I'm not entirely sure where this story will stop, now that things are much more stable and leaning toward a happy ending. Suggestions are welcome.

The Emperor's Mage
Chapter Thirty-five: Fit

Daine had known for years that mages were the worst of all possible patients (excepting healers), but Arram seemed determined to go against all of the natural order at once. When Alanna very sternly ordered him to not use a trace of Gift for three days, and even after that to move very slowly, he had agreed. Alanna had started reinforcing her demand with reasons and coaxing on instinct, and it had taken her a full minute to realize that Arram was going to cooperate. If he used his Gift overmuch while still recovering, he wouldn't have much of a Gift later.

Kaddar and Jon were holed up in the most private office Jon had at his disposal, which meant that they had kicked Myles out of his conference room. As Myles couldn't get much work done with a king and a potential emperor having private conferences about the best way to set about ruling a country, as well as the economic advantages of an economy based on paid labor, Myles and Alanna had taken all of her children up to Olau to visit the orchards. George would follow after a few days. His office wasn't taken up, after all, so he was keeping track of Arram's replacement in the unofficial slave export channels from Carthak. Some brilliant fellow or other had managed to forge all the right documents to set himself up as a slaver, and George was happy to supply the man with all the marks of successful foreign commerce when he brought an entire shipload of people to safety.

Thayet and Kalasin were having their own conferences. That left Daine with Roald quite often, not that she could take all that much of his time. He was in his second year of a page, and she wouldn't leave him too exhausted for the rest of his day. Still, he was a smart young man, and he knew that his sister would probably be betrothed sooner rather than later. Daine didn't understand much at all about arranged marriages, so she let Roald talk to her, and that seemed to work quite well.

At most, she spent two bells of the day with Roald. That left the rest of her day to show Arram around, and it was very easy to keep track of him if she had to leave for even four hours at a time. She showed him over to the Royal College, and one of the mages would happily keep him occupied with discussing the barriers between the realms or resolving paradoxes or happily arguing about philosophy. Daine would have thought that the chief healer's son was a bit young to argue so stridently with his instructors, but Duke Baird never seemed all that surprised to find his son and one of the other novices driven to yelling to make their points. In any case, Queenscove seemed a little too impressed with Arram Draper to let his debates devolve into yelling after just an hour.

For the rest of the time, Daine showed Arram around Corus. She had guessed that he would be impressed with the menageries, but hadn't realized that she'd be driven to blushing with the way he kept asking questions and exclaiming over the way she'd coaxed the palace mages into mimicking a suitable habitat. He liked the markets, of course, and when she wrote her first letter to Varice he coached her in the right sort of hidden message to give her the right idea. It was surprisingly hard to introduce him to the Riders, since Onua very rarely liked court dandies, but Daine shouldn't have worried. Sarge already liked him, and Arram had saved "Amadi's" life, so the entire stable was predisposed to like him. Onua would like anyone that had helped Sarge so well, besides, so it was a very easy visit. Even Buri liked him, probably because he admired the new carvings on the west side of the stable as Chavi without any sort of prompting. Even if he'd just guessed that it would be Chavi West-wind from the direction, there were some nobles that couldn't tell east from west, and nobody would have memorized the story just to impress Buri and perhaps Onua.

Things settled after the first few days. George let things be when he rode to Olau, and didn't start the slow rumors about Arram Draper being alive until he'd come back from a full week of vacation. Kaddar and Jon had decided to wait another few weeks before letting the story of his survival escape to all of the world at once, which would expose the false charges against him by necessity, and that they wouldn't try to install Kaddar onto the throne. They would wait for Ozorne to attack Tortall, or for Ozorne to be deposed by his own people, but Kaddar would play the part of a prince-in-exile and let things happen as they would. As Jon had appointed Kaddar to oversee the renovation of the little Corus temple devoted to the Graveyard Hag, they didn't think that it would take very long.

Lindhall still took her for lessons about once a week, but he had plenty of students left in the pages and the younger scholars attached to the university. If Arram stayed, Lindhall would even take another graduate student that needed a research-oriented mentor.

Quite a few things came down to "if Arram stayed," lately, and it wasn't just scholarly arrangements. Alanna and George had offered to grant a subset of their lands to Arram, if he liked. They had a tower on the edges of their property that would suit a bachelor mage very well. It was within a day's ride of Corus, he could easily ride over to visit, and he would still have enough isolation to suite a black-robe mage. Jon and Gary had worked together on some arrangement that would guarantee that Arram would be free from any charge that Ozorne could make, and George had double-checked the particulars.

The problem was that all of Tortall seemed to think that they had gained a mage from their peace conference, and further rumor generally said that he had changed allegiances just for Daine. She hardly thought that was the case, when he'd already had Kaddar safe and so many arrangements in place, but some idiot bard had made them into a love song. It was no use protesting she was sixteen, back in Snowsdale she would be an old maid already if nobody had come courting. He wasn't all that old, either, and she could admit he was handsome. That didn't mean that he'd faked his own execution because he liked her eyes. (The ruder version said that he'd liked her bosom, but that one had quickly turned into a brawl when stupid Evin Larse decided to defend her honor and had nearly ended up setting the bar on fire. Somehow, Arram had gotten credit for the way that someone tipped a lantern into the pot of cooking oil, and all of the newer songs focused on safe things like eyes and smiles.)

In the end, she was shocked that it had taken her two weeks to come to the obvious conclusion. Nobody seemed to know what Arram's plans were, for all that Kaddar thought his friend would go back to Carthak in time and Jon thought that Arram would stay. If nobody knew what he was doing, then Daine would have to ask him.