No, no, no, no I can’t do it. Kel is my lady, my light, my love–and I can’t imagine a world where the people on that war front would ever have allowed her death. So let’s tell this story–she was found guilty of treason. She was sentenced to death, kneeling on that Tortallan river mud, enemy territory a stone’s throw behind her, hundreds of abandoned souls saved by her stubborn hands. 

Dutiful misery was stark in the grip Wyldon used to pull her to her feet and tie her hands behind her. (He would not leave that job to a lesser man.) Rage poured off Raoul, simmering, trapped. The King’s Own protested–when they shut themselves up it was not at their commander’s order but at Kel’s quelling shake of her head.

Wyldon could protect Owen, who was his squire and his responsibility. The King’s Own had technically, roughly, been following orders. The rescued civilians were ushered toward safety with faintly awed hands. Kel, Merric, and Neal were ushered forward, too, by awed hands, but it was with their own hands bound behind them and it was not toward safety.

But the awe was there– these knights had done the impossible. They had gone into enemy territory, after monsters made of death and metal, and saved their people. They had done the impossible– they had put protecting homeless peasants above obeying their lord. Wyldon tied each of their hands behind their backs and they did not apologize. Neal raised his chin like he was challenging Wyldon to demand it of him.

But the Giantkiller fortress was flooded with children and civilians who had been written off as collateral damage. After days of hard travel, the children were no longer unnaturally clean and coiffed; they would always be scared. They would always be brave. They would not allow Kel to be the price paid for their lives.

A pretty young woman who had once stabbed a Scanran slaver to death found out where they were keeping Kel and her knights. Children threw tantrums to distract while the ex-convicts picked the locks on their doors. Tobe got the horses and kept them quiet. When they got to the main gates again, Neal ready to put them all to sleep, the guards turned around the same way they had days before and let them through.

Up in the commander’s quarters, Wyldon slept restlessly. He had told Keladry of Mindelan once that he believed the best thing that could be said of his tenure as training master was that she had been in his care. He still believed that to be true, but he had his orders. When they woke him, he would be stranded somewhere between rage and relief.

Only a handful of Haven civilians came out into the woods with Kel that night. Neal tsked about Giantkiller’s healers and worked on them all while Merric went though their stolen saddlepacks and took inventory. Fanche pulled bread, cheese, and knives out of her bulging skirts and passed them around.

Kel sat, staring at the space they would have put a fire if they had thought it was safe to light one. Neal bullied some bread into her and Merric asked, “What do we do now, Kel?”

She considered saying, “Why are you asking me?” but Kel had always been very bad at lying to herself. She looked up at the trees. Fir. Spruce. “There’s a war on,” Kel said. “No matter what they say back there, we still have a sworn duty. Or at least I do.” Her school friends were looking up at her like she held their allegiances in her callused palm. The Haven people were careful shadows, tired, certain. Tobe looked at her like he was never letting her out of his sight again. “I’m going to keep fighting.”

They took down their first Scanran raiding party the next day, finding them almost on accident. The first Haven dogs and cats skipped and sauntered into their makeshift camp the next night, curling up by the fire and dropping rabbits for the humans to clean for them.

Haven civilians and convicts began wandering in, grinning tightly, bringing stories of Giantkiller all up in arms. After the first week, once she’d figured out they might be there for good, Kel had started looking for clerks.

When Dom and most of his squad of the King’s Own walked into their camp without a single piece of official Crown livery on, Kel seized Dom by one rough, plain sleeve and dragged him to the side.

“You can’t be here,” she hissed. “Neal and Merric are as damned as I am. The refugees have nowhere safer to go, and I’m not going to keep them from a fight if they want it. But you– Raoul needs you, Dom.”

“Raoul needs us to win this war,” said Dom. “And neither of us could think of any better hands for my squad to be in than yours. If we’re going to win this, we can’t keep our best commanders in the dark.” He grinned. “Even if they’re grumpy giantesses of fugitives.”

Fandom: Tortall - Tamora Pierce

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences

Archive Warning: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings

Category: Gen

Relationships: Alanna of Pirate’s Swoop and Olau & Thom of Trebond, Thom of Trebond & Raoul of Goldenlake and Malorie’s Peak, Thom of Trebond & Francis of Nond, Alanna of Pirate’s Swoop and Olau & Jonathan of Conté, Alanna of Pirate’s Swoop and Olau & George Cooper

Characters: Alanna of Pirate’s Swoop and Olau, Thom of Trebond, Jonathan of Conté, Gary of Naxen, Raoul of Goldenlake and Malorie’s Peak, Francis of Nond, Alexander of Tirragen, George Cooper (Tortall), Roger of Conté, Eleni Cooper (Tortall), Coram Smythesson, Baird of Queenscove

Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Major Illness, Child Death, both thom and alanna go to corus, give thom even one friend challenge, POV multiple

Chapter note:

The whole first scene of this chapter pulls more directly from the original text than I typically like, but it felt too important to leave out completely and the original is too good to change dramatically. Once again, please note the tags. This is the second chapter dealing with the sweating fever itself, and then the next one will cover the immediate aftermath.

Chapter summary:

"Duke Baird said it would take all my strength," Alanna said. "But you and I have so much Gift..." she trailed off as Thom shook his head. "It’s not enough," he said. “Did he tell you it’s magic?” She nodded. “You can’t think of it like a normal fever. It’s…” he paused, trying to put into words what it felt like to empty all his magic into the fever and have it do nothing. “It’s hungry,” he said finally. “I’ll be careful,” she said. He could practically see her steeling herself. Then, “Duke Baird said I might not survive, if I try to heal him.” “Don’t you dare,” Thom snapped before he could stop himself. They’d lost so many people already, they couldn’t lose Alanna too. Thom couldn’t lose her. “Don’t you dare either,” Alanna said, which wasn’t fair. She was the one talking about maybe dying, not Thom. Even if Thom did feel like he was two thirds dead already. “You should get back,” Thom said, before she could press the point. “If he’s that bad already, you don’t have a lot of time.” “I know,” she said. She swallowed. “We’ll get through this.” She glanced over at the bed. “All of us.”

I see these points, and now I’m going to list out all the ways I can think of that it was a bad political decision too:

1. Alienated his long-standing allies (was there anyone who trained with Alanna when they were all kids that wasn’t pissed about this choice?).

2. Undermined the other progressive policies; he made the decree that girls could openly try for their shields ten years before First Test begins, the training master at the time agreed to it, and Wyldon accepted the decision when he took the job. Stepping backward as soon as it’s put to the test invites other such decrees and programs to be attacked as well.

3. Insulted the Mindelans, who are valuable diplomats, quite badly.

4. Potentially undermined Alanna in her job as King’s Champion; yes, she acknowledges that people often credit her success to her Gift and being god-touched, but she did go through the same official training as all her peers. To make the next woman knight leap more official hurdles is to throw Alanna’s qualifications into question.

5. Nearly lost them Keladry as a knight. She almost makes the decision to wait a few years and apply to the Queen’s Riders instead, because a probationary year for only her was blatantly unfair.

6. Potentially lost them other knights as well. We don’t hear of any other girls starting page training during the rest of Protector of the Small, which spans over eight years. How many other girls, or their parents, looked at that probationary year, and refused to let themselves be so insulted? How many wondered, if the year was lifted for future applicants, if some other humiliation would be sprung on them instead?

Jonathan could have mitigated some of these problems by having Wyldon place all incoming pages under a probationary year, by officially declaring that this was simply yet another change to the training program they were making. Even if rumor went that this change was because of Kel, without it being officially so, it would be less insulting to her & her politically important family, leave less room for open attacks on the other progressive policies, and not raise the stakes so high for future girl applicants.

Where I think he fails is in the same way his father failed and in the same way we see people fail in our world: he thought compromising would get the conservatives on his side, and it just straight up didn’t. Wyldon changes his mind, sure, but do we see any of the other conservatives actually change their opinions about either lady knights specifically or Jon’s political program more generally? Kel doesn’t play politics so it’s hard to say for sure, but the impression I got was very much that her probation and subsequent success don’t actually change anyone’s mind, and that Jon allowing her to be put on probation doesn’t actually give him good will from the conservatives to accomplish other goals instead. The conservatives are just mad that she’s there at all - putting her on probation doesn’t change that, it just upsets his allies and teaches his opponents that he can be bullied.

Which reminds me of how Roald governs, the few times we see evidence of that. He tries to compromise with his enemies and just makes everyone mad. During the war with Tusaine, his orders that the Tortallan forces not cross the river don’t make Tusaine more willing to come to the table and make a peace treaty, they just piss off all the Tortallan soldiers and leave them vulnerable to Roger’s plotting. Even without Roger, it would have been an obvious gambit for the Tusainis to capture some high ranking nobles and hold them for ransom, knowing that the Tortallans have orders not to pursue them across the river and so have to come to the table on Tusaini terms.

I think Jon is someone who sees in himself the risk of tyranny and overcorrects against it. He knows that he has a penchant for just taking what he wants and forcing others to go along with it because he’s king and his friends are powerful and personally loyal to him. He absolutely could be a despot monarch - we sort of see him in that role when he’s a page, throwing his weight around and expecting all the others boys to fall in line. I think he really does not want to be that kind of a king, and in correcting against that, reaches for his father’s example instead. And Roald - who was in turn overcorrecting in reaction to his father’s decisions - was someone who reached for compromise and pacification at all times, including when it didn’t serve him or his country to do so.

“You murdered my teacher! I will burn your palace to the ground!”

I’ve been re-reading the Immortals, and totally forgot that Daine gains the ability to control animal skeletons as well.

Bonus:

This, too, is a trashed bathroom; young queer people living through hell and having precious little control over their circumstances or the world in which they exist can affect something by using the language of social justice as a cudgel on their would-be allies, as well as getting a brief feeling of power over someone else by doing it.

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