"Bill Fawcett & Brian Thomsen - Masters of Fantasy" - читать интересную книгу автора (Fawcett Bill)

Out of the Deep
A Valdemar Story

Mercedes Lackey
Now this was a forest!
Trees crowded the road, overshadowing it, overhanging it. You didn't need a hat even at midday; you
almost needed a torch instead to see by. Herald-Intern Alain still couldn't get used to all of the
wilderness around himтАФtrees that weren't pruned into symmetrical and pleasing shapes, wildflowers
that were really wild, ragged, and insect-nibbled. All of his lifeтАФexcept for the brief course in
Wilderness SurvivalтАФhe'd never seen a weed, much less a wilderness. He kept expecting to wake up
and find that all of this was a fever-dream.
By all rights, he shouldn't be out here, league upon league away from Haven on his Internship Circuit.
He was a Prince, after all, and Princes of Valdemar had never gone out of Haven for their Internships,
much less out into the furthermost West of the Kingdom, where there were no Guardsmen to rescue you
if you got into trouble, and often nowhere to shelter if nature decided to have a bash at you. He should
have been serving his Internship beside one of the Heralds who helped the City Guard, the Watch, and
the city judges.
There was just one teeny, tiny problem with that.
:Actually,: his Companion Vedalia observed, :There are seven rather tall and vigorous problems with
that. And four slender and attractive ones as well.:
Alain sighed. It wasn't the easiest thing in the world, being the youngest of twelve royal children who
had all been Chosen.
:It wasn't the easiest thing in the world trying to find things for all of those young and eager Heralds to
do,: Vedalia pointed out. :It wouldn't take more than a candlemark for any of you to figure out that he'd
been set make-work. As it wasтАФ:
As it was, it was just bad luck that Alain was not only the youngest of his sibs, he was the youngest by
less than a candlemark. Queen Felice was not only the most fecund Consort in the history of Valdemar,
she had the habit of having her children in lots. Three sets of twins and two sets of triplets, to be precise.
The Heir, whose real name was Tanivel but who they all called Vel for short, was the eldest of his set of
twins. Alain was the youngest of his. And in betweenтАФ
:It is rather a good thing that your mother was never Chosen,: Vedalia observed. :I'm not sure her poor
Companion would have gotten much exercise, much less attention. . . . :
It was true enough that until after Alain had been born, no one in the Court could remember her in any
state other than expecting. The fact that she actually possessed a waist had come as a complete surprise
to everyone except the King. Everyone wanted to knowтАФand no one dared askтАФboth the "why" and the
"how" of it.
The "how" was easy; multiples ran in her family. Felice was one of a set of twins, and not one of her
sisters had ever given birth to less than twins. Her family history held that it had something to do with a


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 - Chapter 2

blessing placed on them, but by whatтАФwell, there were several versions.
The real question was "why"тАФhaving had Vel and Vixen (his twin's name was Lavenna, but no one ever
called her that) she could have stopped with the traditional "heir and a spare." Certainly most women
would have called a halt at the next lot, which were triplets. Not Felice. Rumor had it that she was trying
to fill all the extra rooms in the newly rebuilt Heralds' Collegium with her own offspring.
Only Alain had dared to ask his mother what no one else would. She'd hugged him then looked him
straight in the eye and said, "Marriages of state. You're Heralds, all of you. You don't need a spouse to