David Weber - Wind Rider's Oath

"So climb back up in the cart, Theretha. We're leaving. Now."

Theretha opened her mouth, ready for one, final protest. But Soumeta's expression stopped her. The other woman's face was like a stone wall, a fortress turned against the world in general and Thalar and Master Manuar in particular. There was no point arguing, the glassblower realized.

The rain was falling harder as Theretha clambered up into the cart, in the center aisle between the crates of glassware they'd brought with them so hopefully. She heard the raindrops hitting the taut canvas above her, like an endless series of tiny fists, punching the cover. Here and there, water broke through the fabric, running downward across its inner curve. Some of it seemed to home in on Theretha, and she wrapped her cloak more tightly still about her as Soumeta walked around to the front of the cart and got a good grip on the cart pony's halter. The older woman clucked to the pony, and Theretha grabbed at one of the strapped-up crates for balance as the cart lurched back into motion.

She was going to be cold, wet, and thoroughly miserable by dawn, she thought as the sweet chiming of vibrated glass sang softly to the rain patter from the crates. And the fact that Soumeta was going to be even wetter and colder only made her feel even more frustrated and obscurely guilty. Soumeta was right-Mayor Yalith had made it clear she was to be Kalatha's official representative, and that she was to "look after" Theretha. Yet Theretha couldn't rid herself of the gnawing suspicion that if she'd only spoken to Manuar herself, she might somehow have made a difference.

But she hadn't, and as the cart jolted and splashed through the rain, she settled into the most comfortable position she could find and wondered just when everything had started going so dreadfully wrong.

"That was delicious, Tala-as always," Kaeritha said with a deeply satisfied sigh. She laid her spoon neatly in the empty bowl of bread pudding and patted her flat stomach as she leaned back in her chair, smiling at the sturdy, middle-aged hradani woman who'd been sent along by Prince Bahnak as his son's housekeeper.

"I'm glad you enjoyed it, Milady," Tala said in a pronounced Navahkan accent. "It's always a pleasure to cook for someone who knows good food when she tastes it."

"Or devours it-in copious quantities," Brandark observed, eyeing the empty platters on the table.

"I didn't seem to notice you shirking your share of the devouring, Milord," Tala replied dryly.

"No, but there's more of me to maintain," Brandark replied with a grin, and Kaeritha grinned back at him. Brandark might be of less than average height for even a Bloody Sword hradani, but that still left him a good three inches taller than Kaeritha, and he was far more massively built.

"Aye," Bahzell agreed. "For a sawed-off runt of a hradani who's after sitting on his arse with a pen and a bit of parchment all day, you've a bit of meat on your bones, I suppose."

"I'll remember that the next time you need some obscure Sothōii text translated," Brandark assured him.

"Hush, now, Brandark!" the third person at the table scolded. Gharnal Uthmâgson was short for a Horse Stealer, but taller than Brandark and almost as massively built. Which still left him over a full foot shorter than his foster brother, Bahzell. "It's not so very nice of you to be pointing out as how the thin air up where Bahzell's after keeping his head keeps a man's brain from working. It's not as if it was after being his fault he can't be reading for himself."

He grinned at Brandark, without a trace of the vitriolic hatred for all Bloody Swords which had made him Brandark's bitter enemy when the smaller hradani first accompanied Bahzell to Hurgrum.

"Speaking of obscure Sothōii texts," Kaeritha said in the voice of an adult overlooking a children's squabble as a smiling Tala withdrew, "I wonder if you've come across a copy of the war maids' charter in your forays through Tellian's library, Brandark?"

"I haven't been looking for one," the Bloody Sword replied. "I've done a little research on the entire question of war maids since you and Tellian discussed them the other morning, but I've really only scratched the surface so far. I assume there's probably a copy of the charter and its amending documents somewhere, though. Would you like me to take a look for them?"

"I don't know." Kaeritha grimaced. "It's just that I've realized I'm really pretty appallingly ignorant where any detailed knowledge about the war maids is concerned. Tellian's suggestion that whatever I'm supposed to be dealing with concerns them may well be right, but my training in Sothōii jurisprudence is a bit shakier than my training in Axeman law. If I am supposed to be investigating the war maids' claims, it would probably be a good idea to know what their prerogatives are in the first place."

"I'm not so sure laying hands on a copy of their original charter would be enough to be telling you that," Bahzell put in. He leaned back in a chair which creaked alarmingly under his weight.

"Why not?" Kaeritha asked.

"The war maids aren't so very popular with most Sothōii," Bahzell said in a tone of deliberate understatement. "Not to be putting too fine point on it, there's those amongst the Sothōii who'd sooner see an invading hradani army in their lands than one of the war maids' free-towns."

"They're that unpopular?" Kaeritha looked surprised, and Bahzell shrugged.

"An invading army is likely to be burning their roofs over their heads, Kerry. But roofs can be rebuilt, when all's said. Rebuilding a way of life, now-that's after being just a mite harder."

"And that's exactly how your typical conservative Sothōii would see having a batch of war maids move in next door," Brandark agreed.

Kaeritha nodded in acknowledgment, yet there was still a baffled edge to her expression. As she'd told Leeana, she'd been born a peasant in Moretz, which was at least as patriarchal a society as that of the Sothōii, but she'd fled that land when she'd been even younger than Leeana was now. And she'd also been educated in the Empire of the Axe, where women enjoyed far broader choices and possibilities then were generally available to Sothōii women.

"Kerry," Bahzell said, "I'm thinking you've too much of the Axewoman in you. You, if any, ought to have realized by now how hard any Sothōii is after finding it to wrap his mind round the very notion of a woman as a warrior."

Kaeritha nodded again, more emphatically, and Bahzell chuckled. If he found his position in Balthar difficult as a hradani, Kaeritha had found hers only marginally less so . . . as the heckler she'd trounced outside the temple made clear. Tellian's men, and those of the city guard, had at least taken their cue from their liege lord and extended to her the same deference and respect any champion of Tomanâk might have expected. Yet it was only too obvious that even they found the concept of a female champion profoundly unnatural.

"Well, for all that our folk've spent the best part of a thousand years massacring one another," Bahzell continued, "there's much to be said for the Sothōii. But one thing no one is ever likely to be suggesting is that they've an overabundance of innovation in their natures, especially where matters of tradition and custom arСe concerned. Don't let Tellian be fooling you. For a Sothōii, he's about as radical as you're ever likely to meet, and well-educated about foreign lands, to boot. But your typical Sothōii is stiffer-necked than even a hradani, and the real conservatives are still after thinking the wheel is a dangerous, newfangled, harebrained novelty that will never really be catching on."

Kaeritha chuckled, and Brandark grinned.

"Aye, and some of them are stupid enough to be after thinking they invented fire for their very own selves just last week," Gharnal agreed. His grin was a bit sharper than Brandark's, honed on a core of deeply cherished hostility for all things Sothōii, but that represented a tremendous exercise of restraint for him.