Kel stroked him. ‘We’re going to be with plenty of other horses,’ she told him. ‘Hoshi’s just the start.’
Peachblossom threw up his head to eye Hoshi. The mare, quietly eating hay next door, switched her tail as if to say, Go away, boy.
‘Nobody will be able to work if you’re forever biting them,’ Kel said. ‘We could get in trouble if you start fights. They might make me leave you behind.’
Peachblossom fixed her squarely with one eye.
‘I don’t know if they will,’ she amended, scrupulously honest. ‘But it seems likely. We’ll always be together when I’m a knight – surely you know that. But consider getting along here? You don’t have to be friendly. Just don’t make trouble.’
The thought of having to leave him made her eyes sting. She loved every scarred, irritable inch of Peachblossom. She knew she would like Hoshi: she was a gift from Lord Raoul. She also seemed like a horse who could view disaster with a calm eye. But Peachblossom was the friend of Kel’s heart, her staunch ally. She hugged him fiercely around the neck.
‘Think about it,’ she told him, and left him to it.
Kel, Lalasa, Jump, and the sparrows were asleep in Kel’s old rooms when thunder broke through Kel’s dreams. Sitting up in bed, she realized what she heard was not thunder, but someone pounding on her door.
She leaped to answer it without pulling on her robe. Qasim almost rapped her nose when she yanked the door open. ‘We are called away tonight,’ he said. ‘When you are dressed, go to the stable and ready your mounts. I will pack the gear you will need.’
‘But my lord’s armour, his gear and horses – that’s my job,’ she protested.
‘Another time,’ Qasim ordered. Kel was about to close the door when he stopped her. ‘It will be bad,’ he said. ‘Haresfield village in the Royal Forest was attacked by robbers. The messengers say it is a bloody mess. Be ready.’
Is anyone ever ready for such things? Kel wondered as he left. She took a breath and concentrated on what had to be done. Lalasa was placing a basin full of water and a towel on the desk. As Kel washed her face, cleaned her teeth, and combed her hair, Lalasa put out her clothes, including a fresh breast band and loincloth, and one of the cloth pads Kel wore during her monthly bleeding. It had begun the day before.
‘I’ll need more pads,’ Kel said, fastening her breast band and hitching her shoulders until it fit properly. ‘And three days’ worth of clothes – how much do I have here?’
‘More than that,’ Lalasa said. Kel glanced at her. The maid smiled sheepishly. ‘I just wanted to give everything a last look-over,’ she explained. She briskly folded and stacked shirts, breeches, tunics, stockings, underclothes, and, in one of the shirts, more cloth pads.
‘You’d think I rip my seams every day,’ Kel grumbled, pulling on her stockings. By the time she straightened her tunic, Lalasa had put her clothes in a wicker basket.
Kel hugged the girl, who was as much friend as maid, then grabbed the basket and gave her key to Lalasa. ‘Tell Neal and the others I’m sorry I didn’t say goodbye,’ she said, and raced down the hall with Jump and the sparrows.
In the stable Kel and over a hundred men saddled riding horses and put lead reins on their remounts. Qasim had left a pack with Kel’s name on it for her spare clothes; she filled it from her basket and gave the pack to the supply officer when he collected them.
Qasim had put a burnoose, weapons, mail, helmet, and shield with her tack. Kel popped out of her tunic, slid into the mail shirt, then pulled the tunic over it. The men of the Own wore burnooses as cloaks. Kel fastened hers at the neck, hoping Qasim would show her how to shape a hood from it and fix it to her head when there was time.
She fastened her shield and weapons to her saddle, then donned her helmet. She was ready. Looping Hoshi’s reins around one hand and Peachblossom’s around the other, Kel walked out of the stable with her mounts and Jump. The sparrows had vanished into Jump’s carrier on Hoshi’s back.
Kel tethered her horses on the edge of the courtyard where the company assembled. The torches, blown by the wind, gave the scene a dreamlike feel as the faces of the men were first brightly lit, then shadowed. The night itself was a cool one, the wind smelling of water and the first hay cutting of the summer.
Kel watched the men unnoticed. Some were thirty or older, but most were young, single men in their twenties – married men were not allowed to join the King’s Own. A third were Bazhir. Of all the realm’s forces the King’s Own had done the best at enlisting the once-scorned Bazhir. That was Lord Raoul’s doing: he had taken the Own to live among the Bazhir for two seasons and recruited new men from their sons.
‘So who’s this youngster?’ someone asked. Hoshi’s bulk shielded Kel from the men’s view. ‘We’ve got Lerant here for standard-bearer.’
‘A squire,’ sneered a young man’s voice.
The one who’d first spoken exclaimed, ‘He’s never wanted a squire—’
Kel stroked Peachblossom’s nose. Eavesdropping had become a vice for her. She strained to hear a whispered remark, but didn’t catch what was said. Then:
‘The Girl?’ someone demanded.
‘I don’t care if she’s the Wave Walker,’ someone drawled. ‘She’s green as grass.’
‘She better not foul us up in the field,’ another voice proclaimed.
‘Don’t you saddle rats have better things to do?’ a gruff voice demanded. ‘Let’s have an inspection. Mithros witness, if I find one strap undone, heads will roll.’
‘But, Sergeant Osbern, sir, I like my head,’ someone muttered.
‘Very well, Gildes of Veldine. Let’s inspect you first and put you out of your misery,’ the decisive voice said.
Now that they were no longer talking about her, Kel emerged from between the horses. Gildes must be the drooping fellow who led his mounts to a blond, barrel-chested man. The others were double-checking their things.
‘Did you eat?’ someone asked Kel. A young man about four inches taller than she approached her. He gave Kel a warm turnover. ‘Just rolled out of bed and came charging on down, I bet. You’ll learn. Eat.’
Kel bit and discovered sausage and cheese inside the turnover. ‘It’s good!’ she mumbled, her mouth full.
The stranger grinned cheerfully at her. In his early twenties, he was broad-shouldered, big-handed, and very handsome. He wore his dark hair cut just below his ears. His mouth was long and made for smiling. He wore the uniform of the Own: loose dark trousers, chain mail shirt, blue tunic with silver trim, and a white burnoose. The crimson band around his biceps showed a dark circle with a black dot at its centre: a sergeant’s badge.
‘I see you’ve still got your overgrown horse,’ he remarked with a nod towards Peachblossom. ‘I was new to the King’s Own that day we saw you tilting. Everybody but me bet you’d come straight off his back when he reared. I won a meal at The Jugged Hare because I bet you’d stay on.’ He bowed to Kel as she wiped her fingers on the handkerchief she kept tucked in her boot top. ‘Domitan of Masbolle at your service, Squire Keladry. Your page-sponsor was a certain mad cousin of mine.’
She squinted to get a better look at him. His eyes – impossible to tell their colour at the moment – were framed by wide, arched brows and set over a long nose slightly wide at the tip. It was Neal’s nose, on someone else’s face. Kel smiled. ‘You’re related to Neal?’
‘Sadly, yes. I call him Meathead. Have you ever met anyone so stubborn?’ Domitan tucked his big hands into his breeches pockets with a grin.
‘He can be difficult, um … Sergeant?’
He