Protector of the Small Quartet

by Tamora Pierce

  Kel frowned but did as he told her, walking from his left to his right.

  “Now look behind you, between the rocks.”

  Kel looked. He’d left a large gap between two stones where she saw not earth but darkness.

  “Daine made me promise to put a bolt hole large enough for the camp’s animals to escape in every fort I come across,” Numair explained. “The upper opening is inside the storage shed next to the latrine.”

  “Master Numair, the enemy could find this tunnel as quickly as our animals!” Kel objected, shocked. What if those brutes yesterday had found their way in here?

  “I shielded each opening with signs only another black robe would even sense, let alone have the power to break. I just raised the protections now so you could know it’s here.” Numair made a sign. Before Kel’s startled eyes the dark gap vanished, replaced by reddish brown dirt.

  When she tried to put a hand between the rocks, she couldn’t. The dirt felt solid. “You’re sure no one can whistle a little charm and find this?” she demanded. “Scanran shamans have lots of nasty little whistle magics.”

  “I know,” replied Numair calmly. “You have to trust me, Lady Kel. I’d suggest letting Neal and Merric know, at least. Daine worries about animals, but it’s also a way to get a message out, if you are besieged. Jump is clever enough to get word to Lord Wyldon, if need be.”

  Kel smiled. “Yes, he is. And never mind the ‘lady’—it’s just Kel.”

  “As you like,” Numair replied, stretching. He twisted from side to side, his spine cracking. “I’d suggest you get your people to put smaller stones above these all around the high ground, just in case.”

  “One of the clerks is already drawing up a schedule,” Kel said, and grinned. “I love clerks. I’d marry them all if I could.”

  “You’re easily pleased.” They walked back around the river toward the gate road. “If anyone ever asks me what to give you for Midwinter, I’ll just tell them, clerks.”

  “I won’t always need them,” Kel said.

  “Very true. While I’m here, I’ll finish spelling the walls and the gate. I bought some very nice fire-ban charms in Riversedge. I had to add to their potency, but it will be hard for anyone to burn you out of Haven.”

  They continued to discuss magical protection as they walked the rim of ground between the boulders and the river, then continued to the gate road. They were halfway up the steep incline when an eagle screamed high overhead. Kel would have ignored it, but the eagle’s next scream sounded much closer.

  Numair dragged off his tunic, clumsily wrapping it around his left arm. He was grinning. Kel looked up and gasped. A golden eagle spiraled down from the sky. Numair extended his wrapped arm, and the eagle landed on it with authority.

  “So you found me, dear one,” Numair said, and kissed the creature on the beak. “I’ve missed you.”

  Kel guessed who the eagle must be as the bird preened Numair’s hair with its murderous beak. This had to be Numair’s lover and Kel’s friend, Daine the Wildmage. Kel had seen her as a golden eagle more than once.

  “Welcome to Haven, Daine,” Kel said politely. “Have you any news?”

  The bird shook its head and returned to preening Numair.

  “Will you excuse us?” he asked. “She likes to be private when she changes back to human.” Without waiting for a reply, he strode on up the incline.

  When Kel walked through the gate, she found a small group of young people waiting for her, with Tobe at the fore. All of them held spears in uncertain grips.

  Kel frowned. “Tobe, what’s this?” she asked.

  “ ’Tis folly,” Sergeant Vidur, that day’s watch commander, remarked in a scornful voice. He was in charge of one of the convict squads, as hard a man as his friend Oluf. “Askin’ you to waste time on this lot when you’ve other things to do.”

  Tobe ignored him. “Lady, we was hopin’ you’d teach us to fight with spears like you do with your pigsticker.” He nodded at his companions. “I showed ’um it—the glaive—and we know there’s no more, but won’t spears work ’most as good?”

  “Just say the word, milady, and I’ll run ’em back to their dams,” Vidur told Kel.

  She wasn’t sure if the sergeant’s attitude annoyed her or if she just admired young people who wanted to learn pole arms. “Get me a saw,” she ordered Tobe, holding out a hand for his spear. He passed it to her and raced away.

  “There’s a big difference between using a spear as a casting weapon and as a combat weapon,” she explained to the boy’s companions. “It’s like staff fighting, with a bit extra at the end of it. If we’re to do this, we need to shorten your weapons.” She inspected the five young people. Two looked to be about twelve, another thirteen, the two oldest fifteen or sixteen. She recognized one of them, the girl refugee who had summoned Kel to the flagpole meeting the day before. “What’s your name?” Kel asked her.

  The girl seemed to forget she wore tattered breeches; she curtsied, hanging on to her spear with one hand. “Loesia, if it please your ladyship.”

  “Well, Loesia, have your parents granted permission for you to take this time to practice weapons?” asked Kel. “Have any of you asked your parents?”

  “We got none, milady.” The girl who spoke up was one of the youngest, her face pale and sharpchinned under brown hair awkwardly cut.

  “They was killed or taken by raiders,” added one of the boys. “The Goatstrack folk took us in, like, and let us eat from they pot.”

  “ ’Acos my lord told ’em to,” said another girl. “An’ gave ’em extry food to not begrudge us.”

  It made Kel’s heart hurt. None of the youngsters wanted pity, though. All met her eyes as if they defied her to comment. “Well, if you have trouble now, eat with the soldiers,” she said. “I’ll fix that with the cooks.”

  “Old Fanche ain’t so bad,” said the boy who had not spoken yet. “She’s fair.”

  “She smacked Yanmari with a spoon when she woulda fed just her own with the extra,” added the girl who’d told Kel they were orphaned.

  Tobe arrived with a saw, panting. Jump followed him. Kel exchanged Tobe’s spear for the tool and led the youngsters down the gate road to the practice field on the far side of the bridge. Once there, Kel shortened each spear to match the bearer’s height while the group borrowed extra bales of hay from the peasant archers who practiced nearby. Once the bales were set as targets, Kel began to teach her group the basics of holding, blocking, and thrusting with a spear.

  They broke off when the archers did as the sun disappeared behind the distant western mountains. Kel followed the young people and the archers back to Haven, content with a day well spent. She liked teaching youngsters, she realized. She had noticed it before, when she had helped her maid and some younger pages improve their fighting skills. A pity she couldn’t afford to take on and equip a squire— she would love to do for someone else what Lord Raoul had done for her.

  “I’ll say this for them, they’re determined,” a familiar voice commented at her elbow. It was Connac, who’d been training the archers.

  “Who is determined, Sergeant Connac?” asked Kel.

  “All of them, mine and yours. New recruits in the army, sometimes you need a switch to wake ’em up, impress on ’em this is all serious business. Not our refugees.” The sergeant scratched his head. “Even your little ’uns—I was watching. They want to learn.” He sighed. “They’ll spoil me for plain recruits, once this is over.”

  “We can thank the Scanrans that they are serious,” Kel replied as they passed through the gates. “You don’t usually need to teach mountain people a lesson twice.” She asked the gate sergeant, “Is Sir Merric in, and all the workers?”

  The man saluted. “You’re the last of ’em, milady.”

  Kel nodded. “Close up for the night, then.”

  As Kel bade the two sergeants good-night, the heavy gates slowly swung shut. She knew she shouldn’t sigh with relief at the thud of the
bar when it dropped into place, but she did anyway. At least it was some extra insurance against nighttime surprises.

  The next morning dawned gray and cloudy, the skies threatening a drizzle. Kel and Tobe, followed by Jump and the sparrows, left headquarters early. Kel wanted to show Tobe the bolt hole Numair had left for them. Tobe was determined to practice his training when his lady did. They were in the middle of exercises, Kel with her glaive, Tobe with his spear, when their dog and sparrow audience left them.

  Kel refused to break her concentration to see where they had gotten to—she was used to them watching her entire routine—but once she had washed up and pulled on her tunic, she went in search of them. She found them, and what looked to be all of the camp’s dogs and cats and at least thirty sparrows, clustered around and on Daine. The Wildmage sat cross-legged in the corner formed by the north and east walls, surrounded by animals, serving many of them as a perch. Her eyes were closed, her hands palm-up on her knees.

  Not a feather rustled, not a cat scratched, not a dog yawned. There was something taking place that made the hair stand on the back of Kel’s neck. It made the air around the animals tingle. She beat a fast retreat. Scanrans and killing devices she could face, but this was something different, something she didn’t understand. Daine would tell her what it was, and until then, Kel would find someplace else to be.

  Kel was at the training field by the river with her morning archers when she heard the Haven trumpets call the alert, followed by the signal that friends had been sighted. Friends or no, she hustled the archers back to Haven, then raced up the steps to the ramparts, Jump and Tobe at her heels. She had fumbled the griffin-feather band out of its pouch as she ran up the incline. Now she tied it so part was on her forehead above her eyes and part lay across her ears, then accepted the spyglass from another of her sergeants, Yngvar. Calls to answer Haven’s had come from the west.

  Kel trotted over to the western ramparts, where Numair and Neal stood peering into the distance. “It’s the Tirrsmont refugees, I believe,” Numair said.

  Kel saw the approaching riders and nodded. Two regular army squads guarded a train of people and wagons. Not nearly enough soldiers, not with the enemy in and out, she thought, swallowing anger. Nice of my lord of Tirrsmont to spare any guards, I suppose.

  She handed the spyglass to Neal and slipped off the feather band, rolling it up. No matter what punishment they took, her griffin feathers never broke or cracked. “Neal, if you’re done fixing that man’s heart, let’s start your physical examinations with these people,” she suggested. “They didn’t look so good when we passed through Tirrsmont.”

  “No, they did not,” he said grimly. “I’ll talk to Father and Master Zamiel right now.”

  “Zamiel?” Kel was not sure what the head clerk had to do with medical examinations.

  Neal shook his head at her. “If we record who they are as they come in, then we can draw up a schedule for them to visit the nice healers,” he said gently, as if she were simple. “Everything else here must be scheduled. Wouldn’t it be lovely if we did the same?”

  “You don’t respect me,” Kel told him with her sourest glare.

  Neal grinned. “I respect you heaps, lady knight. I’d’ve thrown myself off a bridge, getting this assignment. You, you’re there with lists and plans. You listen to every flap-mouthed bumpkin who thinks he can do your task better, and you answer with a smile and thanks. Why, you’ve inspired me to be a blessing to my fellow bumpkin, just like you.” He fluttered his fingers in delicate farewell and trotted down the stairs.

  “I can turn him into something for you, if you like,” Numair murmured, startling a laugh out of Kel.

  “He was actually complimenting me,” she told the mage. “It happens so rarely, I’d hate to see him turned into anything for it.” She looked sidelong at the man. Neither he nor Daine had come to supper the previous night. “Daine seems very well after her journey,” she remarked slyly. She wouldn’t ask him what Daine was up to now; she knew Daine would tell her when she wished.

  “I hate it when we’re separated for weeks,” Numair replied seriously, unaware that Kel might be teasing him for having vanished once his lover arrived. “I feel like half of me is missing. I know she takes risks out there, and nothing I can do will stop her. When I scold, she promises she won’t do it again, but once she’s back in action, she can’t help herself. She’d do anything for the realm, however risky.”

  Kel looked up at Numair, surprised. “You wouldn’t?”

  “Of course I would,” Numair replied, squinting at the Tirrsmont party. “But that’s different. That’s me.” The day’s threatened drizzle began. He raised a hand. His Gift streamed from his fingers, widening as it went. He closed his hand into a fist, breaking off his connection to the sheet of magical fire. It flowed through the air until it stopped and hovered over the oncoming refugees. Kel put up her spyglass. Numair’s creation hung over the entire train, keeping it dry.

  He’s sweet, Kel thought, fascinated. I had no notion!

  By the time she reached the gate, Master Zamiel and three other clerks had set up desks under canvas awnings, clear of the sweep of the gates as they opened. All Kel had to do was approve Sergeant Yngvar’s request for permission to admit the newcomers. She watched the refugees stream in from a place on the ramparts. The fresh arrivals would soon get into the habit of seeking her out for every complaint and cramp. She’d delay that for now.

  Curious, she glanced inside to the corner where north and east walls met. The heap of dogs, cats, and sparrows that covered and spread around Daine was still there.

  Kel was in the mess hall, just sitting down with a bowl of venison stew, a slice of bread, and a wedge of cheese, when Zamiel found her. “Eighty-six in all, milady,” Zamiel reported. “Two more than we expected.”

  Kel accepted a mug of cider from Tobe. “One of their sergeants told me two of the women had babies, one back at Tirrsmont, one on the road. The mother who had the baby on the road means to name her Haven. That baby’s a girl,” she added, thinking the clerk would want to know this detail.

  Zamiel sniffed, which seemed to be an opinion of people who had girl babies in wagons, and went to get his own lunch. The new refugees, their belongings stowed in their assigned barracks, filtered into the cookhouse. They must smell the cauldrons, thought Kel. Huge pots of stew had been cooking for more than a day. “That’ll fill ’em up fast, milady,” Einur the cook told her. “Hard to beat a good stew with turnips, carrots, and onions for that, for all it takes forever to cook.”

  Watching the newcomers eat, Kel hoped they’d made enough. The Tirrsmont people looked as if they hadn’t had a proper meal in months.

  A group of them walked down the aisle between the long tables, led by a man in his fifties. His clothes had originally been better. They were trimmed with tags of fur, the fine cloth stained and splotched with mud and grease. He was starting to go bald, but he combed the springy iron-gray hair on top of his head forward to hide the retreat of his hairline. The man’s mouth formed a thin, straight line. His nose was an arrow pointing down. His brown eyes narrowed as he scanned the mess hall.

  He stopped at the table where Kel, Zamiel, Tobe, and some off-duty soldiers ate. “Where’s this so-called commander, this knight we’re told is in charge?” he demanded, folding his arms over his chest.

  Kel, startled, looked up at him. She’d just taken a hearty bite of stew, more than was mannerly. There was no way she could answer until she chewed the stubborn chunk of venison in her mouth. She felt like a child caught at misbehavior.

  “You, there, clerk!” snapped the man. “I want to see this knight and I want him now. Some green lad, fresh out of the Chamber, that’s good enough for the likes of us, is it?”

  “Sir,” Zamiel began with a look at Kel.

  The man cut him off. “I won’t have this. Dragged off our lands, holed up like rabbits in a hutch all winter, and now this place! We are the larger group—why did the Goatst
rack rabble get first choice of residence? Those buildings aren’t fit for barns, all green wood and cracks between the boards. I’m an important man, with friends in Corus. I demand proper treatment!”

  Kel gave up on her venison. She covered her mouth with her hands and pretended to cough so she could spit the meat into her palms. Quickly she dropped it on the floor, hoping no one had seen. She glanced at Zamiel. He sat, hands folded in his lap, eyes down, cowed by the newcomer. The soldiers at the table watched Kel to see what she’d do.

  Kel got to her feet. Zamiel and the soldier who shared her bench pushed back so she could stand comfortably. Taking up her goblet, Kel drank the cider in it.

  The Tirrsmont man continued, “These nobles shuffle us about, lining their pockets with money that’s meant for us and taking their pleasure whilst we live with common farmers—”

  A woman stood on tiptoe and whispered urgently in his ear, pointing to the Mindelan badge on Kel’s tunic.

  The man scowled at Kel “You?” he said in clear disbelief. “You are the commander of this camp? Impossible! I will not be governed by a, a shameless girl, a chit who’s no better than she ought to be!”

  The insult to Kel, the claim that she was nearly a prostitute, brought the soldiers growling to their feet. Kel gave them the hand signal to return to their seats, though she secretly appreciated their championship of her. Then she leaned forward and braced her fists on the table. Though her veins hummed with anger, she made herself smile mockingly as she looked at the Tirrsmont women. “Mistresses, have you ever noticed that when we disagree with a male—I hesitate to say ‘man’—or find ourselves in a position over males, the first comment they make is always about our reputations or our monthlies?”

  One of the new women snorted. Others snickered.

  Kel looked at the man, who was momentarily speechless. “If I disagree with you, should I place blame on the misworkings of your manhood? Or do I refrain from so serious an insult”—she made a face—“far more serious, of course, than your hint that I am a whore. Because my mother taught me courtesy, I only suggest that my monthlies will come long after your hair has escaped your head entirely.”