The Wayward Knights

Chapter 3

Gerik of Tirabot halted his descent from the wall as a loose stair stone turned under his foot. He knelt to examine the stone more closely.

One more piece of work for the masons, he thought. A long list already, certain to become longer and costlier.

He wondered what it would cost to gird the manor house and outbuildings with a wall such as had once defended the old Tirabot Keep up the hill. Or one such as the dwarves were now finishing at the citadel of Belkuthas, far to the south. This would certainly be a sum far beyond his father's means, and likely to daunt even those Knights of Solamnia who supported the idea of a strong Tirabot.

Another reason for not submitting himself as a candidate for the knights, Gerik decided. If they did not think they owed his father protection, then certainly Pirvan of Tirabot did not owe them his only son.

He leaped down the last few steps, landing with flexed ankles and no unexpected pains. He was proud of being as fir and trained in arms as any knight-even Sir Niebar had called him so. Perhaps not having to spend so much time memorizing all the books that the Orders demanded helped, giving him more time for arms practice.

No, that was unjust to the Knights of Solamnia, and flattered himself. Gerik had not asked to join the knights because, as the son of Sir Pirvan, he was captain over the manor when his father was away. Even when Gerik traveled with his father, both Pirvan and his other companion treated him as a full-fledged warrior. To return to being treated as a child, as he would be during his training among the knights, was not something Gerik could face.

This was hardly a reason he could confess to his father, Pirvan had submitted to the training of the knights when he was rising thirty, a seasoned master thief of Istar and all but a married man as well. Pirvan would wonder (aloud) if Gerik thought the rule about learning to obey before you learned to command did not apply to him.

Footsteps behind made him turn. His sister Rubina was hurrying up to him, holding a pewter tray with a letter on it, the ink still drying.

"Brother, can you read this letter of mine to our parents before I seal it?" she asked. "I want to know if I have said everything as I ought to, and not written down any family secrets."

"I thought your tutor does that," Gerik said impatiently.

"He's asleep."

"Not drunk at this time of day, I hope."

"No," she said. "He complained of a headache, but I didn't smell wine on his breath."

"Good."

Chedishin (the short form of his name) was a half-elven retired man-at-arms, whom Pirvan kept on as a tutor for his children; one way of keeping him from starving. With no need to worry about food, Chedishin had for a while indulged himself in wine, until Pirvan frowned and threatened.

Gerik read the letter with great attention, not wishing to offend his younger sister. She wrote a very fair hand and seldom put a word wrong. It was almost as if the great learning of her namesake, a Black Robe wizard who had helped to win Waydol's War but had not survived it, had been passed on to the girl.

As for the rest, she promised to be sturdy rather than tall, and comely rather than beautiful, but Gerik was sure she would have as many suitors as a reasonable girl could wish. He hoped that his parents would live on for many years yet, so that all the work of telling the decent suitors from the others would not fall to him.

He finished the letter and handed it back to Rubina. She read doubt on his face. "Is it the part about how the walls are growing that you do not like?" she asked.

"Yes."

"I thought of that. But Father and Mother have been away long enough that matters have changed. Also, they talked much about strengthening this place, when they thought I could not hear. I know it is a worry to them."

“It is also knowledge our enemies might pay to have," Gerik told her.

"Yes, but if the king-"

"If 'our enemies…' " Gerik said, an edge in his voice.

Rubina shrugged, and said, "We know friends from enemies. Even I do. But I was going to say, if our enemies want to buy the knowledge, they can have it for pennies from any herdsman who has driven his cattle past our gate. They do not need to open our letters."

That was, unfortunately, true. Fortifying Tirabot Manor was not something that could be hidden-any more than could the fortifying of other farms, manors, and estates among their neighbors go unnoticed. A plague of building was abroad in the land, and Gerik thought that by the time it was done, the only folk left with any money would be the masons!

Rubina could send the letter, however. He was about to tell her so when a sentry hailed him from the roof of the manor. "Ho, Master Gerik!" the soldier called. "There's a woman coming out of the woods across the stream from the lower pasture. She looks a mite ragged and sick, and there's some children with her, too."

This was no surprise to Gerik. Tirabot Manor had a name for being hospitable to those driven off their land by local feud, natural disaster, or sheer ill luck. Four or five such parties knocked at the gate during the average month.

"Rubina," Gerik said, "go to the arms room and have the men there ready to ride. Then go to the stables and have my horse-"

Rubina looked rebellious, but before she could turn looks into words, the sentry called again. This time his voice shook with incredulity.

"By all the True Gods! That woman's got a band of kender with her!"

The shouts that sounded from behind the kender named Horimpsot Elderdrake grew louder. Either someone had seen him, thought they had seen him, or decided to shout just to encourage himself or his comrades.

The kender thought that the humans needed encouraging. Not so much that they caught him, of course, because if they did that they would surely kill him, and he did not want that to happen.

Not that he was really afraid of death. Kender do not fear death, in and of itself, so much as they hate the fact that death tends to keep them from finding out what happens next. Elderdrake had this curiosity as strongly as the next kender, and the next kender (and all other kender) were a race that seemed to have been created by the gods with an extra measure of curiosity.

However, he was afraid, though not exactly as a human would understand it, of failing his new comrades and their human friend. He had wandered onto the land of the Spillgather clan just after they had decided to befriend a young woman named Ellysta, who had offended the kingpriest, or a friend of the kingpriest, or someone who used the kingpriest's name a great deal.

The Spillgathers had not explained Ellysta's alleged offense in much detail. Elderdrake doubted that he would have understood it if they had. In spite of all the time he had spent traveling, he was still young, and not all of that time had been spent among humans. In fact, he made a serious effort to walk very wide of some kinds of humans.

Being properly brought up, Elderdrake had decided to help his hosts bring Ellysta to safety, which turned out to be Tirabot Manor. This seemed wise to Elderdrake, who knew a good deal about Sir Pirvan, Knight of the Rose and lord of Tirabot, and had learned still more from his own former traveling companion, Imsaffor Whistletrot.

All of which explained why Horimpsot Elderdrake was 'darting hither and thither in the forest. He was trying to keep the men who had come for Ellysta on his trail, and lead them away from the trail of the Spillgathers who were taking the woman to the manor. If he kept them chasing him long enough, they would never find Ellysta before she was inside the manor's walls and under the protection of its lord and lady.

More shouts echoed through the trees, now conveying more pain than enthusiasm. Stinging nettles grew freely in these woods, even if not so heavily during the late winter as at other times. It sounded as if someone had blundered into a patch of them, or maybe skewered himself on a comrade's weapon.

Elderdrake reached back to pat his hoopak. Even slung across his back, it was a trifle awkward in dense under-growth, but he would no more abandon it than he would his pouches. It had been a gift from Imsaffor Whistletrot, when the older kender gave up traveling.

The underbrush gave way to a slope deep in dead leaves and the blackened remnants of last year's ferns. By crouching low, Elderdrake discovered that he could be almost completely invisible to anyone either upstream or downstream.

He had just made this discovery when men charged into the open from both directions. They seemed to have some idea of which way he was going, but not where he was. Elderdrake decided to use this fact.

He cupped his hands, pitched his voice to imitate a human's (as well as any kender could, and better than most), and shouted: "Down there! By the big redstripe!"

He had taken note that there were well-grown redstripe trees near both human parties. So naturally, both thought that the shouter was referring to the other redstripe. The range was long for spears, but easy shooting for both longbows and crossbows.

So many arrows and bolts flew, besides the spears, that Elderdrake was amazed the humans did not wipe each other from the face of Krynn. However, few of the archers and none of the spearmen were true masters of their weapons. Only four men went down, and of these, two rose again. One of those who remained lying down howled and cursed like a man in rude health.

Elderdrake realized that he had not reduced the odds against him much. So he crawled down the slope until he had a clear jump to the other side of the ravine, gathered himself into a ball, and hurled himself across.

He landed sprawling and breathless, having made a very fair jump even for one of his nimble race. Shouts said that he was in plain sight of one human party, but only a few arrows flew his way and none struck close. Either the pursuers were short of arrows, or they were suddenly cautious about striking down comrades.

Two humans attempted to follow Elderdrake's leap. One of them made the jump and after much scrabbling and scrambling, managed to reach level ground. By then Elderdrake was again well hidden.

The other men failed the leap and plummeted into the ravine with crashing and screaming that suggested they would be pursuing no one for a while.

Elderdrake used the time it took the other humans to decide on evergreen whose needles would hide him, stout enough to support him at a great height, and close enough to other trees so that after dark he could leap into their branches and make his escape.

Of course, the humans might realize that his letting himself be treed was a ruse. But even if it only took them the rest of the morning to gain this insight, that would be enough for Ellysta and the Spillgathers. Meanwhile, Elderdrake intended to listen carefully to anything the humans said. The Spillgathers might think they knew everything necessary about their enemies, but Elderdrake's experience of war told him otherwise. Also, even if the Spillgathers knew much, he knew very little.

Picking a path through the underbrush, where a four-foot kender could slip along easily and a six-foot human would become hopelessly tangled, Horimpsot Elderdrake sought his tree.

The ship house smelled of fresh lumber, sawdust, paint, and sundry oils. Torvik stopped to watch two workers applying a foul-smelling concoction to the bottom of the ship propped up in the middle of the house, Gridjor Hem's Flying Dart. Hem himself was standing on deck amidships, and hailed Torvik when he saw the younger captain. Torvik sometimes wondered how much his acceptance owed to trust in his skill and how much to memory of his father-or even fear of his mother.

However, Hem seemed sincere in his affability and his fraternal embrace of Torvik, when he had scrambled down to the ship house floor. "Don't worry," he added. "We'll have Dart out of here within a day or two. Plenty of time for your little beauty."

Torvik knew undue optimism when he heard it, and besides, it was nearly the end of Brookgreen. Half the work on the ships gathering in Vuinlod was already being done outdoors.

"Don't cut yourself short for my sake," Torvik said, trying to sound wholly at ease. "A day or few more, and we'll be able to take her over to Hauldown Strand and do her bottom by careening.

"We might buy some of your bottom grease, though, if you've any left when Dart is done. It doesn't smell like you're using whale oil."

Sailors planning a long voyage in warm waters often smeared their ships' bottoms with poisonous grease, to discourage weeds, barnacles, and woodborers. The most common base for such grease was crudely-rendered whale oil, except in waters where the Dargonesti were known to roam.

The Dargonesti knew that humans hunted whales elsewhere, but in their home waters they regarded all the great sea mammals as under their protection. This had led to ugly, even bloody incidents more than a few times in the past, when the Dargonesti had been more numerous, better armed, and more widely scattered.

"I'm not," Hem said. "If there are Dargonesti around Suivinari they might help us, with knowledge if naught else. Small point to offending them. That's seal blubber that went into the oil. Takes more seals than it does whales, but we won't be in-eh, Torvik? You still listening?"

Torvik realized that his face must have shown more than it should have. "With all my ears," he lied.

"Didn't look like it. Your mind was-ha! Is it true what they say about Dimernesti around Suivinari?"

Torvik shrugged. "I only know what I think I saw," he said. "Everybody's used their own imagination on that, to spin tales. So what have you heard?"

Hem lowered his voice. "That a Dimernesti came aboard, in her woman shape, and-ah, what men and women do, she did with the men of Kingfisher's Claw?"

Torvik laughed. "Don't forget the other half of the story, the Dimernesti in man form who entertained all our women!"

Hem laughed in turn, longer than Torvik thought the joke deserved. When he'd caught his breath and wiped his eyes, the older captain shrugged. "I suppose the odd Dimernesti or two's nothing important," he said. "Not when Suivinari's grown magic that can kill minotaurs and make tree roots dangerous, and we've got to sail up there and put it down before the minotaurs blame us for it! But it's been so long since there've been any tales of the Dimernesti worth hearing that I'm curious.

"So you tell me what you remember, and I won't spread any more tales."

Torvik told of what he'd seen, and added, "We were so far off that I doubt the woman knew I was watching her, let alone whether I found her desirable. And I was so far off that I couldn't tell whether she had six toes on each foot and a harelip!"

Torvik heard relief in Hem's voice, whether at the absent of Dimernesti or at Torvik's not having lain with one, the young captain could not tell. He hoped it was the first. Captains who believed the kingpriest's babble about "lesser breeds who stood beyond the law through their lack of virtue" would be a burden the fleet of Vuinlod did not need.

"So," Hem said. "Should I try tallow for Dart's bottom? Stands to reason that the Dimernesti might feel kinship for seals, the way the Dargonesti do for whales."

"They might well, if there are enough of them to make a difference," Torvik said. "Remember, even if I saw the woman, she might be the only one of her kind in those waters."

"So she might," Hem said, plainly relieved. "I mean no offense to her folk, but if I have to scrape Dart clean and grease her again, I'll be another half-month before sailing.

"I've ordered some fish oil to add to our tallow," Torvik said. It reeks so that only a god could smell anything else on a ship's planks. Let me give you some to mix with the seal oil, and what the Dimernesti don't know won't hurt you."

They shook on that, and Torvik left, much relieved. Hem was no hater of "lesser breeds," only a captain with much work to make his ship ready and little time to do it. There were many such about these days.

He himself had best learned to command his face better. Other captains, less friendly, might also read in it what he did not want known. Even captains spread tales, of his lack of self-command if nothing else.

Also, the Knights of Solamnia who would be sailing aboard Vuinlod's ships would be riding into town within days. And they worshiped self-command almost as a lesser god, and would expect much of it from the son of a man whose memory the knights mostly held in respect.

Gerik had wanted to greet the woman-the lady, by courtesy-and her companions as befitted one who named himself Gerik of Tirabot.

He wished to ride up to her, dismount, bow, give his name, and ask hers as well as her reason for coming onto land given into his trust by Sir Pirvan of Tirabot, Knight of the Rose. Meanwhile, a mounted escort of men-at-arms would keep their distance, and hidden archers would keep an even greater distance-as well as keeping their arrows properly nocked and aimed.

Instead, everyone who could ride or run swarmed toward the gate, until the sergeants' rude language put a halt to the chaos. Even so, Gerik rode out with ten men instead of five, not all of them by any means fighters, and several other people rode or ran off toward the village.

Gerik only hoped that their riding or running would stop in the village, and that they were only going to bring the marvelous tale to friends and kin, not to those who would carry it to hostile ears. Gerik had no idea who this woman's friends or enemies might be, but he would prefer not to learn by having either of them sprout from the ground at his father's very gates!

It was a short journey to the woman, and the riders took most of it at a canter. As they reined in to a trot, Gerik saw that the kender numbered five, one of them a woman, and that all were armed: two hoopaks, two spears, and a crossbow.

They also took neither their hands from their weapons nor their eyes from the newcomers. Gerik had the sense of dealing with a trained war band, or at least with folk accustomed to working together-something not rare among kender, but seldom seen in daylight by humans.

He waved his men into a half-circle, facing the forest and well back from the woman. Then he himself dismounted and walked toward her, keeping his hands in plain sight, away from his steel. It did not take much learning to realize that the green grease on the head of the crossbow's bolt might be poison-or at least something brewed by a kender healer who intended it to be poisonous.

The kender archer would hardly need poison, however. Among the things forgotten in the rush out from the manor was Gerik's armoring himself. Besides a hastily girded-on belt with sword and dagger, he wore only a light helmet and his ordinary clothes.

"Greetings, mistress," he said, raising a hand palm outward. "And welcome to the lands of Tirabot Manor. I am Gerik, son of the lord Sir Pirvan, Knight of the Rose, and in his name and my own I bid you welcome."

The woman, who had been standing taut as a bowstring and with a hand inside her cloak, seemed to ease visibly. Her hand came into sight-empty-and the points of the kender weapons dropped by a whole handsbreadth.

"Greetings, Lord Gerik," the woman said. "My name is Ellysta. I claim your protection, in the name of justice and honor. I will explain why-" her breath caught and she pressed a hand to her side "-if you deem it necessary."

The woman spoke like one of birth and education, and her tattered, grass-stained gown and still worse-afflicted cloak were of good cloth. Her feet were not only bare but bloody, and plainly not commonly unshod.

A further look told Gerik that Ellysta was not much older than he, although at first glance this was not apparent. One had to look under dirt, cuts and bruises, a black eye, a split lip and an air of fear, hunger, and weariness to see her youth.

"There will be a time and place for that, Lady Ellysta," Gerik said. "But not here and now. You seem in need of food at least, perhaps healing as well."

That meant a message to Serafina, wife of Grimsoar One-Eye, his father's old companion and formerly steward of the manor. Serafina was a singularly accomplished healer for one without magicworking arts. Indeed, she might already be on her way to the manor house, summoned by one of the riders to the village.

Gerik sighed. Serafina's coming meant having her husband hard on her heels, and Gerik would not thereafter be truly master in his own father's house until Grimsoar and Serafina returned to the village. That was one reason why he was glad his father had not asked Grimsoar to resume his office during Pirvan's absence; the old sailor and thief would have been as firmly in command as any sworn knight.

Before Gerik could choose a messenger, he heard a band of horsemen approaching at a canter. He turned to sec his guards also hastily turning their mounts to stand between their chief and the newcomers. They did it with a precision and order that spoke well for their discipline, which had plainly returned now that the novelty of visiting kender had worn off.

The approaching riders also numbered five, all with breastplates, helmets, and swords. One carried what was either a lance or a banner, and all wore red and green armbands.

Those colors did nothing to ease Gerik's mind. They were the colors of House Dirivan, who held extensive lands in the area. They had also been well to the lead in fortifying their estates, and had been notoriously friendly to the kingpriests for three generations.

Gerik was prepared to order the riders off his father's land on sight. He reined in his temper, however, so that he thought his first words came out with an air of reason about them. "Greetings, men of House Dirivan," Gerik said steadily. "What grave matter brings you here in such haste, on a day when a fair sky has not yet dried the roads?"

One of the men started to reply, but another made a chopping gesture that silenced him.

"We come for Ellysta," the second man said. "Hand her over, and there's no trouble for you, or for the kender."

Gerik thought the first might be the truth, but that the second reeked of lies. It was hard to tell what the kender thought, because they suddenly started scurrying around as if all of them had been taken with the purple itch, or a bad case of fleas.

Gerik saw neither plan nor purpose in their movements, until he suddenly realized that they were spreading out, so that they all had good shots but were a bad target themselves. Definitely these five were a trained war band, pretending to be the usual foolish, even witless kender that small minds expected. Proof of that: the five House Dirivan men were laughing aloud, one so hard that he could hardly stay in his saddle.

Gerik drew everyone's attention by drawing his dagger and rapping it against his sword scabbard. "Have you proof of your right to take Lady Ellysta?" he asked.

"We are House Dirivan, and one under our protection has been injured by her," the leader said.

"I should say that all the injuries were not on one side," Gerik replied. "Unless she was the one under your protection. If so, I think you need some help with the task."

Among the men passed looks that made Gerik raise his hand to keep his own men from drawing swords and nocking, arrows. He decided to try one last time at settling the matter with words.

"If you have proof of that right," Gerik said, "I will not land up for a criminal. My father holds land under the laws of Istar, and both as landholder and knight he obeys them. But if you lack-"

Five sets of spurs dug into five flanks. Then two kender began whirling their hoopaks, and five horses suddenly began dancing about at the weird howling from the kender instruments. Some of the Tirabot mounts also pecked and tossed their heads, but they had been trained to endure weirder sounds than hoopaks, at least with riders on their backs.

Meanwhile, the other three kender seemed to have vanished.

Before Gerik could wonder where they had gone, two of them reappeared, behind and in front of the leader's horse. The one behind prodded the horse in the haunches with his spear. The horse shrieked and reared. Its rider parted company with his mount and landed with a crash.

Before he could regain his wind or his feet, the other kender-the woman, Gerik saw-had the point of her spear at his throat. Her eyes were on the four House Dirivan men who were still mounted. Her voice would have made icicles drip from a knight's mustache. "Ellysta is in the hands of someone who promises justice," the kender woman said. "We know justice. He knows justice. You do not. Go away, now, or take this one with a hole in his throat when you go."

At a signal from Gerik, his own mounted men rode forward to disarm the House Dirivan riders. It was as well to do this before folly, pride, or mere disbelief that a human would fight for kender led them to try riding the kender down.

Swiftness prevented bloodshed; Gerik had often heard his father say this could happen, but it was the first time he had seen it happen by his own orders.

Once the men were disarmed and their leader remounted, Gerik faced them. "We do know justice here at Tirabot," he said, "and I will not stand in its path. You may know it too, but if so, then come with proof next time. Your deeds today have made me wonder.

"You will have your weapons back when you reach the borders of Tirabot land. As soon as I speak with Lady Ellysta, I shall write to your master, likewise to my father."

"That's right," gasped the leader. "Spread her lies across-"

He stopped, because the kender woman was looking at him again. She said something in her own speech, which made all the kender laugh-rather grimly, Gerik thought-then translated: "It seems you have so many holes in your head already that all the sense drained out, so I couldn't have hurt you by making one more. I'll remember that next time."

Gerik led the escort as far as the road. By the time he returned to Ellysta, she had fainted, but Serafina had arrived and she and the kender woman were busily applying salves and dressings.

"I don't suppose there's such a thing as a horse litter about," Serafina said. Her tone made it plain that it was too much to expect such a thing of mere men, and warriors at that.

"There is, and I will send for it," Gerik said.

"Good," Serafina said. "Oh, and for a few days at least, I advise keeping men away from Ellysta. Those rogues-or some like them-gave her reason to fear men."

Horimpsot Elderdrake reached Tirabot Manor long after dark and completely covered with mud. He had fallen into a bog making his final escape from his pursuers, and had first thought to find a stream and wash. After all, Shumeen seemed to look on him with some favor that might turn into more. She would not be happy if he returned black as the dregs of tarberry tea.

Then he realized that he would be reaching the manor well after dark. The blacker he was, the harder he would be to see, even for alert sentries. The guards were keeping a close watch, but not close enough to spy out a kender clad in mud and dark clothing. As soon as he was safely within the guarded area, Elderdrake washed himself roughly at the handiest well. Now his earthy disguise would be more trouble than help, whereas if he appeared to be just another roughly-clad kender, the humans would take him for one of Ellysta's companions. Elderdrake had discovered that a good many humans could barely tell one kender from another.

Shumeen looked as happy to see him as he had hoped, but they had no time for words alone. Elderdrake was supplied with cold sausage and warmed-over soup, while the other kender took turns telling him of their day.

"So Gerik believes Ellysta?" he asked, finally.

Shumeen spread her hands and said, "He believes what Serafina tells him Ellysta said. He does not speak with her himself, because he and the other men are staying out of her chambers for a while.

"Why shouldn't they believe her, anyway?" Shumeen added "It's true. It wouldn't seem true if you didn't know how strange humans are about possessions, but kender are born knowing that."

Elderdrake nodded. Ellysta's situation had come about because a widowed friend of hers had fallen afoul of friends of the kingpriest. The widow had been taken away, and her flocks were supposed to have gone to one of those friends of the kingpriest.

But Ellysta instead hid the sheep and goats, taking care of them herself even though her family had herders who could have done the work. She would not put them in danger, she said.

So danger came to her, and worse. She had looked half-dead when the kender found her, and it had taken days to nurse her back to enough health to walk as far as Tirabot Manor. Fortunately none of her enemies had actually come searching for her until she was actually on her way, Perhaps they had thought she was dead.

Apart from no kender having ever tolerated someone like the kingpriest, no kender had ever punished someone by saying that what had been theirs now belonged to someone else. In the course of a year, almost every sheep, goat, pot, pan, and kettle in a kender village made the rounds of every household. Sometimes they ended up where they had begun; other times they went with somebody who was marrying outside the village, or going traveling, or were stolen by gully dwarves.

This looked confused and complicated to humans, or so Elderdrake had heard. To him, it was the humans who had all the complicated laws, and all the worries about enforcing them, even when they wanted to be just, and all the opportunities for the unjust to make trouble….

"We have one problem," Shumeen said. "Sir Pirvan is not at the manor. He was gone off again, on some quest, or matter of the knights, or spying on enemies, or whatever."

"Haimya too?"

"Haimya, and Young Eskaia, and more than half the fighters. Knights named Darin and Hawkbrother came, but went with Pirvan."

Elderdrake wanted to put his head in his hands, then realized that this would alarm his friends.

"Gerik is a seasoned warrior," Elderdrake said. "I have been on the same battlefield with him and seen as much. Also, House Dirivan will think twice before attacking the property of a Knight of Solamnia, even if the knight is not at home."

"If they can think at all," someone muttered.

Shumeen glared all around her, so that everyone except Elderdrake looked abashed. Then she smiled. "Now, tell us about your day in the woods," she said. She looked ready to hang on his every word, which she probably really wasn't, but Elderdrake was willing to be flattered. He was also willing to get his hands on another plate of sausage.

When somebody had handed him that plate, he stood up, waved a sausage for attention, and began: "Now, some humans are easier to fool than others, and these were the easy kind. But there were quite a lot of them, and I had to go on fooling them over and over again. If they started to learn from the time before and do better next time, I was going to be in a really bad situation…."