Arcolin read the letter twice, feeling tears sting his eyes. Kieri had never expected to be king; he himself had never expected to inherit the entire company and domain. It was … ridiculous.

And yet the finality in the letter, Kieri’s determined turning away, the lack of questions, of any request for information, made it all real. Kieri had gone away—for a good reason—and left him a gift worth—he could not guess how many crowns or natas. A gift beyond price … and the greatest part, Kieri’s trust that he could—no, he would—nurture it as Kieri himself had done.

“Well,” he said aloud, to the person who was not there. “I will do that. I will.”

He refolded the letter and put it back in its case, tucking the case under the blanket of his camp bed.

Outside, he heard the sergeants scolding some hapless recruits for being lazy and slow with their shields. It had been days since he himself drilled; he walked to the area the sergeants had laid out.

“Captain!” Devlin called. Arcolin waved, pointed to the stack of bandas, and took one, shrugging into it, then put down his longsword to pick up a short one and a shield. The sounds died down; Stammel shouted at them, and the thuds and clangs speeded up again.

They had finished the warm-up drills and were well into file-on-file. Arcolin signaled Devlin, who made space for him on the second row and told one of the others to stand out. Short-sword formation work wasn’t his usual way of fighting, but he practiced it regularly anyway—Kieri had done so, on the grounds that a commander might need to fight in formation in a tight spot. With only one cohort, that chance might come oftener.

“Shield position,” Devlin muttered. Arcolin shifted his shield a hand to the left. Devlin called the front rank to drop back through the second; Arcolin managed the side-step to open ranks and then close again. Now he was in front; the front-rank center of the opposing side made a tentative poke at him, easily blocked, and Stammel yelled.

In a few minutes, Arcolin was sweaty and had two new bruises, one for missing a parry and one from holding his shield at the wrong angle. He could feel the mood of the cohort better this way—they liked it when the captains got dusty and sweaty, too, and they particularly liked it when they took some lumps. Devlin called a shift to the right; Stammel, anticipating, moved his group, too, but Arcolin saw an opening and gave someone—Tam, he saw—a hit in the ribs that would bruise even through the banda.

Then he heard Burek call his name; the sergeants called a hold, and the noise stopped. Arcolin moved out of the formation with a wave to Devlin; Burek and a Gird’s Marshal were riding up to the drill field. Arcolin pulled off the banda, set the short sword and shield down, and picked up his longsword, sliding it into the hanger then wiping the sweat off his face.