This is one of the last chapters without major actions, but any interested parties will find quite a bit of foreshadowing.
Lady Lioness: Interlude
Alanna was sure that Numair Cooper, once Arram Draper, was the best student any first-time teacher could hope to encounter. Numair knew much more about the Gift than she did, but she knew more about using the Gift. He wasn't very well suited to healing, as it happened, but he was delighted to work her through advanced theories about how to best craft spells without chants or even words. She often felt like he was the one teaching her, but the poor boy had little enough common sense that the illusion never lasted for long.
Arram was brilliant, but like Harailt, he was an academic at heart. Unlike Harailt, Numair wanted to learn how to interact with people that weren't academics. That was George's department, and by all accounts, it was going better than could be hoped. Numair entertained entire crowds at the Dancing Dove, and within a week there wasn't a thief that wouldn't defend him against any comer. The rogues had little enough to smile about, as Rispah had explained to 'Aly,' that any cause for laughter was to be cherished.
Rispah was one of the few rogues to know that George's protégé Aly was in fact Lady Alanna of Trebond and Olau. As Queen of the Rogue, Rispah had her own variety of power. While George oversaw all thieving and general mayhem, Rispah protected the women and men that sold their time, the community's euphemism for prostitution. Rispah was rather charmed by Alanna's newfound comfort in discussing the more academic and healing-based aspects of sex. Alanna still turned brilliantly red at any kind of practical discussion, but her new friend was never offended.
Alanna breezed through the certification on healing, and shocked the city's examiner with her frank knowledge of several carnal diseases. Alanna had taken on Rispah's court as her own personal charges, and saw more intimate diseases in a week than some healers would see in a lifetime. It was often uncomfortable, and several times awkward, but Rispah was present for every last one of those healings. Her presence always soothed things over, and Alanna gradually gained confidence with the most exotic of cases.
On one of Coram's rare trips to the Dancing Dove, he caught Rispah's eye. Suddenly, Coram found reasons to replace Sarge as her typical escort. Sarge came to the Dove on his own, as it happened, but he preferred to retire from direct espionage work in favor with working with Stefan and the pages. The pages had been lacking a riding instructor, and it showed. Within two weeks of his arrival, Sarge had all of them in hand to no objections from the last duke of Conté. If Roger recognized Musenda as a Carthaki ex-slave, he gave no sign.
There were no open hostilities from Roger, a relief in the face of some of the most peaceful weeks of Alanna's life. She kept up her lessons with George, losing nine of ten bouts of her sword against his knives, but steadily turning her losses into close finishes. Numair studied with her in the afternoons at Eleni's home, when he wasn't amusing the rogues of Corus with any new trick he could manage.
With her new friendship with Gary, his renewed interest in Cythera, and Cythera's new approval of Gary, Alanna was pleased to be sure two friends would become a permanent item. Cythera's calm grace was a good counter to Gary's enthusiastic outbursts, and he had even matured his language to something more befitting a duke and a suitor. Alanna was sure that they would end up together, but the pair of them were enjoying a leisurely courtship.
She might have missed Gary's company if not for the great deal of work that went into organizing her allies in keeping tabs on Roger. Sarge had kept himself to observations on Roger's interactions with the pages, Myles was paying attention to the politics of the court, George had his most trusted agents scouring the city, and Eleni divined what little signs she could find. All the while, Alanna had Raoul's letters to read aloud to Eleni, Numair, and George.
Raoul had taken to the Great Southern Desert with an unexpected zeal. He had charmed the Sunset Dragon's ally tribe, the Sleeping Lion, and had arranged an escort for Kara to reach Persopolis. From there, a group of Rispah's ladies would bring Kara to Eleni's house as yet another Gifted adolescent in need of nurturing.
Most interesting, however, was the fast spread of Raoul's new story. He was quickly gaining status within Corus's lords and ladies, and with him the Bazhir gained a new status. It seemed that his reputation had spread to Saren, as a lady of some standing had appealed to Raoul for asylum. Raoul had agreed, of course, and had written that he would be returning to Corus briefly after providing the lady with an escort by way of the Sunset Dragon tribe.
Roger remained quiet, from what Alanna's observers could see, but he was far from quiescent. Duke Baird became the latest of Alanna's allies when Roger was arrogant enough to think that Baird would meekly accept a threat to his infant son. Baird had paced Myles' office for twenty straight minutes as Alanna held his child, a green-eyed babe that peered at her solemnly the whole while. Baird had thought Myles to be the head of the group slowly gathering against Roger, but recovered from his surprise gracefully to promise Alanna his help.
Word of her little group was spreading too fast, perhaps, because the very next day Ilane of Mindelan came to her. The white-haired woman was far younger than Alanna had guessed from afar, and had not been at court due to a tricky pregnancy. Alanna hadn't the faintest idea just how many children Lady Ilane planned to have, but from all rumors the latest would be far from the last. Ilane was not fond of Roger, as it happened, and was quite interested in Alanna of Trebond and Olau.
It was almost a relief to find that she wasn't universally popular. Alex of Tirragen scowled at the sight of her, thanks to her brother's selection as Roger's squire, and Ralon of Malven despised anyone more popular than he was. Both men kept their dislike to distrustful glances, but those small aggressions all took place under Roger's eye. It would be useful for him to underestimate just how far her reach was growing.
Rispah's escort arrived with Kara in tow just two weeks after Raoul's letter. Kara had kept her veil, for modesty, and made quite the impression when introduced formally to the nearly silent crowd at the Dancing Dove. They didn't realize that her plain outfit was a sign of her low rank, or that her flimsy and unadorned veil had once marked her as an outcast. They saw her as one of Lady Alanna's protected students, and by extension someone under George's highest protections. They took the veil as a sign of mystery, not a reason to ostracize her.
Marek, as it happened, was especially struck by the dark eyes above the veil. He visited Eleni's home often with small trinkets and friendly words, and the slow, deliberate courtship was gradually making remarkable progress on Kara's self-esteem. Watching the two of them, George would whistle a jaunty tune and start plotting for the next Queen and King of Thieves, with Rispah's imminent retirement to stay with Coram at the palace and George's own goals to not be the king of thieves forevermore.
Five weeks after Numair Cooper's rescue from execution, and in the heart of winter, Roger formally invited Alanna to take tea with him the next day. Alanna accepted, to hold off any worse attempts to have her attention, and was sure that this would be the last of Roger's friendlier attempts. He wouldn't be fool enough to poison her tea, and wouldn't invite her to such an event with open threats in mind, so it seemed she would have one more opportunity to see just what Roger planned to do.
She had thought that Roger would delay his plans in light of another meeting, but she was wrong. She had made one of the largest miscalculations yet in her predictions of what Roger would do when. George came to her rooms that night, looking as frantic as she had ever seen him. He pulled her into a rough embrace, and didn't seem inclined to let her go. "I'll be staying in the palace. Stefan passed on your message about that meeting with Roger, and this isn't the time to trust him."
"Is there ever a time to trust Roger?" Alanna asked, slowly rubbing the thief's back. Something had spooked him, badly, and George wasn't the type to be scared.
"Never, but this is worse than the usual," George said quietly, speaking into her hair. "I'm afraid we've worse news than Roger having a poison tongue. I wish that I had a better time t' tell you, lass, but there's no use in delayin' the tale of what's already done.
"Roger made his move, Alanna. King Roald is dead."