And Lord Corbie had been quite taken aback to learn that it had all happened within moments of Kadhael’s expulsion.
Without knowing much about the man, but intuiting a great deal from the behavior of his son, Alberich doubted that humiliation of Kadhael at the hands of “that foreigner” would ever be forgotten or forgiven, but at least there was nothing overt that Lord Corbie could do about the incident. Alberich had exercised precisely the correct amount of authority: he’d been defied, he banished the offender. Not from any other classes at any other part of the three Collegia, only from his own. He had indeed ejected the boy by force—because the boy would have gone on defying him if Alberich hadn’t physically thrown him off the premises. He had not exceeded his authority, and in point of fact, Alberich could have given the boy a taste of what Osberic had gotten, and hadn’t. In fact, Kadhael had gotten off lightly at Alberich’s hands, and not only was there no denying it, but both the Lord Marshal and the Provost Marshal (who was in charge of discipline on and off the Collegia grounds) said loudly and publicly that they would have boxed both his ears until he was deaf.
Nevertheless, Lord Corbie would not like the man who had rejected his son; he would not like the Collegium nor the organization that had given him the authority to do so.
One more enemy . . . but Alberich was used to those by now. He would have to watch his back, but when had he ever done anything else? And sure enough, within days, there were rumors in the Court about how the Weaponsmaster was abusing his pupils, abusing his authority, treating Heraldic Trainees with indulgence and punishing Blues arbitrarily. A few Blues were quietly absent from his class after that. But there was not a great deal that he could do about that—nor, truth to be told, wished to do.
As for Osberic—according to Kantor, that very evening, when the Trainee’s bruises started aching and he started feeling particularly sorry for himself, his Companion had given him a good talking-to. Whether this was delivered in the form of a lecture or with sympathy, Kantor didn’t say—but one thing was certain: when Companions took it upon themselves to correct their Chosen, the lesson tended to stick. Osberic was certainly properly contrite the next day, and if there was still a great deal of moaning about Alberich’s hardheartedness, at least no one among the Heraldic Trainees was claiming he was a bully or a sadist. Hardhearted, he could live with. In fact, the more hardhearted they thought him, the better off they would be in the long run.
Though shortly after the Kadhael incident, there was one little lad who would not have agreed with that estimation.
He was one of the “Tedrel orphans,” brought in by the Companion Cheric the very same day as Osberic and Kadhael’s chastisement. It took a day or two to get him settled into the Collegium, so Alberich didn’t see him until his mentor, Trainee Rotherven, brought him by himself to the salle, shortly after the last class of the day.
Alberich was overseeing a set of Guards working out with maces, when the door to the salle opened and a final-year Trainee came in with a very small boy at his side. Alberich left the two to continue their bout, and walked over to the door where they waited politely.
“This is a new Trainee, Weaponsmaster,” Rotherven said, leading the young boy by the hand—a very young boy indeed, no more than seven, if Alberich was any judge. He was rather angular, with an unruly thatch of no-colored hair, but very intelligent eyes, and a look about him that was vaguely familiar. And when he got a good look at the Weaponsmaster, the boy gaped at him with shock—then awe—then spun to look up at his mentor with a look just short of accusation.
“You did not tell me this was the Great Rider!” the child exclaimed, and Alberich knew immediately by the trace of a Karsite accent that this must be one of the children brought out of the Tedrel camp after the end of that final battle.
“Great rider?” Rotherven said, his brow furrowed with puzzlement. “But—”
“Never mind, I understand him,” Alberich interrupted. He looked down at the boy with some bemusement. So that was why the boy looked vaguely familiar; he was Karsite, or at least, half Karsite. Most of the hill-folk shepherds were mongrels by Sunpriest standards anyway. “So,” he said—in Karsite, “we have another of the Sun’s children come to be a White Rider, eh?” This one must not have been too damaged by his experiences, or he wouldn’t have been Chosen so very young. “There are others here, not as White Riders, but as Selenay’s pages. You won’t be alone.”
“Oh.” Relief suffused the boy’s features. “I did not know that, Great Rider—”
Alberich looked up at Rotherven. “Selenay has perhaps five or six Tedrel orphans; in her service as pages they are. See that this lad meeting them is, please. Perhaps a playfellow he will find among them.”
Then he looked back down at the boy and continued the conversation in Karsite. “Also, there is Priest Gerichen, a true man of the Sunlord. You may go with the others to the Temple of the Sunlord if you wish—though they do not call it that here, but rather, the Temple of the Lord of Light. And if you do not wish to do so, you need not. You are free to serve who you wish, here.”
“I still serve the Sunlord, Great Rider,” the boy said quietly. “The Sunlord of the Prophecy.”
“Then you will find His House yonder in Haven, and Gerichen at His altar,” Alberich replied, suppressing a smile at the child’s solemn demeanor. It was quaint and charming, but a little sad also. Those children had been forced to grow up far too quickly. “I have it on the best authority that He approves of the White Riders and all they stand for, and that there is nothing in the pledges that a White Rider must make that run counter to His will. Quite the opposite, in fact. In serving as a White Rider, you will also serve Him. You will be a hope and an example to our people, and repay some of the debt to those who saved and succored us, as I try to do.”
The child’s face took on a look of fierce pride and determination. “I will not fail you, Great Rider!” he said, in tones that made it a vow. “I will not fail the Prophecy!”
Rotherven’s expression of bemusement, as he looked from Alberich to the boy and back again, made Alberich very glad that he had a great deal of practice in keeping his own face under control, or he might have laughed aloud.
“It is a great responsibility,” Alberich replied, as gravely as if the child was three times his actual age. “And a signal honor.”
“I do know that, Great Rider,” the child said, nodding. “Cheric has told me so. And it is—all I could ever wish to be.”
“Excuse me, Herald Alberich, but I was supposed to tell you that young Theodren here is one of the orphans,” Rotherven said, then laughed self-consciously, “but obviously you already know that.”
“I do, but I thank you,” Alberich replied, and turned back to the boy. “So. I am glad to see you, Theodren. You will be learning weapons at my hands—as any other Trainee. And you must call me Herald Alberich, not Great Rider. I am no greater than any of the other Heralds—the White Riders. We are all brothers and sisters.”