The Palace! They allowed him, a Karsite, to be within the same walls that enclosed the Palace? Granted, he was hurt, but still—if he were an assassin, he wouldn’t let a little thing like that stop him! And most of the time he was unwatched, unguarded—how could they possibly trust him?

:You’re with me,: Kantor replied simply.

The simple, bald statement took him utterly by surprise. He was “with” Kantor—and these people considered that to be enough to trust him within reach of the rulers of their land.

He recalled the attitude of the Healer and revised that. Some of them considered that to be enough.

Or maybe he is just like that with all of his patients.

He looked out on the gardens for a little, before answering. :So these people train Healers in one central place?:

:Mostly. Sometimes they apprentice with an older Healer, or are trained at one of the Temples of Healing, especially if they are uneasy about leaving their homes, but that’s rare. We prefer that our Healers come here to learn so that we know that they’ve gotten a standard education—and any special training that their Gifts and talents might warrant.: Kantor paused. :Would you rather that I not speak to you this way?:

He thought about it for a moment; it seemed to him that this sharing of thoughts should have seemed like a violation, yet it didn’t. He couldn’t account for that very foreign feeling—unless, perhaps, he’d gotten used to it while he was semiconscious, so now it just didn’t raise the instinctive alarm in him that it ordinarily would have. And he could not deny how useful it was to be able to silently speak and ask questions about this place and these people. :No—I would rather you helped me. I said that I would give all of you a trial; I don’t know that I can manage that without you. But—where are you?:

:Right here.: He would not have believed that anything as big as a horse could have hidden itself virtually in plain sight—but there was just a little movement, and Kantor stepped into view through a screen of bushes. He was followed by two more of the white Companions, then another two. They all stood just below his window, to one side of the path, looking up at him with eyes so vivid a blue that even from here they struck him with their intensity. :We’re all five of us waiting for our Chosen to heal in there,: he said, with wry humor. :Heralds have a habit of winding up in the hands of Healers.:

These people permitted horses in their formal gardens? He could just imagine the mess that would have caused in the garden of the Son of the Sun…