Kellen looked around as he pulled off his sopping raincape and hung it next to Jermayan’s on one of the row of hooks beside the door. Having seen on the night of the banquet how few Elven children there were, he didn’t expect this place to be actually crowded, even if, as Jermayan implied, all the Elven Knights from all the Nine Cities were trained here, so he wasn’t terribly surprised.
Including the four in armor, there were about twenty Knights in the room. Some of them, to Kellen’s vague surprise, seemed to be female, though he supposed there was no reason they shouldn’t be. He didn’t really know enough about the way Elves did things to know whether they cared about things like that or not. Armethalieh certainly did, but the way Armethalieh did things wasn’t the way Kellen wanted to run his life.
None of the other groups of Elves were in armor. They were all dressed just as Jermayan was—loose tunics, pants, and soft boots, though the colors varied from pale green to deep yellow to red. The ones in pale green were sitting in a corner, apparently listening to a lecture—Kellen recognized Alkandoran in that group.
Those in yellow were practicing simple forms and stances—as Kellen remembered doing a few times himself—with wooden practice blades under the guidance of a few of the red-tunic’d students. The few remaining red-tunics were sparring against each other, also with wooden swords, under the watchful eyes of other Elven Knights, all of whom seemed to be wearing some shade of darker green, though none was wearing quite the same shade that Belesharon was.
Kellen already knew that the Elves could distinguish a much wider range of colors than humans could, and he imagined all those colors meant something very particular. He only hoped he wouldn’t be expected to be able to tell what it was—he suspected that in comparison to the Elves, humans were practically color-blind.
Kellen turned his attention from the students to the building itself. The interior was the largest single room he’d ever seen. The ceiling was high—the building was actually closer to two stories in height than one—and a gallery ran around three walls of the room, with open stone staircases leading up to them on the two long sides of the building. Long windows without glass pierced the walls at regular intervals. They could be closed with heavy wooden shutters, but today the shutters were folded back.
Despite that, Kellen wasn’t in the least cold, and after a moment he realized why. Heat radiated up through the brick floor of the room, a gentle pervasive warmth that filled the air.
“There is a furnace in the chamber below this, that heats a network of pipes that warms the floor. It is one of the apprentices’ duties to keep it stoked—a duty that you will be spared,” Jermayan said with a faint smile.
Kellen grinned back. He’d chopped enough wood in the Wildwood not to be afraid of chopping more.
“It is a marvelous thing,” he said teasingly, “to have seen the Elven armies in their flower.”
“You think we are few,” Jermayan said shrewdly. “But most are in the field, and winter—especially this winter—is not a time when you will see the House heavily frequented. You worry too much, Kellen.”
“You worry too little,” Kellen said, stung to sudden honesty.
“Then teach us to worry,” Jermayan said gently. “And meanwhile, hone the skills you will need when the battle comes, as we both know it must. And learn what I could not teach you alone.”
He took Kellen’s arm and led him out of the entryway, onto the stone floor of the hall. Belesharon had concluded his instructions to the armored Knights, and turned to face Jermayan.
“I See you, Jermayan,” he said, bowing.
“I See you, Belesharon,” Jermayan said, bowing in return. “I bring you Kellen Knight-Mage, who comes from the lands of Men to learn what you can teach him.”
“I See you, Kellen- Knight-Mage,” Belesharon said. He did not bow, but studied Kellen with cold black eyes.
He’d thought Morusil was old, and until this moment, Morusil had been the oldest Elf Kellen had ever seen. But next to Belesharon, Morusil was a mere child. Up close, Belesharon’s bone-pale skin was spiderwebbed with the fine lines of age; his eyebrows nearly white. Perhaps Elves had run shorter centuries ago, or perhaps age had shrunk him; Belesharon was as small as a child, making Kellen feel lumpish and ungainly as he had not since his days in Armethalieh.
But no matter how old he was, there was nothing of infirmity about the ancient swordmaster. His eyes sparkled with alert intelligence, and his movements—as Kellen had seen previously—were lithe and swift.
