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‘Kel … Oh, Mithros’s’ – he looked at her and changed what he’d been about to say – ‘shield. You’re the girl. Being soft-hearted will do you no good, mistress,’ he informed her. ‘Be sure I’ll get my money. And if I see that animal here again’ – he pointed at Kel’s armful – ‘I’ll chop him up for cat-meat, see if I won’t!’

He thrust his cleaver into his belt and stomped back to the kitchens, muttering. Kel adjusted her hold on the dog and his prize and headed for the pages’ wing. ‘We aren’t allowed pets, you know,’ she informed her passenger. ‘With my luck, all those sausages will make you sick, and I’ll have to clean it up.’ She passed through an open door into the cool stone halls of the palace. As she trotted along, she examined her armful.

The dog’s left ear was only a tatter. He was grey-white for the most part; black splotches adorned the end of his nose, his only whole ear, and his rump. The rest of him was scars, healing scrapes, and staring ribs. His sausages eaten, he peered up into her face with two small, black, triangular eyes and licked her. His tail, broken in two places and healed crookedly, beat her arm.

‘I am not your friend,’ Kel said as she reached her door. ‘I don’t even like you. Don’t get attached.’

She put him down, expecting him to flee. Instead, the dog sat, tail gently wagging. Kel put her key in the lock and whispered her name, releasing the magic locks that protected her from unwanted visitors. The year before, the boys had welcomed her by ruining her room and writing on her walls, making such protections necessary. While she had made friends among the pages since that time, there were still boys who would play mean tricks to make her leave.

She followed the dog into the two rooms that were her palace home and halted. Two servants awaited her before the hearth. One she knew well: Gower, the long-faced, gloomy man who cleaned her rooms and fetched hot water for washing and baths. The other was a short, plump, dark girl with crisp black hair worn neatly pinned in a bun. She was quite pretty, with huge brown eyes and full lips. Kel didn’t know her, but she was dressed like a servant in a dark skirt and a white blouse and apron. On that hot day she wore the sleeves long and buttoned at the wrist.

Kel waited, uncertain. Gower would surely report the dog to Salma. Kel was trying to decide how much to bribe him not to when he coughed and said, ‘Excuse me, Page Keladry, but I – we – that is …’ He shook his head, ignoring the dog, who sniffed at him. ‘Might I introduce my niece, Lalasa?’

The girl dipped a curtsy, glancing up at Kel with eyes as frightened as a cornered doe’s. She was just an inch taller than Kel, and only a few years older.

‘How do you do,’ Kel said politely. ‘Gower, I’m in a bit of a rush—’

‘A moment, Page Keladry,’ Gower replied. ‘Just a moment of your time.’

In the year he had waited on her, Gower had never asked for anything. Kel sat on her bed. ‘All right.’ She took off her practice jacket and harness as Gower talked.

His voice was as glum as if he described a funeral. ‘Lalasa is all alone but for me. I thought she might do well in the palace, and she might, one day, but …’

Kel looked at him under her fringe as she pulled at one of her boots. Suddenly Lalasa was there, her small hands firm around the heel and upper. She drew the boot off carefully.

‘She’s country-bred, not like these bold city girls,’ Gower explained. ‘When city girls act shy, well, men hereabouts think they want to be chased. Lalasa’s been … frightened.’ Lalasa did not meet Kel’s eyes as she removed the other boot and Kel’s stockings. ‘If it’s this way for her in the palace, the city would be worse,’ Gower went on. ‘I thought you might be looking to hire a maid.’

Kel blinked at Gower. Pages and squires were allowed to hire their own servants, but having them cost money. While Kel had a tidy sum placed with Salma, against the day that she might get enough free time to visit the markets, she wasn’t certain that she could afford a maid. She could write to her parents, who had remained in Corus to present two of Kel’s sisters at court that autumn. Kel wasn’t sure their budget, strained by the costs of formal dresses and the town house, held spare money for a daughter who would never bring them a bride-price.

She was about to explain all this when Lalasa turned her head to look back and up at her uncle. Kel saw a handspan of bruise under her left ear.

Suddenly Kel felt cold. Gently she took Lalasa’s right arm and drew it towards her, pushing the sleeve back. Bruises like fingerprints marked the inside of her forearm.

Lalasa refused to meet her eyes.

‘You should report this,’ Kel told Gower tightly. ‘This is not right.’

‘Some are nobles, miss,’ replied the man firmly. ‘We’re common. And upper servants? They’ll get us turned out.’

‘Then tell me the names and I’ll report them,’ she urged. ‘Salma would help, you know she would. So would Prince Roald.’

‘But his highness is not everywhere, and others will make our lives a misery,’ Gower replied. ‘In the end it’s Lalasa’s word against that of an upper servant or noble. It’s the way of the world, Page Keladry.’

Kel heard a whisper and bent down. ‘What did you say?’ she asked.

Lalasa met her eyes and glanced away. ‘They meant no harm, my lady.’

‘Grabbing you by the neck so hard it bruised? Of course they meant harm!’ snapped Kel.

Gower knelt. ‘Please, Lady Keladry,’ he said. ‘If she’s your maid, she’ll be safe. Your family is in great favour since they brought about the Yamani alliance.’

‘Please get up,’ Kel pleaded. No one had knelt to her since she was five. Then the tribute had been to her mother, standing beside her. ‘Gower, stop it!’ I’ve enough pocket money to pay her for the quarter, she thought hurriedly as she stood and tried to tug the man to his feet. If I explain to Mama and Papa, they’ll help, I know they will. ‘She’s hired, all right? Please stop that!’

He stared up into her face. ‘Your word on it?’

‘Yes, my word as a Mindelan.’

‘You won’t be sorry, miss,’ Gower told her as he rose. ‘Ever.’

Kel heard footsteps pound in the hall outside. ‘Oh, I’m going to be late!’ She scribbled a note for Salma, asking for an extra magicked key to Kel’s door, a silver noble as a month’s wages, and a spare cot for Lalasa to sleep on. She waved the note to dry the ink and gave it to Gower. ‘About the dog,’ she began.

‘What dog?’ Gower asked. He bowed; Lalasa curtsied. They left Kel to get ready for lunch.

Shaking her head at her folly – she didn’t need another complication in her life – Kel looked around until she saw the dog. He had jumped onto her bed to nap. ‘Good for you,’ she said, and stripped off the rest of her clothes.

A real bath was impossible. She wet her head and scrubbed her face and under her arms, mourning the proper soak that would have eased her aching muscles and made her feel less sticky. Perhaps she could visit the women’s baths that night, though it meant she’d have to take time from her after-supper exercises and classwork.

‘First day and I’m already behind,’ she remarked as she struggled into hose and tunic. ‘Oh, how splendid.’

Kel raced into the mess hall that served the pages and squires. All eyes turned towards her; some boys growled. Lunch was the pages’ most anticipated meal of the day after a morning’s rough-and-tumble in practice. Since none could eat until everyone had arrived, latecomers were never greeted pleasantly.

‘I suppose she thinks she’s one of us now, so she doesn’t have to be polite any more.’ Joren of Stone Mountain’s cultured voice was clear over the boys’ low mutter.

‘Page Keladry.’ Lord Wyldon of Cavall, the training master, could pitch his voice to carry through a battle or across the hall easily. Kel faced his table, placed on a dais at the front of the room, and bowed. ‘A knight who is tardy costs lives. Report to me when you have eaten.’

Kel bowed again and went to get her food.

‘Joren of Stone Mountain.’ Lord Wyldon’s level tone was the same as it had been for Kel. ‘Good manners are the hallmark of a true knight. You too will report once you have finished.’

Kel sighed. She and Joren had not got on during her first year as a probationer. She’d hoped that would change now that she was a true page. If Joren was to be punished on her account, she didn’t think it would improve his feelings about her.

Once her tray was filled, Kel looked around. Hands waved from a table at the back. She walked over and slid into place among her friends. Nealan of Queenscove poured her fruit juice while other boys passed the honey-pot and butter.

‘So, Keladry of Mindelan,’ said Neal, his slightly husky voice teasing, ‘not even a full day in your second year, and already you have punishment work lined up. Don’t leave it to the last minute, that’s what I say!’ He was a tall, lanky youth who wore his light brown hair combed back from a widow’s peak. His sharp-boned face was lit by green eyes that danced wickedly as he looked at her. He was sixteen, older than the other pages, but only in his second year. He had put aside a university career to become a knight. Neal had taught Kel to know the palace the year before, assisting her with classwork and cheering her worst moods with his tart humour. In return she tried to keep him out of trouble and made him eat his vegetables. It was a strange friendship, but a solid one.

‘Neal’s just disappointed because he thought he’d be first.’ The quiet remark had come from black-haired, black-eyed Seaver. He, too, was a second-year page.

‘I’m surprised he didn’t dump porridge on Lord Wyldon this morning, just to get the jump on the rest of us,’ joked Cleon. A big, red-headed youth, he was a fourth-year page. ‘Guess you’ll have to wait till next autumn, Neal.’ He smacked the top of Neal’s head gently, then went for seconds.

Kel looked to see who else had joined them. There was red-headed Merric of Hollyrose, whose temper was as quick as Cleon’s was slow; dark, handsome Faleron of King’s Reach, Merric’s cousin; and Esmond of Nicoline, whose normal powdering of freckles had thickened over the summer. All were her friends and members of the study group that had met in Neal’s room the previous year. With them were three new first-year pages, boys that Cleon, Neal, and Merric had chosen to sponsor. She wasn’t sure if they were friends or not. They would have been rude to refuse to sit with their sponsors, and thus with The Girl.

Only one of their company was missing, Prince Roald, but that was expected. Roald, now a fourth-year page, was always careful to slight no one. He had eaten with Kel, Neal, and their group the night before. Today he and the boy he had chosen to sponsor sat with some third-year pages.

Lunch passed quickly, the boys’ talk filling Kel’s ears. She had little to say. After living in the Yamani Islands for six years, she had picked up Yamani habits, including a reluctance to chatter or let emotions show. Someone had to listen to all that talk.

At last it was time to hand in her tableware and present herself to Lord Wyldon. Joren was already at the dais, waiting. Lord Wyldon always made it clear when he was ready to speak to his charges.

When Kel reached the dais, Joren stepped away from her. Kel sighed inwardly, her face Yamani-blank. Joren and his cronies had done their best to make her leave the year before. For her part, she had declared war on their hazing of the first-years beyond what she felt was reasonable. Interference with Joren and his clique had often turned into fist fights until her friends began to join her. At year’s end, there were enough of them to stop Joren’s crowd from hazing entirely. Over the summer Kel had let herself hope that Joren would give up now. Glancing at him, she realized her hopes were empty.