The tall boy had scratched his head and muttered, "That"s hard." And he"d still agreed to learn to be a knight, as his father and mother wanted. He was the fourth son and, obviously, would inherit nothing. He would have to make his own way in the world.
Moran shook himself back to the present. "What do you think about Janeel and Dein? Their parents are fairly well off. Their pedigrees are fairly established."
Rakiel mimicked, "Their minds are fairly easily led.
See if they amount to anything." He folded his arms. "At least they stand a better chance than the fat one. He won"t last a day."
"The fat one," Moran said, annoyed, "has a name, too."
But he couldn"t remember it. The fat one, at the interview, had the habit of ducking his head and letting his older brother do all the talking - and the brother had never mentioned the other boy by name. "He"ll find self-respect here."
"Only if the others let him look through the blubber."
Rakiel laughed at his little joke. "And these are the "flowers of youth" that come to the knights. Once it was probably different, I"m sure, but how can you care about these ...
these ... dregs? They"re hardly worth the money spent on them. Do you really think you can make knights of them?"
Before Moran could answer, he c.o.c.ked an ear to the sound of footsteps far below. "I was right. A volunteer."
Rakiel said acidly, "Aren"t you going to rush down to meet him?"
"If he really wants to be a knight," Moran said, "he"ll climb all the way. You don"t think my rooms are in the tower just to keep me above the heat and the dust, do you?"
Mad Moran was dropping into character. "Training begins on the walk up and never stops." He added with satisfaction, "Put that in your report."
The footsteps stopped outside the door and loud knocking began immediately. No hesitation, Moran noted to himself. Good. He waited at the door, putting on the Mask, the fierce, moustache-bristling, confidence-drainingfacial expression that the novices came to know and dread.
Moran always thought of the Mask as hanging over the door, where he could grab it and "put it on" over his real face before striding down to the lower hall for lecture and drill.
The knocking stopped. There was an odd sc.r.a.ping sound, then nothing. Moran, sword in hand, threw open the door, swung the blade across at chest height on a young man.
The sword arced at eye level past the boy in the doorway, who didn"t even blink.
A child, Moran thought disappointedly. Then he saw the eyes: clear and innocent, but thoughtful, set in a face that had its first (premature?) wrinkles. The boy"s hair fell over his forehead in a tangle, all but blocking his vision.
Moran studied him as a warrior studies a new opponent. The boy wore a baggy jerkin and faded breeches.
He held a battered duffel in one hand and a stray piece of bra.s.s that Moran thought he recognized in the other.
The boy stared interestedly at the knight. Moran had a hawk nose and bristling white moustache; he looked fierce and remote except on the rare occasions when he smiled.
"You could have killed me," the boy said.
No fear, Moran thought. None at all. "I may yet. What have you come for?"
Rakiel half-rose at the daunting boom of the Voice, companion to the Mask.
The boy said simply, "I want to become a Knight of Solamnia."
Rakiel chuckled aloud. The cleric"s laugh ended abruptly when Moran, with a single wrist flick, sent the sword flying backward to THUNK, quivering, in the wall opposite him.
Moran resisted the temptation to see where the sword had landed. Always a.s.sume, Moran"s own mentor, Tali-sin, had said, that it landed well if you still have work in front of you. Part of Moran was pleased that his skill had impressed Rakiel as much as it had the boy.
"Name?"
"Tarli. Son of" - he hesitated and said finally - "of Loraine of Gravesend Street. She sewed funeral clothes."
The Mask nearly cracked for the first time in Moran"s career. "Loraine of Gravesend. A dark-skinned woman, one-half my height, slender, red hair?"
Tarli shook his head. "Gray and red when they buried her. It"s been a year."
Moran felt as if the Mask were looking at him; Moran"s own sternness was piercing him. "We met. She did work for ... a ... friend of mine." He added gruffly, "You"re holding my door knocker."
"So I am." Tarli turned it over in his hand, as if startled to see it. He pa.s.sed it to the knight. "It came off."
The boy peered beneath Moran"s arm and stared at the bound books that stood on the simple shelf above the bed.
"THE BRIGHTBLADE TACTICS? Bedal Brightblade?"
Tarli ducked around the knight, entered without being invited. He reached past the startled cleric, pulled the book out. "Handwritten." He turned to a careful drawing of an intricate parry-and-thrust pattern, trying to follow it through with his left hand. "Did you writethis?"
"I did." Moran tried not to sound proud. It had taken years of reading, and more years of testing technique, until he was sure of how the legendary Bedal Brightblade had fought. "There are twelve copies of that book, one for each trainer of squires plus the original."
He had unintentionally dropped the Voice and Mask, and immediately brought them back.
"Swordplay is nothing. If you want to be a knight, there is the Oath and there is the Measure, and they are all.
The Oath is four words, the Measure thirty-seven three- hundred-page volumes. Which is more important?"
"The Measure," Tarli said firmly, then added, just as firmly, "unless it"s the Oath."
Moran pointed a single finger at the boy. "EST SULARUS OTH MITHAS. My honor is my life."
Tarli looked at him blankly. "Isn"t everybody"s?"
Moran stared at him a long time to be sure he wasn"t joking. Rakiel regarded them both with amus.e.m.e.nt, which he didn"t bother to hide.
"Put your gear in the barracks downstairs, Tarli,"
Moran said. "Cla.s.ses begin tomorrow."
"Yes." Tarli added quickly, "Sire." He bowed, b.u.mping the writing desk and bouncing the Draconniel pieces. As he headed toward the door, he gave Rakiel a nasty whack with the duffel.
Tarli," Moran began.
The boy whirled, knocking over a candlestick. In picking up the candlestick, he shattered the water jug on the dresser.
Moran regarded him gravely. "The book."
"Oh. Right." Tarli handed it over. "I"d like to read it."
They could hear his dragged duffel b.u.mp behind him all the way down the stairs.
Rakiel stared at Moran in amazement and disgust.
"Surely you"re not admitting him?"
"He admitted himself."
Rakiel laughed, a nasty noise. "Are the knights as desperate as all that?"
Moran was looking down the stairs. "The knights choose first for honor, and second for n.o.ble family." It hadn"t always been true.
"But you don"t even know his father." The cleric"s lip curled. "HE may not even know his father."
"Then I"ll judge the boy and not his family."
Rakiel sniffed. "It"s insupportable. He"s not only common, he"s probably a b.a.s.t.a.r.d."
"Not nearly as much as a cleric I could name," Moran muttered, well beneath his breath.
Rakiel was ranting on. "And so short. He hardly looks human. Do you suppose he"s ..."
Moran, staring out the window, said absently, "Loraine was very short."
IT WAS THE HOTTEST SUMMER ANYONE COULD.
REMEMBER. ALL THE TRAVELERS WHO HAD TARPSPUT THEM UP AND WERE LYING UNDER THEM. THE.
OTHERS TRUDGED AS FAR AS THE CITY WALLS AND.
LAY IN THE NARROW MIDDAY SHADOWS.
ONLY MORAN RODE ON, A THIN, TIRED KNIGHT.
PULLING A CART THAT HELD A SWORD, A SHIELD,.
AND A CORPSE. THE BODY HAD BEEN REVERENTLY.
WRAPPED IN A BLANKET. MORAN HAD KEPT IT.
COOL WITH WATER FROM HIS PRECIOUS TRAVEL.
RATION. HE Pa.s.sED THE OBELISK AT THE EDGE OF.
TOWN, GLANCED AT THE FINAL LINE ON IT:.
THE G.o.dS REWARD US IN THE GRACE OF OUR HOME.
HE TURNED AWAY.
MORAN RODE PAST THE NEARLY COMPLETED.
TEMPLE OF MISHAKAL. SEVERAL WANDERERS.
GAWKED AT IT, ALL OF THEM MORE IMPRESSED.
WITH THE STONEWORK THAN A SINGLE DUSTY.
KNIGHT OF SOLAMNIA.
HE KNOCKED AT A SHABBY WOODEN BUILDING.
ITS STONE REAR WALL WAS A SIDE WALL OF THE.
ENTRANCE GATE FOR THE STAIRCASE CALLED "THE.
PATHS OF THE DEAD." A YOUNG GIRL ANSWERED.
"I"M LOOKING FOR ALWYN THE GRAVER," SAID.
MORAN.
"HE"S BOUGHT INTO HIS OWN WARES," THE GIRL.
SAID SIMPLY. "THE BUSINESS IS MINE NOW. I"M.
LORAINE.".
MORAN LOOKED AT HER AND THOUGHT AT.
FIRST, "NOTHING BUT A CHILD." HE LOOKED AT.
HER EYES AND QUICKLY REALIZED THAT SHE WAS A.
WOMAN - JUST GROWN SHORTER THAN MOST.
LORAINE COULDN"T SEE OVER THE CART SIDES.
SHE CLIMBED ONE OF THE WHEELS, STARED IN,.
THEN GASPED AT THE SIGHT OF THE SWORD AND.
SHIELD. "WHO IS IT?" SHE WAS LIKE A CHILD AT A.
PUPPET SHOW, WAITING FOR THE NEXT SURPRISE.