“So,” he said, surveying Talia with his head tilted slightly to one side, his round, black eyes bright with intellect. “This is our new Herald-in-training. I think you’ll do well here, child; and I’ll be the first to tell you that I’m never wrong.” He chuckled and Talia responded with a tentative smile.

He nodded slightly to the Queen. “Well, with your permission, Selenay—”

“I leave her in your capable hands,” the Queen replied.

“Excellent. Come along with me, youngling. I’ll show you about; perhaps find someone to help get you settled in among us.”

He led her out the door and down the wood-paneled hall. Talia obediently fell in beside him; she was glad that he was nearly as small as she was, otherwise she’d never have been able to keep up with him. The pace he set forced her to take two steps for every one of his just to match him.

She watched him carefully, despite her earlier judgment. She had had too many nasty surprises in her life to wish another, especially not here, alone among strangers.

He saw her wary, covert gaze and made note of it. Elcarth had been Dean of Herald’s Collegium for decades. He had had plenty of practice in that time in assessing the newly-Chosen, and he hadn’t missed a single nuance of Talia’s behavior. The way she’d shrunk into herself before she’d gotten a good look at him told him more than she could possibly have guessed. The way she had blindly obeyed him told him even more. He mentally shook his head. She was obviously unaccustomed to taking the initiative. Something would have to be done about that. And this wild-animal shyness spoke of abuse; mental and emotional, and perhaps physical abuse as well. Fortunately, she may have had her spirit bent but it wasn’t broken; Rolan would never have Chosen her otherwise. He made another internal note; to discuss the Holderfolk with the Queen. That this child had been left in ignorance of Companion’s Choice was criminal. And young Dirk had been right—the child was so withrawn and reticent it was scarcely to be believed. Women did not seem to evoke the reaction nearly so strongly as men—it almost seemed as if she expected blows and abuse from a man as a matter of course. It would take a very long time indeed before a strange man could win her trust. He made swift revision of his original plans; until she was comfortable with what life here meant, it would be best for her mentors to be mostly female. Only Herald Teren was likely to be unthreatening enough that she’d lose her apprehension in his presence.

Elcarth questioned Talia closely as they walked, keeping his tone carefully light and projecting a calming aura at her as he did so. The answers he got were highly satisfactory; he’d feared the child would be at best functionally illiterate. In reading and writing, at least, she was at a comparable level with most of the youngsters Chosen at her age, and she had an incredible thirst for knowledge. So far as academics went, he was confident that all that would be needed would be to give her access to information and teaching, and she would do the rest without external prodding.

In only one area was she frighteningly deficient; she seemed to know little or nothing of self-defense and weaponry. This was more than simply unfortunate; she’d have to learn to protect herself, and quickly. There were many in the Heraldic Circle who doubted that Talamir’s death had been happenstance; he shared those doubts. A child, alone, knowing nothing of self-defense—against those who had been able to make the death of an experienced Herald seem due to simple old age, she was no opponent at all. She was so vulnerable—so very vulnerable; such a fragile creature to carry all their hopes. Weaponsmaster Alberich was the only instructor capable of teaching her at any speed, and Alberich was likely to frighten her on appearance alone! He made yet another mental note to speak with the Weaponsmaster as soon as he’d left her in good hands. Alberich was no fool; warned how shy she was, he would know how to treat her.

Meanwhile—Elcarth continued his questions, even more alert to nuances of behavior than he had been before. There was no reaction she made that escaped him.

Talia for her part was more than a little puzzled at Dean Elcarth’s questioning, for it seemed to follow no pattern that she could see. He flitted from subject to subject so rapidly that she had no time to think about her answers, and certainly was unable to anticipate his questions. Yet the answers she gave him seemed to please him; once or twice he’d seemed very satisfied by what she told him.

They traversed long wood-paneled, tapestried corridors; only the few that had exterior windows and gave Talia a glimpse of sun and trees allowed her any clue even of what direction they were taking. They passed at length through a pair of massive double doors. “We’re in the Collegium Wing now; Herald’s Collegium, that is,” Elcarth said, “There are two other Collegia here associated with the Palace—Bardic Collegium and Healer’s Collegium. Ours is the largest, but that is in part because most of the academic classrooms are here, and we save space that way. Healer’s has its own separate building; so does Bardic. The House of Healing is part of Healer’s Collegium; you may have heard of it. Now, down this corridor are the classrooms; the first floor is entirely classrooms. The door at the far end leads to the court in front of the stables, and the training grounds beyond that. Behind us, on the other side of the doors we just passed through, are the private quarters of the Kingdom’s Heralds.”

“Are all of them here?” Talia asked, overwhelmed by the thought of all those Heralds in one place.

“Well, no. Most of them are out on their circuits. But all of them have at least one room here, some shared, some not, and those on duty permanently at the palace or the Collegium have several, as do those who have retired from active duty if they decide to stay here with us. There’s a staircase behind this door here; there’s another in the middle of the building and a third next to the door at the end. We’ll go upstairs now, to the students’ quarters.”

The wood-paneled staircase wasn’t as narrow as the ones at the Holding, and a little window halfway up lit the stairs clearly. There was a door on the second landing, and the Dean opened it for her.

“This is the dormitory section,” he said. Like the hall below them, it was paneled in some kind of dark wood, sanded smooth, but not polished. The doors here were much closer together than they had been in the hall below, and the hall itself seemed oddly foreshortened.

“As you can see, this hall is a bit less than half the size of the one downstairs, since on the other side of that wall is the common room where all meals are served, and on the other side of that is the boys’ section. We’re standing in the girls’ side now. The third floor is one room, the Library and study area. The Library is entirely for the use of students and Heralds; you can go there any time you don’t have classes or other tasks to do,” Elcarth smiled encouragingly as Talia’s eyes lit. “Just try to see that you spend a little time in eating and sleeping!”

Just then a small boy, wearing a uniform much like the Guard had worn, but in light blue instead of midnight blue, came running up to Elcarth. He was trailed at a distance by a richly-dressed but harried-looking middle-aged man. This was the first person not wearing some kind of uniform that Talia had seen since she’d arrived.

“Havens, what is it now?” Elcarth muttered under his breath as the boy pounded up to them.

“Dean Elcarth, sir, it’s the Provost-Marshal, sir,” the boy said in a breathless treble.

“I can see that, Levand. What’s happened this time? Fire, flood, or rioting in the streets?”

“Some of all three, m’lord Herald,” the Provost-Marshal had plodded within hearing distance and spoke for himself, as Talia tried to make herself invisible back against the wall. “You know the Lady-fountain in Tailor’s Court? The one that used to vent down a culvert to Breakneedle Street?”

“Your choice of words fills me with foreboding, m’lord,” Elcarth replied with a sigh. “ ‘Used to’?”

“Someone chose to divert it, m’lord Herald. Into the cellar gathering-room of Jon Hapkin’s Virgin and Stars Tavern. Which is, as you know—”

“The third-year Bardic students’ favored place of illicit recreation; yes, I know. This rather smacks of the Unaffiliates, doesn’t it? The plumb-line and compass set—”

“Partly, m’lord.”

“You fill me with dread. Say on.”

“The Bardic students took exception to gettin’ their feet wet, m’lord Herald, and took exception very strongly.”

“And went hunting the perpetrators, no doubt?”

“Aye, m’lord. I’m told that drum-beaters make fine cudgels, and there’s a few among ’em that lately fancy walking about with carved staffs.”

“Well, that covers the flood and the rioting in the streets. What about the fire?”

“Set by the Bardic students, m’lord. In the alley off Fivepenny. Seems the ones they blamed for the water had holed up in the Griffin’s Egg and wouldn’t come out, and someone gave them the notion to smoke ’em out. They lit a trash-fire and fed the smoke in through the back door.”

“Lord—” Elcarth passed his hand over his eyes, looking to Talia as if he had a headache coming on. “Why take this up with me, my lord? So far you need to speak to the parents and patrons of the Unaffiliates involved, and the Dean of Bardic.”

“The which I’ve done, m’lord Herald. That’s been taken care of.”

“There’s more? Lady save me—”

“When all the hue and cry was over, and the gentlemen and ladies separated from one another, it was discovered that they’d had their purses lifted, one and all. The purses were found, intact, hanging from the trees in the Cloister gardens; the Lady’s priestesses never saw anyone put them there, of course, but several of the combatants remembered someone in the thick of all the pummeling that had been wearing Heraldic student Grays.”

“Needless to say—”

“Aye, m’lord Herald. Only one student you’ve got that’s able to pull that prank.”

“Lord-Dark and Lady-Bright,” Elcarth muttered, rubbing one temple. “Hold on a moment, my lord Provost-Marshal. I have another bit of business I’ll have to delegate, and I’ll be right with you.”

Elcarth looked around, and spied Talia shrunk inconspicuously as possible in the corner. “Child, this is unbearably rude of me, but I’ll have to find you another guide for the moment,” he said, putting his hand gently behind her shoulders and propelling her forward a little. The door to the common room opened, and a small group of young women, all dressed identically in gray, stepped into the hall.

“And there,” Elcarth said with satisfaction, “Is just the person I was needing. Sherrill!”

One of the young women, a tall, slender brunette with a narrow face and hazel eyes, turned at the sound of her name being called, smiled, and made her way toward them.

“Sir?” she said, then looked curiously at Talia.

“This is the young lady Rolan brought in,” Elcarth replied. “She’s from one of those Border settlements that might just as well be outKingdom, and she’s very confused. She’ll need lots of help in adjusting. Unfortunately, the Provost-Marshal has some other business I need to handle. Would you—”

“Take her off your hands? Surely! Is she as badly off as I was?” The young woman’s smile was infectious, and Talia returned it tentatively.

“Seriously, yes—worse, in some ways,” the Dean replied.

“Bright Havens, that bad? Poor baby!” The young woman gave Talia another encouraging smile. “Well, we’ll see what we can do for her. Uh, sir—is the ‘business’ Skif again?”

“It looks that way.”

“Oh, Havens. Doesn’t he ever learn?”

“He does. He never does the same trick twice,” Elcarth replied, fighting down a chuckle. “It isn’t too bad this time. He’s not the main perpetrator, apparently; he’s more of a loose end. I think I can get him off easily.”

“Well, I hope so; I like the little monkey.”

“Don’t we all? Except possibly Lord Orthallen. You will take good care of young Talia, won’t you? I’m counting on you, since the Provost-Marshall is beginning to look impatient.”

“Yes, sir,” she grinned. As she turned toward Talia, the grin became sympathetic. “The Dean knows I was in the same predicament as you are now when I first came. My people are fisherfolk on Lake Evendim, and all I knew was fish. You should have seen the saddlesores I came in with—and I couldn’t even read and write!”

“I can read—and write and figure, too,” Talia said shyly.

“See? You’re three better than I was to start with! Dean—” she recaptured Elcarth’s attention from wherever it had been wandering, “Basic Orientation with Teren tomorrow, sir?”

“Naturally; we’ve been holding the class until Rolan returned. I’ll arrange a schedule for her and leave it with Teren. And tomorrow I want you to take her over to the training grounds and let Alberich decide what he wants to do with her.”

Sherrill looked from Talia to the Dean, a little surprised that the girl was being put into Alberich’s class so quickly, and caught Elcarth’s silent signal that he wished to talk more with her later. She nodded briefly and Elcarth bid them both farewell, hurrying off with the harried Provost-Marshal.

She took a good look at the latest (and most important) of the Chosen. The poor little thing seemed exhausted, shy, and rather worried, and was most certainly bewildered by all that had been happening to her. Sherrill was surprised by a sudden surge of maternal feelings toward the child.

“Well, Talia, the first thing we need to do is find you a room and get you your uniforms and supplies,” she said, hoping her casual tone would put the girl at ease. “How old are you, anyway?”

“Thirteen,” Talia replied softly, so softly Sherrill could hardly hear her.

“That old? You don’t look it,” she said, leading the way. “I’ll tell you what, though, it’s not so bad being small; there aren’t that many Chosen that are your size, and at least you can count on getting uniforms that aren’t half patches!”

“Uniforms?”

“Like my outfit—take a good look. It’s identical to a Herald’s except that it’s silvery gray instead of Herald’s White, and the materials are a bit different. You see, wearing uniforms puts us all on an equal footing, and it makes us easy to identify as Heralds-in-training. Bardic and Healer’s Collegia do the same; full Bards wear scarlet, and the trainees wear red-brown; Healers have their Healer’s Green, and the Healers-in-training wear pale green. We wear gray until we’ve earned our Whites. There are some students that don’t belong to any of the Collegia; they wear uniforms too, but they’re pale blue. Officially they’re called the Unaffiliates; we call ’em the Blues. There’s all kinds—people learning to be something more than just simple clerks, ones that have talents for building things, highborns whose parents think they ought to have something to do besides choose new horses and clothing.”

She frowned for a moment in sudden thought, wondering how much to tell the girl about the Blues. Should she frighten the child, perhaps needlessly, or should she leave her in ignorance of the intrigues going on all around her? It was hard to judge when the girl seemed determined to show an impassive face to the world. Sherrill knew she hadn’t the ability of Elcarth to “read” someone, and this Talia might just as well have been a rock for all that she could judge of what might be going on behind those big eyes.

She decided on a middle course. “You might want to watch out for them,” she warned, “Both Bardic and Healer’s Collegia are pretty careful about who they accept for training, and anyone in Grays has been Chosen by a Companion, but the unaffiliated students have no selection criteria applied to them. All that’s required is that they keep passing the courses they choose. A good half of the ones from the Court circles are no better than well-born bullies, and there’s one or two of them that are really nasty-minded. In your place, I’d try and stick close to other Grays in public places.” She stopped, and opened one of the doors at the very end of the hall. “Now, this will be your room.”

The little room revealed had scarcely enough space for the furniture—bed, desk, chair, bookcase, and wardrobe. It was obvious that to Talia, however, it seemed palatial. No doubt she’d shared at least a bed with other girls and very possibly had never had even a corner of a room to call her own before this. Sherrill slipped a card with Talia’s name printed on it into a holder on the door, and smiled at her expression. She sympathized completely; before she’d been carried off to the Collegium by her own Companion, she’d spent most of her life packed together with the rest of her family like salt-fish in a barrel. Her summers had been spent on the boat, with nowhere to go for any kind of privacy, the winters were spent in a one-room longhouse with not only her own family but the families of both her uncles as well. She sometimes wondered now how anyone managed to ignore the press of people long enough to ensure that the family name was carried on!

“Do you like it?” she asked, trying to elicit some response from the child.

Talia was overwhelmed. She’d slept all her life in a bed shared with two of her sisters in the barracks-like attic of the Housestead. This room—now all her own!—seemed incredibly luxurious in comparison. Sherrill seemed to understand, and let her contemplate this wealth of privacy for a long moment.

“Oh, yes!” she replied at last, “It’s—wonderful!”

It was more than wonderful; it was a long-wished-for haven, a place she could retreat to where no one else could go. Talia hadn’t missed the fact that there was a bolt on the inside of the door. If she wanted to, she could lock the whole world out.

“Good! Now we go see the Housekeeper,” Sherrill said, interrupting Talia’s reverie before she had a chance to really get used to the idea of having her own room. “She’ll get your supplies and put you down on the duty roster.”

“What’s that?”

“A question at last! I was beginning to wonder what had happened to your tongue!” Sherrill teased gently, and Talia flushed a little. “It’s the tradition of the three Collegia that everyone share the work, so there are no servants anywhere around here. In fact, the only people in the Collegia that aren’t students and teachers are the Cook and the Housekeeper. We all take turns doing something every day. The chores never take that long to do, and it really drives home to the ‘gently-born’ that we’re all equals here. If you’re sick, you’re excused, of course. I suspect they’d even have us doing all the cooking if they weren’t sure that we’d probably poison each other by accident!”

Sherrill chuckled; Talia laughed hesitantly, then offered, “I can cook. Some.”

“Good. Make sure to tell Housekeeper. She’ll probably put you down as Cook’s helper most of the time, since most of us don’t know one end of a chicken from the other.”

She chuckled again as she recalled something. “There’s a Herald that just got his Whites a month or so ago, his name is Kris, who was one of the ‘gently-born’ and pretty well sheltered when he first came here. First time he was Cook’s helper, Cook gave him a chicken and told him to dress and stuff it. He hadn’t been the kind that does any hunting (scholarly, you know) so Cook had to tell him how to slit the chicken for cleaning. He did it, then looked inside and said ‘I don’t need to stuff it, it’s already full!’ He still hasn’t lived that one down!”

By this time they’d descended the stairs past the landing on the first floor and had reached the bottom of the staircase. Sherrill knocked twice at the door there, then opened it and entered. Behind the door was a narrow, whitewashed room lit by a window up near the ceiling; Talia reckoned that the window must have been level with the ground outside. This room contained only a desk, behind which sat a matronly, middle-aged woman who smiled at them as they entered.

“Here’s the new one, Housekeeper,” Sherrill said cheerfully.

The woman measured Talia carefully by eye. “Just about a seven, I’d say. We don’t get many Chosen as small as you. Did you bring anything with you, dear?”

Talia shook her head shyly, and Sherrill answered for her. “Just like me, Housekeeper Gaytha; the clothes she stood up in. You’re going to have to have a word with Queen Selenay about that—the Companions never give the Chosen any time to pack!”

The Housekeeper smiled and shook her head, then left the room by a door in the wall behind her desk. She returned shortly with a pile of neatly-folded clothing and a lumpy bag.

“Collegium rules are that you wash before every meal and have a hot bath every night,” she said, handing half the pile to Talia and half to Sherrill. “Dirty clothing goes down the laundry chute in the bathroom; Sherrill will show you where that is. You change the sheets on your bed once a week; you’ll get them with the rest of the girls, and the old ones go in the laundry. If you’ve been working with your Companion or at arms practice, change your clothing before you eat. There’s no shortage of soap and hot water here, and staying clean is very important. Heralds have to be trusted on sight, and who’d trust a slovenly Herald? You can get clean uniforms from me whenever you need them. I know this may not be what you’re used to—”

“I had trouble with it,” Sherrill put in. “Where I come from you don’t wash in the winter since there’s no way to heat enough water, and you’d probably get pneumonia from the drafts. I never visit home in the winter anymore—my nose has gotten a lot more sensitive since I left!”

Talia thought of Keldar’s thrice-daily inspections, and the cold-water scrubbing with a floor-brush that followed any discovery of a trace of dirt. “I think I’ll be all right,” she answered softly.

“Good. Now as Sherrill has told you—or should have—you all have small chores to see to every day. What can you do?”

“Anything,” Talia replied promptly.

The Housekeeper looked skeptical. “Forgive me, my dear, but that doesn’t seem very likely for someone your age.”

“She’s older than she looks,” Sherrill said. “Thirteen.”

Talia nodded. “They were going to make me get married, so I ran away. That’s when Rolan found me. Keldar said I was ready.”

The Housekeeper was plainly shocked. “Married? At thirteen?”

“It’s pretty common to marry that young on the Borders,” Sherrill replied. “They don’t wait much longer than that back home. Borderers treat themselves and their children just like they do their stock; breed ’em early and often to get the maximum number of useful offspring. There’s no one true way, Housekeeper. Life is hard on the Border; if Borderers were to hold by in Kingdom custom, they’d never be able to hold their lands.”

“It still seems—barbaric,” the Housekeeper said with faint distaste.

“It may well be—but they have to survive. And this kind of upbringing is what produced us a Herald that has a chance of turning the Brat back into a proper Heir. You’ll take notice that Rolan didn’t pick any of us.” Sherrill smiled down at Talia, who was trying not to show her discomfort. “Sorry about talking about you as if you weren’t there. Don’t let us bother you, little friend. Not all of us have had the benefits of what Housekeeper calls a ‘civilized upbringing.’ Remember what I told you about not washing in winter? Housekeeper had to hold me down in a tub of hot water and scrub me near raw when I first got here—I was a real little barbarian!”

Talia couldn’t imagine the immaculate and self-assured Sherrill being held down and scrubbed by anyone—still less could she imagine Sherrill needing that kind of treatment.

“Talia, can you cook or sew? Anything of that nature?”

“I can cook, if it’s plain stuff,” Talia said doubtfully. “Only the Wives did feasts; they were too important to be left to us. My embroidery isn’t any good at all, but I can mend and sew clothing and knit. And weave and spin. And I know how to clean just about anything.”

The Housekeeper suppressed a chuckle at the exasperated tone of the last sentence. That tone convinced her that Talia probably was capable of what she claimed.

“It’s so unusual that our students have as much experience in homely tasks as you do, that I think I’ll alternate you as cook’s helper and in the sewing room. There’s never any lack of tears and worn spots to be mended, and there’s generally a dearth of hands able to mend them. And Mero will be overjoyed to have me send someone capable of dealing with food for a change.” She handed Talia a sheet of paper after consulting one of the books on her desk and writing in it. “Here’s your schedule; come see me if it’s too hard to fit in among your classes and we’ll change it.”

Sherrill led the way back up the stairs to Talia’s new room. Talia examined her new clothing with a great deal of interest. There were loose linen shirts, meant to be worn with thigh-length tunics of a heavier material, something like canvas in weight, but much softer, and long breeches or skirts of the same fabric. There were some heavier, woolen versions of the same garments, obviously meant for winter wear, a wool cloak, and plenty of knitted hose, undergarments, and night-gowns.

“You’ll have to make do with your own boots for a bit, until we have a chance to get you fitted properly,” Sherrill said apologetically, as she helped Talia put the clothing away. “That won’t be for another week at least. It’s too bad—but there’s nothing worse than badly fitted boots; they’re worse than none at all, and Keren will have your hide if you dare try riding without boots. Unless it’s bareback, of course.”

They’d only just finished making up the bed when a bell sounded in the hall outside.

“That’s the warning bell for supper,” Sherrill explained. “Get one of your uniforms, and we’ll go get cleaned up and you can change.”

The bathing room was terribly crowded. Sherrill showed her where everything was located; the laundry chute, the supplies for moon-days, towels and soap—and despite the press of bodies managed to find both of them basins and enough hot water to give them at least a sketchy wash. Talia felt much more like herself with the grit of riding and the last trace of tears scrubbed away. Sherrill hurried her into her new clothing and off they went to the common room.

Supper proved to be a noisy, cheerful affair. Everyone sat at long communal tables, students and adults alike, and helped themselves from the bowls and plates being brought from a kind of cupboard in the wall. It seemed much too small to have held all that Talia saw emerging from it; Sherrill saw her puzzled look and explained over the noise.

“That’s a hoist from the kitchen; the kitchen is down in the basement where Housekeeper’s office and the storerooms are. And don’t feel too sorry for the servers. They get to eat before we do and Mero always saves them a treat!”

Talia saw several figures in Herald’s White interspersed among the student gray.

“The Heralds—are they all teachers?” she whispered to Sherrill.

“Only about half of them. The rest—well, there’s Heralds just in from the field, a few retired from duty who choose to live here and don’t care to eat with the Court, and a couple of ex-students that have just gotten their Whites that haven’t been given their internship assignment yet. There’s also three Heralds on permanent assignment to the Palace; to the Queen—that’s Dean Elcarth; to the Lord Marshal—that’s Hedric, and we don’t see him much; and the Seneschal—that’s Kyril, and he teaches, sometimes. They almost always have to eat with the Court. There ordinarily would be a fourth, too, the Queen’s Own, but—” She stopped abruptly, glancing at Talia out of the corner of her eye.

“How—what happened to him?” Talia asked in a small voice, sure that she wasn’t going to like the answer, but wanting badly to know anyway. The Queen had said—as had her tales—that being a Herald was dangerous, and there had been something about the way people had spoken about the former Queen’s Own that made her think that Talamir had probably encountered one of the dangers.

“Nobody seems to be sure. It could have been an illness, but—” Sherrill was visibly torn between continuing and keeping quiet.

“But? Sherrill, I need to know,” she said, staring entreatingly at her mentor.

Her urgency impressed Sherrill, who decided it was better that she be warned. “Well, a lot of us suspect he was poisoned. He was old and frail, and it wouldn’t have taken much to kill him.” Sherrill was grim. “If that’s true, it didn’t gain the murderers anything. We think the reason he was eliminated was because he was about to convince Selenay to send the Brat out to fosterage with some family that wasn’t likely to give in to her tantrums. I guess you don’t know—the law is that the Heir also has to be a Herald; if the Brat isn’t Chosen by a Companion, the Queen will either have to marry again in the hope that another child will prove out or choose an Heir from those in the blood who are Chosen. Either way, there would be an awful lot of people maneuvering for power. Poor Selenay! Any of the rest of us could just choose a partner and go ahead and have as many children as needful, without bringing a possible consort and political repercussions into it—but there it is, she’s the Queen, and it has to be marriage or nothing. It’s not a nice situation.” Sherrill regarded the tiny, frail-seeming girl at her side with sober eyes. She was beginning to have a good idea why Elcarth wanted Talia weapons-trained so early.

Talia thought Sherrill had a talent for understatement. Her revelations concerning the former Queen’s Own frightened Talia enough that the rest of her speech—which rather bore out the Holderkin assertions of the immorality of Heralds—passed almost without notice. “What about the—the people who poisoned Herald T-T-Talamir?” she stuttered a little from nervousness. “Would they—am I—would they try to—hurt me?” As she looked into Sherrill’s eyes, watching for the signs that would tell her if the older girl was speaking the truth, she could feel her hands trembling a little.

Sherrill was a little surprised at Talia’s instant grasping of the situation—and hastened to reassure her. Those big brown eyes were widened with a fear even Sherrill could read. “They won’t dare try that particular trick again, not with the suspicions that have been raised. What they probably will try and do is to make life unpleasant enough for you that you give up and leave. That’s one reason why I warned you about the Blues. They might get orders from their parents to harass you. You should be safe enough with us, and I’m fairly sure you’ll be safe with the Bardic and Healer students, too.” Sherrill smiled down at Talia, who returned the smile, though a bit uncertainly. “Talia, if anyone bothers you and you think you can’t handle them, tell me. My friends and I have taken the scales off the Blues a time or two before this.”

Maybe. Talia wanted to trust her—desperately wanted to fit in here, but even of her kin only two had ever proved willing to back her against others. Why should a stranger do so? She ate in silence for a while, then decided to change the subject. “How many students are there?”

“About sixty in Healer’s, forty in Bardic, and with you, exactly fifty-three in Herald’s Collegium. The number of Blues varies; there’s never less than twenty, not often more than fifty. I couldn’t tell you the exact number right now, you’d have to ask Teren. He’s Elcarth’s assistant, and you’ll have him as your first instructor tomorrow.”

“How long does it take to become a Herald?”

“It varies; around five years. Usually we arrive here when we’re about your age, most of us get our Whites at eighteen; I’ll probably earn mine next year. I’ve seen younger Chosen, though, and Elcarth wasn’t Chosen till he was nearly twenty! And Havens! Elcarth made up for being Chosen so late by being made full Herald in three years! After you get your Whites, there’s a year or year and a half internship in the field, partnered by a senior Herald. After that, you’re usually assigned out on your own.”

Talia thought about this for a while, then asked worriedly “Sherrill, what—how do I learn what I need to do?”

Talia was so earnest that Sherrill laughed sympathetically. “You’ll learn, don’t worry. You’ll have Orientation class first. We’ve had four more Chosen in the past month, and they were only waiting for Rolan to come back before starting it. For the rest—you’ll be placed in your classes according to where the Dean feels you fit in, which means you may be taking some classes with me, and some with beginners.”

Talia smiled suddenly, “In other words, you throw the baby into the River and see if she learns to swim quickly!”

Sherrill laughed again, “We aren’t quite that extreme! Are you finished?”

Talia nodded, and they carried their implements to the hoist inside the cupboard. “I’ve got dishwashing tonight, so I’ll have to leave you on your own,” Sherrill continued, “Will you be all right alone, or would you like me to find someone to keep you company?”

“I—I’ll be all right. I would like awfully to see the Library if you don’t think anyone would mind.”

“Help yourself, that’s what it’s there for. Just remember not to wait too long before you take your bath, or all the hot water will be gone. I’ll come by for you in the morning.”

Sherrill clattered down the stairs and Talia climbed cautiously upward.

Sherrill was grateful that dishwashing took so little time, and equally grateful that Mero let her off early when she told him that the Dean needed to speak with her. Elcarth would not have given her the signal he had—in fact, he would have said what he intended to openly, in front of the child—had he not felt that there were things he needed to discuss with Sherrill that he would rather Talia were not privy to.

As she had pretty much expected, Sherrill found him waiting for her in the cluttered little room attached to his suite that served him as an office of sorts. It was hardly bigger than a closet, and piled high with everything under the sun, but he would never move to anything more spacious, claiming the clutter would “breed” to fill the space if he did so.

“Any problems getting away?” he asked, removing a pile of books and papers from one of the chairs, a comfortable, padded relic as old as Elcarth.

“I had dishwashing—it made a convenient excuse. Right now Talia’s probably having raptures over the Library,” Sherrill replied with a half-smile, taking her seat as Elcarth perched himself behind a desk heaped with yet more books and papers.

“Good; can I take it as given that you don’t mind being her mentor? She needs one rather badly, and you’re the only student with the kind of background that’s close to her own.”

“Poor little thing—no, Dean, I don’t mind at all. Although I don’t think my background is all that close,” Sherrill frowned slightly, thinking about the little that Talia had allowed her to learn. “You know Evendim clans, we’re all noise and push, and we’re almost incestuously close. I got the feeling she’s been sat on so much that now she’s afraid of being punished for breathing—and I got the feeling nobody’s ever bothered to give the poor thing a little love. She holds everything inside; it’s hard to read her, and I don’t recall much about Holderkin from class.”

“There you’ve hit it. The fact of the matter is that we just don’t know that much about Holderfolk. They’re very secretive; they keep almost totally to themselves and they don’t encourage long visits or curiosity from strangers. Until we heard Talia’s story, we didn’t even know that they don’t tell their children about Companion’s Choice!”

“They what?” Sherrill was shocked.

“It’s quite true; she hadn’t the vaguest idea of what it meant when Rolan Chose her. I’m fairly certain she still isn’t entirely aware of what his true nature is. This is what I need to talk to you about. You’re going to be dealing with a child who seems to have had a very alien upbringing. I can make some educated guesses; she seems to be afraid of men, so I can assume she tends to expect punishment from them. That would fit in with what I do know about Holderfolk; their familial life is patriarchal and authoritarian. She seems to be constantly repressing her emotions, and again, that would fit in with what I know of her people. They frown on any sort of demonstrative behavior. At the same time, she always seems to be—almost at war with herself—”

“Holding herself back, sir?” Sherrill offered. “As if she wanted to make overtures, but didn’t quite dare? She seems to be wary all the time, that much I can tell you. I doubt that she trusts anyone at this point, except maybe Rolan.”

“Exactly. The first moves are always going to have to be yours, and I think she’ll continue to tend to keep her feelings very much to herself,” Elcarth replied. “It’s going to be up to you to discover if there’s anything bothering her because she’ll never tell you on her own.”

“Gods,” Sherrill shook her head. “Just the opposite of my people. I don’t know, sir; I’m more used to dealing with folk who shout their minds and hearts to the world. I’m not sure I’m good enough to read the signs of trouble, assuming she’ll give me anything to read.”

“Do your best, that’s all I ask. At least you both came from Border Sectors; that will be a bond.”

“Why are you turning her over to Alberich so early?” Sherrill asked curiously. “I realize why she’d best learn self-defense as soon as possible, but I should think, with the kinds of insecurities she seems to have, that he would be the last person you’d want to expose her to. I mean, Jeri would be a much less threatening figure to deal with.”

“I wish there were some other way, but she knows absolutely nothing about self-defense; I know that Jeri is very good, but she isn’t the kind of experienced teacher Alberich is. He’s the only one likely to be able to teach her with the speed that’s necessary. If a mob of troublemakers should corner her—or, Bright Lady forbid it, someone should decide that a knife in the dark solves the problem of the new Queen’s Own turning up....

He let the sentence trail into silence.

“And I can’t be with her all the time. Well, I hope he gentles his usual routine with her, or she may drop dead of fright on the practice field and save an assassin the trouble.” Sherrill’s tone was jocular, but her eyes held no amusement.

“I’ve already spoken with him, and he’s not as unsympathetic as you might think. He was my year-mate, you know. I have reason to believe he’ll be quite soft-handed with her.”

“Alberich, soft-handed? Really? Tell my bruises that some time, sir.”

“Better bruises now than a fatal wound later, no?” Elcarth grinned crookedly. “I could wish one of Talia’s year-mates was another girl; I could wish we had someone more likely to understand what she won’t let us see. You’re the closest I could come. Well, that’s all I have to tell you. It isn’t much—”

“But it’s a start. Take heart, Dean. Companions don’t Choose badly, and look how long it took Rolan to find her. She’ll manage. And I’ll manage. Heralds always do.”

At the head of the staircase Talia opened a door that led into a single enormous room filled with bookshelves. There were cubicles containing desks and chairs at the ends of the rows of shelves along the walls. She had been expecting perhaps twice or three times the number of books in her Father’s library—twenty—but nothing prepared her for this. There were hundreds of books here; more than she ever dreamed existed, all colors, and all sizes. It was more than a dream come true—it was a vision of heaven.

Dusk had fallen while they’d been eating, and lanterns had been lit at intervals along the walls. Talia peeked into the nearest cubicle and saw that there were candles on the desk, and a permanent holder affixed to one side of it.

She heard footsteps approaching from the farther end of the library, and she turned to see who it could be, hoping for someone she knew.

“Hello!” said a cheerful tenor. “You’re new here, aren’t you? I’m Kris.”

The young man who stepped into the circle of light cast by the lantern was in Whites and as incredibly beautiful as the Herald Talia had met outside the city had been homely. His features were so perfect they didn’t seem to be real, every raven hair was neatly in place, and his sky-blue eyes would have been the envy of any Court beauty. Talia immediately felt as awkward and ungainly as a young calf—and more than a little afraid as well. Dealing with her older sib Justus had taught her that beauty could hide an evil nature. Only the fact that he was a Herald—and there simply wasn’t any such thing as an evil Herald—kept her from bolting outright.

“Yes,” she replied softly, blushing a little and staring at her boot-tops. “I’m Talia.”

“Have you been up here before?”

She shook her head, beginning to relax a little.

“Well,” he said, “The rules are very simple. You can read anything you want, but you can’t take the book out of the Library, and you have to put it back exactly where you found it when you’re done. That’s pretty easy, isn’t it?”

Talia could tell by his patronizing tone of voice that he was feeling just slightly superior. Yet he seemed to be friendly enough, and there hadn’t been anything in his manner to indicate that he was ill-tempered. The patronization annoyed her, and she decided it was safe to get a little of her own back.

“Y-yes,” she said softly. “As simple as stuffing a chicken.”

“Ouch!” he laughed, clapping one hand to his forehead. “Stung! Isn’t there anybody that hasn’t heard that story? I deserved that—I shouldn’t have talked down to you. Well, enjoy yourself, Talia. You’ll like it here, I hope.”

He turned with a parting grin and exited through the door she’d just used, and she heard his footsteps descending the staircase.

She wandered through the forest of bookcases, losing all track of time, too overwhelmed by the sheer numbers to even begin to make a choice. Gradually, however, she began to notice that the books were arranged by category, and within each category, by title. Once she’d made that identification, she began perusing the bookcases with more purpose, trying to identify what groups there were, and where they were, and marking the locations of particular books that sounded interesting. By the time she had it all clear in her mind, she found herself yawning.

She made her way to her own room, found one of her new bedgowns, and sought the bathing-room. Sensholding had possessed the relatively new indoor latrines, so those hadn’t surprised her any when Sherrill had shown them to her. However, all hot water for bathing back at the Holding had needed to be carried in pots from the kitchen. Here at the Collegium there were several charcoal-fired copper vessels for heating water, each at least the size of one of the tubs, with pipes at the bottom to take the hot water to the tubs and a pump to refill them with cold water from the top. This arrangement positively enchanted her; being neither little nor adult, she’d rarely ever gotten a really hot bath. The littlest littles were always bathed first, and the adults waited until later when all the kettles of water had been filled and heated a second time. Those who were too old to be bathed but too young to stay up late and bathe with the adults had to make do with whatever was left after cleaning the babies—which wasn’t often much, or very warm.

There were several girls and young women there already, and all the bathtubs were in use. Talia took her turn at the pump, after being hailed by “you must be the new one” and shyly giving her own name.

“I’m glad you turned out to be a girl,” one of the ones near her own age said, pumping water vigorously. “The boys outnumber us by too many as it is. Every single one of the other new ones has been a boy! That’s why our side’s smaller.”

“Well, my sister’s at Healer’s, and it’s the opposite there,” a voice replied out of the steam.

“Besides, it’s quality that counts, not quantity,” the second bather’s voice was half covered by vigorous splashing. “And it’s quite obvious that we women have the quality.”

The rest giggled, and Talia smiled tentatively.

“Sherrill told me there were fifty-three of us,” she replied after a moment, reveling in the fact that she was one of the fifty-three. “How many of each are there?”

“Thirty-five colts and eighteen fillies,” replied the girl at the pump. “And I’m referring to the human foals, not the Companions. It wasn’t quite so bad until those four new boys came in, but now they outnumber us by almost two to one.”

“Jeri, you’re betraying your youth,” said the young woman who was climbing out of the nearest tub. “You may not be old enough to appreciate odds like that, but Nerrissa and I are. In my part of the Kingdom, women slightly outnumber the men, and I like it much better the other way’round. I’d much rather be the one being courted than the one doing the courting. Whoever’s next, I’m done.”

“Is it like that where you’re from, Talia?” Jeri asked, looking at her curiously as she claimed the now-vacant tub.

“I—I suppose it must be,” she said, momentarily distracted from her shyness, mentally trying to count the distribution of the sexes in the Holdings she knew. “I’m Holderkin.”

“Where’s that?” the young woman called Nerrissa asked, folding a towel around her wet hair.

“East—on the Border,” Talia replied, still thinking. “I know it’s rather dangerous off the Holdings themselves. More men die every year than women; there are lots of wild animals, and raiders come every winter. I think there’s nearly twice as many women as men, at least on the farthest Holdings.”

“Havens! You must be knee-deep in old maids.”

“Oh, no—if you don’t go to the Goddess, you have to get married. My father had eleven wives, and nine are still living.”

“You can have my tub, Talia,” Nerrissa emerged from the steam. “Why do females have to get married?”

“W-why women can’t Hold a Steading, or speak in Council or—anything important. It wouldn’t be seemly,” Talia said in astonishment.

“So-ho! That must be why they never send female Heralds to the lower Eastern Border. They wouldn’t be listened to. Talia, it’s very different here. It’s going to take a lot of getting used to, and it’s going to seem strange for a long while. We reckon a person’s importance by what they are, not by what sex they are,” Nerrissa told her. “There’s no such thing as ‘seemly’ or ‘unseemly.’ Just doing the job you’re given.”

Talia nodded thoughtfully, immersed in her tub. “I-it’s hard to think this way. It j-just doesn’t seem natural. I-I-I think I like it. Most of my Father’s wives would hate it, though. Keldar for sure, and Isrel would be miserable without someone to give her orders.”

“Nessa, the child doesn’t need a lecture at this time of night!” the first woman called from the doorway. “Honestly, they should make you a teacher when you go into Whites, I’ve never heard anyone make so many speeches! Come on, or you’ll be here all night!”

“All right, all right!” Nerrissa replied, laughing a little. “Pleasant dreams, little one.”

Talia finished her bath and found her room, feeling drained to the point of numbness. It seemed very odd to be climbing into a bed that had no one in it but herself. Her mind whirled in circles—this entire adventure hardly seemed real. In less than two weeks she’d gone from being the scorned scapegrace of Sensholding to a Herald-in-training; it seemed impossible. She kept returning to the astonishing moment when she’d realized what all that had occurred to her truly meant, holding the memory as wonderingly and gently as a new kitten, until sleep began to overpower her.

But her very last thoughts as she drifted off to sleep were of Nerrissa’s words, and the sudden decision that she did like it here.

Now if only all this was half as wonderful as it appeared on the surface—and if only they would let her fit in.