Again, Caelen set off briskly. Mags stretched his legs to keep up. They went back up the stairs, then outside via a nearby door, and headed down a path that clearly ended at a stable building. “That’s the Companions’ stable, and that is where you’ll be living,” Caelen explained. “We’ll arrange for that now.”

Mags was slowly getting the lay of the place as they headed for the stables, where he had left Dallen. The Heralds’ Collegium was actually attached to this other building, which was roughly four or five times its size. The unfinished buildings, which he vaguely gathered would be Bardic and Healers’ Collegiums, stood alone. The Companions’ stable was across a big stretch of open area and on the other side of a broad lane, of course . . . the road that had brought him here was there—

In the stables, he felt a little more relaxed. Not so many people. Companions all about. Dallen peering over the wall of a loose-box just ahead. He took a deep breath and smiled; they must keep this place as clean as a room in the Guards’ barracks, for the only scent in the air was of crisp straw and sweet hay, with an undertone of clean horse. Herald Caelen gave a sharp whistle and waved over someone who proved to be the Stablemaster. He quickly explained what he wanted, and just as quickly got an answer.

“Aye, I’d just as soon that room there at the end got used. Been a bit of a temptation, that, come evenin’—empty room, quiet stable, willin’ kitchenmaids?” The Stablemaster waggled his eyebrows, and Caelen cracked a wry smile.

“Then I am happy to be able to solve two problems with one solution. Can we get a couple of the lads here to help make it livable?” the Herald asked.

In answer, it was the Stablemaster’s turn to whistle, and within moments, Mags was helping another strong fellow carry a bed in from a storage room, while a second went off for linens and a third carried out the odds and ends that had been stored there, swept the place, and found a couple of chests in the tack room for Mags’ use. The Stablemaster himself scoured up a table and chair and a couple of lanterns. The room was already warm, thanks to the brick ovens built into that end of the stables. The whole end wall was brick, actually; the ovens, according to Dallen, served two purposes. A certain amount of cooking and water heating was done there, but mostly, they were there to keep the place warm. They were fired from outside, and heated the stable and the rooms that the stable workers lived in with the heated brick rather than the direct heat from the fires. With all that grain-dust and straw and hay about, the risk of fire was taken very seriously, and minimized.