Free Page by Tamora Pierce

as she carefully parted Cleon’s damp locks. She couldn’t wait to catch a glimpse of her hero, the woman knight who was the King’s Champion.
    “Nowhere,” answered Neal. “They’re still not letting her talk to you, so she’s still refusing to come to the palace.”
    “They think she’ll magic you into getting a shield,” Owen remarked angrily.
    “Like Kel needs help,” Esmond added. Does this mean I won’t see her till I’m a squire? thought Kel, dismayed and angry. It’s not fair!
    She fought off her disappointment. At least her friends had faith in her ability to gain a shield on her own. She smiled at all of them as she stepped off the chair. “Well, come on,” she urged them. “Let’s get going.”
    The pages reported to the servers’ room off the banquet hall, where Master Oakbridge waited. He was the palace master of ceremonies as well as the pages’ etiquette teacher, a dried-up, fussy man who lived to arrange banquets and decree who preceded whom in processions. Once all of the pages had arrived, he gave them a careful going-over, criticizing and correcting. Only when that was over did he show them the plan of the banquet hall, drawn in chalk on a black slate six feet tall.
    They memorized their positions. Kel’s post was at the back of the hall, waiting on members of the minor guilds. That suited her perfectly. She didn’t want a place where important people would take notice of her, such as the great nobles or the monarchs.
    Suddenly the pages heard the royal fanfare: the king and queen had taken their places. Kel and the other servers gathered finger bowls and towels.
    “Now,” said Master Oakbridge.
    Kel walked briskly to her post, taking in as much of the dazzling scene around her as she could. The heavy smells of pine and frankincense drifted in the air. The walls and ceiling were draped in pine branches and freshly cleaned banners. Thousands of candles burned in the huge chandeliers overhead, their light reflected by crystal lusters, the guests’ gems, and the mirror-polished armor of the men of the King’s Own, who stood in niches along the wall. A glance upward showed her galleries on three sides. On one of these the musicians played, as they would throughout the meal. The others were filled with people who had come to watch the spectacle of the feast.
    She waited until she was directly across the hall from the monarchs before she peeked at them. At this distance it was hard to see their features, apart from the king’s black beard and the queen’s scarlet mouth. Like the guests, they blazed with color, the king in sapphire blue trimmed with silver, the queen in crimson trimmed in gold. Both wore delicate gold crowns glinting with gems on their black hair.
    She reached the table where she was to serve, exactly where it had been marked on Oakbridge’s slate. There she presented the finger bowl to each of five guild notables and their wives as they rinsed their hands and toweled them dry. On her way to fetch the first course, she looked for people she knew.
    Sir Myles, the pages’ teacher in history and law and, according to Neal, the king’s spymaster, sat with an elegant woman whose dark hair was streaked with gray. From the way he looked at her and kissed her fingers, Kel hoped she was his wife, Eleni. Daine was deep in talk with Lindhall Reed, another of the pages’ teachers. Daine’s lover, Numair Salmalin, sat closer to the monarchs, beside a Yamani delegate. Neal’s father, Duke Baird of Queenscove, sat beside a Yamani man whom Kel recognized as one of the emperor’s healers. The green-eyed brunette on Baird’s other side had to be Neal’s mother; Neal had the look of both his parents. Kel saw her parents, who sat with the Yamani ambassador and his wife, on the king’s right hand.
    She reached the servers’ door. Owen waited for her, his round face pale as he offered Kel the plate with the first meat course. Kel passed him the finger bowl with one hand and took