Protector of the Small Quartet

by Tamora Pierce

  “You’ll see!” she heard Iden tell Warric as they went to put their staffs away. “We’ll be good in no time!”

  I wish I had such faith in my skill as a teacher, thought Kel. She collected her books. “Thank you for helping, Lalasa.”

  “I just told him what you told me,” the maid said, picking up her sewing again.

  Kel shook her head and left for the library.

  The weeks between the squires’ return and Midwinter evaporated. In that time, Iden and Warric became regular visitors to Kel’s room, a source of entertainment that the sparrows, Jump, and Lalasa seemed to enjoy. Cleon taught her a sword thrust and twist good for parting a man from his dagger. The archery master allowed the advanced group to try shooting with broadhead arrows. For the first time Kel was granted a free afternoon to go into the city. Lalasa stopped lowering the hems of Kel’s present set of page uniforms, and got her new ones. Kel was five feet seven in her stocking feet at the age of twelve and a half.

  Joren said hello quite pleasantly, not just to Kel, but to her friends as well. One evening he was so bold as to come to the library they had claimed for their study group to get a book. No one knew what to make of it.

  Midwinter came, and with it the time for what Neal called “our ordeal by etiquette,” the Midwinter banquets. As they had the year before, Kel’s friends came to her and Lalasa for a last-minute inspection before they reported to Master Oakbridge. This year it was Owen’s turn to be the cool veteran, and Iden’s and Warric’s to fret that they might actually be called on to serve.

  Again Kel was assigned to wait on Danayne, Archpriestess of the Moon of Truth temple in Corus, and those who sat with her: Eda Bell and Hakuin Seastone, and Master Harailt of Aili, dean of the royal university. The Shangs and Master Harailt greeted her with pleasure; Master Harailt inquired about her studies. The Archpriestess said nothing, but then she’d said barely a word to her companions the year before.

  Kel was returning for the second fish course when a young woman moved into her path. It was Uline of Hannalof, elegant in petal-pink brocade. She wore her curly hair in a net decorated with moonstones. “Keladry, I wanted to say hello. How are you?”

  Kel smiled. “I’m quite well, thank you. And you look very grand!” She was startled to discover that Uline, who was eighteen or so, was Kel’s height exactly.

  Uline blushed and smoothed her skirts. “Thank you.” She looked Kel over. “How goes it? Do they treat you well, those pages?”

  “As well as they treat anyone,” Kel replied. “It’s a rough-and-tumble world, compared to that of the ladies.”

  “I don’t know about that,” replied Uline. “This summer I was invited to become one of the royal ladies. That has its rough-and-tumble moments.”

  “Congratulations,” Kel said, and meant it. While the queen had many ladies-in-waiting, only one group was called “the royal ladies.” It was made up of fifteen or so young women of noble birth who could wait on Queen Thayet at state functions, keep up with her on horseback, and use weapons in combat, bows for the most part. “That is, I hope you feel you should be congratulated.”

  Uline giggled. “Back in October, when I broke my arm, I wasn’t sure. Now it seems all right. Of course, if you ever see me after riding twenty miles in the rain—well, don’t ask me then, all right?”

  Kel smiled and bowed.

  Uline curtsied. “I’ll leave you to your chores. By the way—who is that handsome young man, the one with the green eyes? He looks a bit old to be a page.”

  Kel made herself say, “Nealan of Queenscove. He didn’t start until he was fifteen. He’s eighteen now.”

  “My goodness, how odd,” Uline remarked. “Still, don’t you think he’s handsome?”

  “Very,” Kel replied. I won’t get upset if she falls in love with him, she told herself. Uline’s very nice and they would make a fine couple.

  Uline sighed. “A pity we’re announcing the betrothal tonight. Oh, well—I do love Kieran, and at least the wedding isn’t for another year.”

  “Kieran?” asked Kel, baffled.

  “Kieran haMinch,” Uline replied. “He’s handsome, too, though his eyes are brown, not green. I do love green eyes. Maybe I’ll flirt with this Neal.” Her own eyes shone as she watched him.

  “Wouldn’t—” Kel began to say, but the words stuck in her mouth. She swallowed and tried again. “Wouldn’t it be, well, not nice to flirt with somebody you don’t want to fall in love with?”

  Uline sighed. “I suppose it would,” she admitted. “Well, I’ll dream I flirted with him. Or you could flirt with him for me.”

  “I think I could flirt about as well as my gelding dances,” Kel said frankly. “I’d best get to work.”

  Uline rested a hand on her arm. “I’m glad it’s going well,” she said, her eyes kind. “When you come to the big examinations, I’ll be in the audience, cheering.”

  Kel thanked Uline and returned to the room where the serving pages waited. She wondered if she ought to tell Neal that his heart’s desire was betrothed, but she thought the better of it. Let someone else ruin his life.

  It’s not as if he’ll ever look at you, she told herself as the freed pages trudged to their supper after the banquet. You’re the same as another boy to him. You—

  “Clumsy idiot!” she heard an all-too-familiar voice cry from a connecting hallway. “Do you know what this tunic cost me?”

  She said nothing to her companions, but turned into the corridor. Joren had a footman by the arm. The man still clutched a pitcher; at their feet was a puddle of liquid.

  The moment Joren saw Kel, he released the footman and backed away, both hands raised to show he wouldn’t grab the man again. “My apologies,” he told the man. To Kel he said, “Old habits die hard, don’t they?” His rueful smile invited her to share his amusement. When she said nothing, Joren gave the man a silver coin and strolled away.

  “What was that about?” Neal demanded.

  Kel turned. All of her friends were arrayed at her back. “He says he’s changed.”

  “I suppose he could have changed,” Neal said dryly. “I myself have noticed my growing resemblance to a daffodil.” The other pages snorted.

  Kel eyed her friend. “You do look yellow around the edges,” she told him, her face quite serious. “I hadn’t wanted to bring it up.”

  “We daffodils like to have things brought up,” Neal said, slinging an arm around her shoulders. “It reminds us of spring.”

  “Does dung remind you of spring, too, Princess Flower?” Cleon demanded irritably. “You needn’t manhandle our Kel like that.”

  Kel peeled Neal’s arm away. “Thanks, but no thanks,” she told him, hoping he didn’t notice that her breath came quicker, or that her heart pounded like a drum. “I don’t want to crush your petals.”

  “Crush mine all you like, fair lady,” Cleon told her, putting an arm around her shoulders in Neal’s stead.

  Owen wriggled between Kel and Neal and wrapped an arm around Kel’s waist. “Me too,” he said, grinning up at her.

  Kel worked herself free, chuckling. The banquets weren’t much fun, but she liked how the boys got silly at Midwinter. You can only be grim and determined to achieve your goals for so long, she thought as they walked into the pages’ mess together. After that, you just have to joke around for a while.

  “Say, Neal,” Owen said as they got into line to be served, “Uline of Hannalof looks beautiful.”

  “She is not for me,” Neal said gravely. Everyone turned to look at him. “She’s betrothed to Kieran haMinch—they’re announcing it this week. She’ll brighten their gloomy northern castles like the moon. Now, the queen—she was more than beautiful tonight. Did you see her, in that white gown embroidered in scarlet? The jewels in her hair, like stars in the midnight sky? No other country has a queen to compare. And she has the deadly core of a Sirajit sword, beauty and death in one splendid woman.” His eyes were misty as he considered Queen Thayet. “Murdon Fielding, t
he Sage of Cría, wrote, ’Squire, give thy queen thy purest love. Let her be the living emblem of the power of the Goddess. Her beauteous countenance will be thy guide, her favor and thanks your payment. Let her—’”

  Someone passed Kel one of the long, thin loaves of bread served with soup. Before Neal could go on, his friends attacked him with the loaves, battering him until the bread fell to pieces.

  Neal brushed crumbs off his clothes and fixed them with his loftiest glare. “Soulless, heartless pages that you are,” he said, “I ignore you.” He cut ahead of them in line so he could be served first.

  Once again Kel’s mysterious benefactor surprised her with a costly, useful holiday gift. That summer she had received riding gloves and gauntlets made of beautifully worked leather; in the fall it had been shooting gloves and arm guards to protect her clothes from her bowstring. Now it was a pair of large saddlebags, well made but ordinary enough on the outside, and fitted with large and small compartments. She found things in those compartments: flint and steel, an oiled pouch full of tinder; small iron pots and a plate and bowl set, all of which fit together; a hank of light, strong rope; tooth-cleaning powder; a tidy sewing kit; hooks and line for fishing; and a curious fanlike creation that, when opened up, was revealed to be a waterproof hat.

  “Whoever it is, they’re driving me mad,” Kel told Lalasa. “I can’t begin to thank them at this point, and I’ve no idea who it is!”

  “Whoever it is, they want you to keep doing what you’re doing,” Lalasa said.

  “I just wish I knew,” grumbled Kel. “I hate mysteries. Why does this person like me so much? Who could it hurt if I knew who it was?” When she’d gotten the gloves and arm guards, she realized that her unknown friend knew what size Kel was, but Lalasa swore no one had approached her. Kel had given up on that line of thinking. After all, her changing sizes were noted by the palace tailors so they could supply Lalasa. It would be easy enough for someone who knew the palace to ask the tailors for Kel’s measurements.

  This Midwinter, Kel made only one vow to keep in the new year. Being allowed to visit the city before the holiday had made her see that she wasn’t getting as many punishments as she had in her first two years. She was rarely tardy, she’d learned how to clean her gear to Lord Wyldon’s satisfaction, and she never got into fights anymore. Without punishment work to force her onto heights, there was nothing to help Kel overcome her fear.

  If she wanted to defeat it, she would have to face it herself, on a regular basis. She doubted that anyone would send her up Balor’s Needle again, but what if she had to take a note to the watch captain on the walls? She was certain that come summer, Lord Wyldon would resume sending her up on heights. She had better practice before then.

  Thus, every night after supper, Kel went on a walk. One night she might go to the immense, pillared gallery that stretched around the main entrance hall and map the lower floor, including every potted tree and bench. Another night might see her in one of the watchtowers, forcing herself to note which points of light below were fixed and which moved. She climbed trees in the gardens. On her days off she sought a balcony and mapped the portion of the grounds visible from there, or the land between the outer wall and the city.

  It had been easier when she did these things under Lord Wyldon’s orders. An order had to be obeyed; she didn’t have to think beyond that. When it was her own doing, she was always tempted to skip a day, or just glance down, then get back to the ground. Kel had to force herself to keep her vow. She was better at it some days than others.

  Her daily training followed the path set that autumn. After Midwinter, Lord Wyldon added to their harnesses once again. Kel adjusted to the new weight more quickly than before, which meant she was exhausted by its drag on her chest and shoulders for just over a week. By the time two weeks had passed, she didn’t notice the fresh weight.

  On days that were nice enough to allow the pages to practice tilting, Kel hit the black spot on the target shield with every pass. In January, Lord Wyldon moved six of the fourth-year pages who could reliably hit the target to Kel’s quintain and changed Kel’s program. Now she had a harder target—a ring of wood about a foot in diameter, hung from a cord attached to a long rod.

  This was very different from what Kel was used to. She believed the training master was trying to make her lose her mind. The circle bobbed and swayed in every puff of air. She felt as if she chased a butterfly with her lance.

  “Adversity builds character?” Neal suggested one bitter morning when she was taking a breather.

  She looked at Peachblossom. “Bite him,” she ordered. The gelding, as contrary as a cat, blew at her.

  “All right, how’s this? He knows you’re far better than most of us, and he’s trying to make you better still.” When Kel blinked at him, Neal shrugged. “Or we could go back to him being a Stump who lives to torture you. I like that one better anyway.”

  In weapons practice, Lord Wyldon began exercises in city fighting. He would take the seniors to an empty section of the palace, or to a collection of outbuildings on the grounds, and put them to work. In pairs, in groups, or alone, they chased one another, hiding behind doors and corners, sparring furiously when they encountered the “enemy.” Kel, in command of five pages one February morning, routed a group of seven that included Yancen, Balduin, and Neal, by making them split their force. When Hakuin and Eda declared her side the winner, Lord Wyldon was silent for a very long moment. There was no telling what he thought, or what the tone in his voice meant when he said at last, “Very good, Page Keladry.”

  It was his first compliment. She knew she would remember it every day of her life.

  One March Sunday, Kel climbed the curtain wall. She wasn’t sure how long she had been sketching the ground between the palace’s Least Gate and Corus when she realized she had company. Joren was draped on a merlon beside her, very much at his ease.

  “I thought you were afraid of heights,” he remarked when she looked at him.

  Kel let no hint of her uncertainty, confusion, and irritation with him show through her Yamani facade. “I am,” she replied at last, and went back to her mapping.

  “You don’t look it.”

  “Well, that’s something,” she said dryly, rubbing out a crooked line.

  “If you’re afraid, why do this?” he asked, at his most reasonable. “They won’t test you on it at the big or little exams.”

  “My lord will, the next time he gives me punishment work,” Kel informed him. “Or the gods will, the next time I’m supposed to help someone in trouble and they’re on a height, or we have to climb to escape danger.”

  For a while he said nothing, but she knew he was still there, still watching her. “Why do any of this?” he wanted to know. “It isn’t at all needful. Did someone tell you that you had no chance to marry?”

  Kel’s hand jerked, smearing charcoal over her notes. She made a face and rubbed it out.

  Joren went on, “It’s not true. You’d be a pretty thing, in the right clothes and after you’d lost some weight. After you stopped working so your arms are like a blacksmith’s. You’d make a fine wife for one of those big fellows—Cleon, for instance. He seems fond of you. How about Lord Raoul? He can afford a wife. You could settle down and raise young giants.” He smiled as Kel looked at him, but the smile didn’t reach his eyes.

  When she was five and her mother had saved the Yamanis’ most sacred artifacts from pirates, the emperor made her family part of his inner circle. Suddenly Kel’s family was sought by all kinds of people. Children who had laughed at Kel and called her a hulking barbarian now fought for the honor of sitting with her. They gave her presents and invited her to their homes. Kel heard two of them say privately that their parents had ordered them to befriend the emperor’s pets so the emperor might favor their families. The smiles of those children, and their parents, never reached their eyes, either.

  “It’s so good of you to concern yourself with my marriage prospects,” Kel repli
ed evenly. “Has it occurred to you I don’t want to marry?” Neal, she thought suddenly and horribly. If Neal asked me...

  He never will, replied her coldly practical self. He falls in love with beauties.

  “Nonsense,” Joren was saying comfortably. “All women care about marriage. Even the Lioness scraped up a husband, though she had to dig through the middens of Corus to do it.”

  Surely the King’s Champion had married only because she had wanted to. “If you say so,” Kel replied. She went back to her mapping.

  “Think about it,” Joren said, clapping her on the shoulder. “One battle too many, and you’ll be scarred for life. No man will want you then.” He ambled off, whistling.

  Kel shook her head. Maybe he’ll be a great knight one day—maybe, she thought. But first, he’d better get his head out of his behind. And he’d better let me be.

  eleven

  UNPLEASANT REALITIES

  One evening in late March a sparrow flew into the library where Kel and her friends studied. The bird—the female named Peg for her missing foot — landed on Kel’s shoulder and chattered angrily.

  “Aren’t they supposed to be asleep?” Neal asked.

  Kel sighed. “She’s probably locked out and can’t get to the courtyard.” If the sparrows were flying inside, they sometimes got trapped when the doors were closed. With the way to the courtyard, and Kel’s open shutter, barred, they usually waited for Kel by her door, fluffing up their feathers and looking the picture of sparrow misery.

  Kel got to her feet. “Jump, stay,” she ordered. Jump, who slept with his blocky head on Cleon’s foot, opened his eyes and snorted. He had no intention of moving.

  Cleon didn’t look at her as he said, “You want company?”

  Kel smiled. “I’m just going to let her into the courtyard. I’ll only be a moment.” Walking out, she told Peg, “I don’t see why you couldn’t wait till I came home, if Lalasa didn’t hear you. Or does sitting on the stones make your stump hurt?” She crossed the pages’ corridor into the short hall that led to the outer door. Cool air, not cold, brushed her cheeks—the door was open. “Peg, why in Mithros’s name—” Kel began, vexed.