Chapter 43
“Someone told me once,” Bradamante explained to Jara, “that if the king let women compete in his tournaments, Manat would have won. I want to prove it’s true. I’ll never be as good as Manat, but maybe I’ve learned enough. If I can win, then it means she could have, too.”
“Of course you can win! You know you can. Think of that night in Gibeah—”
“Against unarmed men, and with Manat’s help.”
“When you were fifteen!”
“Manat has taught me a lot since then. I think I’m ready. But I need to do this on my own. If Naldo knows I’m here, it’s going to make it too hard. He’ll try to help me some way. Or maybe he won’t help me at all—he might try to talk me out of it.”
“So what are you going to do?”
“I’m going to pretend I’m a man.”
“How?”
“Cut my hair off.”
“No! You can’t do that.
