Storm Warning - Mercedes Lackey [88]
He had to laugh at that, it was so unexpected, and so vivid an image. “I suppose that’s as appropriate an explanation as any,” he replied, relaxing marginally. He had longed for someone he could talk to—and here was someone offering herself, someone it might even be safe to unburden himself to. What did he know about this woman? She was some kind of special advisor to the Queen—Solaris had spent an awful lot of time in her company—but there was something more, something important.
Hansa trusted her. That was it; he had the memory now. The Firecat had definitely trusted her; it was Hansa who had suggested she be made an honorary Priestess, if what Ulrich had told him was true.
She nodded at him in a friendly manner, and she did not seem inclined to move off despite his hesitation. Interestingly, she also made no attempt to intrude on him by sitting down on his bench uninvited. “I felt the same way when I first came here,” she told him, as she shifted her weight from one foot to the other. “I was from a place so unlike this that it might as well have been on the other side of the world. You may find this difficult to believe, but my people kept their children very isolated from anything outside their farms. I had no idea what Heralds or Companions really were, other than the few things I’d been able to pick up from a bit of reading. I thought when Rolan Chose me that I had simply found a lost Companion. I thought I was supposed to bring him back to his owners, like returning a strayed horse!”
He had to laugh at that one with her; at least he knew a little more than she had! Rubrik had described the business of being “Chosen” by a Companion, that it was rather like being picked out for a Firecat’s particular attentions. Hard to believe that anyone in Valdemar could have been unaware of a Companion’s real nature.
On the other hand, it was easy enough to control a child, as she had pointed out. But being Chosen was supposed to be rather dramatic—he could well imagine someone trying to deny such a selection, for being Chosen would definitely put an end to any other plans one had for one’s life, but Talia must have been unique in her ignorance of what being Chosen meant.
“Seriously, though, I was as out-of-place here as you are feeling now; I think you must have gone through Holderkin lands to get here—well, that’s where I’m from.” She smiled as he nodded, very cautiously. “They swear they escaped from Karse, but I’d be more willing to believe that your people threw them out; there can’t be a more intransigent group of stoneheads in all the world. Personally, I think they’re more trouble to deal with than they’re worth.”
“I don’t know one way or the other,” he confessed. “I never studied them, so I couldn’t venture an opinion. But I can see how you would be feeling very—ah—foreign, when you arrived here. It was obviously very different here than among your own people. You probably were as foreign to Haven as I am.” There. That was diplomatic enough.
She studied her fingertips, then looked back up at him. “I’ve heard you haven’t been able to make any friends here, though, and that’s where our circumstances differ. Of course, you are laboring under a double handicap,” she pointed out. “You are with the envoy, which makes you dangerous to know, and you are from our former enemy, from a Priesthood known to be able to call up very powerful magic forces, which makes you personally rather dangerous to know. There’s a Shin’a’in saying, ‘It is wise to be remote in the presence of one who conjures demons.’ Hard to make friends when people you meet are afraid you’re going to turn them into broiled cutlets if you get annoyed with them.”
“Ah—interesting,” he replied, to buy himself time. It had not occurred to him that he might be frightening away would-be acquaintances; he never considered himself