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“Mayor Yalith,” Tellian said. His eyes moved past her for a moment to Kaeritha, but he didn’t greet the knight, and Kaeritha wondered just how bad a sign that might be.
“I imagine you know why I’m here,” he continued, returning his gaze to the mayor. “I’d like to see my daughter. Immediately.”
His tenor voice was flat and crisp—almost, but not quite, harsh—and his eyes were hard.
“I’m afraid that’s not possible, Baron,” Yalith replied. Tellian’s brow furrowed thunderously, and he started to reply sharply. But Yalith continued before he could.
“The laws and customs of the war maids are unfortunately clear on this point, Milord,” she said in a voice which Kaeritha considered was remarkably calm. “Leeana has petitioned for the status of war maid. Because she’s only fourteen, she will be required to undergo a six-month probationary period before we will accept her final, binding oath. During that time, members of her family may communicate with her by letter or third-party messenger, but not in person. I should point out to you that she was not aware upon her arrival that she would be required to serve her probationary time, or that she would not be permitted to speak to you during it. When I informed her of those facts, she asked Dame Kaeritha to speak to you for her.”
Tellian’s jaw had clenched as the mayor spoke. If there’d been any question about whether or not he was angry before, there was none now, and his right hand tightened ominously about the hilt of his dagger. But furious father or no, he was also a powerful noble who had learned from hard experience to control both his expression and his tongue. And so he swallowed the fast, furious retort which hovered just behind his teeth and made himself inhale deeply before he spoke once more.
“My daughter,” he said then, still looking directly at Yalith, as if Kaeritha were not even present, “is young and, as I know only too well, stubborn. She is also, however, intelligent, whatever I may think of this current escapade of hers. She knows how badly her actions have hurt her mother and me. I ca
“I didn’t say she had refused, Milord. In fact, she was extremely distressed when she discovered it would be impossible for her to speak to you in person. Unfortunately, our laws permit me no latitude. Not out of arrogance or cruelty, but to protect applicants from being browbeaten or manipulated into changing their minds against their free choice. But I will say, if you’ll permit me to, that I have seldom seen an applicant who more strongly desired to speak to her parents. Usually, by the time a young woman seeks the war maids, the last thing she wants is contact with the family she’s fled. Leeana doesn’t feel at all that way, and she would be here this moment, if it were her decision. But it isn’t. Nor is it mine, I’m afraid.”
Tellian’s knuckles whitened on his dagger, and his nostrils flared. He closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them again.
“I see.” His tone was very, very cold, but for a man who’d just been told his beloved daughter would not even be permitted to speak to him, it was remarkably controlled, Kaeritha thought. Then his eyes swiveled to her, and she recognized the raging fury and desperate love—and loss—blazing within them.
“In that case,” he continued in that same, icy voice, “I suppose I should hear whatever message my daughter has been permitted to leave me.”
Yalith winced slightly before the pain in his voice, but she didn’t flinch, and Kaeritha wondered how many interviews like this one she had experienced over the years.
“I think you should, Milord,” the mayor agreed quietly. “Would you prefer for me to leave, so that you may speak to Dame Kaeritha frankly in order to confirm what I’ve said, and that Leeana came to us willingly and of her own accord?”
“I would appreciate privacy when I speak to Dame Kaeritha,” Tellian said. “But not,” he continued, “because I doubt for a moment that this was entirely Leeana’s idea. Whatever some others might accuse the war maids of, I am fully aware that she came to you and that you did nothing to ’seduce’ her into doing so. I won’t pretend I’m not angry—very angry—or that I do not deeply resent your refusal to allow me to so much as speak to her. But I know my daughter too well to believe anyone else could have convinced or compelled her to come here against her will.”
“Thank you for that, Milord.” Yalith inclined her head in a small bow of acknowledgment. “I’m a mother myself, and I’ve spoken with Leeana. I know why she came to us, and that it wasn’t because she didn’t love you and her mother or because she doubted for a moment that you love her. In many ways, that’s made this one of the saddest applications ever to pass through my office. I’m grateful that, despite the anger and grief I know you must feel, you understand this was her decision. And now, I’ll leave you and Dame Kaeritha. If you wish to speak to me again afterward, I will, of course, be at your service.”
She bowed again, more deeply, and left Tellian and Kaeritha alone in her office.
For several seconds, the baron stood wordlessly, his hand alternately tightening and loosening its grip on his dagger while he glared at Kaeritha.
“Some would call this poor repayment of my hospitality, Dame Kaeritha,” he said at length, his voice harsh.
“No doubt some would, Milord,” she replied, keeping her own voice level and as nonconfrontational as possible. “If it seems that way to you, I deeply regret it.”
“I’m sure you do.” Each word was carefully, precisely spoken, as if bitten clean-edged from a sheet of bronze. Then he closed his eyes and gave his head a little shake.
“I could wish,” he said then, his voice much softer, its angry edges blurred by grief, “that you’d returned her to me. That when my daughter—my only child, Kaeritha—came to you in the dark, on the side of a lonely road, ru
“I could have,” she told him unflinchingly, refusing to look away from his pain and grief. “For all her determination and courage, I could have stopped her, Milord. And I almost did.”
“Then why, Kaeritha?” he implored, no longer a baron, no longer the Lord Warden of the West Riding, but only an anguished father. “Why didn’t you? This will break Hanatha’s heart, as it has already broken mine.”
“Because it was her decision,” Kaeritha said gently. “I’m not a Sothoii, Tellian. I don’t pretend to understand your people, or all of your ways and customs. But when your daughter rode up to my fire out of the rain and the night, all by herself, she wasn’t ru
The unshed tears broke free, ru
“That’s her message to you,” Kaeritha continued quietly. “That she can never tell you how sorry she is for the pain she knows her actions will cause you and her mother. But that she also knows this was only the first offer for her hand. There would have been more, if this one was refused, Tellian, and you know it. Just as you know that who she is and what she offers means almost all those offers would have been made for all the wrong reasons. But you also know you couldn’t refuse them all—not without paying a disastrous political price. She may be only fourteen years old, but she sees that, and she understands it. So she made the only decision she thinks she can make. Not just for her, but for everyone she loves.”