Tales of Ethshar

thrown herself at Gar, and he had taken some advantage of that, but he hadn’t tried to hurt her. Even the owl, which would gladly have eaten her, had just been hungry.

Deru had been trying to help, but he was the one who got hurt. It wasn’t fair.

“Do you have any healing magic in there?” she asked, as he swayed unsteadily on his feet.

“No,” he said, “but I’ve been thinking about it. The Cloak of Ethereality should stop the bleeding and take the weight off my injured leg — I won’t weigh anything when I’m ethereal. You start walking; I’ll catch up.”

“How long will it take?”

“Just a few minutes.”

“Then I’ll wait,” she said.

* * *

It was still early in the morning of the following day when Princess Kirna, escorted by what appeared to be a crippled wizard’s ghost, arrived safely back at Quonmor Keep.

Judging by the expression on her father’s face, her arrival was not half as surprising as the first thing she said when shown into the audience chamber.

“I’m sorry, Daddy,” she said. “I won’t do it again.”

He snorted. “We should hope not,” he said.

“On the way home Deru explained to me about wizards not being allowed to get involved with royalty,” she said. “I need to tell you that Gar didn’t really kidnap me; I followed him. I don’t want the Wizards’ Guild to punish him.” In fact, Deru had gone on at some length about how ruthless the Wizards’ Guild could be — information that Kirna knew she had heard before, but had never paid the attention it deserved.

Tolthar frowned, clearly puzzled. “We have nothing to do with the Wizards’ Guild.” He looked at the rather insubstantial presence standing just behind his daughter. “Is this the wizard we hired? He looks... different.”

“He’s under a spell. He got hurt, and needed to enchant himself until he can get home. You’ll still pay him, even though I wasn’t kidnapped, won’t you?” Deru hadn’t said anything about his fee; mentioning it was entirely Kirna’s own idea.

Tolthar looked at Deru, who definitely did not look human just now. “Of course,” he said, with a rather forced-looking smile. “We wouldn’t want to anger a wizard. If we did the Wizards’ Guild you mentioned might decide to show us the error of our ways.”

Kirna nodded, very seriously. That was exactly what she had been thinking on the way home. Wizardry was powerful stuff. The Wizards’ Guild, given a reason, might well swoop down on them.

Just like an owl, she thought.

About “The Guardswoman”

Esther Friesner was putting together an anthology of humorous fantasy about female warriors, preferably in armor — I didn’t know yet she was going to call it Chicks in Chainmail. I had already given some thought to sex roles in Ethshar, and to the difficulties of fitting armor to female bodies, and this story was the result.

The Guardswoman

Dear Mother,

Well, I made it. I’m a soldier in the City Guard of Ethshar of the Sands, in the service of the overlord, Ederd IV.

It wasn’t easy!

Getting here wasn’t really any trouble. I know you were worried about bandits and... well, and other problems on the highway, but I didn’t see any. The people I did see didn’t bother me at all, unless you count a rude remark one caravan driver made about my size.

He apologized nicely after I stuffed him head-first into a barrel of salted fish.

After that everything went just fine, right up until I reached the city gates. I asked one of the guards about joining up, and he made a rude remark, but I couldn’t stuff him into a fish barrel — for one thing, he had a sword, and I didn’t, and he had friends around, and I didn’t, and there weren’t any barrels right nearby anyway. So I just smiled sweetly and repeated my question, and he sent me to a lieutenant in the north middle tower...

I should explain, I guess. Grandgate is very complicated — it’s actually three gates, one after another, with towers on both sides of each gate, so there are six gate-towers, three on the north and three on the south. And each of those towers is connected by a wall to a really big tower, and then the city wall itself starts on the other side of each of the big towers, which are the North Barracks and the South Barracks. Everything right along the highway, out to the width of the outer gate, which is the widest one, is part of Grandgate Market, and everyone just walks right through if they want to and if the guards don’t decide they shouldn’t. Everything between the inner towers and the barracks towers, though, is sort of private territory for us guards — that’s where we train, and march, and so on.

Anyway, the gateman sent me to a lieutenant in the north middle tower, and he sent me to Captain Dabran in the North Barracks, and he sent me back to another lieutenant, Lieutenant Gerath, in the north outer tower, to see whether I could qualify.

I had to do all kinds of things to show I was strong and fast enough — most women aren’t, after all, so I guess it was fair. I had a foot-race with a man named Lador, and then after I beat him I had to catch him and throw him over a fence-rail, and then I had to pick up this fellow named Talden who’s just about the fattest man you ever saw, Mother, I mean he’s even fatter than Parl the Smith, and throw him over the fence- rail. I tried to find nice soft mud for them to land in, but I’m not sure if they appreciated it. The lieutenant did, though.

And then I had to climb a rope to the top of the tower, and throw a spear, and on and on.

The worst part was the swordsmanship test. Mother, no one in the village knows how to use a sword properly, not the way these people do! Lieutenant Gerath says I’ll need to really work on using a sword. That prompted some rude remarks from the other soldiers about women knowing what to do with swords, only they didn’t mean sword swords, of course, but they all shut up when I glared at them and then looked meaningfully at the fence rail and the mud.

By the time I finished all the tests, though, a whole crowd had gathered to watch, and they were laughing and cheering — I never saw so many people! There were more people there than there are in our entire village!

And I was exhausted, too — but Lieutenant Gerath was really impressed, and he vouched for me to Captain Dabran, and here I am! I’m a soldier! They’ve given me my yellow tunic and everything.

I don’t have a red skirt yet, though — all they had on hand were kilts, and of course I want to wear something decent, not walk around with my legs bare. It must be cold in the winter, going around like that.

Anyway, they didn’t have any proper skirts; they’re going to give me the fabric and let me make my own. And they didn’t have any breastplates that fit — naturally, one that was meant for a man isn’t going to fit me. I’m not shaped like that. The armorer is working on making me one.

I asked why they didn’t have any for women, and everyone kind of looked embarrassed, so I kept asking, and...

Well, Mother, you know we’ve always heard that the City Guard is open to anyone over sixteen who can handle the job, man or woman, and everyone here swears that’s true, so I asked how many women there are in the Guard right now, and everyone got even more embarrassed, but finally Captain Dabran answered me.

One.