"George."
"Alanna."
"Please tell me that you are not planning a surprise party."
From his seat next to her, Alanna's husband raised a brow. "I would never dare."
She narrowed her eyes. "I'm serious, George. Just because you're great at lying, don't think that you can get away with something like that."
"Might I ask," replied George, "what it is about the possibility of a surprise party that disgusts you so?"
"So you are throwing a party!"
"I'm not. You'll see, lass. Tomorrow I'll be tied to your side. But why would it bother you?"
She crossed her arms. "It just would. We don't usually celebrate it, so why would we this year?"
George chuckled. "Usually, you're at one end of the country or another. This year you are at the palace with all of our friends, and what's more, I'm here too, which is rare in and of itself. Do you expect everyone to just slide around you all day saying nothing?"
Alanna opened her mouth. Closed it. Then, shaking her head, she said, "I'm being foolish, I suppose. It's just that I don't want to remind Jon…"
"Remind him…?"
"How old I am."
Her husband opened his mouth to tell her how ridiculous that was, but he saw her face before he could and chose his words more carefully. "And why would that be a particularly bad thing? Jon's older than you are, you know."
"Yes, but he's not the Champion." She looked at him unhappily, and he saw the full depths of her conflict in her purple eyes. "I'm old, now, and slower than I was, and my body aches most days, and someday I'm going to lose a fight. I want to resign before then, of course, but I just keep thinking that I can take it a little longer."
George scooted next to her on the couch and wrapped an arm around her. "Are you afraid that he'll wake up one day and think, 'Alanna's too old, I think I'll start a civil war by trying to make her do something she doesn't want to'? Because that seems a tad unlikely to me."
She gave him half a smile. "He wouldn't dare. But if he did, he'd be right. I'm turning fifty tomorrow, George. Fifty! I should probably be dead by now."
"Hey now! If you should be dead, I'm years in the grave."
"You don't have to duel people."
"Fair enough," he conceded. "I just have to keep track of all the information in the kingdom and beyond. Not to mention keeping up with you."
"Well, I can't speak for your other business, but you do the latter tolerably well, I suppose."
George grinned and leaned in to kiss his wife. "I try to improve every day."
Alanna found, with some suspicion, that George had been absolutely right. He stuck to her side in a decidedly unsuspicious way from the time she woke up (admittedly late) through weapons practice, a meeting with the king and his advisors, and even followed her to their rooms in the palace for an afternoon nap, a new habit of hers. Though he would not sleep, he was reading on the other side of the bed when she woke up. She glared at him, only half-awake.
He twitched an eye at her. "What?"
"You really didn't plan me a party."
"Do you want me to have?"
"No."
"Good, because I didn't. Do you want to come for a walk with me before dinner?"
"No."
He smiled at her sweetly. "Will you anyway?"
"You're lucky I love you."
"Yes." He was not fighting a grin. Alanna found this suspicious. George always grinned.
"Come on," he said. "The sunset is bound to be beautiful today."
And he took her hand and led her out the door.
"Surprise!"
Alanna blinked. Thayet grinned. So did the other dozen people behind her. Alanna turned on George, indignant.
"You promised!"
Now he was grinning. "I didn't organize it, lass. It was all her idea."
"Happy birthday, Alanna," said Thayet. "We have presents and good food!"
Alanna shook her head at the two of them, and at the assembled friends behind Thayet. "This is ridiculous." Seeing Thayet's knowing smile, she said grudgingly, "but thank you all for thinking of me, it's very kind of you."
"Presents," said her friend, grabbing her by the wrist, "then you can yell at all of us."
The food was good, the presents were, for the most part, funny, and the conversation was wonderful. Alanna hadn't had a chance to catch up with people since she had returned to Corus, and a whole evening devoted to such talk, though she might have hated it in her youth, was the best kind of present.
"How did you know I really needed a party?" she asked George.
He smiled. "You were so concerned with not having one that I thought I had better have a backup plan just in case. It only took a word to Thayet to guarantee the whole thing would play out satisfactorily."
She bumped his arm with her shoulder. "I hate that I love you."
"You're about to hate me even more."
"What?"
He put his hands to his mouth and whistled. "Everybody! Let's have the birthday woman give us a speech!"
"Gods help me," she muttered, "I will kill you." She stood up as applause burst from around the room and paused to take in her friends' faces. Daine and Numair, without their children but still looking characteristically exhausted, Gary, Raoul and Buri, holding hands, Thayet, Thom, even Keladry, who was on a fortunate leave, and many other people who had been with her for many, many years. Alan and Aly had even sent letters. Jon she saw last. He sat in a corner of the room, half-hidden, as he liked to be when he relaxed. He felt her eyes on him and looked up, bright blue eyes meeting soft purple. His wry half smile convinced her that she knew what to say.
"Friends," she said, "thank you all so much for helping me celebrate my fiftieth birthday. As you all may be aware, I'm now old. Some of you are too." She looked pointedly at Gary, Raoul, and Jon. "You've all helped make my fifty years, more than half of them as King's Champion, wonderful. But it's soon going to be time for a new way of things. I will be submitting my resignation as King's Champion and hope to retire at the end of this year. It's time for someone else to keep the nation safe. And besides, George clearly can't be trusted, and now I know better than to put any of you lot in charge of watching him!"
