Squire

(Protector of the Small) Squire: Oh, Raoul. You still crack me up every time you give variations of your little speech about the glory and glamour of being a knight (that there really isn't much, and it's a lot of hard, dangerous work, and nobody really thanks you for the slogging part of it). I love the way the characters in the Tortall universe cross over. It's been a while since we last met Raoul, and he has done a lot of living in between the Alanna books and these. I really want to know what happened in between, but in a lot of ways, these book series are a woman's world (at least as far as the author usually goes), so it remains a mystery. And that's okay because Raoul is great.

I love that the skills that Kel has been developing and the talents she has start to shine publicly here as she grows up. Jousting. Sigh. No way.