Protector of the Small Quartet

by Tamora Pierce

  basilisk: immortal that resembles a seven-foot-tall lizard, with slit-pupiled eyes that face forward and silver talons. It walks upright on its hind feet. Its hobby is travel; it loves gossip and learns languages easily. It possesses some magical skills, including a kind of screech that turns people to stone.

  Bazhir: the collective name for the nomadic tribes of Tortall’s Great Southern Desert.

  blazebalm: a thick, sticky substance like paste, which burns when lit (either manually or at a distance) by a mage or archer with fire arrows.

  Carthak: the slaveholding empire that includes all of the Southern Lands, ancient and powerful, a storehouse of learning, sophistication, and culture. Its university was at one time without a rival for teaching. Its people reflect the many lands that have been consumed by the empire, their colors ranging from white to brown to black. Its former emperor Ozorne Tasikhe was forced to abdicate when he was turned into a Stormwing (and later killed). He was succeeded by his nephew Kaddar Iliniat, who is still getting his farflung lands under control.

  centaur: immortal shaped like a human from the waist up, with the body of a horse from the waist down. Like humans, centaurs can be good, bad, or a mixture of both.

  Code of Ten : set of laws that form the basis of government for most of the Eastern Lands.

  Copper Isles: slaveholding island nation to the south and west of Tort all. The Isles’ lowlands are hot, wet jungles, their highlands cold and rocky. Traditionally their ties are to Carthak rather than Tortall, and their pirates often raid along the Tortallan coast. There is a strain of insanity in their ruling line. The Isles hold an old grudge against Tortall, since one of their princesses was killed there the day that Jonathan was crowned.

  coromanel: a flat, crown-shaped piece fitted over the tip of a lance. It spreads the power of a lance’s impact in several directions, to make the force less severe.

  Corus: the capital city of Tortall, located on the northern and southern banks of the Oloron River. Corus is the home of the new royal university as well as the royal palace.

  Domin River: runs through fief Mindelan.

  dragon: large, winged lizard-like immortal capable of crossing from the Divine Realms to the mortal ones and back. Dragons are intelligent, possess their own magic, and are rarely seen by humans.

  Eastern Lands: name used to refer to those lands north of the Inland Sea and east of the Emerald Ocean: Scanra, Tortall, Tyra, Tusaine, Galla, Maren, Sarain.

  Galla: the country to the north and east of Tortall, famous for its mountains and forests, with an ancient royal line. Daine was born there.

  Gift, the: human, academic magic, the use of which must be taught.

  glaive: a pole arm including a four- or five-foot staff capped with a long metal blade.

  Great Mother Goddess: the chief goddess in Tortallan pantheon, protector of women; her symbol is the moon.

  griffin: feathered immortal with a cat-like body, wings, and a beak. The males grow to a height of six and a half to seven feet tall at the shoulder; females are slightly bigger. No one can tell lies in a griffin’s vicinity (a range of about a hundred feet).

  hurrok: immortal shaped like a horse with leathery bat-wings, claws, and fangs.

  Immortals War: a short, vicious war fought in the spring and summer of the thirteenth year of Jonathan’s and Thayet’s reign, named that for the number of immortal creatures that fought, but also waged by Carthakis (rebels against the new Emperor Kaddar), Copper Islanders, and Scanran raiders. These forces were defeated by the residents of the Eastern Lands, particularly Tortall, but recovery is slow.

  King’s Council: the monarch’s private council, made up of those advisers he trusts the most.

  King’s Own: a cavalry/police group answering to the king, whose members serve as royal body-guards and as protective troops throughout the realm. Their knight commander is Lord Sir Raoul of Goldenlake and Malorie’s Peak. The ranks are filled by younger sons of noble houses, Bazhir, and the sons of wealthy merchants.

  K’mir, K’miri: the K’mir are the matriarchal, nomadic tribes of the mountains in Sarain. They herd ponies and are ferocious warriors and riders. The Saren lowlanders despise the K’mir and are continuously at war with them. There is a small, growing population of them in Tortall, where Queen Thayet is half K’mir and a number of the Queen’s Riders are also of K’miri descent.

  mage: wizard.

  Maren: large, powerful country east of Tortall, the grain basket of the Eastern Lands, with plenty of farms and trade.

  Midwinter Festival: a seven-day holiday centering around the longest night of the year and the sun’s rebirth afterward. Gifts are exchanged and feasts held.

  Mithros: chief god in Tortallan pantheon, god of war and the law; his symbol is the sun.

  ogre: immortal with aqua-colored skin, shaped like a human, from ten to twelve feet in height.

  Oloron River: its main sources are Lake Naxen and Lake Tirragen in the eastern part of Tort all; it flows through the capital, Corus, and into the Emerald Ocean at Port Caynn.

  pole arm: any weapon consisting of a long wooden staff or pole capped by a sharp blade of some kind, including spears, glaives, and pikes.

  Queen’s Riders: a cavalry/police group charged with protecting Tortallans who live in hard-to-reach parts of the country. They enforce the law and teach local residents to defend themselves. They accept both women and men in their ranks, unlike the army, the navy, or the King’s Own. Their headquarters is between the palace and the Royal Forest. Queen Thayet is the commander; her second in command, Buriram Tourakom, governs the organization on a day-to-day basis.

  quintain: a dummy with a shield mounted on a post. One outstretched “arm” is weighted with a sandbag, while the other is covered by the shield. The object in tilting at a quintain is to strike the shield precisely, causing the dummy to pivot 180°. The jouster can then ride by safely. Striking the dummy anywhere but the target circle on the shield causes the dummy to swing 360°, so the sandbag wallops the passing rider.

  rowel: a star-shaped revolving piece on a spur, which cuts into a horse to get it to pick up its speed.

  Scanra: country to the north of Tortall, wild, rocky, and cold, with very little land that can be farmed. The Scanrans are masters of the sea and are feared anywhere there is a coastline. They also frequently raid over land.

  Shang: an order of Yamani warriors, mostly commoners, whose principal school is in northern Maren. They specialize in hand-to-hand combat.

  Southern Lands: another name for the Carthaki Empire, which has conquered all of the independent nations that once were part of the continent south of the Inland Sea.

  spidren: immortal whose body is that of a furred spider four to five feet in height; its head is that of a human, with sharp, silvery teeth. Spidrens can fight with weapons. They also use their webs as weapons and ropes. Spidren web is gray-green in color and it glows after dark. Their blood is black, and burns like acid. Their favorite food is human blood.

  Stormwing: immortal with a human head and chest and the legs and wings of birds, with steel feathers and claws. Stormwings have sharp teeth, but use them only to add to the terror of their presence by tearing apart bodies. They live on human fear and have their own magic; their special province is that of desecrating battlefield dead.

  tauros: seven-foot-tall immortal, male only, that has a bull-like head with large teeth and eyes that point forward (the mark of a predator). It is reddish-brown, human-like from the neck down, with a bull’s splayed hooves and tail. It preys on women and girls.

  Temple District: the religious quarter of Corns, between the city proper and the royal palace, where the city’s largest temples are located.

  Tortall: the chief kingdom in which the Alanna, Daine, and Keladry books take place, between the Inland Sea and Scanra.

  Tusaine: A small country between Tortall and Maren. Tortall went to war with Tusaine in the years Alanna the Lioness was a squire and Jonathan was crown prince; Tusaine lost
.

  Tyra: a merchant republic on the Inland Sea between Tortall and Maren. Tyra is mostly swamp, and its people rely on trade and banking for an income.

  warhorse: a larger horse or greathorse, trained for combat—the mount of an armored knight.

  wildmage: a mage who deals in wild magic, the kind of magic that is part of nature. Daine Sarrasri is often called the Wildmage, for her ability to communicate with animals, heal them, and shapeshift.

  wild magic: the magic that is part of the natural world. Unlike the human Gift, it cannot be drained or done away with; it is always present.

  Yama: chief goddess of the Yamani pantheon, goddess of fire, who created the Yamanis and their islands.

  Yamani Islands: island nation to the north and west of Tort all and the west of Scanra, ruled by an ancient line of emperors, whose claim to their throne comes from the goddess Yama. The country is beautiful and mountainous. Its vulnerability to pirate raids means that most Yamanis get some training in combat arts, including the women. Keladry of Mindelan lived there for six years while her father was the Tortallan ambassador.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Acknowledgments for this book, and this new series, reach back over years. I owe a debt of gratitude to Jean Karl and Claire Smith, who oversaw the publication of the first eight books set in Tortall, and made me think I might have a few more Tortallan stories still in me. My gratitude also goes to Mallory Loehr and Craig Tenney, who did so much to bring about this latest installment in my burgeoning history of the Eastern Lands.

  I would also like to thank the kids who attended my appearance at the San Ramon Public Library in San Ramon, California, one nice fall day in 1995, who made me realize that I should stop thinking about Kel’s story and write it; and my online fans, including the loyal members of my AOL fan club, whose eagerness for Kel’s story buoyed me up through a long, exhausting year.

  For my Spouse-Creature, Tim, our buddy Raquel, and my e-friend Rick, my gratitude for all the support, encouragement, ideas, and last-minute reads and fixes, without which I might not have what sanity I yet possess. I would also like to express gratitude to Eyewitness Books for wonderful research books with pictures, and to the cast and crew of The X-Files and the movie Pump Up the Volume, for providing me with rich sources of ideas.

  Lastly and most profoundly, this is for Kelly Riggio. I’m sorry you had to wait so long for it, and I hope it is worth the wait.

  Contents

  Master - Table of Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  1. Page Keladry

  2. Adjustments

  3. Brawl

  4. Woman Talk

  5. Midwinter Service

  6. More Changes

  7. Hill Country

  8. Messages

  9. Autumn Adjustments

  10. The Squires Return

  11. Unpleasant Realities

  12. Vanishing Year

  13. The Test

  14. Needle

  15. Consequences

  Cast of Characters

  Glossary

  To Julia Niederhut Muche

  one

  PAGE KELADRY

  Fall that year was warm. Heat lay in a blanket over the basin of the River Olorun, where the capital of Tortall covered the banks. No breath of air stirred the pennants and flags on their poles. The river itself was a band of glass, without a breeze anywhere to ruffle its shining surface. Traffic in the city moved as if the air were thick honey. No one with sense cared to rush.

  Behind the royal palace, eleven-year-old Keladry of Mindelan stared at the rising ground that led from the training yards to the pages’ wing and decided that she had no sense. She felt as if she’d let people beat her with mallets all morning. Surely it was too hot for her to do as she normally did—run up that hill to reach her rooms and bathe. After all, she would be the only one to know if she walked today.

  Who would think this cursed harness would make such a difference? she wondered, reaching under her canvas practice coat to finger broad leather straps. At some point during her first year as page, she had learned that second-, third-, and fourth-years wore weighted harnesses, and that more weights were added every four months, but she had never considered it in terms of herself. Now she wished that she had donned something of the kind in the empty summer months, when she made the daily trek to the palace to keep up her training. If she had, she wouldn’t ache so much now.

  She wiped her sleeve over her forehead. It’s not even like you’re carrying a lot of weight, she scolded herself. Eight little disks—maybe two pounds in lead. You trained last year and all summer with lead-weighted weapons, just to build your strength. This can’t be that different!

  But it was. Hand-to-hand combat, staff work, archery, and riding took extra effort with two pounds of lead hanging on her shoulders, chest, and back. I’ve got to run, she told herself wearily. If I don’t move soon, I’ll be late to wash and late to lunch, and Lord Wyldon will give me punishment work. So heat or no, I have to go up that hill. I may as well run it.

  She waited a moment more, steeling herself. She hated this run. That slowly rising ground was torture on her legs even last spring, when she’d been running it off and on for more than half a year.

  No stranger, looking at her, would have thought this disheveled girl was the sort to cause a storm of argument at court. She had a dreamer’s quiet hazel eyes, framed in long lashes, and plain brown hair that she wore cropped as short as a boy’s. Her nose was small and delicate, her skin tan and dusted with freckles. She was big for a girl of eleven, five feet three inches tall and solidly built. Only someone who looked closely at her calm face would detect a spark in her level gaze, and determination in her mouth and chin:

  At last she groaned and began to trot up the hill. Her path took her behind the mews, the kennels, and the forges. Men and women in palace livery and servants’ garb waved as she ran past. A woman told some kennel workers, “Looka here — tol’ ya she’d be back!”

  Kel smiled through pouring sweat. No one had thought that the old-fashioned training master would allow the first-known girl page in over a century to stay after her first year. When Lord Wyldon surprised the world and allowed Kel to stay, many had assumed Kel would “come to her senses” and drop out over the summer holiday.

  You’d think by now they’d know I won’t quit, she thought as she toiled on up the hill.

  She was lurching when she reached the kitchen gardens, her shortcut to the pages’ wing. There she had to catch her breath. An upended bucket did for a seat. She inhaled the scents of marjoram, sage, and thyme, massaging her calf muscles. For the hundredth time she wished she could use the palace baths as the boys did, instead of having to go all the way to her room to wash up.

  “Hi! You!” cried a male voice from the direction of the kitchens. “Come back with those sausages!”

  Kel got to her feet. A cook raced out of the kitchen, waving a meat cleaver. Empty beanpoles, stripped after the harvest, went flying as he crashed through them. Metal flashed as the cleaver chopped through the air. The man doubled back and ran on, plainly chasing something far smaller than he. Once he stumbled; once he dropped the cleaver. On he came, cursing.

  The dog he pursued raced toward Kel. A string of fat sausages hung from his jaws. With a last burst of speed, the animal ducked behind Kel.

  The cook charged them, cleaver raised. “I’ll kill you this time!” he screeched, face crimson with fury.

  Kel put her hands on her hips. “Me or the dog?”

  “Out of the way, page!” he snarled, circling to her left. “He’s stolen his last meal!”

  As she turned to keep herself between the man and his prey, Kel glanced behind her. The dog huddled by her seat, gobbling his catch.

  “Stop right there,” Kel ordered the man.

  “Move, or I’ll report this to my lord Wyldon,” he snapped. “I’ll get that mongrel good and proper!”

  Kel ga
thered dog and sausages up in her arms. “You’ll do no such thing,” she retorted. The dog, knowing what was important, continued to gorge.

  “You’ll hand that animal over now, my lad, if you know what’s right,” the servant told her. “He’s naught but a thieving stray. He’s got to be stopped.”

  “With a meat cleaver?” demanded Kel.

  “If that’s what it takes.”

  “No,” she said flatly. “No killing. I’ll see to it the dog doesn’t steal from you.”

  “Sausages is worth money! Who’s to pay for them? Not me!”

  Kel reached instinctively for her belt and sighed, impatient with herself. She didn’t wear her purse with training clothes. “Go to Salma Aynnar, in charge of the pages’ wing,” she said loftily. “Tell her Keladry of Mindelan requests that she pay you the cost of these sausages from my pocket money. And you’d better not overcharge her,” she added.

  “Kel ... Oh, Mithros’s”—he looked at her and changed what he’d been about to say—“shield. You’re the girl. Being softhearted will do you no good, mistress,” he informed her. “Be sure I’ll get my money. And if I see that animal here again”—he pointed at Kel’s armful—“I’ll chop him up for cat-meat, see if I won’t!”

  He thrust his cleaver into his belt and stomped back to the kitchens, muttering. Kel adjusted her hold on the dog and his prize and headed for the pages’ wing. “We aren’t allowed pets, you know,” she informed her passenger. “With my luck, all those sausages will make you sick, and I’ll have to clean it up.” She passed through an open door into the cool stone halls of the palace. As she trotted along, she examined her armful.

  The dog’s left ear was only a tatter. He was gray-white for the most part; black splotches adorned the end of his nose, his only whole ear, and his rump. The rest of him was scars, healing scrapes, and staring ribs. His sausages eaten, he peered up into her face with two small, black, triangular eyes and licked her. His tail, broken in two places and healed crookedly, beat her arm.