Protector of the Small Quartet

by Tamora Pierce

  Lalasa ducked her head. “My lady will need breastbands.”

  “Oh, splendid,” Kel replied. “Just what I need-more clothes.” She rubbed the back of her neck. “When you get those new things from the tailor? Make sure they’re loose, all right?”

  “Most girls rejoice at this,” Lalasa pointed out softly. “They regard it—and their monthly bleeding—as signs they enter womanhood.”

  “Most girls don’t have a covey of boys whacking them with sticks every morning. Most girls don’t want to be knights.” Kel plopped onto the bed. Jump wriggled until he could stick his blunt head under her hand. “If this keeps up, eventually I can stop wearing dresses to remind them I’m a girl. I hope it takes a while. A long while.” She tucked her chin to look at her front. Lalasa muffled a noise with her hands. It sounded remarkably like a laugh. “I’m glad you find it funny,” Kel told her with a wry grin.

  “I have to take my lady’s measurements afresh,” Lalasa said, going into the dressing room. “And I need to draw coin from Salma to buy cloth,” she called as she opened the box where she kept her sewing things. “I can let out many of your personal garments, but nightgowns, and breastbands, and stockings must be paid for from your own purse.”

  Kel went to her desk and wrote a note to Salma on her message slate. When she had finished, Lalasa approached with a measuring cord. As she slid it around Kel with brisk efficiency, Kel was startled to see they were exactly the same height. She had grown an inch in three months.

  “I don’t know when I can get that harness let out,” she commented.

  “Leave it for me when you come for your bath,” Lalasa assured her. “I will take it to the tanner.”

  “You’ll need to give him some encouragement,” Kel remarked. If people wanted fast work from palace servants, they paid bribes. “In fact—” She wiped out her note to Salma and wrote a fresh one, asking her to give Lalasa Kel’s pocket money for the quarter. “This way you don’t have to apply to me, and I don’t have to apply to her. You can keep it here and draw what’s needed.” She handed the slate to Lalasa, who held it with a stunned look on her face.

  “What is it?” Kel asked, picking up her glaive. The bell would ring soon; she had to start her practice dances. When Lalasa didn’t reply, Kel looked sharply at her. “What’s wrong?”

  Lalasa was trembling. “Aren’t you afraid I will steal it?”

  “No,” Kel said, trying deep knee bends to loosen her legs. Each bend was marked by another tiny rip. It seemed her nightgown had decided to give up completely. “You didn’t run off when I paid you for the year.”

  “All nobles think that servants steal.”

  Kel tucked her nightgown’s skirt into the side of her loincloth. “People who believe servants will steal usually get servants who do.” She swung her glaive. “You never give me any reason to doubt your honesty.”

  For a moment Lalasa said nothing. Then she uttered a soft “Oh” and set a pot of water over the fire to heat.

  For the first time since Kel had taken her as a maid, she stayed in the room as Kel performed the complex swings, thrusts, turns, and rolls of a practice dance. She put out fresh seed for the sparrows and laid out Kel’s morning clothes. Only when the water on the hearth began to steam did she collect the pot and take it into the dressing room so Kel could wash when she was done.

  That afternoon, in the pages’ class on magic, Tkaa the basilisk began to speak of how the Yamanis practiced magic. Knowing of Kel’s six years there, he called on her. When Kel mentioned that she had a spirit bag, an amulet created for her by a Yamani shaman, Tkaa asked if she would let the class see it. Kel bowed to him—she had gotten over the strangeness of having an eight-foot-tall gray lizard as a teacher months before—and went to her rooms.

  About to turn into the pages’ hall, she felt an itch and halted, making a face. The breastband she had on was crisp new linen, and it itched. She glanced around: no one was there to see. Hiking up her tunic, she scratched her ribs through her shirt.

  From the pages’ wing she heard a man say, “Don’t be shy. If you’re nice, I’ll get you a better place than working for that crazy Mindelan girl.” He spoke quietly, but he couldn’t have been far away. “You waste your prettiness toiling after a mad page.”

  There was a reply, in a female voice far softer than the man’s. It was Lalasa and she was frightened. Quickly Kel tugged her tunic over her hips and walked into the pages’ wing. A man in servant’s clothes had backed Lalasa up against Kel’s door. He leaned against it, trapping the maid between his arms. Her eyes were huge as she stared up at him. In one hand she held a brand-new weighted leather harness.

  Kel strode forward briskly. “What is your name, and what business do you have with my maid?” she demanded, sharp-voiced. “Step away from her at once.” It didn’t matter that he was a grown man. She was a noble, and she knew her rights.

  He looked at her. He was in his early twenties, with a wiry frame. His dark eyes flashed with annoyance as he drew away from Lalasa and bowed. “I am Hugo Longleigh, if it please you, my lady. We were just having a friendly chat—”

  “It didn’t look friendly to me. What palace service are you in?” Kel asked.

  He frowned, but he dared not defy a noble, even one who was only a page. “I am a clerk in Palace Stores. We have an understanding, Lalasa and me—”

  “My lady, I swear, I was just getting the harness, and he approached me.” Lalasa’s eyes were frantic. “I wasn’t idling and we don’t have an understanding!”

  Kel felt very cold inside. How dare he frighten Lalasa! “If you are in Palace Stores, Hugo Longleigh, then no doubt they miss your work,” she said, her hands on her hips. “If you bother Lalasa again, I’ll report you. Be about your business.” She met his eyes squarely, letting him know he didn’t frighten her in the least. He looked like the sort who enjoyed other people’s fear.

  The man hesitated, then bowed grudgingly and left. Only when he was gone from view did Lalasa say, “My lady, please, I didn’t want him and I wasn’t lazing about—”

  Kel fished out her key and put it in the lock. “I know you weren’t.” She unlocked the door and went to her desk. “It’s plain as the nose on my face that you wanted him a thousand leagues away.” She found the shaman bag and tucked it into her belt-purse. ’’As for idling, you really don’t have to stay here all the time. Don’t you have friends to visit or errands to run?”

  Lalasa tugged at the straps of the harness. “I like to stay here. Nobody bothers me but the dog and the birds, and I like them.”

  “Well, think about it,” Kel said. “Honestly, I’m not your jailer. And if that Longleigh comes near you again, tell me, understand? I mean it.”

  Lalasa nodded, but Kel wasn’t convinced. There was no time to argue, though—she’d already taken longer on her errand than she should. She ran back to class, thinking every step of the way.

  That night, when she went to her rooms after supper, she brought Neal and left the door open. “I don’t care if you don’t like it,” Kel told Lalasa sternly. “We’re going to show you holds that will help you, um, discourage someone from bothering you.” Lalasa stared at Neal, who rubbed the delighted Jump on his belly, as if he were an ogre. ’’At the very least you’ll convince them that you meant no when you said no. Page Nealan?” she asked, prodding her friend with her foot.

  Neal looked at her, eyes filled with mischief. Something—something odd—filled Kel’s chest for a moment. Why did she feel giddy?

  “If this isn’t friendship, what is?” he asked cheerfully. “After people abuse my poor body all morning in the courts, I’m going to let you bruise me some more.” He offered Kel a large, bony hand. It felt uncommonly warm in hers as she pulled him to his feet. Once he was up, she dropped his hand as if it were a hot brick.

  “I won’t bruise you much. Quit complaining,” she ordered. “Lalasa, stand close so you can see what I do.” Lalasa circled Neal as if she thought he was a hot brick, unti
l she stood behind Kel. “You won’t see a thing if you look at the floor,” Kel chided her. “Neal, grab my arm and get ready for pain.”

  When he obeyed, Kel showed Lalasa several ways to get free. She bent Neal’s finger back, dug her nail into the crescent at the base of one of his fingernails, pinched the web between his thumb and forefinger with her nails, thrust a fingernail between the veins and tendons of his wrist, and gripped his hand with both of hers, forcing the thumb or little finger against his palm. She made Lalasa try each defense on her, since the maid refused to touch Neal. They showed Lalasa how to turn an attacker’s arm until she forced it up behind his back. Next they demonstrated how to stamp on an enemy’s instep when she was seized from behind, as well as eye gouges, nose and throat punches, and even the simple knee to the groin. By the time they had walked the cringing Lalasa through it all, an audience had gathered at Kel’s open door.

  “Where did you learn all that?” Owen breathed, his eyes wide.

  “Some I learned at the Yamani court,” Kel replied calmly, gulping down a cup of water. “Some Eda Bell taught me this summer.”

  “I’m going to treat you with the reverence I reserve for the Crown Jewels,” Roald assured her, his eyes crinkled with mirth.

  “Me too,” added Seaver and Merric.

  “I’ll treat you with reverence once you help me with classwork, O moon of mathematical wisdom,” said Cleon lazily. He still addressed Kel by flowery names, not having tired of it yet. “And you, girl, take my advice,” he added, pointing at Lalasa. “Just carry a lead-weighted baton. Then you don’t have to be fancy.”

  As Lalasa protested that she couldn’t pick up a weapon, the pages headed to the library. Neal went to fetch his books while Kel gathered all she needed to study.

  “This isn’t the end of it,” she told Lalasa firmly. “We’re going to practice together till I know you can use any of those things.”

  “That’s what I’m afraid of, miss,” Lalasa said, sounding as gloomy as her uncle Gower.

  “I’ll tell you what the Yamanis told me,” said Kel as Freckle and Crown flew onto her shoulders. “Fear is a good thing. It means you’re paying attention.”

  “They sound like wonderful people, I’m sure,” replied Lalasa meekly.

  Kel looked at her. Was that a tiny smile on the older girl’s lips? It was. Feeling rather pleased with herself, Kel went to join her friends.

  Showing Lalasa how to defend herself was fun. Making her practice what she’d been shown was another matter. Kel tried it when she returned that night, and the next morning, and again before bedtime. Lalasa squeaked and cringed, or she treated it as a silly game. While Kel was glad the older girl was comfortable enough to joke, Lalasa’s behavior at her lessons was exasperating.

  She worked her vexation off in the practice courts. When winter arrived with four mortal days of sleet and freezing rain, Kel thought she might scream with impatience at being kept indoors. Riding was put aside. Not even giants or spidrens would raid villages when they could slip and break something, and the movements of their enemies were the measure Lord Wyldon used to define how and when they trained.

  The pages moved to the indoor courts for archery, staff fighting, and unarmed combat. Lord Wyldon introduced the first-years to basic sword fighting while the older pages did more complex exercises. During swordplay Kel’s mood improved. Wielding a sword from Peachblossom’s back had made her feel even stupider than a first-year, if that was possible. It was nice to know that she hadn’t forgotten all she’d learned the year before; she just wasn’t good at doing it on horseback yet.

  The second night of their forced indoor exercise was also Kel’s first time that year to wait on Lord Wyldon at supper. She had to manage it for three nights without mistake. Once that was over, she could relax until Midwinter. Serving Lord Wyldon, with his sharp eyes and cold manner, had to be worse than waiting on any noble or wealthy merchant in the palace banquet hall. So long as she could serve those people without spills, they would pay attention to their food and their companions, not to her. For the first time since she had become a page, Kel began to think she might actually enjoy the seven days of feasting on the holiday.

  five

  MIDWINTER SERVICE

  The afternoon before the feast that started the week-long holiday of Midwinter Festival, Kel checked her appearance in the mirror at least five times. Each time she turned away, she was convinced that her gleaming brown hair had gotten mussed, her crimson hose twisted, her crimson shirt bunched under her gold tunic. Only another look in the mirror would convince her that she was as neat and elegant as a page could be.

  In the normal course of things she would have been nervous, but she might have been able to calm herself. But her parents’ trip back to the Yamani Islands at the end of the fall had been canceled, and they were asked to remain in Corus to help the new Yamani ambassador. The marriage negotiations for Prince Roald and Princess Chisakami had collapsed that summer when the princess died in an earthquake. Now a new imperial Yamani bride must be found, a new marriage contract drawn up. It had taken three years to forge the treaty that marriage to Chisakami would have sealed; it might take another three years for a new treaty to be worked out. Kel’s father had worked on the original agreements, which made him invaluable to the ambassador, who had to draw up new ones.

  All this mattered to Kel because it meant that her parents, as well as her sisters Adalia and Oranie, would be in the banquet hall that night. Kel wanted her family to be proud of her; she wanted to give them reason to be proud of her. Over the last summer her sisters had been distant and cool, hard at work turning themselves into proper Tortallan noble maidens and desirable wives. Kel wanted her family to be glad she was of Mindelan.

  She was about to check her appearance for a sixth time when a knock sounded on the door. Lalasa opened it to admit Merric, Seaver, Esmond, Neal, and Owen, all in their best uniforms. Jump ran up to them in hopes of a game, then realized that they, like Kel, weren’t wearing playing clothes. As he wagged a dejected tail, he sniffed each boy, then lay down with a sigh. Like Jump, the sparrows seemed to realize they should not land on their two-legged friends. They found perches around the room and watched, chattering.

  “Reporting for inspection, General, sir!” barked Seaver as he gave a brisk salute. The boys promptly formed a line, saluted Kel in turn, then stood at attention. All were nervous, even Owen, who would not work in the public hall but on the kitchen stairs, handing dishes from cooks to servers.

  Kel put her hands on her hips. “What is this? You came to me because I’m The Girl?” she asked, mock indignant.

  “Of course not. You just have an eye for these things,” replied Neal.

  “When it isn’t black,” Esmond murmured, and grinned.

  “And your maid sews good,” said Owen, showing a rip in his sleeve.

  “I have a maid who sews well,” Kel told him. Lalasa found her sewing basket and took out needle and thread.

  Kel inspected Merric carefully. He was an inch or two shorter than she was these days, she realized. She tweaked his tunic a little straighter on his shoulders. Seaver’s shirt collar was awry; she tugged until it showed brightly above his gold tunic. Esmond’s clothes were perfect; Neal’s hose had to be adjusted, and Kel gave him one of her drying cloths to blot the sweat from his face.

  As Lalasa snipped off the thread she had used to mend Owen’s sleeve, Cleon burst in red-faced, his shirtsleeves untied. “Kel, I can’t for the life of me get my hair to lay flat,” he began, then saw the other boys. Slowly he grinned.

  “They said they’re reporting for inspection,” Kel explained. Fourteen-year-old Cleon was five inches taller than she; Kel dealt with that by climbing onto a chair. “Grab that basin of water and come here,” she ordered him. With a comb and enough water, she got his hair in some kind of order.

  “Neal, do you know where the Lioness will be sitting?” she asked as she carefully parted Cleon’s damp locks. She couldn’t wait
to catch a glimpse of her hero, the woman knight who was the King’s Champion.

  “Nowhere,” answered Neal. “They’re still not letting her talk to you, so she’s still refusing to come to the palace.”

  “They think she’ll magic you into getting a shield,” Owen remarked angrily.

  “Like Kel needs help,” Esmond added.

  Does this mean I won’t see her till I’m a squire? thought Kel, dismayed and angry. It’s not fair!

  She fought off her disappointment. At least her friends had faith in her ability to gain a shield on her own. She smiled at all of them as she stepped off the chair. “Well, come on,” she urged them. “Let’s get going.”

  The pages reported to the servers’ room off the banquet hall, where Master Oakbridge waited. He was the palace master of ceremonies as well as the pages’ etiquette teacher, a dried-up, fussy man who lived to arrange banquets and decree who preceded whom in processions. Once all of the pages had arrived, he gave them a careful going-over, criticizing and correcting. Only when that was over did he show them the plan of the banquet hall, drawn in chalk on a black slate six feet tall.

  They memorized their positions. Kel’s post was at the back of the hall, waiting on members of the minor guilds. That suited her perfectly. She didn’t want a place where important people would take notice of her, such as the great nobles or the monarchs.

  Suddenly the pages heard the royal fanfare: the king and queen had taken their places. Kel and the other servers gathered finger bowls and towels.

  “Now,” said Master Oakbridge.

  Kel walked briskly to her post, taking in as much of the dazzling scene around her as she could. The heavy smells of pine and frankincense drifted in the air. The walls and ceiling were draped in pine branches and freshly cleaned banners. Thousands of candles burned in the huge chandeliers overhead, their light reflected by crystal lusters, the guests’ gems, and the mirror-polished armor of the men of the King’s Own, who stood in niches along the wall. A glance upward showed her galleries on three sides. On one of these the musicians played, as they would throughout the meal. The others were filled with people who had come to watch the spectacle of the feast.