ICEBREAKER

Rosemary Edgehill

Rosemary Edghill is the author of Speak Daggers to Her, The Book of Moons, and Fleeting Fancy. Her short fiction has appeared in Return to Avalon, Chicks in Chainmail, and Tarot Fantastic. She is a full-time author who lives in Poughkeepsie, New York.

It was Midwinter Festival in Talastyre, and the younger children were gathered in the square to watch the traditional Midwinter play before heading home to spiced cider and oranges and the family feast. Elidor stood at the edge of the crowd, unwilling to admit, at fifteen, that he still liked to watch the play, but this was a day of rare liberty for him. Elidor was one of a dozen copyist-apprentices at the great Library of Talastyrewhen other libraries around Valdemar needed a copy of one of their books, it was copyists like Elidor who would write out the text in a fair hand. When he was fully trained, he might seek work at any library, or in a lord’s household, or even at the Collegium in Haven itself.

He had been brought to Talastyre at the age of six, on a winter’s day even colder than this one. He remembered crying, and clinging to his uncle’s coat, begging and pleading not to be left here among strangers, to be let to go home to his parents, to his brothers and sisters.

He remembered the fire, of course. He had gone into the attic to play at Heralds and Companionsthe carved wooden toys had been his Midwinter gift, and when he’d told his brothers that someday a Companion would come to choose him for a Herald, they’d laughed at him, and teased him so badly that he’d decided to find a place to play undisturbed. The attic was cold, but he’d taken his cloak with him, and later it had gotten so warm that he’d taken it off.

He remembered how his eldest sister Marane had come running in. She smelled of smoke, and her face was streaked with tears. He’d started crying, too, because she frightened him, even more when she told him he mustn’t cry, he must be brave. He was still clutching the white painted Companion when she pushed him out the tiny attic window, too small for an adult to get through.

He screamed as he fellsuch a long waybut the snow was deep that year, and he wasn’t badly hurt. He crawled away, through the melting snow, clutching the carved white horse, shouting for his mother, for Marane.

He understood later that the house had burned, and the townsfolk had come to try to put out the fire and see if any of the house’s inhabitants might be saved, and found him, the only survivor. At the time, all Elidor knew was that strangers took him away, and would not tell him where his family had gone.

When his uncle finally came, Elidor hoped he would be taken home again. His uncle was a silent distant man, who rarely came to visit his brother’s family, but he was Elidor’s closest kin. He had no experience of children, and spoke to Elidor as if he were an equal.

“Simon left his affairs in order, I’ll give him that. And I can get a good price for the land, even though there’s nothing left of the house. It will all come to you, boy, never fearno man can say that Jonas Bridewell would cheat his brother’s kin. It comes to a tidy sum. I’ve taken steps to secure your future, and an enviable one it is, too. You need have no fear of toiling in a shop or a mill for the rest of your days. Folk will look up to you, young Elidor.”

There was little about this speech that made sense to Elidor, beyond the knowledge that he was not to go home again. His uncle hired a coach, and after a long and tiring journey, they reached Talastyre.

There he discovered he was to be abandoned.

It had been the Master of Boys who dried his tears, who gently explained to him what his uncle had assumed he understood: that his parents were dead, and that Talastyre was to be his home now. In the dark days that followed, Elidor clung to only one hope: that a Companion would come for him, to take him from this terrible place. Every chance he got, he slipped away from his duties and hurried to the woods at the edge of Town, watching for the flash of shining white through the trees that would mean a Companion was near.

He told no one of his dream. In his thoughts, the fire and his last Midwinter gift were tangled up together in a way he couldn’t explain. At first slept with his painted horse beneath his pillow, but he got into such terrible fights with the other boys when they tried to take it away from him that at last the Master of Boys said he would keep the toy safe for Elidor in his own office, where Elidor could visit it whenever he wished.

The weeks passed, then the months, then the years, and no Companion came, and slowly, rebelliously, Elidor settled into the routine of the Library and its school. First he worked as a runner, delivering messages between the offices of the great library, then as a page, reshelving books and bringing volumes when they were asked for. Along with the other children sent to Talastyre to learnto Elidor’s astonishment, most of them had families (his uncle had been telling the truth when he said he had secured for Elidor an enviable position)Elidor was taught to read and write: his first lessons were in the Common Tongue and to scribe a simple fair hand, but they would be followed by courses in other, older languages and the clear difficult copyist’s hand. That training would be the work of years, for it took decades to make a fully-trained Scribe. Not everyone completed it. Some lacked the aptitude. Others were there only to learn the basic lessons before returning to their families, or passing on to other training. Elidor hated and envied them, while clinging to his secret hope: that he would be Chosen, that he would be more special, more loved than all of them, in the end. He made no friends, and wanted none, and the work he could not avoid, he did grudgingly, and only if watched.

Literacy was Elidor’s salvation.

“Here is something that might interest you,” the Master of Boys said. He sat down beside Elidorwho was being detained, as punishment, while the other boys were sent out to play in the spring sunshineand set a book upon the desk. It was large, bound in blue leather, stamped in silver.

Elidor hated everything about booksthe way they looked, the way they smelled, their weight, their pages filled with incomprehensible symbols. He turned his head away. But the Master of Boys didn’t seem to notice. He simply opened the book.

A flash of color drew Elidor’s attention, and he looked. There, painted on the page, was a brightly-colored painting of a Companion and its Herald. Every detail was clear, and in the spring sunlight, the silver bells on the Companions harness shone like stars.

Elidor grabbed for it, but the Master of Boys drew it back.

“Are your hands clean?” he asked gently.

Elidor inspected his palms. They were gray with the slate of the pencils the boys had been using to practice their letters.

“Go and wash them, then.”

Elidor hurried to the back of the room and rinsed his hands quickly in the basin there, leaving most of the dirt on the towel. But his hands were clean when he returned. He held them out for inspection.

The Master of Boys passed him the book.

Quicklyand carefully, as he had been taughtElidor turned the pages. But there were not many pictures, though many of the pages had a large bright initial letter, each one in Herald blue, some with a tiny picture of a Companion twined around it.

“It is a great pity you cannot read this,” the Master of Boys said thoughtfully, “for it contains many tales of the Companions and their brave Heralds.” He gently drew the book away from Elidor and closed it. “There are other such books in our Library. Perhaps someday you will be able to read them, if you apply yourself to your lessons.”

From that day Elidor worked hard at his lessons, and harder at any task that brought him among the books. Soon he could read as well as many of the older boys, and when two more years had passed, the Master of Boys made good on his promise, and Elidor was given a pass that allowed him free access to any book on the open shelves of the library.

At first he was only interested in works about the Heralds and the Companions, their history and their deeds, but as the years passed and he had run through all of those, his interests broadened until a book’s subject hardly mattered. All of Elidor’s adventures were lived through books, and most of the time he was resigned to the fact that this was how it would always be. His friends were the books of the Great Library, and his teachers spoke approvingly of his abilities. Elidor, they said, will be a Master Copyist someday, and a great credit to our training.

But deep inside, the unacknowledged spark of resentment at how Life had cheated him still burned dully, and the hope remained, grown faint and dim with the passing of years, that a Companion would come to make his life magical.

*

In the town square, the play was getting to the part that he liked best, and unconsciously Elidor rose up on tip-toes, trying to see better.

There was a jingle of bells onstage, as the actor dressed as the Companion appeared from the wings. The horselike body was woven of light wicker covered with white velvet, and its flashing eyes were made of bright foil-backed blue glass. Slowly the Companion danced forward, pausing in turn before the Raggedy Woodman, the Greedy Tax-Collector, and the Karsian Wizard before stopping at last at the feet of Hob the Orphan Boy.

Something soft and moist touched Elidor on the back of the neck.

He turned and stared, only dimly realizing that everyone else was staring too.

It was a Companion, real and live and in the flesh, no more like a horse than the carved wooden toy of his childhood was. Its coat was white, almost more like duck down than horsehair, and from its blue eyes shone such a sense of calm majesty that Elidor nearly wanted to weep.

It was so close to the moment he’d dreamed of all his life that it seemed unreal, as if he ought to be reading about it, not living it. A Companion had come for him at last!

But somehow it didn’t seem right. All the stories agreed that the candidates knew when they’d been Chosen, though the stories never managed to describe the feeling. He reached out a hand to stroke that downy muzzle, and the Companion took a step backward, still watching him with grave, wise eyes.

He wants me to follow, Elidor realized. He nodded, not really sure if the Companion could understand, and took a step forward.

Immediately the Companion turned, and took several steps away, and waited, almost fidgeting. He hadn’t known something in the shape of a horse could fidget, but there it was.

“You!” Elidor said to the nearest boy. “Go and tell them at the Library that a Companion has come!” He didn’t know what else to say, but surely that would be enough? Then he hurried off after the Companion, trotting to keep up with it. He realized he felt no impulse to even try to mount the stallion, and that, too, wasn’t as things went in the stories.

Some of the townsfolk followed themat a prudent distanceas far as the edge of the town, but it became obvious that the Companion’s destination lay further, and Elidor began to wonder if he was going to have to walk all the way to the Collegium. As they left the shelter of the buildings and passed through the town gate that stood open from dawn to sunset, the winter wind struck with renewed chill. He pulled his cloakdark red, with the arms of the Library of Talastyre sewn in a badge at his left shoulder, as befit a Journeyman such as himselftighter, and hurried even faster to keep up with the Companion.

“If you’d let me ride, we could get there faster, wherever we’re going,” Elidor muttered under his breath.

The Companion stopped dead, turning its head to regard him with an affronted expression. Apparently it had heard him.

It stood so still not even the silver bells on its harness jingled, swishing its tail dangerously.

Hesitantly Elidor approached. He’d made the suggestion, and it seemed he was to be taken up on it. Hesitantly he set his foot into the stirrup.

The Librarians and Scribes of Talastyre had little need to learn horsemanship, and certainly Elidor had learned no equestrian skills before he came here nine years before. But he could not resist the demand in that arrogant blue gaze any more than he could have turned back in the first place. Hesitantly, Elidor set his foot into the silver stirrup, and heaved himself ungracefully onto the Companion’s back.

It was the moment he’d dreamed of, the dream he’d lived in, and for, so completely that the real world around him had seemed dim and unreal by comparison, but now, when he had it in his grasp, it all seemed wrong, as if he were straining to squeeze his feet into a pair of boots that didn’t fit.

The Companion hardly waited for him to settle himself before it took offat a much faster pace than before. It was the Companion, rather than any skill of his own, that kept the saddle-leather beneath Elidor’s rump. The trees whipped past him in a blur, and the wind that had been cold before turned to a thousand needles of ice seeking every opening they could find in his good wool tunic and heavy trousers. He knew better than to reach for the reins, and clutched with one hand at the edge of the saddle, and with the other, at his wildly-flapping cloak. He barely had time to realize how acutely-miserable he wasand only think, this was a Herald’s job, to ride out in all seasons and all weathersbefore the Companion stopped once more, and again Elidor had that sense of barely-restrained impatience.

He scrambled from the Companion’s back without even looking around, and then saw he was in the middle of nowhere.

“What?” he said aloud.

Snow covered the ground, but this was the main road, and usually remained passable unless there was a major blizzard. A few yards down the road he could see one of the shelter-huts, built for emergency shelter in winter. He frowned. Something about what he saw wasn’t right.

The Companion shoved him in the back.

“Ow!” Elidor yelped, staggering forward. He’d thought that in person Companions would be the way they were in bookskind and loving and faithful, but this one seemed a lot more like some of his teachers; firm-minded and impatient.

Then he saw it.

“Something went off the road.”

He saw the wheel-ruts in the snow. They stopped short and went to the side of the roadnot the inside, where anyone familiar with the countryside would pull off, but the outside of the road, where a screen of trees concealed the sloping hillside that led down to a little stream. With the winter snow, the extent of the drop-off and even the stream were hard to see.

Elidor ran forward to where the tracks stopped. He could see a coach down there, lying on its sidea small one, far too light for the road and the season. There must be something down there, though, some reason a Companion would come all the way into town and lead him back here.

“You stay here,” he told the Companion firmly, speaking to it as if it were a large dog. “If you go down there, you’ll break your neck. There’s ice, and a stream. Understand?”

He didn’t stop to see whether he’d insulted it, but plunged down the hillside, moving carefully through the snow. He slipped and slid, holding onto the trees for support, and finally reached the bottom. The snow was deeper here, all the way to his knees, and he moved through it carefully.

There was someone under the coach.

A man in Herald’s whitesthat was why Elidor hadn’t seen him before. His spotless whites made him invisible against the snow. Elidor could see now that the coach had landed on a rock, propping it up. Though his eyes were closed, and his cowl pulled up, covering most of his face so Elidor couldn’t see him clearly, the man might still be alive.

“Herald? Sir?” Elidor said hoarsely.

When he spoke the Herald opened his eyes and pushed the cowl away from his face. His skin was dark, and his hair and eyes were black.

“Ah,” the Herald said. He managed to smile, though Elidor could see it cost him. “You’re from the Library.”

“Yes, sir, Herald, sir. I’m Elidor. Your, uh, Companion brought me. I told him not to come down here.”

“And did he listen? That would be a great marvel. Darrian rarely listens to anyone. But I forget my manners. I’m Jordwen. I am very pleased to make your acquaintance, Librarian Elidor.”

“Oh, no, sir, Herald Jordwen, sir. I’m only a Scribe, and a Journeyman anyway. But you must be cold, sir, lying there in the snow.”

He was babbling like an idiot, and Elidor’s ears flamed with the embarrassment of it, and the shame of having thought, even for a moment, that the Companion had come for him. Of course the Companion was already bonded to a Herald, and of course if any Companion were to come looking for Elidor, it would only be to seek help for its Herald. But in the strangest way, mixed in with his feelings of humiliation and wild embarrassment, was the oddest sort of relief.

“We have to get you out of there.”

“Ah, there lies the difficulty,” Jordwen said regretfully. “I’m afraid that when the blessed contraption fell on me, it managed to tangle itself up with me in a way I haven’t yet unraveled. I’d resigned myself to lying here until Spring came and the birds built nests in my hair. There’s beauty in a meadow, of course”

He was rattling on a little breathlessly, and it occurred to Elidor that whatever had happened to him, it must hurt very much. Somehow, that made his own fear and awkwardness go away.

“Look here, Herald sir”

“Do call me Jordwen. I don’t think our discourse can survive many more Heralds and sirs, do you?”

“I’m small, and there’s space under the carriage,” Elidor said, ignoring the interruption. “I think I can get under there and see how you’re pinned, if you’re willing. I might be able to get you lose.”

“I think you must,” Jordwen said, and for all his languor, there was steel beneath his words.

Elidor pulled off his cloak and draped it over the Herald like a blanket. Kneeling down beside him, where the gap beneath the coach was deepest, he began to dig and burrow, tunneling his way beneath the coach alongside Jordwen’s body.

He soon saw what was wrong. When the coach had fallen, Jordwen’s foot had slipped between the spokes of one of the wheels. It was twisted far to the side, swollen to shapelessness, the white leather of his boot ugly with blood. Elidor gulped, swallowing bile. He couldn’t begin to imagine how much that hurt.

He slithered back out again. Jordwen was watching him.

“And will I ever dance again on moonlit nights on green lawns with fair ladies? Ah, for the perfumed air, the gentle music of the harp…”

“Your foot’s caught between two of the spokes of one of the cartwheels,” Elidor announced, trying not to listen to what either of them was saying. “I think the ankle’s broken. I can work it free, and then you can just slide out. But it’s really going to hurt.”

“Then give me a moment,” Jordwen said. “I may seem to sleep, but I assure you, I won’t be. Since I may be … somewhat incapacitated … may I beg a further favor?”

“Yes, of course, Herald siuh, Jordwen,” Elidor stammered.

“There’s a shelter by the side of the roadyou will have seen it, when Darrian brought you here?”

Elidor nodded.

“The driver and his passenger, and the two coach-horsesDarrian will have brought them there for safekeeping after my disastrous and ill-considered attempt at coach-repair. You will see them safe to Talastyre if I cannot?”

How could Jordwen possibly think he’d be doing anything after Elidor got him out from under the coach, Elidor wondered. Aloud, he said. “Of course I will.”

Jordwen smiled. “Then in just a few moments, we will begin.”

As Elidor watched, Jordwen seemed to fall into a light sleep. His eyes closed, and his breathing deepened, until once again he was as Elidor had seen him first. Only the ache of cold roused him to his own task, and once more he squirmed beneath the coach.

Desperately careful, not wanting to hurt the Herald any more than he must, he took the leg in both hands and eased it forward, toward the edge of the wheel where the gap between the spokes was widest. He still had to turn it to get it through, though he was as careful and as gentle as he could be in the cramped and awkward space. When at last he could lower the mangled leg gently to the snow, he was trembling and covered in sweat.

Now to get Jordwen out from under the carriage.

When he crawled out from under the carriage again, it was to confront Darrian standing over Jordwen, nuzzling gently at his face. Elidor had the sense he’d somehow intruded on a very private moment, that he was watching something forever beyond his reach.

As if feeling automatically for a broken tooth, he probed for feelings of jealousy and resentmentthe same feelings he’d had when hearing the other children at the Talastyre school speak of their families and their futuresbut for the first time, they weren’t there. But they ought to be there, shouldn’t they? Because this was a Companion with his Herald. He was looking at what he’d always wanted most.

Wasn’t he?

He put those thoughts aside. There was work to be done.

Jordwen was starting to rouse. As his eyes fluttered open, he gasped and grimaced, then set his teeth against the pain.

“Yes, I know,” he said, answering a comment Elidor hadn’t heard, “but we can’t always choose…can we?” He turned to Elidor. “Thank you for your help. You were very brave.”

“Me?” Elidor shook his head. “We aren’t done yet. I need to pull you out of there.”

“As to that” Jordwen’s voice was slightly breathless with the pain, “I think it’s time for Darrian to start earning his keep. If you can get my hand to his stirrup”

“Be careful,” Elidor said quickly, not sure to which of them he spoke. “There’s a stream right behind you, and I don’t think it’s frozen through.”

Darrian shook his head, and all the bells on his harness jingled. He stepped daintily through the snow behind the Herald, onto the frozen stream. The ice groaned beneath his silver-shod hooves, then gave way. The Companion turned and stamped, until he had cleared a safe place to stand on the streambed, then came up the bank again, standing over Jordwen so that his stirrup dangled above the Herald’s face.

Carefully, Elidor guided Jordwen’s hands to the stirrup, though his own were nearly numb with the cold. “Okay,” he said. “Now.”

Darrian backed carefully into the stream again, and Elidor pushed, making sure that no part of Jordwen stuck or caught. The Herald’s clothing had frozen to the snow, and Elidor winced in sympathy as it tore free.

But then Jordwen was sitting up, his good leg drawn up to his chest, leaning against Darrian, who had come forward to support him.

“Well-served for my vanity,” he said shakily, regarding the blood-stained leg. “Here, Journeyman Elidor, your cloak. Winter Whites are much warmer, I assure you, when one is not lying in the snow. You look blue with cold, and only think, if someone had to come and rescue you in turnwhy, it would be like the tale of Mistress Masham and the Goosegirl’s Daughter: by spring we would have all of Talastyre here, one by one, each coming to rescue the one who had come to rescue the one before.”

Elidor grinned at the image as he took his cloak and wrapped it around himself again, but the seriousness of their situation quickly sobered him. He was strong for his age, but he could not carry Jordwen up the slope to the trail-hut, or even lift him to his Companion’s back, and there was no way under heaven the man could walk even a step.

“But what now, you may ask? Well, if my good Darrian will consent to humble himselfa great concession, I do assure youand you will give me some trifling assistance, we shall ride in style back to the road, collect our dependents, and be on our way.”

“Yes, of course,” Elidor said dubiously.

The Companion regarded him sternly. Elidor slipped his arm around Jordwen’s back for support, and the great white stallion moved away, then slowly and carefully knelt in the snow a foot or so away.

“Now I to my feet,” Jordwen said.

Elidor scrambled around to his other side, where the bad leg was, and squatted beside him. He got an arm beneath Jordwen’s shoulders, knowing how this was done and knowing he must do it well. He must not slip. He must not fall. He must not fail.

“Now,” Jordwen said softly, and Elidor rose to his feet.

Cold muscles screamed with cramp, but he ignored them. He clutched Jordwen hard against his side, pulling with all his wiry strength, a strength honed by years of working among the heavy volumes of Talastyre. To his surprise, he and the Herald were much of a height.

“Notmuchfarthernow” Jordwen gasped. His bronze skin had an ashy tint.

Elidor shifted his grip to the Herald’s belt, and half lifted, half dragged him through the snow to his Companion. The bad leg scraped against the drifts. There was no way to stop it, and Elidor heard Jordwen’s breath catch in ragged sobs, starting tears in his own eyes.

When they reached Darrian, it was all Elidor could do to deposit Jordwen upon his back sideways, as if the saddle were a chair.

“This won’t do,” Jordwen said after a long moment, with a brave attempt at his usual light tones.

“IfIfIf he puts his head down,” Elidor said, amazed at his own presumption, “I could lift your bad leg over, I think. But”

“But it will hurt,” Jordwen finished for him, with the ghost of a smile. “Still, I think it will work. What say you, my friend?”

The last remark hadn’t been addressed to him, Elidor realized. Darrian stretched his neck out as far as it would go, and laid his head against the snow. The position looked awkward.

Elidor hurried around to the Companion’s other side, and gently reached for Jordwen’s leg. He slid his hands beneath it, above and below the knee and raised it high, flexing it like the joints of a doll, and swiveled it toward him, across Darrian’s neck, until Jordwen sat astride the saddle.

Darrian raised his head quickly, with a huff of relief.

“You have good hands,” the Herald said. “Gentle and deft.”

“Scribes have to have good hands,” Elidor said, still holding Jordwen’s leg so that the heel didn’t have to rest against the snow. He was proud of being a scribe, he realized. He was good at it, and it wasn’t something everyone could do. He put the thought aside for later consideration. “I don’t think you should try to put your foot in the stirrup,” he said gravely.

That surprised a shaky laugh from Jordwen.

“Bless you, I am through with rash mistakes for today!”

Darrian got carefully to his feet. There was a line of snow melted into the Companion’s coat, as even as the waterline of a boat. Elidor stared at it with a scholar’s fascination. They really ARE whiter than snow…

“And now to our charges,” Jordwen said.

“But I can”

“No. They are my responsibility,” Jordwen interrupted sharply.

Again there was that sense of a conversation Elidor couldn’t hear, and Jordwen shook his head.

“You’re right, of course. My apologies, Journeyman Elidor. My incivility is precious little thanks for all your aid.”

“If you are Jordwen, then I am Elidor,” Elidor said, trembling at his own amazing boldness at speaking to a Herald so. “I’ll meet you at the top,” he said, to cover his embarrassment. He turned quickly away, and hurried back along his own tracks up the side of the hill.

Darrian took a longer path, finding a gentler slope, so they reached the trail-hut at the same time. Since Jordwen was manifestly unable to dismount, it was Elidor who pushed open the door.

Two carriage-horses stood placidly in one corner, gazing at him incuriously. In the other, sitting on a bench, was a large man in a heavy driving cloak, and beside him, a small child of perhaps four or five, her face red and swollen with tears.

“Are you with the rescue party?” the man demanded truculently. “It’s about timeI’ve been cooped up with this squalling brat for hours!”

“And you are?” Elidor asked.

“Meachum, job-coachman, hired to deliver Mistress Vonarre to the Library at Talastyre, and I’ve had a time of it, I tell youfirst one of the horses went lame, then the coach lost a wheel, and then some fool of a Herald came along and made matters worse”

You haven’t had as bad a time as Mistress Vonarre or that ‘fool of a Herald’ has had. Ignoring the man, he went over to the girl and knelt before her.

“Hello, Sweetheart, are you Mistress Vonarre?”

She looked at him, blue eyes made enormous with tears, and nodded, lip trembling.

“I’m Elidor. I live at the Library. There are a lot of little girls there who want to be your friend. I’ll be your friend, too. And right now, there’s a Herald outside. I bet he’ll even let you say hello to his Companion, Darrian. Would you like that? And then we’ll go to Talastyre.”

“What about the rescue party?” Meachum demanded.

“There is no rescue party,” Elidor said, over his shoulder, his attention focused on the little girl.

“Got no parents,” Vonarre said, hiccupping on a sob. “And it’s cold.”

“Well, it won’t be cold soon,” Elidor said. “And do you know what? I haven’t got any parents either. But there are wonderful things at the Library. Books with beautiful pictures all full of stories. I’ll show you. Now come on.” He scooped her up into his arms and carried her outside.

Her eyes widened when she saw Darrian again, and she reached out to touch him. Though he’d been standoffish with Elidor, Darrian lowered his muzzle into her hand and allowed her to stroke him. She seemed to forget most of her troubles at the sight of the Companion, and Elidor could understand why. They were wonderful, magical creatures.

But he didn’t want one. He wanted the life he had. He was proud of the life he had.

He looked up at Jordwen. The Herald smiled, as if he could guess most of Elidor’s thoughts. “It’s not for everyone, you know,” Jordwen said softly.

“I do. Now. Is that why Darrian came for me?” In a different way than a Companion would come for his Chosen, but one that had made just as much of a difference to Elidor.

“Could be. He had to get someone before I froze to death, and oddly enough, not just anyone will go off with one of us. And I assume you sent a message to the Library?”

“Sure. It might take a while. It’s Midwinter.”

“Ah. You lose track of things on the road. Well, give her here. We’d best go and meet them.”

“Sweetheart, how would you like to be able to tell your children you once rode a real live Companion?” Elidor asked. “This is Herald Jordwen. Jordwen, here is Mistress Vonarre.”

“I am most pleased to make your acquaintance, Mistress Vonarre,” Jordwen said, in his most courtly tones. No one would have guessed that the man was freezing and injured. Elidor handed Vonarre up to him, then went back into the shelter. As he did, he heard the faint jingle of silver bells as Darrian started down the road at a slow walk.

“Come if you’re coming,” Elidor said with determined cheerfulness to the unpleasant coachman as he gathered up the horse’s bridle-reins. “It’s a long walk to town, and better with company.”

“You can’t expect me to walk?” the man said in astonishment. “It’s freezing out there, and we’re miles from town! If that fool of a Herald hadn’t put my coach over the cliff, we could ride in comfort. I’ll sue the College for damages, you see if I don’t!”

Sharp words rose to Elidor’s tongue, but he didn’t say them. If Jordwen could be kind and forgiving to a journeyman scribe while lying cold and injured, Elidor could certainly keep his temper with a blustering fool.

“I’m sorry. Perhaps you can ride one of the horses. They should be sending someone to look for us, but if they don’t, at least we’ll reach Talastyre by dark.”

*

They had gone less than half a mile when they were met by the Master Librarian’s own coach and a dozen outriders, and Elidor, Jordwen, Vonarre, and Meachum finished the journey safe and warm.

*

Several of the outriders went on ahead, so everything was waiting for them when they reached the city gates. Suddenly shy, Elidor slipped away in the confusion, before anyone could think to speak to him, and hurried to his rooms.

As one of the journeymen, he had a semi-private room of his own, and Caleanth was home with his family at Festival time. It was odd to think, now, that he had grudged his fellow Journeyman that, when he had all of Talastyre for his own, as much his kingdom as any prince’s.

No one is too young to be a foolor too old, either! he thought, thinking of Meachum. But surely the coachman’s greatest crime had been only that he had been thinking too much of his own troubleshe had gone quite satisfyingly white when the outriders from the Library had lifted Jordwen into the carriage to finish out the journey, his leg in a makeshift brace and bandage, and there had been no more talk of ‘foolish Heralds.’

He stood for a while, gazing out the window at the buildings of the Library and Scriptorium, its stone dark silver in the winter twilight. Imagine being on the road so many days you didn’t know it was Midwinter, and then having to spend most of the Festival pinned beneath a broken coach, only to be half-rescued by a wet-eared journeyman with a dream-stuffed head! Elidor smiled ruefully at the thought, then went to the chest at the foot of his bed, opened it, and withdrew his oldest and longest-prized possession.

The white paint was worn away in spots, showing the wood beneath, but the tiny blue glass eyes were still as bright, as were the tiny beads that stood in for the silver bells on the painted harness of the carved wooden Companion. He kissed the small wooden toy gently on the forehead, saying goodbye to a dream that had served him well, then tucked the toy into a pocket in his cloak and went to do something he should have done long ago.

He walked across the quadrangle to the Infirmary. The Herald would be in the hands of the Healers, of course, but Mistress Infirmerer was a reliable source of all gossip at the Library, and he hoped to find where little Vonarre had been taken.

But to his surprise, the first person he encountered upon entering the Infirmary precincts was the Mistress of Girls, Lady Kendra. As he lingered in an outer room, uncertain of how far to go exploring, she came through a doorway and advanced upon him, heavy skirts swishing.

“So here is our hero,” she said, keeping her voice low.

Elidor ducked his head, feeling awkward. It was one thing to do what was needed, he realized, and quite another to hear about it later. “I came to see Mistress Vonarre,” he said.

Lady Kendra’s expression softened. “Poor mite! To come such a long way, and at this time of year, and sent like a parcel of old clothes to the ragman, her that wasn’t to come until a year springyou may be sure that yon coachman will have a better care for the next child he must bring such a distance, and a pox upon him!” Lady Kendra’s eyes flashed, and she took a deep breath. “But a hot bath and a bowl of soup mends much, and I will sit with her until she sleeps. She will soon settle in. Tomorrow we will send someone to the wreck to bring back her things, and the letter that will undoubtedly explain all.” From her tone, it was clear the Mistress of Girls doubted the explanation would satisfy her.

“I can go with them. I know where it is,” Elidor said. “But I’ve brought her a present. It’s Midwinter. Can I give it to her? I’ll stay with her, if you like.”

Lady Kendra looked surprised, but the expression passed so quickly that Elidor wasn’t quite sure he’d seen it. “Well, then. Do. But mind she drinks her milk. There’s a sleeping posset in it.”

“I will,” Elidor promised.

He went through the door the Mistress of Girls indicated. There was a table with a small lamp burning on it, and a wooden cup beside it. Beside the bed that took up most of the space in the room was a wooden stool. Vonarre was sitting up in bed. She had been scrubbed, and her hair brushed out, and dressed in a thick flannel nightshirt, just as any traveler whose things had been lost might be. Elidor loosened his cloak and sat down beside her bed. She smiled when she saw him, hopefully, as ifjust perhapsthe world was not terrible after all.

The books he’d read spoke of breaking hearts, and of the pain they caused, and its curious joy, but in all their stories, never once had Elidor read of the comforting pain of a heart that mends, though he knew he felt it now. Thank you, Jordwen. Thank you, Darrian. He reached into his cloak.

“I’ve brought you a Midwinter present,” he said, offering the carved Companion to the child. “This was mine when I was little. I think you’ll like it.”

“His name is Darrian,” Vonarre said firmly, clutching the wooden horse against her chest.

“Shall I tell you a story?” Elidor said. He picked up the wooden mug and held it out. “Drink your milk and I will. Once, long agoa long, long, time ago, there was a Companion named Darrian, who was the partner of a Herald named Vonarre…”

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