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  She worked her vexation off in the practice courts. When winter arrived with four mortal days of sleet and freezing rain, Kel thought she might scream with impatience at being kept indoors. Riding was put aside. Not even giants or spidrens would raid villages when they could slip and break something, and the movements of their enemies were the measure Lord Wyldon used to define how and when they trained.

  The pages moved to the indoor courts for archery, staff fighting, and unarmed combat. Lord Wyldon introduced the first-years to basic sword fighting while the older pages did more complex exercises. During swordplay Kel’s mood improved. Wielding a sword from Peachblossom’s back had made her feel even stupider than a first-year, if that was possible. It was nice to know that she hadn’t forgotten all she’d learned the year before; she just wasn’t good at doing it on horseback yet.

  The second night of their forced indoor exercise was also Kel’s first time that year to wait on Lord Wyldon at supper. She had to manage it for three nights without mistake. Once that was over, she could relax until Midwinter. Serving Lord Wyldon, with his sharp eyes and cold manner, had to be worse than waiting on any noble or wealthy merchant in the palace banquet hall. So long as she could serve those people without spills, they would pay attention to their food and their companions, not to her. For the first time since she had become a page, Kel began to think she might actually enjoy the seven days of feasting on the holiday.

  five

  MIDWINTER SERVICE

  The afternoon before the feast that started the week-long holiday of Midwinter Festival, Kel checked her appearance in the mirror at least five times. Each time she turned away, she was convinced that her gleaming brown hair had gotten mussed, her crimson hose twisted, her crimson shirt bunched under her gold tunic. Only another look in the mirror would convince her that she was as neat and elegant as a page could be.

  In the normal course of things she would have been nervous, but she might have been able to calm herself. But her parents’ trip back to the Yamani Islands at the end of the fall had been canceled, and they were asked to remain in Corus to help the new Yamani ambassador. The marriage negotiations for Prince Roald and Princess Chisakami had collapsed that summer when the princess died in an earthquake. Now a new imperial Yamani bride must be found, a new marriage contract drawn up. It had taken three years to forge the treaty that marriage to Chisakami would have sealed; it might take another three years for a new treaty to be worked out. Kel’s father had worked on the original agreements, which made him invaluable to the ambassador, who had to draw up new ones.

  All this mattered to Kel because it meant that her parents, as well as her sisters Adalia and Oranie, would be in the banquet hall that night. Kel wanted her family to be proud of her; she wanted to give them reason to be proud of her. Over the last summer her sisters had been distant and cool, hard at work turning themselves into proper Tortallan noble maidens and desirable wives. Kel wanted her family to be glad she was of Mindelan.

  She was about to check her appearance for a sixth time when a knock sounded on the door. Lalasa opened it to admit Merric, Seaver, Esmond, Neal, and Owen, all in their best uniforms. Jump ran up to them in hopes of a game, then realized that they, like Kel, weren’t wearing playing clothes. As he wagged a dejected tail, he sniffed each boy, then lay down with a sigh. Like Jump, the sparrows seemed to realize they should not land on their two-legged friends. They found perches around the room and watched, chattering.

  "Reporting for inspection, General, sir!" barked Seaver as he gave a brisk salute. The boys promptly formed a line, saluted Kel in turn, then stood at attention. All were nervous, even Owen, who would not work in the public hall but on the kitchen stairs, handing dishes from cooks to servers.

  Kel put her hands on her hips. "What is this? You came to me because I’m The Girl?" she asked, mock indignant.

  "Of course not. You just have an eye for these things," replied Neal.

  "When it isn’t black," Esmond murmured, and grinned.

  "And your maid sews good," said Owen, showing a rip in his sleeve.

  "I have a maid who sews well," Kel told him. Lalasa found her sewing basket and took out needle and thread.

  Kel inspected Merric carefully. He was an inch or two shorter than she was these days, she realized. She tweaked his tunic a little straighter on his shoulders. Seaver’s shirt collar was awry; she tugged until it showed brightly above his gold tunic. Esmond’s clothes were perfect; Neal’s hose had to be adjusted, and Kel gave him one of her drying cloths to blot the sweat from his face.

  As Lalasa snipped off the thread she had used to mend Owen’s sleeve, Cleon burst in red-faced, his shirtsleeves untied. "Kel, I can’t for the life of me get my hair to lay flat," he began, then saw the other boys. Slowly he grinned.

  "They said they’re reporting for inspection," Kel explained. Fourteen-year-old Cleon was five inches taller than she; Kel dealt with that by climbing onto a chair. "Grab that basin of water and come here," she ordered him. With a comb and enough water, she got his hair in some kind of order.

  "Neal, do you know where the Lioness will be sitting?" she asked as she carefully parted Cleon’s damp locks. She couldn’t wait to catch a glimpse of her hero, the woman knight who was the King’s Champion.

  "Nowhere," answered Neal. "They’re still not letting her talk to you, so she’s still refusing to come to the palace."

  "They think she’ll magic you into getting a shield," Owen remarked angrily.

  "Like Kel needs help," Esmond added.

  Does this mean I won’t see her till I’m a squire? thought Kel, dismayed and angry. It’s not fair!

  She fought off her disappointment. At least her friends had faith in her ability to gain a shield on her own. She smiled at all of them as she stepped off the chair. "Well, come on," she urged them. "Let’s get going."

  The pages reported to the servers’ room off the banquet hall, where Master Oakbridge waited. He was the palace master of ceremonies as well as the pages’ etiquette teacher, a dried-up, fussy man who lived to arrange banquets and decree who preceded whom in processions. Once all of the pages had arrived, he gave them a careful going-over, criticizing and correcting. Only when that was over did he show them the plan of the banquet hall, drawn in chalk on a black slate six feet tall.

  They memorized their positions. Kel’s post was at the back of the hall, waiting on members of the minor guilds. That suited her perfectly. She didn’t want a place where important people would take notice of her, such as the great nobles or the monarchs.

  Suddenly the pages heard the royal fanfare: the king and queen had taken their places. Kel and the other servers gathered finger bowls and towels.

  "Now," said Master Oakbridge.

  Kel walked briskly to her post, taking in as much of the dazzling scene around her as she could. The heavy smells of pine and frankincense drifted in the air. The walls and ceiling were draped in pine branches and freshly cleaned banners. Thousands of candles burned in the huge chandeliers overhead, their light reflected by crystal lusters, the guests’ gems, and the mirror-polished armor of the men of the King’s Own, who stood in niches along the wall. A glance upward showed her galleries on three sides. On one of these the musicians played, as they would throughout the meal. The others were filled with people who had come to watch the spectacle of the feast.

  She waited until she was directly across the hall from the monarchs before she peeked at them. At this distance it was hard to see their features, apart from the king’s black beard and the queen’s scarlet mouth. Like the guests, they blazed with color, the king in sapphire blue trimmed with silver, the queen in crimson trimmed in gold. Both wore delicate gold crowns glinting with gems on their black hair.

  She reached the table where she was to serve, exactly where it had been marked on Oakbridge’s slate. There she presented the finger bowl to each of five guild notables and their wives as they rinsed their hands and toweled them dry. On her way to fetch the first cour
se, she looked for people she knew.

  Sir Myles, the pages’ teacher in history and law and, according to Neal, the king’s spymaster, sat with an elegant woman whose dark hair was streaked with gray. From the way he looked at her and kissed her fingers, Kel hoped she was his wife, Eleni. Daine was deep in talk with Lindhall Reed, another of the pages’ teachers. Daine’s lover, Numair Salmalin, sat closer to the monarchs, beside a Yamani delegate. Neal’s father, Duke Baird of Queenscove, sat beside a Yamani man whom Kel recognized as one of the emperor’s healers. The green-eyed brunette on Baird’s other side had to be Neal’s mother; Neal had the look of both his parents. Kel saw her parents, who sat with the Yamani ambassador and his wife, on the king’s right hand.

  She reached the servers’ door. Owen waited for her, his round face pale as he offered Kel the plate with the first meat course. Kel passed him the finger bowl with one hand and took the plate with the other, while Owen lifted the towel from her arm. "Don’t look so tense," she murmured. "It’ll be over before you know it."

  "Not if I kill Master Oakbridge it won’t," he replied. "What a fusspot!"

  Kel smiled. "I think it’s been tried before, without success."

  As Kel returned to her guildsmen, her mother caught her eye. Ilane smiled and waved slightly. Kel’s father did the same. Her parents were pleased! Kel replied with the tiniest of bows, then hurried to her table.

  Trouble developed as she went for the second fish course. Turning away from Owen, she saw a page across the hall, talking to the people she was serving. She couldn’t see who it was. As she returned to her post, the other page moved away. Something about the way he walked told her it was Quinden, a second-year who was a friend of Joren’s.

  She had given the second fish course to three guests when the man who represented the Lamplighters’ Guild leaned forward and said, "Is it true? You’re The Girl?"

  Kel looked down. Her new breasts were invisible under her roomy shirt and tunic. She bowed and said, "It’s true, sir."

  "It’s not decent," the man’s wife said huffily, her eyes filled with dislike. "One girl, and all those boys."

  "My advice to you, lass, is to go home and hope your parents can make a proper marriage for you," the oldest of the guildfolk informed her. "Ladies have no place bearing arms."

  Kel bowed, her face like stone. She wouldn’t let them see that her feelings were hurt.

  ’’And tell the master of ceremonies we wish to be served by another," one of the other guildwives said.

  Kel bowed again. On her way back to Master Oakbridge, she kept her chin up, though her hands trembled on the tray. Furious thoughts swirled through her brain. Chief among them was that she owed Quinden a pummeling. Now she knew why he’d been at her table: he’d told those merchants exactly who she was.

  "What?!" cried Master Oakbridge when she told him. "This is impossible! I have no spare pages! Only the first-years and they haven’t a whit of grace...Mithros, I appeal to you," he said, raising eyes and hands to the ceiling. Then he sought out a victim. "Prosper of Tameran, take Keladry’s place. If those vulgar busybodies attempt to discuss her with you, keep silent, understand?"

  Prosper nodded and shed the apron he’d worn over his uniform. Owen silently handed the next dish to him, with a look on his face as if his favorite dog had died.

  "Take over for Prosper, Keladry," Master Oakbridge instructed. "I will assign you a new place tomorrow night."

  Kel accepted a platter of meat—pork roasted in honey, apples, and cinnamon, from the smell—to hand to a serving page. Several of them, including Neal, were converging on her from the hall. Kel thought, He’s so graceful. Handsome, too.

  Why she noticed such things these days mystified her. Last year an approving look from his lively green eyes hadn’t made her skin prickle with goose bumps. Was this more womanly stuff, like her growing breasts? she wondered as five pages came at her at once. She stepped just enough to the side that she could hand the plate to Neal first. His hands closed on it; he grinned at her and drew the plate away—and suddenly he was falling. Sauce flew everywhere as he hit the ground.

  Kel stared at him. How could he fall? He wasn’t clumsy; the floor was dry. The pages who had walked with him reached to help Neal up. The front of his tunic dripped sauce and grease; his shirt and hose, no less crimson than his face, were ruined as well. Kel eyed the other boys around him. Prince Roald had spots on his hose; so did the two third-year pages in that small group. The fifth boy was Garvey. He smirked at her and Neal alike, no spots whatsoever on his clothes. He had gotten out of the way in time, which argued that he knew that Neal would fall because he had tripped him.

  Master Oakbridge clutched his temples and demanded basins of cold water and napkins, so Roald and the two third-years could wipe the spots from their hose. Garvey took a platter from Teron of Blythdin and returned to the banquet hall.

  Master Oakbridge pointed to Teron. "You— take Nealan’s station!" he barked. "Nealan, put an apron on and take his place!"

  Neal, beet red with humiliation, did as he was told. Kel battled to put her fury with Garvey from her mind, trying vainly to imagine herself as a calm lake. During the third meat course, someone jostled Seaver from behind, making him spill wine on the head of the royal university. In the jam of boys in the serving area, someone hit Owen with an elbow, hard enough to bruise his eye. The young ladies waited on by Faleron whispered and giggled when he brought their food, as if they knew something ridiculous about him. No one had seen if another page had spoken with them, but Faleron told Kel they’d acted perfectly all right during the first two courses.

  Now Kel knew why Joren and his cronies had been quiet for weeks. They had planned to embarrass Kel and her friends in the most public way possible. From her quick conversations with her friends, Kel learned they didn’t suspect a plot—they blamed it all on bad luck. Serving at banquets was always a mess. This king and queen dined in state rarely, which meant the pages didn’t get much experience waiting on people.

  By the end of the evening, Master Oakbridge could hardly bring himself to look at his charges. Only when the diners had left and the last empty plates had been given to the servants did he speak to them. "You will all report to my classroom after lunch tomorrow. It seems you require practice."

  The second night of the festival, Kel was sent to wait on a table of young, unmarried court ladies. She approached warily: this was the group that had made Faleron so uncomfortable. Kel stopped at the first lady’s left hand. "If my lady pleases?" she murmured, offering the finger bowl.

  The very fashionable damsel turned. It was Kel’s seventeen-year-old sister Adalia, elegant in a gown of leaf green and a gold brocade surcoat with green silk trim. Like many other court ladies, she wore her hair in the pinned-up tumble of curls made fashionable by Queen Thayet. The barest touches of lip color and powder, another royal fashion, warmed her pale skin. Her eyes widened in dismay. "Kel!" she hissed, keeping her voice low. "What are you doing here? Where’s the boy we had last night?"

  Kel tried to smile, but something in Adie’s eyes worried her. "Master Oakbridge had to change the serving order around," she replied softly.

  The girl in an amber-colored gown next to her was sixteen-year-old Oranie, the second of Kel’s sisters at court that year. "Why didn’t you tell him to put you someplace else?" whispered Orie. "Anyplace else?"

  "We aren’t allowed to turn down assignments," Kel said, keeping her face bland as she offered the finger bowl. Adie rinsed her fingers with quick, nervous movements and quickly dried them. Her face was Yamani-calm, though her movements were not. "What’s the problem?" Kel asked.

  "The problem," Orie said tightly as she rinsed her own hands, "is that the Nonds are interested in Adie for their second son. Old Lady Florzile is here tonight to look her over." A jerk of Orie’s head indicated an old woman dressed in an old-fashioned black gown seated across the room from them. "If she sees us on friendly terms with you, she might well change her mind!" She was
so tense that the gold beads that trimmed her brown velvet surcoat trembled.

  "We told her we hardly know you, you’re so much younger," Adie explained. "She’s a conservative, and as rude as a Scanran. She told Papa that girls had no business in combat, ever. You know Papa—he hemmed and gave some diplomatic not-answer. She said she was only interested in me because she was assured I was a proper damsel."

  The girl seated next to Oranie leaned over her and inspected Kel from top to toe. "So this is your page sister?" she inquired lazily, and snickered. "Yes, I can see why she isn’t concerning herself with marriage—unless she were to marry an ox."

  "And I can see why you’re still unbetrothed at nineteen, big dowry and all, Doanna of Fenrigh," said the young lady seated next to her. She wore her masses of crinkled black hair pinned under a gold net at the back of her head. Her delicate pink gown, set off by a white velvet surcoat, gave her creamy skin a rosy glow. "Your tongue has cut all your suitors away."

  Kel’s heart warmed as her sisters looked at the girl in pink and smiled. Moving down the line of young ladies, Kel offered the bowl to Doanna of Fenrigh without looking at her. Doanna hurriedly dipped her fingers and dried them, splashing Kel’s tunic as she did so. Kel then offered the bowl to her defender.

  The girl rinsed and dried her hands. "I’m Uline of Hannalof," she murmured as Kel offered the bowl to the girl on her right. "I’m glad to meet you, Keladry."

  Kel hid a smile. Once the remaining damsels at the table had used the bowl, Kel stopped behind Uline and whispered, "Thank you" before she returned to the serving area.

  When she came back with the first meat course, Doanna looked at her as if she carried a platter of poisons, not venison. "Inform Master Oakbridge that I require another server," she said haughtily. "A male, not an underbred female who claims to be noble."

  Adie and Orie gave the older girl a look that promised trouble. Kel almost felt sorry for Doanna—her older sisters could be quite inventive when it came to revenge. For her own part she could only say, "I’ll tell him when you are served, my lady." She resisted the urge to drop a slice of venison on Doanna’s silk-clad lap.