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“You wouldn’t be thinkin’ of leavin’?” he asked as they sat down to their evening meal. Coram and Rispah, who had joined them, looked anxiously at Alanna.
The young knight reddened and shrugged. “You could always come with me.”
George arched one eyebrow. “Me? In the desert?”
“I suppose not,” Alanna admitted gloomily as the new maidservant poured soup into her bowl. “It’s just so cold here. And I’m getting restless.”
She was lifting her spoon to her mouth when a frantic, yowling Faithful leaped onto the table, sending Alanna’s soup dish flying. The ember-stone sent out a burst of white heat as George yanked her back. Coram shoved his own dish away as Rispah ran after the fleeing maid. She returned within seconds, hauling the terrified woman back in a grip that permitted no careless movement on her captive’s part.
Alanna extended her hand, and a wave of purple fire washed over the plates on the table. She looked up at George, her eyes sick. “They’ve all been poisoned.”
George looked at Rispah. The redhead’s mouth was set in a grim line; the maid fought her hold uselessly. “I think we’ll learn a bit more if the noble lady isn’t by,” she told her cousin.
“You’ll need me,” Coram told them. He glanced at Alanna. “Wait in the library.”
Alanna didn’t argue as Rispah, Coram, and George marched the protesting maid out of the room. Instead she went to the kitchen and questioned the cook, who was preparing to go home for the night. From her she learned that the maid, who had worked for them only two weeks, had come from Corus. She was supposed to be living with an uncle, but the cook suspected she got additional money from a local inn, where she entertained male guests. Still, she had done her work well and quietly, and it was hard to get good help during winter in Port Caynn.
“One last question,” Alanna said, “and then I’ll get Marek or one of the others to take you home in the cart. Did she have a letter from the Rogue in Corus, saying she was safe to wait on George?”
The cook turned indignant at the very thought that she would permit someone in the house who hadn’t been cleared. From the house’s account books she took the grimy piece of paper the maid had brought with her. Confirming the woman as safe, it was signed “Claw.”
Orem escorted the cook home while Alanna gave the whole thing serious thought. It seemed likely that George had been the poisoner’s target; since the deaths of Duke Roger and Ibn Nazzir, she had no enemies inclined toward murder.
“Who’s Claw?” she asked when a tired, sweating George came to the library an hour later.
The thief grimaced as he poured himself a glass of brandy. “One of the new young men in the city. Ugly as a goat—missin’ an eye, purple marks on his face where someone threw acid on him once. Why?”
Alanna gave him the note admitting the would-be poisoner to his house, watching the thief’s mobile face as he read. “Did the maid talk?”
“Hm? Oh, her. No more than that a man gave her the poison, and the money.” He put the note down, rubbing his face wearily. “She ended too fast.”
“Magic?”
George shook his head, slumping into his big leather chair. “Not that I could see. She was wearin’ a charm about her neck. When we took it off her, she—died.” Digging in his tunic pocket, he produced a small round medal hanging on a chain. “Have a look.”
Alanna touched it, instantly feeling the evil as the ember-stone flared hotly. She yanked her hand away. “Throw it in the fire!”
Startled, George obeyed. The charm sputtered and melted. “Why?”
“It’s been treated with a kind of poison.” Alanna soaked George’s handkerchief in brandy and held the dripping cloth out to her friend. “Wipe you hands with this—quickly! Did Coram or Rispah touch it?”
He obeyed, wrinkling his nose at the brandy fumes. “No, only me.”
“Take off your tunic, and throw it in the fire. It’s not magic; it’s a poison taken from the fireflower vines that grow in the southern hills. Farda, the midwife for the Bloody Hawk, told me about it.”
“How does it work?” George asked curiously.
“You have to have contact with it over a long period of time, unless you drink it or it enters through a cut in your skin, something like that. As long as you maintain contact, you’re all right. But if you run out, or if someone takes your source away—”
“You die,” he murmured thoughtfully, watching the fire destroy his tunic. “And if someone was givin’ it to you in your food, or some such, you’d never know.” Startled, he looked at her. “Has it been in our food?”
She shook her head. “The ember-stone would have warned me, or maybe even Faithful.” She glanced down at the cat, who had curled up by the fire. He yawned and twitched his tail over his eyes, indicating he didn’t want to be disturbed.
“Claw, then,” George sighed as she poured him another glass of brandy. “With a herb-woman to help, perhaps.”
“What will you do?”
He shrugged. “What’s to do, lass? I’ll have to return to Corus and see what this Claw’s been about.” He put his glass down and drew her close. “Come with me.”
Startled, she pulled back. “To Corus? George, I can’t!”
“You have to face Jonathan sometime,” he pointed out shrewdly.
“Not now, I don’t! George, why do you have to go rushing back there? Come south with me. Let the thieves find someone else to rule them.”
George shook his head. “I can’t leave them when my position’s weak, Alanna. Lads with reputations to make will be huntin’ for me all my days, tryin’ to kill me. And how do I know this Claw will do right by my people? I have as much responsibility to them as King Roald does to his own, as you do to your folk at Trebond.”
Alanna clenched her fists. “And I can’t go back to Corus. If I stay with you, I’ll be recognized sooner or later. The scandal would hurt Myles; now he’s my foster-father. If I go to the palace, they’ll be after me to dress like a lady and get married and forget I ever won my shield.”
George sighed. “That’s everything, isn’t it? I won’t turn my back on the Rogue, and you can’t leave off your adventurin’.” He took her hand. “Come to bed. If I’m to ride for Corus in the mornin’, we’ve a lot of good-byes to say first.”
When Alanna went south, a week after George returned to the city, Coram went with her. “Rispah will wait for me,” he growled when Alanna questioned him about it. “We made an arrangement. She understands that if I’m not with ye, ye’ll no doubt try somethin’ daft. Now let an old man alone, will ye?”
Alanna dropped her questioning, glad to have his company on the long ride back to the tents of the Bloody Hawk.
9
AT THE SIGN OF THE DANCING DOVE
IT WAS ALMOST DARK WHEN GEORGE, MAREK, and Ercole arrived at the gates of the city of Corus. They just made it in time; the greater gate was closed and locked behind them for the night. Now travelers would either have to enter the city on foot, or turn back to a nearby wayhouse until the gates were opened at dawn. All three men were tired. The ride from Port Caynn, which normally took only half a day, had been filled with battling winter wind and sleet.
“We’ve had easier travels afore now, Majesty,” Ercole remarked as they turned their horses into the long alley that led to the stables at the rear of the Inn of the Dancing Dove. “Warmer, too.”
It was far darker in the alley than on the torchlit main streets, and George felt uneasy. Bringing up his chestnut mare, he scanned the shadows. Noticing their chief’s wariness, Marek and Ercole began to search the dark, too, readying their long staffs. Only George dared carry a sword openly, as Tortallan commoners were not permitted them.
George let his mare inch forward until he spotted an overhang. Smiling grimly, he kicked the mare into a jump. The man on the overhang leaped a second too late, falling behind George. Other masked attackers surged out of connecting alleys and doorways; George ran one through and wheeled to catch a s
econd as he grabbed for George’s saddle. A quick glance told him Marek and Ercole remained horsed, in spite of attempts to unseat them.
