Author's Note: Darn it. I write a story to get Tatya's drilling little
voice out of my head, and what happens? Someone else moves right on in. In
this case, Herald Byron, from "Identity Crisis". I also plan to eventually
write out the story of Rhys' adventure on the Karsite border, but that'll
have to wait. I also want to revise Identity Crisis, which has a few vital
errors in it that need correcting...ah, well.
If you haven't read Identity Crisis, don't worry. This story takes place way before it, and no previous knowledge is necessary. However, you should know that in this set of stories, nothing after Oathbreakers takes place. None of the characters from any book after that exist, either. Sorry.
On the Shore, a Wanderer Chapter One
"There is an eye which could not brook A moment on that grave to look." - George Gordon
* * *
The air in the Beckworth family temple was flat and damp, smelling faintly of mold and more strongly of the scented beeswax of the candles that filled the echoing room with furtive light. In the light of full day, it would probably have been pleasant to see the stained glass windows throwing their gay colors against the rich velvets of the cushions on the pews, and painting the white marble altar with a rainbow. In the evening, however, the dying light lay like bloodstains on the floor, and only shadows caressed the altar. And the oaken coffin that rested there.
Marius, Lord Beckworth, stood at the door of the chapel, and looked within. His expression was bleak, and more than the evening darkened his face. As he debated whether to go forward, or withdraw, his thumb worried at the wedding band on his finger, and his eyes never left the small, wretched figure sitting alone on the pew closest to the coffin. Mother Avi had said the boy just needed time to come to grips with what had happened. But Marius had seen the peculiar look in his son's eyes at the service, and although he didn't understand it, it frightened him nonetheless.
He moved down the aisle, conscious both of the extra care he was taking not to disturb the hush of the temple, and of the absurdity of such care. No one who bothered about such things would hear him now. Still, he was almost silent as he came abreast of his young son, and sat on the pew beside him. Byron did not acknowledge his presence by even a flicker of an eyelid. Instead, his gaze remained fixed on the coffin. His expression was abstracted, and his grey-green eyes ("like dusty emeralds," Mary had once said, laughing and tapping the infant on the tip of the nose while Marius looked on proudly) studied the grain of the wood as if he could see through it, to the body within. He looked much older than his six years.
"Son," Marius began, and then stopped. What could he possibly say? He was a quiet man, given to introspection and companionable silences. Mary had been the poet, the woman with the Bardic Gift who'd given up her travels to remain with him and bring joy and song to their people. Without her, he had no words to express grief to a child. Or even to himself.
"Papa," Byron said. Marius shook himself, and realized that while he'd been musing on his own grief, his son had turned to look up at him with those solemn eyes.
He cleared his throat, and blinked away a sudden wetness from his eyes. "Yes, Bree?"
"Why did Mama die?" Marius knew that he wasn't asking for the mechanics of the accident. He'd gone over that with Byron himself. No, this was the unanswerable question, the eternal why. The question Marius, himself, asked every night that he lay down in a bed that seemed too empty to bear. He'd only ever come up with one question.
"I don't know."
Byron nodded, and his small, pale hand crept across his lap to clasp his father's large one. Marius took the hand in a grip that, under other circumstances, would have been too tight. Now, neither noticed, except to be grateful for the reassuring pressure. Byron turned back to the coffin, and after a while, he nodded to himself.
"One day," he said softly, "I'll find out. I'll find out everything, and tell you. Okay, Papa?"
"Okay, son." This time, not even furious blinking could stop the two tears that ran silently down Marius' cheeks.
* * *
The door to the Seneschal's office opened, and as Annice looked up, astonished, from her paperwork, a woman just a little younger than herself darted inside and closed the door with bang. The visitor, the bright green robes of a Healer swirling around her, leaned against the door and looked down at Annice with equal parts merriment and frustration. "Sorry, Annice, but I desperately needed a hiding place."
Annice's brow furrowed. "From who, Maud?"
"Byron!" At the Seneschal's blank look, the Healer breathed a frustrated sigh. "I swear, Annice, do you *leave* this office? Ever?"
"Of course I do, but there's so much work to be done." She shrugged. "Before he died, I'm afraid that Zakary was too ill to do much of it, and there's such a backlog..." Maud was tapping her foot and Annice smiled ruefully. "But you obviously didn't come here to hear about my problems. Please," she gestured at a paper-stacked chair, "have a seat, and tell me all about it."
"Thank you," Maud said, as graciously as if she hadn't been throwing meaningful looks in that direction since she'd entered. She carefully lifted the tower of papers and added it to another stack, ignoring Annice's subtle wince. "To answer your woefully ignorant question, sister-mine, Byron is the heir to the estate of Beckworth, and has obviously been sent by the gods themselves to test the patience of our poor, mortal souls!"
"Why haven't the Guards done something with him, or is that what you're coming to see me about? Because I could probably have him sent packing, if not charged outright."
Maud looked at her sister blankly, then began to laugh great, whooping guffaws. By this time Annice was deeply confused, and not a little bit annoyed. She scowled at Maud until the other woman got her outburst back under control, and then raised her eyebrow. She wasn't going to ask, she promised herself. Every time her younger sister baited her into asking something, it ended up being something she'd rather not know. So she sat perfectly still, with her face in the expression of hypnotic, icy calm that had caused one of the more unwise Bardic students to dub her with the title of Lady Colddrake, in her own trainee days.
Maud, immune to the look that had been known to send Heralds twice Annice's age scurrying for cover, continued to laugh. "Oh, Havens," she finally gasped, wiping her eyes, "Byron's not like *that*. I can't imagine the boy ever lifting a hand to harm a living soul. No, he uses a weapon more terrible than mere force, my sister. More terrible by far." Maud shuddered melodramatically.
"I'm not going to ask."
Maud pouted, and sniffled at her. Annice looked down at her paperwork to hide her grin. Nobody would believe her if she said that, in private, the dignified and refined Healer Emeraud, the pride of the Healer's Collegium, became an adolescent capable of such overblown drama that a Bard would weep in envy. But she *still* wasn't going to ask.
"Oh, fine, Annice. Spoil my fun, if you must. Byron, since you didn't ask, is a very fine boy. Polite, witty at times, gentle, and bright. Very bright. And curious. Gods help us all. It's like someone took a barrel full of cats and poured it into his brain...he doesn't know when to *stop* asking questions. And in his own, very innocent, way, he seems to believe that he instructors exist solely to quench his insatiable thirst for esoterica!" Maud threw her hands up into the air.
Annice's mouth twitched. "Well, don't you? I mean," she lifted an eyebrow, "the purpose of the Collegium *is* to educate the students, correct?"
Maud leveled a glare at her that should have peeled the ink off of the nearby papers. "He cornered Maxie and I the other day. In the *bathhouse*. To talk," she said with an air of exquisite finality, "about the root structure of sedgegrass!" As Annice began to chuckle, Maud said darkly, "Annice, we were rather emphatically otherwise engaged...and this is *not* funny!"
"Yes, it is," Annice gasped between laughs, "It really is. Weren't you saying just last year that you wished you had *one* student that actually listened to what you said? Well," she spread her hands wide, "wish granted."
"You are a cruel, cruel woman. How did you bribe that poor Companion of yours to pretend to Choose you?"
"Oh, I'd never resort to bribes." Annice's eyes twinkled wickedly, but her voice had regained its hint of reserve. "It was blackmail, of course."
Maud snorted, and bounced up out of her chair. "Of course. I imagine that the Bottomless Question Pit has moved on to some other poor target, so I'll be on my way before you corrupt me with your wicked ways." As she crossed to the door, she looked back. "Are we still on for tomorrow? You missed last week."
Annice sighed. "I don't know, Maud. I'd like to, but..." the wave of her hand took in the mounds of documents. At the look on her sister's face, she mustered a weak smile. "I'll try, yes?"
"You do that. Maxie is threatening to come in with her troop and dig you out of this avalanche, otherwise."
The sisters shared another smile, and then Maud left, closing the door behind her with her usual enthusiastic slam. It was no coincidence that the Palace staff had had to replace the door to Maud and Maxie's quarters twice in the past five years. Although, it did always come as a surprise to the carpenter that it was the slender Healer that was the culprit, and not her hawkish, Captain of the Palace Guard lover.
"Byron," Annice mused out loud. "Maybe I should see if the Heraldic instructors are having the same...problems with the boy."
*They are,* Doric said in his Chosen's mind, *and it's not just the Heralds. Byron is one young man who has no problem believing that Companions are people. And he's very...patient.* There was a suggestion of an edge in Doric's voice; for Annice's normally cheerful Companion, this was the equivalent of one of Maud's screaming fits.
"I think I'd better see about this."
* * *
Byron sat on the fence that marked the edge of Companion's Field, staring over the rolling green of the plain with a distant look in his eyes. On the other end of the field were the Companions, conspicuously avoiding the area around him. He sighed, and brushed his wispy, brown hair out of his eyes. The motion was so familiar to him that he no longer had to think about it.
The instructors were avoiding him, ever since the Bathhouse Incident. He hadn't realized that Healer Emeraud wasn't alone, and certainly not that she was...occupied. Although, if he'd been thinking about something other than the book he'd just finished, he'd probably have realized that it would be better to wait for her outside the bath. Even the memory brought a furious blush to his cheeks. He hadn't even realized that two women could do that. It was obvious that a vital part of his research had been woefully neglected. And it was a lot more interesting than sedgegrass. For a moment, he wondered if they would be open to a few questions, then dismissed it. All and sundry had made it quite clear that his questions were not appreciated. "Why doesn't anyone understand?" he asked the universe in general.
He nearly fell off his perch when the Universe answered back, "Because if they did, life would be boring, wouldn't it?"
The young man in Grays raised his eyebrows as Byron yelped and twisted around to face him. "I'm sorry," the newcomer said, "I thought you heard me come up."
"N-no problem." Byron clambered down from the rail. "It was about time for me to go to my next class, anyway."
"Hey, I didn't mean to run you off." The Heraldic Trainee gave him a friendly grin. He was apparently one of the few who hadn't been warned off already.
"It's okay. I have to go, like I said."
"Well, before you go, we should introduce ourselves, right?" The Trainee stuck out his hand. "I'm Rhys. I just got here a week or so ago."
Byron smiled, letting the other's good-natured air wash away his melancholy, and shook the offered hand. "Byron. I've been here about three months. Um," he shuffled his feet, "if you need directions or something, I'll be glad to help."
They finished the handshake, and Rhys used the hand to wave at a Companion who had detached himself from the herd and was heading their way. He looked back at Byron and winked. "I've no doubt I'll need it. And, as unlikely as it may be, if I can help you with anything, just let me know."
"Really?" Byron brightened. "Actually, there is one question..." About that time, the bells began to toil, calling students to the next candlemark's classes. Byron fought the unmannerly urge to curse. "Sorry, I've really got to go. Some other time, maybe?"
Rhys shrugged, and began to stroke his blissful Companion. "Sure, anytime. Just run me down, or tell Faniel here, and he'll relay it."
"I'll do that!" With that last, enthusiastic remark, Byron snatched up his pack full of books and headed for the Collegium at a run. Rhys watched him go with a twinkle in his blue eyes, and turned to Faniel.
"Huh. The others said that the Blues could be pains in the ass, but he seems a good enough sort. Byron." His smile widened. "My first non-Herald friend in Haven, maybe."
If you haven't read Identity Crisis, don't worry. This story takes place way before it, and no previous knowledge is necessary. However, you should know that in this set of stories, nothing after Oathbreakers takes place. None of the characters from any book after that exist, either. Sorry.
On the Shore, a Wanderer Chapter One
"There is an eye which could not brook A moment on that grave to look." - George Gordon
* * *
The air in the Beckworth family temple was flat and damp, smelling faintly of mold and more strongly of the scented beeswax of the candles that filled the echoing room with furtive light. In the light of full day, it would probably have been pleasant to see the stained glass windows throwing their gay colors against the rich velvets of the cushions on the pews, and painting the white marble altar with a rainbow. In the evening, however, the dying light lay like bloodstains on the floor, and only shadows caressed the altar. And the oaken coffin that rested there.
Marius, Lord Beckworth, stood at the door of the chapel, and looked within. His expression was bleak, and more than the evening darkened his face. As he debated whether to go forward, or withdraw, his thumb worried at the wedding band on his finger, and his eyes never left the small, wretched figure sitting alone on the pew closest to the coffin. Mother Avi had said the boy just needed time to come to grips with what had happened. But Marius had seen the peculiar look in his son's eyes at the service, and although he didn't understand it, it frightened him nonetheless.
He moved down the aisle, conscious both of the extra care he was taking not to disturb the hush of the temple, and of the absurdity of such care. No one who bothered about such things would hear him now. Still, he was almost silent as he came abreast of his young son, and sat on the pew beside him. Byron did not acknowledge his presence by even a flicker of an eyelid. Instead, his gaze remained fixed on the coffin. His expression was abstracted, and his grey-green eyes ("like dusty emeralds," Mary had once said, laughing and tapping the infant on the tip of the nose while Marius looked on proudly) studied the grain of the wood as if he could see through it, to the body within. He looked much older than his six years.
"Son," Marius began, and then stopped. What could he possibly say? He was a quiet man, given to introspection and companionable silences. Mary had been the poet, the woman with the Bardic Gift who'd given up her travels to remain with him and bring joy and song to their people. Without her, he had no words to express grief to a child. Or even to himself.
"Papa," Byron said. Marius shook himself, and realized that while he'd been musing on his own grief, his son had turned to look up at him with those solemn eyes.
He cleared his throat, and blinked away a sudden wetness from his eyes. "Yes, Bree?"
"Why did Mama die?" Marius knew that he wasn't asking for the mechanics of the accident. He'd gone over that with Byron himself. No, this was the unanswerable question, the eternal why. The question Marius, himself, asked every night that he lay down in a bed that seemed too empty to bear. He'd only ever come up with one question.
"I don't know."
Byron nodded, and his small, pale hand crept across his lap to clasp his father's large one. Marius took the hand in a grip that, under other circumstances, would have been too tight. Now, neither noticed, except to be grateful for the reassuring pressure. Byron turned back to the coffin, and after a while, he nodded to himself.
"One day," he said softly, "I'll find out. I'll find out everything, and tell you. Okay, Papa?"
"Okay, son." This time, not even furious blinking could stop the two tears that ran silently down Marius' cheeks.
* * *
The door to the Seneschal's office opened, and as Annice looked up, astonished, from her paperwork, a woman just a little younger than herself darted inside and closed the door with bang. The visitor, the bright green robes of a Healer swirling around her, leaned against the door and looked down at Annice with equal parts merriment and frustration. "Sorry, Annice, but I desperately needed a hiding place."
Annice's brow furrowed. "From who, Maud?"
"Byron!" At the Seneschal's blank look, the Healer breathed a frustrated sigh. "I swear, Annice, do you *leave* this office? Ever?"
"Of course I do, but there's so much work to be done." She shrugged. "Before he died, I'm afraid that Zakary was too ill to do much of it, and there's such a backlog..." Maud was tapping her foot and Annice smiled ruefully. "But you obviously didn't come here to hear about my problems. Please," she gestured at a paper-stacked chair, "have a seat, and tell me all about it."
"Thank you," Maud said, as graciously as if she hadn't been throwing meaningful looks in that direction since she'd entered. She carefully lifted the tower of papers and added it to another stack, ignoring Annice's subtle wince. "To answer your woefully ignorant question, sister-mine, Byron is the heir to the estate of Beckworth, and has obviously been sent by the gods themselves to test the patience of our poor, mortal souls!"
"Why haven't the Guards done something with him, or is that what you're coming to see me about? Because I could probably have him sent packing, if not charged outright."
Maud looked at her sister blankly, then began to laugh great, whooping guffaws. By this time Annice was deeply confused, and not a little bit annoyed. She scowled at Maud until the other woman got her outburst back under control, and then raised her eyebrow. She wasn't going to ask, she promised herself. Every time her younger sister baited her into asking something, it ended up being something she'd rather not know. So she sat perfectly still, with her face in the expression of hypnotic, icy calm that had caused one of the more unwise Bardic students to dub her with the title of Lady Colddrake, in her own trainee days.
Maud, immune to the look that had been known to send Heralds twice Annice's age scurrying for cover, continued to laugh. "Oh, Havens," she finally gasped, wiping her eyes, "Byron's not like *that*. I can't imagine the boy ever lifting a hand to harm a living soul. No, he uses a weapon more terrible than mere force, my sister. More terrible by far." Maud shuddered melodramatically.
"I'm not going to ask."
Maud pouted, and sniffled at her. Annice looked down at her paperwork to hide her grin. Nobody would believe her if she said that, in private, the dignified and refined Healer Emeraud, the pride of the Healer's Collegium, became an adolescent capable of such overblown drama that a Bard would weep in envy. But she *still* wasn't going to ask.
"Oh, fine, Annice. Spoil my fun, if you must. Byron, since you didn't ask, is a very fine boy. Polite, witty at times, gentle, and bright. Very bright. And curious. Gods help us all. It's like someone took a barrel full of cats and poured it into his brain...he doesn't know when to *stop* asking questions. And in his own, very innocent, way, he seems to believe that he instructors exist solely to quench his insatiable thirst for esoterica!" Maud threw her hands up into the air.
Annice's mouth twitched. "Well, don't you? I mean," she lifted an eyebrow, "the purpose of the Collegium *is* to educate the students, correct?"
Maud leveled a glare at her that should have peeled the ink off of the nearby papers. "He cornered Maxie and I the other day. In the *bathhouse*. To talk," she said with an air of exquisite finality, "about the root structure of sedgegrass!" As Annice began to chuckle, Maud said darkly, "Annice, we were rather emphatically otherwise engaged...and this is *not* funny!"
"Yes, it is," Annice gasped between laughs, "It really is. Weren't you saying just last year that you wished you had *one* student that actually listened to what you said? Well," she spread her hands wide, "wish granted."
"You are a cruel, cruel woman. How did you bribe that poor Companion of yours to pretend to Choose you?"
"Oh, I'd never resort to bribes." Annice's eyes twinkled wickedly, but her voice had regained its hint of reserve. "It was blackmail, of course."
Maud snorted, and bounced up out of her chair. "Of course. I imagine that the Bottomless Question Pit has moved on to some other poor target, so I'll be on my way before you corrupt me with your wicked ways." As she crossed to the door, she looked back. "Are we still on for tomorrow? You missed last week."
Annice sighed. "I don't know, Maud. I'd like to, but..." the wave of her hand took in the mounds of documents. At the look on her sister's face, she mustered a weak smile. "I'll try, yes?"
"You do that. Maxie is threatening to come in with her troop and dig you out of this avalanche, otherwise."
The sisters shared another smile, and then Maud left, closing the door behind her with her usual enthusiastic slam. It was no coincidence that the Palace staff had had to replace the door to Maud and Maxie's quarters twice in the past five years. Although, it did always come as a surprise to the carpenter that it was the slender Healer that was the culprit, and not her hawkish, Captain of the Palace Guard lover.
"Byron," Annice mused out loud. "Maybe I should see if the Heraldic instructors are having the same...problems with the boy."
*They are,* Doric said in his Chosen's mind, *and it's not just the Heralds. Byron is one young man who has no problem believing that Companions are people. And he's very...patient.* There was a suggestion of an edge in Doric's voice; for Annice's normally cheerful Companion, this was the equivalent of one of Maud's screaming fits.
"I think I'd better see about this."
* * *
Byron sat on the fence that marked the edge of Companion's Field, staring over the rolling green of the plain with a distant look in his eyes. On the other end of the field were the Companions, conspicuously avoiding the area around him. He sighed, and brushed his wispy, brown hair out of his eyes. The motion was so familiar to him that he no longer had to think about it.
The instructors were avoiding him, ever since the Bathhouse Incident. He hadn't realized that Healer Emeraud wasn't alone, and certainly not that she was...occupied. Although, if he'd been thinking about something other than the book he'd just finished, he'd probably have realized that it would be better to wait for her outside the bath. Even the memory brought a furious blush to his cheeks. He hadn't even realized that two women could do that. It was obvious that a vital part of his research had been woefully neglected. And it was a lot more interesting than sedgegrass. For a moment, he wondered if they would be open to a few questions, then dismissed it. All and sundry had made it quite clear that his questions were not appreciated. "Why doesn't anyone understand?" he asked the universe in general.
He nearly fell off his perch when the Universe answered back, "Because if they did, life would be boring, wouldn't it?"
The young man in Grays raised his eyebrows as Byron yelped and twisted around to face him. "I'm sorry," the newcomer said, "I thought you heard me come up."
"N-no problem." Byron clambered down from the rail. "It was about time for me to go to my next class, anyway."
"Hey, I didn't mean to run you off." The Heraldic Trainee gave him a friendly grin. He was apparently one of the few who hadn't been warned off already.
"It's okay. I have to go, like I said."
"Well, before you go, we should introduce ourselves, right?" The Trainee stuck out his hand. "I'm Rhys. I just got here a week or so ago."
Byron smiled, letting the other's good-natured air wash away his melancholy, and shook the offered hand. "Byron. I've been here about three months. Um," he shuffled his feet, "if you need directions or something, I'll be glad to help."
They finished the handshake, and Rhys used the hand to wave at a Companion who had detached himself from the herd and was heading their way. He looked back at Byron and winked. "I've no doubt I'll need it. And, as unlikely as it may be, if I can help you with anything, just let me know."
"Really?" Byron brightened. "Actually, there is one question..." About that time, the bells began to toil, calling students to the next candlemark's classes. Byron fought the unmannerly urge to curse. "Sorry, I've really got to go. Some other time, maybe?"
Rhys shrugged, and began to stroke his blissful Companion. "Sure, anytime. Just run me down, or tell Faniel here, and he'll relay it."
"I'll do that!" With that last, enthusiastic remark, Byron snatched up his pack full of books and headed for the Collegium at a run. Rhys watched him go with a twinkle in his blue eyes, and turned to Faniel.
"Huh. The others said that the Blues could be pains in the ass, but he seems a good enough sort. Byron." His smile widened. "My first non-Herald friend in Haven, maybe."