The Woman Who Rides Like a Man Read online

  “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.”

  “Your chest.” Kara nodded. Startled, she added, “That’s right! How did you manage disguising that?”

  “I bound myself,” Alanna confessed. “I never took my shirt off around the boys, either. It was difficult at first, but after a while they just accepted the fact that I was eccentric.”

  “I still don’t understand.” Kara was frowning. “Women are weaker than men, and unfitted to be warriors. Surely they could tell—”

  “Not from me,” Alanna said firmly, finishing off her juice. “I worked hard to win my shield. I got up early; I practiced late at night. It was hard, very hard. But it was worth it. I was good enough that Jonathan made me his squire.”

  “Did he change his mind when he found out the truth?” Kourrem asked as she tidied up.

  Alanna’s blush returned. “No. He said he didn’t care, I was still one of the best fighters at Court.”

  “None of our men would’ve said that,” Kourrem muttered. “Even if it was true.”

  “You can’t know that,” Alanna told the younger girl. “I didn’t find out until recently that Myles had known all these years. Men are peculiar.” Looking at Kara, she said, “Why are you so unhappy?”

  “You never had a young man,” Kara explained mournfully. “You know—to bring you tokens, to take you walking—”

  “Neither have we,” Kourrem reminded her.

  “We’re practically outcasts from the tribe,” Kara responded. “Surely Alanna’s case is different.”

  “Unless Prince Jonathan—” Kourrem muttered. Both girls saw the misty smile on Alanna’s face and giggled.

  “It’s time for me to have a look around the village,” Alanna told them as she rose. She couldn’t explain that her relationship with Jon had progressed far beyond the tokens-and-walks stage. Neither could she tell these two innocents that George, the King of the Thieves, had indicated more than once he would like to take Jonathan’s place in her affections.

  They would just be confused, Alanna told herself as the girls donned face veils once more. Although they certainly can’t be any more confused than I am.

  The dust-colored tent village was quiet, except for the laughter of children and the cackle of chickens. Few men were visible; either riding or sleeping off last night, Alanna thought grumpily. Most of the women abroad hurried out of her path. Puzzled, she stopped to see if anyone would meet her eyes. Only the youngest children did, and they were snatched from her sight by their mothers.

  “They really do think I’m some kind of demon,” she whispered, shocked.

  “They’re just ignorant,” Kourrem replied stubbornly. “We know—Kara and Ishak and I—that you’re an ordinary woman.”

  “Not an ordinary woman,” Kara demurred. “But you’re real.”

  Alanna halted. “What makes you three so ready to believe I’m really human?” she asked. The girls exchanged looks.

  “Akhnan Ibn Nazzir says the three of us are easily distracted from the right path, and that we are the growing-ground for evil,” Kara explained. Her face had darkened. “Perhaps I am a growing-ground for evil!” she cried. “But I am not a mean old man who cannot countenance anything new! I don’t make people outcasts because they don’t bow down to me!”

  Kourrem nodded solemnly. “It’s true,” she assured Alanna. “Halef Seif will not let him cast us out into the desert, but if Akhnan Ibn Nazzir is still here when Halef Seif dies—”

  “Demon!”

  The shriek of rage came from behind them. Alanna spun, her hand instantly going to Lightning’s hilt. For a moment her heart twisted with pain as she remembered that her sword was useless.

  Ibn Nazzir, the shaman, stood behind them, flanked by women and a few men. “Demon!” he screamed again, pointing a trembling finger at Alanna. “Not content with the soul of Halef Seif, you try to steal our young ones!” He grabbed Kara’s arm and yanked, almost making her fall.

  Halef Seif came out of a nearby tent, going to stand beside Alanna and Kourrem. He raised polite brows. “I believe I retain my soul, Akhnan Ibn Nazzir,” he said quietly. “Surely I would know if it was gone.”

  Alanna stared wide-eyed at the sword, which Ibn Nazzir had not been wearing the day before. It was the crystal sword that had so neatly sheared Lightning’s blade, the sword she thought was left in the desert. So that’s what he was doing, sneaking off last night! she thought. The sword’s hilt design was distinctive; where had she seen it before?

  “She has bewitched you!” the shaman cried, his eyes bulging with fury. “As she has bewitched these others—” The wave of his hand took in the girls. He gasped as Faithful suddenly leaped out, seemingly from nowhere, to land spitting in the sand before the shaman. “Away, demon!” he cried. Frantically he drew shimmering yellow magical symbols in the air.

  Alanna reacted. “Stop!” A wall of purple magic streaked from her fingers to surround Faithful, just as yellow fire left the shaman’s hands. It shattered against the wall protecting Faithful; Ibn Nazzir swore. For a moment there was silence as the violet wall faded from sight.

  “Perhaps now you will give more courtesy to the companions of the Woman Who Rides Like a Man, Akhnan Ibn Nazzir,” Halef Seif commented, his voice a quiet warning. “Tell me now where you obtained the sword you wear.”

  “It lay in the desert for anyone to take it who could,” the older man spat. “I knew the spells to assuage its hunger and to give it greater life—”

  “Let me see it,” Halef Seif ordered, stretching out his hand. When the shaman hesitated, the younger man’s face grew stern. “I am headman here, and headman I stay until the Voice of the Tribes takes my right from me. The request is reasonable. Do not defy me.”

  Trembling with fury, the shaman unclipped the sword’s sheath and held it out. The headman reached for it.

  Stop him! Faithful warned.

  “Don’t touch it!” Alanna cried.

  Everyone looked at her. Ibn Nazzir glared pure hate. Fingering Lightning’s hilt, Alanna continued.

  “Such swords bite, Halef Seif. I imagine Akhnan Ibn Nazzir knows it
, too.” She gripped the silver hilt of the crystal blade and drew it.

  The sword’s magic screeched through her. Alanna bit back a yell of pain. Sweat poured down her face as she struggled with pure magic, forcing it slowly to her will.

  At last the sword’s resistance lessened. She looked up at Halef. “It might’ve killed you, unless you have the Gift.” The man shook his head. “It’s magic, but the magic’s been used for killing and breaking. It can only be controlled by someone with the Gift. You don’t have to be a great sorcerer—just stubborn.”

  Halef Seif rounded on Ibn Nazzir. “You knew this?” His soft voice was dangerous.

  “I swear I did not!” the shaman cried. “I know of the power, as would any man who grasped it in his hand—”

  “Or any woman,” murmured Ishak, who had followed Halef.

  Ibn Nazzir glared at him swiftly before returning to Halef Seif. “That it would harm, even kill, the headman—” He drew himself up as far as he could. “Such an offense is one no shaman would commit, Halef Seif. Has this woman so corrupted you that you see evil everywhere you turn?”

  Alanna studied the crystal sword. Its hilt was slightly longer than Lightning’s, etched with occult symbols and studded at the pommel with sapphires and diamonds. She had seen symbols like these recently. . . .

  Remembering, she dropped the blade, backing away from it in horror. The shaman stooped and grabbed it, slamming it into its sheath.

  “What’s wrong with ye?” Coram demanded softly. She had not seen him arrive.

  “Roger,” she whispered. “The hilt—it’s the same as Duke Roger’s wizard’s rod! I’ll never be free of him!” She turned and fled to her tent, Faithful galloping after her.

  “Who is this ‘Roger’?” Halef Seif asked Coram as the crowd dispersed.

  Alanna’s friend waited until they were alone before he replied, and he kept his powerful voice low. “Duke Roger of Conté. Him that was next in line to Prince Jonathan for the throne of Tortall.”

  Halef made the Sign against Evil. “The great sorcerer who was killed not one moon past?”

  Coram nodded. “Aye. She slew him, for his plot to kill the queen.” He sighed. “She always hated the Duke, feared him, even. He felt the same about her. She killed him in proper combat, before the king and his Court, but she never felt right about it.” His dark eyes were thoughtful. “I’d give a lot to know how a sword that looks like his wizard’s rod turned up in her path now.”

  Halef Seif put his hand on Coram’s shoulder. “She has been chosen by the gods. Is that not reason enough?”

  Alanna remained alone in her tent until dark, petting Faithful and remembering. No matter how she looked at it, she could see no way she could have done things differently. Made wary—and aware—by her Ordeal of Knighthood, she had searched Duke Roger’s quarters. She had found enough evidence to damn him in any eyes: the wax model of the queen, worn away by falling water until the queen herself was close to death; wax images of the king, the prince, and the important Court officials, even one of Alanna, all tied up in a thick veil. She had taken the evidence to King Roald, presented it before the entire Court. Roger had demanded a trial by combat: She had won.

  She had hated Roger of Conté, but she couldn’t forget the sight of him as he was carried into his tomb far beneath the palace. She’d spent so much of her life thinking about the sorcerer who was Jonathan’s cousin that it was hard to realize he was gone.

  You’re being ridiculous, Faithful commented. He would have cut you up and fed you to wild beasts if he had won. He was evil. He deserved to die.

  “I wish I could view it that simply,” Alanna said ruefully. “I still wonder if perhaps I moved too fast.”

  That’s what he wanted you to think. Remember? was the cat’s tart reply.

  Alanna shook her head, still unconvinced. “Merciful Mother, is it dark already?”

  “Night comes swiftly here,” Halef commented from the doorway. He crouched beside her, his face in shadow. “Already we have communed with the Voice of the Tribes. He comes.”

  “Who is this ‘Voice of the Tribes’?” Alanna wanted to know.

  “He is the first among us,” the headman replied. “At sunset we gather at our fires and join with him—each man and woman among the Bazhir. Thus he knows our thoughts, our wishes. He knows what has passed during the day. He judges with complete knowledge of our hearts and our minds.”

  Alanna shivered, letting the Bazhir help her to her feet. “I doubt that I would be fit for such a life,” she said dryly. “To carry all those memories every day? No, indeed!”

  Halef Seif chuckled as he led her out of the tent. “Not many are called to the life of the Voice, if that soothes you,” he commented. “He will be here within the week.” For a moment the tall Bazhir sighed, looking older than his years. “Between thee and me, woman of my tribe,” he said quietly, “I hope the Voice will aid me to a fair solution in this matter of Ibn Nazzir. The old man disturbs the tribe’s balance between headman and shaman; it cannot end well.” He grimaced. “Come. There are tales you have not heard. Before I forget his message, the Voice asks me to say that you have met him, in the Sunset Room of Persopolis Castle.”

  The Sunset Room? she thought, startled. The governor of Persopolis Castle! What was his name? Ali Mukhtab. He took us there, me and Jon and Raoul, Alex, Gary. He was the one who told us about the Black City. He was tall, with a nice vest, and intense eyes. Jon asked him for a written history of the Bazhir—

  “Ali Mukhtab?” she whispered in shock. “Ali Mukhtab is this ‘Voice of the Tribes’?”

  “He is,” Halef Seif confirmed. “What better man to keep watch over the castle, where our oldest records are kept? Come. For now, become a member of the tribe. The Voice will be here in seven days. He will answer your questions then.”

  Halef Seif was a man of his word. Alanna and Coram were returning from a hunt with the young men of the tribe a week later when Faithful trotted out from the village to meet them.

  He’s here, he yowled to Alanna in their private language. The Voice of the Tribes. He has very good taste: He likes cats.

  “I know he likes cats, and I don’t think that’s an indication of good taste,” Alanna replied, leading Moonlight to her hitching place with the tribe’s other horses. “Who’s with him now?”

  The shaman, Faithful replied. One of his women friends lured Halef Seif away with a lie about a quarrel in her household.

  “The news isn’t good?” Coram asked quietly as they rubbed their horses down.

  Alanna shook her head. “Ibn Nazzir’s stolen a march on us with Ali Mukhtab.”

  Coram raised his thick brows. “The Voice of the Tribes? But weren’t ye sayin’ ye were friends once?”

  Alanna shrugged, leading the way to her tent. “That was six years ago. He may have changed. I don’t know if he was this ‘Voice of the Tribes’ then.” She opened her tent flap and stopped, astounded at the five bundles piled neatly inside. “What in the Name of—”

  “It is the first written history of the Bazhir.” The smooth voice behind them made Alanna and Coram jump; they turned to face Ali Mukhtab. The Voice of the Tribes wore a flowing blue burnoose tied with a darker blue cord: religious colors among the Bazhir, Alanna remembered. He was the same as when she had seen him last: tall, with walnut-colored skin and a neatly trimmed mustache, his large hooded eyes framed with long curly lashes. He bowed now, his well-carved mouth turning up in a very small smile.

  Remembering her manners, Alanna invited him in. She was just wondering how she would offer hospitality to her distinguished guest when Kara and Ishak arrived, bearing chilled wine and fruit. They presented their offerings first to Mukhtab, then to Alanna and Coram, before taking up stations just outside the tent flap. Mukhtab chuckled.

  “I see you have been adopted,” he commented. “Those are two of the three young ones you’ve bewitched?”

  “She hasn’t bewitched anyone,” Coram growled, emptying his cu
p with one gulp. “Ibn Nazzir’s a dried-up, jealous old man.”

  “This is Coram Smythesson,” Alanna explained to the Bazhir. “He taught me the basics of the knight’s art, and he looked after me when I was a page.”

  For a moment Coram received the full power of Mukhtab’s eyes as the Bazhir opened them wide, examining him from top to toe. Oddly, the burly man turned red. “She’s Trebond,” he said as if answering a question. “Smythessons have served Trebond for generations.”

  “You have always been blessed in your friends,” Ali Mukhtab said to Alanna. “I suppose by now you are aware of it.” Alanna nodded, blushing herself. “And so you are a knight, and you have told all that you are female. But you are not happy?”

  Alanna fiddled nervously with the ember-stone around her neck. “I have a few things on my mind.”

  She didn’t object when the man reached over and picked the ember from her fingers, examining it. At last he sighed and let her tuck it back beneath her shirt. “The favored of the gods always have much on their minds,” he admitted. “The shaman says I am an unnatural leader because I will not order you slain. He thinks you have bewitched me. Is this so?” He was smiling. Suddenly Alanna felt as if a burden had been taken from her. This enigmatic man was still her friend, for whatever reasons.

  Coram snorted with derision. “And when did she have time to do that?”

  Mukhtab nodded. “I asked the same question, but received no satisfactory answer. When I inquired how the Voice of the Tribes may order the slaying of a member of the tribe without full cause under law and a just hearing before the fire, Ibn Nazzir told me the Nameless Gods would have my soul for their enjoyment.” The Bazhir shrugged. “The law is the law; he knows this as well as any.” His eyes were serious as he looked at Alanna. “He wants you dead, Alanna of Trebond.”