Lying on her back on a bale of hay, Kel let her eyes close and tried to relax all of the muscles in her face. The afternoon sunlight shone red through her eyelids and she had to rest the back of her hand over her eyes to be in darkness. She listened to the flies and the quiet movement of horses in their stalls while her face throbbed. Her nose was swollen and she could still taste blood in her mouth. She leant over the edge of the bale and spat onto the straw-strewn floor, knowing it would do little to improve anything. Lying back again made her feel dizzy and Kel gave a small groan. Jump whined at her from where he sat at the foot of the bale.

"It could be worse," Kel told him, "I could be Sir Isaac."

She folded her hands on her stomach and breathed deeply, allowing the sun to bathe her aching face like warm water. The hay beneath her stopped feeling prickly against her back and the gentle rise and fall of her stomach under her hands was soothing. She slipped into dreaming as easily as a seal slides into the shallows of a quiet sea.

The heat on her face was not the sun but a large bonfire. She sat cross-legged in front of it under a night sky that blazed with foreign stars. Sand surrounded her like an ocean-less beach and she could make out the profiles of massive dunes far in the distance. The light cast by the fire made it seem like she was in a pool of tawny gold, the flames and the lit sand flickering in all different shades of red and dun. There was the faintest whisper of music, blown in by a soft breeze, which sounded to Kel like twanging wire and a slow drumbeat. It pleased and disturbed her, becoming louder and softer as the wind rose and fell. The fine hairs on her arms prickled.

Across from her, on the other side of the fire, sat a creature with its back to her. At first she thought it was some kind of an animal. She could hear a low crooning sound coming from it and there was something inhuman about its shape. It shifted to one side and Kel saw that it was a young man, bare-foot and wearing nothing but a loincloth under a heavy cloak of black fur. He was crouched over a sharp-faced dog, running his hands over its back and ribs as it lay on its side in the sand. A litter of soft, mewling puppies squirmed against its belly.

As Kel watched, the man moved his hand from the mother to her puppies, laying it on them one-by-one as if he was examining each of them in turn. At last his hand paused on one and he seized it roughly by the scruff, holding it up to the fire for Kel to see. It was pitch-black, so young that its eyes were still squeezed tightly shut against the light.

"Prince of Teeth," said the man, in a voice that was startlingly deep, "Open your eyes."

The puppy's eyes flicked open and it looked at Kel through the flames. Its eyes were blue and not animal-like at all. When its mouth opened and it began to cry, its wails were those of a new-born baby.

Kel woke to find a shadow falling over her face, blocking the sunlight. She sat up quickly and the boy who had been leaning over her jumped back, looking sheepish. He was four or five years younger than her, dressed in the scarlet and gold of a page. Kel squinted up at him, shading her eyes with her hand when he began to speak. He seemed flustered and a little upset, his voice breaking every now and then as if he felt like crying.

"I'm sorry, Lady, but I need to use the hay."

She gazed at him blankly for a moment with the soft resonance of strange music still in her ears, then realised what he wanted and got stiffly to her feet. The page waited until she had moved a few paces away before he approached the bale she had been lying on and began tugging handfuls of hay out of it. Kel watched him with bemusement then took a step back towards him.

"Do you… uh… need some help there?"

"No," he said, a little too quickly, then sniffed and wiped his nose on his sleeve. Kel came to stand beside him, wondering how best to help him. He was small for his age and not strong-looking, his hair sweaty and his chin shaking just a little. She considered asking him whether the other pages were being unkind but she thought better of it and said, "You want to feed your horse?"

"Yes," he glanced at her with embarrassed hostility, "You can go. I don't need help."

Kel shrugged, "I have nothing better to do. Here, I'll show you a trick."

She went over to the larger stack of bales at the end of the stable block, kicking up the loose bits of straw on the ground until she found one of the long piece of twine that had been cut from the bindings of another bale. When she came back with it the boy was still frowning but he did not tell her to go away. Kel slipped one end of the length of twine under the bale's own binding and pulled it until it was half-way under. Holding one end in each hand like reins, she began to saw with it, pulling back and forth as quickly as possible.

"The idea is to keep it moving on one particular spot," Kel said, seeing the boy watching her, "This piece of string wears away at the one binding the bale. The faster you go, the quicker the binding will give way." She put one foot against the bale and leant back, giving a few more hard tugs to either side before the binding broke. Satisfied, she dropped her piece and pulled the binding away.

"Will you fetch that pitchfork over there?"

The page found the fork leaning against a stable door and brought it to her without complaint. Kel took it and gave the bale a light kick. It collapsed into several pieces and she speared one with the fork. The boy led her down the row of stalls to the opposite end of the block, where many of the pages' horses were kept. There was no one with the horses now except the two of them. It was getting close to suppertime and the pages should have been finished with their duties in the stables long before. He stopped in front of the very last stall and opened the half-door so Kel could carry the hay to the manger at the back.

As she came into the stall, Kel saw the boy's horse and paused, still hefting the pitchfork in front of her. He was a young grey stallion, his dappled coat freshly brushed and his ears pushed forward with interest. Kel stared at him, forehead wrinkling, until the boy asked her what the matter was. Then she filled the manger and came out again, giving the horse a hard pat and closing the stall door behind her.

"I could swear that I saw a knight riding that horse at the jousting this morning," she said, setting the pitchfork down against the far wall, "Do you know Sir Isaac of Horsehead Spit?

"He's my uncle," said the boy, "I'm Lord Spartak of Horsehead Spit. But I think you must be mistaken. Haven't you heard what they say about Sir Isaac?"

"What do they say?"

"They call him the Green Giant. He's too tall to ride Hammer."

Kel's frown deepened as she watched Spartak pass her, on his way to the pages' mess for his supper. Just as he was about to turn the corner, he hesitated and looked back at her over his shoulder.

"Thank you for helping me..." he stopped, uncertain about something, "Look... You helped me so I'll try and do the same. Go and see my uncle's blacksmith. He has a shop near the river."

Kel folded her arms over her chest and considered him, "Why do you think I need a blacksmith?"

"He'll do the work for free if you tell him you're a friend of mine." Spartak shrugged, "Go or don't go: it doesn't concern me. But that's what I'd do if I were you."

He turned and left, leaving Kel alone with the horses as the setting sun coloured the brick of the stable yard a golden shade of peach.