Wind Rider's Oath

“That’s perfectly all right, Lanitha,” Kaeritha reassured her. “I imagine everyone’s had weeks like that, you know. I certainly have!”

“Thank you.” Lanitha paused to smile gratefully at her. “I’m relieved that you’re so understanding. Not that your sympathy makes me look any more efficient and organized!”

Kaeritha only returned her smile and waited, her expression pleasant, while the archivist finished drawing back the curtains and unlocked the large cabinet which contained the most important of Kalatha’s official documents.

“Mayor Yalith—or, rather, Sharral—didn’t tell me exactly which sections you’re particularly interested in this time,” she said over her shoulder as she opened the heavy, iron-reinforced door.

“I need to reexamine the section of Kellos’ grant where the boundary by the grist mill is established,” Kaeritha said casually.

“I see,” Lanitha said. She found the proper document case, withdrew it from the cabinet, and set it carefully on the desk before the Records Room’s largest eastern window. Her tone was no more than absently courteous. But Kaeritha was watching her as carefully and unobtrusively as she’d ever watched anyone in her life, and something about the set of the archivist’s shoulders suggested Lanitha was less calm than she wanted to appear. It wasn’t that Kaeritha detected any indication that Lanitha was anything but the honest, hard-working young woman she seemed to be. Yet there was still that something … almost as if Lanitha had some i

The archivist opened the document case and laid the original copy of Lord Kellos’ grant to the war maids of Kalatha on the desktop. Kaeritha had done enough research among fragile documents to stand patiently, hands clasped behind her, while Lanitha carefully opened the old-fashioned scroll and sought the section Kaeritha had described.

“Here it is,” the archivist said finally, and stepped back out of the way so that Kaeritha could examine the document for herself.

“Thank you,” Kaeritha said courteously. She moved closer to the desk and bent over the faded, crabbed handwriting. The document’s age was only too apparent, and its authenticity was obvious. But the authenticity of Trisu’s copy had been equally obvious, she reminded herself, and rested the heel of her hand lightly on the pommel of her left-hand sword.

It was a natural enough pose, if rather more overly dramatic than Kaeritha preferred. The last time she’d been in this room, she’d taken both swords off and laid them to one side, and she hoped Lanitha wasn’t wondering why she hadn’t done the same thing this time. If the librarian asked, Kaeritha was prepared to point out that last time, she’d been sitting here for hours while she studied the documents and took notes. This time, she only wanted to make a quick recheck of a single section. And, as Lanitha’s own profuse apologies had underscored, she was behind schedule and ru

There it was. She leaned forward, studying the stilted phrases more intently, and ran the index finger of her right hand lightly along the relevant lines. Only a far more casual archivist than Lanitha could have avoided cringing when anyone, even someone who’d already demonstrated her respect for the fragility of the documents in her care, touched one of them that way. The other woman moved a half-step closer, watching Kaeritha’s right hand with anxious attentiveness … exactly as the knight had intended.

Because she was so focused on Kaeritha’s right hand, she failed to notice the faint flicker of blue fire which danced around the left hand resting on the champion’s sword hilt. It wasn’t very bright, anyway—Tomanak knew how to be unobtrusive when it was necessary, too—but it was enough for Kaeritha’s purposes.

“Thank you, Lanitha,” she said again, and stepped back. She took her hand from her sword as she did so, and the blue flicker disappeared entirely. “That was all I needed to see.”

“Are you certain, Milady?” Lanitha’s tone and expression were earnest, and Kaeritha nodded.

“I just wanted to check my memory of the words,” she assured the archivist.

“Might I ask why, Milady?” Lanitha asked.

“I’m still in the middle of an investigation, Lanitha,” Kaeritha reminded her, and the other woman bent her head in acknowledgment of the gentle rebuke. Kaeritha gazed at her for a moment, then shrugged. “On the other hand,” the knight continued, “it’s not as if it’s not going to come out in the end, anyway, I suppose.”

“Not as if what isn’t going to come out?” Lanitha asked, emboldened by Kaeritha’s last sentence.

“There’s a definite discrepancy between the original documents here and Trisu’s so-called copies,” Kaeritha told her. “I have to say that when I first saw his copy, I was astonished. It didn’t seem possible that anyone could have produced such a perfect-looking forgery. But, obviously, the only way his copies could be that different from the originals has to involve a deliberate substitution or forgery.”

“Lillinara!” Lanitha said softly, signing the Mother’s full moon. “I knew Trisu hated all war maids, but I never imagined he’d try something like that, Milady! How could he possibly expect it to pass muster? He must know that sooner or later someone would do what you’ve just done and compare the forgery to the original!”

“One thing I learned years ago, Lanitha,” Kaeritha said wearily as she watched the archivist carefully returning the land grant to its case, “is that criminals always think they can ’get away with it.’ If their minds didn’t work that way, they wouldn’t be criminals in the first place!”

“I suppose not.” Lanitha sighed and shook her head. “It just seems so silly—and sad—when you come down to it.”

“You’re wrong, you know,” Kaeritha said quietly, her voice so flat that Lanitha looked quickly back over her shoulder at her.

“Wrong, Milady?”

“It isn’t silly, or sad,” Kaeritha told her. “Whatever the original motivation may have been, this sort of conflict between the documents here and those at Thalar is going to play right into the hands of everyone else like Trisu. It isn’t the sort of minor discrepancy that can be explained away as clerical error. It’s a deliberate forgery, and there are altogether too many people out there who are already prepared to think the worst about you war maids. It won’t matter to them that you have the originals, while he has only copies. What will matter is that they’ll assume you must have made the alterations.”

“Then I suppose it’s a good thing a champion of Tomanak is on the spot, isn’t it, Milady? Even the most prejudiced person would have to take your word for it that Trisu or someone working for him is the forger.”

“Yes, Lanitha,” Kaeritha said grimly. “They certainly would.”

The sentry’s report had assured that Tellian Bowmaster was waiting in the courtyard of Hill Guard Castle when Bahzell rode in on Walsharno. He didn’t look as if he believed what he was seeing.

Bahzell smiled grimly at the baron’s expression as he listened to the sound of heavy hooves on the courtyard’s stone paving. The sound of came not simply from Walsharno but from the hooves of no less than twenty-one other coursers … only ten of them with riders.

“Welcome back, Milord Champion,” Tellian said with an odd note of formality as Walsharno halted beside the wind rider’s mounting block.

“Thank you.” Bahzell swung out of the saddle and stepped down onto the mounting block. He reached out to clasp Tellian’s forearm firmly, and the baron’s eyes searched his face intently, with more than a hint of anxiety.

“Brandark?” he asked quietly, and Bahzell gave him a small, quick smile.

“The little man’s after being well enough,” he said. “He was a mite nibbled upon about the edges, but hradani are tough, and there was naught wrong with him that couldn’t be healed. But however well, or willing, he might be, there was no way at all, at all, as how his warhorse could be after keeping up on the ride here.”