First Test Read online

  "Tired, pale. Exhausted. Are you getting enough rest? The boys aren’t hounding you, are they?"

  Kel shook her head nervously. "No, sir. I’m fine. Couldn’t be better."

  His beautifully curved eyebrows rose. "And of course it would be shameful of you to say otherwise."

  Here, at least, Kel was on firm ground. "Yes, sir."

  "A page must endure everything that comes."

  "Yes, sir." At last—answers that she knew!

  "And where did you learn this?" Myles inquired mildly. "From Sir Wyldon, that paragon of knightly virtue?"

  Kel frowned. Was Sir Myles being sarcastic? "I learned it from my brothers, and from the emperor’s warriors, at the Yamani imperial court. Sir."

  The eyebrows lifted another quarter of an inch; Myles tilted his head to one side. He reminded Kel of the sparrow Crown, who had pecked her nose that morning. Suddenly her gloom lifted a touch; she ducked her head to hide a smile.

  "What does it take to be a Yamani warrior?" Myles inquired. He seemed genuinely interested.

  "It takes a great deal of running up and down mountains in the rain, and not complaining about it," Kel said instantly, then clapped her hand over her mouth. What if he thought she was being impudent? But there was something about him, a sort of waiting kindness that made her want to answer him frankly.

  To her relief, Myles chuckled. "I’ve heard of this odd behavior," he admitted. "But you admire the Yamanis."

  "Oh, yes, sir!" she replied, nodding. "They keep going through anything."

  Myles sighed. "It’s my misfortune to be dumped amid so many warrior stoics," he remarked, shaking his head.

  "Sir?" she asked, confused. That sounded like the best company in the world.

  "Never mind. Run along to Master Lindhall. And, Keladry—"

  She turned halfway to the door. "Sir?"

  "If you need a friend—if you need someone to talk to—the servants can tell you where to find me."

  She stared at him for a moment. The Lioness’s adoptive father was offering her friendship!

  "Thank you, sir," she said, and bowed deeply.

  Myles waved her on.

  Somehow Kel got through the rest of the afternoon without further mishap. She’d completed her night’s work for Master Lindhall and Tkaa the basilisk, and could hand it in with a free conscience. In etiquette Master Oakbridge was still using her as a secondary teacher of Yamani manners, and had not assigned other work to her. She had no awkward excuses to make to him.

  As she changed into a dress for supper, memories of her flight from Joren and his friends, kept at bay by exercise and worry about classwork, came rushing back. Angry with herself, she picked up the practice glaive she’d brought from home and did a series of quick exercises with it. When she finished, her arms—already tired from that morning’s work with the lance—were trembling. It was time to go to the mess hall.

  Enough fussing, she ordered herself. Next time I’ll just say something, is all. Even if it’s against tradition. I won’t have another day when I go around feeling like a whipped dog because I turned my back on Merric!

  At supper, Prince Roald and Neal discussed the problems they’d been set in mage training while Kel considered her problem with the lance. Her second-oldest brother, Inness, had told her loftily that a girl’s arms were not as strong as a boy’s. After that morning she had to agree. All of the other first-year pages had been able to keep their lances from pointing at the ground.

  I have to train harder, decided Kel. I have to strengthen my arms.

  She fiddled with her spoon, wondering if she’d ever be able to lift that cursed lance. Then Joren’s voice rang out across the room: "I swear, those Shang warriors have an exercise for everything."

  "If you wish to be a herald, Joren, apply to their college in the morning," Wyldon said, raising his own voice. "Until then, converse in a more seemly way."

  A brief hush fell. As Wyldon gave the signal to rise, Neal asked her, "Are you studying with us tonight?"

  "In a while," she promised. "Do you know where I might find the Wildcat?" For once, Joren had helped her. If anyone would know how to strengthen her arms, it would be a Shang warrior who spent her life fighting men.

  She had to try a couple of the places Neal and Roald suggested, but was successful at last. Eda Bell was happy to show Kel exercises for the arms. The hardest involved lying flat on the ground, pushing the body up with both arms, lowering it partway, then pushing up again. Kel managed only three of these exercises under the Wildcat’s eye before her exhausted arms gave out. Eda promised her that if she kept exercising, she would do better soon. Feeling hopeful, Kel headed back to the pages’ wing.

  seven

  KEL TAKES A STAND

  For the next three days Kel pursued her classwork and physical training doggedly. When Sunday came at last, she and the other pages attended dawn worship for Mithros, the god of warriors and the sun. After that she gave her weapons and tack an extra cleaning for Lord Wyldon’s inspection just before lunch. When he finished going over every inch of a page’s equipment, he gave punishment assignments for the penalties collected during the week.

  Kel had been late to one class, to one meal, and to the riding corral the day before, when Peachblossom had been grumpier than usual. For each of those tardy arrivals Lord Wyldon issued her work in the pages’ armory for one bell of time, consuming her entire afternoon. All of the other pages had punishment duty, too. Merric and Olin fared worse than Kel. They had to work all afternoon and for a bell on Sunday night.

  "I’d like to find whoever taught the Stump that extra work builds character and push him down the stairs," Neal told Kel at lunch.

  She smiled and returned to solving a puzzle. How was she to do her classwork for Monday if she was cleaning armor? At last she hit on a plan and bore her work to the armory. First, she rolled chain mail in barrels full of sand to scour away dirt, until she wearied. Then she attacked her assignments. At her first yawn Kel returned to cleaning. When the supper bell rang, she had scoured a large amount of mail and finished nearly all of her classwork. After an evening of staff practice with Neal, she knew she had used the day well, and went to bed content.

  Monday came soon enough. By nightfall she was exhausted and wishing for another Sunday. Then Cleon, grinning hugely, caught her after supper and asked her to fetch some books from the Mithrans’ library, in a separate wing of the palace. She could see he was waiting for her to refuse so he could say she thought herself better than the other first-years. With a sigh, she trotted off to do as she was bid.

  Tuesday was more of the same. Only her sparrows’ reaction to her arm-strengthening exercises—they lined up on her windowsill like spectators at a tournament—made Kel smile that day. At tilting practice later that morning she managed to hit Peachblossom’s head and the quintain dummy, but not the target shield. The laughter of pages and onlookers rang in her ears, but she kept her feelings hidden. By the time she rode Peachblossom back to the stable in the wake of the other pages, she wanted to crawl into a dark corner and die.

  Kel was the last to finish grooming her mount and the last to finish looking after her tack. By the time she tended her weapons, the other pages had gone; she had to hurry if she was to bathe before lunch. Working in haste, she dropped her lance. It clattered across the stable floor, collecting dirt along its freshly oiled length. As it rolled, a small button of wood fell away, revealing a dark hole.

  Kel stared at the spot, wanting to cry. Now she would have to polish the lance again and find some way to fill the gap. Bending down, she picked up the piece that had fallen out. It wasn’t a splintered chunk, but a perfectly cut plug two inches wide. The sides were sawed clean, tapering inward.

  That’s odd, she thought. Picking up the lance, she looked for the hole left by the missing piece. It was stark against the light brown of the wood because there was something black at its bottom.

  Kel stuck her little finger inside and scraped the dark sub
stance. Inspecting the stuff under her nail, she realized it was lead.

  Now she went over the entire lance, not with her callused fingertips but with the more sensitive pads of her fingers. There were five more plugs spaced along the length of wood. She pried them out; each hid a hollow filled with lead. They were placed so that no part of the staff was out of balance with the rest. It had been cleverly done, the plugs replaced to match the grain of the lance and the whole polished until the cuts were nearly invisible.

  Kel lifted the other pages’ lances. All weighed much less than her own.

  Fury pounded at her temples and behind her eyes. Was this what Cleon had meant when he’d said to run while she still had a chance? She pictured the big redhead and sighed. No. He was the kind who would shove someone into a puddle. This sort of trickery would be too much work for Cleon.

  Getting her lance, Kel stuck the first plug back into its socket. She began to oil and polish the wood anew, thinking. Had Neal known about this? She tried to remember if she’d ever seen him touch her lance. No, he hadn’t, nor had Wyldon, she remembered. Joren had been the only one to handle it before it got to Kel. Custom dictated that Kel alone would touch it once it was hers.

  Kel was sure that Joren wouldn’t be the only one who knew. The joke was too good to keep to himself He would have needed a palace carpenter, too. None of the pages would be able to do the kind of fine work the trick lance required. Enough warriors trained with weighted arms that a carpenter would think nothing of putting lead into a practice lance.

  Kel thought about it through her bath, and took her time scrubbing. Normally she rushed so no one had to wait long to eat, but today she did not feel kindly toward her fellow pages. For once she would have a proper wash and they could listen to their growling bellies for a while. If extra work was the price she paid to remind them that she could disrupt their lives, too, she would pay it gladly.

  When Kel reached the mess hall, the waiting pages and squires growled. She put on her most Yamani-Lump expression and got her food. She knew it infuriated those who disliked her when she appeared not to care if they even existed. On a day like today when, fairly or unfairly, she disliked most of the pages, she positively enjoyed letting them think she cared for their opinions not one whit.

  "A word after lunch, probationer," Wyldon called as she looked around for Neal.

  Kel bowed to him, found Neal, and took her seat. Wyldon’s prayer, to "perform our duties quickly and promptly," did not even make her twitch. Neither did his after-lunch order to report to the armory on Sunday for two bells’ worth of labor. She bowed politely to the training master in reply, and ran to catch up with her friends.

  "Are you all right?" Prince Roald wanted to know as they walked to their afternoon classes. "You’re being quiet even for you."

  Kel glanced up. Both Roald and Neal were looking at her. She was certain that Neal didn’t know about the lance, but what about the prince? He was one of Joren’s year-mates. Despite his joining her and Neal from time to time, she wasn’t sure what he thought of her.

  Finally she decided that Roald didn’t know. Joren had begun in the same year as the prince, but Roald, who was careful to eat with all of the pages so no one felt jealous, spent the least amount of time with Joren and his cronies.

  Should she tell them? She knew that Neal was her friend and she thought the prince might be.

  No. Yamanis did not whine about what was fair or unfair, and she was too much a Yamani still. She would not let anyone think she could not handle whatever got dished out to her.

  Kel shook her head in answer to the prince’s query. "I haven’t anything to say."

  "Dear girl, we noticed," drawled Neal in his most scholarly-elegant way.

  Kel ignored him and returned to her complicated thoughts. What if she kept the lance? If she mastered it, the bigger lances of the knights would be easy to handle.

  The afternoon passed. Kel reported to classes as usual. She also studied each of her fellow pages, trying to guess which of them had been in on Joren’s trick.

  At supper, she ate lightly. Given her plans for the evening, a full stomach was a bad idea. Going straight to her room, she changed from her dress to practice clothes. It was time to stop playing the shy newcomer. She listened as the boys returned to their rooms to collect their study materials. When Neal rapped on her door, she pretended she wasn’t in until he went away.

  Finally no more steps sounded in the pages’ wing. Kel left her room to walk the corridors. She made no sound in her soft leather slippers, ghosting along as she had been taught in the Islands, listening hard.

  Passing the pages’ main library, she heard the slam of a heavy book striking the floor. "Pick that up for me, will you, Merric?" The voice was Joren’s.

  Kel stopped outside the open door. Her heart drummed in her chest.

  "Yessir, Page Joren," she heard Merric say dully. Peeking through the crack in the door, Kel saw Merric place a fat volume on the table next to the blond page.

  As he did, Zahir shoved another heavy book off the table. "Pick it up," said Vinson of Genlith, cackling with mirth. "Can’t have books on the floor."

  Merric stared at the older boys with resentment, then got the book.

  Joren immediately pushed his volume off the table. As Merric stared at him, Joren then lifted a stack of smaller books with a taunting smile. His eyes never left Merric’s as he let them drop one by one onto the floor.

  Kel’s stomach tightened. She took a deep breath and walked into the library.

  "This is wrong," she said, halting in front of the blond page.

  "Oh, look—it’s the Lump." On the other side of the table Vinson got to his feet. "Do you want trouble, probationer?" he asked, grinning. "We’d just loooove to give it to you."

  "No, I don’t want it," Kel replied. She kept her eyes on Joren. The leader of a gang was always the one to watch. The others would take their cues from him. "What I want is for you to stop pushing the first-years around."

  Joren stared at her, his blue eyes bright. "I see," he said in a thoughtful tone. "We haven’t gotten rid of you yet, so you think you’re accepted. Merric, pick up those books."

  "Don’t, Merric," Kel said, still watching Joren.

  "It’s custom," the redheaded boy muttered.

  "Not like this, it’s not," replied Kel. "Us fetching and carrying gloves and armor polish, that’s enough. Forcing people to mop with their clothes and pick up things dropped on purpose has nothing to do with being a page."

  Joren laughed softly, shaking his head. "Oh, this is too much," he said at last. "The Yamani Lump—our very temporary annoyance—will school us in proper behavior."

  "I shouldn’t have to," Kel told him. "You should know how a true knight behaves."

  A hand clamped around the back of her neck: Zahir’s. She hadn’t even heard him get out of his chair.

  "Shall I take the Lump away?" the Bazhir inquired of Joren.

  Gripping Zahir’s index finger, Kel jammed her thumbnail into the base of Zahir’s own nail. The experience, she knew very well, was a painful one.

  He yelped and let go. Joren lunged for her.

  She stepped back, ducking under Zahir’s frantic punch. Instead, the Bazhir hit Joren. Kel backed up to reach the open center of the library. Merric, to her relief, had fled. She was glad not to have to worry about him.

  Zahir was cursing and coddling his fist; his punch had connected solidly with Joren’s skull. Joren rubbed the spot where his friend had struck as he walked toward Kel. He was crimson with rage. Vinson was nowhere to be seen.

  Something clattered behind Kel. In spite of herself, she looked. Vinson had fallen over a footstool as he emerged from the shelves at her rear.

  She turned back quickly. Joren was leaping straight at her.

  Kel’s Yamani training took over. She grabbed Joren’s tunic and turned, kneeling as she did. He went flying over her shoulder, just as the Yamani ladies had done during their practices together. Th
e ladies, however, did not hit a long study table on their bellies, sliding along its polished length to crash headfirst into a bookshelf

  A foot slammed into her back between her shoulder blades. Zahir had recovered. Kel rolled forward as she went down, to fetch up against the legs of the table she’d just polished with Joren. Zahir moved in to kick her; she seized his booted foot and twisted, growling with effort. Off balance he stumbled and fell. Kel hurled a nearby stool at him. He rolled, covering his head with his arms.

  Then Vinson gripped her ankles, dragging her forward. Kel sat up and grabbed his hands. Someone grasped her hair from behind and yanked her to the floor again. Ignoring the pain as the hair-puller kept his grip, Kel rolled away from a punch. She clung to his wrists to keep him from yanking out a chunk of hair. The roll twisted her out of Vinson’s hold on her legs. She kicked out, slamming her feet into Vinson’s belly. That hand in her hair yanked, dragging her into the middle of the floor. Her grim-faced captor was Joren.

  Kel felt his wrist and dug her thumbnails into the soft flesh between the bones. He cursed and let go.

  Lunging to her feet, Kel ran into Zahir. Grinning, the Bazhir punched her in the stomach. When her scant supper came up, she made sure he got most of it. Another solid blow from Joren connected with her back, spinning her around. His second punch hit her face just as Vinson grabbed her.

  Next time, she thought fiercely, hooking Joren’s leg with her foot and yanking, next time I’ll make sure I’ve got my back to the wall!

  Vinson was the last of the older pages to walk out of Lord Wyldon’s study. Through the open door Kel heard the training master call, "Send her in."

  "Here, milord," announced the man who waited on Lord Wyldon in the evenings. Holding the door as Kel passed, he winked at her in encouragement.

  Kel halted in front of Lord Wyldon’s desk as the door closed. The training master inspected her and shook his head. Kel knew she looked dreadful. From her past experience she knew she had a black eye and a puffy lip. Her nose was probably broken. A trickling on her cheeks told her the splits in both of her eyebrows were bleeding.