The Woman Who Rides Like a Man

  “You wouldn’t be thinkin’ of leavin’?” he asked as they sat down to their evening meal. Coram and Rispah, who had joined them, looked anxiously at Alanna.

  The young knight reddened and shrugged. “You could always come with me.”

  George arched one eyebrow. “Me? In the desert?”

  “I suppose not,” Alanna admitted gloomily as the new maidservant poured soup into her bowl. “It’s just so cold here. And I’m getting restless.”

  She was lifting her spoon to her mouth when a frantic, yowling Faithful leaped onto the table, sending Alanna’s soup dish flying. The ember-stone sent out a burst of white heat as George yanked her back. Coram shoved his own dish away as Rispah ran after the fleeing maid. She returned within seconds, hauling the terrified woman back in a grip that permitted no careless movement on her captive’s part.

  Alanna extended her hand, and a wave of purple fire washed over the plates on the table. She looked up at George, her eyes sick. “They’ve all been poisoned.”

  George looked at Rispah. The redhead’s mouth was set in a grim line; the maid fought her hold uselessly. “I think we’ll learn a bit more if the noble lady isn’t by,” she told her cousin.

  “You’ll need me,” Coram told them. He glanced at Alanna. “Wait in the library.”

  Alanna didn’t argue as Rispah, Coram, and George marched the protesting maid out of the room. Instead she went to the kitchen and questioned the cook, who was preparing to go home for the night. From her she learned that the maid, who had worked for them only two weeks, had come from Corus. She was supposed to be living with an uncle, but the cook suspected she got additional money from a local inn, where she entertained male guests. Still, she had done her work well and quietly, and it was hard to get good help during winter in Port Caynn.

  “One last question,” Alanna said, “and then I’ll get Marek or one of the others to take you home in the cart. Did she have a letter from the Rogue in Corus, saying she was safe to wait on George?”

  The cook turned indignant at the very thought that she would permit someone in the house who hadn’t been cleared. From the house’s account books she took the grimy piece of paper the maid had brought with her. Confirming the woman as safe, it was signed “Claw.”

  Orem escorted the cook home while Alanna gave the whole thing serious thought. It seemed likely that George had been the poisoner’s target; since the deaths of Duke Roger and Ibn Nazzir, she had no enemies inclined toward murder.

  “Who’s Claw?” she asked when a tired, sweating George came to the library an hour later.

  The thief grimaced as he poured himself a glass of brandy. “One of the new young men in the city. Ugly as a goat—missin’ an eye, purple marks on his face where someone threw acid on him once. Why?”

  Alanna gave him the note admitting the would-be poisoner to his house, watching the thief’s mobile face as he read. “Did the maid talk?”

  “Hm? Oh, her. No more than that a man gave her the poison, and the money.” He put the note down, rubbing his face wearily. “She ended too fast.”

  “Magic?”

  George shook his head, slumping into his big leather chair. “Not that I could see. She was wearin’ a charm about her neck. When we took it off her, she—died.” Digging in his tunic pocket, he produced a small round medal hanging on a chain. “Have a look.”

  Alanna touched it, instantly feeling the evil as the ember-stone flared hotly. She yanked her hand away. “Throw it in the fire!”

  Startled, George obeyed. The charm sputtered and melted. “Why?”

  “It’s been treated with a kind of poison.” Alanna soaked George’s handkerchief in brandy and held the dripping cloth out to her friend. “Wipe you hands with this—quickly! Did Coram or Rispah touch it?”

  He obeyed, wrinkling his nose at the brandy fumes. “No, only me.”

  “Take off your tunic, and throw it in the fire. It’s not magic; it’s a poison taken from the fireflower vines that grow in the southern hills. Farda, the midwife for the Bloody Hawk, told me about it.”

  “How does it work?” George asked curiously.

  “You have to have contact with it over a long period of time, unless you drink it or it enters through a cut in your skin, something like that. As long as you maintain contact, you’re all right. But if you run out, or if someone takes your source away—”

  “You die,” he murmured thoughtfully, watching the fire destroy his tunic. “And if someone was givin’ it to you in your food, or some such, you’d never know.” Startled, he looked at her. “Has it been in our food?”

  She shook her head. “The ember-stone would have warned me, or maybe even Faithful.” She glanced down at the cat, who had curled up by the fire. He yawned and twitched his tail over his eyes, indicating he didn’t want to be disturbed.

  “Claw, then,” George sighed as she poured him another glass of brandy. “With a herb-woman to help, perhaps.”

  “What will you do?”

  He shrugged. “What’s to do, lass? I’ll have to return to Corus and see what this Claw’s been about.” He put his glass down and drew her close. “Come with me.”

  Startled, she pulled back. “To Corus? George, I can’t!”

  “You have to face Jonathan sometime,” he pointed out shrewdly.

  “Not now, I don’t! George, why do you have to go rushing back there? Come south with me. Let the thieves find someone else to rule them.”

  George shook his head. “I can’t leave them when my position’s weak, Alanna. Lads with reputations to make will be huntin’ for me all my days, tryin’ to kill me. And how do I know this Claw will do right by my people? I have as much responsibility to them as King Roald does to his own, as you do to your folk at Trebond.”

  Alanna clenched her fists. “And I can’t go back to Corus. If I stay with you, I’ll be recognized sooner or later. The scandal would hurt Myles; now he’s my foster-father. If I go to the palace, they’ll be after me to dress like a lady and get married and forget I ever won my shield.”

  George sighed. “That’s everything, isn’t it? I won’t turn my back on the Rogue, and you can’t leave off your adventurin’.” He took her hand. “Come to bed. If I’m to ride for Corus in the mornin’, we’ve a lot of good-byes to say first.”

  When Alanna went south, a week after George returned to the city, Coram went with her. “Rispah will wait for me,” he growled when Alanna questioned him about it. “We made an arrangement. She understands that if I’m not with ye, ye’ll no doubt try somethin’ daft. Now let an old man alone, will ye?”

  Alanna dropped her questioning, glad to have his company on the long ride back to the tents of the Bloody Hawk.

  9

  AT THE SIGN OF THE DANCING DOVE

  IT WAS ALMOST DARK WHEN GEORGE, MAREK, and Ercole arrived at the gates of the city of Corus. They just made it in time; the greater gate was closed and locked behind them for the night. Now travelers would either have to enter the city on foot, or turn back to a nearby wayhouse until the gates were opened at dawn. All three men were tired. The ride from Port Caynn, which normally took only half a day, had been filled with battling winter wind and sleet.

  “We’ve had easier travels afore now, Majesty,” Ercole remarked as they turned their horses into the long alley that led to the stables at the rear of the Inn of the Dancing Dove. “Warmer, too.”

  It was far darker in the alley than on the torchlit main streets, and George felt uneasy. Bringing up his chestnut mare, he scanned the shadows. Noticing their chief’s wariness, Marek and Ercole began to search the dark, too, readying their long staffs. Only George dared carry a sword openly, as Tortallan commoners were not permitted them.

  George let his mare inch forward until he spotted an overhang. Smiling grimly, he kicked the mare into a jump. The man on the overhang leaped a second too late, falling behind George. Other masked attackers surged out of connecting alleys and doorways; George ran one through and wheeled to catch a s
econd as he grabbed for George’s saddle. A quick glance told him Marek and Ercole remained horsed, in spite of attempts to unseat them.

  George’s mare reared and knocked the man trying to cut her saddle girths flying. The thief grinned—not even his most trusted people knew he had trained his favorite mount to fight like a noble’s war-horse, as her Moonlight fought for Alanna. The mare he had named Beauty curvetted, her rolling eyes searching for someone else stupid enough to get in range of her hooves.

  Marek yelled and clutched his shoulder, where a dark flower blossomed against his light-colored jacket. Distracted by his henchman, George didn’t see the man on the roof overhead until he leaped onto George’s back.

  They grappled for the knife the other man held, George using every trick he knew to dislodge his enemy. The attacker was strong, stronger than George, but he had forgotten the thief-king’s almost supernatural speed. Twisting into a position that made his back scream, George got one hand free. Flicking the knife he carried hidden in his sleeve into his hand, he stabbed his attacker in a rapid-fire movement. The man gasped and fell off, rolling into the snow.

  As if his death was a signal, the others broke off and ran. George would have pursued them, but Ercole reminded him that Marek was hurt. The younger man was slumped in his saddle; blood dripped freely down his arm into the slush on the ground.

  Ercole wiped his knives on his sleeve and slid them back into sheaths at his wrist. “They didn’t offer a sound, Majesty. Not a word.”

  “So we can’t guess who they are, doubtless.” George hoisted Marek up, wishing just once for Alanna’s way with fire. “Will you make it to a safe place, lad?”

  Marek grinned weakly. In the bits of light that came from the houses and shops on the alley, his handsome face was pale. “All these years I’ve tried to take your throne from you, George; now we both have to fight some—usurper!”

  “Can you hold up a bit more?”

  “Aye.” Marek boosted himself erect in his saddle. “Lead on, Majesty.”

  George took the rein of Marek’s horse and headed down a second alley, thinking hard. Until he knew the nature of the enemy, the Dancing Dove was not safe for him or the people closest to him. He led Marek and Ercole to the back of his mother’s walled house, trusting that his enemies had not set a trap there as well. He was reassured by snow piled around the small barred gate; no one had walked here recently. Dismounting, he used his keys to undo the double locks before taking Marek and Ercole inside. The young man was slumped over, and Ercole held him in place with one hand.

  “The stables are over there,” George told him quietly as he slid Marek off his horse. “Unless we’ve other guests hid within, this place’s safe.”

  “Get the lad inside,” Ercole advised. “He’s bleedin’ heavy still.”

  A second pair of keys let George into his mother’s kitchen. A kettle was on the hearth, but otherwise the room was dark. Carefully placing Marek on a bench by the big table, the King of the Thieves slid out into the rest of the house, his every sense on the alert. The ground floor was dark—odd, for it’s not even suppertime, he thought. Then he stiffened against the wall, hiding himself in the shadows below the stairs leading to the second floor. A woman not his mother was descending.

  In a swift movement he had the lady in his grip, one large hand over her mouth. “Don’t scream,” he advised. “Tell me what you’re doin’ in Mistress Cooper’s house.”

  He took his hand away, and the woman drew a slow, shuddering breath. “She’s ill. I’m a healing-woman, come to stay with her till she’s better.” She faced George, and indignation lit her brown eyes. “George Cooper, such a fright you gave me! What d’you mean, sneaking into your mother’s house like a thief!”

  Recognizing her, he grinned. “Mistress Kuri, I am a thief.” As she gasped with shock, he added, “What’s wrong with my mother?”

  “I don’t know. Since All Hallow she’s been as weak as a new kitten. Only now does she get her strength back.”

  George looked upstairs. “I’ll go to her as soon as may be. Meanwhile, I’ve a patient of my own who needs lookin’ after.”

  Kuri shook her head mournfully when he brought her to Marek. She got the wounded man braced on her shoulder easily, handling him as if he weighed nothing at all. “Open the door to the work chamber.” George obeyed and lit the lamps as Kuri gently placed Marek on the long table. “I’ll need boiling water. Make yourself useful,” she commanded, cutting the jacket away from Marek’s shoulder.

  Back in the kitchen, George put the kettle on to boil as Ercole warmed his hands. Telling the older man the situation in the house, George placed him at Mistress Kuri’s orders before running upstairs to his mother’s bedchamber.

  Eleni Cooper looked at her son, her hazel eyes alert. “I thought I felt you in the house. Did you frighten poor Kuri to death?”

  “She seemed unshaken to me. What’s happened? I saw you not long before All Hallow, and you were fit enough then.”

  “I tried probing someone’s magic too deeply. The guards set on it were very strong.”

  “Thom!” George hissed. “By the Dark God, Mother, If he’s hurt you with his precious ‘experiments’—”

  “Lady Alanna’s brother? I should have guessed. Only he has such power, these days.” The woman shook her head. “If only I knew what he was up to!” She sighed and returned her attention to George. “And what are you doing here, at this hour? I thought you’d be stuck fast to Lady Alanna’s side.”

  He shook his head, looking away. “We’ve parted, Mother—she to go adventurin’, and me—”

  “This house has been watched for five weeks now.” She read his thoughts, as she always had. “A man who wouldn’t give his name tried to question the girl I have in to clean. She has her orders, though, and she won’t talk against my wishes.”

  George could hear Mistress Kuri’s uncompromising tread on the stairs. “I’ll be goin’ out again, as soon as I’ve made sure Marek is well.”

  “Young Marek is hurt?” She had never met him, but George had often entertained her with stories of Marek’s attempts to get the throne of the Rogue for himself.

  “He’ll survive,” Kuri announced, having heard the question from outside. “He lost a deal of blood, though, and I put him in one of the small rest-chambers.”

  “But he’ll live?” Only now did George betray his anxiety for his long-time rival and sometime friend.

  “He’ll live, and cause more trouble, I don’t doubt.”

  George nodded, relieved. “Mother, I need house-room for myself and another of my men, only for tonight. We’ll go to earth elsewhere tomorrow.”

  “Of course.” His mother’s voice was serene, but her eyes were worried. “George—”

  “I can’t help bein’ crooked, Mother,” he said. “And this is the price I must pay.” He kissed her cheek and looked at Mistress Kuri. “I’ll be takin’ Ercole with me. We’ll let ourselves back in.”

  “I’m sure you will,” the healer replied severely. George laughed and patted her cheek before seeking Ercole out downstairs.

  They were outside the walls of the house with the doors locked behind them before Ercole asked, “Where might we be goin’?”

  “The Dancin’ Dove,” George said grimly before pulling a wool muffler over his chin. Ercole swore fluently and followed him.

  As a noble studying to become a knight, Alanna had spent a good amount of time at the inn called the Dancing Dove. This was George’s headquarters, the royal palace for the thieves who swore allegiance to the Rogue. It was the place they gathered when they were not about their business as thieves. There were a number of entrances and exits, some known only to George and Old Solom, the innkeeper. George and Ercole entered through one of these, emerging in the darkened hallway that stretched behind the stairs to the upper stories. Sheltered by the dark, they could watch the entire common room, filled to its rafters with thieves, prostitutes, flower sellers, fences, forgers, peddlers, fortune
-tellers, healers and sorcerers with small Gifts, merchants doing secret business, rogue priests, even a nobleman or two. Old Solom and his maids bustled about, serving food and drink while keeping a watchful eye on the table beside the great hearth—the place where George was wont to sit.

  George smiled grimly. Nearly all of the people in the common room were quiet and fearful. When he sat by the fire, the din was so loud a man couldn’t hear himself think. Now the loudest noises were made by Solom or the maids.

  The man named Claw was at George’s table, although not, the thief-king noted, on George’s “throne.” His back was to the two men in the hallway, and only his immediate friends—three vicious brutes George would not want at his back—sat with him. George searched the room for his own court and found Scholar in a drunken huddle on the other side of the fire. Lightfingers was nowhere to be seen. Rispah was still in Port Caynn, but Orem and Shem were at the back of the room, playing dice.

  Making sure each of the six knives he carried was ready, George nodded to Ercole. Stepping into the light, the older man at his back, he tapped Claw on the shoulder. “Thanks for keepin’ it warm for me, friend,” he drawled in his sweetest voice.

  Claw jumped, knocking over his tankard. Brown ale spilled unheeded over his breeches as he stared at George. “But—you—”

  “I know, I said I’d be stayin’ in Port Caynn a bit longer,” George said agreeably. “But there! I got that lonesome for all these friendly faces, and that bored without you lot keepin’ me on my toes.” Orem and Shem had moved to the front door and were guarding it with drawn knives. Two other men George knew he could trust came to cover the rear exit and Ercole’s back. “You’re drippin’,” he added, sliding onto his “throne.” Not for a second did his eyes leave Claw. The man had a reputation for doing the totally unexpected, and he might be crazy enough to attack George now.