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“Another point is that the grant clearly specifies that we’re exempt from tolls on the use of roadways crossing Lorham. Lord Kellos and Trisu’s great-great-grandfather did some horsetrading back and forth over the exact boundaries of our holdings, and Lord Rathman gave us the exemption in return for a couple of offsetting concessions from Lord Kellos. But Lord Trisu’s father, Darhal, began charging us the tolls anyway about thirty years ago.
“Admittedly, this isn’t a point we’ve made an issue out of before, since the tolls Lord Darhal levied weren’t all that high. More to the point, they were clearly intended for the maintenance of the roads in question, and we were using them to transport our goods and produce. But Trisu began raising the tolls immediately after he became Lord Warden of Lorham. He’s obviously trying to raise additional revenues, over and above the cost of maintaining the roads themselves. We may’ve been willing to pay a toll we weren’t legally obligated to pay so long as the funds were being used to repair and maintain roadways that benefited us, as well as Lorham. But we are not prepared to subsidize other parts of his treasury while he’s violating our boundaries and attempting to deny us our legitimate water rights.
“There are several other, minor points—most of them procedural, really. Some of them, to be completely honest, probably aren’t worth fighting over. But they’re part and parcel of our overall quarrel with him. We’re not prepared to concede any of them without getting something in return, but that’s something that can be worked out in negotiations, assuming that both sides are willing to negotiate.”
“I see.” Kaeritha nodded, her expression thoughtful. “That’s about the size of it?”
“Well, yes. Where our prerogatives and boundaries are concerned, at any rate. But … there is one additional, major problem.”
The mayor’s pause was almost a hesitation, and Kaeritha quirked an eyebrow.
“As I said,” Yalith continued, “our charter clearly and unambiguously provides that our craftspeople, farmers, traders, and anyone else who may be a citizen of Kalatha or any of the free-towns which were founded later are guaranteed the same rights as any other citizens of the Kingdom, regardless of whether they’re men or women. Trisu doesn’t seem to think that applies in Lorham.”
“In what way?” Kaeritha asked, leaning forward and frowning intently.
“Our merchants and artisans and some of our farmers have been harassed in local markets, and Trisu’s magistrates have done nothing about it,” Yalith replied. She waved a hand in a back-and-forth gesture. “That, in itself, isn’t all that important. There’s always going to be some bigoted farmer or townsman who’s going to give women doing ’man’s work’ a hard time, and war maids can’t afford to be too thin-ski
“What sort of problem?”
“There have been … incidents concerning the temple of Lillinara at Quaysar,” Yalith said. It was obvious she was picking her words carefully, and also that she was trying hard to restrain a volcanic surge of anger. She paused once more, and Kaeritha waited for the mayor to be certain she had control of her temper before she resumed.
“Since you follow Tomanak, not Lillinara, you may not be aware that the temple in Quaysar has special significance to the Mother,” she said, after a few moments. “It’s not an especially large temple, but it’s a very old one. Quaysar itself is a tiny town. In fact, the town proper has pretty much disappeared over the last fifty or sixty years. What’s left of it has been effectively absorbed by the temple itself. But the Quaysar Temple has always been especially important to the war maids—just as Kalatha itself has been, despite our small size—because it was at Quaysar that our original charter from King Gartha was first officially and formally proclaimed. You might say Quaysar is the ’mother chapter’ of all war maids everywhere and that Kalatha is the ’mother free-town” to match it. Quaysar’s also located in Lorham, unfortunately. As a matter of fact, one of the reasons Lord Kellos originally granted Kalatha to the war maids, and why the Crown recognized it as a free-town, was our proximity to Quaysar.”
“You’re right. I wasn’t aware of that,” Kaeritha murmured. “Tellian told me Kalatha was your oldest free-town, but I didn’t know about Quaysar or its importance to you.”
“There’s no reason why you should have,” Yalith pointed out. “Obviously, we would have preferred to have been able to include Quaysar under our charter. Unfortunately, the lord wardens of Lorham have always been much less sympathetic to us than Lord Kellos was. It didn’t seem to matter much, though, given the respect and autonomy enjoyed by any temple. Whether Trisu or his ancestors approved of war maids or not, surely no sane person was going to harass or insult the temple of any god … or goddess. Or so we thought.”
“You mean he has done that?” Kaeritha demanded sharply.
“I mean,” Yalith said grimly, “that he’s repeatedly demonstrated his disrespect—I would even say contempt—for the temple at Quaysar. He’s insulted the Voice of Quaysar in personal conversation. He’s made it clear to her that he is not impressed by the fact that she speaks for the Mother. For that matter, he’s all but openly stated that he doesn’t believe she does speak for the Mother at all.”
Kaeritha was shocked. Different rulers always evidenced different degrees of reverence and respect, and some people seemed to believe that if they worshiped one god—or goddess—all of the others were irrelevant. But what sort of idiot openly showed the sort of disdain and contempt Yalith was describing? Regardless of what he himself believed or disbelieved, such an attitude was guaranteed to offend and infuriate his subjects.
“That’s all bad enough,” Yalith continued in a flat, bitter voice, “but it isn’t everything. Two of the Voice’s handmaidens were sent from Quaysar to Kalatha with a message from the Voice to me. They never arrived.”
This time, Kaeritha was far more than merely shocked.
“Mayor Yalith, are you suggesting —?”
“I’m not prepared to suggest that Trisu personally had anything to do with their disappearance,” Yalith interrupted before Kaeritha could complete the question. “If I had any proof—or even strongly suggestive evidence—of that, I can assure you that I would already have charged him with it before Baron Tellian, as his liege, or demanded that the case be investigated by the Crown Prosecutor. But I do believe that whoever was responsible—who must have shared Trisu’s attitude towards war maids generally to have done something so insane—probably took his cue from Trisu. And I’m not at all satisfied with Trisu’s so-called ’investigation’ of the incident. He claims he can find no evidence at all to suggest what happened to the Voice’s handmaidens. Indeed, he’s gone so far as to suggest that they never disappeared at all. That the entire story is a fabrication.”
Kaeritha frowned. There’d been no mention of this incident in any of Trisu’s correspondence with Tellian or his magistrates. In the wake of what Yalith had just told her, that omission took on ominous overtones.
“The Voice hasn’t been able to determine what happened to her handmaidens?” she asked after a moment.
“Apparently not,” Yalith said heavily. She sighed. “All the Voice can discover is that both of them are dead. How they died, and exactly where, she can’t say.”
A chill ran down Kaeritha’s spine. The murder of the consecrated servants of any temple, and especially that of two acolytes sworn to the personal service of a Voice of Lillinara, was an incredibly serious matter. The fact that Trisu wasn’t tearing Lorham apart stone-by-stone to find the guilty parties was frightening.