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Alanna was in no mood to consider this idea. When she returned to her rooms that night, she was tired, nervous and upset.
“Pack your things,” she ordered Coram as she marched in the door. “We’re going home.”
Coram looked at her. He had been sitting on his bed, cleaning his sword. “We are?”
Alanna paced the room. “I can’t do this,” she told the manservant. “The pace will kill me. No one can live this way all the time. I won’t—”
“I never figured ye for a quitter,” Coram interrupted softly.
“I’m not quitting!” Alanna snapped. “I—I’m protesting! I’m protesting unfair treatment—and—and being worked till I drop. I want to have time to myself. I want to learn to fight with a sword now, not when they decide. I want—”
“Ye want. Ye want. ’Tis something different ye’re learning here. It’s called ‘discipline.’ The world won’t always order itself the way ye want. Ye have to learn discipline.”
“This isn’t discipline! It’s inhuman! I can’t live with it, and I won’t! Coram, I gave you an order! Pack your things!”
Coram carefully scrubbed a tiny bit of dirt off his gleaming sword. At last he put it down, carefully, on the bed. With a groan he knelt down and reached under the bed, dragging out his bags. “As ye say,” he replied. “But I thought I’d raised ye with somethin’ to ye. I didn’t think I was bringin’ up another soft noble lady—”
“I’m not a soft noble lady!” Alanna cried. “But I’m not crazy, either! I’m going from sunrise to sunset and after without a stop, and no end in sight. My free time’s a joke—I’m out of free time before I get to the third class of the morning. And they expect me to keep up, and they punish me if I don’t. And I have to learn how to fall; I’m learning the stance with the bow all over again when I was the best hunter at Trebond, and if I say anything I get more work!”
Coram knelt on the floor, looking at her. “Ye knew it’d be hard when ye decided to come,” he reminded her. “No one ever told ye a knight had it easy. I didn’t, for certain. I told ye ’twas naught but hard work every wakin’ minute, and a lot of extra wakin’ minutes to boot. And now ye’re runnin’ away after just two days of it.”
“I’m not running away!”
“As ye say, Mistress.” Coram hoisted himself onto the bed with a groan, reaching for his boots. “I’ll be packed as soon as may be.”
Alanna slammed into her own room. She yanked one of her bags out and stared at it. With a sigh she sat down, rubbing her head in disgust. At Trebond she could come and go as she pleased, do as she liked. Life here was completely different. Did that make it bad?
She wasn’t sure any longer. Coram’s words about “quitting” and “running away” stuck like barbs under her skin. She tried to tell herself she wasn’t running away, but she wasn’t having much success.
At last she opened her door and looked out at Coram. “All right,” she growled. “I’ll give it a week. No more and no less. It had better lighten up by then.”
“Ye’re the Mistress—or the Master,” Coram replied. “But if ye’re goin’ to go—”
“I’ll make the decisions,” she told him. “Now, good night!”
It wasn’t until she pulled the blankets over her that she realized Coram had put his bags back under the bed and removed his boots. The old soldier had not done any packing at all.
I wish he didn’t know me so well, she thought grumpily as she dozed off.
The one week became two weeks, the two weeks became three, and Alanna was too exhausted to think of the long ride home. She never caught up with her work, and every day at least one master found something not done and gave her still more to do. She learned to take Gary’s advice, doing as much as she could each day and taking her punishments without complaint.
Her first night of table service came and went. She was too tired to be afraid during this first test. She waited on Duke Gareth, listened to his lecture on table manners and continued to serve at the banquets. At last she was assigned permanently to wait on Sir Myles, much to her delight. The knight always had something kind to say, even if—as Alex had said—he did drink too much. Sometimes she even helped him back to his rooms if he had drunk too well. Often he would give her a silver penny, or a sweet, and his classes were the bright point in her morning. Myles had a knack for making history seem real.
She and Gary quickly became friends. Gary always had something funny to say about the master of deportment, and he was never too busy to give her a hand, if she could bring herself to ask for help. She also discovered she could make her large friend laugh simply by saying whatever came to her mind. She liked making someone as intelligent as Gary laugh.
Between Gary, Myles and other people in the palace, life got better. Alanna came to forget that she had once ordered Coram to pack and take her home.
Three months—and her eleventh birthday—passed before Alanna realized it. The first break in her new routine came one night when Timon came hunting for her.
“He wants to see you.” Timon never had to say who “he” was. “You’re to go to his study.”
Alanna straightened her tunic and tried to smooth her hair before rapping on Duke Gareth’s door. Why would the Duke want to see her? What had she done wrong?
He called for her to come in, looking up from his papers as she closed the door behind her. “Alan, come in. I’m writing your father, reporting on your progress. Do you have any messages for me to send to him?”
She wasn’t in trouble! Alanna smothered a sigh of relief. Then she thought of something worse. What if her father came out of his studious fog and actually read Duke Gareth’s letter?
I’ll think of that when it happens, she told herself. Would things ever get easy?
“Please say that I send my regards, sir,” she told the Duke.
The man put down his quill pen. “My report is satisfactory. You learn well and quickly. We are glad to have you among us.”
Alanna turned pink with delight. She had never received such a high compliment. “Th-thank you, your Grace!”
“You may go to the City tomorrow morning as a reward. In future, you may also go there with the other pages on Market Day. Since you’re new to Corus, you may have one of the older boys accompany you. Not Alex. He has to take an extra hour of Ethics tomorrow.”
Alanna beamed. “You’re very kind,” she said. “Uh—could Gary—Gareth—come?”
The Duke raised an eyebrow. “Hm. He did say you are good company. It can be arranged. Be certain to return in time for afternoon lessons.”
“Yes, sir!” She bowed deeply. “And thank you again!”
Gary had to laugh at Alanna’s wide eyes as they walked through the city’s marketplace. “Close your mouth, country boy,” he teased. “Most of this is overpriced.”
“But there’s so much of everything!” she exclaimed.
“Not here. One of these days we’ll ride to Port Caynn. You’ll see real wonders there.” He stopped to look at a pair of riding gloves. Alanna wistfully eyed the long sword that hung beside them. She would need a sword someday. How would she ever get a good one?
A large hand tapped her shoulder. Startled, she looked up into the hazel eyes of the man Coram had called a thief just three months before.
“So—it’s the young sprout with the purple eyes,” the man said pleasantly. “I was wonderin’ if you’d fallen into a well.” His voice was rough and uneducated, but he spoke carefully. To Alanna it seemed that he thought about every word before saying it.
She grinned at him. Somehow this meeting didn’t surprise her. “I’ve been at the palace.”
“Who’s your friend?” Gary asked, looking at Alanna’s acquaintance suspiciously.
“Allow me to introduce myself, young masters.” The man bowed. “I’m George Cooper, of the lower city. Will you take a cool drink with me? As my guests, of course.”
“Thank you,” Alanna said quickly. “We accept.”
