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Despite the urging of the mayor and other older war maids, Theretha had steadfastly resisted the suggestion that she go to the courts in an effort to punish her stepfather. The odds against her being believed by the court in her home town were formidable. Those who knew only his public face thought her stepfather was an honest businessman, devoted to his deceased wife’s family. They probably thought he liked puppies and small kittens, too, she thought grimly, and even if the magistrate had chosen to believe her, the chance that someone who could call on so many character witnesses—most of whom would actually believe what they were saying—would suffer any significant penalty would have been slight. As far as Theretha was concerned, she had better things to do with her life than to reopen all the old wounds in a futile effort to see her victimizer punished. She sometimes wondered if that belief was a reflection of the mouselike tendencies which had made any possibility of her becoming a warrior like Soumeta laughable.
Fortunately, she’d completed most of her apprenticeship before her father’s death, and until her mother died, she’d insisted that Theretha’s stepfather continue her training. He’d done so only grudgingly, but until his wife’s death, he’d really had no choice, since she’d owned both the workshop and the store. But after Theretha’s mother died, he’d taken gloating delight in refusing to sign her journeyman’s certificate, no doubt because he’d seen that refusal as a means to deprive her of any independent livelihood and trap her in his power.
The war maids didn’t much concern themselves with what sorts of certificates a woman might have received—or not received—before becoming a war maid. They were more concerned with what she could actually do, and the glassblower assigned to test Theretha had realized almost instantly what a treasure she represented. At sixteen and a half, Theretha had already possessed the skills her raw talent required to draw both utility and dazzling beauty from the clear, incandescent magic of molten sand. Now, ten years later, she was an acknowledged mistress of her craft, her work sought out and prized by wealthy commoners and aristocrats alike throughout most of the Kingdom of the Sothoii. Her pieces and name were even known to a select few collectors in the Empire of the Axe, and they commanded substantial prices. Very few of the co
She accepted an increasing number of commissions these days, but she’d never forgotten her father’s admonition. Beauty was to the soul as water was to a fish, but it was the more mundane work of a glassblower’s hands, dedicated to the day-to-day sustenance of others, that was his true reason for being. And so Theretha insisted—with the stubborn ferocity of a mouse who had discovered how to become a direcat in this one aspect of her life—upon keeping her hand turned to the merely useful, as well. The glassware, like the pharmacist’s bottles and the spice seller’s jars, which did nothing at all … except save lives or help someone else earn an honest living.
Or like the glassware in the cart she and Soumeta had brought to Thalar.
She hadn’t really wanted to make the journey—especially not now, when everything seemed so … unsettled and difficult. For that matter, Mayor Yalith clearly had very mixed feelings about it. In a way, Theretha was the “kid sister” of every war maid in Kalatha, and all of them were intensely protective of her. Probably because they realized she was completely unsuited to protect herself from anything more dangerous than a crazed chipmunk, she thought.
But she’d decided that she didn’t have a choice, and then managed to convince Yalith to see it her way. The bulk of the output from Theretha’s workshop and her six employees consisted not of her beautiful art pieces, but of those everyday, practical items. That was what earned the routine revenues Kalatha needed and paid the salaries of the people who worked for her. It was essential to maintain the outlet through which those wares might be sold.
Thalar wasn’t a very large or especially wealthy town, but it was the largest and wealthiest in the holding of Lorham. More to the point, it had the biggest, most active market, and Theretha had established what she’d thought were good relationships with the merchants who distributed her more mundane products. Especially with Herian Axemaster, who handled over half of all the glassware and pottery which moved through Lorham. Herian was also a factor for Clan Harkanath, the powerful Dwarvenhame trading house. But those relationships seemed to have suffered serious damage, along with every other aspect of Kalatha’s relations with Lord Trisu and all of his subjects. If she wanted to maintain her access to the Thalar market, and through it, to the world beyond, she’d decided, she had to come along and see what she could do to repair them And, as she had somewhat delicately suggested to the mayor, the fact that her Thalar contacts also knew about her art pieces, and that Herian had actually handled the sale of several of them for her, ought to give her a bit more clout than she might have had otherwise.
Unfortunately …
Theretha bit her lip as she looked in through the open door of the market master’s office and saw Soumeta leaning over Master Manuar’s desk. The lamps were already lit in anticipation of the rapidly oncoming evening, and Soumeta’s short blond hair gleamed in their mellow light as she stabbed an angry index finger repeatedly onto the desk’s top. It was impossible for Theretha to hear anything from here, but from Soumeta’s flushed face and Manuar’s thunderous expression she strongly suspected that the two of them were shouting at one another.
She stopped rubbing her hands together under her cloak, but only so that she could actively wring them. This was bad. This was very bad! Lillinara knew enough other war maids had experienced difficulties in Thalar’s market, just as they had in what seemed to be every town, village, and hamlet throughout Trisu’s domain. There’d always been some discrimination against war maid merchants, farmers, and craftswomen, but it had grown much worse over the past several months. In fact, it had reached the point that the market masters, the magistrates whose responsibility it was to oversee the fair and legal operation of the markets, appeared to have washed their hands of it. Some of them actually seemed to be actively harassing any war maid who entered their jurisdiction, or even flatly refusing to sign the permits required to trade in the markets they supervised. But Theretha hadn’t been able to believe that Manuar, who’d always been a gruff stickler when it came to the discharge of his duties, could possibly be one of those.
Manuar suddenly shoved himself up out of his chair, and leaned forward over his desk. He braced his weight on the knuckles of his fisted left hand while he shoved his face within inches of Soumeta’s and slammed his right palm on the desktop. If he hadn’t been shouting before, he obviously was now, Theretha thought glumly, and took two involuntary steps towards his office before her memory of Yalith’s instructions stopped her.
Soumeta closed her mouth, muscles bunching along her jaw as she clenched her teeth. She glared at the market master, her anger almost physically visible from where Theretha stood. Then she turned on her heel and stormed out of Manuar’s office.
Not good, Theretha thought. Not good at all.
“That … that … that man!” Soumeta spat. Rain was begi