Protector of the Small Quartet

by Tamora Pierce

  “You are not a typical first-year,” Wyldon replied firmly. “The Knight Commander of the King’s Own trained you in matters like supply, the building and defense of a fort, and how to command. You helped him recruit new personnel for the Own, and he says your work in supply and logistics is superior.”

  The words fell out before Kel could stop them: “He also trained me for battle.” About to apologize, she closed her lips tightly. She had meant it.

  Wyldon rubbed his bad arm, staring into the distance for a long moment before he said, “If this were last summer’s war, I wouldn’t expect much danger. Raids don’t get far without help. But this isn’t last summer’s war. The border will vanish. King Maggur wants to keep the ground he takes. There is no safe zone within a hundred miles of the border. You’ll see combat. I guarantee that.”

  Kel met Wyldon’s eyes with hers. “Sir, you’ll have forts and patrols close to the Vassa—between me and the enemy. I still feel like you’re trying to keep me safe. That’s not why I became a knight.”

  Wyldon sighed, levered himself out of his chair, and went to the door. “Come with me.”

  Outside, Wyldon led the way to a large building near the rear wall. Its windows, covered with hides to keep out the weather, leaked bits of light. Wyldon found the door and entered, Kel on his heels.

  The large building was filled with sound: conversation, babies’ and children’s crying, the clatter of wood. Rows of three-tiered bunk beds lined the walls. There were lofts overhead on either side, with railings to keep anyone from falling to the ground floor. Rope strung across the open space between them held drying laundry. Bags of winter fruits, garlic, bundles of dried herbs, and vegetables also hung from the rails. The air was filled with the scent of rarely washed human, burned food, cooking fat, and animal urine. Cats and dogs hid in the shadows, lay on the beds, or played with anyone who would bother. At the far end of the barracks a giant hearth provided warmth and cooking fire.

  Silence fell as the door closed behind Kel and Wyldon. Those people closest to them went quiet, staring at the district commander and his tall companion. Face after face turned, half hidden by shadow, fitfully lit by lamps or hearth fire. Children and adults appeared between gaps in the loft railings to see why the room below had gone still.

  “If you’ve come to share supper, my lord, we’ve none to spare,” announced a woman by the fire. “We ate it all and could have eaten more.”

  She walked forward. There had been more of her once, from the way her stained red wool dress hung on her stocky body. Her eyes were brown and heavy-lidded, the eyes of someone who had seen hard times. Age had scored deep lines around her nose and mouth. Her nose was broad and fleshy at the tip, her lower lip fuller than the upper, giving her a look of dissatisfaction. A kerchief of black wool kept reddish brown hair from her face; a black wool shawl hung from her elbows.

  She stopped before Wyldon and Kel. “Giving this pup a look at the unfortunate?” she asked, her husky voice scornful. “Something for the lad to write home about?”

  It seemed the woman thought she was a boy. Kel looked down at her bosom. She wore a quilted tunic, which hid her small breasts, and it had been so long since a knight had worn the double ring on her badge that most wouldn’t know it signified a lady knight.

  “Good evening, Mistress Fanche,” Wyldon said courteously. “This is one of the knights who has come to defend the border, Lady Knight Keladry of Mindelan. Lady Keladry, Fanche Weir.”

  His voice was loud enough that everyone nearby heard. For a moment there was no sound. Then a whispered rattle of talk broke out, spreading to fill the room. Kel heard “lady knight” repeated over and over.

  Kel bowed to Fanche, glancing at the woman’s left ring finger. Fanche wore a ring of black braid: she was a widow.

  “Fanche’s husband, Gothar, was the Goatstrack miller,” Wyldon explained.

  “ ‘Was’ bakes no bread,” Fanche said. “I’m single enough now, and I’ve work to do.” She returned to the hearth to stir whatever simmered in the biggest pot.

  “The Scanrans hit Goatstrack last October— burned the mill, killed the miller and their daughters,” explained Wyldon softly. “Thirty-seven dead in the entire village. Fanche mustered those who remained and got them here, fighting Scanrans the whole distance. She saved fifty-eight lives.”

  “She’s a handful, that one,” commented the man who now stood by Wyldon’s elbow. He was shorter than Kel, unshaven, with ears that stuck out and an impish glint in his blue eyes. He was going bald in an unfortunate way, losing strands of brown hair in clumps, giving his crown the look of a field gone to weeds. He was weathered, the sun having put deep crow’s-feet by his eyes and two long creases down either cheek. Like Fanche—like all the refugees— he wore clothes that would have fit someone with more meat on his bones. He stood casually, hands dug into his pockets. “Gods, I love a tough woman,” he admitted.

  “You have your work cut out with her,” Wyldon said with a chuckle.

  “Oh, well, I like work,” the man replied.

  Kel, startled, looked from him to Wyldon. Her training master always stood on dignity; Neal’s epithet, the Stump, was justified. Never had she heard Wyldon laugh or joke. Never had she seen him smile for amusement’s sake, as he did now.

  He’s happy, she realized, stunned. Training us— that was his duty. But he didn’t like it. He’s comfortable here, in the dirt and the cold, with people to defend.

  “Keladry of Mindelan, Saefas Plowman,” Wyldon said. “He’s a trapper.”

  The man bowed. “Not from Goatstrack, so I’ve had little time to wear her down,” he said with a grin. “The way Squire Owen tells it, milady, you’re ten feet tall and eat ogres.”

  Kel smiled. She could see that Owen would like this man. “I shrank in my last hot bath,” she replied. “I’m very disheartened by it.”

  People came over to be introduced. So did others as word spread that the realm’s second female knight was present. They spoke to Wyldon, asking for news as they eyed Kel. All bore the signs of hard times: clothes that were too loose, ragged, and stained; skin that had once covered more flesh. Their eyes were haunted by family and friends who were dead, crippled, enslaved, or missing.

  At last Wyldon bade the refugees good-night and led Kel back to headquarters. Inside, he knelt to poke up the fire. “I hear you have a new servant.”

  “Yessir,” Kel replied. She watched the play of firelight over Wyldon’s features. “You took me there because you wanted me to feel badly for them, enough that I would take the command. But all you have to do is order me.”

  “Sometimes it’s better to have understanding than obedience,” Wyldon informed her. He got to his feet with a grimace. “I know this is not what you wanted. No matter what I say, you and others will think this is a dungheap assignment.”

  He sat in a chair and motioned for Kel to sit opposite him. She did so gratefully. The long day’s ride and the time standing with the refugees had made her ache.

  “The truth is, you are the only one I can trust to do this job properly,” Wyldon explained. “You care enough about commoners to do the task well. I did consider Queenscove, but he is much too fair. He shares his sarcasm and his inability to abide fools with all, regardless of rank. If they didn’t kill him within two weeks, I’d have to see if he was drugging their water.” He winced as he flexed the hand on his bad arm. “Anyone else will order them about, create more resentment, and turn the place into a shambles—or pursue his own amusements and leave them to get into trouble.”

  Kel rubbed her face. He was right. She’d heard her peers’ opinions of commoners, had been accused of caring too much about them. Not so long ago, she had learned that the maximum punishment given to a noble who’d arranged the kidnapping of another noble’s servant was a fine, to compensate for the loss of the servant’s work. That law was being changed, but there were others like it. A noble owed a duty to those who served him, but such duty was not glorious. Fairne
ss and consideration were unnecessary; the affairs and pride of commoners were unimportant. The noble who worried too much about them was somehow weak. Kel knew her world. Her respect for common blood was a rarity. Her father’s grandparents were merchants. Every branch of their family save his was still merchants to the bone. Perhaps it was also because her parents, as diplomats, were so used to seeing other points of view, foreign or Tortallan, that they had passed their attitudes on to their children.

  She also knew Wyldon was right about Neal.

  “Well?” her former training master inquired. “Will you do this, Keladry of Mindelan?”

  Blayce! she thought, suddenly panicked. The Nothing Man! If I’m pinned to a camp, how will I find him? How will I stop him?

  She remembered those thin faces in the barracks, child and adult alike. She remembered Tirrsmont, crammed with people. Looking at Wyldon, she saw trust in his face, the face of a man she respected as much as she did her father and Lord Raoul.

  Kel sighed. “I’ll do it, my lord.”

  Her first task was to choose supplies. Wyldon cautioned her not to get greedy. The next morning he sent Owen with her to write down her choices. When they reached the storehouse, Kel stopped to look at her unusually quiet friend. Owen wouldn’t meet her eyes.

  She put her hand under his chin, startled to feel the scrape of newly shaved whiskers, and made him look at her. “You didn’t know,” she said.

  Owen grimaced. Words tumbled from his mouth: “Kel, I swear I didn’t! He told me this morning. He—he apologized, for keeping something important from me, he said, ’specially when I have to learn about making camps like this, but he said you’d see it on my face, and he wanted to talk to you first. Kel, if I knew, I’d’ve argued him out of it. Well, I’d’ve tried to,” he amended as Kel took her hand away from his chin. “He’s hard to argue with. But I would’ve tried! I’m so sorry!”

  Kel grinned. “Of course he wouldn’t tell you,” she informed him. “You’re the worst liar I know, even if you’re just not saying anything. You ought to feel virtuous, that he knows you can’t lie.”

  “I feel like a failure,” Owen confessed. “A true friend would have found out and warned you.”

  “How?” Kel asked reasonably, leading the way into the storehouse. “Search his papers? That’s hardly proper. And what could I have done if you’d told me? Run off? Stop fussing.” She opened the shutters, admitting the morning light so they could see the rows of goods. Her sparrows flew in. Some perched on Owen; others zipped around the stacked supplies, as if taking their own inventory.

  “But Kel, making you a, a nursemaid!” protested Owen, stroking a male sparrow’s black collar with a gentle finger. “When you’re a better warrior than anybody but my lord! And Lord Raoul, and the Lioness,” he added, belatedly remembering that there might be others Kel would think were better. “It’s just not right!”

  “My lord says I’ll see plenty of fighting,” Kel told him.

  Owen studied her for a long moment. Whatever he sought in her face, he seemed to find it. “Anything you want me to do, Kel, you let me know,” he told her seriously. He gripped her arm for a moment, then let go. “Anything I can do to help.”

  For a moment they looked at one another, Owen’s gaze firm, Kel’s thoughtful. He’s growing up, she thought, surprised. And he’s growing up well.

  She patted his shoulder, then surveyed the storehouse. “For now I need a quartermaster,” she said. They might never talk about what had just passed, but neither would they forget it. “Someone who can say what’s reasonable to draw for my people.”

  “Be right back,” Owen promised, and trotted out the door.

  Tobe and Jump came in as he left, Tobe directing a scowl at Owen’s back. “I can do anything he might do,” Tobe informed Kel.

  She clasped his shoulder, amused and yet flattered. “I need you for other things, Tobe,” she informed him. “We’ve a lot of work ahead.”

  four

  KEL TAKES COMMAND

  With the men who had built the camp—soldiers, convict soldiers, and refugees—already in residence, Kel saw no reason to linger at Fort Giantkiller. She needed a thorough view of her new home and its surroundings before the bulk of her charges arrived. Once they did, she would be short on time.

  Two days after her arrival at Giantkiller, she left at the head of a train that included Duke Baird, Lord Wyldon, Neal, Merric, and Owen, as well as the supplies she had taken with the quartermaster’s approval. She had been disconcerted to find that Neal, the camp’s healer, and Merric, their patrol captain, would technically be under her command. Neal didn’t seem to mind, but Neal never reacted like most people. On the other hand, she would have to be extra careful with Merric. She wasn’t sure that she would like being under the command of one of her year-mates.

  Once the train was assembled, Giantkiller’s defenders opened the gates of the inner and outer walls. Lord Wyldon gave the signal, and they rode out in a rumble of hooves, the jingle of harnesses, and the creak of wagon wheels.

  A pure, beautiful voice rose in the crisp air, singing an old northern song about the waking of the sun. Startled, Kel looked for the singer. It was Tobe, his face alight as he sang. A deeper voice joined his, then others: the song was a common one, though the words might vary from region to region. Above the baritone, bass, and tenor voices of the men and older boys soared Tobe’s perfect soprano. Even Kel, Wyldon, and Baird sang, their voices soft. Only Neal scowled at his saddle horn, still not awake.

  Giantkiller’s refugees clustered around the gates to watch them go. Fanche had been quite vocal when she had learned who was to command their new home. The kindest phrase she’d used was “wet-behind-the-ears southerner.” If the gods were good, perhaps Fanche would change her mind. If they weren’t, Kel would have a long time to get the formidable woman on her side.

  “When people tell me a knight’s job is all glory, I laugh, and laugh, and laugh,” Lord Raoul had once told Kel. “Sometimes I can stop laughing before they edge away and talk about soothing drinks.”

  She knew what he meant.

  Still, when Tobe started the next song, about the stag who met the Goddess as Maiden, Kel sang along.

  April was a chancy month in the north. Normally few Tortallans would try to build or march here until May, but the news of King Maggur’s arrival on the throne had forced their hand. Kel had plenty of time to observe the once-familiar countryside while the men wrestled the wagons out of one muddy dip after another. It took her a little while to place the landmarks: she had been here last in the summer, when the woods and hills were alive with birds, animals, and insects. Now it was cold and grim. Patches of snow lay under the groves of pine trees, but here and there she could see a courageous green bud or sprout. Some of the hardier songbirds were returning from the south. Those birds who had stayed through the winter perched on tree limbs and in hollows, waiting for things to warm up.

  Between Fort Giantkiller and Kel’s future home was a series of rocky hills, one or two of which might actually be called a mountain. The road was tucked deep between them, enough so that once they reached it, they were on solid frozen ground once again. They lost no more time pulling their wagons from the mud.

  On the far side of the hills, they found the next valley also dotted with patches of melting snow and heavy stretches of pines and newly budding trees. They kept to the road until Wyldon pointed something out to Kel. She raised her spyglass, a gift from Lady Alanna, to her eye and looked. There, on a rise of perhaps twenty feet, stood a log palisade. That was it: her first command. Men and sledges moved along the road that climbed diagonally across the face of the rise, bringing in logs. Every ten feet along the top of the wall stood guards in regular army maroon, each wearing a conical helm, each carrying a bow. The travelers heard a distant horn call: they’d been spotted.

  Wyldon’s trumpeter replied with the call that signaled they were friends.

  Kel continued to eye her new home. Above the for
t she saw the Tortallan flag, a silver blade and crown on a royal-blue field. Suddenly another flag climbed the mast from inside the fort until it flew just below the national banner. It was a square of dusty blue with a double border of cream and blue. The device at its center was familiar: gray owl and cream glaives bordered in gold. It was Kel’s own insignia, the flag of the commander of the fort.

  She lowered her spyglass and took her time as she collapsed it and set it just so into its pouch until her leaping emotions were under control. Who at the camp would have known she was coming and gone to the trouble to create a flag for her?

  As the supply train drew closer, they saw the Greenwoods River at the base of the high ground. The ice was breaking up, the water cold and swift as it tore chunks away. The river was a little over twenty feet wide; Kel judged it to be normally fifteen feet deep at most. The spring meltwater would keep it high and swift for now.

  They crossed the Greenwoods on a sturdy wooden bridge. It was the only one Kel saw in either direction. She looked at it before they crossed. Flat black disks called mage blasts were fixed on the piles and underside of the bracing planks. Even a non-mage could make the things explode by snapping the thin, flat piece of wood that was the key to the spell. The blasts would then drop the bridge, and anyone on it, into the river.

  As a moat, this was fairly good. No enemy would be able to cross the Greenwoods within miles of the camp as long as the spring floods continued. Kel had spent the previous night studying the maps of her new command. In summer the river could be forded, but only ten miles upstream and thirty miles downstream. She devoutly hoped the army could stop the enemy by then.

  Their company rode up the sloping road around to the north face of the camp: the river-moat protected the gateless eastern and southern sides of the enclosure. Rocky, inhospitable hills gave some protection to the west. North toward the forest was a squad of ten soldiers guarding a sledge piled with logs. The sounds of hammers and saws grew louder as the riders reached the top and the large gates swung open. Remembering her last encounter with a hammer, Kel winced and entered the camp.