Changing the World: All-New Tales of Valdemar

“We found him; he went off the road to a smaller village, but we finally found him. He has definitely begun entrenching himself, and they all consider themselves privileged to be hosting him over the winter,” Callan told her, over a gloomy dinner. “I must apologize to you, Marya. I thought you were exaggerating his ability to charm people. If anything, it is more potent than you described. There might even be some form of Gift at operation here; I don’t have the ability to tell.”

“Or he has simply gotten better with practice,” she replied, dismissing the whole notion of these nebulous “Gifts” with a wave of her hand. “Tell me what he’s done.”

As Callan and Sendar talked, she listened carefully. It was clear that neither of them had any idea how to counter Danet’s hold over an entire village. An enormous part of that hold was the white horse that he, or someone at least, had trained. The animal was amazing. It did things that neither man had thought possible for an “ordinary” horse.

“Clearly it’s not ordinary at all, it’s an exceptionally intelligent and well- trained horse—which means it can almost do as much as an exceptionally well- trained dog,” she said tartly. “He probably paid a pretty sum for it. So, the problem is, he has these people wrapped around his fingers, they’ll look at his fancied-up horse and not see any differences between it and your Companions, and you don’t know how to prove to these people what’s what without—what?”

“We can’t force a Truth Spell on anyone who’s not been brought up in judgment,” Sendar said gloomily. “Right now it’s our word against his. And they think he’s a Herald.”

“Had you considered kidnapping?” she asked.

They both blanched. “Breaking the law is not an option,” Callan replied faintly.

She shrugged. “All right. Then I might have a plan.”

They rode into town and headed straight for the inn where Danet was holding court. He looked startled to see two real Heralds, but the expression didn’t last long and quickly turned to his usual self-confidence.

He has the high ground here, and he knows it.

His expression slipped when she slid down off from behind Callan, however. He went absolutely blank.

“Hello, Danet,” she said pleasantly. “I see that you have convinced all these people that you are really a Herald. I wonder if they would still believe that if they knew you had taken Elise Garen’s silver locket. After you slept with her, of course. And you ‘borrowed’ over forty coppers from Tulera that you never intended to repay.” She went down the list, adding, sadly, all too frequently “After you slept with her, of course,” and paid close attention to the faces of some of the women around him. Doubt was creeping in. Not much, but—

“Of course, you must be a Herald now,” she went on, doing her best to sound perfectly calm and even. “Because look, you have the uniform, just like Herald Callan and Herald Sendar. And you have the Companion . . .” Now she turned to where the rather lovely white horse was peacefully standing, quite untethered, a few feet away. She had to admit he had managed a rather good imitation of a Companion. If you didn’t look too closely. “Of course you do.” She took a few steps nearer. “Or . . . do you?”

Before anyone could move to prevent her, she dashed forward. As she had expected, the horse was too well trained to shy away, although it did throw up its head in surprise and snort.

She lunged, and the hand she had held concealed in the folds of her dress slapped the flank of the horse, the wad of rags saturated with dark walnut dye leaving a huge brown smear on its white hide.

“Of course, everyone knows that Companions are white because dirt and all just evaporates right off them,” she continued as Danet and his little knot of admirers stared in shock. “So, to be fair, I should do the same to the others. With the same dye, so you can’t claim that I’ve used something different on them.”

She turned and wiped the dye off on the other two, creating identical swaths of stain on their satiny hides. “Now, let’s just see—oh, look.”

The two Companions had gotten a look of curious concentration on their faces the moment the rags touched them. And the dye was already fading!

Within moments it was gone, and their coats were as pristine as they had been before. Meanwhile the large, ugly brown stain remained on the flank of the oblivious horse.

“Goodness me,” she said sweetly. “It looks as if your Companion is a fake, Danet. And if your Companion is a fake—what does that make you?”

Danet looked wildly about for help, but his former admirers were backing away from him with expressions ranging from doubt to accusation. She had a fair notion that the accusatory ones were the women he had already slept with.

Herald Callan stepped forward and clamped one hand on Danet Stens’s shoulder.