Protector - Squire Part 8

OLD FRIENDS.

A week of flying lessons later, Raoul took his squire and half of Third Company into the Bazhir desert. They represented the Crown at a headman's wedding and negotiated the end of a blood feud between two tribes. In Haresfield they hunted and fished, and then smoked the meat to add to winter stores for the victims of Maresgift's band.

Kel did it all with the griffin in tow. He rode in Jump's carrybox on Hoshi's saddle, where he had a view of the leather jerkin she wore to protect her back from his a.s.saults. Nothing protected her ears from his rich vocabulary of squawks and screeches. Jump ran or rode with Dom or Qasim, while the sparrows claimed perches on Peachblossom's mane. They had already learned that the griffin would try sparrow meat if they came too close, and Peachblossom couldn't abide the immortal.

Third Company took its time on its ride back to Corus, pa.s.sing from autumn on the southernmost edges of the Royal Forest to nearly winter on the northern. Once they were on the palace wall approaches, it took some time to reach their quarters: an uncommon amount of traffic clogged every gate. The men grumbled; even Kel felt cross by the time they groomed their mounts and washed up.

That night she went to eat in the pages' and squires' mess for the first time since she'd joined Raoul. It was November, the end of the raiding season in most of the country. Many knights and squires would be returning for the winter.

In the mess she was greeted boisterously by her friends among the pages: Owen of Jesslaw, in his fourth year and still unable to keep his foot from his mouth, and his third-year kinsmen, Iden and Warric. Of the squires, Balduin of Disart and Prosper of Tameran were already seated, along with Garvey and Zahir ibn Alhaz, a Bazhir who had once belonged to Joren's circle. Kel got on with Balduin and Prosper and was setting her tray beside them when the doors flew open. In came a big redheaded squire in the colors and badge of Fief Mindelan, Cleon of Kennan, who was not only her friend, but squire to her brother Inness. Neal followed him.

They headed for the servers' line without looking to see who was there. Kel watched them, feeling odd. Neal looked like any other male. There was no special l.u.s.ter about him as she watched him put food on his tray. She was delighted he was there - she had missed him - but she didn't feel her normal quivery blend of happiness and pain at the sight of him.

I don't love him anymore, she thought, relieved, then distressed. Relieved, because it had hurt to know he barely remembered she was female, distressed because she had believed she would want him forever. Immediately she thought of Dom's bright blue eyes and bold, flashing grin, the way his shoulders fit his tunics. The way he made almost anything seem funny.

I'm fickle, Kel thought gloomily. Who falls in and out of love over a summer? Were my feelings even real?

Suddenly she was very grateful that he'd never guessed how she felt. How embarra.s.sing, if they'd cared for each other and she stopped!

Spotting her, Neal shouted: "Mithros defend us, it's the King's Own squire!" He came over to the table, clapped Prosper on the shoulder, nodded to Balduin, then slid into the s.p.a.ce across from Kel. "When did you get back?" he demanded. "And where's your fledgling?" He picked a tiny orange bit of down from Kel's shoulder.

"Urn, Kel? Is this place taken?"

She looked up, and up, and up. Cleon seemed to stretch toward the ceiling. "Please sit," she begged. "It hurts my neck to look at you. Since when do you ask for permission to sit, anyway?"

Cleon sat next to her. "When did you get back?" he asked. "We weren't sure how long you'd be gone - "

"Or if you'd ever eat here again," added Neal.

"We heard you mostly take meals with the King's Own.

"Because my friends were away," Kel pointed out. "When did you get back?"

"I've been here a week," Neal said, "hiding from my lovely knight-mistress. She doesn't need a sword - that temper sharpens her tongue just fine. This redheaded giant's been in three days."

"Scanran border's cooled down," Cleon said, still looking at Kel. "All the weather auguries are for a bad winter. Bursetin Pa.s.s is already snowed shut. Sir Inness decided if we were to reach the palace this year, we'd best go now."

"You see much action up there?" asked Balduin. "We've been on the Gallan border - not that it's a picnic, mind."

"The Scanrans are fidgety," Cleon replied. "Used to be, the border clans would raid on their own. Annoying, but you don't need an army to pound them, just whoever's about. Last year, though, one of the southern clans elected a war leader, Maggur Rathhausak. He brought five clans together and they overran Northwatch Fortress in June." Everyone who could hear winced: he'd named the key to the northern border defenses. "We got it back. One of the haMinches, General Vanget, took command and cleaned Northwatch out."

"Who was in command when it was overrun?" Prosper wanted to know. "And where was he?"

Cleon grinned. "Hunting. General haMinch court-martialed all the officers but the junior ones." He looked at Kel. "What about you? Is Lord Raoul kin - " He changed his mind and used another word. " - easy to work with?"

Kel smiled up into Cleon's eyes. "He's the best master I could have hoped for. And working with the Own is interesting."

"Meet anyone worth having a conversation with?" Neal asked wickedly.

"You mean relatives of yours?" Kel asked, all innocence. "You know, Neal, I think your branch was cheated when they handed out brains, because Dom - " She ducked the roll Neal threw at her.

"My cousin Domitan of Masbolle's a squad leader in Third Company," Neal told the others. To Kel he said, "And he says you tangled with a centaur - "

"Heads up," Balduin said, getting to his feet.

Everyone stood as Lord Wyldon entered the mess, accompanied by Kel's brother, Inness of Mindelan. Once Lord Wyldon had given the evening prayer, he and Inness sat at his table. The pages and squires jammed themselves onto the benches and began to eat.

"So what's this about a centaur?" Balduin inquired. "You fought one?"

"Oh, that," Kel said, cutting her vegetables. "Yes, on foot, and he almost kicked my belly through my spine. I'd rather hear about Scanra."

"Did you use sword or spear?" demanded Prosper.

''My lord lets me use my glaive," she replied. "All the men carry some kind of pole arm." She turned to Cleon. "So who's this new warlord?"

Cleon was telling what he knew when the door opened. A bright figure walked into the open s.p.a.ce between the tables and the dais on which Lord Wyldon and Inness sat.

The newcomer wore two of the floor-length wrap dresses known as kimonos, one over the other. The outer one was cream-colored silk with orange and yellow maple leaves printed on the fabric; the edges of her inner kimono were orange. The kimonos were secured by a wide, stiff sash called an obi, this one of bronze silk. The lady's feet, in brown silk slippers, made a shushing sound in the suddenly quiet room. Her ebony hair was parted at the center and combed out straight to her waist. Two short locks framed her face exactly.

Placing her palms on her thighs, she bowed to the men on the dais. "Please excuse me," she said in accented Common, her pretty voice audible throughout the room. "I come at the request of my mistress, her imperial highness, Princess Shinkokami."

Lord Wyldon put aside his napkin and stepped off the dais to stand on the Yamani woman's level. He gave her a bow, the kind done in the Eastern Lands, and said, "I am the training master, Lord Wyldon of Cavall. How may I a.s.sist you and your imperial mistress?"

Kel, her face Yamani-still, thought, you'd never believe he once called the Yamanis savages. She put aside her napkin, guessing what had brought the woman here.

"My mistress says, she has been told that Squire Keladry of Mindelan is here," the lady said, bowing to Wyldon again. "Might this unworthy servant of the princess be permitted to speak with her?"

Wyldon beckoned; Kel was already excusing herself to Cleon as she slid out of her place. At the front of the hall she bowed to the training master as she always had. She turned to the Yamani, placed her palms on her thighs, and offered the correct bow due to a n.o.blewoman in the emperor's service. The Yamani did the same. Kel looked at her searchingly. There was something familiar about the round face under its mask of white rice powder, shadow-dark eyebrow color, and lip paint. Then she saw a familiar glint of mischief in the Yamani's almond-shaped brown eyes.

"Please excuse me," she said in Common. It would have been rude to speak Yamani in front of Lord Wyldon. "But have I the honor of addressing the Lady Yukimi noh Daiomoru?"

Now the corners of the lady's eyes crinkled, the Yamani equivalent of laughing aloud. "You have changed very much too in six years, Keladry of Mindelan." Yukimi, only a year older than Kel, looked up at her. "There is more of you than there was.

"If you will excuse me? I know you have much to discuss with Squire Keladry," Lord Wyldon said politely. "Outside, perhaps?"

Yukimi bowed to him. "My lord, may I ask if Squire Keladry is permitted to visit my mistress when her meal is complete?"

"Keladry must ask her knight-master," Lord Wyldon said. He bowed to Yukimi and returned to his table.

"Let us go outside, if you please, Lady Yukimi," Kel suggested in Yamani. "My friends' supper will go cold because their attention is on you." She bowed to the lady, who bowed in return.

"They stare so," the Yamani remarked. Turning, she bowed to the room. There was a sudden clatter as every page and squire tried to stand and bow.

"Now you've done it," Kel said in Yamani. "They won't be able to talk sense for weeks."

Yukimi drew an orange and gold fan from her obi, flicked it open, and used it to screen the lower part of her face. Someone sighed with longing. Yukimi's eyes danced as she asked, "Easterners normally make sense?"

Kel held the door and bowed her out of the room. It seemed that Yuki, as she used to be called, still had a lively sense of humor. Glancing back at the squires and pages, all still on their feet, Kel shook her head. Her mess-mates were romantic. Probably half of them were in love with Yukimi right now. The other half would fall just as hard for the princess or her other ladies in a week.

Closing the door, Kel explained in Yamani, "I answer to Lord Raoul of Goldenlake and Malorie's Peak, the Knight Commander of the King's Own. I have to ask him if it's all right. We just got back. How many of you came? How long have you been at court?"

"So many questions!" Yukimi said. "We arrived three days ago at Port Caynn." She made an effort to p.r.o.nounce the city's name properly in Common. "We were met by a procession and escorted here. My mistress was so happy to see your mother I think she would have wept if it were not entirely rude. There is a delegation with us, of course - Prince Eitaro noh Nakuji is its head. He will act as stand-in for his imperial highness the emperor, and he will go after the wedding. Only Haname noh Ajikuro and I will stay. My mistress felt she would be more accepted if she did not surround herself with our people."

Kel whistled, impressed. She and her family had known that the emperor would not spend a first-rank princess on a nation of foreigners. That he had chosen a second-rank princess like Shinkokami, instead of a fourth- or fifth-rank one, and sent the prince to act for him told Kel he wanted the alliance to succeed. "I think my lord will give me some time," Kel said. "Where are you housed?"

"In the royal wing," Yukimi said, tucking her fan into her obi. "But please, finish your meal. Think how shameful it would be if you were to faint before my mistress. There is so much more of you to feed now."

Kel bowed to the Yamani girl, knowing her amus.e.m.e.nt showed in her eyes. That was all right. For a Yamani, Yukimi was easygoing. "I will visit later, if my knight-master agrees," she told Yukimi. They bowed, then separated. Kel went back to her supper, Yukimi to report to the princess.

As soon as she reentered the mess hall, Kel was besieged with questions. How many pretty Yamani girls had come with the princess? Did they all dress so colorfully? Did they all bow so much? Were they all beautiful?

Kel answered questions between bites until Cleon finally growled, "Let her eat! We'll see plenty of the ladies soon. Master Oakbridge posted the schedule for entertainments today."

"We'll hop so hard at those things we'll be lucky to get a whiff of perfume," Prosper complained, but Cleon had reminded everyone that supper was growing cold.

Kel looked up, to see that Neal eyed Cleon with interest. She waited to hear the question behind her friend's look, but Neal saw that she was watching, and smiled at her. "Lady Alanna has been putting me through my paces," he said, b.u.t.tering a roll. "I swear, if she hears of so much as a sniffle in the village down the road, she has to drag me there to study the healing of sniffles. Would you like to trade with me?"

Kel suddenly realized that if it were possible to be Lady Alanna's squire, she wouldn't do it. She liked where she was. It was a startling thing to know, after thinking her heart would break if she couldn't serve Lady Alanna.

"If you want my place, you can have it," she told Neal, straight-faced. "You'd particularly like the tilting practice we have every day when we aren't in the field."

Neal shuddered. "Tilt with Lord Raoul? Why don't I just lie down in front of an elephant and let him step on me? I bet it feels the same."

"Will you be around later, Kel?" Cleon asked as Kel got ready to go.

She shook her head. "If my lord lets me out of evening lessons, I'll be visiting the Yamani ladies," she replied. He looked disappointed. "I'll see you here tomorrow night, though, if we aren't called out. Try not to spend too many hours writing poems to Yuki's eyebrow," she advised Neal. "Yamani poetry is very different from ours. I doubt she'd appreciate yours." Grinning, she took her tray to the servers. Behind her she heard the squires discuss where they might find books of Yamani poetry.

Conducted into the presence of Princess Shinkokami, Kel greeted her as any Yamani would. She knelt, placed her palms on the floor, and bowed until her forehead touched the silk rug.

"Keladry, no," protested Shinkokami, stepping off the dais where she sat with Yukimi and Lady Haname. "I am an Easterner now - you must greet me in your manner!"

Kel sat up and rested her hands on her knees, gazing at the willowy princess. Shinkokami was lovely enough to break every heart in the mess hall, even those already thumping over Yukimi. She was about five feet seven inches tall, her complexion peach-golden. Unlike Yukimi and Lady Haname she wore no rice powder or lip paint. There was a smile in her eyes even when she was worried, as now. Over a cream-colored inner kimono she wore a golden outer one embroidered with scarlet and gold cranes. Her obi was scarlet, with an ivory figurine of a kimono-clad cat hung below her fan. The short knife carried by all Yamani women was thrust into her obi as well. Her hair, worn in the same very simple style as her ladies', was glossy black and scented lightly with jasmine.

"Cricket?" whispered Kel.

The princess laughed gleefully. "You do know me! I told Yuki I did not think you would!"

"You never said that you belonged to the imperial house," Kel told the girl who had taught her Yamani children's games.

"We were in disgrace with my uncle the emperor," Shinkokami explained. "I loved it that you treated me like an ordinary person, so I never told you. And now look! While you learned from me, I learned Eastern ways and speech from you and your family. Who would have dreamed it would bring us here?" A wave of her hand took in the room, hung with tapestries and furnished elegantly in a combination of Yamani and Tortallan styles.

Kel smiled at her. "Just think," she said slyly, "no one here will expect you to be the slave of your mother-in-law."

Yukimi and Shinkokami giggled, their hands covering their mouths. "I was betrothed, you know, before my uncle dissolved that contract and said I was to marry a foreigner," Shinkokami explained. "My mother-in-law-to-be was a terrible old woman. I was so happy to escape her house that I burned incense at every temple I pa.s.sed on my way to the ship." She turned to the oldest of the three women. "Keladry of Mindelan, I do not believe you know my other attendant, Lady Haname noh Ajikuro."

Shinkokami's request aside, Kel bowed deeply to the lady in the Yamani style. Ajikuro was one of the oldest Yamani n.o.ble houses, older even than the emperor's. Her presence was another sign that Shinkokami's uncle wanted the match to work. The lady was in her mid-twenties, clad in a cinnamon brown kimono over a pale blue one, with a rust-colored obi. She wore a variation on the n.o.blewoman's style, her hair pulled back and tied with a bronze silk bow, the two short, framing locks accenting her pointed chin and serene eyes.

"I am honored to meet the daughter of a redoubtable mother," Lady Haname said. "She told us of some of your exploits. They promise to outshine hers."

Kel bowed deeply. It was the only possible reply. She personally thought it would be a long time before she would do anything as brave as her mother had, protecting imperial relics from pirates.

"So, Keladry, have you forgotten all you know of naginata?" Yukimi inquired. "Or do you practice still?"

Kel smiled at her old friend. "From time to time," she replied.

Shinkokami sat on the edge of the dais; Haname knelt on her left, while Yukimi scooted forward on her right. Maids came forward noiselessly with the low tables used by Yamanis, who seldom possessed chairs and conducted all business seated on their floors. Once they were comfortable, the maids served tea and small cakes.

"Would you join us for dawn practice?" Shinkokami wanted to know. "We number five. With one more we can pair off."

Kel bowed. "I would be honored, your highness."

They were telling her where she could find their practice court when the talk was interrupted by a scratching on the door. One of the guards unsheathed his sword and opened the door quickly, meaning to surprise any intruders. Kel realized she would have to find a tactful way to let the Yamanis know that a.s.sa.s.sination attempts were rare here. She closed her eyes, resigned, as the guard looked up and down the hall and Jump trotted in past him. Jump had to be introduced, of course, and the guard soothed. Kel watched her scapegrace dog win cakes and scratches from the Yamanis, and thanked him silently. It was hard even for Yamanis to be stiff and guarded when Jump made an effort to be charming.

Rising before dawn was no trial to Kel. She had done it for all her years as a page, to practice weapons and to do strengthening exercises. The staff in this part of the palace knew when she got up: she always found rolls, a dish of smoked fish or beef for the griffin, and hot water outside her door in the morning. Kel shared the rolls with the birds and Jump, dressed, and fed the griffin, then washed off blood and parts of the griffin's meal.

Wearing practice gear, trailed by Jump and the sparrows, Kel searched for the Yamanis. Their practice court was near the royal wing, tucked between the king's stables and an archery yard. She was the last to arrive. The three Yamani women were dressed in their own practice clothes: full breeches bound tight to the leg below the knee, rope sandals, cotton kimonos kilted up, sleeves tied back at the shoulders, and bands around their foreheads to keep their pinned-up hair out of their faces.

Kel had thought the other two present for these mornings would be Yamani maids, but they were Easterners. One wore the Yamani costume. She turned and smiled when Yuki waved Kel over.

"So I have a daughter after all," Ilane of Mindelan said as she came to hug Kel. "I was beginning to think you were an illusion."

"Oh, Mama," Kel said shyly, returning the hug. After years of seeing her mother tower over most people, including Kel's father, it was strange to find that their eyes were now on the same level. The thought that she might outgrow her mother was uncomfortable; the idea that her hair might go white at thirty, as her mother's had, was frightening. She did wish she had her mother's deep, musical voice. "I'm sorry - I've been busy. My lord doesn't exactly sit around."

"So I've heard." Ilane turned to the fifth member of the company and bowed. "Your majesty, I don't believe anyone has introduced my youngest daughter to you: Keladry of Mindelan."

Queen Thayet, called by many "the Peerless," smiled at Kel. She had flawless ivory skin, a ruddy mouth fashioned with a gem cutter's precision, and crow's wing black hair that fought to escape its pins. Her green-hazel eyes were direct; a strong nose made her face human rather than inhumanly beautiful. Like Kel she wore the quilted canvas practice clothes issued to the pages, squires, and Riders. In one small hand she held a glaive. "I hope you'll go easy on me," the queen said. "I've only been training with this thing for a year."

Shinkokami hurriedly a.s.sured the queen that she did well for someone who had not started with the weapon as a child. "And you outshoot me all the time," she a.s.sured her future mother-in-law.

"That makes me feel a little better," the queen said wryly. "How shall we start?"

Dealing with three Yamanis whose training had not been interrupted as hers had, Kel thought she did rather well that morning. She did have to mind her strength, something she had never considered before. While the other women were fast and tireless, Kel had added months of building her muscles to keep up with males.

At first the queen unnerved her. Thayet finally had to dump Kel on her behind so Kel would stop worrying about the bloodlines of her opponent and conduct a proper defense.

Morning practice became a ritual for all six of them, a quiet time to exercise and prepare for the day. Shinkokami, who had been a lively girl, was shy everywhere in her new home but on the practice court. Kel began to take her walking after the six of them ate breakfast. On those walks she gave Shinkokami tours of the palace. They also discussed the things she sensed made the princess nervous: what Roald was like, the power hierarchies in the east, new G.o.ds and religions, even fittings for Eastern-style clothes. Once Shinkokami knew that the brisk dressmaker was Kel's Lalasa, and saw how Lalasa treated Kel, she was more comfortable having clothes pinned and shaped to her form. Lalasa, in turn, liked any female that Kel liked, and took up the shy, reserved Yamanis cause with the palace servants.

The princess was worried about her reception by the country during the coming Grand Progress of the realm. Kel was not. She knew the Tortallans would love her. She even suspected that Prince Roald, when he came home from his knight-master's castle at Port Legann, would too.

A dry summer and a delay in the winter rains in the south bred problems. First the hill folk near Fief Shaila tried to rebel, laying siege to the local army fort. Third Company rode to free the garrison and hunt those responsible. No sooner had Raoul punished the worst troublemakers and gotten pledges of loyalty from the rest than word came from the village of Sweetspring: forest fires, in the hills between the village and the Drell River. Third Company rode hard to get there and worked harder still to clear wide strips of ground, trapping the fires within them. For two weeks they labored beside hill people, Bazhir, soldiers, and the other inhabitants to save forests and villages. At last the rains came, adding a layer of mud to the soot ground into Kel's skin.

Once the danger was past and the locals back in their homes, Raoul met with his second in command and his squad leaders. He hoped to take Third Company to pa.s.s the winter in the south at Kendrach or Pearlmouth.

"I'm sure we'll find plenty to do," he told his audience in his most charming manner. "Smugglers, flood relief, and so on. And we'll be warmer than in Corus."