The Woman Who Rides Like a Man by Tamora Pierce Page B

spend time bound to one place; she was searching for adventure! Another wave of exhaustion swept her, and she looked away. Faithful sat expectantly before the open door, waiting.
    "I don't care if it's home or a grave-digger's hut," she sighed. "I just want a place to lie down." With Kara and Kourrem supporting her, still clutching the crystal sword, she entered the shaman's tent.
    * * *
    4—Studies in Sorcery
    One of Alanna's first acts as shaman of the Bloody Hawk was to approach Ali Mukhtab and Halef Seif about training replacements: Kara, Kourrem, and Ishak. "Ishak knows some magic," she told them. "And all three must've developed some control, or this village wouldn't be here still. It doesn't take much learning to be a shaman, and they would be better than Ibn Nazzir ever was."
    The men thought her proposal over for long moments, their faces unreadable. Alanna tried to keep from fidgeting. Where would she find other likely candidates, if she couldn't train these three? Also, giving the outcasts shaman status would go a long way toward redressing the wrong Ibn Nazzir had done them, to her way of thinking.
    "To make girls shamans is a new thing," Ali Mukhtab said at last. "But this tribe has done many things that are new since the coming of the Woman Who Rides Like a Man."
    "Our shaman now is also a woman," Halef added, smiling just a little.
    "You like this, then?" Mukhtab asked.
    The headman's smile broadened. "I think it will be very interesting to watch. Certainly the young ones will obey this shaman."
    Mukhtab nodded. "It will be done," he told Alanna. "May the gods smile on you."
    Alanna levered herself to her feet. "Thank you," she said. "I'm probably going to need the gods smiling on me."
    The three were waiting for her when she returned to the tent. Alanna looked around, satisfied. The place looked very different from the way it had the afternoon she had first lurched inside. Brass and silver shone softly in the lamplight. The carpets glowed in their original deep colors. The hangings that separated the temple from her living area were spotless. It's actually pleasant to come home to, she thought.
    "You asked us to wait for you here," Kourrem, ever-forthright, told her. "You talked with the headman and the Voice. Are we in trouble?"
    Alanna shook her head, accepting the date wine Ishak poured for her. "We were talking about you, yes," she replied. "But you aren't in trouble. I wanted their permission to train you as shamans. They said I could."
    For a moment three pairs of eyes—the girls' dark-brown, the boy's brownish-gray—stared at her. Kourrem started to cry.
    "I thought you didn't wish to talk about magic, ever," Ishak reminded her, puzzled.
    Kara had joined Kourrem, upsetting Alanna. "Girls, stop that. I didn't mean to make you cry; drink some of this wine." She told Ishak, "I said that without knowing the girls hadn't been trained at all, and you only a little. Kourrem, Kara, please don't cry. Yes, I'm sick of magic; but someone has to teach you three, and I'm it. Listen to me." She sat down on a pillow with a sigh. The girls were reduced to sniffles; she had everyone's attention. "While I was a page, then a squire, in the palace, there was a man—the King's nephew, my Prince's cousin. Duke Roger was the greatest sorcerer in the Eastern Lands. He was handsome, well-liked, charming. I felt I was the only person in the world who knew he meant my Prince no good, that he caused accidents that nearly killed Jonathan. I think he had me kidnapped by the enemy when we fought Tusaine. Then, when I took the Ordeal of Knighthood two moons ago, I learned he had used his sorcery to blind everyone—including me, in a way—to his plans. He wanted to kill the Queen. I accused him before the King and the entire Court. Roger demanded a trial by combat."
    She drew a deep breath. This was painful. "We fought. He—cut through—" She blushed, unsure of what to say. "I had disguised myself as a boy—" She waved her