And yes, they did heal people, in a bewildering variety of ways. This particular shade of green was accepted as their color, and if you saw someone wearing it, you knew he was a Healer. Just as, if you saw someone in White, you knew he was a Herald, in Scarlet and he was a Bard. Whatever a Bard was—

Before another flood of memories could start, triggered by that word and half-query, Mags followed the man out of the room into a hallway he only vaguely recalled, and from there, not to the big room with all the tables—

—Guards’ mess, memory prompted.

But to a spacious and fragrant kitchen full of very busy people. Or, actually, there were only four of them, but they were so extremely busy it seemed as if there were at least eight of them, and Healer Betwick evidently deemed it prudent to stay out of their way.

He motioned to Mags to go and sit on a stool at a little table off to the side and well away from all the activity, then went over to the hearth and fetched a bowl waiting there, keeping warm.

When he brought it back to Mags, the boy saw it was full of porridge with little dark things scattered over the top of it. “What’s those?” he asked, a bit apprehensively.

“Currants. Dried ones. They’re sweet, you’ll like them, and they are good for you.”

Reassured that they weren’t rabbit droppings or something else that didn’t belong in food, Mags dug in. The Healer was right, he did like the currants, he liked them a very great deal. Half the time the porridge he’d been fed by Master Cole hadn’t even been made with salt; this had been sweetened with honey as well as the berries.

While he ate, the Healer talked in an undertone to the cook, who was a large, balding man with enormous biceps. In fact, so far, Mags hadn’t seen any women here at all. Which was interesting, because Master Cole had very firm ideas about what was “man’s work” and what was not, which meant there would have to be an awful lot of men doing “women’s work” here if there were no women about.

:Cole Pieters is wrong about most things.: Dallen sounded amused. :And the few he is right about, he is right entirely by accident.:

Mags nearly choked on his porridge, which caused one of the kitchen staff to make a detour, fetch a mug and pour it full of something, and plunk it down next to Mags, all without missing a beat in his other task. Mags looked at it. It wasn’t water . . . it was hot.

:Herb tea. You will like it. Be careful not to burn your mouth.: