Squire. Tamora Pierce

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СКАЧАТЬ it felt just as real as anything.’

      He smiled crookedly. ‘Then here’s a word of advice – don’t touch the door again. That Chamber is a law to itself. No one knows how it works. It’s killed squires, Kel. Killed them, driven them mad—’

      ‘And left plenty to become knights,’ Kel pointed out before his imagination galloped away with him. ‘Like it will us.’ She refused to admit he’d raised goose bumps on her skin. I climbed down from Balor’s Needle, she thought, reminding herself of the day she’d finally lost her terror of heights. I can handle the Chamber of the Ordeal.

      Remembering the realness of her vision, Kel shivered. She checked her hands to make sure there were no ink blotches on them, then picked up a shirt.

      When Kel’s maid, Lalasa, returned from signing a lease for her dressmaker’s shop, she found Kel and Neal trying to fit Kel’s weapons-cleaning kit into a trunk that was nearly full. After shedding tears over the news – Lalasa was sentimental – she banished them, saying the palace staff would see to everything. There was nothing to do but go to lunch and share their tidings with their friends. They talked there until the second bell of the afternoon about where they all would go.

      When Kel returned to her room, only her night-things remained. Everything else had gone to her new quarters, though she wasn’t to report for duty until noon the next day. ‘I like to sleep late when I can,’ Raoul had explained. ‘It’s not something I get to do often. Neither will you, so take my advice, and sleep in.’

      Lalasa sat by the window, sewing basket open beside her, a wad of green cloth in her lap. A stack of neatly folded green clothes lay on a stool beside her.

      ‘I took the liberty of getting your new things from the quartermasters for the King’s Own, my lady,’ she said as Kel closed the door. ‘These are some of Lord Raoul’s spares – he gave word to use them – but grain sacks have a better fit.’ She clipped a thread and shook out the garment, a tunic in Goldenlake green bordered in yellow. Though Kel would ride with the Own, she served Raoul the knight, not the Knight Commander. ‘Try these, and the breeches,’ Lalasa ordered. She held out both. ‘I measured them against your clothes, but I want to double-check.’

      Kel stripped off tunic and breeches and donned the new clothes. Something had changed her retiring Lalasa into this brisk young female. Kel suspected that Lalasa’s getting her shop and dress orders from Queen Thayet may have caused it. They had both changed since their long, frightening walk down the side of Balor’s Needle six weeks ago. Kel thought that Businesswoman Lalasa was a treat; she still wasn’t sure about Squire Keladry.

      Lalasa gave the clothes a twitch and nodded. ‘Now these.’ Kel tried on two more sets of Goldenlake breeches and tunics while her maid pinned and straightened. Kel’s shirts, at least, would be the same white ones she’d worn as a page; it was one less piece of clothing to try on.

      ‘You’re not to take things to those sack stitchers at the palace tailors’,’ maid informed mistress. ‘They come straight to me, and not a penny will I take for the work.’ Her brown eyes filled with tears. ‘Oh, my lady,’ she said, her voice wobbling. ‘Out with all those men, and just a dog and some little birds and that dreadful horse to look after you.’

      Kel had to chuckle. ‘The animals look after me just fine,’ she said, offering the older girl her handkerchief. ‘And surely you’ll be too busy to work on my clothes.’

      ‘Never,’ Lalasa said firmly, and blew her nose. ‘Never, ever.’

      Kel looked at the sparrows perched on her bed. ‘I need to talk to you, all who can come,’ she said. ‘Crown? Freckle? Will you get the others?’

      The chief female and male of the flock that used to nest outside Kel’s window in the pages’ wing sped outside. The sparrows already in the room found perches. The rest of the flock soon arrived.

      Kel shook her head. Even after four years she felt odd talking to them as she would to humans, but they understood far more than normal birds. Ever since Daine, known as the Wildmage, had come to the palace, her magical influence had changed every animal resident. Kel’s dog Jump had refused to live with Daine, and deliberately worked his way into Lord Wyldon’s good graces so the training master would let him roam with the pages. Peachblossom had negotiated his no-spur agreement with Kel through Daine. The sparrows had moved in with Kel, who’d been feeding them, with the first winter snows. In less than a year they were defending her and acting as scouts for a spidren-hunting party. They had even found Lalasa on Balor’s Needle and fetched Kel to help.

      ‘I mentioned this, remember,’ Kel told the flock. ‘I have to go with my knight-master. It’ll be hard to keep up. I don’t know how often we’ll be here. Do you want to leave your nesting grounds? Salma told me she’ll go on feeding you, so you won’t go hungry. You don’t have to stay with me. It’s not that I don’t love you all,’ she assured the fifty-odd birds. ‘But this isn’t practical.’ She stopped, seeing all those black button eyes fixed on her. They were dressed as soberly as merchants in brown and tan, the males black-capped and black-collared, but Kel knew they were far from sober. She had seen them in battle, their tiny claws and beaks red with the blood of her enemies, or riding gleefully on Jump’s back. Most had come to the flock as newborns, raised in the courtyard and introduced to Kel by their elders.

      At last Kel sighed. ‘I can’t think of anything else. Either you understand me or you don’t.’

      Crown, named for the pale spot on her head and her imperious ways, hopped to Kel’s shoulder. She chattered at the flock, looking from face to face as a human might. At last she uttered a series of trills. Most of the flock took to the air. They circled Kel like a feathered cyclone, then sped out the window. When Kel walked over to see where they had gone, they were settled in their home courtyard one storey below.

      Kel turned to see five sparrows – three females, two males – land on Lalasa’s chair and sewing. The one-footed female named Peg settled on Lalasa’s shoulder with a peep. Lalasa smiled as she stroked Peg’s chest.

      ‘Who needs to talk?’ she asked, her voice wobbling. ‘I know what you mean. You are all welcome at my home.’

      ‘Peg fetched me the night Vinson grabbed you,’ Kel said. ‘I suppose she feels you belong to her now.’ She took Lalasa’s hand. ‘You are still part of Mindelan, too. If you need a voice at court, or help, or just a friend, I hope you will come to me.’

      Lalasa wiped her eyes on her sleeve. ‘I am still your maid, so it only makes sense that you bring me your clothes. I can never repay you for all you have done. I don’t even want to.’ She stood. ‘If you’ll excuse me, my lady, I need more green thread. You will sleep here tonight?’ Kel nodded. ‘Good. I should have the rest of these done by bedtime.’ She left before Kel could say anything.

      ‘These aren’t goodbyes,’ Kel told herself. ‘Just the next chapter in our lives.’ She looked at her bed to see who had stayed with her and Jump. Crown, the white-spotted male named Freckle, and ten other sparrows perched there.

      ‘You’ll come with me?’ she enquired.

      Crown nodded.

      ‘Thank you,’ Kel told them. ‘I hope you like our new quarters. Do you want to see them?’

       CHAPTER 2

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