"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 passes 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 assumed 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 didn't 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 fail, 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 someone 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 I 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 enough, 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."