“I didn’t know who they were until later, Aspect.” The truth, hiding a lie. He felt himself start to sweat and prayed it didn’t show on his face. “They were strangers lost in a storm. The Catechism of Charity tells us to treat a stranger as a brother.”

Corlin Al Sentis raised his head slightly, his unwavering glare taking on a calculating cast. “I didn’t know the Catechism of Charity was taught here.”

“It isn’t, Aspect. My… mother taught me all the catechisms.”

“Yes. She was a lady of considerable charity. You haven’t answered my question.”

He didn’t have to lie. “She didn’t touch me, Aspect.”

“You know the power of her touch? What it does to men’s souls?”

“Brother Makril told me. Truly I was fortunate to escape such a fate.”

“Truly.” The Aspect’s gaze softened, but only slightly. “You may feel that this Test has been harsh but you realise what awaits you will be harder still. Life in your Order is never easy. Many of your brothers will succumb to madness or maiming before they are called to the Departed. You know this?”

Vaelin nodded. “I do, Aspect.”

“It does you credit that you decided to stay, when you could have left with no stain on your character. Your devotion to the Faith will be remembered.”

For no apparent reason Vaelin felt these words to be a threat, a threat the Aspect didn’t even know he was making. But he forced himself to say, “Thank you, Aspect.”

Outside he closed the door softly behind him, resting his back to it, exhaling explosively in relief. He didn’t notice the others staring for a few seconds. They looked worried, especially Dentos.

“Faith help me,” Dentos breathed softly, clearly appalled at Vaelin’s countenance.

Vaelin straightened, fixed what he knew to be a weak smile on his face and walked away, trying not to hurry.

With the exception of Dentos, the Test of Knowledge left a cloud of depression over them all. Caenis was silent, Barkus monosyllabic, Nortah aggressively truculent and Vaelin so preoccupied with memories of his mother that he found himself wandering through the rest of the day in a miserable daze, tossing scraps to Scratch and fending off his attempts at play, before joining the others for a desultory game of knives on the practice field.

“What a piece of piss that was,” Dentos said, the only one of them to retain any semblance of good humour, sending a knife skyward to connect with the board Barkus had tossed into the air. His cheerfulness was made more annoying by his apparent ignorance of the mood of his companions. “I mean they didn’t ask me anything about the Order, just kept going on about my mum and where I grew up. The lady Aspect, Elera whatsername, asked if I was homesick. Homesick? Like I’d want to go back to that shit pit.”

He retrieved the board, working his knife loose and casting it upwards for Nortah’s throw. The knife went wide, in fact it went so wide it nearly caught Dentos on the head.

“Watch it!”

“Stop talking about the test,” Nortah said in a tone heavy with dark promise.

“What’s the problem?” Dentos laughed, genuinely puzzled. “I mean we all passed didn’t we? We’re all still here, and we get to go to the Summertide Fair.”

Vaelin wondered why it hadn’t occurred to him before that they had all passed the test. Because it doesn’t feel like a success, he realised.

“We just don’t want to talk about it, Dentos,” he said. “We didn’t find it as easy as you did. Best if we don’t mention it again.”

Altogether six boys from other groups failed the test and had to leave. They watched them go the next morning, dark huddled shapes in the mist, walking silently through the gate bearing their meagre possessions in the packs they had been allowed to keep. Sobbing could be heard echoing through the courtyard. It was impossible to tell which of the boys was crying, whether it was one or all. It seemed to go on for a long time, even after they had faded from view.

“I wouldn’t be shedding any tears, that’s for sure,” Nortah said. They were on the wall, wrapped tightly in their cloaks, waiting for the sun to burn the mist away and breakfast to appear in the dining hall.

“Wonder where they’ll go,” Barkus said. “Wonder if they’ve got anywhere to go.”

“The Realm Guard,” Nortah replied. “It’s full of rejects from the Order. May be why they hate us so much.”

“Sod that,” Dentos grunted. “I know where I’d be headed. Straight for the docks. Get me a berth on one of them big trader ships that go west. Uncle Fantis went to the far west on a ship, came back rich as stink. Silks and medicines. The only rich man in our village's history. Didn’t do him any good, dropped dead a year after coming back, a black pox he picked up from some harbour doxy.”

“Life on a ship’s no life, what I hear,” Barkus said. “Bad food, floggings, work from morn to night. Like being in the Order I s’pose, except for the food. Reckon I’d take to the woods, make myself a famous outlaw. I’d have my own band of cut-throats, but we wouldn’t cut anyone’s throat. We’d just steal their gold and jewels, only rich folk though. Poor folk’ve got nothing worth stealing.”

“Clearly, you’ve put a lot of thought into it, brother,” Nortah commented dryly.

“Man needs a plan in this life. What about you? Where’d you go?”

Nortah turned back to the gate, still shrouded in the morning mist, his face drawn in a depth of longing Vaelin hadn’t seen before. “Home,” he said softly. “I’d just go home.”

Chapter 5

A week or so after the Test of Knowledge Master Sollis took them to a cavernous chamber off the courtyard, thick with heat and the stench of smoke and metal. Waiting inside was Master Jestin, the Order’s rarely seen principal blacksmith. He was a large man, emanating strength and confidence, brawny arms crossed in front of his chest, his hairy body marked with numerous pink scars where splashes of molten metal had escaped the forge. Struck by the evident power of the man Vaelin wondered if he had even felt it.

“Master Jestin will forge your swords,” Sollis informed them. “For the next two weeks you will work under his guidance and assist in the forging. By the time you leave the smithy you will each have a sword you will carry for the rest of your time in the Order. You should remember that Master Jestin does not share my generous and forgiving nature, mind him well.”

Alone with the blacksmith they stood in silence as he surveyed them, his bright blue eyes scanning each in turn.

“You,” he pointed a thick, blackened finger at Barkus who was looking at a stack of freshly made pole-axes. “You’ve been in a smithy before.”

Barkus hesitated. “My f-… I grew up near a smithy in Nilsael, master.”

Vaelin raised an eyebrow at Caenis. Given that Barkus adhered strictly to the rules and said little or nothing about his upbringing it was a surprise to find his father had been a craftsman. Boys with fathers in trade tended not to end up in the Order, a boy with a future had no need to seek a life elsewhere.

“Ever see a sword forged?” Master Jestin asked him.

“No, master. Knives, plough blades, many horseshoes, a weather vane or two.” He laughed a little. Master Jestin didn’t.

“Weather vane’s a difficult thing to forge,” he said. “Not all smiths can do it. Only master smiths are allowed to forge such a thing. It’s a rule of the Guild, shaping metal to read the song of the wind is a rare skill. Know that, did you?”

Barkus looked away and Vaelin realised he was chastened, shamed somehow. Something had passed between them, he knew, something the rest of them couldn’t understand. It had to do with this place and the art practised here, but he knew Barkus wouldn’t talk of it. In his own way he had as many secrets as the rest of them. “No, master,” was all he said.

“This place,” Master Jestin said, spreading his arms, encompassing the smithy. “This place is of the Order but it belongs to me. I am King, Aspect, Commander, Lord and Master of this place. This is not a place for games. It is not a place for japes. It is a place for work and learning. The Order requires that you know the art of working metal. To truly wield a weapon with skill it is necessary that you understand the nature of its fashioning, to be part of the craft that brought it into being. The swords you will make here will keep you alive and defend the Faith in the years to come. Work well and you will have a sword to rely on, a blade of strength with an edge keen enough to cut steel plate. Work poorly and your swords will break in your first battle and you will die.”

Once more he turned his gaze on Barkus, his cold stare seeming to contain a question. “The Faith is the source of all our strength, but our service to the Faith requires steel. Steel is the instrument by which we honour the Faith. Steel and blood is the whole of your future. Do you understand?”

They all murmured their agreement, but Vaelin knew Barkus was the only one to whom the question had been addressed.

The rest of the day was spent shovelling coke into the furnace and lifting stacks of iron rods into the smithy from a heavily laden cart in the courtyard. Master Jestin spent his time at the anvil, his hammer a constant, singing rhythm of metal on metal, glancing up occasionally to issue instructions amidst a fountain of sparks. Vaelin found it grim, monotonous work, his throat raw with smoke and his ears dulled from the endless din of the hammer.