The words both startled and gratified him, and for a moment, he actually felt his eyes burn. “I will!” he called after them, hoping that they didn’t notice the slightly choked quality caused by the lump in his throat. “But session is ended for today, I think.”
:Tell the others with Harrow, will you?: he asked Kantor.
:Certainly,: There was a pause. :Harrow says to tell you he apologizes for not checking his helm better, and that this is all his fault.:
That called for an apology. :Tell him that he is right—but that it is also my fault for not checking the equipment first myself, and that I also beg his pardon for my carelessness.:
:That ought to scare him out of his bed,: Kantor chuckled. :You, apologizing!:
But as Alberich hung the faulty helm on the pommel of his saddle, and turned to mount Kantor’s saddle and head for the salle, he caught sight of movement out of the corner of his eye.
For one horrible moment, he thought it was someone from the Court. Perhaps one of the Prince’s people—
Which could be a disaster.
Then he saw the color of the mount and the rider’s clothing and had another sickening feeling. This was another Trainee and Companion, and they’d seen the accident. If he thought he was being portrayed as a monster before—
:No Companion thinks you’re a monster.:
He hadn’t seen them there; he’d thought there had been no one watching. In a moment, he recognized them, with something of a start. The Trainee was young Mical, his Companion Eloran—two of the unholy trio whose antics had broken that mirror in the salle and had inadvertently sent him down the road to discovering what the actor Norris had been up to.
What were they doing here?
But Mical’s punishment was long since over; what could he possibly have been doing out here? It wasn’t for pleasure; he looked practically blue with cold, and he must have been here the entire time they’d been playing.
“Weaponsmaster Alberich?” the boy called, as soon as he was within easy conversational distance. “Can we volunteer to be that substitute?”
Alberich raised an eyebrow, making certain that none of his considerable surprise showed on his face, although his jaw ached with the effort of keeping it from dropping. He knew very well that young Mical had a reputation as a demon Hurlee player, despite the late start that he and Eloran had on it because of the punishment work he’d been doing. But that was regular Hurlee, not this—this combat version. Surely no one sane would volunteer for this, not after today, not seeing that the Weaponsmaster would injure one of the Trainees and apparently not think twice about it. And Mical had at least three more years to go in his training, not one or less than one.
“How long have you watching been?” he asked, keeping his tone flat. He expected to hear a slightly cocky “Long enough,” but once again he got a surprise.
“A little more than two moons,” Mical replied. “It took me a while to get my chores scheduled so I had the candlemark free. I heard about it, and I started watching. At first it was—well, because it was Hurlee.” He emphasized the game as if invoking the name alone would explain everything. “Then I stayed.”
Kantor snorted. :Well, well. This is interesting.:
“This no kind of game is,” Alberich told him, harshly. “Not anymore. Not this group. There is this, serious injury today. More, there are likely to be.”
“I know that, Weaponsmaster,” Mical replied, head up, eyes blazing. “But I’m good, really good at regular Hurlee, and I want to help.” His Companion moved forward until he was nearly nose-to-nose with Alberich, and the rest of his speech was made in a whisper. “I know why you’re doing this,” he continued, and if his hands and voice trembled a little, his gaze was firm. “That is, I think I know what you’re doing. You’re training up a bunch of people who are always at the Collegium until they graduate into Whites, and who nobody is going to even consider as adequate protection. Not even the Queen, so we could go anywhere. You think that if the Queen ever leaves the Palace grounds, someone is going to try to kidnap her. Maybe even the Prince’s friends, to try and get the Queen and the Council to agree to make him a King.”
Since that was very near to what Alberich was afraid of, he actually started, and stared at the boy, and this time he didn’t even try to keep his jaw from dropping. “But—how—” he began.
Mical shrugged. “Healer Crathach is my second cousin, and my uncle knows people who know the Prince’s set. I’m good at putting things together, and my Gift is Touchreading.” At Alberich’s puzzled look, he explained. “If I pick up something barehanded, and I want to know, sometimes I can tell where it’s been and what it’s been doing going back to when it was first made.” He gulped. “I haven’t had it working for long, not so I could trust it. Otherwise I’d have told you.”
Alberich blinked again. So did Kantor. :I was under the impression that Mical’s Gift was fairly unreliable.:
“My Gift-teacher still thinks it’s unreliable,” Mical continued. “But in the last moon it’s been getting a bit more under control, and that was when I noticed something. If someone has been handling what I pick up very recently, and feeling strongly about something, it’s pretty dead-accurate. I can pick up bits of what they’ve been thinking about. When I realized there was something strange about this Hurlee team, I—” He flushed. “I started snooping on you. You’ve been awfully worried lately, and you’ve been doing a lot of repairs on the practice equipment.” His chin firmed. “I know this is dangerous; you just cracked Harrow’s skull for him, and that was just in practice! But I still want to help.”
Alberich thought about it for a long, long moment, as the snow fell all about them, sealing them off from the rest of the world inside a wall of white curtains.
“All right,” he said at last. “Come down to the salle with me. I will need to measure you, and get you armor. And your gods be with you.”
***
Mical went off with his measurements taken, a set of armor of the approximate size ready for him, and an admonishment to say nothing of his speculations, not even to his fellows on the team. “Tell them that you are the substitute, you may,” Alberich told him. “If you care to.”
Mical just shook his head. “They aren’t my yearmates, and it’ll be better coming from you,” he replied, showing a maturity that Alberich hadn’t expected. “If you say it, they’ll just figure you picked the best you could think of. If I do, it’ll sound like I’m boasting.”
It sounded as if young Mical had learned a lot more in that glassworks than how to make mirrors.
And there had not been one single attempt on Mical’s part to suggest some of the stage-fighting techniques he had been so enamored with a year ago. He’d done a great deal of physical growing in the past year, too; he’d gone from weedy adolescent to a young powerhouse with muscles as hard as rocks. It was no wonder that he was reputed to be such a demon Hurlee player. Evidently pumping those bellows had been very good for him.