They were used to fighting back-to-back, but not when in charge of someone incapacitated, or someone who needed to be kept in cover. They needed to learn how to find safe exit routes, at least two, the moment they entered a room or a situation. They had to practice defensive, rather than offensive, fighting. And later, he would teach them quick rescue techniques, how to dash in and grab the Heir if someone had snatched her, while she was still within reach. Even if that someone had a knife to her throat. The time to get her away was not after she was in enemy territory. He hoped that at least one of each pair was a good shot; one of the best ways to rescue someone who was kidnapped was to shoot her in the leg. Someone who had to be carried became doubly hard to take.

But he thought he would save that lesson for a time when Selenay wasn’t with them.

By midmorning, Selenay had joined them. She was not at all happy about having bodyguards all the time, but she was reasonable about it. The same could not be said for her father, according to the terse report he got from Kantor.

But Alberich didn’t have to deal with her father. That was Talamir’s problem, not his.

He was just pleased that his six women were quick studies, a little quicker than he’d hoped, actually. The three from the City Guard were especially adept in defensive strategies, perhaps because of their riot training. Students, crowds of layabouts and troublemakers, and drunks in fair season sometimes turned into mobs, and the City Guards and constables were trained to deal with a mob in every manifestation, whether cheerful and manic or surly and destructive.

The two Heralds had their own set of valuable skills, especially suited to their day watch, in no small part because they were used to letting their eyes skim over a crowd, looking for someone or something that was subtly wrong. The two Heralds would have their Companions to help, of course—and the Companions made another good reason to have them on day watch. No one assassin, not even a group of three to six, could get past two Heralds and three Companions. And the possibility of getting a group of strangers past sentries and guards and other sharp-eyed sorts by day was vanishingly small.