Potential AU game. Either (1) The ysandir of SotL are corrupted tolkien elves and the worldbuilding 5 facts it would have entailed, or (2) Queen Lianne I survives Roger's second attempt at killing her, too. Roald I dies instead. -- I was going to ask for Thom survives, but you had kind of written that already!

1. Lianne is holding onto her life by her fingernails. She knows this. Jon knows it. Roald knows it. Lianne copes with what she knows through prayer, not for a longer life, but for one she can enjoy; Jon copes by spending a hitherto unknown amount of time with his uncle, learning about the kingdom, and in Lower City pursuits into which Lianne will not enquire; and Roald goes on a lot of long solitary rides.

The day Roald doesn’t come back, Lianne gives her son two pieces of advice: firstly, have the Mithrans arrest Roger and hold him indefinitely; secondly, bring Alanna of Trebond home, wherever she is now.

2. Jon tells Lianne nothing about his experiences in the desert until the day she finds him acting as Voice of the Tribes - sitting cross-legged before a blazing blue fire, his eyes white and blank, to all appearances totally insensible. Lianne faints with horror and hits her head on the way down, which does little actual damage to her, but has the salutary effect of making Jon tell her everything.

The extraordinary magnitude of the risk he took makes Lianne feel far more dizzy than a little cut on her scalp. She summons Sir Myles to give him a piece of her mind, and discovers that all Jon's friends are in on it: Gary is researching the intersection between Tortallan and Bazhir law and justice and writing papers for Jon about it, Raoul has got himself adopted by a tribe and is now recruiting for Tortall's armies among the Bazhir, Alanna has accidentally started a school for mages among the tribe that adopted her. All that’s missing is Alexander of Tirragen setting up to trade horses with the expert breeders of the Bazhir.

After some reflection, Lianne realises that this is all very characteristic, including Alexander managing to stay out of trouble when the rest are in it up to their ears.

"It isn’t a course of action I would necessarily have advised," Sir Myles admits. "But Jon's gamble has been a wise one. He's done more for relations with the Bazhir in six months than Lord Martin has managed in ten years."

Lianne reflects a little more, summons Jon, and asks him if the Bloody Hawk - who adopted Sir Myles and Alanna - would be willing to send a lady to court, to act as one of her ladies-in-waiting. Jon kisses her cheek and makes some remark about knowing she wouldn’t want to be left out that Lianne chooses to ignore.

The Bloody Hawk send her Kourrem bint Kemail, chaperoned by Sir Myles's new wife, Lady Eleni - a very respectable city woman, a healer with a grown-up son. Mistress Kourrem is very young, but she is very dignified for her age, and also a mage of no mean skill. Lianne finds their company very pleasant, and makes a point of favouring them both; the girl especially. She makes a point of not noticing that they are in cahoots with Duke Baird to improve her health.

It's not going to save Lianne's life. But it is touching.

3. Raoul brings Alanna home with a princess, a bodyguard, the Shang Dragon, and the Dominion jewel. When Lianne hears the news she laughs herself into a coughing fit at how very like the child it is, and summons young Alanna.

It's funny how different she doesn’t look from Squire Alan. There's a new maturity to her, a tempered strength, but she still looks uncertain and awkward to Lianne's eyes. She remains the same remarkable, unpredictable power that Gareth trained, that Sir Myles taught, that Jon befriended, and made his most loyal follower. Made into other things too, but Lianne knows now that Alanna has turned down Jon's proposal, and she hopes that - in light of that - Jon will not make a scandal of himself by starting to sleep with her again.

"Please," says Lianne, "keep him safe. You were always the only one who could do it."

Alanna swears an oath without hesitation, and something settles in Lianne's chest that has nothing to do with her weak lungs, her racing heart. Roald hated to look like a fool, and so he sent Alanna away; but if anyone can keep Roger in his cell, and put him back in the ground if that must be done, it's the Lioness. Jon cannot do without her.

4. A year after the Battle of the Hall of Crowns, Jon tells her he intends to marry Princess Thayet. Lianne has seen this coming - all those dances, all those long hours poring over dismal harvest reports and even less favourable accounts, all those long rides - but she still asks him if he's out of his mind.

The girl is beautiful, of course, sublimely beautiful; she is kind and clever and everything Lianne would ask for in Jon's bride - although a little more decorum and a little less forthrightness would serve her well - but she has no dowry, and Sarain is a wasteland. Lianne feels for her, but she can't countenance the marriage. Jon should marry someone who can offer the realm money and security.

But Lianne can't stop him. Once Jon has the bit between his teeth, no-one can. None of Jon's friends are willing to advise him against the marriage, either, not even Gary.

"This is a terrible idea," she says to Gareth, the day before the marriage is formally announced.

"I distinctly remember telling you that," Gareth says. "And you told me if you couldn’t have Roald you wouldn't have anyone, and he told me the same thing about you."

"The circumstances were completely different."

"Yes," Gareth says. "In those days, we were on the verge of a civil war."

"Marrying Alanna of Trebond would have made more sense." Alanna is married now, to Lady Eleni's smiling son with the crooked nose and confiding ways; Lianne isn’t supposed to know that he's Jon's spymaster, but of course, she does. Alanna will make a strange sort of a mother, but a loving one, no doubt.

Gareth chokes on his wine and coughs disbelievingly for several minutes. Lianne eyes him resentfully, and wishes she were feeling well enough to sweep majestically out.

5. Lianne still thinks Jon could have married more wisely, but two years after the marriage Thayet has given Tortall a prince and princess - both healthy, strong and bonny children - with no noticeable impact on her own health and strength, or the beauty that makes poets name her peerless. Jon is happy in his marriage and wears his crown well, and Lianne can see hints of recovery from the abyss that Roger cast Tortall into. She and Thayet are on friendly enough terms - Thayet often has the children brought to her to play, shows Lianne private as well as public respect, and makes a point of honouring her as Jon's mother in a way that is at least as sincere as it is a means of emphasising that while Lianne is the queen dowager, Thayet is the queen.

But Thayet doesn't ask her for advice - probably because Lianne thinks many of her proposed policies are foolish, dangerous, or simply not a queen's province - until the day she brings Lianne an enormous dossier marked FOUNDATIONAL EDUCATION, and presents her with the concept of seven years of basic education for every Tortallan: reading, writing, arithmetic, religion, and history.

They're called the Queens' Schools, in the end. And when she does die, a couple of years later, that's where Lianne leaves her personal fortune. That's her ultimate legacy.