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‘Oh. The dog has returned.’ Lalasa padded out into the main room and poked up the hearth fire, then put a full pot of water over it. ‘My lady should have roused me. I did not mean to lay abed after my lady was up.’

‘I wake before dawn,’ Kel said, going to the corner where she had left her practice glaive. ‘I practise before I dress.’ She gave the weapon an experimental swing, making sure there was plenty of clear space in this part of her room. She didn’t want to break anything as she exercised.

At least she had got some real glaive practice over the summer. While her sisters Adalia and Oranie, young Eastern ladies now, had lost the skills they learned in the Yamani Islands, their mother had trounced Kel every day for a month before Kel’s old ability had returned. Kel often thought that Ilane of Mindelan could give even the Shang warriors who taught the pages a real fight with a glaive.

Kel swept the weapon down and held it poised for the cut named ‘the broom sweeps clean’. Her grip was not quite right. She adjusted it and looked up, ready to begin the pattern of movements and strikes that were her practice routine.

Lalasa stood against the wall beside the hearth. Her hands, covered by the large quilted mitts used to lift hot things off the fire, were pressed tight over her mouth. Her eyes were huge.

Now what? Kel wanted to say. She wasn’t used to explaining her every move to someone. Instead of scolding, she bit her tongue and made herself think of a lake, quiet and serene on a summer’s day. When she had herself under control, she asked, ‘What’s the matter, Lalasa?’

‘I – I want to be out of your way, my lady, is all. It’s so big. Do you always swing it like that?’

Kel looked at her weapon, confused. It was just a practice glaive, a five-foot-long wooden staff with a lead core, capped by a curved, heavy, dull blade eighteen inches long. ‘That’s what it’s for. See, you can wield it like a long-handled axe’ – she brought the glaive up overhand and chopped down – ‘or you can thrust with it.’ Kel shifted her hands on the staff and lunged. ‘Or you can cut up with the curved edge.’ She swung the weapon back to the broom-sweeps-clean position, and stopped. Lalasa was plainly more frightened than ever. ‘You could learn to use it,’ offered Kel. ‘To protect yourself. The Yamani ladies all know how to wield the glaive.’

Lalasa shook her head vigorously. Grabbing the pot of hot water, she scuttled into the dressing room with it.

I wish she wasn’t so nervous, Kel thought, clearing her heart for the pattern dance. I hope she gets over it.

She put Lalasa from her mind and took her opening position. Step and lunge … Her stiff body protested. She was panting by the time she was done. Next she forced herself through twenty of the floor press-ups that Eda Bell, the Shang Wildcat, had said would strengthen her arms. As she finished, the great bell that summoned all but the deafest nobles from their beds rang. It was the beginning of another palace day.

Kel walked into the dressing room. Hot water steamed in her basin; soap, drying cloth, brush, comb, and tooth cleaner were all laid out neatly beside it. Even in here, Lalasa had made things more comfortable. A tall wooden screen hid her bed and the small box that held her belongings. She had found a scarlet rug somewhere, a brazier for heat when it turned cold, and a cloth hanging to cover the privy door. Kel’s morning clothes – shirt, canvas breeches, stockings, boots, a canvas jacket – were draped neatly over a stand that Kel had always thought was a hurdle put in her room by mistake.

‘Lalasa,’ she said when she was dressed, ‘would you like to learn ways to make people let go? Holds, and twists to free your arms, grips that will make them think twice about bothering you? I know some, and—’

Lalasa shook her head so hard that Kel wondered if her brain might rattle. ‘Please no, my lady,’ she said in her tiny, scared voice. ‘It’ll be different now, with my having a proper mistress. That’s what Uncle said. The nobles don’t mess with each other’s servants. And I’ll be careful. I’ll be no trouble to you, my lady, you’ll see.’

‘Hey, Mindelan!’ someone yelled in the outside hall. ‘Come on!’

Kel sighed and looked at Jump. He had watched her get ready, his tiny eyes intent. ‘After breakfast, will you take him to Daine?’ she asked. ‘She’s on the floor above the classrooms, with—’

Lalasa was shaking her head again. ‘My lady, she’ll turn me into something. She’s uncanny, forever talking to animals and covered with the mess they make …’

Kel was a patient girl, but there was something to Lalasa’s meekness that set her teeth on edge. ‘That’s silly,’ she snapped.

Lalasa stared at the floor.

And here I’ve frightened her again, thought Kel. Now her head ached as much as the rest of her. ‘Look. Will Gower do it, if you ask him? Take Jump up to Daine?’

Lalasa nodded. ‘Yes, my lady.’

‘Then please ask him to.’ Kel left before she could say anything else.

Lalasa just needs to get used to me, she told herself as she joined the boys headed for the mess hall. She just needs to learn I won’t be mean to her. Then she won’t be so, so mouse-ish. Please, Goddess.

Neal’s first block of Kel’s first punch felt every bit as soft and weary as her blow. They both made faces.

‘What’s the matter, second-years? Tired?’ Kel had always thought that Hakuin Seastone, the Shang Horse, was improperly cheerful for a Yamani. Now he circled her and Neal, grinning. He was tall for an Islander, with plump lips and dark, almond-shaped eyes framed with laughlines. His glossy black hair was cropped short on the sides and long on top, so a hank of it always lay against his broad forehead like a comma. He wore plain practice clothes and went barefoot. ‘Add two pounds of weight to your chests and you act like you carry the world. Put strength into your blocks. I want those punches to mean something! What if you’re unhorsed and fighting in mail or plate armour? You’ll wish you’d listened to old Hakuin then. Ready, begin. High punch, high block! Middle punch, middle block! Low punch, low block!’

His teaching partner, the Shang Wildcat, peered into Owen’s face. She was an older woman, her skin lightly tanned from summer, her close-cropped curls silvery white. ‘What are you looking at the seniors for?’ she asked Owen, pale eyes glinting. ‘You don’t get to look around till you punch like a fighter, not a cook kneading bread.’

Kel tried to will more vigour into aching muscles. At breakfast Faleron and Roald had said that everyone was exhausted when they first donned the harness, or when new weights were added, but Kel didn’t remember if she had noticed the older pages struggling last year.

‘I hear the third day’s worse,’ Neal moaned as the bell rang. It was their signal to lurch to the yard where Lord Wyldon and Sergeant Ezeko drilled them on staff combat.

‘I just want to live through today,’ said Merric as they filed down the hill.

The fourth-years, walking behind them, pushed by the younger pages to take the lead. They did it roughly, yelling, ‘Oldsters first!’ Passing Kel, Joren thrust his elbow back, clipping her black eye. Kel gasped and bent over, covering her throbbing eye.

A cool hand rested on hers, and something flowed through her fingers. The pain vanished. Kel took her hand away, and glared at Neal.

‘It still looks nice and puffy and colourful.’ His voice was dry, his green eyes worried. ‘Kel, we have to do something about him.’

‘Yes,’ she replied, ‘stay out of his way. Joren’s a page for just one more year, and that’s what I mean to do.’

‘She’s right.’ The prince stopped beside them. ‘If she takes revenge, she’s the one who will look bad.’

‘So there,’ Kel told Neal, and marched on down to the next practice court. Beneath her calm exterior she wished fiercely that she could pound the meanness out of Joren. Even as she thought it, she knew she would do better to ignore him. Water, she thought, collecting her staff from the shed where it was kept. I am a summer lake on a windless day, clear, cool, and still. Joren is a cloud. All he can do is cast a shadow on my surface. I’ll be here long after he’s gone. She concentrated on that thought fiercely until Lord Wyldon and the sergeant barked orders for the first series of exercises.

The yard rang with the clack of wood striking wood and yelps from those pages whose fingers got hit. Kel listened to the noise and let it fill her – it worked better than thoughts of a clear lake to clear her head. At least she was less stiff after their time with the two Shangs.

Settled into the rhythm of the first exercise, she looked for the training master. Lord Wyldon watched them from the fence. Keeping his eyes on them, he crouched to scratch the ear of an ugly white dog with black spots.

Kel’s attention wavered; Faleron smacked her collarbone with his staff. The force of the blow drove her to her knees as pain shot like lightning through her right side.

‘Kel, you didn’t block it!’ cried Faleron, appalled. ‘Neal—’

‘Back in line, Page Nealan!’ Ezeko ordered as he came over. ‘If there’s a break, she’ll see a proper healer!’ He knelt beside Kel and felt her collarbone, his fingers gentler than his face. He was a barrel-chested black man, a Carthaki veteran who had fled slavery to enter Tortall.

‘Just – a bruise, I think,’ Kel said, gasping for breath. ‘The – the strap—’

The sergeant pulled her jacket aside, examining the harness. ‘You took the blow on that?’ he demanded. ‘I don’t feel anything broken.’

Kel nodded.

‘Stupid,’ Ezeko told her. ‘You haven’t let anybody land one in months. I don’t care how tired you are, pay attention!’

‘If we are done fluttering over the girl?’ Lord Wyldon demanded, walking over. ‘Back to work, lads. Can you use the arm?’ he asked Kel gruffly.

The emperor’s soldiers fight with broken arms, Kel thought, remembering the hard-faced men who defended the Yamani court. It isn’t broken, just bruised. Really bruised. She nodded, meeting Lord Wyldon’s gaze squarely.

He sighed. ‘Yancen of Irenroha, pair with Faleron.’ Yancen, a third-year, obeyed. ‘Mindelan, with Prosper of Tameran.’ Prosper was a new page. Kel saw what Lord Wyldon intended: she could defend herself against Prosper even with a bad right arm. As Wyldon continued to rearrange the pairs, Kel glanced at the fence where he’d been. Jump noticed her look and wagged his tail.

Neal saw the dog as they were putting their staffs away. ‘Is that—?’ he asked. Lord Wyldon was scratching Jump’s spine.

Kel nodded.

‘I thought you gave him to Daine,’ Neal murmured.