What you describe is what usually happens if no one is selected as a candidate for the promotion: You complete the quest, gain the experience points, they say "you are now a (whatever)" but no one really gets promoted.When you spoke to the guy in Thronheim who gave you the quest, when (if) you got the screen which says,
"(so and so) is interested in promotion to mercenary"
you needed to click on that sentence (like clicking a link), and then it changes to:
"(so and so) is now a candidate for mercenary"
The process is not automatic unless you click the sentence. If this is what happened to you, you'll need to go back and edit your saved game - someone else will need to guide you through doing that.
Christy
