When I returned to the Collegium after Shavanne was killed, everyone said I would be Chosen again—it was only to be expected. It was the last thing I wanted; for months after I was well in body I wandered the halls of the Collegium, soul-sick and, perhaps, half-mad at the death of my Lady Heart. Everyone said that, too, would pass; in time my soul would heal.
Even my fellow Heralds, those few who knew what it was to survive the death of that which should survive both death and age, said I would love and be loved again.
I had no desire for that. Shavanne had been life and joy to me. I could see no purpose in accepting anything less, and I could imagine nothing more.
Perhaps it would have been different if I had possessed one of the Great Gifts, or even a powerful one, but I had no more than minor Mindspeech and perhaps—no one was every quite sure—a trace of Empathy, enough to hear Shavanne’s voice, and with her death, even that was gone. I did not miss it.
I knew that she, of all beings, would not wish me to squander my life in vain regrets and hopeless yearnings, and I tried to honor what I knew were her wishes. The anger at my loss—Valdemar’s loss—faded, and even the bitterness, in time.
But no one Chose me, and it was a relief.
When a year had passed, I knew it was time to take up my service to the Crown once more in whatever fashion I could. The King’s Own had shown me the way.
There are places in Valdemar that a Herald cannot go. I had all a Herald’s training, and loyalties, but I was not, precisely, a Herald. I put off my white leathers for a coat of motley, and took up my belled staff.
Paynim the tinker was welcome everywhere in Valdemar. My father had been a tinsmith; we both thought, when I was Chosen, that my apprenticeship in his shop had been for nothing. How wrong we both had been. A tinker can find work anywhere, and stay as long or as short a time as he pleases. He need carry with him no more than the tools of his trade, and no one is surprised when he wanders on. I wandered where I was sent—even into Hardorn and Karse—and in twenty years I had crossed and recrossed Valdemar a dozen times.
Where there was need of a Herald, all white leather and silver bells, I sent for one. Where merely sending a report back to Haven was wanted, I did that, too. I quickly learned the circuit of every Herald; it was easy to pass messages and receive orders.
My friends kept my secrets, as I wished, and as the years accumulated, fewer and fewer that I met knew that I once wore the White. It is more comfortable that way. If they wonder who I am, and why they bring me messages and take my reports away, they do not ask.
Herald Niniyel and Companion Teroshan had brought me a message; there are many fairs and market days throughout the warm dry months, and Heralds and tinkers both attend many of them. The message was an odd and improbable one, but it is my task to turn the unlikeliest of rumors into hard truth, and until I have seen—or not seen—what I have been sent to see, I do not waste my time wondering about it in advance. A wise man never needs to borrow trouble since fools give it away free, as my father always told me.
Yet this time I did wonder out of season, for the message Herald Niniyel had brought me said there was a witch in the Armor Hills.
That alone was reason enough for me to go.
Since Vanyel’s time, there has been no magic in Valdemar. The Mind-Gifts of Herald and Healer are not sorcery, as they use the term beyond our borders. But lately that has changed. There is even a Mage College in Haven now, though it is new and I have never seen a Brown Robe on my wanderings. But the world is filled with wonders that I have not seen with my own eyes—a Karsite Captain with a Companion, for example.
But it is a byword of the Bards that the memory of the common folk is longer than any History, and so the country folk have never ceased to speak of witches when they encounter anything uncanny.
A fortnight and more of steady walking lay between me and my destination, but it was summer, a good time to walk the roads. The Armor Hills are north of the East Trade Road. They are not so distant from Haven as many other places, but Sumpost and Boarsden are the nearest villages, and they are not large. To the north, Iftel is their border; on the east, Hardorn.
I had been told that the witch of the Armor Hills was said to be a woman grown—that in itself was odd, for notable Gifts generally appear first in childhood. Further, it was said that all the Armor Hills paid her tribute, for she had the power to call a man’s soul out of his body, which is a power that could not be explained by a misunderstanding of any of the Mind-Gifts I knew—so perhaps the tales I chased were true, and what I sought was indeed a witch.
At first, there was nothing for me to see. It was difficult enough to find the people themselves, for the Armor Hills is a wild and unforgiving place, and the houses of its folk are scattered and hidden. The people there subsist by hunting and trapping, and gathering the bounty of the wild, for though I saw many small gardens—once I had found the people—I had also quickly discovered that everything that is not up is down; it is impossible to find a level tract of land to plow or plant. It is an article of faith with those who dwell there that the land is too poor to take a crop, but I saw no sign of that. The small gardens flourished, and the woods and sharp-cut narrow valleys that I trudged through were lush with growth.
I mended pots, gossiped idly, and listened more than I talked.
A moonturn passed as I wandered from house to house. I had visited such remote places before, and knew better than to ask questions, lest I give offense, but soon I was accepted so far that one night’s host would give me good directions to the next place that might have need of my services, and I no longer had to search out each house by myself.
People began to talk freely in my hearing, giving little thought to me as I sat over my fire in the dooryard, wrestling a cracked pot into working order or repairing an old skillet that must have lost its handle in King Roald’s reign. That was when I first heard folk speak of the Moonwoman. Who else but she could be the creature I sought?
They said she was the offspring of a Companion and a Herald. I took no offense at hearing that; the common folk say odder things of us. They said her hair was as white as a Companion’s tail—that, at least, was a thing nearly possible.
They said she could see the inmost thoughts of man, woman, or child, and could send their spirit from their body into light or darkness, calling it back at her whim. To placate her, they gave her anything she asked for when she walked among them.
These things did not sound at all encouraging, but what mattered most to me was that they said she would be at Midsummer Meeting. There I could see her—if she was, in fact, a flesh-and-blood woman and not simply a tale of the hills—and judge for myself for myself whether she had all—or any—of the powers claimed for her.
It took more work than I had imagined to gain an invitation to Midsummer Meeting. I had imagined, hearing the hill folk speak of it, that it was simply their version of one of the Season Fairs so common elsewhere, in Valdemar, and so a tinker would surely be welcome.
In fact, it bore more in common with a religious gathering, or a mustering of clans. Midsummer Meeting was where marriages were celebrated, babies acknowledged, and those who had died in the previous twelvemonth named. Trading went on as well, and music, dancing, and fine eating, but the true purpose of Midsummer Meeting was the exchange of information among the hill households, and a chance for a young hill son or hill daughter to meet someone from several valleys away.
But outsiders were not forbidden to attend.
Meramay was a young widow, plump and blonde, who had taken a shine (as the saying there went) to me. I had stayed with her ten days together, walking out each day in search of work, and returning at nightfall, adding my day’s payment, in eggs or honeycomb or fresh-killed rabbit, to Meramay’s larder. In truth, she could use all that I brought, for she lived entirely alone, and to take a living from the hills was a constant round of hard work, best shared by many strong backs.