"Yes, it is our first event!" 

"Great! Let me see, our chatelaine ought to be around here somewhere - she can show you around..."

The woman behind Iomedae and Jenny in the queue, who is currently struggling to sign in because the sheer size of her feathered hat makes it difficult to look down at the paper, turns around. "Oh, Haley was helping set up for one of the classes last I checked. Shall I give the tour?"

The gate volunteer assents, and the woman with the hat beams at Iomedae and Jenny. "What are your names? I'm Hilala." 

"I'm Jenny!"

"Iomedae, ma'am."

"Great, fantastic, I'm so glad to welcome you! I think I might have seen you at practice before but didn't say hi? Anyway, let's go show you around!"

Hilala leads them across a sunlit field where people are beginning to gather in small groups and chatter excitedly. A lot of people are catching up with friends they don't see often. "The range is opening at ten, and anyone can shoot, you don't have to be authorised or anything! Then over here we have the A&S barn, where we'll also have court - I definitely recommend you stay for court because often newcomers will get some kind of token!" 

- oh there's an archery range! Iomedae has been shooting bows since she was five, because you have to start boys at that age if they're ever to be men at all and the boys find it motivating if their baby sister is nearly as good as they are. "Foster childs can shoot at range, ma'am?"

"Of course! Anyone can shoot, and throw knives or axes if you'd like! I think youth need a parent or guardian to be with them."

"If you want to give that a try I'll go with you!"

"I want to give that a try."

"She was also gonna help out at the bake sale, I don't know what hours they need her for that. Maybe we can head over there and you can ask them, Iomedae?"

Oh. She's supposed to do the unspecified labor that Nicole negotiated with her owners instead of training.

Iomedae wants to burst into flames and die and wake up in Heaven - well. That's alarming. She's never felt like that before. It is unvirtuous; she will cease it. 

"Yes, ma'am, we can head over there."

"The bake sale - oh you mean the Kalomeros fundraiser? They're over with the merchants. I can show you there!"

Hilala leads the way over to the barn and points out the Kalomeros table, where Raoulin and Haley and Thorsteinn are hauling more boxes of stuff to put out. The table is already piled high with armour and trim and fabric and leather pouches and cups and knives and musical instruments. "Over that way!" 

"Hey! Iomedae's here, and I think she was planning to volunteer, but she also wants to check out the rest of the event! What hours do you need her most?"

"Hi! I don't think we'd properly met yet? I'm Raoulin, it's lovely to meet you, I'd heard Iomedae is coming to volunteer. We actually have tons of volunteers so, Iomedae, why don't you take a look at the schedule and let me know any classes you'd want to go to and we'll work around those?" 

He fishes out a folded A4 schedule from his pocket and offers it to Iomedae. 

"I no English, sir, I'm sorry."

...she just said that in English though. She very much just said that in English. She's reportedly been having conversations in English for quite a while, though Lucy said her vocabulary is surprisingly bad... 

"Iomedae didn't get the chance to go to school until a couple weeks ago," says Jenny. "She's working really hard to catch up! So Iomedae, it says -" and she'll read her the whole schedule.

She will listen attentively and is obviously not looking at the sheet even though Jenny is pointing to words as she says them. "I want do swords and archery, ma'am."

"You should try out one of the crafts, too, those look fun! Look, they have one that's about spinning wool, maybe we can check that one out together?"

SWORDS and ARCHERY. "Yes, ma'am."

"And then it looks like you could do a volunteer shift at...1 o clock? How does that sound?"

"Yes, ma'am."

Oh. 

She can't read. 

Well that makes sense of why she never got the note, though now Raoulin is absolutely baffled as to why she was carting a bag full of school textbooks around in the first place, or why she was in school for that matter. Probably some sort of legal requirement but... 

...it's also horrifying as soon as he thinks about it, because if she really did escape some sort of abusive cult and lacks even the ability to Google things or read the newspaper or understand a map... no wonder she's struggling with culturally assimilating, she's helpless.

He blinks away the emotional reaction that he shouldn't be having noticeably, and speaks quietly and gently. 

"You can't do swords here because you need to be authorised, which has to wait until your birthday. But you can absolutely do archery. And that's the only thing you need parental supervision for - you can go to classes on your own, so it's fine if you want to go to heraldry or calligraphy while your mom does spinning. Volunteer whenever works for you - just make sure you're back here at the end of the day after court, because we'll let you pick through the stuff that doesn't get bought... all those words make sense?"

She caught very few of those words. "I understand no swords sir."