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Coram turned pale. The afternoon the tarts were discovered missing, Cook started to see large, hungry lions following him around the kitchens. Lord Alan never heard about the missing tarts. When the twins’ godmother came to Trebond to snare Lord Alan as her next husband, she had fled after only three days, claiming the castle was haunted.
“Ye wouldn’t,” Coram whispered. He had always suspected that the twins had been behind Cook’s hallucinations and Lady Catherine’s ghosts, but he had kept those thoughts to himself. Cook gave himself airs, and Lady Catherine was cruel to her servants.
Seeing she had struck a nerve, Alanna changed tactics. “Thom can’t shoot for beans, and I can. Thom wouldn’t be a credit to you. I will, I think. You said yourself a grown man can’t skin a rabbit faster’n me.” She fed her last piece of bread to Chubby and looked at Coram with huge, pleading eyes. “Let’s ride on. If you feel the same in the morning, we can turn back.” She crossed her fingers as she lied. She had no intention of returning to Trebond. “Just don’t rush. Father won’t know till it’s too late.”
Coram swigged again from the skin, getting up shakily. He mounted, watching the girl. They rode silently while Coram thought, and drank.
The threat about making him see things didn’t worry him much. Instead he thought of Thom’s performance in archery—it was enough to make a soldier cry. Alanna was much quicker than her brother. She rarely tired, even hiking over rough country. She had a feel for the fighting arts, and that was something that never could be learned. She was also as stubborn as a mule.
Because he was absorbed in his thoughts, Coram never saw the wood snake glide across the road. Alanna—and Coram’s horse—spotted the slithery creature in the same second. The big gelding reared, almost throwing his master. Chubby stopped dead in the road, surprised by these antics. Coram yelled and fought to hold on as his mount bucked frantically, terrified by the snake. Alanna never stopped to think. She threw herself from Chubby’s saddle and grabbed for Coram’s reins with both hands. Dodging the gelding’s flying hooves frantically, she used all her strength and weight to pull the horse down before Coram fell and broke his neck.
The gelding, more surprised than anything else by the new weight on his reins, dropped to all fours. He trembled as Alanna stroked his nose, whispering comforting words. She dug in a pocket and produced an apple for the horse, continuing to pet him until his shaking stopped.
When Alanna looked up, Coram was watching her oddly. She had no way of knowing that he was imagining what Thom would have done in similar circumstances: Her twin would have left Coram to fend for himself. Coram knew the kind of courage it took to calm a large, bucking horse. It was the kind of courage a knight needed in plenty. Even so, Alanna was a girl. . . .
By the time they arrived at the wayhouse, Coram was very drunk. The innkeeper helped him to bed while his wife fussed over “the poor wee lad.” In her bed that night, Alanna listened to Coram’s snores with a wide grin on her lips. Maude had managed to fill the wineskin with Lord Alan’s best brandy, hoping her old friend might be more open to reason if his joints were well oiled.
Coram woke the next morning with the worst hangover he had ever had. He moaned as Alanna entered his room.
“Don’t walk so loud,” he begged.
Alanna handed him a steaming mug. “Drink. Maude says this makes you feel better every time.”
The man drank deeply, gasping as the hot liquid burned down his throat. But in the end, he did feel better. He swung his feet to the floor, gently rubbing his tender skull. “I need a bath.”
Alanna pointed to the bath already waiting in the corner.
Coram glared at her from beneath his eyebrows. “Go order breakfast. I take it I’m to call ye ‘Alan’ now?”
She yelped with joy and skipped from the room.
Four days later they rode into Corus just after dawn. They were part of the stream of people entering the capital for the market day. Coram guided his horse through the crowds, while Alanna tried to keep Chubby close behind him and still see everything. Never in her life had she encountered so many people! She saw merchants, slaves, priests, nobles. She could tell the Bazhir—desert tribesmen—by their heavy white burnooses, just as she spotted seamen by their braided pigtails. She was lucky that Chubby was inclined to stay near Coram’s gelding, or she would have been lost in a second.
The marketplace itself was almost more than a girl from a mountain castle could take. Alanna blinked her eyes at the bright colors—piles of orange and yellow fruits, hangings of bright blue and green, ropes of gold and silver chains. Some people were staring as openly as she was. Others shoved their goods under people’s noses, shouting for them to buy. Women in tight dresses eyed men from doorways, and children ran underfoot, sneaking their hands into pockets and purses.
Coram missed nothing. “Keep an eye to yer saddlebags,” he called back to Alanna. “There are some here as would steal their own mother’s teeth!” He seemed to be directing this comment at a tall young man standing near Alanna.
The lean young man grinned, white teeth flashing in his tanned face. “Who, me?” he asked innocently.
Coram snorted and kicked his horse onward. The man winked one bright hazel eye at Alanna and vanished into the crowd. She watched him until someone shouted for her to watch herself. She wondered if he really was a thief. He seemed very nice.
They left the marketplace, taking the Market Way up a long, sloping hill. This led them through districts where rich merchants lived, up past the villas of even richer nobles. The crossing of Market Way and Harmony Way marked the beginning of the Temple District. Here the Market Way changed its name, becoming the Palace Way. Coram straightened his saddle. After his years of soldiering, this was like coming home.
Alanna saw countless temples as they rode through the district. She had heard that a hundred gods were worshiped in Corus. There were enough temples for that many, she thought. She even saw a troop of women dressed in armor, the guard of the Temple of the Great Mother Goddess. These women were armed with great double-headed axes, and they knew how to use them. Their duty was to keep men from ever setting foot on ground sacred to the Great Mother.
Alanna grinned. Someday she would wear armor too, but she wouldn’t be confined to temple grounds!
The ground suddenly rose steeply. The Temple District ended here. Above them, crowning the hill, was the royal palace. Alanna looked at it and gasped. Ahead of her was the City Gate, carved with thousands of figures and trimmed with gold. Through this gate in the palace wall, kings and queens came down to the city on holy days. Through this gate the people went to see their rulers on Great Audience Days. The Gate was as high as the wall it pierced: a wall lined with soldiers dressed in the royal gold and red. Behind the wall, level after level of buildings and towers rose, up to the palace itself. The area had its own gardens, wells, stables, barracks and menagerie. Outside the wall on the other side lay the Royal Forest.
All these things Alanna knew from her father’s books and maps, but the reality took her breath away as a paragraph written in a book never could.
Coram led the way to the courtyard beside the stables. Here servants awaited the arrival of guests, to show them to their rooms, to guide the arrivals’ servants and to take charge of the horses. One such servant approached them.
Coram dismounted. “I’m Coram Smythesson, of Fief Trebond. I’m come with Master Alan of Trebond to begin his service at Court.”
The hostler bowed. A royal page rated some respect, but not the respect a full-grown noble would get. “I’ll be takin’ th’ horses, sir,” he said, his voice thick with the accent of the city. “Timon!” he called.
A slender young man in royal livery hurried up. “Aye, Stefan?”
“One fer his Grace. I’ll see t’ the bags.”
Alanna dismounted and hugged Chubby for a second, feeling as if he were her last friend. She had to hurry to catch up with Timon and Coram.
“Ye’ll show his Grace t
he proper respect,” Coram growled in her ear. “A wizard with a sword, he is, and a better leader ye’ll never meet.”
Alanna rubbed her nose anxiously. What if something went wrong? What if the Duke guessed?
She glanced at Coram. The man was sweating. Alanna gritted her teeth and thrust her chin forward stubbornly. She would see this through.
2
THE NEW PAGE
DUKE GARETH OF NAXEN WAS TALL AND THIN, with dull brown hair that fell into his muddy brown eyes. Though he was plain looking, there was something commanding about him all the same.
“Alan of Trebond, hm?” His voice was thin and nasal. He frowned as he opened the seal on Alanna’s letter. “I trust you will do better here than your sire. He was always at his books.”
Alanna swallowed hard. The Duke made her nervous. “He still is, sir.”
The Duke looked at her sharply, not sure if she was being pert. “Hmph. So I would suppose.” He smiled and nodded at Alanna’s servingman. “Coram Smythesson. It’s been a long time since the Battle of Joyous Forest.”
Coram bowed, grinning. “I didn’t think yer Lordship’d remember. That was twenty years ago, and me but a lad myself.”
“I don’t forget it when a man saves my life. Welcome to the palace. You will like it here—though you, boy, will work hard.” Duke Gareth turned his attention back to Alanna. “Sit down, both of you.” They obeyed. “You’re here, Alan of Trebond, to learn what it is to be a knight and a noble of Tortall. It’s not easy. You must learn to defend the weak, to obey your overlord, to champion the cause of right. Someday you may even be able to tell what right is.” It was impossible to tell if he was joking, and Alanna decided not to ask.
