More weights were added to their harnesses in January. No sooner had the senior pages adjusted to them than Lord Wyldon set the fourth-years to tilting at each other. This was unusual: normally, tilting at a human target was left for knight-masters to teach. As far as Kel was concerned, the worst part of it was realizing she was trying to skewer one of her friends with her well-padded lance. She learned to concentrate on the shield. If she looked at her opponent’s face, too often it was she who went flying from the saddle.
Classroom work after Midwinter was harder to recall, except for the day that a debate between Quinden and two first-years turned into a shouting match. The subject had been one that would be raised at the nobles’ congress in the spring, whether new laws should be made to give commoners the right to better treatment by nobles. Sir Myles had to threaten to report all three debaters to Lord Wyldon before they would be quiet.
Lalasa threw Kel twice, once in December and once in February. In January no less a person than Queen Thayet commissioned a dress from Kel’s maid. Kel was able to tell Lalasa that she could now afford a dress shop of her own.
Joren seemed to be many places that Kel was after Midwinter. They didn’t fight; they traded greetings if they passed in the hall. He watched her at mealtimes and Sunday night battle lessons, though. She would look up to find those level blue eyes fixed on her. She would walk around a table model and bump into him. Once, eerily, she felt a touch at the back of her head as the class broke up one night. When she turned, only Joren was near, and he was walking away.
She might have thought she imagined it, except that Neal and Owen saw it, too. Neal wanted to tell Joren his behavior was rude, but Kel and Owen talked him out of it.
Apart from those memories, she felt as if she went to bed one night before Midwinter and awoke at the end of March. The winter had fallen away. Nobles and other important folk were arriving at the palace in droves, preparing for the congress that was held every two years. Lord Imrah came from Port Legann with Prince Roald in tow; Sir Inness returned with Cleon. The first thing Roald and Cleon said to the fourth-years on their arrival was, "Are you ready for the big exams?"
thirteen
THE TEST
"Lalasa, stop fussing!" Kel ordered her maid at her last fitting before the big examinations. "If it fits any more perfectly, I won’t be able to take it off!"
Lalasa removed the pins she’d been holding in her mouth. "I just want you to look your best, my lady," she explained in all seriousness. "Though there’s little I can do with this cursed gold and red. I don’t think anybody really looks good in it."
"Well, I’ll look better than anybody else, that’s for certain." Kel began to remove her tunic, and promptly stuck herself with a pin.
"Here, miss—best let me." As Lalasa slowly drew the tunic and its pins over Kel’s head, she added, "If you don’t mind, I’m going to Tian’s for a bit tonight. I’ve a week to finish her majesty’s dress for the opening of the congress, and Tian’s agreed to hem whilst I work on the bodice. I’ll be home before you go to bed, doubtless."
"That’s fine." Kel changed into breeches and a shirt, then opened the lower shutters. Summer had come early, and her room was stifling when they were closed.
Two strangers, men in the rough clothes of commoners, were in the courtyard. That surprised Kel: the pages’ wing was tucked well out of the way for visitors. Only servants, teachers, and nobles came there.
"Are you lost?" she inquired.
One of them, a burly man who needed a shave, snatched off his hat. After a moment his smaller companion did the same.
"Saving your presence, your lordship, but we was supposed t’meet our boss in the entry hall." They think I’m a boy, Kel realized, amused. Her loose shirts still concealed her figure. "Witless, here"—the big man elbowed his companion—"got us turned about."
"I was sure it was this way," the little man whined. He leered as Lalasa came to stand beside Kel. "Miss."
Jump leaped out the window and trotted over to the men. They backed away.
"It’s all right. He’s just not used to strangers." Kel swung over the windowsill and dropped onto the courtyard flags. Her sparrows, hovering about their nests in the eaves, called greetings. "I’ll show you to the entry hall. It’s easy to get lost here." As Kel passed Jump, she realized the dog was acting strangely, cocking his bulky head this way and that as he looked at the men. He seemed unsure of something. "Jump, stay with Lalasa," Kel ordered. "If you men will follow me?"
She led them to the entry hall and received their thanks, then returned home. It was supper time; she was hungry. Telling Lalasa to have a good time at Tian’s, she went in search of her friends.
After supper the boys and Kel visited the royal menagerie to while away the hours until bedtime. To their surprise, they found their teacher Lindhall Reed, his living skeleton Bonedancer, Numair Salmalín, and Daine visiting the small tribe of pygmy marmosets. Since Daine was present, the keepers allowed the tiny monkey-like creatures out of their enclosure. They climbed all over the pages, clearly as fascinated with them as the pages were with the marmosets.
It was late when the pages returned to their rooms, swearing they wouldn’t be able to sleep. Kel saw no light burning behind Lalasa’s screen and was glad her maid hadn’t waited up for her. Kel herself wasn’t nearly ready for sleep. She quietly closed the dressing room door, lit a candle, and read a history of King Jasson’s battles until she was ready to sleep. When she turned in, she left the shutters open for Jump. The dog seemed to have gone off on a ramble, as he did now and then.
The next day, exam day, Kel was up before dawn as always. She opened her shutters, admitting the sparrows. They tumbled in as much as they flew: it was windy. Hurriedly they pecked at their seeds and flew out to feed the nestlings. They would be in and out all day. Kel started morning exercises—just because the big examinations were today was no reason to slack off, she thought.
She was half done when a sense of something not right made her stop in the middle of a strike. The sun was rising. Lalasa should have come out by now. And Jump was nowhere in sight.
Kel opened the dressing room door. The lamp was still unlit. She heard nothing that sounded like her maid getting dressed.
"Lalasa?" she called. She couldn’t believe the older girl would sleep in today, of all days. Was she ill?
There was no reply. Frowning, Kel looked behind the wooden screen. Lalasa’s bed was as neatly made as ever, her plain cotton nightdress laid across it. She had not come home the night before.
Kel stared at the bed and nightgown. She’d heard stories about servants who crept away for a night or two, but this made no sense. Lalasa had never done such a thing; why start now? She had seemed fine the afternoon before. They had talked about finding her shop together over the summer— Lalasa had been excited about that. Besides, she had asked Kel for permission to attend the big exams, to watch her mistress prove herself before the world. She wouldn’t have asked that if she had meant to run away.
I’m not going to panic, Kel thought. If she stayed later at Tian’s than she realized, she might have slept there so she wouldn’t wake me coming in. Probably when I get back from breakfast, she’ll be here. I hope she and Jump will be here.
Kel washed her face and hands in cold water, dried, and dressed in breeches and a shirt for breakfast. She wasn’t about to get food stains on her gold tunic by wearing it while she ate. It would be just her luck to wear it to breakfast and drop bacon on her lap.
When she joined her friends in the pages’ mess, she grinned. Neal looked absolutely green; Merric, Seaver, and Esmond were pale. "Eat something," she ordered, spooning porridge into her bowl. "You’ll need it."
"How can you think of food?" asked Merric. Neal picked up a slice of toasted bread and began to shred it.
"Because I don’t want to faint just as we go from classroom tests to weapons," she said. "Remember? Like Ragnal of Darroch fainted last year?" Prodding and teasing, she got them to
eat, and said nothing of her maid. They wouldn’t be interested; Esmond had even told her months ago that servants weren’t important enough to be worth the time Kel spent thinking about hers.
"Don’t take forever to primp," Neal urged Kel as she finished. "You know I hate to be late."
"We won’t be late," she told him. "Comb your hair and stop running your fingers through it. You’ll do fine."
"You have no nerves," he said bitterly.
"Just as well, because you have too many," she retorted, and carried her tray to the servants.
The man who took it winked at her. "Luck, Lady Kel. From us all." He nodded to the other man and the woman who served the food and took dirty dishes away. The other man grinned; the woman curtsied.
Kel smiled. "Thank you," she said, touched.
Lalasa had not returned.
Kel looked for Gower—he wasn’t in his room. Worried, she went to Salma’s. To her relief, Gower was having breakfast with the woman who ran the pages’ wing. At first Kel was reluctant to mention Lalasa’s absence before Salma. Only when she remembered that Lalasa answered to her alone did she ask Gower if he’d seen his niece.
"Not since yesterday noon," he replied, dark brows raised. "Is there a problem?"
"She didn’t come back last night," Kel said flatly. "She was to visit her friend Tian, my sister’s maid, but she said she was coming back."
"My lady, it’s common for girls to stay out overnight," Salma informed her. "If she has a lover—"
"I’d know if she did, I think," replied Kel.
"Did you quarrel? It happens, and she is young. She might think to punish you," Salma pointed out.
Kel shook her head. "We didn’t quarrel. She was looking forward to today."
"She’s a good girl," Gower commented slowly. "And that grateful to Lady Kel." He got to his feet. "I’ll go see Tian," he told Kel and Salma. "See what she knows."
As the door closed behind him, Salma remarked, "Unless you want to get the girl in trouble, don’t mention her absence to the guards. They’ll apply the penalties for runaway servants, and you’ll have no say in the judgment that’s handed down on her."
"I wouldn’t anyway," Kel replied. "Lord Wyldon made it clear when I hired her that she’s my responsibility, not the palace’s."
"I’m sure there’s a reason for this, milady," Salma commented as she showed Kel to the door. "She did say she wanted to watch you prove how good you were before the gods and everyone else."
When Kel went back to her room, there was still no sign of Lalasa, and Kel was running out of time. She looked around for the uniform she was to wear today and got a most unpleasant surprise. It lay on the dressing room worktable, every pin still in place. That was not right. Lalasa would never have gone to Tian’s with this tunic unfinished—she always did Kel’s work before she did anything else.
A knock called her to the door. Kel opened it, the pinned tunic in her hand. There stood Gower and Tian.
"She never came last night," the maid said, clutching a balled-up handkerchief "I waited and waited. I thought—we quarreled, but Gower says she told you she meant to visit me." Her eyes were red and swollen, as if she’d been crying.
"She did. She said you were going to hem the queen’s dress while she did the bodice." Now all Kel’s instincts clamored that something was very, very wrong. Other maids would lose their tempers and cause their mistresses and friends anxiety—not Lalasa. After three years Kel knew her as well as she knew anybody. If Lalasa was not here, if she hadn’t been where she had said she would be, then something had happened.
"Gower, will you check the servants’ infirmary?" she asked. "If she took sick, perhaps..."
Gower nodded and left them.
"Please, Lady Kel, what might I do?" Tian asked. "My lady’s off with her husband to Port Caynn. I’ve the whole day free."
Kel tried to think, while part of her mind cried that she had to get ready for the big examinations right now! Her parents would be there; Numair and Daine, the two Shangs, Master Lindhall, and Stefan from the stables. She hadn’t much time.
"Try palace stores," she suggested. "The drapers, and the tailors. Maybe she just got me a new uniform." It seemed unlikely—the pins in the tunic she held were an argument against that—but it was all she could think of.
"Thank you, my lady." Tian dipped a curtsy and ran down the hall.
Anxious, Kel shut the door. She could change clothes, at least. Her other uniforms were presentable, if not as perfectly fitted as the one she held. She found the freshest uniform and started to change.
The sparrows had picked up on her tension. Those birds not ferrying seed to the nestlings fluttered around the chamber and courtyard, as if they expected to find Lalasa in a crack in the walls.
"Where’s Jump?" she asked them. "What happened to him?"
The birds whirled and spun in a frenzy. All of them suddenly halted, coming to rest on her bed. "You don’t know," Kel guessed.
Crown hopped forward one step and gave a single peep. Kel had a feeling that her guess was right.
"Look for them, those who can be spared?" she asked. "I know you’ve the nestlings to care for, but... Find Lalasa? Find Jump?"
Crown chattered. She and half the birds on the bed took to the air and flew away. The rest went back to the seed dishes.
Kel had just pulled her tunic over her shoulders when she heard a low scraping sound near the door. Had someone like Joren thought to make her late by laying a messy trap outside, as people had done in her first year? When she opened the door— carefully, in case a bucket of water was rigged to drop on her—she saw only pages. She examined the flags in front of her door for puddles of urine or oil, but saw nothing. Turning, she found a sheet of parchment on the floor. She’d heard it being slid into her room.
The handwriting was bold, the message unmistakable.
She is in the palace.
You can find her if you look.
At the bottom of the page there was a further note:
Tell anyone and we will hurt her.
Kel’s hands began to shake. Slowly and carefully, she folded the parchment in half, then into quarters. Why kidnap a maid?
To hurt her mistress.
When she had finished her probationary year and won Lord Wyldon’s permission to continue, she had thought it would be the end of people trying to make her quit. Now she knew they had only been waiting. They had committed a crime to stop her from taking the big exams.
It won’t work, Kel thought grimly. The tests usually end by the second bell after noon, with no halt for lunch. Once they’re over, I’ll be able to search wherever I want.
"I knew you would come," Lalasa had whispered that night Vinson had scared her. "I never knew anyone who would fight for me." Lalasa, creeping about like a mouse for a year or more, terrified of her own shadow. Now she was a vivid and happy young woman, and she gave Kel credit for the change. Of course she would understand that Kel had to take the big exams first. She always thought Kel was more important than she was.
She would be frightened, Kel was sure of that. And she must have been so throughout the long night.
Someone pounded briskly on her door. It was not Gower or Tian, but Neal, Merric, Seaver, and Esmond, all dressed for the examinations, hair neatly combed and plastered into place with water or pomade. "Reporting for inspection, sir!" Merric said, trying to grin. They all saluted.
What could she do? She let them in and did the requested inspection, tugging at collars and hem-lines, checking their hose for wrinkles, patting a stiffened clump of hair into its proper place. "You’re as lovely as a field of daisies," Kel assured them when she was done. "Why don’t you go on to the assembling room? I’ll be there in a moment." She had to think.
Neal did not leave with the others. "What’s the matter?" he demanded, holding her eyes with his. "You have your Yamani face on."
When had he gotten so short? Kel wondered, distracted briefly. He had towered over her once. Now
he was just an inch taller, and he was almost nineteen.
"Kel, what’s wrong?" Neal demanded, gently shaking her arm.
The note had said tell no one, but they could hardly spy on Kel here, in her room. She unfolded the note and gave it to him.
"Who are they writing about?" Neal asked.
"Lalasa. She never came home last night, and Tian says she never arrived there, where she said she was going. Jump’s missing, too."
Neal returned the note. "Tell the palace guard. They’ll find her."
"Did you read the whole thing?" Kel asked him, shocked. "They’ll hurt her!"
"They wouldn’t dare," Neal told her stubbornly. "If they torture her on top of kidnapping, in the palace to boot, they’ll get no mercy from the royal courts, and they know it. They just want you to be late." He searched her face, his green eyes feverish. "Kel—no. You’re not going to— That’s what they want. You’ll repeat a year, two—maybe all four. You can’t! Not after all we’ve been through!"
Kel wiped her eyes. They were wet, for some reason. "Neal, she trusts me. She’s my responsibility. And she’ll be so frightened... I have to find her." Until she heard herself say it, Kel hadn’t realized she was really going to do it, really going to turn her back on the big exams and repeat however many years Lord Wyldon gave her. She fought to smile. "I just want to be the second-oldest page in living memory, don’t you see."
"No, you won’t." He drew a deep breath; his wide mouth trembled. "We’re friends. I’ll help. Between the two of us—"
"Absolutely not," she said fiercely. "No, no, no!" The last four years had been torture for him. Now he wanted to do it all again for her? She couldn’t let it happen. It would kill her to see Neal either give up a knighthood or repeat his page years. "They win twice then, don’t you understand? Now get to the assembly room!" He looked down and away. Kel grabbed his arm and towed him to her door. "You can be my knight-master when I do take the exams, if you want to make it up to me. Neal, please. Don’t make me feel responsible for you both! She wouldn’t be in this trouble if not for me!"