Post by Katty on May 26, 2009 23:26:23 GMT 10
A Day in the Life of a Royal Page
by Ubiquitous
The night before.
On advice from my good friend Lord Sir Raoul of Goldenlake, his Majesty, King Jonathon IV of Tortall, kindly allowed me to observe the activities of the pages for a day. I had been hinting for quite a while to Raoul, so needless to say, I was excited. Lord Wyldon did not appear particularly amused, but obviously decided that discretion was the better part of valour, and told me to follow him. I couldn't believe my luck, I had been hoping for a chance to interview the training master.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t quite as I expected. I got a relatively short lecture on how to conduct myself, followed by instructions to avoid interacting with or distracting the pages and a curt dismissal. Needless to say, I was not amused. Lord Wyldon’s office was rather sparse, particularly in comparison to Sir Gareth’s. There were no papers on the floor, or on the desk for that matter. So I decided on an early night, as I would need to wake up early in the morning. My own room was rather bare, and the bed was as hard as a rock. Nevertheless, it didn’t take me long to fall asleep.
A Day in the Life.
The next morning, I rose before dawn, remembering that Keladry always woke early to do her glaive exercises. I had no need for that, so I decided to snoop around. It turns out that male pages get up before dawn to train too, as I discovered when I got caught sneaking into Joren’s room. I didn’t get any information, but Joren was only wearing his loincloth, so it wasn’t a total loss. As I moved further along the pages wing, I could hear an odd grunting noise from Owen’s rooms as well and what sounded like a one-sided debate from Neal’s.
Breakfast was a noisy affair. Everyone was loading up their plates with eggs and bread and all sorts of fruit. Lord Wyldon wasn’t present. I could tell Joren had recognised me from the way he kept staring, and some of the other pages and squires were giving me funny looks. Prince Roald smiled at me when he caught my eye, so I headed over to the table he was sitting at, with Yancen, Balduin and a few other pages I didn’t recognise. He obviously had been told of what was happening and politely introduced me to everyone. The pages smiled at me, nodded and then resumed eating. They were clearly a more serious lot, and they rarely spoke except to talk of the day’s classes. Roald was polite enough to make some small talk about my stay in Corus, for which I was thankful.
After breakfast, we began the day’s classes. Morning classes are the physical ones, where the would-be knights learn their fighting skills. First up was hand-to-hand combat with Eda Bell and Hakuin Seastone. It was tiring just to watch them rolling about on the floor, kicking and punching. After that was weapons training and I was a little confused to see the pages handling staffs and not swords. I must have been musing aloud because my ever present shadow, Lord Wyldon, informed me that pages trained with the staff in Autumn and with the sword in Winter. Before I could ask about the other seasons, he left me to go switch up the partners. The next bell tolled, and we headed to the archery range for the next class. Finally, there was tilting, which was definitely the most amusing class of the day so far. Those poor pages kept getting buffeted by the sand-bags, and then Seaver almost fell off his horse. It was good to see some of the other pages getting it right though.
The pages headed off to the baths to, well, bathe, and I headed to the pages’ rooms. I had little time, and there were more servants bustling about, so I had to be careful. In fact, my mind was so concentrated on not getting caught that I forgot to read the signs on the door and went into Garvey’s room instead of Joren’s. I had a bit of a look around anyway, and found some curious looking books in one of his drawers. Flipping through them, I realised they weren’t unlike our own trashy romance novels. Not particularly manly or knightly. I shoved them in my bag before I snuck out, trying to think of a way to deposit them in Kel’s rooms. She could do with reading some fluff.
Lunch was boring, everyone was trying to eat as quickly as possible so that they wouldn’t be late for the afternoon classes. The only sounds that could be heard were that of cutlery scraping against plates.
Afternoon classes started with Reading and Writing. Master Yayin teaches that class, and I think it was perfect material for an afternoon nap. Merric seemed to agree. His face was covered by his hand, but I could hear his light snoring from the desk next to me. I gave him a light shove as the class ended and we all headed off to Mathematics. This class was with Master Ivor, who was only marginally more interesting than Master Yayin. I’m not entirely sure why Mithran priests teach these classes, but they could have done with a lesson from Sir Myles. His class, History and Law of the Realm, was far more interesting, and I’m pretty sure he wasn’t even a little bit drunk yet. Of course, my knowledge of Tortallan history comes from A Revised History of Tortall, and this class focused on the more mundane parts of history, but it was still an interesting learning experience.
The best class of the day was definitely Study of Plants and Animals with Master Lindhall Reed. I got to play with Bonedancer with the entire class, and I taught him to bite Joren’s finger after I caught him trying to put a toad in my desk. For the next class, I had a choice. I could go to the Immortals and Magic class that most pages went to, or I could go to Magecraft with the Gifted students. I heard Prosper mention that Numair would be teaching Magecraft today, so I decided to tag along, if only for the eye-candy. Numair is definitely a good teacher, and I swear, it had nothing to do with his shiny black robe that fitted him perfectly and flowed behind as he walked about the room. It most definitely had nothing to do with the quick private lesson in the workings of the Gift that I got after class. I was running late for the last class of the day, Etiquette with Master Oakbridge, after my chat with Numair, and I was debating skipping it entirely for a proper snoop in the pages’ wing when Lord Wyldon saw me wandering and escorted me back to class. Today’s lesson was on bows, and it was torture just watching the poor pages trying to get their bows exactly right.
Dinner came faster than I had thought. I scrambled to the mess hall, to find that almost all the tables were occupied. Conveniently remembering Lord Wyldon’s rules about not associating with the pages, I headed to his table and sat next to him. Neal was serving today, but Lord Wyldon was looking at me so intently that I suddenly could not open my mouth to talk to him.
After dinner was the pages’ free time, or so Lord Wyldon had said. Most of the pages were studying in their rooms or in the library, while others were getting in extra weapons practice, and it was quite late at night before the pages started heading to bed.
It wasn't long before all that could be heard in the pages' wing were Cleon's snores as the pages rested to wake up and do the same tomorrow.
(Information from this article is also available on the Goldenlake Tamora Pierce Wiki (tamorapierce.wikidot.com))
Maybe once we'd have seen it during Smackdown!