He had first gotten wind of their peculiar behavior that morning, when he overheard two of the Healers talking about it. He had been slowly eating his breakfast, enjoying one of the last leisurely meals he would have before classes started again. Already most of the extra workmen were gone—but the fruits of their labors were visible in newly opened sections of all three Collegia. More rooms for Trainees in all three, all the work on the Heraldic Library was complete and now the books just needed to be moved in, the dining hall was finished but the kitchen still needed work, and there were rumors that there was some sort of addition for the bathing room that would make all that tedious heating of buckets of water a thing of the past. It wasn’t a reality yet, however.

So he had just had a morning bath and was savoring eggs and sausages and biscuits when two Healers sat down on the bench across from him and picked up what sounded like an interrupted conversation.

“It’s bad enough that they are rude and arrogant, and that half of my work consists of patching up injuries they’ve inflicted during ‘practice,’ ” one of them said as he got a bowl of porridge. “But this . . . how can I tell if something is wrong with someone if he won’t tell me the symptoms?”

“Perhaps they don’t speak our language well?” the other suggested diffidently. The first snorted.

“They speak it just fine. They just won’t tell me. ‘Something is wrong with us, Healer. Fix it.’ Just like that, in so many words.” The first one stirred currants into his porridge with irritation. “I finally got just as rude as they were. ‘Well, perhaps all your problems stem from the amount of strong drink you’re putting away every night down in the city,’ I said. ‘I can’t fix you if you keep making things worse by getting blind drunk every night.’ ”

“Good for you!” the second applauded. “Then what happened?”

“They threatened to kill me, of course. Fortunately, with the Guard there, they didn’t dare do anything other than threaten.” The Healer snorted. “I’ve told everyone that those threats were the last straw, and I am sticking to it. I would not put it past them to ambush me and beat me senseless for not groveling and making them all better. It will have to be a royal command before I have anything to do with any of that lot again.”

They finished their breakfast, with Mags lingering over his, but said nothing more about the mercenaries. He left just after they did; Dallen had not heard anything either. But Dallen took care to point out that Lydia’s friends would want to know anything at all about this—and probably, so would Herald Nikolas.