:Me?: his (his!) Companion replied, oozing innocence. :Don’t go laying your so-called conversion at my doorstep. I gave you every opportunity to escape. I even had Talamir tell you the great secret—that you could have shaken our bonding loose if you really decided you couldn’t bear this life. How many people have been told that in the course of our history?:

:How should I know?: Alberich asked rhetorically.

:I was about to tell you. No more than a dozen, that’s what. You’re here now—:

:Because you laid a trap for me, you and your precious Heralds, and baited it with the one thing I’d find irresistible.:

“Then that leaves him free, this afternoon?” Dethor asked, gesturing with a slice of buttered bread. “Good. We’ll start you in as my assistant right now, Alberich. Get the youngsters used to seeing you as my assistant first before they start hearing rumors about the evil Karsite Trainee.”

Alberich nodded. Well, what else was he to do? He knew it was going to happen—the “evil Karsite Trainee” business. How could it not? If the situations were reversed…

Not that they could be. The first sight of a white uniform, and the wearer of that uniform would find himself the object of target practice. Thoughtfully, he bit off a hangnail.

“The difference, I see not,” he offered. “The Weaponsmaster, if good he be, always hated is.”

Dethor smiled wickedly. “Better to have ’em hating you as the tyrannical Weapons Second, the brutal taskmaster. That way there’ll be no room in those rattling little skulls for the evil Karsite Trainee.” He finished his bread in a way that suggested the devouring of small children.

Alberich smiled, just a little. The Weaponsmaster was absolutely right, of course. Children—and, to be fair, a great many adults—were apt to label people and stick with the first label they’d come up with. “A brutal taskmaster, I surely will be, as ever,” he replied, with a touch of grim humor. “My recruits, ask.”

Dethor rubbed his hands together. “I’ll keep the small ones, but you—ah! You, I intend to unleash on the older ones. I’ve been easy on ’em—too damned easy, tell the truth. I can’t bout ’em anymore, and there’s never anyone here consistently that can give ’em proper workouts. And—oh, glory!—you’ve fought real fights. None of this court fencing, oh no! That’s the trouble with the teachers the highborn have; they learn to duel, to do fancy court fighting, but not how to fight. Plenty of Heralds do, of course, most of ’em trained by me, but they’re needed out there, and can’t be spared.” He shook his head reluctantly. “And, truth to tell, it takes more than knowing how to fight to make a Weaponsmaster.”