First Test (13 page)

Kel stared at the spot, wanting to cry. Now she would have to polish the lance again and find some way to fill the gap. Bending down, she picked up the piece that had fallen out. It wasn't a splintered chunk, but a perfectly cut plug two inches wide. The sides were sawed clean, tapering inward.

That's odd, she thought. Picking up the lance, she looked for the hole left by the missing piece. It was stark against the light brown of the wood because there was something black at its bottom.

Kel stuck her little finger inside and scraped the dark substance. Inspecting the stuff under her nail, she realized it was lead.

Now she went over the entire lance, not with her callused fingertips but with the more sensitive pads of her fingers. There were five more plugs spaced along the length of wood. She pried them out; each hid a hollow filled with lead. They were placed so that no part of the staff was out of balance with the rest. It had been cleverly done, the plugs replaced to match the grain of the lance and the whole polished until the cuts were nearly invisible.

Kel lifted the other pages' lances. All weighed much less than her own.

Fury pounded at her temples and behind her eyes. Was this what Cleon had meant when he'd said to run while she still had a chance? She pictured the big redhead and sighed. No. He was the kind who would shove someone into a puddle. This sort of trickery would be too much work for Cleon.

Getting her lance, Kel stuck the first plug back into its socket. She began to oil and polish the wood anew, thinking. Had Neal known about this? She tried to remember if she'd ever seen him touch her lance. No, he hadn't, nor had Wyldon, she remembered. Joren had been the only one to handle it before it got to Kel. Custom dictated that Kel alone would touch it once it was hers.

Kel was sure that Joren wouldn't be the only one who knew. The joke was too good to keep to himself. He would have needed a palace carpenter, too. None of the pages would be able to do the kind of fine work the trick lance required. Enough warriors trained with weighted arms that a carpenter would think nothing of putting lead into a practice lance.

Kel thought about it through her bath, and took her time scrubbing. Normally she rushed so no one had to wait long to eat, but today she did not feel kindly toward her fellow pages. For once she would have a proper wash and they could listen to their growling bellies for a while. If extra work was the price she paid to remind them that she could disrupt their lives, too, she would pay it gladly.

When Kel reached the mess hall, the waiting pages and squires growled. She put on her most Yamani-Lump expression and got her food. She knew it infuriated those who disliked her when she appeared not to care if they even existed. On a day like today when, fairly or unfairly, she disliked most of the pages, she positively enjoyed letting them think she cared for their opinions not one whit.

"A word after lunch, probationer," Wyldon called as she looked around for Neal.

Kel bowed to him, found Neal, and took her seat. Wyldon's prayer, to "perform our duties quickly and promptly," did not even make her twitch. Neither did his after-lunch order to report to the armory on Sunday for two bells' worth of labor. She bowed politely to the training master in reply, and ran to catch up with her friends.

"Are you all right?" Prince Roald wanted to know as they walked to their afternoon classes. "You're being quiet even for you."

Kel glanced up. Both Roald and Neal were looking at her. She was certain that Neal didn't know about the lance, but what about the prince? He was one of Joren's year-mates. Despite his joining her and Neal from time to time, she wasn't sure what he thought of her.

Finally she decided that Roald didn't know. Joren had begun in the same year as the prince, but Roald, who was careful to eat with all of the pages so no one felt jealous, spent the least amount of time with Joren and his cronies.

Should she tell them? She knew that Neal was her friend and she thought the prince might be.

No. Yamanis did not whine about what was fair or unfair, and she was too much a Yamani still. She would not let anyone think she could not handle whatever got dished out to her.

Kel shook her head in answer to the prince's query. "I haven't anything to say."

"Dear girl, we noticed," drawled Neal in his most scholarly—elegant way.

Kel ignored him and returned to her complicated thoughts. What if she kept the lance? If she mastered it, the bigger lances of the knights would be easy to handle.

The afternoon passed. Kel reported to classes as usual. She also studied each of her fellow pages, trying to guess which of them had been in on Joren's trick.

At supper, she ate lightly. Given her plans for the evening, a full stomach was a bad idea. Going straight to her room, she changed from her dress to practice clothes. It was time to stop playing the shy newcomer. She listened as the boys returned to their rooms to collect their study materials. When Neal rapped on her door, she pretended she wasn't in until he went away.

Finally no more steps sounded in the pages' wing. Kel left her room to walk the corridors. She made no sound in her soft leather slippers, ghosting along as she had been taught in the Islands, listening hard.

Passing the pages' main library, she heard the slam of a heavy book striking the floor. "Pick that up for me, will you, Merric?" The voice was Joren's.

Kel stopped outside the open door. Her heart drummed in her chest.

"Yessir, Page Joren," she heard Merric say dully. Peeking through the crack in the door, Kel saw Merric place a fat volume on the table next to the blond page.

As he did, Zahir shoved another heavy book off the table. "Pick it up," said Vinson of Genlith, cackling with mirth. "Can't have books on the floor."

Merric stared at the older boys with resentment, then got the book.

Joren immediately pushed his volume off the table. As Merric stared at him, Joren then lifted a stack of smaller books with a taunting smile. His eyes never left Merric's as he let them drop one by one onto the floor.

Kel's stomach tightened. She took a deep breath and walked into the library.

"This is wrong," she said, halting in front of the blond page.

"Oh, look—it's the Lump." On the other side of the table Vinson got to his feet. "Do you want trouble, probationer?" he asked, grinning. "We'd just loooove to give it to you."

"No, I don't want it," Kel replied. She kept her eyes on Joren. The leader of a gang was always the one to watch. The others would take their cues from him. "What I want is for you to stop pushing the first-years around."

Joren stared at her, his blue eyes bright. "I see," he said in a thoughtful tone. "We haven't gotten rid of you yet, so you think you're accepted. Merric, pick up those books."

"Don't, Merric," Kel said, still watching Joren.

"It's custom," the redheaded boy muttered.

"Not like this, it's not," replied Kel. "Us fetching and carrying gloves and armor polish, that's enough. Forcing people to mop with their clothes and pick up things dropped on purpose has nothing to do with being a page."

Joren laughed softly, shaking his head. "Oh, this is too much," he said at last. "The Yamani Lump—our very temporary annoyance—will school us in proper behavior."

"I shouldn't have to," Kel told him. "You should know how a true knight behaves."

A hand clamped around the back of her neck: Zahir's. She hadn't even heard him get out of his chair.

"Shall I take the Lump away?" the Bazhir inquired of Joren.

Gripping Zahir's index finger, Kel jammed her thumbnail into the base of Zahir's own nail. The experience, she knew very well, was a painful one.

He yelped and let go. Joren lunged for her.

She stepped back, ducking under Zahir's frantic punch. Instead, the Bazhir hit Joren. Kel backed up to reach the open center of the library.

Merric, to her relief, had fled. She was glad not to have to worry about him.

Zahir was cursing and coddling his fist, his punch had connected solidly with Joren's skull. Joren rubbed the spot where his friend had struck as he walked toward Kel. He was crimson with rage. Vinson was nowhere to be seen.

Something clattered behind Kel. In spite of herself, she looked. Vinson had fallen over a footstool as he emerged from the shelves at her rear.

She turned back quickly. Joren was leaping straight at her.

Kel's Yamani training took over. She grabbed Joren's tunic and turned, kneeling as she did. He went flying over her shoulder, just as the Yamani ladies had done during their practices together. The ladies, however, did not hit a long study table on their bellies, sliding along its polished length to crash headfirst into a bookshelf.

A foot slammed into her back between her shoulder blades. Zahir had recovered. Kel rolled forward as she went down, to fetch up against the legs of the table she'd just polished with Joren. Zahir moved in to kick her; she seized his booted foot and twisted, growling with effort. Off balance he stumbled and fell. Kel hurled a nearby stool at him. He rolled, covering his head with his arms.

Then Vinson gripped her ankles, dragging her forward. Kel sat up and grabbed his hands. Someone grasped her hair from behind and yanked her to the floor again. Ignoring the pain as the hair-puller kept his grip, Kel rolled away from a punch. She clung to his wrists to keep him from yanking out a chunk of hair. The roll twisted her out of Vinson's hold on her legs. She kicked out, slamming her feet into Vinson's belly. That hand in her hair yanked, dragging her into the middle of the floor. Her grim-faced captor was Joren.

Kel felt his wrist and dug her thumbnails into the soft flesh between the bones. He cursed and let go. Lunging to her feet, Kel ran into Zahir. Grinning, the Bazhir punched her in the stomach. When her scant supper came up, she made sure he got most of it. Another solid blow from Joren connected with her back, spinning her around. His second punch hit her face just as Vinson grabbed her.

Next time, she thought fiercely, hooking Joren's leg with her foot and yanking, next time I'll make sure I've got my back to the wall!

Vinson was the last of the older pages to walk out of Lord Wyldon's study. Through the open door Kel heard the training master call, "Send her in."

"Here, milord," announced the man who waited on Lord Wyldon in the evenings. Holding the door as Kel passed, he winked at her in encouragement.

Kel halted in front of Lord Wyldon's desk as the door closed. The training master inspected her and shook his head. Kel knew she looked dreadful. From her past experience she knew she had a black eye and a puffy lip. Her nose was probably broken.

A trickling on her cheeks told her the splits in both of her eyebrows were bleeding.

"Blot that," Wyldon ordered, and thrust his handkerchief across his desk. Kel stared as if he had offered a foreign object, then reached for it stiffly. Her left arm hurt. The skin on her knuckles was torn and bleeding on both hands.

"Would you care to explain?" Wyldon picked up a large cup and sipped from it.

"Sir?" she asked thickly.

"How were you injured? As I recall, you were in one piece earlier tonight."

She tried to breathe through her nose, and winced. "I fell down, Lord Wyldon," she said carefully. Lifting the handkerchief from her cut, she examined it with her good eye, and pressed the clean linen to the split in the other brow.

"What did you say, probationer?" His tone made her stiffen. She tried to stand tall and put her hands behind her back, as they were expected to when questioned. The left arm only went so far before pain made her dizzy.

"Never mind that," snapped Wyldon. "Answer me."

"I fell," she replied evenly. At least she didn't have to worry about making up a lie, when time-honored custom had already supplied her with one.

Wyldon fiddled with his tea mug. "Come, come, girl. You were in a fight. Name those you fought with."

"Begging your pardon, my lord, but there was no fight," she told him. "I fell down."

"You fought with Joren, Zahir, and Vinson," Wyldon reminded her.

"Did they say that?" asked Kel, her face as blank as any true-born Yamani's. "How strange. I fell down."

Wyldon stared. "I imagine you have now come to your senses and wish to go home. At this time of year that will be difficult—"

Surprised enough to forget her manners, she interrupted him. "No, sir."

"It will not be difficult? For your information, it has been snowing in the north over the past two weeks. It will snow here tonight." Wyldon rubbed his healing arm.

"No, sir," Kel repeated firmly. "I don't want to go home. Your lordship."

"You do not want to go home." If she hadn't believed he could never be startled, she might have thought that he was now. He didn't normally repeat simple ideas.

"I don't believe falling down is an offense for which I can be expelled," she said, trying to speak clearly. "I still have the rest of the year to prove myself."

Wyldon tapped his fingers on his desk. "You have the armory Sunday afternoons until April," he said at last. "And an essay each week on the improper uses of combat training. Now you'd better see a palace healer. That nose looks broken. Dismissed."

Kel bowed stiffly, then remembered something. She held out his handkerchief.

"Have it washed and returned to me," Wyldon ordered.

"Very good, my lord," she replied, and left. Neal would tell her where the healers saw patients.

Duke Baird of Queenscove, chief of the realm's healers, was a tall, weary-looking man. A dark gray over-robe protected the black velvet tunic and hose he wore in mourning for the two sons he had lost. His eyes were a darker green than Neal's, set deep under straight brows. There was a red tint to his brown hair that was absent in his son's, but they had the same nose and the same direct gaze. While Neal paced, Baird rested big hands on Kel's shoulders. She saw his magic as emerald-colored light around his hands, and she felt it as a cool tide through her body. Her stiffness eased; the edge came off her aches. Kel had been beaten up before, but never so thoroughly; it shamed her to feel so happy at the easing of pain. The warriors at the imperial court had always insisted they did not even pay attention to pain when they had it.