Protector of the Small Quartet

by Tamora Pierce

  The room went still. The pages who stood remained in their places, watching Joren and the others for some sign. Kel finally got tired of waiting. She leaned in until scant inches separated her nose from Joren’s. “Are you hearing us now?” she asked softly.

  He blinked, then raised his hand to cover a fake-looking yawn. “I’m too tired to do anything but what my teachers order me,” he said at last. “And you are just too rough-and-tumble to bear. We shall stop, but only because we are bored.”

  They would get nothing further, Kel knew. She moved out of Joren’s way, allowing him to rise and go. The other pages streamed out the mess hall doors, many lost to a storm of very real yawns.

  It isn’t over, Kel thought as she bid her friends good night. We’re just forcing them to be sneaky. And Joren... She sighed as she fitted her key to the lock on her door. I don’t know if he’ll ever stop with me.

  On the third night of the holiday, Master Oakbridge found a place for Kel that no one contested. Although by the strictest terms of protocol a second-year page was not senior enough for the duty, Master Oakbridge set her to wait on the archpriestess of the Great Mother Goddess. That old, formidable lady sat with Eda Bell and Hakuin Seastone, the two Shang warriors, and Harailt of Aili, the round-faced and cheerful head of the royal university. Every moment that Kel attended them she was terrified she would do something wrong, but the Shangs made it clear she had their confidence. They kept the old woman and Master Harailt busy. Kel was able to serve and slip away like a ghost.

  Neal got her old place with the damsels. “Your sisters are well enough,” he said when he sat down to supper with Kel. “But Uline of Hannalof—isn’t she a beauty? And kind, too. She asked how you were. She has the prettiest voice...”The rapt look in his eyes was the same as when he’d spoken of his hopeless love for Daine. “Skin like porcelain. And she’s reading Ethical Contrasts of the North and South. I told you about it—I read parts of it to you last year.” He often shared his philosophical books with his friends, who ignored him. “Too bad I couldn’t really discuss it with her.”

  Listening to him, Kel felt her heart sink. “Sounds like you’re in love,” she commented softly, too tired to eat. “And I believe she isn’t even betrothed.”

  Neal coughed nervously. “It’s too early for me to think of such things. It’s improper for a page to court anyone. You did like her, didn’t you?” he asked, suddenly anxious. “You know I value your opinion, except on philosophy.”

  Kel made herself smile, though her heart was sinking. What’s the matter with me? she wondered, vexed with herself. It’s not like I’m in love with him.

  Or that he’d ever look at you twice if you were, her sharp-voiced self retorted.

  “That’s because the philosophy you read me is silly,” she told him, trying to sound as boyish as possible. ’’And yes, Lady Uline is very kind.” She’s also the sort of girl boys fall in love with, she thought, putting her dishes on her tray. A part of her—the stupid part, she thought crossly—that wanted him to be happy added, “She is very pretty.”

  “I think of her as luminescent,” Neal said, dreamy-eyed. “When the candle light falls on her, she makes the light part of herself, and returns it.”

  “I’m off,” said Kel. “Don’t be up too late dreaming.”Thoroughly depressed, she returned her tray to the servers and trudged back to her room.

  The fourth day of the festival arrived, the time when gifts were exchanged. Remembering that she’d never gotten to the city’s markets the year before, Kel had done all her Midwinter shopping over the summer. The only other people she had needed gifts for were Lalasa, who got the customary silver coin for her service, and Owen. He was easy: Kel gave him one of her razor-sharp Yamani throwing stars. Jump got a meaty bone Kel had bargained out of the palace butcher, while her sparrows got dried fruit.

  While Kel practiced with her glaive, Lalasa went to fetch gifts left for Kel with Salma. Her uncle Gower returned with her, carrying a large box. It bore the same canvas wrap and plain label as other packages from Kel’s unknown benefactor.

  When Kel took the package, she nearly dropped it. The thing was heavy. Unwrapping it, she found a rectangular wooden box, beautifully made and polished, with leather carry straps at each end. Burned deep into the top was the legend, “Raven Armory: Serving Tortall’s Finest.”

  Her jaw dropped. Everyone knew of Raven Armory. Boys who stood well enough in Lord Wyldon’s graces to have time off in Corus always went to see what the realm’s finest armory offered. Few could afford Raven goods unless the item was small, like Zahir’s blade-polishing cloth, or the knife Neal wore hidden in his belt buckle.

  Kel opened the box. Like any armory, Raven carried supplies for the care of weapons and leather. Inside the box lay polishing cloths; the armory’s prized polishing compound, guaranteed to scour away the tiniest flecks of rust or scratches; rustproofing oil; an oil to preserve and soften leather fittings; sharpening stones in three sizes; and a bag of sand for cleaning chain mail. It was perfect for a second-year page.

  “Who is it?” Kel whispered, staring at the box’s contents. Her lips were trembling. In a moment, she knew, she would start to cry, and that was no good. She took a deep breath and held it, staring at the ceiling until she had her feelings—doubt, gratitude, wonder, confusion—under control. “Who sends me these things?”

  “Someone who likes you, Page Keladry,” said Gower in his usual glum way. “The joys of the season to you, my lady.” He bowed and left.

  Kel turned to Lalasa. “Has he always been so gloomy?”

  The girl looked genuinely startled. “Gloomy? Uncle’s in a wonderful mood.”

  Kel blinked. “A good mood,” she repeated, just to be sure she had it right.

  “Oh, yes,” Lalasa replied, nodding vigorously. “He likes you.”

  Kel opened her mouth, about to repeat what the older girl had said, and thought the better of it. “I don’t know why,” she murmured, baffled. “Any more than I know why whoever sends me these things likes me.”

  “There’s plenty of reasons to like you, my lady.”

  This time, when she stared at Lalasa, the maid kept her eyes lowered. “Thank you,” Kel said at last. “I don’t mean to sound ungrateful—I just don’t understand.” She laid her hands on either side of that wonderful box. “Mithros’s blessings attend you, whoever you are,” she said. “One day I should really like to thank you in person.”

  six

  MORE CHANGES

  For the new year Lord Wyldon added two more weights to the senior pages’ harnesses. For a week or so Kel felt as if she were trying to fight through clinging mud. Her body then adjusted to the added weight.

  Lord Wyldon took them on a winter camping trip in February, which made no one happy. Only the first-years were foolish enough to let him hear their complaints. He gave them a blistering lecture about how knights weren’t able to choose the conditions under which they traveled, while Kel and the other pages tried to pretend they were invisible.

  Neal continued to sigh after Uline of Hannalof. Kel listened, and made soothing noises, and bit her tongue when she wanted to point out that he had said many of the same things about Daine the year before. One night after the pages were supposed to be in bed, she joined their other friends outside Neal’s window. They caterwauled the soppiest love ballad they knew while Jump howled accompaniment. When Neal threw open the shutters, only the hapless Cleon was too slow to avoid a bath as Neal dumped a water basin on him. For weeks after that, all one of them had to do was to hum part of that song, and the others would start to grin.

  Spring came just as everyone was giving up hope. Even the forlorn tree in Kel’s courtyard thrust out a crown of leaves. The sparrows abandoned her room for the outside once more, setting tiny nests in the eaves around the courtyard. Jump proved to have a dismaying love of rolling in the mud. No matter how thickly he coated himself, Lalasa bathed him patiently until he was white again.

  To Kel this sp
ring smelled of promise. The big and little examinations were coming; she would be free of Joren, Vinson, Garvey, and Zahir. Sadly she would also lose Prince Roald and Cleon. Knights were already walking the pages’ wing, inspecting the fourth-years as possible squires. Most would be gone into service by the time the junior pages left for summer training. A handful always stayed until fall, when knights in the field could return and choose a squire.

  Kel tried not to think about that. When she did, she had to wonder what knight would be mad enough to take her into his service. Her dream had been to act as the Lioness’s squire, but she saw now that might not be wise. It seemed people still thought the Lioness might give Kel magical aid. Did this mean Lady Alanna would not be able to make Kel her squire for the same reason? Worse, if she couldn’t or wouldn’t take Kel, who would?

  She put it from her mind. The big examinations were two years away. She had a lot of work to do before then, and worrying about things she had no control over would just drain her strength. She concentrated on studies, on exercises, and on fighting her powerful new feelings for Neal. Feelings, she learned, were hard to fight. She treasured his smiles and compliments and tried not to dwell on the fact that he gave these things to his friend Kel. His dreamy-eyed gazes, poems, and fits of passionate melancholy were for Uline. It was hard not to resent the older girl.

  Even as she wrestled with strange new emotions, though, Kel recognized some facts. Uline hadn’t the slightest idea of Neal’s feelings. The poems stayed in his desk, the gazes and melancholies in the pages’ wing. When Kel urged Neal to send Uline a poem, he refused. “I’ll enjoy my crush in private, thanks all the same,” he told her ruefully. “I prefer that to finding out she and her friends giggle over my poor verses.”

  “I don’t understand,” Kel confided to Lalasa the April night before the little examinations. “If he loves her, why doesn’t he do something? To her he’s just another pair of scarlet arms and legs in a gold tunic. She’ll never love him if he doesn’t make himself known to her.”

  “Perhaps Master Neal just likes being in love,” Lalasa remarked, snipping off a thread. She was letting down Kel’s tunics again. “If he puts himself forward and she rejects him, he’ll feel the fool.”

  “I’d do something,” grumbled Kel, practicing a headstand. “I’d make her fall in love with me.”

  Lalasa smiled. “Would you, my lady? And what of your own feelings for Master Neal?” She shook out the tunic. “Let’s see how this fits.”

  Kel obeyed, red-faced. Lalasa was right. It was easy to say she’d make Uline love her if she were Neal, but when it came to herself, Kel was terrified to speak up. She would hate it if Neal were no longer comfortable with her. Better to be a coward and still be his friend.

  She went to bed with those comforting thoughts. In the morning came the little examinations, when first-, second-, and third-year pages were tested before an audience on the last year’s learning and skills. The exams were not considered serious, except to the pages who had to take them. What they did was ready the pages for the big examinations at the end of their fourth year. Those were more difficult tests conducted before a very large audience. The practice had been started fifteen years earlier by King Jonathan’s father, in the last year of his reign. With people wondering if Alanna the Lioness had cheated to win her shield, King Roald had wanted to ensure that anyone could see for himself that fourth-year pages knew their work and were fit to be squires.

  That night Kel dreamed of going to the platform to answer the judges’ questions, only to find that she was naked. It left her grumpy. She skimped on morning exercises, washed and dressed, fed the birds and Jump, then made her way to the mess hall. Like Kel, her friends were nearly silent over breakfast.

  Halfway through the meal, she felt a trickle of wetness in her loincloth. What on earth? she thought, appalled. She was too old to wet herself like a baby. Besides, the little exams didn’t scare her that much! Crimson with humiliation and trying to hide it, she stood and put the last of her breakfast onto her tray.

  “Where are you going?” Neal mumbled, staring at her with bleary eyes. “We’re to report to the examination room. We can’t be late.”

  “I won’t be late,” Kel said tightly, feeling more wetness. Great Goddess, would it soak through to her hose? “I’ll only take a minute.” She handed in her tray and raced back to her room.

  Lalasa was brewing her morning tea on the hearth. “My lady, what—?” she began, startled, as Kel ran by. Kel ducked into the dressing room and shut the door. Hurriedly she undid her points and rolled down her hose. If she’d wet herself, wouldn’t she have noticed a feeling in her bladder? This had come from nowhere...

  Blood was on her loincloth and inner thighs. She stared at it, thinking something dreadful was happening. Then she remembered several talks she’d had with her mother. This had to be her monthlies, the bleeding that told every girl she was ready to have babies if she wanted them.

  “Of all times for it to happen,” she muttered, wetting a cloth in her washbasin and scrubbing herself. “First these”—she meant her breasts—“now this.” She had a dull ache in her abdomen. Was that normal?

  Lalasa opened the dressing room door. Looking at Kel, she saw the problem immediately. “Do you know what this means?” she asked, opening a dry-goods chest and drawing out linen and a fresh loincloth.

  Kel nodded, still scrubbing.

  “Congratulations,” Lalasa said. “You’ve become a woman. It’s the Goddess’s mark on us, that we bleed every month. You started early, didn’t you? Not even twelve. I was thirteen... Have you cramps?”

  Kel frowned. “Cramps?”

  “An ache, like.” Lalasa patted her abdomen.

  Kel nodded.

  “Willow tea will help. Here.” She showed Kel how to fix a linen pad inside her loincloth, to catch the blood. “We can change that at lunchtime.”

  “I need clean hose, too,” Kel said gloomily.

  “You look as happy as you did when I pointed out you needed a breastband,” the older girl pointed out, her voice gently teasing.

  Kel opened her mouth to reply, then closed it. To her intense shame, tears began to roll down her cheeks. She turned away from Lalasa and buried her face in her hands.

  “Here, what’s this?” Lalasa turned Kel and pulled her mistress’s head down to her shoulder—she was two inches shorter than Kel. “Most girls are happy, you know. Please don’t cry. You never cry. Not when I would be awash in tears from all those bruises, not when that beastly horse steps on your foot—”

  “He doesn’t mean it,” Kel said into that sensible white cotton shoulder.

  “Isn’t it just like you to stand up for him?”

  Kel drew away. “I hate my body doing new things without telling me,” she said wetly, and sniffed. She wiped her eyes on the back of her arm.

  “Some get the weeps with monthlies, like cramps,” Lalasa explained. “It could be worse. My mama got plain mean right before hers.”

  “Mine gets hungry for sweets,” Kel said, adjusting her loincloth impatiently. It now felt as bulky as a diaper. “She ate a whole cake once.”

  Someone banged loudly on the outer door. “Kel, come on!” bellowed Neal. “We’ll be late!”

  “Hose.” Lalasa dragged out a fresh pair. “I’ll tie one leg if you’ll do the other.”

  “Neal, hold on,” Kel shouted. “I have to fix something!” She struggled into both hose, then tied the points on her left side while Lalasa did up the right. Before they were half done Neal banged on the door again. “Go without me!” Kel ordered.

  “No! Come on!”

  Points and hose tied, Kel struggled back into her slippers. “Thank you,” she told Lalasa warmly. “I’ll have that tea when I get back from the tests.” She ran to the door and yanked it open.

  Neal stood there, red-faced with impatience, ready to knock again. “About time,” he said. They trotted down the hall.

  “Why are you in such a tearing h
urry?” demanded Kel, stopping in the classroom wing to adjust the hose on one leg. “We’ll get there.”

  “You don’t understand,” Neal said when they ran on. “If you’re even a little bit late, the Stump makes you repeat the last year. He did it to two boys three years ago. And if you’re really late, you have to repeat all four years. Edmund of Rosemark, a year before we started, was that late. He refused to do four more years and went home.”

  “Why is he so hard on latecomers?” Kel asked.

  “You know the Stump. He says tardiness in a knight costs lives.”

  “You could have gone without me,” Kel reminded him. She stopped him and finger-combed his tumbled hair to lie flat. For a dizzying moment, she thought they were close enough to kiss, and swallowed hard.

  Neal destroyed her romantic daydream by straightening her collar in his most businesslike way. “I will not repeat even the littlest bit of this happy experiment of ours, if that’s all the same to you. And I should think you’d feel the same.” They walked into the room together, to join the pages already there.

  Neal’s worries aside, the tests for second-years were every bit as easy as those for the first-years. First they were asked questions based on their classroom learning. Then they were ushered outside to show they had mastered the best part of a second-year’s combat lessons. After Neal hammering at her door and fretting that they might be as much as a step behind Lord Wyldon, it was something of a letdown. The examiners, whom Neal had once described as the oldest, fustiest nobles the king could find to judge the pages, seemed to frown a little deeper when Kel was tested. For all that, they couldn’t fault her answers, and she passed, just as the other first-, second-, and third-year pages did.

  The next week she and Neal watched the fourth-year examinations in support of the prince and Cleon. These tests, the big exams, were longer and harder than those given to the third-years, but again it was material the fourth-years were expected to know. Everyone passed.

  That night, the fourth-year pages moved to the squires’ side of the mess hall, to enthusiastic applause from their fellows. Kel, watching Joren, Vinson, Garvey, and Zahir walk away, heaved an inner sigh of relief. Things would be quieter in the pages’ wing, of that she was certain.