The other complication was the one Ardis herself had briefly touched on. If his target was a Priest and a mage—or just a mage—well, he would know that Tal was coming, and who Tal was, long before Tal ever learned whohe was, and there would be plenty of opportunity for 'accidents' to occur. Magic opened up an entirely new set of problems, given that Tal really didn't know the full breadth of what a mage could and could not do.
This is no time to get cold feet, he chided himself. You've never backed away from a case before; not when you had to go after mad drunks, murderers, and cutthroats. Any one of them could have disposed of you if you'd made the wrong move. She's already told you that you can go to her or any of the other Justiciar-Mages she thinks is discreet and get help, which includes finding out what a mage can do. And besides, the High Bishop is counting on you. She thinks you can handle this, or she wouldn't have given you the authority in the first place.
Yes, and just whathad convinced her to give him the authority? He'd like to think that he showed his own competence as clearly as she showed hers, but he doubted that was the case. How could he have looked like a professional, when he'd come in exhausted, travel-worn, in shabby clothing? He wouldn't have impressed himself, and he doubted that his outward appearance had impressed her.
I probably looked like one of her Gypsy friends.Then again, maybe that wasn't so bad. If she had contacts among the Gypsies and Free Bards, she must be used to looking past shabby clothing and weary faces.
It could have been his careful investigation thus far that had impressed her—and he'd really like to think that was the case. Hehad done good work, especially considering all the opposition he'd faced. He could have done more if he'd just had some cooperation, and she probably knew that as well.
But the reason why she trusted him could also have been desperation. If you didn't have the faintest idea where to start with a problem, wouldn't you take the first person who came along and said, 'I know what to do' and throw the whole thing at him? She'd had that letter on her desk when he came in; she'd probably just gotten it. She wasn't supposed to track criminals, she was supposed to sentence them, and considering that the Bardic Guild had its Guild Hall in Kingsford, she might not get much cooperation from the Kingsford authorities in trying to hunt down a killer of Free Bards. For that matter—maybe the killer was some high-ranking, crazed Master Bard! Hadn't he heard it said, more than once, that Bards were supposed to be mages?
It might be that when he walked in her door with additional evidence, she'd been disposed to welcome him as God's answer to her difficulty.
Maybe so. But she didn't get where she is now by being incompetent to handle her own problems.
For that matter, why did he agree so readily to become her servant? Or the Church's servant, really, but it amounted to the same thing in this case. What in Heaven's name made him throw away everything he'd done to this moment to take this position? He'dnever imagined himself serving the Church, not even as a secular adjunct. He neverwanted to be a Guard, even one with other duties. He would have done so if that had been the only answer, but he hadn't even begun to explore his options in Kingsford. He certainly hadn't come into that office looking for a position!
It might have been the personality of Ardis herself that had persuaded him. Tal knew that, in some respects, he was a follower, not a leader. He felt more comfortable with someone competent in authority over him, for all of his cherished independence; and what was more, he was honest enough to admit it, at least to himself.
Competent—I'd say. She couldn't run this Abbey better if she was a general and it was a military barracks.Not that he'd been in alot of Abbeys—but there were little signs when things weren't being run properly. Dirt in the corners, things needing repair, indifferent food, an aura of laziness or tension, a general sense of unhappiness.
A lot like the headquarters back in Haldene, as a matter of fact.
People weren't tense here, but they weren't slacking, either. Nobody was running around as if they were always forgetting to do things until the last minute, but no one dawdled. That novice, Kayne—she moved briskly, got things done, but there was no panic about it, no sense of being harried, and that went for every other person he'd seen. Even the rest of the Guards—though Othorp sighed over their condition, theywere competent and they got their jobs done properly; their biggest problem was that they were set in their ways. They weren't lazy, just so used to routine that changes in it made them uneasy. When it came down to it, that would probably hold true for all the Priests as well, and why not? Routine waspart of an Abbey. No, Ardis had this place well in hand. Maybe that was what he had responded to.
The moment I got here, I felt it.He hadn't even ridden all the way into the courtyard before someone came to greet him and ask his business—one of the Guards, he realized now. A stablehand had come to take his mules and tie them up for him, a novice had led him to a little chamber just inside the front door, and brought Novice Kayne to him. Kayne had questioned him briefly, and everything had fallen into place, and all without a lot of running about and fuss and feathers.
Not what I would have expected from a place being run by a woman.But just as he thought that, he knew it could just be prejudice on his part.
I don't expect much out of women when it comes to running things.But—really, look at the women he'd had the most to do with! You didn't expect much of women, when all you saw them doing was falling apart in a crisis. The women he saw on a day-to-day basis mostly seemed to be looking for men to take care of them.
And they weren't very bright. Or if they were, it had been starved or beaten out of them a long time ago. You
