He would have said more - he wanted to say more - but Treesa interrupted with a demand that he sing again, and by the time he untangled himself from the concentration the song required, the boy was gone.
The boy was on his mind all through dinner. He finally asked Roshya about him, and Roshya, delighted at having actually gotten a question out of him, burbled on until the last course was removed. And the more Vanyel heard, the more he worried.
The boy was being given - at Treesa's insistence - the same education as the legitimate offspring. Which meant, in essence, that he was being educated for exactly nothing. Except – perhaps - one day becoming the squire of one of his legitimate cousins. Meanwhile his real talent was being neglected.
The problem gnawed at the back of Vanyel's thoughts all through dinner, and accompanied him back to his room. He lit a candle and placed it on the small writing desk, still pondering. It might have kept him sleepless all night, except that soon after he flung himself down in a chair, still feeling somewhat stunned by the boy and his Gift, there came a knock on his door.
"Come -" he said absently, assuming it was a servant.
The door opened. "Milord Herald?" said a tentative voice out of the darkness beyond his candle. "Could you spare a little time?"
Vanyel sat bolt upright. "Medren? Is that you?"
The boy shuffled into the candlelight, shutting the door behind him. He had the neck of his lute clutched in both hands. "I - " His voice cracked again. "Milord, you said I was good. I taught myself, milord. They - when they opened up the back of the library, they found where you used to hide things. Nobody wanted the music and instruments but me. I'd been watching minstrels, and I figured out how to play them. Then Lady Treesa heard me, she got me this lute. ..."
The boy shuffled forward a few more steps, then stood uncertainly beside the table. Vanyel was trying to get his mind and mouth to work. That the boy was this good was amazing, but that he was entirely self-taught was miraculous. "Medren," he said at last, "to say that you astonish me would be an understatement. What can I do for you? If it's in my power, it's yours."
Medren flushed, but looked directly into Vanyel's eyes. "Milord Herald-"
"Medren," Vanyel interrupted gently, "I am not 'Milord Herald,' not to you. You're my nephew; call me by my given name."
Medren colored even more. "I-V - Vanyel, if you could - if you would - teach me? Please? I'll -" he coughed, and lowered his eyes, now turning a red so bright it was painful to look at. "I'll do anything you like. Just teach me."
Vanyel had no doubt whatsoever what the boy thought he was offering in return for music lessons. The painful - and very potently sexual - embarrassment was all too plain to his Empathy. Gods, the poor child - Medren wasn't even a temptation. I may be shaych, but - not children. The thought's revolting.
"Medren," he said very softly, "they warned you to stay away from me, didn't they? And they told you why."
The boy shrugged. "They said you were shaych. Made all kinds of noises. But hell, you're a Herald, Heralds don't hurt people."
"I'm shaych, yes," Vanyel replied steadily. "But you - you aren't.''
"No," the boy said. "But hell, like I said, I wasn't worried. What you could teach me - that's worth anything. And I haven't got much else to repay you with." He finally looked back up into Vanyel's eyes. "Besides, there isn't anything you could do to me that'd be worse than Jervis beating on me once a day. And they all seem to think that's all right."
Vanyel started. "Jervis? What - what do you mean, Jervis beating on you? Sit, Medren, please."
"What I said," the boy replied, gingerly pulling a straight-backed chair to him and taking a seat. "I get treated just like the rest of them. Same lessons. Only there's this little problem; I'm not true-born." His tone became bitter. “With eight true-born heirs and more on the way, where does that leave me? Nowhere, that's where. And there's no use in currying favor with me, or being a little easy on me, 'cause I don't have a thing to offer anybody. So when time comes for an example, who gets picked? Medren. When we want a live set of pells to prove a point, who gets beat on? Medren. And what the hell do I have to expect at the end of it, when I'm of age? Squire to one of the true-born boys if I'm lucky, the door if I'm not. Unless I can somehow get good enough to be a minstrel."
Vanyel's insides hurt as badly as if Medren had punched him there. Gods - His thoughts roiled with incoherent emotions. Gods, he's like I was - he's just like I was - only he doesn't have those thin little protections of rank and birth that I had. He doesn't have a Lissa watching out for him. And he has the Gift, the precious Gift. My gods -
" 'Course, my mother figures there's another way out," Medren continued, cynically. "Lady Treesa, she figures you've turned down so many girls, she figures she's got about one chance left to cure you. So she told my mother you were all hers, she could do whatever it took to get you. And if my mother could get you so far as to marry her, Lady Treesa swore she'd get Lord Withen to allow it. So my mother figures on getting into your breeches, then getting you to marry her - then to adopt me. She says she figures the last part is the easiest, 'cause she watched you watching me, and she knows how you feel about music and Bards and all. So she wanted me to help."
Poor Melenna. She just can't seem to realize what she's laying herself open for. “So why are you telling me this?" Vanyel found his own voice sounding incredibly calm considering the pain of past memories, and the ache for this unchildlike child.
"I don't like traps," Medren said defiantly. "I don't like seeing them being laid, I don't like seeing things in them, and I don't much like being part of the bait. And besides all that, you're - special. I don't want anything out of you that you've been tricked into giving."
Vanyel rose, and held out his hand. Medren looked at it for a moment, and went a little pale despite his brave words. He looked up at Vanyel with his eyes wide. "You -you want to see my side of the bargain?" he asked tremulously.
Vanyel smiled. "No, little nephew," he replied. "I'm going to take you to my father, and we're going to discuss your future."
Withen had a room he called his "study," though it was bare of anything like a book; a small, stone-walled room, windowless, furnished with comfortable, worn-out old chairs Treesa wouldn't allow in the rest of the keep. It was where he brought old cronies to sit beside the fire, drink, and trade tall tales; it was where he went after dinner to stare at the flames and nurse a last mug of ale. That's where Vanyel had expected to find him; and when Vanyel ushered Medren into the stuffy little room, he could tell by his father's stricken expression that Withen was assuming the absolute worst.
"Father," he said, before Withen could even open his mouth, "do you know who this boy is?"
Candlelight flickered in his father's eyes as Withen looked at him as if he'd gone insane, but he answered the question. "That's – uh - Medren. Melenna's boy."