up!” Seizing one of Ralon’s flailing arms, the bigger youth yanked Ralon’s legs from under him. Ralon sank to the bottom with Raoul on top of him. He struggled frantically, but Raoul was impossible to budge. When Ralon finally surfaced, he was half blind and three-quarters drowned. He glared at the wickedly grinning Raoul.
“Malven!” Alanna shouted. She was standing, her fists tight against her sides. “I don’t like to swim. Don’t try to get me in the water again! And don’t order me around, either! The next time you try it, I’ll break your face! D’you hear me?”
Jonathan put a hand on Ralon’s shoulder. “You heard Alan,” the Prince whispered. “Don’t forget.” He shoved Ralon under the water again.
Alanna returned to her seat. Ralon wouldn’t forget this, but there was no sense in worrying about trouble until it happened.
That evening she was serving Sir Myles when Ralon passed her. Under the noise of serving he whispered, “Part payment, snot,” and pinched her viciously.
Alanna dropped the plate she was holding, biting back a yell of pain. She cleaned up the mess, blinking away tears of rage, knowing she would catch it later from Duke Gareth.
“Everyone slips,” Myles told her kindly.
“Uh—Alan—I feel a little tired. Would you be so good as to escort me to my chambers after the King rises?”
She nodded, puzzled. Myles had been drinking lightly this evening. Unless he was drunk, he never asked her to walk him to his rooms.
As she suspected, Myles didn’t need assistance. Once at his rooms, however, he stopped her as she turned to go. “A moment, Alan, if you please.”
Alanna took the seat he pointed to, wondering what he wanted.
The knight lit a branch of candles and put it on the table between her chair and his. He poured himself a glass of brandy, nodding to a bowl of fruit. “Help yourself. I’ll try not to keep you from your dinner too long.”
“Thank you, sir.” Alanna took an orange and began peeling it.
“Young Ralon is picking on you, isn’t he?”
Alanna froze. “I don’t know what you mean, sir.”
“Don’t be coy, Alan.”
“Sir?”
“Don’t hide something we’re both aware of. I see much of what goes on here. It’s one reason I drink so much. And I see Ralon bullying you when you’re alone or with the younger boys.”
Alanna shrugged. “I’m not a crybaby or a telltale.”
“Do you think you’ll lose the other boys’ respect if you say anything? Prince Jonathan would be the first to take your side.”
Alanna felt very uncomfortable. “I have to handle this myself.”
Myles shook his head. “What are you trying to prove?” he asked. She refused to answer. He went on bitterly, “I truly love our Code of Chivalry. We are taught that noblemen must take everything and say nothing. Noblemen must stand alone. Well, we’re men, and men aren’t born to stand alone.”
“Nobles are,” Alanna replied. “Or they have to. Isn’t that the same thing?”
Myles shook his head. “No, it isn’t.” He sighed. “You’ll have to fight him in the end.”
“I know, sir.”
“Alan, he’s taller and heavier than you! He’ll kill you!”
Alanna put her orange aside. “Then I fight him till he lets me alone or till I get big enough to beat him. I can’t let him walk all over me, Sir Myles! When you’re—” She stopped, horrified. She had almost admitted she was a girl! She rushed on. “When you’re little, like me, you either quit and get picked on all the time, or you stick it out. I have to stick it out.”
Myles made a face. “Run along to your supper.” She got up to go. “Alan.”
“Sir?”
“If you have to hit—hit low.”
She grinned and bowed. “Thanks, Sir Myles. I’ll keep that in mind.”
Trouble came the next day, in the stables. Alanna was there grooming Chubby; the others were gone. She was dreaming of the horse she would someday own when she heard the stable door creak.
An ugly sneer twisted Ralon’s face. “I suppose you think our talk yesterday was the last one.”
Alanna was shaking with nervous energy. “No,” she said flatly.
Ralon swaggered around her, eyeing her stocky form. “You’re too big for your breeches. You aren’t so much when you don’t have Raoul or Gary to hide behind, are you?”
She clenched her fists. “I don’t hide behind anyone,” she retorted. “And I don’t have to pick on someone littler’n me to prove what a man I am, either!”
He grabbed her shoulders, shaking her hard. “I won’t take that from you, dunghill trash!”
She hit low and hard. Ralon