She didn't spend much longer in her lord's suite, although she dearly wanted to know what was in the locked study. Instead, she found a servant and asked him to take the two chests to the coach yard. Then she hurried to her own small room in the pages' dormitory on the other side of the orchard, and pulled her little clothes chest out from under the bed. Looking at her wardrobe, she wondered if she had more clothes than her lord - but then, she wasn't going to need most of them. She picked two alternative outfits and one dress, added her washing things and picked the whole thing up with some effort to make her way to the coach yard. Miraina caught her outside the dormitory.

"Where are you going?" she asked, eyes alight with curiosity.

"Fifth Star Court," Alyn said, and put the box down. "Oh, hey, give me my writing stuff. I should take that too."

"Be careful," Miraina said as Alyn opened the chest. "You don't want to get ink on your clean things. Anyway, why are you going to Fifth Star Court?"

"I have no idea, but Lord Miervaldis is and I have to attend him."

"You lucky thing! Tell me all about it when you get back?"

"Of course," Alyn said, and picked the clothes chest up again with an effort.

"Safe journey," Miraina called after her as she hurried down the path, ducking the apple branches to make the shortcut to the coach yard. Alyn glanced back once, but couldn't see anything through the blossoming orchard.

Her first thought, when she reached the coach yard, was that Miervaldis had forgotten to ask for his coach. Her second, with a shock of horror, was that she had forgotten to ask for his coach, which must surely be her task. She looked around wildly, but there was no-one in attendance except for the groom holding the heads of the two horses harnessed to the dull brown, slightly grubby-looking coach on the far side. It was unmarked with the insignia of any court, so she assumed it had to be some domestic service. The cobbled yard was otherwise bare - bare of people, of horses, of straw... and of her lord. The stable doors were open but there was no-one inside; she could make out the brown head of a curious horse poking his nose out to see what was happening.

"Alyn?"

She spun round to see her patron's head in the window of the small brown coach. He beckoned. "This one's ours. Thank you for sorting out my luggage; you can put your chest on top."

Alyn walked over and put her chest on top of the two belonging to Lord Miervaldis, which she now saw sat next to each other on the platform at the back of the coach. From the other side, a groom came to tether hers on securely. She went to the door her lord was holding open, and climbed in.

"Thank you," she said, seating herself opposite him, facing backwards. Miervaldis nodded. He was holding a heavy book on his lap and had a short carbon stick in his hand; he'd been making notes in the margin. When he saw her looking at him, he closed the book casually and tucked the carbon stick in his pocket. Alyn mentally winced. That's going to leave marks all over his clothes.

She looked around the carriage; it was as small on the inside as on the outside, but the leather seats were surprisingly comfortable. There was a Sun Court insignia discreetly placed on the sides, although the outside had been unmarked. So this wasn't her lord's coach? Had it -? It must have been sent by the Sun Court! She looked back at him, but before she could ask anything, the driver opened the little hatch into the carriage and spoke just over her head, making her jump.

"Ready, my lord?"

"Ready."

The hatch closed, and she heard the driver whistle to the horses. The carriage rolled sedately out of the coachyard and down the long drive, between the horse chestnut trees in their new green leaves. The sun shone through them, making dappled patterns in the coach where it came through the window. Alyn gazed out of the window; she hadn't been outside Court since she had arrived in the autumn, brought by her father in the family coach with her mother and brothers and sister. All the other pages had been arriving too; a cacophony of coaches from all over the country disgorging excited fourteen-year-olds come to start their service and their younger siblings, jealous and excited in equal measure, older pages looking lofty and enjoying their privileged positions, and parents looking by turns harassed, proud and confused. Her older brother Byran, normally assigned to the Eighth Star Court, had pontificated about her duties, and Illiana, her older sister, made eyes at some of the older pages and occasionally wondered, out loud and pointedly, at Alyn's choice. Her littlest brothers ran around chasing each other and sometimes other small children, until her father bellowed stentoriously at them to behave, which had only worked for a few minutes at best. The chamberlain had been attempting to bring order to the tumult, assisted by three or four servants all running around with huge piles of paper.

Alyn remembered her first sight of the Court after they had driven up the long drive, tall and gracious through the glorious golds and browns of the autumn horse chestnut trees. It had seemed to preside calmly, as though this regular circus was no more than a brief interruption to years of order, and it expected all to resume in due course. Which it had the following day, when after the induction and the welcoming banquet all the parents and families had driven away and she and her classmates had started their lessons.

Today, though, the drive was empty except for their small coach, silent except for the clop of the horses' hooves and the whistling song of the birds outside. The dappled sun warmed her face, making her smile. There was an excited feeling in her stomach; this was new, this was different, and right now, it was fun. She dropped back into the carriage and looked over at her patron, wondering if she could ask about what they were doing. He was looking at the book again, but the carbon stick was still in his pocket. She wondered what he had been doing with it. Why would a lord write on a book? Books were expensive, and the ones that nobles bought were stories for fun and relaxation. Nobody would need to make notes on a romance. Scholars' books were different, but no lord would have something like that. She peeked surreptitiously at the book, but with it open on his lap she couldn't make out the title, and the text was too small and cramped to read upside down. Trying to read it felt a bit like looking through the keyhole of the study, so she looked away again, feeling a little guilty.

The coach finally reached the end of the Court's drive and turned onto the big road that led towards the Sun and Moon Courts. Fifth Star Court was quite a way from Fourth Star Court, despite its name; she knew they would head towards the central Courts and turn onto one of the orbital roads that ran around them before heading back out again to their destination.

"My lord," she started, unable to contain her curiosity any more. "What are we going to Fifth Star Court for?"

Miervaldis closed the book, marking his page with a long white feather.

"How do pages learn?" he asked. Alyn blinked, surprised.

"There are lessons..." she began, unsure of what he wanted.

"No," he interrupted, then looked thoughtful. "Well, maybe sometimes, but do you really learn anything from them?"

"No," she admitted.

"No. Pages learn from following, from copying, from trying things out. Most of all, they learn from listening. I'm sorry I haven't been around to train you properly - I didn't actually realise I had a page until recently." He looked rueful; Alyn was too busy trying to work out what he meant to react to that revelation. "But now, well, I have a feeling I know why we've been called to the Fifth Star Court, but I don't know for sure. So I won't tell you. You'll see soon enough, anyway. But when we are there, you will be silent. You will listen - to everything, but most of all, to me. And you will do as I say, without question. Do you understand?"