Lioness Rampant

  “Kill her, ye mean,” Coram rumbled.

  The Daughter’s eyes went to him. “Not under our roof,” she said coldly. “No priestess of ours will betray the Princess. Our House is a holy sanctuary; we will not be profaned.” She glanced at the First Daughter, who looked away. “You say assassins already have made an attempt. We are not proof against them or against traitors. Zhir Anduo is not the only one to find the Warlord’s child interesting.” She met Thayet’s eyes again.

  “I understand,” Thayet replied softly.

  “The children are welcome,” added the First Daughter. “Except...except for your personal guard...”

  “Buriram,” Thayet whispered.

  Jian Cadao avoided Buri’s glare and continued, “She is K’mir and closely linked to you. We cannot promise her safety. The children who were students at the Mother of Mountains we shall return to their families. We understand the infant is an orphan. He will be reared by us. But we dare not shelter you. I can give clothing, horses, whatever you need. You must go soon, before zhir Anduo knows you are here.” Now she looked at the Princess. “I am truly sorry, Thayet. I have no choice. Already I have disobeyed orders to report your arrival. It won’t be long before a spy sends word to the rebels.”

  Dismissed by the priestesses, they went back to the room Thayet was assigned. None of them were surprised to find packed saddlebags at the door. “They don’t waste time, do they?” Buri sneered when she saw them.

  Alanna combed mud and stickers out of Faithful’s coat, a process the cat loved (and made difficult by wriggling in joy). “I liked the Hag-Daughter,” she confessed, working on a clump. “She was honest.”

  “The First Daughter left a bad taste in my mouth,” Coram remarked.

  “Don’t be hard on jian Cadao,” Thayet said quietly. “She’s a cousin on my father’s side. It wasn’t easy for her.”

  “Your own family throws you to the wolves?” Liam’s eyes turned an intense green—he was furious.

  “We prefer ambition to loyalty,” Thayet replied. She fingered the arch of her nose. “And she’s in trouble herself. It’ll be easier for all my family if I’m gone. With my father dead...” She looked away from them, swallowing. “Any power I had was through him. Now I’m a pawn. Zhir Anduo can strengthen his claim to the throne by marrying me. The ones who don’t want him will use me to oppose him, because I’m jian Wilima—although a jian Wilima female.” She started to pace, her hazel eyes stormy. “Where can Buri and I go? Please—I need advice.”

  “They can come along,” Coram whispered to Alanna. “They’re no hindrance—we saw that comin’ here. The Roof can’t be worse than what they face now.”

  Alanna looked Thayet over, fingering the emberstone. Thayet was dependable. She was a good archer, a necessity when they hunted to feed themselves. If she was nervous, Alanna had yet to see it. She never complained, never cried, never fainted. She never shirked her watch. Thayet and Buri would be an asset to an expedition like theirs.

  Alanna looked at Buri and was surprised by a pleading expression in the girl’s eyes. She replaced it with her usual scowl, but this time Alanna wasn’t fooled. Buri must be worried sick, she thought. And she knows Thayet will be safe with us. Besides, I’d miss them.

  “Thayet,” she said aloud, “you know where we’re going. We’re on—a quest, I suppose. When I find what I’m after, I’ll return home. If Liam and Buri don’t object, why don’t you ride with us?”

  “Mind? Gods, no! Thayet’s a better cook than you are,” said Liam.

  “The Roof of the World,” Thayet whispered. Her face brightened.

  “Leave Sarain?” Buri grinned. “Just show me the way!”

  A Daughter shook her awake. Glancing at the window, Alanna saw it was just before dawn—time for Liam’s teaching. She directed a questioning look at the Dragon, but he only shrugged and tossed Alanna her clothes. They dressed and followed the priestess out into the corridor.

  The black-robed Daughter awaited them with Buri, Thayet, and Coram. “No time to waste,” she told them quietly. “Zhir Rayong, who is sworn to zhir Anduo, knows Thayet’s here, and he’s on his way. My people can delay him for three hours, but you must go if you want to escape.”

  Alanna looked at her friends, thinking fast. “We can’t go as we are. When it gets out that we’re gone, everyone will look for a group of nobles, or the Dragon and his friends. I can ride as a boy.” She grinned, looking at the shirt and breeches she already wore. “Goddess knows I’ve had practice.”

  “We’ll pass as mercenaries,” Liam added. Coram nodded. They all gazed at Thayet, whose looks could not have been more distinctive if she had tried.

  “I can disguise her Highness,” the Hag-Daughter said. “My women will make your packs seem less well cared for. What of the horses?”

  They conferred by glance, and Alanna shook her head. “We don’t have time to dye their coats. If it’s necessary, I’ll put an illusion on them and my cat till danger’s past.” She looked apologetically toward Liam, who shrugged.

  “Let’s start,” the Dragon said. “The sooner we’re gone, the safer everyone will be.”

  Thayet and the Daughter disappeared while the others changed into their most disreputable clothes. Novices saddled the horses, rubbing dirt into their coats, manes, and tack, then covering the saddlebags in patched canvas. Alanna’s lance and shield were put on Liam’s Drifter, since commoner youths did not carry them.

  When Alanna herself entered the courtyard, she barely recognized her own Moonlight in the dun-colored mare that awaited her. Using rawhide strips, the knight wrapped Lightning’s gem-studded hilt until only the battered crystal on the pommel showed. Buri, dressed as Alanna was in a boy’s shirt, breeches, and jacket, arrived next. She glared at Bother, who laid back his ears at the sight of her, and went to make friends with the pony she’d named Sure-Foot.

  Thayet was transformed into a sallow-skinned female. Her hair was dull, touched with grey, and a purple birthmark spread over her nose and down her left cheek. She was swathed in a shapeless brown dress. The whole effect was so painfully ugly that no one would look at her for long.

  “We provisioned you,” one of the novices said, looking at Thayet with tears in her eyes. “The packhorse, and your bags. Princess, the Goddess smile on you, wherever you go!”

  Alanna gripped the Hag-Daughter’s arm. “If you come west—”

  She smiled. “Farewell, Lioness.”

  They galloped out of the convent gates, riding hard. Distance, rather than conserving themselves and the horses, was the important thing for this part of their journey. For once Faithful kept silent about the joggling, hooking his claws into his cup and holding on. Their route from the convent led past the city wall rather than into the city. The road was deserted by Rachia’s early morning visitors, so no one would witness their flight. Either the gods smiled or the Hag-Daughter had weather-workers at her command: fog enveloped them, muffling the noise they made and sheltering them from sight.

  The ride to the border took three days, with Liam setting a pace all of them could handle. Alanna relinquished command of their expedition to him: not only was he familiar with eastern Sarain and the Roof of the World, but he wanted to lead.

  The countryside was deserted. The normal inhabitants—trappers, mountain men, K’miri tribesmen, a few Doi tribesmen from the Roof—were not sociable at the best of times, and now they had fled the occasional patrols of southern armies. Alanna paid little attention to the deserted land. She worried about Thayet. She worried about herself. These days her old goals appeared silly—a child’s dream, not an adult’s. But what was she going to do with her life—after she found the Jewel—if she found it? What did acclaim matter if you had nowhere to go, nothing to do?

  Three days after setting out from Rachia, they came to the M’kon River that formed the Saren border. On its eastern bank was Fortress Wei, a Saren outpost—there was no single government east of the river. Beyond Wei the ground formed hills a
nd small valleys. Above those hills loomed a huge, purple band that hung too steadily to be clouds. Alanna squinted at it, curious.

  Thayet brought her mare up beside Moonlight, observing the direction of Alanna’s stare. “The Roof of the World,” she said quietly.

  four

  The Roof of the World

  Once they left the border, the road began to climb. The nights were cold, although it was May; Alanna was glad for Liam’s warmth in their bedroll. Thayet was the first to don a fur-lined cloak, but the others soon followed suit.

  Thayet and Buri joined the Dragon’s morning exercises, learning Shang hand-to-hand combat. Alanna was surprised at how well she herself did. Evidently the years of training for knighthood helped her now. She could feel the difference in her body when they practiced, as her muscles took her smoothly from kick to blow and back. Filled with the optimism that comes from being physically fit, she mentally dared the Roof to do its worst.

  The farther Thayet got from home, the more relaxed she was. She spoke about her childhood so frankly that Alanna thanked Coram for his affectionate, if gruff, raising of her and Thom. Thayet was the daughter of a ruler who wanted a son; only Kalasin made her feel loved. It was Kalasin who taught Thayet K’miri ways, Kalasin and Buri’s family.

  “I could never be as good a Queen as my mother,” Thayet said. She grinned. “Not that it makes a difference now. I won’t be a queen at all.”

  “Are you sorry?” Alanna wanted to know. She had been terribly frightened when Jon asked her to be his wife, knowing someday she would have to be his Queen.

  “A little,” Thayet admitted. “I’d like to change things. In Sarain, for instance, women have no rights—just those our husbands or fathers grant us. Estates and fortunes are held by men. Women can’t inherit.”

  “That’s barbaric!” protested Alanna. “At home women inherit. Not titles, but they have lands. I’m Myles’s heir by law—it isn’t common, but it happens.”

  “Tortall sounds wonderful,” sighed Thayet.

  “You’ll find out when you get there,” the knight promised. To herself she added, We’ll all find out a thing or two when we get there, especially Jon. She grinned in spite of herself.

  As the winter snows began to melt, traffic picked up. The roads were thick with miners, trappers, and merchant caravans. Alanna’s company passed herdsmen driving flocks to the markets in the south. Farmers waved as they went by, their wagons filled with cheeses, brightly woven cloth, and chickens. Only the Doi tribesmen remained aloof. They were a people like the K’mir, though less fierce than their western cousins. They were expert at survival in the Roof; the most experienced guides were Doi, and the best furs came from their hidden villages.

  The travelers rode deeper into the highest mountains in their world, where snow still lay in scattered drifts and patches along the road. Alanna battled rising impatience. For some reason, she felt that she ought to be on the way home. It would be foolish to turn back when they were so close, but she wanted to find the pass and do whatever it demanded, then leave.

  She tried to reach Thom or Jonathan with her magic, but it was impossible. Too much distance lay between them. She hadn’t been able to show Coram his Rispah since they’d left the convent. Perhaps Thom had the power to reach across the continent—she didn’t.

  Several days after they had crossed the border, she fell in beside Coram and signaled him to drop back with her. When they were out of their friends’ hearing, she asked abruptly. “Have you been joining with the Voice?” She referred to a Bazhir rite: each day at sunset all who were Bazhir by adoption or birth entered into a magic communion with the Voice of the Tribes. The Voice heard news through this link, judged disputes, counseled his people. Since their adoption into the Bloody Hawk, both Alanna and Coram were able to enter into the joining, but Alanna had never done so. At first she refused out of a reluctance to let anyone, even someone as bound by duty and obligation as the Voice, into her mind. Later, after Prince Jonathan had become the Voice, and they had quarreled and broken off their romance, Alanna had decided she certainly didn’t want Jon to know how she thought and felt. At the same time, she knew Coram took part in the rite and had done so ever since his adoption in the tribe.

  Coram stared at her, startled. “Ye told me when we left for Port Caynn last fall that ye never wanted me to talk about it, or say what I knew...”

  Alanna blushed. “Things are different now. Have you?”

  “Not since we set out for Maren.”

  Alanna was startled by his answer. “You joined almost every night we were there. Why’d you stop?”

  Coram shrugged. “It’s different when ye aren’t among the tribe. It’s lonesome. I’ve been tryin’, though, this last week. I knew ye’re worried about things at home.”

  “And?” She couldn’t keep some eagerness from her voice.

  “I’m sorry—I must be too far away. I haven’t felt a thing.”

  Alanna smiled with an effort. “That’s all right. I’m probably worried about nothing.” She caught up with Liam, pretending not to see Coram’s troubled look.

  They entered Lumuhu Valley the first week of May, and a day’s ride brought them to the twin passes at its northern edge. An inn built solidly of wood and brick stood where the roads from the passes met. Snow lay in a tattered sheet in the meadow behind the buildings and on the sides of the northeastern pass. The northwest road was blocked with snow and ice; the pass itself was clogged. Alanna swallowed as she looked at this second pass. Why did she have a feeling this was Chitral?

  The sky had been bleak all that day. It darkened even more as they stabled the horses, and sleet began to fall as they entered the inn.

  “May blizzards is no joke,” the innkeeper said, bringing them mulled cider as they waited for rooms to be prepared. “It’s what we pay for bein’ so high up. You’d best settle in. This storm’ll close Lumuhu a week—maybe longer.”

  “What about Chitral?” Liam asked.

  The man laughed. “Mother Chitral won’t open till Beltane, and then only for the strongest. The snow never leaves. Him that told you Chitral’s a good road was jestin’. I hope you never paid for the pleasure.” He walked away, still laughing.

  “Now we know why no one took this jewel before,” Buri sighed. Thayet stared wistfully into the fire. Alanna huddled in her cloak, listening to the growing shriek of wind.

  Liam stayed downstairs while Alanna went to their room to wash and dress in cleaner clothes. Unpacking her bags—since it appeared they were going to stay for a while—she found the violet gown she’d carried since leaving Corus. “How long’s it been since I wore a dress?” she asked Faithful.

  The cat looked up from his grooming. You wore that one when you stayed with George, last fall.

  “That’s right.” She smiled at her reflection in the mirror. “This was his favorite.”

  It wasn’t so wrinkled then, the cat remarked.

  Alanna rang for the chambermaid.

  Thayet applauded when Alanna entered the common room in the violet silk gown (the maid had smoothed most of the wrinkles). Buri whistled; Coram grinned. Liam surveyed her from head to toe, an odd look on his face.

  “Well?” Alanna finally demanded, blushing from the others’ reactions. “Don’t you like it?”

  “It’s well enough,” he said at last. “Doesn’t seem practical, though.”

  Would she ever understand him? “It isn’t supposed to be practical. It’s a dress. A dress that feels beautiful when you put it on.”

  “Feeling beautiful won’t win a fight.” His eyes were the pale grey that told her nothing about how he felt.

  “I hardly think I’ll fight anyone here, unless it’s you,” she snapped. “Why can’t I wear impractical garments every now and then?”

  “Suit yourself,” he shrugged. “I suppose you’ll want earbobs next, and bracelets and other frippery. What comes then? A noble-born husband and court intrigues?”

  “I’m female.” Emba
rrassed, she realized Coram, Thayet, and Buri were trying to slip away. “Why can’t I wear a dress without you deciding I want to give up everything I am?”

  “Our road is rough and cold and muddy. Maybe you realize now that a knight-errant’s life isn’t as glorious as you expected.” There was enough truth in this to hurt. He waved toward her gown. “Maybe this is the Lady Alanna you mean to show your Prince when you go home.”

  She walked out, knowing that if she spoke she would cry. Running into her room, she slammed the door behind her. She did question her life as a roving knight, but not for the reasons he had claimed.

  Alanna tore off the dress and threw it into the corner, following it with her shift and stockings. Her breeches and shirt were half on when she did begin to cry. Within seconds her handkerchief was soaked.

  “I hate him!” She punched the bed for emphasis. “I hate him! It isn’t right that one person can hurt someone else this much!”

  “You scare him.” Thayet closed the door behind her. “Just when he thinks he understands you, you do something new. He can’t put you in a neat little box the way he does the rest of us.”

  “I never asked to be something new to him!” Alanna wiped her eyes on her sleeve and finished buttoning her breeches. “I never asked to be anything to him! It just—happened.”

  Thayet buttoned Alanna’s shirt. “I have a feeling it ’just happened’ to Liam, too, and that’s what frightens him. Our Dragon is the kind of man who likes to be in control of everything, particularly himself.”

  Alanna stared at Thayet. Did this explain why Liam feared magic? “What’s wrong with falling in love with me? And what does wearing a dress have to do with any of this, Thayet?”

  The Princess smiled. “Alanna, when you wore that dress, he saw the daughter of a noble house—a woman whose family tree reaches back to The Book of Gold. Liam is common-born.”

  “If I don’t care about that, why should he?”