Disclaimer: Nope, not Tamora Pierce. *shows empty pockets* I own nothing!
After a week's worth of torturous practices, each leaving Neal dizzier than the last, Lady Alanna announced that they had been at court too long. Neal's remark that a week seemed like hardly a long time earned him a daggered look from his knight-mistress. Alanna satisfied her thirst for vengeance by forcing Neal to pack and re-pack travel gear for the both of them—repeatedly.
"Knights travel light, Queenscove," she snapped, as the afternoon stretched into evening and he had still not managed to meet her standards. "We're working warriors, not ladies."
Neal raised his eyebrows pointedly at the lady knight. She rolled her eyes.
"Fine," she said ruefully. "Point goes to you this time, then."
"I had no idea you were keeping track," Neal drawled. "I'm touched."
"We'll see how touched you are when I keep you repacking through supper," Lady Alanna retorted.
"Ouch."
"Pack light and quick then, and don't make the same mistakes again. Otherwise there will be much more ouch in your future. I don't need to be a seer to know that."
Neal didn't have a rejoinder to her pronouncement, so he awarded the point to her for that round.
The next day they departed the palace, in the company of another knight-and-squire pair, this one even more exalted than they were: Prince Roald and his knight-master, Lord Imrah of Legann. They were leaving the congress for Lord Imrah's home, which lay further south along the coast it shared with Lady Alanna's home of Pirate's Swoop.
The lord and prince were amiable traveling companions. Lord Imrah entertained them all with a few funny stories of his and his squire's exploits these past few years. Later, he rode with Lady Alanna, talking politics most likely, while Neal and Roald rode behind.
"You'll like Pirate's Swoop," Roald said.
"Really?"
"Really," said the Prince. "Remember, Kalasin and I stayed there the time the Carthakis attacked? It's full of interesting people. Especially the baron. If you can mind your tongue most of the time, you'll learn a great deal more than you ever imagined possible." He accompanied this remark with a wry smile, knowing full well that Neal could no more mind his tongue than the sun could mind rising.
"Any last advice?" he asked Roald.
"Yes, one very important thing," the Prince said. He looked Neal squarely in the eyes, to make sure the latter listened. "Beware the twins."
As evening drew on, Lady Alanna and Lord Imrah began talking about where they might stay the night. Neal, who had recognized more and more landmarks as they went, urged his horse forward.
"Lady Alanna, we're close to Queenscove," he said.
"I was aware of that," she said. "However, I am not in the habit of imposing on a lord's hospitality, especially if that lord isn't home—"
"It's my home," Neal said. "And my sister Jessamine is home from the convent right now. If I wanted to see her, and I invited you all along, would that be all right?"
Lady Alanna hesitated. Lord Imrah, however, replied immediately, "Of course we shouldn't keep you from your family, Nealan—if you don't mind me saying so, Alanna."
"That is my decision made, then," said Alanna. "We would be happy to accept your hospitality, Neal."
Milton, steward of Queenscove and organizer extraordinaire, visibly paled as he saw Roald and Imrah enter the castle foyer behind Neal and Alanna.
"My lords," he said hastily with a bow. "Forgive me. Welcome, please."
"I was getting to that, Milton," Neal grumbled out the corner of his mouth.
"Of course you were, my lord," Milton hissed back. "But next time you bring three of Tortall's premier nobles to our doorstep, kindly scry a message here first, so that I can tell your sister not to go gallivanting around in those ridiculous paints of hers."
"Oh, dear."
"A great many oh, dears," Milton agreed. He cleared his throats. "My lords, if I may—"
"Now I thought I told you to wait for me, Milton," said a very familiar female voice from the top of the stairs. "I've been practicing this forever, and the Daughters will be very upset with me if I can't play a proper hostess at least once while I'm home for the summer."
Slowly, almost dreading what he would see, Neal turned. A teenage girl of about fourteen was descending the stairs. From shoulders down she could have passed for a normal, respectable young lady and daughter of the House of Queenscove, in a simple but elegant brown wool gown. Even the fingerless gloves she wore could be excused, since they were a winter fashion at Court.
Jessa's brown hair, however, had been pulled back into a variety of peculiar braids, all coiled and pinned and knotted into what looked like a hopeless snarl to Neal. Two small braids draped over her shoulders.
Her face was even more peculiar. While Neal had seen women at Court apply face paint, none of them painted their lips black or their eyelids a flaming vermillionwith wings tipped so sharp they could kill a man.
At least it wasn't anything blue today, Neal reassured himself.
"Uhm," he began. "Lady Jessamine of Queenscove, permit me to present His Highness Prince Roald of Conté and his knight-master, Lord Imrah of Legann. And my own knight-master you know, of course—Lady Alanna of Pirate's Swoop and Olau."
He could feel Milton's dull, disapproving gaze on him as he spoke, and he knew he would be finding out later exactly how he had mucked up the introductions.
Lady Alanna, Lord Imrah and the Prince bowed, while Jessamine swept a neat curtsy.
"I am honored to welcome you to our home," she said with far more composure than Neal could have managed.
"The honor is all mine, Lady Jessamine," Lord Imrah replied smoothly.
"Please join me for a little rest and refreshment, in our solar," Jessa continued. She led the party there, where servants were laying out a tray of pastries and tea. Jessa invited all and sundry to sit, which they did. Even Milton sank into a chair, although he kept his distance from what he surely saw as arcane and mighty company. Neal took the seat next to Jessa.
"Today, of all days?" he hissed at his little sister.
"Hush, Nealan," Jessa scolded. "It's not so scandalous—just different. You see?" She nodded toward Roald and Imrah, who were smiling even as they had some sort of whispered debate. "They find it amusing." Pitching her voice so that it carried to the Prince and lord—Neal had to admire the practice it must have taken to achieve that tone—she said, "Well, my lords? Have you any guesses?"
Next to him, Neal had a faint impression of Lady Alanna stuffing her sleeve into her mouth, shaking.
"Queen Anj'la of Maren," said Lord Imrah.
Jessa cocked her head toward the Prince, who flushed and said softly, "Hyppolyta, the warrior queen from Thanic mythology."
"How did you know?" Jessa asked in surprise. "No one ever guesses this look!"
"We have an illustrated book of Thanic tales at Conté," Roald said. "Kally—Princess Kalasin, my sister—used to demand it be read to us all the time."
"I remember your sister very well," said Jessa, crunching a cookie. Covering her full mouth, she continued, "We met at King's Reach, last spring. She was very interesting."
"That's one way of putting it," the Prince muttered.
"Really! She was!" Jessa said. "I don't know about you, Your Highness, but I don't know that many noble girls who are fans of Rhiannon Haycraft—or, if they are, I suppose they keep it to themselves," she amended. "But they shouldn't, I think. Even if the Daughters do discourage us from reading fiction, I happen to think it's a perfectly beneficial pursuit. Fiction broadens the mind, even as our studies do."
"My lady must not forget that what she thinks is not immediately the law of the land," Milton said drily from his corner.
"I, for one, will take your words under advisement, my lady," Roald said gravely.
The next afternoon, Neal got Lady Alanna's permission to take the evening off. Carafe and cups in hand, he went down to the cemetery, which covered a grassy bluff looking over the sea. There he poured a cup of Devon's favorite wine for each of them.
"Hey," Neal said dully. He listened; the only reply was the rustle of grass and leaves and the murmur of the sea. "So, the Lioness took me for a squire," he said. "If you two were here you'd probably find that all kinds of funny, wouldn't you? I still don't know what possessed me to throw in with her. My tongue, her temper—" He broke off. "She's a healer," he said, trying again. "She's going to teach me how to heal and how to be a knight. I'm trying to be the best I can be, you know? So I can serve the realm to the best of my abilities. Just like a true Queenscove knight."
He listened again to the whispers of the grass. Maybe they were like the spinners in the old tales, carrying the whispers of departed souls.
Maybe, his sarcastic side mused, he would suddenly develop the ability to hear the dead and gain the sponsorship of the Black God. That couldn't be abnormal or unpleasant at all.
"You shouldn't be out here alone," his sister's voice said quietly. Neal looked up. Jessa had cleaned the paint off her face, and her hair hung loose and plain down her back. Without the disguises or the ladylike air, she looked smaller, more like the black-clad little girl who had ridden away to the convent four years ago.
Absently, he patted the ground beside him. Jessa sank down, not caring about the state her skirts would be in.
"Do they think I'm mad, talking to Graeme and Devon as I do?" he asked.
Jessa shook her head.
"I come out here, from time to time," she said. "Mother too, and Aelfred and the other lads who served under them. Even Milton visits, when he thinks no one's looking."
"But you saw him?"
"I see everything, of course," she replied haughtily, sounding more like her normal self. The next moment, though, the grand-lady facade dropped again. Jessa gathered her knees up to her chest. "I miss them too, you know," she said. "But they wouldn't have wanted you to mope every time you come home. You're going to inherit this place someday, so you're just going to have to bring home a girl and make some new memories."
"Practical and opportunistic as always," he grumbled. "Don't tell me you've turned matchmaker."
"Maybe I will, after I'm finished learning to read High Gaulish," she said. "And reading all of Dorfin of Whitehorn's books, and seeing all the Glass Plays in the original Thanic. Maybe then."
Neal and Jessa returned to the inner keep half an hour later, talking and laughing as they climbed the stairs to the residential wing. On the landing Jessa bade him a good night and headed to her own chambers. Neal went to his room, where he changed into his nightclothes and was just settling down with a book when he heard a quiet knock on his door. He opened it to reveal Lady Alanna.
"My lady?" he asked. "Did you need something?"
"I just wanted to see if you were all right," she said. "You were down at your brothers' graves for some time."
"I'm fine, my lady," he said, taken aback by the gentleness in her tone. "Or...well...mostly."
"It doesn't get any easier, does it?" she asked. "No matter how many years have gone by."Her violet eyes were haunted. Neal remembered with a jolt that Alanna had lost a brother too, years and years ago in the Coronation Day battle.
"How do you move on, my lady?"
"Part of me, the twin in me, never did," she replied frankly. "But most of me goes on reminding myself of all the people I love still living, my husband and children not the least. And I think of my work, and the people I meet and heal. That helps."
Neal nodded, covering a yawn. It had been a long day.
"Get some sleep," his knight-mistress said. "Are you sure you're all right and ready to travel on?"
"I am, my lady." Lady Alanna searched his face for a long moment. Seeming to find whatever she was looking for, she nodded.
"Pack your bags, then," Lady Alanna said. "We leave for Pirate's Swoop tomorrow."
A/N: I originally outlined Jessa as a very flighty, happy, Ty Lee-ish character. When it came time to introduce her, however, I was very firmly told, "I am a GEEK, Sophie! Get it RIGHT!" So here you go. Thanks for reading, and please review!