The Price Of Command

Talia smiled. “As far as I know, they don’t. But it’s a very popular song.”

Kerowyn sipped her tea, wondering for a moment if there was anyone in the world who hadn’t heard the song. “My troopers are ridiculously proud of that, and I can’t get them to stop telling people that I’m that Kerowyn. And as soon as your villagers would find that out, I’d wind up having to listen to whatever unholy rendition of it someone had come up with in this village. And I don’t even like most music,” she concluded plaintively.

Dirk was red-faced with the effort of holding in laughter. Kero glowered at him, but that only seemed to make it worse. “You should have had to sit through some of those performances,” she growled. “The Revenie Temple children’s choir, the oldest fart in Thornton accompanying himself on hurdy-gurdy, a pair of religious sopranos who seemed to think the thing was a dialogue between the Crone and the Maiden—and at least a dozen would-be Bards with out-of-tune harps. Minstrels. I’d like to strangle the entire breed.”

That did it; Dirk couldn’t restrain himself any longer. He excused himself in a choking voice, and fled outside. Once there, his bellows of laughter were just as clear as they would have been if he’d been inside the tent’s four walls.

“Oh, well,” Kero said with resignation. “At least he didn’t laugh in my face.”

Talia was a little better at controlling herself. “I can see where it would get tiresome, especially if you don’t care for music.”

“I don’t like vocal music,” Kero explained forlornly. “And the reason I don’t like it is because every damn fool that can tell one note from another thinks he rates right up there with Master Bards. I have perfect pitch, Herald— nothing else, I certainly am no performer—but I do have perfect pitch, and my relative pitch is just as good. Out-of-tune amateurs make my skin crawl, like fingernails on slate. And it’s no great benefit to have had a song written about you, either—just you wait, one of these days it’ll happen to you, and then that tall fellow out there won’t find it so funny to hear it every night for a fortnight straight, and only once in all that time will it be sung well.”

“You’re right, Captain,” Dirk said contritely from the door flap. “I apologize. But I wish you could have seen your own expression.”

“I’m glad I couldn’t. Listen, there’s something I need to tell you people about. I didn’t mention this before, but I had mages with this troop. Real mages, practicing real magic.” She watched them carefully to see what their reactions to this would be. “Most merc Companies do, if they can afford them, and we can.”

“Had?” Dirk replied, after a long moment of silence. “Does that mean you didn’t bring them with you?”

She couldn’t read anything from either of them—and this was not the time to try prying into anyone’s mind.

Especially not a Herald, who might catch her at it. “No,” she said, honestly, “I tried to bring them with me, but they were stopped at the Border. By what, they couldn’t tell me—only that it felt as if something was watching them, waking and sleeping. It finally got so bad they begged me to send them home before they went mad. That is evidently the reason why you don’t have real mages here in Valdemar. Something doesn’t want them here, and stares at them until they go away.”

Like the time with Eldan, she was having to fight something to get every word out, and she spoke slowly so that the effort wouldn’t be noticed. It doesn’t explain why something around here doesn’t want you even knowing about magic, but that’s not my problem. As long as it doesn’t freeze the words in my throat, I don’t care. Need’s been awfully quiet, but it really doesn’t feel like the sword’s being tampered with, it’s beginning to feel as if Need doesn’t want to draw attention to itself. Which is fine with me. It means she is still working.

The wind howled around the corners of the tent, and Talia pulled her white cloak closer. “It certainly does explain a lot,” she said, slowly. “Though I’m not sure what it means or where it comes from.”

“It would probably take a very powerful mage to get around something like that,” Dirk put in. “Maybe by somehow disguising his nature?”

Kero shrugged. “You could be right, but other than the fact that I’ve lost the use of my mages, it really doesn’t matter. And if I were you, I wouldn’t count on this effect saving Valdemar from mages in the future. My grandmother always said that every spell ever cast could be broken, and if Ancar has a strong enough mage in his back pocket, he can take the thing down altogether. Since I have lost the mages, I’m going to have to talk with more of you Heralds to find out what you can do. I’m pretty certain you can make up for them, but I’ll have to know what your limits are. One other thing—you might let the Queen know that having worked pretty closely with all my mages and having watched my grandmother at work, I would say I’m a fair hand at judging mage-powers and what they can and cannot do.”

“That’s easily enough done, Captain,” Dirk said, standing up. “Is there anything else we can do for you?”

“No, not until we get to Haven and we can get into a real barracks building and I can get warm again.” Kero remained seated when Dirk waved her down. “Unless you can conjure me up a tent that’s tighter than this one. I’m looking forward to meeting Queen Selenay.”

“Well, she’s looking forward to meeting you,” Talia said with a smile, as she smiled back over her shoulder. “I think you’re going to like each other a great deal.”