Roger smiled and reached out, stroking her flowing, dark hair. “Don’t fret, pretty one,” he told her. “That young man is proving very slippery indeed. Fortunately, I have other plans ready to be put into action.”
“Other plans?” Delia breathed, her eyes wide. “Master, can I help? Can I do anything to assist you? Only tell me!”
Roger looked off into the distance, still stroking the kneeling girl’s hair. “There is nothing you can do for me now,” he remarked absently. “The next move on the board is mine. “He looked down at her again, his eyes unreadable. “But you must hold yourself ready. If all goes wrong, I will need your help more than ever.”
“Nothing could go wrong!” Delia protested violently. “Not when you have planned it!”
Duke Roger of Conté smiled again. “Perhaps you are right, my dear,” he remarked. “I hope so. In the meantime, be a good child and wait. Give Jonathan to understand that, while he is no longer attentive to you, your affections remain his.”
“And your other plans?” Delia whispered.
The sorcerer tugged his beard. “You will see,” he promised her. “I cannot move carelessly—not yet—but I think you know me well enough to be able to detect what I am doing.” He laughed outright. “No one else will be able to—I’ve made sure of that!”
And in October a fever went through the Eastern Lands, as sicknesses often did. Few died, although many were ill, and the queen was one of the sickest. Lianne had never been strong, and the fever refused to give her up easily. She recovered at last, but she did not get completely well.
During the queen’s illness Alanna and Jonathan were separated for the first time since Alanna’s birthday, as Jonathan sat vigil by his mother’s bedside day and night. Their love affair was not the same after that—Jon was too worried about his mother’s health. He was not the only one. Alanna did not like to see the queen picking at her food and losing weight she did not have to lose. Lianne also developed a cough that refused to go away, despite Duke Baird’s best care.
“Myles,” Alanna began one December night as they were playing chess, “does the queen’s weakness look—right to you?”
“It looks like it’s killing her.” Myles frowned. “Is that supposed to look ‘right’ to me?”
Alanna examined a knight thoughtfully. “Duke Baird’s the finest healer in Tortall. Why can’t he help the queen?”
Myles looked sharply at her. “This isn’t just idle conversation, is it? What’s bothering you?”
Alanna nibbled her thumbnail. “I don’t like it,” she admitted. “I saw how much Duke Baird can do at the Drell. He’s blessed by the gods. A fever, a cough—Duke Baird can heal those things in a moment. But now he can’t. The only other time I saw him this helpless was during the Sweating Sickness.” She moved a pawn forward one square. “There are some people who think the Sweating Sickness was caused by a sorcerer. You were one of them, remember?”
“Do you think there’s a connection?” Myles asked.
“I don’t know what to think,” Alanna replied. Then she nodded her head. “Yes, I do, and I’m going to say it. Too many bad things happen to Jonathan or to people close to him. I think—”
“Alan, the queen was never very strong,” Myles reminded her. “The Sweating Sickness ruined her health. Her weakness now is probably natural. Think carefully before you make any accusations, please.” Myles drew a deep breath. “The enemy you will make is too powerful for you to accuse without evidence—and plenty of it.”
Alanna looked Myles in the eye. “You suspect him, too.”
Myles sighed and tugged his beard. “I have no proof, Alan. He’s too clever to be easily caught. All I have—all you, have—is coincidence. You cannot accuse a man of high treason on coincidence.”
“Demon Grey and his mate weren’t coincidences.” After weeks of wrestling with herself on the matter, Alanna told her friend about discovering that her token could show her when sorcery had been used. She even let Myles hold it. He examined it briefly and returned it to her.
“How did you get this?”
Alanna told him about that meeting in the forest, omitting only that the Goddess had spoken to her as a girl. Men were sometimes chosen by the Mother, and she couldn’t bring herself to tell Myles she had lied about her identity for years. The knight listened, his face expressionless. When she finished, he asked, “Is there anything else you think I should know?”
After keeping her suspicions bottled up for so long, Alanna let them spill out. “Duke Gareth’s horse had a bur fixed in its saddle blanket when it threw the Duke. And the man who saddled the horse disappeared that same day. The night I was kidnapped by the Tusaine? I talked with Duke Roger. He wanted me to be his friend. He said if I was his friend, I’d live to a ripe old age. I told him I wanted my friends to have the same, and I didn’t think that was what he wanted. He left, and the fog came up. You remember the fog and that Faithful couldn’t be wakened? Isn’t it strange that everything happened after he visited me and that the one being that could’ve helped me—my cat—was knocked out magically? The Tusaines were ready for me, Myles. They used special chains on me. Not only that, but they had heard about me, and I wasn’t to be released. Who told them so much about me? Jem—Jemis? I don’t think he knew I had anything more than a healing Gift. And didn’t you ever wonder why the first major attack launched by the enemy separated Jonathan from all the others?”
“You have no proof,” Myles replied steadily.
“Duke Roger isn’t a careless man,” Alanna said bitterly. “I have only what I’ve seen and what I think.” She got up and poked the fire, her jaw tight with anger.
“You hate Roger, don’t you?” Myles asked quietly. He poured them each a glass of wine.
Alanna paused, thinking. “If hate is wanting to crush someone because you know they’re evil, then yes—I hate the Duke of Conté.”
Myles grasped her by the shoulders. “Be careful. He’s too powerful to anger. You could easily be the one to die, and no one would know he was to blame. He can do it. You know he can. And if you’re out of the way, who will keep him away from Jonathan? He’s afraid of you, or he wouldn’t have risked exposure to make a friend out of you.”
Alanna grinned. Myles had just given her an idea. “I think I know someone else he might fear.”
“Don’t be such a ninny,” Alex urged as Alanna struggled with the skates. “Surely you ice-skated at Trebond.”
“Not since I was little,” Alanna replied curtly, eyeing the frozen surface before her. Gary and Raoul were racing their squires while Jonathan helped Cythera of Elden to her feet. Another of the queen’s ladies, Gwynnen, was laughing merrily as she performed figure eights under the January sun.
How had she let herself walk into a stupid bet with Alex? She hadn’t ice-skated since the time she fell in when she was just five. But everyone had called her chicken, and Jonathan had looked at her with “Please?” in his eyes, and Alex had bet her ten gold nobles she couldn’t get around the pond once without falling. Her noble’s pride couldn’t refuse such a challenge, even though she had been wary of Alex ever since the mock duel when he had nearly killed her.
Her friends applauded as she tottered out onto the ice, Faithful yowling encouragement from the land. He had insisted on coming, although—like any sane cat—he hated water, frozen or not. Alanna tried a few steps, relieved to find the ice was firm beneath her. Getting a little bolder, she skated several feet, stopping only to retie a skate lace.
Without warning Geoffrey and Sacherell swept up behind her and seized her by both arms, taking off with her down the pond’s length. Alanna laughed and ordered them to let her go, knowing they wouldn’t drop her. Raoul’s squire was the best skater in the palace, and Geoffrey was quite good for someone born and reared in Persopolis. Grinning, they deposited her in front of Alex.
“Well?” The young knight grinned, pointing to the ice. “A bet’s a bet!”
Alanna set off doggedly around th
e edge of the pond, her legs pumping steadily. Once she got into the rhythm of it, she had only to watch for bumps and rough spots in the ice. This is more fun than I remembered, she thought, reaching the far end of the pond, many yards away from her friends. Perhaps I should skate more!
At this end of the pond there were several clumps of reeds. She gave them a wide berth, remembering that ice was weaker in such areas. Only a third of the way remained to go when the ice gave way beneath her. She fell into bone-cold water like a stone, biting back a scream of fright. It had happened just this way when she was five, with the skates pulling her down. She fought to get them off her feet, holding her breath and cursing the fear of cold that made her wear so many clothes. There! The skates were off her feet, and she was plowing toward the surface again. Her lungs were bursting. Terror rose up, choking her. She forced herself to think, knowing that if she panicked now she would be dead. Surely the air was just above her …
Her hands contacted ice. She groped, trying to find the hole through which she had come; but it was useless. Shivering helplessly in the water, she felt for the ember-stone. She didn’t even realize it was in her numb hand until its fire blazed out and a hole melted in the ice above her head. She shot to the surface, inhaling a huge gasp of air, before her sodden clothes pulled her under.
Once more, she thought grimly, and she forced herself to the surface again. This time strong hands gripped both her arms, and Jon and Raoul pulled her out onto the ice. “Did someone go for help?” Jonathan asked tensely as he pulled off her jacket. “Get he—get his outer things off!”
“The girls went,” Gary replied, tugging off Alanna’s mittens. “Mithros, Alan, you gave us a—Faithful, get away from there!”
Alanna tried to turn her head. “What’s he doing?” she gasped.
Raoul frowned as he tugged off her remaining boot. “He’s licking the ice. C’mon, Alan, let’s get you onto dry land.”
Alanna enjoyed the unique sensation of being carried by someone who handled her as if she were a kitten. “Licking the ice?” she asked sleepily.
“I’ll be right there,” Jonathan said. He and Alex skated over to the cat. “Come on, Faithful,” he instructed sternly. “You’ll worry Alan.”
Alex was shaking his head. “I don’t understand. This pond’s been frozen solid for weeks. How—”
“Why do animals lick ice?” Jon asked, his voice odd. Carefully he knelt beside Faithful, keeping an eye on the wide hole in the ice where Alanna had gone through. He rubbed his ungloved hand near the hole and tasted. “Someone threw salt on this part of the ice,” he announced slowly. “Look how it’s pitted and marked right here.”
“Murder,” Alex whispered, looking more closely. “But which of us is a murderer’s target? Could it be just a very bad idea of a joke?”
“I’m not laughing,” Jonathan commented dryly. “Are you?”
Once she had recovered from her icy dunking, Alanna decided to take action. She sent a verbal message, not daring to trust her thoughts to a letter, to Thom through George. She needed her brother’s help. Only Roger could have been behind the mishap on the duckpond, and she knew she wanted no more such “mishaps” happening to her. She also found it interesting that Alex had been there.
Weeks went by without an answer and without the messenger’s return. George finally sent out search parties, and in March Alanna had an answer—of sorts.
“My messenger was slain,” George told her. “Five arrows in his back, all poisoned. Someone was takin’ no chances.”
Alanna frowned. “I’ll have to go myself,” she said worriedly. “Not now, the mountain passes are snowed in. And Jonathan needs me.”
George forced her to look at him. “You’re in love with Jon, aren’t you?” he asked softly. “And me a blind fool not to have seen it before.”
Alanna shook him off. “I don’t know what love is,” she said uncomfortably. “At least, not the kind you’re talking about—the forever kind.”
George laughed and shook his head. “Lass, when will you learn to see what’s before your nose?”
Alanna reached up and tweaked George’s own nose. “When I have something to see,” she teased. “So stop trying to make me see something that isn’t there.”
George smiled. “You’re a stubborn youngling,” he told her. “It’s one of your charms. And if you’re plannin’ any ride to the City of the Gods, I’m goin’ with you.” He silenced her protest by putting a large hand over her mouth. “Didn’t you hear me before? Five poison-tipped arrows in my man, and it’s as well for you he carried a message rather than a letter. He was searched, his things spread all over the snow. It’s good we’ve had a cold winter—everything was frozen just as it was when they killed him. So, miss, like it or no, I go with you when you visit your brother.”
Alanna made a face and kept quiet. When the time came, she would get away without George. She could take care of herself!
Jonathan did not want her to go, but Alanna rode for the City of the Gods in early April, leaving Faithful with strict instructions to watch the prince and to get Myles if anything happened. Saddling Moonlight before dawn, she slipped out of the palace. Few people—no rogues—were about in the city. She thought she had fooled George, since she had given no one more than half a day’s warning of her departure. She was wrong. The thief was waiting for her at the gates, dressed for riding and mounted on a sturdy bay.
“Jonathan told you,” Alanna accused her friend.
“No. Stefan keeps messenger-birds. I’ve got you under tight watch, youngling, and it’s well for you that I do.”
Since there was nothing she could do, Alanna laughed and fell in beside George. Would she ever be able to outwit him?
The ride north was a good one. George was witty and entertaining; he had some wonderful stories to tell. They stopped at Trebond for a night. Coram was shocked to see the company Alanna kept and read her a strong lecture, but Alanna shrugged it off. Instead she spent time with the young man Coram was training as his replacement; he was a nice fellow, with a small family and some education. Alanna knew when she was done talking to him that he would serve her as faithfully as Coram did. Plans were made for Coram to come to the palace in November, in order to be there when Alanna underwent the Ordeal.
Alanna and George rode on to the City of the Gods. Alanna sighed wearily when they finally arrived before the City’s great walls. Gray mountains bare of almost any greenery stretched for leagues around, making for a dull, tiring ride.
“How can Thom live in such a cursed ugly place?” she asked George. “I’d go mad if I had to look at this all the time.”
“He probably doesn’t notice,” her friend replied. “Most scholars don’t.”
The warrior-priests who manned the gates showed them to the Mithran Cloisters. As they passed the Convent of the Mother of Mountains, Alanna shuddered. She had almost spent six years behind those walls. Now, more than ever, she appreciated her escape!
An orange-robed initiate admitted them to the Cloisters; novices took their horses. An ancient yellow man in the black-and-gold robes of a master tottered out to greet them. “We are honored to have you among us, Squire Alan, Freeman Cooper,” he said. “I am Si-cham, Chief of the Masters here.”
Alanna bowed very low; as a sorcerer, Si-cham would be nearly as powerful as Duke Roger. As a priest, he was the head of the cult of Mithros for all the Eastern Lands. “We would be honored if you would join us for our evening meal,” this friendly old man went on. “We get little news of the world.”
“We’d be honored to come,” George said.
“Excellent, excellent. Follow me, if you please. I do not believe Adept Thom is expecting you?”
Alanna smiled grimly. “I wanted to surprise him.”
Si-cham looked sharply at her before knocking on one of the many doors lining a long hallway. “Do you think much surprises Adept Thom?”
Before Alanna could answer such an astonishing question, Thom opened the do
or. He was bearded, taller—older. He hugged Alanna with enthusiasm, crying, “Brother Dear!” Seeing Alanna’s companion, Thom widened his violet eyes. “Not—George Cooper?” He grinned.
“The same,” George replied, extending his hand. “I’ve heard a thing or two about you myself.”
“Surely some of it was good,” Thom quipped, shaking the offered hand. He looked at Master Si-cham as Alanna dazedly realized, He knew we were coming. He wasn’t surprised at all.
“Their things have been taken to the guest’s wing.” The Master’s voice, warm and friendly a moment ago, was suddenly chilly. “And they have accepted an invitation to take the evening meal with us.”
Thom lifted a single coppery eyebrow. “Oh?” he asked, his voice too sweet. “Then I will have to join you—won’t I?”
“It will be a change.” The old man’s voice was as dry as autumn leaves. “I will leave you to talk now.” He hurried away down the long hall.
Alanna was confused. “I don’t get it. He was very friendly a moment ago.”
“They’ve been angry with me ever since I stopped playing the idiot and passed the written examinations for Mastery. Come in; sit down. Wine?” Thom rang a bell, and a servant in the white robe of novice came in. He gave the boy orders, pretending not to notice that Alanna and George were staring at him. When the novice was gone, Alanna sat down hard. Most would-be Masters did not even try for that title until they were at least thirty.
“You passed the written examinations for Mastery?” Her voice emerged from her throat in a squeak.
“Two weeks ago. It was easier than you think.” Thom shrugged, motioning George to take the chair beside Alanna while he sat in the third. “All that’s left are the spoken examinations, and the Ordeal of Sorcery.”
In the Hand of the Goddess Page 11