First Test

The thing reared up on its back legs, revealing a light-coloured shaft at the base of its belly. From it the spidren squirted a high-flying grey stream that soared into the air over the river. Kel threw herself to one side, away from the grey stream and the sack she was trying to catch. The stuff was like rope. She realized it was a web when it fell in a long line across the surface of the water. It had missed her by only a foot. The spidren bent and snipped the rope off from its belly spinneret with a clawed leg. Swiftly it began to wind the length of web around another clawed foot. As it dragged through the water, the sticky thing caught on the cloth sack. The spidren reeled in its catch as a fisherman might pull in a line.

Kel brought the horn up to her mouth. She blew five hard blasts and might have continued to blow until help came, as the spidren gathered up the sack. It discarded its web with one clawed foot, held the sack with a second, and reached into it with a third. The beast grinned, its eyes never leaving Kel, as it pulled out a wet and squirming kitten.

The horn fell from the girl’s lips as the spidren looked the kitten over. It smacked its lips, then bit the small creature in half and began to chew.

Kel screamed and groped on the river bottom with both hands for ammunition. Coming up with a stone in each fist, she hurled the first. It soared past the spidren, missing by inches. Her next stone caught it square in the head. It shrieked and began to climb the bluff that over-looked the river to its left, still holding the sack.

In the distance Kel heard the sound of horns. Help was on its way – for her, but not for those kittens. She scrabbled for more stones and plunged across the river, battling the water to get to the same shore as the monster. It continued to climb the rocky face of the bluff until it reached the summit just as Kel scrambled onto the land.

Once she was on solid ground, she began to climb the bluff, her soaked feet digging for purchase in soft dirt and rock. Above, the spidren leaned over the edge of the bluff to leer at her. It reached into the sack, dragged out a second kitten, and began to eat it.

Kel still had a rock in her right hand. She hurled it as hard as she had ever thrown a ball to knock down a target. It smashed the spidren’s nose. The thing shrieked and hissed, dropping the rest of its meal.

Kel’s foot slipped. She looked down to find a better place to set it and froze. She was only seven feet above the water, but the distance seemed more like seventy to her. A roar filled her ears and her head span. Cold sweat trickled through her clothes. She clung to the face of the bluff with both arms and legs, sick with fear.

Leaving its sack on the ground, the spidren threw a loop of web around a nearby tree stump. When it was set, the creature began to lower itself over the side of the bluff. Its hate-filled eyes were locked on the girl, whose terror had frozen her in place.

Kel was deaf and blind to the spidren’s approach. Later she could not recall hearing the monster’s scream as arrows thudded into its flesh, just as she could not remember the arrival of her brother Anders and his men-at-arms.

With the spidren’s death, its web rope snapped. The thing hurtled past Kel to splash into the river.

A man-at-arms climbed up to get her, gently prising her clutching fingers from their holds. Only when Kel was safely on the shore, seated on a flat rock, was she able to tell them why she had tried to kill a spidren with only stones for weapons. Someone climbed the bluff to retrieve the sack of kittens while Kel stared, shivering, at the spidren’s body.

Her brother Anders dismounted stiffly and limped over to her. Reaching into his belt pouch, he pulled out a handful of fresh mint leaves, crushed them in one gloved hand, and held them under Kel’s nose. She breathed their fresh scent in gratefully.

‘You’re supposed to have real weapons when you go after something that’s twice as big as you are,’ he told her mildly. ‘Didn’t the Yamanis teach you that?’ During the years most of their family had been in the Islands, Anders, Inness, and Conal, the three oldest sons of the manor, had served the crown as pages, squires, then knights. All they knew of Kel’s experiences there came in their family’s letters.

‘I had to do something,’ Kel explained.

‘Calling for help and staying put would have been wiser,’ he pointed out. ‘Leave the fighting to real warriors. Here we are.’ A man-at-arms put the recovered sack into his hands. Anders in turn put the bag in Kel’s lap.

Nervously she pulled the bag open. Five wet kittens, their eyes barely opened, turned their faces up to her and protested their morning’s adventure. ‘I’ll take you to our housekeeper,’ Kel promised them. ‘She knows what to do with kittens.’

Once the animals were seen to and she had changed into a clean gown and slippers, Kel went to her father’s study. With her came a small group of animals: two elderly dogs, three cats, two puppies, a kitten, and a three-legged pine marten. Kel gently moved them out of the way and closed the door before they could sneak into the room. Anders was there, leaning on a walking stick as he talked to their parents. All three adults fell silent and looked at Kel.

‘I’ll do it,’ she said quietly. ‘I want the training, and the right weapons. Anders was right. It was stupid to go after a spidren with stones.’

‘And if they send you home at the end of a year?’ asked Ilane of Mindelan.

Kel took a deep breath. ‘Then I’ll still know more than I do now,’ she said firmly.

Piers looked at his wife, who nodded. ‘Then we’d best pack,’ said Ilane, getting to her feet. ‘You leave the day after tomorrow.’ Passing Kel on her way to the door, her mother lightly touched the eye the village boy had hit. It was red, blue, and puffy – not the worst black eye Kel had ever had. ‘Let’s also get a piece of raw meat to put on this,’ suggested the woman.

The next evening, Kel made her way to the stables to visit her pony, Chipper, to explain to him that the palace would supply her with a knight’s mount. The pony lipped her shirt in an understanding way. He at least would be in good hands: Anders’s oldest son was ready to start riding, and he loved the pony.

‘I thought I might find you here,’ a voice said as Kel fed Chip an apple. She squeaked in surprise. For a man with a limp and a cane, Anders moved very quietly. ‘You know we’ll take care of him.’

Kel nodded and picked up a brush to groom the pony’s round sides. ‘I know. I’ll miss him all the same.’

Anders leaned against a post. ‘Kel …’

She looked at him. Since the incident on the river the day before, she’d caught Anders watching her. She barely remembered him before their departure to the Islands, six years ago – he had already been a knight, handsome and distant in his armour, always riding somewhere. In the months since their return to Mindelan, she had come to like him. ‘Something the matter?’ she asked.

Anders sighed. ‘Do you realize it’s going to be hard? Maybe impossible? They’ll make it tough. There’s hazing, for one thing. I don’t know when the custom started, but it’s called “earning your way”. It’s just for the first-year pages. The senior ones make you run stupid little errands, like fetching gloves and picking up things that get knocked over. You have to do it. Otherwise it’s the same as saying you don’t have to do what the older pages did, as if you think you’re better than they are. And older pages play tricks on the young ones, and some of them will pick fights. Stand up for yourself, or they’ll make your life a misery.’

‘In the rules they sent, fighting isn’t allowed.’

‘Of course it’s forbidden. If you’re caught, they punish you. That’s expected. What you must never do is tattle on another page, or say who you fought with. That’s expected, too. Tell them you fell down – that’s what I always said. Otherwise no one will trust you. A boy told when I was a page. He finally left because no one would speak to him.’

‘But they’ll punish me for fighting?’

‘With chores, extra lessons, things like that. You take every punishment, whatever it’s for, and keep quiet.’

‘Like the Yamanis,’ she said, brushing loose hairs from Chipper’s coat. ‘You don’t talk – you obey.’

Anders nodded. ‘Just do what you’re told. Don’t complain. If you can’t do it, say that you failed, not that you can’t. No one can finish every task that’s given. What your teachers don’t want is excuses, or blaming someone else, or saying it’s unfair. They know it’s unfair. Do what you can, and take your punishment in silence.’

Kel nodded. ‘I can do that, I think.’

Anders chuckled. ‘That’s the strange thing – I believe you can. But, Kel—’

Kel went to Chip’s far side, looking at Anders over the pony’s back. ‘What?’

The young man absently rubbed his stiff leg. ‘Kel, all these things you learned in the Islands …’

‘Yes?’ she prodded when he fell silent again.

‘You might want to keep them to yourself. Otherwise, the pages might think you believe you’re better than they are. You don’t want to be different, all right? At least, not any more different than you already are.’

‘Won’t they want to learn new things?’ she wanted to know. ‘I would.’

‘Not everyone’s like you, Kel. Do what they teach you, no more. You’ll save yourself heartache that way.’

Kel smiled. ‘I’ll try,’ she told him.

Anders straightened with a wince. ‘Don’t be out here too long,’ he reminded her. ‘You’re up before dawn.’

Unlike normal dreams, in which time and places and people did strange things, this dream was completely true to Kel’s memory. It began as she knelt before an altar and stared at the swords placed on it. The weapons were sheathed in pure gold rubbed as smooth and bright as glass. She was five years old again.

‘They are the swords given to the children of the fire goddess, Yama,’ a lady-in-waiting beside Kel said, awe in her soft voice. ‘The short sword is the sword of law. Without it, we are only animals. The long sword is the sword of duty. It is the terrible sword, the killing sword.’ Her words struck a chord in Kel that left the little girl breathless. She liked the idea that duty was a killing sword. ‘Without duty,’ the lady continued, ‘duty to our lords, to our families, and to the law, we are less than animals.’

Kel smelled burning wood. She looked around, curious. The large oil lamps that hung from the temple ceiling by thick cords smelled of perfume, not wood. Kel sniffed the air. She knew that fires were terrible on the Yamani Islands, where indoor walls were often paper screens and straw mats covered floors of polished wood.

The lady-in-waiting got to her feet.

The temple doors crashed open. There was Kel’s mother, Ilane, her outer kimono flapping open, her thick pale hair falling out of its pins. In her hands she carried a staff capped with a broad, curved blade. Her blue-green eyes were huge in her bone-white face.

‘Please excuse me,’ she told the lady-in-waiting, as calm and polite as any Yamani in danger, ‘but we must get out of here and find help. Pirates have attacked the cove and are within the palace.’

There was a thunder of shod feet on polished wood floors. Swords and axes crashed through the paper screens that formed the wall behind the altar. Scanrans – men already covered in blood and grime – burst into the room, fighting their way clear of the screens and their wooden frames.

An arm wrapped tight around Kel’s ribs, yanking her from her feet. The lady-in-waiting had scooped her up in one arm and the swords in the other. Faster than the raiders she ran to Ilane of Mindelan.

The lady tumbled to the ground. Kel slid out the door on her belly. Turning, too startled to cry, she saw the lady at her mother’s feet. There was an arrow in the Yamani woman’s back.

Ilane bent over the dead woman and took the swords. Hoisting them in one hand, she swung her weapon to her right and to her left. It sheared through the heavy cords that suspended five large oil lamps. They fell and shattered, spilling a flood of burning oil. It raced across the temple in the path of the raiders who were running towards them. When their feet began to burn, they halted, trying to put the fire out.

‘Come on!’ Kel’s mother urged. ‘Hike up those skirts and run!’

Kel yanked her kimono up and fled with Ilane. They skidded and slipped over the polished floors in their Yamani sock-shoes, then turned down one corridor and another. Far down one passage they saw a new group of Scanrans. Kel and her mother ran around a corner. They tried another turning – it led to a dead end. They were trapped. The walls that now blocked them in on three sides were sturdy wood, too. They could have cut their way through paper ones.

Ilane turned. Scanrans armed with swords or axes blocked the way out.

Ilane thrust the gold swords into Kel’s arms and pushed her into a corner, then stood before her. ‘Get down and be quiet!’ she said, gripping her weapon in both hands. ‘I think I can hold them off with this.’

Kel put the swords behind her and huddled. The men came at her mother, laughing and joking in Scanran. She peeked around the edge of her mother’s kimono. At that moment Ilane swung the bladed staff – glaive, Kel remembered as it swung, they called it a glaive – in a wide side cut, slicing one pirate across the chest. Whipping it back to her left, she caught another of them in the throat. Blood struck Kel’s face; even dreaming, she could smell it. Breathless, the sheathed swords poking into her back, she watched her mother lunge and retreat, using her skill and her longer weapon to hold the enemy off. Ilane killed a third and a fourth attacker before a squad of guardsmen raced around the corner to finish the rest.

When the pirates were dead, Kel’s mother turned and reached a hand down to her. ‘Let’s go to find your father,’ she said quietly.

Kel grasped the hand, and let her mother pull her to her feet. Then Kel gathered up the golden swords that had been trusted to them.

When they faced their rescuers, the guards knelt as one. They bowed low to the woman and the girl, touching their heads to the bloody floor.

Kel woke, breathing fast, her eyes shining. Her heart raced; she trembled all over. The dream was not scary; it was exciting. She loved it. She loved that it had all been real.

I want to be like that, she told herself as she always did. I want to protect people. And I will. I will. I’ll be a hero one day, just like Mama. Just like the Lioness.

Nobody will kill two kittens in front of me then.

CHAPTER 2

NOT SO WELCOME

Wyldon of Cavall nodded to Baron Piers, but his eyes were on Kel. He looked her over from top to toe, taking in every wrinkle and spot in her tunic and breeches and the fading bruise around her eye.

Kel met his gaze squarely. The training master was handsome, for all that he was completely bald on top. He wore what was left of his light brown hair cropped very short. A scar – so red and puffy, it had to be recent – ran from the corner of his eye across his right temple to dig a track through his hair to his ear. His right arm rested in a sling. His eyes were brown, his mouth wide; his chin was square with a hint of a cleft in it. His big hands were marked with scars. He dressed simply, in a pale blue tunic, a white shirt, and dark blue hose. She couldn’t see his feet behind the big desk, but she suspected that his shoes were as sensible as the rest of him.

Even the Yamanis would say he’s got too much stone in him, she thought, looking at the scuffed toes of her boots. He needs water to balance his nature. Peering through her lashes at the training master, she added, Lots of water. A century or two of it, maybe.

Wyldon drummed his fingers on his desktop. At last he smiled tightly. ‘Be seated, please, both of you.’

Kel and her father obeyed.

Wyldon took his own seat. ‘Well. Keladry, is it?’ She nodded. ‘You understand that you are here on sufferance. You have a year in which to prove that you can keep up with the boys. If you do not satisfy me on that count, you will go home.’

He’s never said that to any boy, Kel thought, glad that her face would not show her resentment. He shouldn’t be saying it to me. She kept her voice polite as she answered, ‘Yes, my lord.’

‘You will get no special privileges or treatment, despite your sex.’ Wyldon’s eyes were stony. ‘I will not tolerate flirtations. If there is a boy in your room, the door must be open. The same is true if you are in a boy’s room. Should you disobey, you will be sent home immediately.’

Kel met his eyes. ‘Yes, sir.’ She was talkative enough with her family, but not with outsiders. The chill that rose from Wyldon made her even quieter.

Piers shifted in his seat. ‘My daughter is only ten, Lord Wyldon. She’s a bit young for that kind of thing.’

‘My experience with females is that they begin early,’ the training master said flatly. He ran a blunt-tipped finger down a piece of paper.

‘It says here that you claim no magical Gift,’ stated Lord Wyldon. ‘Is that so?’

Kel nodded.

Lord Wyldon put down the paper and leaned forward, clasping his hands on his neatly ordered desk. ‘In your father’s day, the royal household always dined in the banquet hall. Now our royal family dines privately for the most part. On great holidays and on special occasions, feasts are held with the sovereigns, nobles, and guests in attendance. The pages are required to serve at such banquets. Also, you are required to run errands for any lord or lady who asks.

‘Has she a servant with her?’ he asked Kel’s father.

‘No,’ Piers replied.

‘Very well. Palace staff will tend her rooms. Have you any questions?’ Wyldon asked Kel.

Yes, she wanted to say. Why won’t you treat me like you treat the boys? Why can’t you be fair?

She kept it to herself. Growing up in a diplomat’s house, she had learned how to read people. A good look at Wyldon’s square, stubborn face with its hard jaw had told Kel that words would mean nothing to this man. She would have to prove to him that she was as good as any boy. And she would.

‘No questions, my lord,’ she told him quietly.

‘There is a chamber across the hall for your farewells,’ Wyldon told Piers. ‘Salma will come for Keladry and guide her to her assigned room. No doubt her baggage already is there.’ He looked at Kel. ‘Unpack your things neatly. When the supper bell rings, stand in the hall with the new boys. Sponsors – older pages who show the new ones how things are done – must be chosen before we go down to the mess.’

After Kel said goodbye to her father, she found Salma waiting for her in the hall. The woman was short and thin, with frizzy brown hair and large, dark eyes. She wore the palace uniform for women servants, a dark skirt and a white blouse. A large ring laden with keys hung from her belt. As she took Kel to her new room, Salma asked if Kel had brought a personal servant.

When the girl replied that she hadn’t, Salma told her, ‘In that case, I’ll assign a servant to you. We bring you hot water for washup and get your fire going in the morning. We also do your laundry and mending, make beds, sweep, and so on. And if you play any tricks on the servants, you’ll do your laundry and bed-making for the rest of the year. It’s not our job to look after weapons, equipment, or armour, mind. That’s what you’re here to learn.’

She briskly led the way through one long hall as she talked. Now they passed a row of doors. Each bore a piece of slate with a name written in chalk. ‘That’s my room,’ Salma explained, pointing. ‘The ground floor here is the pages’ wing. Squires are the next floor up. If you need supplies, or special cleaning and sewing, or if you are ill, come to me.’

Kel looked at her curiously. ‘My brothers didn’t mention you.’

‘Timon Greendale, our headman, reorganized service here six years ago,’ Salma replied. ‘I was brought in five years back – just in time to meet your brother Conal. Don’t worry. I won’t hold it against you.’

Kel smiled wryly. Conal had that effect on people.

Salma halted in front of the last door in the hall. There was no name written on the slate. ‘This is your room,’ she remarked. ‘I told the men to put your things here.’ She brushed the slate with her fingertips. ‘Your name has been washed off. I have to get my chalk. You may as well unpack.’

‘Thank you,’ Kel said.

‘No need to thank me,’ was Salma’s calm reply. ‘I do what they pay me to.’ She hesitated, then added, ‘If you need anything, even if it’s just a sympathetic ear, tell me.’ She rested a warm hand on Kel’s shoulder for a moment, then walked away.

Entering her room, Kel shut the door. When she turned, a gasp escaped before she locked her lips.

She surveyed the damage. The narrow bed was overturned. Mattress, sheets, and blankets were strewn everywhere. The drapes lay on the floor and the shutters hung open. Two chairs, a bookcase, a pair of night tables, and an oak clothespress were also upended. The desk must have been too heavy for such treatment, but its drawers had been dumped onto the floor. Her packs were opened and their contents tumbled out. Someone had used her practice glaive to slash and pull down the wall hangings. On the plaster wall she saw written: No Girls! Go Home! You Won’t Last!

Kel took deep breaths until the storm of hurt and anger that filled her was under control. Once that was done, she began to clean up. The first thing she checked was the small wooden box containing her collection of Yamani porcelain lucky cats. She had a dozen or so, each a different size and colour, each sitting with one paw upraised. The box itself was dented on one corner, but its contents were safe. Her mother had packed each cat in a handkerchief to keep it from breaking.

That’s something, at least, Kel thought. But what about next time? Maybe she ought to ship them home.

As she gathered up her clothes, she heard a knock. She opened her door a crack. It was Salma. The minute the woman saw her face, she knew something was wrong. ‘Open,’ she commanded.

Kel let her in and shut the door.

‘You were warned this kind of thing might happen?’ Salma asked finally.

Kel nodded. ‘I’m cleaning up.’

‘I told you, it’s your job to perform a warrior’s tasks. We do this kind of work,’ Salma replied. ‘Leave this to me. By the time you come back from supper it will be as good as new. Are you going to change clothes?’

Kel nodded.

‘Why don’t you do that? It’s nearly time for you to wait outside. I’ll need your key once you’re done in here.’

Kel scooped up the things she needed and walked into the next room. Small and bare, it served as a dressing room and bathroom. The privy was behind a door set in the wall. There was little in here to destroy, but the mirror and the privy seat were soaped.

Kel shut the door. Before she had seen her room, she had planned to wear tunic and breeches as she had for the journey. She’d thought that if she was to train as a boy, she ought to dress like one. They were also more comfortable. Now she felt differently. She was a girl; she had nothing to be ashamed of, and they had better learn that first thing. The best way to remind them was to dress at least part of the time as a girl.

Stripping off her travel-stained clothes, she pulled on a yellow linen shift and topped it with her second-best dress, a fawn-brown cotton that looked well against the yellow. She removed her boots and put on white stockings and brown leather slippers.

Cleaning the mirror, she looked at herself. The gown was creased from being packed, but that could not be helped. She still had a black eye. There was nothing she could do with her mouse-brown hair: she’d had it cropped to her earlobes before she’d left home. Next trip to market, maybe I’ll get some ribbons, she thought grimly, running a comb through her hair. Some nice, bright ribbons.