Broad steps led up to a pair of tall bronze doors, cast in intricate designs. Paks stopped to look at them, and her guide began to explain.
“These doors are not the original—those burned, hundreds of years back, the year the Black Lady fought to the steps here. But these were designed and cast by the half-elven craftsman Madegar. The middle of each door bears the High Lord’s Seal—it’s inlaid in gold, as you see. All around are the seals of the saints, and a little picture of each one doing something famous. There’s Gird, with the cudgel, and Falk with a sword and the tyrant of Celias, and Camwyn riding a dragon, and Dort shearing the golden sheep, do you see all that?”
“Yes.” Paks traced the designs with her finger, as far as she could reach. She found Torre and her magical steed, Sertig with his anvil. She stared, fascinated, until the man tapped her on the shoulder.
“Come along in, now, and see the rest.”
From the great doors, the Hall stretched away, longer than any grange Paks had seen. The grange at Brewersbridge, she thought, would have fit in sideways, and three more with it. The soaring arches that held the roof were lifted from stone columns like treetrunks springing from the floor. It reminded her, in that way, of the elves’ winterhall underground. At the far end, a double platform with a low railing took the place of the usual training platform in granges. On either side a railed gallery with stepped seating offered a clear view of the floor.
But all this she saw later. First she was aware of the great wash of brilliant light, broken into dazzling chips of color, that poured through the great round window in the far end. All along both sides, high windows of colored glass spread fanciful patterns of light on the floor. She turned to the guide, who was chuckling at her reaction.
“How?” was all she could say.
“You had seen glass in windows before?” he asked.
“Yes, but—” she waved a hand at the magnificence.
“It’s colored glass, laid in a pattern, and bound in strips of lead. And I’ll have you know, it wasn’t an elf designed that.” Now that the first dazzle had passed, Paks could see that the colored glass made designs—even pictures, in some of the windows. The round window held a many-pointed star in shades of blue with accents of gold. Along the sunny south side of the Hall, she saw Gird with his cudgel striking a richly dressed knight, Camwyn riding a dragon whose breath seemed literal flame, a harper (she could not remember the name of the harper’s patron saint) playing to a tree that seemed to be turning into a girl, and Torre partway through her Ride, with half the stones of the necklace turned to stars. The longer she looked at each window, the more she saw. Each had smaller scenes inset in medallions around the main picture. Paks walked over to Torre’s window. There was her home, with its six towers, and that must be her sorrowing father with the wicked king threatening him. Here was the stable, with the strange horse standing loose between the stalls, the ring of coals around its neck. A white flower stood for the first trial of her Ride, and three snowflakes for the next. A fat dwarf held the blue ring, and an elf in green held out the branch of yellowwood in flower, complete with two bees. The wicked king’s red banner blew from a tower on a cliff. A sleeping baby in a basket floated on a river. At the very top of the window, the stars of Torre’s Necklace blazed out of blue glass just as they did in the sky.
Paks tore her eyes away and looked around again. The shadowed, northern side windows were pictures as well. Sertig pounding on his anvil, and Adyan writing the true names of everything in his book. Alyanya, the Lady of Peace, wreathed in flowers, with fruitful vines trailing around her. Some pictures she did not recognize at all. One seemed to be all animals, fitted into every available niche, all mixed together, large and small. One was simply a tree, whose gnarled roots and branches filled up the space above and below, curling and recurling until Paks could not tell how many little rootlets filled even one small section.
When she finally left the windows to look at the rest of the building, it was equally engrossing. The floor was paved with flat slabs of stone in a subtle pattern. Many of the slabs were engraved with names and dates that meant nothing to Paks—but much to her guide, when she asked.
“That there’s Lolyin’s marker—he was Marshal-General over a hundred years ago, and converted the King of Tsaia to the fellowship of Gird. That was the great-grandfather of the present crown prince. Under his name is the paladin Brealt. You might have heard of him, since I can see you’ve been in Aarenis. He freed the captives of Pliuni, and fought two priests of Liart by himself to do it.” Paks had not heard of him, but she nodded. The old man went on. “Marshal-Generals and paladins of Gird—and a few others—they have their names and dates put here. Some say their deeds should be added, but the rule is that those who want to know should look them up in the archives. There’s not one of them but is worth remembering. Take this—” he led her up near the platform. “This is Gird’s own marker, put here by Luap—the oldest we have.” The stone was worn in a hollow, and the letters were faint. “In the old way, all that joined the knights of the fellowship, or became paladins of Gird, would spend part of a vigil washing that stone, to keep Gird’s name pure. But then they realized they were wearing it down, and only the Marshal-General does it now.”
Paks could think of nothing to say. She had never imagined that anything built by men would be as beautiful as the Hall. That soaring space seemed to liberate something inside her, as if it called for wings within. When they came out at last, she blinked in the sunlight, her head still full of what she’d seen.
She had no idea what to expect of a Marshal-General. The Marshals she had met had been matter-of-fact, much like the Duke’s captains. But what she’d seen of feudal commanders, and the splendor of the Hall, led her to think that the Marshal-General might be more—she tried to think of a word—impressive? magnificent? As the servant led her through the passages and up a broad stair to the Marshal-General’s office, she felt her stomach flutter.
The door was open. Paks looked across a fairly large room to a table set under one of the south windows. Behind it stood two people, a woman and a man, both in blue tunics over gray trousers. Both had Gird’s crescents on chains around their neck. They were looking at something on the table as the servant knocked; the woman looked up.
“Yes?”
“A messenger, Marshal-General, from Marshal Cedfer of Brewersbridge.” He gestured at Paks.
“Ah yes. Argalt mentioned you—your name?”
“Paksenarrion Dorthansdotter,” said Paks, uncertain of the correct address.
“You’re not a Girdsman?”
“No—my lady.” Paks thought that was safest.
“Then you may not know I’m Marshal-General Arianya. But you’re a warrior—that’s clear enough.” Paks nodded. “Well, then, let me see your message.”
Paks walked into the room and handed over the Marshal’s letter. The Marshal-General was a tall woman of middle age, her graying curly hair cropped short. She wore no sword, but her tunic was marked by sword belt and scabbard. Her right hand bore a wide scar; Paks wondered how it had missed severing some tendons. The Marshal-General looked up from what she was reading.
“Do you know what Cedfer’s written?”
Paks felt the blood rush to her face. “Some of it, my lady. He said he—that you—that I might take some training here.”
“He’s recommended that you be admitted to a probationers’ class in the Company of Gird. And he’s said why—” She paused and looked at Paks closely. “It’s most unusual, you know, for anyone not of the fellowship to be admitted here.”