Vanyel's insides hurt as badly as if Medren had punched him there. Gods - His thoughts roiled with incoherent emotions. Gods, he's like I was - he's just like I was - only he doesn't have those thin little protections of rank and birth that I had. He doesn't have a Lissa watching out for him. And he has the Gift, the precious Gift. My gods -

“ 'Course, my mother figures there's another way out,” Medren continued, cynically. “Lady Treesa, she figures you've turned down so many girls, she figures she's got about one chance left to cure you. So she told my mother you were all hers, she could do whatever it took to get you. And if my mother could get you so far as to marry her, Lady Treesa swore she'd get Lord Withen to allow it. So my mother figures on getting into your breeches, then getting you to marry her - then to adopt me. She says she figures the last part is the easiest, 'cause she watched you watching me, and she knows how you feel about music and Bards and all. So she wanted me to help.”

Poor Melenna. She just can't seem to realize what she's laying herself open for. “So why are you telling me this?” Vanyel found his own voice sounding incredibly calm considering the pain of past memories, and the ache for this unchildlike child.

“I don't like traps,” Medren said defiantly. “I don't like seeing them being laid, I don't like seeing things in them, and I don't much like being part of the bait. And besides all that, you're - special. I don't want anything out of you that you've been tricked into giving.”

Vanyel rose, and held out his hand. Medren looked at it for a moment, and went a little pale despite his brave words. He looked up at Vanyel with his eyes wide. “You -you want to see my side of the bargain?” he asked tremulously.

Vanyel smiled. “No, little nephew,” he replied. “I'm going to take you to my father, and we're going to discuss your future.”

Withen had a room he called his “study,” though it was bare of anything like a book; a small, stone-walled room, windowless, furnished with comfortable, worn-out old chairs Treesa wouldn't allow in the rest of the keep. It was where he brought old cronies to sit beside the fire, drink, and trade tall tales; it was where he went after dinner to stare at the flames and nurse a last mug of ale. That's where Vanyel had expected to find him; and when Vanyel ushered Medren into the stuffy little room, he could tell by his father's stricken expression that Withen was assuming the absolute worst.

“Father,” he said, before Withen could even open his mouth, “do you know who this boy is?”

Candlelight flickered in his father's eyes as Withen looked at him as if he'd gone insane, but he answered the question. “That's – uh - Medren. Melenna's boy.”

“Melenna and Mekeal's, Father,” Vanyel said forcibly. “He's Ashkevron blood, and by that blood, we owe him. Now just how are we paying him? What future does he have?'' Withen started to answer, but Vanyel cut him off. “I'll tell you, Father. None. There are how many wedlock-born heirs here? And how much property? Forst Reach is big, but it isn't that big! Where does that leave the little tagalong bastard when there may not be enough places for the legitimate offspring? What's he going to do? Eke out the rest of his life as somebody's squire? What if he falls in love and wants to marry? What if he doesn't want to be somebody's squire all his life? You've given him the same education and the same wants as the rest of the boys, Father. The same expectations; the same needs. How do you plan on making him content to take a servant's place after being raised like one of the heirs?”

“I - uh - '

“Now I'll tell you something else,” Vanyel continued without giving him a chance to answer. “This young man is Bardic-Gifted. That Gift is as rare - and as valued in Valdemar - as the one that makes me a Herald. And we Ashkevrons are letting that rare and precious Gift rot here. Now what are we going to do about it?”

Withen just stared at him. Vanyel waited for him to assimilate what he'd been told. The fire crackled and popped beside him as Withen blinked with surprise. “Bardic-Gifted? Rare? I knew the boy played around with music, but - are you telling me the boy can make a future out of that?”

“I'll tell you more than that, Father. Medren will be a first-class Bard if he gets the training, and gets it now. A Full Bard, Father. Royalty will pour treasure at his feet to get him to sing for them. He could earn a noble rank, higher than yours. But only if he gets what he needs now. And I mean right now.”

“What?” Withen's brow wrinkled in puzzlement.

Vanyel could see that he was having a hard time connecting “music” with “earning a noble rank.”

“You mean - send him to Haven? To Bardic Collegium?”

“That's exactly what I mean, Father,” Vanyel said, watching Medren out of the corner of his eye. The boy was in serious danger of losing his jaw, or popping his eyes right out of their sockets. “And I think we should send him as soon as we can spare him an escort - when the harvest is over at the very latest. I will be happy to write a letter of sponsorship to Bard Chadran; if Forst Reach won't cover it, I'm sure my stipend will stretch enough to take care of his expenses.”

That last was a wicked blow, shrewdly designed to awake his father's sense of duty and shame.

“That won't be necessary, son,” Withen said hastily. “Great good gods, it's the least we can do! If - if that's what you want, Medren.”

“What I want?” the boy replied, tears coming to his eyes. “Milord – I - oh, Milord - it's -” He threw himself, kneeling, at Withen's feet.

“Never mind,” Withen said hastily, profoundly embarrassed. “I can see it is. Consider it a fact; we'll send you off to Haven with the Harvest-Tax.” The boy made as if to grab Withen's hand and kiss it. Withen waved him off. “No, now, go on with you, boy. Get up, get up! Don't grovel like that, dammit, you're Ashkevron! And don't thank me, I'm just the old fool that was too blind to see what was going on under my nose. Save your thanks for Vanyel.”

Medren got to his feet, clumsy in his adolescent awkwardness, made clumsier by dazed joy. Before the boy could repeat the gesture, Vanyel took him by the shoulders and steered him toward the door.

“Why don't you go tell your mother about your good news, Medren?” He winked at the boy, and managed to get a tremulous grin out of him. “I'm certain she'll be very surprised.”

That sentence made the grin widen, and take on a certain conspiratorial gleam. Medren nodded, and Vanyel pushed him out the door, shutting it tightly behind him.

He turned back to face Withen, and there was no humor in his face or his heart now.

“Father-we have to talk.”

Five

What?” Withen asked, his brow wrinkling in per -

plexity.

“I said, we have to talk. Now.” Vanyel walked slowly and carefully toward his father, exerting every bit of control he possessed to keep his face impassive. “About you. About me. And about some assumptions about me that you keep making.”

He stood just out of arm's length of Withen's chair, struggling to maintain his composure. “When I brought Medren in here, I knew what you were thinking, just looking at your expression.”

The fire flared up, lighting Withen's face perfectly.

And you’re still thinking it-

Vanyel came as close as he ever had in his life to exploding, and kept his voice down only by dint of much self-control. It took several moments before he could speak.

“Dammit, Father, I'm not like that! I don't do things like that! I'm a Herald - and dammit, I'm a decent man - I don't molest little boys! Gods, the idea makes me want to vomit, and that you automatically assumed I had -”

He was trembling, half in anger, half in an anguished frustration that had been held in check for nearly ten years.