Lady Knight. Tamora Pierce

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      After lunch, Wyldon, Kel, Merric, the captain, Owen, and a squad rode out to view the land immediately around the fort, returning with Elbridge’s regular patrol as the sun vanished behind the western mountains.

      That night the soldiers who rode with Lord Wyldon took supper in the barracks where they slept. Those who would remain to guard the camp – recovering wounded men, convicts, and such whole soldiers as Wyldon could spare – Dom’s squad, and the civilian loggers, carpenters, smiths, and men-of-all-work took their supper in the mess hall. The nobles, Captain Elbridge, and Dom shared a table at one end of the building.

      Listening to the men talk, Kel wished that Dom and his squad were to stay all summer, and not just because he was easy on the eyes. Cleaned up and wearing a fresh blue tunic, Dom was fair-skinned, with Neal’s curved brows and that same long nose, wide at the tip. Dom had a relaxed, comfortable charm that made anyone feel confident. That charm could help to ease Kel’s dealings with the men she had to command. Dom would influence those who believed Kel to be no warrior. Like Raoul, Dom had always taken Kel’s fighting skills as a matter of course. He would make it clear to any doubters that she pulled her weight in a fight or a march. She knew that she couldn’t depend on Dom, though. Once the real fighting began, he would return to Fort Steadfast and Raoul.

      Over supper, news from the palace and the border was traded. Kel let the others do the talking as she sneaked bits of meat to Jump. At last Lord Wyldon pushed his plate away. Duke Baird had finished some time ago, and Captain Elbridge was nearly done.

      ‘Keladry,’ Wyldon said quietly. ‘Time.’

      ‘Yessir,’ Kel said automatically. She extracted herself from her seat between Neal and Merric, then wiped her hands on a handkerchief. For a moment she nearly forgot and raised her hands to check her hair but stopped herself in time. It would not do for men whom she was to command to see her do something so feminine when her mind should be on business.

      I can’t do this, she thought desperately as she took a last swig of cider and set down her cup. I’m eighteen! Someone should be commanding me, not the other way around! Wyldon’s trusting me with their lives, and me with the paint still wet on my shield …

      Somehow her feet and legs carried her down the long rows of men and tables, past Tobe and Saefas to the open part of the hall. Before her now sat four squads of soldiers, forty men in uniform, and about sixty-five civilians who were all refugees. These were the first people she had to deal with in her new position, and they would carry their impression of her to those who would arrive soon.

      Kel looked for something to stand on and found a wooden box. She wiggled it when she put it in position, just to make sure it could bear her weight. The men, who had watched her come their way, chuckled quietly.

      Kel looked up and smiled. ‘There’s so much of me,’ she explained. ‘It would be undignified if I stepped on it and it broke.’

      Another, louder chuckle rose from them. One of the knots in her chest came undone. Just like the men of Third Company, they liked a joke at an officer’s expense. Carefully she stepped onto the box: it held her. She waited as men set down their forks and knives.

      As she waited, she looked them over, face by face. None of them, not even the healthiest soldier, was untouched by the hard times of recent years. She recognized the convict soldiers: they bore a silver circle on their foreheads. It would shine under hair, mud, or face paint; it could not be cut out with a knife. The only way to remove it was to use spells that were carefully guarded by palace magistrates. Even without the mark, Kel would have known the convicts. They were the thinnest of all, hollow-eyed and gaunt-cheeked. Right now they looked to be near exhaustion from a day of guard duty and unloading wagons.

      She would have to feed them up if they were to manage any serious fighting. They were criminals, of course. They’d no doubt deserved their sentences to the mines and quarries. She’d known two men who had been sentenced to prison, and she’d hated them for their crime. Presumably the men here were guilty of the same or worse, but surely the officers knew starved men had no strength to fight.

      One convict stood and walked between the tables, peering at Kel.

      ‘You, there,’ Captain Elbridge called. He fell silent; Kel guessed that Wyldon had told him to let her manage this. She kept her eyes on the approaching man. There was grey in his coarse-cut black hair, grey in the stubble on his chin, too. His nose was a long prow of bone, his eyes shadows in their sockets. From the darkness of his skin and from his features, he was kin to the tribes of the southern desert. He was too pale to be full-blooded Bazhir, and as he drew closer she saw his eyes were grey, not brown. His uniform was patched and worn; of course they wouldn’t give convicts the best, she realized. That irritated her. Are they supposed to come here to fight and die quickly, so we can make more room in the quarries and mines? she wondered, keeping her face mild and blank.

      ‘Can I help you, soldier?’ she asked when he stopped a yard from her.

      He rubbed his chin with bony fingers. ‘I begs pardon for my forwardness, lady knight,’ he said, awkwardly gallant, ‘but was you anywheres near the River Hasteren in summer, seven years gone? Hill country?’

      ‘Yes,’ Kel replied, puzzled. ‘Lord Wyldon took the pages there for summer exercises in camping and field craft.’

      ‘You seen any fighting, them days?’ the man asked. ‘Nothin’ big, just a scramble, like. With hillmen?’

      Now Kel was curious as well as puzzled. ‘We rode with the army when they cleaned out some hill bandit nests,’ she replied. ‘And some friends of mine and I got into a little trouble, which is how we learned bandits were in the area.’

      ‘I knew it!’ he cried, jubilant. ‘I thought ’twas you, but there’s more of you now. You should’ve seen the likes of her, boys,’ he said, turning towards the other convicts as he pointed at Kel. ‘We was all outlaws, livin’ on the edges, and this bunch of pages stumbled into our camp. We chased ’em back in a canyon, and her’ – he jabbed his finger at Kel – ‘she gutted ol’ Breakbone Dell, and him the meanest dog skinner you’d ever hope to meet. Stood there afoot, her and her spear, cool as meltwater with Breakbone ridin’ down on her with that neck-cutter sword of his. First time she got ’im in the leg, second in the tripes, and he was done. Her and six lads held us all back, just them. There she was, eyes like stone and that bloody spear in her hand. Lady.’ He bowed deep.

      Kel looked at him, not sure what to say. Finally she asked, ‘What’s your name, soldier?’

      ‘Me? Gilab Lofts – Gil. Lady. It’s – it’s good to see you well.’ He bowed again and returned to his seat, whispering with the men on either side of him.

      Kel waited for them to quiet once again before she said ruefully, ‘I’m not sure that being known for gutting a man is exactly a recommendation for a commander.’

      ‘It is in the north!’ cried someone. Several men laughed outright; others grinned. Kel felt the very air in the room lighten.

      ‘Well, perhaps it is,’ she admitted. ‘I’ve been away all winter, so I may have forgotten.’ This time they were quick to fall quiet, curious to hear what she would say. ‘So you won’t be calling me the girl that gutted Breakbone, my name is Keladry of Mindelan. Lady Knight Keladry of Mindelan. And it’s no good thinking I’m a southerner who’ll squeak at the sight of a mountain, either. My home fief is almost due west of here, by the sea. I’m a northerner by birth.’

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