Maude looked at her sharply. “I saw no city.”
Thom leaned forward. “You saw something?” His voice was eager. “But Maude cast the spell—”
“No!” Alanna snapped. “I didn’t see anything! Anything!”
Thom decided to wait and ask her later, when she didn’t look so scared. He turned to Maude. “Well?” he demanded.
The healing woman sighed. “Very well. Tomorrow Thom and I go to the City of the Gods.”
At dawn the next day, Lord Alan gave each of his children a sealed letter and his blessing before instructing Coram and Maude. Coram still did not know the change in plan. Alanna did not intend to enlighten him until they were far from Trebond.
Once Lord Alan let them go, Maude took the twins to Alanna’s room while Coram got the horses ready. The letters were quickly opened and read.
Lord Alan entrusted his son to the care of Duke Gareth of Naxen and his daughter to the First Daughter of the convent. Sums of money would be sent quarterly to pay for his children’s upkeep until such time as their teachers saw fit to return them to their home. He was busy with his studies and trusted the judgment of the Duke and the First Daughter in all matters. He was in their debt, Lord Alan of Trebond.
Many such letters went to the convent and to the palace every year. All girls from noble families studied in convents until they were fifteen or sixteen, at which time they went to Court to find husbands. Usually the oldest son of a noble family learned the skills and duties of a knight at the king’s palace. Younger sons could follow their brothers to the palace, or they could go first to the convent, then to the priests’ cloisters, where they studied religion or sorcery.
Thom was expert at forging his father’s handwriting. He wrote two new letters, one for “Alan,” one for himself. Alanna read them carefully, relieved to see that there was no way to tell the difference between Thom’s work and the real thing. The boy sat back with a grin, knowing it might be years before the confusion was resolved.
While Thom climbed into a riding skirt, Maude took Alanna into the dressing room. The girl changed into shirt, breeches and boots. Then Maude cut her hair.
“I’ve something to say to you,” Maude said as the first lock fell to the floor.
“What?” Alanna asked nervously.
“You’ve a gift for healing.” The shears worked on. “It’s greater than mine, greater than any I have ever known. And you’ve other magic, power you’ll learn to use. But the healing—that’s the important thing. I had a dream last night. A warning, it was, as plain as if the gods shouted in my ear.”
Alanna, picturing this, stifled a giggle.
“It don’t do to laugh at the gods,” Maude told her sternly. “Though you’ll find that out yourself, soon enough.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“Never mind. Listen. Have you thought of the lives you’ll take when you go off performing those great deeds?”
Alanna bit her lip. “No,” she admitted.
“I didn’t think so. You see only the glory. But there’s lives taken and families without fathers and sorrow. Think before you fight. Think on who you’re fighting, if only because one day you must meet your match. And if you want to pay for those lives you do take, use your healing magic. Use it all you can, or you won’t cleanse your soul of death for centuries. It’s harder to heal than it is to kill. The Mother knows why, but you’ve a gift for both.” Quickly she brushed Alanna’s cropped hair. “Keep your hood up for a bit, but you look enough like Thom to fool anyone but Coram.”
Alanna stared at herself in the mirror. Her twin stared back, violet eyes wide in his pale face. Grinning, she wrapped herself in her cloak. With a last peek at the boy in the mirror, she followed Maude out to the courtyard. Coram and Thom, already mounted up, waited for them. Thom rearranged his skirts and gave his sister a wink.
Maude stopped Alanna as she went to mount the pony, Chubby. “Heal, child,” the woman advised. “Heal all you can, or you’ll pay for it. The gods mean for their gifts to be used.”
Alanna swung herself into the saddle and patted Chubby with a comforting hand. The pony, sensing that the good twin was on his back, stopped fidgeting. When Thom was riding him, Chubby managed to dump him.
The twins and the two servants waved farewell to the assembled castle servants, who had come to see them off. Slowly they rode through the castle gate, Alanna doing her best to imitate Thom’s pout—or the pout Thom would be wearing if he were riding to the palace right now. Thom was looking down at his pony’s ears, keeping his face hidden. Everyone knew how the twins felt at being sent away.
The road leading from the castle plunged into heavily overgrown and rocky country. For the next day or so they would be riding through the unfriendly forests of the Grimhold Mountains, the great natural border between Tortall and Scanra. It was familiar land to the twins. While it might seem dark and unfriendly to people from the South, to Alanna and Thom it would always be home.
At midmorning they came to the meeting of Trebond Way and the Great Road. Patrolled by the king’s men, the Great Road led north to the distant City of the Gods. That was the way Thom and Maude would take. Alanna and Coram were bound south, to the capital city of Corus, and the royal palace.
The two servants went apart to say goodbye and give the twins some privacy. Like Thom and Alanna, it would be years before Coram and Maude saw each other again. Though Maude would return to Trebond, Coram was to remain with Alanna, acting as her manservant during her years at the palace.
Alanna looked at her brother and gave a little smile. “Here we are,” she said.
“I wish I could say ‘have fun,’” Thom said frankly, “but I can’t see how anyone can have fun learning to be a knight. Good luck, though. If we’re caught, we’ll both be skinned.”
“No one’s going to catch us, brother.” She reached across the distance between them, and they gripped hands warmly. “Good luck, Thom. Watch your back.”
“There are a lot of tests ahead for you,” Thom said earnestly. “Watch your back.”
“I’ll pass the tests,” Alanna said. She knew they were brave words, almost foolhardy, but Thom looked as if he needed to hear them. They turned their ponies then and rejoined the adults.
“Let’s go,” Alanna growled to Coram.
Maude and Thom took the left fork of the Great Road and Alanna and Coram bore right. Alanna halted suddenly, turning around to watch her brother ride off. She blinked the burning feeling from her eyes, but she couldn’t ease the tight feeling in her throat. Something told her Thom would be very different when she saw him again. With a sigh she turned Chubby back toward the capital city.
Coram made a face and urged his big gelding forward. He would have preferred doing anything to escorting a finicky boy to the palace. Once he had been the hardiest soldier in the king’s armies. Now he was going to be a joke. People would see that Thom was no warrior, and they would blame Coram—the man who was to have taught him the basics of the warrior’s craft. He rode for hours without a word, thinking his own gloomy thoughts, too depressed to notice that Thom, who usually complained after an hour’s ride, was silent as well.
Coram had been trained as a blacksmith, but he had once been one of the best of the king’s foot soldiers, until he had returned home to Trebond Castle and become sergeant-at-arms there. Now he wanted to be with the king’s soldiers again, but not if they were going to laugh at him because he had a weakling for a master. Why couldn’t Alanna have been the boy? She was a fighter. Coram had taught her at first because to teach one twin was to teach the other, poor motherless things. Then he began to enjoy teaching her. She learned quickly and well—better than her brother. With all his heart Coram Smythesson wished now, as he had in the past, that Alanna were the boy.