Corus was a bustling city, sitting as it did near on the river Olorun near the coast. Until it reached Corus, the river was wide and deep enough to accommodate most trading ships, and even many of the great ships the settlers from the west used to cross the ocean. People came from the villages and farms from all around, often as a day's hard ride away, to sell their products, or buy things that were not made in their own villages. As a result, the narrow dirt streets were packed with people, all of whom glared at each other suspiciously, as though certain these city folk were determined to rob them of their hard-earned coin.
Tyke didn't like Corus either, but not because she didn't trust the city dwellers. She'd met a lot of people traveling with Rowland, and few of them were any more or less trustworthy than the people of Corus. It wasn't just city people who would rob someone of their last coin, but farm folk and soldiers and sailors and anyone else you met, anywhere. Even priests.
Tyke smirked as, riding through the packed streets of Corus, she remembered that incident. They had been a little way outside a town when they met a man who claimed to be a traveling priest. Rowland, who despite his pragmatic character was deeply religious, had of course offered the man escort and protection, and extended an invitation to dine with himself and the other noble members of the company. Tyke had not attended the dinner, because it was Coban's night on watch, and he had refused to take advantage of noble privilege to skimp out on his work, and Tyke had always considered his watches to be her watches as well. Certainly she was a better sentry than he, with her keener eyes and ears, and better woodcraft.
The two of them had stopped by Rowland's tent around midnight, Coban to apologize to Rowland again for missing the supper, and to give his excuses again, and Tyke to lend her support and, quite possibly, her own apologies as well. They had found Rowland and his guests in a drugged sleep, and the gold plates and other few valuables that Rowland carried with him taken. The priest was gone.
Tyke didn't think any of the men knew what had happened that night, save Jerril, who always seemed to know exactly what was going on, no matter how well you thought you hid your actions. She and Coban had slipped away, tracking the priest through the dark, with Tyke providing a dim witch light to make it easier. They caught the priest a few hours before dawn, and relieved him of his burden which had made him both slow and easy to track. Coban had been prepared to beat the priest; Tyke wouldn't let him. She'd had Coban tie the man to a tree with his own boot laces, and then administered the beating herself. Rowland, she had told him, was both her knight master and her adoptive father, and since the offence was against him, she claimed the right to deal out the punishment. In truth, she hadn't wanted Coban to have to do it. Coban was a good soldier, but he was also a good man, and cruelty did not come easily to him, even when it was justice he dealt out. Tyke had never considered herself cruel, not the way Julius could be, but it was she who always kicked an enemy when they were down, just as they were reaching for some hidden weapon to surprise their honorable opponent with. She knew, in beating the priest, she was far more vicious than Coban would have been.
He had pulled her away at last, and only allowed her to put what he thought was a healing on the man. But though Coban had seen the false priest's type before, it was Tyke who remembered how they had gone on to prey on other villages, and she felt only a slight pang of unease as she laid a slow death spell on the man, one she had learned from a particularly nasty witch up north, when they had been staying in a remote village. The witch had been mean, perhaps even evil, but very knowledgeable, and Tyke had learned all she had to teach of both killing and healing while Rowland was occupied with other matters.
They had raced back to camp in the gathering dawn, and replaced the valuables before Rowland or the others woke from their slumber. No one knew anything had been stolen - except Jerril - but one of the sentries had spotted Tyke and Coban sneaking back into camp. That had earned Tyke her first - and hopefully only - lecture about girls and boys and the ways of the world, as Rowland put it, rather red in the face. Tyke already knew all that, of course: there was almost always a village healing woman where they traveled or, if not, then a motherly sort who was only too keen to look after the girl child that rode with all the rugged soldiers. Coban had got a lecture of his own, though Tyke only knew that because Jerril had let it slip one night when he had drunk rather too much, to the effect that Sir Rowland's surrogate daughter was strictly off limits to any man that served under him, or perhaps more accurately, any man at all. They were no few men among the company who had watched Tyke grow up and considered themselves, if not adoptive fathers, than doting uncles, and would slay any man who looked at their little Tyke crosswise.
Tyke carelessly slipped her belt knife out and slashed the hand of a man who had tried to reach into her saddlebags unnoticed. They must think her blind, she thought grimly, riding past the man who was now cursing her quietly, swearing at her while trying to avoid the notice of the grim soldiers that rode beside her. No, Tyke didn't trust the people of Corus any less than anyone else, but that was because she trusted few enough people to begin with. The reason she didn't like Corus was because it was the home of the Count, and there was a certain something about Count - or rather, King - Jonathan that really irked her. He was handsome (they said), he was charming (they said), and he was completely and utterly arrogant (Tyke knew from experience). On the other hand, she was glad to be here now, because they were here so the Count, as Tyke would always know him, could knight Julius. Once Julius was knighted, he would leave the company, and take his bullying ways with him. Privately, Tyke hoped he would take the few younger retainers who had toadied up to him with him, so that she would be free of them and their rude, bullying ways as well. Though they rarely saw their way clear to pick on her - Coban saw to that, and if they did manage to catch her Jerril would hear of it, and make sure they quietly got what they deserved - but the younger soldiers had no such protection. Some of the men thought it made young soldiers tougher; Tyke thought it created division in the ranks, and did everything she could to stomp it out. She had dueled three young men already this year, pummeling them quietly while some of the older soldiers kept a wary eye out for Sir Rowland and Captain Narl. Perhaps Rowland and the captain had heard of them anyway - Jerril might have told, as he sometimes did when he had his reasons - but if they did they said nothing. Nothing was said, but Tyke had noticed that the bullying tended to decrease, and if it picked up again where it was thought she wouldn't see, Jerril would 'accidentally' let it slip to her.
Tyke saw a woman slip a practiced hand into Coban's saddlebag as he rode past. She reached down and grabbed the woman by the hair, grabbing the money pouch the woman had stolen when she put her hands up to try and free her hair from Tyke's grip. With a grimace she shoved the woman away, and slipped the pouch in her own saddlebags, to return to her friend later. Coban was too trusting: he thought people brushed up against them because there wasn't room to move, not realizing that no one would wander into a group of trained soldiers on warhorses without some malicious intent. Most ordinary citizens saw the company, with their mean-eyed horses and battered mail, and moved as far out of the way as they could, even if it meant they had to take a turn they wouldn't normally have.
Thirteen years old, Tyke found herself musing. I've lived and fought with a company of armed men for six years. I think I may be the only female squire there is, she thought with some surprise. Half the time it seemed she forgot she herself was female, until someone made a comment about her sex, or she had to go find a bush to do her business behind, instead of just turning to face the trees as the men did. No other thirteen year old girl trains with weapons like I do - I wonder what they do instead? She knew some girls worked in the fields and on the farms like the men-folk, and some because healers, and she had a vague impression that some of them worked to weave cloth and sew clothes. But they can't all do that, she thought. There's a whole city here, and I doubt they need that many weavers or healers. And what about the noble girls? They wouldn't dirty their hands growing food, would they? She had an idea that many of the noblemen they encountered throughout the realm thought she ought to be at home doing a woman's work, but that still didn't answer just what a woman did.
There would be noble woman at the Count's residence, she thought. While they waited for the talking, the feasting, and all the other things that accompanied their visit their to be finished up, she would find out what it was, exactly, that a noble woman did if they couldn't swing a sword.
This one was going to be short too, and then the priest thing just popped into my head, and I liked it because I think it shows a bit more of Tyke's personality. In answer to Kaysin's comment, I'm really trying to distance Tyke's life from Alanna's (and Kel's) without making it totally separate (if that makes any sense). So no, she doesn't get along with the Count, and I hope I've conveyed that she isn't too into the idea of being a knight. Well, she wants to be a knight, but it isn't her life dream the way it was for Alanna and Kel, more like the only thing she can think of to do. As for the Gymcatgrl's question, Coban is and isn't an earlier Coram. I'm afraid the names as similar, I don't know why since I didn't mean them to be. He's there to look after Tyke for now, but we'll see what happens to him later. I'm not completely decided, but I don't think he'll stay in the mentor role too much longer because I think Tyke's getting a bit too old for a babysitter. However, he fits the role well, so we will have to see.