Sorry about the delay in posting. The dark tunnel of midterms merged into the longer and bleaker tunnel of finals before I got a chance to surface…Thanks to everyone who reviewed, you definitely encouraged me to continue typing away in my spare time. As always, recognizable cast and location belong to Tamora Pierce. Finally, I apologize for any errors in Tortallian geography; they're a hazard of trying to write 500 miles from my bookshelf.
Synopsis of previous episode: Dom adjusted to life at home with his precocious child, while Tobe asked Penelope to teach Roland to fight and begged advice for his own love life (or lack thereof), This episode begins place a few weeks later and at the Northern(?) border.
Penelope stared curiously at Cleon of Kennan as he gave commands for night watch duty. There'd been vague rumors about him and Mindelan, but Penelope hadn't had a chance—that is to say, Neal hadn't drunk enough—to investigate them thoroughly. Cleon was leading a troop of knights—including Neal and Alanna—along a sweep of the River Drell following recent threats of an attack on that border. All Penelope could determine was that he was tall and a solid, practical commander. His sense of humor—if he had one—was currently buried and she couldn't imagine him being anything more than a friend of Mindelan's, if that.
"I want a few squires watching that wooded clump on the riverbank," Cleon said. "You"—he pointed at Penelope and she stepped forward—"and you can take first shift." Penelope swallowed when she saw the other squire he'd selected. It was Gregory, one of her old enemies from her page days.
Penelope nodded and turned towards the riverbank. She walked past the rest of camp without bothering to see that Gregory was following her. She took up a position a few feet from the partially iced-over river and waited for her eyes to adjust to the darkness.
"I heard about your little tussle with Marcel," Gregory muttered.
His tone suggested that the version he'd heard from Marcel wasn't strictly accurate. Penelope responded by raising her eyebrows and lifting her hand to her belt knife. She'd grown accustomed to long silences over the years and resolved to treat Gregory to a particularly awkward one. They both stood motionless, listening to the sound of the rest of the camp settling in for the night.
"Your luck's going to run out eventually, you know," Gregory hissed when he could no longer stand the quiet.
"Good thing I get by on talent then, isn't it?" Penelope answered before she could remind herself not to engage him.
"Your looks won't last long either," Gregory said. He glared at her when she didn't respond and stepped towards her. "You'll be covered in scars in a few years and then not even Dalton will want you," he added.
Penelope gazed calmly at the river as a patch of ice broke off and drifted downstream. It was true that she had a few sizable scars on her upper arms, but Dalton's only response had been to trace them gently with his fingers so she rather doubted Gregory's last statement.
"And when they don't want you anymore," Gregory added, taking another step towards her, "they'll stop leaping in to protect you."
Penelope tensed. She suspected he was trying to pick a fight, but she didn't know what kind of disciplinarian Cleon would be. If Gregory swung first, she wouldn't be accused of abandoning watch duty to fight him.
"Yes," Penelope muttered. "I'm sure you must be dreading the day. It will be difficult to explain why you're afraid to duel a woman half your size."
That gave Gregory the encouragement he was looking for and he seized her by the elbow. Penelope drove her knee to his groin and twisted away, stepping just short of the river. A sharp knock to the head unbalanced her and she just had time to realize that it was not Gregory's fist, but a rock thrown from across the river, before she toppled over. Her body broke through the ice instantly and she shrieked as she went under. She came up gasping, just as Gregory gave a cry of pain and landed beside her with a splash that drove them both under.
Penelope tried to surface again but found that the current had drawn her under another patch of ice. She clawed at it futilely. A hand grabbed her roughly by the wrist and dragged her out. Her limbs were already so stiff and numb as to be useless, but Penelope struggled anyway to break free from Gregory.
"Truce," he hissed. And Penelope nodded automatically. In the distance she could hear knights from their camp scrambling towards the river. Their shouts must have woken someone.
"Good," Gregory muttered through chattering teeth. "We've got to get out of this. Look—I'm tall enough I can keep you from going under—but my foot's trapped—I need--"
Penelope nodded again. Neither of them had time to argue. "Grab my ankle," she ordered and dove. It took all her strength to prize the submerged log off of Gregory's boot and she nearly forgot herself and tried to gasp underwater once she'd managed it.
Gregory jerked her to the surface and together they fumbled their way towards the bank and dragged each other onto land. Cleon, closely followed by Alanna and Neal, reached them just as they were stumbling to their feet.
"What's happened?" Cleon demanded.
Neither of them answered. Neal pulled Penelope under his cloak and she realized that she'd lost her own sometime underwater. That was probably for the best since the weight of it might have pulled her too far under the ice. Then she'd have been stuck in the cold and the dark, unable to breath, just like Sir Kendal had…
Alanna slapped Gregory across the face and Penelope blinked in surprise as Alanna shook roughly her by the shoulders and shoved a small flask into her hands.
"I know," Alanna told them. "It's the second scariest thing in the world and quite possibly the coldest."
Penelope found herself shivering uncontrollably as she resolved never to ask the lady knight what she thought was the scariest thing in the world.
"Drink," Alanna ordered. "And then report. We need to know if we're under attack."
The flask contained brandy and Penelope coughed as she passed it to Gregory.
"I don't think so," she muttered. "Greogory and I were—" Gregory caught her eyes and blinked slowly, pleadingly, and Penelope adjusted her story—"momentarily distracted when their sentries threw rocks at our heads." Neal's fingers were already skimming her scalp, finding and healing the painful lump and the tickling sensation distracted her from talking.
Gregory took a third swallow of brandy and picked up the story. "She was hit first, but they hit me before I could spot them. We were pretty noisy when we hit the water so I think that warned them off. My foot got trapped and she slid under a patch of ice and I fished her out. Then she freed my foot and we swam clear." Alanna stood on tiptoe to heal the bump on Gregory's head.
Penelope nodded. "That's all there is to it. Sorry for the disturbance, sir."
Cleon frowned and dismissed the squires, asking Neal and Alanna to stand in until the next set of guards arrived. Gregory bowed and trotted away after Cleon, but Neal wrapped an arm firmly about Penelope's waist to keep her from following.
"You didn't tell us everything," he muttered.
Penelope was too cold to think of a plausible lie. "No, sorry—but we probably saved each other's lives. What happened before—I don't think it will happen again."
Neal started to protest, but Alanna cut him off. " It's none of your business. You have to let her deal with these things as she sees fit." Penelope swallowed and forced her lips into what she hoped was a brief, grateful smile.
Alanna grabbed Penelope by the shoulder. "You're freezing," she muttered. "Go to my tent, get out of your wet things, crawl in Dalton's bedroll, and warm up." Penelope decided that just because she thought this order was some sort of cold-induced hallucination was no reason to disobey it and she nodded quickly before stumbling away.
MMMM
Neal raised his eyebrows at Alanna. "How come I never got that sort of order? And why do you always take her side?"
"I don't always take her side. I only take it when she's right and you aren't. Or when I think it will contribute to that distinguished greying on your temples."
Neal lifted a hand to his head and glared at her.
"And you might have gotten that sort of order," she added, "if you'd had anything remotely resembling a successful romance."
"You're getting tough and prickly in your old age," Neal told her.
" Try and do the same, Queenscove, I'm going to need someone like you to help me keep sharp."
MMMM
"You're freezing," Dalton hissed as one of Penelope's feet brushed his leg. His first instinct was to flinch away from her icy skin and his second was to pull her closer and hold her until she stopped shivering. "What happened out there?"
"I went swimming—unexpectedly," she murmured, slurring her words slightly as she settled her head on his shoulder.
"Obviously," he muttered back and pushed her wet braid off his chest. "What did Gregory do? Did he try to—"
"No—he was just looking for a fight. And he would have gotten it if we hadn't both been idiots and gotten ourselves knocked into the river." She sighed and described her fall and Gregory's change of heart as her shivers subsided.
"And I thought it was hot water that's supposed to test character," Dalton whispered. She sighed again, but contentedly this time, and he watched her eyelids flutter shut. "You're probably right about him not bothering you again though. But Marcel..."
"Marcel's different; Gregory just wanted to beat me up to prove he could—he didn't want to sleep with me," she explained bluntly without opening her eyes. "Not that Marcel still wants to after…anyway he's scared of you even if he doesn't have the sense to be scared of me."
"Idiot," Dalton muttered.
"I can handle him," she told him sleepily. "And the rumors. It's not as if they're going to go away. People still say all sorts of things about Mindelan and the Lioness and they're—"
"Married," Dalton finished. "Something we should talk about soon."
Penelope opened her eyes and lifted her head slightly and Dalton worried that she was going to turn away as she had the first time he brought up the topic. "I think you know by now that, even though I stand to inherit a large estate eventually, my dowry, such as it is, consists of various bladed weapons and a cranky horse."
Dalton pulled her head back down onto his shoulder. "By eventually, I meant sometime when you aren't half-drowned and half-drunk."
"I'm hardly—" she began , but he covered her lips with one hand and kissed the top of her head to stop her protest.
"However, since you're unusually open to such discussion this evening, I ought to point out that as a fourth son I won't be inheriting any land. But I will get a sum generous enough for the two of us to live on—economically, for a few years—once I'm knighted."
She smiled and he lifted his fingers off her lips. "It sounds as though we're evenly matched then," she said, "and sharing is very economical." Then she yawned hugely and nodded off once more, leaving Dalton staring at the top of the tent with what he knew was a foolish grin plastered to his face until Alanna came to send him out for watch duty.
MMMM At the Rider Stables, one month later
Tobe was lingering by the feed bin after he'd finished untacking his own mount and hoping for a glimpse of Adella—and perhaps a word with her—when he heard another Rider speaking in a low, miserable voice.
"I'm so sorry," Tessa muttered to her pony, Barley, "but they're telling me you're just not up for Rider work anymore and I haven't any money at the moment."
"Hey," Tobe muttered. "What's the matter?"
"Oh!" Tessa startled and stepped back and her face crumpled with tears as she recognized Tobe.
"Barley's leg's gone kind of lame—he canters and trots fine but he's had a few too many healings and he can't gallop across open country any more and they're telling me he's got to be sold." She left out a little sob and Tobe patted her shoulder awkwardly. "And I love him enough I'd buy him only I don't have the coins. Not to mention I wouldn't have a way to care for him when I'm away."
"How much are they selling him for?" Tobe asked.
She told him. Tobe counted his money and found he was four nobles short.
"Wait here," he ordered Tessa. And he darted off in search of Daine. He found Numair first and begged the coins off him, promising several hours of babysitting in exchange for the loan.
"I hope she's worth it," Numair called after him.
"Barley's a gelding," Tobe muttered back. And buying him wasn't going to attract Adella's interest either—he doubted the pretty Rider would notice—but he couldn't just let the old Rider pony be sold to stranger.
He completed the purchase at Rider headquarters in matter of minutes and returned to find Tessa—now dry-eyed to his great relief—pacing anxiously outside Barley's stall.
"There's no need to worry," Tobe told her. "I've bought him."
Tessa gaped at him.
"I'm giving him to a little lady who will love him dearly," Tobe assured her. "Her mother will probably throttle me for taking the liberty but at least Barley will go to a good home—actually he won't be "going" far at all since Kel will want to keep him in the palace stables."
Tessa wasn't particularly pretty—her young face was all wide brown eyes and freckles—but Tobe found the heartfelt grin she gave him fetching all the same. It was so honest and friendly that he found himself smiling in return.
"He'll be very well taken care of—spoiled probably—and you'll be able to visit him any time you like," he told her, hoping to make her smile again.
Instead, she burst into tears. Fortunately, Tobe had absorbed enough advice from Daine and Lalasa over the years to recognize these as the happy sort.
"It seems only proper for the old boy to get good grazing after his years of Rider service," Tobe muttered, clapping her on the back. Behind him, Barley snorted emphatically in agreement.
Tessa laughed and nodded at him. "I believe that was a reminder to say 'thank you'".
MMMM
Tobe left Barley in the practice courts without bothering to tie him up, trusting him not to wander. The pages were all at their indoor afternoon lessons so he trotted eagerly to the train master's suite and found Kel writing at Dom's desk—which she preferred to her own and borrowed whenever her Dom wasn't looking—with Kefira and the kittens playing at her feet.
"Hello," he said, winking at Kefira, "there's someone in the practice courts waiting to meet you two ladies."
Kel glanced up at Tobe, saw that he was pinching his lips to conceal his grin, and found herself doing the same. She wasn't sure what had Tobe so pleased, but there was something positively infectious about the light in his eyes. Kel shoved her letters aside and allowed her daughter to drag her out the door.
Kefira skipped happily beside her—and the half-grown kittens swarmed around their ankles—as they followed Tobe outside. Kel appraised the jaunty set of Tobe's shoulders and reassured herself that Neal was too far away to have inspired any mischief. Though, Kel reminded herself, Dom and Numair were just as capable of encouraging trickery and less likely to get caught. Kel shrugged and shook her head at her own foolish suspicion when they reached the practice courts and found them nearly empty.
"Hmm," Tobe muttered, "I suppose that's two someones now."
There were, in fact, only two occupants: a sturdy gray pony and a large red-haired knight. Both creatures turned to regard the newcomers with perplexed expressions.
"Cleon?" Kel murmured, but she barely heard herself over her daughter's laughter as Kefira released her hand and darted towards the pony.
Kel followed at a slower pace, scarcely aware of Tobe helping Kefira onto the pony as she and Cleon exchanged smiles. He offered his arms tentatively as though unsure if it would be proper to greet her with an embrace, but Kel merely grinned and pulled him into a friendly back-pounding hug and their uneasiness vanished.
"Is this little one yours?" he asked, gesturing towards the pony.
"No," Kel said automatically. Then she shook her head. "Yes, that's Kefira—which did you mean?"
"She's just momentarily confused," Tobe called over his shoulder as he trotted away alongside Kefira and her pony. "Their both hers—pony's named Barley, by the by—and so are the kittens for that matter."
Kel and Cleon both glanced down and found that she was flanked by a small feline army.
Cleon chuckled. "I suppose some things never change."
Kel grinned. "And here I though cats were paragons of inconstancy."
They settled themselves on a bench (whereupon all four kittens made themselves comfortable on Cleon's large form) to watch Kel's daughter delight in her new pony—for which Kel resolved to thoroughly scold and thank Tobe later.
"How have things been up North?" Kel asked.
"Cold, muddy, and dull, though there were one or two incidents—involving some of your squires actual—"
"What has Penelope gotten herself into this time?" Kel asked resignedly.
"How did you know?" He shook his head. "It takes one to know one I suppose. Anyway, she didn't impale any conservative knights, she only went swimming under sheets of ice."
"Fairly tame, for her," Kel muttered, waving at Kefira and Barley as they passed before she sat back to listen to Cleon's story.
That's all for now folks. I'm about to be swamped by work again but I'll try to have an episode up in the 2nd week of May. In the meantime, thanks for reading, best of luck to all fellow academic sufferers, and feel free to drop a review.