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Trisu’s gray eyes were hard, and she raised one hand in a slight throwing away gesture.
“Milord, that’s almost always the case when a dispute reaches the point this one has. It’s not necessarily because either side is inherently evil, either. It’s because the people on both sides are just that—people. And people, Milord, get angry with other people they feel are wrong or, even worse, out to cheat them in some way. It’s a fact of life which any judge—or champion of Tomanak—simply has to take into consideration. Just as you have to take it into consideration, I’m sure, when you’re forced to adjudicate between the conflicting claims of two of your retainers or tenants.”
It would have been too much to say that Trisu’s anger dissipated, but at least he nodded grudgingly in an admission that she’d made her point.
“Quite often,” she continued, “there are additional causes for anger and resentment. When people are already unhappy with one another, they’re seldom as interested as they might otherwise be in extending the benefit of the doubt to the people they’re unhappy with.”
“I understand that you’re attempting to prepare me for some point you intend to raise and think I’ll find objectionable, Lady Champion,” Trisu said with a thin smile which actually held a trace of genuine amusement. “Shall we simply agree that you’ve done that now and get on with it?”
“Well, yes, I suppose we could.” Kaeritha gave him an answering smile and nodded her head in acknowledgment.
“Where I was going, Milord, is that the Mayor’s share of the … intransigence in this dispute seems to be fueled in no small part by her belief that you’ve shown insufficient respect for the Voice of Lillinara at Quaysar.”
“What you truly mean, Milady,” Trisu responded in a flat, hard voice, “is that she believes I have shown no respect for the Voice. And, while we’re on the subject, that she bitterly resents my failure to solve the disappearance—or murder—of the Voice’s handmaidens.”
Once again, Kaeritha was surprised by his blunt, head-on attitude. Not that she should have been, perhaps, she reflected. Trisu was in many ways the quintessential Sothoii. He might be capable of tactical subtlety on the battlefield, but he disdained anything that smacked of the indirect approach in his own life.
She felt a fresh flicker of anger at the confrontational light in his eyes, but she reminded herself once more never to underestimate this intolerable young man’s native intelligence. Nor was she about to forget that the evidence she herself had turned up that afternoon strongly suggested that there was more than a little merit to his interpretation of the actual legal disputes.
“I suppose that is what I mean,” she conceded after a moment. “Although that’s considerably more … pointed than the ma
He looked at her long and steadily, then dipped his head in a small bob of acknowledgment. He even had the grace to blush ever so slightly, she thought. But one thing he didn’t do was retreat from the point he’d just made.
“No doubt it was more confrontational than one as courteous as you’ve already proven yourself to be would have phrased it to her host, Milady. For that, I apologize. But that was essentially what she said, was it not?”
“Essentially,” she acknowledged.
“I thought it would be,” he said and gazed at her speculatively for a few more seconds. “Given your willingness to consider and examine the evidence Salthan and I offered you, I would assume you’ve raised this point in order to hear my side of it directly.”
His tone made the statement a question, and she nodded.
“Dame Kaeritha,” he began after a moment, “I won’t attempt to pretend that I’m not more uncomfortable dealing with Lillinara and Her followers than I am with other gods and their worshipers. I don’t understand Lillinara. And I don’t much care for many of the things Her followers justify on the basis of things She’s supposed to have told them. To be perfectly honest, there are times I wonder just how much of what She’s supposed to have said was actually invented by people who would have found it convenient for Her to tell them what they wanted to hear in the first place.”
Kaeritha arched her eyebrows.
“That’s a … surprisingly frank admission, Milord,” she observed.
“No sane man doubts the existence of the gods, Milady,” he replied. “But no intelligent man doubts that charlatans and tricksters are fully capable of using the gods and the religious faith of others for their own manipulative ends. Surely you wouldn’t expect someone charged with the governance of any domain to close his eyes to that possibility?”
“No, I wouldn’t,” she said, and felt a brief flicker of something very like affection for this hard-edged, opinionated youngster. “In fact, that sort of manipulation is one of the things champions spend a lot of their time undoing and repairing.”
“I thought it probably would be.” Trisu sipped brandy, then set down his glass, and his nostrils flared.
“I brought up my … discomfort with Lillinara intentionally, Milady. I wanted you to be aware that I was aware of it. And because I am aware of it, I reminded myself when I met Lillinara’s newest Voice that the fact that I don’t like what someone tells me She wants me to do doesn’t necessarily make that someone a liar. But in this instance, I’ve come to the conclusion that the so-called ’Voice’ at Quaysar is one of those manipulators.”
“That’s an extremely serious charge, Lord Trisu.” Kaeritha’s voice was low, her expression grim, yet she wasn’t remotely as surprised to hear it as she should have been.
“I’m aware of that,” he replied with unwonted somberness. “It’s also one which I haven’t previously made to anyone in so many words. I would suspect, however, that Mayor Yalith, who—despite our many and lively differences—is an intelligent woman, knows that it’s what I think.”
“And why do you think it, Milord?”
“First and foremost, I’m sure, is the fact that I don’t much care for this particular Voice. In fact, the day I first met her, when she arrived to take up her post at Quaysar, she and I took one another in immediate and intense dislike.”
“Took one another in immediate dislike?” Kaeritha repeated, and Trisu chuckled sourly.
“Milady, I couldn’t possibly dislike her as much as I do without her disliking me right back! I don’t care how saintly a Voice of Lillinara is supposed to be.”
Despite herself, Kaeritha laughed, and he shrugged and continued.
“It’s not unusual, I imagine, for the lord of any domain to have differences of opinion with the priests and priestesses whose spheres of authority and responsibility overlap with his. Each of us would like to be master in his own house, and when we have conflicting views or objectives, that natural resentment can only grow stronger.
“But in this case, it went further than that.”
He paused, and Kaeritha watched his face. It was as hard, as uncompromising, as ever, yet there was something else behind his expression now. She didn’t know quite what the emotion was, but she knew it was there.
“How so, Milord?” she asked after the silence had stretched out for several breaths.
“I don’t —” he began, then stopped. “No, Dame Kaeritha,” he said, “that’s not true. I started to say that I don’t really know how to answer your question, but I do. I suppose I hesitated because I was afraid honesty might alienate you.”
“Honesty may anger me, Milord,” she said with the seriousness his tone and ma