Bastion

from the Palace kitchens in the hopes of tempting his appetite and comforting him. It was very kind of Lydia, who had absolutely no idea that this was not exactly what it appeared to be, and they enjoyed the unexpected feast greatly.
    There was no one about to be impressed with how doleful he was in the morning, so he enjoyed his usual hearty breakfast after a good bath—because no telling when he would next get one, breakfast or bath—got his packs, and went into the stable proper to await Jakyr. It was just chilly enough that he preferred to wait in the stable itself, over by Dallen’s stall. The stablehands had already begun firing up the ovens that stood at either end of the stable, ovens that warmed the huge masses of brick of which they were made, and thus kept the entire stable warm without the danger of fire.
    Mags loved the stable; he’d always loved living here instead of up at the Collegium. His fellow Trainees were a noisy lot; here it was always calm, with nothing more than the occasional stamp of a hoof or a whicker or mutter as the Companions conversed wordlessly among themselves. The air always smelled of clean horse and straw, scents that meant comfort to him . In winter, it was warm, and in summer, when all the windows were open to a prevailing breeze, it was almost never too hot. But most of all, it was peaceful.
    As the Herald approached, Mags had plenty of time to watch him, because he wasn’t hurrying his steps. Jakyr had aged a bit in the last several years, but not so much that he’d lost any of his somewhat rough-hewn good looks. The few times that Mags had seen him around others—ladies in particular—women didn’t seem to find him ugly, but he never responded to overtures with anything but cool politeness.
    And it wasn’t because he preferred men to women, either.
    Dallen had once remarked that Jakyr preferred “company that he paid for.” Mags hadn’t understood that at the time, but he did now, after seeing Jakyr going nonchalantly into one of the better and more ethical brothels down in Haven, one where the ladies plied a trade and paid their taxes just like any other business. And where they had ample protection from those who might take that as a license for something other than the services advertised.
    Mags had no issues with brothels of that sort, and he doubted anyone else did, either, except priests of sects that held congress without marriage to be a sin.
    But it was highly unusual for a Herald to make use of their services, and it probably never ceased to surprise the ladies there. It was the easiest thing in the world for a Herald to find even a casual partner without having to pay for it—Heralds were almost as popular in that regard as Bards.
    But seeing Jakyr enter the House of Red Silk, Mags suddenly understood what Dallen had been saying. When the exchange was for money, it ended with money, and that was how Jakyr liked it. No ties. No promises. Nothing implied.
    It seemed a sad way to live, at least to Mags. But he had no intention of telling Jakyr that. Logically, Jakyr could have some excellent reasons for his standoffishness; where others looked at the life of a Herald, found it often short and violent, and chose to make ties to others, it could be that Jakyr found it needful to break them. Or, at least, never make them in the first place.
    So, as the Herald stopped at Dallen’s stall, borrowed a bit of thong from the saddlery supplies that Mags always kept there, and tied back his graying brown hair into a tail with it, Mags just kept his mouth shut on his thoughts and said instead, “Ready for inspection, Herald,” and sketched a comic salute, as if he were a Guardsman about to be inspected.
    Jakyr laughed. “All right. But I’m not about to unpack everything just so you have to pack it back up again, like a drill sergeant would. Tell me what’s in this one.” He poked the rightmost one with a white-booted toe, then looked up. His eyes gleamed with sardonic humor. “If you’ve done your job right, you’ll know down to the last leather scrap.”
    Mags had had some inkling that Jakyr would do something like this, since that seemed to be a common thread among the Trainees who had been taking the wilderness survival classes. So he did know, and he proceeded to recite. Jakyr’s eyebrow rose approvingly.
    “And this one?” he asked, poking the other. Mags obliged.
    “And the ones that are going off with the caravan?” he persisted.
    “Every