"So shall my virtue be his vice's bawd;
And he shall spend mine honour with his shame,
As thriftless sons their scraping fathers' gold."

--Richard II; V.iii

They had replastered the page's wing. The King's Champion was always taken aback at how familiar the low-ceilinged corridor was to her. There, in the corner by the stairwell, had been the place where a chip in the molding had marked the spot where her eating dagger had gouged out a piece when Ralon of Malven had tripped her headlong into the wall in her first few months as a page. Next to the nick, Gary had carved out the badge of Naxen -- and received a month's confinement to the Palace for it from his father. Right above that had been an ink-doodle of two knights jousting that Geoffrey had once spent the better part of a rainy afternoon in making. His signature had flourished all around the horsed figures, she remembered. Geoffrey's hand had been as neat and ordered as a scribe's lettering: we used to all tease him for it. But now the drawing was covered over in smooth white, and a new board had replaced the damaged one. Alanna reflexively ran her hand over it, searching for the old nick that was no longer there. Only in that it less weathered than its neighbors would one have been able to tell that there had once been another board in its place. And yet so much was the same. It was as though she had never been, had not spend four years in that very room, there, the second chamber from the far end. As though she had never been, indeed! Alanna shook herself out of her reverie. She was not here to idly reminisce. She had to talk to Fianola of Vassford(1). The crumpled paper was sweaty and damp in her fist. She smoothed it out to read again.

I beg Your Majesty not to think that I leave because I seek to shirk service to the crown, or because I lack the will or strength, whether of body or resolve, to complete my training, or because I entered lightly into it and now am under a retrograde whim. Rather, I have come to believe that my continuance on this course will do my family and my realm more ill than good. For this, and for the reasons I describe above, I humbly ask Your Majesty to accept my withdrawal of my candidacy for knighthood.

I remain ever Your Majesty's obedient subject and commend my respectful duty to Your Majesty,

Fianola of Vassford

She had not believed it when Roald had shown her the letter this morning. Fianola, the only daughter and heir of Lord Vassford, was not a spectacular candidate, though she was clearly equal to the boys with whom she trained. But she was in her fourth year as a page; she had not faced such trouble as Keladry had: she represented the possibility of commonplace Lady Knights, as unremarkable as their male peers. And now she was leaving. Sir Padraig had sworn to her, when she had confronted him this morning, that he had done nothing to her before she had come yesterday to speak to him about leaving -- not said one word to discourage the girl, that he was as surprised as she by the resignation.

She had thought up until today that her world could not fall apart more completely than it already head. She had thought that Jonathan's death, that Thom's… Thom's betrayal… that these were bad enough. But she had been strong. She had not succumbed to emotion, but had continued to do her duties, continued to be a knight and champion of the realm. Surely the Gods had had their fill of laughter at her expense! And now this, too. She knocked on the door at the end of the hall.

"A moment!" Came the call from within. It was considerably less than a moment later when the door opened. "Oh!" Gasped the opener, "My Lady Champion! I was just…" She started to gesture towards the space behind her, then remembered her manners and bowed, apparently remembering only at the last moment that she was wearing a kirtle, and not a short tunic. Blushing hard, she started to apologize as she straightened. "Please forgive me, my lady. It's only that I'm not quite accustomed… reaccustomed, I should say…" In the ensuing silence, Alanna scrutinized the girl. There were no tear marks on her cheeks, and here eyes were clear. Well, and had she expected to find her sobbing into her cot? "Forgive me, my lady," said Fianola, "Please, come in." She easily lifted what looked to be a heavy box from the small room's single chair. When Alanna neglected to take it, she stood awkwardly at ease. "If," Fianola began suddenly and in a rush, staring down at the floor, "if you've come about a squire my lady I haven't passed the big examinations yet and anyway I'm -- I'm leaving."

"The king informed me of your departure this morning," said Alanna. She and Keladry had been going to fight it out between them as to who would take Fianola of Vassford as a squire.

Fianola blushed harder. "I--" she seemed about to apologize, but thought better of it -- "How may I serve you, my lady?"

"By explaining to me why you're backing out, my girl. By giving me a good reason not to take you out to the practice courts and beat you into the dust to teach you to start things this important and not finish them. By providing me with a single acceptable excuse for undoing what Keladry and I have done, for giving the Conservatives someone to point to and say 'Look: women can't handle the rigors of knighthood.' I want answers, Vassford and they had better be good!"

The girl shrank away a little.

"It's what they'll say, you know," Alanna continued. It was cruel, perhaps, but it had to be said. She remembered another girl who had been shamed into staying on as a page… "I don't care what you think your reasons are: no one will believe them. But everyone will know that Fianola of Vassford didn't have what it takes to be a knight, that she was too much the coward and weakling -- too much the woman to keep with her training. Even if you've changed your mind, girl -- and I had heard better of you than to expect that -- do you want to destroy the chances for every other girl who really can handle the rigors of it?"

Fianola swallowed, but she raised her eyes hesitantly to Alanna's own. "I hope that in four years I have earned some respect," she said, "that is, I mean that I have shown myself not to be fickle and trivial. I have explained myself. That must be enough for those who matter."

Alanna said nothing. 'And am I not one who 'those who matter'?' was on the tip of her tongue.

Fianola continued. "My lady, you must know, I want nothing more than to be a knight! It's all that I have dreamed of, ever!" She drew herself up. "I would die for king and country; I have always known that, as truly as I know that Mithros and the Goddess rule."

"And yet you leave?"

"I have other duties, my lady," she said, a little sadly. "I see now that I have been indulging myself. It's what I wanted -- to fight and win glory. But it isn't right. I'm needed in other places. I've spoken to Sir Padraig, haMinch, to my kinswoman Lady Hildegarde, to everyone I could think of. They've all agreed with me."

Alanna considered. HaMinch was a conservative; Hildegarde of Haryse had been a fixture of the court in her own time as a page. She realized suddenly that she knew next to nothing about the alignment of Clochar of Vassford or his family. She had assumed that because he permitted his daughter to enter training… but who knew what pressures Fianola was under from home?

"I, I've even spoken to the queen, my lady," Fianola said, interrupting her thoughts. "I'm going to enter Her Majesty's Ladies in a few years. And I'm going to keep learning from the arms master at home," she added.

"Fianola," Alanna said slowly. "You're completely free to choose your path. Even if your father demands that you return, you can stay if you wish. I'll speak to Sir Padraig, to the king, even. They'll support you. No one can prevent you from becoming a knight."

Fianola looked puzzled. "No, my lady," she said. "Father hasn't said anything. He doesn't know yet what I've decided; the letter won't have reached him. And he Aunt Unngerd weren't very opposed to my coming in the first place. My lady."

"You're hedging," Alanna said. "If you can't even give me a straight answer as to why you want to leave, how can you know yourself that it isn't just an excuse for weakness?"

"I am my father's only child," she said. "And he was his father's only son. I can't be a knight and be a chatelaine. I can't care for my lands and my children if I'm fighting for the crown. It isn't just that I want a family, my lady, but that I must have an heir, or my line ends with me. It's fine for Lady Knight Keladry: she doesn't need to marry."

"And you think that no one will marry you if you're a knight," Alanna began.

"I don't know about that, my lady," Fianola said quickly. "But when I do marry, I shall stay at home to raise my children and look after my fief. That's my first duty, and it's honorable. To be a knight on top of that -- I would have to do one or the other improperly, insufficiently. And that is wrong. It's selfish to want both, when I can't have but one, my lady."

Alanna wondered who had gotten at this girl. It was a new tactic, she thought. She had always known that the Conservatives would do anything, seize any situation to set Tortall back, to reimpose the yoke of absolute patriarchy, but this…

"So." It was absurd. Unbelievable. An intelligent capable girl being held back by accusations that she was selfish! "Now that we've proved, you, and Keladry, and I, that a woman can be a knight, that she is equal to a man, they try to tell us that she shouldn't do it for moral reasons? It's just another version of what they've always been trying to do -- to set us back -- I hope you understand!"

"No one has 'tried to tell' me anything, my lady. But I have always known that a noblewoman has a duty to her family and her people. The Book of Mithros tells us so. I thought I could do both, but after--" She broke off.

"--I don't want chaos, I don't want to undermine everything that nobility means and does for the realm," she continued after a moment. "It would be wrong, my lady, to insist on having my way, insist on doing what I want, when it will only be an evil in the long run." There was a fervency in her voice, as if she was trying to convince herself as much as anyone, Alanna thought. "It isn't the best way, my lady, but surely you understand how much there is to lose if I do this. Surely you understand why its better that I go home."

No. It couldn't be. It simply couldn't be. "So this is what it comes to," Alanna said, trying to keep her voice soft and superficially calm. "Say out loud and clearly, get to the point of it, Vassford: blame me for what my son has done. That's what they've told you, isn't it?" She pressed, seeing Fianola's stricken look. "I wasn't a good mother, that was it! I've heard the whispers: 'what can you expect from a boy with a unnatural mother and commoner father.' 'It's no wonder he went bad, the poor boy was confused about right and wrong from the very beginning, when his mother was off fighting giants when she should have been telling him tales of chivalry.' 'It's divine punishment on her for her presumption: she tries to take a man's place as Champion, and her own son turns on the king.' And you believe this? You've let them twist your mind against your own rights?"

At some point, Fianola had clasped her hands behind her back. "It is true, my lady," she said, "that I may have the right to train as a page and a squire. I have a right to earn my shield. But I have a duty not to," she repeated. "Forgive me, my lady, but things were different for you and for Lady Keladry. No one knew, before, that anything bad could come out of a woman being a knight." She had tensed her body as if she expected to be struck.

"And so this--" is what you think, then, Alanna would have said, but she was cut off.

"It isn't your fault, that your son became a traitor, my lady," Fianola said, her voice anxious and overly concerned. "It couldn't possibly be." Was the girl actually trying to comfort her? The presumption of the young and confident was not to be believed! "You couldn't possibly have known how things would turn out, my lady. And you've done such wonderful things for Tortall. No one could want you not to have done what you did." Awe and admiration had begun to replace kindness. "But it's too dangerous," she continued. "I see that now. It's too dangerous for a woman to be away from her home and her place."

Alanna did not respond. The girl was really determined to leave. She had truly been persuaded, whether by others or by her own self, that she should not try for her shield. All the struggle, the tests, the endurance: all would be for naught.

"The Code of Chivalry says that we have to make sacrifices," Fianola was saying, her voice becoming higher and faster, shakier. "And shouldn't I be bound by the Code as much as any man? I have to do this! I have to!"

"Don't let me stop you," Alanna said. "And when you're at home with your senile husband and drooling children, tied to your castle and helpless, you can thank me." She turned and walked out. As she snapped the door shut behind her, she heard the suffocated sounds of something falling, and a burst of wailing, which quickly subsided into sobs. She considered going back for a split moment, but no: she had tried, and all she could do now was add another tally -- a great thick black one -- to the count against that worthless, that treacherous, that -- her son.


(1). I believe that 'Fianola' was the name of one of the girls who spoke to Keladry at some point during Squire about knighthood. I did not recall any fief mentioned. If I have erred, please point it out and I will (probably) correct it. (I do not have access to the books right now.) -- A.R.