Wind Rider's Oath

some priestesses might consider impertinent or even insulting. Especially coming from a champion of someone else's god. '

'I see.' Yalith rested her elbows on the arms of her chair and leaned back comfortably, steepling her fingers under her chin. She pursed her lips for several seconds, clearly marshaling her thoughts, but Kaeritha saw no evidence of any uneasiness or misgivings.

'The present Voice is younger than the last one,' the mayor said finally. 'To be honest, when I first met her, I thought she might be too young for the post, but I was wrong. Now that she's been in it for a while, and I've had a chance to see her in action, as it were, I think she may seem to be younger than she truly is.'

'You do? Why?' Kaeritha asked.

'She's an extraordinarily attractive woman, Dame Kaeritha, but she has one of those faces that will look young until she's at least eighty.' The mayor smiled. 'When I was younger myself, I would have cheerfully traded two or three fingers from my left hand for her bone structure and coloring. Now I just envy them.'

'Oh.' Kaeritha smiled back. 'One of those.'

'Definitely one of those,' Yalith agreed. Then she shook her head. 'But she doesn't really seem aware of it herself,' the mayor continued more seriously. 'I sometimes wonder if her appearance was an obstacle for her in her pursuit of her calling, but her vocation is obvious once you've spent even a very few minutes with her. There's a . . . a presence to her I've never experienced with any other Voice. Once you've met her, I think you'll understand why the Church assigned her to Quaysar.'

'I'm sure I will,' Kaeritha replied. 'At the same time, Mayor, a spiritual vocation doesn't always translate into effectiveness when it comes to managing the more mundane affairs of a temple. I'd imagine that would be even more the case for a priestess who's also a mayor. How would you evaluate her in that regard?'

'I've only been to Quaysar myself once since she became Voice there,' Yalith said. 'She's visited us here four times since then, but most of the contact between us has been through her handmaidens. So my impressions of her abilities as an administrator are all secondhand, as it were.'

She arched an eyebrow, and Kaeritha nodded her understanding of the qualifier.

'Well, having said that,' the mayor continued, 'I would have to say she seems to be at least as efficient and effective as her predecessor was, which is pretty high praise all by itself. I certainly haven't heard about any internal problems, at any rate. And given my own experiences, I can't say the difficulties she's apparently had with Trisu of Lorham give me any cause to question her ability to work comfortably with an unprejudiced secular lord.'

'I see.' Kaeritha considered that for a moment, then cocked her head to one side. 'Given what you've said about how relatively little direct contact you've had with her, I suppose that's probably as definitive an opinion as anyone could expect you to have formed. Did you know the previous Voice better than that?'

'Oh, yes!' Yalith smiled. It was a broad smile, warm, yet touched with sadness. 'The old Voice came from right here in Kalatha. She was born here, actually, and I knew her long before she heard Lillinara's call. In fact, we grew up together.'

'You did? Somehow, I had the impression she was older than that.'

'Old? Shandra?' Yalith snorted, then grimaced. 'I suppose I shouldn't call her that. I know any Voice gives up her old name and takes a new one in religion. But she was actually a year or two younger than I was, and I'll always think of her as the blond-haired kid who insisted on tagging along when I went fishing in the river.'

'So she was actually younger than you,' Kaeritha mused. 'And from your manner and tone, she sounds as if she were an extraordinary person.'

'Indeed she was,' Yalith said softly.

'How did she come to die?' Kaeritha asked. 'Because I thought she was older than she was, I'd simply assumed it was old age, or perhaps some illness. But if she was as young as you are . . .'

'No one is really sure,' Yalith sighed. 'Oh, it was an illness, but it came on extraordinarily suddenly, and I think it took her and her physicians by surprise because she'd always been so healthy. The constitution of a courser, she always used to joke with me when we were girls.' She shook her head sadly. 'But that wasn't enough this time. She became ill one day, and she was gone less than three days later. I didn't even realize she was seriously ill in time to get to Quaysar to tell her goodbye.'

'I'm sorry for your loss,' Kaeritha said softly. Even sorrier than you can guess, given what I'm beginning to suspect, she added silently to herself. 'But you'd say you're pleased with the job the new Voice is doing as her successor?'

'As pleased as anyone could be after losing someone like Shandra,' Yalith agreed firmly. 'We were extremely lucky to have two such strong Voices in succession. In fact, I think possibly our present Voice may even be better suited to the . . . less pleasant aspects of our disputes with Trisu than Shandra would have been. Her faith is obviously just as deep, but Shandra always shied away from confrontation. She wasn't weak, or anything like that, but she preferred finding a consensus or arriving at compromises. Which is fine, as long as the person on the other side of the dispute is equally willing to be reasonable. Our present Voice is a bit more willing to remember that she speaks as the Mother's Voice when it comes to rebuking Her children's misbehavior.'

'So she's been supportive of Kalatha's position against Trisu, not simply concerned by his failure to adequately investigate the deaths of her handmaidens?'

'Oh, yes.' Yalith nodded emphatically. 'She hasn't made any secret of her feelings in that regard. In fact, she saw this round coming even before we did.'

'She did?'

'Yes. Actually, she preached a sermon about the need to prepare for the coming storm some months before our relations with Trisu really started going into the chamber pot. I don't think that she knew what was coming, or she would've been more specific, but she clearly sensed that something was about to go wrong in a big way. Once our . . . disagreements with Trisu surfaced, she spoke out strongly about the need for all the Mother's daughters to be strong and vigilant, and she's a strong supporter of our decision to stand fast, at least until we get some sort of reasonable offsetting concessions from Trisu in any compromise settlement. Although she did insist on reviewing the original documents herself before she took any official position.'

'She did examine them? Here?'

'No, not here. She was unable to leave Quaysar at the moment, so she sent two of her handmaidens to fetch them back to the temple.'

'Just two handmaidens to transport them?' Kaeritha sounded surprised, and Yalith chuckled in harsh understanding.

'We're just as aware as you are of how . . . convenient some people might find it for those documents to disappear, Dame Kaeritha. I sent along an escort of fifteen war maids, and Lanitha went along to care for the records themselves personally.' She shrugged. 'But there weren't any problems. That time, at least.'

'I see.' Kaeritha frowned thoughtfully. 'I'm glad you did send an escort, though,' she said. 'Just from a purely historical perspective, those documents are priceless. I imagine the war maids have always seen to it that they were properly looked after whenever they left Kalatha.'

'That was the only time they ever have left Kalatha,' Yalith replied. 'But I'm sure any of my predecessors would have been just as careful about protecting them.'

'Oh, I'm sure they would,' Kaeritha agreed. 'I'm sure they would.'

* * *

'Hello, Dame Kaeritha.'

Leeana Bowmaster had changed a great deal. Or, no, Kaeritha decided. That conclusion might still be a bit premature. Her appearance had certainly changed a great deal; it remained to be seen how much the young woman under that appearance had changed.

'Hello, Leeana,' the knight replied. 'You're looking good.'

'Different, you mean,' Leeana corrected with a smile, almost as if she'd read Kaeritha's mind.

'Well, yes. But in your case, I think, 'different' and 'good' may mean the same thing. And, no, I'm not talking