Four and Twenty Blackbirds

appreciated. Knowing the young woman was wasted in her position, she had snatched Kayne up for her own staff before Father Leod knew what was happening.

'I know you could give me a summary, and a good one too, but you know why I won't let you,' Ardis replied, putting her head back against the padded leather of her chair, her eyes still closed. 'I told you why a week ago when you made the same offer—which is appreciated, by the way, even if I don't accept it.'

'Because a summary won't give you the sense of things they aren't putting down,' Kayne repeated, with a little well-bred irritation of her own. 'That sounds rather too much like mind-reading, and I can't see where it's all that important in personal correspondence.' Her irritation showed a little more. 'It also sounds, frankly, as if you simply didn't want me to see the letter, and if that's the real reason, I wish you'd justtell me instead of making something up.'

Ardis laughed at that, and opened her eyes. Kayne was very young to be a novice, but her clever tongue, acidic wit, sharp features and sharper temper were unlikely to win her many friends, much less suitors, so perhaps that was why she never attracted a marriage proposal. Ardis appreciated her sharp tongue, but she was going to have to teach Kayne how to curb it. Kayne was really too intelligent to ever remain a mere secretary, but if it hadn't been for Ardis, she probably would have been kept in a subordinate position all her life, and shewould remain subordinate if she made too many enemies to advance.

She might have done well enough in secular society, but she had told Ardis in her initial interview that there really hadn't had any choice but to go into the Church. She was too poor to become a merchant, and there were not too many Masters in the more interesting Guilds and Crafts who would take on an Apprentice without the Apprenticing Fee.

Not much like myself at her age—but I think she's going to go far, if the Church will let her. And it will, if I have any say in the matter and she can learn when it is better to keep your observations behind your teeth.

'It's not mind-reading, and it's not intuition either,' Ardis told her. 'It's all based on patterns that I have observed after many years of dealing with these same people. I know what they say, how they say it, and how they conceal things they don't want me to know by the way they choose their words. It's knowledge you can't describe briefly to someone else, but it's knowledge all the same. And it's all the more important in personal correspondence, when the people who are writing to me are the movers and shakers of their areas—like my cousin Talaysen.'

Kayne's brow wrinkled as she took that in. 'I don't suppose you could give me an example, could you?' she asked.

'As a matter of fact, I can, from this letter.' Ardis tapped the sheet of thick, cream-colored vellum on the desk, just above the seal of Free Bard Master Talaysen, currently the advisor to the King of Birnam. 'My cousin mentions that his King has had three visitors from Rayden—fromour part of the kingdom, in fact—but goes into detail on only two of them. He knows all three of them from his life at Court, before he gave up his position as a Master of the Bardic Guild, although it seems that none of them recognized him as he is now. I know from things we have written and spoken about in the past that he believes that the third man, who appears to be an ordinary enough fop, is actually playing a much deeper game involving both secular politics and the Church; he's warned me about this fellow before. I also know from other sources that this fellow has said things aboutme in the past that are less than complimentary. My cousin doesn't like to worry me, and if he believes there is something going on that threatens me, he will take whatever steps he can to thwart it himself without involving me. Hence, this third visitor has said or done something that makes Talaysen think he is gathering information for possible use against me, and Talaysen is trying to spike his wheels—probably by feeding him misinformation.' She raised an eyebrow at her crestfallen secretary. 'Now, assume you've read this letter. Would you have made those deductions from it?'

'No,' Kayne replied, properly humbled. 'I probably wouldn't even have mentioned the visitors at all, thinking they came under the heading of social chit-chat.'

'Nothingcomes under the heading of social chit-chat when people have managed to make a High Bishop out of you,' Ardis corrected sourly. 'May God help me.' That last came out with the fervor of the prayer it actually was. Ardis would have been much happier if no one had ever come up with that particular notion.

'I thought you wanted to become a High Bishop,' Kayne said in surprise. 'How could you not?'

'What, how could I not want to become a bigger target for slander, libel, and intrigue than I already was?' she responded tartly. 'If I were only the Abbess and the Chief Justiciar, I would have been much safer; as a woman, they would always underestimate me so long as I didn't intrigue for a high position. If I had the power, but not the title, I would not be nearly the threat to other power-holders inside and outside the Church as I am since I wear the miter. I am not so fond of fancy hats that I was pleased to put up with all that just so I could wear one.'

Kayne snickered at Ardis's designation of the High Bishop's miter as a 'fancy hat.' Ardis leaned over her desk and fixed her young secretary with a stern look.

'If you are going to prosper in the Church, you'd better keep in mind that a woman is always in a more precarious position than a man,' she said carefully. 'It is much better to hold power quietly, without trappings, than it is to make a show of it. The men will resent you a great deal less, listen to you a great deal more, and might even come to respect you in time.'

Kayne nodded, slowly. 'So that's why—' She spread her hands, indicating the office.

'Correct. The appearance of austerity and modesty, the reality of a certain level of comfort.' Ardis smiled. 'You should have seen this office when my predecessor sat here. It looked like a cross between a Cathedral and a throne room. I cleared most of that out, sold the expensive trash to pay for this, and donated the rest to one of the