Page by Tamora Pierce Read Free Book Online Page B

young.”
    He inspected a bruise on his wrist and touched a fingertip to it. A green spark flashed and the bruise faded. “Facts don’t matter with Joren and his crowd. Just gossip. Just making your friends angry enough to fight. I reminded them that gossip is a tricky weapon, that’s all. It cuts two ways.”
    Kel sighed. “I still don’t think you did me any good. I can take a few insults.”
    “You can - I can’t.” Neal peered out the door.
    “Hall’s empty. Shoo.” As she walked by, he added, “I consider myself chastised.”
    She stopped and turned back. “What you said about Garvey and Joren - it’s not an insult in Yaman. Some men prefer other men. Some women prefer other women.” Kel shrugged.
    “In the Eastern Lands, people life that pursue their loves privately,” replied Neal. “Manly fellows like Joren think it’s a deadly insult to be accused of wanting other men.”
    “That doesn’t make sense,” Kel said.
    “It’s still an insult on this side of the Emerald Ocean, my dear. Now, if I may shave before our bread-and-water feast?”
    Kel eyed Neal’s cheeks and chin. “You don’t need to.”
    Neal sighed. “I live in hope, as the priest said to the princess. If you don’t mind?”
    Kel went back to her room, shaking her head.
    four
WOMAN TALK
    Their punishments for the stable fight cooled the hottest tempers. Kel thought just the addition of two more harness weights would have done it. Even the fourth-year pages were not ready for the change, and it was astonishing how much difference an extra pound made. For weeks Kel felt as if her bones had turned to wax. Master Oakbridge, whose etiquette class was at the end of the day, began to hit their desks with his pointer stick to keep them awake. Extra work, given when sleepy pages didn’t finish classwork, piled on top of Lord Wyldon’s physical penalties.
    Bread-and-water suppers did not help. Scant meals on their schedule meant growling bellies. Sometimes Kel thought it was hunger and the prospect of added weights, rather than insults that cut two ways, that made Joren and his friends leave her and her crowd alone.
    Two Sundays went to rebuilding the pages’ stable. Once that was done, Kel returned to her earlier punishment, forking down hay from a stable loft. For a week she dripped sweat as she pitched hay down fourteen feet to the floor. Her fright turned the distance into miles. Once that week ended, she enjoyed the absence of fear, until the day she was tardy to a class. Lord Wyldon gave her one bell of time to climb to the palace wall and map the ground between it and the temple district.
    Every time she was late, or Lord Wyldon found dirt on Peachblossom’s tack, or someone noticed she had lit a candle after lights out, the training master found Kel work on heights. Neal was sure it was torture. Kel argued that Lord Wyldon helped her to become a better knight by forcing her to manage her fear. Prince Roald finally tired of the debate and said it was a little of both; he didn’t want to hear the subject discussed again.
    Every morning and every evening when she opened the large shutters, Jump bounced into her room. Kel’s sparrows made a game of it, clinging to the dog’s fur and trying to stay on as he leaped. Lalasa also seemed to enjoy it - she gave the dog a treat when no sparrows fell from his back.
    No matter how often Gower and Kel took the dog up to Daine, Jump returned, to her room and to the practice courts. Kel dared not speak to him there: she feared that someone would notice and report it. She was lucky that a dog’s presence in the palace was not unusual. The place teemed with dogs - ratters, hunting dogs, even ladies’ lapdogs. As long as none of their teachers thought Jump belonged to any pages as a pet, he was free to come and go as he pleased.
    By the time the leaves turned color, Jump had joined the nighttime study group, and Kel had given up on returning him to Daine. What was the use? lie always came