That silenced her. She didn’t know. All her life she’d had magic, even when she’d tried to ignore it. “I can’t help being Gifted,” she replied at last. “I tried to fight it, when I was a page. Then the Sweating Sickness came and a lot of people died. Prince Jonathan would have died, too, if I hadn’t used my Gift.”
“I just told you what we’re taught.”
She wished she could see his face. “Tell me—where would your great Shang masters be without healers and their magic? Where would you be?” He didn’t answer, so she went on. “My Gift brings Coram pleasure—how else could he see Rispah?”
“Maybe the lady doesn’t want to be spied on.” There was a dangerous rumble in his voice.
“Nonsense! She agreed to it. Would you like to see the letter?” Alanna demanded sharply, her temper rising. “My tribe would’ve fallen to hillmen, without my Gift and the Gifts of my students. I use my magic to heal, to pay back for some of the lives I take. What do you do to repay?”
“Whatever it is I do, Lady Pry, I do it with my own two hands!” She started to get up, and Liam held her back. “Alanna, wait! I didn’t mean—I have a temper.”
“So do I,” she snapped. She let him pull her down beside him again.
“Shang allows healers to work on us, it’s true. The students are Giftless. Not so much because the masters think people use it for a crutch as because they know training a Gift takes the student’s attention away from other things. When you follow Shang, you follow only Shang—if you’re to succeed.” He stroked Alanna’s hair. “Don’t scowl so, kitten. You’ve got me shaking in my boots.”
“I can’t change what I am,” she told him, cooling off. “I never asked to be half witch and half warrior.”
“I know.” The Dragon sighed. “Listen. I got heated up because I’m—because I’m afraid of magic.”
Was he teasing? She was in no mood for it! “You aren’t afraid of anything.”
“Everyone’s afraid of something.” He had a point, and she knew it. “I fear dying for nothing. I fear being sick—my grandda took a wound and rotted to death.” She patted his arm in sympathy but didn’t interrupt. “I hate being helpless. Then what’s the good of being a Dragon?”
“Or a Lioness,” she whispered.
He nodded. “But I’m also afraid of the Gift—I don’t even let healers use magic on me. Some folk are afraid of spiders—with me, it’s that.”
Alanna shuddered; she hated spiders with a passion! “I never heard of someone fearing magic, not like that. Disliking it, yes.”
“Well, I’m afraid of it.”
She fingered the stone at her throat. “Liam?”
“What?”
“How …” She felt herself blush and was grateful for the dark. “How can we be—well, anything—if you fear my Gift?”
He put his arms around her, gathering her close. “I want to try anyway. What about you?”
“I don’t know you very well at all,” she whispered, half complaining. “You don’t know me.”
He was smiling. “That’s the fun of it, kitten.” He kissed her gently, then passionately, and Alanna surrendered. Any misgivings she had were put away for thought at another, less interesting, time.
Liam was shaking her gently. From the other side of their banked campfire she heard Coram’s snore. “Let’s go,” the Dragon whispered.
“Go where?” she yawned.
“You won’t learn Shang fighting in bed.”
She started to protest, and thought the better of it. Even at this hour she wanted his good opinion. Never mind that her arms felt as if they weighed triple what they usually did. He’d probably felt worse and still had gone about his morning routine. This was my idea, she prodded herself. Stifling a moan—Coram at least would have his sleep!—she obeyed.
Fortress Jirokan was a well-fortified town, with a tent city outside its walls. Coram pointed at the river where a barge filled with people made its way downstream. “They’re fleein’ the Saren War,” he explained to Alanna as they rode toward the town gates. “Like as not their farms were burned or looted. Now they hope Maren’ll grant a place for them to start again.
“The boats take them south. The king’s too smart to keep all these rootless folk in one spot.” The Dragon nodded in the direction of the tent city. Now that she was closer, Alanna saw furniture piled in the mud and a wide variety of animals: cows, dogs, goats, horses, pigs, and chickens. People dressed in tattered, dirty clothes stared at the travelers on the road. “These camps are trouble. They breed thieves and killers. South Maren has room to feed them and land for new farms.”
Alanna was silent as they entered the city and made for the inn Liam recommended. There was nothing she or Liam could do for the Saren refugees. Poverty was an illness she couldn’t cure; a civil war could not be stopped by just one knight. That’s something Liam and I have in common, she told herself. I don’t like feeling helpless, either.
The inn was the Mongrel Cur; it lived up to Liam’s recommendation. She spent the afternoon bathing, washing her hair, mending her clothes—simply relaxing. She wrote to Myles, Halef Seif, and Thom, although it would be weeks before she could hear from them. At last cooking smells called her to the common room and her dinner.
Liam suggested that they avoid notice in this restless town: He would not wear Shang insignia, and she and Coram should leave in their rooms anything to suggest that Alanna was a knight. That suited Alanna, who wanted to spend her time in Jirokan quietly. She dressed in boy’s clothes, but to be safe, tucked a dagger at the small of her back. Whistling cheerfully, she slung Faithful over a shoulder and went downstairs.
Liam and Coram had waited for her. As soon as she joined them, the waiters brought their food. A charmed serving girl bore Faithful away “to see what we might get a handsome fellow like you.” The cat shamelessly played up to his admirer.
Marenite Guardsmen and their women arrived to begin a night of drinking as the travelers finished their meal. Ignoring the soldiers, Coram and Liam played chess; Alanna divided her attention between the game and the Guards. Faithful rejoined them, his stomach full after his kitchen excursion.
The biggest of the Guards was a sergeant who looked as ill-tempered as he behaved. Clearly his men knew he was in a foul mood; they kept away from him. His lady, however, was bored by his sulks and didn’t care who knew it. Alanna watched as the lady tried to tease her sergeant into a better frame of mind. When this tactic failed, her eye began to rove until she saw Liam. Until that point Alanna had no personal involvement in the woman’s behavior. Forgetting that she was dressed like a boy—and that in the ill-lit room it would be hard to see the feminine shape under her clothes—she glared a warning. The lady didn’t notice.
The sergeant wasn’t aware that his companion’s attention had strayed. “Back in a minute, darlin’,” he belched. Getting up, he made for the privy.
The moment the huge Guard was out of sight, his lady moved to Alanna’s table. It was Liam’s turn to move: His attention was locked onto the chessboard. Coram saw the expression on his knight-mistress’s face. He looked up to see the reason for Alanna’s scowl and grinned.
“So quiet ye lads are,” the woman purred as she put a hand on Liam’s shoulder. The Dragon glanced up, surprised. “Don’t ye care for female … companions?”
Alanna rose and hissed, “Where I come from, it’s considered polite to keep to the man you’re with.”