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“Whoever it is, they want you to keep doing what you’re doing,” Lalasa said.

“I just wish I knew” grumbled Kel. “I hate mysteries. Why does this person like me so much? Who could it hurt if I knew who it was?” When she’d gotten the gloves and arm guards, she realized that her unknown friend knew what size Kel was, but Lalasa swore no one had approached her. Kel had given up on that line of thinking. After all, her changing sizes were noted by the palace tailors so they could supply Lalasa. It would be easy enough for someone who knew the palace to ask the tailors for Kel’s measurements.

This Midwinter, Kel made only one vow to keep in the new year. Being allowed to visit the city before the holiday had made her see that she wasn’t getting as many punishments as she had in her first two years. She was rarely tardy, she’d learned how to clean her gear to Lord Wyldon’s satisfaction, and she never got into fights anymore. Without punishment work to force her onto heights, there was nothing to help Kel overcome her fear.

If she wanted to defeat it, she would have to face it herself, on a regular basis. She doubted that anyone would send her up Balor’s Needle again, but what if she had to take a note to the watch captain on the walls? She was certain that come summer, Lord Wyldon would resume sending her up on heights. She had better practice before then.

Thus, every night after supper, Kel went on a walk. One night she might go to the immense, pillared gallery that stretched around the main entrance hall and map the lower floor, including every potted tree and bench. Another night might see her in one of the watchtowers, forcing herself to note which points of light below were fixed and which moved. She climbed trees in the gardens. On her days off she sought a balcony and mapped the portion of the grounds visible from there, or the land between the outer wall and the city.

It had been easier when she did these things under Lord Wyldons orders. An order had to be obeyed; she didn’t have to think beyond that. When it was her own doing, she was always tempted to skip a day, or just glance down, then get back to the ground. Kel had to force herself to keep her vow. She was better at it some days than others.

Her daily training followed the path set that autumn. After Midwinter, Lord Wyldon added to their harnesses once again. Kel adjusted to the new weight more quickly than before, which meant she was exhausted by its drag on her chest and shoulders for just over a week. By the time two weeks had passed, she didn’t notice the fresh weight.

On days that were nice enough to allow the pages to practice tilting, Kel hit the black spot on the target shield with every pass. In January, Lord Wyldon moved six of the fourth-year pages who could reliably hit the target to Kel’s quintain and changed Kel’s program. Now she had a harder target - a ring of wood about a foot in diameter, hung from a cord attached to a long rod.

This was very different from what Kel was used to. She believed the training master was trying to make her lose her mind. The circle bobbed and swayed in every puff of air. She felt as if she chased a butterfly with her lance.

“Adversity builds character?” Neal suggested one bitter morning when she was taking a breather.

She looked at Peachblossom. “Bite him,” she ordered. The gelding, as contrary as a cat, blew at her.

“All right, how’s this? He knows you’re far better than most of us, and he’s trying to make you better still.” When Kel blinked at him, Neal shrugged. “Or we could go back to him being a Stump who lives to torture you. I like that one better anyway.”

In weapons practice, Lord Wyldon began exercises in city fighting. He would take the seniors to an empty section of the palace, or to a collection of outbuildings on the grounds, and put them to work. In pairs, in groups, or alone, they chased one another, hiding behind doors and corners, sparring furiously when they encountered the “enemy.” Kel, in command of five pages one February morning, routed a group of seven that included Yancen, Balduin, and Neal, by making them split their force. When Hakuin and Eda declared her side the winner, Lord Wyldon was silent for a very long moment. There was no telling what he thought, or what the tone in his voice meant when he said at last, “Very good, Page Keladry.”

It was his first compliment. She knew she would remember it every day of her life.

One March Sunday, Kel climbed the curtain wall. She wasn’t sure how long she had been sketching the ground between the palace’s Least Gate and Corus when she realized she had company. Joren was draped on a merlon beside her, very much at his ease.

“I thought you were afraid of heights,” he remarked when she looked at him.

Kel let no hint of her uncertainty, confusion, and irritation with him show through her Yamani facade. “I am,” she replied at last, and went back to her mapping.

“You don’t look it.”

“Well, that’s something,” she said dryly, rubbing out a crooked line.

“If you’re afraid, why do this?” he asked, at his most reasonable. “They won’t test you on it at the big or little exams.”

“My lord will, the next time he gives me punishment work,” Kel informed him. “Or the gods will, the next time I’m supposed to help someone in trouble and they’re on a height, or we have to climb to escape danger.”

For a while he said nothing, but she knew he was still there, still watching her. “Why do any of this?” he wanted to know. “It isn’t at all needful. Did someone tell you that you had no chance to marry?”

Kel’s hand jerked, smearing charcoal over her notes. She made a face and rubbed it out.

Joren went on, “It’s not true. You’d be a pretty thing, in the right clothes and after you’d lost some weight. After you stopped working so your arms are like a blacksmith’s. You’d make a fine wife for one of those big fellows - Cleon, for instance. He seems fond of you. How about Lord Raoul? He can afford a wife. You could settle down and raise young giants.” He smiled as Kel looked at him, but the smile didn’t reach his eyes.

When she was five and her mother had saved the Yamanis’ most sacred artifacts from pirates, the emperor made her family part of his inner circle. Suddenly Kel’s family was sought by all kinds of people. Children who had laughed at Kel and called her a hulking barbarian now fought for the honor of sitting with her. They gave her presents and invited her to their homes. Kel heard two of them say privately that their parents had ordered them to befriend the emperor’s pets so the emperor might favor their families. The smiles of those children, and their parents, never reached their eyes, either.

“It’s so good of you to concern yourself with my marriage prospects,” Kel replied evenly. “Has it occurred to you I don’t want to marry?” Neal, she thought suddenly and horribly. If Neal asked me…

He never will, replied her coldly practical self. He falls in love with beauties.

“Nonsense,” Joren was saying comfortably. “All women care about marriage. Even the Lioness scraped up a husband, though she had to dig through the middens of Corus to do it.”

Surely the King’s Champion had married only because she had wanted to. “If you say so,” Kel replied. She went back to her mapping.

“Think about it,” Joren said, clapping her on the shoulder. “One battle too many, and you’ll be scarred for life. No man will want you then.” He ambled off, whistling.

Kel shook her head. Maybe he’ll be a great knight one day - maybe, she thought. But first, he’d better get his head out of his behind. And he’d better let me be.

eleven
UNPLEASANT REALITIES

One evening in late March a sparrow flew into the library where Kel and her friends studied. The bird - the female named Peg for her missing foot - landed on Kel’s shoulder and chattered angrily.

“Aren’t they supposed to be asleep?” Neal asked.

Kel sighed. “She’s probably locked out and can’t get to the courtyard.” If the sparrows were flying inside, they sometimes got trapped when the doors were closed. With the way to the courtyard, and Kel’s open shutter, barred, they usually waited for Kel by her door, fluffing up their feathers and looking the picture of sparrow misery.

Kel got to her feet. “Jump, stay,” she ordered. Jump, who slept with his blocky head on Cleon’s foot, opened his eyes and snorted. He had no intention of moving.

Cleon didn’t look at her as he said, “You want company?”

Kel smiled. “I’m just going to let her into the courtyard. I’ll only be a moment.” Walking out, she told Peg, “I don’t see why you couldn’t wait till I came home, if Lalasa didn’t hear you. Or does sitting on the stones make your stump hurt?” She crossed the pages’ corridor into the short hall that led to the outer door. Cool air, not cold, brushed her cheeks - the door was open. “Peg, why in Mithros’s name - ” Kel began, vexed.

Then a muffled curse, furious sparrow chatter, and the sound of a tussle reached her ears. “You’ll pay for that trick, wench!” someone growled. “Call these birds off!”

Kel’s instinct was to dash out and halt whatever was going on, but Lord Wyldon’s training gripped her hard. Fighting the urge to run, she slid to the open door and carefully leaned around it, moving slowly. A quick movement would attract the eye of anyone in the courtyard.

Her open window was just ten feet away. Vinson stood there, grappling with Lalasa. From the wreckage of the sewing basket on the ground, Kel guessed Lalasa had been working in the window seat when Vinson came by. Now he fought to keep a hand over her mouth while her fingers scrabbled over his arm, looking for tender places to pinch. The sparrows attacked furiously, making Vinson duck their claws as he tried to wedge Lalasa’s hands under his free arm. He was lucky the sparrows were half-blind at night, or they could have damaged him badly. As it was, he bled from a dozen peck-marks on his face.

White fury blazed in Kel’s heart. She stalked forward, battling to keep her feelings in hand as she said coldly, “Unhand my maid.” Lalasa’s eyes widened. Peg, a cautious bird, fled Kel’s shoulder for the safety of the room. The sparrows attacking Vinson did the same.

Vinson half-turned to look at her, still holding Lalasa. Kel could see the furrowed gouges of a woman’s fingernails down the older boy’s face. “If I were you, Lump, I’d walk away right now.” He used the nickname she rarely heard these days.

Kel didn’t argue. Pivoting on her right foot, she furled her left leg up to her inner thigh and snapped the foot out. Rather than shatter Vinson’s kneecap, she hit just above it, where the thigh muscle narrowed. He lurched, knocking Lalasa against the window frame, then let go. Lalasa scrambled back inside Kel’s room, tears streaming down her face.

Kel took another step toward Vinson, doubling her fists. For the first time she could understand how someone in a rage might do murder. “How dare you touch an unwilling woman?” she asked.

He swallowed and took another step away from her, unable to rest any weight on the leg she’d kicked. “You’re wrong, Mindelan,” he said, licking his lips nervously. “The wench has been eyeing me for weeks. They all do it - bed men to earn extra coin over their wages.”

“Liar.” Kel slapped him. Last year Vinson had been almost a hand taller than she was. Now she was a scant inch shorter, and her build was more solid. Vinson was gangly and he exercised only in the practice courts. “I know her and I know you. Those scratches alone condemn you.” She slapped him again. He had to challenge her; no knight could allow anyone to strike him without a fight. When he did, she would teach him a few lessons, then turn him in to Lord Wyldon.

Vinson backed up another step. He was in the wrong in every way. By palace law the maids were to be left alone: violators were brought before the chamberlain. In chivalry, servants were under a master’s protection and could not be interfered with unless the master gave permission. No one would argue with Kel’s dueling over this.

“You will regret your treatment of me,” Vinson said. His voice shook. His face was pale and sweaty around its scratches. “My family is powerful at court.”

Kel advanced until they were inches apart. “You are a coward,” she told him, soft-voiced. “You knew you could frighten her - that’s why you picked her. What kind of knight preys on serving girls? Where is your honor?”

“Just because I won’t brawl with you doesn’t mean I have no honor!” he blustered. “I - I refuse to get in trouble over a wench who is no better than she should be!”

Kel lifted her hand to slap him again. Vinson flinched, raising his arm to protect his face. He didn’t run only because she had backed him against the wall.

She turned away, disgusted. “I’m reporting this,” she said, striding toward the courtyard door.

“My lady, no!” cried Lalasa. She lunged out of the window to grab Kel’s sleeve. “Don’t tell!’ She wiped her eyes. “They’ll talk. I’ve no reputation, that’s how things are in servants’ hall.” She hung on to Kel with both hands and lowered her voice. “Nobles can make a girl’s life a misery - they always do. Please don’t report this!”

Kel wanted to argue, but Lalasa made sense. As Kel had just seen, she couldn’t be everywhere. Who could say an enemy wouldn’t lie in wait for Lalasa in places that Kel could not be?

Still, Kel owed her maid loyalty and protection. “He must be reported,” she told Lalasa quietly. “He’ll do it again.”

“Please, my lady,” pleaded Lalasa, “put yourself in my shoes! You’ll get me in trouble. His kind can make it hard for servants. He speaks to his mother, who speaks to the chamberlain, who speaks to a steward, who puts my uncle out of work. How will you know it was done? How will you know it even came because of this? In two years you’ll be gone, and Uncle and I will still be here. Listen to me.”

Kel looked for Vinson: he’d stolen away. She tried to still her mind, to think. She certainly knew of nobles who forced themselves on serving women. No one put a halt to it. Within their own fiefdoms, nobles could do as they pleased. Even the priestesses of the Goddess, sworn to protect women and girls from just this kind of thing, might hesitate to offend a lord. Vinson’s family was connected to powerful houses throughout the realm. The saying was that if anything was needed, Genliths would supply it. When all else was said and done, Kel would be, gone in two years, to serve whatever knight would take her for a squire. She’d be hard put to defend Lalasa and Gower then.