David Weber - Wind Rider's Oath

Leeana felt a sudden urge to look at Garlahna and see how she was reacting to the conversation, but she decided that wouldn't be a good idea. So, instead, she shrugged.

"I don't think that's something I'm going to have to worry about for a while," she said lightly. "I've got my probation to complete, and Erlis and Ravlahn waiting to work my backside off while I do it. Between that, chores, working for Theretha, and mucking out Boots' stall-oh! and helping Lanitha at the school, too!-I'm not going to have enough time to eat and sleep by myself, much less with anyone else!"

"But it's such a waste to actually sleep with someone when there are so many other interesting things you could be doing," Soumeta said with a wicked smile, then laughed at Leeana's expression. "Sorry! I didn't meant to tease you. And I think you're probably right about how much free time you're likely to have, at least for the next few weeks. But this is something you're going to have to think about sooner or later, you know, Leeana," she went on in a more serious tone. "You're a war maid now-or you will be, when you finish your probation, anyway-and that means the decisions will be yours. Nor your father's, or your family's, or anyone else's: yours . That's the reason most of us became war maids in the first place, to make those decisions for ourselves."

"I know," Leeana agreed, remembering her first day's conversation with Johlana.

"And it's the fact that we want to make them which pisses off people like Trisu of Lorham," Eramis said darkly.

"Among other things," Soumeta agreed, still looking at Leeana. "But there's more to it in his case, too, Eramis. You know how hard he's been pushing us about everything ever since he inherited the title. Of course he resents the fact that we don't all ask 'How high?' any time he says 'Jump!' But he's after more than just changing that." She glowered. "He's one of those bastards who wants to turn the clock back two or three hundred years and just pretend the war maids never existed. That we never had a charter at all. And until someone kicks him right in those great big balls he's so proud of having, he's going to go right on pushing, and pushing, and pushing until we give him what he damned well wants or-"

She stopped abruptly and gave her head a short, angry shake that sloshed water over the lip of her tub.

"Sorry, Leeana," she said after a heartbeat or two, with a smile that looked almost natural. "Didn't mean to climb up on my personal hobbyhorse. It just really pisses me off to see someone like him pushing us around-again!-as if we were all still meek little female mice living in a world full of male cats. Or obedient little puppets waiting till they get around to coming home and hauling us off to bed by our hair! Well, we're not, and it's time someone pointed that out to him . . . and all the men like him."

"I'm sure D-" It was Leeana's turn to stop herself short. Dame Kaeritha hadn't told her she was free to discuss the mission which had brought the knight to Kalatha in the first place. She hadn't told her she wasn't free to do so, either, of course, but a champion's business was a champion's business, not a subject for bathhouse gossiping.

"I'm sure Mayor Yalith and the Town Council know what they're doing," she said instead, and hid a mental wince. What she'd just said was probably true enough, but it sounded like the sort of fatuous thing a schoolgirl without two thoughts to rub together would have said.

"Hmph!" Soumeta snorted, flouncing in the water. "Maybe they do, and maybe they don't. Well, at least some of them do, I'm sure," she corrected herself. "But this is a war maid free-town, you know. We all get a voice-and a vote-when it comes to deciding what we should be doing. And if this keeps up, Trisu may just find his precious claims starting something he won't like the finish of!"

"And about time, too," Tharnha muttered.

"In a lot of ways," Eramis agreed, then stretched and yawned elaborately. The motion arched her spine and brought her shapely bosom free of the water, and she preened like a cat, with a shameless sensuality which Leeana had never before encountered. " I think you're right about who should be chasing who, too, Soumeta," she said lazily. "Let's get what we want from them and let them have the broken hearts for a change."

"Hah! Broken something , anyway," Tharnha agreed with a chuckle.

"Well, I'm already doing my bit," Soumeta reminded her with a predatory smile. "But whether or not I can keep on doing it depends on whether or not interfering bastards like Trisu can squeeze us all back into their little toy boxes and lock us up there. And I, for one, plan on chopping a few of them up for dog meat before they manage to do that."

"That's sort of what the Voice said at the Temple when I was at Quaysar last fall," Tharnha said. Everyone looked at her, and she shrugged just a little defensively. "Well, she did!" she insisted.

Leeana blinked. She'd heard of the Temple of Lillinara at Quaysar, though she'd never been there. But she'd never heard of a Voice getting involved in secular affairs unless the very lives of women were involved and the situation was close to desperate.

"The Voice said we should stand up to Lord Trisu more strongly?" Garlahna said in a voice which showed she'd found the idea as disturbing as Leeana had,

"Not in so many words," Tharnha admitted. "But she did say she was concerned. That the Mother's daughters should always oppose and fight people who try to make all women victims, and who else do you think she could've been talking about right now?"

"Voices don't send people off to war, Tharnha," Soumeta said. "Or not very often, anyway. She probably just meant we should stand our ground." The guardswoman snorted. "A Voice can't go around telling us to push back even harder than he's pushing us, whatever she might want to say. Not without provoking all kinds of complaints from every lord warden-every male lord warden-in the Kingdom, anyway. Which doesn't mean it wouldn't be a good idea, of course. Just that a Voice is a little too visible to tell people that."

"Maybe not, Soumeta," Eramis said, "but you know the Voice thinks we shouldn't let anyone push us around the way we always have before. You know that."

"I never said she didn't," Soumeta replied. "I just said she has to be careful about any official position she takes because of who she is. If you want me to admit she's given her support to people like Saretha and her supporters on the Town Council, then I will. I'm just saying that she's smart enough and subtle enough to do it in ways that aren't going to drag her, the temple, or the Mother into open conflict with a lord warden."

"You're probably right," Tharnha agreed. She didn't sound as if she really did agree, but she smiled and shrugged anyway.

"In the meantime, though," she said more brightly, "did any of you see that good looking blond armsman who rode in with the wine merchant this afternoon? Yummmmmm! "

She batted her eyes at the others, and Eramis giggled.

"I wouldn't mind getting to know him a little better, I can tell you that!" Tharnha went on with a cheerful leer. "Look at that arse of his-and those shoulders! You know what they say about puppies growing up to match the size of their feet?" She leered again, harder. "Well, if certain other portions of his anatomy have grown up to match those shoulders-!"

Lord Warden Trisu's office was on the third floor of his family's somewhat antiquated keep. Kaeritha had been surprised when she discovered that, since his father had built a much more palatial suite of offices into Thalar's relatively new Town Hall. Once she saw it, however, her initial surprise faded as quickly as it had come. The choice was part and parcel of the man's entire character, she realized. Its narrow windows-the glass which had been added later couldn't disguise the fact that they'd been designed as archery slits, as much as a way to admit light, when they were built-looked down on the city of Thalar, below, letting him survey his domain whenever he chose. Besides, one look at the office itself, with its spartan, whitewashed walls decorated without softening with shields and weapons, made it clear no other place else could possibly have been as comfortable for Trisu, however much more spacious it might have been.