With so many years of mine workers foraging nearby, there were no berries within a reasonable distance of the mine, and the most obviously edible things were also long ago grubbed up and eaten. But if you knew what you were looking for and you were prepared to graze like a goose, spring was the one season when you could actually go to sleep with a full belly if you could slip away for a while.
Now, this spring, he could sleep with a full belly every night—if only his belly wasn’t so knotted up with tension that it was hard to eat anything at all. Such irony.
As one day turned into another, he found the Field to be his new sanctuary, safer even than his room or the Heraldic Archives.
As he would sit studying, sometimes his attention would be taken by one of the things he would immediately have pounced on and devoured this time last year, and he was reminded that no matter how uncomfortable things were, they were so much better than they could have been. He might not have survived this past winter. Even if he had, right now he would have been half starved, always tired, always afraid.
But it was hard, very hard, to try to keep his spirits up. The constant weight of unfriendly regard on him wore his spirit down.
It was harder still to have to come to meals and the occasional study session with Bear, and see poor Lena. Lena had gone from bright and happy—even if her happiness had a false cause, it was real happiness—to crushed and bewildered.
That first little “informal concert” had been the last that Mags had been invited to. And, he supposed, the last that Lena had been invited to participate in. With the dark stories in the wind again, Bard Marchand had pulled back from Mags abruptly, not even acknowledging that he knew the Trainee if they happened to cross paths. And that meant Lena was no longer of any use to him. She didn’t say anything, but Mags could tell, by the way she drooped and looked forlorn, that her father had once again abandoned her as well as Mags.
He actually felt worse for her than he did for himself.
He wouldn’t have said anything to Lena about it, though, but Bear brought it up. Actually, Bear brought it up several times and finally, one night, wouldn’t let go, asking her “What’s wrong?” until she finally answered.
“I never see Father anymore,” she said unhappily. “I don’t know why, or what I did to offend him but I never see him at all now, and he doesn’t reply to my notes.”
And again, Mags wouldn’t have said anything, but Bear had evidently had enough of this. He got that stubborn look on his face, pushed his lenses up on his nose with one finger, and leaned over the table.
“He won’t see you because Mags is in people’s bad books again, and therefore, Mags isn’t on the list of people he looks good knowing,” Bear said, bluntly. “All he ever wanted was to meet up with Mags and make it look as if Mags was a friend of his. You were nothing more than his way to get to Mags easily. He just doesn’t care about you, Lena; all he ever cared was that everyone would know that he knew the Kirball star and the hero of the hour, because he collects people like that just to get an advantage.”
Lena turned shocked eyes on him. “How—why would you say such a thing?” she cried, looking as if she was about to cry. “Father never—Father wouldn’t—he’s a famous Bard, why would he do something like that?”
Mags sighed. He couldn’t leave Bear to take this one alone. “He’s sayin’ it ’cause it’s true,” he said. “Nobody wanted t’ tell ye, but thet’s what he’s like.”
Lena looked from him, to Bear, and back again, stricken dumb.
“Lena, what has he ever done for you, for your family, besides remind them once a year how lucky they are that he married into your house?” Bear urged. “Where does his money come from? Your family, and whatever gifts he gets from his patrons. Does he ever send any of that back? No. Who got you your first music lessons? Him? No. Your ma. Who saw to it that a Bard heard you play and sing so you could get sent here, him? You’d think that would be natural, wouldn’t you, once he found out you were a musician? But no. It wasn’t him, it was your grandpa, you told us that yourself. Had he ever heard you sing and play before you got here? No.”
“Did ’e even recognize ye when ’e sent me off on that errant?” Mags added softly. “Not thet I noticed. In fact, you was pretty upset ’bout it at th’ time, an fer a goodly while after. I’ fact, you was upset ’bout it right up till he started payin’ ’tention to ye. Aye?”
Bear took Lena gently by the shoulders and shook her a little. “Lena, think. Think about it. Haven’t you felt him using the Gift on you a little, and using his personality on you a lot, to get you to forget all that? Haven’t you felt him pressing you to worship him the way Amily worships her pa?” He didn’t let her answer; he looked at Mags instead.
:Tell her I have,: Dallen said sadly. :Of course, that is unethical, but he used his Gift so little that he could always claim he didn’t realize he was doing it because he wanted his daughter’s regard back. And he would probably be believed.:
“Dallen says he has,” Mags told her. “ ’Cept, of course, Amily’s pa deserves thet sorta worship, aye? Ye jest have’ta see ’im with her, how much he takes care’a her, how he makes sure she’s all right afore he goes an’ does things. Mebbe he gotta think’a Valdemar an’ th’ King first, but he makes sure someone is lookin’ out fer Amily. Like Master Soren an’ Lydia. Yer pa? He ever make sure ye got so much as a spare harpstring? He ain’t done nothin’ t’ deserve nothin’ from ye, if ye was t’ ask me. He never done nothin’ t’ get ye here, an’ aside of that one concert, never done nothing for ye when ye got here. Never made sure you was all right. Never made sure there was someone t’ watch out fer ye.”
“You have the Gift too, Lena,” Bear urged. “Use it! Shake off what he did to you and see him!”
A hundred emotions, all negative ones, chased themselves across Lena’s face—and then her face crumpled, she buried it in her hands, and sobbed.
“I thought he loved me!” she wept into her hands. “I thought he finally loved me.”
Both Bear and Mags made a move to hold her; Mags pulled back and gestured to Bear to comfort her. Pushing his lenses up on his nose, he pulled her into his shoulder and let her sob.
“One day someone is going to not get charmed and beat the stuffing out of him,” Bear said, in a growl. “And the sooner that day comes, the better. But let me tell you something, Lena. One day, when people say ‘Bard Marchand,’ it will be you they are thinking about and not him. And one day, when someone says ‘Tobias Marchand,’ others will wrinkle their foreheads and say, ‘Don’t you mean Lena?’ and they’ll have to be reminded that Tobias happened to be the father of the really, truly famous Bard Marchand.”
Mags nodded in silent agreement.
“Families,” Bear added, in tones that indicated that something more had shortened his temper than just having to work with difficult patients.
“Wha’s got ye riled?” Mags asked.
Bear sighed. Lena sobbed on, oblivious to what they were saying. Well, Mags couldn’t blame her. This was a horrible blow to her. Here she thought her father had finally noticed her, was impressed by her, and had come to love her. The fact that all these emotions had been created in her by her father in order to manipulate her was probably unbearable right now.
“Got a letter from my family,” he growled. “My brother’s turning up. Head of the Sweetwater House of Healing, if you please, and he’s going to demand that I do my duty to the family, come home, and get married on Midsummer and start spawning babies. They still haven’t given up on that.”