Two-Edged Blade

He contemplated that for a moment, as he pushed himself off the floor, and she watched his face harden. “If that’s got even the barest possibility of being true, then it’s all the more important that I get back to report.” He did not, at that moment, look like a man she wanted to cross.

“I’m doing the best that I can,” she pointed out without losing her temper. “After all, I have quite a bit riding on getting you back, myself!”

He stared at her for a moment, as if he wasn’t certain just what she was. She watched curiosity slowly replacing anger in his expression. Finally he asked, “If I hadn’t agreed to your price back there, would you have left me in their hands?”

It would serve you right if I said “yes,” she thought, but honesty compelled her to answer otherwise. “If I could have gotten you loose, without getting myself killed, I would have,” she said. “But instead of taking you to Valdemar, I’d have convinced you it was safer to go through Menmellith. And once across the border and with my Company, I’d have turned you over to the Mercenary Guild as a war prize. They would have ransomed you back to Valdemar. I’d have lost ten percent on the deal, but I still would have gotten paid.”

He stared at her, shocked and offended. “I don’t believe you!” he spluttered. “I can’t believe anyone could be so—so—”

“Mercenary?” she suggested mildly.

That shut him up, And after a few moments, his anger died, and was replaced by a sense of the humor of the situation. “All right, I was out of line. You have a right to make a living—”

“Thanks for your permission,” she replied sarcastically. I’m really getting just a little tired of his attitude....

He threw up his hands. “I give up! I can’t say anything right, can I? I’m sorry, I don’t understand you, and I don’t think I ever will. I fight for a cause and a country —”

“And I fight for a living.” She shrugged. “I’m just as much a whore as any other men or women that make a living with their bodies, and I don’t pretend I’m not.”

And maybe that’s the real difference between us. Mercs are the same as whores, people who devote themselves to causes are like one half of a lifebonded couple. We do exactly the same things, just I do it for money, and you do it for love. Which may be another form of payment, so—maybe he still should do something about that attitude. She shrugged, feeling somehow just a little hurt and oddly lonely. It appeared that being able to read people’s minds didn’t necessarily make for less misunderstandings.

Which is as good a reason as any to keep from using it so much I come to depend on it, she decided. If it can’t keep two people who like each other from making mistakes about each other, it isn’t going to keep me from making mistakes about other things.

“So,” she said, when they knew there probably weren’t going to be any repetitions of their visitation, and both of them had gotten a chance to cool down a little, “I don’t know about you, but I am not going to be able to get to sleep for a while. Not after having that cruise by overhead.”

Eldan sighed, and looked up from the repairs he was trying to make to his clothing, using a thorn for a needle and raveled threads from a seam. “I’m glad I’m not the only one feeling that way. I was afraid you might think I was being awfully cowardly, like a youngling afraid of the dark.”

“If stuff like that is out in the dark, I’d be afraid of it too!” She relaxed a little. He isn’t going to be difficult. Thank the gods. “I don’t know if being awake is going to make any difference to that, but I’d rather meet it awake than asleep. So let’s talk. You know everything that’s important about me—”

He started to protest, then saw the little grin on her face, grinned back and shrugged.

“All I know about you is that at some point in your life you decided to make a big fat target out of yourself.” She fixed him with a mock-stern glare. “So talk.”

Eldan put down his sewing, and moved over to her side of the fire, stretching himself out on their combined bedroll.

Also a good sign.

“To start with, I didn’t ‘decide’ to become a Herald; no one does. I was Chosen.”

The way he said the word made it pretty clear that he was talking about something other than having some senior Herald come up and pick him out as an apprentice. To Kero it had the sound of a priestly Vocation.

“Before that, I was just an ordinary enough youngling, one of the middle lot of about a dozen children. We had a holding, big enough that my father could call himself ‘lord,’ if he chose, but he made all of us learn what hard work was like. When we were under twelve, we all had chores, and over twelve we all took our turn in the fields with our tenants. One day I was out weeding the white-root patch, when I heard an animal behind me. I figured