“What’s this for?” I asked.
But Elle was already wrapping it tightly around her chest while the boys were pulling on their padded leggings. I copied her, and so did Anna. When we were all dressed, Delacar found battered helmets that fit us, gave us each a quarterstaff, and paraded us out to a part of the yard where none of the squires were practicing or polishing their masters’ mail or otherwise doing chores for their knights.
“Have any of you learned quarterstaff yet?” Sir Delacar asked, with the air of someone who expected us all to say no.
But Giles and Elle both held up their hands. Sir Delacar blinked in surprise, then quickly recovered. “All right, Giles, please pair up with Miriam. Raquelle with Robert, and Susanna with Nathaniel. Raquelle, you and I will demonstrate the first exercise, then everyone will do it with their partner—slowly.”
The exercise was pretty simple. One person would use the upper third of the quarterstaff to strike at the partner’s head from the right, and the partner would intercept the blow. Then the striker would do it again from the left. Then he or she would try to strike for the knee from the right, then from the left. Then it would be the partner’s turn to try the four strikes. Then it would go back. We all watched closely, then followed Delacar’s orders. “I didn’t know you knew quarterstaff,” I said as Giles and I took turns going through the moves.
He smirked. “There’s a lot you don’t know about me.” He was teasing me, but I didn’t rise to the bait. Which is just as well, because a moment later, Sir Delacar began pounding his quarterstaff on the ground, setting a beat we were supposed to follow. And he kept speeding up. I was using all sorts of muscles I wasn’t used to using, and the faster we went, the harder I had to concentrate to keep from being whacked. This was like dancing lessons—except the dancing master had never whacked me as hard with his little pointy stick as Giles would if either of us slipped up.
When we were starting to fumble and dripping with sweat and Elle had caught poor Robert a sharp rap on the forearm by accident, Sir Delacar called a halt. “Go get a drink and come back and practice on the poles.” He pointed to a row of poles with targets marked on them in chipped red paint. We each had a turn at the bucket and ladle, then followed his orders. Once again, Delacar waited until he thought we had the pattern down, then began setting a pace for us.
By the time he let us go, my clothing and armor were sodden, my hair wringing wet, and my arms so sore that I could barely lift them. We left our padding in a soggy pile to be taken away, rinsed out, and dried; and we went our different ways. I would have thought that all the work in the kitchen would have given me better muscles!
I stopped at the kitchen and asked for food, and someone thrust something to eat into my hands and shooed me out. It was a couple of legs of cold roast chicken, some warm bread with jam stuffed into the middle, and a handful of radishes, and by the time I reached my room, I had eaten the lot. It was a good thing that I’d stopped down there because Belinda was still in a mood and my sweaty state did not do anything to change it.
She made me strip to the skin and rubbed me down with a rough wet cloth—which I could have done myself, but she was clearly not going to miss the chance to scrub me thoroughly, as if by doing so she could erase all my ideas about being Aurora’s Champion. When she was done, she waved her hand at the gown and underthings she’d laid out. While I was putting it all on, she was carrying out my morning clothing to be dealt with by the laundresses and wearing an expression of extreme distaste on her face.
But instead of going to eat the noon meal with Mama and Papa and the rest of the Court, I flopped down on my bed with my arms outstretched to ease them. Right now, an hour or two of rest sounded better than food.
Belinda came back in and looked at me, still wearing the scowl. It was clear that her feelings about what was right and proper for a young lady were running roughshod over any concern for how vulnerable Aurora was. I don’t know what she expected me to do. Maybe wear a Fae gown and wave a wand prettily? “You asked for this,” she said accusingly.
“Yes, I did,” I replied. “It’s worth it. It will get better.” I didn’t say it would get easier because it was pretty clear that Sir Delacar was not going to make this easy on us. But squires had been doing this for a very, very long time, and I figured that I could do what they were doing. I’d never heard of a squire who died of too much exercise.
Belinda sniffed and stalked out. But just as I started to doze off a little, a servant arrived with a big wooden tray with a bowl of soup, more bread, and a pitcher of watered wine. The wine was extremely welcome even if Belinda’s idea of what someone should be eating after a heavy bout of quarterstaff training left something to be desired because I could probably have eaten an entire baron of beef by myself. At least it was a nice thick soup, not a broth. I ate very slowly, both because my arms hurt and because I knew that if I lay back down, I would fall asleep.
When I had finished eating, I knew it was time for me to meet whichever Fae had either volunteered or been ordered to teach me. I managed to stagger down to the kitchen stair, and by the time I was at the bottom of it, my muscles were a little less sore and no longer stiff. The directions I had been given yesterday had been very explicit. I was to go to my favorite ancient oak in the overgrown part of the garden. I couldn’t imagine why I would be going there instead of someplace outside the palace, but I assumed that the Fae would transport me from there to somewhere else. How? No idea. They were Fae.
I was very much hoping that the Fae teaching me would be one of the ones I recognized.
Through the vegetable and herb garden, then into the pleasure garden, and then into the overgrown section I went. Not moving briskly, may I say, but not crawling, either. And when I pulled aside a vine curtain and revealed my oak, who should I see waiting there for me but Brianna Firehawk, and I sighed with relief. Here was someone who had proved that she had a deep connection to the Royal Family in Tirendell. That was a definite point in her favor, but I had some other notions about her based on all the discussions that had gone on in Mama’s solar after the christening. I trusted her, and I felt that I could count on her to be thorough and practical.
“Oh, my,” she said as I used a great root as a step to get to where she was standing and winced a little. “I see your weaponry teacher has had no mercy on you.”
“None whatsoever, Lady Firehawk,” I said, and tried not to groan. “It’s Sir Delacar.”
She tapped her lips with her finger. “Hmm. I believe I can see why he is being… rigorous. Well, this will be your first lesson in magic,” she continued, switching subjects abruptly. “There is an ancient door in this oak, a Fae door that I have used a great deal in the past. The first thing I want you to do is find it.”
I was momentarily distracted by the astonishing news that my favorite tree had a Fae door in it. And one that Brianna had used a lot.
Now what on earth did that mean? Had I been drawn to this tree because there was magic here and I had inborn magic? Was it just a coincidence?
But Brianna was waiting, and I shook off the distracting questions. I thought about feeling the enormous trunk for telltale cracks, but something told me I wouldn’t find anything that way. So I stared and stared until I was cross-eyed, but I couldn’t see a door, either. I stopped trying to spot it and closed my eyes so I could think. Then it was as if something whispered to me, Don’t think. Feel. So I let my mind drift off into a blank and stepped forward until I was right at the trunk, holding out my hand until it rested just above the bark. I moved it slowly back and forth, and suddenly I felt it! A tingle and a sensation of warmth. I traced it with my hand downward in a gentle curve across the base of the trunk and back up again in another gentle curve until I reached my starting place.