by Jocelyn Fox
“Good, lad,” he said in a voice barely more than a growl, still circling the ring but giving Ramel just a breath to recover. “Always look for your next move. Turn a mistake into an attack. Use your enemy’s satisfaction against him.”
Squire Kieran sounded barely out of breath, but Ramel didn’t spare any more than a cursory thought for that fact. Instead, he gritted his teeth and summoned all the reserves of strength remaining in his tired body.
“That’s it,” Squire Kieran said, his words low and meant only for Ramel. “When you think your body is at its limits, push harder.” Another hard rap from the staff to Ramel’s ribs, but the page didn’t even pause. “When you feel pain, brush it aside.” Their staffs connected with the solid thwack of wood upon wood. “When you believe you are winning, fight as though you are losing.” Their dancing feet summoned a cloud of dust from the hard-packed dirt. Ramel saw black spots dancing at the edges of his vision and his chest hurt from breathing so hard, but he didn’t relent. Their staffs were little more than blurs now; Ramel wasn’t sure how his limbs were still functioning, much less moving at a speed that he’d never imagined before this moment. He felt a strange sort of calm, like he stood in the center of a whirling storm. He blocked Squire Kieran’s staff once, twice, thrice, lunged forward for a counter-strike when he saw an opening – and then the world exploded in a starburst of color and his head snapped back with the strange numb force of an unexpected blow. After the colors, the world went black.
“When you believe you are fighting with staffs, watch for a punch.”
Squire Kieran’s voice wavered in the air like ripples in a pond. Ramel had been sure he’d fallen, because he wasn’t in control of his body, but somehow, he wasn’t on the ground. He blinked hard, felt warm blood sliding down his chin, and realized that someone held him upright, firmly but not ungently.
“Steady, lad,” said Squire Finnead into his ear. “On your feet, now.”
Ramel heard his own breath loud in his ears and for a terrible moment he thought he’d retch right there on the squire’s feet. Then he drew on some reserve of strength he didn’t know he possessed and straightened himself, nodding to Squire Finnead even though the world still swam like it was underwater. He couldn’t focus on the faces of the pages against the wall of the practice grounds; they were all pale blurs.
“You leaned into that a bit more than I expected,” came Squire Kieran’s voice. Ramel drew back his shoulders as the big squire loomed over him. Slowly his vision began to clear, and he saw a flash of concern cross the squire’s face for just a moment.
“He’ll be fine, just give him a moment,” said Squire Finnead, releasing his hold on the back of Ramel’s shirt.
“Might have a pair of black eyes,” said Squire Kieran.
Ramel shrugged in what he hoped was a nonchalant manner, but the movement made his stomach turn sickeningly. He swallowed hard but said, “Pages are clumsy. We fall down stairs and such all the time.”
“Well, your punch didn’t dull that sharp tongue of his,” Squire Finnead said to Squire Kieran.
Squire Kieran chuckled. “And now the sharp tongue is deployed in my defense.”
“I am glad for your time, sir,” Ramel said honestly, unable to scrape together a witty response. His thoughts felt like children’s marbles, rolling in all directions. At least he could see again. He fought the urge to wipe at the blood trickling over his lips and down his chin.
“All right, all to your own lessons,” Squire Kieran ordered the other pages. They hastily obeyed – all except Murtagh, who hesitated, wide-eyed to be disobeying a squire but clearly concerned for his friend. Squire Kieran began to say something to Murtagh, but then the world flickered black at the edges again and Ramel felt himself being moved quickly by Squire Finnead. When his vision cleared, he was standing in one of the small rooms off the practice grounds that held the blunt-edged practice weapons for the knights and older squires. The darker room felt blessedly cooler than the afternoon sun.
Ramel felt a tug at his hand and looked down in surprise to see that he still clenched his staff in his fist.
“Easy, now,” said Squire Finnead, sliding the page’s weapon from his grip. “It bodes well you kept your weapon in your hand, but relax for just a moment.” He steered Ramel toward a stool. The blunt swords gleamed on the wall, the light carving into Ramel’s aching eyes. He obediently sat, shivering as his sweat cooled on his skin.
“Here.” Squire Finnead pressed a water skin into his hands.
Ramel took a swallow. The cool water helped quell the uneasy turning of his stomach, but his voice still came out slightly hoarse. “Why are you being so…kind?”
Squire Finnead chuckled softly. “Kindness isn’t weakness when it’s properly tendered, lad. Looking after those younger than you, especially if you’ve had a hand in hurting them, that’s just being an honorable squire.” The shadows darkened his sapphire eyes into fathomless depths. “Otherwise what would we be but schoolyard bullies?”
Ramel let Squire Finnead’s words sink into his pounding head. He saw the sense in them, but he still wanted to protest. He wanted to show them that he was grateful for their instruction, even if it meant a couple of black eyes and a bad headache. He wanted them to understand that he wouldn’t rat them out to any of the Knights – he wasn’t a sniveling little child, even though he was younger than them by at least a dozen years if not more. But his focus narrowed to taking a sip of water every few minutes and commanding his stomach not to rebel. Squire Finnead inspected the practice weapons on the wall, glancing at him every now and again but not making him uncomfortable with a constant gaze. For that, Ramel was strangely grateful. He wished he had the strength to simply ignore the pain, as Squire Kieran had said during their training session; but try as he might, his thoughts kept slipping like water through his fingers and the ache behind his eyes turned into hard knots at his temples and at the bridge of his nose.
“Here.” Now Squire Finnead handed him a wet cloth. Ramel stared dumbly at it. He couldn’t quite grasp what he was meant to do with it. The squire silently took it from his lax grip, tilted the younger boy’s head back slightly and began to clean the blood from his face. Ramel jerked when the squire touched his nose, and to his shame tears flooded his eyes at the stinging pain. Squire Finnead only pressed his lips together silently and held the back of Ramel’s head with his other calloused hand as he finished his task. Ramel hastily wiped his eyes with the edge of his sleeve the moment that the squire turned away.
“Well, this one said he’ll look after him,” came Squire Kieran’s voice. Ramel knew better than to turn his head. The room had finally stopped spinning from his last attempt to move.
“Murtagh, isn’t it?” Squire Finnead asked from somewhere near the door of the little room.
“Yes, sir,” Murtagh answered.
“It’s…all right,” Ramel said, but his words faded as another bout of dizziness swelled over him. “I’m fine.” His protest sounded weak to his own ears.
“Lad, I hit you as hard as I’d hit Finnead,” said Squire Kieran, a rueful note in his voice. “It’s no insult to your toughness that you need looking after. Now, I’ll speak to your staff-master about your afternoon lessons. Let me handle it,” he said firmly as Ramel began to protest again. “I’m beginning to think that blow knocked loose your sense of respect.”
“No, sir,” Ramel said dutifully.
“That’s more like it,” said Squire Kieran. “Now,” he said, turning to Murtagh, “you’ll have to be excused as well. With a hard hit like that, make sure he doesn’t go to sleep until nightfall. If he does get so sleepy that you can’t rouse him, come find one of us. This will help with the headache – one spoonful in a glass of water every few hours.”
“You just carry around herbs for headaches?” Ramel asked fuzzily, squinting at Squire Kieran.
“We’ve learned to be prepared,” replied Squire Kieran. He sank to his haunches in front of Ramel. “Open your eyes
wide, lad.” He summoned a taebramh light with a snap of his fingers, and though Ramel winced at the sharp pain digging into his skull, he obediently kept his eyes open. Squire Kieran peered at first his left eye, then his right, and then had Ramel follow one of his fingers with his gaze as he moved it in different directions.
The squires conferenced in a low voice. Murtagh slid over to Ramel’s side, squeezing his friend’s shoulder reassuringly.
“That punch would have knocked out a cave troll,” Murtagh whispered.
“If I ever decide to box a cave troll, I’ll see if there’s truth in that statement,” said Squire Kieran with an arched eyebrow.
“No disrespect meant, sir,” Murtagh said hastily.
“None taken, lad. Now, let’s get you two up to the barracks.”
And though he felt like his head was about to explode like one of the firecrackers at the Solstice celebration, Ramel thought dizzily that every pang of pain was a price well paid, because now he knew his path. He circled back to the truths that had settled into him just before the sparring session. His mind kept returning to the thoughts like a dog to its favorite bone. Someday, Squire Finnead would be one of Queen Mab’s Three. And before that, he would be squire to Finnead. He smiled to himself, and let Murtagh think it was the effect of the blow to his head.
Chapter 4
“Remind me never to offer to train pages again,” said Kieran as he kicked shut the door to their room. They’d grabbed a cold meal from the kitchens and now they were pressed for time before their Knights’ afternoon call in the Queen’s courtyard.
“You’d still do it out of the tenderness of your heart,” replied Finn with a half-grin as he inspected Knight Arian’s practice sword, quickly buffing away an invisible mote of dust. He shoved half of a makeshift sandwich into his mouth as he assembled the rest of his master’s gear.
“So graceful,” commented Kieran as Finn chewed his food artlessly. “If only the ladies could see you now.”
Finn responded with a close-lipped grin, his cheeks bulging with food like a chipmunk. Kieran snorted and shook his head as he began his own task of readying his master’s afternoon gear.
“They’d be astonished at how much you eat,” the bigger squire continued conversationally. “I mean, you’d think that you’d have a care for your figure, with how the lovely young maidens swoon…”
Finn finished his sandwich and glanced at Kieran with a wicked gleam in his eyes. “Are you sure that the lovely young maidens are the only ones swooning over my figure?” He cocked his hip exaggeratedly and ran his fingers through his hair.
Kieran’s guffaw of laughter filled the room. “That’s part of what I love about you, Finn,” he said with a grin. “Just when I think you’re a lost cause, you show that there’s hope for you yet.”
“There’s hope for me because I insinuated that you find me attractive?” deadpanned Finn.
Kieran chuckled. “And what if I did, eh? You’re a beautiful, beautiful creature.” He slid his last words into a sigh and looked dreamily at Finn.
The dark-haired squire grinned. “All right, you win.”
“I always do,” said Kieran smugly.
“Except in the sparring ring,” pointed out Finn.
“By the Good Lady, you never cease to wound me,” replied Kieran in a long-suffering voice. “Once or twice you’ve bested me, and now you crow about it every waking moment…”
The two squires bantered good-naturedly about the total sum of their wins and losses when they’d faced each other in the sparring ring. When the great bell struck two, they donned their leather jerkins that marked them as squires. Each of their chests bore the sigil of their masters in the colors of their Knight. They kept their squires’ vests, as they called them, spotlessly clean and the leather oiled until it gleamed. To be entrusted to wear the sigil of a Knight as his squire was also to be entrusted with the honor and dignity of the Knight’s house. Squires never touched one another’s sigils. It was an unwritten rule, and to break it was to invite, at the least, a fistfight, and sometimes a duel with swords even though squires were forbidden from dueling.
To further preserve the sanctity of their squires’ vests, they wore plain black leather vests when they were in the practice yards, and only donned the vests emblazoned with the sigil of their Knight when they attended their masters. The Knights sparred in the Queen’s Courtyard when it so pleased Her Majesty. On a fine day like this, with just a hint of chill despite the afternoon sun, all the Knights gathered at the Queen’s command. Those not chosen to spar before her would attend to the other responsibilities of the realm: ensuring the wards on the walls of Darkhill glowed softly at night, sending emissaries to the Glasidhe and the Bright Court, welcoming guests into the Queen’s Court, and keeping the Queen’s Three updated on all the comings and goings of the beautiful and lively Court. A dozen Knights and a dozen Guards served in the White City as keepers of the Great Gate, an honor second only to being bound to the Queen as one of her Three. The Knights served Queen Mab with grace and loyalty. They were her eyes and ears, though the gay young queen often said with a bell-like laugh that she needed no spies among her people.
“Do you wonder that the Queen has not taken a consort?” asked Kieran as they examined each other for any flaw in their appearance. He brushed a speck of dust from Finn’s shoulder.
“Don’t you think that’s a bit rude of us to wonder about?” replied Finn in a murmur, straightening Kieran’s shirt collar with quick fingers.
“Perhaps,” admitted Kieran, “but it’s a question that may begin to weigh on the minds of the Court. When we become Knights, it’ll also be our duty to listen to any whispering, so that we can better advise the Queen’s Three on the state of her monarchy.”
“I…did not expect such a well-reasoned excuse to gossip,” said Finnead with a chuckle.
“Just between you and I, so it’s not really gossip,” reasoned Kieran.
“You’re as bad as the Court lasses,” muttered Finn as he shouldered the belt with Knight Arian’s practice sword. “Come on then, we’re going to be late.”
“No, we’re not,” replied Kieran with implacable calm. “We’re always early, Finn, and today is no exception. Now, if you really wanted to hear some gossip, I’ll tell you of Rye and Tyr.”
“Rye and Tyr?” A small crease appeared on Finnead’s forehead.
“The twins that traveled north to one of the great wolf-hearths,” said Kieran as they strode from the room.
“Rye…she was the one who petitioned to become a page,” said Finnead.
“Yes.” Kieran nodded as they wended their way through the passageways of Darkhill, exiting the barracks and sliding through the outskirts of a lesser courtyard. They barely needed to mind their steps; they’d trod this path at least thrice a week for the better part of a decade.
“I remember her,” Finn said quietly. “She’d already cut her hair short. She looked like…”
“If you’re going to say, ‘like a boy,’ then don’t,” said Kieran. “Because she didn’t. Not really. She looked like a little girl who wanted to play with the boys, but was probably going to cry the first time she was smacked with a practice staff.”
“How do you know that?” Finn asked. His voice hardened slightly. They kept walking, and the words flowed from him like the taebramh that pulsed through the walls of Darkhill. “How do you know that she wouldn’t have made it through?”
Kieran chuckled. “Finn, this is what I’m talking about. You can fool even me when you want to.”
“Fool you?” Finn looked blankly at his fellow squire.
“By the Dark Tree, you’re good,” Kieran said with an affable grin. “If I didn’t know you any better, I’d think that you were one of the Skirts.”
After the petition by young Rye to become a page, Queen Mab had tasked her Three with polling the Knights and Guards of her Court. Those who had voted to allow the girl her chance to become a Knight or Guard had been derisively named
Skirts. Victors wrote the account of the battle, Finn thought ruefully. Even steady Knight Arian had become agitated at the prospect of allowing the fairer sex to become Knights and Guards.
“It was simply ridiculous,” he’d said to his silent squire, when Finn had dared to ask him about it while unbuckling Knight Arian’s greaves after last Solstice’s joust. Knight Arian had won his bout and had more than a few goblets of vinaess. “Wishing that women could be Knights…it’s like wishing our mounts could fly!” He shook his head. “Simply ridiculous.”
But now Finn felt his face heating. He wasn’t standing in front of his knight-master, he was walking down the halls of Darkhill with the fellow squire who was supposed to be his best friend. “And what if I am?”
“What if you’re...?” Kieran had clearly already moved on to another subject in his thoughts.
“A…Skirt.” Finn pronounced the nickname neutrally.
“Oh, come on, Finn, you can’t be serious,” said Kieran, shaking his head. “Women can’t be Knights.”
“They don’t even have the chance to try,” Finn pointed out, his voice still carefully flat.
“And what good would come of it if they did?” demanded Kieran. “They’d just come to the same conclusion we already know: Women. Can’t. Be. Knights.”
Finn resisted the urge to continue arguing. He took a deep breath and let his anger flow out of him. He really wasn’t even sure why he felt so strongly about it. But he did remember Rye, her dark hair cut in a traditional page boy’s bob, her silvery gray eyes determined as she joined the line of the boys selected as pages. Finn had stood along the wall, holding a pitcher, waiting for the signal from the squire serving his Knight at table. He’d been a page for three years, and it was harder than he’d imagined but he loved it. He didn’t quite understand why a girl wanted to be a page, but if she wanted to try to complete the hard tasks that their staff-master assigned, he thought she should be able to. He remembered Queen Mab’s Vaelanseld stepping down from the dais where the Queen observed the year’s new pages as they walked past her in their white shirts and black breeches, hair newly shorn and faces scrubbed clean. The Vaelanseld smoothly cut in front of Rye, blocking her way as the line of pages trailed away from her. The tall Knight reached for the Sidhe girl’s hand, as though he were going to lead her away like a child, but she clenched her fists and straightened her shoulders, glaring up at him for a long moment before turning and walking away with stiff dignity.
