He caught her and tugged her into a dark niche by the stands, where he kissed her warmly. Kel matched his warmth with hers: she liked the taste of him. “Good night, sunrise,” he whispered, and let her go.
As if the weather gods overheard Kel’s mud remarks, rain during the night left a sloppy tilting field in its wake. Peachblossom grumbled, Jump rolled in the stuff, and the sparrows ignored it.
Waiting to take the field, Kel looked down its length at her training master. He and his mount waited alone, hearing the chief herald’s instructions. His wife sat in the stands, someone had said; his conservative friends sat with her. Kel knew, though, that Wyldon must like that moment of quiet before he mounted up, just as she did.
Now the herald rode to Kel’s side of the field. She accepted her helmet from a monitor and put it on, then took up her lance and urged Peachblossom to their starting point. Gobbets of mud were thrown up by the herald’s trotting mount. Kel grimaced. She hated sloppy ground; it took days to get the grit out of her gear.
“I don’t know why I came over,” the herald remarked when he was within earshot. “By now you know the rules as well as I. Lord Raoul asked me to tell you that if you get yourself killed, he will never speak to you again.”
“So helpful,” Kel replied.
The herald saluted her with a raised hand and rode off the field. Kel and Wyldon took their places in the lanes. When the trumpet blew, they charged and came together in a grinding crash; both lances shattered. Kel rode to her end of the field, gasping for air. Lord Wyldon didn’t have Raoul’s height and weight, but her side was numb from his impact all the same. She waited until she could feel her arm and hand properly, thinking, Lucky for us tournament lances are so easily made. A strong young sapling, a man who’s shaped wood all his life, and I’m ready to be pounded again. She accepted a fresh lance and turned Peachblossom for their second run.
The trumpet sounded. On came Wyldon as Kel’s focus narrowed to his shield. She barely felt Peachblossom under her, barely noticed Wyldon or his mount, just his shield as she rose, balanced, and hit. Again a splintering crash: Kel’s lance went to pieces; a third of Wyldon’s snapped off. They returned to their start points for new lances.
I’m doomed, Kel thought. I should have bedded Cleon before I died.
The trumpet blared. Peachblossom flew down the track, an avalanche of a horse. She set herself and realized too late she was wrong; her weight was now in the worst possible spot if she wanted to stay in the saddle. Her lance hit the rim of Wyldon’s shield; his struck just under the boss on hers. Kel’s bottom rose from the saddle, her boots popped from the stirrups. She went flying.
She set her body for the fall, and landed in a clatter of metal and a splat of mud. She sat up, ears ringing. Removing her helmet improved matters. Her ears didn’t stop ringing, but now it wasn’t so loud.
Lord Wyldon approached on his horse, helmet tucked under his arm. His clean-shaven face was handsome in a cold way, marked with dark eyes and a scar that went from one eyelid into the cropped hair over his temple. His bald crown gleamed in the sun. “Coming along nicely, Mindelan,” he said, his voice as cool and crisp as ever. “I wouldn’t have let you joust until your third year, but Lord Raoul was right to let you try. Keep your shield higher by an inch or so. Need a hand up?”
“No, sir, I thank you.” Peachblossom had come to urge her to her feet. Kel hauled herself upright by grabbing her saddle.
“Has Joren given you further trouble?”
She was surprised that he’d asked. “No, sir, I don’t believe he has.”
Lord Wyldon raised dark brows. “You don’t believe so? I taught you to report more precisely, Mindelan.”
Kel stood straighter in response to the reprimand in the training master’s voice. “He spends time walking about with knights who later challenge me. Of course, his is a very well known family. That might account for it.”
“No doubt.” For a moment Wyldon looked away, shaking his head. Then he met her eyes again. “Remember what I said about your shield. Hold steady, Keladry.” He rode off the field.
“Steady isn’t the problem just now,” Kel told Peachblossom. “Clean is the problem.”
Raoul waited for her at the end of the field. “I haven’t seen you do that in a while,” he remarked cheerfully.
“I thought I was getting better,” she grumbled. She hated to lose.
Raoul grinned. “The day you can best Wyldon is the day they put up a statue to you in front of the palace. He’s strong, he’s fast, he’s got powerful horses, and he always knows exactly where to hit,” he said. “The last fall I got from any man was from him, ten years ago.”
“You’ve beaten him since?” Kel asked, thinking he might share his secret.
“Mithros, no—I just don’t joust with him anymore. I have my pride,” Raoul said.
thirteen
THE IRON DOOR
Three days before Midwinter’s start, the progress returned to the palace. Prince Roald was scheduled to take his Ordeal over the holiday; his parents wanted to be on hand.
Kel visited the Chapel of the Ordeal as soon as she’d unpacked Raoul’s gear. No one had entered it to clean for the Midwinter rites yet. A film of dust lay everywhere.
She went directly to the door, determined to do this and get it over with. She had no idea what drove her to keep testing herself against the Chamber, only that she had to do it.
Gingerly she brushed a finger over the cold, dark surface. No dust, she realized. Dust probably doesn’t have the nerve to settle here. She wiped her hands on her breeches, bracing herself to put her hands on the iron.
It was a tilting accident, or rather, a joust she had lost, that had crippled her for good. She remembered that loss often as she struggled to learn to walk with a crutch. Her shoulder, broken in the same joust, healed sloppily.
She never got a satisfactory answer as to how a novice healer who specialized in childbirth would be the only one available for a squire who’d taken lances in a shoulder and a hip. Now Kel lived with a shoulder that was so much lumpy meat, and a leg that was too weak to take her weight.
She was limping down a village street with a basket on her back when she heard shouting. Men, armed and mounted on horses, galloped down the street, coming straight at her. One leaned down, longsword in hand. “We don’t need no cripples, dearie!” he cried as she fought to shed the basket. Her bad leg collapsed; she toppled as the man’s sword bit deep into her good shoulder. She lay on her side in the dust, blood pooling under her, unable to move or close her eyes.
Armed men killed two small children, then grabbed their mother and a teenaged girl and slung them over their saddles. A local man came out waving a rusted old broadaxe. He was shot through the throat by a raider bowman. The temple was on fire: she heard the screams of those trapped inside. No matter how hard she struggled, she couldn’t get up. She couldn’t put a stop to it. She was helpless and dying in some dusty street.
When the door freed her, she raced outside the chapel. She reached a small, snow-covered garden just in time, and threw up till she had nothing more in her belly.
Lies, she told herself grimly. All lies, to make me lose my nerve. And I won’t. I won’t ever lose my nerve.
Kel scrubbed her face with snow, ate a handful to clean her mouth, and shoved more over her mess. Then slowly, holding her shoulder and limping, she walked to her rooms.
Cleon’s was the first name drawn of the squires who faced the Ordeal. He would take the ritual bath at sunset on the first night of Midwinter, with two knights there to instruct him in the laws of chivalry. Next would come his solitary vigil in the chapel throughout the night with only his thoughts for company. At dawn he would enter the Chamber. Though he didn’t mention Cleon, Raoul gave Kel the first day of the holiday to herself.
That morning she put on a pale pink shift, pink wool stockings, and a fine wool gown in a delicate brown Lalasa called “fawn.” Over her clothes she wore a hooded wine-colored
coat with the look of a kimono. Lalasa had assured her it was the newest fashion. Kel chose dress boots to walk in. Ladies wore wooden pattens outdoors in winter, to lift their feet clear of the slush, but whenever Kel put them on, she turned an ankle. Boots were safer.
Seeing herself in the mirror, Kel thought she’d made herself into the girl she would have been had she not tried for her shield. The feeling was odd, more good than bad. Maybe I’m the same whatever I wear, she thought. It’s just easier to fight in breeches.
She saw Cleon before he saw her. He stood at the foot of King Jasson’s statue, where the Palace Way met Gold Street. He missed her as he scanned the crowds coming down from the palace. Kel slid back her hood and smiled when he finally looked at her.
“A dress?” he asked, grinning. Kel opened her coat. “You look beautiful,” he said, taking her hand.
“It’s not me, silly, it’s the gown,” Kel told him. “Lalasa can make anyone look good.”
Cleon pulled her into a nook in the base of the statue and kissed her warmly. “It is you, silly.” He kissed her again, then held her tight. “I love tall women. Pearl of squires, have I mentioned how lovely it is not to have to bend in two to kiss you?”
“Only a hundred times,” she replied.
They let go of each other reluctantly. Cleon looked to see if anyone they knew was about. Finding no one, he signaled “all safe.” Kel walked out to join him, covering her hair again.
They had lunch at a quiet eating house, where they could hold hands as they talked. Then they visited Raven Armory to covet the displayed weapons. “One of those swords would cost Mother a year’s income,” Cleon said. “But I can dream. Maybe I’ll do something heroic, and the king will reward me. He does that, with knights who serve the Crown.”
“I know,” Kel replied. “Conal, Inness, and Anders all got purses for things they did.” As Inness’s squire Cleon knew her older brothers.
On they walked through the crowds. If Cleon was nervous about his Ordeal, he said nothing. His grip on her fingers got tighter, the stops in alleys and corners for kisses more frequent, as the afternoon wore on. When a shopkeeper placed lit torches on either side of his door, they knew their day was over. They found one last doorway. Wrapping their arms around each other, they kissed long and hard. Kel felt Cleon’s heart beating against his ribs. She clung to him with all her strength as he clung back.
A street boy saw them and chanted obscene rhymes until they separated. Cleon shook his fist at the boy, then drew Kel’s hood up.
“Who’s instructing you in the bath?” she asked, straightening his stubborn red curls with fingers that shook. “Inness, and . . .?”
“It’s a very great honor,” Cleon told her, cupping her cheek in one large hand. “Lord Raoul.”
Kel shook her head. “He didn’t say a word.”
“You know those big fellows—sneaky.” He kissed her softly one more time. “Midwinter luck, Kel,” he told her with a smile.
She kissed him. “Midwinter luck, Cleon.”
“Y’goan t’start again?” The street boy was unimpressed by their farewell. Cleon sighed, flipped a coin to the boy for luck, and began the long walk back to the palace.
She lingered briefly to savor the warmth that filled her veins when he kissed her. Then, whistling, she took the street to the Temple District to say Midwinter prayers.
Even the monarchs were tired of entertaining. They chose not to hold large parties this year, though Kel would have liked to have something to do. She settled down to read the night away, but with Jump and the birds asleep, the silence was too big, the time between the Watchmen’s calls too long. When Raoul came in after his part in Cleon’s vigil was done, he and Kel played chess. Kel nearly had him boxed in when someone knocked.
It was Prince Roald, Princess Shinkokami, Inness of Mindelan, Buri, Neal, Yuki, Jerel of Nenan, and Owen. All had cakes, fruit, jugs of cider, and other things to eat and drink. Raoul and Kel welcomed them with relief.
They talked, played games, and traded songs, Tortallan for Yamani and K’miri. The night was well along by the time everyone left. Kel slept without dreaming.
Despite her late bedtime she woke before dawn, as usual. Together with the sparrows and Jump, Kel went to the Chapel of the Ordeal. Cleon was inside the Chamber by the time they arrived. They waited.
Kel bit down a feeling of panic at the sight of the iron door, suddenly afraid it would send her a vision. It can’t reach to the back of the room, surely, she told herself as the sparrows huddled in her lap. She covered them with her hands and tried to ignore the Chamber door. Instead her mind presented her with a roll call of those who had failed their Ordeal. Kel squelched that fear, too. Counting the failures since the time her oldest brother became a page, she had less than a handful. Cleon would be fine.
A clank: Kel flinched. Was the door opening? It was. Inness hurried forward to grab Cleon as he tottered into the chapel. Kel bit her lip: Cleon was pale, sweating, and shaky. Inness asked him something—Cleon nodded, and searched the room with his eyes. When he saw Kel, he smiled wearily. He was all right, or as all right as anyone who had survived the Ordeal could be. “It’s a hammer,” her brother Anders had described it. Cleon looked pounded.
Kel smiled back. As others crowded around him, she stayed where she was. Her knees had gone all quivery. Too little sleep, she told herself, though she knew it was relief.
For the second night of Midwinter, Raoul decided he liked parties the size of the one they’d had the night before. At his request palace servants filled a table with food and drink. Invitations went to people throughout the palace, including Third Company. Most of the men stopped in to say hello. Flyn, Lerant, Qasim, and the squad leaders, including Dom, stayed. When Dom saw Kel, he smiled at her. Her stomach did flip-flops. The old worry stirred: was she hopelessly fickle? She liked Cleon, but she still melted like butter when Dom looked her way.
Cleon was knighted at sunset. Kel thought she would burst with pride in him. That pride filled her again when he walked into Raoul’s chambers. Most of her feelings about Dom evaporated.
Everyone who had been there the night before returned, including Buri. She and Raoul talked frequently, leaning against the wall side by side. Kel had to smile, looking at them: Buri stood only as high as Raoul’s shoulder. They made a comical pair.
When Cleon slipped into her dark room, Kel waited a moment, then announced a trip to get more fruit. She left Raoul’s, then eased through her front door into her chambers. The connecting door was ajar: she saw Cleon by the light from the party. He caught her up in a warm, fierce hug, then kissed her as if he thought he might lose her. They were fumbling at one another’s clothes, to what end a sane Kel couldn’t guess, when Jump nudged the connecting door wider. The sudden increase in sound brought them to their senses. They kissed again, then separated, Cleon to return to the party, Kel to get fruit.
They went home at a respectable hour. Kel slept past dawn, exhausted by late nights and relief. A hand shook her rudely awake. It was Raoul’s. The expression in his eyes told her the news was odd.
“Sir?” Kel asked, sitting up.
“It’s that Vinson of Genlith.” Lalasa stood beside Raoul, grim-faced, hands clenched under her embroidered apron. Her friend Tian stood just behind her. “His Ordeal was this morning.”
“He left the Chamber and requested an audience, with Turomot present,” Raoul told Kel. “Get dressed. When they want something after they come out, it’s usually not good.” He left her, closing his door.
“How did you know?” Kel asked Lalasa and Tian as she washed her face.
“We have rooms for the holiday in the royal wing,” Lalasa said. “We are finishing dresses for the princesses and her majesty.”
Kel looked into her former maid’s eyes. “You wanted to be here in case something happened.” Vinson had attacked Lalasa once, trying to kiss her, frightening her half to death. If Peg the sparrow hadn’t fetched Kel, he might have done worse.
Lalasa nodded. “Oh, no,” she said, dark eyes sharp, as Kel buttoned a shirt. “You’ve gone and added more muscle—that shirt doesn’t set right.”
“Worry about my clothes later,” Kel said.
Lalasa held up a pair of breeches. “Look at these pockets. My lady, you are so hard on your clothes!”
“I’ve been hard them for years,” retorted Kel, putting the breeches on. “It’s not like I’ll change now.”
Lalasa fed the birds as Kel finished dressing. Once the animals were tended, the three young women and Jump left. As they passed through the halls they were joined by more sleepy-looking people, nobles and servants alike.
Soon after Kel, Tian, and Lalasa took places between Raoul and Kel’s parents, the door behind the dais in the Great Throne Room opened for the king and queen, Prince Roald, and Princess Kalasin. At another time Kel would have been curious about the princess, who had spent the last four years with the countess at King’s Reach, but not today. Instead Kel looked for Vinson’s cronies. There was Joren with his knight-master, Paxton. Garvey of Runnerspring stood nearby with Jerel. Vinson’s family—his parents, uncle, and grandfather—and his knight-master, Nualt of Rosemark, stood near the throne. All looked like proud folk trying to hide fear.
With the monarchs seated, the Lord Magistrate, Turomot of Wellam, took a place one step down from the thrones and nodded to the guards at the doors. A herald announced, “Vinson of Genlith, squire and—” He fell silent, astonished. Vinson ran past him to drop to his knees before the dais.
Vinson’s eyes were red and swollen—had he been weeping? He trembled visibly, and he still wore his vigil clothes, though surely he’d had time to change. There were marks over his shoulders, as if someone had grabbed him so hard that he’d bled through the cloth. Shadow bruises played over his face and hands, signs of a beating, or beatings. He flinched or twitched as each new one appeared, as if they caused him pain.
“I have a confession.” His voice cracked, as if he’d broken it with screams. “I must—confess. I confess.” He shuddered. “Two years ago, there—there was trouble in the Lower City. Two—two slum wenches, no better than—No!” he cried, raising an arm as if he shielded himself from a blow. “No! I meant, two girls of the Lower City were attacked, beaten. A third was—must I say it?—a third was beaten and raped. I did it. Sir Nualt had no knowledge. None. He’d have denounced me if he’d known. I didn’t—the women made me angry. They’re teases, leading a man—” He screamed then and dropped to the floor, sobbing. One of his hands swelled, turned purple, shrank. A cut opened on his scalp, bled, then faded.
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