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help her on with the candidate's surcoat and her new Gird's medallion.

The paladin candidates were presented just before dawn, after ceremonies honoring Marshals and paladins killed in the past year. It seemed to Paks a very plain aflair: the candidates were simply named and shown to the spectators, and a.s.signed to one of the knightly orders and a sponsoring paladin. After the events of the day before, Paks had hoped to get Cami as her sponsor, but instead Amberion led her before the crowd. Cami was sponsoring a yeoman-marshal from somewhere in the Westmounts, she heard later. Paks knew none of the candidates well, and only four of them at all; the others had been sent from distant granges after earlier selection.

She had one more day of freedom-for the second day of Midwinter Feast was as lively as the first-and fell into bed that night completely exhausted and as happy as. she could ever remember being.

Chapter Twenty-three.

Paks's first experience as a paladin candidate was a familiar one-moving into new quarters. These were south of the main complex, in an annex to the Paladin's Hall. She was surprised to find that she would still have a room to herself, but Amberion explained.

"You will spend time in solitary exercises; you will need the privacy. Later, you will learn the skills of meditation even when surrounded by noise and upheaval, but for novices it's easier to learn in solitude."

Paks nodded silently. She was still shy of her paladin sponsor; it was hard to believe that he and Cami were in the same order. He seemed more somber, far less approachable. She unpacked her things quickly, wondering a Utde at the requirement that her sponsor must see everything she owned. But for that, too, he had a reason. Paladins must be willing to go anywhere, anytime-able to endure hardship, not just discipline. Those who clung to treasured possessions, favorite foods, even friends, might make fine Marshals or knights, but not paladins. So in the early days of training, they must do without accustomed possessions. Those who withdrew would have theirs re- 374.

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stored, but those continuing had to face the possible loss of items deemed too luxurious. Paks understood the reasoning, but could not imagine anyone preferring fancy clothes or jewelry to being a paladin. She said so, and Amberion grinned at her.

"I've seen it myself. And there is always something hard to give up. If not material things, habits and ways of thought. This may be a trivial test for you, but there are others. No one pa.s.ses through this training without struggle. " He looked over her gear as he spoke, and told her to keep Saben's red horse and Canna's medallion. Aris's gift, her weapons, the shining mail the elfane taig had given her-all these went into storage. Then he said, "What about money? Do you have any gold or silver?"

Paks handed over the heavy leather sack she'd brought from Brewersbridge. "This, and some on account with the Guild in Tsaia."

His eyebrows went up. "Did Marshal Cedfer know how much gold you had?"

"I don't know." Paks thought back to Brewersbridge, already distant to her mind. "I told him the elfane taig had gifted me; he saw the jewel I gave the grange, and knew I had money for food, lodging, and clothes."

Amberion frowned, and Paks wondered what she'd done wrong. "Did you know that most orders of knights charge a fee for their training, which is waived for poor applicants?" he asked. Paks shook her head. She had a.s.sumed that the Training Company was maintained by the Fellowship of Gird, through contributions from the granges. "Perhaps Cedfer expected you'd become a Girdsman, as you have, and didnt bother to mention it," Amberion went on. "As a paladin, you may not hold wealth. We are bound to keep this for you, and restore it if you foil, but if you are called as a paladin . . . well . . ."

"You mean I owe the Training College?" asked Paks.

"Not precisely owe. Cedfer sponsored you here, at first, and you accepted this chance freely, as a gift. It would be ill grace on our part to ask alms of you now. On the other hand, while we would ask nothing of a farmer's daughter who had nothing, we would ordinarily ask a fee of some- 376.

one who could pay. And that gold, that fee, would not be returned, whatever happened." He shifted the bag from hand to hand. "What had you planned with this?"

"Well-" Paks had trouble remembering the clutter of plans and dreams with which she'd ridden from Brewersbridge. "I had sent money to my family, to repay my dowry, but I'd planned to send more if 1 became a knight, for then I could always earn my own way. And I'd thought of a new saddle for Socks-my black horse."

He nodded slowly. "You thought of warriors* needs ahead, and your family. Are they poor, Paksenarrion?"

"Not really poor, like some I've seen. We had food enought if not too much; we always had clothes and fire in winter. But there's no money, most times. It took me years to save up the copper bits I left home with. And all the other children to be raised and wed-" Paks shook her head suddenly. "But now I'm here-and if I'm a paladin, I won't need a saddle, will I? Someone else will take Socks. And I won't be looking for work. Tell me what the fee is, sir, and I can send the rest to them and be done with it."

Amberion smiled at her with real warmth. "You choose well. Would you agree to give this bagful to the Fellowship, and send whatever is on account to your family?"

"There's more on account," said Paks.

"No matter. We are not here to fatten ourselves at the expense of farmers. Now-what's this-?" He pushed at the little bundle of scuffed and tattered old scrolls left in her saddlebags. "I thought you weren't a scholar."

"I don't know," said Paks. "I found diem in my things after the elfane taig. I was going to ask Axnbros about them, but that's when the caravan was attacked, and after that I forgot. I couldn't read them then-maybe now-" She started to unroll one of them; the parchment crackled.

"Here-wait-" Amberion took it from her. "These are old, Paksenarrion-we must be careful with diem, or they'll go to pieces." He peered at the faded script. "Gird's arm, I can't-what do you think that is?" He pushed it back to Paks, who leaned close.

"I'm not sure. 'For on this day-something-Gird came to this village where was die-the-' is that word knight?"

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"I think so," said Amberion. "I think it's 'knight of the prince's cohort, and there they-* something where that's rubbed out, and then 'and as he said to me, that he did, and called die High Lord's blessing on it'-" Amberion looked up at her for a moment. "Where did you say you found these?"

"I didn't find them, exactly," said Paks. "After the fight underground, the elfane taig got me back to the surface-somehow-and then had me pack up a whole load of things. I was too sick to notice much, but the elfane taig insisted. A day or so later, when I looked through the packs, the scrolls were there. I tried to read them, but-" Paks flushed. "I didn't read that well-and the script is odd."

"Yes-it is." Amberion seemed abstracted. "Paks-this has nothing to do with your training, but I believe these scrolls may be valuable. They're old-very old-and I've read something like this in the archives. Would you let the Archivist see them?"

"Of course," said Paks. "I'd be glad to know what they are and why the elfane taig gave them. I almost threw them away, but-"

"I'm glad you didn't," said Amberion. "If they're really an old copy of Luap's writings-"

"Luap? Is diat Gird's friend?"

"Yes. Most of what we know about Gird comes from the Chronicles of Luap. This-" he nodded toward the scroll he held, "seems to be part of that-it's talking, I think, about the battle at Seameadow." He put die scroll down and looked around the room. "That's all, then? Good. Now about your horse-what do you call him?"

Paks felt herself blushing again. "Socks," she mumbled. She had had enough comments to know that it should have been something grander. But Amberion did not laugh.

"Better, to my mind, than some long name you can't shout at need. You know that if you pa.s.s the Trials you'll have a mount?" She nodded. She had heard more than once of the paladins' mounts that appeared after their Trials, waiting fully equipped in the courtyard outside the 378.

High Lord's Hall. No one knew whence they came; no one saw them come. "But in the meantime you can use Socks for training. Doggal says he's good enough. In feet, the Training Order would take him when you pa.s.s the Trials, unless you want to sell him elsewhere."

"Yes, sir."

"Take the things you won't need back to the steward, and then come back here; you'll meet the other paladins and candidates."

For some days after that, Paks heard nothing more about the scrolls. Her schedule kept her too busy to ask. It was unlike any training she'd had before. Instead of weapons drill or military theory, she found herself immersed in history and geography: which men had come to which area, and when, and why. She learned of their laws and their beliefs; she had to memorize article after article of the Code of Gird. Gradually she built in her mind a picture of the whole land about, and the beliefs of the people. She could see, as in a drawing, her father's family perched on the side of a moor north of most trade routes. They had believed in the High Lord, and the Lady of Peace, but also in the horse nomad deity Guthlac, and the Windsteed. Their boundary stones, and the rituals for keeping them, came from Aarenis; the well-sprite for whom she had plucked flowers every spring was called the same- Piri-from Brewersbridge to Three Firs, and south to Valdaire. But in Aarenis proper, the well-spirits were multiple, and called caoutin; they had no personal names.

She learned that elves claimed no lands: the elvenhome kingdoms cannot be reached by unguided humans anyway. In Lyonya, where elves and humans ruled together a mortal kingdom, human land-rights were held provisionally, and any change of use had to be approved by the crown. Dwarves claimed daskgeft, a stonema.s.s, but cared little who traveled the surface. Gnomes held all property by intricate law, and to step one footlength on gnomish land without legal right could bring the whole kingdom down on the criminal. Even in human lands, the laws of property differed. In Tsaia, where land was granted by the .

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crown in return for military service, those who actually farmed rarely owned the land they worked-but in Fintha nearly all farms were owned by the former.

High Marshal Garris taught them the lore of the G.o.ds- all that was known of the great powers of good and evil. Paks learned that Achrya, die Webmistress, had not been known in Aare-proof, according to Marshal Garris, that Achrya was a minor G.o.d, for the great G.o.ds had power everywhere in the known world. Liart, on the other hand, had been known in old Aare, but not to the northern nomads or the Seafolk until they met the men from Aarenis. She learned that her fear of the Kuakkganni came from mistaking them for kuaknom, a race related to elves but devoted to evil; the Kuakkganni, Garris insisted, were never wholly evil, and often good. Of the greatest evils, Marshal Garris taught only their names and general attacks: Nayda, the Unnamer, who threatened forgetfulness, and Gitres, die Unmaker.

"They are one in destruction," he said firmly. "They try to enforce despair, and convince you that nothing matters, for they will wipe out all. Never believe it. The elves call diem A-Iynisi, The Unsinger who unravels the Song of die Singer, but they know as well as we that the Singer lives, and living must create."

"But are they really one, or two?" asked Harbin, the yeoman-marshal sponsored by Garni.

High Marshal Garris shrugged. "No man knows, Harbin; no man needs to know. I think-but it is only my thought- dial it is only one, but one who appears in die guise you most fear. One fears die loss of feme, of being unknown and forgotten, and another fears having all his works unmade. All mortals have some form of this fear, and in search of immortality among men may do great evil without intention. It is hard to trust that die High Lord's court will remember and reward a good life, hard to risk feme or hfework when those are at stake."

Along widi this, all die candidates were encouraged to learn languages. Paks had already found, in her travels, tiiat she was quick to pick up new phrases. Since she had 380.

made friends among the elves and dwarves in Fin Panir, Amberion urged her to spend her evenings with them, speaking elven and dwarvish in turn. At first this went quickly: she could ask for food and drink, and greet her friends politely, after only a few lessons. But the more she wanted to say, the harder it got. A simple question, like "Where are you from?" would bring on a flurry of discussion. Paks found the dwarves more willing to explain than the elves, but she could not follow their explanations.

"It is simple," said Balkon one night, the third time of trying to explain dwarf clan rankings. "Let us begin with the Goldenaxe." They had begun with the Coldenaxe before, but Paks nodded. "The Goldenaxe has two sons and a daughter."

"Yes, but-" Paks knew that something difficult was coming.

"Wait. The Goldenaxe that was, before this, had a sister who had a son, and so this Goldenaxe is the sister-son of the Goldenaxe that was."

"His nephew?" ventured Paks.

Balkon scowled. "No-not. In Common that is son of either brother or sister, yes? And this is only for sister-son. Brother-son is mother's clan."

Paks started to ask why, and thought better of it.

"Now-this Goldenaxe has no sister, only brother, and brother has no sons. But a daughter. It is clear?"

Paks nodded. She still had a thread to follow. The current Goldenaxe had a brother, with a daughter, and two sons and a daughter of his own.

"So will inherit to the t.i.tle either the son of his brother's daughter, or his oldest son, or the son of his daughter."

"But why not just his son?" asked Paks.

"Because that is not his blood," said Balkon. "His son's son is not his clan, you see that-only his daughter's son-"

"Then why not his daughter?" asked Paks again.

"What? She be the Goldenaxe? No-that would rive die rock indeed. No dwarfinaid wields coldmetal-"

"They don't fight?"

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"I did not say that. They wield not the coldmetal, the weaponsteel, once it is forged. You, lady, would not stand long against a dwarven warrior-maid in her own hall."

Paks went back to asking the names of common objects after that. With elves the trouble was different but equally impenetrable. Some questions were simply ignored, others answered in a spate of elven that drowned her mind in lovely sound. Ardhiel gladly taught her songs, and encouraged her to learn the elaborate elven courtesies, but as for learning more about elves themselves, it was "Lady, the trees learn water by drinking rain, and stars learn night by shining." Paks found individual words easy to speak and remember, but her best efforts at stringing them together sounded nothing like Ardhiel's speech, though he praised her.

She had also much to learn of paladins, as did the other candidates. Most of them had thought, like Paks, that being Gird's holy warrior meant gaining vast arcane powers-they would be nearly invincible against any foe. Their paladin sponsors quickly set them straight. Although paladins must be skilled at righting, that, their sponsors insisted, was the least of their abilities. A quest might involve no fighting at all, or a battle against beings no steel could pierce.

"Paladins show that courage is possible," Garni said to them one day. "It is easy enough to find reasons to give in to evil. War is ugly, as Paks knows well," she nodded toward Paks, who suddenly remembered the worst of Aarenis, the dead baby in Rotengre, the murdered farmfolk, Ferrault dying, Alured's tortures. "We do not argue that war is better than peace; we are not so stupid as that. But it is not peace when cruelty reigns, when stronger men steal from farmers and craftworkers, when the child can be enslaved or the old thrown out to starve, and no one lifts a hand. That is not peace: that is conquest, and evil. We start no quarrels in peaceful lands; we never display our weaponsldlls to earn applause. But we are Gird's cudgel, defending the helpless, and teaching by our example that one person can dare greater force to break evil's grasp on 382.

the innocent. Sometimes we can do that without fighting, without lolling, and that's best."

"But we're warriors first," said Paks before she thought. She wished she'd kept still. She had already noticed that the others, with their years in the Fellowship and service in the granges, had different views. Now they all looked at her, and she fixed her gaze on Garni.

"Yes," said Cami slowly. "Some evils need that direct attack, and we must be able to do it, and to lead others in battle. Did you ever wonder why paladins are so likeable?" It seemed an odd remark, and threw Paks off balance. Apparently others were confused as well, by the stirrings in the room. "It's important," said Cami, now with t lat grin that pulled them all together. "We come to a town, perhaps, where nothing has gone right for a dozen years. Perhaps there's a grange of Gird, perhaps not. But the people are frightened, and they've lost trust in each other, in themselves. We may lead them into danger; some will be killed or wounded. Why should they trust usT No one answered, and she went on. "Because we are likeable, and other people will follow us willingly. And that's why we are more likely to choose a popular yeoman-marshal as a candidate than the best fighter in the grange."

Paks dared a sideways glance. From the thoughtful and even puzzled faces around her, the others had never con-sidered this. She herself, remembering the paladin in Aarenis, realized that she had trusted him at once, without reservation, although the Marshal with him had annoyed her.

"But you see how dangerous that could be, if someone wanted to do evil," said Cami, breaking into her thoughts. "We choose from those with a gift for leadership, those people will follow happily. Therefore we must be sure that you will never use that gift wrongly. Another thing: because we come and go, we make demands on those we help for only a short time. It's easier for them to follow us quickly, and then go home. Never scorn Marshals: when we have left, they must maintain their yeomen's faith. Perhaps we showed them what was possible-but we left them with years of work."

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As for the powers legend had grafted onto paladins, in reality there were four.

"We all have powers, but not all of us have them equally," said Amberion one day. "Any paladin can call light-' A glow lit the end of this finger. "It is not fire, which gives light by burning, but true tight, the essence of seeing. There are greater lights-" At his nod, Cami suddenly seemed to catch fire, wreathed in a white radiance too bright to watch. Then it was gone; all the candidates blinked. "More than that," Amberion went on, "some paladins-but not all-can call light that will spread across a whole battlefield." Paks remembered the light in Sibili. "It is the duty and power of a paladin," said Amberion, "to show the truth of good and evil-to make clear-and that is what our light is for. It is a tool. Sometimes we use it to prove our call, but it must never be used for the paladin's own convenience or pride.'"

"But how do you make the light?" asked Clevis, one of the other candidates.

"We do not make it. We call it-ask it, in Gird's name. Later in your training we will graft this power onto you, for a while, so that you can learn to use it-but it will not be your power until you are invested as a paladin, in the Trials, and the G.o.ds give or withhold your gifts."

"You mean we won't know until then?" asked Harbin.

"You knew that, surely?"

"Well, yes, but-" He shook his head. "It seems a long time wasted, if we don't become paladins. Can't you tell earlier?"

"We can tell if you are doing badly," said Amberion. "But we have no power over the G.o.ds' decisions, Harbin. We prepare the best candidates we can find as well as we can, and then present them. Then they choose-why, we do not know. That's one reason the failing candidates are honored: it does not mean they are not worthy; they are the best we could find. Even those who withdraw from training are honored for Kaving been chosen to attempt it. Any one of you-" he looked around the small group. "Any one of you would make a fine knight in any order.

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Most of you would make a fine Marshal-one or two, perhaps, are too independent of mind-but you would all do. But to be a paladin requires more than weaponskills, a gift for leadership, the willingness to risk all for good, the deep love of good and hatred of evil. Many good men and women share these with you. Beyond that, you must have the High Lord's blessing on that way for you, as shown by the gifts you receive in the Trials." They thought that over for some minutes in silence.

Saer, a black-haired woman with merry blue eyes, explained the gift of healing, second of the paladin's special abilities. This too was a gift, to be prayed for; the gift might be withheld at times. As well, it required knowledge of wounds and illness, the structure of the body and its functions. Paks would like to have asked her about Canna's wound-had she healed it, and was that any proof of Gird's favor?-but she was shy in front of the others. After a short discussion, in which she took no part, they pa.s.sed on to other matters.

Sarek, who reminded Paks of Cracolnya in the Duke's Company, with his stocky body and slightly bowed legs, explained about the detection of good and evil. "A paladin can sense good and evil directly," he began. "Now you might think that makes everything simple: on one side are the bad people, and you kill them, and over here are the good people, and they cheer for you." Everyone laughed, including the other paladins. "It would be nice," he went on, "but that's not how it works. Normally you will experience people much as you do now-liking some, and not liking others. Most people-and that includes us, candidates-are mixtures, neither wholly evil not wholly good. But if you are close to someone intent on evil-an a.s.sa.s.sin, Achrya's agent, whatever-you will know that evil is near and be able to locate it.

"That's not the same as doing anything about it," he said, again waiting for the laughter that followed. "You must learn to think. Suppose you are trying to decide whom to trust in a troubled town. An evil person may lie, but he might tell the truth, if truth serves his plan. A good person .

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may lead you wrong, being good and stupid. You, young candidates, are supposed to be good-and smart." Again they laughed. "But more of this later. Only realize that like any gift, it is a tool-and you must learn to use it carefully, or it can slip in your hand." He gave them a final grin, and waved Garni up.

"Most important of me gifts," said Garni, now more serious than Paks had ever seen her, "is the High Lord's protection from evil attack. Of course you can be killed-we are human, after all. But as long as you are Gird's paladin, your soul cannot be forced into evil by any power whatever. All magical spells that a.s.sault the heart and mind directly will rail. No fear or disgust, no despair, can prevent you from following the High Lord's call if you want to follow it. Moreover, you can protect those with you from such attacks. This is one reason our training is so long and so intense-for this, of course, we cannot test in training. We must be sure you do want this with a whole heart, that you are indeed under that protection, before you go out to battle the dark powers of the earth."

For that reason, they were told, their every act and word would be scrutinized; even small faults could reveal flaws too dangerous to be granted such power.

"But would the High Lord grant the powers to someone unfit to bear them?" asked one of the candidates.