The Slacktiverse

When we last left Keladry, she’d gone back to the Chamber of the Ordeal to try and get some more information about the quest that the Chamber had charged her with, but it turns out that while the Chamber knows and sees all, it has basically no concept of time and space, so it couldn’t help Kel pin down a location or a time frame in which she was supposed to go confront her opponent.

Before she could decide whether to strike out on her own for this quest, the call came through that she and most of the knights of Tortall were going to ride north to keep the border secure and fight off a now-unified Scanra. The party headed north was given a send-off by a large group of Stormwings, which certainly cast a pall over what was likely to happen during the campaign, in terms of body count and what would then happen to those bodies in the course of the war.

Lady Knight, Chapter 2: Content Notes: Abuse of servants, abuse of children, Non-consensual magic in service of the greater good

This chapter opens on the way north, with Kel stuck between Prince Roald and Sir Nealan, both of whom are complaining about having to leave their betrothed behind. Kel spares a thought for Cleon, who she hasn’t seen in over a year, because of his border posting. And also, we get a reminder that Kel has a different idea about what would be worth doing while they are together compared to what Cleon’s thoughts apparently are.

Perhaps by now he’d be over his impractical idea that he wanted them to 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 gotten 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.

Which really does sound like a complete mismatch of priorities, and that Kel should let Cleon go. The hardest part about that is Kel’s hormones tend to make suggestions about what she should do that are not the kind of thing that a rational, thinking person would decide upon. And Cleon’s hormones seem to be willing to be compatible with that, when they get together. It would be good for them to get it out of their systems, I suspect, but it doesn’t sound like Cleon’s ready for it.

The Stormwings have apparently been staying with the army marching north, as when Kel beds down in Crown wayhouses or in farmer’s barns, she wishes them ice-covered wings and frostbite and a lot of cold and damp. So that can’t be a good thing to have following you along. I also wonder if the presence of the Stormwings is making it easy for the Scanrans to keep track of them as they go north.

The actual plot itself is that at one of the largest wayhouses along the way, where Kel can get a room to herself and a hot bath to get the road out of her, when she does a quick shortcut through the kitchens to get to the stables, she finds that no matter where she goes, there will always be people bullying others, and that they don’t necessarily hold their hands because the one they’re bullying is a child.

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. […we get a quick description of him, as he turns to her and then recognizes who he is about to accuse of interference…]
“This’s no business of yours, lady,” he said, trying to yank free of her. “Look, he’s allus 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.

This is an effective worldbuild here. In a more cynical frame of mind, Kel might take a moment with this situation to sourly recognize that even though there’s now a second lady knight, and one that happily claimed herself as a lady knight, the situation in the world hasn’t magically become one of rainbows and gender equality, better relationships between the classes, or other such things. There’s still war, there’s still discrimination, and there are still bullies about. Kel’s work will never be done, and she can only hope that someone else will pick up the work when she’s no longer there to do it, and will continue to get into scraps and use her power for good.

Which makes this an interesting book, because it’s the book that happens after the fairy tale ends. This is a quartet, but it could have been easily structured to be four books leading up to Kel getting her shield, and the story ending there, even with the possible threat of Scanra on the border. Lots of stories end there, because the story they had was about the girl achieving the thing that she was supposed to be denied or forbidden from. When we did Pern, for example, we had two books with Menolly becoming a Harper, and then a Journeyperson Harper, and then we swapped over to Piemur, and Menolly faded into the background, except where she interacted with main characters. We didn’t even see her test for and obtain her Mastery, for example. Once she’d been successfully ensconced in the Harper Hall, Menolly’s story was done, and the authors moved on to something else. Here, we have the climax of achievement as the end of book three, and an entire book afterward to see what Kel does now that she has the thing she’s successfully quested for. What does Kel turn out to be like, once she has actual power?

We get a very quick answer here in Chapter 2: Kel is exactly the person she was before she became a knight. As Kel will put it at the end of this sequence,

Even as she asked herself if she’d run mad, she knew that she couldn’t have done anything else.

After we get a description of this boy who has managed not to get bitten by Peachblossom, we find out why this is the case.

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 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 toward 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 him 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 backward 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 is exactly the person she was before, and at this point in time, as a knight, she actually has the power to make her threats stick. Also, I note that most of this negotiation and thoughtful discussion about piety, propriety, and attitudes about women and the poor is happening while Kel still has the innkeeper’s arm in a strong grip. Which says something about how deeply ingrained the prejudices are, and how much the innkeeper must perform this seemingly pious act for others, because he’s more than happy to call a woman a slut while Kel has his arm in her grip, and to espouse the necessity of bullying a child while Kel has his arm in her grip. And to also inflate the cost of the indenture contract after he’s been threatened that the magistrate will take away his servant and leave him with nothing. It’s extremely telling that even in a situation where he should be cowering in fear from Kel’s strength or her position, it seems like he’s mostly still operating on the principle of “hell, she’s a girl, I don’t have to worry about it,” even as Kel repeatedly demonstrates to him that she’s a threat.

Kel tells Peachblossom (non-seriously) that he’s getting slow because he didn’t actually bite the innkeeper’s arm when he intruded. She wouldn’t have minded biting the arm to prevent the innkeeper from hitting more people, but she recognizes that it would “make a fuss” and therefore she’s fine with how things went. Having committed to her course of action, Kel inspects her new servant, understands that he’ll have to be re-outfitted, bathed, have the lice killed, and get him a healer. While she waits for the paperwork to arrive, Kel asks Jump to bring Neal here, and then learns this kid’s name (Tobe, short for Tobeis Boon, because “Auld Eulama [the midwife] said I musta been a boon to someun, though she din’t know who.”), that he believes he’s nine years old, and that nobody likes the innkeeper.

(I laugh ever so slightly here, because Tobias and Boon are the last names of two people who worked on the Mortal Kombat series of video games, and we know this because those names were used with the power of sdrawkcaB emaN to create a hidden, and then eventually playable, character, Noob Saibot. So to see a Tortallan child who could have been Noob Saibot’s reversed name, but for one letter, is a little bit of a funny juxtaposition. Not the least because Lady Knight has had ample opportunities to “FINISH HIM” and performed more than a few Fatalities in her career so far. Digression over, let’s go back to the plot.)

Neal arrives, and there’s some back and forth between Neal and Tobe about Neal being both a noble and a healer and that he would deign to heal a child such as him. And we also learn something interesting about why you don’t play cards with Neal.

“You know, Mindelan, our lives would be easier if the dog just broke down and talked,” Kel’s friend announced. “I was winning that card game.” He glared down at Jump. “There was no need to grab me.”
Kel smiled. “If you’re not bleeding, he was being nice, and it’s not fair for you to play cards with ordinary folk.” To Tobe she explained, “He remembers all the cards dealt.”
[…Neal notices Tobe, and Tobe is not convinced the Neal will be helpful…]
Tobe eyed Neal with considerable suspicion. “Folk like him don’t touch the likes of me.”
“If you knew how I spent my squiredom, you’d know the likes of you are most of what I ended up touching,” Neal informed him. “I can get rid of your lice and fleas,” he added as Tobe scratched himself.
“Cannot,” retorted the boy.
“Can too,” Neal replied. “The handiest spell I ever learned.”
Convinced that Neal would talk the boy around, Kel went to see about having a hot bath drawn and carried up to her room.
“Miss, you shouldna bother with that un,” the maid she paid for the service commented. “He’s a gutter rat, as like to bite a helpin’ hand as not.”
Thinking of Peachblossom and the baby griffin she’d once cared for, Kel replied, “If he does, it won’t be the first time.”

After the healing, Neal delivers Tobe to Kel, who directs him to the hot bath, and instructs him that he is to clean himself thoroughly, with scrubbing, with soap, with a nail pick, and that he is not to dress in his previous clothes, as she will be getting him new ones. She also threatens that if he doesn’t do it properly, she’ll do it for him, which seems to get Tobe on the right mood to do it right. He’s also very interested in her “pigsticker,” so there’s something there. But there’s still one more issue that needs to be figured out between them.

“Clothes, off. Bath, now, Tobe.”
He gaped, then exclaimed, “With a girl lookin’ on? Lady, some places a fellow’s got to draw the line!”
“Very true,” Kel replied solemnly, trying not to grin. “Don’t give Jump any food. He’s had one good meal already tonight.”
Jumped, sprawled between the tub and the fire, belched and scratched an ear. His belly was plump with stolen meat.
Kel rested a hand on Tobe’s shoulder. “You’ll do as I ask?”
He nodded without meeting her eyes.
Kel guessed what was on his mind. “I’ll never beat you, Tobe,” she said quietly. “Ever. I may dunk you in the tub and scrub you myself if I come back to find you only washed here and there, but you won’t bleed, you won’t bruise, and you won’t hobble out of this room. Understand?”
He looked up into her face. “Why do this, lady?” he asked, curious. “I’m on’y a nameless whelp, with the mark of Scanrra on me. What am I to the likes of you?”
Kel thought her reply over before she gave it. This could be the most important talk she would have with Tobe. She wanted to be sure that she said the right things. “Well, Peachblossom likes you,” she answered slowly. “He’s a fine judge of folk, Peachblossom. Except Neal. He’s prejudiced about Neal.”
“He just likes the way Neal squeaks when he’s bit,” Tobe explained.
Kel tucked away a smile. It sounded like something Peachblossom would think. “And for the rest? I do it because I can. I’ve been treated badly, and I didn’t like it. And I hate bullies. Now pile those rags by the door and wash up. The water’s getting cold.” Not waiting for him to point out that cooler water didn’t seem so bad, she walked out and closed the door. She listened for a moment, waiting until she heard splashes and a small yelp.
He’s funny, she thought, striding down the hall. I like how he speaks his mind. Alvik didn’t beat that from him, praise Mithros.

That’s a useful piece of information, at least, as to why Peachblossom keeps liking to go after Neal, even though Neal’s not usually the kind of person that Peachblossom would bite (or do worse to). And this thought process is probably pretty unfamiliar to Tobe, who has been born in the lowest station, and treated terrible, and now there’s this noble girl who has decided he’s worth her attention and money. And she’s making him take a hot bath and clean himself up properly. Clearly something is wrong here, at least from his perspective. From ours, because we’ve been following Kel, we know full well that she’s going to stop someone from being a bully, and especially from being a bully to a child. And that she’s going to find whatever permanent solution she has at her disposal to stop this from happening again.

And, as Kel gets to find out, her sense of justice, if not her specific methods, have been really rubbing off on the people she’s around. We’ve seen flashes of this before, with people stepping up to support or defend Kel when things go wrong around her, but this is the first time we’re seeing what had only been talked about in generalities before, about Kel’s year-mates and squad-mates going out and getting into fights on her behalf that she had no knowledge of.

At the top of the stairs, Kel halted. Below her, out of sight, she could hear Neal: “…broken finger, half-healed broken arm, cracked ribs, and assorted healed breaks. I’m giving your name to the magistrate. I’ll recommend he look in on you often, to see the treatment you give your other servants.”
“Yes, milord, of course, milord.” That was Innkeeper Alvik’s unmistakable voice, oily and mocking at the same time. “I’m sure my friend the magistrate will be oh so quick to ‘look in on’ me, as you say, once you’re down the road. Just you worry about Scanra. They’ll be making it so hot for you there, you’ll be hard put to remember us Queensgrace folk.”
“Yes, well, I thought of that,” Neal said, his voice quiet but hard. “So here’s something on account, something your magistrate can’t undo.”
She heard a rustle of cloth. Alvik gasped. “Forcing a magic on me is a Crown offense!”
“Who will impress the Crown more, swine? The oldest son of Baird of Queenscove, or you?” asked Neal cruelly. “And did my spell hurt?”
“Noooo,” Alvik replied, dragging the sound out. Kel imagined he was checking his body for harm.
“It won’t,” Neal said. “At least, as long as you don’t hit anyone. When you do, well, you’ll feel the blow as if you struck yourself. Clever spell, don’t you think? I got the idea from something the Chamber of the Ordeal did once.” Neal’s voice went colder. “Mind what I say, innkeeper. When you strike a servant, a child, your wife, your own body will take the punishment. Mithros cut me down if I lie.”
“All this over a whore’s brat!” snarled the innkeeper. “You nobles are mad!”
“The whore’s brat is worth far more than you.” Neal’s voice was a low rumble at the bottom of the stairs. “He’s got courage. You have none. Get out of my sight.”
Kel waited for the innkeeper to flee to his kitchen and Neal to return to the common room before she descended. It was useless to say anything to Neal. He would just be embarrassed that he’d been caught doing a good deed. He liked to play the cynical, heartless noble, but it was all for show. Kel wouldn’t ruin it for him.

Alvik is very much someone who thinks himself immune to the consequences. In his favor, he’s probably heard this a few times from various nobles, assuming there have been any nobles who have bothered to notice the treatment of the people underneath them, and he’s probably been right that the magistrate’s not interested in investigating the innkeeper, when he has more important things to do than bring justice on behalf of indentured servants. With or without any other incentives that Alvik might provide him to look the other way on things. Having been around Kel long enough to know that things don’t change if you just expect the system to work as its supposed to, Neal then decides he’s going to make sure change happens, based on the terrible things that he saw happening to Vinson. Which is, yes, a massive act of cruelty, and also a Crown offense. And it’s very much in character for someone to go, “hey, you can’t violate my bodily autonomy, that’s illegal and I’m a person who deserves the protection of the law!” even when they’ve just demonstrated they have no problem violating the bodily autonomy of others and they don’t believe their servants are people who deserve the protection of the law. It’s Wilhoit’s definition of conservatism.

Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.

If you’re part of the in-group, then someone can’t do this to them. If you’re part of the out-group, then there’s nothing you can’t do to them. Alvik has some trouble recognizing that he’s an out-group member to the nobles, even if they supposedly have principles and obligations to treat them more as members of the in-group. (At least, the good ones do. The not-good ones won’t bother with the pretense.)

It’s also interesting to see how Kel and Neal approach this problem. Kel goes about it through physical intimidation and purchasing Tobe’s contract to get him away from Alvik. Neal, on the other hand, leans on his magical skills to enforce the issue and then points out that his family name will protect him from accusations by a commoner that he’s engaged in some kind of malfeasance against that commoner. The two of them have different solutions to the problem based on who they are and what skills and resources they have available to them. Kel’s solution is a permanent one for Tobe, Neal’s solution is a permanent one for the greater situation, assuming Alvik doesn’t decide that he’s willing to take the punishment and continue doing what he’s doing. Which makes me wonder how much Raoul has seen or not seen in Kel about being a commander of larger groups and possibly armies, versus Kel being a commander of squadrons and companies. Kel makes a solid tactical decision in the moment to get Tobe out from the situation, with what she had on hand. Neal, having gotten information about the situation from Kel, and likely having got more information about the situation from Tobe, goes to the source of the issue and does something to get rid of that.

Anyway, Kel heads out, finds a place, offers up some money so that she can purchase several suits of clothing, shoes, and the rest for Tobe, and then returns to him, where she is met with a furious accusation.

“I don’t care if you was drunk or mad or takin’ poppy or rainbow dream or laugh powder, you bought my bond and signed your name and paid money for me and you can’t return me to ol’ Alvik,” he told her without taking a breath. He inhaled, then continued, “If you try I’ll run off ‘n’ steal ‘n’ when I’m caught I’ll say I belong to you so they’ll want satisfaction from you. I mean it! You can’t blame drink or drug or anything and then get rid of me because I won’t go.”
Kel waited for him to run out of words as water trickled off her hat and cloak onto the mat by the door. She gave Tobe a moment after he stopped talking, to make sure he was done, before she asked, “What is that about?”
“See?” he cried. “You forgot me already—me, Tobeis Boon, whose bond you bought tonight. I knew you was drunk or takin’ a drug or mad. But here I am an’ here I stay. You need me to, to carry your wine jug, an’ cut the poppy brick for you to smoke, an’ an’ make sure you eat—”
Kel raised her eyebrows. “Quiet,” she said in the calm, firm tone she had learned from Lord Raoul.
Tobe blinked and closed his mouth.
Kel walked over and blew into this face so he could smell her liquor- and drug-free breath. “I’m not drunk,” she told him. “T take no drugs. If I’m mad, it’s in ways that don’t concern you. I went out to get you clothes, Tobe. You can’t go north wearing only a shirt.”
[…Kel tosses the clothes on her bed, and takes off her outerwear. Tobe scrambles to assist, and insists that he has clothes for himself…]
“I saw,” she replied, eyeing the heap they made on the floor. “I wouldn’t let a cat have kittens on them. I ought to take Alvik before a magistrate anyway. Your bond says you get two full suits of clothes, a coat, and a sturdy pair of shoes every year.”
“It does?” he asked, falling on his rump with her boot in his hands.
Kel reached inside her tunic and pulled out his indenture papers. “Right there,” she told him, pointing to the paragraph. When Tobe frowned, she knew Alvik had neglected something else. “You can’t read, can you?” she asked.
“Alvik said I din’t need no schoolin’, ‘acos I was too stupid to learn,” Tobe informed Kel, searching for a cloth to wipe her boots with. He was practiced at this: the innkeeper had taught him to look after guests’ belongings as well as their horses, Kel supposed.
“Lessons,” she said, folding the papers once more. “After we’re settled in the north.”
[…Kel’s tired, but Tobe still has one more thing to ask her…]
“Lady?” he asked quietly. “Sounds like you mean to do all manner of things for me. What was you wishful of me doin’ for you?”
“Oh, that,” Kel said, realizing that she hadn’t told him what duties he would have. “You’ll look after my horses and belongings, and in four years you’ll be free.” A will, she realized. I need to make a will so he can be freed if I’m slain. She picked up her water pitcher and drank from the rim. “For that, I am duty bound to see that you are fed, clothed, and educated. We’ll settle things like days off. You’ll learn how to clean armor and weapons. That ought to keep you busy enough.”
He nodded. “Yes, lady.”
“Very well. Go to bed. I’m exhausted.”
Unbuttoning her shirt, she realized he hadn’t moved. “Bed,” she said firmly. “Cover your head till I say you can come out. I won’t undress while you watch.”
She took her nightshirt out of a saddlebag and finished changing once Tobe was on his pallet with his eyes hidden. In the end, she had to uncover him. He’d gone to sleep with the blanket over his head.

Kel and Tobe have another argument in the morning about her spending money on him, and Kel eventually wins the argument by pointing out that the way that a person’s servant looks is a direct correlation to how well that servant is being treated, and the nobles actually do care about that, even if Alvik didn’t. But that part about forgetting about Tobe comes up immediately again at the end of the chapter, when Kel sets Tobe up in one of the wagons to keep him dry and fed, and then spots him outside in the rain shortly after. She confronts him about this, and Tobe explains.

“Folk took interest in me ‘afore, lady,” replied the boy. “A merchant and a priestess. Soon as I was gone from their sight, they forgot I was alive. Sometimes I think I jus’ dreamed you. If I don’t see you, mayhap you’ll vanish.”
“I’m too solid to be a dream. Besides, I paid two copper nobles for your bond,” Kel reminded him. Not to mention what we laid out for the sewing and the cobbler.”
“Folk’ve given me nobles jus’ for holdin’ the stirrup when they mounted up,” Tobe informed her. “Some is so rich, a noble means as much to them as a copper bit to ol’ Alvik.”
Kel sighed. “I’m not rich,” she said, but it was for the sake of argument. Compared with this mule-headed scrap of boyhood, she was rich. It was all she could do not to smile. She recognized the determination in those bright blue eyes. It matched her own.
[…Kel evicts the sparrows into the rain and orders Tobe to ride behind her, under her cloak as protection from the rain. He does this and the sparrows re-settle themselves…]
Neal, seeing her approach, opened his mouth.
“Not one word,” Kel warned. “Tobe and I have reached an understanding.”
Neal’s lips twitched. “Why do I have the feeling you did most of the understanding?”
“Why do I have the feeling that if you give me a hard time, I’ll tell all of our year-mates your family nickname is Meathead?” Kel replied in kind.
“You resort to common insult because you have no stronger arguments to offer,” retorted Neal. when Kel opened her mouth, Neal raised a hand to silence her. “Nevertheless, I concede.”
“Good,” Kel said. “That’s that.”
“You got anything to eat?” inquired a voice from inside her cloak.

And there’s your moment of levity in an otherwise serious chapter.

Much as she did in her page days, Kel appears to have collected someone with good skills and who was being mistreated by someone else to be a body servant and take care of various personal things for her. Tobe, though, has some difficulty with the possibility that Kel might be genuinely intending to keep both her word and the binding obligations of the contract she bought. This isn’t surprising, since he hasn’t had anyone who has done either of those things for him in his life at all. First, with the outburst of “you’re stuck with me, no matter what other vices you have!” and his belief that Kel was in some altered state when she signed the legal paperwork for it, then again with sneaking out of the wagon and trying to keep an eye on her to make sure she’s not going to evaporate into mist or otherwise disappear from his life. It’s a reminder that Kel not only moves in different circles than others, but has a completely different conception of reality than they do, such that it wouldn’t occur to her to leave behind the person she’d just spent time and money getting out of a terrible situation. It’s a reminder that no matter where people with ideals, or people trying to be good, think the bar of decent behavior is, the reality is both that it’s much, much lower than they think, and that there are people armed with shovels and excavators to make sure that they get underneath that bar, rather than stepping over it. And that even if Keladry is out to make changes in the law and otherwise make things better for everyone, the day-to-day life of so many people won’t change immediately, or possibly even eventually, for the better, because of her. I don’t think the author is intentionally trying to tell us that Kel’s on a fool’s errand, but I do think we’re getting to see the limits of what one person committed to the cause of justice and the protection of the small can do on her own. Not that it changes Kel, or dissuades her, but there’s only so much she can become aware of and do, and at some point, she has to either trust or admit that other people have to take up this work as well and do it if there’s going to be systemic change.

Next week, assignments for all those who will be protecting the border.

It’s time! The final book of the Protector of the Small, with a copyright date of 2002 on it. Which makes me realize just how new this series really is, because it’s past the date of the event that echoes and has ramifications to the current day. I mention that event specifically because the dedication of this book is

To the people of New York City,
I always knew the great sacrifice and kindness my neighbors are capable of,
but now the rest of the country knows, too.

which pretty unmistakably refers to the attacks against the landmarks of New York City in 2001. That moment will probably be etched in the 21st century history books as a hinge point, where there was the possibility of great things happening and a better world, and the people who had been harmed chose the path of the Crusader instead of the path of building a better world from the ash and wreckage of the destroyed buildings.

Here’s our target time period for this book’s opening: “Mid-March, Corus, the Capital of Tortall; in the 21st year of the reign of Jonathan IV and Thayet, his Queen, 460 H.E. (Human Era).” Let’s begin.

Lady Knight, Chapter 1: Content Notes:

Kel’s gotten her shield, but the vision she received from the Chamber of hte Ordeals continues to haunt her dreams, in at least as much detail and vividness as when she was in the Chamber. She’s called the person at the center of the creation of these killing machines the Nothing Man, but the visions she’s been given haven’t given her any additional information about who he is, where she’s supposed to confront him, when, or anyhthing that would be useful toward fulfilling the charge that she’s been given by the Chamber.

She stared at he shadowed ceiling and cursed the Chamber of hte Ordeal. The Chamber had shown Kel this vision, or variations of it, after her formal Ordeal of knighthood. As far as Kel knew, no one else had been given any visions of people to be found once a squire was knighted. As everyone she knew understood it, the Ordeal was straightforward enough. The Chamber forced would-be knights to live through their fears. If they did this without making a sound, they were released, to be proclaimed knights, and that was the end of the matter.

In that specific form, Kel is correct. As far as she knows, nobody else has received such visions from the Chamber, but that’s because nobody talks about what they saw and experienced in the Chamber, since it also includes a hefty helping of facing whatever fears the Chamber believes it can use to break them.

That said, Kel could extrapolate from Vinson’s experience with the Chamber, where he had repeated visions and physical experiences of the women he hurt coming back to him, and with an expectation, at least to me, that he would only be released from the visions and the experiences if he not only confessed his crimes, but genuinely repented of them, which he seemed to be unwilling to do when he confessed those crimes, to conclude that at least some portion of the Knights of Tortall might have had additional visions and experiences accompany them after they left the Chamber, some of which might have been about fixing character flaws, others of which might have been specific demands of them. Alanna, after all, had the Chamber helping her tear through Duke Roger’s magic so that she could see the situation clearly and find the evidence of the same. If she hadn’t immediately gone to fix the problem, might the Chamber have persisted in getting her to do it? We don’t know.

Having been given the vision again, Kel reviews what she has for intelligence on the matter: the Nothing Man is almost certainly in Scanra, since the killing machines accompanied Scanran raiders. Therefore, Kel thinks, once the winter clears and the mountain passes open, she’s got to get herself to Scanra to off the Nothing Man and fulfill the charge the Chamber’s given her. The problem for her is taht she’s pretty sure the king’s going to order knights to the northern border to defend it, and when that happens, Kel’s going to be stuck obeying the king and defending wherever she’s assigned, unable to go anywhere and do anything.

Since it’s before dawn, it’s time for Kel to get up anyway, and she does so carefully, so as to not hurt any of the sparrows or the dog that sleep on her covers. Since it’s a new book, we get a new description of this older and knightly Kel.

The scant light showed a big girl of eighteen, broad-shouldered and solid-waisted, with straight mouse-brown hair cut short below her earlobes and across her forehead. She had a dreamer’s hazel eyes, set beneath long curling lashes, odd in contrast to the many fine scars on her hands and the muscles that flexed and bunched under her nightshirt. Her nose was still unbroken and delicate after eight years of palace combat training, her lips full and quicker to smile than frown. Determination filled every inch of her strong body.

Which is a confusing description, honestly, since it seems at pains to make us understand that Kel is still beautiful of face, and then to contrast that with the muscular and lightly scarred body that the face is a part of. It seems counterproductive to Kel’s attempts integrate being both a girl and a knight, with what supposedly was achieved with the shield she got and the distaff border applied to it. Perhaps for the reader, and for the Tortallan who sees Kel, the narrative is trying to reassure us that she’s still a girl, that she hasn’t somehow become one of the boys, or that she’s somehow become ugly in her pursuit of her shield. It feels like it’s trying to reassure us that Kel’s still a marriageable young lady and still beautiful, even if she could probably bench press most of her suitors or knock them cleanly off their horse with her jousting lance. If this series is supposed to be the one that’s for the people who don’t have magic, the author could certainly lean a little bit harder into the idea of it being okay to be a muscular girl, well-built and strong, and that there’s no loss of beauty or attractiveness from this. (Without necessarily having to tilt full into the muscle mommy idea.)

This could also be a description that’s trying to show us that Kel hasn’t bought into cynicism and lost her idealistic bend through the years of palace training and the further training she’s received with Lord Sir Raoul of Goldenlake and Malorie’s Peak and the rest of Third Company about the matters of waging war, supplying war, and otherwise being a martial force that exercises the king’s will and tries to help as many people as they can in the process. I’m not sure how to describe that better with Kel, since supposedly the facial features are the way that humans can tell a lot about our moods and tendencies, but I’d think there was a way to use the rest of her body to show not just her determination, but her optimism and friendliness.

Mostly, it reads like a disconnect, like there’s a face and a body, and they theoretically belong to the same person, but they’re not connected, not really, in this description.

Getting back to the plot, Kel’s surprised when a Stormwing comes to see her, bold as you please, which means we get the description of the purpose of Stormwings.

Kel thanked the gods that the cold protected her sensitive nose, banishing most of the Stormwing’s foul stench. Stormwings loved battle-fields, where they tore corpses to pieces, urinated on them, smeared them with dung, then rolled in the mess. The result was a nauseating odor that made even the strongest stomach rebel. Her teachers had explained that the purpose of Stormwings was to make people think twice before they chose to fight, knowing what might happen to the dead when Stormwings arrived. So far they hadn’t done much good as far as Kel could see: people still fought battles and killed each other, Stormings or no. Tortall’s Stormwing population was thriving. But this was the first time she’d seen one on palace grounds.

He’s here to engage with five-second foreshadowing, telling Kel that the two of them are going to be great companions soon with the battle in the north coming up. Kel shoos him off with a bow and arrow, then does her morning exercises, and when she sees Raoul, he confirms for her that the entire army is going northward for the Scanran campaign, because not only are thre plenty of killing machines to deal with, the Scanrans have united under the warlord from the last book, Maggur Rathhausak, because he apparently took his united clans to the king and convinced everyone who wasn’t allied with him to join up. Which means the Scanrans will not only be a trained army, it’ll be all of them, instead of half of them, fighting the Tortallans.

Kel recognizes this as decision time: either she’s going to go with the knights north and do her duty to the king, or she’s going to sneak off on her own mission and try to avoid them. But first, she has a question for Lord Raoul:

“Sir, has anybody ever entered the Chamber of the Ordeal a second time?”
For a moment the only sound was the crackle of the fire in the hearth. Raoul froze. At length he said, “I must tell the bathhouse barber to clean my ears tomorrow. I could have sword you just asked me if anyone has ever returned to the Chamber of the Odeal. That’s not funny, Kel.”
“I didn’t mean to be funny, sir,” she replied. Shortly after her Ordeal and knighthood, Raoul had commanded her to address him by his first name, but “sir” was as close as she could bring herself. She clenched her hands so he couldn’t see them shake. “I’m serious. I need to know if you’ve ever heard of anyone going back there.”
“No,” Raoul said firmly. “No one’s been mad enough to consider it. Most folk can tell if once is more than enough. Why in the name of the Great Mother Goddess do you ask?”
Kel swallowed. If he didn’t like her question, he really wouldn’t like what she was about to say. “I need to talk to it.”
Raoul rubbed his face with one hand. “You need to talk to it,” he repeated.
Kel nodded. “Sir, you know me,” she reminded him. “I wouldn’t ask anything silly, not when you bring such important news. But I have to know if I can enter the Chamber again. I need to find something out.”
“You’re right, I do know you,” Raoul said glumly. “No, no, you wouldn’t jest at a time like this. I’m afraid you’re stuck, though. No one has been allowed back inside that thing in all history. No one would ever want to go back. You’ll just have to settle for what you got in there the first time.” He held her questioning eyes with his own anxious ones.
Kel wished that she could explain, but she couldn’t. Knights were forbidden to tell what had taken place during their Ordeal. “I didn’t mean to worry you, sir,” she told him at last.
Raoul scowled at her. “Don’t frighten me like that again. I’ve put far too much work into you to see you go mad now.” He looked around. “What were we doing last?”
“Wagon requisitions, sir,” she replied as she held up her slate.

Ah, so not only does no knight talk about what happened in the Chamber, they’re apparently forbidden from doing so. By whom, I want to know. Is it the Chamber’s forbidding? The king’s? Every knight just agreeing not to talk about their deepest fears and it’s become a custom with the force of law? It’s an important distinction. I can absolutely see each knight deciding they’re not interested in telling anyone about what sort of terror they were subjected to in the Chamber, especially if it’s something that they haven’t and may never overcome fully. But Kel is now doubly without information – whether the Chamber has ever given another knight a quest, and what kind of force the prohibition on discussing your Ordeal has with it. (I also idly wonder whether stories of the Ordeals have been collected anyway, perhaps in the writings of various knights that are only discovered after they die. I could see a royal project to interview those knights that survived to a dignified retirement (or a certain age, at least) and record their experiences, with the understanding that their experiences would be kept under closest confidence and seal, and only be available to the historians after the death of the knight in question. I could see that as a royal project of the now, with that same seal guarantee (and whatever magic was needed to enforce it) as something to learn about the capabilities of the Chamber, and as a way of gently informing incoming squires that other knights have faced the same category of fears they have and come out the other side okay, so they can do the same. The Chamber, I assume, will be more than capable of coming up with unique terrors tailored specifically to the squires undertaking their Ordeal.

Raoul dismissing this as a flight of fancy is probably the most logical thing his brain can do with the prospect of being confronted with the idea that Kel wants to subject herself to the torture of the Chamber a second time, and is further suggesting that the Chamber itself is an entity that is worth talking to. It’s so far outside his context that he’s probably struggling just to think of how someone might go about it, especially since it’s apparently forbidden to re-enter the Chamber. (Again, by whom?)

As it is, Kel mentions the Stormwing as an omen, Raoul accepts it, and the two of them continue on with their logistics. Kel goes to groom the horses and talk with Jump about what she’s going to do next, then it’s on to Scanran language lessons, practice time, and the rest of her day, before Kel creeps out of bed at midnight and heads back to the Chamber of the Ordeal. There’s nobody about, because the war planning has curtailed partying, and, as Kel notes, it’s not like the Chamber needs sentries anyway.

Still, the chapel’s door was never locked. Kel shut it once she and Jump were inside. There was no need to post a guard: over the centuries, thieves and anyone else whose motives were questionable had been found outside the chapel door, reduced to dried flesh and bone by the Chamber’s immeasurable power.

Good security system, clearly. The new reader is reminded that in the last book, Kel tested herself against the Chamber by touching the door, but this time, if she wants to talk, she’s going to have to go inside. Which she does, and instead of being given a nightmare to live out, she gets to converse with the Chamber itself. Kel asks for more information about the Nothing Man, and gets a vision of more killing machines being made. We get the Nothing Man’s name, Blayce, and that of his right-hand man, Stenmun, and that they’re sending plenty of the killing machines to Maggur, but that doesn’t give Kel any more information about the when and the where. She’s not keen on committing treason, but she also is hoping for more of a clue than what she’s received.

I cannot, the chamber said.
Kel disagreed with a phrase she had learned from soldiers.
I am not part of your idea of time, the Chamber told her. Apparently, her language had not offended it. You mortals are like fish swimming in a globe of glass. That globe is your world. You do not see beyond it. I am all around that globe, everywhere at once. I am in your yesterdays and tomorrows just as I am in your today, and it all looks the same to me. I only know you will find yourself in that one’s path. When you do, you must stop him. He perverts life and the living. That must not continue. It’s tone changed; later, Kel would think the thing had been disgruntled. I thought you would like the warning.
Kel crossed her arms over her chest, disgusted. “So you don’t know when I’ll see that piece of human waste. The Nothing Man. Blayce. Or that warrior of his, what’s his name? Stenmun.
No.
“And you don’t know where they are.”
Your ideas of countries and borders are meaningless to me.
“But you thought I’d be happy to know that the one who’s making the killing devices, who’s murdering children, will come my way. Sometime. Someplace.
You must right the balance between mortals and the divine, the balance that is my reason to exist. That creature defies life and death. I require you to put a stop to it. Your satisfaction is not my concern.
Kel wanted to scream her frustration, but years of hiding her emotions at the Yamani court stopped her. Besides, screaming was a spoiled child’s response, never hers. And as a knight at eighteen, she was supposed to act like an adult, whatever that meant. She tried one last time. “The sooner, the better.”
You will meet him, and you will fix this. Now go away. The iron door swung open.
“Can I at least talk to people about it? Tell them that you showed me this?” she demanded.
If you think they will believe you. You are not considered to be a seer or a mage, and your own mages know the name of Blayce already. They just cannot find him.
Kel responded with another word she had learned from soldiers and walked out of the Chamber.

Extremely helpful, Chamber. But at least willing to explain its own limitations, that it cannot perceive time the way that humans do, nor necessarily place, and therefore it can’t give Kel any more specific details about the where and the when that she will be confronting Blayce.

I believe that confirms for us that all three of the protagonists of these seies are god-touched or god-adjacent, then. Alanna was specifically charged by the Great Mother Goddess to do things, Daine is half-god herself and had quite a bit of interaction with the other immortals and some of the gods, including the one who was supposedly the patron of Carthak, and Kel has been directed by the Chamber of the Ordeals, which clearly has god-like powers, if not being a god itself, to fix a problem in the balance. I wonder if there are other such stories working themselves out around the rest of the world, with Yamani, Scanran, Gallan, Carthaki, and other nations also receiving the charges of the gods and the demands that they fix things that have gone sideways. (I also wonder whether the gods also have conflicts about what needs doing and empower their champions to bring about their issues instead of the conflicting one. And how much Chaos, even though she’s sealed away again, also influences and empowers others to help her in her schemes. There’s an entire complex network of things underlying these Tortallan legends, and I’m curious about it, and the taste we got of the Divine Realms isn’t quite enough for me. Not that you can do a lot of detailed infodumping in books like these.

Also, I’m glad Kel has picked up on several of the useful swears and curses. We don’t get to know what they are, because that would be inappropriate for the reading audience of this book (at least, at the time of the publication), but I’m glad that Kel has them and feels comfortable deploying them in situations where they are warranted.

Kel doesn’t get to choose whether to strike out on her own or go with the army, because soon after seeing the Chamber for her second time, marching orders come out for everyone and the supply lines begin to move toward their eventual destinations. And there’s a party to see them off that says the lone Stormwing in the palace was certainly an omen, and also, here’s another one, equally unmistakable.

She was starting a prayer to Sakuyo, the Yamani god of jokes and tricks, when Lord Raoul snarled a curse. She looked at him, startled: he was riding just in front of her with the King’s Champion, Alanna, the realm’s only other lady knight, and Duke Baird of Queenscove, chief of the realm’s healers and father of Kel’s best friend, Neal. Everyone else turned in their saddles to see what could make the easygoing Raoul so angry. He was pointing a finger that shook with rage.
Below them lay the city of Corus, sprawled on both sides of the Olorun River. Across from them on the high ground south of the river lay the royal palace, its domes and towers clear in the growing light of sunrise.
Above 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. Slowly, lazily, they wheeled over the capital city, then streamed north over the army as if they pointed the way to battle.

I can see how a formation of Stormwings over the palace would make Lord Implacable curse them out, since we know they’re waiting for the feast that the battles in the north will provide them. As omens go, this one seems to say pretty clearly “This is going to be bloody and corpse-filled. Enjoy the ride.” And, of course, Raoul knows that the casualties will not all be on the other side. He’ll do his best to make sure that it happens that way, but he’s not going to get out of it with all the same people that he had when he started. I’ll bet the Stormwings have also helped keep anyone’s mind from feeling like they’re just, or justified, or anything involving glory, honor, and the good of the country. The Stormwings are there to remind everyone that ultimately, all their rationalizations won’t help them from the reality that there are going to be a lot of dead people before it’s all done. They can feel like the gods are on their side, and that they’re doing it for the right reasons, but right reasons or no, there will still be Stormwings defiling the corpses, regardless of whose side the corpse fought for.

I know that a fair amount of Daine’s interactions with Rikash and the other Stormwings was about following their nature and doing what they were created to do, but with time and perspective on it, I think, like Kel, that the Stormwings have failed at their purpose. If they’re supposed to be about making people think twice about fighting and killing each other, desecrating the corpses of the dead isn’t going to do it. Especially when you don’t care about the corpses of the other side being treated in such a way. The Stormwings might do a better job if they took on as their purpose to be people who spoke the names of the dead in the ears of the commanders who had ordered whatever action led to their deaths. Of course, that might mean a lot of dead Stormwings from the frustration or the desire to not hear the mantra of all the people who died while someone was commanding them. I doubt, somehow, that the relief there would be for long, as some other Stormwing might come to take their place and continue speaking the names of the dead aloud to the ones who ordered that death. That might discourage warfare, if everyone from the unit commander to the king had someone speaking the names of their dead regularly to them.

As it is, the war party is on their way to the north, and that means the Stormwings will feast. Next week, an interlude, where Kel once again demonstrates that she’s not going to stand for the mistreatment of others.

Last time, Kel tangled with a machine made from giant’s bones, metal, and the soul of a child animating it, and she and her squadron won. (This was after they’d beaten back several attacks of Scanrans and Kel killed the mage providing illusory cover with griffin-fletched arrows that flew true even when hit by magic.) Everyone seems to be in agreement that Kel has faced the kraken at this point, no matter what she says, and she demonstrated the ability to command a squadron and deal with someone who didn’t want to be part of her squadron. Who she then promoted to corporal in the field because of his smart thinking in battle.

Squire, Chapter 18: Content Notes: Nightmare deaths, deaths of children, the revelation of a device Powered By A Forskaen Child

This time marker is “Winter, in the 20th year of the reign of Jonathan IV and Thayet, his Queen, 459.” Which means that it’s time for Kel to go back for her Ordeal. The time has crept up on her sufficiently that she doesn’t realize that she needs to leave the front to do it.

“We have to go to Corus—unless you’ve changed your mind about that shield and want to join us. I won’t say no if you do.”
The words left her breathless. December. Midwinter. The Chamber of the Ordeal. “Oops,” she said.
“We’ll leave in the morning,” he said. He strode out of the hut. A moment later he stuck his head back inside. “I don’t want to get rid of you, mind. I could certainly use you. It’s just that the realm needs you more as a knight.” He vanished again.
Kel heard him loudly call for Flyndan and Lerant.
The next morning Lerant came to the stable as Kel saddled Hoshi. He clapped the girl on the shoulder. “Good riddance,” he said. “Don’t mess up your Ordeal. If you do and you come back here for a place, I’ll have to hurt you.”
Kel grinned. She and Lerant understood each other quite well these days. “Now that I’ve hsown you how, look after my lord when he gets back,” she retorted, and swung herself into the saddle.

As it turns out, Third Company has turned out to see her off, and Kel’s moved to the point of tears about it, even if she doesn’t actually let any of that show (too much.) They get back to Corus on their own time, enjoying the sights of fall, and then, when they arrive, well, Kel definitely has second thoughts.

“I was wishing we didn’t have to stop.”
He nodded. “I thought the same. But you know, Buri might object.”
Kel shivered. “As much as I like you, my lord, I’d sooner deal with the objections of a cobra. It’s safer.”

Spot on, Kel. And a good sign of the ease that she has, having spent this long with Raoul.

Buri’s in the south, which sours Raoul some, but it turns out for Kel that the glaive practice group has expanded significantly, and also that she’s being drafted to give advice and planning thoughts about the royal wedding, which she finds to be the same as “asking a cat how to raise horses.” Raoul continues to teach her about tactics and strategy and they use the information they have to try and work out what the overall strategy for the Scanrans was in the summer campaign, to get “the eagle’s-eye view, instead of the vole’s” as Raoul calls it. The narrative says Kel likes it as much as she does chess, so I think we’re supposed to understand she enjoys it, since the last time chess was mentioned, Kel was in a pitched battle for third place in the Third Company Chess Tournament. Kel gets to sit in on the interviews for people hoping to join Second Company and give her opinion about the candidates, which Raoul calls part of her command education and Kel still thinks he’s being “optimistic” about that.

The other knights trickle in, as do the squires. Cleon sends his regrets, because he’s been ordered to stay behind in a village and teach the locals how to defend themselves. Kel sends back her understanding, but “she had to throw out three efforts before she had a letter she could send. The others had splotches on them.” So Kel misses Cleon, or misses something about Cleon being there for her, or, for all we know, she’s having her monthlies and they’re making her emotional. It’s not said, but it’s very much implied that Kel has at least some feelings for Cleon.

We get details about the upcoming ritual, involving the ritual bath, the ritual instruction, the night-long vigil, the fact that the knight-master has to find a second knight willing to do the ritual with the first. Alanna apparently got the king to do Neal with her, so that’s sorted. Kel’s having worries about whether or not she should ask if Raoul’s found a second, because she doesn’t want to be wrecked by the knowledge that she doesn’t, and that she’ll not only have to bathe alone, but only have one knight to do the ritual. Raoul, however, has his second, although he’s not sure that Kel will approve.

“I don’t know what you’ll think. I took him up on the offer. I thought he had a point.”
Kel stared at him. “He who?”
Raoul grimaced, a sheepish look in his eyes. “Turomot of Wellam.”
She knew that name, though she hadn’t thought of its owner as a candidate. Turomot of Wellam, when did she…”The magistrate?” she cried, her voice squeaking.
Raoul nodded.
“The Lord Magistrate?” she persisted.
Raoul nodded again.
“The conservative?”
Raoul nodded a third time. “Kel, it was his idea.”
“He hates me,” Kel said, her knees wobbling. “And he isn’t a knight. Is he?”
“Actually, yes,” Raoul told her. “He hasn’t lifted a sword in fifty years, of course. And he doesn’t hate you. At least, I don’t think he does. What he hates, what he told me, is that people meddled with his procedures to validate pages. He’s going to make sure no one tries that with you again. Look, if he’s there, no one will dare say anyone gave you any help.”
“The vigil?” Kel looked at Raoul with pleading eyes.
“He’s, um, going to sit up with you. That’s been done before, so you don’t have to worry about a jinx.”
Kel’s head ached. “He’s too old to be up all night. That place isn’t even heated.”
“Gods above, don’t tell him that! He already told me he wasn’t in his grave yet and he’d thank me to stop hinting he was decrepit!”

Once again, a practical and thoughtful offer to Kel from someone who is unimpeachable. Duke Turomot would certainly not allow any flimflam or shenanigans to happen while Kel is undergoing her Ordeal, assuming he say stay awake and warm enough for it, anyway. And the Chamber itself is also generally unimpeachable from the knights themselves, and they will commit violence to anyone who says otherwise. So, this should theoretically dispel the last rumors that Kel is somehow receiving extra help at her examinations. (It won’t, I’m sure, but it should.)

The queen draws the order of candidates, with Neal going first and Kel going last, so that’s extra pressure on her that she didn’t want to have, as well as extra waiting she definitely didn’t want. So Kel enlists Neal and Yuki to help distract her and Neal from the duties ahead, and Kel realizes that Yuki’s worried for Neal.

Yuki automatically reached for her fan, popped it open, and hid her face behind it. It was the Yamani way to say the fan holder was embarrassed.
“I’m not a Yamani anymore. I’m allowed to be rude. Foreigners don’t know any better,” Kel pointed out. She pushed the trembling fan aside. “Yukimni noh Daiomoru, it is going to be a long night. You’re worried for him. So am I. We’d best sit it out together, don’t you think?”
Yuki furled her fan and traced the pattern on one slender steel rib. “I was there, when they carried the beautiful Joren out. Not—as a sightseer. But there were shadows in him, for all his beauty. I wanted to see if this Ordeal purged them.” She tucked her fan in her obi. “He looked as if he’d lost all hope of sunrise. Neal…if something happens…”
“I wondered,” Kel admitted. “But you flirt with so many men that I wasn’t sure.”
“Neither was I,” Yuki said with a shaky smile. “Not until today.”
“Time for glaive practice,” Kel said, glad to have someone to look after. “Then a bath, a massage, some archery in one of the indoor courts. If you don’t sleep after all that, I will admit defeat.”
[…Yuki does sleep, Kel does not, but they’re both on time and ready to be there when Neal does emerge from the Chamber, sweaty, weepy, but very much alive…]
They were passing Kel and Yuki when Neal halted and turned toward them. There was a question in his eyes for Yuki. The Yamani girl looked down, then drew her folded shukusen from her obi and offered it to him, dull end first. Neal took the fan with trembling fingers, then let Alanna guide him out of the chapel.
That night, when the king knighted him, Neal wore Yuki’s delicate, deadly shukusen in his belt.

So there’s been an entire romance happening off-screen while Kel’s been away fighting Scanrans. Which is fine, although it would be interesting to know how their courtship went, and how many times Yuki cut Neal to ribbons metaphorically while they were at it, because he has always been the kind of person who will say or argue something to start the debate, and Yuki seems like the kind of lady that will shred his points into fine confetti. So if she’s anywhere near his peer in debating, it’s probably not too odd that the two of them fell for each other.

Each night, there’s a new candidate, each morning, Kel is there, and each morning, all of her cohort-mates come out of their Ordeals alive. Shaken, strongly, scared completely, but alive. Until it’s Kel’s turn. She decides to proceed as if she’s putting her affairs in order for her own death, including a letter to Cleon that reads “Dear Cleon—I love you and I will miss you. Kel.” Which she believes she could do better, but isn’t managing it. She feeds herself, then her animals, and tells the animals to be good and behave themselves. After that, the ritual bath, the clothing of Kel, and finally, the time of instruction for her, where the men lay out exactly what will be expected of Kel as a Knight of Tortall.

“If you survive the Ordeal of Knighthood, you will be a Knight of the Realm,” said Raoul gravely. “You will be sword to protect those weaker than you, to obey your overlord, to live in a way that honors your kingdom and your gods.”
Turomot cleared his throat, then said, “To wear the shield of a knight is an important thing. You may not ignore a cry for help. It means that rich and poor, young and old, make and female may look to you for rescue, and you cannot deny them.”
Back and forth they continued the instruction, reminding her of her duty to uphold the law and her own honor, to keep her word, to heed the rules of chivalry. Kel let all of it fall into her heart like stones into a still pool, sending ripples through her spirit as they fell. Those words were the reason she had come this far, the whole reason she needed to be a knight. She wanted them to be as much a part of her as blood and bone.

That’s a heavy charge that’s laid on all knights, and since Kel already has some experience with not being happy with the implementation of the law, I wonder which of those virtues and demands is supposed to take ultimate precedence over others. If someone is asking for mercy from an overlord that is being cruel, what is Kel supposed to do? (As opposed to what Kel wants to do.) What if it’s her overlord? What happens when she receives unjust orders, or immoral ones? Does that change if it’s coming from Jonathan? Or if the cruelty is enshrined in the law and nobody intends to budge on changing it? Kel will follow her own judgment and code in this, and she’s already shown herself to be vocal and deedful in protecting others against those who would take advantage of them or bully them. I wonder how much of established thought and actions in Tortall Kel is going to table-flip, because the way things are offended her sense of justice and she decided to be a menace until things got changed. Not in a way that would get her in trouble, but that would get her point across that the problems will stop when the injustice does. I also wonder how much Buri, Raoul, Alanna, and others would gleefully assist her in these matters and provide her with plausible deniability for possible insubordination or other such matters because they, too, want to see that particular person or part of the system smashed and ground into fine paste.

Kel, for her part, gains some respect for the nearly-eighty Duke, sitting in the cold to do the duty and ensure that there will be no interference for her, and then meditates on the instructions she has been given, pulling threads together and synthesizing into a greater whole.

That pond showed her a man, stubborn, harsh, old, who spent the night in discomfort. He did not do it for the squire who kept vigil there, but for the sake of duty, and for the web of custom and law that was the realm.
The realm. In her time as a squire she had seen more of it than most people knew existed, from the damp and mossy streets of Pearlmouth to Northwatch Fortress. She had hunted pirates in the west, built up dams against floods in the east. Mountains, green valleys, desert—she had ridden or walked in them all, measuring them with blisters and grit. Was this what was meant by “the realm”? Or was it other things: a little girl with a muddy doll, Burchard of Stone Mountain livid with grief and rage, a king who admitted a law was wrong, Lalasa in her bustling shop with pins in her mouth. If they were the realm, then so were griffins, sparrows, dogs ugly and beautiful, Stormwings, foul- and sweet-tempered horses, spidrens.
If she owed duty to the realm, then it was not the dry, withered thing it sounded in people’s mouths. Duty was what was owed, good parts and bad, to keep the realm growing, to keep it as fair as life could be kept. Duty was an old man, snug in his fur-lined robe, snoring lightly somewhere behind her.

This is a lovely piece of prose, honestly. It’s Kel understanding that her commitment to being a knight runs well deeper than the surface trapping of it, and that it’s not the land, but the people that she’s sworn to serve, aid, and defend in the way that will be best for her. (In Kel’s case, that’s usually by smashing whatever opposes them until it stops moving, but that’s a very useful skill in a lot of situations that Kel is likely to end up in.) She’s ready to take on the responsibility, even though it’s likely to present her with an awful lot of moral quandaries that she will either have to reason her way through or grind the belligerents into a fine paste and open the negotiations with their successors on how the problems of the past should be best avoided, so that they only have to deal with the Wrath of Keladry once, instead of multiple times. (Or, if it’s not something Kel can do the grinding on, receiving assistance from Raoul, Alanna, Buri, or others who can do that and/or negotiate from a better position than Kel can.) This kind of understanding of the breadth and depth of her duty will serve Kel well, and it’s something none of the male members of the family of Stone Mountain had in them when Joren failed his Ordeal.

Having meditated on the nature of duty, Kel is recalled to the present time. The door to the Chamber is open, Kel goes inside, after having to shake off her legs having fallen asleep from her meditation. In the Darkness, the Chamber tests Kel.

Clenching her firsts until they hurt, she stuffed her fear into the smallest out-of-the-way corner she could find. Of course she was afraid; she was always afraid. She just didn’t have to admit it.
Within herself she thought she heard a voice say, Now we shall see.
[The nightmare begins.]
She stood on a grassy plain. The only sound was the endless whistle of the wind as it blew, shaping tall grasses into shiny, rippling waves. She looked for the sun to fix her position and found solid, high, pale clouds. Later the sun would come out, or night would fall. She could guess her position then.
Kel turned in a circle. There: a tree, a pine, a lone tower on the plain. The sky arched down tot the ground in almost every direction, without mountains or any other trees to break the horizon. Kel listened, searching for the sound of animals or running water. All she heard was the constant sigh of the wind.
If she were to survive for ling, she would need water. That made her choice of action clear. The tree would be her goal. If she found no water by the time she reached it, she could use it as a watch post to find water. Kel stretched her muscles, then started to walk.
She thought she trudged onward for a long time, but it was impossible to tell. The light never changed, the wind never stopped, and she didn’t get tired. She did get very bored. About to hum a song for company, she stopped just in time. If this was part of her Ordeal, she had to keep silent.
Finally she reached the tree. It was a fir, like her northern watch post. Gripping a low branch, Kel hoisted herself up and began to climb. Bark and pieces of broken limbs bit into her sore feet. Patches of sap stuck to her hands. She climbed despite them, determined to see where she was. Up and up she went. She refused to think of how high she must be, far higher than she’d been in that border fir. I climbed down the outer stair of Balor’s Needle, she told herself grimly. At least here, if I fall, the branches will slow me down till I can grab on.
The wind picked up, tugging her clothes. Worse, it pressed the tree until the fir began to sway. Reaching for the next branch, Kel missed. Her foot slipped. One-handed she clung to the overhead branch as the wind dragged at her.
Is this the best you can do? she thought at the Chamber as she got both feet on a branch again. Balor’s Needle was scarier—
She closed her eyes. Even in her own mind she couldn’t hold her tongue. How clever was it to anger the thing in the Chamber while she was in its power?
Below she heard wood break. It was followed by the sound of heavy, leafy branches falling in an avalanche. When Kel opened her eyes, knowing she would not like what she saw, she found that the ground was now visible. It was hundreds of feet below, a distance far greater than that from the observation platform to the base of Balor’s Needle. Kel’s head swam. She trembled as she clutched the tree, and sweat poured from her body.
She closed her eyelids—they fought their way open, though she wanted them shut. The pine swayed. A gust made the trunk whip away from the clinging Kel: she hung on, somehow, wrapping legs and arms around it. The trunk shook as the wind grabbed her clothes.
Now her stomach rolled as she rode the trunk to and fro on arcs that gradually grew wider. The tree started to whip. She knew was was coming as clearly as if the Chamber shouted it in her ear. She could hang on as her grasp on the trunk weakened, or she could die when it snapped.
Her chief regret was that they would think her death here meant that girls were not supposed to be knights. That Lady Alanna was a flue or a miracle. Fianola, her sister, and Yvenne would have to find other dreams. It was no longer a matter of Kel’s surviving the Ordeal, the Chamber meant to kill her. What she could refuse it was the banquet of fear she would feed it if she clung to the very last. Perhaps it was her fate to die in such a fall—that would be why heights had always scared her.
Kel let go of the lasshing tree trunk, and dropped.
She landed on sand with a thump.

This is disguised as a test of Kel’s fear of heights, but the Chamber is once again testing Kel’s flexibility. In a very literal manner this time, testing her as to whether she will cling to what she believes is safe, even though she knows that when it breaks, she’ll die, or whether she’s willing to forego an unstable safety and cast herself into the unknown. Kel embraces flexibility and the possibility of a good result by jumping, even if she’s doing it to give two impudent fingers to the Chamber on the way down. She chose flexibility and the unknown over certainty, instead of trying to cling to what was known and not adapt to the situation in front of her. Kel passed the first of the major themes of her previous tests. The Chamber was blunter than usual with her about this, I think.

Having successfully managed to be flexible when the situation called for it, Kel gets put into a test of the second major theme of her recurring nightmares. This one intends to test her as a commander, and to see if she can roll with the things that are an inevitable part of commanding others.

She was twelve again, in a familiar-looking valley in the hill country, with sand on the ground, reddish-brown stone cliffs in front of her. Faleron, Neal, Prosper of Tameran, Merric, Owen, and Seaver clustered around her. They carried hunting weapons and looked panic-stricken.
Bandits rode around them on rugged horses, cutting the pages off from any escape. There were more than twenty raiders; hard, desperate men without so much as a patchless shirt between them. Their weapons were the only good things they had—good enough to carve up pages silly enough to stumble into their camp, at least.
“Kel, help us!” cried Faleron. “What do we do?”
It hadn’t been that way six years before. Faleron, the senior page, had been in command. He hadn’t asked for help from anyone; he had frozen. So had Neal, the oldest. They lived that day because Kel had kept her head.
She wasn’t keeping it now. She couldn’t breathe; she couldn’t think. The archers among the bandits fitted arrows to strings. The pages had to do something, but what? If they broke left, they ran back into the bandit camp. The men blocked them in front and on the right. The cliff was at their backs. She couldn’t decide. If the page archers shot, what would happen if they missed? What if they ran out of arrows?
But if those like Kel, bearing spears, attacked, wouldn’t the bandits shoot them?
An arrow sprouted in one of Faleron’s eyes. He collapsed, trying to pull it out as he died. Kel looked at the man who had shot him, her mouth trembling. They would have to kill all of the pages, she realized. No word of a bandit camp must get back to Lord Wyldon, who would summon the army…
“Kel, help us!” Merric yelled. He loosed an arrow, grazing a bandit, and fumbled getting another to its string. Two arrows buried themselves in his chest.
Owen screamed defiance and ran at a horseman, his spear raised.
The man grinned, showing blackened teeth, and chopped Owen’s spear in two. She had to do something, Kel thought, sweating, queasy. She had done it before, why noy now? did her group have mages with them? She thought they did, but she wasn’t sure.
The horseman beheaded Owen.
The Chamber made her watch all of them die as she tried to think, as she tried to jerk free of her paralysis. She could hve saved them, she knew. She did save them once. Was this how normal people felt when forced to battle? Frozen and witless?
As an axe-wielding bandit walked toward her, Kel thought at the Chamber furiously, I thought you would be grand and terrible! I thought you would make us grow up, make us accept knighthood’s duties and sacrifices. This is just mean—you’re a nightmare device, bringing bad dreams to people who want to help others!
[The nightmare ends.]
She thumped to her knees on flagstones. Once again she was in a gray stone box with an iron door on one side. Her body steamed in the chilly room.
You’ll do, a cold, whispering voice said somewhere between the inside of her ears and her mind. You’ll do quite nicely.

As before with these nightmares, Kel has to have her capacities reduced or befuddled to put her in the right state of mind to deal with the things she’s being tested on. The Kel we know is decisive and being trained on how to make tactical and strategic decisions, so her mind gets clouded by the Chamber so that she can’t use those capacities, and instead has to watch her friends die because she couldn’t figure out how to make a decision, because she was looking for the perfect decision to make and it was paralyzing her. These are lessons that Raoul is probably imparting to her as well – decisions can be regretted, but on the whole, it’s usually better to make a decision and make the enemy react to you, rather than to wait for the enemy to act and hope that your preparations are sufficient or that you’ve anticipated them correctly. That’s obviously a little different when it comes to working with national borders and treaties in place, but the plan usually seems to be “If they’re foolish enough to cross into our territory, spank them and send them running back to where they came from.”

The other part is that as a knight, as especially as a knight commander, people who she cares about dearly and who she has gotten to know well will end up dying because of her orders, sometimes even if they execute those orders perfectly and to great effect. This second test is the test of whether Kel is able to withstand that knowledge, and here, it’s not as conclusive as Kel jumping from the tree. She accuses the Chamber of cheating on this test, of being a nightmare machine of a simple purpose and nothing more, with immense magical power to ensure that whatever nightmare it has in mind will be enacted, no matter how unrealistic it has to make the scenario to put it into action. (In all of Kel’s nightmares about losing someone, after all, she’s been beset by both paralysis and a curious lack of (competent) healers or others who would normally be present and assisting the person or people that she’s trying to keep alive.) The pages looking to Kel for leadership then start acting on their own, rather than another one of their number taking charge if Kel falters. They don’t act with coordination or as a unit at all. Which is realistic for pages who haven’t been trained on it, but even they would attempt to do the best individual thing that they could. There’s too much out-of-character behavior for this test for Kel to believe it and try to work through it, thus the accusation of the Chamber that it’s not doing what it’s supposed to.

Rather than press the issue with Kel, though, the Chamber decides to let her go, and then it charges Kel with a specific, special mission for her to undertake on behalf of the Chamber of the Ordeal itself. Kel has made it to this point on her own physical strength, and now she’s the one tasked with something by the entitiy that is not human at all and immensely powerful in its own right.n

On the inside of the door frame, in the key-stone, a face was carved. Its eyes glinted yellow as they surveyed Kel. The face was as lined and lipless as the mummmies curiosity-seekers had found in an old Yamani tomb. Kel wondered if she were seeing ghosts.
Or was it an attempt to trick her into speaking?
It was no trick. The stone lips did not move. The voice still sounded within her head, not without, but she knew somehow that voice and stone face were both the Chamber’s. This is no part of your test. This is something you must remember.
[…Kel is granted a vision of the villain of the next book. How do we know he’s the villain?…]
Like so many alien beetles, the dreadful machine of the battle at Forgotten Well, multiplied by eleven, walked from the dark to form a half-circle at the back of the little man. They all turned their smoothly curved heads toward him with eerie attention.
Kel blinked. She had not seen that something lay on the ground between the little man and the machines. It was actually a pile of something, she thought, trying to get a better look. She took two steps forward. Several somethings. Her eyes saw the fresh gleam of dark liquid on a doll’s face. And there—who would make a doll with a black eye? All had bruised faces…
Later she would understand why she had refused to believe what she aw. It was too vile. A twelfth black killing device forced her to see things as they really were. It stepped out of the shadows. It tossed a dead child onto the pile. They were all battered, dead children.
There is your task, the whispering voice told her shocked brain. You will know when it has found you.
Tell me where, she demanded silently, fiercely. Tell me where this is!
The Chamber door swung open. She could see Raoul, her parents, Jump, and the sparrows. They waited for her.
It will find you, the chamber told her. When it does, fix it.
A force urged Kel forward. She walked out of the Chamber of the Ordeal.

It’s a truism of many stories that if you want to make sure that your villain is beyond any kind of redemption, make sure they hurt children. Kel’s reaction to seeing the pile of children and assuming they’re very lifelike dolls at first is a reasonable one, because many people aren’t inclined to think of someone as the kind of person who would kill children and use them to power killing machines. And that it persists into being very strange dolls before the truth finally slams into her is also pretty normal. Once she’s figured out what she’s seeing, however, Kel understands why she’s being asked to fix the problem. (And she intends to go murder the person responsible as soon as she gets the opportunity, as we’ll see.)

With what the Chamber can do to the knights that test themselves with it, and its apparent sentience and willingness to subject anyone who asks for it to the nightmares that it can create, I want to know what the Chamber is. Obviously extremely magically powerful, but is the Chamber a god of some sort? A minor one, not in the pantheon with Mithros and the others that we saw in Daine’s books, but a god all the same? I’d call the Chamber the god of visions, since that seems to be its specialty, even if most of the time, that power is being used to put knights through a test to see if they’ll survive or crack when pressure is applied to their failings and faults. Kel got a different vision, Vinson got visions and manifestations of his own, and Yuki said there were shadows around Joren, and described him as having lost all hope of sunrise, so I wonder if that is something that Joren had been given as his visions in his Ordeal. (I still think the Chamber could easily break him by subjecting him to the visions of a world where women ran everything and he was expected to humble and subordinate himself to them all the time. Kel would show up in them plenty, I’m sure, possibly as his immediate superior, and with free reign to hurt him as he intended to hurt her. For all we know, in those visions, Joren was subjected to the oubliette, buried and forgotten while still alive, and with nobody to rescue him or forgive him for his actions. With the reluctance that knights have to talk about their Ordeal visions, we really don’t know what the Chamber shows them or why it hammers on their weaknesses.

Getting back to the narrative, there’s no intervening words between Kel walking out and the beginning of this segment, as if Kel basically blanked out the entirety of her experience between leaving the Chamber and being formally knighted. If there was something in-between in an earlier draft, it’s gone, and it makes it seem like a very abrupt time jump and scene shift. With what Kel saw in the Chamber, disassociating completely until she got walloped on the shoulders with the sword is a completely realistic outcome, although there were probably some ritual words that she said automatically from her training before her conscious brain re-engaged.

The king struck each of Kel’s shoulders with the flat of his sword, hard enough to bruise, then gently tapped her crown. “You are dubbed Lady Knight, Keladry of Mindelan,” he announced solemnly as his court watched. “Remember your wovs and service to this Crown. Remember your promise of chivalry.”
I’ll remember, she thought as her family and friends applauded. Particularly will I remember it when I find that little man.
[…Ilane hugs her daughter, tears in her eyes, because she’s proud of her daughter. Her father gives her hugs, tears in his eyes, as well, and then there are more hugs, and Kel is presented with her shield…]
There was the Mindelan device: a gray owl, wings outstretched, on a blue field rimmed with cream. There were two differences between this shield and those of her brothers. On Kel’s, the owl hovered over a pair of crossed glaives, cream embroidered in gold, matches for a Yamani glaive. The other difference was the shield’s border: it was formed by two thin rings, the outer blue, the inner cream. A distaff border, the heralds had named it, the coat of arms of a lady knight. They had studied them as pages, but distaff borders had not been used in over one hundred years. Not even Lady Alanna had ever claimed one.
Kel stepped forawrd in a daze. Buri and Shinko helped slide the shield on her arm. It fit perfectly—Kel looked around to see Lalassa, teary-eyed, beaming at her. Of course the shield fit, if Lalasa had anything to say about it.
“Wear it in health and victory,” Queen Thayet said. “Now, show the nice people.”
Kel turned, and showed them.

I love that little bit of casualness from Thayet, it lightens the mood just right when Kel might be overwhelmed with the seriousness of it all. I also have to tip my hat to the college of Tortallan heralds for coming up with such a lovely design for Kel that will make it clear who she is, where she comes from, and why anyone who sees that shield on the field against them should be running away very fast, because they’re about to have their asses handed to them by a lady knight.

The sparrows also help lighten the mood, because Kel has to clean off a dropping left by Nari on the owl of her shield. Kel takes this as a general dislike of owls rather than as a personal rebuke. And then Alanna knocks and enters and answers the question that we already knew well back in Page, at least, if not in First Test.

You’ve grown since the last sword I gave you, and I got a better idea of your fighting style on progress.”
Kel took the blade in hands that shook. How casually this woman answered a question that had bothered her for eight years! “It was you?” she whispered. “The bruise balm, the exercise balls, the dagger, the—?”
Alanna nodded. “It nearly killed me, that I couldn’t help you. Not with magic, like those mammering conservatives claimed, but with things like what works best on heavy opponents, and how to build up shoulder muscle. So I did what I could.”
Thinking of all those gifts over the years, truly expensive things chosen with so much thought about what she would need, Kel shook her head.
“Neal mentioned there were times when you thought I didn’t care,” the lady said, violet eyes serious. “I wanted to tell you, it was the opposite. And you went so far beyond what I hoped, for the next girl page, and squire, and knight. All those tournaments, and those girls in the stands, right down by the field, watching you hungrily—”
“Oh, my lady, no!” protested Kel, shocked.
“Yes,” the King’s Champion said firmly. “I had the magic, don’t you see, and the hand of the Goddess on me. Everyone could and did say I was a freak, one of those once-a-century people. No one else needs to strive for what I did, because they couldn’t reach it.” Alanna smiled crookedly. “But you, bless you, you are real. Those girls watched you, and talked about your style in the saddle, and the things you did. They swore they’d take up archery, or riding, or Shang combat, because you had shown them it was all right. I was so proud.” She cleared her throat. Kel realized that the Champion was beet red. “You know, those things look better out of the sheath,” she remarked, pointing to she sword Kel held.

And what a sword it is, from Raven Armory, as the other ones have been, but Kel realizes the tempering pattern as being of “the finest Yamani steel,” meaning “She held a fortune in metal in her hands.” Which sets Kel immediately to protesting that it’s far too expensive a gift for her, but because she’s still weak from the Ordeal, she loses her grip on it, and in her tiredness, catches the sword so that she cuts herself on the edge. Alanna tells her “you bled on it, it’s yours, them’s the rules,” and Kel reluctantly has to agree, because that’s the sword lore. The sword itself is better-suited to Kel’s current height and hands. Alanna has one last dig for Kel before they go.

“I do wish you’d been a runt like me.” Alanna was straight-faced, her eyes mischievous. “That would have made it perfect.”
Kel sighed and told the lady solemnly, “I would have been smaller if I could, Lioness.” Alanna laughed. She laid a small, hard hand over Kel’s as Kel gripped the hilt of her wonderful new sword. “Gods all bless, Lady Knight,” she said quietly.
[…Jump breaks up the serious mood by playing for pets…]
“Lady Alanna,” Kel said, “would you like to come to supper with us? Someone has to keep Neal from making speeches.”
Alanna cackled. “Well, I’m definitely the woman to do that,” she admitted. “I thank you, and I accept.”
After she left to get a coat, Kel remained for a moment, looking at her sword. The blue tempering shone in the light from her candles, pulling her eye to that elegant blade.
“I dub thee Griffin,” she whispered, running fingertips along its length. “We have work to do.”

Which finishes our chapter, and this book.

As King’s Champion, as Myles’s heir, and as a Baroness in her own right, I think Alanna has enough disposable and/or personal income accessible to herself that expensive gifts like Raven Armory swords are not going to break her bank. And given that Alanna’s role in helping Kel in a more direct manner has been sharply and severely curtailed ever since the deal was brokered to let Kel in, finding that she can anonymously gift Kel with the material good she would need to continue on, and that would relieve burdens on her family having to put two daughters out there as marriage prospects, Alanna was probably ready to commit as much of the royal treasury as she could funnel to Kel with the gifts and the things she could do.

And, it’s a nice reminder here at the end, that Kel has been an ordinary girl this entire time, with no magic at her disposal, and she still got through all of the tests and training as a page and became a lady knight. Alanna’s going to be a legend in her own right, but Kel is going to be a mythological figure. If there’s an opening in the Tortallan pantheon for “Goddess of Lady Pages, Squires, and Knights,” someone is probably going to be asking Kel to take up that position when she’s done being a knight in Tortall, whenever that happens.

The remainder of the material is a cast of characters, a glossary of terms and places, and the acknowledgements. (After that, there’s the first chapter of the next book, and the one of the Tempests books, and the author bio.) In the acknowledgements, the author indirectly thanks the author of the Harry Potter books for convincing American publishers that there was an appetite for longer books for children, after directly thanking her editrix for an additional hundred pages to get this story out. Which, given that this was before that author’s obvious turn to evil, and even before, I think, UK LeGuin savaged that author’s work, is not something to hold against this author. After all, professionals of all sorts were happy that the author of the Potter books had written them and opened up plenty of opportunities and possibilities for readers and authors alike. (I wonder what Tamora Pierce’s opinion of the Wizard Lady is now, given the generally positive and respectful attitude Tamora Pierce has of her readers in contrast to the Wizard Lady’s complete heel turn and throwing her readers under the bus.)

The rest of the acknowledgements are for people who helped out with sparrow biology, garden information, horses, royal progresses, and someone who helped out with the names and provided feedback on the Japanese parts that were imported to become Yamani. And also, the birds, several of who were sparrows, but also a dove that suggested the idea of doves being peaceful birds is laughable, and the crow who taught her a lot in a hurry about the care of wild birds.

Congratulations, Kel, you made it, with sheer persistence, grit, and through obstacles that would not have been thrown in anyone else’s face. You almost lost out to someone who was ready to throw you out just for being a girl, but he relented in the face of your awesome, which allowed someone who actually does care and sees your talent to develop you further. You got help from someone who wanted to make you the best that you could, but who couldn’t show herself until all was said and done, lest there be accusations of magic deployed in your favor. And you learned a lot. Next week, it’s time to start putting that learning to the test, because not only are you still having to deal with Scanrans, the Chamber itself has given you a task to find and eradicate the man who is destroying children to power his murder machines. Will finally getting her shield give Kel the respect she’s earned? We’ll find out.

Last time out, Kel and the Third deployed themselves to the areas where the Scanrans were raiding and making trouble for the Tortallans, but they got there with more than enough time to erect foritfications, grow gardens, tame animals, have a chess tournament, and more, waiting for when the Scanrans decided they were interested in attacking. Hurry up and wait, and then, more hurry up and wait.

Squire, Chapter 17: Content Notes:

This chapter’s time marker is “Summer, in the 20th year of the reign of Jonathan IV and Thayet, his Queen, 459”. And, at the end of the last chapter, Kel celebrated her eighteenth birthday, which means she’s now eligible for the Chamber of the Ordeal and the ritual of knighthood. Thus, when it rolls around to winter, Kel’s going to go back to Corus and see if she can survive the Chamber. So long as she survives to that point. And since she’s in the middle of a war with Scanra, there’s not a guarantee that she will.

The chapter starts with Kel up a tree with her spyglass, in a miserably hot August, where the heat also means that the pine tree she’s up is leaking sap onto her. However, despite being hot and sticky, Kel spots movement and reports out that a small army is on the way to the fortress where their army is. Messengers are dispatched, and Third Company is scattered toward the places that will need defending, with specific interest put forth for the town of Riversedge, which has a merchant caravan due in and therefore will be a prime target for an invading army to attack. So the forces split and head their way to defend the merchants and the town. Kel decides to bring her griffin-fletched arrows in case she needs some additional help, and Raoul has added a big axe to his weapons loadout as well as his lance, because there have been rumors of giants among the Scanrans. When Raoul and company come upon the merchants, they’re already in the thick of battle, but the merchants have been holding their ground. The addition of the troops of the Own is sufficient to break up the party and send the Scanrans on their way. The merchants are not very willing to leave their wagons behind, but Raoul is an army commander in war and doesn’t have much tolerance for what might be politely termed as “civilian bullshit,” although he doesn’t use such words.

“My wagons,” said an old man, clutching a bundle.
“Buy new ones. Get moving,” he snapped. “Put your wounded on blankets and carry them up. The animals can go if they’ll follow. If not, leave them. Who’s in charge?”
“My—my husband’s dead,” said a small, fragile-looking brunette with huge brown eyes. “I suppose—”
“If he was in charge, let’s make it you, unless someone argues. Get going,” Raoul ordered. “Don’t flutter, mistress, just do it.”
The brunette turned away from Raoul. Kel watched her, thinking she would crumble or delay. Instead the woman squared her shoulders against the no-nonsense gray cotton of her dress. Her chin went up. She began to call out names, her voice firm as she went on. A slender man carrying a longbow and quiver came to stand beside her. Those who hesitated at her orders behaved after that.

Smart decision on Raoul’s part, although we note that it takes the support of a second, unnamed person before her promotion sticks and people start following her orders. It makes me wonder how much of what Kel has experienced as a squire has been in relation to the fact that she has Raoul of Goldenlake has her knight-master, and how much his authority is helping her accomplish her goals, compared to if she had been squired to any other knight. I think we’re supposed to understand “not much,” given how often Kel’s been getting slapped by the conservatives, and how much Raoul got to have some fun unhorsing them himself, but as far as I can tell, Kel hasn’t been outright refused by anybody, even members of her own rank and higher, for being who she is and being squired to who she is. There was just the one major threat happening when Joren’s family were deep in their grief and speaking very unwise words, but other than that, it seems to be that Kel is able to accomplish her tasks without issue. (And Third Company seems to have accepted her somewhat cheerfully, even with a few grumbles, and, as was noted, once she proved she can bash heads with the best of them, just about everybody stopped having any problems with her.) The hardest of Kel’s trials really were the page years, when she didn’t have anyone who would protect, defend, or assist her that she didn’t befriend herself.

As it is, Raoul directs his soldiers to wait with the merchants, on the understanding that the people from the sieged fortress nearby will be along to provide escort as soon as they can. The merchants don’t know that the fort is sieged, so this is a matter of fighting protectively until reinforcements arrive. The smoke signals get sent up to inform the other defenders of their position, and then, again, it’s hurry up and wait. Kel sends the new leader of her sparrows, Nari (“the Yamani word for thunder”, which makes me wonder if Nariko, the armsmistress at the Yamani court, uses the same characters for her name as this description, making her “the one who shouts like the thunder” or something similar. It looks like this “thunder” derivation might come from the character transliterated as “kaminari”, originally composed of parts that are “god” and a specific form of the verb indicating “ring”, “sound”, “roar”, and so forth. So the Yamani might have carved off the “god” part of it, leaving it to be understood that it means “god-sound” in this particular kanji. Or it might be a full on “kaminari” and Kel has made Nari into a nickname for the sparrow. This has been another linguistic diversion…) and the contingent to scout and provide advance warning of when the enemy decided to return to them. When the enemy returns, we get a little bit of strategic discussion in Kel’s head about what to do with them.

Among the Own there were two opinions: kill the soldiers because they fight and officers are useless, or kill the officers because they think and the soldiers will break up and panic without them. Kel and Dom belonged to the second camp.
[…so Kel takes aim at the ones on horseback and starts shooting, and hits her targets, both the officer on the horseback and the one supposedly in the berserker, demon-possessed rage…]
“Nice shooting, Kel,” Dom said with approval, taking a swallow of water.
“It’s these feathers the griffins gave me,” she told him, showing him one. “I think if I shot straight in the air I’d still hit a target.”
“Modest, modest, modest,” he teased, shaking his head. “Do you think it’s a requirement for lady knights or something? Lady Alanna isn’t modest—at least, not about the things she does well.”
[…the enemy reforms, and this time advances under a shield wall, which makes Dom curse, because he does not like it at all when the enemy turns out to have learned new tactics…]
“Did you see that ugly one back on the edge of the trees, the one with the peaked fur hat?”
“Mage?” asked the man on Dom’s far side.
Dom nodded. “My arrows all swerved when I shot at him. I can hear him singing back there—he’s cooking up something nasty. Probably something to hide them on the next advance.” He sucked a tooth in thought. “Kel, I’ve got an idea. Nobody can lie around griffins, right? Maybe some of that carries over to their feathers. Maybe you could see through illusions if you tied some on your forehead, over your eyes.”
Kel shook her head. “This had better not be a joke to make me look silly. If you say Sakuyo laughs, you will be in deep trouble.”
“Saku—what?”
“A Yamani god. On his feast day people play tricks on one another, and if someone gets angry, the other one says Sakuyo laughs.” She always carried spare griffin feathers in her belt pouch, just in case. She took two out and used a pair of handkerchiefs as a band to hold them over her eyes.
[…Dom’s intuition turns out to be right, as Kel can see everything clearly, while the others can’t see a thing…]
“When in doubt,” the mage Numair Salmalín had taught the pages, “shoot the wizard.”
Kel straightened, drew her bowstring back to her ear, and loosed. The old man pointed to her arrow and screeched. It slowed in midair, then sped again, kicking off his fur cap. Kel laid the second arrow to the string the moment she loosed the first, in case he magicked her first shot. That arrow struck the old man squarely in the chest. He grabbed the end of the shaft, greatly surprised, and fell into the fire, smothering it.
Instantly the Own shot a deadly rain of arrows that flew at the Scanran lines. The northerners retreated, howling, until they were out of sight and out of range.
“Who took care of the mage?” Raoul asked.
Kel jumped a foot. She didn’t even know he was behind her. He laid a hand on her arm. “Steady on,” he said, then asked Dom, “Well?”
Dom pointed at Kel as she peeled the band from her forehead, showing Raoul the griffin feathers.
“May I borrow that?” Raoul asked.
“Of course,” Kel told him. She tied it to his forehead.
“I’ll bring it back. Good work, you two. Try to save arrows.”

Remarkably practical and cold-blooded advice from Numair there. He’s right, of course, and probably everyone with a magical gift in the service would agree with him that shooting the magic-user is the best best to make the situation work better for you. And then, after that, shoot the officers if you can.

Also, the festival of Sakuyo sounds extremely mean-spirited, in the same vein as April Fool’s Day here in the States, and with a similar sort of attitude of “can’t you take a joke, man?” for anyone who gets genuinely upset at being pranked like that. For me, it’s “a joke, yes, but many pranks cross the line into outright cruelty,” as the base, and then there’s all the people who I suspect have a bad day of it when they’re trying to make sense of the allistic world, and then there’s this topsy-turvy day that happens where everyone’s out of character. And all the people who just don’t see the value and use in having a day of misinformation, especially as we have gotten better at producing convincing versions of it as time and technology go on. (And, a lot of people consider Japanese pranks to be S-tier because of how much they seem to be about embarrassment and humiliation.)

As it is, since Kel’s been doing well, Dom gets hit with an arrow and has to withdraw. Kel eventually figures out that they’re being shot from above, and gets the archers to take out the shooters in the trees. Raoul, returning, compliments Kel’s shooting and then gives her command of Dom’s squad, because Symric, the only remaining officer, is “no commander” and that “Symric knows” he shouldn’t have been promoted to command. Kel gathers the squad, informs them of Raoul’s orders and then sets them back to watch the lines, which goes swimmingly well until the last of the surprises for this battle is sprung on them.

“I’m telling you, they’re leaving,” argued Wolset. “We can reinforce the center of the line instead of dawdling here—”
Kel had to do something. He’d call for a vote next, while the Scanrans prepared their next move. She had to risk getting shot.
Kel got up and walked over to him. Grabbing his mail and the shirt under it, she twisted hard and yanked until his face was near hers. “Listen, yatter-mouth,” she whispered, locking her eyes on his, “shut up, do as you’re told. r you’ll have worse than Scanrans to fret over.” She tightened her grip as he struggled. “Do you understand?”
Wolset nodded, his face beet red. Kel dropped him. “Next time remember I’ bigger than you,” she told him.
The men were sneaking wide-eyes glances at them. When Kel glared, they turned their eyes front.
[…and then something comes to play that nobody had an inkling was around…]
Kel gaped. She had never seen anything like this. The long, black, curved shape that served as a head swiveled back and forth on the dull metal body without exposing a neck. The eyes were set deep in the metal, if those dark pits were eyes. The limbs seemed formed of large metal-coated bones—giants’ bones?—and fine metal chains and rods that acted like muscles. Pulleys served as joints. There were three joints in each limb between the splays of knife-tipped digits on its feet and hands and the limb’s connection to the body. That gave the thing two extra elbows and two extra knees. Its slender tail coiled and whipped, snakelike; it was tipped with a ball of spikes. The whole construction was nearly seven feel tall.

And the scramble is on, as Kel and the squad desperately try to find a way of hurting the contraption or even slowing it down. Symric tries to hit it with his sword, and loses his head in the process. Kel figures out that the creature’s mobility needs to be restricted, and the men (and Jump) do their best to truss it up with ropes and brace those ropes against something that can withstand the creature’s fearsome strength. Kel, for her part, gets bashed around and attacked as the men and the dog do their work of getting it bound up, including Kel helping out by passing on rope when it’s thrown to her. Seeing that their advantage is only temporary, and time is running out on them, Kel goes for a direct and possibly self-killing strategy.

She yanked the warhammer from her belt and grabbed a fist-sized rock. “Mithros, don’t let me die,” she pleaded, and ran to the trapped monster. Turning her warhammer so the long spike faced out, she dug it into the cables and bone of the monster’s torso and pulled herself up like a mountain climber.
Then men yelled for her to stop. “We can hold it!” one insisted. Kel knew they were wrong.
To the monster that had just tried to bite her she said, “You don’t scare me.”
The thing turned its head toward her, its mouth on the same level as her face. “Mama?” it asked in a child’s voice. The visor opened; razor-teeth snapped. Kel jammed the stone between them. She’d picked the right size: the monster couldn’t close its mouth. Kel heard metal grind as it kept trying to shut those visor-lips.
She took a deep breath. Grabbing the cables of one arm with her free hand, she dug a toe into a metal crevice and worked her warhammer free. She raised her weapon and smashed the hammer’s spiked head onto the monster’s metal crown. It dented—the spike was made to pierce armor. Kel raised the hammer and smashed it down in the same place. The monster thrashed, fighting its bonds.
One more blow ought to do it, she thought.
Kel wedged one foot in the slot between the monster’s outstretched arm and the boulder. Bracing her knee on its shoulder, she extracted the other leg and pulled it up on the thing’s opposite shoulder. She balanced shakily, freeing both hands. Third time for luck, she old herself, and drove the warhammer down into the thing’s head with all that remained of her strength.
The spike caught. Yanking it free, she lost her balance. Down she fell, twisting an ankle and landing flat on her very sore back. She yelped and struggled to her feet.
White steam, or something like it, hissed from the hole in the thing’s skull. It formed a pale, wavering shape that cried, “Mama?” in the same voice as the monster. The wind blew the shape apart. The creature collapsed against its ropes.
Kel pressed a hand against her aching side. “You, and you.” She chose men who had not been forced to wrestle the thing. They looked fresher than those who had. “Get more ropes on this creature. Wrap it up like a spidren’s supper. I don’t want it waking to cut our throats.” She looked up at Wolset, who had dragged himself to the top of the boulder. “You’re promoted to corporal,” she croaked. “For understanding that the head had to be trapped. What have we forgotten?”
He blinked at her, then looked at the men. “Weapons, positions, eyes front,” he ordered as he slid to the ground. “We don’t want the enemy following this thing to us!” He faced Kel as the men scrambled back to their places. “That was right, wasn’t it?”
Kel nodded.
“Then sir—lady, may I ask something?”
“Ask,” Kel said, and coughed.
He pointed to the thing, as Kel’s chosen men cocooned it in rope. “Is that enough kraken for you?”

Because it’s a very human impulse to look at something that just caused death and destruction, realized you might have survived it, and then make a joke about it. And it’s an excellent call-back to the idea of “going to see the kraken,” and the encounters that Kel had dismissed as insufficiently deadly, strange, or dangerous to qualify as the kraken for her. And because surviving something that should have killed you with your life makes you punchy and funny, when the reinforcements arrive and allow everyone to stand down, the snark is in full swing from everyone.

Lerant goggled at their prize. “What in the name of Torsen Hammersmith is that?”
“Good question,” croaked Kel, whose voice was raw. She must have been shouting, though she hardly remembered it. “So happy you asked. Give us another, if you like.”
Lerant shook his head. “You get more like my lord every day. I suppose you’ll want combat pay for the dog and birdies next.”
“They earned it,” Wolset told him. The other exhausted men nodded.
[…Raoul comes to inspect their prize and the people…]
“My lord bagged himself another giant, we hear,” said Wolset with admiration.
“Those big fellows are all alike,” Raoul said with a weary smile. “Smash ’em on the toe and they turn into kittens.” He approached the monster, now wrapped in rope, and inspected it thoroughly. Then he turned to Sergeant Balim, who had come with him. “Send for General Vanget. He should see this, but tell him I also want Numair Salmalín up here, now. I don’t care where he is or what it takes, I want Numair here yesterday.”
[…Raoul demands a report from someone, and gets it from everyone…]
Finally Raoul looked at Kel. “So here’s one of those machines that Myles spoke of.” Worry filled his eyes. “What are they cooking, up there in the north?” he asked very quietly. “How many of these things are they going to send us?”
Kel shook her head. She had wondered the same thing.

Which gets us out of this chapter with the worry that something big is on the way, and that also it’s not something that can be killed easily. (Well, at least not without help to penetrate the reinforced helmet of the creature and let out the animating spirit.)

When Lerant says Kel is getting more like Raoul, I don’t think he means it as a compliment, but as Raoul has mentioned, there are some times in dealing with the horrors of war where you start laughing, and if someone can get a nice drink to you in time, they won’t find out that once you’ve started, you don’t actually stop laughing until whatever caused it to start runs its course. Or learning from Dom that nobody likes war stories of mud and suffering, they want war stories of blood and victory and protecting the civilians and being dashing and noble. This seems like one of those things that people in the service have told us civilians a few times ourselves, about our own unwillingness to see the truth of war and battle as inglorious, desperate, panicky, and ultimately a lot different than what the movies and the recruiters sold them on. And with a high probability that you’ll go out alive and come back in a coffin. (The last time that there might have been an inkling of understanding of that in the US, mass protests erupted over civilians being drafted to fight in Vietnam.)

There’s plenty of practical education that Kel has been getting in the service of becoming a knight, both in how to fight and in how to command others. And, sometimes, in the wisdom of promoting the man who openly questioned her and that she had to physically intimidate into keeping his position. He likely realized the mistake he made as soon as the automaton attacked them, and then showed intelligence and cunning in figuring out how to help restrain the creature so that Kel could kill it. It isn’t said whether Dom and Raoul agree with her decision to field-promote Wolset, but I suspect that even if they disagreed with her about it, they would respect it, because she made the decision as the commander at the time. I also suspect that a man with the brains to recognize what he’s looking at and devise a useful solution is someone who can do good things when given a set of men to help him in accomplishing those useful solutions, so Dom and Raoul probably do agree with Kel’s field promotion decision.

So Kel has done all the things that she might have been expected to do as a member of the army, and many of the things she will be expected to do as a knight. Which means that next week, for the last chapter of this book, Kel has to go back and finally face the Chamber of the Ordeal for real, rather than in an attempt to gain some sort of power or mastery over her fears. Whether Kel makes it all the way out, and all of her years are either vindicated or she ends up failing out at her biggest test, we’ll find out next week.