His voice gained a hint of warmth. "You're saying that you are doing what you would have done in Duke Phelan's Company? Reporting something you did wrong?"

"Yes, sir."

"I see." His fingers drummed on the desk. "You agree that whatever happened was your fault?"

Paks nodded. Thinking back, she knew that Siger or Stammel would have reacted just as Cieri had—if not worse.

"Well, suppose you tell me about it. And by the way, how did you get hurt?"

"You knew I'd asked to learn axe fighting?" Paks waited for his nod, then went on. "I'd been doing drills with the axe—not hitting anything, and today Marshal Cieri set up a target. A log, with limbs." Paks stopped. It seemed even worse as she tried to think how to say what had happened.

"Yes?"

"Well—sir—I had trouble with it—he'd said I would—"

"And you lost your temper over that?"

"No, sir. Not then. After awhile I made some chips of it, and then he wanted me to hit specific targets. Only when I started, he—he got after me for not thinking of it as live, for giving it a chance to hit back." She looked up to see the Training Master's lips folded tightly. As bad as that, then. She went on. "Then I hit a limb—he said to think of it as an arm—and when I went to hit again, he was angry that I hadn't allowed for it to move. So I jumped at it, and hit it really hard, and the limb broke and the axe hit my leg."

"How badly?"

"Just a cut. But then I was angry, and I was about to—to swing as hard as I could, and he stopped the axe." Paks looked up again. "I didn't know he could do that."

"It's not something we demonstrate very often," said the Training Master, in a neutral voice. "Go on."

Paks ducked her head. "Then he said he thought I knew better than to lose my temper, and that I wouldn't be any good at axe-work, like he'd said. And that's when—"

"What did you say, Paksenarrion?"

"I said—" she paused to remember the words. "I said I could learn, if he wouldn't harass me. It—I was wrong, sir, and I know it. I knew it as soon as I said it—"

"Did you apologize?"

"Yes, sir; I told him I was sorry—"

"Did you mean it?"

Paks looked up, startled.

"Were you sorry for being rude, or sorry he was angry with you, or sorry you'd lost your temper in the first place?"

"I—I don't know, sir. I suppose—I was just sorry about everything."

"Hmph. So then what happened?"

Paks told the rest as well as she could, and on being prompted added the conversation with the dwarves. When she had finished, the Training Master sighed.