convinced that nothing said or done so far during his visit to Firheng was without purpose and that his visit to the outpost would be longer than he anticipated; his return to Elmheng began to seem like a very distance hope in his future. “Am I being assigned here?” he blurted out his question.
Casimo studied him momentarily, then smiled a smile that was both conspiratorial and sympathetic. “If you’re bright enough to ask that question, you’re bright enough to know there was no point in asking.”
Kestrel sighed, wondering what Silvan had in mind. “How long does he want to keep me hidden here? When can I go home to Elmheng?” he asked.
“My report from Colonel Silvan says that I am supposed to put you through both the first and second stage training courses we carry out, immediately and simultaneously; it’s going to be a while before you’ll be done here, and where ever you go after that, I’m pretty sure it won’t be just Elmheng,” Casimo told him. “On the positive side, and there is one, if the Colonel wants us to devote that much attention to you, he must have some very significant plans for you, and some high expectations.
“As you undoubtedly know,” Kestrel saw Casimo watching him closely now, no pretense of casual attitude about Kestrel’s presence at his camp.
“I only met Colonel Silvan less than a week ago; I just talked to him twice,” Kestrel replied. “And I am just an ordinary, everyday guardsman from Elmheng; this is my first trip away from there.”
Casimo’s eye’s narrowed. “Colonel Silvan is shrewd, and canny, and he plays his cards close to his chest, but I wouldn’t second-guess him for a minute. Whatever it is, he sees something in you that he intends to use.
“Now go out there and ask Belinda what arrangements she has made for you. Show up first thing tomorrow morning at the armory, and we’ll start your training.”
“What am I going to be trained in?” Kestrel asked.
“In the armory, you’ll be trained in the use of the staff and the sword. Your classroom work will be human language and culture, and human geography,” Casimo said as he stood up.
“Oh no, he really does think he can make me a spy!” Kestrel felt a knot of fear sink to the pit of his stomach.
“That’s why you’re here, Kestrel. It’s what we do better than anyplace else in the kingdom. We’ll give you as many tools as we can to fit into the human world, and looking at you, it’s obvious why Silvan is interested in you. There are a few issues to deal with, but those aren’t my responsibility,” Casimo told him as the commander walked around the desk.
“But for the things I can teach you, I will make you as good at the human arts as any human you’ll run into,” he added as they reached the door, Kestrel in a daze, and entered Belinda’s office.
She was no longer behind her desk, but stood near the door to the hallway. “That was lucky timing,” she told them. “I was about to finish up.” She walked back to her desk and picked up an envelope, on which Kestrel saw his own name prominently scrawled in a looping, feminine hand. “Come with me and I’ll show you where you’re staying and where you can have meals,” she beckoned him. “Will you need anything else?” she asked Casimo.
“Make sure you show him where the infirmary is. He’s going to want to visit there the next few days until he gets his training under control,” the commander added, and then they were out the door.
“You know where the armory is now,” Belinda pointed behind them in the direction that Casimo had led Kestrel from. “This is the infirmary, where I’m sure you’ll never need to visit,” she emphasized the word ‘never’ as they passed a tall, single-story building with large windows. “And this is the visitors’ quarters,” she motioned to a tall, round building with stairs on the exterior, climbing to doors that were as much as four stories high above the ground.
“You’re in luck; attendance is low right now so we’ve got two rooms on the top floor,” she informed him, referring to the higher rooms that elves preferred as a replica of staying among the lofty branches of a tree.
“Here’s a meal pass,” she handed him a small wooden tablet with colorful markings. “You can use here on base at the commissary,” she motioned down the street, “or you can use it in town at most of the food vendors, especially the ones closest to the base.”
Now, I have to hurry home and fix dinner for my husband, so I’m afraid I have to leave you here,” she said as they stood in front of the stairs to the guest quarters. “You run up there and get a room for yourself!” she smiled her dazzling smile once again.
“Belinda,” Kestrel said before she could turn away. “How long will I be here?”
“Most of our guests are here for about a half year,” she said, “but it varies from person to person.
“However long it is, we’ll do everything we can to make your stay a good one,” she assured him, then turned and walked away. Kestrel watched for over a minute as she went to the gate and left the base, then he turned and climbed the stairs up to the top floor, where he selected a room on the east side of the building to be his new home.
It was a large room, with a bed, table, and four chairs, as well as a stand and a hutch. He pulled one of the chairs out through the doorway and sat on his small porch, looking out across the wall of the military base at the city beyond, where he watched people go about their business on the streets. He momentarily detected a faint smell, one that was unfamiliar and made him wrinkle his nose, but then the wind shifted and he only sniffed fresh air once again.
He didn’t know what to do, or what to say, or even what to think. Somehow, in delivering a message to Firheng, he had become a candidate to be a spy, something that he would never consider on his own, something he had never even really heard anything about before he arrived in Center Trunk just a few days ago. Had Commander Mastrin suggested it to Silvan in the first message that Kestrel had carried, or had Silvan come up with the idea on his own? Nothing made any sense to Kestrel. He watched the shadows across the city lengthen as the sun set at the end of the day, then he climbed down the stairs and went to eat dinner at the commissary, and returned to his room for a fitful night of questions and sleep.
The next morning Kestrel awoke as the sun rose in the east and its rays shone into his room. He groggily left his bed and went to the commissary for juice and a meat roll, then returned to the armory, where he heard the sound of clashing weapons already in action as he opened the door.
“Welcome back, sunshine!” Arlen said brightly when he recognized Kestrel standing at the door. “Go put on pads, then come over here to start,” he directed.
And with that, Kestrel’s education began. He suffered several days of painful instruction in the use of the staff and the sword before he began to establish some basic sufficiency with the two weapons. Elves seldom used the weapons, which required close proximity to an opponent, and which penalized the slight frames and weight that characterized elves, but Kestrel’s partial human heritage and his sturdier build helped him to adjust to both weapons, and to show enough promise with them that he didn’t despair of becoming competent eventually.
Learning the human language was a much more difficult lesson, however. It sounded fluid and musical to Kestrel, and he actually looked forward to speaking the long, languid consonant-rich words, but his mouth resisted making the shapes and sounds.
“Make a ‘
After a week at Firheng, Belinda told him he was entitled to write one message a week to be sent through the couriers of the guard, and after careful consideration, he wrote a message to Cheryl at Elmheng, and left it with Belinda for delivery. The following day she informed him that it had been examined — she didn’t say by whom — and determined to tell too much about his future prospects as a spy. He rewrote the letter with little real information left in it, and submitted it again for dispatch.
The letter to Cheryl was a composition that made Kestrel uneasy with guilt. He felt guilty that he had come so close to kissing Lucretia on the same day he had met her, and he felt conversely guilty that when he had to pick to write a first message, he had chosen to write it to Cheryl instead of Lucretia. When his second opportunity came to write a message, he wrote it to Lucretia, and then felt uneasy that he might have misinterpreted how closely they had come to one another during their one-day acquaintance.
He flipped back and forth, week by week, writing to Cheryl and Lucretia, though no response came back from either; he had been told that none would be allowed during his first three months of training, so that he would focus on his classes and weapons. He was left to wonder how his news was received by the respective recipients. Writing the letters was cathartic; even though he wasn’t able to write down his feelings or express
