neck. The bay brown gelding blew heavily, trying to convince her the journey from Kalatha had worn him to the bone, but she knew better, and she smiled.
“Don’t lie to me,” she told him. “I’ve known you too long for that.”
Boots tossed his head with a snort, recognizing her tone, and she laughed. Yet even as she did, she felt those eyes, and that pissed-off part of her still wanted to go turn some of them black and blue.
“Kitty, kitty, sheathe those claws,” a voice murmured very quietly beside her, and she glanced at Garlahna. “ I know what you’re thinking,” her best friend said. “For that matter, I’m thinking the same thing, but if you go and start kicking their arses the way they deserve, Mayor Yalith and Balcartha will have a few sharp things to say to you when we get home.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Leeana replied, elevating her nose. “Although, I do notice no one’s offered to take care of our horses for us…again.”
“As if you’d let anyone else take care of Boots!” Garlahna snorted.
“That’s not the point. The point is that they didn’t offer.”
Garlahna shrugged, and Leeana reminded herself not to grimace. Her friend was unaware of the finer points of etiquette among the Sothoii aristocracy. As such, she didn’t recognize the deeply offensive insult the Kalathan war maids had just been offered. For that matter, most war maids wouldn’t have recognized it, given the relatively humble origins from which the majority of them sprang, which was probably one reason Trisu’s armsmen and grooms took such delight in offering it. They knew how they’d just slighted the two of them, and the fact that war maids in general were too stupid to even know they’d been insulted only made it better.
And then there was Leeana herself…the one war maid they could be certain would know how profoundly she’d just been insulted.
She found a certain degree of revenge in smiling at the grooms and hostlers standing around with their hands ostentatiously in their pockets as she and Garlahna passed on their way to the stables. It wasn’t the kind of smile Sothoii were accustomed to seeing from war maids, and she knew her mother would have been appalled if she could see it. There were advantages to having been raised as the daughter of one of the Kingdom’s foremost powerful nobles, however, and she knew exactly how to put the proper cold edge of contempt into an otherwise pleasant expression.
“Thinks her shit doesn’t stink,” she heard someone mutter in a voice she was perfectly aware she was supposed to hear. She ignored it…except to give her hips a slight swish which would also have appalled her mother.
“One of these days, you’re going to get us mobbed,” Garlahna told her quietly. “You do know that, don’t you?”
Leeana arched an eyebrow at her friend, and Garlahna chuckled. “When it happens, I’m hiding behind you,” Garlahna warned, brown eyes gleaming with amusement in the stable’s dim light as she and Leeana began un- saddling their horses.
“Coward,” Leeana said, smiling back.
“No, just practical; I know my limitations-relatively speaking, of course. Besides, Barlahn doesn’t like it when I bring back black eyes from one of these little jaunts with you. I think he thinks it’s unladylike.”
“ Barlahn? ” Leeana laughed out loud. “He’ll just want to hear about what you did to the poor jerk who gave it to you in the first place!”
“I don’t know where you get those ridiculous ideas about him,” Garlahna said severely, swinging her saddle up onto a tack rack. “He’s a very delicate and refined man, you know.”
“ Sure he is. And I know just what part of his ‘refined’ personality most attracts you, too. I have seen him swimming, you know!” Leeana rolled her eyes, and Garlahna smacked her lightly on the shoulder.
Leeana racked her own saddle, whisked off Boots’ saddle blanket, and began briskly rubbing him down. It was a task she’d performed hundreds, even thousands, of times before, and she flared her nostrils, inhaling the familiar, welcome scents of horseflesh, saddle soap, leather, oil, and hay. Whatever she might think of Trisu’s armsmen’s standards of courtesy, they kept Thalar Keep’s stables in meticulous order, and she was prepared to forgive them quite a bit as long as that was true.
“So, are you going to try to talk to him today, or wait until tomorrow?” Garlahna asked, rubbing down her own horse with considerably less pleasure than Leeana.
“I think Arm Shahana’s going to keep him pretty fully occupied today,” Leeana replied.
“Besides which, you don’t want to talk to him one moment sooner than you have to.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“No, but you were thinking it pretty loudly.”
“Is it my fault the man’s an idiot?” Leeana demanded, shaking her head disgustedly. “I swear, sometimes I wonder what Mayor Yalith is thinking, sending me to talk to him about something like this!”
“I’d imagine it has something to do with, oh, I don’t know…the fact that you understand ‘something like this’ better than any of the rest of us?”
Leeana snorted, but she had to concede that Garlahna had probably put her finger on it. There weren’t many-in fact, she admitted, there weren’t any — other war maids with her perspective on the internal workings of the aristocracy and its obligations under the Kingdom’s laws and traditions. That made her the logical person to “informally” discuss minor points of contention with Trisu before they turned into formal complaints. Once it reached the complaint stage, someone older and more senior would be sent to handle the matter, but Mayor Yalith had gotten into the habit of using Leeana to keep things from ever getting to that point. Of course, there was the minor fact that the mayor couldn’t possibly have found an envoy who would have been more offensive to Trisu’s prejudices. Which, Leeana had suspected a time or two, might well be another reason she kept getting selected for these little visits.
I do wish the mayor could find another way to tweak Trisu’s nose, she thought moodily, her arm moving rhythmically while she continued to rub Boots down. Not that I don’t sympathize with her. And not that she isn’t making a valid point, for that matter. War maids aren’t supposed to cater to the prejudices of our male “betters,” and sending someone Trisu has to be polite to despite himself is one way to underscore that for him. Unfortunately, understanding what she’s doing doesn’t make it any more pleasant to be her clue stick.
“I’ll talk to him about it tomorrow,” she said out loud.
“Try not to do it until after breakfast,” Garlahna advised. “That’s the most important meal of the day, you know. I’d hate for you to lose your appetite that early.”
“Welcome, Arm Shahana,” Trisu Pickaxe said as Warblade personally ushered Shahana into his spartan, whitewashed office high in Thalar Keep’s central tower.
“Thank you, Milord,” she replied. As much as she and Trisu grated on one another’s nerves, he was always punctiliously polite whenever they met. And he was apparently the only man in all of Lorham who could remember the proper form of address for one of Lillinara’s champions.
“May I offer you refreshment?” Trisu continued, waving one hand at the small side table, where a bottle of Dwarvenhame whiskey and two crystal glasses kept company with a moisture-beaded pitcher of beer and a much larger beer stein. At least he’d learned that much about her, she thought.
“That would be most welcome, Milord,” she replied with a slight smile, and he personally and expertly poured beer into the stein and handed it to her. She sipped with unfeigned pleasure, since Trisu had one of the better brewmasters she’d ever encountered.
“This is good, Milord,” she acknowledged.
“I’m pleased you like it,” he replied with a genuine smile. Then he waved her into the chair facing his desk and waited until she sat before seating himself once more. “May I ask to what I owe the pleasure of your visit?”
“Nothing earth shattering…this time, Milord.” Shahana smiled thinly. “The Voice knew I had business in Kalatha, and she asked me to stop by and visit you while I was in the vicinity. She wanted me to extend her respects, and to tell you Quaysar expects a very good harvest this year, if the weather holds fair. She hopes to be able to make good on the taxes you so graciously deferred last fall.”
“It’s good of her to take the trouble to inform me of that,” Trisu replied.
