Tarli was chained, muzzled, and gagged. Set in front of him were a gnawed bone and a sign: beware! kender bites!
Tarli watched the others with patient indifference.
'Mustn't leave you thirsty.' Janeel poured a full flagon of ale down Maglion's throat, some of it foaming into the fat boy's nostrils. He choked and sputtered.
'And now' — Janeel waved a cake in front of Maglion like a conjurer — 'a nut cake! Made with real honey. Don't you want it? Or should I feed it to Kender Stew?' He held it to Tarli's nose. 'Poor Kender Stew. Has to beg for treats.' He spun, and mashed it into Maglion's face. 'Gully Gut gets them for nothing.'
He pulled the fat boy's hair, forced open his mouth, and shoved the entire cake in. Then he mashed Maglion's jaw up and down on the cake. A single angry tear leaked from the fat boy's eyes.
'Wait.' The voice sounded weary, embarrassed, and ashamed. To Moran's surprise, it was Saliak who spoke. 'This is wrong. I've been wrong.'
He wiped Maglion's face clean, using one of his shirts as a towel, then untied his arms. The fat boy took the shirt from him without a word and finished cleaning himself.
'I thought it was fun.' Saliak bent down and undid the strap buckles on Steyan's knees and elbows. 'I thought, they're strange, and we're not, and it's only… fun.'
Steyan, free of the trunk, stumbled and fell. Saliak massaged Steyan's arms and legs to bring the feeling back.
'We all thought that.' Saliak looked around anxiously. 'Didn't we? We all laughed.' He looked as far as Tarli and looked away, flushing. When Steyan groaned and rolled over, Saliak stepped to Tarli.
'I never thought about the Oath.' Saliak unlatched the chain. 'And the Measure was just, well, classroom stuff.' He unbuckled the muzzle and said, as he untied the gag, 'I wouldn't blame you if you wanted to hit me.'
'Fair enough,' Tarli said, and kicked Saliak in the groin.
The others gasped, in surprise and in sympathetic pain. Maglion and Steyan looked as though, after a rainy spring, the sun had broken through.
Saliak, when he could rise to his knees, gasped, 'Is that any way for a knight to fight?'
Tarli shrugged. 'You'd rather fight face-to-face?'
Saliak looked green. 'I'd rather not fight just now'
'But you insulted my honor. Repeatedly. And now you know it.'
Saliak blinked several times; he was having trouble focusing. 'The Measure says that if I choose not to fight, and have apologized, then you must accept my apology.'
Tarli nodded. 'So it does.' He added, so casually that Moran's heart froze within him, 'But my own code is more important than the Measure. Face-to-face?'
Saliak nodded, grunting with the effort.
'Good.' Tarli tilted Saliak's head up. With the taller boy on his knees, the two boys were on eye level. Tarli clenched his hands together and swung them both into Saliak's face, knocking him backward.
'This may hurt a little — '
After a few more punches, Tarli propped Saliak upright with the thonged stick and began a systematic top- tobottom dismantling of Saliak, punches only. Moran, watching in dismay, had to admit that what Tarli did not know about mercy or the Measure, he clearly made up for with his knowledge of anatomy.
At length, Tarli, staggering under the weight, carried the beaten Saliak to bed. Steyan and Maglion shook Tarli's hand several times. Then, to Moran's immense relief, the two larger boys dressed and bandaged Saliak. Everyone but Tarli seemed at last to understand what the Measure was, to a knight.
Moran hated doing it.
He could see Loraine's laughing face, quizzical and completely trusting. All that summer, she had never looked as though she thought anyone would hurt her, and he had tried very hard never to be the one who did.
After breakfast, Rakiel, with every show of sympathy and every indication of smugness, went down the stairs and sent Tarli up.
Moran argued with himself a final time. The best I could hope for, he said to himself, is that it would be many years before he failed. And then it would be trial, and conviction, and the black roses of guilt on the table.
He sat quietly, rehearsing what he would say. As many years as he had sent squires from the manor, Moran always hated good-byes — unexpected good-byes the most.
At the end of the summer, Loraine came
to him. 'I'm going away. Don't ask, and don't follow.'
He argued, but she stood firm. 'You have
your duty. your honor is your life,
remember? Keep your honor for my sake.
Remember your promise to me.'
She kissed him. He tried to catch her, but
she twisted out of his hold and was gone -
both from his arms and from Xak Tsaroth.
She was carrying a duffel that he hadn't
even noticed she'd brought. Hurt, he
watched her walk away. As the winds from
the side streets blew across her, she
carefully patted her hair in place over her
ars. She did not look back.
Moran returned to his studies. Years
later, when he heard that Loraine had
returned, he didn't go to visit her.
Tarli knocked. For once, Moran didn't put on the Mask, but left his face as gentle and weary as he'd seen it in the mirror. 'Come in.'
Tarli had his duffel and thonged stick with him. He looked at Moran quizzically. 'I've never seen you at your desk. Is that where you wrote The Brightblade Tactics?'
'Yes.' Moran gestured at the other chair. 'Sit down.'
Without further delays, he began: 'Tarli, I've watched your progress these past few weeks. You've done wonders, in spite of your size.'
Tarli nodded proudly.
'And in every situation — and I know that in some training sessions you've faced real danger — you haven't shown the slightest fear.'
Tarli looked puzzled. 'Of course not.'
'Most of your classmates found it harder. In three decades of novices, you're probably the most courageous boy I've ever taught.'
Tarli beamed.
Moran did not smile back. 'However, your courage showed itself in — well, in strange ways. Instead of using weapons, you broke or… took them. Instead of accepting training as offered, you took it and reshaped it. It would not be too much to say that you changed everyone else's training, too.'
Tarli sat rigidly. 'I did my best for them.' He seemed not to understand what was happening to him.
'There has also been a problem of property' — Moran tried to dance around it — 'private property. You don't seem to acknowledge others' property as off-limits, unavailable.'
Tarli frowned, irked. 'If people would just label things — '
'We can't label everything, and what with one thing and another — ' Moran waved his arm. 'Lances, daggers, miscellaneous books, and foodstuffs — this has been the costliest term I can remember.'
Tarli scratched his head. 'I've heard people saying that costs are going up all over the city.'
Moran said more diffidently, 'Finally, in private, you've faced a certain amount of… of hardship from the other
