The Only Volunteer
Disclaimer: Tamora Pierce owns all of PotS and everything in Tortall. I just like to play around in her world. Everything you recognize is hers and everything you do not recognize is mine.
A/N: I appreciate all of the reviews and I hope you'll enjoy this chapter - it's another long one! ;D
It's all right, Kel thought. This isn't so bad.
Then she looked down.
Kel's ears roared; she could not catch her breath. The broad moat that passed in front of the wall was a long drop below. She heard nothing, did not feel hands prying her grip from the stone. The fear gripped her as tightly as it had on the day Conal had held her over the tower balcony. Her whole body crawled with a weak paralyzed itch.
... Kel thought dully as she picked up her staff. He knows I'm afraid of heights now. He can say if I'm afraid of heights, I can't keep up with the boys, and I'll be out on my ear.
--Tamora Pierce, First Test
Trade-Offs
All of the boys laughed and made jokes about Kel's fear of heights. During the morning on the practice court , Joren watched Kel's jaw tighten every time someone commented on the previous days events. His heart filled with glee at the thought of the Lump having such a serious flaw in her abilities. Now Lord Wyldon possessed stronger proof than ever that the girl was not fit to be a knight and he finally could make her go away. The blond page smiled all the way through lunch and into his afternoon classes. Joren even started daydreaming about the near future when the Lump and her pesky reading cards would be gone. He was so wrapped up in his own little dream world, that he did not hear Master Yayin call on him to stand and answer a question about an essay the class had just finished reading. Garvey nudged him, but it was too late. The Mithran priest walked right up to Joren's desk and glared down at him.
"Page Joren," Master Yayin spoke softly but he had an acidic tone to his voice, "since you are unable to pay attention in my class, perhaps serving an hour of detention will help you remember to stay focused next time. You will report to my office after the evening meal tonight."
Joren's face turned red with anger, but he nodded his understanding. Detention meant having no free time before his mandatory study period with the Lump and he had planned to play a new dice game with his friends after dinner. Of course, he blamed her for his new punishment - if he hadn't been thinking about the stupid Lump and her stupid cards, then he would have been able to hear the teacher calling on him. Gods, he couldn't stand her!
"Joren, would you please read that last sentence again," Kel requested, "You skipped over a few words." She really wanted them to be done and this was the final part of their homework for the evening.
Joren rolled his eyes and sighed. Then a wicked gleam came into his eyes and he drawled, "Fine. I will read all the sentences you want, if - and only if - you look out over the curtain wall again."
'That's not funny," said Kel, her face turning pale as she remembered the harrowing experience from the previous day.
"I thought it was hilarious, watching you freeze up like that!" Joren was smirking at her. "Now everyone knows you really don't have what it takes to be a knight. I'm sure that Lord Wyldon must have told the king and all those people who forced you upon him - and us - that it's time for you to go home."
Joren had given voice to Kel's fears. She looked down at her homework papers and willed herself not to cry in front of her nemesis. Very quietly, she said, "You don't know that. You only hope that's what will happen."
"Hah! Any moment now, you'll be dismissed," Joren felt confident and continued to antagonize Kel. "But I don't think the convent girls will welcome you with open arms, either. If my sister is any indication of the type of ladies the Daughters of the Goddess turn out, you'll have just as much fun there as you've had here."
Kel tightened her jaw and looked into Joren's narrowed eyes. "Well ... I'm not going anywhere tonight, so you may as well read the sentence again."
Joren made a rude noise, but he finally complied with her request and read the sentence. He did not make any mistakes this time. He did lean back in his chair and put his feet up on the table. The look on his face was bored, but his tone of voice was mischievous.
"There, now that that's done," he drawled, "I'm going to hold you to your end of the bargain."
"What are you talking about, Joren?" Kel was annoyed and started to gather up her belongings. "I never made any bargain with you."
"Sure you did," Joren smirked again. "I read the sentence as you requested. Therefore ... tomorrow, you will come with me after supper - that is, if you're still here - and look over the wall. I'll do what you want me to do; in return, you'll do what I want you to do. It's a trade-off."
"I never agreed to any such thing!" Kel insisted, knowing that there was no way she was going to look over the edge of that wall again any time soon.
"Well, I did read the sentence, so now you owe me." Joren was just as insistent. "Would you rather that I inform Lord Wyldon that, among all of your other flaws, you also cheat out on your obligations?"
"Stop it, Joren!" Kel was angry now. "My ... problems ... with heights have absolutely nothing to do with you finishing your homework."
"That may be so," he admitted, "But I rather think the idea of having trade-offs with you is a good one. So ..." Joren got up from his chair and sauntered over to the open doorway. Then he peered over his shoulder at Kel and casually asked, "Do you think Lord Wyldon will come to my room if I yell his name into the hallway?"
"Alright!" Kel snapped at him. "I'll do it this time, but we do not have an ongoing agreement." Thinking quickly, she added through her clenched teeth, "I don't invite other people to watch you do your homework, so there'd better not be an audience to watch me do this!"
Joren's smile was wolfish. "It probably won't matter anyway, because you're going to be dismissed soon enough." He walked back toward Kel until his face was inches from hers. "But tomorrow after supper, you'd better not chicken out on me."
Kel silently walked around Joren without looking at him and exited his room. She was so upset that she performed two extra pattern dances before she felt calm enough to go to bed. As she fell asleep, Kel offered up prayers to the Goddess to keep her safe and to keep her from making more of a fool of herself than she already had done the previous day. Unfortunately, the girl page did not get a good night's rest.
"Closer ... you've got to get closer!" Joren urged as Kel took tiny, shuffling steps toward the palace's curtain wall. The blond page was tired of waiting for the girl to get close enough to the wall to look over the edge. At first, he had not planned to rush her, but they had been outside for more than half a bell and it soon would be time to go back in for their study period. The wind had picked up and it was starting to get chilly as the sun sank below a bank of clouds in the western sky. Finally he barked, "Come on, Lump, we don't have all night!"
"Stop calling me that!" Kel turned back to yell at him. "My name is Keladry of Mindelan! I'm tired of hearing you and your friends calling me the Lump! You even have some of my own year-mates calling me that behind my back - and that isn't right!"
"So? What are you going to do about it, Lump?" Joren taunted, his patience wearing thin. "Are you going to hit me?"
"No, I won't!" Kel exclaimed. "You know ... what Lord Wyldon ... said about ... us fighting." She was gulping down big breaths of air to try to calm herself enough to finish her task.
"I guess I could address you by your fief name." Joren conceded. Then his voice turned mean and harsh. "Come on, Mindelan - you're stalling. You'd best get up next to that wall and look down. Right now!"
"I ... I'm getting there," Kel insisted as she took another small step closer to the wall.
Joren suddenly lost what little remained of his patience, grabbed Kel by the shoulders and steered her to the edge of the wall. He shook her hard and told her to open her eyes and look down. She let out a small yelp as her vision blurred and her stomach lurched disagreeably.
"What you're feeling now," he growled into her ear, "is what I feel every time I have to stand up in class and read aloud." He tightened his grip and shook her shoulders again. "Great, isn't it?"
"Oh ... no," Kel moaned. Then she quickly broke out of Joren's hold, turned away from the view and vomited. Joren tried to jump back, but he wasn't quick enough and some of the contents of Kel's stomach splashed onto the front of his tunic and his shoes. He had to fight to keep from becoming sick over the smell of it, too.
"That's ... just ... great," Joren snarled sarcastically as Kel knelt next to the wall and continued to wretch. "Stupid girl! Why couldn't you remember to throw up over the side of the wall? You know, the way Lord Wyldon told us to do? Mithros! What a mess!"
Joren could see that Kel was in no shape to answer him, so he shook his head in disgust and stomped off toward the stairs.
"I take it this means I don't have to read sentences to you tonight," Joren turned back and sneered at her. "I'll just let the training master know that you are ... indisposed." Then he clomped down the stairs and left Kel by herself.
When she saw that he was gone, Kel allowed herself to cry the hot tears of shame that she had held back before. Eventually, she was able to stand up on her shaky legs and hold on to the inner wall for support. Kel thanked the Goddess that no one else saw her as she slowly made her way back to her room. At that moment, she didn't care if Joren told Lord Wyldon about her latest failure. All Kel could do was clean up the mess, bathe, and get ready for bed.
The next morning, Kel wasn't paying attention during their staff drills and Joren was able to position himself as her sparring partner. The handsome blond page looked very smug and self-assured. Kel regarded him coolly from behind her stoic Yamani mask.
"You look ... better ... than the last time I saw you ... Mindelan." Joren remarked in a polite tone of voice as their staffs clacked against one another. "See there? How am I not supposed to call you the Lump when you present a face like that?"
Kel did not reply to Joren; she merely followed the orders of the Shang warriors as they put the pages through their morning drills. She matched him strike for block and block for strike. She never let him gain an advantage over her, and he never let up. Kel was glad when it was time to switch to archery. She went through all of her morning classes mechanically. Even Neal couldn't get her to smile. All day long, Kel waited for Lord Wyldon to call her name and tell her to pack her things and go home. She was sure that Joren must have told him about the incident on the wall, but the training master said nothing out of the ordinary to her.
That evening, when Kel knocked on Joren's door for study period, the blond page opened it instead of Spencer. Kel raised an eyebrow and Joren shrugged as he ushered her in. He explained to her that he had sent his servant into town to pick up a new tunic and new shoes to replace the ones that got ruined the previous night. Kel nodded dejectedly, sat down at the table and sighed tiredly.
"Joren, we ... we have to ... talk," Kel began slowly. "I ... I'm sorry I didn't realize ... I didn't realize how bad you felt when you ... when you had to recite your lessons in front of everybody." She sighed again and her shoulders slumped. "I'm also sorry about ... about your tunic and shoes."
Joren actually smiled a little and sat down in the chair at his desk. "I don't know why, but I think I believe you, Mindelan. And I accept your apology."
Kel looked at him with tired and dull hazel eyes. "What did Lord Wyldon say when you told him?"
"I don't know," Joren shrugged. "I didn't tell him."
"What?" Kel exclaimed. "Why are you toying with me, Joren? Is this some sort of cruel joke to you?"
Kel had lost control of her calm mask, and Joren found the show of emotion on her face very intriguing. He had discovered during their study times together that Kel's eyes became more green than brown when she was angry or excited. Right now there was only a thin ring of brown around the outer edges of her irises. Joren smiled widely, which only seemed to irritate Kel more and he watched as her eyes seemed to come to life with her anger.
"No, this is not a joke," he admitted. "I just didn't feel like walking around with vomit all over my clothes, trying to find his lordship, so I came back here and Spencer helped me clean up." Joren stopped smiling and spoke very directly to Kel, his sky-blue eyes became serious. "The way I figure it, we've had almost enough trade-offs. I don't want to read tonight, and I'm certain that you don't want to visit the wall again tomorrow. That's a good trade-off, don't you agree? And since Lord Wyldon hasn't sent you home yet, I just wanted you to know how it feels to be me sometimes."
Kel looked at Joren quizzically. She didn't understand what he meant, but he didn't let her interrupt him with any questions.
"You're always so smug with the way you can read your assignments and calculate your math problems and all." Now Joren sounded bitter. "I know Master Chalmers and some of the other teachers look at me as though I'm supposed to be grateful or something for all your help, but I'm tired of it. I'm at my best out there with a sword or staff in my hand, but I'm never going to like to read or write. If my grades are good enough for Lord Wyldon and if I pass my exams in April, I won't have to put up with this studying anymore."
Kel blinked. This was the longest speech she had ever heard from Joren. He truly sounded sincere and she thought she could understand his point of view. She hadn't meant to be smug or to act superior, but apparently he felt that she had done so. And if Joren really did feel sick when he had to recite his lessons in class, she felt sorry for him. Now she had an idea of what he had been experiencing since he came to the palace. Still, that did not excuse his actions on the curtain wall.
"What about next year? And your squire years after that?" Kel asked quietly and Joren noticed that her eyes had changed back to more of a brownish-hazel since she was calmer now and she looked like her old Lump-faced self again.
"Are you ... concerned about me, Mindelan?" Joren asked incredulously. "We both know you won't be here next year anyway, so what does it matter to you? I have friends who'll help me. I'll get by - I always have before."
"Do you honestly think you're ready for those tests?" Kel was irritated by his arrogance, but this time she held on to her Yamani blank face. "What do you think will happen when the examiners require you to read from some long poem? Or when you have to stand there and explain your calculations?"
Now it was Joren's turn to be irritated. "What do you know about the exams? I've been through them twice already and they're much, much easier than anything we've done in class so far this year. If Wyldon allows you to take them - and I hope he won't - you'll see what I mean. And as far as my grades are concerned, I would have to fail everything for the next two weeks to not pass my classes and you know it!"
"But Joren, you shouldn't just stop studying," Kel almost sounded like she was pleading with him. "If you don't practice, you'll lose all the skills you've gained so far."
"I never said I wouldn't study or practice," Joren answered her slowly and carefully. "I just don't want ... to have to study ... with you anymore. So ... here's what I really think should be our final trade-off: I won't tell Wyldon about the wall, and in return, you will tell Wyldon - and Master Chalmers - you think my studies have improved so much that we shouldn't have to spend every evening working on my ... problems. What do you think about that?"
Kel looked up at the ceiling and pondered Joren's proposition. It actually made sense in a weird sort of way. He really had shown a lot of improvement in their classes, so it wouldn't be too difficult to convince the training master and the headmaster to allow them to not study together all the time. Kel did not like 'making a deal with a demon' but she also was tired of Joren and his attitudes. Finally, she met his gaze again and nodded her agreement.
"But only on nights when we don't have any homework," she added quickly, "I think they'll agree to that without any questions."
"Then we're agreed?" Joren held out his hand and Kel clasped it to seal their deal.
For a brief moment, the rivals had a normal handshake, but then it turned into a contest of 'hardest handshake' and they both winced as they crushed each other's fingers. Finally, as Kel and Joren looked at each other through narrowed eyes, they released their hands simultaneously. Kel used her uncrushed hand to pick up her books and things and left Joren's room. He watched her go, torn between his feeling that he should thank her and his feeling that he hoped she would just get kicked out. Then Joren closed the door and opened his desk drawer, took out the set of lettered and numbered cards that he had painstakingly made for himself and began to study on his own.
All of the pages, including Kel and Joren, passed their exams at the end of April. Many boys were not happy that Kel passed every test without difficulty, but everyone was extremely glad not to have to study so much anymore. The rivals generally stayed out of each other's way while they prepared to depart for their summer camp. Joren especially enjoyed visiting with his old group of friends in the evenings after supper, and Kel spent more time with Neal, as well as some of her other friends.
On the night before the pages departed the palace for their exciting and successful summer camping trip, Joren discovered a small leather-bound book lying on his desk. It was an old volume from the palace library about the art of sword craft, filled with illustrations and stories about fabled swords and the warriors who once wielded them. Joren had never seen it before and he wondered who would leave him such a thing. Of course, he did have an idea of who would give him an interesting book to read during the summer break, but he refused to think about it much, especially once they all returned from camp and heard that Lord Wyldon would allow the girl to return in the autumn. Joren reluctantly retrieved the volume from his desk, stuffed it into his baggage, and took it home with him to Stone Mountain. Never before, had Joren read a book on his own for no other reason than to enjoy its contents. This promised to be a different kind of summer.
A/N: So ... let me know what you think. I promise to respond to every verified review of this chapter! :D
