In the Hand of the Goddess (2 page)

“That's impossible,” she whispered, her voice shaking. “You—you can't be—”

“And why not?” the Mother asked. “It is time we talked, you and I. Surely you know that you are one of my Chosen. Is it so strange that I have come to you for a time, my daughter?”

Life is difficult enough with the gods meddling in it
, Myles had told her more than once.
But they will meddle. All we humans can do is hope they tire of their meddling soon and leave us alone!

Alanna clenched her chin stubbornly. “I never asked to have conversations with the gods,” she informed the immortal on the other side of the fire.

“Indeed, you ask very little.” The Mother nodded. “You prefer to do all you can by yourself. But events for you in the next few years will determine your life's course, and you have no living mother to advise you.” The kitten jumped from Alanna's lap and ran to the Goddess, mewing angrily. The woman picked him
up in a graceful hand, stroking his fur with scarlet-painted nails. “She will be all right, Small One. She only needs a moment or two to adjust to her fear.”

“I am
not
afraid,” Alanna snapped. Emerald eyes caught and held hers, until she swallowed and looked away. “All right—I'm afraid. But it won't do me any good to give into it, will it? I mean, you're going to talk to me, and I can't prevent you, so I may as well accept it.”

The Goddess nodded. “You learned your lessons as a page well,” she approved. “But you have three fears that you have
not
accepted.” When Alanna said nothing, she went on. “You fear the Ordeal of Knighthood. You have feared it since you kept vigil during Prince Jonathan's Ordeal during this last Midwinter Festival.”

Alanna looked into the fire. Seeing that it was burning low, she busied herself with putting more wood on the flames. In her mind she saw Jonathan stumble out of that iron-barred Ordeal Chamber, his face gray. He had looked at her without seeing her—Jonathan! Sometimes even now his eyes went dark and blank, and she knew he was remembering the Ordeal. Her voice shook as she said, “He looked like some part of him
died
in there. And then Gary
had his Ordeal the next night, then Alex, and then Raoul—and they
all
looked that way.” She shook her head, not looking at the Goddess. “They're none of them cowards. Whatever happened, if it was so bad for them—” She drew a deep breath. “Jon wakes up at night,
screaming
sometimes. And it's the Ordeal he dreams about, though he isn't permitted to tell me more than that. If the Ordeal is that bad, I won't pass it. I won't, and then it will all go for nothing: three years as a page, four as a squire, the lying, everything. It'll be for nothing.” She stared into that unreadable face. “Won't it?”

“Prince Jonathan made you his personal squire, knowing you were a girl,” the Goddess replied. “You have learned there is a world outside Trebond. You can ride; you can use a bow; you can fight with knife and sword and spear. You can read a map. You manage your fief through Coram while your brother studies. You can write and speak in two tongues not your own; you can heal one who is sick. I think you must answer your own question—is it worth what you have done?”

Alanna shrugged. “It is now. It won't be if I fail. Sometimes I wake up in the dark sweating, and I'm going to scream, except I don't. That would bring Jon
into my room, and we agreed he shouldn't, not after we go to bed for the night. And all I can remember of the dream is that they're closing that iron door behind me, and I'm in the Chamber, and I can't see a thing.”

“A dream is only a dream,” the Goddess murmured as Alanna looked skeptical. She added softly, “Would it be so terrible if Jonathan
did
come to offer you comfort?

Alanna blushed. “Of course it would. He—well, there's nothing like
that
between us. I don't want there to be.”

“Because you fear love,” the Goddess told her. “You fear Jonathan's love and the love of the Rogue, George Cooper. You even fear the love of Myles, who only wants to be your father. Yet what is there for you to fear? Warmth? Trust? A man's touch?”

“I don't
want
a man's touch!” Alanna shouted. Horrified, she put out her hands in a gesture of apology. “I'm sorry. I meant no disrespect. I just want to be a warrior maiden and go on adventures. I don't want to fall in love, especially not with George or Jon. They'll ask me to give them parts of
me.
I want to keep me for myself. I don't want to give
me
away. Look at my father. He never really got over my mother's death. They told me when he died last month he was
calling for her. He gave her a part of himself, and he just never got it back. That's not going to happen to me.” She drew a deep breath. “What's my third fear? I may as well hear it now and get it over with.”

“Roger, Duke of Conté.” The Goddess's voice was low, soft, and deadly.

Alanna froze. Finally she said carefully (and very quietly), “I have no reason to fear Duke Roger. None at all.” Then she put her head in her hands. “I don't have any
reason
to fear him—but I do.” If she had doubted her visitor's identity, the fact that she was being so frank—almost against her will—convinced her. “I
hate
him!” she yelled suddenly, lifting her face from her hands. It felt good to say it, after all this time. “You know what I think? The Sweating Sickness. It drained every healer who tried to cure it. It struck only in the capital, nowhere else, and Jon was the last one to get it. They
knew
it had to be sorcerer's work. They sent for Duke Roger to help, but
none
of them—the king, Myles, Duke Gareth, Duke Baird—none of them thought Duke Roger might have created it! Thom says Roger is powerful enough to've sent it from as far as Carthak, where he was, and Thom ought to know.” Alanna stood and strode around inside the shelter of the willow, her hands
linked tightly in her belt. “When Roger tested me for magic, my head felt all funny, as if someone had been digging through my brain with a stick. Thom wrote me he was being watched up in the City of the Gods. And last summer—”

“Last summer?” the Goddess prompted.

“I don't think Jonathan would have gone
near
the Black City if Roger hadn't gathered us all to warn us about how dangerous it was. Jonathan's very responsible about being the Heir; he wouldn't risk his life foolishly. But Roger was wearing a great blue jewel around his neck. He twisted it while he talked to us, and the light bouncing off it made me sleepy, till I stopped looking at it. It seemed to me that Roger was talking only to Jonathan,
daring
Jon to go to a place where Roger knew he could get killed!”

She sighed and settled back against the tree, feeling better than she had in a long time. “I can't say anything to Jon. I tried to, once, but he got angry with me. He
loves
Roger. So does the king. Roger's handsome, young, clever, a great sorcerer.
Everyone
thinks he's wonderful. No one stops to think that if something happened to Jonathan, Roger would be the heir. No one but me, that is.”

“What will you do about this third fear?” the
Goddess wanted to know. She shooed the kitten off her lap.

“Watch,” Alanna said wearily. “Wait. Mostly watch him as carefully as I can. George—the thief—he'll help. Thom's helping, as much as he can.” She had rarely felt this tired in her life. “And if Roger is what I suspect, I won't stop until I've destroyed him.”

The Goddess nodded. “Then you are dealing with this fear, my daughter. Time will end your fear of the Chamber of the Ordeal, and your fear of love. Well, who knows what may happen to change your mind?”

“Nothing will change my mind,” Alanna said firmly.

“Perhaps.” The Goddess reached into the bed of the fire and drew out a single red-hot coal. “My time with you comes to an end. Take this from my hand.”

Alanna swallowed hard. This was asking a bit much, even for a goddess. She looked up and met the Mother's eyes with her own. Slowly, trembling, she reached out and took the coal.

It was cold! Startled, she nearly dropped it. Looking at it, she saw that the ember seemed to burn within a crystal shell. There was even a tiny loop in the crystal, just big enough to permit a chain to pass
through. The ember flickered in its shell, its hot red glare fading to a soft glow.

The Goddess rose. “The Chamber is only a room, though a magical one, and you will enter it when the time comes. Duke Roger is only a man, for all he wields sorcery. He can be met and defeated. But you, my daughter—learn to love. You have been given a hard road to walk. Love will ease it. Much depends on you, Alanna of Trebond. Do not fail me!”

Remembering her manners, Alanna jumped to her feet. “I won't fail you,” she promised, her hand closing tight around the ember. “Or at least, I'll try not to.”

“A goddess can ask no more.” The Mother looked down at the little black animal sitting now by Alanna's feet. “Guard her well, Small One.”

The kitten mewed in reply as Alanna glanced at him. Was there more to her new pet than she had thought?

The Goddess held out her hand. “Wear my token, and be brave, But remember—I did not jest when I said there are strange tales about this tree. Do not stray beyond your fire!” She smiled. “Fare well, my daughter.”

Alanna kissed the immortal's hand, feeling weird energy jolt through her body. She stepped away,
shaking her head to clear it. “Fare well, my Mother.”

The Goddess walked over to Moonlight, caressing the mare for a moment and talking to her in a soft voice. Then she raised her hand to Alanna a last time, and she was gone.

Suddenly Alanna could barely keep her eyes open. It was a struggle to lay out her bedroll and to bank the fire, but she forced herself to perform the chores. Thinking about the strange conversation she had just had would have to wait. When she tumbled into her bedroll at last, the kitten was already inside.

“Don't snore,” she ordered it sleepily. The kitten replied that he would not snore if she did not. Alanna nodded in agreement and went to sleep, tightly clutching the crystal ember.

It was a relief to get back to the palace the next day, back to familiar places and familiar friends. She still missed burly Coram, managing Trebond for her and Thom until she won her knight's shield, but there was no help for that. With Lord Alan dead and Thom not caring about anything but his studies, this arrangement was for the best, at least until Alanna was ready to begin adventuring. Then she would want Coram with her.

On her first night back she was feeding her new kitten his evening meal when she heard voices in Jonathan's room just before he knocked on her door.

“It's your overlord, Squire,” Jonathan called. It was their private phrase that meant
There are people with me.
“Let me in!”

Alanna opened the connecting door, and Jonathan entered with their friends Gary and Raoul.

“We came to see if you wanted to go down to the Dancing Dove with us and visit George,” Gary told her. “How about it?”

Alanna's face lit up. She hadn't had a long visit with the King of the Thieves since just before her father died, nearly six weeks ago. She was pulling on her boots when Raoul exclaimed, “Great Mithros, a cat! What are you doing with one of
those
? It probably has fleas.”

Jonathan stopped to let the kitten sniff his fingers. “Can't you tell a sorcerer's familiar when you see one?” he joked. “And do familiars
have
fleas?” Picking the tiny animal up, he saw its face. His own sapphire-blue eyes widened. “Goddess!”

Raoul and Gary gathered around, staring at the kitten, whose eyes were the same color as their friend Alan's. Finally Raoul gulped and asked, “What will you name him?
Is
it a him?” Alanna nodded.

“‘Pounce,'” Jon suggested.

“‘Blackie,'” was Raoul's choice.

“How about ‘Raoul'?” Gary wanted to know.

The kitten reached one paw for Alanna, mewing. She took her new pet from Jonathan and set him beneath her left ear—it was her favorite spot. “I rather like ‘Faithful,'” she admitted.

Jonathan unsheathed his dagger. As if he were knighting the cat, he touched it on both shoulders, then on the head. “I dub thee ‘Faithful,”' he said solemnly. “Serve honorably and well.”

True to his name, Faithful followed Alanna everywhere. In the practice yards he claimed a convenient post where he could sit and watch her practice her fighting skills with the other squires and pages. It took him longer to sneak into most classrooms. Myles let the kitten watch from the start, saying cats had the right to learn history as well as anyone. But Alanna's other teachers—most of them Mithran priests—tried to keep her pet out for days, but by the end of each class he had appeared inside. Finally the masters stopped trying. They even petted the cat absently as they taught.