And he rather expected that Selenay, once she saw fighting, would be eager to stay out of it. Not that he doubted her courage…

But she was a young and sensitive person, and battlefields were horrors. He was sickened by them, and he was hardened to the death and carnage. Once she got her first taste of real fighting, she should be perfectly willing to stay at the rear of the battle lines with the commanders.

Alberich was not as sanguine about keeping Sendar out of the thick of the fighting.

But then, again, that was not his job. It was Talamir’s, and if the King’s Own couldn’t manage it, no one could. Certainly not Alberich, the foreigner, for to some, perhaps unconsciously even to the King, that was an issue. No matter how people felt about him consciously, somewhere down deep inside, the moment he opened his mouth—

:Perhaps if you worked on your grammar,: Kantor suggested.

:Indeed. In my infinite leisure time,: he retorted as he pulled off the armor he’d worn to protect himself. He had been the “assassin” for all of this practice, and as such, had worked harder than all of them combined. He was in good condition, as good as he’d ever been, but—ah, it had been a hard day, as well as a long one.

At least he’d been too busy to think, too busy to worry.

Today he had neglected all of the Trainees, leaving poor Dethor and a couple of the older Trainees to conduct lessons themselves. Tomorrow he would have to do the same.

And the day after, and the day after that—

He sagged down on the bench, suddenly, with an overpowering sense of guilt. He was supposed to be Dethor’s Second, to take the burden of all of this off of the old man. :Ah, Kantor, what am I going to do?: he asked plaintively. :I can’t be in two places at once—:

:And if you were not here, who would be teaching the Trainees? And who would have seen to it that Selenay had bodyguards? And who would be drilling the King and Heir’s battlefield escorts?: Kantor replied. Someone else, of course. Dethor, and someone else. Someone who wouldn’t have Alberich’s experience.

Someone else—if he could figure out who that someone else might have been, maybe he could recruit him (her?) to train the Trainees.

:This last lot of Trainees won’t see fighting,: he said, after a moment. :We’ve put everyone who is even remotely ready into Whites by now, but there are still the ones that are a year away from becoming full Heralds. There must be a dozen of them, and I’ve personally taught all of them from the time they came in as Trainees; I can put them to teaching the younglings, while Dethor supervises.:

:Good answer,: Kantor approved.