But as Alberich brooded over his solitary supper, he was still worried. The boy might be big and strong, but he was still a boy, still three years younger than the rest of the team. He’d volunteered, but did Alberich have the right to accept him? He thought of poor Harrow, even now being taken care of by the Healers. He would be throwing young Mical into the middle of a team that was already playing a deadly game; they’d had moons of practice at it, and Mical and Eloran didn’t.
:But he’s been watching,: Kantor reminded him.
:Watching isn’t the same as playing.: Would Mical just end up in a bed next to Harrow in the next day or two?
:Eloran is getting some special coaching, this minute,: Kantor told him. :This business is half the Companion’s job, remember. And Eloran is a lot faster than Harrow’s Companion.:
Another shock; this was a day full of them. :I thought all of you were fairly equal—:
:Oh, no. Not that any of us is the Companion equivalent of Myste—: There was a snicker in that, and Alberich could hardly blame him. Poor Myste! By now she was so notorious that Selenay just had a page assigned to her to follow around behind her, picking up the things she dropped and gathering up the things she put down and forgot. Well, she might forget where she left her spare pair of lenses; she never forgot a fact, a law, or a precedent.
:Some of us have different priorities,: he replied truthfully.
:As do we. At any rate, Eloran is a little nimbler than Lekaron, with slightly better reactions. That should make up for lack of experience.: But he detected a hint of doubt in Kantor’s mind-voice, and oddly enough, that comforted him. If Kantor was having feelings of guilt, at least it meant that Alberich wasn’t being overly nice about this situation.
:They’re terribly young,: he said gloomily.
:Lavan Firestorm and his Companion weren’t any older.:
:And Lavan never got the opportunity to grow any older.:
Kantor was silent for a moment. :Lavan never really got the opportunity to volunteer. Mical did.:
There was that. But could someone that young have any real idea of what he was volunteering for? Bad enough to take the Trainees he had—all adolescents to one extent or another thought they were immortal, that death was something that happened to someone else; the older lot at least were well aware that they could be horribly hurt. But fifteen-year-olds truly thought that they were immortal, yes, and invulnerable, that even injuries would nod and pass on by. And in spite of what he’d seen, was this truly informed consent?
:When do you trust someone?: Kantor asked, seemingly out of the blue.
:Excuse me?:
:When do you trust someone? Is it by age, or maturity? What is the magic number? When do Trainees start to think like adults?:
He understood what Kantor was saying, of course, and his head agreed with it. Mical had been there on the worst day the team had experienced. He’d watched them for two moons at least. And he’d evidently learned some sobering lessons in the glassworks.
He’d shown every sign of acting in a measured and mature fashion this afternoon. So when did Alberich stop doubting and start trusting?
:When my gut decides to go along with my head, I suppose,: he replied glumly. :And my gut is going to be screaming, “but he’s only a child!” for a little while longer at least.:
He might have said something more, but at just that moment, a bell rang out, cutting across the winter night.
And for one, horrible moment, he thought it was the Death Bell, and his thoughts fastened on Harrow—
But no, it wasn’t. It was the Great Bell at the Palace—not the Collegium Bell, that sounded the candlemarks and the meals, but the huge, deep-toned Bell that sounded only for major occasions. So what—
A moment later, his question was answered.
:It’s time! It’s Selenay!: said Kantor, and given the gravid condition of the Queen, that was all Kantor needed to say.
Selenay had gone into labor. By dawn, Valdemar would have an Heir-Presumptive.
And from that moment on, the Queen would be standing between Prince Karathanelan and his ambitions.
Alberich shivered. It had begun.
21
“I’m sorry, Weaponsmaster,” Mical sighed. He pushed the papers away from him, and reluctantly, Alberich took them and folded them up, tightly. “All I get from them is—” he screwed up his face, “—the writer was in a hurry, really annoyed with something, and wanted to get this over with. I think he was that actor fellow—the one we all thought was so—interesting.” He paused again, then smiled wanly. “And about the only thing that I can tell you besides that is that he thought the person he was writing to was very, very thick.”
Alberich sighed. It had been a long shot, of course. He’d hoped that somehow the secret instructions from Norris to the Prince would have some link to the unknown patron. But—no luck, it seemed. Whoever the patron was, Norris had not been thinking of him when he’d been writing the Prince’s “scripts.”
“My thanks, regardless, Mical,” he said. He saw Mical glancing with longing at the door, and he found a bit of sympathy for the boy. It was the first fine day in—well, since autumn. And Mical, no longer under punishment-duty, was probably afire to be out in it. “Go along—”
He hadn’t so much as gotten the words out when Mical was out the door like a shot.
“Frustrating,” said Myste redundantly. “We’ve got one end of the path—Norris to Karath. We have the other, Devlin to Norris. But we still don’t have the so-called ’patron’ who links it all into a neat circle.”
“Nor will we,” Alberich said with grim certainty. “I believe it was the same person who was paying for unrest against the Queen earlier. I even believe it was the same person who was selling information out of the Council during the Wars. And I have my suspicions who that person is. Unfortunately, I do not have a shred of proof. He is too clever at covering his tracks and hiding his identity. He is probably in disguise most of the time when he deals with underlings.”
This “certainty” was not true Foresight, but it came with the scent of Foresight on it. He would have liked to confide his suspicions to someone who had some other Gift that might be used to spy upon this person, but unfortunately, the suspicion was so wild that he knew that even the Heralds would have stared at him with incredulity.
Yes, even Talamir. Even Myste.
Even, perhaps, most of the Companions.
:But not me,: said Kantor, with equal certainty. :So you and I will watch and wait and bide our time—quietly. We’ll catch him eventually.: