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quintain: a dummy with a shield mounted on a post. One outstretched "arm" is weighted with a sandbag, while the other is covered by the shield. The object in tilting at a quintain is to strike the shield precisely, causing the dummy to pivot 180°. The jouster can then ride by safely. Striking the dummy anywhere but the target circle on the shield causes the dummy to swing 360°, so the sandbag wallops the passing rider.
rowel: a star-shaped revolving piece on a spur, which cuts into a horse to get it to pick up its speed.
Scanra: country to the north of Tortall, wild, rocky, and cold, with very little land that can be farmed. The Scanrans are masters of the sea and are feared anywhere there is a coastline. They also frequently raid over land.
Shang: an order of Yamani warriors, mostly commoners, whose principal school is in northern Maren. They specialize in hand-to-hand combat.
Southern Lands: another name for the Carthaki Empire, which has conquered all of the independent nations that once were part of the continent south of the Inland Sea.
spidren: immortal whose body is that of a furred spider four to five feet in height; its head is that of a human, with sharp, silvery teeth. Spidrens can fight with weapons. They also use their webs as weapons and ropes. Spidren web is gray-green in color and it glows after dark. Their blood is black, and burns like acid. Their favorite food is human blood.
Stormwing: immortal with a human head and chest and the legs and wings of birds, with steel feathers and claws. Stormwings have sharp teeth, but use them only to add to the terror of their presence by tearing apart bodies. They live on human fear and have their own magic; their special province is that of desecrating battlefield dead.
tauros: seven-foot-tall immortal, male only, that has a bull-like head with large teeth and eyes that point forward (the mark of a predator). It is reddish-brown, human-like from the neck down, with a bull’s splayed hooves and tail. It preys on women and girls.
Temple District: the religious quarter of Corns, between the city proper and the royal palace, where the city’s largest temples are located.
Tortall: the chief kingdom in which the Alanna, Daine, and Keladry books take place, between the Inland Sea and Scanra.
Tusaine: A small country between Tortall and Maren. Tortall went to war with Tusaine in the years Alanna the Lioness was a squire and Jonathan was crown prince; Tusaine lost.
Tyra: a merchant republic on the Inland Sea between Tortall and Maren. Tyra is mostly swamp, and its people rely on trade and banking for an income.
warhorse: a larger horse or greathorse, trained for combat—the mount of an armored knight.
wildmage: a mage who deals in wild magic, the kind of magic that is part of nature. Daine Sarrasri is often called the Wildmage, for her ability to communicate with animals, heal them, and shapeshift.
wild magic: the magic that is part of the natural world. Unlike the human Gift, it cannot be drained or done away with; it is always present.
Yama: chief goddess of the Yamani pantheon, goddess of fire, who created the Yamanis and their islands.
Yamani Islands: island nation to the north and west of Tort all and the west of Scanra, ruled by an ancient line of emperors, whose claim to their throne comes from the goddess Yama. The country is beautiful and mountainous. Its vulnerability to pirate raids means that most Yamanis get some training in combat arts, including the women. Keladry of Mindelan lived there for six years while her father was the Tortallan ambassador.
See next page for a preview of the next book:
Protector of the Small:
PAGE
Now in hardcover from
Random House,
paperback coming in May 2001.
I
PAGE KELADRY
Fall that year was warm. Heat lay in a blanket over the basin of the River Olorun, where the capital of Tortall covered the banks. No breath of air stirred the pennants and flags on their poles. The river itself was a band of glass, without a breeze anywhere to ruffle its shining surface. Traffic in the city moved as if the air were thick honey. No one with sense cared to rush.
Behind the royal palace, eleven-year-old Keladry of Mindelan stared at the rising ground that led from the training yards to the pages’ wing and decided that she had no sense. She felt as if she’d let people beat her with mallets all morning. Surely it was too hot for her to do as she normally did—run up that hill to reach her rooms and bathe. After all, she would be the only one to know if she walked today.
Who would think this cursed harness would make such a difference? she wondered, reaching under her canvas practice coat to finger broad leather straps. At some point during her first year as page, she had learned that second-, third-, and fourth-years wore weighted harnesses, and that more weights were added every four months, but she had never considered it in terms of herself. Now she wished that she had donned something of the kind in the empty summer months, when she made the daily trek to the palace to keep up her training. If she had, she wouldn’t ache so much now.
She wiped her sleeve over her forehead. It’s not even like you’re carrying a lot of weight, she scolded herself. Eight little disks—maybe two pounds in lead. You trained last year and all summer with lead-weighted weapons, just to build your strength. This can’t be that different!
But it was. Hand-to-hand combat, staff work, archery, and riding took extra effort with two pounds of lead hanging on her shoulders, chest, and back. I’ve got to run, she told herself wearily. If I don’t move soon, I’ll be late to wash and late to lunch, and Lord Wyldon will give me punishment work. So heat or no, I have to go up that hill. I may as well run it.
She waited a moment more, steeling herself. She hated this run. That slowly rising ground was torture on her legs even last spring, when she’d been running it off and on for more than half a year.
No stranger, looking at her, would have thought this disheveled girl was the sort to cause a storm of argument at court. She had a dreamer’s quiet hazel eyes, framed in long lashes, and plain brown hair that she wore cropped as short as a boy’s. Her nose was small and delicate, her skin tan and dusted with freckles. She was big for a girl of eleven, five feet three inches tall and solidly built. Only someone who looked closely at her calm face would detect a spark in her level gaze, and determination in her mouth and chin.
At last she groaned and began to trot up the hill. Her path took her behind the mews, the kennels, and the forges. Men and women in palace livery and servants’ garb waved as she ran past. A woman told some kennel workers, "Looka here—tol’ ya she’d be back!"
Kel smiled through pouring sweat. No one had thought that the old-fashioned training master would allow the first-known girl page in over a century to stay after her first year. When Lord Wyldon surprised the world and allowed Kel to stay, many had assumed Kel would "come to her senses" and drop out over the summer holiday.
You’d think by now they’d know I won’t quit, she thought as she toiled on up the hill.
She was lurching when she reached the kitchen gardens, her shortcut to the pages’ wing. There she had to catch her breath. An upended bucket did for a seat. She inhaled the scents of marjoram, sage, and thyme, massaging her calf muscles. For the hundredth time she wished she could use the palace baths as the boys did, instead of having to go all the way to her room to wash up.
"Hi! You!" cried a male voice from the direction of the kitchens. "Come back with those sausages!"
Kel got to her feet. A cook raced out of the kitchen, waving a meat cleaver. Empty beanpoles, stripped after the harvest, went flying as he crashed through them. Metal flashed as the cleaver chopped through the air. The man doubled back and ran on, plainly chasing something far smaller than he. Once he stumbled; once he dropped the cleaver. On he came, cursing.
The dog he pursued raced toward Kel. A string of fat sausages hung from his jaws. With a last burst of speed, the animal ducked behind Kel.
The cook charged them, cleaver raised. "I’ll kill you this t
ime!" he screeched, face crimson with fury.
Kel put her hands on her hips. "Me or the dog?"
"Out of the way, page!" he snarled, circling to her left. "He’s stolen his last meal!"
As she turned to keep herself between the man and his prey, Kel glanced behind her. The dog huddled by her seat, gobbling his catch.
"Stop right there," Kel ordered the man.
