Protector of the Small Quartet

by Tamora Pierce

  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 until 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.

  Lalasa sensed that Kel was not about to charge after Vinson. She relaxed her hold on Kel’s arm. “If I’d been on my feet, I could have done something,” she commented, and blew her nose. “He had me all twisted around. I could hardly get at him.”

  Kel looked at her and remembered what she had seen: Lalasa’s hands groping for a nerve, any nerve, in Vinson’s imprisoning arm, and the bloody furrows on Vinson’s face. “I am so proud of you,” she said warmly, patting Lalasa’s shoulder. “He’s going to hurt for a long time—he won’t dare take those marks to a healer.” And I’d like to see him explain the scratches to Lord Wyldon, she thought. “I don’t know if I could have done as well from that position.” She inspected Lalasa. “Did he hit you? Hurt you in any way?”

  Lalasa made a face. “I’ve bruises where he grabbed me. He would’ve gotten to hitting sooner or later—they all do.” Kel stared at her, appalled. Lalasa turned her face away. “My dad, my brothers all hit their women.”

  Kel realized she was hearing bleak truth. “I thought Gower said you were alone—wait. Does he hit you?”

  Lalasa shook her head and smiled, her lips trembling. “Dad always said Uncle had strange ideas, learnt up here in the north. He’s not, not chirpy, like some, but he’s the gentlest soul. He was the only one left...” She took a breath. “Raiders came in from the Copper Isles and burned our village out. They missed me—Dad sent me to the river to wash clothes.”

  “So you came here.”

  Lalasa nodded. “Uncle Gower told me the king’s palace is a fine place to work. And so it is—I couldn’t ask for kinder friends than Tian, and Uncle. It’s just—” She shrugged. “No place is perfect.”

  Kel rubbed her temples. “Use the bruise balm,” she suggested. “You won’t need a lot.” She turned.

  Lalasa grabbed her arm again. “You’re not—” she began, eyes wide.

  Kel smiled grimly. “I won’t report him, but I have to make sure he doesn’t forget.”

  Lalasa’s eyes searched Kel’s face. At last she released her mistress.

  “Next time you want to sew in the window?” said Kel. “Come get Jump. He’ll see to it you’re not bothered.”

  She went back into the pages’ wing, walked straight to Vinson’s room, and knocked sharply. “Don’t make me say what I’ve come to say out here in the hall,” she called.

  Vinson opened the door, his face sullen. “What?” He didn’t invite her in.

  Kel put a han
d on the door and leaned into the opening, making sure he could see her clearly. “If I hear of you bothering any female, not just her, I’ll take you before the court of the Goddess. I’ll risk making an enemy of the pack that whelped you.”

  Vinson blanched under his scratches and pimples. A man convicted of hurting women in the Goddess’s court faced harsh penalties; those for actual rape were the worst of all. The temples maintained their own warriors to enforce the Goddess’s law.

  “I never want to see the wench again,” he snapped, his voice cracking. “I’d give anything never to see you.” He slammed the door.

  Kel let him do it. He would keep quiet now, she suspected. One thing was certain, though—she must not forget. That her servant was harassed without real punishment was a reproach. Nobles were supposed to protect their servants. Lalasa had done well by her. She had to hold up her end of the arrangement.

  She had trouble nodding off that night. She couldn’t get rid of her anger with Vinson and with a world in which servants didn’t matter. It wasn’t right.

  If she had gone into her usual deep sleep right away, she might never have heard sounds in the dressing room. Tonight she did. She went around the screen that hid Lalasa’s bed to find the older girl crying.

  “Now, what’s this?” Kel demanded, worried. “Lalasa, what’s wrong?” She sat on the bed. “Please don’t cry.”

  Lalasa buried her head in Kel’s shoulder. “When he grabbed me, I hoped you would come,” she said, her voice thick. “I’d no right, but I hoped. And you did!”

  Kel patted her awkwardly. “You have every right,” she said. “I’m honor-bound to protect you.”

  “And you did, you did!” cried Lalasa. “The look on your face—”

  “Maybe I should report this after all,” Kel suggested. “It’s not right, letting him off when you’re so scared.”

  “It’s not that,” Lalasa replied, shaking her head and sitting up straight. She wiped her eyes on her sleeve. “Not that, not much, anyway.” She sniffed. “I never knew anybody who’d fight for me, never. When my bro—a man, a man hurt me, when I was little, and my parents said I lied. He was more important to them. But you—you faced down a noble for me!”

  Kel looked down, hiding shock and fury. Lalasa’s own brother had hurt her, and her parents had done nothing? They’d as good as told their daughter that she didn’t matter!

  At last, when she could trust her voice, Kel cleared her throat and said, “Vinson’s not much of a noble.”

  “But I knew you would, if you found out.” Lalasa clung to one of Kel’s hands. “Since I’ve come to your service, I never felt so safe.”

  “Well, it’s nothing to cry over,” Kel said.

  Lalasa chuckled and wiped her eyes again. “You’re so strong,” she said, a little envy in her voice. “I wish I was like you. I wager no one ever grabbed you in your life.”

  Kel bent her head for a moment as memory flooded her. “My brother Conal held me off a balcony when I was four. I forget what I’d done to annoy him,” she said quietly. “He was always hitting me or pushing me. This time he got caught—one of the maids was in the garden and heard me screaming.”

  “What a brute!” Lalasa cried, indignant.

  “I’d never seen Papa so angry. He almost disowned Conal. He said he would disown Conal if he heard of anything else like that.” Kel smiled bitterly. “I think the worst part, other than my being scared of heights now ... The worst part is that Conal doesn’t even remember. I asked him when we came back from the Islands.”

  “No wonder you hate bullies,” whispered Lalasa. “No wonder you learned to fight.”

  Kel took a deep breath and let it out, thrusting the hard memories away. “Are you going to be able to sleep now?” she asked.

  “Yes, forgive me,” replied Lalasa, releasing Kel’s hand. “I’m sorry I woke you.”

  “You didn’t.” Kel got to her feet. “I was awake. But you should sleep—all the sewing you do these days, you’ve earned your rest.”

  ’’And you haven’t, I suppose,” Lalasa teased.

  “Sleep well, Lalasa.”

  “Thank you, my lady.” As Kel reached the dressing room door she heard her maid say, quietly but firmly, “I knew you would come.”

  A week later Vinson was gone with his knight-master. Somehow he’d gotten a healer to tend the marks on his face; Kel would have liked to know what story he’d told. She suspected he’d had to hurt his face with something else, to cover the marks—it was an old trick.

  Soon after Vinson’s departure, Cleon reported to the study group with a glum face. “This is it,” he announced. “I’m off at dawn. We’re going back north.” To Kel he said, “Sir Inness said to tell you we’ll be visiting at Mindelan, if you’ve anything to send home.”

  “I have a letter to Anders,” she said. “Shall I get it?”

  “I’ll go with you, if it’s all the same,” Cleon said. “I need to pack yet tonight.” He said his farewells to his other friends, tugged Neal’s ear “for luck,” he claimed, and followed Kel back to her rooms.

  Tian and Lalasa sat in the window seat, doing fine embroidery. Kel waved for them to stay where they were and found her letter on her desk. Quickly she signed and sealed it, and gave it to Cleon.

  He turned it over in his hands, glanced at the two maids, and asked, “So, Kel, will you miss me?”

  She smiled at him. “I missed you last year. Our group always loses a bit of madness when you’re away.”

  “Here I thought Neal supplies all you could want, and that little scrapper Owen more than you need. Well.” For a moment he looked at her, then at the maids, then at the letter. Suddenly he hugged Kel tight; as suddenly he let her go. “Don’t break anything while I’m gone,” he advised, and fled.

  Kel shook her head as the door closed behind the big squire. Owen would say he was treating me like a girl again, she thought, amused.

  “You’ve made a conquest,” Tian remarked slyly.

  Kel looked at her and Lalasa. They were giggling. “Cleon? He just hates leaving.”

  “Of course, my lady,” Lalasa replied, as meek as a mouse.

  Kel sighed, and returned to the study group. At least the boys weren’t always seeing romance whenever a male and female touched hands.

  Joren, Garvey, and their knight-masters left a week later. More squires trickled out of the mess hall one at a time, until only the pages remained. It was spring. The business of the realm was picking up.

  For this year’s little examinations, Neal stuck to Kel like a burr from the moment they met at breakfast. “I won’t risk you being late, and I won’t be late waiting for you, either,” he said as Kel gave her shiny brown locks a last combing. “Neither of us will repeat a day of this living doom if I have anything to say about it.”

  “Stop pacing,” Kel ordered. “You’ll wear out the floor. Is your tunic straight?” Briskly she tugged the back of his tunic until it hung properly. She was never sure if she was glad that her role as unofficial inspector gave her an excuse to touch him. “So tell me,” she began as they walked to the exam waiting room, “is it worth all this struggle? You could have been a healer by now, with a university credential and friends your own age. Aren’t you sorry to have missed that?”

  She’d expected him to joke, or to be sarcastic, but he actually gave her question some thought. “The physical training, well, I couldn’t be a knight without it, and I started late. Nothing would change that. It’s true, at the university I never would have spent time with anyone so much younger than me. I would definitely have lost something then. These little fellows here aren’t always testing each other like males of my advanced years.” He bowed, and Kel smiled. “And I wouldn’t give up your friendship for all the healer’s credentials in the world.”

  “Me?” she demanded, astonished.

  They walked into the waiting room, the first pages there. “You,” Neal said, leaning against the wall and crossing his arms. “You are an educati
on, Keladry of Mindelan.”

  Kel put her hands on her hips. “I’m not sure that’s a compliment.”

  Neal grinned. “Neither am I,” he teased.

  As Seaver, Merric, and Owen came in, Kel pointed at Neal. “You will pay for that, on the practice courts,” she informed him.

  Owen promptly went over and clapped Neal on the shoulder. “It was good knowing you,” he told the older boy solemnly.

  The little examinations went as they had done in the last two years. The questions were all ones each page could answer easily, based on material that had been covered in detail during the year. It was almost a letdown.

  The following week the pages attended the big examinations in support of Faleron and Yancen of Irenroha, who was voted “a good sort, if not one of us,” by the study group. That night the fourth-years rose from their tables to walk to the squires’ side of the room as their comrades applauded and cheered. There was a special dessert and entertainment to celebrate their promotion.

  “Next year is our turn,” Neal commented softly to Kel.

  His words made her heart thud alarmingly. They were now fourth-year pages.

  twelve

  VANISHING YEAR

  Summer camp that year was tame. There were no spidren nests, no outlaws. Lord Wyldon took them north, on a sixteen-day ride into the mountains around fiefs Aili, Stone Mountain, and Dunlath. In the mountains they lived in caves, hunted, fished, climbed rocks, and practiced the ever-vital skill of mapping. Lord Wyldon didn’t have to search to find heights for Kel to climb. In this rugged country there were cliffs everywhere. Kel handled them: the weeks of practice since Midwinter had been a good idea. She did not spend her thirteenth birthday throwing up due to fright. She decided that this was a good thing.

  I’ll be a squire on my fourteenth birthday, she thought that night as she drifted off to sleep.