This is the end of act one, folks, and it's an extra-long chapter in honor of all the people following this story.
Lady Lioness: Chapter Eleven
Learning the art of swordplay did not start with her first lesson. Gary was a great teacher, but he was also a relentless one. They started with days of learning the proper way to fall, learning how to take a punch, and learning several difficult exercises to increase her strength. Alanna approved, but her bone-weary muscles did not.
For the next ten days, they added the basics of holding the sword, taking a stance, and working her soft arm muscles into something more functional. The next six days were a flurry of attacks and counter-attacks and so many drills that only her Gift and her newfound talent for healing kept her coming back for more. She was sure that Gary's enthusiasm for their secret project might have crippled her, otherwise, because her entire body was one large cramp that only her Gift could mend. Alanna despaired of her progress in all but building up her stamina and stubbornness, with Gary beating her in every single open duel, but Gary reassured her each step of the way.
Their lessons started too early for the training masters to want the practice courts, continued during Alanna's reputed healing lessons in the city during the day, and started again after dinners at the palace. Sometimes, George took the after-dinner lessons, and in time he had a larger part in those late bits of swordwork. Cythera was convinced that Alanna had a winter influenza after so many excuses to avoid their usual teas, always a serious concern since the sweating sickness that took the prince, but was reassured when Alanna promised that she was merely working on a new project.
When she wasn't training with Gary, refining her defenses with George, or keeping up her lessons with Eleni, Alanna plotted her newly fledged conspiracy with Myles. Raoul was out of reach for an unforeseeable amount of time in the desert, but all letters back to Corus said that he was doing wonderfully. The Great Southern Desert left little room for mail service, normally, but somehow Raoul's brand of guileless charm had won over Amman Kemail and had won Raoul reliable access to Persopolis's mail ride. Kemail had been a relentless Bazhir voice against the Tortallan influence, but Raoul's horsemanship had won him all the time he needed to call Amman Kemail a friend.
Within ten days, Raoul was a member of the Sunset Dragon tribe and of the Bazhir themselves. The Voice had accepted his intentions as pure. Raoul couldn't describe exactly what it had been like, attracting the sole attention of the Voice, but Alanna read in the awed phrasing something very much like coming face to face with the Goddess. Raoul had even gained enough standing to take up the cause of Kara, the lone survivor of the Bloody Hawk tribe.
Tortall had heard that there were no survivors, but it seemed that the tribes hadn't counted an outcast as one worthy of such a report. Raoul found her more than worthy, and had already arranged the girl's temporary passage to Corus. She was Gifted, and he'd swear by that for all that he was as magical as a tree stump.
Alanna had a word with Eleni, and there were two problems mended. Kara would have a worthy teacher, and Eleni's tendency to collect strays would be satisfied for a while longer. To hear George tell it, his mother always needed someone around to look after, be it a knight or a stray mage.
Eleni had also claimed custody of their as yet unrescued mage, who had yet to arrive in Tortall. Nonetheless, Eleni was firm in insisting that she would take Arram Draper under her wing. He sounded much the type to need practical instruction in the Gift, Eleni said, and a little mothering would go a long way after such a hard story. Musenda had sent his most dangerous report yet, one explaining the downfall of a friendship between Carthak's second-youngest emperor and Arram Draper. Musenda was sure that Roger had orchestrated the rift between Arram and Ozorne, even with no proof behind his allegations, and George trusted the man's reason well enough to accept that accusation as fact.
George tended to discuss his latest plans with Alanna during their swordplay, to better catch her offguard. Of all her teachers, George taught her the harshest lessons. Gary would let up when she was tired to exhaustion, but George would only push harder. Coram was strictly honorable on the few occasions she could sneak in a bout with him, but George never followed such conventions. Eleni would let her take breaks and naps, but George had no mercy in his heart for any student under his instruction.
"I think I hate you right now," Alanna had said during one of many sessions where she could have sworn that his two little knives had been well away from her person. She had sighted both of them when she had swept her blunt metal practice sword past his guard, but she had two small nicks on her wrists that trickled blood as she shook out cramping in her arms.
"I imagine you do, lass, but that'll pass when you run into some bastard just as bad as me." George had even sounded cheerful, which strengthened her transient loathing. He did stop long enough to let her heal the small cuts, but Alanna was sure that was from respect for his unstained room above the Dancing Dove than for her comfort.
That dislike passed when only George's lessons were any kind of real challenge. Alanna wasn't at Gary's level of skill yet, so he always went easy on her or beat her soundly, with no middle ground to let her gauge her progress. Coram flat-out refused to hit at his full strength, and Alanna couldn't ask the man to go against his nature. Eleni had exhausted her supply of knowledge and proclaimed Alanna a healer in her own right, free to take lessons from Duke Baird when she finally had the time.
Alanna started to cope with her manic schedule without use of her healing after three weeks of intensive work, and only relaxed when Gary pronounced her the equal of any squire. She reduced her schedule to only lessons with George. Gary had taught her quite a bit, and had regained something of himself in the process. Coram was relieved that his lady would be able to defend herself. Eleni was thrilled with Alanna's work in healing, and had conscripted Alanna to donate at least one afternoon a week to the free clinic that shared a wall with the Great Mother's temple. Before, she had been Eleni's assistant, but now she would be a healer in her own right.
She told George that she wanted to keep learning from him, and his smile would have melted the iciest heart. Her heart was hardly ice, so it thudded a little harder in answer to George's full-on charm. She swore that he knew exactly what it did, and sometimes she imagined it might all be a game to him, but it was the best game that she had ever played.
She and George had moved their lessons to his rooms above the Dancing Dove the week before. George had started to worry his mother even before his lessons involved small cuts to prove where he had hit. Alanna trusted his control with those knives, and her own ability to heal any small hurts that came in their fights. George had let her start learning with knives, but she preferred to stay with the sword. Knife fights came down to contests of strength all too often, and she could hardly hope to be fighting people smaller than she was. Most of the court's ladies were half a head taller, and most of the men tended toward much taller heights.
Alanna won her first fight the day that Arram Draper finally came to Corus.
She had finally realized that for all of George's flagrant cheating, she had been staying with the conventions of fighting and the polite society rules that governed civil combats. She was fighting the King of Thieves in his own bedroom. Alanna had shot a foot-tangling spell deliberately too far left to catch him well, and he darted to the right, directly into the full-bodied net that was too finely woven for even his Sight to catch.
Her sword's point rested at his throat, and with her arm outstretched he didn't have the range to catch her with one of his knives.
George, of course, had been delighted that she learned one of his final lessons. "People think honor's the most important bit, but that's only in stories," he had explained while she tried to work out just how she was going to counter her grand idea. George was being remarkably patient for a man caught in a magical net, but as he explained it if someone burst in he'd get a front-row seat of her fighting off a moderately sized horde. She wasn't yet ready for a larger horde than that, he said, but she accepted the compliment for what it was.
"Survivin' the fight to reach your objective is a little more important than some set of rules you never agreed to follow. You aren't bound by convention because ye pick up a sword, and that goes triple for you," George continued when she finally caught the trick of unraveling her work. "You'll already follow th' important rules. You don't fight a helpless victim, you don't kill needlessly, and ye never drop your weapon until the fighting is over."
Alanna had a trace of battle-high from finally winning, but she tamped that down to take in the latest lesson. "I can manage that, George."
"Thought you… hm." George glanced down at the floor as if he could see straight through it. "Let's head downstairs—meant to show you before, but mother sent on a present. You're dressed plain enough for this to work."
Before Alanna had time to ask what he meant, George produced a long black wig with a flourish. "Here we are. Your hair's too remarkable, lass, so she sent this on for when you wanted to see more of the Dove than the outside and back stairway. Do you have a name in mind?"
"Aly, I think. That was my mother's name for me when I was young." Alanna stroked the wig hesitantly, unsurprised to find that it was real hair. "Help me get this on?"
Alanna wound her hair into a knot at the nape of her neck while George arranged the black wig over the wisps of red. "Your eyes will still draw notice, but that's not to be avoided. Let's see, you're a mite short to be a cousin… you alright with being a new maid at the palace? Cythera has that shy girl that never gets out, I only know of her from Stefan and palace gossip."
"That'll work for me," Alanna said, checking her reflection. The difference was startling, and her pale skin looked nearly ghostly under the wig and above her black dress. "We can say that I don't get out much," she added dryly. "Let's go see what all the fussing is over."
Alanna realized halfway down the stairs that people would have a very inaccurate idea of just what she'd been doing in George's room, but she was not going to let that stop her. Her practice sword was safely stowed under his bed, her plain dress was quite nice enough, and if her dress was mussed from the fighting, at least her false hair looked nice. If the entire room assumed that she and George had taken a tumble together, at least she would be credited for choosing a remarkable sex partner.
The room was in an uproar, as it happened, and only a few people even noticed her coming from George's room. The rest were staring at the most muscular man Alanna had seen in her life, a huge black man with scabs all around his wrists. Her fingers itched with the need to heal the ugly wounds, but she let George take the lead.
George said something in a very strange language, drawing a chuckle from the stranger.
"Figured you'd be that polite, Cooper," the strange man said in perfect Common. "I think I timed getting here just right. I'm the fellow that's been sending you letters, and we really should have a talk."
George grinned. "Figures you show up just in time, you always did seem the practical sort." He glanced about the bar. "Ladies and gents, why don't you let old Solom clean up the place? Look at the mess you've made," he chided. Most of the 'ladies and gents' looked unruffled as they grabbed their belongings and filed out the door, but several glanced longingly toward the bar.
"Oh, don't go drown your sorrows somewhere else too long," George added. "It'll be drinks on the king tonight, spread the word and it'll be less for you." With that, the departing crowd looked immeasurably more cheerful.
In the end, only Alanna and the stranger were left with George as the innkeeper shuffled about collecting plates and cups from the tables.
"There we are. Alanna, lass, ye can ditch the headgear if you want. My folk know better than to watch at windows when a few of mine are already watching over the place for me. Only a couple of those watch through the glass. Marek wants my seat, to be sure, but he'll not bother with back-door theatrics. When he's ready to fight me, we'll fight." George waved to one of the windows, grinning when a hand flashed an 'all is well' sign just above the sill. "There. I suppose introductions would be polite, and I'm the one to know you both.
"Lady Alanna, may I present Musenda Ogunsanwo, a sergeant in the Carthaki cavalry—hm. Former sergeant, Musenda?"
The big man's smile was entirely too placid. "Former as of two weeks back, Cooper, and a few folk what didn't like my resignation tendered their own dismissal from the service."
"You do have a way with words," George said admiringly. "I'll imagine my men and some of my women would buy you all the drinks you like for that story. Another time, however.
"Musenda, this here is Lady Alanna of Trebond and Olau, a fully certified healer when she had time to take the certification, a swordswoman who will gain some renown the first occasion she has to publicly demonstrate the skill, and a conspirator leadin' the merry group that wants Roger of Conté far away from any throne."
Alanna shook the man's hand, then dipped her head to study his wrist. "Might I heal these for you?" she asked, looking again at the large wounds all around his wrist. "I imagine you'll want the hands, if only to help any other needful types with their severance package."
Both of Musenda's eyebrows shot up, a more dramatic effect than usual given his bald head. "No wonder you keep with Cooper. Have at them, then, I'm not fool enough to turn down a healing."
The wounds were too old for Alanna to mend all the hurt, but she could minimize the appearance of the scars. Her work ended with thin pink scars roping around the man's wrists, but she knew that all but the skin had healed fully. "It looked worse than it was," she reported, adding a small trace of magical encouragement for any other hurts he might have. She had to crane her neck back to talk to him, even with both of them sitting.
"Felt pretty bad. Thank you for the help, little lady."
Alanna grinned, rather taken by the affectionate tone in the new title. Maybe Musenda could stay on the list of the few people allowed to tease about her height. "George, you must have a short friend somewhere," she joked. "I keep meeting tall men, with you and Raoul and Gary."
"I'm sorry to report that Draper is about as tall as I am, then," Musenda said. "He's lanky when healthy, so I have no notion how bad he'll look now. Last I saw him, he was starting to look a bit grey at the gills." The words kept the same easy lilt, but the tone was entirely serious.
"I have a plan all set up, but there's room for you to stand at the bottom and play catch-the-mage if you like," George offered. "I'm handling most of it, on virtue of actually being small enough to let meself in through the window and out again, but I'd feel better with a failsafe."
"I can get you onto the palace grounds, if you don't mind working with horses for a day or two." Alanna might also need to add a visit to the palace's free clinic for new servants, but only if Musenda agreed. "I help at the Goddess's clinic when I have the time, and I know that Duke Baird has brought several patients of his to work at the palace."
"Slavery's illegal, here, so any guessing what those scars mean has no recourse," George added. "I imagine that the palace's grandest stable would have drawn Roger in once or twice."
"Should be alright," Musenda said. "Introduce me as 'Sarge' and we'll be in business. That's what my cousins all called me when I had occasion to visit, and I'd hate to hear what most people here would do to the name."
It also kept his true name from drawing any repercussions to his relatives, Alanna thought, but it seemed like too much bad thinking to mention that implication. "That's easily done," Alanna said. "We can even say I met you on the street, healed you, found out you could use a place to stay... It suits me to seem naïve about the world, and if you don't mind a few days of work, I know Stefan would take someone on George's recommendation."
"Done," Sarge agreed, shaking her hand a second time. Alanna was sure that his grip was stronger than before, and was very glad that he had allowed her to heal the old wounds. They would have healed, alone, but at best he would have been left with great bands of scar tissue and at worst damage to the nerves.
Sarge walked her back to the palace. George trusted that Sarge would keep her safe, even if Alanna's practice sword looked strange in Sarge's hand. Coram had made the blunt sword for her as a model of Lightning's heft and weight, and in Alanna's hand the sword was a fast weapon well-suited for her strength. In Sarge's hand, the model of Lightning looked like a child's toy, or perhaps a cheap dagger.
Stefan happily accepted the recommendation of 'Cousin Geoffrey,' given that several friendlier horses had nuzzled Sarge as he passed them, and didn't comment that Sarge only planned to stay for a week. ('A week draws less notice than three days,' Sarge had told her as they walked through Corus. With her natural hair showing and his height alone, they had drawn all the notice they could want.)
Alanna barely slept that night, even knowing that the rescue wasn't due until the next day. George somehow smuggled himself into her room for an afternoon lesson to tire her out, so that she'd worry less. Alanna thought it was just as much to steady George's nerves, but she didn't ask. It was all for the better that both of them were calm.
Arram Draper's farce of a trial had happened that morning. Alanna had attended, as had most nobles, and from her seat beside Duke Baird she could see that the very young, very thin suspect was scared. That fear had good reason, as Duke Turomot accepted the conviction from the Carthaki court in accordance with the submitted evidence. Alanna held her tongue when the duke asked for any objections to stated claims, even knowing that Roger was lying about the boy's age. If Draper was twenty-two, she was a squire.
You'll be alright, Alanna wanted the boy to know. We'll look after you.
When George left that night, after Alanna claimed a sick headache and had dinner brought into her rooms, Alanna paced until Salma finally bullied her into bed. Not knowing would have driven Alanna to a sleepless night, but Stefan himself came to her door.
Stefan looked extremely ill at ease to be in the palace, let alone in the close quarters reserved for lady residents of the court, but he looked pleased to see her when she opened the door. "George thought you'd be up, lady." Stefan's voice was so quiet that she barely heard him from only three feet away. "He and a new friend left through the stables, he told me to say, and you're due for a last lesson in healing tomorrow afternoon at the second bell."
"Thank you, Stefan," Alanna returned, just as quietly. "It means a lot to me that you'd come all the way here to deliver the news."
Stefan looked a little surprised at the thanks, and embarrassed, but he nodded to her before hurrying away. Alanna slept well that night, secure in the knowledge that George had saved a life and gotten away with his own.
In true gallows humor, Alanna found herself very amused when a simulacra was hung the next day at high noon. It was very convincing; it even kicked and cried beforehand, a display that would have driven her to tears, but she kept a hand to her pendant throughout. Arram Draper had been grey with exhaustion and nearly drained entirely at his trial, but his core had still shone like a beacon in that courtroom, and the last traces of white sparkles through a black veil had marked his magic. The false Draper had only orange magic animating it, and no sign of a core.
Alanna headed for the stables just after lunch with Faithful on her shoulder. The cat had yowled quite loudly when she asked if he wanted to stay in her rooms, and Salma had giggled when the cat settled himself quite firmly on Alanna's shoulder. Faithful had taken that seat before, but only while reading. Still, Faithful would not be dislodged, so she set off for the stables and Moonlight.
As she had almost expected, Roger was in the stables, loitering conveniently close to Moonlight's stall.
Alanna spoke first as she swept into a pert curtsy. "Good afternoon, your grace." On her shoulder, Faithful's claws extended to rest against her skin.
"Baroness Alanna. You have been doing well, I trust." From him, those words were not a question. "We both know that Arram Draper didn't die this afternoon, I should think. I would remind you that if he is ever found alive—"
"He didn't die?" Alanna interrupted, unwilling to let him threaten Arram so easily. She hadn't even met the boy, but she still felt very protective of Eleni's latest charge. "I should have thought that 'hanging by the neck until dead' was quite conclusive."
Her eyes were glassy with innocence when his Gift tore along the surface of her mind. She hadn't realized such attacks were possible, or at least that such an attack would be so easily managed, but her Gift and the goddess's totem stood strong. "Hm. Well, perhaps he did die, but he was a mage of great power and deception. Some think him an innocent child, but I am only relieved that his treachery was discovered before his attempt on Emperor Ozorne's life succeeded. Draper was also accomplished in the arts of simulacra and shapeshifting."
"Simulacrue?" she repeated, giving no sign that she had intentionally gotten the word wrong. "You must forgive me, your grace, but I have had no instruction in magics unrelated to healing. I understand shapeshifting in theory, but I thought that was impossible."
Perhaps she had laid it on a little too thick. Roger's eyes narrowed. "As you like, Baroness, but remember that a copy of Draper died once, and any that encounter a second copy would be well-advised to not trust him."
If she hadn't known what type of man Arram was, and what kind of viper Roger was, she might have believed that drivel. "I thank you for the warning, your grace. By your leave, I have a lesson in healing magics this afternoon. I didn't do very well with the control of bleeding, I'm afraid," she lied.
"Of course." Roger looked almost disappointed, but she supposed it would be difficult to be properly evil without a little time for bragging rights.
"Do tell my brother I said hello," Alanna added sadly, feeling a burst of inspiration. Let Roger make of that what he would, but he would think he had a hold on Alanna that her friends couldn't replace. He would be wrong, but Alanna wanted Roger to think he was winning. That was one of many lessons she had learned in trying to fight George on his terms.
Roger's smile wouldn't fool anyone. Even her brother would be taken aback by the sheer malice in the expression. "But of course, Lady Alanna. I am sure he will return the greeting, in his own time."
Alanna looked dejected as the new stablehand lifted her onto her horse, but couldn't help the thrill of victory when Sarge winked at her. Sarge had already been looking out for her, and seemed destined to join her growing roster of friends and co-conspirators. Roger thought that he had a hold on her, which was for the best. She didn't want Roger searching for a hold that would genuinely take. Arram was safe, and even better, Roger had no idea how it had been done or who had helped them.
If Roger had known, he would have taken care of it instead of waiting around the stables to try threatening her.
Sarge was her escort into town. It wasn't necessary, of course, but Stefan often had a stablehand ride along with her. It helped to add to Alanna's consequence as a Book of Gold lady, officially, but truly it set the precedent for Alanna to ride with one of George's men guarding her back. Even George's rivals had grown quite fond of "Aly" after her many, many losses to George, and several of them had seen Alanna at work in the Goddess's free medicine clinic.
She did not stay at Eleni's home for more than ten minutes. Her wig was waiting for her when she arrived, along with a plain gown in a dark grey color that edged the line of full mourning. Alanna put it on without complaint, noting that it made her look less washed out. Eleni walked over to the Dancing Dove with her for a spot of lunch, and Alanna could have cheered when they walked into the bar.
Behind several rows of Corus's deadliest cutthroats, brigands, and brawlers, a young man in well-made homespun clothing was entertaining an entire bar full of thieves. Arram was truly in his element as the center of so much positive attention. He juggled seven mugs at once while Alanna ate her lunch, and by the time she had finished her lemonade, he was amusing one of the most dangerous men in George's employ with sleight-of-hand and two copper bits.
George had appeared at her side somewhere between the trick where Arram appeared to pull a gold noble from behind the man's ear and the trick where he effortlessly called out which card someone had drawn from a stack. "He's a treasure, isn't he?"
"You're the treasure," Alanna said, impulsively hugging him. "Roger's on the lookout," she murmured when George didn't pull away. "But he'll look in all the shadowy corners. He'll never think that we would be dim enough to put the boy in full view and… what do we call him, anyway?"
"I was pretty set on Salmalin as a fitting surname for the grand identity we want to create, but mother got there first. The instant we had him back last night, she fussed him into a good homecooked meal and a warm bed, and then it was George who," the thief said fondly. "He did take my suggestion on the first name, at least, said that he liked it."
"George," Alanna scolded, leaning against him even while she feigned a glare. "Go on, out with it."
"I'll introduce you later, to be proper, but the new juggler is Numair Cooper, a country cousin of mine." George hadn't let go, yet, so Alanna didn't either.
"You're wonderful," she whispered. As long as she was complimenting him, however, she had a more serious offer to make. "I told Raoul I'd give him a token, as a lark, but he's… well, I have the feeling someone else will snap him up while he's away. Besides, I'd rather have an unconventional knight."
"You're asking me to be your champion, then?" George asked. For once, she had finally surprised the thief.
Alanna smiled encouragingly. "Well… will you?"
"Of course," George said roughly, kissing her forehead in a gesture that felt like a benediction. "You'd be the first to expect honor out of a king of thieves, but I'll be your knight."
"I wouldn't want anybody else." Alanna felt the ember warm at her throat, a second benediction, and let herself be surrounded by George's arms and the sound of cheers meant for Numair Cooper.