Magic's Pawn
A Valdemar Novel
Mercedes Lackey
CHAPTER TWO
Vanyel stumbled over to his old chair and collapsed into its comfortable embrace.
He couldn't think. Everything had gone numb. He stared blankely out the window; just sat, and stared. He wasn't even aware of the passing of time until the sun began shining directly into his eyes.
He winced away from the light; that broke his bewildered trance, and he realized dully that the afternoon was gone-that someone would start looking for him to call him for supper soon, and he'd better be back in his room.
He slouched dispiritedly over to the window, and peered out of it, making the automatic check to see if there was anyone below who could spot him. But even as he did so it occured to him that it hardley mattered if they found his hideaway, considering what he'd just overheard.
There was no one on the practice field now; just the empty square of turf, a chicken on the loose pecking at something in the grass. From this vantage the keep might well have been deserted.
Vanyel turned around and reached over his head, grabbing the rough stone edgingthe window all around the exterior, and levered himself up and out onto the sill. Once balanced there in a half crouch, he stepped down oto the ledge that ran around the edge of the roof, then reached around the gable and got a good handhold on the slates of the roof itself, and began inching over to his bedroom window.
Halfway between the two windows, he paused for a moment to look down.
It isn't all that far-if I fell just right, the worst I'd do is break a leg-then they couldn't send me off, could they? It might be worth it. It just might be worth it.
He thought about that-and thought about the way his broken arm had hurt-
Not a good idea; with my luck, Father would send me off as soon as I was patched up; just load me up in a wagon like a sack of grain. "Deliver to Herald Savil, no special handling." Or worse, I'd break my arm again, or both arms. I've got a chance to make that hand work again-maybe-but if I break it this time there isn't a Healer around to make sure it's set right.
Vanyel swung his legs into the room, balanced for a moment on the sill, then dropped onto his bed. Once there, he just lacked the spirit to even move. He slumped against the wall and stared at the sloping, whitewashed ceiling.
He tried to think if there was anything he could do to get himself out of this mess. He couldn't come up with a single idea that seemed at all viable. It was too late to "mend his ways" even if he wanted to.
No-no. I can't, absolutely can't face that sadistic bastard Jervis. Though I'm truly not sure which is the worst peril at this point in the long run, Aunt Ice-And-Iron or Jervis. I know what he'll do to me. I haven't a clue to her.
He sagged, and bit his lip, trying to stay in control, trying to think logically. All he knew was that Savil would have the worst possible report on him; and at Haven-the irony of the name!-he would have no allies, no hiding places. That was the worst of it; going off into completely foreign territory knowing that everybody there had been told how aweful he was. That they would just be waiting for him to make a slip. All the time. But there was no getting out of it. For all that Treesa petted and cosseted him, Vanyel knew better than to rely on her for anything, or expect her to ever defy Withen. That brief flair during their argument had been the exception; Treesa's real efforts always lay in keeping her own life comfortable and amusing. She'd cry for Vanyel, but she'd never defend him. Not like Lissa might well have-
If Lisa had been here.
When the page came around to call everyone to dinner, he managed to stir up enough energy to dust himself off and obey the summons, but he had no appetite at all.
The highborn of Forest Reach ate late, a candlemark after the servants, hirelings, and the armsmen had eaten, since the Great Hall was far too small to hold everyone at once. The torches and laterns had already been lit along the worn stone-floored corridors; they did nothing to dispel the darkness of Vanyel's heart. He trudged along the dim corridors and down the stone stairs, ignoring the servants trotting by him on errands of their own. Since his room was at the servant's end of the keep, he had a long way to go to get to the Great Hall.
Once there, he waited in the sheltering darkness of the doorway to assess the situation in the room beyond.
As usual he was nearly the last one to the table; as far as he could tell, only his Aunt Serina was missing, and she might well have eaten earlier, with the children. Carefully watching for the best oppurtunity to do so undetected, he slipped into his seat beside his brother Mekeal at the low table during a moment when Lord Withen was laughing at some joke of Father Leren's. The usually austere cleric seemed in a very good mood tonight, and Vanyel's heart sank. If Leren was pleased, it probably didn't bode Vanyel any good.
"Where were you this afternoon?" Mekeal asked, as he wiggled over to give Vanyel a place on the bench, interrupting his noisy inhilation of soup.
Vanyel shrugged. "Does it matter?" He asked, trying to sound indefferent. "It's no secret how I feel about that nonsense, and it's no secret how Jervis feels about me. So does it really matter where I was?"
Mekeal chuckled into his bowl. "Probably not. You know Jervis'll just be harder on you when you do get caught. Andyou're going to get caught one of these days. You're looking for another broken arm, if you're lucky. If that's the way you want it, on your head be it."
So Father hasn't said anything yet-Vanyel thought with surprise, his spoon poised above the soup. He glanced over at the head table. Lady Treesa was in her accustomed place beside her lord. And she she didn't look any more upset than she usually did; she certainly showed no signs of the hysterics Vanyel had overheard this afternoon.
Could she actually have stood up for me, just this once? Could she have gotten him to back down? Oh, gods, if only!
The renewal of hope did not bring a corresponding renewal of appetite; the tension only made his stomach knot up more. The room seemed far too hot; he loosened the laces of his tunic, but that didn't help. The flames of the lamps on the wall behind him made the shadown dance on the table, until he had to close his eyes and take several deep breaths to get his equilibrium back. He felt flushed and feverish, and after only a few mouthfuls of the thick, swifly cooling soup that seemed utterly tasteless, he signaled to a servant to take it away.
He squirmed uncomfortably on the wooden bench, and pushed the rest of his meal around on his plate with one eye always in the high table and his father. The hight table was high; raised on a dias a good hand above the rest of the room, and set at the head of the low table like the upper bar of a "t." That meant that it overlooked and overshadowed the low table. Vanyel could feel the presence of those sitting there looking over him even at those few times when he wasn't watching them. With each course his stomach seemed to aquire another lunp, a colder and harder one, until he finally gave up on all pretence of eating.
Then, just at the dessert course, when he thought he might be saved, his father rose to his feet.
Lord Withen towered over the table as he towered over Vanyel and everything belonging to Forest Reach. He prided himself on being a "plain man," close enough in outlook to any of his men that they could feel easy with him. His sturdy brown leather tunic and linen shirt were hardly distinguishable from the garb of any of the hireling armsmen; the tunic was decorated with polished silver studs insteadof copper, but that was the only token of his rank. The tunic strained across his broad shoulders-and across the barest hint of a paunch. His long, dark hair was confined in a tail at the nape of his neck by a silver band, his beard trimmed close to his square jawline.
Vanyel's changeling appearance, especially when contrasted with Mekeal's, may have been one reason why Withen seemed to be irritated whenever he looked at his eldest son. Vanyel was lean, and not particularly tall; Mekeal was tall and muscular, already taller than Vanyel although he was two years younger. Vanyel's hair was so black it had blue highlights, and his eyes were a startling silver-grey, exactly like his mother's-and he had no facial har to speak of. Mekeal's eyes were a chestnut brown, he already had to shave, and his hair matched his father's so closely that it would not have been possible to tell which of them a particular plucked hair came from.
Mekeal made friends as easily as breathing-
I never had anyone but Lissa.
Mekeal was tone-deaf; Vanyel lived for music. Mekeal suffered though his scholastic lessons; Vanyel so far exceeded his brother that there was no comparison.
In short, Mekeal was completely his father's son, Vanyel was utterly Withen's opposite.
Perhaps that was all in Withen's mind as he rose and spared a glance for his first-and-second-born sons, before fixing his gaze on nothing in particular. The lanterns behind Withen danced, and his shadow reached halfway down the low table. As that stark shadow darkened the table, it blackened Vanyel's rising hope.
"After due consideration," Withen rumbled, "I have decided that it is time for Vanyel to aquire education of a kind-more involved than we can give him here. So tonight will be the last night he is among us. Tomorrow he will begin a journey to my sister, Herald-Mage Savil at the High Court of Valdemanr, who will take official guardianship of him until he is of age."
Withen sat down heavily.
Treesa burst into a tearful wail, and shoved herself away from the table; as she stood, her chair went over with a clatter that sounded, in the unnatural silence that now filled the Great Hall, as loud as if the entire table were collapsing. She ran from the room, sobbing into her sleece, as Withen maintained a stony silence. Her fosterlings and ladies followed her, and only Mellena cast an unreadable glance over her shoulder at Vanyel before trailing off in the wake of the others.
Everyone in the silent room seemed to have been frozen by an evil spell.
Finally Withen reached forward and took a walnut from the bowl before him; he nestled it in his palm and cracked it in his bare hands. Vanyel jumped at the sound, and he wasn't the only one.
"Very good nuts last year, don't you think?" Withern said to Father Leren.
That seemed to be the signal for the entire room to break out in frantic babbling. On Vanyel's right, three of his cousins began laying noisy bets on the outcome of a race between Radevel and Kerle on the morrow. On his right, Radevel whispered to Mekeal, while across the table from him his youngest brother Heforth exchanged punches and pokes with cousin Larence.
Vanyel was pointedly ignored. He might just as well have been invisible, except for the sly, sidelong looks he was getting. And not just from the youngsters, either. When he looked up at the high table once, he caught Father Leren staring at him and smiling slyly. When their eyes met, the priest nodded very slightly, gave Vanyel a look brimming with self-satisfaction, and only then turned his attention back toward Withen. During that silent exchange, which nobody else seemed to have noticed--Vanyel had felt himself grow pale and cold.
As the desert course was cleared away, the elders left the hall on affairs of their own, and a few of the girls--more of Vanyel's cousins--returned: a sign that Lady Treesa had retired for the night.
The boys and young men remaining now rose from their seats: the young usually reigned over the hall undisturebed after dinner. With the girls that had returned they fromed three whispering, giggling groups; two sets of four and one of eleven--all three groups blatantly closing Vanyel out. Even the girls seemed to have joined in the conspiracy to leave him utterly alone.
Vanyel pretended not to notice the muttering, the jealous glances. He rose from the bench a few moments after ther rest had abandoned him, making it a point of honor to saunter over to stare into the fire inthe great fireplace. He walked with his head high, features schooled into a careful mask of bored indifference.
He could feel their eyes on the back of his neck, but he refused to turn, refused to show any emotion at all, much less how queasy their behavior was making him feel.
Finally, when he judged that he had made his point, he stretched, yawned, and turned. he surveyed the entire room through half-closed eyelids for a long moment, his own gaze barely brushing each of them, then paced lazily across, the endless length of the Great Hall, pausing only to nod a cool good night to a group nearest the door before--finally!--achieving the sanctuary of the dark hallway beyond it.
"
—Reprinted from Magic's Pawn by Mercedes Lackey by permission of DAW, a member of Penguin Putnam Inc. Copyright © 1989 by Mercedes Lackey. All rights reserved. This excerpt, or any parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.