Title: scenes from a respectable life
Author: Carmarthen (caerfyrddin @ gmail.com)
Fandom/Pairing: Tamora Pierce's Tortall novels; George/Alanna
Disclaimer: The characters belong to the wonderful Tamora Pierce. Not me. No profit is being made and no disrespect to characters or author is intended.
Rating: PG for mild romance, mild violence.
Spoilers: Spoilers for Lioness Rampant.
Summary: George Cooper isn't sure respectability is all it's cracked up to be.
Warnings: Mild m/f romance (canon), some violence.
Archive: My personal site (http://thewritegirls.populli.net/carmarthen) and While we tell of yuletide treasure...; others ask.
Notes: Many thanks to truestories for the beta; I had a great deal of trouble getting George's voice and I don't think I entirely succeeded, alas.
written for Pentapus in the 2006 Yuletide Treasure challenge
George still wasn't sure how to behave around the Lord Provost. His entire life he had played a game with the man. He had feared him and baited him. Like all the Rogues of Tortall, he'd even been secretly proud of the Provost.
He still didn't know how Jonathan had convinced the Provost to sign the papers of pardon, much less take him on as a successor. Yet here he was--across the table from one of the most feared men in Tortall, maps spread out between them--talking strategy. George wasn't sure the Provost had seen their game quite the same way.
Jon had set them to tracking down the remaining conspirators behind the coronation disaster. It made sense, but George still couldn't shake his feelings of unease. It couldn't be this simple. He'd taught Jon, and they both knew nothing was ever this simple.
"Cooper!" the Lord Provost said, sharply. "Would you be so good as to favor me with your attention?"
"Sorry," George mumbled. "Sir." It still didn't come easy, the stiff formality of the court. He'd almost let himself think all nobles were like Jon and his friends.
The Provost raised an eyebrow. "I won't bite, Cooper," he said, mildly. He pointed at the map, near the Eldorne estates. "My informants have news of men hiding in the woods, here. There is some evidence connecting them with support from Eldorne. You will find out how deep the treason runs."
"Eldorne?" George asked. "You don't think I'll be recognized?"
"I have faith in your abilities, Master Cooper," the Lord Provost said dryly. George could almost have sworn he saw a twinkle in the man's ice-blue eyes.
He grinned. "I'll do my best, my Lord Provost," he said. This was clearly his test.
"I expect nothing less," the Provost said.
His last visit to Pirate's Swoop had rewarded George with a letter from Alanna, chatty and full of news from the Bloody Hawk. It sounded like she was having a grand time hunting with the young men.
George wanted her with him so badly it almost hurt. There was a still a part of him that feared she'd change her mind--why would she want to be tied down to a husband (and children, maybe) when she could keep to her wanderings? She seemed content among the Bazhir, and George hadn't ever known her to be content before.
He tried to write a letter several times--carefully avoiding details of his work, before giving up and simply writing
I miss you.
Alanna hadn't said in her letter when she would return. She hadn't said anything about the future. She'd never really given him an answer.
George crumpled the parchment and threw it on the fire. He'd write another letter in the morning.
"Well, if it isn't George Cooper." The friendly drawl sounded distinctly unfriendly underneath, and George turned with a smile on his face to find a lean, sly-looking man sitting at a corner table. "I hear you've gone respectable, Majesty--or is it Majesty these days?"
George shrugged noncommittally, keeping a friendly smile on his face as he sat down across from the man. He had hoped he wouldn't run into anyone in Eldorne who could recognize him, but at least his title hadn't been granted publicly yet. "You know how rumor is," he said.
He couldn't remember the man's name, but he'd been one of Claw's. A bad piece of work.
"Funny," the man said. "I could've sworn I'd heard you was friendly with my Lord Provost these days. From a friend."
George raised an eyebrow. "Why would I do that?" he asked, lightly.
"Same reason anyone else does," the man said, with a nasty grin. His teeth were bad. "Money. Power. Now, I wonder who'd want news of the Rogue goin' respectable."
George leaned back in his chair, fingering one of the knives he had at the small of his back, under his jerkin. This was a problem. Respectability was a problem--the networks he'd once relied on worked against him now.
Later, in the alley, as George wiped his knife clean on the man's shirt, he thought that even with the Crown's blessing, Alanna still wouldn't approve. Neither would his mother, for that matter. So far, respectability didn't seem too different from before.
George still had bandaged ribs and an arm in a sling when he met with the Lord Provost.
"I see we match now," the Provost said, with a nod to George's limp.
George stared, speechless. Apparently the world was ending: the Lord Provost had actually cracked a joke.
"I have heard the outline from others," the Provost said, pulling out a chair for George and pouring him a cup of wine. "You're certain you rooted them all out?"
George nodded. "The leaders, anyway. Hard to be sure about the hired men."
The Provost shrugged. "The King is less concerned with them."
George took a sip of his wine. It was a good vintage, and he gave the Provost a look of surprise.
"I accept nothing less than quality, Master Cooper," the Provost said, with a hint of a smile. "Baron Cooper."
George shook his head and laughed, then winced at the stab of pain from his cracked ribs. "I'm still not used to this nobility business," he said.
The Provost gave him an unreadable look. "I think you will do well enough," he said, and George remembered that the Provost himself was common-born. "This arrived while you were in Tirragen," he said, sliding a letter across the table to George. "From your friend Trebond."
And so, in October George Cooper found himself riding for Bazhir lands. This time he wasn't leaving without an answer.
Sir Alanna of Trebond and Olau and Baron George Cooper of Pirate's Swoop were married in January of the following year in a small, quiet ceremony at the Temple of the Goddess in Corus. Alanna wore violet silk, and a pair of amethyst eardrops George had given her before she left for the Bloody Hawk.
"I feel like a doll," Alanna muttered darkly in George's ear as they walked towards the altar. "These shoes pinch."
George kissed her hand. "That's my girl," he said, and she glared at him. "You look beautiful."
Her grip on his arm was bruising.
But her voice didn't falter on the vows--nor did his--and when the Lord Provost congratulated them at the ball, with a real smile, George felt something strangely like pride.
He put his arm around Alanna's waist and dropped a kiss on her ear. "Is that a knife in your bodice?" he whispered. "How unladylike."
She laughed and widened her eyes innocently. "The last time I attended a ball it turned into a rebellion. Can you blame me for wanting to be prepared?"
George grinned and ran his hand through her hair, bringing it to rest against her collarbone. Her skin felt good, and he wondered whether he could convince her to leave early. "I love you, my most unladylike Lioness."
"I'm glad you waited for me," she said, and kissed him. It was a good, long kiss, just a bit shy of impropriety. "I love you."
Respectability might not be so bad after all.
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