Closer to the Chest by Mercedes Lackey Page B

inclined to push limits and get into trouble. And every time there was a group of young men like that, there was always another group of people inclined to exploit and prey on them. Blackmail being only one of a number of unsavory possibilities.
    Amily told him about the Priest of Sethor the Patriarch. He made a face as she finished. “Reckon I think I know some of what they’re preachin’, by second-hand. Hard t’keep a eye on ’em though, without we get someone inta the flock. You want me t’do that?”
    â€œNot yet,” she said, wishing she had a
reason
to ask him to, aside from
I don’t like him and I don’t like the way he treats women.
“Are there any rumors about the group he displaced?”
    He shook his head. “There wouldn’t be, though, would there? A bunch of old women in a temple that’s goin’ t’seed wouldn’t have anythin’ worth stealin’, and that’s about the only way I’d’a heard anything about ’em.”
    â€œOh, bother.” She moved to sit on the arm of the chair and leaned over to hug him, and he . . . winced.
    â€œSorry, love,” he apologized immediately. “I got crosswise of a buncha bully-boys an’ got m’ribs cracked for interferin’ with their masters’ business.”
    â€œWhat?”
she exclaimed, drawing back immediately lest she cause him any more trouble. “Are you—did you see a Healer? Why did—what happened?”
    â€œSaw Flora’s House Healer, got tended nicer’n I would’a got up here,” he chuckled. She laughed with him, knowing exactlywhat he meant. When Flora’s House Healer tended someone, they were cosseted, and cooed over and made much of, where if he’d come up to Healer’s Collegium to get tended, he’d have gotten scolded for getting into a common street brawl and told he was an idiot, and strapped up brusquely. “By way of gettin’ me out without the disgrace of seein’ a Herald comin’ outa Flora’s, they showed me the tunnel t’the White Horse, an’ that’s where I got dinner.”
    She snorted. “As if there have never been Heralds in Flora’s before!”
    â€œWell, not in Whites, ’less there’d been somethin’ that needed investigatin’.” He shrugged, very slightly. “Anyway, that’s what’s what.
Good
news is, that lot’ll get shipped out t’do road work someplace far, far away. All their master’s’ll know is they got arrested, just like Dog-Billy an’ Hatchet an’ that lot. Likely they’ll think twice ’bout comin’ after me, maybe even give over usin’ younglings in their gangs.”
    She sighed; this was not the first time he’d returned injured, but it was the first that involved broken bones. “Father never used to come home beaten up,” she said aloud, and only after the words came out of her mouth did she realize it sounded like a rebuke. She flushed and was trying to think of some way to soften that, but Mags was already answering.
    â€œActually, he prolly
did,
he just didn’t let you know about it,” Mags replied with blunt honesty. “Just like he didn’t let you know more’n a quarter of the stuff he was doin’, so you wouldn’t be afeared for ’im.”
    Then he stopped, and bit his lip, looking shamefaced for having said that. They stared at each other in acute discomfort for a while. “I didn’t mean—” they both said at the same time, and stopped.
    â€œWe’re Heralds,” she finally said, breaking the uncomfortable silence. “Whatever we do, the job comes with risks, and we both know that, and we both know there’s no way to avoid them.”
    He nodded slowly. “We can’t help the job. But we can help each other.”
    The tension drained out of the air, and she smiled at