Trickster's Choice Read Free Page A

the field, with that head of hair acting as a beacon?”

    Aly propped her chin on her hand. “It comes out in three washings, first of all,” she informed him. “Second, if I was in Corus or Port Caynn, it would make no never mind. The apprentices and shopkeepers’ young there pick up university fashions straightaway. Any other big city, I could just say it’s the newest style in Corus. Or I’d say that they’d remember the hair and never the face under it, just like
you
taught me.” George winced. Aly pressed on, “If none of that eased your flutterings, Da, I’d say that’s what razors and wigs are for.” She brightened. “I’ll wash it out right now if you’ve a field assignment for me.”

    George got to his feet. “Never mind. Leave your poor hair alone. It’s near suppertime.”

    When Aly stood, he came over to put an arm around her shoulders. At five feet six inches, she fitted just under her tall father’s chin. George kissed the top of her very blue head. “I’m glad you’re home, Aly.”

    She smiled up at him, all artifice and playacting set aside. “It’s always good to see you, Da.”

    That night they ate with Maude, the Swoop’s aging housekeeper and Aly’s former nursemaid. Maude clucked over her hair, as Aly had known she would. She loved to make Maude cluck. Then she could remind the old woman how much she had changed from the Maude who had once disguised her young mistress Alanna as a boy and sent her off to become a lady knight. Maude always got flustered by that. Alanna was now a legend and a great lady of the realm. Maude could say it was fate that had made her open-minded back then, but she knew she was being inconsistent when she said it.

    Aly liked to tease her nursemaid, not to mention everyone else. Her father knew her tricks and enjoyed catching her at them, which was fine. She knew most of his, too, because he’d taught them to her himself. She disconcerted most people, from the many boys who came calling once they’d noticed her mischievous eyes, ruddy gold hair, and neat figure to the hardened brigands and criminals who carried information to her father. She could even make her brothers yelp like puppies if she worked at it. Her twin, Alan, was particularly vulnerable, since she knew his mind nearly as well as her own.

    The only person she left alone was her mother. Lady Alanna of Pirate’s Swoop and Olau, King’s Champion and lady knight, known throughout the Eastern and Southern Lands as the Lioness, did not startle well. She had a temper and her own particular way of doing things. Alanna showed a sense of humor only around her husband. Aly knew her mother loved her two sons and lone daughter, but she was seldom home. She was forever being summoned to some crisis or other, leaving her children to be raised by her husband and Maude.

    Not that her children required any more raising. Aly was sixteen, almost an adult and ready for adult work, as people were forever reminding her. Aly sometimes felt that everyone in her world had more exciting things to do than she did. She hadn’t seen her mother, Aunt Daine, or Uncle Numair since the Scanran war began a year before. In the last month, while Aly had been in the capital, her grandparents were constantly advising the king and queen, so much so that she couldn’t impose on their hospitality any longer. Her brother Thom, two years older, thought mostly of his studies. Her twin, Alan, who’d begun his page training three years late, was kept busy by the training master. She had seen him twice during her visit, and only for brief periods of time. She had felt left out, even as she had understood that for the time being, Alan belonged to his training master more than he did even to his twin sister. Rather than distract him from his training, she left him alone. Alan was like a cat: he would return to her when he was ready, and not one moment sooner.

    All of the young men she had not flirted with and discarded were as