"Bow- man," says Iomedae, beaming at him. As good as a man is a very high compliment as far as she is concerned. "Thank you for bow. I very grateful, you very good."

"You don't know if I'm good. You haven't seen me shoot," Rembrandt points out mildly, but accepts the compliment. "Do you have other things you want to do today? You can shoot multiple royal rounds right now if you like, but you probably want to see the rest of the event." 

"Bow man can fight swords, because man?"

"Uh. Can you rephrase that for me?" That seems like a complete non sequitur to Rembrandt. 

"They sayed, I no can fight swords, because I a foster child. Is it that if I am a bowman, I can fight men?"

Rembrandt takes a deep breath and studies the young lady in front of him. She just shot like someone who's been shooting for a decade, and she really does seem at home in garb - none of the air of selfconsciousness that newbies sometimes have in their first Gold Key tunics - but she's clearly a new newbie. Better not to forget it.

"I don't know what the rules are for fostering because I don't know anything about fostering, really, but at the archery range you can compete with the adults, and I think on the heavy field you can do that when you're sixteen. Bowman is a rank, it means if you get three scores like the one you just did then you are a better archer than if you only scored forty or fifty. It's a good rank. If you earn it then the baron and baroness will give you a badge in court, and if you get the next rank up then the crown gives you a badge." 

"But still a foster child, if you get badge?"

What sort of question even is that? Did this kid's parents abandon her to the foster system because she wasn't good enough at archery? 

"Um.... yeah, I don't think anything we do in the SCA is going to... bring your parents back, or magically make you an adult, I'm sorry." His voice softens slightly. "I wish I could, kid, but I'm just the archery marshal." 

She doesn't catch every word of that but she catches enough to gather that - he regrets that it does not work that way, he does not have the power to make it work that way but he agrees it would be good. There is something enormously soothing about that, as little as she generally wants to be pitied, about someone agreeing on some level that it would be unfortunate to be enslaved in a foreign land even if it is not actually something they can do anything about. "I understand," she says. "Thank you."

"Iomedae, sweetie, they've got a stand over there where you can spin wool! Do you want to try that?"

Iomedae gives Rembrandt a conspiratorial smile. "Ma'am, I a bowman. I no do girl work now."

Jenny, who is holding a little tuft of wool in her hands for communication-with-Iomedae purposes, blinks, baffled.

"...if you register three scores that good," Rembrandt hastily amends.

But he is willing to turn to Jenny with a somewhat gruff smile and say, "Iomedae did really quite impressively. If she shoots twice more and scores similarly well, they'll call her into court and give her a very good archery rank. Usually people take years to work towards it."

Then his brain catches up to him and he looks back at Iomedae. "...and who said spinning is girls' work? I quite like spinning. It's relaxing." 

Spinning is not relaxing! Spinning is like school, in that you have to sit to do it and cannot be doing anything you want to do. It is better than school because it has a purpose but she is not going to be persuaded that it is objectively enjoyable or something. 

"I want shoot more, for bowman."

"I think it'd be good for you to try something else and not just do the weapons all day!"

"Ma'am, if I obey God best in spinning, God no make me a holy warrior. If God sayed Iomedae spin, then I do this every day of my life until no can see even by sun. But God did not say this. God want me to bowman."

This seems like a perfectly fine argument to Rembrandt, who agrees that God clearly wanted him to be at the archery range all day every day given the level of archery passion he put in his soul. Sitting still indoors just makes him crave fresh air. He is also acutely aware that he isn't the world's most diplomatic person, and it seems like a bad idea to get in the way of the foster parent looking after her kid.

"If God wants you to be a bowman, who am I to argue? We'll make sure you get it, kid. If you don't have time to shoot three scores today, you can come down the archery range and I'll take a score for you at a practice. You might even have time to enjoy the rest of the event and still come back and shoot two more today, specially with how fast you shoot." 

"Thank you, sir."

"Let's just walk around and see what all they have to offer, and then we can come back here if you don't like any of it."

"Yes, ma'am."