by Bill Fawcett
"Does the rain ever stop on the Wind Plain, Milord?" Kaeritha asked wryly.
"Not in the spring," Bahzell replied before Tellian could. "It may be after pausing a bit, here and there, though."
"Bahzell is right, I'm afraid," Tellian confirmed. "Winter weather is worse, of course. They say Chemalka uses the Wind Plain to test her foul weather before she sends it elsewhere, and I believe it. But spring is usually our rainiest season. Although, to be fair, this spring has been rainier than most, even for us."
"Which I'm sure will be doing wonderful things for the grass and crops, assuming as how it doesn't wash all of them away before ever they sprout. But that won't be leaving you any dryer right this very moment, Kerry," Bahzell observed.
"I've been wet before." Kaeritha shrugged. "I haven't melted or shrunk yet, and I probably won't this time, either."
"I see you're serious about leaving," Tellian said, and she nodded. "Well, I'm not foolish enough to try to tell a champion of Tomanak her business, Milady. But if He insists on sending you out in such weather, is there at least anything I can do to assist you on your way?"
"It might help if you could tell me where I'm going," Kaeritha said ruefully.
"I beg your pardon?" Tellian looked at her as if he half suspected her of pulling his leg.
"One of the more frustrating consequences of the fact that He doesn't talk to me as directly as He does to Bahzell here," Kaeritha told him, "is that my directions are often a bit less precise."
"Well, Bahzell does require as much clarity—not to say simplicity—as possible," Brandark put in with a wicked grin.
"Just you be keeping it up, little man," Bahzell told him. "I'm sure it's an impressive splash you'll be making when someone kicks your hairy arse halfway across the moat."
"This castle doesn't have a moat," Brandark pointed out.
"It will as soon as I've finished digging one for the occasion," Bahzell shot back.
"As I was saying," Kaeritha continued in the tone of a governess ignoring her charges' obstreperousness, "I haven't really received any specific instructions about exactly what I'm supposed to be doing here."
"I should think that helping to destroy an entire temple of Sharna and to establish a brand-new chapter of your order amongst Bahzell's people—not to mention playing some small part in preventing that idiot Redhelm from committing all of us to a disastrous war—constitutes a worthwhile effort already," Tellian observed.
"I'd like to think so," Kaeritha agreed with a small smile. "On the other hand, I was already headed this direction before Bahzell ever came along. Not that I knew exactly why then, either, of course. But one thing I do know, Milord, is that He doesn't normally leave His champions sitting around idle. Swords don't accomplish much hanging on an armory wall. So it's time I was about figuring out whatever it is He has in mind for me next."
"You've no clue at all?" Bahzell asked.
"You know Him better than that," Kaeritha replied. "He may not have actually discussed it with me, but I know that whatever it is, it lies east of here."
"With all due respect, Dame Kaeritha," Tellian pointed out, "three-quarters of the Wind Plain 'lies east of here.' Would it be possible for you to narrow that down just a bit more?"
"Not a great deal, I'm afraid, Milord." She shrugged. "About all I can say is that I'm probably within a few days' travel—certainly not more than a week's or so—of where I'm supposed to be."
"While it would never do to criticize a god," Tellian said, "it occurs to me that if I attempted to plan a campaign with as little information as He appears to have provided you, I'd fall flat on my arse."
"Champions do require a certain . . . agility," Kaeritha agreed. "On the other hand, Milord, that's usually because He's careful to avoid leading us around by the hand." Tellian quirked an eyebrow at her, and she shrugged again. "We need to be able to stand on our own two feet," she pointed out, "and if we started to rely on Him for explicit instructions on everything we're supposed to be doing, how long would it be before we couldn't accomplish anything without those instructions? He expects us to be bright enough to figure out our duty without His constant prompting."
"And himself is after having his own version of a sense of humor, as well," Bahzell put in.
"And that." Kaeritha nodded.
"I'll take your word for that," Tellian said. "You two are the first of His champions I've ever personally met, after all. Although, to be honest, I have to admit that I harbor a few dark suspicions about how typical the pair of you are." Bahzell and Kaeritha both grinned at him, and he shook his head. "Be that as it may," he continued, "I'm afraid that I can't really think of anything to the east of here—within no more than a few days' travel, at least—that would seem to require a champion's services. If I did know of anything that serious, I assure you that I'd already have been trying to do something about it!"
"I'm sure you would, Milord. But that's frequently the way it is, especially when the local authorities are competent."
"I'm not sure I'd consider someone who could let that idiot Redhelm come so close to succeeding 'competent,' " Tellian said a bit sourly.
"I doubt that anyone could have stopped him from making the attempt," Kaeritha objected. "You could scarcely have stripped him of his authority before he actually abused it, after all. And once you discovered that he had, you acted promptly enough."
"Barely," Tellian said.
"But promptly enough, all the same," Bahzell said. "And, if you'll pardon my saying so, I'm thinking that betwixt us it was effective enough, as well."
"It certainly was," Kaeritha agreed. "But my point, Milord, is that champions frequently end up dealing with problems which have succeeded in hiding themselves from the local authorities' attention. Often with a little help from someone like Sharna or one of his relatives."
"You think whatever it is you're here to deal with is that serious?" Tellian sat up straight in his chair, his sudden frown intense. "That there could be another of the Dark Gods at work here on the Wind Plain?"
"I didn't say that, Milord. On the other hand, and without wanting to sound paranoid, Bahzell and I are champions of one of the Gods of Light. Tomanak doesn't have that many of us, either, so we tend not to get wasted on easy tasks." She grimaced so wryly that Tellian chuckled. "Of course, a great deal of what we do in the world requires us to deal with purely mortal problems, but we do see rather more of the Dark Gods and their handiwork than most people do. And the Dark Gods are quite accomplished at concealing their presence and influence."
"Like Sharna in Navahk," Brandark agreed grimly.
"Well, yes, but—" Tellian began, then stopped. His three guests looked at him expressionlessly, and he had the grace to blush.
"Forgive me," he said. "I was about to say that that was among hradani, not Sothoii. But I suppose that sort of 'It couldn't possibly happen to us' thinking is what does let it happen, isn't it?"
"It's certainly a part of it," Kaeritha said. "But infections are always hard to see before they rise to the surface, and one of a champion's functions is to bring things to a head and clean the wound before it gets so bad that the only alternative is amputation."
"A charming analogy." Tellian grimaced, but it was obvious he was thinking hard. He leaned back in his chair, the fingers of his right hand drumming on the armrest, while he pondered.
"I still can't think of anything that seems serious enough to require a champion," he said finally. "But as you and Bahzell—and Brandark—have all just pointed out, that doesn't necessarily mean as much as I'd like to think it does, so I've been trying to come up with anything that may have seemed less important to me than it actually is. If you can delay your departure for perhaps another day or two, Kaeritha, I'll spend some time going over the reports from my local lords and bailiffs to see if there is something I missed the first time around. Right off the top of my head, though, the only ongoing local problem I'm aware of is the situation at Kalatha."
"Kalatha?" Kaer
itha repeated.
"It's a town a bit more than a week's ride east of here," Tellian told her. "I realize you said you were within a 'few days' of whatever your destination is, but you could probably make the trip in five days if you pushed hard on a good horse, so I suppose it might qualify."
"Why is it a problem?" she asked.
"Why isn't it a problem?" he responded with a harsh chuckle. She looked puzzled, and he shrugged. "Kalatha isn't just any town, Milady. It holds a special Crown charter, guaranteeing its independence from the local lords, and some of them resent that. Not just because it exempts the Kalathans from their taxes, either." He smiled crookedly. "The reason it holds a free-city charter in the first place is because Lord Kellos Swordsmith, one of my maternal great-great-grandfathers, deeded it to the war maids—with the Crown's strong 'approval'—over two centuries ago."
Kaeritha's eyes narrowed, and he nodded.
"The war maids aren't so very popular," he said with what all of his listeners recognized as massive understatement. "I suppose we Sothoii are too traditional for it to be any other way. But for the most part, they're at least respected as the sort of enemies you wouldn't want to make. However much they may be disliked, very few people, even among the most convinced traditionalists, are foolish enough to go out of their way to pick quarrels with them."
"And that isn't the case at the moment with Kalatha?" Kaeritha asked.
"That depends on whose version you accept," Tellian replied. "According to the local lords, the Kalathans have been encroaching upon territory not covered by the town charter, and they've been 'confrontational' and 'hostile' to efforts to resolve the competing claims peaceably. But according to the war maids, the local lords—and especially Trisu of Lorham, the most powerful of them—have been systematically encroaching upon the rights guaranteed to them by their charter for years now. It's been going on for some time, but there's always something like this. Especially where war maids are concerned. And it's worse in Kalatha's case—inevitably, I suppose. Kalatha isn't the largest war maid free-town or -city, but it is the oldest, thanks to my highly principled ancestor. I like to think that he didn't realize just how much of a pain in the arse he was going to be dumping on all of his descendants. Although, if he didn't, he must have been stupider than I'd prefer to think."
Kaeritha had started to ask another question, but she paused almost visibly at the baron's tone. It would have been too much to call it bitter or biting, but there was a definite edge of sourness to it. So instead of what she'd been about to ask, she nodded.
"I agree it doesn't sound like an earthshaking problem," she said. "On the other hand, I have to start somewhere, and this sounds like it might very well be the place. Especially since each of Tomanak's champions has his—or her—particular . . . specialties, call them."
Tellian furrowed his brow in apparent puzzlement, and Kaeritha chuckled.
"Any of us are expected to be able to handle any duty any of His champions might encounter, Milord, but we each have our own personality traits and skills. That tends to mean we're more comfortable, or effective, at least, serving different aspects of Him. Bahzell here is obviously most at home serving Him as God of War, although he's done fairly well serving Him as God of Justice, as well. For someone who's most at home breaking things, anyway."
She grinned at Bahzell, who looked back affably, with an expression which boded ill for the next time they met on the training field.
"My own reasons for joining His service, though," she went on, returning her attention to Tellian, "had more to do with a burning thirst for justice." She paused and frowned, eyes darkening briefly with old and painful memories, then shook herself. "That's always been the aspect of Him I'm most comfortable—or happiest, anyway—serving, and my talents and abilities seem best suited to it. So if there's a legal dispute between this Kalatha and the neighboring nobility, it certainly seems like a logical place for me to start looking. Can I get a map to show me how to find it?"
"Oh, I can do better than that, Milady," Tellian assured her. "Kalatha may hold a Crown charter, but Trisu and his neighbors are my vassals. If you can wait until the end of the week to depart, I'll make some additional inquiries and provide as much background information as I can. And of course I'll send along letters of introduction and instructions for them to cooperate fully with you during your visit."
"Thank you, Milord," Kaeritha said formally. "That would be very good of you."
* * *
"That was delicious, Tala—as always," Kaeritha said with a deeply satisfied sigh. She laid her spoon neatly in the empty bowl of bread pudding and patted her flat stomach as she leaned back in her chair, smiling at the sturdy, middle-aged hradani woman who'd been sent along by Prince Bahnak of Hurgrum as his son's housekeeper.
"I'm glad you enjoyed it, Milady," Tala said in a pronounced Navahkan accent. "It's always a pleasure to cook for someone who knows good food when she tastes it."
"Or devours it—in copious quantities," Brandark observed, eyeing the empty platters on the table he shared with Kaeritha and Bahzell.
"I didn't seem to notice you shirking your share of the devouring, Milord," Tala replied dryly.
"No, but there's more of me to maintain," Brandark replied with a grin, and Kaeritha grinned back at him. At six feet two inches, Brandark was of less than average height for even a Bloody Sword hradani, far less one of the towering Horse Stealers like Bahzell. But that still left him a good three inches taller than Kaeritha, and he was far more massively built. Indeed, his shoulders were almost as broad as Bahzell's.
"Aye," Bahzell agreed. "For a sawed-off runt of a hradani who's after sitting on his arse with a pen and a bit of parchment all day, you've a bit of meat on your bones, I suppose."
"I'll remember that the next time you need some obscure Sothoii text translated," Brandark assured him.
"Speaking of obscure Sothoii texts," Kaeritha said as a smiling Tala withdrew, "I wonder if you've come across a copy of the war maids' charter in your forays through Tellian's library, Brandark?"
"I haven't been looking for one," the Bloody Sword replied. "I've done a little research on the entire question of war maids since you and Tellian discussed them this morning, but I've really only scratched the surface so far. I assume there's probably a copy of the charter and its amending documents somewhere, though. Would you like me to take a look for them?"
"I don't know." Kaeritha grimaced. "It's just that I've realized that I'm really pretty appallingly ignorant where any detailed knowledge about the war maids is concerned. Tellian's suggestion that whatever I'm supposed to be dealing with concerns them and their prerogatives may well be right, but my training in Sothoii jurisprudence is a bit shakier than my training in Axeman law. If I am supposed to be investigating the war maids' claims, it would probably be a pretty good idea to know what their prerogatives are in the first place."
"I'm not so sure that laying hands on a copy of their original charter would be enough to be telling you that," Bahzell put in. He leaned back in a chair which creaked alarmingly under his weight.
"Why not?" Kaeritha asked.
"The war maids aren't so very popular with most Sothoii," Bahzell said in the tone of one speaking with deliberate understatement. "Not to be putting too fine point on it, there's those amongst the Sothoii who'd sooner see an invading hradani army in their lands than one of the war maids' free-towns."
"They're that unpopular?" Kaeritha looked surprised, and Bahzell shrugged.
"An invading army is likely to be burning their roofs over their heads, Kerry. But roofs can be rebuilt, when all's said. Rebuilding a way of life, now—that's after being just a mite harder."
"And that's exactly how your typical conservative Sothoii would see having a batch of war maids move in next door," Brandark agreed.
Kaeritha nodded in acknowledgment, yet there was still a baffled edge to her expression. As she'd told Leeana, she'd been born a peasant in Moretz, which was at least as feudal a
society as that of the Sothoii, but she'd fled that land when she'd been even younger than Leeana was now. And she'd also been educated in the Empire of the Axe, where women enjoyed far broader choices and possibilities then were generally available to Sothoii women.
"Kerry," Bahzell said, "I'm thinking you've too much of the Axewoman in you. You, if any, ought to have realized by now how hard any Sothoii is after finding it to wrap his mind round the very notion of a woman as a warrior."
Kaeritha nodded again, more emphatically, and Bahzell chuckled. If he found his position in Balthar difficult as a hradani, Kaeritha had found hers only marginally less so. Tellian's men had taken their cue from their liege lord and extended to her the same deference and respect any champion of Tomanak might have expected, but it was only too obvious that they found the entire concept of a female knight—not to mention a knight who was also a champion of the war god himself—profoundly unnatural.
"Well, for all that our folk've spent the best part of a thousand years massacring one another," Bahzell continued, "there's much to be said for the Sothoii. But one thing no one is ever likely to be suggesting is that they've an over abundance of innovation in their natures, especially where matters of tradition and custom are concerned. Don't let Tellian be fooling you. For a Sothoii, he's about as radical as you're ever likely to meet, and well educated about foreign lands, to boot. But your typical Sothoii is stiffer-necked then even a hradani, and the real conservatives are still after thinking the wheel is a dangerous, newfangled, harebrained novelty that will never really be catching on."
Kaeritha chuckled, and Brandark grinned.
"I won't say there isn't an element of the pot and kettle in that pithy description," the Bloody Sword said after a moment. "But there's a lot of accuracy in it, too. And the very existence of the war maids is an affront to those conservatives' view of the way their entire society—or the rest of the world, for that matter—is supposed to work. In fact, the war maids undoubtedly wouldn't exist at all if the Crown hadn't specifically guaranteed their legal rights. Unfortunately—and I suspect this is what Bahzell was getting at—calling that royal guarantee 'a charter' is more of a convenient shorthand then an accurate description."
