Andros shook his head. “As usual, more questions than answers.”
Theos was getting pretty tired of that state of affairs. He called for another mug of ale, hoping to find wisdom in its depths, but when it was empty he had just as many questions as he’d had before.
He gathered Finnvid, who had returned to the room and found a quiet spot along the wall to sit and stare at the floor, and they headed back to the barracks.
“That was a disgrace,” Theos said calmly as they walked through the torchlit halls. “If my nine-year-old son can’t fight better than that when he arrives in the barracks as a fresh recruit, I’ll contact the temple and ask them to double-check whether he’s really mine.”
Finnvid didn’t answer.
Theos shrugged. “Starting tomorrow, you’ll train. No more sitting around. I’ll take you to the yards with me and show you some exercises. And you can watch others train, and learn from them. If we can get you toanylevel of competence, we can try to find a group for you to join, but for now it’ll be private instruction, I think.”
“I’d like that,” Finnvid said. “Thank you.”
“It’s certainly my top priority to make sure you like the terms of your servitude,” Theos replied calmly. “But you might want to wait until after tomorrow before you thank me. You have alotof ground to make up, and you’re not going to do it by being coddled.”
“I understand.”
“No, you don’t.” And he wouldn’t, not until the next day.
Still, Theos fell asleep with a little more peace in his heart than he’d felt the night before. He had a plan. There was still a lying, spying, virgin Elkati sleeping on his floor, and the blow to the nose seemed to have added “snoring” to the list of Finnvid’s negative qualities, but at least Theos had a goal. He would add “fighting capably” to the list of the Elkati’s qualities. It was enough to let him fade into a peaceful sleep.
The sense of serenity lasted through the next morning. After breakfast, he took Finnvid to the training yards and they joined in the mass run, thousands of soldiers coursing around the outside of the yards in a continuous, seething mass. It was one of Theos’s favorite exercises; it reminded him that he was part of something larger, something mobile and powerful. This was what it meant to be Torian.
Finnvid kept up. As bodies started dropping out of the mass, heading off to whatever other training they had scheduled for the day, Finnvid looked wistful as they left, but he didn’t stop running.
“This could be your skill,” Theos told him as they ran. “You’re starting too late to ever be a great soldier, and I’m not sure you’re going to fill out enough to even be a good one. But you could be a runner, carrying messages.” It was better than nothing. He glanced over at the Elkati. “How old are you, anyway? You’ve got your full height, I expect?”
“I’ve been confirmed,” Finnvid said between gasps.
Too bad he wasted his breath on something so meaningless. “Confirmed? As what?”
“As a man.” Finnvid was keeping his eyes on the track in front of them. “Surely you have initiation rituals?”
“We do.” Not that Finnvid would have passed any of them. Well, he could have gotten into the barracks as a recruit. Allthatrequired was basic health and fitness. But any further? “We have different initiations. To become a soldier, recruitsmust run the tests at one of the festivals. There’s another ritual after the first enemy is killed. To become a Sacrati, warriors must excel in all areas of training and warfare, spend a winter in the mountains alone, and be voted in by the other Sacrati.” He looked curiously at Finnvid. “What were the requirements for beingconfirmed?”
“I had my twentieth birthday,” Finnvid replied without meeting Theos’s gaze.
“Oh.” So, not an achievement exactly. “How long ago was that?”
“Last spring.”
“So you’ll probably still put on some muscle,” Theos decided. “But you’ll always be light. So running should be good for you. Or archery, possibly.” Generally, only women trained as archers, since it was considered a defensive skill and they could stay behind the city walls and send death down on anyone foolish enough to threaten the city while the men were away fighting. But Theos had heard talk of archers used as an offensive force, and maybe that would be something Finnvid could try. “Do you hunt? Can you use a bow?”
“I’ve hunted. But not with a bow.”
“Snares? Spears?”
Finnvid hesitated, then said, “Falcons.”
Theos tried to figure that out. “You hunt falcons? For food? How do you kill them without using bows or snares?”
“No, we huntwithfalcons. For rabbits, or small birds . . . that sort of thing.”
Finnvid’s Torian was almost perfect, and sometimes Theos forgot that it wasn’t his first language. “A falcon is a wild bird,” he explained. “I’m trying to think of what word you mean, but there’s nothing really close—”
Finnvid stopped running, stepping off the track so those behind them could get by. Theos stepped aside well, and stared as Finnvid explained, “We train the birds. We breed them and raise them and train them, and they hunt for us.” He was still gasping for air, but the words were clear enough, even if hard to accept.
“Falcons?”
