrong, we all know in our bones that it’s wrong, though—”

“We can’t put a finger on why,” Elcarth interrupted. “That’s the reason, I think. We don’t have a reason, and somewhere down inside, we’re all uncertain that the only thing we can object to is that the Prince is an outsider.”

“But none of us objected to Sendar’s choice of wife,” Jadus said slowly. “None of us had this feeling of wrongness about her, and she was not a Herald.”