“But—but what?” From the boy’s gleeful expression, Arvid knew he was imagining what he’d say to his older brother.

“Something vile,” Arvid said. “And aren’t you supposed to be studying something?”

“Writing pages of ‘I will not use foul language’ over and over, but I brib—got Tamis to do it for me.”

A boy with talents. Arvid smiled at him. “I would not have either of us in trouble for this conversation—the Marshal who bade me not interfere with your studies might come back any time.”

“Do you have to stay here?” the boy asked, with a glance up and down the corridor.

“I said I would,” Arvid said. “And I expect Marshal Perin to return.”

“From?”

“Over there,” Arvid said, gesturing out the window.

“Then I can see him and he will not see me if I’m not right in the doorway.” The boy came into the room without waiting for an invitation and flattened himself against the wall, where he could see out the window. “I’m Baris, by the way, Baris Arnufson.”

“And I am Arvid Semminson,” Arvid said, sitting up on the bed.

The boy went pale. “Oh—oh, you’re the one—in the—the—you know. And you saved her! We heard about you!”

Arvid kept his jaw from dropping by main force. He had not expected that a boy in Fin Panir would recognize his full name, and if the whole school did, no wonder Marshal Perin told him not to chat with the students. “Um … if you mean Paks—”

“Of course! Paksenarrion, the greatest paladin ever! My brother was here when she was; he saw her. He talked to her.”

“You might want to lower your voice,” Arvid said. “You can be heard even if you aren’t seen.”

The boy spoke more softly but with the same intensity. “She was just a student when she came—just going for knight’s training, he said. He had a room on the same corridor … There was this other boy, who almost challenged her when he thought she was just a peasant girl, but she wasn’t, she’d been a soldier. In the south. With Duke Phelan, only now he’s king of Lyonya and she’s why, that’s what they said.”

“True,” Arvid said. Nothing was going to stop the whole recital, everything this boy knew about Paks, he could tell. “Don’t forget to watch out the window.”

“I won’t. And then—” He rattled off the tale as told by students in the training college; Arvid corrected nothing. “And why are you here?” the boy asked when he’d done.

“To tell the Archivist what I know about Paksenarrion, for your records,” Arvid said. “At the Marshal-General’s request.”

“Tell me,” the boy said. “Please, please …”

“I cannot, at least not until I have told the Archivist, so the tale will not have details worn off by retelling.”

The boy scowled. “Well … a promise to the Marshal-General. I suppose you mustn’t, then, but after … afterward, please come and tell me … us …”