Magic's Promise

'Given what you've told me, he might be useful after all. Breed him to the best-tempered and largest of the hunter-mares. And see what comes of breeding him to plowhorse mares. Maybe make a second-generation three-way cross - if you have time.'

Meke nodded again, smoothing his close-cropped beard. 'I hadn't thought about plowbeasts; that's a good notion. He is vicious. I like the willingness to fight, but I can do without viciousness. So, you agree with me?'

Vanyel turned slowly, a new respect for his brother coloring his thoughts. 'Meke, even if this Border stays quiet, there's Karse, there's Hardorn, there's Iftel-Rethwellan seems quiet, but their king is old and that could change when he dies. There's even the north, if those barbarians ever find a leader to weld them into a single fighting force. May the gods help us - you'll have a ready market all too soon if you can breed the kind of horses you're talking about.' Vanyel pondered the worn, scrubbed wooden floor of the stable. “What have you heard? About here, I mean.'

'The Mavelans want Lineas. Badly enough to chance a war with us, I don't know. The Lineans don't much like either Baires or Valdemar, but they figure Valdemar is marginally better, so they'll put up with us enforcing the peace as third-party. It all comes down to what's going to happen with this mess with Tashir being disinherited.'

Lady Bright, more words of political wisdom where I never expected to find them. His view may be shortsighted - he may not see the larger picture - but where his neighbors are concerned, my little brother seems to have them well weighed and measured.

'I heard Lord Vedric is behind the protests,' Vanyel ventured. Mekeal looked skeptical.

'One thing I've learned watching them, anything the Mavelans do openly has about fifty motives and is hiding a dozen other moves. The protest might be a covering move for something else. Vedric might have the backing of the family. Vedric might be operating under orders. Vedric might be acting on his own. Vedric might have nothing to do with it. And Vedric might really be Tashir's father - and might actually be trying to do something for the boy. The gods know he hasn't any true-born offspring and it's not that he hasn't tried.'

Vanyel nodded and stowed that tidbit away. 'I'll tell you what, Meke, I'll do what I can to get Father to see why you want to breed this stud - and persuade him that since you aren't breeding hunters, he ought to leave you alone to see what you can come up with. But those sheep - '

Mekeal coughed and blushed. 'Those sheep were a damnfool thing to do. There's no market, not with Whitefell just south of us, with furlongs of meadow good for nothing but sheep. But dammit, the old man goes on and on about it until I'm about ready to bash him with a damned candlestick! I am not going to give in to him! We aren't losing money, we just aren't making as much. And if I give in to him on the sheep, he'll expect me to give in to him on the stud.'

Vanyel groaned. 'Lady bless! The two of you are stubborn enough to make an angel swear! Look - if I manage to get him to agree on the stud, will you please agree to clear out the damned sheep? Bright Havens, can't one of you show a little sense in the interests of peace and compromise? ''

Mekeal glowered, and Mekeal grumbled, but in the end, on the way back to the keep, Mekeal grudgingly agreed.

The silken voice stopped Vanyel halfway between the keep and the stables, dimming the bright autumn sunlight and casting a pall on the sweetness of the late - morning sky.

'Good-morning, Herald Vanyel.' The slight hesitation before the second word called pointed attention to the fact that it lacked little more than a candlemark till noon. The cool tone made it clear that Father Leren did not approve of Vanyel's implied sloth.

Vanyel paused on the graveled path, turned, and inclined his head very slightly in the priest's direction. 'Good afternoon, Father Leren,' he replied, without so much as an eyebrow twitching.

The priest emerged from the deeply recessed doorway of the keep's miniature temple, a faithful gray-granite replica of the Great Temple at Haven. Leren had persuaded Withen to build it shortly after his arrival as Ashkevron priest, on the grounds that the chapel, deep within the keep itself, couldn't possibly hold the family and all of the relatives on holy days. It had been a reasonable request, although the old priest had managed by holding services in shifts, the way meals were served in the Great Hall. Vanyel alone had resented it; the little gray temple had always seemed far too confining, stifling, for all that it was five times the size of the chapel. The homely wood-paneled chapel made the gods seem - closer, somehow. Forgiving rather than forbidding. He had hated the temple from the moment he'd first stepped into it at the age of five - and from that moment on, had refused to enter it again. In fact, Vanyel wasn't entirely certain that Leren had ever even set foot in the old chapel- which was why, as a boy, he had accomplished his own worship there.

'I have seen very little of you, my son,' came the cool words. The priest's lean, dusky face beneath his slate. - gray cowl was as expressionless as Vanyel's own.

Vanyel shrugged, shifted his weight to one foot, and folded his arms across his chest. If he wants to play word-games - 'I'm not surprised, sir,' he replied with detached civility. 'I have spent very little time outside of my room. I've been using this time alone to catch up on a year's worth of lost sleep.'

Leren allowed one black eyebrow to rise sardonically. 'Indeed? Alone?' His expression was not quite a sneer.