Now it was Rubrik's turn to look as if someone had hit him in the back of the head with a board. And there was a whicker from Laylan that sounded suspiciously like a snicker.
"Of course—" Rubrik replied weakly. "Obviously." As if it wasn't obvious at all, and the thought had never once crossed his mind.
Rubrik's astonishment was so total, and so blatant, that Karal came very near to disgracing himself completely by blurting out the question, "Do you mean that hadn't ever occurred to you?" He stopped himself just in time.
In the first place, such a question would be twenty leagues beyond rude, and Ulrich would be completely within his rights—even his duty—to send him back in disgrace on the spot. One did not ask questions like that if one was a diplomat.
In the second place—
It's possible that the Companions actually have been keeping Heralds from even thinking just that. The Firecats were known to be what they were only to the Priests—the rest of the Karsite populace simply regarded them as signs of Vkandis' favor. Most ordinary folk were not even aware that the Cats spoke to the Priests—after all, the Priests had the Voice, what did they need with a talking feline?
I can think of several reasons why Companions would not want it known that they had once been Heralds, Karal decided, rather grimly, after a moment of silence that gave him plenty of time to really examine the idea. For instance, there had been one infamous attempt to destroy a Firecat by the traitor who had brought about the assassination of the Son of the Sun whose name the Firecat bore.
Not that that worked. Firecats can protect themselves very nicely. The assassin made a lovely bonfire, so the story goes. But surely, there were people who would be very unhappy if certain Heralds were to reappear after their demise—and Companions, unlike the Cats, could be killed.
And even a Karsite knows that if you kill the Hellhorse—the Companion—you'll probably kill the Herald.
There could be emotional conflicts among the Heralds as well. How would a loved one feel, knowing that the beloved ex-Herald could return if he chose, even if in a rather—inconvenient—form? It would be devastating if he did, and nearly as bad if he didn't.
As he was mulling all this over, he caught sight of Laylan staring back at him over his shoulder—and when he caught his eye, he nodded as if he had been following his very thoughts.
As if—like Hansa—she can see what is in my mind—
Once again, he sat frozen in place, stunned. Like Hansa. The Cats are like Companions—
Once again, he nodded; gravely, but unmistakably.
Only one thought floated up out of the shock.
If the Cats are like the Companions, then we are not so different from our ancient enemies after all.
And he could not for the life of him decide if that realization was a reassuring one.
Seven
An'desha stared unhappily out the window of his provisional home. Late afternoon sunset streamed through the branches of the trees around Firesong's ekele, and left patches of gilding on the grass beyond the windows. The silence that must surely be outside was not mirrored within. The indoor garden was full of laughter and talk, even to the point where the burbling of the waterfalls and fountains was overwhelmed by human chatter.
An'desha sat on a rock ledge in the farthest corner of the hot pool, dangling his feet in the water and trying not to sulk. He could not suppress his bitter unhappiness, though, and by the gods, he wasn't sure he wanted to! Firesong had not consulted him on this; he hadn't even been warned that there were visitors coming this afternoon. Firesong had simply showed up with all of them in tow, some of whom An'desha had never even met before. It was rude, it was unfair, and he was not in a mood to make the best of it.
This was supposed to be his retreat away from all the strangeness of Valdemar—so why did Firesong have to bring half of Valdemar into the retreat and spoil it?
Well, maybe not half of Valdemar, but it certainly sounded like it. The garden felt overcrowded, and the fragile peace he had been trying to cultivate was shattered.
An'desha had not had a very good day today; not that everything had gone wrong, but nothing had quite gone light. Firesong kept telling him that he needed to get out and interact with other people, to meet some of these foreigners, so today he had gritted his teeth and made an attempt, hoping for Firesong's approval. Hoping for some success to show him, however small that was.
He'd gone off on his own this afternoon while Firesong taught the young mages. A few days ago he had volunteered to help a group of those youngsters who wore the rust, blue, or gray clothing with one of their lessons in Shin'a'in, and their teacher had gladly accepted his offer. Today was to have been the first of those lessons, and An'desha had some vague idea that he might socialize with them after the lesson. Wasn't that what these strange children did? First have lessons, then socialize?
The lesson had gone on all right, but afterward, when they accepted his hesitant suggestion that they could ask him questions and he would try to answer them, he'd retreated in bewildered confusion within a few stammered sentences. They were just too—weird. They weren't anything like the Shin'a'in of his Clan; they seemed avidly, greedily curious about everything, at least to him, and they asked things he considered terribly callous and horribly intrusive. Of course it was possible that they had no idea that they were being so intrusive—and it was possible that with their limited grasp of Shin'a'in they simply didn't know what they were asking, but why ask him all those prying questions about Firesong? And what in the name of the Star-Eyed was a "Tayledras mating circle?"
Rudeness was bad enough, but they were also shallow, or at least their questions pointed in that direction. To him they seemed selfish and preoccupied with trivialities. He found himself getting angry at them for being so cavalier and carefree, then was appalled at himself for being angry with them simply for acting like children.
A Shin'a'in child was an adult the day he (or she) could ride out on the horse he had trained from a colt, and survive on his own on the Plains for one week. That could be any age from nine up. These Valdemarans, raised in cities, had no such measuring stick for maturity. They were children—more to the point, for all that they were not all that much younger than his apparent age, they were sheltered, protected children. He gathered that most of them had never personally been touched by the war that had threatened their land, and certainly none of them could ever even imagine, in their worst nightmares, the kinds of things he had gone through. How could he fault them for being what they were?
But they not only had nothing in common with him, they were so very different from him that they might just as well have been gryphons or kyree. For that matter, he had more in common with the perpetually ebullient Rris than he did with any of them! At least he understood why Rris was always asking questions; he was a historian, and he wanted not only the facts, but the feelings and reasoning that brought the facts about. Kyree oral histories took these factors into account; they were important parts of the tale. These children had no such excuses for their greedy curiosity.