"Vashtalla," he replied. "You?"
" Emden," she replied.
"We are cousins," Tarrin noted, holding out his paw to her. "Greeting, cousin. Honor to Dallstad."
"Honor and glory," she replied, clasping his wrist in a strong grip. "It's nice to meet someone with manners," she said in the common tongue, grinning. "You're Ungaardt under that fur, and dirt."
"Half," he admitted. "My mother is of the blood." "Of the blood" was the way the Ungaardt referred to themselves.
"You look Ungaardt," she noted clinically. "You take after your mother. You are also of the blood, no matter who your father was. A good thing for you."
"I'm happy with it," he said. Ungaardt were a very arrogant people, and just agreeing with her was the easiest way to keep the peace.
"But you're also a Novice, and I'm the Mistress of Novices. Don't expect any preferential treatment just because we're cousins," she said in a steely voice.
"I don't expect any," he replied.
"Good. I'm going to take you to the Novice quarters," she told him. "We'll get you some clean clothes, give you a room, and I'll show you where you can bathe."
"Yes!" he said fervently.
"You are a bit fragrant," Dolanna noted.
"Dolanna, if I smell that bad to you, just imagine how I smell to me," he told her.
She laughed. "Yes, that nose is very much a liability, is it not?" she asked with a smile.
"At the moment, yes," he said with a grunt.
"As of this moment, she's Mistress Dolanna," Elsa said bluntly. "And you're a Novice, just like any other Novice. Come along, Tarrin, and we'll get you washed and dressed."
"Yes, Mistress Elsa," he said calmly. He'd kiss a Dragon for the chance to take a bath.
"Dolanna, you can see him later," Elsa instructed her.
"I'll talk to you about arranging time with Tarrin," Sevren told her. "He's agreed to let me do some studies."
"As long as it doesn't cut into his class time, we'll talk about it," she told him. "Let's get moving, Tarrin."
The halls of the Tower were wide, and they were all lit by those softly glowing globes. From as far as he could tell, they simply hovered in midair near the ceiling. Another thing that he noticed was that the floors were carpeted out in the halls. That was unusual, and it had to be frightfully expensive if every hall was like this, considering the awesome size of the building. They went down stairs quite a ways, all the way to the ground floor, and he saw that the carpeting did indeed stop. The hallways in the sector of the Tower to which she took him were just as wide, but there were many, many more doors set into the walls. The floors and walls were absolutely spotless, and not a cobweb could be found anywhere. There were also many people. They were universally young, in their mid teens, from pale, tall Ungaardt to stocky Dals to swarthy Arkisians. Even one or two olive-skinned people from the Free Duchies between Shace and Arkis. They were wearing either plain white wool dresses or white wool shirts and brown wool trousers. They all wore exactly the same kind of leather shoes. They all stared at Tarrin in shock, and more than one shrank away from him as Elsa led him deep into the domain of the Novices.
"These are the halls of the Novices," she told him as they walked along. "There are three levels above this one also. My office door is at the end of this hall. Pray that you're not called in there." She pointed down a side hall. "At the end of that hall is the Novice Hall," she said. "It is where you will eat, and it is also where you will gather for any assemblies called for the Novices. The classrooms where you will receive your instruction are on the third and fourth levels. I'll have someone else show you all the little things. For right now, we're going to worry about the main things."
They stopped in front of a door. "This will be your room," she said. He noticed that it was within sight of the plain wooden door with her name on a wooden plaque which was nailed to the door. She was keeping him well within her sight. "You will have a roommate, Tarrin. We are not treating you any differently than any other Novice. Right now, he's probably in class." She opened the door. Inside the surprisingly large room were two narrow beds, both neatly made, with a strong, sturdy chest at the foot of each bed. Each bed also had a stand to the side of it, and there was a small writing table, with one chair, between them against the far wall. There were two pegs on the wall on each side of the room, and on the right side, one peg was occupied with a plain wool robe, and the other had a brown cloak hanging from it. Tarrin saw that hanging on the wall on the right side were pieces of paper with very elaborate sketches. Many of them were the towers and buildings of the compound, but there were also several sketches of people. One of them, he saw, was Elsa. And it was remarkably well done. Whoever had done them had a natural talent for art. "See how clean this room is?" she asked. "It had best stay this way. Now then, let's go see the Quartermaster and get you clothing."
The Quartermaster was on the second level, in a large room that was filled with shelves, those shelves holding assorted items and articles. The Quartermaster himself was a small wiry man, approaching his golden years, with a bald pate fringed with gray hair. His face was drawn, as thin as he was, but Tarrin saw that he moved with a spry step that belied his advanced years. he wore a simple brown coat over a white shirt, with brown trousers, and he had several stick pins stuck to the sleeves of his coat. He had several Novices and similarly young people with colored shirts or dresses rather than white. Those, he'd managed to deduce, were Initiates, in the step above the Novices. "Madam Elsa," he greeted in a scratchy voice, eyeing Tarrin warily. "What can I do for you?"
"This boy needs Novice's clothing," she said, jerking her thumb at Tarrin.
"Ah, this could be a challenge," he said, studying Tarrin. "Is he always so thin?"
"He should fill out a bit," Elsa said.
"Turn around," the man told Tarrin, and he did so. "That tail is going to cause a problem," he said. "I'll have to put a button in the back for it. I'll just have to cut holes in the underclothing."
"Do you have anything just for now?" she asked.
"We could put him in a robe until I get his pants sewn," he offered.
"That's a good idea," she agreed.
"Do you commonly wear shoes, Novice?" he asked.
"No sir," he said, holding up a leg and letting him see the rough pads on the bottom of his feet. "My feet do well enough for me."
"Good, I don't have any shoes big enough for those feet," he said, "and those claws would cut them up pretty quickly anyway.
"Let me measure you, and then I'll get to work on some pants," he said, taking a knotted cord out of his pocket, the knots tied at regular intervals along its length. "Go behind that screen and take off the shirt and pants." The affair took about ten minutes, for the wiry Quartermaster was quite adept at what he was doing. He would wrap that knotted cord around some part of Tarrin's body, and then write down the resulting measurement on a slate board he'd taken off a table. Tarrin was a bit antsy when the man casually wrapped that cord around the base of his tail to measure its width. He was unaware of how sensitive that particular place was, but Tarrin didn't do anything. He just stayed still and let him get it overwith. In a very short time, he had Tarrin thoroughly measured, and had taken reference measurements from Tarrin's current pants. The man gave him an old, worn out robe to wear, for he adamantly refused to give back the filthy, ripped clothing Tarrin had been wearing. "I'll be sure to leave room for him to fill them out," he told Elsa. "From his current clothes, I have a good idea of how much that's going to be. He can wear that old frayed robe to the bathing pool, and he can wear this one until he gets these clothes." He pointed at a folded garment that had been placed on a table by a Novice.