Page 58 of Valdemar

“I just don’t have anything I’m good at,” Jon said, dispiritedly. “I’m not smart, like Restil. I’m not good at fighting, like Hakkon. And I’m not brave. When bad things happen, I just want to hide, I don’t want to face them.”

“You do have things you are good at,” Isla corrected. “You understand everything you read. Your handwriting is impeccable. What would you say to organizing the royal library and cataloging the books? It’s a terrible mess in there, and we haven’t anyone to spare to put it to rights.”

“It is a mess,” Jon acknowledged. “It always takes me a long time to find anything.” He looked up at both of them. “But—”

“It’s important,” Kordas said firmly. “When we waste time looking for a book we need, we’re not just wasting our own time, we’re wasting time that could be used to fix things here in Valdemar. And you’re perfect for the job. You are as well educated as the younger bookstaffers already.” And then he had another idea, and snapped his fingers. Sable twitched an ear and the hound swiveled both of his. “You like to write and tell stories. I can think of another job you’d be perfect for, that no one—except probably Beltran—has even considered yet.”

Jon looked at him expectantly.

“Chronicling the Heralds,” Kordas told him. “We need records. The Heralds of the future will need them, because we are new and bound to make mistakes, but without records, we’ll repeat those mistakes. Start with getting everyone’s personal story, and you can start with me and your mother and brother, since you know us well. Then every time one of us does something, make an accurate report of it. Make reports on our training, and if there are mistakes in training especially, make note of that so we can do better, later.” As light came back into Jon’s woeful eyes, he patted the lad on the shoulder again. “There’s no one better suited to doing that than you. And given how much you’ve kept your troubles to yourself, it’s clear you are discreet, which is something that job really needs. The more you show that you won’t gossip for the sake of being popular, the more the Heralds will trust you, too.”

:Oh, we all trust him. I’ll make sure all the Companions make it very clear that Jon is worthy of telling secrets to.: He paused. :Some secrets. We’ll discuss what ought not be said.:

“Ardatha just told me that all the Companions already trust you,” he continued, smoothly.

“He did?” Jon’s eyes widened. “Oh, how I wish I could talk to them!”

:That’s not out of the question,:Ardatha responded. :Given that—well, I told you. When he’s fully grown, he’s going to be Chosen. But . . . :

:But?:Kordas prompted.

:I believe he has latent Mindspeech. Perhaps we can arrange for it to become active. There are plenty of Companions who have not yet Chosen who would very much like talking with him. There is much he can tell us; he is very observant. We know quite a lot about you and your world, but we haven’t lived it like you have.:

“Ardatha just said that he thinks they’ll try to find a way to talk to you,” Kordas told him. He smiled. “I believe you might just have found a circle of friends. But that will be for tomorrow. Tomorrow, you can start in the library, and when you need a break, go out to the pasture and see if the Companions can figure out a way to talk to you. Then start on the chronicles. You’ll have plenty to do tomorrow, and any time you want to rest, just come back here and Sable and the kits will keep you company. You look very tired, and I think you need to sleep. Cats purring are very soothing. Close your eyes, and you’ll find out.”

Sable purred.

“I am kind of tired.” Jon knuckled his eyes. “I think you’re right.”

After reassuring themselves that he was going to be all right for now, Kordas and the Queen left him curled around queen-cat Sable and the kittens, making a kind of living bed for them. His eyelids were fluttering closed as Kordas gestured the mage-light in his room to fade out, and they left him with the door open a crack so the cat could come and go as she needed.

“Why didn’t we see what was going on with our own son?” Kordas said with anguish, as soon as they were in their own room.

Isla shrugged helplessly. “I didn’t see it either. I just saw that he was quiet, and I was grateful. I’m as much to blame as you are.”

“Thank the gods for that asshole of a cat,” Kordas said, sitting down heavily on the side of the bed. “At least he had one friend. Sydney was a better father than I am.”

Isla sat down next to him and put her arm around him. “He was certainly a prolific one. There’s no excuse for me either. What’s past is done. I think we’ve gone a long way toward making up for that, though. We’ve given him something he can succeed at. Given him a sense of purpose.” She paused, and tilted her head to the side, obviously listening to her Companion. “Dendalin says the same thing. And that if they can cultivate his Mindspeech, then the unpartnered Companions all are interested in becoming his friends.”

He didn’t ask if that was enough, because he knew that it would be. How could it not?

“We’ve made a start,” Isla said firmly. “We can’t ‘make it up to him.’ But we can make it better. And we will.”

:Yes,:said Ardatha. :We all will, if I am any judge of Companions. Not to be overly dramatic—our numbers are few, and none of us are from this Kingdom. It may seem unlikely, but—we need friends too.:

• • •

Restil and Hakkon had overheard all of that, of course, and Hakkon grabbed Restil’s arm and dragged his brother into his room. “Why didn’t he tell us?” Hakkon demanded. He scowled, looking fierce. “I’d have punched those bullies’ faces in! I’d have made sure my friends let him come along, when we were doing things!”

“And that’s exactly why,” Restil replied, feeling as guilty as Hakkon was angry. “If you’d beaten up those bullies—and I have no doubt you could have taken on all six of them—they’d have gone running to their parents, saying you started it. With no witness other than Jon, it would be your word against theirs, and their parents would have made a lot of trouble for Father. Father wasn’t King then, remember. Those boys probably all belonged to the families that scarpered off, else they wouldn’t have been bold enough to bully him. If you’d beaten their sons, they might have challenged him as unfit. Older people use the young to take blame, and act out their wishes. They are experts in how to work the levers and cranks of the young, because they are who installed them.”

“They’d never have gotten away with that!” Hakkon objected, angrily.

“They certainly could have,” Restil replied. Time for Hakkon to get a taste of how the world works. He still thinks it’s “fair.” “People are mean, Hakkon. They’ll use trickery and deceit to take power from others, and keep it for their own. The parents wouldn’t have to prove that challenge, only make people doubt that Father was impartial. Once that doubt was sowed in people’s minds, it would always be there, and they’d second-guess every decision he made. Take the wyrsa attacks. People would start questioning whether he was responding equally to them. Did he favor protecting some people, like the Young Squire, over others? The doubt would grow. More people might have started to think about leaving. And all because you beat up some bullies that were tormenting Jon. And Jon knew that.” He rubbed his head ruefully. “He’s smarter than I am.”

Hakkon pondered that for a while. “So why didn’t they go after Sydney and Jonaton?” he asked.

Restil snorted. “I can think of a lot of reasons. They didn’t want to admit they were afraid of a cat, first of all. But they had no way of knowing it was Sydney. There are a lot of black cats at the Palace and in Haven. A lot of them are pretty feral. And for all we know, they did tell their parents, and their parents either were afraid of annoying Jonaton because he’s a very powerful mage and he could make their lives miserable in ways that couldn’t be traced back to him—especially with all the Old Men covering for him—or they did go to Jonaton, and he said ‘And how do you know it was my cat?’ and they had no way of proving it.”