I love every Tortall main character (that I’ve read. I still haven’t read the final series with Beka), but Keladry of Mindelan is hands-down my favorite Tortall MC and one of my favorite MCs ever. I adore her and her story. She is tenacious, hard working, grounded, tough, kind, unbendingly dedicated to justice, and just a lovely human. It is a joy to see her grow, find community, and succeed (spoilers?).
While I have mostly been reading this series before bed, I tore through Protector of the Small in less than a week and certainly not just at bedtime. I will miss her as I move on to Trickster’s Choice next.
So many spoilers to follow.
First Test
Quick & Dirty: Keladry of Mindelan is the youngest child/daughter in her family. She has several older brothers who have already become knights, and her sisters all took a more traditional path. She is trying to be the first girl page since Alanna and the first since the rules were changed to allow girls to become pages 10 years prior. However, the misogyny is strong in this world, even if the leaders are progressive, and it will be an uphill battle. She is told by the training master, Wyldon of Cavall, that she will undergo a probationary year first, and only if she surpasses his expectations will she proceed to become a “real” page. She begrudgingly accepts the terms and begins her probationary year. The other pages are a mixed bag. Some are slow to accept her, but eventually they come around. Her mentor, Nealan of Queenscove, immediately accepts her and becomes her best friend throughout the series. Others are absolute turds and do everything in their power to haze, harass, hinder, and otherwise prevent Kel from staying a page. In an obvious parallel to the real world, many of the things that Kel experiences at the hands of the men in charge of or the boys involved in her education are deeply unfair in the name of “fairness”. Kel works her ass off. She works twice or thrice as hard as the boys do to ensure she can prove herself to Wyldon and stay. She wages a war on bullies, makes friends (and enemies), wins over a monster of a warhorse, and proves again and again and again that girls can do anything boys can do and often much better.
Page
Quick & Dirty: Obviously, Kel gets to stay a page or there wouldn’t really be a series. Or at least, the second book wouldn’t be called “Page”. This book covers the rest of Kel’s time as a page over the next three years. She deepens her friendships with Neal and most of the other boys in her year and befriends a scraggly mutt. She teaches the younger pages how to be better fighters and her new maid, Lalasa, how to protect herself. She starts to learn how to joust. After her second year during the page’s summer camp, she ends up leading her friends against bandits – an event that shows her prowess as a leader and potential commander even as a young girl. Her haters keep trying to hinder her and keep insisting that she’ll just leave at some point. As if. They even go so far as to kidnap Lalasa ahead of the fourth-year examinations to force Kel to be so late to the exams that she would either have to repeat all four years in punishment or quit. She keeps her promises to Lalasa and skips the exams to find her. Wyldon and the proctors discover that she was prevented from attending the exams by nefarious forces, so she is allowed to take the exams and become a squire. Once again, Kel proves that despite the boys and men who insist that she cannot become a squire or knight, not only is she exceptionally capable she’s also loyal, kind, and wholeheartedly dedicated to doing The Right Thing and upholding justice.
Squire
Quick & Dirty: Kel’s worries that she will not be selected by a knight to be his squire are quickly squashed when Raoul of Goldenlake and Malorie’s Peak, the Knight Commander of the King’s Own (and Alanna’s childhood friend) takes her on. She spends the next four years with the King’s Own hunting down bandits, helping villages, traveling into the depths of Tortall to help and protect those that cannot help themselves, and occasionally attending the Progress that is traveling the kingdom. While on assignments with the King’s Own, Kel sees plenty of combat, helps rebuild villages, and comes into the stewardship of a tiny demon of a young griffin. The Own meets up with the Progress a few times – a giant train of the King, Queen, Prince Roald, and his fiance Princess Shinkokami, and hundreds of nobles, bureaucrats, and anybody that makes such an event happen are traveling around Tortall to introduce the next monarchs to the realm. While on Progress, Kel starts to be invited (and then challenged) to joust by knights who have heard her reputation and want to test it for themselves. She succeeds wildly, something that doesn’t go unnoticed by young girls who come out to see her joust and dream of becoming knights themselves. She wraps up her squire-hood by heading north to join the war with Scanra. She and men from the Own encounter and then defeat one of Scanra’s new and terrifying Killing Machines – giant, metal spiders seemingly fueled by the stolen spirits of children. She and Raoul head back to Corus for Kel to take her Ordeal and finally become a knight. She succeeds, but before she can leave the Chamber of the Ordeal – whatever elder being it is that fuels the Chamber gives her a quest. She must stop the Killing Machines. And, with that, Sir Keladry of Mindelin becomes the first lady knight since Alanna.
Lady Knight
Quick & Dirty: Kel is worried about being shipped north with the other knights to fight in the Scanran war – not because she’s suddenly changed, but because she wants to start her hunt for The Nothing Man who makes the Killing Machines. Unfortunately, she has no leads except that he’s in Scanra so she gets orders to go north with all of the other young fighters to join the war. Keeping with her history of picking up janky strays (the monster war horse, the scraggly mutt, the downtrodden maid, etc) and fighting bullies – she picks up a new servant boy in one of the taverns early in the trek north. Tobe is a filthy, scraggly scrap of a boy seemingly indentured to the innkeeper who is abusing and neglecting him. Kel puts a stop to that, buys his indenture, and takes him on as her personal servant. Once they get north and get their official assignments, Kel finds out that she’s been tasked to establish and lead a refugee camp. This is not the assignment she dreamt of. It is far from the fighting, feels “safe”, and keeps her away from the front, even though she is likely the most experienced new knight among her newly knighted peers. However, she’s also the only one of her peers who will treat the commoner refugees with dignity and respect as well as ensuring their safety. She does a bang up job – earning the trust and respect of older, more world-weary commoners, and helping them build the camp into a home. They see some combat, including fighting a few of the Killing Machines, but overall things seem to be going about as well as they can for a refugee camp in a war. Until they aren’t. When Kel is away reporting to Wyldon (her commander up here), the camp is attacked, and probably 400 of the refugees (out of 500) are trafficked north. Some are left dead in the ransacked Haven, and the rest are gone. Kel is ordered to bury her dead and return to the Wyldon’s fort. Instead, she launches a one-woman rescue missing to get her people back – especially the 200-odd children who are undoubtedly being sent to become fuel for more Killing Machines. Well, she attempts to be a one-women rescue mission. She is shortly joined by a squad from the King’s Own on Raoul’s orders, Neal and Merric – who were both stationed at Haven with her, a few of her other batch mates who have also flouted orders to hunt her down and help, Owen, Tobe, and some of the regular army stationed at Haven. In the end, it is a pretty respectable rescue party that heads north to fetch back the residents of Haven.
Overall
Kel is a marvelous example of someone who is taking advantage of their privilege to uplift those who have less. She is also incredibly steadfast in the face of overwhelming challenges. She literally soldiers (knights) on, and while she would be willing to soldier on alone, she has also built an incredible community for herself.
The books themselves are more nuanced and take on a variety of social issues that have yet to be seen in either Alanna’s or Daine’s books – social and economic class differences, how nobility and monarchies manage the rise of a middle class, sexual harassment and the nuances around choosing to report an assailant, and others. The pace is a bit rougher than Daine’s which was four distinct stories each a year apart. With Kel, we’re back to something closer to Alanna’s pacing. As a middle grade/YA book, they most appealing to younger readers. But overall, they are very good books that I would recommend to anyone.
