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Alanna drew a deep breath. “I’m a girl,” she said bluntly. “My—my real name is Alanna. I come from Trebond, and Lord Thom is really my twin brother.”
Gary drew his horse up abruptly, staring at her. “That’s not funny!”
Alanna drew her gaze off the back of Moonlight’s neck, where she had fixed it. “Of course it’s not funny; it’s the truth!”
“Where are your breasts?” he demanded.
Alanna blushed. “I bind them flat with a special corset I wear.”
“But when you bathe—” Gary stopped and whistled. “None of us have ever seen you bathe. Or swim, for that matter!”
“That’s right.”
Gary tugged his mustache, deep in thought. “Who else knows?” he asked softly.
Alanna swallowed hard. He didn’t seem to be angry. “Jonathan. George and Mistress Cooper. Coram, my brother Thom. The healing woman at Trebond. Faithful.” She petted the cat riding in his special cup on Moonlight’s saddle.
For several long moments she could only hear the birds and the forest animals around them. Gary’s face was unreadable, but knowing him as she did, she guessed he was putting together all the odds and ends that had puzzled him about her through the years. Suddenly a broad smile broke across Gary’s face, and his eyes crinkled up with merriment. “Oh, I can’t wait to see their faces!” he whooped as he burst into laughter.
“Anyone in particular?” Alanna wanted to know, puzzled by his amusement. Jonathan had said Gary would react this way, but it hadn’t seemed possible to her.
“Everyone,” the knight gasped, wiping his streaming eyes. “Just—everyone!”
He continued to laugh as they rode and talked, Alanna explaining everything to him (with the exception of the love she shared with Jonathan). He was amused and delighted about all of it, and happy to be involved.
“Of course I’ll instruct when you take the Sacramental Bath. I’d be insulted if you asked anyone else,” he informed her over their picnic lunch. “Wait a minute! Your squire—have you picked anyone?”
Alanna shook her head. “I talked it over with your father, and he agreed that it would be a waste of time for me to pick someone when I plan to leave right after Midwinter.”
“Right after you tell them who you are, you mean.”
Alanna nodded. “A squire couldn’t go with me in any case, even if the truth weren’t to come out.”
Gary cocked an eyebrow at her. “Surely you don’t think they’ll be glad to be rid of you when they find out the truth.”
“Won’t they?”
Duke Gareth’s son was no fool. “Some will,” he said finally. “Those who don’t know you well almost certainly will feel that way. But your friends? I think you’re being too harsh on them.” He sprang up, helping her pack their saddlebags once again. “Oh, I can’t wait!”
Jon was relieved, and jealous, when he saw Alanna and Gary that night at dinner, smiling and relaxed. They quickly told him what happened. It gave all three of them something to talk about—and laugh over in secret—during the long summer. Those talks were good for Alanna. So used to seeing her masquerade as a life-or-death matter, she had never learned to laugh about it. Gary, Jonathan, and George proceeded to teach her, and she gathered new insights about what she had done and about those closest to her from them. Somehow the prospect of telling the truth seemed less terrifying as a result.
To everyone who knew her, Alanna seemed to change in the months between her eighteenth birthday and Midwinter Festival. She was still attentive in her classes, performing her duties perfectly, but it was obvious her thoughts were elsewhere. She often sneaked into the city in disguise, going to the Temple of the Great Mother Goddess to meditate. She had a good many things to ponder—Jon, George, Thom, Duke Roger, the proper time to tell the king and queen the truth—but chief on her mind was the iron door of the Chamber of the Ordeal. What she feared there, or why, she was never quite certain. She only knew that for the first time in her life she wished she could grab time and hold on to it, keeping it from going forward. Even the thought that she might pass the Ordeal and leave on her adventures gave her no pleasure. She had learned to love the palace and the people who lived there and she knew she would miss them. In fact, she was no longer positive she wanted to go.
“So don’t leave,” Myles advised when she mentioned it to him. “Most young knights fight in the service of the Realm after they get their shields. Certainly Duke Gareth and His Majesty will be more than happy to have you stay.”
Alanna shook her head. The only thing she still looked forward to was the relief of telling everyone who she was.
She got up and hugged her shaggy friend impulsively. “I love you, Myles,” she whispered, blinking back tears. “I’ll come often, I promise.”
Myles patted her back gently and offered her his handkerchief. “I know you will. I may not know much, but that I do know.”
George watched her pace his chambers, his hazel eyes unreadable. “You’re only wearin’ youself out,” he pointed out practically. “How will you be stayin’ awake all night if you tire yourself in the afternoon?”
Alanna wiped her hand over her sweating face. “I don’t think I’ve ever been this scared in my life, George.”
“Not when you fought the Ysandir? Or when you almost drowned while skating?” She shook her head, fingering the ember at her throat. “Not when you faced Dain, or the Tusaine knight attackin’you?”
“No. Don’t you see? I could fight them. Dealing with something I can’t see, something I know nothing about—” Alanna boosted Faithful up to her shoulder and went over to the window, staring out at the city. “I can’t do anything except let it happen. That—that isn’t the way I do things, George. You of all people should know that.”
“Here.” The thief pressed a glass of brandy into her hand, sipping from one he had poured himself. “I’ve been keepin’ this bottle by special. And what’s more special than now, the day before your Ordeal? Drink up, lass.”
Alanna obeyed, savoring the brandy’s rich taste. “This is really good!” she approved. “Normally I just drink this stuff to clear my head, but—this is quite pleasant. You didn’t steal it, did you?” she demanded, as suspicious as ever.
Faithful jumped down from her shoulder as George laughed outright. “Would I serve you or Jon stolen goods?” he asked. “No, don’t answer me. Look. There’s the tax stamp on it, as clear as day. Vintages like this are better than gold, and better watched.”
Alanna yawned. “It’s not that I don’t trust you, George.” She yawned again, and again. “So sleepy …” She looked at her friend through rapidly closing eyes. “You—you drugged it!” she accused.
George caught her as she sagged, her eyelids fluttering shut. “Did you really think I’d let you fret yourself sick, with such an important night ahead of you?” he asked softly. Alanna muttered and stirred, sound asleep. George scooped her up and carried her to his bedroom, placing her gently on his bed. “You knew,” he commented to Faithful as the cat leaped up beside Alanna. “Why didn’t you warn her I was puttin’ a little extra in the brandy?”
The cat switched his tail. Cover her up well, he advised George. She gets cold easily.
The thief laughed and obeyed before joining Gary, Raoul, and Jonathan downstairs.
George returned Alanna to the palace just after sunset, where the ritual of Midwinter and of the Ordeal caught her up at last, leaving her only enough time to worry about doing everything properly. She ate lightly; if Myles hadn’t stood over her for every bite, she would have eaten nothing at all. Then she changed into the white garments she would wear in the Chamber of the Ordeal. Shortly after the eighth hour was cried, Jonathan and Gary came to escort her to the baths.
As Alanna splashed in the unheated water, her friends waited in a nearby chamber, talking quietly.
“I wish this was over,” Jonathan announced, listening to Alanna.
Gary looked at Jonathan’s face and poured his
cousin a glass of wine. “Relax, will you? We survived the Ordeal.”
“Barely.” Jonathan drained his glass.
“Barely, perhaps, but we survived. She will, too. And remember this: We’re taught that the magic of the Chamber can’t be influenced by anything. When she passes the Ordeal, no one will be able to say she didn’t earn her shield, whether she’s a girl or not.”
Alanna emerged from the bath, dried and dressed. She was a little pale, Gary noticed, but otherwise calm. “Are you prepared to be instructed?” he asked formally.
Alanna licked dry lips. This was where it began. “I am,” she whispered.
“If you survive the Ordeal of Knighthood,” Jonathan said, using the words required by the ritual, “you will be a Knight of the Realm. You will be sworn to protect those weaker than you, to obey your overlord, to live in a way that honors your kingdom and your gods.”
“To wear the shield of a knight is an important thing,” Gary went on. “It means you may not ignore a cry for help. It means that rich and poor, young and old, male and female may look to you for rescue, and you cannot deny them.”
“You are bound to uphold the law,” Jonathan said. “You may not look away from wrongdoing. You may not help anyone to break the law of the land, and you must prevent the breaking of the law at all times, in all cases.”
“You are bound to your honor and your word,” Gary reminded her. “Act in such a way that when you face the Dark God you need not be ashamed.”
