Exile's Valor

“This no kind of game is,” Alberich told him, harshly. “Not anymore. Not this group. There is this, serious injury today. More, there are likely to be.”

“I know that, Weaponsmaster,” Mical replied, head up, eyes blazing. “But I’m good, really good at regular Hurlee, and I want to help.” His Companion moved forward until he was nearly nose-to-nose with Alberich, and the rest of his speech was made in a whisper. “I know why you’re doing this,” he continued, and if his hands and voice trembled a little, his gaze was firm. “That is, I think I know what you’re doing. You’re training up a bunch of people who are always at the Collegium until they graduate into Whites, and who nobody is going to even consider as adequate protection. Not even the Queen, so we could go anywhere. You think that if the Queen ever leaves the Palace grounds, someone is going to try to kidnap her. Maybe even the Prince’s friends, to try and get the Queen and the Council to agree to make him a King.”

Since that was very near to what Alberich was afraid of, he actually started, and stared at the boy, and this time he didn’t even try to keep his jaw from dropping. “But—how—” he began.

Mical shrugged. “Healer Crathach is my second cousin, and my uncle knows people who know the Prince’s set. I’m good at putting things together, and my Gift is Touchreading.” At Alberich’s puzzled look, he explained. “If I pick up something barehanded, and I want to know, sometimes I can tell where it’s been and what it’s been doing going back to when it was first made.” He gulped. “I haven’t had it working for long, not so I could trust it. Otherwise I’d have told you.”

Alberich blinked again. So did Kantor. :I was under the impression that Mical’s Gift was fairly unreliable.:

“My Gift-teacher still thinks it’s unreliable,” Mical continued. “But in the last moon it’s been getting a bit more under control, and that was when I noticed something. If someone has been handling what I pick up very recently, and feeling strongly about something, it’s pretty dead-accurate. I can pick up bits of what they’ve been thinking about. When I realized there was something strange about this Hurlee team, I—” He flushed. “I started snooping on you. You’ve been awfully worried lately, and you’ve been doing a lot of repairs on the practice equipment.” His chin firmed. “I know this is dangerous; you just cracked Harrow’s skull for him, and that was just in practice! But I still want to help.”

Alberich thought about it for a long, long moment, as the snow fell all about them, sealing them off from the rest of the world inside a wall of white curtains.

“All right,” he said at last. “Come down to the salle with me. I will need to measure you, and get you armor. And your gods be with you.”

***

Mical went off with his measurements taken, a set of armor of the approximate size ready for him, and an admonishment to say nothing of his speculations, not even to his fellows on the team. “Tell them that you are the substitute, you may,” Alberich told him. “If you care to.”

Mical just shook his head. “They aren’t my yearmates, and it’ll be better coming from you,” he replied, showing a maturity that Alberich hadn’t expected. “If you say it, they’ll just figure you picked the best you could think of. If I do, it’ll sound like I’m boasting.”

It sounded as if young Mical had learned a lot more in that glassworks than how to make mirrors.

And there had not been one single attempt on Mical’s part to suggest some of the stage-fighting techniques he had been so enamored with a year ago. He’d done a great deal of physical growing in the past year, too; he’d gone from weedy adolescent to a young powerhouse with muscles as hard as rocks. It was no wonder that he was reputed to be such a demon Hurlee player. Evidently pumping those bellows had been very good for him.

But as Alberich brooded over his solitary supper, he was still worried. The boy might be big and strong, but he was still a boy, still three years younger than the rest of the team. He’d volunteered, but did Alberich have the right to accept him? He thought of poor Harrow, even now being taken care of by the Healers. He would be throwing young Mical into the middle of a team that was already playing a deadly game; they’d had moons of practice at it, and Mical and Eloran didn’t.

:But he’s been watching,: Kantor reminded him.

:Watching isn’t the same as playing.: Would Mical just end up in a bed next to Harrow in the next day or two?

:Eloran is getting some special coaching, this minute,: Kantor told him. :This business is half the Companion’s job, remember. And Eloran is a lot faster than Harrow’s Companion.:

Another shock; this was a day full of them. :I thought all of you were fairly equal —:

:Oh, no. Not that any of us is the Companion equivalent of Myste—: There was a snicker in that, and Alberich could hardly blame him. Poor Myste! By now she was so notorious that Selenay just had a page assigned to her to follow around behind her, picking up the things she dropped and gathering up the things she put down and forgot. Well, she might forget where she left her spare pair of lenses; she never forgot a fact, a law, or a precedent.