Read Intrigues: Book Two of the Collegium Chronicles (a Valdemar Novel) for Free Online Page B

that.”
    Mags was still puzzled. “Does havin’ a lotta Gifts make that much on a difference in how folks’re treated?” he asked.
    “It shouldn’t, but it does.” Nikolas rolled up the note with exaggerated care and slid it back and forth between his fingers. “Then there is the ‘artistic temperament’ that Bards are supposed to have that Marchand milks like a prize heifer and which has thus far spared him from censure. Lita has been much too indulgent with him. And I am strongly considering seeing to it that steps are taken to give him a reprimand.”
    “ ’E ain’t Gifted ’nough to tell when his own youngling’s standin’ in front of him,” Mags replied, feeling much relieved that Nikolas wasn’t annoyed at him. “ ’E looked at Lena like she was a stranger. Didn’t e’en notice how upset she was.”
    “Of course he didn’t notice. He’d have to remove some of his attention from himself for a moment,” Nikolas replied crossly. “Never mind. I’ll get this dealt with, and I will make sure it is the last time Marchand does anything like this again, one way or another. Mags, you properly did exactly what you were told to do. Now I want you to get some dinner, then go to the kitchen on my authority and have someone make up a dinner basket for Lena. You take it to her room; if she won’t let you in, and she might not, find the proctor for her floor and tell her what happened and leave it with her. Meanwhile I’ll send a servant with a message for Lita, and she’ll deal with Bard Tobias Marchand and Lena too.”
    Mags sighed with relief. Good. He wasn’t in trouble, and Lena was going to get sorted out. And he was going to get some dinner after all, and maybe a chance to get into that new book he’d found, if Lena was still too upset to come out of her room. She probably would be. Over the course of the past several moons, there was one thing he had noticed. Though girls at the mine had mostly been indistinguishable from the boys so far as how they behaved was concerned, girls here had a whole different set of behaviors from boys. One of them was to go lock themselves in their rooms for candlemarks or even days when sufficiently upset. When they did that, only other girls could get near them.
    Nikolas wasn’t done, though. “Also, when you’re done with Lena, I want you to come up to my rooms. I have a little task for you.”
    Well, so much for the book. Oh well. Whatever it was, it wouldn’t be trivial. Strange as it seemed, Mags was the King’s Own’s private information source, and even sometimes a sort of spy. Books could wait. “Yessir,” he said, and waited to see if there was anything else Nikolas wanted him for.
    “Well, don’t dawdle or you won’t get anything but the crusty ends of the beef!” Nikolas said, tapping him on the top of the head with the rolled-up message. “Get!”

    The kitchen was buzzing with gossip when he went to get the dinner basket. From the sound of things, the arrival of Bard Marchand was going to be a nine days wonder. Everyone was agog at his presence back in Haven, and all that anyone could talk about was how brilliant and how handsome he was. Mags sat on a stool out of the way and waited for one of the undercooks to put that meal basket together and listened.
    Notice no one’s talkin’ ’bout how nice he is, Mags thought sourly. To his right, serving maids helped collect the leftovers and sort them into what was going back into the larder, and what was going out to charity. Nothing was wasted in the King’s kitchens.
    “Do ye think we’ll get a chance t’ hear him, like?” one of the serving maids sighed, her eyes all dreamy-sparkly as she deftly combined the remains of three pies into one pan.
    One of the undercooks rapped her on the top of the head with a spoon. “He’s not for the likes of you, gu-url,” she growled. “So you can pull that little thought right out of your head. The most you be like to hear is a snatch of song