cook for someone who knows good food when she tastes it."

"Or devours it-in copious quant.i.ties," Brandark observed, eyeing the empty platters on the table he shared with Kaeritha and Bahzell.

"I didn't seem to notice you shirking your share of the devouring, Milord," Tala replied dryly.

"No, but there's more of me to maintain," Brandark replied with a grin, and Kaeritha grinned back at

him. At six feet two inches, Brandark was of less than average height for even a b.l.o.o.d.y Sword hradani, far less one of the towering Horse Stealers like Bahzell. But that still left him a good three inches taller

than Kaeritha, and he was far more ma.s.sively built. Indeed, his shoulders were almost as broad as

Bahzell's.

"Aye," Bahzell agreed. "For a sawed-off runt of a hradani who's after sitting on his a.r.s.e with a pen and a bit of parchment all day, you've a bit of meat on your bones, I suppose."

"I'll remember that the next time you need some obscure Sothoii text translated," Brandark a.s.sured him.

"Speaking of obscure Sothoii texts," Kaeritha said as a smiling Tala withdrew, "I wonder if you've come across a copy of the war maids' charter in your forays through Tellian's library, Brandark?"

"I haven't been looking for one," the b.l.o.o.d.y Sword replied. "I've done a little research on the entire

question of war maids since you and Tellian discussed them this morning, but I've really only scratched the surface so far. I a.s.sume there's probably a copy of the charter and its amending doc.u.ments somewhere, though. Would you like me to take a look for them?"

"I don't know." Kaeritha grimaced. "It's just that I've realized that I'm really pretty appallingly ignorant where any detailed knowledge about the war maids is concerned. Tellian's suggestion that whatever I'm supposed to be dealing with concerns them and their prerogatives may well be right, but my training in Sothoii jurisprudence is a bit shakier than my training in Axeman law. If I am supposed to be investigating the war maids' claims, it would probably be a pretty good idea to know what their prerogatives are in the first place."

"I'm not so sure that laying hands on a copy of their original charter would be enough to be telling you that," Bahzell put in. He leaned back in a chair which creaked alarmingly under his weight.

"Why not?" Kaeritha asked.

"The war maids aren't so very popular with most Sothoii," Bahzell said in the tone of one speaking with deliberate understatement. "Not to be putting too fine point on it, there's those amongst the Sothoii who'd sooner see an invading hradani army in their lands than one of the war maids' free-towns."

"They're that unpopular?" Kaeritha looked surprised, and Bahzell shrugged.

"An invading army is likely to be burning their roofs over their heads, Kerry. But roofs can be rebuilt, when all's said. Rebuilding a way of life, now-that's after being just a mite harder."

"And that's exactly how your typical conservative Sothoii would see having a batch of war maids move

in next door," Brandark agreed.

Kaeritha nodded in acknowledgment, yet there was still a baffled edge to her expression. As she'd told Leeana, she'd been born a peasant in Moretz, which was at least as feudal a society as that of the Sothoii, but she'd fled that land when she'd been even younger than Leeana was now. And she'd also been

educated in the Empire of the Axe, where women enjoyed far broader choices and possibilities then were generally available to Sothoii women.

"Kerry," Bahzell said, "I'm thinking you've too much of the Axewoman in you. You, if any, ought to

have realized by now how hard any Sothoii is after finding it to wrap his mind round the very notion of a

woman as a warrior."Kaeritha nodded again, more emphatically, and Bahzell chuckled. If he found his position in Balthar difficult as a hradani, Kaeritha had found hers only marginally less so. Tellian's men had taken their cue from their liege lord and extended to her the same deference and respect any champion of Tomanak might have expected, but it was only too obvious that they found the entire concept of a female knight-not to mention a knight who was also a champion of the war G.o.d himself-profoundly unnatural.

"Well, for all that our folk've spent the best part of a thousand years ma.s.sacring one another," Bahzell continued, "there's much to be said for the Sothoii. But one thing no one is ever likely to be suggesting is that they've an over abundance of innovation in their natures, especially where matters of tradition and custom are concerned. Don't let Tellian be fooling you. For a Sothoii, he's about as radical as you're ever likely to meet, and well educated about foreign lands, to boot. But your typical Sothoii is stiffer-necked

then even a hradani, and the real conservatives are still after thinking the wheel is a dangerous, newfangled, harebrained novelty that will never really be catching on."

Kaeritha chuckled, and Brandark grinned.

"I won't say there isn't an element of the pot and kettle in that pithy description," the b.l.o.o.d.y Sword said

after a moment. "But there's a lot of accuracy in it, too. And the very existence of the war maids is an affront to those conservatives' view of the way their entire society-or the rest of the world, for that matter-is supposed to work. In fact, the war maids undoubtedly wouldn't exist at all if the Crown hadn't specifically guaranteed their legal rights. Unfortunately-and I suspect this is what Bahzell was getting at-calling that royal guarantee 'a charter' is more of a convenient shorthand then an accurate description."

Kaeritha c.o.c.ked an eyebrow, and he shrugged.

"It's actually more of a bundle of separate charters and decrees dealing with specific instances than some sort of neat, unified legal doc.u.ment, Kerry. According to what I've learned so far, the original proclamation legitimizing the war maids' existence was unfortunately vague on several key points. Over the next century or so, additional proclamations intended to clarify some of the obscurity and even the occasional judge's opinion were bundled together, and the whole mishmash is what they fondly call their 'charter.' I haven't actually looked at it, you understand, but I'm familiar enough with the same sort of thing among the hradani. When something just sort of naturally grows up the way the war maids'

'charter' has, there's usually a substantial degree of variation between the terms of its const.i.tuent doc.u.ments. And that means there's an enormous scope for ambiguities and

misunderstandings . . . especially when the people whose rights those decrees are supposed to stipulate aren't very popular with their neighbors.""You have a positive gift for understatement," Kaeritha sighed, and shook her head. "Just what rights do the war maids have? In general terms, I mean, if there's that much variation from grant to grant."

"Basically," Brandark replied, "they have the right to determine how they want to live their own lives, free of traditional Sothoii familial and social obligations."

The b.l.o.o.d.y Sword scholar tipped back in his chair, folded his arms, and frowned thoughtfully.

"Although they're uniformly referred to as 'war maids,' most of them aren't, really." Kaeritha raised an

eyebrow, and he shrugged. "The Kingdom of the Sothoii is a lot more feudal than the Empire of the Axe.

Virtually every legal right up here on the Wind Plain is a.s.sociated in one way or another with the holding of land and the reciprocal obligation of service to the Crown, and the war maids are no exception. As part of the core charter which originally recognized their existence, their free-towns are obligated to provide military forces to the Crown. In my more cynical moments, I think that obligation was included as a deliberate measure intended to effectively nullify the charter, since it's hard for me to conceive of any Sothoii king who could honestly believe that a batch of women could provide an effective military force."

"If that was after being the case, then the king in question was in for a nasty surprise," Bahzell put in, and Brandark chuckled. "Oh, he was that!" he agreed. "And in my less cynical moments, I'm inclined to think King Gartha included the obligation only because he had to. Given how much of the current crop of Sothoii n.o.bles is hostile to the very notion of war maids, the opposition to authorizing their existence in the first place must have been enormous. Which means his Council probably could have mustered the support to block the initial charter without that provision. For that matter, the opponents to the measure would have been the ones most inclined to believe that requiring military service out of a bunch of frail, timid women would be an effective, underhanded way of negating Gartha's intentions without coming out in open opposition.

"At any rate, only about a quarter of all 'war maids' are actually warriors. Their own laws and traditions require all of them to have at least rudimentary training in self-defense, but most of them follow other professions. Some of them are farmers or, like most Sothoii, horse breeders. But more of them are shopkeepers, blacksmiths, physicians, gla.s.smakers, even lawyers-the sorts of tradesmen and craftsmen who populate most free-towns or -cities up here. And the purpose of their charter is to ensure that they have the same legal rights and protections, despite the fact that they're women, that men in the same professions would enjoy."

"Are they all women?" "Well," Brandark said dryly, "the real war maids are. But if what you're actually asking is whether or not war maid society is composed solely of women, the answer is no. The fact that a woman chooses to live her own life doesn't necessarily mean she hates all men. Of course, many of them become war maids because they aren't very fond of men, and quite a few of them end up partnering with other women. Not a practice likely to endear them to Sothoii men who think the entire notion of women making decisions for themselves is unnatural. But it would be a serious mistake to a.s.sume that any woman who chooses to become-or, for that matter, is born-a war maid isn't going to fall in love with a man and choose to spend her life with him on her own terms. Or at least to dally with one from time to time. And war maid mothers do tend to produce male children, just like any other women. Of course, those two facts lead to some of the thornier 'ambiguities' I mentioned earlier." "Why?" Kaeritha leaned forward, elbows on the table, her expression intent, while she cradled her winegla.s.s in her hands, and Bahzell hid a smile. He'd seen exactly that same hunting-hawk expression when she encountered a new combat technique. "There's always been some question as to whether or not the war maids' charter automatically extends to their male children," Brandark explained. "Or, for that matter, to their female children, in the eyes of some of the true reactionaries. When a woman chooses to become a war maid, her familial and inheritance obligations to her family are legally severed. Even your true sticks-in-the-mud have been forced to admit that. But a fair number of n.o.bles continue to a.s.sert that the legal severance applies only to her-that whatever line of inheritance or obligation would have pa.s.sed through her to her children is unimpaired. For the most part, the courts haven't agreed with them, but enough of them have to mean that it's still something of a gray area. I suppose it's probably fairly fortunate that most 'first-generation' war maids come from commoner stock, or at most from the minor n.o.bility-the squirearchy, you might call them. Or maybe it isn't. If the higher n.o.bility had been forced to come to grips with the question, the Crown courts would have been forced to make a definitive ruling on the question years ago.

"At any rate, the exact question of the legal status of war maids' children is still up in the air, at least to some extent. And so is the question of their marriages. Their more diehard opponents argue that since their precious charter severs all familial obligations, it precludes the creation of new obligations, which means that no war maid marriage has any legal validity in their eyes. And there really is some question, I understand, in this instance. I doubt very much that Gartha had any intention of precluding the possibility of war maid marriages, but Baron Tellian's senior magistrate tells me that some of the controlling language is less precise than it ought to be. According to him, everyone knows it's a matter of technicalities and reading the letter of the law, not its spirit, but apparently the problems do exist. And, to be perfectly honest, from what he said-and a couple of things he didn't say-I think the war maids have done their own bit to keep the waters muddied."

"Why would they do that?" Kaeritha asked. "Unless . . . Oh. The children."

"Exactly. If war maid marriages have no legal standing, then every child of a war maid is technically illegitimate."

"Which would take them out of the line of inheritance, unless there were no legitimate heirs at all,"

Kaeritha said with a nod of understanding, but her expression was troubled.

"I can follow the logic," she continued after a moment, "but it seems awfully shortsighted of them. Or maybe like the triumph of expedience. It may prevent their children from being yanked away from them

and drawn into a system they wanted out of, but it also prevents them from extending the legal protections of their own families to those same children."

"Yes, it does," Brandark agreed. "On the other hand, their own courts and judges don't see it that way,

and for the most part, the charters which create their free-towns extend the jurisdiction of their judges to all of the citizens of those towns. The problem comes with legal cases which cross the boundaries between the war maids' jurisdiction and those of more traditional Sothoii n.o.bles."

"Tomanak," Kaeritha sighed. "What a mess!"

"Well, it isn't after being just the tidiest situation in the world," Bahzell said. "Still and all, it's one the

Sothoii have been working at for two or three centuries now. There's those as have some mighty sharp axes to grind, but for the most part, they've learned how to be getting on with one another."

" 'For the most part' still leaves a lot of room for potential trouble, though," Kaeritha pointed out. "And

somehow, I don't think He would be sending me off to deal with a crop of Sothoii who were 'getting on with one another.' Do you?"

"Well, as to that," Bahzell replied with a crooked smile, "no."

* * * It was still raining when Kaeritha left Hill Guard-of course. At least it wasn't a torrential downpour, she told herself encouragingly as she started down the steep approach road to Baron Tellian's ancestral keep. The Wind Plain was actually a huge, high plateau which, for the most part, was one vast, flat ocean of gra.s.s. There weren't very many hills on it, so, over the centuries, those which did exist had exhibited a distinct tendency to attract towns and fortifications. Hill Guard had come into existence in exactly that fashion the better part of eight hundred years ago when Halyu Bowmaster, the first Lord Warden of Balthar, had looked about for a suitable spot for the capital of his new holding. Now the city of Balthar sprawled out for several miles from the castle which brooded down over it from above.

The Sothoii weren't great city builders. For the most part, their people continued to follow the pastoral lifestyle of their ancestors. While the Wind Plain remained the heart of their realm, they had also acquired extensive holdings to the east, below the towering plateau. Those lower regions enjoyed a far milder climate, and a substantial portion of the huge Sothoii horse and cattle herds were wintered in those more salubrious surroundings. But the huge stud farms where the magnificent Sothoii warhorses were bred and trained remained where tradition insisted they must-atop the Wind Plain. And for whatever reason, the Sothoii coursers flatly refused to live anywhere else.

Horses-and coursers-required a lot of s.p.a.ce, and the Sothoii population by and large was scattered spa.r.s.ely about the Wind Plain, watching over its vast herds. That produced a lot of villages and small towns, but not very many cities. Which, conversely, meant that what cities there were tended to be quite large.

They were also well maintained, and Kaeritha moved briskly along the wide, straight avenue on the new mount Tellian had insisted upon giving her. She'd argued about accepting it, but not, she was guiltily aware, very hard. Any Sothoii warhorse was worth a prince's ransom, and the mare Tellian had bestowed upon Kaeritha was a princess among her own kind. Smaller and lighter than the heavier cavalry horses of other lands, the winter-hardy Sothoii warhorse was perfectly suited to the swift, deadly archery-dominated tactics of the people who had bred it. Indeed, only the coursers themselves excelled its combination of speed and endurance.

And unlike Kaeritha, the warhorses seemed perfectly content with the Wind Plain's soggy spring weather. She chuckled damply at the thought and reached down to pat the mare's shoulder. The horse flicked her ears in acknowledgment of the caress, and Kaeritha smiled. The mare's dark chestnut coloring, even darker at the moment thanks to the rain, probably accounted for her name, but Kaeritha still felt that naming such an affectionate creature "Dark War Cloud Rising" was just a bit much. She'd promptly shortened it to "Cloudy," which had earned her a rather pained look from Tellian. His stable master, on the other hand, had only grinned, and from the readiness with which Cloudy answered to her new name, Kaeritha suspected that the stable hands had employed a similar diminutive before she ever came along.

A packhorse trotted along at Cloudy's heels. Even he, although far more plebeian than the aristocratic warhorse, was a magnificent creature. He would have been happily accepted as a superior light cavalry mount anywhere but among the Sothoii, and Kaeritha knew she had never been better mounted in her entire life. Which, she reflected, was saying something, given the care the Order of Tomanak took when it came to equipping their G.o.d's champions.

Despite Balthar's size, there was very little traffic as she approached the city's East Gate. The weather undoubtably had a little something to do with that, she thought, looking past the open gate to the rain blowing across the road beyond and rippling the endless spring gra.s.s of the Wind Plain. Sothoii roads were not, by and large, up to Axeman standards. Few highways outside the Empire itself were, of course, but the Sothoii's efforts came up shorter than most, and Kaeritha felt an undeniable sinking sensation as she contemplated the one before her. It was straight enough-not surprisingly, given the flat, un.o.bstructed terrain of the Wind Plain-but that was about all she could say for the broad line of mud stretching out before her.

The officer commanding the gate guard saluted her respectfully as she pa.s.sed, and she nodded back with equal courtesy. Yet even as she did, she wondered how the officer might have greeted her if not for the gold and green badge of the Order of Tomanak Tellian's seamstresses had embroidered across the front of her poncho.

Then she was through the gate, and the gentle pressure of a heel sent Cloudy trotting down the last bit of slope towards the waiting road.

* * * Steam rose gently from the stew pot. More steam rose from the far from occasional drops of rain which found their way through the open side of the lean-to Kaeritha had erected to protect her cooking fire. Centuries of Sothoii had planted trees along the lines of their roads, mainly to provide windbreaks, but also for the purpose to which Kaeritha had put this dense patch of trees. Although it was still spring, the branches above her were densely clothed in fresh, green leaves, which offered at least some protection to her campsite. And, of course, there was firewood in plenty, even if it was a bit on the damp side.