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“He fixes you with his eyes,” he explained. “He stares, you stare back, you’re fixed, then he attacks while you’re still wondering what he’s planning. Don’t look at his eyes, look at his feet and his sword.”
    Barkus took a bite from an apple and grunted. “He’s right you know. I thought he was trying to hypnotise me.”
    “ What’s hypnotise?” asked Dentos.
    “ It’s looks like magic but really it’s just a trick,” Barkus replied. “At last year’s Summertide fair there was a man who could make people think they were a pig. He’d get them to root in the ground and oink and roll in shit.”
    “ How?”
    “ I don’t know, some kind of trick. He’d wave a bauble in front of their eyes and talk quietly to them for a while, then they’d do whatever he said.”
    “ Do you think Master Sollis can do such things?” asked Jennis, the boy Sollis said looked like a donkey.
    “ Faith, who knows? I’ve heard the masters of the Orders know many Dark things, especially in the Sixth Order.” Barkus held up a drumstick appreciatively before taking a large bite. “It seems that they know cookery as well. They make us sleep on straw and beat us every hour of the day, but they want to feed us well.”
    “ Yeh,” Dentos agreed. “Like my uncle Sim’s dog.”
    There was a puzzled silence. “Your uncle Sim’s dog?” Nortah enquired.
    Dentos nodded, chewing busily on a mouthful of pie. “Growler. Best fightin’ hound in the western counties. Ten victories ‘fore he ‘ad ‘is throat torn out last winter. Uncle Sim loved that dog, ‘ad four kids of ‘is own, to three diff’rent women mind, but he loved that dog better’n any of ‘em, feed Growler ‘fore the kids he would. Best of stuff too, mind. Give the kids gruel and the dog beef steak.” He chuckled wryly. “Rotten old bastard.”
    Nortah was unenlightened. “What does it matter what some Renfaelin peasant feeds his dog?”
    “ So it would fight better,” Vaelin said. “Good food builds strong muscles. That’s why war horses are fed best corn and oats and not set to grazing pasture.” He nodded at the food on the table. “The better they feed us, the better we’ll fight.” He met Nortah’s eyes. “And I don’t think you should call him a peasant. We’re all peasants here.”
    Nortah stared back coldly. “You have no right to lead, Al Sorna. You may be the Battle Lord’s son…”
    “ I’m no-one’s son and neither are you.” Vaelin took a bread roll, his stomach was growling. “Not any more.”
    They lapsed into silence, concentrating on the meal. After a while a fight broke out at one of the other tables, plates and food scattering amidst a flurry of fists and kicks. Some boys joined in right away, others stood by shouting encouragement, most simply stayed at their tables, some not even glancing up. The fight raged for a few minutes before one of the masters, the large man with the seared scalp, came over to break it up, swinging a hefty stick with grim efficiency. The boys who had been in the thick of the fight were checked for serious injury, blood mopped from noses and lips, and sent back to the table. One had been knocked unconscious and two boys were ordered to carry him to the infirmary. Before long the din of conversation returned to the hall as if nothing had happened.
    “ I wonder how many battles we’ll be in,” Barkus said.
    “ Lots and lots,” Dentos responded. “You ‘eard what the fat Master said.”
    “ They say war in the Realm is a thing of the past,” said Caenis. It was the first time he had spoken and he seemed wary of offering an opinion. “Maybe there won’t be any battles for us to fight.”
    “ There’s always another war,” Vaelin said. It was something he had heard his mother say, actually she shouted it at his father during one of their arguments. It was before the last time his father went away, before she got sick. The King’s Messenger had arrived in the morning with a