"Tamora Pierce - Protector Of The Small 3 - Squire" - читать интересную книгу автора (Pierce Tamora)

She looked at her tunic. She wore the badge of Fief Naxen, Sir Gareth's home, with the white
ring around it that indicated she served the heir to the fief. Her knight-master was a desk knight,
not a warrior.
Work is work, she thought, trying not to cry. She still had her duty to Sir Gareth, even if it
meant grubbing through papers. She thrust herself away from her desk -

- and tottered on the chapel's flagstones. Her hands were numb with cold, her palms bright red where
they had touched the Chamber door.
Kel scowled at the iron door. "I'll do my duty," she told the thing, shivering.
Jump whined again. He peered up at her, his tail a wag in consolation.
"I'm all right," Kel reassured him, but she checked her hands for inkspots. The Chamber had made her
live the thing she feared most just now, when no field knight had asked for her service.
What if the Chamber knew? What if she was to spend the next four years copying out dry passages
from drier records? Would she quit? Would paperwork do what other pages' hostility had not - drive her
back to Mindelan?
Squires were supposed to serve and obey, no matter what. Still, the gap between combat with
monsters and research in ancient files was unimaginable. Surely someone would realize Keladry of
Mindelan was good for more than scribe work!
This was too close to feeling sorry for herself, a useless activity. "Come on," Kel told Jump. "Enough
brooding. Let's get some exercise."
Jump pranced as Kel left the Chapel. She was never sure if he understood her exactly - it grew harder
each year to tell how much any palace animal did or did not know - but he could tell they were on their
way outside.
Kel stopped at her quarters to leave a note for her maid, Lalasa: "Should a knight come to ask me to
be his squire, I'm down at the practice courts." Gloom overtook her again. As the first known female
page in over a century, she had struggled through four years to prove herself as good as any boy. If the
last six weeks were any indication, she could have spared herself the trouble. It seemed no knight cared
to take The Girl as his squire. Even her friend Neal, five years older than their other year-mates, known
for his sharp tongue and poor attitude, had talked with three potential masters.
Kel and Jump left her room to stop by Neal's. Her lanky friend lay on his bed, reading. Jump bounced
up beside him.
"I'm off to the practice courts," she said. "You want to come?"
Neal lowered his book, raising arched brows over green eyes. "I'm about to commence four years
obeying the call of a bruiser on a horse," he pointed out in his dry voice. A friend had commented once
that Neal had a gift for making someone want to punch him just for saying hello. "I refuse to put down
what might be the last book I see for months."
 Kel eyed her friend. His long brown hair, swept back from a widow's peak, stood at angles, combed
that way by restless fingers. Her fingers itched to settle it. "I thought you wanted to be a squire," she said,
locking her hands behind her back. Neal didn't know she had a crush on him. She meant to keep it that
way.
Neal sighed. "I want to fulfill Queenscove's duty to the Crown," he reminded her. "A knight from our
house - "
"Has served the Crown for ages, is a pillar of the kingdom, I know, I know," Kel finished before he
could start.
"Well, that's about being a knight. Squire is an intermediate step. It's a pain in the rump, but it's a
passing pain. I don't have to like it," Neal said. "I'd as soon read. Besides, Father said to wait. Another
knight's supposed to show up today. I hate it when Father gets mysterious."
"Well, I'm going to go hit something," Kel said. "I can't sit around."
Neal sat up. "No one still?" he asked, kindness in his voice and eyes. For all he was five years older,
he was her best friend, and a good one.