Lioness Rampant Read Free

I’ve been with the Bazhir.”
    â€œSo I heard. It took some asking to find out what happened after you killed the Conté Duke.” He spoke with a peasant’s broad vowels and nearly skipped r ’s.
    She frowned. “You make it a habit to follow my doings?” She wasn’t sure she liked the idea.
    He nodded. “People like you change the world; a smart man keeps track of such folk. It was a great thing, killing your king’s nephew and proving him a traitor. Duke Roger was a powerful man.”
    Alanna looked away, feeling cold. “He deserved to die. He tried to murder the queen.”
    â€œIt bothers you still?”
    Looking at him, Alanna saw understanding. He knows, she thought. He knows about things like betrayal, and being afraid, and the looks on people’s faces when they know you did something they thought impossible. “Sometimes. Everyone admired him. It all happened at once: me finding what he planned; him revealing that I’m a girl in front of the court. I wanted to have time for people to get used to who I really am!
    â€œThen I killed him. I don’t even like killing. So I wonder, sometimes.”
    â€œDon’t fret.” He took her hand and gave it a squeeze. “He was rotten clean through—take my word for it.”
    â€œYou knew him?”
    He nodded, his eyes a distant green. “We met—a long time ago.”
    â€œHow? Why did you hate him? I mean, it seems as if you hated him. Everyone I knew liked him, nearly everyone.” She sat up eagerly. “It isn’t fair. You know everything about me .”
    He chuckled, his eyes warming. “I’ll tell you someday, kitten—if you’re very good.” He smoothed his mustache.
    She blushed. A cautious thought warned, You’ll be in trouble if you don’t watch out! You don’t know anything about him, and he’s got you half into his arms! She drew back. “You’re flirting with me,” she told him sternly.
    â€œFun, isn’t it?” he grinned.
    â€œWho are you? What do you do?” Alanna wanted to know. “Fair’s fair!”
    She stopped, hearing a commotion at the door. A familiar voice caroled, “Such sights the Princes never did see/And they honor the Beggar to this very day!” She winced.
    â€œThat’s my friend Coram,” she told Liam, rising. “If I don’t stop him, he’ll sing the verse with the merchants and the fishwives, and we’ll all be in for it.”
    Liam’s grin flashed. “I know the song.” He kissed her hand. “You’ll see me again—my word on it.”

    With persuasion and bullying she got her boisterous man-at-arms to his chamber, where he collapsed on the bed. “Jendrai is back from his country house today,” he yawned. “He’ll see us tomorrow evenin’.” Within seconds he was snoring.
    Alanna let herself out of his room, planning to go to bed rather than look for the unsettling Liam again. She had unlocked her door when the innkeeper came up the stairs, rubbing his hands delightedly. Seeing her, he asked, “Be there anything else you need?”
    â€œI’m fine,” she reassured him. Nodding toward the noisy common room downstairs, she added, “It sounds like you have more than enough to do.”
    Windfeld beamed. “It’s a good house tonight—a very good house. No surprise, with you and the Shang Dragon here.”
    â€œThe Shang Dragon?” She’d never had a chance to talk with one of the fabled Shang warriors. She’d always wanted to; now the gods had put her in thesame inn with the best of them. “He’s here? Will you introduce me?”
    Windfeld looked at her strangely. “I didn’t think you needed introducin’, not with you and him talkin’ like you were.”
    â€œLiam?”
    â€œLiam Ironarm, the Dragon of Shang. He didn’t tell