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Who would believe it was just Neal and me a year ago? she thought. I thought we’d never have any friends, what with Lord Wyldon hating him for being fifteen and educated, and me being The Girl.

About to take the offered place, she had an idea. ‘You know, they do allow study groups to meet in the libraries.’ She smiled. ‘I believe there’s room for us in the classroom-wing library.’ Last year Joren and his friends had made life miserable for any first-year who entered the room. It was only right that their group reclaim it for people who wanted to study.

The boys looked at each other, then at Kel. Without a word they gathered their things and streamed out of Neal’s room. Owen left skipping to a soft chant of ‘Books, books, books!’

Neal threw open his arms as if to embrace his now-empty chambers. ‘What shall I do with all this space in the evenings?’ he enquired airily, waving Kel out ahead of him. ‘Plant a garden, perhaps, begin my eagerly awaited career in sculpting—’

‘If I were you, I’d practise my staff work,’ Kel replied. ‘You need to.’

The bell that signalled the end of their day clanged, and the pages returned to their rooms. By then Kel felt each and every bruise from the fight and from her day’s training with that weighted harness. Stiffly she put her books on her desk, noticing a mild, clean scent in the air.

‘I made willow tea for my lady,’ explained Lalasa as she poured a cup from the kettle on the hearth. ‘And Salma gave me a package for you.’

Kel looked the package over. It was like others she’d received from an unknown benefactor: a plain canvas wrapper tied with string and a plain label. She undid the knots and pulled the canvas away to reveal a small wooden box.

She wriggled the top off to reveal the contents: a pamphlet and three oval leather balls, each of a size that would fit into her palm. Did her mysterious well-wisher want her to learn to juggle? She picked up a ball, which was heavier than it looked. Kel squeezed it. From the texture, it was filled with sand.

‘What on earth?’ she muttered, and leafed through the pamphlet. It was hand-lettered and clearly illustrated. Suddenly she began to grin.

‘What is it, my lady?’ asked the maid.

‘Exercises,’ replied Kel. ‘For my arms, and my hands.’ She moulded the leather ball in her left hand, squeezing hard. ‘This is supposed to strengthen my grip.’ How does he know, or she, what’s needed? Kel wondered, scanning the descriptions of the exercises. Last year it had been a good knife, her jar of precious, magicked bruise balm, and a fine tilting saddle for Peachblossom. Now it was more exercises, small ones she could do any time, that would help to build strength in her hands and arms.

Reminded of the bruise balm, Kel took the jar out of her desk and dabbed a little on her swollen eye. The throbbing ache in it began to fade.

I wish I knew who you were, she thought, sipping the tea that Lalasa had made. I would like to thank you – and ask why you do these things for me.

CHAPTER 3

BRAWL

The next morning Kel rose before dawn as always. It was not easy. She felt stiff, old, and battered. When she stubbed her toe, she remembered that she could only see through one eye. At least the blackened eye no longer ached so much.

I could have had ice, Kel thought bitterly. But no. I had to be tough. I was mad when I chose this life, she decided as she unlocked her large shutters. I was stark raving mad, and my family was too polite to mention it. That’s what living with the Yamanis does to people. They get so well-mannered they won’t mention you’re crazy.

She opened the shutters wide. Outside lay a small stone-flagged courtyard with a slender, miserable tree at the centre. The flock of sparrows perched on its branches headed for Kel, swirling around her in a rustle of feathers and a chorus of peeps. Except during winter, they preferred to sleep outside and join her for seed and water in the short grey time before sunrise. While most of the birds went straight to the dishes, a few landed on her shoulders and arms. Kel gently stroked their heads and breasts with a finger. She had nearly thirty after the spring nesting. Brown-and-tan females and males, the males also sporting black collars, they appeared to see Kel as a source of food and entertainment. They chattered to her constantly, as if they hoped that with enough repetition, this great slow creature would understand them.

She was admiring the male whose pale-spotted head had earned him the name Freckle when something large and white vaulted the windowsill on her blind side. It landed beside her with a thump as the sparrows took to the air. She backed up to look at it properly.

The dog Jump grinned cheerfully at her, tongue lolling. His crooked tail whipped the air briskly.

‘Absolutely not,’ Kel said firmly. She pointed to the window. ‘You live with Daine now! Daine!’

Jump stood on his hind legs and thrust his heavy nose into Kel’s hand.

‘How did you know to come in here?’ Kel leaned out of her window. If she hadn’t been so vexed, she would have been impressed – it was four feet from the ground to her sill. She turned to glare at the dog. ‘Back to Daine, this instant!’ she ordered. ‘Out!’

‘Out?’ a quavering voice enquired. Lalasa stood at the dressing room door. ‘What did I—’

Kel pointed to Jump.

‘Oh. The dog has returned.’ Lalasa padded out into the main room and poked up the hearth fire, then put a full pot of water over it. ‘My lady should have roused me. I did not mean to lay abed after my lady was up.’

‘I wake before dawn,’ Kel said, going to the corner where she had left her practice glaive. ‘I practise before I dress.’ She gave the weapon an experimental swing, making sure there was plenty of clear space in this part of her room. She didn’t want to break anything as she exercised.

At least she had got some real glaive practice over the summer. While her sisters Adalia and Oranie, young Eastern ladies now, had lost the skills they learned in the Yamani Islands, their mother had trounced Kel every day for a month before Kel’s old ability had returned. Kel often thought that Ilane of Mindelan could give even the Shang warriors who taught the pages a real fight with a glaive.

Kel swept the weapon down and held it poised for the cut named ‘the broom sweeps clean’. Her grip was not quite right. She adjusted it and looked up, ready to begin the pattern of movements and strikes that were her practice routine.

Lalasa stood against the wall beside the hearth. Her hands, covered by the large quilted mitts used to lift hot things off the fire, were pressed tight over her mouth. Her eyes were huge.

Now what? Kel wanted to say. She wasn’t used to explaining her every move to someone. Instead of scolding, she bit her tongue and made herself think of a lake, quiet and serene on a summer’s day. When she had herself under control, she asked, ‘What’s the matter, Lalasa?’

‘I – I want to be out of your way, my lady, is all. It’s so big. Do you always swing it like that?’

Kel looked at her weapon, confused. It was just a practice glaive, a five-foot-long wooden staff with a lead core, capped by a curved, heavy, dull blade eighteen inches long. ‘That’s what it’s for. See, you can wield it like a long-handled axe’ – she brought the glaive up overhand and chopped down – ‘or you can thrust with it.’ Kel shifted her hands on the staff and lunged. ‘Or you can cut up with the curved edge.’ She swung the weapon back to the broom-sweeps-clean position, and stopped. Lalasa was plainly more frightened than ever. ‘You could learn to use it,’ offered Kel. ‘To protect yourself. The Yamani ladies all know how to wield the glaive.’

Lalasa shook her head vigorously. Grabbing the pot of hot water, she scuttled into the dressing room with it.

I wish she wasn’t so nervous, Kel thought, clearing her heart for the pattern dance. I hope she gets over it.

She put Lalasa from her mind and took her opening position. Step and lunge … Her stiff body protested. She was panting by the time she was done. Next she forced herself through twenty of the floor press-ups that Eda Bell, the Shang Wildcat, had said would strengthen her arms. As she finished, the great bell that summoned all but the deafest nobles from their beds rang. It was the beginning of another palace day.

Kel walked into the dressing room. Hot water steamed in her basin; soap, drying cloth, brush, comb, and tooth cleaner were all laid out neatly beside it. Even in here, Lalasa had made things more comfortable. A tall wooden screen hid her bed and the small box that held her belongings. She had found a scarlet rug somewhere, a brazier for heat when it turned cold, and a cloth hanging to cover the privy door. Kel’s morning clothes – shirt, canvas breeches, stockings, boots, a canvas jacket – were draped neatly over a stand that Kel had always thought was a hurdle put in her room by mistake.

‘Lalasa,’ she said when she was dressed, ‘would you like to learn ways to make people let go? Holds, and twists to free your arms, grips that will make them think twice about bothering you? I know some, and—’

Lalasa shook her head so hard that Kel wondered if her brain might rattle. ‘Please no, my lady,’ she said in her tiny, scared voice. ‘It’ll be different now, with my having a proper mistress. That’s what Uncle said. The nobles don’t mess with each other’s servants. And I’ll be careful. I’ll be no trouble to you, my lady, you’ll see.’

‘Hey, Mindelan!’ someone yelled in the outside hall. ‘Come on!’

Kel sighed and looked at Jump. He had watched her get ready, his tiny eyes intent. ‘After breakfast, will you take him to Daine?’ she asked. ‘She’s on the floor above the classrooms, with—’

Lalasa was shaking her head again. ‘My lady, she’ll turn me into something. She’s uncanny, forever talking to animals and covered with the mess they make …’

Kel was a patient girl, but there was something to Lalasa’s meekness that set her teeth on edge. ‘That’s silly,’ she snapped.

Lalasa stared at the floor.

And here I’ve frightened her again, thought Kel. Now her head ached as much as the rest of her. ‘Look. Will Gower do it, if you ask him? Take Jump up to Daine?’

Lalasa nodded. ‘Yes, my lady.’

‘Then please ask him to.’ Kel left before she could say anything else.

Lalasa just needs to get used to me, she told herself as she joined the boys headed for the mess hall. She just needs to learn I won’t be mean to her. Then she won’t be so, so mouse-ish. Please, Goddess.

Neal’s first block of Kel’s first punch felt every bit as soft and weary as her blow. They both made faces.

‘What’s the matter, second-years? Tired?’ Kel had always thought that Hakuin Seastone, the Shang Horse, was improperly cheerful for a Yamani. Now he circled her and Neal, grinning. He was tall for an Islander, with plump lips and dark, almond-shaped eyes framed with laughlines. His glossy black hair was cropped short on the sides and long on top, so a hank of it always lay against his broad forehead like a comma. He wore plain practice clothes and went barefoot. ‘Add two pounds of weight to your chests and you act like you carry the world. Put strength into your blocks. I want those punches to mean something! What if you’re unhorsed and fighting in mail or plate armour? You’ll wish you’d listened to old Hakuin then. Ready, begin. High punch, high block! Middle punch, middle block! Low punch, low block!’

His teaching partner, the Shang Wildcat, peered into Owen’s face. She was an older woman, her skin lightly tanned from summer, her close-cropped curls silvery white. ‘What are you looking at the seniors for?’ she asked Owen, pale eyes glinting. ‘You don’t get to look around till you punch like a fighter, not a cook kneading bread.’

Kel tried to will more vigour into aching muscles. At breakfast Faleron and Roald had said that everyone was exhausted when they first donned the harness, or when new weights were added, but Kel didn’t remember if she had noticed the older pages struggling last year.

‘I hear the third day’s worse,’ Neal moaned as the bell rang. It was their signal to lurch to the yard where Lord Wyldon and Sergeant Ezeko drilled them on staff combat.

‘I just want to live through today,’ said Merric as they filed down the hill.

The fourth-years, walking behind them, pushed by the younger pages to take the lead. They did it roughly, yelling, ‘Oldsters first!’ Passing Kel, Joren thrust his elbow back, clipping her black eye. Kel gasped and bent over, covering her throbbing eye.

A cool hand rested on hers, and something flowed through her fingers. The pain vanished. Kel took her hand away, and glared at Neal.

‘It still looks nice and puffy and colourful.’ His voice was dry, his green eyes worried. ‘Kel, we have to do something about him.’

‘Yes,’ she replied, ‘stay out of his way. Joren’s a page for just one more year, and that’s what I mean to do.’

‘She’s right.’ The prince stopped beside them. ‘If she takes revenge, she’s the one who will look bad.’

‘So there,’ Kel told Neal, and marched on down to the next practice court. Beneath her calm exterior she wished fiercely that she could pound the meanness out of Joren. Even as she thought it, she knew she would do better to ignore him. Water, she thought, collecting her staff from the shed where it was kept. I am a summer lake on a windless day, clear, cool, and still. Joren is a cloud. All he can do is cast a shadow on my surface. I’ll be here long after he’s gone. She concentrated on that thought fiercely until Lord Wyldon and the sergeant barked orders for the first series of exercises.

The yard rang with the clack of wood striking wood and yelps from those pages whose fingers got hit. Kel listened to the noise and let it fill her – it worked better than thoughts of a clear lake to clear her head. At least she was less stiff after their time with the two Shangs.

Settled into the rhythm of the first exercise, she looked for the training master. Lord Wyldon watched them from the fence. Keeping his eyes on them, he crouched to scratch the ear of an ugly white dog with black spots.

Kel’s attention wavered; Faleron smacked her collarbone with his staff. The force of the blow drove her to her knees as pain shot like lightning through her right side.

‘Kel, you didn’t block it!’ cried Faleron, appalled. ‘Neal—’

‘Back in line, Page Nealan!’ Ezeko ordered as he came over. ‘If there’s a break, she’ll see a proper healer!’ He knelt beside Kel and felt her collarbone, his fingers gentler than his face. He was a barrel-chested black man, a Carthaki veteran who had fled slavery to enter Tortall.

‘Just – a bruise, I think,’ Kel said, gasping for breath. ‘The – the strap—’

The sergeant pulled her jacket aside, examining the harness. ‘You took the blow on that?’ he demanded. ‘I don’t feel anything broken.’

Kel nodded.

‘Stupid,’ Ezeko told her. ‘You haven’t let anybody land one in months. I don’t care how tired you are, pay attention!’

‘If we are done fluttering over the girl?’ Lord Wyldon demanded, walking over. ‘Back to work, lads. Can you use the arm?’ he asked Kel gruffly.

The emperor’s soldiers fight with broken arms, Kel thought, remembering the hard-faced men who defended the Yamani court. It isn’t broken, just bruised. Really bruised. She nodded, meeting Lord Wyldon’s gaze squarely.

He sighed. ‘Yancen of Irenroha, pair with Faleron.’ Yancen, a third-year, obeyed. ‘Mindelan, with Prosper of Tameran.’ Prosper was a new page. Kel saw what Lord Wyldon intended: she could defend herself against Prosper even with a bad right arm. As Wyldon continued to rearrange the pairs, Kel glanced at the fence where he’d been. Jump noticed her look and wagged his tail.

Neal saw the dog as they were putting their staffs away. ‘Is that—?’ he asked. Lord Wyldon was scratching Jump’s spine.

Kel nodded.

‘I thought you gave him to Daine,’ Neal murmured.

‘I did,’ she replied. They walked to the archery courts with the other pages. Lord Wyldon and Sergeant Ezeko brought up the rear, Jump trotting beside them.

‘You know, if he doesn’t want to stay, Daine won’t make him,’ Neal whispered.

Kel sighed. She did know. The Wildmage had refused to change the nature of Kel’s contrary mount Peachblossom. ‘That’s why she said she would try to keep Jump,’ Kel told Neal gloomily as they gathered their bows and quivers of arrows. ‘Because she thought maybe he wouldn’t stay with her.’

When she looked around halfway through the archery lesson, the dog was nowhere in sight. Kel took heart. Perhaps Jump had realized Kel wouldn’t encourage him.

Perhaps he’s off stealing and getting chopped up by that cook, a treacherous voice whispered in her mind. Kel ignored it. She couldn’t solve the world’s problems, after all. Not yet, at least.

Her relief and worry turned to resentment as the boys reached the pages’ stable for their final morning class. Jump sat by the door, scratching one of his scars.

‘Go away,’ she muttered as she walked by. ‘Go back to Daine!’

As she opened the door to Peachblossom’s stall, the dog trotted in ahead of her. His jaunty air suggested that a horse of Kel’s was a horse of his. Peachblossom instantly put back his ears, retreated until his rump hit the stable wall, and stamped. Jump sat and regarded the horse.

Peachblossom was a horse to regard with care. He was a small destrier who would have been too big for Kel if he had not allowed her to ride him. He was gelded, with strawberry roan markings: reddish brown stockings, face, mane, and tail, and a rusty coat flecked with white. Only three people could handle him without getting bitten, Kel, Daine, and the chief ostler, Stefan Groomsman.

‘Ignore the dog,’ she advised the gelding as she stiffly went over him with a brush. ‘He thinks he belongs to me, but he’s mistaken.’

Peachblossom snorted disbelief, but he’d found the apple Kel had brought, and he did like the brush. He stepped away from the wall.

Despite the pain in her shoulder, Kel put the riding saddle on him and mounted up. This week there would be no work with the lance and the heavier tilting saddle. The pages would be riding only, the seniors to show they hadn’t gone soft over the holiday, the first-years to show they could manage a horse. It was boring, but as the ache in her shoulder spread, Kel decided boredom was preferable.

At least Jump didn’t follow them out, or if he did, he made sure Kel never saw him. She was able to concentrate on putting Peachblossom through his paces until the end-of-morning bell. She returned to the stable and groomed her mount, glad the morning had ended.

Faleron, whose fire chestnut was Peachblossom’s neighbour, leaned on the rail between the stalls. ‘Kel, I’m still not sure about that catapult problem,’ he confessed, embarrassed. He knew more Tortallan law than any other page, but mathematics came hard for him. ‘If I fetch it to lunch, would you take a look?’

Kel nodded. ‘You didn’t have to ask, you know.’

Faleron grinned. ‘Mama raised me polite.’

In a nearby stall Garvey muttered, ‘So, Faleron, you’re friends with her now because you can have her whenever you want?’

Faleron threw down his brush and went for the other boy. Sore shoulder or no, Kel flew out of the stall. She caught Faleron just a foot from the sneering Garvey and hung on to him, putting all of her weight into it.

The older boy fought her grip. ‘Gods curse it, Kel, you heard what he said!’

‘I heard a fart,’ Kel said grimly. ‘You know where those come from. Let it go.’

Faleron relaxed, but she still kept both hands wrapped around his arm. He was easy-going, but everyone had sore spots. At last Faleron made a rude gesture at Garvey and let Kel pull him away.

They had almost reached their horses when Neal’s unmistakable drawl sounded through the stable: ‘Joren is so pretty. Say, Garvey, are you two friends because you can have him?’

Garvey roared and charged, but Joren got to Neal first. Before they landed more than a punch each, Neal’s friends, including Kel, attacked them. More boys entered the brawl, kicking and hitting blindly, striking friend as often as foe. Kel nearly fainted when someone’s boot hit her bruised collarbone.

Above the din made by boys and frightened horses, Kel heard the sound of breaking wood. Realizing she would never reach Neal, praying he didn’t get his silly head broken, she grabbed Merric and Seaver by the collar and backed up, dragging them with her. The press of bodies behind her let up suddenly; she nearly fell over backwards.

Startled, she looked around and saw Peachblossom. His teeth firmly sunk into Cleon’s jacket, the gelding drew the big youth out of the fray. Prince Roald gripped Owen by both arms to keep him out of the brawl; Roald’s horse, the black gelding Shadow, held Faleron by the arm as he slowly pulled him free. Zahir’s bay shouldered through the mob, stepping on no one, but forcing them to move away from him and each other.

For a moment a chill ran through Kel. She thought uneasily, The animals here are so strange. Then she shook it off. The harridan who trained the ladies of the Yamani court to defend themselves had always said, ‘We use the tools at hand.’ These animals, uncanny or not, were the right tools for this mess.

She thrust Merric and Seaver into a ruined stall and grabbed Cleon’s arm. ‘Peachblossom, can you find Neal?’ she asked her horse.

The big gelding released Cleon’s jacket, blew scornfully, and waded into the fight. Unlike Zahir’s bay, he was not careful of feet or fingers. If they were in the way, Peachblossom stepped on them. Several boys rolled clear to nurse bruises and broken bones.

‘You can let go, Kel,’ said Cleon, his voice dry. He watched Cavall’s Heart, Lord Wyldon’s dark dun mare, who had also broken out of her stall. She dragged Garvey out of the pile. ‘Even I’m not stupid enough to argue with horses. Particularly not these horses.’

Kel glared up at him. Cleon was a fourth-year, but he was also a friend. ‘I’m glad you’re smart enough to realize that much,’ she told him.

Cleon slapped her cheerfully on the back. ‘What’s the matter, dewdrop? Don’t you like men fighting to protect your honour?’

‘I can defend my own honour, thank you,’ she replied. ‘I thought it was Joren’s honour at stake. And stop calling me those idiotic nicknames. That joke is dead and rotting.’ She watched as Jump grabbed Vinson by the ankle, stopping the boy’s attempts to kick anyone.

Peachblossom had just seized Neal’s jacket, with Neal’s shoulder in it, when Lord Wyldon, Sergeant Ezeko, and three stable hands entered. They tossed the buckets of water they carried on the pages. Silence fell.

‘I want this place straightened up and these horses groomed afresh.’ Lord Wyldon’s voice, and eyes, were like iron. ‘That includes Heart. You will then wash and assemble in the mess hall. I will address you further there.’ He looked them over, pale with fury. ‘You are a disgrace, the lot of you.’ He turned on his heel and walked out.

Silently the pages got to work.

By the time they reached the mess hall, Lord Wyldon had worked out their punishment. It included bread-and-water suppers for a week, study alone in their rooms at night, no sweets, and no trips out of the palace until Midwinter. Those pages who already had Sunday afternoon punishment work were to put that off until the general punishment was done. They were all to help carpenters rebuild the stable. Finally, the training master added two more lead weights to the senior pages’ harnesses.

The subdued pages went to afternoon classes in nearly complete silence. When it was time to dress for supper, Kel scrambled into her shift and gown, stopping only to demand of Lalasa why Jump hadn’t been taken to Daine that morning. When Lalasa, cringing, replied that Gower had carried the dog up to the Wildmage right after breakfast, Kel shook her head. She would have to deal with Jump later.