Kings of the North - Elizabeth Moon [76]
“Which excludes you,” Marshal Perin said, “since you are not known to me.”
“If the others are your fellow Girdsmen, they will not let me steal.”
“I will ask,” Marshal Perin said. “But I do not know if they will follow your advice or wishes. Will you wait here or come with me?”
“I will wait,” Arvid said, for that, he thought, would ease the Marshal’s mind a bit. “Leave the door open, if you will, for the breeze.” The first cool breath of air had come through the window into the stuffy little room. Marshal Perin nodded and left. Arvid took his pack off the peg and removed from it those items he might need in the night, then hung it again. He checked his blades, one by one, and when satisfied lay down on the narrow bed and waited. It was not long before someone paused at the door and looked in: a bright-eyed youngster in the gray tunic and trousers of a student.
“Are you a visitor?” the boy asked, then flushed as if he’d realized it was a stupid question.
“Yes,” Arvid said. “But I’m not supposed to talk to students.”
“Why not?” Now the boy leaned on the door frame. “Have you done something bad?”
Arvid made a show of thinking about that. “Not lately,” he said finally. “Have you?”
“Not really bad. I did say a bad word when I hit myself with a hauk—see, here’s the bruise—” He pushed up his sleeve to show a bruise on his upper arm. “—and I didn’t think Marshal Gerrit would know it was a bad word because it’s dwarvfish—my brother taught it to me—but he did.”
“What was it?” Arvid asked.
“Char-chardnik,” the boy said. “All the words ending in -nik are dwarvfish, Olin said.”
Arvid struggled with laughter and choked it back. “Sorry, Olin’s wrong. Do you even know what chardnik means?”
“Horse droppings?”
“Er … no. It’s not a dwarvish word; lots of words that aren’t dwarvish end in -nik, and it means something your father would whip you for saying.”
“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