She was right. Daren preceded her; he stopped for a moment behind the outcropping that hid the entrance, said something too low for Kero to hear, then went on in. She followed, with the relative warmth of the stable closing around her like a cozy blanket. Tarma stood impassively just inside the stable door, leaning against the rock wall as if she had been there all night and was prepared to go on waiting.

She looked them both up and down, face unreadable.

“There’s food in your rooms,” she said. “Get a hot bath and feed yourselves, then get your rumps back down here. I’ll be waiting in the practice ring.”

After the bath and the food, Kero felt a little closer to human. Today wasn’t going to be pleasant, but as she climbed stiffly into warm—dry!—clothing, she had to admit that she’d spent worse.

And I know damn well that if we don’t exercise those bruised muscles, we’re going to stiffen up. Then tomorrow will be twice as hard.

She closed the door of her room behind her, and ran into Daren on the staircase down. Daren was bewildered, she could read it in his face—and resentful; she could read that in the way he carried his shoulders, stiff and hunched.

“What’s the matter?” she asked.

He looked over his shoulder at her, as if he halfway expected her to ridicule him. “If I was home,” he said hesitantly, “after something like last night, I’d have been, well, fussed over. They’d have sent servants up with my favorite food, gotten someone to massage me, probably sent me to bed—”

He stopped, and she realized her expression had probably betrayed some of her disgust. She made herself think about what he was saying, and realized that he wasn’t to blame for the way other people had treated a prince of the blood.

“Look,” she said, trying to sound as reasonable as possible. “Do you think that’s what would happen in battle conditions? You’re going to be in worse shape than that at the end of each day if there’s ever a war fought.”

He obviously took the effort to think about what she had just said, in his turn, and stopped on the staircase. “I guess you’re right,” he replied. “There wouldn’t even be any hot baths, much less all the rest. We’d probably be sleeping in half-armor, and eating whatever the bugs and rats left us.”

“Exactly. If this had been a foray during a war, we’d have been lucky to get the food and dry clothes.” She looked at him in the dim light, and shrugged.

“I guess—I guess if I’m supposed to be learning how to command armies, maybe I’d better start getting used to a couple of hardships now and again.”