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Entry tags:
bitter roots, sweet fruit [PotS gen]
Title: bitter roots, sweet fruit
Fandom: Tortall: Protector of the Small
Pairing/Characters: Kel, gen
Rating: G
Word Count: 6306
Summary: Kel subs(titute teachers) for Padraig as training master for a year.
Notes: Despite having first read First Test back in 2001, I have never read a PotS fic before. I have no idea what the fanon or common tropes might be, so if this is an inferior version of every other PotS fic out there, I apologise. Kind of. Honestly, when there’s a trope I like, I tend to be very happy to read 8 billion fics renditions of it (and then I mourn the dearth of fics containing that trope. Only 8 billion! How have I survived this paucity!?). So maybe I don’t actually apologise at all.
When Keladry of Mindelan, Lady Knight of this realm of Tortall, received orders to report to Corus to serve as instructor for the kingdom’s up and coming knights, she was pleased, and surprised at her own pleasure.
The position would be temporary—Padraig haMinch had been severely injured during a summer raid on his home fief, and he had been granted leave to remain with his family for one year while he recovered. In the meantime, Kel would take on his role in the palace, teaching and guiding the pages and squires. She hadn’t thought she’d ever look forward to a tame posting, but after five years as a fighting knight, commanding soldiers and civilians alike, she was ready for a change of pace, especially one that promised to be relatively brief.
As she packed her belongings in Mindelan, she found herself whistling cheerfully. Even after so long away, heading back to Corus felt like returning home.
“Lady Knight,” Sir Gareth the Younger of Naxen greeted her. “Their majesties appreciate your service during these difficult times, et cetera et cetera. The hellions, of course, won’t likely care much who their torturer du jour is, and if they’re awake enough to notice that their training master has changed, we’ll know you’re doing your job wrong.”
Kel stared at him blandly.
“Ha, ha,” hinted Sir Gareth, and then sighed when she remained unmoved. “An entire generation of knights with all the humour and mirth beaten out of them. Thanks ever so, Wyldon.”
“I will be certain to pass on your kind words when I see my lord next, sir,” said Kel politely.
Sir Gareth pulled a face at her. “Here are your orders,” he said, handing her a sheaf of papers. “You’ll find the lessons, teachers, schedules, students—everything in there. Go away before your aggressive chivalry wears off on me, and I start doing something terrible, like saying my pleases and thank yous.”
Kel bowed and accepted the papers, not bothering to hide her grin this time. “Thank you, sir,” she said earnestly.
Sir Gareth appeared unimpressed. “Oh, and Keladry—I also promised to pass this off to you.” He rummaged at his desk and came back with a slightly crinkled letter. “A note from a stubbornly mirthful peer of yours.”
“Sir,” Kel thanked him, and rolled her eyes when she saw Nealan of Queenscove’s scrawl covering the letter. She’d just seen him a week before—what could be so important that he needed to send her this now?
After she had excused herself and been led to her new suite of rooms, she dumped the pile of parchment on her new desk and opened Neal’s letter.
Mindelan—
It began, and she had to pause to roll her eyes once more.
Run while you still can. I’m serious. Have you seen who’s on the new roster this year?
Your very best friend,
Neal
Kel sighed. This was just like Neal, trying to scare her off before she’d even started.
She dug through the pile of parchment until she found the lists of returning and incoming pages and squires.
It only took a moment to see whom Neal must have meant. Her stomach dropped to her boots. For the first time, she wondered if she would be capable of the task she’d accepted.
Rhys of Stone Mountain
Maybe she still had time to back out.
She could confront the boy immediately, of course. Reassure him that the famed bad blood between her and Joren would not affect her treatment of any of her students, including him. Of course, the boy would almost certainly not believe her, and he’d see her attempted cease fire as a vulnerability.
She could ignore the issue entirely. Or try to, anyway. The boy would then probably accuse her of neglecting his training.
When Kel headed down to the page’s wing to meet her new charges and escort them to the dining hall, she still hadn’t decided on a course of action. She’d manage, she knew. She’d always been good at thinking on her feet.
This turned out to be a blessing for more reasons than she’d expected.
A crowd of children—surely Kel hadn’t been that young when she was a page!—were snarling and shoving at one another in a way that looked about half a minute from becoming a full-out brawl.
Kel took a moment to survey the situation. Four boys and three girls—all of the female knights-in-training—faced off against six boys, while five other boys attempted to keep the peace. The argument seemed to be largely political in nature, which surprised Kel. She would have expected personal conflicts to be more likely to prompt fighting on the first day of training. The remaining pages stood by their doors as instructed, watching the brewing fight warily.
Among the neutral watchers was a small, ten-year-old boy with familiar pale blue eyes and white-blond hair. He didn’t have the same unearthly beauty that Joren of Stone Mountain had once possessed, but the similarity in their appearances was still jarring.
Neutral in this fight though the boy may seem, that didn’t necessarily mean anything. Joren had always possessed the ability to cause fights wherever he went with a few mildly expressed words. This Rhys could very well be the same.
One of the boys, a first year, caught sight of Kel and gasped dramatically. Slowly, the other boys and girls began to quiet as they noticed her presence, until the argument was reduced to two pages, a girl and a boy, who were too caught up in their shouting match to notice the frozen silence around them.
Kel waited another moment, but when they showed no signs of stopping on their own, she said pleasantly, “Oh, don’t mind me—I’ll wait.”
The children snapped to attention, the little boy pale and the little girl bright red.
“Are you ready to begin?” asked Kel, tone still friendly.
The pages glanced at one another uncertainly. “Yes, si—ma’am,” said one of the older boys. He was big, already nearly as tall as Kel, but his eyes skidded to the side, avoiding eye contact.
“‘Sir’ will do,” Kel informed the hall at large. She smiled at everyone. “Well, we seem to be running a little behind schedule. My own training master used to always tell us that tardiness costs lives, and I must say that I agree with him. Even beyond that, I’m hungry. I don’t particularly want to delay my meal so that I can watch you demonstrate your total ignorance of the current public policies. Since you made me wait for my dinner tonight, I will be making you wait for your dinner tomorrow night—and every other night this week. You will report to the dining hall at the standard time, and you will stand at attention and wait for fifteen minutes before you will be permitted to enter. Is that understood?”
Throughout this entire speech, her voice did not deviate from its soft, mild tone. When the pages only stared at her blankly, she hardened her voice. “I believe I asked you a question, pages.”
“Yes, sir!” the pages chorused. Some looked stunned, others resentful.
Kel raised her eyebrows when the pages remained where they were, staring at her. “Don’t you have somewhere you’re supposed to stand, or have you not been assigned rooms yet?”
The pages scattered, hurrying to stand before their own doors.
Kel strode forward, letting the pages fall into line behind her. When she reached the end of the hall, she turned to face the line of pages. “And now, older pages, you have the opportunity to choose which of the younger pages you’re going to sponsor. Valyrs of Copper Valley, step forward!”
Slowly, the new pages were selected by older ones, until finally—
“Rhys of Stone Mountain, step forward!”
The little boy came forward, steps quiet.
“Who will sponsor Stone Mountain?”
Silence reigned in the hall, reminiscent of the silence that she, the first known female page, had faced when seeking a sponsor. Her heart clenched.
Stone Mountain was still a prominent noble family, but the shock over Joren’s death during his Ordeal had left many uneasy. On top of that, there was a sort of social logic to the pages’ silence—Kel’s old feud with Joren remained infamous. However you feel about the Stone Mountains or the current politics or lady knights, why set yourself against your training master on the first day by allying yourself with the family of her old enemy?
“The next bell will ring any moment now, and I’m still not eating,” Kel mused aloud. “I hope this doesn’t become a theme of this year.”
The pages shuffled around nervously, but still no volunteers appeared.
“Should I send for a chair?” asked Kel.
One of the little girls stepped forward. Kel had met this girl before, during a tournament when Kel had been a squire. The girl raised her chin stubbornly and said, “I will sponsor him, sir.”
Several of the boys scoffed. Rhys of Stone Mountain's expression did not change from its blank set.
Will people call him the Lump, too, the way they did me? Kel wondered to herself.
She surveyed the girl. Coming in now, knowing none of these children well, put Kel at a disadvantage. She could not tell if the girl was sincere in her offer of sponsorship, or whether she planned to use the position to torment Rhys, as Joren had once planned to do to Kel.
Kel withheld a sigh. She knew of no reason to deny the girl the opportunity to sponsor Rhys, and enough time had already been wasted for one day. Kel would simply have to monitor the situation closely.
“Excellent,” Kel said, flashing her students a bland smile. “Time for dinner.”
“I need some watchers,” Kel told her audience. “Someone to report back to me about fighting and hazing among the pages.” Kel thought about what she’d just said for a moment, and then quickly added, “I’m not looking for spies, mind. Just someone… trustworthy, who blends into the background.”
Oh, blast, Kel thought. I guess I am looking for spies.
“Anyway,” she said, “You can see why I thought of you. I know this isn’t what you expected from your time in Corus, but would you be willing to do this?”
She looked out at her gathered audience. An assortment of short beaks and snouts looked back at her soberly.
The answer, when it came, was predictably loud.
Hand-to-hand combat, staff drills, sword drills, archery lessons, riding lessons, weapons training on horses, staged combat drills—the schedule that had drained all the life and energy out of Kel as a page somehow seemed even worse as an instructor. Even for the lessons that she didn’t lead, she had to be present and aware at all times. Kel had plenty of practice teaching groups of all sizes and ages, but the return to the nonstop palace training schedule was making her yearn for the good old days of governing refugee camps, splinters and permanent mud included.
Still, she took her comforts where she could.
Kel was an unapologetic morning person, and if a shred of poetry existed in her stoic warrior’s heart, it would be in honour of that wonderful, pre-dawn stillness, when, alone with her practise glaive, she could look into herself and see the calm lake of her emotions, and look outside of herself and see the powerful gale of her blade moving around her, two opposites living in perfect balance.
(It would be a haiku. She had never learned to understand the silly, flowy poetry of Tortall, with its verses and rhyming schemes, even after now having lived more years in her first homeland than in the Islands.)
Now, though, Kel had discovered a new appreciation: the afternoon hours, when, after her meetings with the other training instructors, she was able to escape to her office, secure in the knowledge that the children were busy being tormented by the Mithran priests responsible for their academic education.
Kel could work on her reports, plan her lessons, and sometimes even catch up on her correspondence, and the world around her, while not drenched in that beautiful predawn silence, was at least not swinging incorrectly held sticks in her general direction.
Kel was penning a letter to Neal—I am not certain that I take your meaning, as my students this year show exceptional promise and enthusiasm—and cheerfully imagining his face upon opening her letter of bald-faced lies when a flurry of chirping approached her unshuttered window.
Kel sighed, cleaned her pen, capped her ink, and stood. The dinner bell would be ringing soon; the sky outside was just beginning to darken.
It seemed that now, as in the past, the students were happy to spend their free hour between their final afternoon class and dinner harassing their weaker classmates.
“Show me,” she told the sparrows grimly, and they led her through the halls like a feathery hurricane.
The children were brawling near the staircase leading to the mages' tower.
As the sparrows vanished, their job completed, Kel paused for a moment to remember fondly her own fight in this hall, more than a decade ago. That had been when she'd first met Owen properly. A friendship forged in blood, she thought wryly.
She surveyed the fighters. Fiona of Eyrie's Nest was there, along with her younger sister. They were facing off against four older boys. So far it seemed unfortunately familiar.
But there, kneeling on the floor and gathering the pieces of a broken pitcher, was Rhys of Stone Mountain, his face blank and his fingers bloody and shaking.
Kel could follow the clues easily enough, but this wasn't the turn of events she had expected.
"I hope it goes without saying," Kel said, watching as the children's movements froze, "that I am extremely disappointed in you. Why, I don't think that punch would have crushed a spider, Cormer. Hard to think that by this time next year, you'll be expected to take on spidrens."
The boy in question flushed, furious.
"Oh, but I don't want you to think I'm singling you out. That performance was terrible all around." She smiled pleasantly at each of them in turn. "Report to my office and wait for me there. I'll speak with you one-by-one."
When none of the children moved right away, she added, "Now," and watched as they scurried on their way.
"Do you think it's immoral to have the animals spy on the children for me?" she asked the shadows of the tower staircase.
Veralidaine Sarasri stepped forward lightly. "I suppose that depends on the situation. The sparrows told me you're just interested in the fights."
Kel stared at the empty flagstones, thinking of the scene she'd encountered there. "When I was a page, I often thought my instructors encouraged hazing simply by willfully ignoring it. I didn't want to make that mistake."
"That makes sense," said Daine. "And how will you deal with it now that you've caught them?"
Kel sighed. "I have no idea. Why are people so cruel?"
"Why do you think I prefer the People to two-leggers?" Daine countered with a crooked smile.
"You're the wisest of us all," said Kel. In that moment, she wasn't even joking.
The children were all lined up against the wall across from her office. Rather than staring stoically at the wall opposite them, they were taking turns glaring balefully at one another.
"I'm glad to see that you didn't get lost on your way here," Kel told them. "Artho of Cormer, you first."
It was no surprise to Kel to learn that Cormer, Paxton, Marshland, Silver Peak, and the two Eyrie's Nest sisters had all mysteriously fallen down.
Kel didn't bother with that script when it came to Stone Mountain.
"Tell me," asked Kel, "how are you getting along with your sponsor?"
Rhys stiffened.
"That well?"
The boy remained stubbornly silent.
"If I were to come across a group of children fighting, I would wonder what—or who—the purpose was. And if those fighters had been the six children I just spoke with, I would be especially curious, since there's no political disagreement or blood feud that I know of between their families. So they were fighting for personal reasons. What might those have been?"
Rhys said, "They fell down, sir."
Kel smiled at him. "I believe that's true. And you fell down as well."
The boy's hands clenched. "Yes, sir."
"Since that's all cleared up, I still want to know: how are you getting along with your sponsor?"
"She showed me how to get to where I need to be, sir. We haven't argued."
Kel hummed. "I'm glad to hear it. And is there anything else you think I should be aware of?"
"No, sir."
"Well, then. Report to the stables after the first afternoon bell on your rest day for punishment work. You'll also complete an essay on nonviolent means of resolving disputes, to be turned in on the same day. Any questions?"
"No, sir."
"I look forward to reading your thoughts. Dismissed."
When the little boy had left her office, Kel put her head in her hands.
It's not my place to be his friend, she reminded herself. Nor his confidante.
She looked down at her desk and saw her unfinished letter to Neal. Somehow, the teasing falsehoods in her letter didn't seem as funny anymore.
“Hey, Yuki,” said Kel in Yamani. The other woman had only recently arrived in Corus, returning ahead of the train surrounding Princess Shinkokami, Lady Hanami, and Prince Roald, who had been away on state visits. “May I ask you something?”
Yuki’s eyes flickered up from where she was preparing the tea. “Of course! We are friends, after all.”
Kel had to hold back a smile. “That’s true. Then, if a hated enemy were to protect you, how would you feel?”
“Upset, I suppose,” Yuki said without hesitation.
Kel nodded. “And say that the event may have been a little embarrassing for you.”
Yuki’s calm face and sweet tone didn’t change when she said, “Is that so? In that case, I would absolutely feel resentful.”
“Yes, wouldn’t you? So then, how would you fix this?”
One of Yuki’s elegant eyebrows went up. She poured the tea, and Kel bowed slightly in thanks as she accepted her cup. “As a teacher, that would be difficult.”
Of course Yuki had seen through Kel’s vague language to her real reason for asking. Even if Kel had tried to hide it, she had always been transparent to the other woman. “Even so, surely something must be done!”
”Not at all,” said Yuki firmly. “This is a problem for family, or friends, or classmates.”
“I don’t trust this family at all, and I’m not sure the student has any friends.”
Yuki sighed. “And what about you? Does this child trust you?”
“...No,” said Kel grudgingly.
Yuki nodded. “That is what I thought. Without trust, nothing can be fixed.”
“But—” Kel protested.
“Kel, you are not listening to me.” Yuki paused, waiting for Kel’s acknowledgement before continuing as though Kel were one of her silly mage students. “You. Cannot. Fix. This.
Kel very nearly scowled in frustration, but she checked herself at the last moment. “Then who can?”
Yuki lazily snapped her fan open to cover her face, but not before Kel caught sight of her smirk. “At last,” she said. “You have asked the correct question.”
Kel had probably spent more time teaching staff-fighting to beginners than anyone other than a drill sergeant or a long-term palace training instructor like Sir Gareth the Elder. Already something of an expert with the weapon even as a probationary page, her many years tutoring her friends’ sponsored pages in the weapon, and then teaching it to refugees and convict soldiers during the war and its aftermath, both combined to give her a level of experience perhaps never before seen in a new palace training instructor, who had in some cases rarely touched a staff or spear since they had been pages themselves.
Sergeant Len, her current co-instructor in the staff, was likewise new to his position, but he had spent the past ten years training army recruits in the weapon. On his introduction to her, he gave her the deep, stiff bow of someone who was familiar with working under knights and was already expecting to do all the work and receive none of the credit.
These days, he looked at her as though he couldn’t decide if she was a nightmare risen from the deep or Mithros’s own daughter.
“We may have to tell the smithy that we won’t need the training swords this season after all, Sergeant Len,” said Kel, turned to him as though speaking privately, but in a tone that projected across the entire yard, even of the sound of wood striking wood. “We can’t start a group of pages on sword forms when they can’t even manage a solid high strike.”
Sergeant Len gave her a withering look, but he called for the pages to stop. “Show the lady knight the first position.”
Not even bothering to hide their scowls under their dripping sweat, the pages obeyed, already familiar with this routine.
Kel walked up the line, surveying their stances closely. Truth be told, they were doing fairly well. Still, Kel was a firm believer in the basics—they were useful on their own and could easily be built on with fancier moves, but no amount of skill in advanced weaponry could make up for a weak foundation.
“What’s wrong with your feet?” asked Kel. “Go on, look down.”
A number of pages guiltily shifted their toes back into position.
“Better,” said Kel. “But why? Why does it matter where your feet point?”
“Because when we’re training with real weapons, we’ll hurt ourselves if we do it wrong?”
Sergeant Len burst out laughing, and Kel’s eyebrows shot up. “Are you under the impression that the staff isn’t a real weapon? I assure you, I’m perfectly capable of taking down fully trained, sword-wielding soldiers with a staff. And you, sergeant?”
He grinned meanly at the wide-eyed pages. “Once took down four Scanrans at a time, me with naught but a staff and ‘em armed to the teeth.”
Kel nodded seriously, her blank expression not showing that she, too, was impressed by that declaration. But she’d seen enough of the sergeant’s skills to know it was no empty boast. “The staff isn’t simply a practice stick for beginner’s,” she said mildly. “It is an incredibly powerful, incredibly versatile tool. But yes, part of its versatility is that the basic staff forms can be applied to any number of weapons, including spears and swords. Regardless of what weapon you’re using, a weak stance means that your opponent can easily use speed or strength to overwhelm you. A weak and bad stance means that you might trip over your own feet. I assure you, that looks just as unimpressive with a sharp metal stick as it does with a blunt wooden one. A strong stance will save your lives one day. Second position!” she called abruptly, and the pages hurried to comply.
She walked the line again, speaking to each and every page, and sparing a moment to reminisce on how her own training instructors had either blatantly ignored her or found fault in her every move. “Elbow down,” she told one page. “Your torso is misaligned,” she told another. “Relax your grip,” she told Rhys of Stone Mountain, and she felt his eyes follow her as she continued down the line.
Finally, she nodded to Sergeant Len. “From the top!” he yelled. “Flow through them. First! Second! Third! Fourth! Fifth!” And on.
The pages transitioned between the stances smoothly. They weren’t perfect, but they were good. Very good. She glanced at the sergeant, who was doing his level best to hide the proud gleam in his eyes under a dark scowl.
“Well,” she said, when the pages reached and held their final stance. “I suppose I’ll have to tell the smithy that we’ll be starting with swords after all.” The pages didn’t cheer, but there was a spring in their exhausted steps as they put away their staffs.
It was Midwinter, and in the brief recess, Kel had finally caught up on her reports, her seemingly infinite correspondence, and had even made some plans for altered lesson plans when outdoor training resumed.
At long last, she had time to herself. Of course, the grounds were practically unpassable in the storms, but she could do anything else she wanted, indoors—read one of those books Neal kept sending to her, even.
With cheerful determination, she grabbed a book off the shelf—this one was a present from years ago that she’d kept putting off—and opened it in front of her, doggedly making her way through the dry and increasingly convoluted script.
Fifteen minutes later, she’d barely made it to page three, but she had made a great deal of progress doodling all over the corner of a failed letter draft.
When the knock sounded on her door, she’d progressed to page five, and her doodles had been elevated to terrible poetry. She was so relieved to be interrupted that she nearly cried.
“Enter,” she called, leaning back in her chair.
In slid a little group of students, including Rhys of Stone Mountain, and Kel had to fight to keep her eyebrows from shooting up in surprise. Still, even after all these years, her Yamani training held, and she greeted the children with a suitably blank face.
“Sir,” said Fiona, on being required to explain their presence. Kel wondered if she had drawn the short straw or the long one in being named spokesperson. “We—that is, several of us pages—were hoping that we might be able to access one of the page’s indoor training rooms to keep practising over the holiday, sir.”
Kel steepled her fingers in front of her nose. “The holiday is only for a few days,” she responded, wry. “I can’t imagine that your muscles will atrophy and your skills will vanish in quite that length of time.”
“Well, no, but it’s only that, well, we’re a bit behind anyway, sir, and we could use the chance to catch up.” Fiona wasn’t quite able to meet Kel’s eyes, at that. Her cheeks were slightly red. Ashamed, maybe?
“You’re not as behind as you seem to think,” Kel answered mildly. “But even if you were, training today wouldn’t give you any edge. Any major improvements that you make will be the result of ongoing, regular practice.”
“Yes, sir.”
When Kel didn’t continue, Fiona became a little flustered. “I—We apologise for bothering you, sir, you do look very busy. We’ll just be on our way, then.”
Kel raised an eyebrow. “I didn’t dismiss any of you.”
Fiona turned even more red.
“I’m willing to open one of the rooms for you for an hour every day. You won’t be permitted to enter the room unsupervised. I’ll see about arranging for one of the squires to sit in with you. If you do this, you’ll make it worth their while—at least three of you will attend on any given day. If three of you can’t make it, you’ll get a message into the hands of the attending squire no later than half an hour before the arranged meeting time. Finally, this isn’t a closed club—any and all of the pages are welcome to take advantage of this opportunity for extra training. Are we clear?”
The pages nodded vigourously, looking relieved.
Kel lowered her hands back down to her desk and her eyes caught on what she’d been working on when the pages had entered.
It is a perfect
World full of serenity
Before the sunrise
“As for today,” she said drily, “I think I’ll be able to accommodate you myself.”
Midwinter had brought with it something worse than boredom—it brought people.
Among the long-term, year-round palace residents, almost all of them had been present during her years as a page and squire, and though not all of them were approving of a female training master, her appointment was old news almost the same week as the announcement.
This was not so among the new-comers who had been trickling into Corus for the past month. If Kel had to suffer through one more delicately scandalised gasp or upturned sneer, she was going to punch someone.
“I suppose it’s obvious why her family didn’t believe she had any marriage prospects,” said one young nobleman—not a knight, no one Kel recognised—to another, both perfectly and unashamedly within easy earshot of her. “But surely they could have found her a place in a temple rather than resorting to… this.”
Kel met his eyes mildly. “Thank you for your concern, but I chose this life myself, independent of any marriage prospects that I may or may not have.” As the noblemen scoffed, she added, “But I understand your error—I assume you chose to study at Pelmry’s temple for similar reasons?” She smiled at him, her face a mask of good-intentioned politeness.
The man spluttered at her indignantly, and perhaps with good reason—even beyond the dig at his marriage prospects, not even Kel, with all her total lack of fashion knowledge, could possibly mistake the man’s expensive velvets and silks for the famously plain uniform of the god of scribes.
She spotted Yuki and Shinko waiting nearby at the other end of the corridor. “Oh, excuse me,” said Kel, sketching a bow. “I think my friend, the Princess Shinkokami, is asking for me.”
Perhaps the name-dropping was a little beneath her, but Kel was growing tired of this absurdity. This was the life she’d chosen with her eyes open, but she’d chosen it to dodge literal arrows, not verbal ones.
”Kel, what do you think?” asked Yuki slyly in Yamani when Kel joined them. ”They seem to get along well, those children.”
Kel glanced around to see where Yuki was looking. She caught sight of a small group of pages and mage students, all gathered together in a little huddle not far from where she’d confronted the unpleasant, probably-not-a-scribe-student nobleman. In fact, they were so close to where she’d previously been standing that there was no chance they hadn’t overheard her rather inelegant put-down. Kel simply raised her eyebrows at the cluster of children calmly, but when she turned around to face her friends again, she said in her blandest tone, ”What goes around, comes around, it seems. The eavesdropper has been eavesdropped on.”
Shinko and Yuki looked at one another serenely, though Kel could practically smell the mischief brewing between them.
”Oh dear! What did they hear?” asked Shinko, idly fanning herself.
”It’s not important. Just a little embarrassing.”
”Ah, I see,” said Yuki musingly, affecting a scholarly air. ”The life of a teacher seems so challenging! Every nook and cranny in the palace hides a student!”
”It’s really true,” Kel groused. “So, what were you talking about? Who and whom are close friends?”
Yuki raised an elegant eyebrow as if unimpressed by Kel’s obtuseness. ”Your family-less, friendless, sad student.”
Kel quickly thought back to the group she’d glimpsed behind her. The Eyrie’s Nest sisters, Cormer—perhaps they were friends now?—some mage students she wasn’t familiar with, and… Stone Mountain.
”And he’s still sad?” said Kel. Lady Matchmaker, you’ll have to try a little harder, won’t you?”
Yuki turned away slightly with a dramatically upturned nose that she must have learned from her obnoxious husband. Kel’s heart panged with the reminder that Yuki and the toddlers would be alone this midwinter—Neal had already written to say that he had been ordered to keep his post.
Well, not completely alone, Kel allowed, following her friends to a well-earned gossip session. Kel had been so worried about her friends finding a place in their strange new home, but they seemed to have settled in just fine.
Finally, midwinter passed, and the most obnoxious of the nobles left with it. Winter lightened into a wet and miserable spring, and spring dragged its way inch by inch into summer, bringing with it exams big and small—and the end of Kel’s appointment.
The moment that Kel ceremoniously returned the keys to Sir Gareth the Younger was bittersweet. She was, as always, excited to return to active duty, but it was hard to think of leaving behind so many bright young faces… And the palace baths.
She would really miss the palace baths.
“Keladry of Mindelan, I hereby relieve you of your burden of torment,” said Sir Gareth, not looking up from the library of scrolls he had spread across his desk. “Go and be merry getting clubbed in the head by Stormwings in the miserable mountains of the north.”
Kel bowed solemnly. “Yes, sir. I will make every effort to do so, though in my experience, Stormwings do not typically wield clubs, sir.”
Sir Gareth finally looked up at her, expression long-suffering.
“It’s the metal wings, sir,” said Kel helpfully. “Insufficient number of opposable thumbs, I believe.”
Sir Gareth looked back at his paperwork grumpily, but she could see a smile twitching at the corner of his mouth. “Go, Lady Knight, before I take drastic measures of revenge and make your teaching appointment permanent.”
“Going, sir,” Kel promised hastily, and left with a grin.
As she approached a turn in the corridor, she couldn’t help hearing—”from my father that Sir Padraig is finally coming back today. I, for one, will be relieved to have a real training instructor again.”
Kel recognised the voice as one of her snottier third-year pages—not by any means the most conservative of the group, but simply the loudest and most arrogant of them. She found herself more amused than offended. She suspected, given the painstaking improvement she had dragged out of this student in his staffwork over the course of the year, that someday, perhaps far in the future, he would have cause, if not the awareness, to thank her.
Then another voice piped up, and her heart squeezed. “I’m sure you are,” said Rhys of Stone Mountain, his little voice stronger than she had ever heard it before. “It must be a relief, not having to worry about being held accountable for your own poor performance.”
And Fiona of Eyrie’s Nest—”I heard that this is the first year you passed the little examinations without reservation from the judges.”
“That’s a dirty lie,” snarled the maligned boy.
“Sure it is,” said Rhys airily, with the same tone that Kel had occasionally observed in Yuki’s flock of mage students. “I’d be worried about next year’s big examinations, if I were you.”
The children sounded like they were gearing up for a fight. Kel rounded the corner and sighed. “Are you really going to make me assign you punishment duty after term has already ended?” she asked them.
“No, sir!” said Fiona, voice high with embarrassment.
“Good. I expect some of you still have packing to do?”
The pages bowed and vanished almost before she was finished speaking. She shook her head, allowing herself a smile. She wasn’t sure if she was pleased at her little group of defenders or disappointed in the quality of their insults. Well, perhaps that was yet another task for a knightmaster to teach a squire. These pages still had time to grow.
Kel and Hoshi had barely crested the hill when she heard, “Mindelan!” shouted from the top of the wall. She squinted up into the sun, and sure enough, there was her group of obnoxious friends—knights and soldiers, nobles and commoners.
She greeted her friends with hugs and shoulder pats, starting with Neal and Yuki’s toddlers, who had arrived a month before and were near incandescent with excitement.
Leaving Corus, coming back to the north—it was like leaving home for home.
“And I hope you appreciated my carefully smuggled out warning,” said Neal archly to Kel as the group headed back through the gates of their latest refugee-camp-come-village. “Though you’re still alive, so I assume you put it to good use.”
Kel rolled her eyes, hiding a grin. “You know that I can handle myself. Anyway, you were worrying for nothing—Stone Mountain was a very polite, nice little boy.”
Neal froze, staring at her.
Kel hesitated. “Neal? Everything alright?”
“Stone Mountain? Stone Mountain There was a Stone Mountain? Why didn’t you mention this? I would have sent help, or requested emergency leave, or something!”
“I had Yuki with me for most of the time, and there isn’t much that you can handle that she can’t. Actually…” Kel tilted her head to one side, thoughtfully. “You know, I can’t think of anything at all?”
“Kel, this isn’t funny!”
“I think it’s funny,” said Kel, shrugging. “Anyway, I don’t understand. Wasn’t it Stone Mountain that you were ‘warning’ me about?”
“No, of course not! I was talking about those Eyrie’s Nest girls who worshipped the ground you walked on back when you were a tilt-silly squire!”
Kel blinked at him. “Really? … Huh.”
“Really? Really? All you can say is really? Kel—”
“Yuki!” Kel interrupted. “I broke your husband again. Come fix him! He’s getting loud and irritating.”
“Fix me? Ha! I’ll fix you, you—”
Yuki wasn’t all that amused when she had to break up their scuffle, though that may have had more to do with the toddlers having a little imitation battle in what was possibly the muddiest puddle in the kingdom.
Fandom: Tortall: Protector of the Small
Pairing/Characters: Kel, gen
Rating: G
Word Count: 6306
Summary: Kel subs(titute teachers) for Padraig as training master for a year.
Notes: Despite having first read First Test back in 2001, I have never read a PotS fic before. I have no idea what the fanon or common tropes might be, so if this is an inferior version of every other PotS fic out there, I apologise. Kind of. Honestly, when there’s a trope I like, I tend to be very happy to read 8 billion fics renditions of it (and then I mourn the dearth of fics containing that trope. Only 8 billion! How have I survived this paucity!?). So maybe I don’t actually apologise at all.
When Keladry of Mindelan, Lady Knight of this realm of Tortall, received orders to report to Corus to serve as instructor for the kingdom’s up and coming knights, she was pleased, and surprised at her own pleasure.
The position would be temporary—Padraig haMinch had been severely injured during a summer raid on his home fief, and he had been granted leave to remain with his family for one year while he recovered. In the meantime, Kel would take on his role in the palace, teaching and guiding the pages and squires. She hadn’t thought she’d ever look forward to a tame posting, but after five years as a fighting knight, commanding soldiers and civilians alike, she was ready for a change of pace, especially one that promised to be relatively brief.
As she packed her belongings in Mindelan, she found herself whistling cheerfully. Even after so long away, heading back to Corus felt like returning home.
“Lady Knight,” Sir Gareth the Younger of Naxen greeted her. “Their majesties appreciate your service during these difficult times, et cetera et cetera. The hellions, of course, won’t likely care much who their torturer du jour is, and if they’re awake enough to notice that their training master has changed, we’ll know you’re doing your job wrong.”
Kel stared at him blandly.
“Ha, ha,” hinted Sir Gareth, and then sighed when she remained unmoved. “An entire generation of knights with all the humour and mirth beaten out of them. Thanks ever so, Wyldon.”
“I will be certain to pass on your kind words when I see my lord next, sir,” said Kel politely.
Sir Gareth pulled a face at her. “Here are your orders,” he said, handing her a sheaf of papers. “You’ll find the lessons, teachers, schedules, students—everything in there. Go away before your aggressive chivalry wears off on me, and I start doing something terrible, like saying my pleases and thank yous.”
Kel bowed and accepted the papers, not bothering to hide her grin this time. “Thank you, sir,” she said earnestly.
Sir Gareth appeared unimpressed. “Oh, and Keladry—I also promised to pass this off to you.” He rummaged at his desk and came back with a slightly crinkled letter. “A note from a stubbornly mirthful peer of yours.”
“Sir,” Kel thanked him, and rolled her eyes when she saw Nealan of Queenscove’s scrawl covering the letter. She’d just seen him a week before—what could be so important that he needed to send her this now?
After she had excused herself and been led to her new suite of rooms, she dumped the pile of parchment on her new desk and opened Neal’s letter.
Mindelan—
It began, and she had to pause to roll her eyes once more.
Run while you still can. I’m serious. Have you seen who’s on the new roster this year?
Your very best friend,
Neal
Kel sighed. This was just like Neal, trying to scare her off before she’d even started.
She dug through the pile of parchment until she found the lists of returning and incoming pages and squires.
It only took a moment to see whom Neal must have meant. Her stomach dropped to her boots. For the first time, she wondered if she would be capable of the task she’d accepted.
Rhys of Stone Mountain
Maybe she still had time to back out.
She could confront the boy immediately, of course. Reassure him that the famed bad blood between her and Joren would not affect her treatment of any of her students, including him. Of course, the boy would almost certainly not believe her, and he’d see her attempted cease fire as a vulnerability.
She could ignore the issue entirely. Or try to, anyway. The boy would then probably accuse her of neglecting his training.
When Kel headed down to the page’s wing to meet her new charges and escort them to the dining hall, she still hadn’t decided on a course of action. She’d manage, she knew. She’d always been good at thinking on her feet.
This turned out to be a blessing for more reasons than she’d expected.
A crowd of children—surely Kel hadn’t been that young when she was a page!—were snarling and shoving at one another in a way that looked about half a minute from becoming a full-out brawl.
Kel took a moment to survey the situation. Four boys and three girls—all of the female knights-in-training—faced off against six boys, while five other boys attempted to keep the peace. The argument seemed to be largely political in nature, which surprised Kel. She would have expected personal conflicts to be more likely to prompt fighting on the first day of training. The remaining pages stood by their doors as instructed, watching the brewing fight warily.
Among the neutral watchers was a small, ten-year-old boy with familiar pale blue eyes and white-blond hair. He didn’t have the same unearthly beauty that Joren of Stone Mountain had once possessed, but the similarity in their appearances was still jarring.
Neutral in this fight though the boy may seem, that didn’t necessarily mean anything. Joren had always possessed the ability to cause fights wherever he went with a few mildly expressed words. This Rhys could very well be the same.
One of the boys, a first year, caught sight of Kel and gasped dramatically. Slowly, the other boys and girls began to quiet as they noticed her presence, until the argument was reduced to two pages, a girl and a boy, who were too caught up in their shouting match to notice the frozen silence around them.
Kel waited another moment, but when they showed no signs of stopping on their own, she said pleasantly, “Oh, don’t mind me—I’ll wait.”
The children snapped to attention, the little boy pale and the little girl bright red.
“Are you ready to begin?” asked Kel, tone still friendly.
The pages glanced at one another uncertainly. “Yes, si—ma’am,” said one of the older boys. He was big, already nearly as tall as Kel, but his eyes skidded to the side, avoiding eye contact.
“‘Sir’ will do,” Kel informed the hall at large. She smiled at everyone. “Well, we seem to be running a little behind schedule. My own training master used to always tell us that tardiness costs lives, and I must say that I agree with him. Even beyond that, I’m hungry. I don’t particularly want to delay my meal so that I can watch you demonstrate your total ignorance of the current public policies. Since you made me wait for my dinner tonight, I will be making you wait for your dinner tomorrow night—and every other night this week. You will report to the dining hall at the standard time, and you will stand at attention and wait for fifteen minutes before you will be permitted to enter. Is that understood?”
Throughout this entire speech, her voice did not deviate from its soft, mild tone. When the pages only stared at her blankly, she hardened her voice. “I believe I asked you a question, pages.”
“Yes, sir!” the pages chorused. Some looked stunned, others resentful.
Kel raised her eyebrows when the pages remained where they were, staring at her. “Don’t you have somewhere you’re supposed to stand, or have you not been assigned rooms yet?”
The pages scattered, hurrying to stand before their own doors.
Kel strode forward, letting the pages fall into line behind her. When she reached the end of the hall, she turned to face the line of pages. “And now, older pages, you have the opportunity to choose which of the younger pages you’re going to sponsor. Valyrs of Copper Valley, step forward!”
Slowly, the new pages were selected by older ones, until finally—
“Rhys of Stone Mountain, step forward!”
The little boy came forward, steps quiet.
“Who will sponsor Stone Mountain?”
Silence reigned in the hall, reminiscent of the silence that she, the first known female page, had faced when seeking a sponsor. Her heart clenched.
Stone Mountain was still a prominent noble family, but the shock over Joren’s death during his Ordeal had left many uneasy. On top of that, there was a sort of social logic to the pages’ silence—Kel’s old feud with Joren remained infamous. However you feel about the Stone Mountains or the current politics or lady knights, why set yourself against your training master on the first day by allying yourself with the family of her old enemy?
“The next bell will ring any moment now, and I’m still not eating,” Kel mused aloud. “I hope this doesn’t become a theme of this year.”
The pages shuffled around nervously, but still no volunteers appeared.
“Should I send for a chair?” asked Kel.
One of the little girls stepped forward. Kel had met this girl before, during a tournament when Kel had been a squire. The girl raised her chin stubbornly and said, “I will sponsor him, sir.”
Several of the boys scoffed. Rhys of Stone Mountain's expression did not change from its blank set.
Will people call him the Lump, too, the way they did me? Kel wondered to herself.
She surveyed the girl. Coming in now, knowing none of these children well, put Kel at a disadvantage. She could not tell if the girl was sincere in her offer of sponsorship, or whether she planned to use the position to torment Rhys, as Joren had once planned to do to Kel.
Kel withheld a sigh. She knew of no reason to deny the girl the opportunity to sponsor Rhys, and enough time had already been wasted for one day. Kel would simply have to monitor the situation closely.
“Excellent,” Kel said, flashing her students a bland smile. “Time for dinner.”
“I need some watchers,” Kel told her audience. “Someone to report back to me about fighting and hazing among the pages.” Kel thought about what she’d just said for a moment, and then quickly added, “I’m not looking for spies, mind. Just someone… trustworthy, who blends into the background.”
Oh, blast, Kel thought. I guess I am looking for spies.
“Anyway,” she said, “You can see why I thought of you. I know this isn’t what you expected from your time in Corus, but would you be willing to do this?”
She looked out at her gathered audience. An assortment of short beaks and snouts looked back at her soberly.
The answer, when it came, was predictably loud.
Hand-to-hand combat, staff drills, sword drills, archery lessons, riding lessons, weapons training on horses, staged combat drills—the schedule that had drained all the life and energy out of Kel as a page somehow seemed even worse as an instructor. Even for the lessons that she didn’t lead, she had to be present and aware at all times. Kel had plenty of practice teaching groups of all sizes and ages, but the return to the nonstop palace training schedule was making her yearn for the good old days of governing refugee camps, splinters and permanent mud included.
Still, she took her comforts where she could.
Kel was an unapologetic morning person, and if a shred of poetry existed in her stoic warrior’s heart, it would be in honour of that wonderful, pre-dawn stillness, when, alone with her practise glaive, she could look into herself and see the calm lake of her emotions, and look outside of herself and see the powerful gale of her blade moving around her, two opposites living in perfect balance.
(It would be a haiku. She had never learned to understand the silly, flowy poetry of Tortall, with its verses and rhyming schemes, even after now having lived more years in her first homeland than in the Islands.)
Now, though, Kel had discovered a new appreciation: the afternoon hours, when, after her meetings with the other training instructors, she was able to escape to her office, secure in the knowledge that the children were busy being tormented by the Mithran priests responsible for their academic education.
Kel could work on her reports, plan her lessons, and sometimes even catch up on her correspondence, and the world around her, while not drenched in that beautiful predawn silence, was at least not swinging incorrectly held sticks in her general direction.
Kel was penning a letter to Neal—I am not certain that I take your meaning, as my students this year show exceptional promise and enthusiasm—and cheerfully imagining his face upon opening her letter of bald-faced lies when a flurry of chirping approached her unshuttered window.
Kel sighed, cleaned her pen, capped her ink, and stood. The dinner bell would be ringing soon; the sky outside was just beginning to darken.
It seemed that now, as in the past, the students were happy to spend their free hour between their final afternoon class and dinner harassing their weaker classmates.
“Show me,” she told the sparrows grimly, and they led her through the halls like a feathery hurricane.
The children were brawling near the staircase leading to the mages' tower.
As the sparrows vanished, their job completed, Kel paused for a moment to remember fondly her own fight in this hall, more than a decade ago. That had been when she'd first met Owen properly. A friendship forged in blood, she thought wryly.
She surveyed the fighters. Fiona of Eyrie's Nest was there, along with her younger sister. They were facing off against four older boys. So far it seemed unfortunately familiar.
But there, kneeling on the floor and gathering the pieces of a broken pitcher, was Rhys of Stone Mountain, his face blank and his fingers bloody and shaking.
Kel could follow the clues easily enough, but this wasn't the turn of events she had expected.
"I hope it goes without saying," Kel said, watching as the children's movements froze, "that I am extremely disappointed in you. Why, I don't think that punch would have crushed a spider, Cormer. Hard to think that by this time next year, you'll be expected to take on spidrens."
The boy in question flushed, furious.
"Oh, but I don't want you to think I'm singling you out. That performance was terrible all around." She smiled pleasantly at each of them in turn. "Report to my office and wait for me there. I'll speak with you one-by-one."
When none of the children moved right away, she added, "Now," and watched as they scurried on their way.
"Do you think it's immoral to have the animals spy on the children for me?" she asked the shadows of the tower staircase.
Veralidaine Sarasri stepped forward lightly. "I suppose that depends on the situation. The sparrows told me you're just interested in the fights."
Kel stared at the empty flagstones, thinking of the scene she'd encountered there. "When I was a page, I often thought my instructors encouraged hazing simply by willfully ignoring it. I didn't want to make that mistake."
"That makes sense," said Daine. "And how will you deal with it now that you've caught them?"
Kel sighed. "I have no idea. Why are people so cruel?"
"Why do you think I prefer the People to two-leggers?" Daine countered with a crooked smile.
"You're the wisest of us all," said Kel. In that moment, she wasn't even joking.
The children were all lined up against the wall across from her office. Rather than staring stoically at the wall opposite them, they were taking turns glaring balefully at one another.
"I'm glad to see that you didn't get lost on your way here," Kel told them. "Artho of Cormer, you first."
It was no surprise to Kel to learn that Cormer, Paxton, Marshland, Silver Peak, and the two Eyrie's Nest sisters had all mysteriously fallen down.
Kel didn't bother with that script when it came to Stone Mountain.
"Tell me," asked Kel, "how are you getting along with your sponsor?"
Rhys stiffened.
"That well?"
The boy remained stubbornly silent.
"If I were to come across a group of children fighting, I would wonder what—or who—the purpose was. And if those fighters had been the six children I just spoke with, I would be especially curious, since there's no political disagreement or blood feud that I know of between their families. So they were fighting for personal reasons. What might those have been?"
Rhys said, "They fell down, sir."
Kel smiled at him. "I believe that's true. And you fell down as well."
The boy's hands clenched. "Yes, sir."
"Since that's all cleared up, I still want to know: how are you getting along with your sponsor?"
"She showed me how to get to where I need to be, sir. We haven't argued."
Kel hummed. "I'm glad to hear it. And is there anything else you think I should be aware of?"
"No, sir."
"Well, then. Report to the stables after the first afternoon bell on your rest day for punishment work. You'll also complete an essay on nonviolent means of resolving disputes, to be turned in on the same day. Any questions?"
"No, sir."
"I look forward to reading your thoughts. Dismissed."
When the little boy had left her office, Kel put her head in her hands.
It's not my place to be his friend, she reminded herself. Nor his confidante.
She looked down at her desk and saw her unfinished letter to Neal. Somehow, the teasing falsehoods in her letter didn't seem as funny anymore.
“Hey, Yuki,” said Kel in Yamani. The other woman had only recently arrived in Corus, returning ahead of the train surrounding Princess Shinkokami, Lady Hanami, and Prince Roald, who had been away on state visits. “May I ask you something?”
Yuki’s eyes flickered up from where she was preparing the tea. “Of course! We are friends, after all.”
Kel had to hold back a smile. “That’s true. Then, if a hated enemy were to protect you, how would you feel?”
“Upset, I suppose,” Yuki said without hesitation.
Kel nodded. “And say that the event may have been a little embarrassing for you.”
Yuki’s calm face and sweet tone didn’t change when she said, “Is that so? In that case, I would absolutely feel resentful.”
“Yes, wouldn’t you? So then, how would you fix this?”
One of Yuki’s elegant eyebrows went up. She poured the tea, and Kel bowed slightly in thanks as she accepted her cup. “As a teacher, that would be difficult.”
Of course Yuki had seen through Kel’s vague language to her real reason for asking. Even if Kel had tried to hide it, she had always been transparent to the other woman. “Even so, surely something must be done!”
”Not at all,” said Yuki firmly. “This is a problem for family, or friends, or classmates.”
“I don’t trust this family at all, and I’m not sure the student has any friends.”
Yuki sighed. “And what about you? Does this child trust you?”
“...No,” said Kel grudgingly.
Yuki nodded. “That is what I thought. Without trust, nothing can be fixed.”
“But—” Kel protested.
“Kel, you are not listening to me.” Yuki paused, waiting for Kel’s acknowledgement before continuing as though Kel were one of her silly mage students. “You. Cannot. Fix. This.
Kel very nearly scowled in frustration, but she checked herself at the last moment. “Then who can?”
Yuki lazily snapped her fan open to cover her face, but not before Kel caught sight of her smirk. “At last,” she said. “You have asked the correct question.”
Kel had probably spent more time teaching staff-fighting to beginners than anyone other than a drill sergeant or a long-term palace training instructor like Sir Gareth the Elder. Already something of an expert with the weapon even as a probationary page, her many years tutoring her friends’ sponsored pages in the weapon, and then teaching it to refugees and convict soldiers during the war and its aftermath, both combined to give her a level of experience perhaps never before seen in a new palace training instructor, who had in some cases rarely touched a staff or spear since they had been pages themselves.
Sergeant Len, her current co-instructor in the staff, was likewise new to his position, but he had spent the past ten years training army recruits in the weapon. On his introduction to her, he gave her the deep, stiff bow of someone who was familiar with working under knights and was already expecting to do all the work and receive none of the credit.
These days, he looked at her as though he couldn’t decide if she was a nightmare risen from the deep or Mithros’s own daughter.
“We may have to tell the smithy that we won’t need the training swords this season after all, Sergeant Len,” said Kel, turned to him as though speaking privately, but in a tone that projected across the entire yard, even of the sound of wood striking wood. “We can’t start a group of pages on sword forms when they can’t even manage a solid high strike.”
Sergeant Len gave her a withering look, but he called for the pages to stop. “Show the lady knight the first position.”
Not even bothering to hide their scowls under their dripping sweat, the pages obeyed, already familiar with this routine.
Kel walked up the line, surveying their stances closely. Truth be told, they were doing fairly well. Still, Kel was a firm believer in the basics—they were useful on their own and could easily be built on with fancier moves, but no amount of skill in advanced weaponry could make up for a weak foundation.
“What’s wrong with your feet?” asked Kel. “Go on, look down.”
A number of pages guiltily shifted their toes back into position.
“Better,” said Kel. “But why? Why does it matter where your feet point?”
“Because when we’re training with real weapons, we’ll hurt ourselves if we do it wrong?”
Sergeant Len burst out laughing, and Kel’s eyebrows shot up. “Are you under the impression that the staff isn’t a real weapon? I assure you, I’m perfectly capable of taking down fully trained, sword-wielding soldiers with a staff. And you, sergeant?”
He grinned meanly at the wide-eyed pages. “Once took down four Scanrans at a time, me with naught but a staff and ‘em armed to the teeth.”
Kel nodded seriously, her blank expression not showing that she, too, was impressed by that declaration. But she’d seen enough of the sergeant’s skills to know it was no empty boast. “The staff isn’t simply a practice stick for beginner’s,” she said mildly. “It is an incredibly powerful, incredibly versatile tool. But yes, part of its versatility is that the basic staff forms can be applied to any number of weapons, including spears and swords. Regardless of what weapon you’re using, a weak stance means that your opponent can easily use speed or strength to overwhelm you. A weak and bad stance means that you might trip over your own feet. I assure you, that looks just as unimpressive with a sharp metal stick as it does with a blunt wooden one. A strong stance will save your lives one day. Second position!” she called abruptly, and the pages hurried to comply.
She walked the line again, speaking to each and every page, and sparing a moment to reminisce on how her own training instructors had either blatantly ignored her or found fault in her every move. “Elbow down,” she told one page. “Your torso is misaligned,” she told another. “Relax your grip,” she told Rhys of Stone Mountain, and she felt his eyes follow her as she continued down the line.
Finally, she nodded to Sergeant Len. “From the top!” he yelled. “Flow through them. First! Second! Third! Fourth! Fifth!” And on.
The pages transitioned between the stances smoothly. They weren’t perfect, but they were good. Very good. She glanced at the sergeant, who was doing his level best to hide the proud gleam in his eyes under a dark scowl.
“Well,” she said, when the pages reached and held their final stance. “I suppose I’ll have to tell the smithy that we’ll be starting with swords after all.” The pages didn’t cheer, but there was a spring in their exhausted steps as they put away their staffs.
It was Midwinter, and in the brief recess, Kel had finally caught up on her reports, her seemingly infinite correspondence, and had even made some plans for altered lesson plans when outdoor training resumed.
At long last, she had time to herself. Of course, the grounds were practically unpassable in the storms, but she could do anything else she wanted, indoors—read one of those books Neal kept sending to her, even.
With cheerful determination, she grabbed a book off the shelf—this one was a present from years ago that she’d kept putting off—and opened it in front of her, doggedly making her way through the dry and increasingly convoluted script.
Fifteen minutes later, she’d barely made it to page three, but she had made a great deal of progress doodling all over the corner of a failed letter draft.
When the knock sounded on her door, she’d progressed to page five, and her doodles had been elevated to terrible poetry. She was so relieved to be interrupted that she nearly cried.
“Enter,” she called, leaning back in her chair.
In slid a little group of students, including Rhys of Stone Mountain, and Kel had to fight to keep her eyebrows from shooting up in surprise. Still, even after all these years, her Yamani training held, and she greeted the children with a suitably blank face.
“Sir,” said Fiona, on being required to explain their presence. Kel wondered if she had drawn the short straw or the long one in being named spokesperson. “We—that is, several of us pages—were hoping that we might be able to access one of the page’s indoor training rooms to keep practising over the holiday, sir.”
Kel steepled her fingers in front of her nose. “The holiday is only for a few days,” she responded, wry. “I can’t imagine that your muscles will atrophy and your skills will vanish in quite that length of time.”
“Well, no, but it’s only that, well, we’re a bit behind anyway, sir, and we could use the chance to catch up.” Fiona wasn’t quite able to meet Kel’s eyes, at that. Her cheeks were slightly red. Ashamed, maybe?
“You’re not as behind as you seem to think,” Kel answered mildly. “But even if you were, training today wouldn’t give you any edge. Any major improvements that you make will be the result of ongoing, regular practice.”
“Yes, sir.”
When Kel didn’t continue, Fiona became a little flustered. “I—We apologise for bothering you, sir, you do look very busy. We’ll just be on our way, then.”
Kel raised an eyebrow. “I didn’t dismiss any of you.”
Fiona turned even more red.
“I’m willing to open one of the rooms for you for an hour every day. You won’t be permitted to enter the room unsupervised. I’ll see about arranging for one of the squires to sit in with you. If you do this, you’ll make it worth their while—at least three of you will attend on any given day. If three of you can’t make it, you’ll get a message into the hands of the attending squire no later than half an hour before the arranged meeting time. Finally, this isn’t a closed club—any and all of the pages are welcome to take advantage of this opportunity for extra training. Are we clear?”
The pages nodded vigourously, looking relieved.
Kel lowered her hands back down to her desk and her eyes caught on what she’d been working on when the pages had entered.
World full of serenity
Before the sunrise
“As for today,” she said drily, “I think I’ll be able to accommodate you myself.”
Midwinter had brought with it something worse than boredom—it brought people.
Among the long-term, year-round palace residents, almost all of them had been present during her years as a page and squire, and though not all of them were approving of a female training master, her appointment was old news almost the same week as the announcement.
This was not so among the new-comers who had been trickling into Corus for the past month. If Kel had to suffer through one more delicately scandalised gasp or upturned sneer, she was going to punch someone.
“I suppose it’s obvious why her family didn’t believe she had any marriage prospects,” said one young nobleman—not a knight, no one Kel recognised—to another, both perfectly and unashamedly within easy earshot of her. “But surely they could have found her a place in a temple rather than resorting to… this.”
Kel met his eyes mildly. “Thank you for your concern, but I chose this life myself, independent of any marriage prospects that I may or may not have.” As the noblemen scoffed, she added, “But I understand your error—I assume you chose to study at Pelmry’s temple for similar reasons?” She smiled at him, her face a mask of good-intentioned politeness.
The man spluttered at her indignantly, and perhaps with good reason—even beyond the dig at his marriage prospects, not even Kel, with all her total lack of fashion knowledge, could possibly mistake the man’s expensive velvets and silks for the famously plain uniform of the god of scribes.
She spotted Yuki and Shinko waiting nearby at the other end of the corridor. “Oh, excuse me,” said Kel, sketching a bow. “I think my friend, the Princess Shinkokami, is asking for me.”
Perhaps the name-dropping was a little beneath her, but Kel was growing tired of this absurdity. This was the life she’d chosen with her eyes open, but she’d chosen it to dodge literal arrows, not verbal ones.
”Kel, what do you think?” asked Yuki slyly in Yamani when Kel joined them. ”They seem to get along well, those children.”
Kel glanced around to see where Yuki was looking. She caught sight of a small group of pages and mage students, all gathered together in a little huddle not far from where she’d confronted the unpleasant, probably-not-a-scribe-student nobleman. In fact, they were so close to where she’d previously been standing that there was no chance they hadn’t overheard her rather inelegant put-down. Kel simply raised her eyebrows at the cluster of children calmly, but when she turned around to face her friends again, she said in her blandest tone, ”What goes around, comes around, it seems. The eavesdropper has been eavesdropped on.”
Shinko and Yuki looked at one another serenely, though Kel could practically smell the mischief brewing between them.
”Oh dear! What did they hear?” asked Shinko, idly fanning herself.
”It’s not important. Just a little embarrassing.”
”Ah, I see,” said Yuki musingly, affecting a scholarly air. ”The life of a teacher seems so challenging! Every nook and cranny in the palace hides a student!”
”It’s really true,” Kel groused. “So, what were you talking about? Who and whom are close friends?”
Yuki raised an elegant eyebrow as if unimpressed by Kel’s obtuseness. ”Your family-less, friendless, sad student.”
Kel quickly thought back to the group she’d glimpsed behind her. The Eyrie’s Nest sisters, Cormer—perhaps they were friends now?—some mage students she wasn’t familiar with, and… Stone Mountain.
”And he’s still sad?” said Kel. Lady Matchmaker, you’ll have to try a little harder, won’t you?”
Yuki turned away slightly with a dramatically upturned nose that she must have learned from her obnoxious husband. Kel’s heart panged with the reminder that Yuki and the toddlers would be alone this midwinter—Neal had already written to say that he had been ordered to keep his post.
Well, not completely alone, Kel allowed, following her friends to a well-earned gossip session. Kel had been so worried about her friends finding a place in their strange new home, but they seemed to have settled in just fine.
Finally, midwinter passed, and the most obnoxious of the nobles left with it. Winter lightened into a wet and miserable spring, and spring dragged its way inch by inch into summer, bringing with it exams big and small—and the end of Kel’s appointment.
The moment that Kel ceremoniously returned the keys to Sir Gareth the Younger was bittersweet. She was, as always, excited to return to active duty, but it was hard to think of leaving behind so many bright young faces… And the palace baths.
She would really miss the palace baths.
“Keladry of Mindelan, I hereby relieve you of your burden of torment,” said Sir Gareth, not looking up from the library of scrolls he had spread across his desk. “Go and be merry getting clubbed in the head by Stormwings in the miserable mountains of the north.”
Kel bowed solemnly. “Yes, sir. I will make every effort to do so, though in my experience, Stormwings do not typically wield clubs, sir.”
Sir Gareth finally looked up at her, expression long-suffering.
“It’s the metal wings, sir,” said Kel helpfully. “Insufficient number of opposable thumbs, I believe.”
Sir Gareth looked back at his paperwork grumpily, but she could see a smile twitching at the corner of his mouth. “Go, Lady Knight, before I take drastic measures of revenge and make your teaching appointment permanent.”
“Going, sir,” Kel promised hastily, and left with a grin.
As she approached a turn in the corridor, she couldn’t help hearing—”from my father that Sir Padraig is finally coming back today. I, for one, will be relieved to have a real training instructor again.”
Kel recognised the voice as one of her snottier third-year pages—not by any means the most conservative of the group, but simply the loudest and most arrogant of them. She found herself more amused than offended. She suspected, given the painstaking improvement she had dragged out of this student in his staffwork over the course of the year, that someday, perhaps far in the future, he would have cause, if not the awareness, to thank her.
Then another voice piped up, and her heart squeezed. “I’m sure you are,” said Rhys of Stone Mountain, his little voice stronger than she had ever heard it before. “It must be a relief, not having to worry about being held accountable for your own poor performance.”
And Fiona of Eyrie’s Nest—”I heard that this is the first year you passed the little examinations without reservation from the judges.”
“That’s a dirty lie,” snarled the maligned boy.
“Sure it is,” said Rhys airily, with the same tone that Kel had occasionally observed in Yuki’s flock of mage students. “I’d be worried about next year’s big examinations, if I were you.”
The children sounded like they were gearing up for a fight. Kel rounded the corner and sighed. “Are you really going to make me assign you punishment duty after term has already ended?” she asked them.
“No, sir!” said Fiona, voice high with embarrassment.
“Good. I expect some of you still have packing to do?”
The pages bowed and vanished almost before she was finished speaking. She shook her head, allowing herself a smile. She wasn’t sure if she was pleased at her little group of defenders or disappointed in the quality of their insults. Well, perhaps that was yet another task for a knightmaster to teach a squire. These pages still had time to grow.
Kel and Hoshi had barely crested the hill when she heard, “Mindelan!” shouted from the top of the wall. She squinted up into the sun, and sure enough, there was her group of obnoxious friends—knights and soldiers, nobles and commoners.
She greeted her friends with hugs and shoulder pats, starting with Neal and Yuki’s toddlers, who had arrived a month before and were near incandescent with excitement.
Leaving Corus, coming back to the north—it was like leaving home for home.
“And I hope you appreciated my carefully smuggled out warning,” said Neal archly to Kel as the group headed back through the gates of their latest refugee-camp-come-village. “Though you’re still alive, so I assume you put it to good use.”
Kel rolled her eyes, hiding a grin. “You know that I can handle myself. Anyway, you were worrying for nothing—Stone Mountain was a very polite, nice little boy.”
Neal froze, staring at her.
Kel hesitated. “Neal? Everything alright?”
“Stone Mountain? Stone Mountain There was a Stone Mountain? Why didn’t you mention this? I would have sent help, or requested emergency leave, or something!”
“I had Yuki with me for most of the time, and there isn’t much that you can handle that she can’t. Actually…” Kel tilted her head to one side, thoughtfully. “You know, I can’t think of anything at all?”
“Kel, this isn’t funny!”
“I think it’s funny,” said Kel, shrugging. “Anyway, I don’t understand. Wasn’t it Stone Mountain that you were ‘warning’ me about?”
“No, of course not! I was talking about those Eyrie’s Nest girls who worshipped the ground you walked on back when you were a tilt-silly squire!”
Kel blinked at him. “Really? … Huh.”
“Really? Really? All you can say is really? Kel—”
“Yuki!” Kel interrupted. “I broke your husband again. Come fix him! He’s getting loud and irritating.”
“Fix me? Ha! I’ll fix you, you—”
Yuki wasn’t all that amused when she had to break up their scuffle, though that may have had more to do with the toddlers having a little imitation battle in what was possibly the muddiest puddle in the kingdom.