“Then outside you will go. All of you.” He turned a stern gaze on the Trainee, who was still sitting on the floor—Osberic, that was the boy’s name. “Osberic,” he continued, and the Trainee flinched. “Since no opponent you have now, yet equally of guilt you are to have brought a fight within my walls, it will be me that you face. Fetch two staves, and follow. Even practice swords, I will not ruin in this muck.”

He would not be too hard on him. Putting him on his face or back into the mud two or three times would be enough.

:He started the fight,: Kantor put in. :Not that Kadhael wasn’t trying to goad him into starting it, but he did start it.:

All right. Four. Teach the boy to hold his temper.

:Good answer. I’m going to watch.:

Alberich smiled as he walked out into the cold again and saw that there was no sign of Kadhael, other than a vaguely human-shaped depression in the slush. :Please do.:

The boys had formed up in a rough circle, and Osberic came up to Alberich with two fighting staffs and a hangdog look. Alberich took one without looking at it.

“Consequences, Osberic,” he said as he squared off against the boy, who began circling him warily. “Say I will not, that a Herald loses not his temper—but aware a Herald is, that consequences there are for doing so.”

His staff shot out at ankle-level, tripping Osberic. Down he went.

He picked himself back up, and aimed a blow at Alberich’s head. Alberich blocked it, riposted, and let the boy block him. “So think you—had there a fight been, what consequences there would be?”

“Uh—” Osberic tried again, was blocked again. “Lord Corbie would get me in trouble?”

“Wrong.” Alberich flipped the staff at Osberic’s ankles; the boy dodged, and Alberich flipped the other end around to thwack him in the buttocks and send him into the slush again. “Lord Corbie would protest to the Queen, who would be forced to go to the Dean, who would have to answer to why discipline was so lax among the Trainees that a highborn fought a Trainee.”

Osberic picked himself up, flushing. “My fight would get the Heralds in trouble?”

“Correct.” Alberich let the boy try a few more blows; not bad, but he wasn’t going to get through Alberich’s defenses any time soon. “And who else?”

“The Queen?” Osberic hazarded.

“Correct. Now, why will there be no trouble for what I did with Kadhael Corbie?”

Osberic didn’t answer, being a little too busy fending off a flurry of blows from Alberich, only to trip over a hardened lump of snow and land on his backside in an icy puddle.

:That should count,: Kantor said from the sideline.

:I agree.: