Wind Rider's Oath

As the other man had said, he reflected, he had a great deal to chew upon before he dropped off to sleep.

Chapter Eight

'Now remember, Soumeta. We need access to Herian and his outlets.'

'I understand that, Theretha.'

'Well, if things are as bad as Jolhanna says they are, then we've got to convince Master Manuar to approve our entry. And to enforce the charter's requirements that we be given fair access and the full protection of the law while we're here.'

'Theretha,' Soumeta said with exaggerated patience, 'I was there when Mayor Yalith discussed the entire trip with you. I know why we're here, all right?'

Theretha Maglahnfressa bit her tongue. She knew it was only her own anxiety which made her so insistent. But still-

'Maybe I should come along,' she said nervously. 'I have met Master Manuar before. Maybe I could-'

'Theretha-!' Soumeta began, then visibly made herself stop and draw a deep breath.

'Look,' she said, in the tone of someone hanging onto her own composure with both hands, 'the mayor discussed all of this with us before she sent us out here. She and the Town Council made it abundantly clear that the situation's gotten so bad that it's time we took an official position. And I, Theretha, as an officer in the City Guard, have official standing which you do not. As such, I will make the initial contact with the market master, and you won't. And I promise that I won't snatch him across the desk and cut his throat, no matter how he provokes me.'

Theretha started to say something more, then closed her mouth with an almost audible snap as Soumeta glared at her. The older woman wasn't particularly fond of men, especially those in positions of power, in the first place, and her frustration was only too apparent. But Theretha never doubted that it-like the anger which accompanied it-was directed at the situation which had prompted this trip in the first place, and not at her.

Which didn't make her feel a whole lot better as she nodded acceptance of Soumeta's orders.

'Good,' Soumeta growled, and Theretha stood huddled in her cloak, tense and unhappy beside the cart, and watched Soumeta stalk into the market master's office. A couple of townsfolk saw Soumeta coming and got out of her way-promptly. Unlike Theretha, Soumeta wore the war maids' chari and yathu with no cloak or poncho, despite the drizzly chill. She also wore a grimly determined expression . . . along with her swords, garrotte, and bandolier of throwing stars. No one was going to mistake her for anything but what she was-a dangerous individual in an unhappy mood-and Theretha wished she could convince herself that that was a good thing.

Her powers of self persuasion didn't seem to be up to the task, and she didn't much care for the older war maid's expression herself, either. Nor did the fact that Soumeta had been nominated for this by Saretha Keralinfressa, the leader of the Council faction most in favor of taking a hard line with Trisu of Lorham, make her feel any better. She knew Mayor Yalith herself had wanted to be sure Kalatha sent someone who would stand up to any attempt at intimidation, but Theretha was worried by the politics of the choice. She couldn't escape the feeling that the real reason Yalith had put Soumeta in charge had been to blunt the increasingly vocal criticism of her own, less confrontational policies by Saretha's faction. Theretha was firmly in agreement with the mayor in this instance, and it worried her that Soumeta wasn't. Then again, she knew she'd never liked any sort of confrontation, whether it was physical or purely verbal, so perhaps she was overreacting.

She folded her delicate, skilled hands under the cloak, rubbing them lightly together for warmth. The spring day had been chilly enough at noon, with the sun directly overhead. Now that late afternoon was shading into evening and the omnipresent clouds of this torrential spring were blowing up once again out of the west, Theretha's breath was beginning to steam. It was going to be a wretched night if they wound up having to sleep under the thin protection of the cart's canvas cover, she thought miserably, and from Soumeta's combative expression, it was likely enough that that was precisely what they were going to do.

Not for the first time, Theretha wished she'd shown at least some aptitude for the weapons and self-defense training every war maid candidate was required to undergo. Unfortunately, she hadn't. Her instructors had done their best, but Theretha was a mouse at heart, not a direcat. As Darhanna, a senior instructor had put it, Theretha was one of those people whose best primary defense was to be invisible, because she simply couldn't bring herself to try to actually hurt someone, even in self-defense. Darhanna had been as kind as she could about it, and gotten her through the mandatory training somehow, but it had been only too obvious at the end of it that she regarded Theretha as someone who should never be allowed out without a keeper. Like Soumeta, she supposed.

Actually, Theretha agreed with Darhanna. There were times when she still couldn't believe she'd ever found the courage to run away to the war maids in the first place, despite everything her stepfather had done to her. She probably wouldn't have managed it even then, if her younger brother Barthon hadn't agreed to-insisted that she let him, actually-escort her to Kalatha, the nearest war maid free-town. Kalatha's mayor at the time had been deeply surprised to find a male member of her family actively abetting her in her flight. And surprise had turned into astonishment when the mayor discovered that Theretha's escape to the war maids had been Barthon's idea in the first place. In fact, the mayor had been suspicious, and initially disinclined to accept Theretha, as if she'd feared that Barthon was part of some elaborate trap or scheme to discredit the war maids. But then the mayor had received the report from Kalatha's senior physician on Theretha's condition.

It was the evidence of the botched, two-day-old miscarriage which had turned the mayor's suspicious resistance into angry acceptance. To her credit, the mayor hadn't even suggested that it might be Barthon's place to 'avenge' Theretha. No doubt a good part of that restraint stemmed from the fact that war maids, like their patron Lillinara, believed it was a woman's own responsibility to seek redress for wrongs done to her. But the horrible, crippling burns Barthon had suffered in the furnace explosion which had killed their father would have prevented him from taking any sort of personal, direct action against their stepfather, and the mayor had recognized that. In fact, she'd offered Barthon a place in Kalatha, and Theretha still wished her brother had accepted the offer.

Despite the urging of the mayor and other older war maids, Theretha had steadfastly resisted the suggestion that she go to the courts in an effort to punish her stepfather. The odds against her being believed by the court in her home town were formidable. Those who knew only his public face thought her stepfather was an honest businessman, devoted to his deceased wife's family. They probably thought he liked puppies and small kittens, too, she thought grimly, and even if the magistrate had chosen to believe her, the chance that someone who could call on so many character witnesses-most of whom would actually believe what they were saying-would suffer any significant penalty would have been slight. As far as Theretha was concerned, she had better things to do with her life than to reopen all the old wounds in a futile effort to see her victimizer punished. She sometimes wondered if that belief was a reflection of the mouselike tendencies which had made any possibility of her becoming a warrior like Soumeta laughable.

Fortunately, she'd completed most of her apprenticeship before her father's death, and until her mother died, she'd insisted that Theretha's stepfather continue her training. He'd done so only grudgingly, but until his wife's death, he'd really had no choice, since she'd owned both the workshop and the store. But after Theretha's mother died, he'd taken gloating delight in refusing to sign her journeyman's certificate, no doubt because he'd seen that refusal as a means to deprive her of any independent livelihood and trap her in his power.

The war maids didn't much concern themselves with what sorts of certificates a woman might have received-or not received-before becoming a war maid. They were more concerned with what she could actually do, and the glassblower assigned to test Theretha had realized almost instantly what a treasure she represented. At sixteen and a half, Theretha had already possessed the skills her raw talent required to draw both utility and dazzling beauty from the clear, incandescent magic of molten sand. Now, ten years later, she was an acknowledged mistress of her craft, her work sought out and prized by wealthy commoners and aristocrats alike throughout most of the Kingdom of the Sothoii. Her pieces and name were even known to a select few collectors in the Empire of the Axe, and they commanded substantial prices. Very few of the connoisseurs who