Wind Rider's Oath

sunlight was warm across her shoulders as she cocked her head.

'You know I'm the most 'nobly born' person in Kalatha,' Leeana began after a moment, and Kaeritha raised one eyebrow. The girl saw it and grimaced. 'That's not an 'oh-what-a-wonderful-person-I-am' comment, Dame Kaeritha. What I meant to say is that even though I was only Father's daughter, not his real heir, I've seen a lot more political backbiting and maneuvering than most of the people here have.'

'All right,' Kaeritha said slowly, nodding as Leeana paused. 'I'll grant you that-on an aristocratic level, at least. Don't make the mistake of assuming that peasants can't be just as contentious. Or just as subtle about the way they go about biting each other's backs.'

'I won't. Or, at least, I don't think I will,' Leeana replied. 'But the thing is, Dame Kaeritha, that the way people here are talking about the Voice strikes me as, well, peculiar.'

'Why?'

'First,' Leeana said very seriously, her expression intent, 'there's exactly which of the war maids seem to be doing most of the talking. It isn't the older ones, or the ones in the most senior positions-not people like Mayor Yalith, or Administrator Dalthys, or Hundred Erlis, for example. And it isn't the very youngest ones, like Garlahna, except in a sort of echoing kind of way.'

'What do you mean, 'echoing'?'

'It's almost like there's an organized pattern,' Leeana said, obviously choosing her words with care. 'I think that's what drew my attention to it in the first place, really. There've been enough whispering campaigns against Father over the years for me to be automatically suspicious when I seem to be seeing the same thing somewhere else.'

'And you think that's what you're seeing here?'

'I think it may be,' Leeana said, nodding slowly. 'It took a while for my suspicions to kick in, and the thing that made me start wondering in the first place was that I seemed to be hearing exactly the same sorts of things, in almost exactly the same sorts of words, from half a dozen or more people.'

Kaeritha's blue eyes narrowed even further.

'Would you care to tell me just which half-dozen people it was?' she asked.

'I'd rather not name any specific names' Leeana said uncomfortably. Kaeritha gazed at her coolly, and the younger woman looked away for a moment. It was interesting, Kaeritha thought. For all of her intelligence and insight, Leeana seemed to be afflicted with the eternal teenager's aversion for the role of informer.

'All right,' the knight said after a moment. 'I won't press you for names-not right now, at any rate. But you do understand, don't you, Leeana, that the time it may come when I'll have no choice but to?'

'Yes, Milady.' Leeana nodded, although it was obvious she wasn't very happy about the thought.

'Good.' Kaeritha nodded back, soberly, the gesture a promise that she wouldn't ask unless she felt she truly must. 'In that case, go on with what you're saying. What made you notice these people in the first place?'

'The fact that what they were saying wasn't just a matter of people expressing the same general opinions, Dame Kaeritha. They were making the same arguments. And the way they were doing it-the way they were choosing their words, and who they were talking to-makes me think it's an organized effort, not something that's happening spontaneously.'

It was an enormous loss to the Kingdom of the Sothoii in general that its invincible cultural bias against the possibility of female rulers had deprived the Barony of Balthar of Leeana Bowmaster as its liege lady, Kaeritha thought. She'd known from the outset that Leeana was keenly intelligent, but the brain behind those jade-green eyes was even better than she'd suspected. How many young women Leeana's age, the knight wondered, thrown into a world and facing a future so radically different from anything they had ever experienced before, would have had enough energy to spare to think analytically about what people around them were saying about anything, far less about someone as distant from her own immediate-and exhausting-experience as the Voice of Quaysar?

'Tell me more,' she invited, still keeping her own voice as neutral as she could.

'The thing that struck me most about what the war maids talking about the Voice were saying,' Leeana continued obediently, 'was that they all agreed that the new Voice had changed the policies of the old Voice. Changed them for the better, in the opinion of whoever was doing the talking, that was. I know you never actually discussed with me what took you to Kalatha in the first place, Dame Kaeritha, but I knew the sort of research you'd asked Lord Brandark to do before you left. And-' she glanced away for a moment '- I heard Prince Bahzell and Father discussing it a little. So I know you're really concerned about the disputes between Lord Trisu and the war maids.'

Kaeritha frowned, and Leeana shook her head quickly.

'I haven't discussed it with anyone here, Dame Kaeritha! I know you and Mayor Yalith talked about it-or talked about something, anyway-and if Tomanak Himself sent you here, then it's not my place to be blabbering away about it. But that's part of why what I was hearing bothered me, I think, because the same people who were talking about how much they approved of the Voice were talking about Trisu. And what they were saying was that the new Voice, unlike the old Voice, understood that the war maids couldn't put up with the way lords like Trisu were trying to turn the clock back. She understood that it was time the war maids stood up to people like him. That when someone pushed the war maids, the war maids had to push back-hard. Maybe even harder than they'd been pushed in the first place, since they had so little ground they could afford to surrender.

'That was enough to get me started listening to the way they were saying things, not just what they were saying. And when I did, I realized they were suggesting, or even saying outright, in some cases, that it was the Voice, not Mayor Yalith or her Council, who'd really pulled Trisu up short.'

'They may believe that,' Kaeritha said, forbearing any attempt to pretend Leeana hadn't accurately deduced her purpose in traveling to Kalatha, 'but I've spoken to both the Mayor and Lord Trisu. From the way both of them speak about the disputes-and about each other-the Voice has definitely played a secondary role, at most.'

She watched the girl carefully. There were some thoughts-and suspicions-she wasn't prepared to share with anyone just yet. Besides, she was curious as to how closely this acute young woman's analysis would parallel her own.

'That's just it,' Leeana said. 'From what they were saying, the Voice didn't charge right in and begin speaking in Lillinara's voice or anything like that. Instead, they were saying-bragging, almost-that she was too subtle and wise to be that openly 'confrontational' herself. They said it was because she had to maintain the 'neutrality' of her office as Voice. But I've seen and heard about too many 'subtle and wise' noblemen who adopted the same sort of tactics. As far as I can tell, most of them were only avoiding open confrontations so they could hide in the shadows better when it came time to plant a dagger in someone else's back. Either that, or they were setting someone else up to do what they wanted done for them. Preferably someone gullible enough that they could convince him the idea had been his own in the first place.'

'Are you suggesting that a Voice of Lillinara is doing that in this case?'

'I'm suggesting that it's possible,' Leeana said, undeterred by the slight chill frosting Kaeritha's tone. 'And that's not the only thing I think is possible. The way the war maids who seem to approve of the Voice are talking is also undercutting the authority of Mayor Yalith and the majority of the Town Council. Not directly, and not openly, maybe, but that's the effect it's having, and I don't think that's an accident. Every time they talk approvingly about how insightful the Voice is, and how clearly she sees what needs to be done, the implication is that without the Voice, Mayor Yalith and the Council wouldn't have seen how important it was to stand up to Trisu. Well, except for Councilor Saretha, maybe. But she and the Voice seem to agree about a lot of things, and the war maids who support one of them, tend to support the other, as well.

'The main thing that struck me, though, was that most of the war maids who most admire the Voice and Councilor Saretha are careful to emphasize that the Mayor and the rest of the Council are 'doing their best,' or 'well-intentioned, but mistaken.' Unlike the Voice, of course. I've seen that before, too. Not personally, but I did pay attention to my history lessons, Dame Kaeritha. I think this is an attempt to undermine the authority of the people who are supposed to be governing Kalatha. And I think the Voice is either actively involved in it herself, for some reason, or else that some third party is using her, as well.'

'I see.' Kaeritha contemplated Leeana for several more moments, then shrugged. 'Is there anything else?' she asked.