you settle Peachblossom there,’ Raoul nodded to the empty stall beside Hoshi’s, ‘while we discuss other details?’
Kel led Peachblossom into his new stall and unsaddled him. More than anything she wanted to run back to the iron door of the Chamber of the Ordeal and snap her fingers at it. You see, she wanted to tell it, not a desk knight after all!
Neal was out when Kel returned. She stood before his closed door, disappointed. None of her other friends among the first-year squires – Seaver, Esmond, and Merric – were in their rooms either. Her news must wait: she had to pack. Unlike her friends, she would not be returning to the squires’ wing most winters. She was to live in rooms adjoining the Knight Commander’s, in a palace wing closest to the barracks that housed the King’s Own.
She was explaining things to the sparrows who had adopted her when Jump and the birds raced for the open door. Neal walked in. He was dead white; his green eyes blazed.
‘Neal, what’s wrong?’ Kel asked.
He actually wrung his hands. ‘Sit down,’ he told Kel. ‘Please.’
Kel sat.
He paced for a moment. Jump looked at him and snorted; the sparrows found positions on Kel and the furniture to watch. Crown, the female who led the flock, lit on Neal’s shoulder. She rode there for a moment, then peeped loudly, as if telling him to speak.
Neal faced Kel. ‘This wasn’t my idea,’ he said. ‘Remember that knight I was to see today?’ Kel nodded. ‘Well, the knight wants to take me,’ Neal continued, ‘and Father and the king say I should do it. They said that you are getting a very good offer, too. I want you to know I argued. I said it should be you. They say that’s a bad idea. That people might question if you were really good.’
Kel stared at her friend. What was wrong with him?
Neal took a deep breath. ‘Lady Alanna has asked me to be her squire. She’s a healer, Kel. That’s why Father wants me with her. Maybe that’s even why the king stuck in his oar. You know I wish I’d had more training. Lady Alanna says she’ll teach me. But I swear by Mithros I had no idea she was going to ask.’
Kel nodded dumbly. After all her hopes Lady Alanna had taken a squire, though she had done without for her entire career. The problem was, that squire was not Kel. It was Kel’s best friend.
‘Kel, please …’ Neal began. Then he looked around. ‘You’re packing. You’re – why are you packing? You’re not leaving?’ The worry in his face made her heart ache. Yes, he had the place she wanted, beside the realm’s most legendary knight, but this was Neal. They had fought bullies, monstrous spidrens, and hill bandits. They had studied together and joked on their gloomiest days. He’d shown her the palace ropes; she knew about his unrequited passions for unattainable ladies. The only secret between them was Kel’s crush on him.
I can’t turn on him, she thought. I can’t not be his friend, even if I can’t be his love. ‘Lord Raoul asked me to be his squire.’
Neal collapsed into a chair. ‘Raoul? I’ll be switched,’ he said, awed. ‘Lady Alanna told me you were looked after, but this? Gods all bless. Goldenlake the Giant Killer.’ He whistled. ‘This is very good. I love it. Not even the conservatives will question your right to a shield if he’s your master. He may be a progressive, but he’s still the most respected knight in Tortall. Even the ones who claim you’re magicked to succeed will have to shut up.’
‘What do you mean?’ Kel demanded. Sometimes Neal took forever to get to the point; sometimes, even when he got to it, the thing didn’t feel like a point at all. This was starting to feel like one of those times.
‘You’ll be in public view most of the time,’ Neal explained. ‘Not everyone you meet will be your friend, so they won’t lie for you, and some will have enough Gift of their own to tell if magic’s being worked on you. No one will be able to claim you did anything but what was under everybody’s nose after four years in the King’s Own.’
‘If I cared for their opinion, I’d be relieved,’ Kel informed her friend. ‘So you think this is good.’
He nodded vigorously. ‘I’m envious,’ he admitted. ‘Lord Raoul’s got to be the most easygoing man alive. My new knight-mistress is famed for wielding sharp edges – sword, knife, and tongue.’
Kel scratched her ear. She hadn’t considered the Lioness’s temper, though the realm’s sole female knight was infamous for it. ‘You’ll just have to get on with her,’ she said. She knew her words were silly as they left her mouth. Neal couldn’t just get on with anyone. He could no more resist poking at other people’s conceits or ideas than he could resist breathing.
‘I’ll manage,’ Neal said. ‘She and Father are friends, so she probably won’t kill me. Now,’ he went on, changing the subject, ‘why are you packing, if you have such a wonderful knight-master?’
‘I have to be ready to go with him at any time,’ she explained, sitting on her bed. ‘My room’s next to his. I don’t even know how often I’ll be in the palace – he’s on the road all year.’
‘We’ll see each other during the Grand Progress,’ Neal pointed out. ‘Unless – maybe you won’t … I know you wanted Lady Alanna.’
Kel had to make this better. ‘Not see you, when you won’t eat vegetables if I don’t nag you?’ she demanded. ‘I’ll bet Lady Alanna—’ Her throat tightened. Dreams died so hard, and this one she had kept for most of her life. ‘I’ll bet she doesn’t care what she eats, let alone what her squire does. I should send Crown along to peck you as a reminder.’
Neal’s answering grin was shaky, but it grew stronger. ‘As if these feather dusters would be separated from you,’ he retorted.
‘I hope they can,’ Kel told him. ‘I doubt even Lord Raoul will welcome fifty-odd sparrows.’
Neal slung his legs over the arm of the chair. ‘I bet he and Lady Alanna planned this. They’re friends, and she did say you were looked after. And she has to know what people would say if she took you.’
‘That maybe I was right to look up to her all these years? That if anyone can teach me how to be a lady knight, it’s her?’ Kel asked bitterly. She wished she hadn’t spoken when she saw the hurt in his face. Most times I can keep silent, she thought, folding a tunic with hands that shook. But the one time I say the first thing in my mind, it’s to Neal. I should have said that to anyone but him.
His eyes were shadowed. ‘You are angry.’
Kel sighed and straightened to work a cramp from her back. ‘Not with you.’ Never with you, she thought, wishing yet again that he liked her as a girl as well as a friend. ‘To tell you the truth, I don’t know what I feel. First I was just about as low as I could be – Neal, I had a vision.’
He raised an eyebrow. ‘My dear Kel, I’d say Jump, your sparrows, even Peachblossom are likelier to have visions than you. I have never known anyone who had both feet nailed to the ground.’
She had to smile. He was right. ‘It didn’t come from me,’ she informed him. ‘I was in the Chapel of the Ordeal—’
‘Finally!’ he interrupted. ‘You took your own sweet time in going—’
It
