George took her hands in his big ones. “You’re doing the smart thing. Oh, you’ll be a great knight and rescue ladies and slay dragons and the like, but not all the monsters you meet are dragon shaped. Remember what your brother said about Jon’s smilin’ cousin.”
Alanna gave him look for look. “Do you think there’s danger from Duke Roger?”
George shrugged and released her hands. “I’m but a poor, uneducated city lad,” he replied, his hazel eyes twinkling. “I only know if someone hands me a weapon—any weapon—and I can use it, use it I will. And think on it, Alanna. What’s the line to the throne, with no children after Jonathan?”
She counted on her fingers. “The king. The queen. Jonathan. And—and Duke Roger.” She snapped her fingers in exasperation. “You and Thom are silly. If Duke Roger wants to be king so bad, and he’s so all-fired powerful, why doesn’t he take the throne now?”
“Because some powerful people surround it, lass,” George replied. “I’d not want to have Duke Gareth for my enemy, no, nor my Lord Provost either. That quiet Sir Myles of yours bears some hard watchin’. And look at Jonathan’s own friends: Gary, who’s sharper than his father even; Alex, who’s a rare hand with a sword; you, with your Gift; and your brother in the City. He’s going to wait, our smilin’ friend.” George tossed an apple into the air and speared it with his dagger. He picked it up and tugged it off the blade, biting into it thoughtfully. “He’ll find out who stopped Jonathan from dyin’ durin’ the Sweatin’ Sickness. He’ll make friends and sow favors. He’ll take king’s people and make them his people. He’ll get rid of some who would never come to him. Then he’ll strike.” He pointed the dagger at her. “So learn your spells, youngling. You’ll need them before your life’s out. Unless I’m mistaken, the Duke of Conté doesn’t like you any more than you like him.”
While Alanna mixed swordplay with spells—both where no one could watch her—Jonathan met the people of his city. That winter he and Alanna went down to the Dancing Dove whenever they could. Here Jon was “Johnny,” the rich merchant’s son George had taken a liking to. At the Dancing Dove men didn’t fall respectfully silent when Jonathan spoke. They were more likely to tell him “Ye’re but a lad. Wha’ d’ye know? Hush and listen t’ yer elders!”
Jonathan hushed and listened. He made friends with the most dangerous thieves and murderers in the Eastern Lands. He learned to pick pockets and throw dice with ease. He flirted with flower girls and watched as thieves divided their night’s haul. He was seeing life very differently from the way it was seen from the palace, and he was eager to learn all he could. No one ever guessed that the heir to the throne was sitting there, sipping a tankard of ale and occasionally tossing a set of dice.
Gary often went along, and Raoul was eventually introduced to George and his circle. Jonathan suggested Alex also be brought along, but that was the winter Duke Roger asked that Alex be his squire, until Alex’s Ordeal of Knighthood. Alanna didn’t even have to say that she wanted no one so close to Roger to meet George—Alex was simply too busy to spare much time for his old friends.
Winter melted into spring, and combat training among the squires reached a high level of activity. Since custom dictated that the Heir take the Ordeal if Midwinter came between his seventeenth and eighteenth birthdays, it seemed likely that Jonathan would be needing a squire that year. And since they had reached their eighteenth birthdays, Gary, Raoul and Alex would also be taking the Ordeal of Knighthood. All three were watching the squires and oldest pages, trying to make a choice.
Competition to be one of the favored four squires was fierce. Jonathan, of course, was the Heir, and the other three came from the noblest families of Tortall. Everyone liked the big, somewhat shy Raoul. While Gary’s sharp wit and sharper tongue had made him enemies, he was also respected. Alex was Duke Roger’s squire, and some of the Duke’s popularity had rubbed off on him. The squires and the pages who would be made squires at Midwinter worked relentlessly, particularly when one of the four was in sight.
All, that is, except Alanna. Although she was to be made a squire that Midwinter, she did not consider herself to be in the running, and she said so. The other boys wanted to know why.
“It’s easy,” she explained wearily. “Look at me. I’m the shortest, skinniest boy in the palace. My wrestling is terrible, and I’m not that good a swords-man. No one will want a weakling like me for a squire.”
“But you’re best on horseback, especially since you got Moonlight,” Douglass protested. “And you’re best at archery and tilting and staff fighting and weapons. And you’re a good student—all the Masters say so, behind your back. Are you saying even Jonathan won’t pick you?”
Alanna made a face. More than anything she wanted to be Jonathan’s squire. “Jonathan most of all. The Heir needs the best squire the kingdom can supply. My swordsmanship’s too weak, and I’m too little. Geoffrey of Meron’s good. The Prince should pick him.”
That was what she told her friends. She knew they didn’t believe her, but she didn’t care. The truth was, she didn’t feel worthy of being someone’s squire. She was a girl, and she was a liar. And at any moment, the truth could surface. In the meantime, the fact that she could always be beaten at wrestling and that she was only an average swordsman would do. Jonathan would pick Geoffrey or Douglass, and that would be the end of it.
In April that changed. Lord Martin of Meron—Geoffrey’s stern-faced father—rode north to visit his son and to request additional troops for his fief. Fief Meron was better known as the Great Southern Desert: leagues of sand stretching from the Coastal Hills to the Tyran Peaks. This harsh land was the home of the Bazhir, tribesmen not all loyal to the king or to his governor, Lord Martin.
The morning after Lord Martin’s arrival, he conferred with the king and Duke Gareth for several hours. The king had decided that Jonathan and the boys who would soon be knights should take this chance to see what the Bazhir were like. The situation in the desert being what it was, the odds were good that each knight would fight against the Bazhir at least once in his lifetime. The squires, under the guardianship of Sir Myles and Lord Martin, would ride south with the new troops. The pages would have their own long ride later in the summer to Fief Naxen, in the east.
After this decision was made and lunch was eaten, Duke Gareth and Lord Martin went out to the fencing yards. Lord Martin had once been famed for the quality of his swordsmanship, and he and the Duke had already had one friendly match, the evening before. Now the two men took their seats at the side of the yard, prepared to see what the older pages and younger squires looked like.
“Let’s see what they can do, Captain Sklaw,” Duke Gareth instructed.
Sklaw looked around the yard, his one eye twinkling viciously. “Meron.” Geoffrey bowed gracefully and picked up his padded cloth armor. Captain Sklaw was grinning as he pointed. “Trebond. You haven’t done freestyle since that first time. Let’s see you fall over your own feet again.”
Alanna felt herself turning hot and cold with terror. Someone was shoving her practice padding into her hands; numbly she put it on. Sklaw was right. She hadn’t fought freestyle—without each pass and move already assigned to her by Sklaw—since that awful first bout with Sacherell just a year before. She had done drill—endless repetition of the same movement—or one-on-one “plotted fighting” in which each member of the team had to make a certain set of movements dictated by Sklaw, while the other member used the countermoves Sklaw had given him. That sort of thing went back and forth between two duelers all afternoon, and it certainly didn’t prepare anyone for freestyle dueling. In addition, she had her night practice and morning practice, but she was always alone, and it was only drill. Alanna drew deep breaths, feeling faint. Once again, here were Duke Gareth and Captain Sklaw, and Coram was clearing the boys out of the central dueling area. She slid the cloth helmet over her head and accepted a sword from Douglass. With surprise she saw it was not the practice sword she had made, but Lightning.
br />
Even Lightning isn’t going to help me now, she thought, stepping up to the mark and bowing to Geoffrey. She drew her sword and assumed the “guard” position.
“Begin!” Sklaw ordered.
Geoffrey lunged forward to attack. Alanna held her ground, blocking his down-sweeping sword with a force that jarred both their bodies. Following the “Crescent Moon” drill, she disengaged and swirled Lightning around in a half circle, cutting for Geoffrey’s side. The taller boy hurriedly blocked her and lunged back out of the way, bewilderment showing in his dreamy hazel eyes. Alanna, unthinking, followed with the second strike of the Crescent Moon, swinging Lightning back in the other direction and forcing Geoffrey to block her again, rather than attack. (“It’s always better to attack than to defend,” Coram had told her when the talked about fencing late at night. “Always. Ye don’t win with defense—ye only hold th’ other feller off, or wear him down. Attack and have done with it!”)
Alanna attacked, feeling divorced from her arm as she moved through pass after pass. She saw an opening and her hand took the chance to swing her sword into it. She never took the time to think about what she was doing. Instead, her muscles remembered the patterns of endless drills, repeated over and over with a too-heavy sword. Geoffrey would move to attack or to block, and Alanna’s arms and body remembered the move that always followed such an attack or such a block. Sweat poured into Alanna’s eyes and she shook it away, stumbling slightly. Geoffrey took advantage of the brief moment of unbalance to lunge in for a strike that would end the bout. Instead Alanna slid Lightning around his sword like a metal snake, twisting her blade deftly. The sword flew from Geoffrey’s hand, and he was unable to grab for it. In the same move with which she disarmed him, a panting Alanna presented the tip of her sword at the cloth that covered the bridge of Geoffrey’s nose.
The boy stepped back and knelt. “I yield,” he said. He looked up at her and grinned. “Well fought, Alan! Very well fought!”
She stared at him, gasping, feeling as if her lungs were on fire. Then she realized the sound in her ears was cheering. Her friends, in fact all of the pages and squires, were cheering for her.
“Very good, Aram,” Duke Gareth murmured to Captain Sklaw. “You’ve turned out a matchless swordsman.”
“’Twasn’t me, yer Grace,” Sklaw growled, staring at the page who was fumbling at his armor ties. “’Twas the lad Trebond, and he did it all by himself.”
* * *
That night Jonathan paid a visit to his uncle. “Sir?” he said politely. “I have a favor to ask. It’s about this trip to Persopolis in Fief Meron.”
The Duke of Naxen grinned. “You know you have only to command me, Jon.”
Jonathan chuckled. “But will you obey? Uncle, I’d like Alan to come with us. You said the pages will be going out to Naxen this summer. He could stay behind then, to make up for it.”
The man looked into Jon’s face. “This is very unusual, Jonathan.”
“I know,” was the calm reply. “It’s just—Alan spends more time with Gary and Raoul and Alex and me than he does with the pages. I think he’d have more fun if he went with us. And Sir Myles is going, and he’s—” The Prince stopped, then went on when he saw an understanding look on his uncle’s face. “Myles is a better father to Alan than the Lord of Trebond is. I know we’re supposed to speak well of our elders, and Alan never complains, but—we’ve all got eyes and ears.”
The Duke took a nut from a bowl and cracked it. “Does Alan want to go to Persopolis?”
“I don’t know,” Jonathan said. “Probably, since we’re all going. If you mean does he know I’m asking you, no, he doesn’t. Knowing Alan, he can’t imagine I would ask such a favor for him.”
“Hm. Have you chosen a squire yet, Jonathan? In case you pass the Ordeal?”
“I’m thinking about one,” Jonathan replied calmly. “It isn’t an easy decision.”
The man thought this over, finally nodding. “As long as the other boys aren’t resentful, I don’t see why he can’t go with you.”
Jon smiled. “They won’t resent it. Sometimes it seems as if he’s just a small squire who takes a lot of interest in what the pages do.”
“Very perceptive of you. Will you notify Alan, or do you want me to?”
“You’d better tell him, Uncle. And thank you—from the bottom of my heart.” Jonathan kissed the Duke’s hand. He was half out the door when the older man’s voice stopped him.
“Why does this mean so much to you, Jon?”
The Prince turned. “Because he’s my friend. Because I always know where he stands, and where I stand with him. Because I think he’d die for me, and—and I think I’d die for him. Is that enough?”
“You’re being pert, nephew,” Gareth said with mock sternness. “Have Timon find Alan for me then.”
Duke Gareth’s news shocked Alanna—she had never expected to be so singled out. She paid careful attention to all his instructions as to her duties during the trip. Since she was to be the only page in the company, she would wait on Lord Martin, Myles and Jonathan and run errands for the troop captain and the squires. She would continue her lessons with Myles as her instructor.
Coram too was pleased with the honor, and his orders to her were as strict as the Duke’s. She was to behave. No pranks was to be her watchword.
Alanna tried not to let the news go to her head, although she couldn’t help but be excited. It surprised her that the other pages were glad for her, rather than jealous. She didn’t realize they did not see her as another page—only, as Jonathan had said, as a very small squire.
The night before they rode out, the boys and Myles were summoned to a meeting with Duke Roger. He gathered them in the Great Library, waiting for them to settle down comfortably before speaking. Alanna, tucked down between the large Raoul and the equally large Gary, where she wouldn’t attract notice, thought the Duke looked both handsome and impressive, dressed all in sleek black velvet. A strangely designed chain with a sapphire pendant hung around his neck, accenting his eyes.
“Doubtless you lads don’t know why I’m talking to you,” he said with his easy smile. “I daresay no one’s ever mentioned the Black City to you when they’ve discussed this trip you’re taking tomorrow.” He shook his dark head. “I don’t think it’s a good idea to take you all so close, but—well, I was overruled.” Alanna was blinking as lights bounced off the sapphire. The shimmering of the jewel was making her sleepy. Angry at herself, she gave her arm a strong pinch. That woke her up. “The Black City is just barely within eye’s view of Persopolis,” the sorcerer went on. “In fact, the Bazhir have a room specially designed in the western wall of the Persopolis castle. It’s called the Sunset Room, and the rumor is the Bazhir had it built so they could always keep an eye on the Black City. As if sheepherders and desert men knew about such things!” He sighed. “You won’t be permitted near the City, of course. No one is. It’s claimed there’s a curse on it, that no mortal being returns from the place alive—especially if he’s young. Bazhir stories again, told around the campfires to frighten the children, I’ve no doubt.”
The big man paced the room, a shadow panther with all eyes watching him. “I am certain the Bazhir have created wonderful monsters for their bratlings to fear. That is not why I am cautioning you. There is evil power in the Black City, an immense power that dates far back in time. I do not know its nature. I have never been so foolhardy as to think myself strong enough to fight whatever waits there.” Roger had stopped pacing. His eyes were fixed on Jonathan’s. “I don’t need a seer’s crystal to feel the evil in that place from as far away as Persopolis, just as a fisherman doesn’t need a special glass to smell a hurricane approaching. If I dare not risk it, none of you—untrained, untried—would stand a chance. Don’t venture near the Black City, under pain of death and, perhaps, under the pain of losing your souls.” He smiled, his eyes locked with Jonathan’s. “I know when a sword is too heavy for me to lift.”
Whe
n Alanna got into bed that night, she was as puzzled as she had ever been. It looked to her as if Roger had dared Jonathan to prove he was more of a man than his cousin, to prove he could brave the Black City that Roger feared. And yet, that couldn’t be true. Not even Roger would have the nerve, and the coldness, to send his young cousin to certain death—would he?
7
THE BLACK CITY
THE RIDE SOUTH WAS THE LONGEST AND MOST demanding Alanna had experienced. They were just a day away from Corus when the countryside changed. The hills were rockier. The trees were shrunken and twisted, and the ground plants seemed to fight for each drop of water they took from the earth. The ground itself was brown and dry, torn with cracks. Lizards, snakes and an occasional rabbit looked at the riders as if they were invaders, and the sun felt ten times hotter. By the end of the second day’s ride, the cracked earth had turned to sand, and the hills into long dunes. They had reached the Great Southern Desert.
At night Alanna waited on Lord Martin, Myles and the guard captain. She spent several hours of the day riding at Myles’s side, learning about the lives and customs of the people of this land. Myles was an interesting teacher, and he knew much about the Southern Desert. Often she caught Lord Martin glancing at the knight with respect in his hard eyes.
Alanna was not the only one taking lessons. Lord Martin lectured them all on survival in such barren land. Someday their lives might depend on knowing which plants stored water inside or how to find an oasis.
The closer they came to Persopolis, the more Bazhir they encountered. The desert people were hard riders and relentless fighters. They hid their women in goatskin tents. But all, men and women, she sensed, watched the strangers through proud black eyes. Since she had already guessed Lord Martin didn’t like his Bazhir subjects, Alanna went to Sir Myles.