David Weber - Wind Rider's Oath

"Really?" There was something about that single word which made Kaeritha wonder exactly what the girl was thinking. But then Leeana shook herself, and turned back towards her.

"That makes sense, too," she said. "But it doesn't sound like what the people who worry me are saying, either."

"What do you mean?" Kaeritha asked intently.

"The loving and sharing part seems to get left out a lot," Leeana said simply. "And so does the bit about responsibility." Kaeritha frowned, but she didn't interrupt, and the young woman continued. "There were a couple of other parts that surprised me a little, just at first. They shouldn't have, but I guess that despite everything, I've got a lot more 'conventional' leftovers in my attitudes then I realized I did. I mean, the war maids are a community of women who've chosen not to live in a society run by men. Under the circumstances, I should have been surprised if many of them hadn't chosen other women as their partners, not the other way around.

"But even if that surprised me, at first, it didn't take me long to understand it. And what bothered me, Dame Kaeritha, wasn't who someone chose to fall in love with. It was the way these particular war maids were talking about what the Voice thought about the proper 'freedom' when it comes to choosing lovers, whether they're men or women."

She didn't seem a bit flustered by her subject matter now, Kaeritha noted. It was as if her concentration on explaining what she meant had banished such mundane concerns.

"Why?"

"Because the sort of commitment and responsibility you're talking about doesn't seem very important to them. They talk about it as if it were, well, only physical. As if it's all about selfish pleasure, or just a momentary fling. Like . . . like the other person doesn't really matter, or isn't really real. Just a convenience . I'm not naive enough to think there aren't a lot of people in the world who feel that way anyway, Dame Kaeritha. But these women were laughing-almost snickering-about it, like they knew what they were suggesting was wrong and that only made it better, somehow. Some of them actually look forward to hurting someone else-using sex as a weapon to 'get even' for everything men have ever done to women. And every time I heard one of them saying something like that, I thought about all of the people who already believe all war maids think that way."

Kaeritha frowned, and her thoughts were grim. It was possible Leeana was overreacting to a few chance words. As the girl had said, she was the product of a Sothōii upbringing herself. Perhaps not quite as conventional as most, but even an 'unconventional' Sothōii rearing was bound to leave a few footprints.

Yet Kaeritha didn't think that was the case. Not only was Leeana keenly intelligent and observant, but the situation she described fitted only too well into the pattern Kaeritha had begun to discern. Or that she was afraid she had, at any rate.

"Do you think I'm imagining things?" Leeana asked, once again almost as if she could read Kaeritha's mind, and the knight shook her head.

"No. I'm certain you're not imagining things, Leeana. It's possible you're reading more into what you've heard than was actually intended, but I don't believe you've imagined anything."

"Oh," Leeana said in a voice which was suddenly so tiny that Kaeritha looked at her in surprise.

"I'd hoped I was," the young woman said softly.

The morning sun's heat lay golden on the rolling grassland as a reinforced company of cavalry in the mingled colors of Glanharrow and Balthar swept steadily southeast. The wind blew-more than a breeze, but still gentle-from the south, and if it was cooler than it would become once full summer arrived, the day was already warmer than the day before had been. The cavalry sweep was approaching the perimeter of the Bogs, riding along one of the marshy streams that drained the rich but empty pastureland toward the swamps, still some miles away, and hordes of insects sent outriders of their own to scout the horsemen for possible targets.

Sir Trianal Bowmaster grimaced as the first stinging insect lighted on his warhorse's neck. The black stallion's skin shuddered, sending the insect zipping away, but the young man knew it would be back. Along with its brothers, sisters, and cousins . . . and all of their assorted uncles, mothers, fathers, and aunts. And, of course, they would find their way under hardened leather greaves and vambraces. And steel breastplates. Although, he reflected, he wasn't certain that even a horsefly under a breastplate wasn't preferable to a mosquito inside a helmet.

Funny, he told himself, how the bards somehow forget to mention gnats and midges-or trapped sweat-when they talk about battle and glory.

He snorted at the thought, then chuckled as he contemplated the response Brandark might have made to his observation. Whatever reservations Trianal might still nurse about hradani in general, he found himself forced to admire the Bloody Sword's intelligence and sharp, biting sense of humor. His views on bardic oversights might well have been profane, but they would certainly have been amusing.

He stood in the stirrups for a moment, stretching his leg muscles, then settled back. He and his men had been in the saddle, but for brief, occasional halts, since well before dawn. Their pace had been slow enough to conserve their mounts, but that hadn't given them any more sleep before they left barracks, and his backside ached. Fortunately, it wasn't all that bad yet, and it was a sensation to which he was well accustomed, despite his youth. And although Chemalka's amusement with the spring rains seemed to have worn itself out, the ground was not yet dry enough for his troopers to be raising the clouds of dust which would have risen, even from grassland like this, later in the summer.

He wondered how many of his armsmen thought they were wasting their time. Whoever-he conscientiously avoided the names Erathian and Saratic-was behind the raids appeared to be doing exactly what Sir Yarran had suggested they might and adopting a waiting posture. There had been no reports of additional raids in almost two weeks now, and Trianal's patrols had found no sign of raiding parties during that time. He had other, smaller groups of scouts out searching for those signs even now, but he'd chosen to lead this larger sweep in person. In no small part that had been to get himself out into the open air and away from the office Lord Festian had assigned him in the keep at Glanharrow. It was also the sweep most likely to encounter something, assuming that Lord Erathian was, in fact, one of those responsible for the attacks. Although, if Trianal wanted to be honest with himself about it, he didn't really anticipate that they were going to run into anything exciting, even so. But at least it was getting him some exercise.

And the opportunity to sweat . . . and worry about horseflies and breastplates.

He chuckled again and reached for his water bottle. He took a sip-little more than enough to rinse his mouth out-then restoppered it and looked up as one of the riders scouting ahead of his main force came cantering back towards him.

"Do you suppose they've actually found something?" he asked the older man beside him skeptically.

"I'd say it's possible," Sir Yarran replied, squinting against the sun which hovered in the vicinity of the eastern horizon against a sky of blue and dramatic white clouds. "If they have, they don't think it's urgent, though." Trianal looked a question at him, and the senior knight shrugged. "If it was urgent, he'd be moving faster than that," he pointed out, and Trianal nodded.

"You've got a point," he conceded. Then he chuckled bitterly. "Of course, if they've found anything , they're doing better than we've done for the last two weeks!"