Prologue

Part of The Tirragenverse

'verse Summary: For Want of a Nail AU. In which a Player becomes a Guard, Sir Myles has hope, Hill Country is explored, and Alex of Tirragen, son of Jasper of Tirragen – and Leila, once of the tribe of the Sleeping Lion – does not become a traitor. Sequel/companion fic to The World's a Stage.

Alex of Tirragen inherited his mother's walnut brown skin, full mouth, her Sight, and her thick black hair. The only thing, the nine-and-a-half-year old thought, as he stared at himself in the mirror through bleary black eyes, that he'd inherited from his father in his features was the hooked nose and long face, which both his half-brothers had inherited. That marked him as Alexander of Tirragen, son of the late Lord Jasper of Tirragen, as well as the son of Leila, lately of Tirragen, once of the Sleeping Lion.

Mother would be proud of how he has remembered the formalities, he thought.

He finished dressing quickly, and trooped downstairs to the salon, where he knew the rest of his family would be having breakfast. He slid into his seat, next to his mother.

His brother Duncan was out, escorting the group of Players northward, towards the City of the Gods, and Miranda and Jason would be coming into the room soon. Over tea and twilsey, they would plan the day with his mother.

His mother kissed him on the forehead, the gauzy silver veil over her head fluttering with the movement. "Good morning, Alex."

"Morning, Mama," he replied, yawning. She rapped her fan on his knuckles.

"Don't yawn at the table," she chided him. "If you absolutely must, you may cover your yawn with your hand."

"Yes, Mother," he smiled his best innocent-obedient-son smile at her, and she flicked her fan out. It covered her mouth, but not the amused crinkles around her eyes. He smiled at the manservant who poured him a cup of apple twilsey.

"Thank you, Arion," he said. The manservant bowed, and stepped back. Alex sipped the cup.

"Do you know what I'm doing today, Mother?" Alex asked.

Leila's smile was slight and gentle, but she shook her head. "We'll plan it with Miranda and Jason, when they come down."

"We're here, Leila," his sister-in-law's voice called, as she and Jason entered, their arms around each other's waists. "Is there tea?"

"Naturally," Leila replied, her smile widening. "And everything else customarily served for breakfast."

"Oh, good," said Miranda, as Jason pushed in her chair for her. "Thank you, dear." She helped herself to a bowl of rice. "The harvest will be in soon. We're going to need to start inventory," she said.

Leila nodded. "I had thought to go riding with Alex this afternoon," she said, "but if we worked together, we would be able to make significant headway on that this morning."

Miranda smiled. "Thank you. Your hand with sums is far more deft than my own," her voice was wry, and Alex swelled with pride; his mother was very good at sums. Another thing she had passed onto him.

"Leila, would it be alright if I borrowed Alex this afternoon, then?" Jason asked, halving a hard-boiled egg in half. "To have a talk about what he'll choose to do."

Leila nodded, her eyes narrowing a touch, and Alex shifted. From some, that look might mean hostility; from his mother, it was concern.

"Very well. Alex, you're a fortunate boy today," said Leila. "No lessons. Instead, with your brother after breakfast, and then after lunch, you and I shall saddle the horses and go riding."

"What if there is time in between lunch and my appointment with Jason?" Alex wanted to know, his fingers already itching with anticipation. If he could just find Sanya, the Captain of the Tirragen Guardsmen, he might be able to beg a lesson in staff-work or dagger-work – as the man stolidly refused to teach him swordplay – from him. Leila smiled at that, and her eyes twinkled, reading what he desperately wanted to spend that time doing.

"If there is, you may report to your governess for etiquette instruction," Leila said. Alex wanted to groan, but stifled the impulse; Leila might rap him with her fan again, or, far worse, change her plans to go riding with him. Which would be awful.

"Yes, Mother," he said, gulping down the last of his egg, and then pushing his chair back. Jason rose as well, his eyes dancing, even though his face was calm.

"Eager, hm, Alex?" he teased, reaching to ruffle Alex's hair. Alex dodged, and Jason chuckled, as they continued down the hall to enter Jason's study.

As the door shut behind him, Alex asked the obvious question.

"What did you want to talk to me about?"

Jason was rifling through his desk, to withdraw a scroll. "Ah, here it is."

He steepled his fingers as he sat; Alex sat as well. "You're going to be ten this winter," Jason said, answering Alex's question. "That means you need to decide what you're going to do with your life. There are several options available for you. Mithran priesthood, for the first."

Alex stamped on the urge to wrinkle his nose in distaste, instead keeping his face politely interested. But Jason knew him well enough to read the controlled lack of reaction well enough. "No, I didn't think you'd like that," Jason admitted with a smile. "You could, at the age of 16, join the King's Own."

"What would that mean doing?"

"Mostly? Parading in mail around the Court," Jason conceded. "It's not really a fighting post. Or anything involving tracking, or much riding, or anything other than showing off to Court ladies, not unless things have changed dramatically in the past two years."

"Pass," Alex said, not bothering to contain his distaste. It was one thing to not show his reluctance to join the priesthood, out of fear of the gods. He felt no such compunction about this second. Really, what was the good of a nominal fighting force?

He knew the last option in advance.

"Or you could be a knight," Jason admitted, with a flicker of hesitation. "Which I'm reluctant to encourage. Not because of any nonsense about traditional birth order."

"Then why?"

"Because the Ordeal I faced in the Chamber was terrifying. The Chamber is a hammer, and you must either bend beneath it or break. And I'd not wish it on my worst enemy, but you have to go through it." He unrolled the scroll. "This is the Code of Chivalry, which binds knights of Tortall. Listen."

Jason cleared his throat, and read.

"If you survive the Ordeal of Knighthood, you will be a knight of the realm. You will be sworn to protect those weaker than you, to obey your overlord, to live in a way that honours the kingdom and your gods. To wear the shield of a knight is an important thing. It means you may not ignore a cry for help. It means that rich and poor, young and old, male and female may look to you for rescue and you may not deny them."

The rich as well as the poor, Alex realised. If someone looks to you for rescue, then you have to. Even if it's someone you would think able to help themselves, you still have to help them. You have to help everyone.

"You are bound to uphold the law. You may not look away from wrongdoing. You may not help anyone to break the law of the land, and you must prevent the breaking of the law at all times, in all cases. You are bound by your honour and your word. Act in such a way that when you face the Black God you need not be ashamed."

Alex shivered at the mention of the god of death, but nodded. It was good counsel. "You have learned the laws of Chivalry. Keep them in your heart. Use them as your guides when things are at their darkest. They will not fail you if you interpret them with humanity and kindness. A knight is gentle. A knight's first duty is to understand."

He rolled the scroll up again, and Alex blinked as he absorbed this last. To understand, a knight's first duty? What did that mean?

Then he smiled, deciding that the rest of the Code had made his answer for him. "That's what I want to do," he said, his voice quiet but firm.

"Even with all my warnings about the Ordeal?" Jason asked, one corner of his mouth quirking into a rueful, wry smile. He took Alex's small brown hands into his much larger olive-toned ones.

Alex shrugged. "Mama could have used a knight, when she was facing her tribe," he said, matter-of-fact. "When they didn't believe her."

"It might not have done any good," Jason said dryly. "Many tribes do not recognise the authority of King Roald, nor that of Jasson before him. The Sleeping Lion was certainly a renegade tribe."

Alex frowned at his brother. "You know what I mean. She could have used somebody," he persisted.

"It's in the past, though, what happened to Leila," Jason said, but his words were half-hearted. Alex locked eyes with his older brother, brown against black.

"For Mama. But what about the other girls?" he asked softly. Jason sighed, and nodded his surrender.

"Yes, you're right. Very well, then. A knight you shall be," Jason said. He squeezed Alex's hands once, then released them. "Well. What shall we do for the rest of the morning?"

Alex blinked. "Pardon?"

His big brother chuckled. "Alex, if I'm not cruel enough to want you to go through the Ordeal, I'm not cruel enough to sentence you to a morning of etiquette instruction," he said, with a smile. "How about instead, you go offer your arithmetical services to your mother and Miranda?"

"You mean, help them with the inventory?" Alex checked. His older brother nodded.

"I do."

"Alright, then," he said, turning on his heel to exit the office. He shot a smile at Jason over his shoulder. "Thanks, Jason," he said.

"Be off with you," said Jason, as he gestured to his desk. "Duty calls."

That afternoon, after lunch, he went down to the stables with his mother. They didn't bother with saddles, although Leila did urge him to bridle Jaiyana. He swung onto her back, urging her forward to meet his mother's bay mare, Asil, and she pointed her to the castle gates. They rode out, with Guardsmen Porthos, Aramis and Athos following at a discreet distance.

No matter. Leila, astride in her split-skirts, urged Asil into a canter, and Alex whooped as his concerns fled from him. No past, and no future. Just the glorious rush of wind in his ears, as rider and horse became a single entity, soaring over the obstacle of the bramble bush, and reluctantly slowing to a trot as they began up the hill. But he couldn't help but wonder whether his mother had had something more important than just riding today.

"Alex," his mother said at long last. "There's something I ought to talk to you about."

Ah. So his suspicion had been correct.

"Yes, Mother?" he prompted.

"You've chosen to be a knight, haven't you?"

He tried to control the jerk of surprise, but Jaiyana's ears flicked forward and she neighed at his reins yanking on her mouth. Not angrily; just wondering what on earth her human was thinking. He soothed her with a murmur and scratching her withers. "How did you know?" he demanded.

Leila's chuckle was wry. "Process of elimination. From your reaction, though, I know I was correct. At any rate, I wanted to talk to you about when you got to the Palace."

He looked at the reins in his hands.

"You know that I married your father, two years after being cast out of the Sleeping Lion," his mother said. "Did your father ever tell you why I was cast out?"

Alex nodded. It had been one of the last conversations his father had had with him. Even three years later, the memory was fresh and clear.

"I've never regretted my decision to have you," his mother said softly, leaning across from her mare to brush his cheek gently. He looked up at her, up at her eyes, which were soft, warm, concerned. "But once you're a page, you'll be at the Palace, in Corus. It won't be like here, where the people of the fief are used to you and me. They might be hostile, and sneer at you, and call you a savage. Or a bastard. Or–" her lips thinned, as she pronounced the slur, "sand-scut. That's a particular favourite of some northerners."

"How do you know, Mama?" he asked.

"I spent some time in Persopolis as a young woman, and some of the more odious northern gentlemen–" she pronounced with great sarcasm "–had little concept of how sound travels.

He nodded, absorbing this, looking down. Jaiyana's mane was glossy; as well it should, for he had brushed it till it gleamed.

"Go on, Mama," he said, lifting his head. "I'm alright."

"Very well. If they don't treat you like someone less than them, you may get a few who treat you as an charming pet. Still less than human, but rather cute, or exotic," she continued. "Which would rankle anyone's pride."

"Will there be anyone who might treat me just as a friend?" Alex asked. "Or an equal?"

She looked him in the eyes, her own black gaze sad. "From the outset? Probably not," she said, totally truthful. "More likely is that someone would take you under their wing, from pity, or compassion," she continued. "But they might grow to respect you and love you as a friend. But if someone does take you under their wing–"

She tipped her thumb under his chin, ensuring that his gaze didn't slip from hers. "I want you to let them, Alex," she said. Her voice was stern, and Very Serious. "You'll be at a disadvantage. You'll be on hostile ground. I know you consider yourself Tortallan, as well as Bazhir and hillboy, but, in reality, you will be in territory not your own. So if an older boy offers you his protection, even if it rankle your pride – take it."

He nodded, accepting this calmly. Truth be told, he didn't think he was half so prideful as his Mother was, from all the stories she – and Papa – had told him. Not that he'd tell her that, of course. And even half her pride was still considerable.

"Yes, Mama," he said, again.

She kissed him on the forehead. "I'm proud of you," she said, looking away. He felt blood rush to his face, and knew he was blushing. "Though I shall miss you dearly."

"I'm sorry, Mama." He forged on, trying to make her understand why he did have to go. "But…well, I have to be a knight. So that if someone needs help…"

"Yes, I understand," she completed the thought that he left hanging in the air. "Of course you must." A gentle smile. "And when you receive your shield, I'll be there in Corus."

He flushed with pleasure at the thought. Then, being a nine-and-a-half year old boy, decided that he'd reached his important-and-meaningful threshold for the day.

"A gallop?" he asked his mother hopefully, as they crested the hill.

A dignified nod, and a distinctly smug grin.

"Race you to the bottom," said Leila, leaning back for balance, already urging Asil into a canter.

A/N:

Asil: 'smooth.'

Jaiyana: 'strength.'

Since Tamora Pierce decided on a Greek name – Alexander – for someone from hill country, I decided to follow suit. Hence names like Jason. Porthos, Athos and Aramis are also Greek names, but were mostly because I couldn't resist the joke. D'Artagnan, however, will not be making an appearance.

This chapter is set during The World's a Stage.