Protector - Squire Part 17

"I didn't say you should," the Buri replied.

Kel looked at her, startled.

"Three nights a week your Lalasa closes her shop early," Buri told her after a sip from her cup. "She teaches city girls - commoners - holds, blows, and kicks that will help them to escape an attacker. She learned all that somewhere. And it does girls more good than your courting frostbite to shoot a bow you don't even like. There's now a demand for arms teachers for young n.o.blewomen. Seven female Riders this year asked me for references to get them such posts. And may I remind you that a particular law is being revised right now because you had the nerve to tell King Jonathan it should be changed?"

"I still should have reported Vinson at the Temple of the G.o.ddess," Kel said stubbornly.

"Very well, you should have done," Buri agreed, her face sober. "Next time, you will. And while it won't heal his victims, here's something for you to drink besides self-pity. No court in the land could put him through what he did to those girls. The Chamber did. I've seen the marks of beatings. The Chamber is making him feel every blow, kick, and punch he doled out. And I bet that will continue for a while." She sighed and picked up a second bun. "The world is imperfect, Kel. But you do more than your share to set things right. Next time, report it. Even if nothing is done because the one reported is too powerful, a record will be made. When he does it again, the record will show he won't stop."

Kel smiled ruefully. "I'm sorry. I wasn't trying to wallow in guilt."

"You take chivalry too seriously," Buri informed her. "Just like Raoul. It's sweet, in an impractical way."

Kel shook her head. They would have to agree to disagree about that. Still, she felt better now, though she would never, ever forget.

fourteen.

FRIENDS.

That evening Raoul hosted another gathering in his quarters. Next came the longest night of the year, the night the crown prince kept his vigil. Kel and her friends stayed up late talking, then rose early to go to the chapel. The king and queen were already there, holding hands. When Roald emerged from the Chamber, white and dazed, the packed room echoed with cheers.

Kel returned to her quarters to find Midwinter gifts on her desk, delivered by servants. Most were small, tokens that her friends thought would amuse or please her, like the gifts she had given them. Cleon had given her a griffin brooch. Raoul had given Kel a warhammer, a weapon with a flat head for striking blows on one side, and a curved, spiked head, used to pierce armor and yank it off, on the other. It was a beautiful weapon, well crafted, with a plain wire hilt like those on her sword and dagger. There was nothing from her unknown benefactor. Kel sighed and felt sheepish. "I'm greedy," she told Jump and the birds as she fed them. "Really, what else could I need? Besides finding out who it was."

After she tidied her rooms and dressed, she went to the stable with Midwinter treats for Peachblossom and Hos.h.i.+. On the gate to Hos.h.i.+'s stall was a new saddle and tack that matched the gelding's. Kel laughed. Her benefactor hadn't forgotten her after all.

She returned to her quarters after a run with Jump, then settled for a lazy morning. She finished reading a book of battles that Raoul had lent her and returned it to his study. He was there, doing paperwork.

"You're not supposed to work during holidays," Kel scolded as she put the book on its shelf.

"I can't fob it off on Glaisdan because this beslubbering progress doesn't leave either of us time to do it, so I'm stuck," he replied. "If you liked that, try Emry of Haryse." He indicated the book with his quill. "It's not fair that he could write and general, but what in life is fair?"

Kel grinned. "You're in a splendid mood," she remarked. Getting the book, she saw that Raoul's second-best tunic, wine-colored velvet with gold borders, was laid out. "Is there a party tonight?" she asked, puzzled. She'd received no instructions to report for service.

"I wish," he replied gloomily. "I've received an imperial command." He lifted a sheet of parchment. "My great-aunt Sebila of Disart, my sire's aunt, matriarch of our clan, orders me to present myself at her house tonight. She and the other local relatives will be there to greet me."

Kel didn't understand. "But, sir - Midwinter, and... family. They go together."

"Which is why I dare not refuse, or I'll hear from my father as quickly as letters can travel. Have you any female dragons in your family?"

Put that way, Kel saw his point. Her grandmother on her mother's side ruled her clan with an iron fist.

"They'll want to know why I'm not married," Raoul said, long-faced. "They'll have lists of eligible women - not the best of the crop, of course, because I've let things go much too long and will have to be happy with those no one else wanted. And Great-aunt Sebila will explain all this at full bellow, with the women present, because her hearing is not what it was. G.o.ds help you if you suggest she talk to a healer about it. Nothing wrong with her ears - we young people never learned to listen, that's our problem."

"Why not bring someone?" asked Kel sensibly. "They can't try to match you up if you bring an eligible female. Not me, though. Not even for you, sir, would I face at your great-aunt's what I get at Grandmama's."

That startled a bark of laughter out of him. Then his face turned gloomy again. "If I bring a lady of our rank, Kel, she might think I mean something by it. I don't want to hurt someone that way. I may be a f.e.c.kless gawp of an overage boy. Aunt told me once, but I don't play fast and loose with people."

Kel leafed through her book without seeing it. "Why not Buri?" she suggested at last. "She won't get any romantic notions, you'll have someone to talk to, and maybe your relatives will leave you alone, at least about marriage."

Raoul thought about this, rubbing his chin. "Why would she put herself through something like that if she didn't have to?"

"Aren't you friends?" Kel wanted to know. "I'd help my friends in a situation like that."

"She'll never agree," Raoul said, one hand inching toward a sheet of parchment.

Kel smiled and put the book down. "Not if you don't ask her. I'll take the message."

Reading his note, Buri grinned. "Poor lad! A big man-creature like him, needing protection! Oh, I can't turn my back on him. Tell him I'll do it. A sacrifice for friends.h.i.+p - what's more appropriate at Midwinter?"

Kel returned late after an evening spent with the Yamanis. There were no candles burning in Raoul's quarters: was he still at his great-aunt's? Yawning, she lit a candle in his study so he would have it to see by, then entered her rooms and lit a branch of candles for herself. She would read until he came in. She wanted to hear how the evening had gone.

With the best intentions she nodded off over her book. The sound of her front door smas.h.i.+ng open woke her.

"b.i.t.c.h!" a man screamed. Jump attacked the intruder. Sparrows followed like feathered brown darts, gouging the newcomer's face. Kel threw herself out of bed to yank her glaive from the wall.

"Trollop, you killed my boy!" shouted the man who fought Jump and the birds. Kel pulled a shutter open, admitting cold air and early morning light - it was shortly after dawn. Jump gripped one of the man's wrists in his jaws, drawing blood. The birds continued to strike his face and eyes as he flailed at them with his free hand.

Kel didn't know this well-dressed, white-haired stranger. Neither did she know the woman and man who ran in to grab him, the woman clinging to his waist, the man with one hand on the stranger's tunic as he tried to knock Jump away.

The door to Raoul's chambers sprang open. Raoul was in his loincloth, holding his unsheathed sword. Buri, clad only in a blanket, stood at his elbow, a dagger in her free hand. "Birds, move," ordered Raoul. The sparrows darted off. Raoul grabbed the snarling man one-handed and smashed him against the wall, shaking off his human companions. "Jump, let go," ordered Raoul. Jump obeyed.

The woman, her face red and tearstained, wrung her hands as she and the other man babbled to Raoul. Kel tried to hear what they said, without success. Raoul's captive continued to swear at her. He craned around Raoul to stare at Kel with blue eyes that bulged in their sockets.

Kel came forward, glaive ready in case the other two attacked her. When the captive shut up long enough to breathe, she said quietly, "I don't even know you."

He answered with curses. Raoul changed his grip to press a broad forearm across the mans throat, cutting off air and voice. "My lord of Stone Mountain, you forget yourself," he said icily. His captive wheezed. "If you try to carry out your threats, I will break your jaw."

"He is distraught," the woman said, her voice breaking. "My lord, please, Burchard is out of his mind with grief."

"My nephew is dead," the other stranger cried. "The Chamber of the Ordeal opened on his corpse."

"Joren? Dead?" whispered Kel, horrified.

Joren's uncle and mother glanced at her and away, as if they could not bear to see her. "It is the shock," Joren's mother whispered, fresh tears on her face. "Don't hold my husband responsible."

Raoul eased the pressure on Burchard of Stone Mountain's throat. The man was not white haired but pale blond, as Joren was. "He was to be the greatest of us," Burchard whispered. "Mylord Wyldon said, after that first year, he was the most promising lad he'd seen." His eyes were adder-poisonous as he looked at Kel. "Jumped-up merchant s.l.u.t," he whispered. "He was never the same after you arrived. Never. You witched him, cursed him - " His voice was cut off as Raoul reapplied pressure.

"I am tired of you," Raoul said, his voice deadly soft. "Nothing affects the Chamber of the Ordeal, you stupid bigot. Ask Numair Salmalin - "

"A progressive!" snapped Joren's uncle.

"Ask him under oath, then," rapped out Buri, hoisting her blanket around her shoulders. "Numair is the most powerful mage in the realm, politics or none. He knows what everyone knows - no one has ever been able to affect the Chamber."

"I am sorry for your loss," Raoul told Joren's mother, "but Kel didn't kill your son. I won't ask to settle this insult to my squire's honor, and thus to mine, by combat. In that I respect your grief." He released Burchard.

The man fell to the floor. "Two lives destroyed in that Chamber this year," he whispered, staring at Kel through a sparrow-made mask of blood. "How did you do it?"

"I didn't!" Kel protested, shocked.

"Hush, Kel," Raoul ordered. To Burchard he said, "One more chunk of spew and you answer me by the sword, understand?"

Burchard said nothing, only rubbed his throat. Raoul looked at Joren's mother and uncle.

"We understand," Joren's mother told Raoul. She tried to pull her husband to his feet.

"We understand our realm has strayed so far from tradition that the G.o.ds' gifts fail," Joren's uncle snapped. "The Chamber is breaking down. What more proof do we need that we have lost divine favor? What have you people left untouched? You school the whelps of farmers, let women make war, intermarry with foreigners - "

"I make allowance for your grief." Kel had never heard that tone in Raoul's voice. White-hot rage seem to smoke off his skin. "Go. Bury your boy." Raoul hauled the lord of Stone Mountain up one-handed and thrust him at his wife and brother. "While you do, ask yourselves where he learned to be so rigid that he shattered under the Ordeal. Get out."

They left. Kel shut the door, trembling.

Raoul rubbed his face with both hands. "G.o.ds," he whispered, "I need a drink."

"Shall I get you one?" Kel asked, unsure.

"Not the kind I meant, if you don't mind," he replied. "Juice, water - no liquor." He smiled crookedly. "It turns me into someone I don't like."

"I'll find something," Kel promised, looking for her clothes.

"Kel." Raoul grasped her shoulder. "That was bile, pure and simple. You had nothing to do with Joren's fate - you do understand that?"

Kel thought about it. "Yes, sir," she said at last.

"Raoul, maybe you're not entirely right," said Buri, leaning on the door to his rooms. "You heard Lord Fart-face. Joren was a golden boy before our Kel arrived. Maybe the Chamber just found the selves that Vinson and Joren revealed around Kel."

"I thought only Alanna was lucky enough to be the tool of the G.o.ds," Raoul commented.

"Don't the G.o.ds say when they choose you?" Kel asked. "I've never heard from them."

"Oh, maybe I'm just giddy," Buri said with a shrug. "Who goes tonight?"

"Garvey of Runnerspring," Kel replied. "One of Joren's cronies."

"He'll have an audience tomorrow," said the K'mir, walking into Raoul's study. "And I am going back to bed." She glanced at Raoul. "Well?"

He grinned, then looked at Kel. "Don't let them poison you," he told her. "Your coming was a fine thing, for the realm, for all those girls who come to watch you tilt, even for an old bachelor like me." He went into his rooms and pulled the door shut after him.

Quite a few people visited the Chapel the next morning as Garvey of Runnerspring entered the Chamber. Kel did not, though she heard about it from Owen. The watchers had a long, quiet wait. When Garvey emerged, weak and shaken but otherwise fine, a sigh of relief went up.

The next morning Zahir ibn Alhaz, another of Joren's friends, entered the Chamber. He too walked out alive, sane, and confessionless.

Prince Roald's year was larger than the previous one: eleven squires awaited the Ordeal. The court remained at the palace as every squire entered the Chamber. There were no more upsets, and the departure of the progress was announced the day of the last Ordeal. Kel was packing Raoul's things when someone knocked at his door. She opened it to find the king and several of his chief councilors: Sir Gareth of Naxen, Alanna the Lioness, Sir Myles of Olau, and Lord Imrah of Port Legann, Prince Roald's former knight-master. Raoul stood at his desk, frowning. "Sire, to what - "

The king said flatly, "Wyldon of Cavall has resigned. He won't reconsider." He looked at Kel. "I don't want your friends to hear this before the official announcement," he ordered. Kel nodded and brought chairs for everyone.

"Resigned?" demanded Raoul. "In Mithros's name, why? He's done a cursed fine job!"

The king looked meaningfully at Kel. She read his expression: he did not want her there. She fetched cups, brought a pitcher of cider in from the window ledge, and poured drinks for everyone, then left.

The king had forbidden her only to talk to her friends, she thought as she headed for the pages' wing. The training master's door was open; Wyldon was inside, packing things in a crate. He looked up when she knocked.

Only then did she think that Wyldon might not approve of her coming when she wasn't supposed to know of his resignation. She was about to make a lame excuse and go when his mouth jerked sideways. "I suppose they're with Raoul, trying to name a new training master," he remarked. "What brings you here?"

"My lord said it, and I agree - you're a wonderful training master," she replied, worried for him. "You can't go."

"I can, and I will," replied Wyldon. "I must." He sighed, rubbing the arm that had been raked by a savage winged horse called a hurrok. It always bothered him when snow was about to fall. "Come in and close the door," he ordered. "Did you hear why?"

"No, sir," Kel replied, doing as he bid. It felt odd to sit in his presence. She perched on the edge of the chair, a compromise between standing and being comfortable. "I gave them something to drink and left."

He wrapped a stone hawk figure in cloth and stowed it in his crate. "Two failures in one year - it's never happened. I think my training, my approach, is flawed. Maybe I've done this for too long - fifteen years, after all. It's time for someone new."

"But sir, you can't blame yourself," Kel protested. "Joren and Vinson..." She stopped, suddenly unsure. She had often thought that Wyldon ignored the bullying of first-year pages, encouraging boys to fight and to use their strength without thinking.

"You see?" Wyldon asked, sardonic. "You aren't sure that I didn't help to create Vinson and Joren either. I told lads to be aggressive, to concentrate on the goal. Mindelan, it may be that the best thing said of my tenure is that you were my student. Should that be the case, I am the wrong man for this post. I did all I could to get rid of you. Your probation was wrong. You know that, I know it. I was harder on you than any lad. Thank Mithros I remembered my honor and let you stay when you met the conditions - but it was a near thing. Next time I might not heed the voice of honor."

Kel watched him pack for a while, unable to think of a reply. He had confirmed what she had wondered about for years. Still, she didn't think he should go. "Sir, I learned so much from you," she said at last. "You're the kind of knight I want to be."

He regarded her with the strangest expression in his eyes. "I am not," he said. "But that you believe it is the greatest compliment I will ever receive. Go back to your master, Kel. If they can't decide, tell them I said Padraig haMinch. He's old blood, conservative, and a Minchi."

Knowing she was dismissed, Kel stood. Before she could leave, she had to ask "Sir, what will you do?" Wyldon ma.s.saged his bad arm. "Go home. Idle about until my wife threatens to leave me. I've asked for a post on the northern border come spring. Scanra is on the move. I'd like to do what I can." He waved an impatient hand. "Go, Mindelan. If you're going to snivel, do it outside my office."

Kel nodded, unable to trust her voice, bowed, then went. She didn't snivel, but she did blow her nose.

Something occurred to her; she ran back to his open door. "Sir?" she asked.

Wyldon looked up from a book. "Weren't you leaving?"

"Sir, if you'll only consider," she began nervously. She wasn't at all sure that her idea was good, but her instinct was to pursue it.

"Consider...?" he prodded.

Kel blurted, "Owen of Jesslaw."

"Owen?" he asked. "That h.e.l.lion?" He folded his arms, looking thoughtful. "All right," he said finally. "Tell Myles I would like a word when he's free."

When she reached her room, she stopped to listen at the door. Should she tell them Lord Wyldon's suggestion?

"It's settled, then. Padraig haMinch." That was the king's voice. Kel heard chairs sc.r.a.pe. "Gary, take over with the pages - you've been complaining how your paperwork is backed up. I'll see if there's a scry-mage at haMinch. I'd like to give Lord Padraig word as soon as possible."

As they emerged from Raoul's chambers, Kel stopped Sir Myles to relay Lord Wyldon's other request.