Страница 13 из 137
There were more than a few mutters of agreement from the crowd, this time, but Bahzell’s eyes narrowed with more than simple anger as they found the two bravos who were doing all the shouting. The pair of hecklers were obviously working as team, and both of them were better equipped than a typical street tough. They wore traditional Sothoii steel cuirasses, but they wore them over chain hauberks, not the usual boiled leather of the Sothoii cavalryman, and their swords were of excellent, dwarvish work. The straps which ought to have been buttoned across the quillons of those swords to keep them in their sheaths had been unbuttoned, as well, and though they tried to hide it from casual observers, their own expressions and body language were those of men poised on the brink of violence.
“I say the only good hradani is one lying in a ditch with his throat slit and his balls in his cold, dead hand! What d’you think of that, hradani?” the first heckler sneered, and Bahzell took one stride towards the broad steps leading up to the temple from the roadway below. Then he stopped as a strong, slender hand gripped his elbow.
“If you get involved in this,” Kaeritha said to him, too quietly for anyone else to hear through the fresh round of taunting obscenities being flung at Thalgahr, “you give them exactly what they want. And the same goes for Hurthang and Brandark.”
“And if I’m not after getting ’involved,’ “ he growled back, “Thalgahr will be flashing over into the Rage and carving those two idiots into short ribs and roasts in about one more minute.”
“They’re trying to make this a matter of human-versus-hradani,” she told him, hanging onto his elbow with steely fingers. “You can’t afford to play their game for them. Let me handle it.”
Bahzell began an immediate, instinctive protest. Not because he doubted her capability, but because Thalgahr was one of Prince Bahnak’s troopers, not a member of Tomanak’s Order, and he wanted to keep Kaeritha out of a mess which didn’t concern her. He opened his mouth, but the glint in her sapphire eyes closed it again with a click.
“Better, Sword Brother,” she told him as she released her grip on his elbow and turned it into an approving pat. “How wise of you not to insult me by suggesting that my brother’s problems aren’t mine.”
He glowered at her, and she strolled past him with a chuckle, carrying her quarterstaff in her left hand.
Thalgahr never noticed her presence until she’d stepped past him, but the two hecklers were another matter. One of them nudged the other, pointing at her with his chin, and their suddenly wary expressions said that they knew exactly who she was.
“Excuse me, gentlemen,” she said mildly into the sudden silence. “I’m sure you wouldn’t want anyone to doubt your respect for Tomanak, but perhaps you hadn’t realized that creating this sort of an uproar on the steps of His house isn’t exactly polite.”
“I’m a free Sothoii subject,” one of the hecklers shot back. “I’ve the right to speak my mind anywhere!”
“Of course you do,” she said soothingly, and gripped her staff in both hands so that she could round her shoulders and lean her weight on it. Her posture was eloquently nonthreatening, and she smiled. “I’m simply suggesting that this isn’t the best possible place for this, um, conversation.”
“And who are you to suggest anything to us?” The spokesman for the pair spat on the paving. “Some kind of hradani-lover? What—you couldn’t find a human to keep you warm at night?”
One or two onlookers shifted uneasily at the last remark. Kaeritha had drawn almost as much attention in Balthar as Bahzell himself. Sothoii minds seemed to have a great deal of trouble wrapping themselves about the concept of any female knight, much less one who was acknowledged as a champion of Tomanak Himself. But however outre or even disgraceful they might find the notion, all of the gossip her arrival had generated at least guaranteed that everyone in that crowd knew precisely who she was. And it would seem that even some of those who approved of hradani-baiting were less prepared to publicly insult a woman … and a champion.
“You seem to make a habit of leaping to conclusions, friend,” Kaeritha said mildly into the sudden hush. “First you assume humans are somehow better than hradani, and then you compound your initial error by making all sorts of unfounded assumptions about me.” She shook her head. “Personally, I think you should be devoting at least a little thought to all of the trouble that sort of thoughtlessness could end up dropping you into.”
“Trouble?” the man laughed scornfully. “Oh, I know who you are now. You’re that what’s-her-name—Kaeritha, wasn’t it? The woman who claims to be a knight? A champion of Tomanak? Hah! That’s almost as fu
A contemptuous thumb jerked in Bahzell’s direction, and the hradani’s eyes narrowed further. They were getting to the nub of it now, he realized, and he suddenly wondered if his own initial assumption had been in error. Was it possible these two actually were operating on their own? The anger in the heckler’s voice and face seemed completely genuine, with a degree of passion Bahzell wouldn’t have expected to see in the average paid provocateur. And the gods knew there were more than enough humans, and not simply among the Sothoii, who considered themselves true followers of Tomanak and would still find the very suggestion that the War God might welcome hradani followers rankest blasphemy. Adding that view to the traditional Sothoii antipathy for women warriors could easily produce a blind, driving anger.
Not, he reminded himself, that the fact that they truly were angry meant that they weren’t working with—or for—someone else entirely. As Brandark had said, bigots’ hatred only made them even easier to manipulate.
“Friend,” Kaeritha’s tone was still mild, but her eyes were hard, “I don’t believe Tomanak would be particularly pleased by all this shouting and carrying on outside His front door. If you have some sort of problem with me and you’d care to discuss it calmly and in private, like a sensible person, I’m at your disposal. But I’d really appreciate it if you’d stop making such a public nuisance of yourself in front of His temple. In fact, I’m going to have to insist that you do. Now.”
“ ’Public nuisance’ is it?” The heckler pushed closer to her, standing no more than four or five feet away as he looked her up and down, head to toe, with an elaborate sneer. “Better than standing here in His colors like a public whore trying to pretend she’s some kind of noblewoman, I say!”
The silence behind him was suddenly profound. Even his partner seemed taken aback by his last sentence. However unhappy the average Sothoii might be over the thought of a female champion, he would never have dreamed of addressing such language to a woman of rank in public. The second heckler looked as if he would cheerfully have strangled his friend, but it was too late to disassociate himself from him now.
“There you go, making more of those assumptions,” Kaeritha said into the quiet, in a tone compounded of equal parts weariness and resignation. She shook her head. “Me, some kind of noblewoman?” She snorted and thumped the iron-shod heel of her upright quarterstaff lightly on a paving stone. “What sort of ’noblewoman’ carries one of these?”
She chuckled, and the heckler’s expression abruptly acquired an edge of perplexity. Clearly, her reaction was unlike anything he’d anticipated.
“No,” she continued, sliding one hand thoughtfully along the staff’s use-polished shaft. “I was born a peasant, friend.” She shrugged. “There’s no point trying to pretend otherwise, and truth to tell, I don’t see any reason I ought to. One thing about Tomanak, He doesn’t seem to mind where his followers come from. The Order made me a knight, and He made me a champion, but nobody ever made me a noblewoman. Which is unfortunate for you, I’m afraid.”