Disclaimer: once again, my ideas are my own but nothing else.
A/N: thank you so very very much to my 4 amazing reviewers! More are always appreciated!
Chapter 4: The announcement
With a groan, Cliona sat up in bed. It was still dark outside with the moon shining brightly, and yet someone was knocking on her door with increasing urgency. Wondering what who it could possibly be and why, she hurried to throw on some everyday breeches and a clean shirt before stumbling across the room to answer the door. Upon doing so, she discovered it was the pages' maid, Selena.
"Well, up you get! Good Heavens it took you long enough to answer the door; I thought I'd have to stand there for ages! Breakfast is in exactly in one hour. Be sure to be prompt, or my Lord won't be happy, to say the least."
And with that, she was on her way to wake up the next unfortunate page.
Cliona heaved a sigh as she shut the door. She was not a morning person and considered it to be almost a crime to have to get up when the moon was still shining brightly overhead. With one last longing look at the cozy, warm bed in the corner, she staggered blearily into the washroom. Once she had brushed her hair, put it back in a horsetail (she would have to cut it later; it was too much of a nuisance), cleaned her teeth, and put on practice clothes, she forced herself not to crawl back in bed and sleep but rather to go for a walk. She quickly navigated through the pages' wing until she found an entrance to one of the very many palace gardens.
Even in the twilight she could tell it was beautiful. The lavishness of the Royal Palace wasn't wasted on her, having come from a relatively poor fief in the countryside. The amount of staff required for the care of such a place must be unbelievably huge! Thankfully though, none of them were slaves; Luanda had outlawed that many years ago. However unfortunately, it still did exist in many other corners of the world.
This garden was a maze of passageways through rosebushes, each a different color and size. It was a rather breathtaking effect. She could hear a fountain in the distance somewhere. Strolling through in the quietness of dawn, she was left to her rather complex thoughts; it seemed that the enormity of what she was doing had yet to hit her completely. There were so many ways it could go wrong, but she just had to be strong and go through with it. So engrossed in her thoughts was she, that she hardly even realized it when the dawn began to creep up on the horizon. When she finally did so, she near panicked and began running back to the pages' wing. She didn't slow down until she reached it, where she promptly realized that well over half of the pages had yet to leave their beds. Nevertheless, she scanned the room, and upon spotting her friends, headed over to join them on the short walk to the mess hall.
"Hello Ed!" They had all decided to give her that nickname; as Thomas had proclaimed last night, "That's the name of a very bad and very dead sorcerer, so why should we call you by it? Ed's much better anyway."
"Edward, why must you be so cheery at this hour in the morning?" Protested Thomas, who was clearly not a morning person to say the very least.
"Honestly! I have to side with Thomas on that point. I certainly could've used a few extra hours of sleep myself." Cliona added.
"Oh come on you lot, cheer up! It's not going to get any better you know; we'll always have to get up at this hour or even earlier."
"I must say, you have a point. I wonder what today will be like…" Thomas mused. "Hopefully it will include some studying."
"Ever the scholar you are Tom." Fred teased. They had all discovered Thomas's passion the night before; reading any book he could possibly get his hands on, though he preferred reading historical books.
Their conversation proceeded to range through all manner of things, most of them being speculation about the day's coming events, and a little bit about family history and the like (at which Cliona began to squirm, and avoided most of the questions they directed at her.
"So, Tom, why are you becoming a knight anyway if you're so interested in books and history?" Inquired Dominic.
"Well, if I had my way I wouldn't be here. You see, I am the only son in my family of me and five girls (three younger, two older), and Pa needed someone to become a knight. But perhaps I can fulfill my ambition of becoming a scholar after I complete knight training. I would like to go to the University at Overlin, myself." Overlin was famed for having the best University in perhaps all of the charted lands; in fact, its reputation had caused the king himself to study there, not to mention all sorts of foreign dignitaries.
"Yeah, its not like any of your sisters could've done that particular duty for you," Dominic guffawed, causing Cliona to stiffen rather noticeably.
"What's the matter with you?" Edward inquired, indicating a rather murderous look that had crept into Cliona's eyes.
How could they think such things? Don't they know how absurd all of that foolish nonsense is? Even worse, what would they do if they knew the truth about me? Surely they couldn't be that blinded by prejudice… but you never knew. I'll have to just tread very carefully, and learn to keep my emotions in control too. Cliona thought all of this in nearly a blink of the eye, thoroughly troubled. The sound of Edward's voice brought her back to the present with a jolt.
"Uh, I was just thinking… I mean, ah, about the past… umm, drifting thoughts… rather preoccupied, sorry…" She stammered, very aware of how idiotic it sounded, even in her own ears.
The four of her companions stopped walking and looked at her curiously. Fred's first thought was that their new friend Edmund had a secret, one that he wanted to keep at all costs. But not about to give up this whole thing so easily, he opened his mouth to inquire further when he realized that Ed had managed to break away from their little group and get lost in a now very large crowd of pages waiting at the door to the mess hall. The bell soon clanged seven times, signaling the coming of dawn. Without further ado, the whole lot of them scurried into the room, their minds only on one thing: food. By the time their trays were laden with large quantities of steaming food and everyone was sitting down, everyone had forgotten Ed's weird episode; everyone, that is, except Fred (cunning boy that he was) who decided to leave it and instead ponder it on a rainy day.
The mess hall was filled with the clatter of hungry pages, almost all weariness now long forgotten to be replaced with anticipation for what was to come. Curious voices filled the hall, all wondering the very same thing: what this new program was that the Duke had begun to describe only the night before.
Their curiosity was not long into being before it was satisfied by the coming of Duke Roald.
"Good morning, pages," he began. "Now I know most of you here have waited for this information that I am about to disclose. You will be paired up with one other page, and sent to live with a Duke, Lord, or Count of this nation. To whom you are sent to is entirely up to you, and determined by one thing: the results of the test that you will all take today."