By watching, he learned how to groom a horse—and by extension, Dallen. He learned how to saddle and bridle one, too, and what to feed it. He learned all manner of useful things, in fact, although the one thing he didn’t learn, because he never could bring himself to pick up a weapon, was how to use a weapon. He watched the Guardsmen at their practice, and every time he even thought about picking up a knife or a bow, he wanted to crawl away and hide. It made his skin crawl and his stomach tie up in knots in a way that nothing Dallen could do would soothe. He kept thinking about the time when he was still in the kitchen and someone had raised a mining hammer as a weapon to Master Cole.

Master Cole had gathered everyone outside to watch.

“I be judge and jury here,” the Master had said harshly. “Ye dared t’ raise yer filthy hand t’ me, dared t’ try an’ strike me dead, and me boys as witness to it.”

He had glanced around at all of his sons, who had nodded and mumbled “ayes.”

“Then I gives ye the sentence ye’d hev served me, if ye could.” And he had then taken the massive, stone-headed mallet at his side, and brutally beaten the poor wretch to death, and beyond, into a pulp, while every other person on the property was forced to watch.

Then the mine kiddies had been ordered to take up what was left and leave it in a played-out seam. The supports were pulled out, the seam collapsed. Everyone understood that this meant if and when someone came looking for the boy, there had been a terrible “accident.”

Mags had not been one of the mine kiddies then, so he had been able to scuttle back to the kitchen, where he shivered through his work. Even the kitchen drudges, usually starving, had little appetite for their scraps that day.

Which, of course, was exactly what the Master intended. The lesson was clear. Take up a weapon and die.

So it was small wonder Mags had difficulty even contemplating setting a hand to a hilt.

Fortunately, no one seemed to think he needed to.

Slowly, he began poking his nose into other places around the Guard Post. He found the office of the fellow who did all the reckoning for this post, and watched in fascination as he made marks that looked like letters, but weren’t. The man seemed amused and, after a while, motioned him over.