The document Batu had returned for was a relay accounting Khulgen had sent to the residence instead of the administrative quarter. A clerk had attached a short explanation to it, identifying the delivery as an error. The papers had been sitting on the writing table since the first hour of the morning.

Batu had just picked them up when Saran came through the house corridor already moving toward the exit, Toqoqan against her shoulder and her outer coat still untied.

"The guild charter doesn’t include an appeal process."

Her pace suggested she was already thinking beyond the room. "Khulgen sent a Bulgar craftsman to me this morning because nobody could tell him what happens after a rejected application. I need to write the procedure before two more men arrive asking the same question."

She shifted Toqoqan into Batu’s arms with the ease of repetition, already turning toward the door again.

"Don’t give him anything small. He’ll try to eat it."

Then she was gone before Batu had fully adjusted his grip on the baby.

Batu looked down at Toqoqan.

Toqoqan looked back with the same dark eyes Saran had once claimed carried Batu’s expression in smaller and less rigid form. He still had not decided whether that observation was right.

The attendants remained in the outer rooms.

Batu considered calling one of them, then dismissed the thought. There was no immediate problem requiring assistance.

He sat in the chair nearest the writing table and positioned Toqoqan against his bent knee so the child faced outward with proper support.

Then he examined the situation.

The written instructions regarding infant care covered the important requirements well enough. About the feeding schedule, how to deal with a fever, unsafe substances. The essentials were accounted for.

What the instructions failed to address was entertaining the baby.

There was no guidance for how time should be used when an infant was awake, alert, and no longer demanding immediate care.

Batu recognized the omission and started working through it.

Time was available. The child was calm and attentive, and education was the standard use of available time with any junior capable of observation.

The logic was good enough.

He reached behind his main blade and removed the small utility knife from his belt. The knife was a simple camp tool, four inches long, meant for ordinary tasks rather than combat. He put the blade safely away and positioned the handle where Toqoqan could see it.

"Boy, the grip rests across the thumb pad along the flat."

Batu demonstrated the position with his own hand. "The last two fingers hold the base. The index and middle fingers control direction. Without a firm grip, the result changes under pressure."

He lowered the handle toward the child to demonstrate placement.

Toqoqan’s hand closed around it immediately. Reflex, fingers grasping the nearest object within reach.

Then the child started rotating the blade toward his mouth.

Batu removed the knife at once.

He reconsidered the process.

The instruction itself had been correct. The teaching had not. He had introduced blade and grip simultaneously before the grip education had been established on its own. That created unnecessary risk. The failure was his own.

He set the knife on the table and searched for a safer substitute.

The bone piece in his coat pocket that he had carried since the early campaigns, a carved wolf-track marker that Suuqai had once used in the reed beds before returning it to him afterward. Multiple seasons of travel had worn the edges smooth, there was nothing sharp enough to cause harm.

Batu held it out toward Toqoqan.

"Grip first. Blade second. The hand learns position before responsibility is added."

Toqoqan closed his fingers around the bone piece.

Batu watched carefully. The thumb placement lacked consistency, but the index and middle fingers had already found a reasonably line for a hand at this stage of development.

"Maintain even pressure through the entire hold boy,"

Batu continued. "A hand that understands its grip keeps the position consistent from beginning to end. If the grip changes midway, the force applied changes with it. The blade only follows what the hand is already doing."

He reached forward to adjust the thumb placement.

Toqoqan immediately released the bone piece, grabbed Batu’s index finger with both hands, and focused his full attention upward at Batu’s face.

Batu stopped moving.

He considered the response.

"Good reflexes. Don’t let anyone forcefully take a knife from your hands."

He waited for Toqoqan to release his finger, retrieved the bone piece from his knee where it had fallen, and set it aside.

Next he opened the document case on the table and removed one of the carved wooden planning markers. The wedge-cut piece had represented the main body in battlefield layouts since the first felt campaign maps.

Batu placed it in front of Toqoqan and considered the simplest place to begin.

He explained with a slow tone, "Pay attention boy, a flanking force succeeds because the enemy’s attention is fixed elsewhere, whenever their main formation is engaged. The flanking force moves outside the battle and attacks the side the enemy can no longer properly observe."

He paused there, the way he paused during actual briefings when he wanted the principle to settle before adding another layer. "Attention has direction. Anything with direction also creates a blind side, and the flank exploits that blind side. Two smaller forces operating correctly can create a result neither could achieve independently."

Toqoqan grabbed the wooden marker.

Batu intercepted it before it reached the child’s mouth.

He wiped the piece clean against his riding coat, checked the carved edges for damage, and returned it to his knee.

He continued to explain, "The principle remains even if the object representing it is lost. The marker is only a reference, understanding matters more than the piece itself."

Toqoqan made a sound.

It was small and unfinished, somewhere between a cough and the beginning of a laugh. Not speech nor even a proper laugh yet. More like the early noise of a social response before the mechanisms were fully developed.

Batu went still again.

"Preliminary social vocalization," he said quietly.

He set the planning marker beside the bone piece on the table. The hours passed as he continued to explain military tactics to the infant.

At some point during the instruction the light through the felt walls had shifted from midmorning toward afternoon. Batu had not noticed when it happened.

Then the door opened and Saran returned.

She crossed toward the nearest chair with a slightly slower pace than usual, fatigue showing in the composure of her stride. Her outer coat was tied one finger-width looser at the waist than her normal habit.

She sat.

Then she looked at Batu.

Then at Toqoqan.

Then at the bone wolf-track piece and the carved planning marker resting together on Batu’s knee while Toqoqan reached for whichever object was closest, and Batu maintained the posture and expression of a military campaign conducting a battle briefing.

Saran’s mouth opened.

It remained that way for several long moments.

Her eyes moved from the bone piece to the planning marker, from Toqoqan to Batu, then back again in a slow circle. Each pass arrived at the impossible scene and failed to create any immediate response.

Her lips worked once without sound.