Author's Note

As a sequel to Lady Knight Volant, my AU continuation of Lady Knight, this tale will make precious little sense without it. I know LKV is absurdly long, but don't say you weren't warned.

The Book of Stone is not, however, a sequel to The Temple of Sakuyo, though it intersects with it in time and other ways. The 'Prologue' occurs during Page, the first chapters overlap with the last chapter of LKV and most of Temple, and the tale proper sits between the last chapter and 'Epilogue' ofTemple, explaining (among other things) Kel's "little Gallan adventure and its aftermath"; the epilogue falls after the end of Temple.

It is confessedly an experiment, in an OC p-o-v that tries to look at Kel and New Hope from outside, meaning (be warned!) a long slow burn, with a deal of rehash, before it goes bang. It's also an exorcism of sorts, Joren's siblings having mildly haunted me since I thought about them in passing for LKV, and having made them suffering children, in Kel's world, they needed to be rescued. And then there was the Craftsbeings' Guild, with the inevitable opposition it would face offering another opportunity to take Kel's glaive to Tortallan patriarchy and gender conservatism, or plain bigotry, though as it turned out only as an addendum to the core of the story. But those things together also seemed to imply a different sort of novel, inevitably more episodic than LKV or Temple because animated by daily life and occasional emergencies, yet not therefore shapeless, being a bildungsroman, and with a little care able to develop a story arc of its own. And I like challenges in form.

A few points about canon. Making Taren, Saman, and Varia Joren's half-siblings is arguably AU to canon: in Squire, the woman with Lord Burchard and his brother, when they burst into Kel's room after Joren's death, is referred to as Joren's mother — but Kel had never met the Stone Mountains, so I've made it a natural error on her part. I saw no point in making the younger Stone Mountains echoes of Joren, so I wanted them unlike him, while having him raised overwhelmingly by his father seems implicit in canon. I do need to retcon myself slightly, though, in that in LKV, ch. 31, Jonathan says the heir of Stone Mountain is 'just of age', which in Tortall seems to mean 21 — but 18 is the usual age for Ordeals of Knighthood, and it turns out that was what he meant: so while Taren was deemed old enough to inherit, he is in some respects not of age.

I have also concluded, after some head-scratching, that when Lady Knight tells us the Pakkai flowed along the east wall of Castle Rathhausak, it should say south wall; 'east' just does not compute, and with the best will in the world geography and topography are not that excellent book's strongest suits.

Finally, The Book of Stone was very largely written before A Spy's Guide to Tortall came out — which while often fun is not a work I take as headcanon, and I have ignored its information about (and depiction of) immortals. Compare, for example, its illustration of an ogre with whatever image you were left with after Wolf Speaker — I did, and voted with my own imagination; and again in the matter of dragons, or I should be in trouble with Lord Jadewing.

Enjoy!

B'Jack, November 2018

Prologue: A Private Education

Stone Mountain, August 454 HE

TAREN wasn't fast enough to stop the manicured hand that slapped his sister's face, bloodying her nose and knocking her down, too shocked to cry, but he was crouched over her, belt knife drawn, in time to stop his half-brother's boot from following up. The momentarily calculating look in Joren's eyes as he decided his irritation wasn't worth the risk to his golden skin was familiar, but the bitter twist that distorted his handsome face and the mirthless, scornful laugh were new.

"Gods, Taren, you're as bad as she is, puling over the weak." His voice went falsetto, crudely mimicking Varia's. "Ooh, what's she like? What do you think, you idiot?" Volume rose. "A degenerate merchant whore pretends to knighthood and you want a character sketch? Gods save us from women, not that they will."

Taren held his belt knife tighter. "She's six, Joren. It was only curiosity. And that's your own blood you've spilt."

"Hardly. None of you got the true blood, just the swarthy muck from your mother's useless family. Father should never have remarried." It was an old insult. "And count yourself lucky I've better things to do than take that knife away from you and teach you both some respect."

The door slammed behind him, and Taren sheathed his knife and busied himself for a moment staunching Varia's nose and holding her as delayed shock brought tears — but, he noted sadly, very quiet and stifled tears, as his own always were, wary of attracting any adult's attention. Complaining of Joren's behaviour was not an option, as they both knew all too well. The door opened again and his hand went to his knife-hilt but it was only Saman, who took one look, slipped in closing the door softly, and came to join him in comforting Varia. When she'd quieted and the nosebleed had stopped, Taren eased her to arm's length, thinking hard. His sister was unceasingly curious about many things, including any number of subjects their father, uncle, and step-brother would think wholly unsuitable for a girl — she sat in on his and Sam's lessons whenever she could, and already loved mathematics — but for her to risk asking Joren a question indicated a burning desire to know.

"What who's like, Var? Page Keladry?"

She nodded slightly, careful of her nose. "I thought he'd just rant. He's always cursing her because she's a girl, and says everyone hates her but she takes no notice."

"And you wondered how she can do that?"

"Un-huh. We can't go anywhere else, but she doesn't have to be there."

"Huh." Saman looked thoughtful. "That's true, Var. I hadn't thought of it like that. If he's hit her half as often as he says, she must be tough." He frowned. "He's two years older than her, but maybe she hits him back."

Taren gave his younger brother a conspirator's grin. "She does, Sam. I heard Uncle complaining that he should have driven her home by now, and what was he about to be held off by a trollop of a girl. He said she'd been trained as a … a whelp, I think he said, by the barbarians, the Yamanis, I suppose, and liked fighting." A thought suddenly flickered. "And I heard something yesterday that made no sense, about a page killing a bandit on the eastern border somewhere, and saving others in the group that was attacked. I wonder if that was Page Keladry? It would explain why he and Father and Uncle are so angry today."

Varia stirred in his lap. "She killed someone, Taren?"

He looked down at her, seeing the widened eyes, half-wondering at her resilience, half-enraged at her need for it. "I don't know so, Var, but I think so. And if we do the usual with any judgement of his, then she must be a very good page, and a good person, too." He tried to grin but could feel it turn lopsided. "Maybe like Captain Horgan must have been as a boy, if he'd been a girl and of rank to be allowed knight training."

He was rewarded with a half-smile for their father's Captain of the Guard, who said very little but never minded when they used his soldiers as a protection from Joren or hid in the guard-room from Uncle Henchard's tempers. Captain Horgan also looked at Joren and Uncle Henchard with what Taren thought was hidden disapproval, and had stood up for his and Saman's weapons training though neither was thought worthy of becoming a Stone Mountain knight. He was a patient teacher, too.

"I can't imagine Captain Horgan as a girl. But that's interesting." Varia's half-smile faded into a frown, making her look as prematurely adult as she was too early made wise in the ways of male violence. Or at least, Stone Mountain male violence. Taren was suddenly unsure, wondering how wide a gap there might be between what was for all of them the daily norm and the rest of Tortall. "You mean you think Page Keladry's fair?"

"Yes, I do. And I think she … I don't know, protects other pages, too." Another overheard conversation between his brother and Uncle connected. "All those fights — I don't think it's just him trying to bully her, it's because she stops him whenever she sees him bullying. That beat-up-the-first-years thing to toughen them that he and Uncle go on about."

"Huh." Varia leant against him. "I wish she was here, then. Or he wasn't."

"Me too, Var." Saman patted her shoulder. "But at least now he's a squire he won't be here as often."

Taren nodded. It was the best they could hope for. But squires became knights, and Varia would still only be ten when Sir Joren came back permanently, too young to escape Stone Mountain through marriage. He forced himself to smile.

"True, Sam. But let's all try to keep very quiet for the next few days, until he's gone to Nond, eh? And we'd better get you to the healer, Var, or that bruise will have mother hysterical."

Varia nodded, touching her cheek gently and wincing. She knew as well as he what would happen then, and rose obediently to follow him as Saman eased the door open, looking out cautiously.

"All clear."

Healer Rumil sighed when he saw Varia's face, and asked no questions as he did what he could to lessen the swelling and reduce the bruise. But he couldn't fix anything else, and Taren stored away his rage; it was useful against the despair. And, he reminded himself, holding his sister's hand as she endured the pain that was Joren's only gift to any of his half-siblings, you never knew: squires did become knights, true, but both squires and knights sometimes died. It wasn't a thing to say out loud, even to Sam and Var, but he could hope, and pray. Meantime, there was getting Var's dress, stained from her nosebleed, to the laundresses before their mother saw it.