“I’ve never been near to a Companion before,” she said quietly, confirming Dallen’s guess. “Heralds never came near our house, I mean, there wasn’t any reason for them to, you know. Our home is rather off the road, and we never had any reason for one to come, I suppose. And until I came here, I never really left our land . . .” Her voice trailed off a moment, and she put her cheek against Dallen’s. “He’s so beautiful.”

:Tell her that tomorrow she can ride me.:

Mags blinked. If there was a truism about Companions, it was that they never let anyone ride them except their Chosen, unless it was a dire emergency. But, dutifully, he repeated what Dallen had said.

Lena gasped, and the stable practically lit up with her smile. “I can?” she squeaked.

“He says so,” Mags shrugged. “I ’spect you had better find somethin’ good to ride in by then.”

He was not altogether certain that her feet touched the ground when she finally left to go back to her own room.

Chapter 10

10

MAGS woke a few days later to the sound of irritated voices in the stable; he was taking a nap because he had been studying late with Lena the night before, and was taking advantage of another class canceled because of a sick instructor to get some much needed sleep. After a moment, he had to smile, because of what the Trainees were complaining about.

“. . . and I ask you, is it so very hard to find gray thread instead of blue? I’ve got blue darns on my elbows and knees!”

“Well I’ve got a big blue seam running up my bum where I tore the trews on a nail,” someone else complained.

You could mend ’em yerself, Mags thought quietly. That was what he had done from the moment he got the uniforms. He’d thought everyone was supposed to. Goodness knew he’d had plenty of practice piecing rags together into something like a garment; the difficulty had always been finding anything to take the place of needle and thread. Grass wasn’t strong enough; generally he’d used hair pulled from the tails of the long-suffering horses. When he’d first gotten here, he’d asked for needle and thread from one of the servants; he’d gotten a puzzled look, but several hanks of gray thread and a packet of pins and needles had been found for him. And thanks to Dallen, he understood that his dirty uniforms were to go straight to the laundry, and he had dutifully delivered them down the chute in the Guards’ quarters, but only after he had fixed whatever was amiss with them.