"Better, to my mind, than some long name you can't shout at need. You know that if you pass 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 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 fact, the Training Order would take him when you pass 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 caoulin: 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 stonemass, but cared little who traveled the surface. Gnomes held all property by intricate law, and to step one foot-length 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 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 farmer.