'What about this -- every rebellion needs finances, and arms. Those I think I can promise.'
Kethry looked rather outraged; Tarma was just perplexed. Who exactly was this Herald?
Kethry took the question right out of her mouth.
'Just what power is yours that you can fulfill those promises?' Kethry asked with angry cynicism. 'It's damned easy to promise things you know you won't have to supply just to get us off your backs and out of your kingdom!'
Stefansen looked as if Kethry had blasphemed the gods of his House. Mertis' jaw dropped.
'He -- Roald -- is the heir to the throne of Valdemar,' Mertis managed to stammer. 'Your Highness. I am sorry -- '
Tarma nearly lost her own jaw, and Kethry turned pale. Insulting a member of a Royal House like that had been known to end with a summary execution. 'It's I who should beg pardon,' Kethry said, shaken.
'I-I've heard too many promises that weren't fulfilled lately, and I didn't want Jad-- my friends, I mean, counting on something that wouldn't ever happen. Your Highness -- '
'Oh, Bright Havens -- ' Roald interrupted her, looking profoundly embarrassed. ' 'Highness,' my eye! How could I have been insulted by honesty? Besides, we aren't all that much sticklers about rank in the Heraldic Circle. Half the time I get worse insults than that! And how were you to know? You don't even know what a Herald of Valdemar is!' He shrugged, then grinned. 'And I don't know what a Swordsworn is, so we're even! Look, the law of Valdemar is that every Monarch must also be a Herald; our Companions Choose us, rather like that musical sword of Stefan's. Both Father and Mother are Heralds, which makes them co-consorts, so until they seek the Havens -- may that take decades! -- I'm not all that important, and I act pretty much as any other Herald. The only difference is that I have a few more powers, like being able to make promises in the name of the throne to my friend, and know my parents will see that those promises are met. Now, about those arms -- ' Tarma was profoundly troubled; Kethry had thrown herself in with these people as if she had known them all her life, but it was the Shin'a'in's way to be rather more suspicious than her oath-sister -- or at least more than Kethry was evidencing at the moment. She needed to think -- alone, and undisturbed. And maybe ask for some advice.
She let the folds of the eiderdown fall to her sides, and stood up. Four sets of eyes gave her startled glances, Kethry's included.
'I need to clear my head,' she said, shortly. 'If you'll excuse me, I think I'd like to go outside for a little.'
'In the dark? In a snowstorm?' Jadrek blurted, astounded. 'Are you -- ' He subsided at a sharp look from Kethry.
'Swordlady,' the Herald said quietly, but looking distinctly troubled, 'you and the others are guests in my home; you are free to do whatever you wish. You will find a number of cloaks hanging in the entry. And I am certain an old campaigner like you needs no admonitions to take care in a storm.'
She followed the direction of his nod to the darkened end of the hall; past the door there, she found herself in an entryway lit by a single small lantern. As he had said, there were several cloaks hanging like the shadows of great wings from pegs near the outer door. She took the first one that came to her hand, one made of some kind of heavy, thick fur, and went out into the dark and cold.
Outside, the storm was dying; the snow was back to being a thin veil, and she could see the gleaming of the new moon faintly through the clouds. She was standing on some kind of sheltered, raised wooden porch; the snow had been swept from it, and there was a open clearing beyond it. She paced silently down the stairs and out into the untrampled snow, her footsteps making it creak underfoot, until she could no longer feel the lodge looming so closely at her back. Trees and bushes made black and white hummocks in front of her and to both sides; fitful moonlight on the snow and reflected through the clouds gave just enough light to see by. She felt unwatched, alone. This spot would do. And, by sheer stroke of fortune, 'south' lay directly before her.
She took three deep breaths of the icy, sharp-edged air, and raised her head. Then, still with her back to the building, she lifted her eyes to the furtive glow of the moon, and throwing the cloak back over her shoulders, spread her arms wide, her hands palm upward.
She felt a little uncomfortable. This wasn't the sort of thing she usually did. She was not accustomed to making use of the side of her that, as Kal'enedral, was also priestess. But she needed answers from a source she knew she could trust. And the leshyae Kal'enedral would not be coming to her here unless she called to them.
She fixed her gaze on that dimly gleaming spot among the clouds; seeking, but not walking, the Moonpaths. Within moments her trained will had brought her into trance. In this exalted state, all sensation of cold, of weariness, was gone. She was no longer conscious of the passing of time, nor truly of her body. And once she had found the place where the Moonpaths began, she breathed the lesser of the Warrior's true names. That murmur of meaning on the Moonpaths should bring one of her teachers in short order.
From out of the cold night before her came a wind redolent of sun-scorched grasslands, or endless, baking days and nights of breathless heat. It circled Tarma playfully, as the moonglow wavered before her eyes. The night grew lighter; she tingled from head to toe, as if lightning had taken the place of her blood. She felt, rather than
