Protector of the Small Quartet

by Tamora Pierce

  “I am sorry for your loss,” Raoul told Joren’s mother, “but Kel didn’t kill your son. I won’t ask to settle this insult to my squire’s honor, and thus to mine, by combat. In that I respect your grief.” He released Burchard.

  The man fell to the floor. “Two lives destroyed in that Chamber this year,” he whispered, staring at Kel through a sparrow-made mask of blood. “How did you do it?”

  “I didn’t!” Kel protested, shocked.

  “Hush, Kel,” Raoul ordered. To Burchard he said, “One more chunk of spew and you answer me by the sword, understand?”

  Burchard said nothing, only rubbed his throat. Raoul looked at Joren’s mother and uncle.

  “We understand,” Joren’s mother told Raoul. She tried to pull her husband to his feet.

  “We understand our realm has strayed so far from tradition that the gods’ gifts fail,” Joren’s uncle snapped. “The Chamber is breaking down. What more proof do we need that we have lost divine favor? What have you people left untouched? You school the whelps of farmers, let women make war, intermarry with foreigners—”

  “I make allowance for your grief.” Kel had never heard that tone in Raoul’s voice. White-hot rage seem to smoke off his skin. “Go. Bury your boy.” Raoul hauled the lord of Stone Mountain up one-handed and thrust him at his wife and brother. “While you do, ask yourselves where he learned to be so rigid that he shattered under the Ordeal. Get out.”

  They left. Kel shut the door, trembling.

  Raoul rubbed his face with both hands. “Gods,” he whispered, “I need a drink.”

  “Shall I get you one?” Kel asked, unsure.

  “Not the kind I meant, if you don’t mind,” he replied. “Juice, water—no liquor.” He smiled crookedly. “It turns me into someone I don’t like.”

  “I’ll find something,” Kel promised, looking for her clothes.

  “Kel.” Raoul grasped her shoulder. “That was bile, pure and simple. You had nothing to do with Joren’s fate—you do understand that?”

  Kel thought about it. “Yes, sir,” she said at last.

  “Raoul, maybe you’re not entirely right,” said Buri, leaning on the door to his rooms. “You heard Lord Fart-face. Joren was a golden boy before our Kel arrived. Maybe the Chamber just found the selves that Vinson and Joren revealed around Kel.”

  “I thought only Alanna was lucky enough to be the tool of the gods,” Raoul commented.

  “Don’t the gods say when they choose you?” Kel asked. “I’ve never heard from them.”

  “Oh, maybe I’m just giddy,” Buri said with a shrug. “Who goes tonight?”

  “Garvey of Runnerspring,” Kel replied. “One of Joren’s cronies.”

  “He’ll have an audience tomorrow,” said the K’mir, walking into Raoul’s study. “And I am going back to bed.” She glanced at Raoul. “Well?”

  He grinned, then looked at Kel. “Don’t let them poison you,” he told her. “Your coming was a fine thing, for the realm, for all those girls who come to watch you tilt, even for an old bachelor like me.” He went into his rooms and pulled the door shut after him.

  Quite a few people visited the Chapel the next morning as Garvey of Runnerspring entered the Chamber. Kel did not, though she heard about it from Owen. The watchers had a long, quiet wait. When Garvey emerged, weak and shaken but otherwise fine, a sigh of relief went up.

  The next morning Zahir ibn Alhaz, another of Joren’s friends, entered the Chamber. He too walked out alive, sane, and confessionless.

  Prince Roald’s year was larger than the previous one: eleven squires awaited the Ordeal. The court remained at the palace as every squire entered the Chamber. There were no more upsets, and the departure of the progress was announced the day of the last Ordeal. Kel was packing Raoul’s things when someone knocked at his door. She opened it to find the king and several of his chief councillors: Sir Gareth of Naxen, Alanna the Lioness, Sir Myles of Olau, and Lord Imrah of Port Legann, Prince Roald’s former knight-master. Raoul stood at his desk, frowning. “Sire, to what—”

  The king said flatly, “Wyldon of Cavall has resigned. He won’t reconsider.” He looked at Kel. “I don’t want your friends to hear this before the official announcement,” he ordered. Kel nodded and brought chairs for everyone.

  “Resigned?” demanded Raoul. “In Mithros’s name, why? He’s done a cursed fine job!”

  The king looked meaningfully at Kel. She read his expression: he did not want her there. She fetched cups, brought a pitcher of cider in from the window ledge, and poured drinks for everyone, then left.

  The king had forbidden her only to talk to her friends, she thought as she headed for the pages’ wing. The training master’s door was open; Wyldon was inside, packing things in a crate. He looked up when she knocked.

  Only then did she think that Wyldon might not approve of her coming when she wasn’t supposed to know of his resignation. She was about to make a lame excuse and go when his mouth jerked sideways.

  “I suppose they’re with Raoul, trying to name a new training master,” he remarked. “What brings you here?”

  “My lord said it, and I agree—you’re a wonderful training master,” she replied, worried for him. “You can’t go.”

  “I can, and I will,” replied Wyldon. “I must.” He sighed, rubbing the arm that had been raked by a savage winged horse called a hurrok. It always bothered him when snow was about to fall. “Come in and close the door,” he ordered. “Did you hear why?”

  “No, sir,” Kel replied, doing as he bid. It felt odd to sit in his presence. She perched on the edge of the chair, a compromise between standing and being comfortable. “I gave them something to drink and left.”

  He wrapped a stone hawk figure in cloth and stowed it in his crate. “Two failures in one year—it’s never happened. I think my training, my approach, is flawed. Maybe I’ve done this for too long—fifteen years, after all. It’s time for someone new.”

  “But sir, you can’t blame yourself,” Kel protested. “Joren and Vinson . . .” She stopped, suddenly unsure. She had often thought that Wyldon ignored the bullying of first-year pages, encouraging boys to fight and to use their strength without thinking.

  “You see?” Wyldon asked, sardonic. “You aren’t sure that I didn’t help to create Vinson and Joren either. I told lads to be aggressive, to concentrate on the goal. Mindelan, it may be that the best thing said of my tenure is that you were my student. Should that be the case, I am the wrong man for this post. I did all I could to get rid of you. Your probation was wrong. You know that, I know it. I was harder on you than any lad. Thank Mithros I remembered my honor and let you stay when you met the conditions—but it was a near thing. Next time I might not heed the voice of honor.”

  Kel watched him pack for a while, unable to think of a reply. He had confirmed what she had wondered about for years. Still, she didn’t think he should go. “Sir, I learned so much from you,” she said at last. “You’re the kind of knight I want to be.”

  He regarded her with the strangest expression in his eyes. “I am not,” he said. “But that you believe it is the greatest compliment I will ever receive. Go back to your master, Kel. If they can’t decide, tell them I said Padraig haMinch. He’s old blood, conservative, and a Minchi.”

  Knowing she was dismissed, Kel stood. Before she could leave, she had to ask: “Sir, what will you do?”

  Wyldon massaged his bad arm. “Go home. Idle about until my wife threatens to leave me. I’ve asked for a post on the northern border come spring. Scanra is on the move. I’d like to do what I can.” He waved an impatient hand. “Go, Mindelan. If you’re going to snivel, do it outside my office.”

  Kel nodded, unable to trust her voice, bowed, then went. She didn’t snivel, but she did blow her nose.

  Something occurred to her; she ran back to his open door. “Sir?” she asked.

  Wyldon looked up from a book. “Weren’t you leaving?”

  “Sir, if you’ll only conside
r,” she began nervously. She wasn’t at all sure that her idea was good, but her instinct was to pursue it.

  “Consider . . .?” he prodded.

  Kel blurted, “Owen of Jesslaw.”

  “Owen?” he asked. “That hellion?” He folded his arms, looking thoughtful. “All right,” he said finally. “Tell Myles I would like a word when he’s free.”

  When she reached her room, she stopped to listen at the door. Should she tell them Lord Wyldon’s suggestion?

  “It’s settled, then. Padraig haMinch.” That was the king’s voice. Kel heard chairs scrape. “Gary, take over with the pages—you’ve been complaining how your paperwork is backed up. I’ll see if there’s a scry-mage at haMinch. I’d like to give Lord Padraig word as soon as possible.”

  As they emerged from Raoul’s chambers, Kel stopped Sir Myles to relay Lord Wyldon’s other request.

  That night Kel was packing when her door burst open. She was reaching for her sword when she saw that the newcomer was not Burchard again, but Owen. His eyes bulged and his curls looked as if he’d been yanking on them. He ignored Jump and the sparrows, who greeted him with enthusiasm.

  “Kel!” he cried. “Kel, I’m a squire!”

  She tried not to giggle and succeeded, barely. “You’ve been a squire for months.”

  “Not like you’re a squire, not like Neal. Kel, my brain’s going to pop! I’m not in service to Sir Myles anymore. Lord Wyldon resigned, and he’s going home a while, and come spring he’s going to fight Scanrans. With me! He’s going to work me like a horse, he says, but Kel, I’ll be a squire to a fighting knight! Isn’t it the jolliest? And he’ll teach me to breed dogs!”

  He launched himself across the room and hugged her wildly, then stepped back, looking sheepish. “Um, sorry. I didn’t mean to, uh, treat you like a girl or anything.”

  Kel sank down on her bed, head in hands. She lost the battle to appear serious and laughed until she couldn’t catch her breath.

  Kel missed the departure of the progress. Raoul took Third Company out ahead to scout the road. Buri rode along with her own Group Askew and two more Rider Groups, the Sixth, called Thayet’s Dogs, and the Fifteenth, Stickers. Both Riders and Third Company were detailed to watch the front, sides, and rear of the train, as Glaisdan and First Company stayed close to the monarchs and looked noble. They were welcome to it, as far as Kel was concerned. She preferred scout detail. For one thing, no court gossips were out here, teasing her to say whether Raoul slept alone these days.

  The progress stopped in Irontown for a week, then continued south, leaving the forest to enter drier country, Tortall’s grain lands. Crawling on, they reached the borders of the desert. The snows of the north turned to rain. The nights were cold, the days bearable. When they came to the desert itself, the king ordered the units in advance of and at the rear of the progress to rejoin it.

  “As if we wouldn’t know to come back,” grumbled Dom. He and Kel rode together one morning, guarding the supply train.

  Kel grinned at him. “But we wouldn’t have, unless ordered to. You know we wouldn’t.”

  Dom grinned back, making Kel’s pulse speed up. “Well, yes, but still, he shouldn’t treat us like unruly children.”

  Kel, who knew the pranks the Own and the Riders played when left alone, raised her eyebrows. Dom chuckled. “You look just like my lord when he does that,” he informed her. To Cleon, who rode up, he said, “Doesn’t she look like Lord Raoul when she raises her eyebrows?”

  Cleon scowled. “She looks like herself,” he retorted.

  Dom looked at Kel; his mouth curled in a wry smile. He shivered. “Does it seem cold to you all of a sudden? I believe I’ll find a blanket.” He rode off with a wink at Kel.

  “That wasn’t nice,” she commented as Cleon fell in beside her.

  “He was flirting with you,” growled the newly made knight. Kel had worried he would be assigned away from the progress now that he had his shield, but for the moment, at least, Cleon was allowed to stay. “I know what flirting is, and he was doing it.”

  “Dom flirts with everyone. It runs in the family—you know how Neal gets.”

  “Both of them can flirt with someone else,” Cleon snapped. Suddenly he looked ashamed of himself. “Oh, rats, Kel, don’t mind me. I’m grumpy. Lately all we do is wave at each other as we pass.”

  “I know,” she said. “At least we see each other. We couldn’t even do that in the forest.”

  Quietly he said, “I don’t know what I’ll do if they separate us. There’s too much of me to go into a decline, but . . .”

  Kel met his eyes wordlessly. Sooner or later Cleon would be sent away in service to the Crown, probably to deal with the growing pressures from Scanra.

  “Hullo,” he said, shading his eyes to look east. “What’s this?”

  Kel smiled as a multitude of horsemen in the white robes of the Bazhir crested the hills. On they came, their tack and the colors in the cords that fastened their burnooses telling their tribe. She counted six tribes among the riders who came over the eastern hills; falling back to look between wagons, she counted three more tribes coming from the west.

  “It’s the Bazhir,” she told Cleon. “They’re greeting the king. Cheer up—they’ll feed us.” She grinned. “I can’t dislike people who welcome guests like the Bazhir do!”

  For a week the tribes enveloped the progress, treating their guests lavishly. On the eighth day the train reached a fortress city, a granite monument that sheltered eleven springs and wells inside its walls. “Persopolis,” Raoul told Kel. “The only city the Bazhir ever constructed.” He shook his head with a sigh. “I don’t like it.”

  “That’s because you’re a tent boy,” Captain Flyndan, riding beside them, commented in his dour way. “Me, I like the real beds in Persopolis just fine.”

  They were joined at supper that night by Lady Alanna and her husband, Baron George Cooper, who had just arrived with Neal in tow. They were still relating news from the western coast when a man at the table asked, “Did you hear about Lord Wyldon’s resignation?”

  Alanna’s face hardened; she drummed her fingers beside her plate. The baron covered her hand with his and smiled at the questioner. “The world knows, surely. It’s good for the lads to change teachers—gives them a broad training base. Don’t you agree, squire?” he asked Kel. She, Neal, and Merric were not servants at these Bazhir-hosted gatherings, but guests, seated with their knight-masters. The Bazhir took care of serving.

  Kel looked at Raoul. “It’s very educational, my lord Baron,” she told George Cooper gravely.

  Alanna grinned at her own squire, seated beside Kel. “So, Neal, do you feel educated?”

  “Incredibly,” Neal replied in his wry drawl. “Why, words simply fail me about how educated I’m getting.”

  Everyone laughed. The possibility of a famed Lioness explosion over Lord Wyldon faded. The talk turned to the news from Scanra and Carthak. The new Scanran warlord troubled the knights. Everyone was praying that the northern clans, notoriously difficult when it came to working together, would arrange his downfall. “Preferably during the winter,” Baron George said, “so they’ll be accusing and killing each other come spring.”

  Kel woke at her usual hour the next morning. First she had glaive practice, then sword practice with her fellow squires. She had to clean Raoul’s weapons and her own afterward, then go riding with her friends.

  “Jump, Crown, Freckle,” she said quietly. “Time to get up.” Chances were that she wouldn’t wake Raoul in the next room, but with no door to close between them, she didn’t want to chance it. He and Buri had been out late. “Jump.” Kel nudged her dog, who slept draped over her feet. He grunted and flopped over, freeing her. She turned to the sparrows, who slept between her and the wall. They were already awake and looking at her.

  All but one. Crown lay on Kel’s pillow on her side, eyes closed, tiny feet curled up tight. Kel touched the bird with a gentle fingertip. Crown didn’t move. When
Kel picked her up, she found the sparrow was cold.

  She took the small body to Daine. With the griffin restored to his family, the Wildmage was now a permanent member of the progress, and easier to find.

  “I’m sorry,” Daine said, tears in her eyes. “But Kel, understand, she was eight or so. For a sparrow, that’s old. Some that are pets last longer, but the wild ones have six or seven years, that’s all.” She put a hand over the small body. “Do you want me to take care of her?”

  Kel shook her head and bore Crown away. She rode to a public garden in the city, attended by Jump, the other sparrows, and Peachblossom, and buried Crown under an olive tree. Olives symbolized healing and peace. Crown had earned both.

  Kel stayed away from people for the rest of the day. She didn’t weep after she buried her fierce sparrow, but she wanted to be quiet with her animals. And she wanted to remember Crown’s bravery in the safety of silence.

  Around sunset Cleon found her. He held her, then took her to supper. Kel hadn’t eaten all day. Neal joined them; so did Yuki, Roald, Shinkokami, and Merric. The group was leaving the feasting hall when a man approached Kel and slapped her with his glove: Sir Hildrec of Meron. Kel throttled the urge to pick the man up and throw him at a tree. “I’m sick of this,” she snapped. “Call me what you like, say I’m without honor, I don’t care. I’m not getting on any more horses to whack you people with a stick.”

  She walked away.

  Two mornings later she found Freckle’s body on her pillow. She had not expected him to outlive his mate for long. In a way Kel was grateful that he’d died in Persopolis so she could place him beside Crown. This time Cleon went with her. Once she had scooped earth over the sparrows, Kel blew her nose. “It’s the only bad thing about animals,” she told Cleon. “Most don’t live as long as we do.”

  “I know, sweet,” Cleon said, kissing first one of her eyelids, then the other. “But think how bleak life would be without them.”