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“But as to understanding how this all feels for a Sothoii,” Brandark continued more seriously, “no doubt you’re right. I can probably come closer now that I’ve met coursers myself—Sir Kelthys’ Walasfro and Baron Tellian’s Dathgar—but that’s not the same thing as growing up around them.” He shook his head, his eyes dark. “All I can say is that I never dreamed I’d meet such magnificent creatures. I wouldn’t have believed anything could ravage an entire herd of them the way you’ve described, but if there’s something out there that can, then I want it stopped, Master Axeblade.”
A dark, almost hungry sound of agreement murmured its way around the table. Agreement, Alfar thought, from hradani. And not just any hradani—from Horse Stealer hradani. He’d discovered that he was past feeling surprise, but wonder was another thing entirely.
He started to say something more, then shrugged with a half-apologetic smile and applied his full attention to the meal Bahzell had ordered for him. He ate quickly, but not so quickly he didn’t savor every mouthful. It wasn’t the best cooking he’d ever tasted—far from it!—but he discovered that the old saw about hunger being the best seasoning was absolutely correct. By the time he’d finished the porridge, drunk the hot tea, eaten the toasted sausages, and mopped up the last egg yolk with a piece of bread, he felt better than he had in days.
“Thank you, Milord Champion,” he said simply, pushing the last plate aside. “I still begrudge the delay, but there’s no doubt I needed the food, and you’re right. Only a fool drives himself into the kind of blind daze I was pushing myself into.”
“I’d not say you’d gone quite that far,” Bahzell said with another slow smile. “Still and all, I’m thinking as how we can both agree you’d pushed a mite further and harder than you’d the need to. And now, it’s no doubt best we be on our way.”
“Of course.” Alfar stood, reaching for the belt purse Lord Edinghas had sent with him, but Bahzell shook his head.
“No need for that. The Order’s seen to our shot.”
“But—”
“Leave off, Master Axeblade,” Bahzell advised him. “I’ve no doubt Lord Edinghas would stand good for it, but it’s Tomanak’s business we’re on. It may be as how Lord Edinghas might choose to be making a donation to Himself’s church when all’s done, but that’s neither here nor there just now.”
Alfar started to argue, then stopped himself.
“Better,” Bahzell said again, then gathered up his fellow hradani with his eyes. “I’m thinking we’d best be on our way, lads,” he said. He drained his tankard and set it on the table, then climbed to his feet.
“Aye,” Hurthang agreed. “And not just because we’ve need of haste on Himself’s business.” He grimaced. “It’s not so very popular we are in these parts.”
“What?” Alfar looked at him sharply, remembering his own impression when he first entered the common room. Had the hradani actually chosen their table out of defensive considerations?
Hurthang waved one hand unobtrusively, and Alfar’s eyes narrowed as he followed the gesture. A balding, broad shouldered, deep-paunched man in a leather apron stood behind the bar at one end of the common room. Alfar hadn’t seen him enter, and he certainly hadn’t come near the hradani to see if they had any orders. Instead, he simply stood there, arms folded across his chest, and glowered at Bahzell and his companions. There was as much fear as anger in his expression, and his shoulders hunched sullenly.
“Milord Champion,” Alfar demanded, “has anyone —?”
“Don’t be worrying yourself, Master Axeblade,” Bahzell advised him. “It might be as how there was after being an … intemperate word or two last night. But that’s something as any hradani minded to travel amongst other folk had best be being thick-ski
He shrugged and nodded towards the door. Alfar gazed back at him for a long, thoughtful moment, then nodded in response. Not in agreement, precisely, but in acknowledgment. His own sudden urge to kick the sullen-faced i
“You’re right, Milord Champion,” he said, deliberately pitching his voice loud enough for the i
Chapter Nineteen
“You have to be out of your bloody mind!”
The gray-haired woman on the other side of the desk stared at Kaeritha and Leeana in disbelief. The bronze key of her office hung on a chain about her neck, and her brown eyes were hard, almost angry.
“I assure you, Mayor Yalith, that I am not out of my mind,” Leeana replied sharply. She and Kaeritha were tired, mud-spattered, and worn to the edge of exhaustion from long days in the saddle, but she was obviously fighting hard to hang onto her temper. Equally obviously, her life as the daughter of the Baron of Balthar had not exactly suited her to dealing with attitudes like Yalith’s.
“Madwomen seldom think they’reout of their minds,” the mayor shot back. “But whatever you may think, and however much you may believe that the war maids are a way out of some … some social inconvenience, there are aspects of this situation which could only lead to disaster.”
“With all due respect, Mayor,” Kaeritha put in sharply, intervening for the first time, “this girl is not talking about ’some social inconvenience.’ She’s talking, unless I was very much mistaken when I read King Gartha’s original proclamation, about the exact thing you and your people are supposed to guarantee to any woman.”
“Don’t you go quoting the charter to me, thank you, Dame Kaeritha!” Yalith shot back. “You may be a champion of Tomanak, but Tomanak’s never done anything for the war maids that I ever heard about! And the war maids are scarcely a convenient bolt-hole for some pampered noblewoman—the daughter of a baron, no less!—to use just to avoid a betrothal her family hasn’t even accepted yet!”
Kaeritha started to speak again, quickly and even more sharply, despite her awareness that her own anger would only guarantee Yalith would refuse to listen to anything she said. But before she could open her mouth, Leeana laid a hand on her forearm and faced the Mayor of Kalatha squarely.
“Yes,” she said quietly, holding Yalith’s brown eyes with her own jade stare. “I am avoiding a betrothal my family hasn’t accepted. I’m not aware, though, that the war maids are in the habit of asking a woman why she seeks to join them—aside from making certain she isn’t a criminal trying to avoid punishment. Was I mistaken?”
It was Yalith’s turn to bite off a hot return unspoken. She glared at Leeana for several tense seconds, then shook her head curtly.
“No,” she admitted. “We aren’t ’in the habit’ of asking questions like that. Or, rather, we do ask them, but the answers don’t—or shouldn’t—affect whether or not we grant someone membership. But I trust you’re willing to admit that this is not a usual situation. First, I’m quite certain you’re the highest ranking young woman who’s ever sought to become a war maid, and the gods only know where that might end. Second, you’re less than fifteen years old, which mandates a probationary period in which you’d technically be neither a war maid nor your father’s daughter, and I doubt even the gods know what could happen during that! Third, the most common reason women who later regret asking to become one of us seek us out in the first place is to escape an arranged marriage. We always make a special effort to be positive women like that are certain in their ownminds of what they want. And, fourth, this is the worst possible time, from Kalatha’s perspective, for us to be antagonizing someone like Baron Tellian!”