He sat down opposite the boy; Marshal Steralt left the room and closed the door, surprising Arvid. He had not been so trustful before. “How have you been?” he asked.

“Marshal sent me to a farm, a day and a half journey from the city,” the boy said promptly. “It was a family. There was a girl my age and an older boy and two younger, girl and boy. They have four cows … well, one’s only last year’s calf, really. Three had calves. Chickens, too. All the eggs anyone wanted, eggs every day at breakfast. And sheep—they have sheep, and they shear them, and the lady spins the wool and they have a loom and they all know how to knit, all but the youngest. I can knit now, too. And they grow grain and vegetables, and they fed me so much, I could hardly finish it, and the lady made me this shirt and trousers to grow into, she said. And the Marshal bought me these shoes.”

“Did you like being on the farm?” Arvid asked.

“Yes—it’s busier some ways than the Guildhouse—everyone works at something all day—but it’s not all hard work. I learned to go out with the geese first, and then the sheep, though not alone. They had dogs, too, and pigs—”

It must have been a rich farm, Arvid thought.

“And you could drink right from the stream; it was so clear you could see the bottom, and it smelled good, like herbs and mint, not like the stream here in the city.”

“Would you like to stay on that farm?” Arvid asked, keeping his voice neutral. “Be part of that family, learn to be a farmer?”

The boy’s face shifted expression. “I … I’m not ungrateful, sir, but … but I thought, if you came, we would be together.”

Arvid leaned across the table and put his hand over the boy’s hands where they were clenched together. “I do not truly know if you are the son of my body or not, young Arvid, but I care about you as if you were. If you will, you may come with me. I am going a long journey, over the pass to the north, and then west to Fintha, the land Gird came from, to Fin Panir where the Marshal-General lives. Do you want to come, or stay in this familiar land with folk you already know?”

Now joy spread across that young face. “Oh, please—I want to come with you!” he said.

“How well do you ride?” Arvid asked.

“Ride? A horse? You’ll let me ride a horse?”

That answered one question. “I have to buy one for you first.” And it would have to be that hardest to find of horses: suitable for a novice, calm in temperament, well trained, but with the soundness and endurance to handle a long season on the road.