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Kel sighed. Lalasa had returned to her sewing. “One of you say something, or go away,” she advised. “I’ve classwork yet tonight, and so do you.”

“Sergeant Ezeko says he should just impale himself on the staff, he’s so bad with it,” Iden announced, pushing Warric. “My lord told me I’d do better to plant mine and hope a tree grows out of it.”

“We’re hopeless,” announced Warric.

“You’re like butter with the staff, butter with no cow hairs in it, all smooth and clean,” Iden continued. “Owen said we should stop bothering him because he’s no hand with it, either, and you’re the best.”

“And you never get mad, or yell,” Warric finished. “Owen and Merric do.”

Lalasa ducked her head to hide a smile as Kel stood. “You want me to help you?” Kel asked. She thought, but didn’t add. Even though I’m The Girl?

“If you don’t mind,” said Iden, hope in his large hazel eyes.

“Just some pointers, so we quit getting our fingers broke,” Warric supplied. Kel glanced at his hands - they were covered with bruises, and one finger was swollen.

“Well, you can’t start that way,” she remarked, and opened the desk drawer where she kept the bruise balm. “Come here, both of you,” she ordered as she removed the top. “Let’s see your hands.”

Both lads’ hands were mottled with training bruises. Kel dabbed balm on the worst, nodding as the swellings went down and purple marks faded. “Now,” she ordered when she had put the balm away, “show me what you’re doing.”

She saw the problems immediately. No matter how often she positioned Warric’s hands on his staff, he let them slide closer together as he practiced. Iden’s stance was bad, even weak; a blow would knock him aside. Using her belt-knife, Kel roughened the wood on Warric’s staff at the spots where his hands should be most of the time. Then she marked the floor with chalk to show Iden where to put his feet. She suggested that he take one step out of his stance and another to return to it, starting first with the left foot, then the right, and continue doing only that. Her idea was to make the position feel natural. While he stepped, Kel turned back to Warric.

After he had practiced strikes and blocks for a brief time, stopping often to reposition his hands correctly, she said, “Do it slow. As you’re doing each thing, check that your hands are always where they should be.”

He swung his staff in the high strike position, moving it with a dancer’s slow grace. “But we’re supposed to go fast,” he pointed out.

“You will, in the practice court. But you do the thing I used to, where I was so in love with swinging a weapon that I didn’t care about the exact way to do it. I got my fingers broken before I learned to stop thinking how good I must look, do it slow, and make sure my hands were where they ought to be.” She didn’t mention she’d been six at the time. If Warric had studied with tough old Nariko, the Yamani emperor’s armsmistress, he would be further along, too.

She watched carefully as the boy went through each movement, pushing his hands back into place whenever they moved off the rough areas where he had to grip. When he lost his stance, she stepped behind him to correct the placing of his feet.

“It doesn’t feel right,” Kel heard Iden complain as she positioned Warric.

Lalasa replied, “It didn’t to me at first, either. No, your toes point out.” Kel glanced over in time to see Lalasa kneel beside Iden. She moved his feet into the correct position and held them in place with her hands as she explained, “They have to point straight ahead on that foot. Try the block now.”

Iden obeyed. “But they want to point out,” he protested.

“And your belly wants sweets. You shouldn’t give your body what it wants all the time,” Lalasa said.

Warric looked at Kel, startled. She winked and said, “Try that low block again. Hold your stance.”

“You know what my lady suggested?” Lalasa asked Iden. “She said whenever you aren’t doing anything, just assume that stance and hold it for a count of ten.”

“Any odd time?” inquired the boy.

Lalasa nodded gravely. “When I get up in the morning, or I’m in line in the servants’ mess, or at the draper’s waiting for a clerk, I just stand like that and count. The more I did it, the more natural it got. My lady says I do much better now.”

“She does,” affirmed Kel. “She threw me all the way to the door this week.” The boys stared at Lalasa, awed.

The first bell of the night rang, telling pages to start classwork if they hadn’t done so already. As Kel opened the door for her guests, Iden asked, “Would you mind doing a little bit with us tomorrow, like you did tonight?”

“For a while?” added Warric.

“Just till we get it,” Iden promised.

Kel sighed inwardly. She hated to lose the little time she had to herself, but they were gazing at her like starved puppies. Only a monster would refuse, she thought. “I’ll be happy to,” she replied, thinking, Sometimes even knights have to tell white lies.

“You’ll see!” she heard Iden tell Warric as they went to put their staffs away. “We’ll be good in no time!”

I wish I had such faith in my skill as a teacher, thought Kel. She collected her books. “Thank you for helping, Lalasa.”

“I just told him what you told me,” the maid said, picking up her sewing again.

Kel shook her head and left for the library.

The weeks between the squires’ return and Midwinter evaporated. In that time, Iden and Warric became regular visitors to Kel’s room, a source of entertainment that the sparrows, Jump, and Lalasa seemed to enjoy. Cleon taught her a sword thrust and twist good for parting a man from his dagger. The archery master allowed the advanced group to try shooting with broadhead arrows. For the first time Kel was granted a free afternoon to go into the city. Lalasa stopped lowering the hems of Kel’s present set of page uniforms, and got her new ones. Kel was five feet seven in her stocking feet at the age of twelve and a half.

Joren said hello quite pleasantly, not just to Kel, but to her friends as well. One evening he was so bold as to come to the library they had claimed for their study group to get a book. No one knew what to make of it.

Midwinter came, and with it the time for what Neal called “our ordeal by etiquette,” the Midwinter banquets. As they had the year before, Kel’s friends came to her and Lalasa for a last-minute inspection before they reported to Master Oakbridge. This year it was Owen’s turn to be the cool veteran, and Iden’s and Warric’s to fret that they might actually be called on to serve.

Again Kel was assigned to wait on Danayne, Archpriestess of the Moon of Truth temple in Corus, and those who sat with her: Eda Bell and Hakuin Seastone, and Master Harailt of Aili, dean of the royal university. The Shangs and Master Harailt greeted her with pleasure; Master Harailt inquired about her studies. The Archpriestess said nothing, but then she’d said barely a word to her companions the year before.

Kel was returning for the second fish course when a young woman moved into her path. It was Uline of Hannalof, elegant in petal-pink brocade. She wore her curly hair in a net decorated with moonstones. “Keladry, I wanted to say hello. How are you?”

Kel smiled. “I’m quite well, thank you. And you look very grand!” She was startled to discover that Uline, who was eighteen or so, was Kel’s height exactly.

Uline blushed and smoothed her skirts. “Thank you.” She looked Kel over. “How goes it? Do they treat you well, those pages?”

“As well as they treat anyone,” Kel replied. “It’s a rough-and-tumble world, compared to that of the ladies.”

“I don’t know about that,” replied Uline. “This summer I was invited to become one of the royal ladies. That has its rough-and-tumble moments.”

“Congratulations,” Kel said, and meant it. While the queen had many ladies-in-waiting, only one group was called “the royal ladies.” It was made up of fifteen or so young women of noble birth who could wait on Queen Thayet at state functions, keep up with her on horseback, and use weapons in combat, bows for the most part. “That is, I hope you feel you should be congratulated.”

Uline giggled. “Back in October, when I broke my arm, I wasn’t sure. Now it seems all right. Of course, if you ever see me after riding twenty miles in the rain - well, don’t ask me then, all right?”

Kel smiled and bowed.

Uline curtsied. “I’ll leave you to your chores. By the way - who is that handsome young man, the one with the green eyes? He looks a bit old to be a page.”

Kel made herself say, “Nealan of Queenscove. He didn’t start until he was fifteen. He’s eighteen now.”

“My goodness, how odd,” Uline remarked. “Still, don’t you think he’s handsome?”

“Very,” Kel replied. I won’t get upset if she falls in love with him, she told herself. Uline’s very nice and they would make a fine couple.

Uline sighed. “A pity we’re announcing the betrothal tonight. Oh, well - I do love Kieran, and at least the wedding isn’t for another year.”

“Kieran?” asked Kel, baffled.

“Kieran haMinch,” Uline replied. “He’s handsome, too, though his eyes are brown, not green. I do love green eyes. Maybe I’ll flirt with this Neal.” Her own eyes shone as she watched him.

“Wouldn’t - ” Kel began to say, but the words stuck in her mouth. She swallowed and tried again. “Wouldn’t it be, well, not nice to flirt with somebody you don’t want to fall in love with?”

Uline sighed. “I suppose it would,” she admitted. “Well, I’ll dream I flirted with him. Or you could flirt with him for me.”

“I think I could flirt about as well as my gelding dances,” Kel said frankly. “I’d best get to work.”

Uline rested a hand on her arm. “I’m glad it’s going well,” she said, her eyes kind. “When you come to the big examinations, I’ll be in the audience, cheering.”

Kel thanked Uline and returned to the room where the serving pages waited. She wondered if she ought to tell Neal that his heart’s desire was betrothed, but she thought the better of it. Let someone else ruin his life.

It’s not as if he’ll ever look at you, she told herself as the freed pages trudged to their supper after the banquet. You’re the same as another boy to him. You -

“Clumsy idiot!” she heard an all-too-familiar voice cry from a connecting hallway. “Do you know what this tunic cost me?”

She said nothing to her companions, but turned into the corridor. Joren had a footman by the arm. The man still clutched a pitcher; at their feet was a puddle of liquid.

The moment Joren saw Kel, he released the footman and backed away, both hands raised to show he wouldn’t grab the man again. “My apologies,” he told the man. To Kel he said, “Old habits die hard, don’t they?” His rueful smile invited her to share his amusement. When she said nothing, Joren gave the man a silver coin and strolled away.

“What was that about?” Neal demanded.

Kel turned. All of her friends were arrayed at her back. “He says he’s changed.”

“I suppose he could have changed,” Neal said dryly. “I myself have noticed my growing resemblance to a daffodil.” The other pages snorted.

Kel eyed her friend. “You do look yellow around the edges,” she told him, her face quite serious. “I hadn’t wanted to bring it up.”

“We daffodils like to have things brought up,” Neal said, slinging an arm around her shoulders. “It reminds us of spring.”

“Does dung remind you of spring, too, Princess Flower?” Cleon demanded irritably. “You needn’t manhandle our Kel like that.”

Kel peeled Neal’s arm away. “Thanks, but no thanks,” she told him, hoping he didn’t notice that her breath came quicker, or that her heart pounded like a drum. “I don’t want to crush your petals.”

“Crush mine all you like, fair lady,” Cleon told her, putting an arm around her shoulders in Neal’s stead.

Owen wriggled between Kel and Neal and wrapped an arm around Kel’s waist. “Me too,” he said, grinning up at her.

Kel worked herself free, chuckling. The banquets weren’t much fun, but she liked how the boys got silly at Midwinter. You can only be grim and determined to achieve your goals for so long, she thought as they walked into the pages’ mess together. After that, you just have to joke around for a while.

“Say, Neal,” Owen said as they got into line to be served, “Uline of Hannalof looks beautiful”

“She is not for me,” Neal said gravely. Everyone turned to look at him. “She’s betrothed to Kieran haMinch - they’re announcing it this week. She’ll brighten their gloomy northern castles like the moon. Now, the queen - she was more than beautiful tonight. Did you see her, in that white gown embroidered in scarlet? The jewels in her hair, like stars in the midnight sky? No other country has a queen to compare. And she has the deadly core of a Sirajit sword, beauty and death in one splendid woman.” His eyes were misty as he considered Queen Thayet. “Murdon Fielding, the Sage of Cria, wrote, ‘Squire, give thy queen thy purest love. Let her be the living emblem of the power of the Goddess. Her beauteous countenance will be thy guide, her favor and thanks your payment. Let her - ‘”

Someone passed Kel one of the long, thin loaves of bread served with soup. Before Neal could go on, his friends attacked him with the loaves, battering him until the bread fell to pieces.

Neal brushed crumbs off his clothes and fixed them with his loftiest glare. “Soulless, heartless pages that you are,” he said, “I ignore you.” He cut ahead of them in line so he could be served first.

Once again Kel’s mysterious benefactor surprised her with a costly, useful holiday gift. That summer she had received riding gloves and gauntlets made of beautifully worked leather; in the fall it had been shooting gloves and arm guards to protect her clothes from her bowstring. Now it was a pair of large saddlebags, well made but ordinary enough on the outside, and fitted with large and small compartments. She found things in those compartments: flint and steel, an oiled pouch full of tinder; small iron pots and a plate and bowl set, all of which fit together; a hank of light, strong rope; tooth-cleaning powder; a tidy sewing kit; hooks and line for fishing; and a curious fanlike creation that, when opened up, was revealed to be a waterproof hat.

“Whoever it is, they’re driving me mad,” Kel told Lalasa. “I can’t begin to thank them at this point, and I’ve no idea who it is!”