Crossroads and Other Tales of Valdemar

Well, actually, this isn’t true. Heralds and their Companions are welcome everywhere from Keyold to the Crook-back Pass. Heralds are the voice and hands of King Sendar—it’s Queen Selenay now, but it was Sendar who reigned when I put on my white leathers for the first time, and old habits are hard to break. Heralds bring news and gossip, defend the weak, embody the Crown’s justice.

Do good in the world.

It is a sacred trust to be a Herald, and it is a public thing. You are always on display whenever you are in public. People tend to think of Heralds as being more than human—as far removed from them and ordinary concerns as our Companions. Above pettiness, injustice, fear, and weakness.

The first lesson you learn from your Companion—and at the Collegium—is that you must never disappoint them.

Sometimes it is—was very hard. To be always watched, and always judged by a standard no human could possibly meet.

And because they believe such things of Heralds, the people behave differently when Heralds are among them. Some try to act as they believe a Herald would, and that can be a good thing. Some hide—both their bodies and their words—out of fear, out of awe, out of guilt.

Some lie. Some tell too much truth.

Even in Haven, where they see Heralds and their Companions daily, it is the same. The people turn a different face to the Heralds than they do to one another. They talk of different things.

And so, when I say that there are places in Valdemar that a Herald cannot go, this is why. If the Crown would know what the people speak of when the Crown’s greatest mystery is not before them in a glory of blue leather and silver bells, it must send other eyes.

I must go.

It has been twenty years since Shavanne and I rode over these roads on circuit. The bells that ring out my journey now are copper and brass, twined about my walking staff.

I walk everywhere now. I could not bear to ride.

When I returned to the Collegium after Shavanne was killed, everyone said I would be Chosen again—it was only to be expected. It was the last thing I wanted; for months after I was well in body I wandered the halls of the Collegium, soul-sick and, perhaps, half-mad at the death of my Lady Heart. Everyone said that, too, would pass; in time my soul would heal.

Even my fellow Heralds, those few who knew what it was to survive the death of that which should survive both death and age, said I would love and be loved again.

I had no desire for that. Shavanne had been life and joy to me. I could see no purpose in accepting anything less, and I could imagine nothing more.

Perhaps it would have been different if I had possessed one of the Great Gifts, or even a powerful one, but I had no more than minor Mindspeech and perhaps—no one was every quite sure—a trace of Empathy, enough to hear Shavanne’s voice, and with her death, even that was gone. I did not miss it.

I knew that she, of all beings, would not wish me to squander my life in vain regrets and hopeless yearnings, and I tried to honor what I knew were her wishes. The anger at my loss—Valdemar’s loss—faded, and even the bitterness, in time.

But no one Chose me, and it was a relief.

When a year had passed, I knew it was time to take up my service to the Crown once more in whatever fashion I could. The King’s Own had shown me the way.

There are places in Valdemar that a Herald cannot go. I had all a Herald’s training, and loyalties, but I was not, precisely, a Herald. I put off my white leathers for a coat of motley, and took up my belled staff.

Paynim the tinker was welcome everywhere in Valdemar. My father had been a tinsmith; we both thought, when I was Chosen, that my apprenticeship in his shop had been for nothing. How wrong we both had been. A tinker can find work anywhere, and stay as long or as short a time as he pleases. He need carry with him no more than the tools of his trade, and no one is surprised when he wanders on. I wandered where I was sent—even into Hardorn and Karse—and in twenty years I had crossed and recrossed Valdemar a dozen times.

Where there was need of a Herald, all white leather and silver bells, I sent for one. Where merely sending a report back to Haven was wanted, I did that, too. I quickly learned the circuit of every Herald; it was easy to pass messages and receive orders.

My friends kept my secrets, as I wished, and as the years accumulated, fewer and fewer that I met knew that I once wore the White. It is more comfortable that way. If they wonder who I am, and why they bring me messages and take my reports away, they do not ask.