Not a middle-aged clerk who had been bent over a desk all of her life. She would arrive at the front lines only to return in days in one of those wagons. If she returned at all. Which he doubted.

She sighed and shifted her weight from one foot to the other, recapturing his wandering attention. “Weaponsmaster, all due respect, but we both know I’m hopeless at this. It’s a complete waste of your time to try and train me to use this.”

She gestured at the sword she carried—and she spoke in Karsite.

In point of fact, if it were not for the fact that she couldn’t fight, couldn’t shoot, and couldn’t defend herself, she’d be in Whites at this very moment. Self-defense was the only skill she lacked to enter her Internship, for she’d known most of what a Trainee learned long before she was ever Chosen. There was nothing about the history of Valdemar and the Heralds that she didn’t know before she came here. She mastered the fine points of the law with the indifferent ease of someone who had spent years copying legal briefs. In fact, anything having to do with the written word, including no less than four languages, was of no difficulty to her. And she was the only person besides Alberich himself who was a fluent and natural speaker of his own tongue, learned directly from old Father Henrick before Alberich had set foot on the soil of Valdemar.

“There’s a saying in Hardorn,” she continued. ‘“You shouldn’t attempt to teach a goat to sing. It will waste your time, hurt your ears, and annoy the goat.’ I can say without fear of contradiction that the goat is getting annoyed.”

He had to smile at that; she blinked behind those thick lenses, and emboldened, continued. “I keep asking this question, and no one will answer me. Can you give me one single, good reason why I have to learn weaponswork? And ‘because all Trainees have to’ is not a good reason. After all—” she set her chin mulishly, “—you don’t make all Healers learn weaponswork, so why should every single Herald have to?”

Since he had just been about to say because all Trainees have to, he found himself stymied. He opened his mouth, closed it again, and regarded her thoughtfully. “Just what would you do if you were ambushed in the field?” he asked.

“Run,” she replied promptly. “I’d cut loose my saddlebags, if I was mounted, throw away my belt pouch if I was afoot, and run. Chances are, whoever attacked me would be after my things and any money I had, not me. I’d let them have what they wanted. Things can be replaced, and while they’d be scrambling after loot, I’d be getting farther away.”

:That was a good answer,: Kantor observed.