A/N: Finally! Took me forever to post... I wrote it all then didn't have time to post! I loaded chp.2 and 3 I'll try to be quicker about the next 'uns. And, I know I had lots of spelling errors in the last chapter, I've tried to improve. Eck. Grammar. As Winston Churchill said: "Ending a sentence with a preposition is something up with which I will not put."
Disclaimer: All characters and credit go to Tamora Pierce.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The study of Jonathon of Conte was an umremarkable room with unremarkable furnishings, an unremarkable view, and certainly (at least in Jonathon's opinion) less then remarkable refreshments. The others in the room that had never had so great an honor or been deep enough in trouble to enter the King's study, might have been surprised had the circomstances been any different. But they weren't- so, at present, no one really cared wether or not they the chairs were made from oak instead of rosewood.
For not caring about the view, there were sure a lot of people staring out of the window. Keladry of Mindelan was, Numair Salmalin was, and Merric of Hollyrose glanced half of the time out the window, then doggedly back to his still slightly dazed year-mate. King Jonathon played the judge, Alanna played the persecuter of Vinson, Vinson played the persecuter of Kel, Kel persecuted the window--Just. Staring.
"Merric, please come over and stand right here." -Jonathon as un-offical judge, and offical King had made his decision. He had had his qualms and argueded with himself mentally while Alanna did it for him physically.
"You cannot do this Jonathon. THIS IS MAD. I have stayed away from this girl on your orders for Eight Years, and if you do this crazy thing you can prepare yourself to be championless for a much longer then that."
"Look, the court has already heard Vinson. They hate Keladry anyways, if we can prove through this test that you haven't helped her magically then it'll be like a sock in the gut to them and Vinson of Genlith. Don't you see? They'll have no reason to criticize her anymore, because there will be proof she earned it. Kel has no reason to have extra magic in her anyways... Keladry, you don't, do you?"
Kel just glanced at the king then looked back out the window. He decided to take that for a yes and get the show on the road.
"Numair, Merric will you both please stand here. Alright, Numair. You and I will both test Merric's level, then Keladry's. If they are near the same, then we will be able to knight Kel in five minutes, and banish Vinson of Gareth in three." seeing his naming was being spoken, Vinson looked up from his feet and eyed the King distrustingly.
"Yes you Vinson. Placing a false claim on someone, a claim enough to ruin their reputation and taint my own, gives me no qualms about sending you as far away from Tortall as I can manage."
The other's in the group were warily shaking their heads at the King who was chit-chatting to no-one quickly enough that they were not able to get a word in edgewise. When he stopped for breath Numair took his chance.
"Jon, I don't think that's such a good idea. I myself have seen this girl seriously brawling no doubt getting hurt and needing lots of heali-
The King once again, maybe because he was nervous about this whole ordeal or maybe because he just didn't like being told his idea's weren't so good, cut-off Numair to begin his own ramblings, "Well, we should just try. I'm sure it will work out. Now, Merric, come here if you please."
Merric of Hollyrose grudigly stepped forward and let King Jonathon place a hand on his head. Sapphire softly glowed around the king, becoming brighter and brighter, slowly seeping into Merric. Merric had no gift and limited experience with those who did; the monarch had to tell him to "stop squrming or the spell won't work at all." Merric wasn't sure that wouldn't be a good thing.
A few seconds later the man withdrew his hand from Merric's head, looked down at it and frowned. On his palm was a light dust of (what looked like) powdered sparkles- most were the color of baked earth, and the few others consisted of various members of the spectrum.
The King simply started at his palm, "You haven't much experience with magic, have you Merric of Hollyrose?"
Merric made a face, "No, well, I've been healed by my aunt a fair amount of times; she's the brown magic. I used to fall off my horse and get scraped, or go through the woods and get-"
"Alright, alright.... Numair would you try this. Maybe my spell needs twinking."
Numair started at Jon, shook his head, and made his way over, "twinking?"
Numair resulted the same as Jonathon, finely dusted, wherein Alanna suggested she could make a few more sparkles, no-harm-done, and go show the court?.... Vinson stomped on that quickly enough, one thing led to another and the next thing you know Alanna has a bruised cheekbone and Vinson (who didn't get off as easily) has 3 nosils, no hair, and a killer olcer. Numair was peeved, Jonathon was stiffling, Merric, well frankly Merric had had an accident by now, and Kel didn't care, Kel was watching the sunset of the last day of her real life.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
After matters had been cleared up with Vinson, Kel herself had been tested,and the results were green- a heavy sparkling green. Kel was looking down at her feet- ashamed.
"Kel, it's not that much magic but it is enough...Who has been healing you?" the King stammered.
Merric eyed Kel then explained: "Well sir, Kel decided in her first year to kind of stop the pages who were bullying the younger kids? She patroled for them every night and 1 out of 3 times, she found them. When she was hurt badly enough she would let Neal- Nealan of Queenscove, that is- heal her. He has the gift. Over the years, I'm afraid she got in quite a few brawls, it slowed down as a squire,where she went with Lord Raoul didn't give her any less cause to be healed. Didn't you hear about the attack on the Copper Islands?"
"Yes, yes. Well, is there anybody else who can prove this?"
Without waiting for the answer King Jonathon called a herald outside the door and told him to fetch Lord Wyldon, Nealan of Queenscove and any boys he says are friends of Keladry of Mindelan.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
The ladies and gentlemen of the court were tiread, it had been 15 minutes since the King had left them with no entertainment. They were tired and they were tired of being bored. But, gossip truimphs boredom and they would wait for a an hour, if need be, just to say they were there. Just to say they had seen the last to try for Lady Knighthood fall. They would see Keladry of Mindelan gone for gossips sake.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
The boys from the study hall had been summoned and prodded and poked with questions of no real relitivity. Lord Wyldon had also been summoned to the questioners, "Well of course I caught her fighting. Well, no not during the fight, but right after. Proof? Well, I saw her didn't I? She was dead on her feet wasn't she? No, she didn't say she fought, she said she fell down, which is about the most dull excuse I have ever heard off a page or squire."
Vinson of course came in on cue, "She never said she fought?"
"N-"
"I thought so. Had it ever occured to you Lord Wyldon that maybe Keladry was speaking the truth?Why would she lie to you about falling if what she had really done was something honorably like stopping ruthless bullies? There is no shame in that, and no shame in falling down. But there is shame in accepting magical help, magic digusied in a color other then the Lioness's true color, for precaution, in case someone might test Keladry, just like we are now. There is shame indeed."
"Oh please Vinson. 'There is shame indeed'." spoke up Cleon, "Kel fought you, you big-"
Numair coughed loudly and shot Cleon a warning look, if they were going to get somewhere calling him a *cough* wouldn't do it.
The boys then gave Numair a look that clearly said 'shut-it' and began to the attack of accusations, on Vinson.
Kel stared out of the window, stars were in the sky, but there was no moon.
King Jonathon tried to clam the group, Numair ignored the group and Alanna joined in. Somewhere in the middle of it all, it became a fight with the king to stop telling them to calm down when he had no right to be as calm as he was, that in it self merited a good slap upside his 4xbyx4 head. Something like that.
Now Vinson may have been mean and dumb and sneaky but he knew enough about fights to know this one was going to last for at least another 2 minutes. Vinson sneaked away from the group, stretched his tunic in front of his in a bowl shape and scooped all the level magic dust (which had been triald several times, and final placed on the desk for comparison) into the front of his clothing. All Kel's and Merric dust was a bit heavy and he had to be careful not to drop the front of his shirt as he slid out the study down and ran down to the thrown room where the entire court was waiting.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
4/2 minutes later
"No, and I happen to think Paul is a very nice middle nam-" Owen was cut off from a sharp jab in the stomach by Neal's elbow, looked around slowly, then echoed what everyone else was thinking but no one had said, "He's gone."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A/N: Hope you liked; and review! Yo necessito mucho um, reviews. Sooory, don't know the Spanish word for reviews...