First Test (12 page)

"But in front of Sir Raoul of Goldenlake," she replied in a low voice. "Who fought a giant on foot and won."

"Actually, he's Lord Sir Raoul of Goldenlake and Malorie's Peak—the king elevated him to the peerage in April," Neal informed her. "And it was only a twenty-foot giant."

"Oh, well, I don't feel half so stupid now," muttered Kel. Time to change the subject. "What was that about us helping the King's Own?"

"The Stump likes us to get battle experience against immortals. If there's something close by, the King's Own takes us along."

Wyldon called, "You older pages practice separately. Get to it." They drifted to the other four quintains, leaving the first-years to practice under Wyldon's eye.

Wyldon beckoned to Quinden of Marti's Hill, indicating he should tilt next. "Excuse me, your lordship, but am I older or younger today?" Neal asked.

"One day I will tie that insolent tongue of yours in a knot," replied Wyldon absently as he watched Quinden settle his lance. "You may tilt with the first-years."

Kel saw Neal open his mouth to reply, and swung Peachblossom into Neal's brown mare. The mare skipped away as Peachblossom half turned, ensuring that the gelding caught just a fold of Neal's practice clothes in his teeth instead of Neal's right leg. By the time Kel had persuaded her mount to release her friend, Neal had forgotten whatever answer he'd been about to give the training master.

Kel rode four more times at the quintain. Each try was a fight with the heavy lance; not once did she manage to keep the point high enough to strike the circle. By her third run, her arms felt as weak as overcooked noodles. Kel dragged as she brushed Peachblossom, cleaned her new tack, cut her name onto her lance, and rubbed oil into it. Only when those chores were done could she return to the castle and her waiting bath.

"What's wrong?" Neal asked as they stood in line for lunch. "You've been quiet all day, not that you ever chatter." He peered at her so worriedly that Kel had to smile.

"I didn't sleep well, that's all," she told him. "I'm sorry I was grumpy."

"Stop pushing, Esmond!" growled someone behind her. The next minute Kel was knocked out of line. Turning, she saw that the one who'd bumped her was Merric. Beet-red, he mumbled an apology and shoved Esmond in revenge. It gave him a reason to turn his back on Kel as she resumed her place.

He can't even look at me, she thought miserably, leaning against the wall. And I can't look at him. Wonderful.

She was leaving to collect her books and papers when Cleon stopped her once again. "Page Keladry," he announced with a broad grin, "my flower, my dove, I need more ink. Run along to stores and fetch me some."

"Leave her be, Cleon," said Neal sternly. "She's got enough to worry about without doing your errands."

Cleon stared at him. The senior pages were always cautious when it came to Neal. First-year or not, he was older and taller than all of them, and once he lost his temper, he didn't seem to care if he got hurt. Boys who thought nothing of pushing someone like Kel, Merric, or the other first-years around tended to leave Neal alone. "I didn't ask you, Neal," Cleon retorted at last. "She has to get used to running errands sometime."

"Even the nobles hardly ask us to do things for them," argued Neal hotly. "They know we're kept trotting."

Kel ran to do as she was told, shaking her head. Trust Neal to extend the whole matter by debating about it.

She made it to their first class just in time, handing Cleon his ink as she rushed to her seat. Only when she was down and had begun to sort out the mess of her own books and papers did she see how little she'd finished the night before. When Master Yayin, who taught reading and writing, requested her work, she stood and admitted that she didn't have it, as tradition demanded.

The Mithran's thick brows came together in a scowl. "Very well, Page Keladry," he said, "report to us orally on the chapter you were to write about."

Kel swallowed hard, fighting to keep her feelings out of her face. "I did not read it, Master Yayin," she replied, staring past him.

"No sense arguing with a Lump," someone at the back of the room muttered.

"Silence!" the teacher snapped. His favored prop was a long wooden rod he used as a pointer. In the first week of classes, Kel had learned that the rod also indicated the teacher's moods. Now he tapped its point slowly and steadily on the floor.

Bad sign, thought Kel, damp at her temples and palms. Very bad sign.

"Page Keladry, have you an explanation?"

Custom dictated only one reply. Explanations were regarded as excuses. I am stone, Kel reminded herself. "No, Master Yayin." She squeezed the words out of a tight throat.

"Page Keladry, if you cannot perform a modicum of the work required, you do not belong here," the teacher informed her coldly. "Reconsider your commitment to your studies. Tomorrow you will summarize the next three chapters in the book. Sit down."

Kel sat. She could hear snickers from the other pages, but she kept her face as smooth as stone.

In mathematics, she winced when she saw how creased and blotted her sheet of last night's problems was. She handed it in anyway, and sat through class with shoulders hunched, waiting for a reprimand. Master Ivor liked to correct their work at his desk as one of them solved a problem on a large slate in front of the room; somehow he did both easily. Papers, with his written comments, were handed back at the end of the class. He gave Kel hers with raised eyebrows, then passed to the next student. She looked down and read the note he'd scrawled on the cleanest part of the paper: "I hardly believe this is yours. Redo it, properly, with tonight's assignment."

She could have kissed him, she was so relieved. At least he did not want to humiliate her, even though she'd disappointed him. Since mathematics was her favorite class, she hated the idea that he might think her lazy.

Sir Myles did not assign written work, only reading, and didn't call on Kel for anything. The thought that he might kept her nervous through the class—she couldn't even remember what he'd assigned until the boys he did call on talked about the material. On her way out of class, Sir Myles asked, "Keladry? Might I have a word?"

"He probably wants to know what the Yamani emperor has for breakfast," Neal muttered out of the side of his mouth.

Kel frowned at her friend and walked up to the plump teacher's desk. It took an effort of will to keep her hands flat at her sides, not twisting nervously together. "Is everything well?" Sir Myles wanted to know. "You look wan."

"Sir?" she asked, puzzled by the word and wondering why he'd singled her out.

"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 nights 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.

For the next three days Kel pursued her class-work 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. Metric 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.