Lady Knight (3 page)

Above those walls and the palace flew Stormwings by the hundreds, males and females, like a swarm of hornets. The sun bounced off their steel feathers and claws, shooting beams at anyone who looked on. Higher the Stormwings rose until they were well clear of the palace. Slowly, lazily, they wheeled over the capital city, then streamed north over the army as if they pointed the way to battle.

2
TOBE

Riding with Third Company of the King’s Own, Kel had spent plenty of time slogging through mud and slush. She was used to that. It was her frequent riding companions, Prince Roald and Sir Nealan of Queenscove, who made her sometimes wish her family had stayed in the Yamani Islands. The bitter conditions were echoed by the moods of both young men. They were betrothed and in love with the women they were to marry. They moped. Kel tried to make them think of other things, but the moment conversation lagged, they returned to the contemplation of their Yamani loved ones.

Kel felt sorrier for Prince Roald. Two years older than Kel, the prince was to have married Princess Shinkokami in mid-May, before the arrival of word that Maggur had taken the Scanran throne. Instead of an expensive ceremony, he and Shinko had decided to put their wedding off. Both showed cheerful faces to the public, saying they had traded rose petals for arrows to arm their soldiers, but to their close friends their disappointment was plain.

Neal, usually dramatic in love, would not talk about his lady, Yukimi, at all. It was such a change from his normal behaviour that Kel was convinced he truly loved her Yamani friend. Before, he’d made high tragedy of his beautiful crushes and his own heartbreak, but not this time. Not over a plump and peppery Yamani.

With Roald on one side and Neal on the other, Kel had to wonder about her own sweetheart, Cleon of Kennan. They hadn’t seen each other in over a year. As a knight two years older than Kel, he was stuck in a northern border outpost, where he had been assigned to teach the locals how to defend themselves. He’d been unable to get or send letters during both winters. Had he forgotten her? She wasn’t even sure if he knew she’d survived her Ordeal.

I’ll write to him when I know where I’m to be posted, she promised herself. Maybe we’ll even be assigned to the same place. I’d like that.

She smiled at the idea. They’d never got much time alone: something had always interrupted them. Perhaps by now he’d be over his impractical idea they should marry before they made love, as proper young noblemen did with proper young noblewomen.

Nothing would come of waiting to marry. Years ago, Cleon’s mother had arranged his marriage to a young noblewoman with a fine dowry. Cleon thought that, given time, he might convince his mother that Kel would make a better wife. Kel was not so sure. As the youngest daughter of a family that was not wealthy, her dowry was small. She was also not ready to marry. She’d only just got her shield; there was so much to do before she could think of settling down. Cleon loved her, wanted to have children by her. She wanted love and children, too - someday. Not now. Not with Scanra ready for all-out war against Tortall. Not with a future that included Blayce the Nothing Man.

Romance wasn’t the only thing to think about, but it was more pleasant than reality. Knights used their powerful mounts and the wagons of armour, tack and weapons to break trail through snow and ice, clearing the way for the foot soldiers of the regular army. It was slow going.

At least Peachblossom, Kel’s infamous, temperamental warhorse, behaved. He was a strawberry roan: reddish hide flecked with white, and red-brown stockings, face, mane and tail. Eight years with Kel had cured him of his tendency to attack others. It was only when they got held up and he was bored that Kel might catch him eyeing Neal, his favourite target. When that happened, Kel excused herself and rode ahead to join Lord Raoul or Lady Alanna, the King’s Champion and the realm’s other female knight.

To everyone’s relief, the countryside offered dry quarters for the military. War parties rode north so regularly that local farmers made extra money by letting soldiers bed down in their barns. Officers and knights slept at Crown wayhouses. These large inns provided snug quarters and plentiful food, doubly welcome after a day in the cold and wet. Often villages encircled the wayhouses, offering shops and more places to find shelter for the night.

Each day as she walked into the comfort of a wayhouse, Kel hoped the Stormwings that flew above the army found only cold, damp perches for the night. She wished them ice-covered wings and frostbite in their human flesh. Each morning she saw the flash of their steel feathers and heard their jeering calls as the army marched. And each morning their numbers were as great as they’d been the day before.

Kel had been on the road ten days when they stopped in Queensgrace for the night. The Jug and Fire was the largest of three wayhouses there, so large that even first-year knights had rooms to themselves. By the time Kel got to her room after tending her mounts, a hot bath awaited her. She soaked until the mud and ice were out of her pores, then dried herself, dressed in clean clothes, and went down to eat with her friends. Except for the conversation of the villagers, who had come to see the nobles, the only sounds were the clatter of cutlery and occasional quiet requests for butter, salt, or the refill of a tankard.

Kel finished and thrust her plate back with a grateful sigh. A bowl of winter fruit sat on the table she shared with Neal and her year-mates, reminding her of her horses. They deserved a treat after that day’s work. She scooped up two apples and excused herself.

A shortcut through the kitchens meant she was outside for only a couple of yards rather than the width of the large courtyard. It also meant she entered the stable unnoticed, through a side door rather than the main entrance.

The long building lay in shadow, the lanterns being lit only around the front entrance. The horses dozed, glad to be under shelter. Kel was letting her eyes adjust to what light there was when she heard the hard whump! of leather on flesh, and a child’s yell.

“I tol’ ye about foolin’ around the horses when there’s work to be done,” a man snarled. He stood two rows of stalls over from Kel, his back to her. He raised his right hand; a leather strap dangled from his fist. “You’re supposed to be in that kitchen washin’ up, you thankless rat-turd!” Down plunged the hand; again, the sound of a blow as it struck, and a yelp.

Kel strode quickly but silently across the distance between her and the man. The next time he drew his arm back, she seized it in one iron-fingered hand, digging her nails deep into the tender flesh between the bones of his wrist.

“You dare - ” the innkeeper growled, turning to look at her. He was bigger than Kel, unshaven and slope-shouldered. His muscle came from hoisting kegs and beating servants, not from eight years of combat training. His eyes roved from Kel’s set face to her personal badge, a grey owl on a blue field for House Mindelan, and below it, Kel’s own ornament of crossed glaives in cream lined with gold. There were two stripes of colour for the border, the inner ring cream, the outer blue. They meant she was a distaff, or female, knight.

The innkeeper knew who she was. That information spread quickly everywhere Kel went. “This’s no business of yours; lady,” he said, trying to yank free of her. “Look, he’s always ditchin’ chores, never minds his work. Likely he’s out here to steal. Leave me deal with him.”

The boy, who sat huddled in a corner of the empty stall, leaped up and spat at the innkeeper’s feet. He then bolted across the aisle and into the next stall.

“No!” shouted Kel, but it was too late. The boy slipped in manure and skidded to a halt under Peachblossom’s indignant nose. “Peachblossom, leave him be! Boy, he’s mean, get out now!” While the gelding had learned to live near others like a civilized creature, he could not be approached by just anyone.

Peachblossom lowered his muzzle to sniff the ragged scrap of humanity before him. The boy waited, perfectly still, as the big gelding whuffled through his guest’s hair and under his arms, then gently lipped the boy’s nose. Kel waited, horrified, for the shriek of agony that would come when Peachblossom bit.

The shriek never came. Peachblossom continued to inspect the newcomer inch by inch.

“Milady, you oughtn’t go between a man an’ his servants,” the innkeeper said, trying to be agreeable. “I’ll never get him to do proper work now.” He tried to wrest his hand from Kel’s grip. She tightened her muscles, digging even deeper into his wrist. He couldn’t shake her loose, and he was afraid to anger a noble by striking her.

As he struggled, Kel inspected the skinny urchin who had so bewitched Peachblossom. The shadows around the lad’s deep-set blue eyes were not all from lack of sleep. There was an old black eye, a newer bruise on one cheekbone, and a scabbed cut across his sloping nose. The boy glared at the innkeeper, his chin square and determined. There were new welts on his arm and back visible through holes in his shirt. A slit in half-rotten breeches revealed a long, recent bruise. He was barefoot, his feet red and chapped. His matted hair might be blond if it were clean.

As she watched, he reached up and gently stroked Peachblossom’s muzzle.

Horse magic, Kel thought. It has to be. And this idiot treats a lad that useful like a whipping boy. She looked at the innkeeper. Fury boiled in her veins, but she kept her face calm, allowing no emotion to escape. It was a skill she had perfected. “Tell me he is not your son,” she said mildly.

The innkeeper made a face. “That stray pup? We took him in of charity, fed and clothed him and gave him a home. He works here. I’ve the right to discipline him as I please.”

“You would lose that right if he weren’t forced to depend on you. He’d be long gone.” Her voice was still mildly pleasant. Her inner self, the sensible part, shrieked that she had no business doing what she was about to do. She was on her way to a war; boys took much more looking-after than sparrows, dogs, or horses.

“Let him starve? That would be cruel,” the man insisted. Looking at him, Kel realized that he believed it. “He’s got no family. Where can he go?” demanded the innkeeper. “But he can’t just leave work. Boys need discipline. Elsewise he’ll go as bad as the feckless Scanran slut that whelped him an’ left him on the midwife’s step.”

“If he was left with the midwife, how did he come to you?” Kel asked.

“She died. We bid for the boy’s indenture. Paid for seven years, we did. Been more trouble than he’s worth, but we’re gods-fearin’ folk, an’ charity be a virtue.” The man looked piously towards the ceiling, then at Kel. “Forgive my sayin’ so, milady, but this be no affair of yours.”

Kel released him. “I think the district magistrate would find your treatment of this boy to be very much his affair,” she informed the man. “Under the law indentured servants have some rights. What did you pay when you bid for his services?”

“You can’t buy his contract,” protested the innkeeper. “It ain’t for sale.”

Kel wrapped both hands in his tunic and dragged his face down to hers. “Either tell me, or I visit the magistrate tomorrow, and you’ll have no say in the matter,” she informed him. “This boy is an indentured servant, not a slave. Accept my coin now, or have him taken with no payment tomorrow, it’s all the same to me.”

When the innkeeper looked away, she released him, knowing she had won.

“Two copper nobles,” growled the man.

“One,” said the boy grimly. “Only one, an’ I been workin’ for ‘im for three year.”

“Lyin’ little rat!” snapped the innkeeper, darting to Peachblossom’s stall. The gelding lunged without touching the boy at his feet and snapped, teeth clicking together just in front of the innkeeper’s face. The man tried to run backwards and fell, ashen under his whiskers.

Kel looked in her belt purse. She wouldn’t have paid a copper bit for ten boys in that condition, but she wanted to be rid of the innkeeper. She held up two copper nobles. “I’ll take his indenture papers before you have this. Get them, right now.”

The man fled the stable.

Kel sighed and walked into Peachblossom’s stall. “You’re getting slow,” she informed the gelding. “Time was you’d have had his whole arm in your teeth.”

Peachblossom snorted in derision and backed up.

“Not that I’d mind,” Kel admitted, looking at the lad. “A good bite would keep him from hitting people with that arm for a while. But I suppose it would make a fuss.” She propped her hands on her hips, disgusted with herself. Why had she done this?

Even as she asked herself if she’d run mad, she knew that she couldn’t have done anything else. She couldn’t walk away when someone was bullied.

Kel inspected the boy. Clothes, particularly shoes, were required. His present rags would have to be burned. He needed a bath and a haircut. He probably had lice. Shaving his head and scrubbing him with lice-killing soap would eliminate that problem. He didn’t look old enough to need shaving anywhere else. And he needed a healer.

Kel looked over at Hoshi’s stall, where Jump gnawed a bone. Chances were that it had not been intended for his supper, since there was quite a bit of meat on it. She only hoped the inn’s staff didn’t know who the thief was.

“Jump, will you get Neal, please?” Kel asked the dog. Jump thrust his bone under the straw, then trotted out of the stable. The boy followed the dog’s movements with wide eyes but made no comment that might draw Kel’s attention.

“What’s your name?” she asked. “And how old are you?”

The boy retreated under Peachblossom’s belly. He watched her warily from between the gelding’s forelegs.

After a moment he said, “Tobe, miss. Tobeis Boon. I think I’m nine.”

Kel repeated, “Boon?”

The boy nodded. “Auld Eulama said I musta been a boon to someun, though she din’t know who.”

“Eulama?” asked Kel.

“Midwife as reared me, best’s she knowed.”

Kel scratched her head. “Whose opinion is that?” she wanted to know, intrigued by his frank way of talking. “That she did the best she knew?”

“All Queensgrace, lady. They all say’t. Way they talk, it din’t do me much good.” It seemed Tobeis - Tobe - was as intrigued by Kel as she was by him. He inched forward.