“You’ve been caring for your own? Good, good. You won’t do that, for awhile—this autumn session, we keep the class busy enough without, but in the spring each student is assigned a mount to care for. Just show up at the right time in the mornings, and saddle up.”
“Oh.” Paks thought of explaining Socks’s character, but decided not to.
“Now—” He looked at her closely. “I don’t mean to insult you, but the order provides adequate clothing. Leave your soiled things near the door each morning, and they’ll be cleaned.” Paks nodded. “You look to be in fair condition, but you’ll be sore and stiff with the schedule you’ve got. Hot baths are available each night. Many students prefer to bathe and change before supper—if they have time.” He looked around at the rest of the students, and shook his head. “Nearly time to quit, and they know it. As you’ve come in from traveling, and are wearing mail, I won’t send you—but we end with a run most days.” He turned to the others, and raised his voice. “Rufen!” A young man with dark brown hair stepped back from his partner, and came forward. “This is Paksenarrion; she’s a new member. Take her back to the House, and show her where things are. She’s got a horse for tomorrow, but doesn’t know where it’s stabled.”
Rufen bowed, giving Paks a quick glance. She thought he was several years younger than she, half a hand shorter, and more slender. As he led her away, back through the empty armory, he looked at her again. “You’re not a Girdsman?” he asked. Paks could not place his accent, which seemed slightly melodic.
“No,” she said. She was not going to explain everything all over again. Not then.
“You fence well,” he said, with another sidelong glance. “I’ve never seen Cieri move so fast, except against the knights. What kind of horse have you?”
Paks answered stiffly, suspecting a joke. “Just a—a black horse. Warhorse.”
They were in the stable courtyard by then, and he asked one of the workers. “That black with the stockings? And a wide blaze? He’s in the new court stables.”
“That’s where guest horses are housed,” explained Rufen. “I expect they’ll move him in here, if they’ve got a free stall.” He led the way through a tack room full of racked saddles into another, larger, stable complex. Before he could find someone to ask, Paks heard Socks, and saw his wide head peering out over a half-door. Rufen looked startled when she pointed him out. “That’s yours? If he’s not Pargunese-bred, I’ll take up the harp. Look at the bone of him.” By this time they were at the stall, and Socks had shoved his nose hard into Paks’s tunic.
“I don’t have any,” she said sharply. He seemed in good shape, and had obviously been groomed carefully; no saddle marks showed on him. Rufen hung over the door, still talking.
“Great gods, what a shoulder. How’s he trained? Did you train him? Do you have a pedigree? No speed, I’d say, but a lot of bottom.” Paks had no chance to answer; the questions came too fast, and Rufen wasn’t paying attention to her anyway. A groom came up.
“This horse yours?”
“Yes.”
“He don’t like his hind legs messed with, do he?”
“No—did he kick?”
“Kick! Look there at that board—” the man pointed. It had split along its length.
“He was hurt before I got him,” said Paks. The groom eyed her sourly.
“That’s what they all say,” he said. “Hurt before I got him, pah! Could have trained him out of it, couldn’t you?”
“I did,” said Paks, suddenly angry again. “Look.” She jumped up on the stall door. Socks threw his head up and snorted. “Be still,” she said firmly, and slipped onto his broad back, then down to stand beside him. She ran her hand over his massive rump, down the hind leg, and chirped. He lifted his hoof obediently into her hand, and she tapped the sole, then put it down. “There, you see?” The groom nodded.
“All right. Now tell that beast to let someone else do it.”
“Come on in.” The groom opened the stall door. Socks stiffened his ears, and clamped his tail. Paks soothed him with a hand, and the man followed her gesture and picked up the other hind hoof. “I suppose, come to think of it, that no one’s handled his legs but me since I got him,” she said.
“I hope he’ll remember this,” said the groom.
“Try apples,” said Paks.
“Bribe a horse?”
“That’s what I did.”
“It works,” put in Rufen. “They’re such greedy-guts, horses are. We use apples in our training.”
“Yes, my lord,” said the groom, with a slight bow. Rufen colored, glancing at Paks. When the man had left, and they were walking back across the stable court, he sighed.
“I suppose you know we use only one name here?”
“No—” Paks hadn’t thought about it.
“Well, the—the servants and all, they know our full names. But don’t worry about it. Just call me Rufen.”
“And I’m Paks,” she said. He nodded, and led her back into the maze of buildings.
“It’s simple, really,” he said a few minutes later, after taking her to the Low Hall where they would eat, and then to the bath house and past some of the classrooms. “The High Lord’s Hall opens into the Forecourt, and directly across from it is the Marshal-General’s Hall. Her quarters are upstairs, but they hold large meetings downstairs. And several other Marshals live there as well. Where you came in—that archway—that’s all quarters for the gate guards and some of the servants. The other side of the Forecourt is the Training College—where we live and meet for classes. It used to be quarters for the Knights of Gird, but when the order grew too big for it, they converted it for us. The ground floor is much larger—rooms on the back side look over the roofs. That’s because it doesn’t have cellars; all the storerooms are above ground.”
“Why?”
Rufen shrugged. “I don’t know. I never wondered; they just told us when we came. Anyway, the Low Hall is more—or-less behind the Marshal-General’s quarters; you saw where the kitchens were, between the steward’s office and the Hall. The stables are really confusing, and I hear they’re thinking of redoing them. Most of our horses—those assigned to training—are stabled in that little court just back of us. But the only way from there to the guest stables is through the tackroom—so you’ll have to ride out the back of the guest stables, and around the smithy. Then the Knights’ horses are stabled on the other side, south of the training armory.”
Paks was still confused, but hated to admit it. “There are other armories, then?”
“Gird’s teeth, yes. Each order of knights has its own, of course, and the paladins have theirs—and by the way, don’t even think of trying to see what magical things they’ve got. Elis of Harway tried that, a year ago, and was knocked senseless for two days by the guard power they’ve set.”
“Oh.”
“And the Marshal-General chewed her out when she came to, and had her assigned to be Suliya’s servant for a week.” When Paks looked blank at that, he explained. “Suliya’s a paladin—she—well, she stays here now.” Paks said nothing, since he seemed uneasy. Finally he went on. “Sometimes, they say, even a paladin is defeated. You think of them dying, but sometimes—” He shook his head. “Of course, I’ve never seen her. Elis said it was—well, she said she’d fight any of us if we tried violating paladin secrecy. You don’t know Elis, of course.”
Paks began to think she’d like to know Elis. She was about to ask which of the students was Elis, when Rufen went on. “You won’t, anyway, unless she comes back before you leave.”
“Was she dismissed?”
“Elis? No, but her father died, and she was the oldest. She had to take his place. As soon as one of the others is old enough, she wants to come back. And she will. In the long run, if Elis wants it, she gets it.”