Valdemar 06 - [Exile 02] - Exile’s Valor by Mercedes Lackey

worse; this could be summer.”
    â€œIt will be summer before they see the end of their labor,” Elcarth said. “I intend to leave them down there for more than a moon. Master Cuelin tells me his apprentice is ready to go on to more complicated work, and he doesn’t have a junior apprentice to start on the bellows or do any of the other simple labor in and around the place. So our lads can serve until he gets one. It could have been worse. At least it was only one mirror panel, not two or more.”
    â€œHow often does this occur?” Alberich asked curiously. “Assume, I must, that accidents do happen. Stupidity probably rather more often than accident.”
    Elcarth shrugged. “About once every hundred years or so. I mean, we designed the salle to minimize the possibility of an accident, and you Weaponsmasters rarely permit flying objects in the salle itself. It does happen, and it isn’t always a Trainee’s fault, though I must say that this time is probably going into Myste’s Chronicles for sheer wrongheadedness. The panels are all a standard size, and the glassworks has the dimensions in their records from the last time, so Master Cuelin won’t even have to come up here to take measurements. I can’t tell you how long it’s going to take to replace the mirror, though. The Master will have a lot of failures before he gets a success.”
    â€œI would interested be, to watch,” Alberich admitted. “Or at least, to hear from the Master how such a thing is made.”
    â€œThen deliver the criminals yourself in the morning, after breakfast,” Elcarth told him. “Someone will have to escort them the first time.”
    Alberich took quick account of his schedule, and smiled thinly. “So I shall,” he decided.
    Arissa laughed, her voice full of ironic humor. “Oh, they’ll enjoy seeing your face tomorrow morning!”

    The snow was still falling all that afternoon, into the night, and the next day, and Alberich had sent word up to the Collegia that the Trainees were to have a day-and-a-half holiday from their weaponry classes while the salle was cleaned. A small army of Collegium servants were scouring the salle floor for the tiniest slivers of glass, and would not leave until the floor had been swept several times over, then washed down, huffed and lightly sanded, so that it wasn’t slippery. The one proviso to this “holiday” was that the Trainees were to spend the class time out of doors, but with this much snow, he doubted that would be much of a trial for them. The first lot was already building a snow fort when he and Kantor left to escort the two troublemakers to their appointed labors, while snow continued to fall from a sky that was the same color as a pigeon’s breast, and looked just as soft.
    When Alberich got to the grounds of Herald’s Collegium, the two boys were waiting for him on the road that ran among the buildings, mounted, Adain on his Companion and Mical on a sorrel gelding from the Palace stables. There was a conspicuous absence of Trainees anywhere near them; they waited alone in their disgrace.
    As Alberich and Kantor approached, he observed that Adain and Mical looked just as subdued as they had last night, and even Adain’s Companion drooped a little. They kept the hoods of their cloaks well up, and aside from a soft, “Good morrow, Weaponsmaster Alberich,” he got nothing more out of them. Not that he intended to try to get them to talk. It would do them good to contemplate their sins in silence.
    Snow drifted down now as fat, slow flakes; there wasn’t even a breath of wind, and the air smelled damp. Most of the trees bore burdens of snow along their black, bare branches, and large mounds bore testament to bushes hidden under heaps of the stuff. Nothing had spoiled the pure whiteness yet, except for where the road had been cleared by the Palace gardeners.
    By midmorning,