“No. I do, too. He never did anything to either of us that I know of, and it was his so-called friends that kidnapped me, not him. Besides, I get the feeling he was forced to come here—and I am pretty damn sure he was forced to stay.” The chair scraped against the floor as Bear got up to leave. “I need to take these little fellows back where they belong. I expect you’ll be getting more visitors.”
“Mebbe. An’ if not, I kin sleep.” He couldn’t imagine who, besides Lena, would be all that anxious to see him. Pretty soon everyone would realize just what balderdash that “hero” business was. So long as everybody figured out that he wasn’t the “foreigner” in those visions, he’d count himself a happy fellow.
Bear chuckled. “All right then, sleep. It’ll be good for you.”
He did just that, soothed by the stuff in Bear’s tea, until a servant woke him for lunch, which was more soft food—pease porridge flavored with ham, but without any ham in it, mashed pears, mashed turnips. It was good. The cook had taken extra care with it all, he could tell. He winced a bit even so, as he ate; he supposed he was lucky none of his teeth had actually been knocked out of his jaw.
:Half the Collegium wants to visit you,: Dallen reported. Mags laughed.
:Reckon ye kin take that on yerself?: he asked. :I think it oughta be you what gets all th’ attention.:
:Oh, I might... : Dallen temporized. : Gennie and the team are on the way with a couple of your books, anyway. Healer Juran told them you won’t be down long enough to need all of your studies brought in.:
It hurt to smile, but he did anyway. The servant who had come to take his dishes smiled back at him. :Then I’ll tell ’em what kinda big damn hero ye are, an’ let ’em spread it round.:
He chuckled at Dallen’s astonished reaction.
:Juran is right. You really are ridiculously modest.:
:Or mebbe I jest don’ like fussin’ an’ I know you eat it up. Jest think ’bout all those people tryin’ t’ bring ye pocket pies.: Just then he heard the sounds of a lot of boots in the corridor outside and turned his attention to the door.
It wasn’t the entire team, but it was a fair crowd; it included Halleck, Pip, Gennie and Jeffers as well as the young proto-Guards from the Foot, and he had to shush them more than once to keep them from disturbing the other people in the room. There were three other patients, though he couldn’t see who, or even what, they were—only that they mostly hunched themselves up in their blankets and turned their backs on the “fuss.”
“Dear gods, you look like a bad dyeing accident,” Pip observed cheerfully. “Try not to heal too fast, we’ll get lots of sympathy for our side at the first Kirball game.”
Gennie pretended to smack him on the back of the head. They all settled around the bed. “Tell,” demanded Gennie. “Or I’ll leave Pip with you.”
After he got done telling his part of the story—and being true to his word, minimizing his role and making sure Dallen got all the credit he deserved for trying to take on a skilled and armed fighter in a space where the Companion couldn’t even move—he finally got to ask some questions of his own.
“Anyone sayin’ wha ’appened down in Haven?” he asked.
Everyone looked to Barrett, who nodded. “No one’s making any sort of secret about it,” Barrett replied. “Your man managed to bolt before the Heralds and Guards got there, and vanished. There were at least five more besides the crazy one staying at the inn, according to the innkeeper. He had given them a couple of rooms over the stable that he was rarely able to rent out because of how noisy and smelly they could get when the inn was full—he’d done that because their crazy friend was given to fits of raving, and that kept him from disturbing anyone else. They’d only been there a fortnight or so.”
“Huh. Wonder where else they’d been stayin’ ’til then,” Mags said thoughtfully. “They had t’ be somewhere.”
“Wherever it was, the crazy one hadn’t been screaming his head off, or the other innkeepers would have remembered it.” Barrett said. “Anyway, they stole horses out of the stable, left the crazy one behind, and disappeared. The inn was in an uproar when the Heralds got there, over the stolen horses.”
“By now they’re long gone,” Pip said in disgust. “I wish I could get my hands on the one that beat up Mags.” His eyes glittered dangerously and Mags was a bit taken aback. This was a side of Pip he had not seen before.
“Either they’re really gone from Haven, or they stole the horses to make it look like they did,” Gennie put in.
“Huh?” Mags blinked at her. “Ye think thet’s likely?”
He couldn’t imagine why they would stay, but the mere thought made his stomach feel odd. They’d had a grudge against him before he caught them out. Now? They’d probably want his hide tacked up on a wall.
Gennie shrugged. “It doesn’t matter what I think, that’s what older and wiser heads than mine are thinking. They say that given that we thought they were gone the first time, from what I heard, equal weight is being put on both possibilities.”
“So... why’d they stay i’ the first place?” Mags wondered.
There were puzzled glances and shrugs all around the group. “I suppose they didn’t get something done that they needed to do,” Gennie said at last. “And there’s nothing they left behind telling us what that was—unless it was to kill the King.”
“This sure matches up with that Foreseeing,” Halleck said, speaking up for the first time. “Foreign blood—and an assassin. Let’s hope you put an end to that, Mags.”
“Eh,” Mags shrugged. “Was more accident than anythin’ else.”
“Well what I want to know is, will you be ready for the Kirball match?” Gennie demanded. Mags chuckled. He had been waiting for her to say something.
“Healer says so. Says I’ll be all green’n’purple, but I be good.”
Gennie sighed with relief. “Well in that case, I’m happy!”
Supper came and went, and Lena followed it, with another dose from Bear and a request.
Well, not so much a request as an “I plan to do this and of course I’m sure you won’t mind.”
“No,” said Mags.
“. . . but . . .” Lena said, making big eyes at him.
“Nu-uh. No songs,” Mags said firmly. “I ain’t done nothin’ t’ make a song ’bout.”
“But I need a subject for this week’s assignment!” she protested. “It’s perfect! I mean, I know you, and I know the story, and it’s topical, which is important, because it proves it isn’t something I’ve been working on all along on the side. Besides, it’s mostly just about keeping your eyes open all the time and—”
She stopped, abruptly, and shut her mouth. But not before Mags realized what she had just said.
He stared at her accusingly. “Ye already wrote it, didn’ ye?”
She dropped her gaze to the hands clasped in her lap. “Yees,” she said reluctantly.
“Ye din’ sing it fer anyone?”
“Um—”
He groaned. “Ye did. How’n hell did ye git a song wrote i’ less’n a day?”
“I needed a song for an assignment and I couldn’t think of a subject!” she replied pleadingly. “It was one of those ‘make up a song in three days’ assignments. Bards are supposed to be able to make things up on the spot, and this is supposed to train us in doing that. It was perfect! My class liked it!”
“Yer class.” He groaned. An entire class of Bardic Trainees had heard the song and liked it. Which meant an entire class of Bardic Trainees had probably memorized it by now.
“It’s very short,” she said in a small voice.
“It’d haveta be.” If his face hadn’t been so tender he would have buried it in his hands. “An’ since it’s short, they all learnt it already. Cause thet’s what Bards do.”