Storm Warning - Mercedes Lackey [80]
The door opened, and Ulrich walked in as Karal put down the book with a slightly guilty start. His master only dropped his gaze to the little volume in his hands and smiled.
“I see you have been putting your time to some good use,” he said. “But before you wear out your eyes, I have some other duties for you to attend to, while I am at private meetings.”
He must have looked disappointed, for Ulrich only chuckled. “Don’t fret, they have little or nothing to do with negotiations. I’m going to meet with Lady Elspeth and Darkwind on a regular basis to analyze our various magics. I’ll be doing the same with the representatives of the White Winds and Blue Mountain mage-schools. You would find all that very boring, and there would be nothing you could record that would be at all useful.”
Karal sighed but nodded his agreement. His own mage-craft was minimal; barely enough to light a fire, and that only if he happened to be particularly hard-pressed. In ordinary circumstances, he would be well advised to keep a firestriker on his person. “Yes, sir,” he said with obedient docility. “What is it you wish me to do?”
“Attend classes,” came the surprising reply. “I wish you to become as fluent in Valdemaran as you are in our tongue. There may be shades of meaning in our negotiations that I may miss otherwise. I do not have the time to spare for this, and you do.”
Well, that was reasonable enough. He and Arnod had been able to make conversation last night, but it had been stilted and rudimentary, and both of them had paused often to search for words. Someone needed to be able to understand all the talk going on around them. For that matter, he could pick up a lot of information from idle conversation if no one realized that he was exceptionally fluent in Valdemaran.
He nodded, but Ulrich wasn’t finished yet. “You are going to spend far too much time sitting at a desk,” he continued. “You need exercise, and more than that, you need to learn how to defend yourself. I can hold off an enemy with magic, but if you were ambushed by someone, what would you do?”
Karal opened his mouth to reply, then thought better of it and closed it again. Ulrich was right; what had served him at the inn and the Children’s Cloister would do him no good here. He was no longer just another child, and anyone who intended to attack him here was likely to be trained and practiced, perhaps even an assassin. Yes, the Valdemarans had provided guards, but anyone who had weathered the war with Ancar knew that guards were not always enough. For that matter, there were probably plenty of people in the Valdemaran ranks who would like to see him dead as a means of starting hostilities again.
“I’ve arranged for Johen to come and take you to your weaponry teacher in a few moments,” Ulrich said. “So you ought to change into something like your riding gear; something you can sweat and tumble about in, and do it before he arrives.”
“Yes, sir,” Karal replied and stood up quickly. He was all the way to the door of his room when he thought to ask a question.
“Who is going to be teaching me these things, sir, do you know?” he asked, as he looked for a clean set of riding clothes in the chest at the foot of his bed. In a way, he was hoping to hear that Rubrik was to be his language teacher. It made sense, and Rubrik was the one friendly, familiar face here.
“Well, there’s only one person who is equally fluent in Valdemaran and Karsite,” came the easy reply. “Herald Alberich, the Weaponsmaster. He’s already agreed to the idea.”
Clothing dropped from Karal’s numb hands, and he felt as if his stomach had dropped right out of his body.
Alberich? The Alberich? The Great Traitor? The man whose very name was used as a synonym for traitor back home?
The man whose intimate knowledge of the Karsite