"If I'd been in your position, Milord," she told him with a crooked smile, "I'd have been thinking of something having to do with headsmen and chopping blocks."
"I won't say the thought didn't cross my mind," he conceded, "although I'd probably have had a little difficulty explaining it to Bahzell and Brandark. On the other hand, I'm pretty sure that anything I was contemplating doing to you pales compared to what my armsmen think I ought to do. All of them are deeply devoted to Leeana, and some of them will never believe she ever would have thought of something like this without encouragement from someone. I suspect the someone they're going to blame for it will be you. And some of my other retainers-and vassals-are going to see her decision as a disgrace and an insult to my house. When they do, they're going to be looking for someone to blame for that, too."
"I anticipated something like that," Kaeritha said dryly.
"I'm sure you did, but the truth is that this isn't going to do your reputation any good with most Sothōii," he warned.
"Champions of Tomanâk frequently find themselves a bit unpopular, Milord," she said. "On the other hand, as Bahzell has said a time or two, 'a champion is one as does what needs doing.' " She shrugged. "This needed doing."
"Perhaps it did," he acknowledged. "But I hope one of the consequences won't be to undermine whatever it is you're here to do for Scale Balancer."
"As far as that goes, Milord," she said thoughtfully, "it's occurred to me that helping Leeana get here in the first place may have been a part of what I'm supposed to do. I'm not sure why it should have been, but it feels right, and I've learned it's best to trust my feelings in cases like this."
Tellian didn't look as if he found the thought that any god, much less the War God, should want one of his champions to help his only child run away to the war maids particularly encouraging. If so, she didn't blame him a bit . . . and at least he was courteous enough not to put his feelings into words.
"At any rate," she continued, "I will be most happy to deliver your message-all of your message-to Leeana."
"Thank you," he repeated, and the corners of his eyes crinkled with an edge of genuine humor as he looked around Yalith's office. "And now, I suppose, we ought to invite the Mayor back into her own office. It would be only courteous to reassure her that we haven't been carving one another up in here, after all!"
Chapter Twenty
"To what do I owe the pleasure?" the richly dressed nobleman asked sardonically as soon as the servant who had ushered Varnaythus into his study departed, closing the door silently behind him.
"I was merely in the neighborhood and thought I'd drop by and compare notes with you, Milord Triahm," the wizard-priest said smoothly. He walked across to one of the comfortable chairs which faced the other man's desk and arched his eyebrows as he rested one hand atop the chair back. His host nodded brusque permission, and he seated himself, then leaned back and crossed his legs.
"It's possible things will be coming to a head sooner than we'd anticipated," he continued. "And a new wrinkle has been added-one I thought you should know about. I'm not certain how much effect it will have on your own concerns here in Lorham, but the possibilities it suggests are at least . . . intriguing."
"Indeed?"
The other man ignored his own chair and crossed to prop a shoulder against the frame of the window behind his desk, half-turning his back on his guest. He gazed out through the glass at the gathering dusk. Thalar Keep, the ancestral seat of the Pickaxes of Lorham, loomed against the darkening sky, dominating the view, and his mouth tightened ever so slightly. Varnaythus couldn't see his expression with his face turned away towards the window, but he read the other man's emotions clearly in the tight set of his shoulders.
"Indeed," the nondescript wizard confirmed. "Unless my sources are much less reliable than usual, a new war maid will be arriving in Kalatha sometime soon."
"How marvelous," the nobleman growled, then made a spitting sound. "And just why should the arrival of one more unnatural bitch concern me?"
"Ah, but this particular unnatural bitch is Lady Leeana Bowmaster," Varnaythus purred.
For a second or two, Triahm seemed not to have heard him at all. Then he whipped around from the window, his eyes wide with disbelief.
"You're joking!"
"Not in the least, Milord," Varnaythus said calmly. "It's remotely possible my information is in error," actually, he knew it wasn't; he'd been tracking Leeana in his gramerhain for the last several days and witnessed her arrival in Kalatha the day before, "but I have every reason to believe it's accurate. If she hasn't arrived in Kalatha already, it's only a matter of a day or so before she does."
"Well, well, well," the other man murmured. He moved away from the window and lowered himself slowly into his own chair, never taking his eyes from Varnaythus' face. "That does present some possibilities, doesn't it?"
"I believe you might reasonably say that, Milord," Varnaythus replied in the voice of a tomcat with cream-clotted whiskers.
"Tellian's always been overly soft where those bitches are concerned," Triahm growled. "Probably because his idiot of an ancestor provided them with the initial foothold to begin their pollution of the Kingdom. Personally, that connection would have been enough to make me feel ashamed, not turn me into some sort of lap cat for them. Maybe this humiliation will finally open his eyes!"
"It's certainly possible," Varnaythus agreed. For his part, he'd always found Triahm's blindly bigoted, unthinking hatred for the war maids and all they stood for as stupid as it was useful. He doubted that a man like Tellian would ever fall prey to its like, however.
On the other hand, Tellian was a Sothōii, and now that his daughter had succeeded in reaching the war maids before he overtook her, it was at least possible he would react exactly as Triahm anticipated. Which, after all, was one of the reasons Varnaythus had decided against attempting to intercept and assassinate the girl. Kaeritha's presence was the other reason, he admitted frankly to himself. Champions of Tomanâk were hard to kill, even-or especially-by arcane means. Still, he'd felt sufficiently confident of managing it to have justified the risk of a few proxies, at least.
But however badly her death might have hurt and weakened her parents, the Dark Gods would weaken the kingdom far more seriously if their servants could set the Lord Warden of the West Riding openly against the war maids. Even if Tellian managed to avoid that particular trap, having his only child run away to become a despised war maid was going to cost him dearly in political support from the more conservative members of the Royal Council. Not to mention all of the delicious possibilities for destabilizing the war maids' charter when the question of the Balthar succession was thrown into the mix.
The wizard-priest rubbed mental hands together in gleeful contemplation of the possibilities, but he kept his expression composed and attentive.
"Even if it doesn't," Triahm went on, thinking aloud and unaware of his guest's own thoughts, "this is bound to have a major impact. It's going to drag Tellian right into the middle of Trisu's little difficulties." He smiled nastily. "It should be interesting to see which way that pushes my dear, irritating cousin."
"If Tellian does end up at odds with the war maids himself, it's likely to embolden Trisu considerably," Varnaythus pointed out. "I imagine he'll become even more persistent in pressing his claims if he thinks Tellian will openly support him. And I'd be surprised if those claims didn't harden and become more extensive, as well."