“You’re working late,” he said. “It’s about midnight.”

“What are you doing up?” she demanded.

“I’ve tomorrow off, so I was down at the Cock and Hen.”

The Cock and Hen served the best bitter ale in the city, but was located in a seedy neighborhood. She bit her tongue to prevent herself from taking Fergal to task for venturing there on his own. His days as her trainee were over, but it wasn’t easy for her to slip from her role as mentor. To her mind he was still so young and inexperienced.

Young he may be, but he was now a full-fledged Rider responsible for his own conduct.

Fergal took a long, hard look at the mess on the table. “Glad that’s not my job.”

“Someone’s got to keep the books,” she said with a sigh.

“Just so long as I get paid,” Fergal said, and he left the common room whistling a tune.

“Paid?” Karigan said in honest horror. “Paid? Oh, gods, the payroll. I forgot the payroll.” And she gently thumped her forehead on the table.

If the Rider accounts mess wasn’t bad enough, there was weapons training with Arms Master Drent.

It was not every Green Rider who trained with Master Drent. In fact, currently there was only one other, and Beryl Spencer was so often away on secret missions for the king that Karigan might as well be the only one. Drent complained to no end that he’d yet to see a Green Rider attain swordmastery as their duties interrupted training far too much. Or the Rider simply got killed in the course of duty.

Drent trained only the best of the best swordmasters and swordmaster initiates. Among those he trained were the Weapons, the black-clad warriors who guarded royalty both living and dead. All Weapons were swordmasters, but not all swordmasters were Weapons. Drent’s most special pupil was the king, who was an accomplished swordmaster, though obviously the king could not become a Weapon since he could not guard himself.

Swordmasters sponsored and trained initiates, who achieved swordmastery if they passed a series of tests. From there, a swordmaster could seek service with a noble lord or go to the academy to train as a Weapon. The ways of the Weapons were secretive, and from what little Karigan could glean, the academy was located on a barren island miles off Hillander Province, where Weapons lived and trained in austere circumstances. When their training was complete they were tested one last time to determine their fitness. Drent was among those who had final say in which trainees were inducted into the elite order.

Karigan did not ask to become a swordmaster initiate, nor had she ever desired to train with Drent, but it appeared to be her fate, supported by both her captain and king. They seemed to think she had some talent with a sword. Drent was determined to prove them wrong.

She’d been training with Drent before she was officially named a swordmaster initiate, but so far there was little difference in her current training from the hammerings she received before, except for the gradual introduction of new moves and more emphasis on form. A swordmaster did not just fight for survival, but made an art of it. Being a swordmaster was more than mere fighting: it was grace, it was stealth and power, it was precision.

Karigan did not feel like any of those things, when once again, her practice partner, Flogger, whacked her across the buttocks with the flat of his wooden practice sword and sent her stumbling from the muddy practice ring. Stepping out of the ring was an automatic kill point, and she’d lost count of how many times she had been “killed” during the day’s session.

She glowered, rubbing her numb behind, while Flogger grinned at her. He’d had it in for her for months now, after she embarrassed him a time or two in the fall. Now, however, she was prohibited from employing the techniques she used before, which some would call tricks. Swordmaster initiate training, she was informed by Drent, was about the art of the sword, not tricks.

“What are you waiting for Greenie?”

Drent had crept up from behind so silently his voice made her jump. She hastened back into the small practice ring, her boots sucking in the mud.

“I want to see the whole sequence from the beginning, without pause,” Drent said, his voice one of menacing delight. He smiled, and with his thick features, it was a gruesome thing. “The Greenie will do the forms, and Flogger will counter.”

Karigan’s heart sank. She’d be stuck to the prescribed sequence, while Flogger could vary his technique as he wished in an effort to throw her off. Others paused their bouts to watch, as they often did. Karigan’s humiliation made for good sport.

They tapped swords and Flogger came at her with a simple thrust. The first form was called Aspen Leaf, in which Karigan traced the shape of an aspen leaf through the air with speed and force, meeting Flogger’s sword with a solid clank and pushing it aside; followed by crosswise slashes that represented the veins of the leaf, again swiftly met by Flogger.

Clack! Clack! Clack!

In a real fight with real swords, Aspen Leaf could slice up an opponent in a dozen different ways.

Karigan flowed into Crayman’s Circle and Snake Gliding, and Flogger, who knew the routine, turned her thrusts away and parried her slashes. They developed a rhythm so that the sequence became a dance, but she had to remain alert because she could become lost in it, oblivious to all else, only to have her opponent seize the opportunity to pull an unexpected move that caught her off guard.

So far Flogger remained steady on the rhythm, not pulling any of his usual stunts, his form impeccable. For some reason he was drawing out the sequence instead of securing a rapid victory.