"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."

They were now in the passage outside Paks's room. A neatly lettered card fitted into a slot she had not noticed before, so that anyone would know it was her room.

"I'm down four doors, across the passage," said Rufen. Paks finally found words for something that had puzzled her.

"How did you know about Elis? I thought the Marshal-General said the new class had been here only a few weeks."

"Oh, them." Rufen laughed. "There are—oh—a dozen of them. They're all younger than you. I've been here a year and some."

"Were all those in practice with you?" Paks did not want to reveal how unskilled they had seemed to her.

"No—we train in groups according to skill. That's the most basic group, in sword-work. My father, you see, planned for me to be a scholar. I had a badly broken arm, as a boy, and he thought it would never hold up to fighting. I thought differently."