“We’ve been waiting forever,” Kourrem announced.
Alanna scowled at the two Bazhir girls who had welcomed her the previous day. “I didn’t go to bed till dawn,” she growled. She ducked behind a partition and changed her clothes, feeling very old and much the worse for a night of date wine.
“They made you a warrior of the tribe.” Kara’s voice was filled with awe. “And you’re a woman.”
Alanna pulled on the fresh tan burnoose she found with her clothes. If she was a Bazhir, she might as well dress like one. Emerging from behind the partition, she bathed her face in a basin of water.
“Akhnan Ibn Nazzir says you’re a demon,” Kourrem told her. “He says you have destroyed the eternal Balance. He wants us all to kill you.”
Alanna dried her face briskly and pulled a comb through her hair before answering. “Nonsense. If your eternal Balance is destroyed, why did the sun rise? If I’m a demon, why do I have such a headache?” Using fresh water, she cleaned her teeth.
“Are all the women in the North warriors?” Kourrem asked. Kara was setting out breakfast: fruit and chilled fruit juice, rolls and cheese. “Are you all sorcerers and she-demons?”
Alanna rubbed her aching head. Was she supposed to eat all that? “Hardly,” she replied to Kourrem. She sat awkwardly before the low table, crossing her legs before her. Inspired, she told the girls, “Why don’t you join me? I’d welcome the company.” It wasn’t quite the truth, but chances were the girls would be far hungrier than she was at the moment.
Kourrem needed no urging, but Kara hesitated. “It wouldn’t be proper,” she demurred, her eyes uncertain over her face veil.
“Of course it’s proper,” Alanna said firmly. “I’m female, aren’t I? At least, I was the last time I checked.”
Even Kara smiled at that. She and Kourrem slipped off their veils. Kara was older, fine-boned and dark-eyed, with two deep-set dimples framing her mouth. Kourrem had mischievous gray-brown eyes and a pointed little chin. Both were too thin, even for rapidly growing teenagers, and their clothes were of poor quality. If Alanna remembered Sir Myles’s teaching correctly, both were old enough to be married; the desert people contracted alliances for their daughters when they first donned veils, at the age of twelve. Why were these two single?
Alanna picked up a roll, and the girls eagerly helped themselves.
“If the Northern women aren’t warriors,” Kourrem went on, her mouth full, “how did you become a knight?”
Alanna smiled reluctantly. “It wasn’t easy,” she admitted. Seeing that her audience was listening intently, she sighed. “I was ten. My mother died giving my twin brother and me birth, and our father was a scholar who cared more for his work than us. Coram raised us, and old Maude, who was our village healing-woman. You see, Thom had no turn for woodcraft and archery, and I did. He was good at magical things.
“When our father decided it was time for me to go to the convent and learn to be a lady, I didn’t want to. And Thom didn’t want to go to the palace and become a knight.”
“You changed places,” whispered Kourrem. Kara’s eyes were like saucers.
Alanna nodded. “Thom forged letters from our father. He went to the City of the Gods, and I went to the palace as his twin ’brother’ Alan.”
“Did your brother disguise himself as a girl?” Kara wanted to know.
Alanna laughed. “Of course not! The Daughters at the convent took boys who would be priests and sorcerers, until they were twelve or so. Then Thom went to the Mithran priests to complete his studies. He left them only a few months ago; he’s the youngest Master living”
“He must have great power,” Kara breathed.
“He certainly does,” Alanna replied slowly. And the ambition to go with it, she added to herself.
“You lived as a boy all those years?” Kourrem demanded “And no one guessed? No one knew?”
“One of my teachers, Sir Myles of Olau, guessed. I had to use magic to save Prince Jonathan when he had the Sweating Sickness, and Myles was watching; he must have seen something that gave me away. He knew for years, but he never told anyone. I told George Cooper when I needed a healing-woman once.”
“Who is this George Cooper?” asked Kourrem.
Alanna grinned. “The King of the Thieves.”
“You told a thief your secret?” Kara gasped.
“I knew I could trust him. He’s always done well by me.”
“Did anyone else know?” Kourrem’s mouth was full again.
“Prince Jonathan found out, when we fought the Ysandir.” Both girls made the Sign against Evil; like all Bazhir, they had grown up fearing the Ysandir. “They made my clothes disappear,” Alanna continued, blushing. “By that time I was old enough—there was no way Jon could have misunderstood.”