September 20, 476 H.E.
37Th year of the reign of Jonathan IV and Thayet, his Queen
Page Wing of the Royal Palace
Aranna was up the next morning before Dawn, as always, the morning. She immediately rolled out of bed and nearly jumped with excitement for the training which would start hours later. Once she calmed down enough to not to scream and jump, Aranna started her daily routine; washing her hands and face, brushing her teeth and hair than using the privy. Wertha was up when she came back out, making her bed, laying clothes out for the day; practice clothes for the morning, page uniform which Wertha had tailored to fit more like a woman's tunic and hose than a man's for the rest of the day. Her old Nurse maid was glaring at the world through jaw cracking yawns. They nodded to each other but didn't speak, Wertha absolutely hated mornings, she spent most of the night awake instead, She had more than once gotten in trouble for thing in the morning which she wouldn't have in the afternoon, and that wasn't just when she was a child either. So she learned not to try anything in the mornings until Wertha stopped glaring.
Wertha Went back to the closet to get a little more sleep shortly after while Aranna was changing into practice clothes. She settled down to write letters home; Grandma, she would call her this now that Gran couldn't do anything, had said that she wouldn't have much time to write later. She had finished a letter to her parents, one to each Lokian and Myles and was just finishing a letter to all the younger children when there was a knock at her door, it was really loud, she heard Wertha Grunt and roll over as Aranna got up to open the door.
Saralynn of NorthCliff was standing outside, also in practice clothes and seemed surprised to see Aranna standing in the doorway, dressed and awake. Saralynn got over her surprise quickly than it was Aranna's turn to be surprised that the look that replaced surprise on the other girl's face was anger.
"M-The lady Kel want everyone down in the inside training room, follow me I will lead you there."
Aranna blinked in surprise as Saralynn walked away, she hurried after the other girl, slightly angry that this girl was acting so superior, for all that Saralynn was one year older than her and a fourth year page besides. Did it bug her that she was two years older than every page in her year, when she could have been a third year, along with the fact that she was in the same year as three of her younger siblings? A bit like asking if the sky was blue and right now that blue was so bright she felt like hitting Saralynn with a very sharp and pointy metal stick.
As Saralynn led her down to the training room she looked around doing her best to memorize the route. Eventually they reached the indoor training room. It was a large room almost the same size as the mess hall, with stone flours and white wash walls. Around the room were small practice rings that were empty now but had clearly seem a lot of use. The walls were lined with all sorts of weapons hanging in racks and a door at each end of the room was open showing even more weapons. There was a group of all the female pages surrounding Kel in the corner of the room, Saralynn left her without ceremony and pushed her way to join a group of her friends, she glared at the other girl before turning her attention to the rest of the people and searching for anybody she knew and out of the twenty people she could guess at only half. She saw Dunia and Junia standing by a sleepy looking Kalisa and surprisingly a lone boy, Tall and blocky with dark hair and eyes. She spotted Jalisa leaning against a wall with her eyes closed apparently asleep. Aranna made her way over to the other girl who was indeed asleep and murmuring quietly about something she couldn't quite hear. She poked the other girl carefully ready to jump away if she got angry.
"S'whoad a you?" Mumbled Jalisa bleary eyed before fixing on her. "Oh it's you"
"Yep, good morning." She replied cheerfully.
Jalisa glared at her "you're a morning person, I HATE morning people."
It sort of went with being a crow but she didn't say so "Too bad, you are going to have to deal with it. Until than every morning I am going to come an-"
"Alright, be quiet everybody, sooner we finish this sooner we can get to the part where you get to only pretend to listen to m, know you have to pay attention. Kel looked pointedly in their direction "first off we have four new female pages joining us this year, Aranna Dunavai and Junila of Pirate's Swoop and Blysse of Cavall they are filling in the gaps for the five female Squires that have left this year as well as the three pages who have not returned this year."
Kel paused looking over the group "for those new girls we have this year and those returning from last year and of course Jet of Wellan who we have not yet gotten rid of." The boy blushed but the rest of them laughed, even Kel who was normally pretty unexpressive, smiled. "This is a reminder that I expect more from you than any other page. As Lady Knights you have a standard to uphold. There may be a girl who puts out the same effort as the boys but the boy will become a knight where the girl will not. I expect you all to work, there will be no slacking you all will be the tops of all of your classes or you will be gone." It had gone dead silent as Kel spoke; somehow she got the feeling that this was not a normal beginning of the year speech.
"Second; last year there was untoward behavior documented from some of the girls. I had to issue supplies to enable girls to continue both Squire and Page Training. There were certain nobles who got wind of this and even not as we speak they are trying to remove all female pages, squires, knights and Training masters" there were a few whispers but they died out from the hard look on Kel's face, Aranna felt like her eyes were about to pop out of their sockets, she hoped Kel wasn't talking about what she thought she was talking about she was 12 and she had never even THOUGHT about that and here was Kel talking about having pages doing THAT and facing repercussions! "This year if you do engage in activities that result in a child, I will not issue the herbs to prevent the child from coming nor, if I have my way, will any person in the palace or the city issue the herbs. To say that I would be disappointed if something of the nature should happen would be an understatement "
All of the girls were red faced including her; even Jet looked as if he would like to sink into the ground. Kel reached down and grabbed a bow putting it on the table besides her "inside this box is 50 anti- pregnancy charms. I expect everyone who does not already have one to pick one up today. If you have one or later when you plan to use one, I would recommend you check the charm regularly to check if the magic is intact and for chips and cracks, all of which could result in the charm not working." Kel was smiling slightly blushing faintly as she looked at her red faced daughters, apparently the fact they were products of a broken charm did make them very excited, and she had to agree. Kel clapped her hands together "In the mean time, the true purpose. I have new exercises for you all, It think they—"
Kel spent the next Two and a half hours showing them exercises she would show the others, ways to strengthen all parts of the body some she didn't even know could be strengthened, then stretches for all parts of the body she said would prevent a lot of injuries, All the while explaining that it was important for them to work harder because certain parts of females made it more difficult to get in shape, and stay in shape. After that Kel showed them different forms of running that could increase endurance, make them quicker on their feet and later make it easier to wear heavy armor. Finally she spent the last 45 minutes telling them about weighted weapons and where to find them, ways to add more weight to weighted weapons, ways to add more weight to their bodies, to symbolize fatigue and armor by using cloth bands that were filled with lead, and also using a leather harness around their shoulders. By the time they finished she began wondering if Page training would be as complex as these Bi-Weekly meeting as she and many of the other page girls collected charms and headed to Breakfast.
Breakfast was nearly silent, most of the pages had been asleep not too long ago and the others were too tired from Kel's private training to want to talk. After Breakfast Aranna followed the others outside where Kel worked them with Staves, she was partnered wit Blysse at first but after ten minutes of Blysse hitting her fingers she found herself partnered against Calum of WinterBrook a 3rd year page who sneered and but at least twice the amount of force necessary behind his hits but was still quick enough to be evenly matched against her. Junia was paired with Darien but Dunia was paired with Kalisa, though watching them out of the corner of her eye she almost thought they were born with a staff in their hands. Newal stayed with Francis though, Staff not being Newal's strong suit, though Francis looked as if he might drop his weapon she didn't think even Newal was that bad
After an hour they moved to the axe, or mace for her for an hour, all of them did pretty well with that. Newt they worked on Hand to Hand combat with the Three Shang Eagle, Tiger and Snake, Working on falling which was easy for her and her siblings but difficult to the others, besides Samuel with the Snake while that others practiced harder moves. After that the first years moved on to daggers, still with the Snake, the twins or course were set on their own not long after followed shortly by she and Newal, they all had worked on daggers when they were younger and had gotten good at them though the twins were the best. The other four were still struggling though, especially Blysse and Francis, she began to wonder if the tow had made a mistake on training to become pages, but didn't comment. After an Hour of daggers they were hurried to the stables to saddle and mount their horses she was glad Grandma had supplied horses for all of them. Blysse and been supplied by her family and so had Francis but both Jarred and Samuel got stuck with mounts that had both seen better days. They rode around the pasture letting the Lady Kel Critique them and the rest of the pages on their riding, It was a relief, she was already felling the results of the day's activities, not as hard as some of them, Blysse actually fell asleep on her horse. Other than that Kel seemed pleased with the way they rode and gave them an approving nod before sending them off to lunch.
All the Female pages had to run back to the palace for their baths, groaning and moaning all the way, though Kel led them. When she got to her room, opening the door like Wertha had showed her turning it left whispering her name then entering. Wertha wasn't in but there was a bath just the right temperature in the privy. She washed quickly well aware of the fact her stomach was growling, dressed in the page uniform from her bed and was down stairs with her food before most people were even dressed, which was how she saw Darien and Saralynn arguing, though she couldn't hear the words.
Darien grabbed Saralynn as she tried to enter the mess and argued for a bit before Darien loosened his grip and she tried to leave again. Darien jumped and grabbed her arm, though this time she hit him and tried to throw him off but Darien let her go before she could. IT was times like this Aranna wished she learned how to read lips, maybe when she saw Ma again, or Pop Pop. Saralynn walked into the mess hall grabbed her food, almost ran to her table and began eating her food like it was going to run away. Darien followed at a much slower pace grabbing his food, sitting down across from Aranna and eating with his head in the clouds, not noticing that he was eating jam like potatoes and his sweet roll with green beans and potatoes as jam. She watched him for a while before making a decision.
"What was that about?" he shrugged his shoulders "anything I can do to help" his head snapped up but he shook his head no. She shrugged as her returned to his food.
Jalisa showed up not long after words and they started talking about the day so far. Aknil and Nibel showed up not long after, followed closely by Derrik, the conversion turned to the leather harnesses all the older pages wore, even Darien joined in, Lunch was almost over when a red-faced Jarred showed up.
"Where have you been?" Asked Nibel, he had his left ear pierced, when Jarred sat down on her and Jalisa's side of the table.
"I got lost" whispered jarred into his food, Aranna burst out laughing, the other not far behind.
After Lunch that headed to History which was taught by Nikolas of Norwood a middle aged scholar who was almost jumping up and down with excitement as he told them about the history of Tortall which managed to rub off on at least some of the pages, he was a good teacher, though he did decide to give them a thousand word essay on the history of Tortall to complete in their free time for tomorrow. After an hour they moved on to reading and writing which was thought by an old Mithran Priest. Almost immediately she and all the other first year pages were reprimanded for sloppy hand writing and in the case of Francis hardly being able to write at all, they all were assigned to write out the alphabet multiple times in class, read a chapter in a book about grammar when one of the older pages, she didn't know him said "This is dumb, we don't need no learning, we gonna be Knights not Scholars."
By far the worst class of the day was etiquette, a full hours of listening to Master OakBridge. He was old, nearly deaf, slightly senile and he was in charge of teaching them all manners of court ceremonies including dancing, serving, bowing, and ways of addressing anyone she would ever meet, however unlikely. For a girl that meant learning both male and female parts, she and her siblings already knew those required from the copper Isles, but they soon learned that the Tortallian counterparts were a lot harder and Master Oakbridge made them bow over and over until Aranna thought her already sore legs would fall off.
There was a class on chivalry next where they listened to a conservative Knight Timothy of Nenan talk about the way Knight should act that were liberally seasoned with statements that females shouldn't be knights, In fact Sir Timothy assigned them two chapters in a book, to be read before Wednesdays next class, that starred female knights, and their down fall. After Chivalry the pages split up, the gifted ones to a class to learn how to control it, and the non gifted ones to learn of the non-practical uses. Only she and Francis had the gift in their year but there were a dozen or so older pages with the gift. The class was taught by Numair Salmalin who was almost as old as Grandma but did not really so it, he was strict but kind, even when Francis who was having some troubles was found to have had the battle magic gift and almost set himself on fire when they learned mediation. Though Numair was relieved when she told him that she had an even battle/healing gift and had already some level of control over both. She was happy though that that she was only told to meditate in the mornings and evenings before and after bed. She was running out of 'Free Time' the hour after dinner but before lights out Jalisa had told her, and she was already sore and tried from the morning.
The last class of the day, for Monday, was a healing class taught by Sir Neal of Queenscove or by Duke Baird of Queenscove when Sir Neal wasn't available. This class was even smaller, as people who didn't have the Healing Gift were with the Non-gifted students learning medicine. They spent the class learning simple symbols that could be used to make protective charms and various herbs; what they looked like, where to find them and their purpose. She was glad Edlin was there because Sir Neal would always get off on tangents and tell them where the herb was discovered and all the mythical properties he could remember, with Edlin there he could tell his father to be quiet, which worked for them. Though they did get assigned multiple chapters in books about herbs and symbols, to be read for the next day.
When they finally got to dinner at seven, most of the pages had barely enough energy to get their food and sit down, and she knew her only saving grace was the fact she trained for a bit with Grandma, and the crow thing, and even that wasn't much.
"so what did you two think of your first day?" Darien asked them half way through dinner, She and Jarred shared a look.
"Hard, harder than I expected, I don't think even the worst tales my grandmother could spin are this bad." She answered; she got a few blank looks from that. It was one thing to know Alanna the Lioness was a grandmother, or indeed a mother, but quite another to hear her being call that.
Darien recovered first with a cough, "Yes, Our lady Kel received some of the worst gossip and insults when she became Training Master, eight years ago. Everything came out when it was announced, everything from her family history, her childhood, while she was a knight, all the mistakes she ever made, or rumored to have made. All for her friends and family were critically examined for the tiniest flaw."
Jalisa waved him off and he went back to his dinner as she took up narrative. "once she became training master it got worse, she had only changed a few things so she was accused of neglecting her duties, favoring pages, even had her sleeping with the male pages. So she met with Lord Raoul" she gestured at Darien to indicate that it was his father, "lord Wyldon of Cavall, The Lioness, The king and all the Shang that were there at the time and came up with this plan. In the old days before she became training master they only trained 5 days a week they go time off between classes, and at weekends. Now we get up earlier, later halfway through the first year she starts weighting all the weapons. Teachers are told exactly what to teach us. We train six days a week, then even on Sundays we learn about immortals, test weapons, get evaluated, we always go out and train in the worst weather. All the teachers meet up and discuss us and if you are not up to standard you go on a probation, a month to get up to standard or you are out"
Darien took up narration when she stopped, "they called it plan torture when they were planning it out, now even the conservatives call it that. At midwinter and at the end of term we get tested and after that we go on a three week tour. Getting fighting experience and testing our meddle. Then we do a tournament all pages and squires are required to participate. And I hear plans that new knights, up to 5 years after being Knighted then every five years after that are required to go in for a test, if they are in active duty of course" Aranna snorted at that but Darien only shrugged "out of shape Knights do no good."
After that the turned to less shocking subjects, like families namely hers, of course they didn't anticipate her many siblings, so she had to go in t o detail about her family, though she left out the 'We are part crow', 'my mother and grandfather are spies' and the 'our father is dying' parts. They parted ways about half way through the appointed dinner hour and returned to their rooms, the others calling after her that it would be better to finish the work tonight, and stay up past lights out, then to deal with punishment work. Wertha wasn't back yet so there were no distractions to prevent her from being productive, not always a good thing.
Aranna started with the Tortallian Kings essay first writing down large chunks then doing some of the exercises she had learned early in the morning than writing down some more. When she finished that she practiced her hand writing through her yawns and even though she knew she should go to bed she started reading what Sir Neal assigned her as she stretched. After holding a stretch for almost a minute and rereading the same page four times through and still not understanding it, she decided t0o stop fighting and sleep, she could do the rest of the work in the morning, AFTER she meditated of course so she sat on her bed against the wall and was asleep after 3 minutes of 'mediation'.
