Tamora Pierce - Page

Kel heard a whisper and bent down. ‘What did you say?’ she asked.

Lalasa met her eyes and glanced away. ‘They meant no harm, my lady.’

‘Grabbing you by the neck so hard it bruised? Of course they meant harm!’ snapped Kel.

Gower knelt. ‘Please, Lady Keladry,’ he said. ‘If she’s your maid, she’ll be safe. Your family is in great favour since they brought about the Yamani alliance.’

‘Please get up,’ Kel pleaded. No one had knelt to her since she was five. Then the tribute had been to her mother, standing beside her. ‘Gower, stop it!’ I’ve enough pocket money to pay her for the quarter, she thought hurriedly as she stood and tried to tug the man to his feet. If I explain to Mama and Papa, they’ll help, I know they will. ‘She’s hired, all right? Please stop that!’

He stared up into her face. ‘Your word on it?’

‘Yes, my word as a Mindelan.’

‘You won’t be sorry, miss,’ Gower told her as he rose. ‘Ever.’

Kel heard footsteps pound in the hall outside. ‘Oh, I’m going to be late!’ She scribbled a note for Salma, asking for an extra magicked key to Kel’s door, a silver noble as a month’s wages, and a spare cot for Lalasa to sleep on. She waved the note to dry the ink and gave it to Gower. ‘About the dog,’ she began.

‘What dog?’ Gower asked. He bowed; Lalasa curtsied. They left Kel to get ready for lunch.

Shaking her head at her folly – she didn’t need another complication in her life – Kel looked around until she saw the dog. He had jumped onto her bed to nap. ‘Good for you,’ she said, and stripped off the rest of her clothes.

A real bath was impossible. She wet her head and scrubbed her face and under her arms, mourning the proper soak that would have eased her aching muscles and made her feel less sticky. Perhaps she could visit the women’s baths that night, though it meant she’d have to take time from her after-supper exercises and classwork.

‘First day and I’m already behind,’ she remarked as she struggled into hose and tunic. ‘Oh, how splendid.’

Kel raced into the mess hall that served the pages and squires. All eyes turned towards her; some boys growled. Lunch was the pages’ most anticipated meal of the day after a morning’s rough-and-tumble in practice. Since none could eat until everyone had arrived, latecomers were never greeted pleasantly.

‘I suppose she thinks she’s one of us now, so she doesn’t have to be polite any more.’ Joren of Stone Mountain’s cultured voice was clear over the boys’ low mutter.

‘Page Keladry.’ Lord Wyldon of Cavall, the training master, could pitch his voice to carry through a battle or across the hall easily. Kel faced his table, placed on a dais at the front of the room, and bowed. ‘A knight who is tardy costs lives. Report to me when you have eaten.’

Kel bowed again and went to get her food.

‘Joren of Stone Mountain.’ Lord Wyldon’s level tone was the same as it had been for Kel. ‘Good manners are the hallmark of a true knight. You too will report once you have finished.’

Kel sighed. She and Joren had not got on during her first year as a probationer. She’d hoped that would change now that she was a true page. If Joren was to be punished on her account, she didn’t think it would improve his feelings about her.

Once her tray was filled, Kel looked around. Hands waved from a table at the back. She walked over and slid into place among her friends. Nealan of Queenscove poured her fruit juice while other boys passed the honey-pot and butter.

‘So, Keladry of Mindelan,’ said Neal, his slightly husky voice teasing, ‘not even a full day in your second year, and already you have punishment work lined up. Don’t leave it to the last minute, that’s what I say!’ He was a tall, lanky youth who wore his light brown hair combed back from a widow’s peak. His sharp-boned face was lit by green eyes that danced wickedly as he looked at her. He was sixteen, older than the other pages, but only in his second year. He had put aside a university career to become a knight. Neal had taught Kel to know the palace the year before, assisting her with classwork and cheering her worst moods with his tart humour. In return she tried to keep him out of trouble and made him eat his vegetables. It was a strange friendship, but a solid one.

‘Neal’s just disappointed because he thought he’d be first.’ The quiet remark had come from black-haired, black-eyed Seaver. He, too, was a second-year page.

‘I’m surprised he didn’t dump porridge on Lord Wyldon this morning, just to get the jump on the rest of us,’ joked Cleon. A big, red-headed youth, he was a fourth-year page. ‘Guess you’ll have to wait till next autumn, Neal.’ He smacked the top of Neal’s head gently, then went for seconds.

Kel looked to see who else had joined them. There was red-headed Merric of Hollyrose, whose temper was as quick as Cleon’s was slow; dark, handsome Faleron of King’s Reach, Merric’s cousin; and Esmond of Nicoline, whose normal powdering of freckles had thickened over the summer. All were her friends and members of the study group that had met in Neal’s room the previous year. With them were three new first-year pages, boys that Cleon, Neal, and Merric had chosen to sponsor. She wasn’t sure if they were friends or not. They would have been rude to refuse to sit with their sponsors, and thus with The Girl.

Only one of their company was missing, Prince Roald, but that was expected. Roald, now a fourth-year page, was always careful to slight no one. He had eaten with Kel, Neal, and their group the night before. Today he and the boy he had chosen to sponsor sat with some third-year pages.

Lunch passed quickly, the boys’ talk filling Kel’s ears. She had little to say. After living in the Yamani Islands for six years, she had picked up Yamani habits, including a reluctance to chatter or let emotions show. Someone had to listen to all that talk.

At last it was time to hand in her tableware and present herself to Lord Wyldon. Joren was already at the dais, waiting. Lord Wyldon always made it clear when he was ready to speak to his charges.

When Kel reached the dais, Joren stepped away from her. Kel sighed inwardly, her face Yamani-blank. Joren and his cronies had done their best to make her leave the year before. For her part, she had declared war on their hazing of the first-years beyond what she felt was reasonable. Interference with Joren and his clique had often turned into fist fights until her friends began to join her. At year’s end, there were enough of them to stop Joren’s crowd from hazing entirely. Over the summer Kel had let herself hope that Joren would give up now. Glancing at him, she realized her hopes were empty.

Three years older, Joren was just four inches taller than Kel and beautiful. His shoulder-length hair was so blond it was nearly white. It framed pale skin, rosy cheeks, and sky blue eyes set among long, fair lashes. He was one of the best pages in unarmed and weapons combat, although in Kel’s opinion he was heavy-handed with his horse.

Well, I’ve only one more year with him, Kel thought as Lord Wyldon finished cleaning his plate. After he takes his big examination, he’ll be a squire and gone most of the year.

Lord Wyldon drained his cup and set it down sharply. His dark eyes, as hard as flint, inspected first Joren, then Kel. Did he regret that he had allowed her to stay? Kel wondered for the thousandth time. Over the summer she had learned that last year the betting among the servants had been twenty to one against Lord Wyldon’s allowing her to enter her second year.

Now, looking at Wyldon’s hard, clean-shaven face, marred by a scar that stretched from his right eye into his close-cropped brown hair, she wondered why. If she smacked the training master’s bald crown would the answer pop out of his mouth? The thought nearly made her laugh aloud, the image was so funny, but her Yamani training held. Her lips didn’t quiver; her throat didn’t catch. She blessed the Yamanis as the training master drummed his fingers on the table.