LITMIR.BIZ

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she stubbed her toe, she remembered that she could only see through one eye. At least the blackened eye no longer ached so much.

      I could have had ice, Kel thought bitterly. But no. I had to be tough. I was mad when I chose this life, she decided as she unlocked her large shutters. I was stark raving mad, and my family was too polite to mention it. That’s what living with the Yamanis does to people. They get so well-mannered they won’t mention you’re crazy.

      She opened the shutters wide. Outside lay a small stone-flagged courtyard with a slender, miserable tree at the centre. The flock of sparrows perched on its branches headed for Kel, swirling around her in a rustle of feathers and a chorus of peeps. Except during winter, they preferred to sleep outside and join her for seed and water in the short grey time before sunrise. While most of the birds went straight to the dishes, a few landed on her shoulders and arms. Kel gently stroked their heads and breasts with a finger. She had nearly thirty after the spring nesting. Brown-and-tan females and males, the males also sporting black collars, they appeared to see Kel as a source of food and entertainment. They chattered to her constantly, as if they hoped that with enough repetition, this great slow creature would understand them.

      She was admiring the male whose pale-spotted head had earned him the name Freckle when something large and white vaulted the windowsill on her blind side. It landed beside her with a thump as the sparrows took to the air. She backed up to look at it properly.

      The dog Jump grinned cheerfully at her, tongue lolling. His crooked tail whipped the air briskly.

      ‘Absolutely not,’ Kel said firmly. She pointed to the window. ‘You live with Daine now! Daine!’

      Jump stood on his hind legs and thrust his heavy nose into Kel’s hand.

      ‘How did you know to come in here?’ Kel leaned out of her window. If she hadn’t been so vexed, she would have been impressed – it was four feet from the ground to her sill. She turned to glare at the dog. ‘Back to Daine, this instant!’ she ordered. ‘Out!’

      ‘Out?’ a quavering voice enquired. Lalasa stood at the dressing room door. ‘What did I—’

      Kel pointed to Jump.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

      Lalasa stared at the floor.

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

      Lalasa nodded. ‘Yes, my lady.’

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

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

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

      ‘What’s the matter, second-years? Tired?’ Kel had always thought that Hakuin Seastone, the Shang Horse, was improperly cheerful for a Yamani. Now he circled her and Neal, grinning. He was tall for an Islander, with plump lips and dark, almond-shaped eyes framed with laughlines. His glossy black hair was cropped short on the sides and long on top, so a hank of it always lay against his broad forehead like a comma. He wore plain practice clothes and went barefoot.

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