Page 21 of Valdemar

Kordas hummed a bar of the popular drinking song “As You Wish,” a tale about that very thing. He bit his tongue to keep from reciting all the tales of havoc that lovely girls in the villages of the old Duchy of Valdemar had caused, and that he or their local highborn authorities had been forced to remedy. In the real world, you never hear stories about the good, the kind, the obedient, the respectful, he reminded himself soberly. For most people, demeaning was easier than praising, so scandals were appealing as excuses to show righteous indignation. You only hear about the troublemakers.

“At least she’s confiding in you,” he said. “Did she see any of these spirits when she was with the Hawkbrothers?”

“No,” Delia told him. “But if they are Elementals or some sort of nature spirit, they might not have gone near the Vale. They might have seen the Hawkbrothers at work, assumed that they tamed and neutralized everything magical, and avoided the place. She says they did seem to move and act with intelligence and purpose, more intelligence than an animal, so that’s not an impossible idea. I told her that I believed her, that you would probably believe her, and that she should keep a watch for this sort of thing while she walks the wall at night. She’s not afraid to walk the wall, by the way, and I got the impression she was not sorry to have something to do besides feel miserable and hide in her rooms. Oh! And she can see in the dark. Probably as well as a cat, maybe as well as an owl.”

“An excellent reason to have her on the wall, then. I had a feeling about her and that station. I’ll just leave her to it unless one of the Old Men wants to examine her. Or, wait—I’ll see if Wis wants to talk to her. He’s not an expert on spirits, but he is kind and gentle, and I think she’s got enough stern authority figures in her life right now.” That notion relieved Kordas. The girl wasn’t going to be a liability, the only people that were going to see her during her waking hours were his guards, and while she was quite likely to be the cause of a broken heart or two among them, she was not going to be the live coal she’d be among the highborn boys. Good gods, that would be a mess. There are some that would make a contest out of trying to seduce her, there would be a lot of angry parents that I “dared” to have a mere peasant girl that pretty anywhere near their precious heirs and spares, and . . . well, the possibilities just get worse from there. Ah, and about that—

“Does she like dogs?” he asked.

“Dogs, cats, birds, fish, frogs, pretty bugs, rabbits, deer—name an animal and she likes it. She says they talk to her, so she might also have Animal Mindspeech.”

This just gets better and better, in the non-sarcastic sense.“Well, good. Then at false dawn when she comes down off the wall, I’m going to offer her Trusty and Alfonse-You-Asshole.” Trusty was one of his pack of mastiffs, trained as protection dogs; he was just about five, which was approaching middle age for a mastiff, and it was time to give him some lighter duties. Watching over Lythe while she slept would be perfect. And Alfonse was one of Sydney’s great-grandchildren, who liked to partner up with Trusty. Often for shenanigans. When Trusty was working to protect one of Kordas’s herds, Alfonse went with him, and would venture into the wilder parts and get something bigger than he was to chase him—right into Trusty’s jaws. This ended in a feast for both of them. Of course, this also meant that they were known to partner up to raid the kitchen—like his father and mother—hence the inheritance of the -You-Asshole “honorific.”

“Oh, I can get that. That would be perfect,” Delia agreed. “They’re handfuls, but they’re affectionate. Having tailed friends can help so much for anyone in distress. All right, then, I’m going to go take a half-turn around the wall with her, tell her about her new pets, and see if she has anything else to confide in me.”

She rolled over the edge of the boat onto the floor, and went on her way. The door closed behind her with a soft thunk.

Kordas and Isla looked at each other, ignoring the book. “Now I feel badly,” Isla confessed. “Quite badly, actually. I assumed the worst without ever laying eyes on the girl.”

“And she doesn’t know that. She doesn’t need to know.” Kordas kissed her ear. “And I’ve lost the thread of the book.”

“Well, then.” Isla smiled. “It’s late enough that we aren’t going to get any more visitors unless it’s an emergency. Besides, you’ll need to be up quite early in order to take her those animals, and I can think of some other pleasant things we can do before sleep. . . . ”

• • •

This was the first time that Kordas had actually laid eyes on the girl since receiving the pair, and he was rather more than happy he’d thought of placing the cat and dog to guard her when he saw her.

In a word, now she was dangerously pretty. Especially at the moment, when between the fact that Rothas had just awakened and she had had her precious hour or so with her lifebonded, and that Kordas had brought her Trusty and Alfonse, she was actually happy.

So was Rothas, which made them just about the most handsome couple Kordas had ever seen in his life. Rothas was a sun-king, and she was a moon-queen, with her dark hair, pale skin, and huge, dark purple eyes. He’d never seen anyone with eyes that color before.

She had good animal manners, too; she waited until Kordas had brought the animals into their little living space and told her to call Trusty. There was no point in calling Alfonse; he was a cat and he’d come and go as he pleased. Then she got right down on the floor, eye level to the mastiff, and made a chirping sound.

Trusty was a big brindle, and he probably was double her weight. Those jaws could crush a limb. Kordas wouldn’t have been surprised if she had been afraid of him, but she wasn’t. He looked right at her, and so did Alfonse. Then, as Trusty started a slow tail-wag and Alfonse raised his tail like a flagpole, both of them took the couple of steps needed to bring them to her, sat down within a hand of her, and all three of them engaged in some sort of silent communication that only reinforced his suspicion that she had Animal Mindspeech. Halfway through this moment, Alfonse began to purr, and Trusty’s tail thumped the stone floor vigorously. Then Trusty broke eye contact with the girl and looked at his master, Kordas.

“Yes, Trusty,” Kordas said, as if the dog could understand him. “You belong to Lythe now. Guard.”

Well, the dog certainly understood the command “guard,” and his tail thumped even harder as his jaws gaped in a doggy grin. Alfonse leveled a withering look at Kordas that all but said in words, “And what am I, the red-headed stepchild?”

“You guard too, Al,” he told the cat. The cat seemed happy with that.

Then Lythe and Rothas sat down on the cold stone, regardless of their own comfort, and gave the two animals the attention they certainly deserved. Kordas let them be for a while, then asked, “Delia said something about you talking to animals?”

Rothas bristled a little, as if he suspected Kordas of making fun of his beloved. But Lythe nodded, keeping her attention on the mastiff and not looking at Kordas. “She said you would believe me. Mother didn’t. So, do you believe me?”

“How do they talk to you?” he temporized. He might not have the Gift himself, but he’d known people who did, and he had a fair idea of how it was supposed to work.

“Not in words,” she said, confirming what he knew. “More like feelings mixed with pictures. Mother said I was making it up, even when I showed her how I could call wild birds to me out of the trees. I thought about calling wild rabbits,” she added, “but Mother would have knocked them over the head and added them to the stewpot.”

“Well, you have what is called Animal Mindspeech. It’s a kind of Mind-magic. It’s perfectly natural,” he added hastily. “Just rare. I’m glad; that will make it easy for Trusty to understand that he needs to guard you while you sleep.” Trusty gave the eyebrow to Kordas when he heard his name. She nodded, and Rothas looked relieved enough to faint. “I don’t think anyone is going to take a chance with a dog with jaws like that around,” Rothas commented—a statement vague enough that it stated the obvious without stating it obviously, displaying the Bardic talent for wordcraft.

“Alfonse said he will, too,” she told Kordas shyly. “But—he is a cat.”

Kordas had to laugh at that. “Well, yes, he is. It’s not smart to expect anything out of a cat. Just be grateful if he does things you like.” He was very pleased to see that she didn’t have some airy, unrealistic notion of how animals behaved, which was another good indication that she did, indeed, have Animal Mindspeech. “They already know where to go to be fed, back up at the manor, so don’t worry about that. They are both good about relieving themselves far from indoors. Plus, Trusty and Al are very good at hunting rabbits together, and Al is murder incarnate when it comes to vermin, so they can supplement their own feeding when you’re awake and helping patrol the wall.” He smiled. “You’ll have all the benefits of having a pet and none of the work!”

“We had cats,” she replied, with a faint smile. “Because Mother said that cats are the only pets that can take care of themselves.”

Alfonse’s purr deepened with approval.