Page. Tamora Pierce

to her desk. ‘It’s plain as the nose on my face that you wanted him a thousand leagues away.’ She found the shaman bag and tucked it into her belt purse. ‘As for idling, you really don’t have to stay here all the time. Don’t you have friends to visit or errands to run?’

      Lalasa tugged at the straps of the harness. ‘I like to stay here. Nobody bothers me but the dog and the birds, and I like them.’

      ‘Well, think about it,’ Kel said. ‘Honestly, I’m not your jailer. And if that Longleigh comes near you again, tell me, understand? I mean it.’

      Lalasa nodded, but Kel wasn’t convinced. There was no time to argue, though – she’d already taken longer on her errand than she should. She ran back to class, thinking every step of the way.

      That night, when she went to her rooms after supper, she brought Neal and left the door open. ‘I don’t care if you don’t like it,’ Kel told Lalasa sternly. ‘We’re going to show you holds that will help you, um, discourage someone from bothering you.’ Lalasa stared at Neal, who rubbed the delighted Jump on his belly, as if he were an ogre. ‘At the very least you’ll convince them that you meant no when you said no. Page Nealan?’ she asked, prodding her friend with her foot.

      Neal looked at her, eyes filled with mischief. Something – something odd – filled Kel’s chest for a moment. Why did she feel giddy?

      ‘If this isn’t friendship, what is?’ he asked cheerfully. ‘After people abuse my poor body all morning in the courts, I’m going to let you bruise me some more.’ He offered Kel a large, bony hand. It felt uncommonly warm in hers as she pulled him to his feet. Once he was up, she dropped his hand as if it were a hot brick.

      ‘I won’t bruise you much. Stop complaining,’ she ordered. ‘Lalasa, stand close so you can see what I do.’ Lalasa circled Neal as if she thought he was a hot brick, until she stood behind Kel. ‘You won’t see a thing if you look at the floor,’ Kel chided her. ‘Neal, grab my arm and get ready for pain.’

      When he obeyed, Kel showed Lalasa several ways to get free. She bent Neal’s finger back, dug her nail into the crescent at the base of one of his fingernails, pinched the web between his thumb and forefinger with her nails, thrust a fingernail between the veins and tendons of his wrist, and gripped his hand with both of hers, forcing the thumb or little finger against his palm. She made Lalasa try each defence on her, since the maid refused to touch Neal. They showed Lalasa how to turn an attacker’s arm until she forced it up behind his back. Next they demonstrated how to stamp on an enemy’s instep when she was seized from behind, as well as eye gouges, nose and throat punches, and even the simple knee to the groin. By the time they had walked the cringing Lalasa through it all, an audience had gathered at Kel’s open door.