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Kaeritha had started to ask another question, but she paused almost visibly at the baron’s tone. It would have been too much to call it bitter or biting, but there was a definite edge to it. So instead of what she’d been about to ask, she nodded.
“I agree it doesn’t sound like an earthshaking problem,” she said. “On the other hand, I have to start somewhere, and this sounds like it might very well be the place. Especially since each of Tomanak’s champions has his—or her—particular … specialties, call them.”
Tellian’s brow furrowed, and Kaeritha chuckled.
“Any of us are expected to be able to handle any duty any of His champions might encounter, Milord, but we each have our own personality traits and skills. That tends to mean we’re more comfortable, or effective, at least, serving different aspects of Him. For example, Bahzell here is obviously most at home serving Him as God of War, although he’s done fairly well serving Him as God of Justice. For someone who’s most at home breaking things, anyway.”
She gri
“My own reasons for joining His service, though,” she went on, returning her attention to Tellian, “had more to do with a burning thirst for justice.” She paused and frowned, eyes darkening with old and painful memories, then shook herself. “That’s always been the aspect of Him I’m most comfortable—or happiest, anyway—serving, and my talents and abilities seem best suited to it. So if there’s a legal dispute between this Kalatha and the neighboring nobility, it certainly seems like a logical place for me to start looking. Can I get a map to show me how to find it?”
“Oh, I can do better than that, Milady,” Tellian assured her. “Kalatha may hold a Crown charter, but Trisu and his neighbors are my vassals. If you can wait until the end of the week to depart, I’ll make some additional inquiries and provide as much background information as I can. And of course I’ll send along letters of introduction and instructions for them to cooperate fully with you during your visit.”
“Thank you, Milord,” Kaeritha said formally. “That would be very good of you.”
Chapter Six
“So, there you are, Leeana.”
Leeana’s not quite stealthy progress along the passageway stopped as she paused and looked over her shoulder. Although the dark-haired woman in the open doorway behind her leaned heavily on the silver-worked, ebony cane under her right hand, she also stood very straight. Her left hand held a book, closed on a place-marking index finger, and a pair of gold, wire-framed, dwarvish-made reading glasses had been pushed up onto the top of her head to get them out of the way. It was subtly apparent, despite her full gown, that her right hip was carried higher than her left and her right leg was frailer, less well-muscled and thin. Yet despite that, and despite the faint traceries of silver in her dark hair, she was still a beautiful woman, with a well-formed, high-bosomed figure Leeana had both admired and envied for as long as she could remember. She was taller than Dame Kaeritha, although not quite so tall as Leeana, and her eyes were exactly the same deep, jade-green as Leeana’s. Not surprisingly, perhaps.
“Good afternoon, Mother,” Leeana said with a slight smile. “Ah, I don’t suppose I could convince you to go back to your book until I finish sneaking into my room and change, could I?”
“No,” Baroness Hanatha said thoughtfully. “I don’t believe you could.”
“I was afraid of that,” Leeana sighed. She turned and walked back towards her mother, still carrying her dripping poncho over one arm.
“Did you enjoy your ride?” Hanatha asked politely as she stepped back through the doorway to her private sitting room and let her daughter past her.
“Yes, I did.” Leeana crossed to the wrought iron fire screen in front of her mother’s hearth and hung the wet poncho across it to dry. Then she turned back to face Hanatha, who gave her head a small, smiling shake and sank into a pleasantly overstuffed chair under the comfortable chamber’s rain-streaming skylight.
“Where did you go?” she asked. The fire’s soft noises and the patter of rain on the skylight formed a soothing backdrop for her voice, and Leeana rubbed her hands, holding them out to the fire’s warmth.
“Down to the river and up the bank to Highwayman’s Height.”
“I remember,” Hanatha said. She leaned back in the chair, eyes dreamy with memories. “Down that hollow by Jargham’s Farm. Are the crocuses still blooming along the bank above the farm?”
“Yes.” Leeana paused and stopped herself before she cleared her throat. “Yes, they are. Purple and yellow. Although,” she smiled, “it looks as if the rain is trying to wash them away.”
“I imagine so. And I imagine the river’s ru
“Of course I wasn’t!” Leeana gave her mother a slightly indignant look. “Nobody would be crazy enough to try that with the river a good twenty yards out of its banks on either side!”
“No?” Hanatha gazed at her daughter for several seconds, then cocked her head and smiled. “Your father and I were, the year before we were married. Although, now that I think about it, it was only about fifteen yards out of its banks when we did it.”
Leeana stared at her mother in disbelief, and Hanatha looked back calmly.
“I can’t believe you twowould have done something like that!” Leeana said finally. “Not after the way both of you go on at me about the risk to the succession if anything should happen to me. Father was the heir to Balthar, not just the heir conveyant, you know!”
“Yes,” Hanatha said thoughtfully. “I believe I was aware of that, now that you mention it. Although, to be fair, there was your Uncle Garlayn, at that point, so he wasn’t precisely the only heir. And he did have several sturdy, healthy male cousins who might have succeeded him. But, yes, despite that, it was incredibly foolish of both of us. And, by the way, Leeana, it was my idea.”
Leeana sank onto a footstool, facing her mother’s chair, and stared at her. She’d heard stories all of her life about her mother’s youthful, headstrong defiance of stifling convention. Given the way both her parents fussed over any minor infractions on her own part, she’d always secretly assumed most of those stories were exaggerated. After all, they’d all come to her second- or third-hand, through servants’ gossip, and she was only too well aware of how the family retainers tended to embroider the family’s adventures. More than that, Hanatha was deeply beloved by all of the Duke Tellian’s household. That gave all of them, and particularly the older ones, who remembered the laughing young noblewoman Tellian Bowmaster had brought home, a tendency to emphasize what an outrageous, perpetually racing about handful she’d been. Especially since she would never go racing about again.
But if her mother—the same mother who was constantly suggesting that perhaps Leeana might want to moderate her own lifestyle just a bit—had been crazy enough to talk her father into swimming their horses across a river in full springtime flood—!
“Yes,” Hanatha said wryly, “I was that foolish, dear. And I was three years older than you are now. Which, I suppose, probably does make it seem just a little unfair for me to complain about your own high jinks, doesn’t it?”
“I wouldn’t say that,” Leeana began, and her mother laughed.
“Oh, I should certainly hope not!” Her dark green eyes danced, and she leaned back in her chair. “You’re much too good a daughter to throw my own youthful misdeeds into my teeth. But we both know you’re thinking it, don’t we?”