He took a sip from his own glass of whiskey, and Shahana wondered if it was to erase the taste of that courteous response from his mouth. Then she scolded herself. No, he didn’t like the war maids, and he would have been far happier if Quaysar had lain in someone else’s wardenship, but she’d never heard an overtly discourteous word out of him. Bluntness that verged on rudeness, sometimes, for he was a plainspoken, almost painfully honest man who took a certain pride in being that way, but never deliberate discourtesy.
“Please inform the Voice that there’s no urgency in making up last year’s shortfall,” he continued after a moment. “Bad harvests can happen to anyone, but it looks like a good harvest for almost everyone this year if, as you say, the weather holds. That’s what I’m hearing from my bailiffs, at any rate, which means we’re anticipating a strong income stream, and I realize the Temple has yet to fully recover.” He smiled thinly. “Given the way events almost worked out, I fully understand that her treasury is still under considerable pressure.”
“Thank you, Milord.”
It was a bit difficult for Shahana to get the words out in a normal tone as Trisu reminded her of how close the Quaysar temple of Lillinara had come to total disaster. He was right about the strain the temple’s treasury had been under ever since, although that pressure was finally beginning to ease, thank the Goddess! But the last several years have been hard ones in the wake of Shigu’s devastating attack.
And the real reason you’re pissed off by Trisu’s “understanding tone” isn’t just because he was right all along when he claimed there was something seriously wrong in Quaysar, either. It’s because Dame Kaeritha got the call to straighten that entire mess out instead of you, isn’t it?
She didn’t much like admitting that. In fact, she was self-honest enough to know she spent as much of her time as she could not admitting it. That, unfortunately, didn’t make it untrue.
No, it doesn’t. But, dammit, we should have seen what was happening, and the Mother should have sent one of Her arms to deal with it!
The thought flashed through her mind, and she raised her stein, taking another long swallow of the clean, rich tasting beer to hide her expression while she dealt with it.
The truth was that Lillinara’s arms wouldn’t have been remotely as well equipped as Dame Kaeritha had been to deal with the assault on the Quaysar temple, and Shahana knew it. Arms of the Mother, like Shahana herself, were trained warriors, but Shahana wasn’t remotely Kaeritha Seldansdaughter’s equal in that respect. Partly that was because of the difference in the deities they served, of course; Tomanak was the god of war, after all! His champions were primarily warriors, but that function was secondary for most arms.
Most arms, as Shahana herself had, heard Lillinara’s voice early in life and began as arms of the Maiden- students, scholars, and explorers taking their first steps on the road of life, studying and learning in order to prepare themselves for greater responsibilities in the course of time. The majority of them eventually became arms of the Mother, although not all ever made that transition. The ones who didn’t tended to become the Church’s librarians, researchers, and scribes or sometimes envoys, but they certainly weren’t Lillinara’s mailed fist. Arms of the Maiden had some training under arms, yet it was minimal, just enough to let them look after themselves in an emergency, because they were supposed to be concentrating on other things.
Arms of the Mother were fully engaged with life. They were trained warriors, but their primary function was to nourish. Many of them, too, remained scholars, serving as teachers and educators. Others, like Shahana, were skilled healers and midwives or surgeons in addition to their weapons training. As warriors, they were guardians and protectors, the custodians of the precious fire of life Lillinara shared with her mother Kontifrio. More than one arm of the Mother had died defending that flame, but they were defenders, not the spearheads of justice Tomanak’s champions so often were.
And then there were the arms of the Crone. Not all arms of the Mother made that transition, and Shahana sometimes wondered if she had the moral fortitude to make it herself. Arms of the Mother defended life; arms of the Crone were focused on the proper ending of life. The healers among them served the hospices which offered care and support for the elderly, the dying. Where those slipping into Isvaria’s shadows were given the dignity and comfort they deserved. It took a special bravery to open one’s heart to those who must inevitably fade, to embrace the natural tide and ease the final flicker of the flame arms of the Mother protected so fiercely, and Shahana wasn’t at all certain she had that much courage.
But arms of the Crone weren’t just healers. They, too, were warriors, yet their function was not to defend life, but to avenge it. An arm of the Mother would seek, far more often than not, to capture a criminal and deliver him to justice, whatever his offense; when Lillinara dispatched an arm of the Crone, it was to slay, not to capture.
And that was why neither an arm of the Mother nor an arm of the Crone would have been remotely as well suited to dealing with Shigu’s attack on Quaysar. However much Shahana might dislike admitting it, that had required a sword with a keener edge than hers. Once Shigu had replaced the legitimate Voice with her own creature and corrupted the captain of the Quaysar Temple Guard, nothing short of Tomanak Himself and His champions could have pried her loose again without the utter devastation of the temple. For that matter, even Dame Kaeritha and Bahzell Bahnakson had inevitably left broad swaths of destruction in their wake, and the Temple Guard had been devastated. Well over two thirds of its armsmen and war maids had been corrupted to a greater or a lesser extent-many of them knowingly; others without even realizing what was happening-and the survivors’ morale had been shattered by the realization of how utterly they’d failed to protect the temple they’d been called upon to serve.
And that was why Shahana had been permanently assigned to Quaysar for the last six and a half years. Rebuilding the temple was a task to which arms of the Mother were far better suited, and she and the current Voice-trained healers, both of them-had carried out that rebuilding with slow but steady progress. It helped that the Voice was a native Sothoii…and that she’d never been a war maid. Trisu, for example, found it much easier to interact with her than he did even now with Mayor Yalith at Kalatha. For that matter, he found it easier to interact with her than he did with Shahana, who’d been born and raised in the Empire of the Axe.
And he still gets along better with Dame Kaeritha than he does with either of us, Shahana thought moodily. Is that because he’s more comfortable thinking of her as “just” another warrior? Or is it because in the end, she realized he was right and the war maids were wrong about what was happening? Does a part of him think of her as his partisan and not simply as an impartial judge sent by Scale Balancer?
Of course, she admitted, it was also entirely possible that only a champion of Tomanak could have been impartial in a case like this one. Lillinara’s arms dealt regularly with prejudice-especially here in the Kingdom of the Sothoii and especially against war maids-and they did have a natural tendency to react defensively first and consider impartiality second.
So the Gods probably knew what They were doing when they sent Dame Kaeritha and not you, she told herself yet again. Maybe you should just go ahead and accept that They usually know what They’re doing?
The familiar tartness of that thought restored much of her humor, and she lowered her stein and smiled at Trisu.
“I’m sure the Voice will appreciate your generosity and understanding,” she said. “We’re making continued progress in rebuilding, and Quaysar is becoming prosperous again, but there’s no point pretending it couldn’t very easily have gone the other way.”
“I know.”
Trisu’s gray eyes went cold and distant, looking at something Shahana couldn’t see. They stayed that way for several seconds before he shook himself and refocused on her face.
“I know,” he repeated. “And the truth is, Arm Shahana, that I blame myself, at least in part.”
“You do?” Shahana couldn’t quite keep the surprise out of her own voice. As far as she knew, this was the first time Trisu had ever said anything like that. “In fairness, Milord,” she said a bit unwillingly, “yours was the only voice raising the alarm. It’s scarcely your fault that no one listened to you until Dame Kaeritha came along.”
“You think not?” Trisu sat back in his chair, elbows on chair arms, cradling his glass of whiskey in both hands, and smiled in what certainly looked like faint amusement. “I think perhaps you’re being overly generous, Milady.”
“In what way?” she asked, trying not to bridle at the honorific he’d chosen.
“It’s tactful of you and the Voice not to remark upon it, Arm Shahana,” he said, still with that faint smile, “but my own attitude, and that of my family, towards the war maids is scarcely a secret. Indeed, I’ve been known to express myself, ah, somewhat intemperately, I suppose, upon the subject in private conversation from time to time. Nowhere near as intemperately as my Uncle Saeth or my cousin Triahm, perhaps, but still intemperately enough. I
