Free Page by Tamora Pierce Page A

the plate with the other, while Owen lifted the towel from her arm. “Don’t look so tense,” she murmured. “It’ll be over before you know it.”
    “Not if I kill Master Oakbridge it won’t,” he replied. “What a fusspot!”
    Kel smiled. “I think it’s been tried before, without success.”
    As Kel returned to her guildsmen, her mother caught her eye. Ilane smiled and waved slightly. Kel’s father did the same. Her parents were pleased! Kel replied with the tiniest of bows, then hurried to her table.
    Trouble developed as she went for the second fish course. Turning away from Owen, she saw a page across the hall, talking to the people she was serving. She couldn’t see who it was. As she returned to her post, the other page moved away. Something about the way he walked told her it was Quinden, a second-year who was a friend of Joren’s.
    She had given the second fish course to three guests when the man who represented the Lamplighters’ Guild leaned forward and said, “Is it true? You’re The Girl?”
    Kel looked down. Her new breasts were invisible under her roomy shirt and tunic. She bowed and said, “It’s true, sir.”
    “It’s not decent,” the man’s wife said huffily, her eyes filled with dislike. “One girl, and all those boys.”
    “My advice to you, lass, is to go home and hope your parents can make a proper marriage for you,” the oldest of the guildfolk informed her. “Ladies have no place bearing arms.”
    Kel bowed, her face like stone. She wouldn’t let them see that her feelings were hurt.
    “And tell the master of ceremonies we wish to be served by another,” one of the other guildwives said.
    Kel bowed again. On her way back to Master Oakbridge, she kept her chin up, though her hands trembled on the tray. Furious thoughts swirled through her brain. Chief among them was that she owed Quinden a pummeling. Now she knew why he’d been at her table: he’d told those merchants exactly who she was.
    “What?!” cried Master Oakbridge when she told him. “This is impossible! I have no spare pages! Only the first-years and they haven’t a whit of grace…Mithros, I appeal to you,” he said, raising eyes and hands to the ceiling. Then he sought out a victim. “Prosper of Tameran, take Keladry’s place. If those vulgar busybodies attempt to discuss her with you, keep silent, understand?”
    Prosper nodded and shed the apron he’d worn over his uniform. Owen silently handed, the next dish to him, with a look on his face as if his favorite dog had died.
    “Take over for Prosper, Keladry,” Master Oakbridge instructed. “I will assign you a new place tomorrow night.”
    Kel accepted a platter of meat - pork roasted in honey, apples, and cinnamon, from the smell - to hand to a serving page. Several of them, including Neal, were converging on her from the hall. Kel thought, He’s so graceful. Handsome, too.

Protector of the Small 2 - Page
    Why she noticed such things these days mystified her. Last year an approving look from his lively green eyes hadn’t made her skin prickle with goose bumps. Was this more womanly stuff, like her growing breasts? she wondered as five pages came at her at once. She stepped just enough to the side that she could hand the plate to Neal first. His hands closed on it; he grinned at her and drew the plate away - and suddenly he was falling. Sauce flew everywhere as he hit the ground.
    Kel stared at him. How could he fall? He wasn’t clumsy; the floor was dry. The pages who had walked with him reached to help Neal up. The front of his tunic dripped sauce and grease; his shirt and hose, no less crimson than his face, were ruined as well. Kel eyed the other boys around him. Prince Roald had spots on his hose; so did the two third-year pages in that small group. The fifth boy was Garvey. He smirked at her and Neal alike, no spots whatsoever on his clothes. He had gotten out of the way in time, which argued that he knew that Neal would fall because he