First Test

King Jonathan gently patted her shoulder. ‘Is there no other way?’ he asked.

Wyldon shook his head. ‘I fear not, sire. The Mindelan girl will be the cause of trouble as it is, without the Lioness hovering over her.’

The king thought it over. At last he sighed. ‘Lord Wyldon has the right of it. You must stay away from Keladry of Mindelan, Alanna.’

‘But Jonathan – sire—’ she pleaded, not believing he would do this.

‘That is an order, lady knight. If you cannot accept that, say as much now, and I will find you work elsewhere.’

She stared at him for a long moment, lips tight. At last she got to her feet. ‘Don’t tax yourself. I’ll find knight’s work myself,’ she told him. ‘As far from Corus as possible.’ She stalked out of the room, slamming the door in her wake.

The men stared at the door. Each of them was trying to remember if Alanna the Lioness had ever spoken to Jonathan in that tone before.

Baron Piers and Lady Ilane of Mindelan watched Keladry read the reply from the training master. A Tortallan who did not know them well might have thought the man and woman felt nothing, and that their ten-year-old daughter was only concerned, not upset. That was far from true. The family had spent the last six years living in the Yamani Islands, where displays of deep emotion were regarded as shameful. To get the Yamanis to respect them, they had all learned to hide their feelings. Home in Mindelan again, they still acted as Yamanis, hiding uneasiness and even distress behind still faces.

Kel struggled to reread the letter, afraid to say a word. If she did, her shaking voice would give her away. Instead she waited as she tried to control the anger and sense of betrayal that filled her.

‘It is not the reply we expected,’ Baron Piers said at last. He was a short, stocky man. Keladry had his build, delicate nose, and dreamy, long-lashed hazel eyes. Her brown hair was several shades lighter than his. When Kel did not reply he continued, ‘His declaration of ten years ago was that girls could become pages. Nothing was said of probation then.’

‘Keladry?’ asked her mother. ‘You can say what you feel. We are no longer among the Yamanis.’ She was a thin, elegant woman, taller than her husband by nearly a head, with hair that had gone white very early in life and a deep, musical voice. All Keladry had from her was height. At the age of ten the girl was already five feet tall and still growing.

It took Kel a moment to register what her mother had said. She tried a smile. ‘But, Mama, I don’t want to get into bad habits, in case I go back with you.’ She looked at Lord Wyldon’s letter again. She had expected to be a page when her parents returned to the Yamani Islands in eighteen months. From the tone of this letter, perhaps she ought not to count on that.

‘It isn’t right,’ she said quietly, even fiercely. ‘No boys have probation. I’m supposed to be treated the same.’

‘Don’t give your answer yet,’ Baron Piers said quickly. ‘Take the letter with you. Think about what it says. You’re not hasty, Kel – this is a bad time to start.’

‘Reflect as if you have all of time, even when time is short,’ added her mother in Yamani. ‘Be as stone.’

Kel bowed Yamani-style, palms flat on her thighs. Then she went to find someplace quiet to think.

First she went to her room beside the nursery. That wasn’t a good choice. Two of her brothers’ young families lived at Mindelan. With the children and their nursemaids next door, there was enough noise to drown out trumpets. No one had seen her creep into the room, but her oldest nephew saw her leaving it. Nothing would do for him but that she give him a piggyback ride around the large room. After that, all of the older children wanted rides of their own. Once that was done, the nursemaids helped Kel to escape.

She tried to hole up by the fountain in the castle garden, but her sisters-in-law were there, sewing and gossiping with their maids. The kitchen garden was her next choice, but two servants were there gathering vegetables. She stared longingly at her favourite childhood spot, the highest tower in the castle, and felt a surge of anger. Before they had gone to the islands her brother Conal had teasingly held her over the edge of the tower balcony. Until that time she had visited the top of that tower at least once a day. Now the thought of it made her shudder.

There were hundreds of places she might use around the castle, but they were all indoors. She needed to be outside. She was trying to think of a place when she remembered the broad, shallow Domin River, which ran through the woods. No one would be there. She could sit by the water and think in peace.

‘Miss?’ called a voice as she strode through the inner gate in the castle wall. ‘Where might you be going?’

Kel turned to face the man-at-arms who had called to her. ‘I don’t know.’

The man held out a small horn. ‘If you’re not going to the village, you need one of these.’ He spoke carefully. The baron and his family had been home only for three months, and the people were still not sure what to make of these strange, Yamani-like nobles. ‘They told you the rule, surely. Any time you go outside the castle or village, you take a horn. You never know when one of them monsters, centaurs or giants or whatever, will show its face.’

Kel frowned. The legendary creatures that had returned to their world five years before had an unnerving way of showing up when they were least expected. For every one that was harmless or willing to get on with humans, there were fistfuls that weren’t. Bands of men-at-arms now roamed throughout the fiefdom, searching for hostile visitors and listening for the horn call, which meant someone was in trouble.

I’m not going very far, she wanted to argue, but the Yamanis had taught her to obey a soldier’s commands. She accepted the horn with a quiet thank-you and slung it over one shoulder. Checking that Lord Wyldon’s letter was tucked securely in the front of her shirt, she left the road that led from the castle gate and headed through their orchards. Once past the cultivated trees she entered the woods, following a trail down to the water.

By the time she could see a glint of silver through the trees she had worked up a mild sweat. The day was warm and the walk was longer than she had thought it would be. When a rock worked its way into her shoe, she sat on a log to get it out.

‘It’s not right,’ she muttered to herself, undoing the laces that held the leather around her ankle. ‘You’re a page for four years. That’s how it’s been done for centuries. Now they’re going to change it?’ When she up-ended the shoe and shook it, nothing fell out. She stuffed a hand inside, feeling around for the stone. ‘And just because I’m a girl? They ought to treat me the same. All I want is the same chance as the boys. No more, no less. That’s right, isn’t it?’ She winced as a sharp edge nipped one of her fingers. Working more carefully, she wiggled the bit of rock out of a fold in the leather. ‘Probation is not fair, and knighthood training has to be fair.’

The stone was out; her mind was made up. If they couldn’t treat her the same as they would the boys, then she wasn’t going to settle for a half portion. She would have to become a warrior some other way.

Kel sighed and put her shoe back on. The problem was that now she would have to wait. The Queen’s Riders took volunteers when they were fifteen or older. The queen’s ladies, those who were expected to ride, handle a bow, and deal with trouble at Queen Thayet’s side, went to her in their fifteenth year as well. And who was to say Kel wouldn’t be living in the Yamani Islands by then?

One thing she knew: convent school, the normal destination for noble girls her age, was not a choice. Kel had no interest whatever in ladylike arts, and even less interest in the skills needed to attract a husband or manage a castle. Even if she did, who would have her? Once she’d overheard her sisters-in-law comment that no man would be interested in a girl who was built along the lines of a cow.

She’d made the mistake of repeating that comment to her mother, when Kel’s plan to be a page had first come up. Her mother had gone white with fury and had put her daughters-in-law to mending several years’ worth of old linens. It had taken a great deal of persuasion for Kel to convince her mother that her quest for knighthood did not mean she wanted to settle for second best, knowing she would never marry. Getting Ilane of Mindelan to agree to her being a page had been a negotiation every bit as complicated as what her father had done to get the Yamanis to sign the treaty.

And see the good that did me, Kel thought with disgust. Lord Wyldon offers me second best anyway, and I won’t take it. I could have saved my breath talking Mama around.

She was ready to get to her feet when the sound of bodies crashing through the brush made her look up. Gruff voices reached her ear.

‘Hurry up!’ a boy growled from near the river. ‘Do you want us t’get caught?’

‘The Cow’s at home,’ replied a second boy’s voice. ‘She stays there all morning.’

Kel stood, listening. If they were on the lookout for her, then they were up to something bad. In just three months she had taught the local boys she was someone to respect. Kel grabbed a sturdy fallen branch and ran towards the voices. Racing into open ground between the trees and river, she saw three village boys. They were about to throw a wriggling cloth sack into the Domin.

Her mouth settled into a tight, angry line; her hazel eyes glittered. ‘Put that down!’ she cried.

The boys whirled, startled, dropping their burden on a half-submerged tree limb. One of them punched the smallest in the shoulder. ‘Home all morning, eh?’

Kel shouted, ‘I know all of you! And you know the law in Mindelan – no killing of animals without the baron’s leave!’

The biggest, taller than she by half a head, advanced. The other two were right behind him. ‘Who’s to make us stop, Cow?’

The Yamanis had taught her well. She waded into the boys, using her club as an equalizer. She whacked them in the belly so they couldn’t breathe, and on the collarbones and biceps so they couldn’t raise their arms. One youth punched her face; he caught her on the outside of one eye. She changed her grip on her branch and swept his feet from under him, then stood on one of his arms.

Another lad grabbed a branch and swung at her; she blocked it with hers, then rammed the length of wood into his stomach. He doubled over, gasping. Kel shoved him into the third boy. Down they went in a tumble. When they untangled themselves, they ran. Their comrade also chose to make his escape.

Kel looked around for the sack. The current had tugged the tree limb on which it rested out into the deeper, faster water at the centre of the river. She didn’t hesitate, but waded into the water. Kel was a good swimmer and the river here was fairly shallow. She doubted that whatever small creatures were struggling in the sack could swim.

Movement on the far bank made her look up. What she saw made her halt, cold water rushing around her thighs. Something black and strange-looking walked out from under the shelter of the trees. It looked like a giant furred spider nearly five feet tall, with one difference. The thing had a human head. It stared at Kel, then grinned broadly to reveal sharp teeth.

Her flesh crawled; hairs stood up on her arms and the back of her neck. Spidren, she thought, recognizing it from descriptions. Spidrens in our woods.

Like most of the legendary creatures that now prowled the Human Realms, they were virtually immortal, immune to disease and old age. They died only when something or someone took pains to kill them. They fed on animals and human blood. No one could get spidrens to make peace with human beings.

The thing reared up on its back legs, revealing a light-coloured shaft at the base of its belly. From it the spidren squirted a high-flying grey stream that soared into the air over the river. Kel threw herself to one side, away from the grey stream and the sack she was trying to catch. The stuff was like rope. She realized it was a web when it fell in a long line across the surface of the water. It had missed her by only a foot. The spidren bent and snipped the rope off from its belly spinneret with a clawed leg. Swiftly it began to wind the length of web around another clawed foot. As it dragged through the water, the sticky thing caught on the cloth sack. The spidren reeled in its catch as a fisherman might pull in a line.

Kel brought the horn up to her mouth. She blew five hard blasts and might have continued to blow until help came, as the spidren gathered up the sack. It discarded its web with one clawed foot, held the sack with a second, and reached into it with a third. The beast grinned, its eyes never leaving Kel, as it pulled out a wet and squirming kitten.

The horn fell from the girl’s lips as the spidren looked the kitten over. It smacked its lips, then bit the small creature in half and began to chew.

Kel screamed and groped on the river bottom with both hands for ammunition. Coming up with a stone in each fist, she hurled the first. It soared past the spidren, missing by inches. Her next stone caught it square in the head. It shrieked and began to climb the bluff that over-looked the river to its left, still holding the sack.

In the distance Kel heard the sound of horns. Help was on its way – for her, but not for those kittens. She scrabbled for more stones and plunged across the river, battling the water to get to the same shore as the monster. It continued to climb the rocky face of the bluff until it reached the summit just as Kel scrambled onto the land.