The hired guards didn’t want her in the barracks. It was not that it was “unwomanly” for her to be there by their standards. They had enough women with them already. It was that she didn’t fit there because of her status. She was noble, and she was family, and she didn’t belong with the hirelings.

And her old friends among the servants kept treating her like some kind of demi-deity.

I don’t fit here anymore, she thought, a notion that had begun to make its own little rut through her mind, she’d repeated it so often. I just don’t fit here. If I stay here much longer, I think I may go mad. It feels like I’m being smothered. Tarma was right. You can put a hawk in a birdcage, like a songbird, but it’s still a hawk.

She caught a movement down at the second table, and saw her grandmother and her friend easing out of their seats. It didn’t look like a trip to the necessary; it seemed more final. Somehow she knew where they were going. Back to the Tower. They weren’t needed here anymore, either—so they were making a graceful, unobtrusive exit.

I wish I could do the same—

That was when it hit her.

Why can’t I do the same? Why can’t I just go? She sat up straighter, feeling her cheeks warming with excitement. I have to return Grandmother’s sword anyway—so why don’t I follow after them? Maybe they’ll be willing to teach me things. Didn’t Tarma say they used to have a school?

The more she thought about it, the better the idea sounded. And the more intolerable and confining the idea of remaining here became. Finally she excused herself from the table—her seatmate didn’t even notice—and slipped out of the Great Hall and into the corridor beyond.

Once there, she hiked her encumbering skirts above her knees, and ran for her room. There were no servants in the hall to see her, and although she split one sleeve of the gown, she no longer cared. Let Dierna give it to one of her maids.

I certainly won’t wear it again.

She slipped out of it as soon as she reached her room, tossed it in a heap in the comer, and dragged her saddlebags out from under the bed. She rummaged through chests and wardrobe in a frenzy, discarding most of what she encountered without a second thought, casting what she’d decided to keep on the bed.