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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—”
