They got around Quinden, she thought, and alerted the sentries on that side with hand signs. One of them was Owen, who lay flat on a high stone, a selection of cloth balls beside him. Instead of the clear, deadly jelly called blazebalm, used in real combat, the balls held a fist-sized clump of dirt, leaves, and red chalk. When the attackers came within range, he lobbed the balls at them with deadly accuracy. They burst when they hit, leaving his victims covered with dirt and red dust. As “killed men” they sat on the forest floor in disgust.
When they attacked in the rear, Seaver led his main group in a charge at the front.
By Owen’s terms it wasn’t a jolly fight - he complained later there was far too much thinking and calls of “You, out!” by the adults - but it was brisk. Kel moved from post to post, making sure there were no more surprises and that everyone obeyed orders. Seaver’s attack was defeated at every turn. When only three of his “men” were left, they tried to retreat. Kel sent her staff men to capture them, winning a total victory.
Afterward they cooked lunch, and the adults reviewed their performance. Several boys received punishment labor for refusing to stay dead after an adult decreed them so. Quinden was given twice that amount of work for not warning Kel when Seaver’s second group passed him. When she glanced at him, surprised - she’d honestly thought they’d sneaked around him - Quinden sneered at her.
The last of Joren’s legacy, Kel thought as she scrubbed her dishes. I’ll be glad when I’m a squire and don’t have to deal with that anymore.
Two days after their return, squires began to appear in the mess hall. Once again Prince Roald stayed at Port Legann in the south. Joren returned, Vinson, Faleron, Garvey, Yancen - but no Cleon. In December, Kel got a letter from him, addressed to her but written for the entire study group. Sir Inness had chosen to remain in the north, training villagers in self-defense. They wouldn’t come to the palace until the spring.
With the start of winter, Kel’s year appeared to melt away. She could remember the passage of time if she thought about it. Once again she waited on the Archpriestess and her companions over Midwinter. She exchanged gifts and received them. There was a beautifully made longsword from her benefactor, one that was the envy of her friends. Lalasa surprised her with a long coat, quilted with down for warmth, containing a number of useful pockets. It was in Kel’s favorite color, russet red. Neal gave her a book of Tortallan maps, while Kel gave him a history of his famous grandfather’s battles. There were gifts of clothes and money from her family, a drawing of Jump from Seaver, and small gifts from her other friends. Kel gave Owen some of her precious bruise balm - of all the pages, she told him in her accompanying note, he needed it the most. Seaver and Merric each got one of her lucky Yamani cat figures. For the rest she had gotten sweets, knowing they would appreciate those on cold winter nights.
She could remember what she learned in Sunday night battle lessons without trouble: they continued to fascinate her. Lord Wyldon chose battles with immortals, sea raiders, and Scanrans to cover that winter, to give his students an understanding of the methods preferred by the enemies they would have to fight most as knights.
More weights were added to their harnesses in January. No sooner had the senior pages adjusted to them than Lord Wyldon set the fourth-years to tilting at each other. This was unusual: normally, tilting at a human target was left for knight-masters to teach. As far as Kel was concerned, the worst part of it was realizing she was trying to skewer one of her friends with her well-padded lance. She learned to concentrate on the shield. If she looked at her opponent’s face, too often it was she who went flying from the saddle.
Classroom work after Midwinter was harder to recall, except for the day that a debate between Quinden and two first-years turned into a shouting match. The subject had been one that would be raised at the nobles’ congress in the spring, whether new laws should be made to give commoners the right to better treatment by nobles. Sir Myles had to threaten to report all three debaters to Lord Wyldon before they would be quiet.
Lalasa threw Kel twice, once in December and once in February. In January no less a person than Queen Thayet commissioned a dress from Kel’s maid. Kel was able to tell Lalasa that she could now afford a dress shop of her own.
Joren seemed to be many places that Kel was after Midwinter. They didn’t fight; they traded greetings if they passed in the hall. He watched her at mealtimes and Sunday night battle lessons, though. She would look up to find those level blue eyes fixed on her. She would walk around a table model and bump into him. Once, eerily, she felt a touch at the back of her head as the class broke up one night. When she turned, only Joren was near, and he was walking away.
She might have thought she imagined it, except that Neal and Owen saw it, too. Neal wanted to tell Joren his behavior was rude, but Kel and Owen talked him out of it.
Apart from those memories, she felt as if she went to bed one night before Midwinter and awoke at the end of March. The winter had fallen away. Nobles and other important folk were arriving at the palace in droves, preparing for the congress that was held every two years. Lord Imrah came from Port Legann with Prince Roald in tow; Sir Inness returned with Cleon. The first thing Roald and Cleon said to the fourth-years on their arrival was, “Are you ready for the big exams?”
thirteen
THE TEST
Lalasa, stop fussing!” Kel ordered her maid at her last fitting before the big examinations. “If it fits any more perfectly, I won’t be able to take it off!”
Lalasa removed the pins she’d been holding in her mouth. “I just want you to look your best, my lady,” she explained in all seriousness. “Though there’s little I can do with this cursed gold and red. I don’t think anybody really looks good in it.”
“Well, I’ll look better than anybody else, that’s for certain.” Kel began to remove her tunic, and promptly stuck herself with a pin.
“Here, miss - best let me.” As Lalasa slowly drew the tunic and its pins over Kel’s head, she added, “If you don’t mind, I’m going to Tian’s for a bit tonight. I’ve a week to finish her majesty’s dress for the opening of the congress, and Tian’s agreed to hem whilst I work on the bodice. I’ll be home before you go to bed, doubtless.”
“That’s fine.” Kel changed into breeches and a shirt, then opened the lower shutters. Summer had come early, and her room was stifling when they were closed.
Two strangers, men in the rough clothes of commoners, were in the courtyard. That surprised Kel: the pages’ wing was tucked well out of the way for visitors. Only servants, teachers, and nobles came there.
“Are you lost?” she inquired.
One of them, a burly man who needed a shave, snatched off his hat. After a moment his smaller companion did the same.
“Saving your presence, your lordship, but we was supposed t’meet our boss in the entry hall.” They think I’m a boy, Kel realized, amused. Her loose shirts still concealed her figure. “Witless, here” - the big man elbowed his companion - “got us turned about.”
“I was sure it was this way,” the little man whined. He leered as Lalasa came to stand beside Kel. “Miss.”
Jump leaped out the window and trotted over to the men. They backed away.
“It’s all right. He’s just not used to strangers.” Kel swung over the windowsill and dropped onto the courtyard flags. Her sparrows, hovering about their nests in the eaves, called greetings. “I’ll show you to the entry hall. It’s easy to get lost here.” As Kel passed Jump, she realized the dog was acting strangely, cocking his bulky head this way and that as he looked at the men. He seemed unsure of something. “Jump, stay with Lalasa,” Kel ordered. “If you men will follow me?”
She led them to the entry hall and received their thanks, then returned home. It was supper time; she was hungry. Telling Lalasa to have a good time at Tian’s, she went in search of her friends.
After supper the boys and Kel visited the royal menagerie to while away the hours until bedtime. To their surprise, they found their teacher Lindhall Reed, his living skeleton Bonedancer, Numair Salmalin, and Daine visiting the small tribe of pygmy marmosets. Since Daine was present, the keepers allowed the tiny monkey-like creatures out of their enclosure. They climbed all over the pages, clearly as fascinated with them as the pages were with the marmosets.
It was late when the pages returned to their rooms, swearing they wouldn’t be able to sleep. Kel saw no light burning behind Lalasa’s screen and was glad her maid hadn’t waited up for her. Kel herself wasn’t nearly ready for sleep. She quietly closed the dressing room door, lit a candle, and read a history of King Jasson’s battles until she was ready to sleep. When she turned in, she left the shutters open for Jump. The dog seemed to have gone off on a ramble, as he did now and then.
The next day, exam day, Kel was up before dawn as always. She opened her shutters, admitting the sparrows. They tumbled in as much as they flew: it was windy. Hurriedly they pecked at their seeds and flew out to feed the nestlings. They would be in and out all day. Kel started morning exercises - just because the big examinations were today was no reason to slack off, she thought.
She was half done when a sense of something not right made her stop in the middle of a strike. The sun was rising. Lalasa should have come out by now. And Jump was nowhere in sight.
Kel opened the dressing room door. The lamp was still unlit. She heard nothing that sounded like her maid getting dressed.
“Lalasa?” she called. She couldn’t believe the older girl would sleep in today, of all days. Was she ill?
There was no reply. Frowning, Kel looked behind the wooden screen. Lalasa’s bed was as neatly made as ever, her plain cotton nightdress laid across it. She had not come home the night before.
Kel stared at the bed and nightgown. She’d heard stories about servants who crept away for a night or two, but this made no sense. Lalasa had never done such a thing; why start now? She had seemed fine the afternoon before. They had talked about finding her shop together over the summer - Lalasa had been excited about that. Besides, she had asked Kel for permission to attend the big exams, to watch her mistress prove herself before the world. She wouldn’t have asked that if she had meant to run away.
I’m not going to panic, Kel thought. If she stayed later at Tian’s than she realized, she might have slept there so she wouldn’t wake me coming in. Probably when I get back from breakfast, she’ll be here. I hope she and Jump will be here.
Kel washed her face and hands in cold water, dried, and dressed in breeches and a shirt for breakfast. She wasn’t about to get food stains on her gold tunic by wearing it while she ate. It would be just her luck to wear it to breakfast and drop bacon on her lap.
When she joined her friends in the pages’ mess, she grinned. Neal looked absolutely green; Merric, Seaver, and Esmond were pale. “Eat something,” she ordered, spooning porridge into her bowl. “You’ll need it.”
“How can you think of food?” asked Merric. Neal picked up a slice of toasted bread and began to shred it.
“Because I don’t want to faint just as we go from classroom tests to weapons,” she said. “Remember? Like Ragnal of Darroch fainted last year?” Prodding and teasing, she got them to eat, and said nothing of her maid. They wouldn’t be interested; Esmond had even told her months ago that servants weren’t important enough to be worth the time Kel spent thinking about hers.
“Don’t take forever to primp,” Neal urged Kel as she finished. “You know I hate to be late.”
“We won’t be late,” she told him. “Comb your hair and stop running your fingers through it. You’ll do fine.”
“You have no nerves,” he said bitterly.
“Just as well, because you have too many,” she retorted, and carried her tray to the servants.
The man who took it winked at her. “Luck, Lady Kel. From us all.” He nodded to the other man and the woman who served the food and took dirty dishes away. The other man grinned; the woman curtsied.
Kel smiled. “Thank you,” she said, touched.
* * *
Lalasa had not returned.
Kel looked for Gower - he wasn’t in his room. Worried, she went to Salma’s. To her relief, Gower was having breakfast with the woman who ran the pages’ wing. At first Kel was reluctant to mention Lalasa’s absence before Salma. Only when she remembered that Lalasa answered to her alone did she ask Gower if he’d seen his niece.
“Not since yesterday noon,” he replied, dark brows raised. “Is there a problem?”
“She didn’t come back last night,” Kel said flatly. “She was to visit her friend Tian, my sister’s maid, but she said she was coming back.”
“My lady, it’s common for girls to stay out overnight,” Salma informed her. “If she has a lover - “
“I’d know if she did, I think,” replied Kel.
“Did you quarrel? It happens, and she is young. She might think to punish you,” Salma pointed out.
Kel shook her head. “We didn’t quarrel. She was looking forward to today.”
“She’s a good girl,” Gower commented slowly. “And that grateful to Lady Kel.” He got to his feet. “I’ll go see Tian,” he told Kel and Salma. “See what she knows.”
As the door closed behind him, Salma remarked, “Unless you want to get the girl in trouble, don’t mention her absence to the guards. They’ll apply the penalties for runaway servants, and you’ll have no say in the judgment that’s handed down on her.”
“I wouldn’t anyway,” Kel replied. “Lord Wyldon made it clear when I hired her that she’s my responsibility, not the palace’s.”
“I’m sure there’s a reason for this, milady,” Salma commented as she showed Kel to the door. “She did say she wanted to watch you prove how good you were before the gods and everyone else.”
When Kel went back to her room, there was still no sign of Lalasa, and Kel was running out of time. She looked around for the uniform she was to wear today and got a most unpleasant surprise. It lay on the dressing room worktable, every pin still in place. That was not right. Lalasa would never have gone to Tian’s with this tunic unfinished - she always did Kel’s work before she did anything else.