The One World
George Phillies
87-6 Park Avenue
Worcester MA 01605
508 754 1859
508 831 5334
phillies@4liberty.net
phillies@wpi.edu

Prologue
Temple of the Falling Cloud
South-Shore
Leaf-fall 13, 2432
"Evaine-sa?" the Instructor asked.  "Recall for us the Proof from Life that Womankind,  uniquely, partakes of the Divine Nature of She Who Is The Fivefold Goddess."
Evaine stood.  She was not yet into her full height, but was still well taller than the instructor, a doddering old man whose aged body hid a sharp wit and bright spirit.  "Instructor," she answered.  "Look at the beasts of the field, the birds of the air, with nearseer even at spiders and mantids.  No matter where we look, as many boys as girls are born, showing beasts are balanced between She Who Is the Earth and the Stars, and He Who Is the Mirror, the Divine Boy of the Sea.  Among Womankind alone, for every boy born to some mother, eight or a man's dozen of girls are born to other mothers, because Womankind uniquely is filled with her Divine Essence.  Bees and ants prove the rule.  They are social insects: They share womankind's fundamental human attribute—community.  Because they hold a trace of Her Essence, most bees and ants are born girls."  The Instructor nodded his approval.

Chapter 1
Caer Adurel
Springhint 9, 2446
Whap! Whap!  A blunted metal sword wrapped in cotton padding beat against [an] entirely[-]real shield.  Evaine-sa-Orowan sprang back from her attack, her right arm drooping, leaving her opponent an opening.  Opponent thrust fast ahead, the sword's move a classic Strike of the Cobra. Evaine's sword, mongoose-swift, was suddenly left of the attack, pushing away her opponent's blade.  Evaine sprang forward, left leg back and braced, as her hip snapped into contact with her opponent's.  Her extended right leg swung back, sweeping her opponent's feet forward.  A hard push dropped her opponent onto her back, thudding into Caer Adurel's practice ground.  "That was really good, Gloria," she announced.  "You're getting a lot stronger.  Those were good counters. Your last roll was excellent."  She helped her student to her feet.  "No damage?" she asked. Gloria shook her head. "What's the count?" 
"Three hands of demonstrations," referee Katrina Katrinasdotr called, her voice a girlish high soprano.  "That's four and twenty for you, Michael," she added, repeating the count in neutral numbers for the one boy in the practice cycle.
I like the way you have told us that girls have only eight fingers on a hand, and that boys are different.  And also sneak in that Womankind has to work at thinking of boys as equal -- she would have simply expected him to know that she ment three eight-fingered hands, had she not thought he had good reason to feel excluded.
"You all did better," Evaine announced.  That was true, she told herself.  They showed what rigorous practice and rational training did.  "Catch your breath, have some water.  We'll do more stair running." Students groaned.   "Then back to rational training." Students groaned louder at the mention of weights, again, the same day.  "And perhaps...hmmmh....Shall I think of something else?"  Evaine had been fighting continuously, one of them after the next, critiquing as she went.  She was less winded than half of them.  Still, sweat stung her eyes, the padding under her chain mail was soaked, and she was not gasping for breath only because she forced herself to breathe deeply.  Her lungs might hurt, but students were not allowed to see her limits.  
According to several people on r.a.sf.c., there is no such thing as chain mail.  Armor made of links is just "mail".  (Single exception:  "chicks in chain-mail bikinis")
A whistle shrilled from on high.  Evaine's younger sister Gail was the hour's watchdaughter, keeping solitary lookout from the High Tower.  "Gail!  What is it?" Evaine's voice rang up the walls.  It was wonderful that Gail was moving into adult responsibilities. She slipped off her helmet to hear more clearly. The sun lay warm on her black hair.   Evaine knew she was running the drill. She was also Daughter-Heir Joseline's First-Banneret.  With the Daughter-Heir away, Evaine was responsible for the Caer's safety.  
I don't understand that sentence.  Since we have just been shown Evaine running the drill, it seems odd that we must be *told* that Evaine knows that she is running the drill -- it would be rather odd to run a drill and not know it! 
Perhaps you meant to say that she was about to abandon her class in order to meet a higher-priority duty?  
"A great-mule," Gail shouted.  "Galloping.  Up Longbeachport Road.  A man riding it. Bareback."
"A man? Riding?"  Evaine called.  "No sidesaddle?" Perhaps he had run away.  Longbeachport was in the Republic.   A Republic girl who wanted an expensive apprenticeship would have her Circle, her mother and aunts, support her.  A Republic boy wanting the same would need to indenture himself to his new mistresses.  In a Domain, the few boys who followed skilled trades had vigorous support from their Circle.   Every so often, a Republic boy ran away to Torinsdale.   That was Torinsdale's gain, wasn't it?  If the Republic treated boys like people, their boy apprentices would stop fleeing.  
"Gail!" Evaine called. "Who is chasing him?" The man, Goddess-in-Her-Five-Aspects have mercy on him, had no sidesaddle.  He might become a soprano.
"Nothing!"  Gail shouted back.  
Evaine turned to her students.  "Daphne, fetch the Swordmistress."  Evaine's real weapon came off the benches and looped across her back. "The rest of you, draw steel.  Return here.  Fast!"   There were groans.  Drawing weapons meant satisfying formalities.  "Remember.  Bureaucratics make you stronger."  Evaine strode across the courtyard, trying to hide a smirk.  
By and by, the Swordmistress appeared.  "Steel?" she asked. 
"Practice drawing weapons from stores," Evaine answered.  "An important task.  They're slow.  They must be tired.  Perhaps they need more, more..." The younger women weren't slow, Evaine told herself, just not hastened by fear.  
"Pushups?" the Swordmistress suggested enthusiastically.
"I'm happy to honor your recommendation, ma'am.  And then--stairs."  Evaine formally outranked the Swordmistress, but listened carefully to the older woman's advice.  Besides, they were the best of friends.  They had common interests, little money, and no Circle.  They avoided disagreement.  "The man.  He could be chased by bandits.  Better safe than sorry," Evaine answered.  The greatmules, blowing heavily, slowed when they saw Evaine and the Swordmistress blocking the gate.
"I know him," the Swordmistress said.  "Dealer in spices and books.  Never drunk."
The man's dry voice came faintly over the wheeze of the mules' breathing.  "Demons!" the man babbled, rolling off his mule into Daphne's arms.  She sagged under his weight.  Swordmistress helped Daphne lower him to the ground.  "Demons!  Longbeachport.  All gone. All is ruins and sliced to pieces.  No children.  Demons, and they killed them all, and they can't be seen. Demons!  They can't be seen," Daphne opened her canteen, letting him swallow from the diluted vinegar.  "Demons," he coughed.  "All dead and ruined and sliced to pieces. Dead.  Dead."
Bells chimed Lesser Recension.  Noon.  The Daytime Daughter had reached the peak of her travels.  Now her blinding disk would sink toward the Western Waters.   The upper soprano voices of little girls rang out from the Library, climbing vigorously about the Heir-Second's golden baritone as he led them in song.   Evaine peered thoughtfully down the road. The Heir-Second was teaching.  That left her completely in charge.    She saw nothing like invisible demons, nor their hopefully visible giant footprints.
"Signe," she called.  "Close and bar the gates!  Set a watch at each.  Please fetch the Infirmarian."
Gates rolled shut, the rumble not quite drowning out the choir.  "Against what do you guard?" Swordmistress asked over the man's babble.
"Darned if I know," Evaine answered.  "But it's a lot less work to open gates again,"--a glance over her shoulder confirmed that the Caer's other gates were being closed--"than to push them shut, while someone's trying to enter unappreciated."  She listened again to the man's ravings.  He labored against terrible fear.  "Floris, go to the Library. Say to the Heir-Second: Evaine most humbly begs the fortune of the presence of The Goddess's Eye, The Shire Interlocutor."
"I should talk like I'm a fourteenth century romance novel?" Floris asked.  "I can't just say 'Interlocutor Tomas, please come downstairs' like normal people?"
"The legal language is the same millennium old as your Nimue novels. I'm his Cornet.  He expects me to say it right." Evaine said quietly.  Tomas became annoyed when he was not addressed properly.
"Shutting gates?" the Swordmistress asked, meanwhile making a careful survey of the Caer's walls.
 "He was galloping bareback," Evaine answered, "he has a scabbard.  Where is his sword?"  Even men rarely lost their weapon just because they were fleeing. 
"You commanded my presence, Evaine-sa?" The speaker was a middle-aged man, trimly thin and round-faced, hairline not quite receding though silver threads wove through his brown hair, dressed in the traditional gray robes of a scholar.  His collar, cuffs, and hem were embroidered with the violet tracery that marked an Initiate of the Archimagate.  He came with the odor of lilacs: his morning perfume.  Tomas Cherylsson-sa-Torinsdale-sur-Maserin would probably inherit the Domain if elder sister Joseline died.  The Swordmistress curtsied.  Evaine touched hand to brow. 
"Tomas-sur, I humbly asked you to appear," Evaine said.  To her taste, Tomas was excessively fond of the baroque stylistic phrasings of an Interlocutor's court.
"I believe the words were 'humbly beseech your presence'."  His eyes twinkled.   On another man, the trace of laughter might have sent jowls ashivering.  Tomas was thin.  He regularly went for long walks through the fields.  Gossip said his taste in women was equally odd, though none would say he had abandoned his duties to the Goddess's Aspects.  "For an Interlocutor, the faintest shadows of duty are chains of blackest iron."
"Here is no shadow," the Swordmistress said.  "This poor man says he saw people killed." The bookseller's head lay in Daphne's lap.  
"Demons," the man croaked.  "Demons!  Demons killed them dead."  For all that the witness was only a man, a chill crept up Evaine's back.  Women, horses, camels, even war-mammoths she knew how to kill.  But demons?  'Killed them all' sounded that more than two, perhaps even four, people had died, and a demon had done it.
"Gloria," Evaine said, "Join Gail in the High Tower. Keep watch toward Longbeachport."  She raised her voice.  "The rest of you, we will keep double watch in the High Tower."  The Swordmistress raised an eyebrow.  "For all that he's a man, he's terrified. He lost his sword and perhaps his wits."
"The gates appear to be closed," Tomas remarked casually.
"Indeed," Evaine said.  Their legal relationships were complicated.  She was the Daughter-Heir's Banneret, with authority over the Caer in the Daughter-Heir's absence.  However, he was Heir-Second. He might do something so unmannish as take charge. That was his hereditary privilege.  If he did, the Caer might be in some modest danger, though less than with most other men.  "The man might be a Republic runaway," Evaine continued.  "As well as a known bookmonger.  Sometimes they get a bit vigorous about snatching back their men.  Without precise regard for marked borders.  The Daughter-Heir would rightly wax wroth with me if I permit snatching out of Torinsdale. Unless you had me arrest them."  Tomas was also the Shire Interlocutor, investigating prosecutor of serious crimes across a legal structure that included Torinsdale Domain, the adjoining Republic, and modest bits of Archimagate and Temple Lands.  When he donned his Interlocutor's stole, she was his Cornet, his avenging sword.  He was also a Mage.  His quarters lay under the paw of the Lion of Arhad. There, she was his Apprentice.  Domain, Republic, and Archimagate were totally independent legal jurisdictions, all with different laws and the same Interlocutor.  
"Waxed wroth?" the Swordmistress repeated painedly.  Evaine grinned.  It was an antique phrasing. 'Charred the whitewash off the gates' would be closer.
"He is that bookmonger. Timothy Lottason is his name," Tomas agreed.  "His words are weird.  You were right to be cautious.  You cannot just go and look, can you, Longbeachport being across the border?"
Evaine bit her tongue. Tomas was not being contrary.  He was waiting for her to explain something she was supposed to know.  He was testing to see that she knew it.  "Your Grace," she answered, "as Banneret-First of a Domain, I cannot dance off into the Republic and appear under arms.  I might start a war.  But wandering around unarmed is a really bad move if Longbeachport is infested by demons.  As Cornet-Sole to the Shire Interlocutor, that's you, I can ride into Longbeachport, fully armed and armored.  So long as I wear your kon and go about your business, I might even be treated politely."
"Precisely," Tomas answered, smiling.  "Actually, after the sheep rustlers I expect the Sisterhood would greet you warmly."
"So I asked you here.  So you could send me," she answered.  She hadn't quite led him by the nose.  They both saw the need and made a lattice dance to send her.  "Whatever happened is near the border. I am the best person to go and see.  I can wear a kon the Republic respects.  If need be, I kill their demons."  She hoped she was not actually called upon to honor her closing remark.  The classic 361 Poses of the Perfect Sworddaughter neglected forms for demon-slaying, likely because the authors, agreeing with her and all other sane people, neglected to believe in demons.
"How will I defend the Caer without you?"  Tomas asked querulously.   She looked skyward.  He knew that answer.
"You have two greathands of women, most reasonably skilled with sword and bow. A good dozen men who are passable archers. Gated walls.  A moat.  Towers. A keep.  And someplace around here the Domain has a Master of the Dark Arts, too, doesn't it?" Evaine asked, the last not quite seriously.  
"Would you take escorts, say a Hand?" he asked innocently.
"Did you mean a Hand and five?" Evaine answered, equally innocently.  That had been another of Tomas's trick questions.  He did keep her on her toes.  The Swordmistress counted under her breath, then nodded. The other women looked baffled.  It was not so difficult to convert, but most women thought in girl numbers, not in boy numbers. For a woman, four fingers marked four. A thumb was worth as much as its fingers, so a Hand naturally meant eight women.  A Greathand, a Hand of Hands, was sixty-four  women.  Temple Instructors said girl numbers were octal, base eight.   In all Torinsdale, only she knew what base meant.  Others knew there were different counts.  Men, of course, thought themselves sensible to use scores and men's dozens, thirteen here and eleven on South-Shore.  The Republic Senate used base ten.  A male Interlocutor used men's count for his escort, so a Hand and five would be a dozen—thirteen--escorts.  "A dozen is way too many. I'll take Daphne and Avis," she answered.  
"On horse," he decreed.  "Armed and armored.  I want you there and back soon.  This man sold books to horse barbarians.  He would not frighten lightly.  Who counsels me if his fear comes here?"
"The Swordmistress. Her knowledge of matters martial is a pearl beyond price.  She knows far more than I," Evaine answered.  Only Tomas knew that she exaggerated. 
"I am absolutely confident that I can mouth 'what she said' faster than Swordmistress can shout commands, ummh, whisper suggestions," Tomas answered.  The Swordmistress sighed unseriously.  "Get on with it.  You have hours to Longbeachport, more hours back.  You may need some moments to kill the, ahh, 'invisible demons'."
"The day is clear," Evaine noted, "The Longbeachport sunspeaker reaches the West Sea Tower. A sunspeaker there could pass word to you.  We don't know if my immediate return is wise.  Sending people to the Sea Tower, I'm not sure that's within my authority."
"Do it!" Tomas ordered.  "If Joseline or Mother wish to quarrel, it's with me, a family matter."
* * * * *
Evaine, Avis, and Daphne, their horses pacing briskly, clattered up Longbeachport Road to the crest of Weathertop Hill.  Just beyond lay the border between Domain and Republic. The rise gave them their first view of the father of the waters. The colors were a fantastic weave of sapphire and diamond.  Evaine stopped, telling herself that she was resting the horses and checking their shoes.  
"So far, naught out of the ordinary," Daphne said.  "It's a fine day for a ride, all the same."
"He said Longbeachport.  That's beyond the woods," Evaine said, drawing her farseer from her saddlebags.  The copper tube extended.  Evaine twisted it slightly to peak the focus.  "I see a few tall buildings.  There's some smoke.  Less than I expected.  You two take a look.  There's something not there, isn't there?  Something not quite right."  She passed the farseer tube to the other women, trying to remember the Longbeachport skyline. 
"Looks good to me," Daphne finally said, her naturally suspicious mind finding nothing awry.
"There seem to be a lot of boats at anchor," Evaine noted.  "Are all their fisherfolk and lobsterdaughters not working?"
"They have a lot of fisherfolk," Avis said, pushing her curly brown hair back from her brow to tuck it more carefully under her helmet.
"Is this a Republic holiday?" Daphne asked.
"I didn't think of that," Evaine answered.  "I don't know.  Their holidays are not ours, save The Goddess's Six.  Tomas and I went to their Summertide market.  They had traders from the south with silks and spices and books.  The locals sell seashell dyes, perfumes, and fruit cordials--our Domain's are better.  Tomas bought books."  She mounted her horse.  "We stayed at the Inn. Even by Domain standards, it was well built, with an excellent chef.  It had a particularly fanciful name. The House That Floats.  Its signboard was a rich mansion, bedecked with a truly absurd number of sails, bounding across the waves."
 "Tomas likes vacations?" Daphne asked.  Evaine decided to ignore implications of 'with you?'  I had been no vacation.  Nor had she had Tomas's company at night, as might have been expected with another man.  She certainly would not have complained, but Tomas never took advantage of those opportunities.  
Given the male/female ratio, I think it would be *her* taking advantage of *him*.
"Tomas had business there," Evaine answered.  "The Sorority of the Sword has a small garrison in Longbeachport, remnant from days when bandits lurked in the woods, days when Sea Eagles appeared in their great canoes. Longbeachport has a wall, charges a wall fee.  The Sorority charges a guard fee.  Tomas's mother sent him to discuss taxes. The Domains were having another tiff with the Senate about Abundage and Surplusage, taxes so arcane Tomas says they defy human comprehension.  His comprehension, anyhow.  Except one bit is entirely clear: We do not pay them.  He went to talk. The Sorority Chapterhouse was happy to have an extra fencing partner.   But, Daphne, you are better at gossip than me, not to mention visiting Longbeachport more often.  Did you ever hear demons mentioned?"
"Gossip? Me?"  Daphne said.  "Oh, you'd hear the usual.  Not demons.  Not even mages, Tomas. The High Priestess of Xerinth took yet another mirror, this being less surprising than news that the Shield rose in the East.  There was buzz about strange boats far out on the water, almost at the horizon.  When I heard that, I was polite. But a boat?  Out at the horizon?  What if there were a fog?"
"Once upon a time," Avis said, "I was out in a boat.  A fog came up.  There was nothing to see, nothing we could do.  It still makes my skin crawl."  She shivered.  "If I'm on water, a river ferry securely tied to both shores is adventure enough for me."
"In the Western Reach," Evaine said, "sailors do go out of sight of shore.  For half a day, when the season wind is rock-steady, and they know that every which way ahead lies land.  The crew-bonuses for those trips can be pretty hefty. And Vair Reach sailors do the same."
   The other two women flinched.  "Hello, what's that ahead?"  She gestured for the trio to slow.  Something large and oddly shaped lay behind bushes in the distance.    The color was unnatural.  "Doesn't seem to move."
They rode closer.  The shape was a covered wagon, gone into the ditch, looking in good condition except where reins had been cut.  A discarded sword lay on the ground.   Evaine picked it up, tested its balance, stared at the handle.  "T Ls," she read.  "Timothy Lottasson's," she announced.  "That's him.  This is his.  'Tim's Treasures', that's his Factoring title.  Why'd he leave his wagon?  Invisible demons?"
Someone in a hurry to detach a mule from a wagon would be more likely to cut the traces than the reins.
"Demon feet are like giant turkeys," Daphne said, "Or so I read.  If you believe in demons." They all giggled.  "With two mules, that wagon is stuck.  The wagon may be small, but it's heavy with books."
"Nothing," Avis announced.  "Ground churned where the mules tried to pull free.  Lottason's boot marks.  No one else.  You know, that's odd.  We haven't met anyone coming towards us!  This road is empty."
 "I think it's time to string bows," Evaine said.  "I'll take spearhead.  You stay two greathands of paces back.  If I run into something really strange, you absolutely have to get word back to the Caer."  She slid her bow from its case, braced herself, pulled, and drew the string over the bow's pulleys.
"And if you are ambushed by pirates, outnumbered, and outmatched?" Daphne asked.
"Run for it," Evaine answered.  "Word first, me second or later."  To herself, she added 'what do you bet pirates don't know I'm temple-trained?'  That was her secret.  "Mind you, a sheep rustler seeing the three of us, Interlocutor's kons and all, will run even faster than Goodman Lottason did."  
* * * * *
Approaching Longbeachport, there was an odor in the air, a faint smell of wood smoke.  Why wood? Close to town, the sandy soil did a poor job supporting trees other than pines.  Longbeachport heated with peat.  
And cooked?
The road paralleled a large creek.  A weir marked the creek's diversion to the town reservoir. Downstream were several dairy farms.  The lowing of cattle caught Daphne's attention.  "Those cows," she announced.  "They want milking.  Badly.  They go on much longer like that, they'll go dry."
"Republic," Avis muttered. "It's a disgrace, the way they misuse the Lady's animals.  Even in the Republic, dairy farmers should know better."   They stared at farmhouses.  A door had been left open.  It swung back and forth in the breeze, banging whenever it hit its frame.  No one gave it the least attention.  There was no sign of anyone. No movement.  No smoke from the fireplaces.   Nothing.   Evaine pulled to the side of the road, waving for the two of them to come up with her.
"This is the last grove before town," she announced.  "Then it's open field, grazed grass, up to the walls. There's a path to the right to the Town Shrine.  We'll follow, leave horses at the Fountain, go through the woods on foot.  I want to see the town before I stick my head in.  This close to town, there should be people in their gardens...there's not a sign of anyone."  She gestured them to follow.  As a little girl, she had heard talk of senses of danger.  Her Temple instructors ridiculed the notion.  She was still uncomfortable.
She doesn't need any "sense of danger" to know something is very, very wrong.
They turned off the road, horses' hooves sinking to muffled quiet when pavement was replaced by deep pine needles on sand.  A splash and tinkle of water was the Fountain, fed by a pipe from the reservoir.  Daphne stared into the pond, its fish swimming slowly in the depths.  She tossed the last bits of her lunch onto the surface.  Fish snapped hungrily at the crumbs.  The horses slurped at a trough, raising no complaint when they were properly tied to a hitching ring.
Moving quietly, Avis in the lead, they slipped through the woods.  Evaine told herself not to be uncomfortable about following.  Avis was the woodsdaughter, the woman who had tracked the notorious sheep rustlers to their lair.
Beyond the trees, a cluster of houses stood close together, close enough for talk and trade.  This, Evaine recalled, was the Circle that serviced haulers, selling water and fodder for draft animals.  House after house stood empty, doors ajar, not a fire in any fireplace.  A nearby pair of homes had burned to the ground.  There were no householders trying to salvage a few belongings, not even a strayed cat. 
"Stay here!" Evaine ordered.  She slipped along the wood line, staying out of sight as much as possible, then dashed for a low wall, dropping flat when she reached it.  A long crawl brought her to its end.  In the service yard of one home were three wagons.   Their animals were gone.  The merchants themselves?  In the house garden lay three bodies. Evaine listened as hard as she could.  There were birdcalls.  Crows, a lot of them, someplace.  The distant rumble of the surf.  No dog barked.  No sounds of tools, no hammers or saws.  Perhaps she was too far from shore to hear shipwrights at work, but there was nothing to be heard, just three dead women lying silently in the frigid mud of a yet-unplanted spring garden. Evaine didn't know two of the women.  The third was Gabriela Michaellasdotr, whose hobby was sleight of hand.  At the Caer she would always spend hours entertaining younger children, and most of the older ones, pulling things from nowhere, from children's' ears, and from her flowing red hair.  Now her sleight of hand was gone, spilled on the cold, cruel ground, her glittering laugh never again to be heard at Caer Adurel.  
Evaine waved.   She hoped Daphne and Avis wouldn't spend too long being sick.  To Evaine's surprise, the other two women did no more than turn pale.  "Take a wagon tarp, open it, keep it in the air above the ground while you cover the bodies. Tomas studied forensic sorcery. He might interpret footprints."
"This must be what Lottasson saw, don't you think?" Daphne asked.
"This is the oxenyard," Avis answered.  "He had mules, would have stayed on the road until the turnabout near the gate.  Besides, he said about 'cut to pieces'?   Those two look like they argued with stabbing swords, and this one...that must have been an axe, taking off the back of the head.  What happened to her face? Spearpoint?  There are lots of boot marks."
"We need to move quickly," Evaine announced.  "I'll advance to the gate, call you on when it's safe.  Then we'll go to the Sunspeaker tower.  And I ask the Sorority detachment why they've left bodies lying here overnight, not to mention leaving burning buildings to burn."
Evaine left the Avis and Daphne spreading the tarp.  She purposefully strode down the hill.  A reach to her shoulders felt for her Interlocutor's kons, stiff white banners bearing the black-outlined outspread hand of She Who Is Five and the lidless eye of She Who Judges.  Towns in which something truly odd happened could be very nervous.  She would be the absolute picture of calm.  The kons were her shield.  Few people picked quarrels with Interlocutors.
What had happened here?  Homes burned to the ground, animals cried in distress, bodies lay in the open air, and no one seemed to be fixing anything.  Some footprints were very sharp.  Someone wore boots that were the same left and right.  Surely even the Republic's shoemakers knew better?
Ahead was the town.  One gate tower was simply not there.   All that remained of the North gate tower was a blackened square-cut foundation the height of Evaine's shoulder.  The tower above, which Evaine remembered as six stories of wood, was gone.  Part seemed to have burned. Pieces, beams and tiles and furniture, were scattered on the ground away from the gate. The place smelled of burned sulfur.  Ashes were cold. The fire must have burned a day previous.  Evaine felt her heart beating, harder and harder. The place was deserted. She stretched and released, walking around the tower onto the main road.
The town gate had been smashed flat.  In South-Shore, a herd of mammoths in stampede might have knocked it down and kicked it to flinders.  Beams were strewn hither and thither. Windows were broken up to the third floor of neighboring buildings.  What had happened here?  There, fallen well behind the gate, was the broken body of a gateguard.  The woman lay on her side, clearly dead.  She wore ceremonial plate armor, well enameled and polished.  Now something had punched a large hole in her chest plate, her chest, and her back.  Her sword remained in its scabbard. Here was someone dead as yesterday's dinner, lying in the sunlight with flies buzzing around her wounds, and no one was doing anything about it.  What was wrong with the gentlefolk of Longbeachport?  Had they no decency? 
Something had happened to the road, too.  A gaping pit, several paces across and a pace deep, had been torn in the gravel.  Evaine stepped gingerly into the blackened hole.
Her perspective switched.  Everything, even the collapsed nearest foundation wall of the gate tower, had moved directly away from her. The gate had fallen into town.  The tower had fallen sideways, away from her, hit the town's stone wall, and shattered.  Window panes down the street were blown in, as if a hurricane had struck--but hurricanes were strictly South-Shore weather.  Roof tiles had gone upward.  Even the poor gate-guard had likely been stationed someplace above the gate here, and had fallen to earth over there.  She looked more closely at the upper porch of a nearby building.  Assuredly that fancy mass of bronze was a dragon--to be precise, one of the highly polished dragon hinges that had until recently held Longbeachport's main gates.   Very briefly, the dragon had gained the power of flight.
She walked to the nearest building.  The window glass had not fallen in a spray on the floor, as it might if someone had smashed the window with a chair. She stepped through the doorway, skipped over the collapsed door, and peered at the further wall.  Large pieces of glass had planted themselves like spikes in the plaster.  Exploration with her dagger showed they were deep-buried.  Someone standing in front of the window would have been flayed alive by their own casement.  Standing next to the glass, looking back out the window, she could see the pothole, centered in the window.
Evaine walked back to the main gate, all the time listening.  Listening for voices.  Listening for work.  Listening.  She heard the sea, the wind, birds. She had found four bodies and a silent town.  Where was everyone?  She whispered the Chant of Imminent Readiness.
Avis and Daphne had walked down to the gate.  "Is aught wrong?" Evaine asked.  "You were going to stay..."
"We were afraid," Avis said.  "We looked in the houses.  There were dead people.  Women. Babies.  All killed."
"Tomas must be notified as swiftly as possible," Evaine said.  "Let's go to the Sunspeaker tower."  
"That's why I'm here," Daphne said.  "I'll need help.  Tower mirrors are too heavy for me to shift by myself."
"Tell me what to do," Avis said.  "It can't be harder than helping Tomas with his spellcasting mill."
"Let's go," Evaine said.  "Stay alert.  Someone killed these people.  She may still be here."
"Some one?" Avis asked doubtfully.
"All right.  Some two. If you meet them both, first arrest the first, then arrest the second." Evaine said.  "Please keep a dozen paces behind me.  I'm jumpy enough without being nudged."
Fifty yards down the street, they found the next body, a woman of sixty years or so.  She was still in her nightgown and slippers.  She had been stabbed to death, great cutting slices coming up from stomach into chest.  Another twenty yards brought them to three more women, equally dead, wearing chain mail under black tabards.  
"Sisterhood of the Raven," Avis said.  "They'd drawn their swords, were running--see how the swords fell--toward the gate.  How did they die?"  She rolled one of the women on her side.  "Greatbow?  You see how the mail punched into the wound here, how it's tore away from the wound on the back?
"That's a big hole," Evaine said.  "You'd need a siege engine to drive that bolt.  A spoolbow bolt, even a spoolbow lighter than mine, goes through like that, but a bolt is narrow.  I could put my thumb through that wound. Where's the killer?"
"What if she's still here?" Daphne asked.
The Sunspeaker tower rose eighty feet above Longbeachport, its thick stone walls reinforced to ignore any storm.  Evaine knocked politely at the door, realized that an answer was most unlikely, raised the latch, and swung the door open.  The first floor, the clerk's office, had been vandalized, shelves swept clean onto the floor, drawers flung open and dropped on the ground.
"Interesting," Avis said. 
"What?" Evaine asked.
"They broke open the cash drawer, but left the money. They took the pocket change," Avis answered.  They took stairs up to the roof, finding the sunspeaker mirrors intact in their cases.
Evaine continued to scan the town.  There was no motion.  Boats lay at anchor, undisturbed.  She could see more bodies down the next road.  On the fields to the south, there had been a very large fire. West of the square, toward the water, would be the Temple.  There were a lot of birds there.  Truly a lot of birds.  Crows.  Gulls.  Suddenly she became extremely grim-faced.  "The two of you barricade the front door behind me. Get the sunspeaker up and talking to the Sea Tower.  I see something I must investigate.  I'll be back as fast as possible."  She hopped down the stairs.
Hopped?
* * * * *
Evaine thought as she walked. There were a certain number of reasons why so many birds would gather.  Many were unpleasant.  Longbeachport's street layout was entirely sensible, if you ignored places  where the coastline encroached on the road grid.   three large streets in a Y centered near the Sunspeaker on the town square.  Ring roads, the last separating houses from the wall, crossed them.   She would stay to back streets and alleys until she reached the Temple, going through houses if she had to.
The western avenue, The Moon-Touched, bore a name so ancient that it must have been brought to Longbeachport by the first settlers, three millennia ago.  If she remembered correctly, when first built the road had aligned on a setting of one of the Bracers.  Its paving was brick, with mortared sand swept into the gaps.   Coarse-rock dry-well gutters kept the trees well-watered.  She was now within a block of the Temple, and there was no good path that let her approach closer unseen.
She found herself with back against a warehouse wall, sword in one hand.  There had been a motion, close overhead.  Her training had taken over.  The offending crow, or parts of it, lay in the street, no longer moving.  That hadn't been all that set her off, she analyzed. The wind had shifted momentarily, and she had caught a smell.  A very characteristic smell.  Sword in one hand, she crept along the street, watching on all sides for an attack that never came.
The temple gate was a square of walls rising twenty feet from the pavement to an open top. Arches framed its four sides.  A colorful mosaic of the Wheel of The Living covered its floor.  The square's roof was a lattice of wooden beams.  The wisteria that spanned between the beams was just now filling in. Moon-Gates were all flung open.  That was odd; today was not the Quartersday.  Evaine sprang through the second arch, looking one way and then the other, sword weaving a complicated defense against foes who might be waiting.  Tradition said one did not bring weapons beyond the Fountain.  Indeed, townspeople overborn by raiders would flee to their Temple, leaving their weapons stacked by the Fountain allowing that the Grace of the Goddess and the pious faith of the raiders would protect them.  From the stacks of swords, the people of Longbeachport had followed that custom.
Something had smashed the front of the Sanctuary, splintering its stained-glass windows.  Part of the roof had fallen.  The whitewash was stained with soot.  A South-Shore war-mammoth, properly armored, could have knocked in the wall.  How could a mammoth enter the court yard?  The gate was too narrow.
Inside the Temple?  Now she understood what Timothy Lottasson had meant, 'all smashed and killed and cut to pieces'.  She sank into her training, looking for wounded whom she might succor.  Failing that, she made a count.  It was easier to count those who were still in one piece.  On the altar?  At first she couldn't decide what she was looking at.  Then she understood.  All the parts were still there, but no longer assembled in their proper order.  That hadn't happened in a very long time, a time Tomas could date precisely.  She made herself look more closely at the dead.  Close to the wall, they lay on their faces.    Further in were the younger women, then the older, then the town's men, perhaps two hands of them, all facing the rear wall.
* * * * *
Daphne and Avis waited atop the Sunspeaker Tower.  The mirrors were in their proper places.  The suncatcher was correctly aimed, needing only the adjustment of a screw every few minutes as the Lesser Daughter sank toward the sea's loving arms.  In a large farseer, the West Sea Tower could be seen clearly. There might be watchers on its roof, but its 'Ready to Receive' flag was not flying.  In the other direction, the Union sunspeaker crew apparently worked alternate days, and today was not the day.  Until tomorrow, no messages could be sent up into the Republic. After all, Daphne noted to herself, Longbeachport and its environs only had hundreds of people all told.  The town had a sunspeaker because Longbeachport was wealthy, with a flourishing trade in cordials, perfumes, and other distilled goods requiring careful factoring.
"Ahoy, Daphne," Evaine called from below.  "Are you there?"  Daphne dashed down the stairs while Avis engaged Evaine in shouted conversation.  For once, Evaine sounded deeply tired.  Daphne flung open the door.  A wan Evaine stepped though, carefully barring the door behind her. She drew from her kit a length of black silk and tied it around her right arm.  "Never thought I'd do this," she announced, "but I am Tomas's Cornet.  It comes with the office.  Let's go upstairs."
Does this signal a change in point of view?
"There's no 'Receive' flag on the West Sea Tower," Daphne said.  "They must not be ready."
Evaine looked doubtful, but joined Daphne in the climb to the roof.  "They forgot to bring a banner," she guessed.  "Floris and Dorothea left before we did, had less far to ride, and know that tower.  They must be ready.  Did you try a transmit flash?"
"We were waiting until you got back," Daphne said.  "Though we were only just ready--those big mirrors are heavy and hard to line up."
"I have a message for Tomas," Evaine said quietly.  "And for Union, if you found their schedule."
"Where are they?" Daphne asked.  "Where is everyone?" Her voice rose in fear.
"Try the signal flash," Evaine asked.  "When I'm done, the message needs to be ridden to Caer Adurel.  Just to be sure.  Could you do that?  I'd ask you, Avis, but there may be tracking, and that's your talent." 
"Flash answered," Daphne said.  "There's a signal.  You were right.  Forgot to bring flag, they say."
"There's a formula," Evaine said tonelessly, "For what I have to send.  For what I found."  Evaine sat down, pulled a pencil and paper from her kit, and began to write, speaking each line sotto voce after she had written it.  
She finally began to dictate, her stops punctuated by the rattle of Daphne at the sunspeaker mirrors.  "Speaking, Evaine.  I Speak for She Who Judges." That phrase would get Tomas's most careful attention, because only an Interlocutor could invoke it.    The conditions under which was allowed to invoke it were incredibly narrow.  "A Hideous Crime against the Shire has been committed."  Hideous Crime, Evaine recalled, was a term of art, reserved for the most serious of misdeeds. "Please confirm current North-Shore applicability, Council of Altairis, Decree on Summary Execution of Necromancers.  Town gate was smashed by sorcery, repeat, sorcery. Her Priestess lies dead upon Her Altar."
Daphne stopped signaling, her hand covering her mouth.  "Those wounds.  They're the demon's claw.  When it sucks out a woman's soul."  She bolted down the stairs, shrieking in terror.
"Oh, dear," Evaine said.  "I could have warned her.  I'm sorry. I'm being a bit distracted."
"What do I do?" Avis asked.  "Go after her?"
"And do what if you catch her?  They all died a day ago.  Whoever did this must be gone.  She'll be safe.  I think."  Evaine was looking at the harbor, but she saw the Temple interior. Eight stories down, a door slammed shut.  "Can you run the mirror?"  Avis nodded in agreement. 
 "She got to 'Altar'," Avis said.  "Continue."
"It gets worse," Evaine said, holding up a hand. 
"Worse? It can?" Avis asked.
"Sorry.  Resuming message:  Evaine-sa to Interlocutor.   In Her Temple and Sanctuary in Longbeachport, I found dead more than two greathands, repeat, greathands of people," Evaine said.
"Goddess preserve us!  It got worse!  Sorry, I interrupted."  
"They were murdered.  Longbeachport is deserted. East gate.  North Tower down. Sentry murdered."  A long pause.  "No one on walls. No people.  No smoke from chimneys.  All boats ride at anchor.  No children, dead or alive.  Evaine-sa-Orowan, in the Interlocutor's absence, the Goddess's Eye."  Evaine waited while Avis caught up with her.  The Council of Altairis had been more than two millennia ago; she wasn't sure North-Shore even remembered it.  "Tomas-sur, I found no enemy dead. I strongly recommend raising the Domain Levy, High and Low, as soon as possible.  Evaine-sa-Orowan, who is not utterly ignorant of battle tactics."  
The last phrase should penetrate, she hoped, once he calmed down from realizing that she had taken up the Black Wreath. Evaine did not have to be reminded what her recommendation would cost. The High Levies were the Constables of each hamlet, three or four women from as many or more greathands of people.  The Low Levy was every woman who could bear arms, and a few men with bows.  Raising the High Levy would cost the Domain part of the Land-Rent.  Raising the Low Levy would cause chaos.  
Avis stared through the farseer.  From the West Sea Tower, Evaine's words came back on wings of light.   "They're transmitting to Caer Adurel.  And I've a private message from Dorothea, in the Sea Tower."  She made a response, and another.  "I'm telling them we'll be reconnoitering for a piece."
"That first answer couldn't've been more than a half hand of letters," Evaine said. "Two," Avis answered.  " 'No' comes that way.  But your message is not a jest.  What do we now do?"
Evaine slumped into a chair.  "Let's recover our horses.  There might be someone hiding in town.  There might be tracks--looking for tracks is for you, house-by-house is me.   A bit before twilight...you fort up in this tower, every door and stair locked.  Me?  The inn has good windows facing the tower door.  If someone goes after the tower, I hit them from behind.  Neither of us shows a light: let them hunt for us in the dark."
"I'll get the horses," Avis said.  "They'll like a walk.  You can start your search.  I should circle the town first."
* * * * *
Evaine, shield at the ready, unlatched another door, kicked, and stepped back quickly.  "Friend!" she called.  For better or worse, her main danger was someone who had hidden, survived to tell the tale, and confused her with whoever attacked Longbeachport.  This was the twentieth home she had searched.  Every home had been looted.  The looters were boringly consistent.  Articles of Faith, Shrines to an Aspect, icons, anything with representational art, were trampled or gone.  She had needed a bit to notice: books were all missing.   So were wheelbarrows.  Lockboxes were smashed.  The money was left behind.  Coins and jewelry were gone--her intuition said that homes should have more small, decorative pieces of art than she saw.  She had found a few bodies.  Grannies who might have slept through an alarm.  A couple whose honoring of Her Aspect As Voluptuary had continued until, to judge from how the bodies lay, an unwelcome and fatal interruption had taken place.  Whenever she found cradle or baby's clothes, she made a careful search for an infant who might have been hidden. She never found one. She blinked back tears.
Against the back wall of the counting house lay an old man, his robes the blue and gold of the Vaultholder's Guild, his sword resting a pace from him.  He was in stockings, not wearing smallclothes; he must have dropped his robes in place without dressing properly. A shattered box lay at his feet, a few vault notes still in it.  Others had blown against the wall.  His body had been pierced, once and again, by something.  What?  She should know, and didn't. Her best guess was a gear-cranked superheavy crossbow, a weapon with great carry and impact but incredibly low rate of fire.  The stucco of the wall behind him was fresh-painted, except where it was deeply pocked.
Something glinted feebly in a hollow in the stucco.  Her probing dagger released...what was it?  Memory came to the top.  A slinger's ball.  Slings required considerable skill, but outranged the feeble bows of four millennia past.  Where had someone been trained in the sling?  Why?
Shadows were lengthening. She would cut over to The Moon-Touched, and look into shops until she got back to the town square.  With some luck, Avis would soon join her.  She would indeed sleep in The House That Floats, though even their most luxurious bed would not compensate for sleeping under arms.  More pounds of chain mail than she cared to contemplate would burden her dreams.
Across the street, the awnings on a grocer's stalls had been torn down.  Pointless, she thought, pointless, it was damage that didn't do anything.  It did look as though the grocer's goods had been systematically taken. Two alleyways over lay more awnings, torn from their hangings, and another body, almost out of sight. 
A half-house further along, she stopped.  What had the dead woman been wearing on her feet? Temple training brought her curiosity to the fore. She crossed the street and looked over a tall fence.
Where had the body gone?  She looked behind her.  The walk, the further side of the street, was substantially raised, with stairs down to the road.  She stood on tiptoe, peered over the fence again, and took a deep breath.  The alley was depressed from street level.  There was the awning.  Whoever she was, she was dead, and was thoroughly out of sight from the road.  What was she wearing on her feet?  Black?  Polished like a beetle's carapace?
Evaine felt her hair stand on end. Demons, some of them, had the bodies of insects, shiny and odd colored.  Some demons only looked dead until they struck. Or so, finishing her thought, demons did if you believed in demons.  She did not, but the corpse in front of her was decidedly peculiar.
How did she get into the alleyway?  Gate, left, now shut.  She kicked it open, stepped away.  Surprise was one thing, but she wanted some hint about her opponent first.   She did not really believe in demons, but matters in town were a bit unreasonable.  Surprise attacks, when you didn't know where the foe's vital organs lay, were problematic.  The gate slowly swung closed behind her.  Whatever the body was, it didn't move.
Evaine pushed the gate open and advanced, shield first, sword on guard.  There were no noises, no movement.  She used her sword point to tug at the awning.  It lay atop the unknown like a bed's counterpane, ready to be dislodged.  Thrust to snag awning.  Pull rapidly sideways.  The awning dropped onto the bare ground.  A dead person lay there, the crossbow bolt through her head suggesting the cause.
She was wearing the oddest clothing...no, make that he, Evaine thought.  The well-trimmed walrus mustache was unmistakable.  He was wearing the oddest clothing.  Dark green.  Heavy, almost felted.  Lavish white trim.  A huge, unstylish hat.  Those were boots on his feet, but the leather--if it was leather--had been stained black.  He was armed, too.  A spear.  Short shaft, not more than four feet.  Spearhead fastened well off to one side.  The spear shaft?  Metal-wound?  She prodded with her foot, then picked up the spear.  It had an iron shaft, hollow, more like a chunk of pipe than a pole, and grips at the far end.  The spearhead was very long.  As a spear, it was overweight relative to her training swords, which was saying a lot.  Even two-handed, it would be clumsy.  This was not a weapon she would want in a fight.  
The man was quite dead.  Was he the local eccentric? From his hair, it appeared that he did not bath[e] very often.  She looked carefully where he had fallen.  When Tomas got here, he would want to examine this one carefully.  Perhaps Tomas' forensic sorcery would reveal his past and his confederates.  Meantime, shadows were lengthening.  She wanted to choose her bed before she needed to bumble about in the dark.
* * * * *
Back at the tower, Avis awaited Evaine.  "Did you find anyone?" Avis asked.
"Dead," Elaine answered.  "You?"
"I circled the town," Avis answered.  "I found a huge trail, people coming along the beach.  I back tracked.  The trail starts at Blackwater Cove.  People landed from the sea.  Three or five greathands of people.  They camped there, a day I'd say.  They walk strangely, all in a half-dozen lines, one following another, like nuns on South-Shore.  They spread out, tracks around the town. They all had the strange shoes.  The way they stumbled, I think they walked at night."
"Boots," Evaine corrected. 
"Look like shoes.  Why do you say 'boots'?" Avis countered.
"I found a pirate.  He's been dead a day," Evaine said.  "A block down the street." Evaine and Avis strolled down The Moon-Touched. 
"One other thing," Avis said.  "Those trails come in to town.  They don't come out again."
Evaine stopped, stock-still. She deeply wished that Avis had mentioned that first.  There couldn't really be two or three hundred women hiding here, could there? "You tracked all the way around?" she asked.  We're close-surrounded, she thought, perhaps in the next building, by several greathands of murderers?
"Yes," Avis said.  "The town is rebuilding their roads.  There's a good two hands of paces of sand, no place to march out unnoticed.  They came in and did not leave."
Evaine looked around warily.  "Could there be three great-hands of women hiding in this place?" she asked.  "There are warehouses.  Buildings I did not search.  Yet. But there's no trace. Did you check the docks?"
"Why?"
"They came by water, they left by water," Evaine said.  "Perhaps.  Though this one," she turned down the alley, pointing, "is no Sea Eagle.  Blonde, he is not.  Also, clean, he is not."
Avis professionally examined the corpse.  "He is filthy," she announced, cursing under her breath.  "He has Creator-forefend fleas.  And  hair lice. I've never seen clothing like his.  His other gear looks odd."  She hefted the man's spear.  "Worst design I've ever seen," she announced. "Too heavy.  Too short.  He's got his sword in I don't believe it a metal scabbard.  Where did he come from?  The far side of The Shield?  You know, I've only seen books, but I think those marks on his face are smallpox scars.  Wasn't he vaccinated?" 

&&& left off here, 25 October 2005 &&& 

Ah, I wonder what the Sheild is?  

Elaine had better notify the other waterfront towns that they are in danger Real Soon Now.  Also, everyone needs to know that the temple isn't a shelter.  Perhaps "priestess dead on the altar" takes care of that?  How did the invaders know to wreak special violence on the preistess?
What has become of the woman who ran off?  Why aren't they looking for her, now that she's had time to calm down.

Chapter 2
Caer Adurel
Springhint 9, 2446
Caer Adurel sprawled across a gentle hillock, its walls and pond enclosing a fifty[-]foot rise, atop which towers and a keep overlooked rolling acres of berry field and fruit tree.  The High Tower rose more than a hundred feet above the plain.  From its height, the flowers and fresh-opened leaves of early spring transformed farmland into parti-colored quilting.  The day was clear and bright, the sky the purest of blues.  The Lesser Daughter had reached the peak of her flight across the heavens, and was now falling toward the Western Waters.  Atop the High Tower, Gail-sa-Orowan dutifully scanned the surrounding Domain.  A century ago, when the Sea Eagles ravaged the coast and raided miles inland, the tower watch had been a half-hand of women, a sunspeaker signaler, and a piper.  For the past quarter-century, a solitary watchdaughter looked for fires at isolated farmsteads.  This late afternoon, the tower was crowded.  The Heir-Second, the Swordmistress, the Equestrienne, the Seneschal, two guards, two women staring through farseers toward the West Sea Tower, and a sunspeaker signaler shared the roof.  Gail tried to stay quiet and out of the way.
"Flash from West Sea Tower," announced Martina Kiraleesdotr.  "Flash 'Responding'," she directed the signaler.
"Again," she directed.  "Very good, that's an interlink.  Their message being sent."  She became very quiet, taking down letter groups one after the next, her mind purged of all awareness other than the flicker of reflected sunlight seen from miles away.  "Message closer.  Signal Clear.  Nadia, you have the watch."
"Yes, ma'am, I have the watch."  Nadia Dianasdotr intoned the responder, drawing her heavy wool cloak over shoulders and graying hair, and putting her eye again to her farseer.
"I read," Martina announced. "Message reads:  Speaking, Evaine.  I Speak for She Who Judges. A Hideous Crime against the Shire has been committed.  Please confirm current North-Shore applicability, Council of Altairis, Decree on Summary Execution of Necromancers.  Town gate was smashed by sorcery, repeat, sorcery. Her Priestess lies dead upon Her Altar."  
"Impossible," Tomas mumbled under his breath.
"Evaine-sa to Interlocutor.   In Her Temple and Sanctuary in Longbeachport, I found dead more than two greathands, repeat, greathands of people.  They have in various ways been murdered. I know not who did this.  Longbeachport is deserted. East gate.  North Tower down. Sentry murdered.  No one on walls. No people.  No smoke from chimneys.  All boats ride at anchor.  No children, dead or alive.  Evaine-sa-Orowan, in the Interlocutor's absence, the Goddess's Eye.  Tomas-sur, I found no enemy dead.  The unknowns were overwhelming. I strongly recommend raising the Domain Levy, High and Low, as soon as possible.  Evaine-sa-Orowan, who is not utterly ignorant of battle tactics."  
"A greathand of people?" the Swordmistress muttered.  
"That's five dozens less one," Tomas said.  "Sorry, I'm..."  He reached forward to catch Martina, who had just fainted. "...being a bit distracted."  He eased Martina to the ground, and let the Swordmistress fan her brow.  "Can't be a joke," Tomas announced.  "Evaine doesn't have a sense of humor.  But 'smashed by sorcery' is strictly from heroine tales.  You can't smash buildings with sorcery.   I should know.  I'm a sorcerer, after all. The Council of Altairis, four millennia ago, defined a unique crime for which an Interlocutor may waive the Right of Trial.  However, modern Necromancy is widely understood to be a harmless whip game, not a type of magic."
 "Evaine is very level headed," the Swordmistress said.  "Apparently she found dead people, who can't tell her what happened."
"What do I, no, let me ask each of you for your advice.  What might I do?" Tomas said, thinking all the while behind his voice.  "Most junior first.  Advice?"  He pointed at Gail.
"Tell your mom.  And your sisters. They'll know what to do," she answered.  Tomas made a note on wax tablet.  "Find the people who did it."  Tomas gravely made another note.
"Send more people to Longbeachport," the Equestrienne announced.  "There are animals trapped in buildings.  They need rescue." Suzanne Catherinesdotr had spent her life healing animals.  Faced with the inexplicable, she inquired where her charges would be ill-served.  
"Calling the High Levy is expensive," the Seneschal said.  "Calling the Low Levy, even for a few days, disrupts planting."  Her head shook.  "I can estimate a cost, crowns per diem, for the High Levy.  Thirty is not unreasonable.  That's a lot of money.  Calling the Low Levy is a greathand times as expensive."
"Tomas," the Swordmistress said, cutting through other answering voices, "If you want a levy today, you must call for it now.  And you should think carefully before raising only the High Levy.  Evaine is a young woman, but her last words...her judgement on these questions is very good."
"First," Tomas said, "send mounted messengers with Evaine's exact words to the Landgrafin and the Daughter-Heir.  Women who heard Lottason are preferred.   The messages are to be sealed, eyes only, and I shall don my hat as Mage, since magic was allegedly involved, to order the seal.  That will silence any priestess complaints. Second, each town near the border should be told to set out scouts, enough levy to cover the border, so if whoever tries sneaking into the Domain at night they are noticed.  Third, killing hands of people--yes, I heard the message--quickly, and chasing everyone else out of town, takes a big group of people.  It will be tedious for the hand of Sisters in Longbeachport to arrest them.  I will raise the High Levy to do it.   We're the nearest large place to Longbeachport.  The High Levy is summoned here.  Then I will swear them in as Interlocutor-deputies, so we can ignore the border.   Each town should be warned that the Low Levy should have weapons at hand, for good reason, but they are not raised.  That dodges the tax issue.  Also, they'd do no more than check weapons today anyhow, and I just told them to do that, so raising them today accomplishes nothing.  Besides, I don't know where we want them to march.  Not Longbeachport. A town that has already been put to the sword needs no defenders."  
The Swordmistress nodded agreement.  Tomas was wonderfully quick on these matters.
"I want four good women, one Milady the Caer Justiciar,  three young women attuned with Her Aspect as Warrior, to go to Longbeachport.  Now. With lamps, so they continue after dark if need be and get there tonight.   If we are sending Milady, it must be by chariot.  However, Milady is skillful at divining truths. Pack food and clothes for several days, and extra food for Evaine and companions.  Report back if these dead people are a practical joke.  Or some test of my dear and beloved mother.  Mind you, I will wager a large sum that this is not the case.  Did I miss anything?" he finally asked.
"It's not a trick," Swordmistress said.  "Yes, Cheryl would do such a thing, to test you, but she would warn me, so I could stop you before you raised the Low Levy and started a war with the Republic.  Gail," she turned to the younger girl, "get a fast horse you can ride.  You will ride the coast circuit.  Send someone up to take your watch. At each town, sound the gong, summon the High Levy here, warn the Low Levy to stand ready.  Tomas will have a rescript before you're dressed to ride.  Draw your sharp sword and your leather jacket from the armory.  People who kill other people may not want messengers going hither and thither.  If you can, run.  If you can't, win."
"As you command," Gail answered, right hand snapping against her chest.  She ran down the shallow stairs, taking them two at a time.
Tomas was for a moment puzzled.  Gail's answer had been antique in style.  Why?  He thought for a moment and understood.  Assuredly, this was the first time she had been told to carry a real weapon to carry out her duties.  "And you two," he pointed at two other women, "will do the same for the Vale and Hills districts.  You'll not finish tonight, nor be back until the morrow. I need to pen a rescript."  He sat at the one table, took the pen only now brought upstairs, and began writing.  "One more messenger.  The text we have here.  A fast rider and good horse, to carry the message to Union.  Longbeachport is in the Republic, after all, so it would be a courtesy to tell them about their town."
Yes!  Evaine trusted Tomas to take care of the warnings.
* * * * *
Far later into the night, the SwordMistress walked tiredly down the hall to her rooms, Tomas-sur-Maserin at her side.  It was very late; they would have to rise early indeed.  They would have gone their separate ways, except that the back stairs to Tomas's suite lay behind the SwordMistress's rooms.  A short figure waited in front of the Swordmistress's door, rigidly at attention, dimly backlit by a glowglobe.  
"SwordMistress?", the figure asked wanly.  
"Gail?  What are you doing here?  Why aren't you in bed?  We heard from the gate-watch you'd returned, that the levies were raised, several eighths ago," the SwordMistress said.  
"Mistress, I am your student.  I am here to accept punishment," Gail announced, her voice quivering.  
 "What?" the SwordMistress asked gently.  "Can't it wait until morning?"  Please? she added to herself.  Daphne had been bad enough when she rode up to the Caer, almost getting killed by a nervous sentry.  She had gasped out seriously confused details, confused except there were a lot of bodies and demons killed them.   The Swordmistress had had to mask serious aggravation before she finally extracted from Daphne how Daphne knew there were demons.  Daphne eventually agreed that a Caer held by a Mage was safe from Demons.  At least, Tomas had promised her that there was no case in two thousand years in which a demon had attacked a building with a sorcerer in it.
"Forgive me, but 'flogging, hanging, or more serious punishment' is supposed to be at once, isn't it?" Gail asked.  
"Flogging?" The SwordMistress raised her voice.  
"Gail, what are you talking about?" Tomas challenged.  "I've never had someone hanged -- except those sheep rustlers -- in my life." 
Gail blanched.  The shorter figure behind the SwordMistress was Himself His Eminence the Heir-Second, whom she had not been seen clearly in the shadows.  Now she was truly in for it.  Her voice trembled. 
"My fault, Your Grace, not seeing you.  I'm reporting to the Swordmistress.  For what I did. If you want to discharge me from your service, I'll leave at once.  Though I ask, no, beg you to let Evaine stay. She'll never understand why she was at fault for not teaching me better."  Gail began to cry. 
"Discharge you?  Gail, don't be silly!"  Tomas stopped.  "No.  I shouldn't have said that.  You're never silly." 
"Start from the beginning," the SwordMistress said.  "First, into my room, wash your hands and face. "  Have Gail start from the beginning, SwordMistress thought.  Get the circumstances, then the deed.  She's very young, and impossibly literal-minded about rules.  She can't possibly have done anything wrong, can she?  The three entered a sitting room, Tomas closing the door firmly behind them.  
Gail waited for the older woman to sit, ignoring gestures that she might sit herself until the Swordmistress pushed a chair behind her and dropped her into it.  "Mistress, I rode to Saint-Carmelas-in-the-Vale, sounded the tocsin, and made ready to read the rescript.  The mayor, a goodman I don't know, came up and ordered me to stop.  He said there'd be no foolishness about levies, not with planting approaching."  The two older people stiffened.  "He tried to pull me off my horse." 
"You wore my kon.  Didn't you?" a shocked Tomas asked.  "My personal kon?" 
"Yes, your Grace.  I wore it. I said so.  I tried to back my horse, but the mayor -- he's a vintner, from the colors in his scarf, and a large fellow -- he was too strong for me.  So he pulled, and I started to lose my balance, even both feet in the stirrups and leaning back," Gail explained. 
"Bulent," SwordMistress said, "Bulent Judithsson.  Huge man.  Fat.  Troublemaker.  Actually in tavern brawls in his younger days, if you can imagine that from a man.  And you're not full grown yet, Gail, not by some inches." 
"I don't care if he's High Priestess of the Descension,"  Tomas said.  "He takes mother's gold, swears mother's oath, and laid hand on mother's son's messenger." 
"Forgive me, Gail," the SwordMistress asked quietly, "but why are we to be flogging or hanging you?  As opposed to him, I mean." 
"When I left, His Grace said a hand raised against me, my kon, I mean, is a hand raised against him.  So that's I, what I did.  Defended it, him, I mean." Gail answered. 
Tomas noted that Gail was tangling her words, as if she were under terrible tension.  Undoubtedly, the Swordmistress had noticed already. "That is your duty, Gail.  We are not upset that you did your duty.  Now, tell us what you did, so we can all go to bed." 
"But I drew blood," Gail protested.  The others looked at Gail in bafflement.  "My other arm was free, and I defended Your Grace, the kon I mean.  I drew and I struck him across his arm. With my sword.  He fell back screaming, and several townspeople held him.  Then he threatened to tell Your Excellency.  And have me flogged. Or hanged.  But he was right.  I drew blood." 
"Sword edges do that," the Swordmistress said blandly.  
"Oh, no, Your Grace, I'd never do that with an edge.  I used the back face.  The edge of my sword would have taken off his arm.  At least, the edge did the other time I used one on a woman -- the other women, I mean.  It was before I joined your service," Gail explained, suddenly moving rapidly to cover her tracks.
"Other women?" Tomas put one and three together.  Evaine and Gail had had a very difficult trip to reach Torinsdale.  A few things had happened that Evaine refused to discuss, and Gail was too frightened to talk about.   "No, that's before.  You were not in a Domain.  You are a good person.  The other people weren't."  Tomas was quite certain that after Evaine finished her subsequent discussion with the other people, a remarkably short time later, they were not people at all, only body parts.  Small body parts.  "That's not at issue."  
The Swordmistress continued. "So you blooded the mayor, sheathed your sword, finally remembered to take it out and clean sword and sheath, and then sheathed it again, yes?" 
Gail snapped to attention. "Yes, SwordMistress.  I confess that fault, too." 
"Half the world makes that mistake, first time their sword is blooded.  Sheathing a sword, a crowd around you, is likely smart, even if cleaning is a bear later," the SwordMistress added.
"That man," Tomas said disgustedly, "that man laid a hand on you.  On me.  He's lucky he still has an arm!"  He stood.  "Gail, you did the right thing. Didn't she?"  He looked at the SwordMistress, wishing after the fact that he'd asked first, spoken later.  
"You have to ask?  No, the right thing.  Now, Gail, you are to go to your quarters." SwordMistress sniffed. "Take a decent bath first.  That's an order.  Take a longish hot bath, the water will still be warm.  You aren't in a Circle yet, are you?"  Gail shook her head confusedly.  "If you were, I would wake your Mirror and tell him that you needed his comfort, no matter the hour, though I imagine you are too tired to do anything but cuddle.  Bathe and go to bed.  And sleep until you wake up."  She decided not to tell the girl that the bath was to ease obviously sore legs, not to deal with cleanliness.  "Go!"     
Nicely incluing part of the nature of a Circle.  
We are also starting to wonder about Gail and Evaine's backstory.
* * * * *
Evaine slept lightly, waking once and again to odd noises.  She lay on her stomach, overlooking a floor-to-ceiling window with view of the Tower.  Conveniently, the full curtains had been left open. Her view of the tower was superb. The inn had a very large long-haired tomcat, delighted to have company that would feed him, not to mention delighted to find he could sleep between her outstretched legs, where her knees would heat him from both sides.  Fortunately, it was a wide bed.  She couldn't risk a counterpane.  The warmth was certainly pleasant.   
The sky had lightened. Soon the Lesser Ascension would peer over the eastern hills.  She had mapped out where she should watch and wait.  Her night cloak draped over her, she crept between buildings, slowly, irregularly, taking a vantage point in a building she had searched yesterday.  She had propped the door ajar, a weak possible risk.  If there were two hundred pirates wandering about town, none could say what another had done.  She tiptoed up to the second floor, on boards whose creaks were mostly remembered and avoided, and cautiously slipped prone onto a latticed porch overlooking the harbor.  Waves slapped against the beach.  The cry of gulls came from above.  To the east, the sky became brighter and brighter.   Her eyes darted across the waterfront, waiting for changes, waiting for people fleeing at first light.  A large wave broke at its further end, rolling over into an involuted spiral.  A shearwater flew just ahead of the break, its speed matched to the spiraling wave so that it seemed to be dragging the wave down with its wing.  Sails turned bronze, first at the top, then lower down.   The first tip of the Lesser Daughter, the finest bead of blinding ruby, peaked over the ridge line.  She averted her eyes.  It had been a beautiful morning, alas, devoid of prey.  Now was time for breakfast.  
I'm pretty sure the sun peeked, rather than peaking.
In the distance there came voices singing.  That was almost surely Avis's alto framing the Paean to Dawn.   There were people in the Town Square.  Those people, two in a horsecart, two on horseback, all wore kons identical to Evaine's.  She wondered idly how large a stock of those Tomas had.  On entering the Square, she did remember a proper bow to Milady Caer Justiciar Brianna Ruthsdotr.  Precedence between them was impossibly tangled.  
"We  hoped to be here last night," Brianna announced, "but first a horse went lame, then we realized we didn't know where in town you were, whether the town was cleared of, well, whatever, or whether you might ambush us in the dark, so we stopped at the last inhabited farmhouse, about six miles up the road.  The people were friendly, wondered that the road was so quiet, and had heard nothing from Longbeachport since the Quartersday, but they said, just before dawn, the morning before last, there was a strange sound, like thunder in the clear air, and after dawn they saw much smoke with the wind blowing it all out to sea.  What are we to do?"
That decided precedence, Evaine allowed.  Milady said that Evaine was in charge.  "We are looking for survivors.  Where are the people who committed these crimes?  Perhaps two hundred attackers entered town.  Either they left by boat or they are hiding here."
"What do we do if we find them?" asked one of Brianna's escorts, a young woman Evaine didn't know.
"They are Necromancers.  They may lawfully be killed," Evaine answered.  Maria Ruthsdotr's jaw dropped. "The Decree of the Council of Altairis, while aged, is clear.  If Milady wishes to see the evidence, I shall take her there. After that, Milady would best remain safe in the Sunspeaker Tower, with Avis operating the Sunspeaker.  The rest of us will search the town.  Perhaps an infant or child is hiding. "  
* * * * * *
Avis, sounding the tocsin, brought Evaine back to the town square.  The other women, Evaine noted, had come at the run down major streets.  She had traveled almost as swiftly, but had stayed out of sight until she could see where she was going.
"On the road," Avis shouted from atop the tower.
"What comes?" Evaine asked.
"His Excellency the Interlocutor," Avis answered.  "Four hands of Sisters.  A piece of High Levy.  I count three lines of thirteen women, and someone in front with a white banner, all in close formation."
Three lines of thirteen? Evaine wondered.  That was forty women--five hands, each of eight women.  Bringing the Torinsdale Levy into Longbeachport was a way to start a war, so Tomas had brought along an Interlocutor's guard, his women arranged in three men's dozens, with someone in front waving a flag.  She had not seen a formation arranged by men's count in years and years.  "Avis?" she called.  "Do these people have any point or flank guards?"
"Evaine?  There might be four riders, two hundred paces out," Avis answered.  
Evaine gritted her teeth. Someone needed to have her thinking clarified..  "The rest of you," she announced to the women in the square, "can get back to searching homes.  I must await my superior."  She shook out her tabard, more than a bit wrinkled from having been slept in.  Tomas was sometimes very picky about immaculate personal appearance, his scholarly absentmindedness notwithstanding.  The Sisters could sleep in their Lodge, after they cleaned out the bodies.  For the Levy, she had spotted a warehouse that was dry, clean, and empty.  
The formations came down the main street, lines of Levy and wedges of Sisters interspersed. Tomas had had to leave his wagons at the gate.  He followed the Levy, some of the Sisterhood staying further back. They didn't appear to be snarling at each other about precedence.  The first few corpses must have shaken them up.  Also, the woman commanding the Levy was Hilda Raesdotr, whose rank as Greatmother of the First Greathand reflected thirty years of practical experience.  To Evaine's memory Hilda had not seen real warfare.  She had formed up her women to chase a few bandits.
The Levy deployed to one side of the Square, the Sisters taking the other, while Tomas strode up the middle. Evaine found herself facing Tomas, Hilda, and a Sisterhood Greatmother she did not know, Milady the Caer Justiciar waiting politely to the side.  For a few moments, nothing was said.
"As your Banneret-Sole, I await your command, Tomas-Sur," Evaine said.
"To the contrary," Tomas announced, "you are momentarily Interlocutor-pro-tem of Longbeachport and environs, something about a Hideous Crime, so we await your commands.  Well, recommendations.  Besides, we have spent the day walking, and you have some idea what is happening here."
"Erica Linnasdotr," the Sister said, "Greatmistress, Greathand of the Hooded Merganser, Clan of the Raven, and Sheriff of Union and Longbeachport. You have some idea what is going on.  I don't.  What do you suggest?"
"Evaine, Evaine-sa-Orowan, Cornet to His Grace, Tomas, Shire Interlocutor," Evaine answered. She carefully stressed the word shire. "Stand not to ceremony.  This town is full of dead.  They need be buried, their names recorded from their clothing, their pets rescued. We were searching for survivors.  Or pirates.   The people who did it, three greathands of them, probably left by water.  Who were they? I found scant clues.  There's  housing--the Sorority Chapterhouse was looted, may need work.  Your wagons should be guarded.  The four of you should not wander about without half-hands of escorts.  Also, this town was recently attacked. Attackers might return.  We need a watch. And some plan to daughter the walls if attackers return." 
"What is a Domain Justiciar doing here?" Erica asked, not quite accusatorially, gesturing at Brianna Ruthsdotr.
"The Interlocutor wanted help solving a mystery," Brianna answered. "Here I am a private person."  Erica nodded acceptance.
Tomas smiled benignly.  "Forgive me, Evaine.  You said something in your message about Necromancy, and you didn't appear to mean the whipping girls, either."  Evaine allowed that Tomas's odd humor was known to the women with him.
"I found a body," Evaine said.  "A pirate, I think, given the peculiar hair style, clothing, and weapons.  The pirate was a man.  We can see him on the way to the Sanctuary, where sits the proof of Necromancy. If you will follow me?"  She turned and started to walk.
By the time they had reached the Sanctuary, voices behind her spoke of Handmothers taking their women hither and thither, wagons being brought around the town, bodyguards being assigned to Tomas and his companions, and preparations being made for recording, recovering, and burying the dead.  Tomas had stared at the dead man, made notes, and announced how the dead pirate was to be treated.  
At the Sanctuary, Evaine stood to one side.  The women and their bodyguards took in the devastation.  She steadfastly did not look over her shoulder to see who had run from the sight.  Without exception the High Levy would participate in clearing the Hall.  It would pain them, but afterwards the sight and smell of battle would not be strange to their eyes.  An imperturbable Tomas stepped gingerly around the bodies in the Sanctuary, surveyed the altar, and climbed to the Lectern to sketch the scene.
"This will be difficult," he announced, "for whoever does the burials.  The Goddess's Voice rests now in her bosom, but--I researched Necromancy last night, and my references don't mention the, how shall I say it, level of dismemberment seen here."  Tomas was sometimes unemotional, at least for a man.  His detachment had now become frightening.  "Longbeachport was largely Orthodox?" he asked.  Erica Linnasdotr nodded.  "The dear departed need to be buried swiftly.  I will specify what needs to be recorded for each body.  I certainly cannot by myself record all these deaths."  He finished his sketching.  "Let us go out to the fresh air and consider this.  Then I shall want lunch.  I am positively famished."

Chapter 3
Caer Adurel
Springhint 18, 2446
Tomas Cheryl Maserin-sa-Torinsdale sat in Caer Adurel's great library, pondering what he should write.  Once upon a time, the library had been small-windowed, paneled in dark wood, exceedingly aged tapestries, and heavy green felt curtains.  Its contents paralleled the minds of its former owners: romances, histories, and routine volumes on law.  As a very young man he had gone to his grandmother, the Landgrafin, and proposed how it should be rebuilt.  He had persuaded, the Lady only knew how, the High Priestess of the Vale to accompany him in support.  To his great surprise, the Priestess had talked grandmother into acceding to his wishes.  That meant traveling to Capitol, becoming an educated man, becoming a sorcerer, buying many books…and discovering his true nature.  Of the last, he had never spoken to his grandmother, mother, or sisters.
The library faced north. It had been opened to the sky. Great broad windows of clear glass rose from the floor up to the ceiling.  Dark-paneled wood had been replaced with whitewashed walls, bleached-elm floors, and sheepskin carpets.  The ceiling was lined with gently-slanting sets of silvered mirrors facing a southern skylight.  Silvering was perhaps an affectation, but he had returned with the secret, and given demonstration of it. The book collection was thoroughly new, Tomas having returned from his years at University with crate after crate of useful books, in most cases with copying rights.  Copying Rights? The Infirmarian at Longbeachport had wanted a half-dozen herbals and distillate guides.  A Caer woman made the copies, for a fee, and Tomas and the Publisher many days travel away each received a further fee for the copying.  The Useful Works by and by paid for themselves, even before you counted the improvements across Torinsdale in mills and wheels and roads and sewers. The copying rights to the romances had made Tomas's Folly a substantial source of income. 
The last weeks had been a whirl of activity, with levies marching hither and thither, death services, Swordsisters to pacify, and careful notes to collect.  Fortunately, he was a man, so no one expected him to do anything useful.  He could go about his duties as Interlocutor, recording the names of those for whom he spoke, noting evidence, and preparing his preliminary report to the Republic's authorities.  Evaine had been her usual efficient self.  The Innkeeper and family had returned from their travels the day after the event, so there had been no difficulty identifying the dead.  
Tomas had found adequate precedents for the form of his report.  Admittedly, the mass death setting the precedent had involved five people, not the current two-score times that number, but that was purely a quantitative issue, about which only a woman would be concerned.  Ordering his notes around him, he began to write: 
"A report to the Serene Hall for Interlocution of the Northern Provinces, 
Concerning the Hideous Crimes perpetrated in the town of Longbeachport, as first reported the ninth day of the seventh month of this present year.  

May the Blessings of She Who Illuminates be upon us, and guide us in the fullness of time to Her Intended Insights!  
On or about Springhint Eighth, 2446, a person or persons unknown descended by sea upon Longbeachport, Shire Cismontane-by-the-Sea, and committed a Great Variety of Hideous Crimes.  They left by the same path.  I name them pirates, but cannot prove that they committed the legal act of piracy.  In specific: 
Of 205 residents of the town, 159 were murdered, as were four visitors from other places and one other person.  23 children of the same town, in age from four to twelve, have disappeared. Fourteen adult women, aged from fourteen to thirty, and one goodman, age fifty-eight, have disappeared.  Eight residents absent from the town survived and have returned to reside there.  
Longbeachport held a Chapterhouse of the Sorority of the Sword, House of the Raven. The eight Swordsisters present in the town perished.  
Longbeachport held a Temple of the Five Aspects.  Two Priestesses of the Aspect of the Illuminator were cruelly and hideously sacrificed upon their own Altar in a seeming perversion of the admittedly archaic Rite of the Sacrifice of the Enfleshed.  My Cornet, as Interlocutor Pro Tem, concluded and reported that the Crime of Necromancy was committed. It is my general recollection that acts of human sacrifice were explicitly criminalized during the War of the Three Aspects, but my codices are incomplete and fail to catalog crimes that have in no wise been committed in the most recent four millennia.  She asserts that the town gate was destroyed by Sorcery.  As a Sorcerer, I do not know a spell with those visible effects.   
I speak for the Dead and Missing to the Living.  
How did my clients die?  There were too many dead to perform thorough autopsies.  Perhaps half died of sword wounds, the sword being used primarily to thrust.  Very small children were bludgeoned to death and thrown in the harbor.  Others were apparently killed by that ancient weapon, the pellet-sling.  The pellet-sling drives small lead weights against the skull or other body parts.  Either the murderers were unnaturally strong, or published reports in sling pellets are understated, because the weights were driven entirely through flesh or bone, resulting in death by bleeding.  The gate-sentry died when a sling pellet penetrated her breastplate and body, severing her spine. I am at a loss to explain how a sling might drive a pellet so hard.  
What are the wider circumstances?  
1) The gate-guard was one Mathilde Mathildesdotr, an eight-year veteran of the Sorority.  She was identified to me by Goodman Antonio Undrasson, Keeper of the Town's tavern and stewhouse, The House That Floats, when he returned to town.
The Chapterhouse watch-schedule shows Swordsister Mathilde as gate-guard  from Recension until Lesser Ascension on Springhint Seventh, and not for two days to either side of this date.  Tally marks on the Chapterhouse notice board imply she made each of her scheduled walkabouts, and perished near to first light, Springhint Eighth, 2446.  
19 residents were found dead, fully dressed, in places about town. (Map, list, attached)  These persons would all have risen before first light, e.g., two bakers and an assistant, the Tavern's breakfast cook, etc.  Another 15 residents were found dead in various places, including five in their own beds, wearing bedclothes, dressing gowns, or other hastily gathered garments.  There was a peculiar pattern to their deaths: those wounded from the front were stabbed.  Those wounded in the back had most often been struck with lead sling pellets.  
125 residents and visitors of the town were found dead in or near the Sanctuary.  Some had taken up arms.  Swords, staffs, and other weapons bearing their names were found at the Sanctuary entrance.  These residents all entered the Sanctuary, leaving their weapons outside, in obedience to Her Revealed Word.  While within the Sanctuary, these persons were slain by unknown persons and means.  
The Sanctuary was substantially destroyed.  The front wall was pushed inward, as though shoved by a mammoth, but access to the front wall is through narrow paths not passable to the great beasts.  The main roof beam collapsed. The roof lay scattered on the cobbles.  The windows, including a stained glass panel attributed to David of Marcellin, were reduced to fragments.  Those of my clients found near the front wall were maimed and crushed.  
Within the Sanctuary, men clustered around the altar.  Surrounding them was a circle of older women.  The younger women, those who survived the collapse of the front wall, were closest to the front entrance.  I infer that the wall collapsed before they formed their line, because their backs that were lacerated by broken glass from the windows.  They faced the rear of the Sanctuary.  Some younger women were holding chairs, candle sticks, or other heavy objects that would in other circumstances be identified as makeshift weapons.  These events took place within a Sanctuary, so this interpretation is not admissible.
I think "that" was left in by mistake.  
Love the way he tiptoes around a shocking conclusion.
 The remaining seven Swordsisters were found within the town.  Three, dressed, swords drawn, were found on the main street.  They had been running toward the gate when they fell.  Two others, wearing dressing gowns and slippers, were found immediately outside the Chapterhouse, apparently standing in front of their door when they died.  Two were in the Chapterhouse, killed in their sleep.  
Details of the deaths of two Priestesses are to be forwarded separately to the eternal authorities by the First Priestess of Caer Adurel.  A diligent search was made of the town.  House pets were rescued.  Shattered doors and windows were boarded shut. Buildings were cleaned of perishables and then put under my seal.  There are clear indications of a variety of crimes. Throughout the town, book-shelves are bare.  Dressers were opened and searched.  We found no metal coins, no jewelry.  The establishment that sold books, gems, fine fabrics, ceramics, and spices  was stripped bare.  Not one establishment had an account ledger.  The temple library was stripped. 
At the edge of town, there was clear evidence of a pyre.  Several persons, who may have been among the missing, were given the Rite of Purification by Fire, the Fire being fueled by books.  I can name no legal or theological rule that demands such expensive fuel.  It is perhaps interesting to note what was not taken.  The town was captured by pirates.  Pirates commonly need of weapons.  Almost no weapons were taken.  The Chapterhouse armory was intact, a count of weapons agreeing with the tally board on its wall. The stock of arrows appears intact.  Weapons of fallen Swordsisters remained where they fell.   The Chapterhouse's formal sword is not to be found; the weapon in question was an ornamental device of blown glass.  
Now those bastards have got me angry!  
"Of" intrusive here.
I found one strange body, arguably that of a pirate, notwithstanding the male gender of the deceased.  He lay in a side alley, shot through the head at short range with a crossbow.  His weapon was a four-foot spear, crudely made, with an enormously heavy hollow iron spear shaft and bizarre hand piece with ineptly-made guard.  He also wore a short sword, poorly made and finished. The Caer Adurel SwordMistress notes that the sword scabbard was metal, making it impossible to keep a good edge on the sword.  To her recollection, metal scabbards are almost unknown, even among the horse barbarians.  
The pirate's clothing was equally odd.  He wore women's trousers, not a proper great-kilt, a heavy jacket over long-sleeved tunic, long well-worn boots stained black, and a peculiar hat, whose form somewhat resembles a large souffle.   The clothing was poorly sewn. The fabric was hand spun and hand-woven.  It is remarkable that such an expensive fabric would be so poorly tailored.   Pants and jacket were a dark green with white trim; the tunic was white. Buttons were cast brass; they bore in profile a human face and inartistic squiggles.  A backpack held several days of poorly baked waybread, cheese and sausage, a tight-rolled oil cloth or poncho, a pipe, an associated packet of dried leaves that are certainly no smoking material with which I am familiar, a near-antique sparking tinderbox, and miscellaneous personal items.  Purses on his belt held several cups of sling balls and paper sachets filled with charcoal.
Lovely inclue to the tech level of the invaded.  And now I know that the "spear" is *not* a rifle.  
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Whoops -- I used a search for "woven" to find the place where Elaine noticed that the clothing was homspun, typed the below, realized that this was part of the report that I'd been referring to as "later", went back to find the proper place to paste it in -- and discovered that Elaine, in fact, didn't notice that the clothing was homespun.  But my point still stands, and I don't feel like re-writing it to suit the facts.
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Howsumever, you can't tell hand-spun thread from machine-spun thread by looking at it, nor does the output of a power loom differ in any way from the output of a hand loom.  Well, nowadays power looms make wide, wide fabric and then slit it to the desired width, and the threads are put in one at a time instead of running back and forth to make selvages, but you can't tell that from the cut-and-sewn product.  Not to mention that fabrics still had selvages long after electricty became the default way to light rooms and send messages.  
Two possibilities:  
One:  have Elaine notice features of cheap hand-woven fabric that are expensive to reproduce with power weaving:  for example, coarse fabric uses more fiber, and the savings in labor isn't significant.  Probably wouldn't be slubs and irregularities in the yarn, as are put in with great effort in power-loomed "Homespun" fabrics, because the spinners are going to get lots and lots of practice.   Also, I suspect that the invaders have spinning wheels, so the yarn isn't *strictly* handspun, if you're the sort of picky person who won't call fabric "hand woven" unless the loom uses a plain shuttle that can't be thrown across the shed.  I personally don't make this distinction, for I feel that the only reason for hand weaving is to get small runs it isn't worth your while to set up a power loom to make.  (A hundred-yard roll of fabric is a *sample*, in the wholesale-fabric trade.)
The other possibility is to have Elaine notice that the clothing was sewn together by hand.  Hand sewing is strikingly different from machine sewing -- there was once an embroidery machine which could duplicate hand embroidery closely enought that you could tell for sure only by finding a repeated mistake, but if any remain they are in museums and not in working condition.  They were very expensive and complicated, and people who care about the difference aren't likely to accept by-the-yard embroidery.   People who can make counting looms can make such machines, but I can't think of any reason they would want to -- and they were never used for sewing seams.  So hand sewing would be obvious.  
Which makes me think of a third possibility:  hand embroidery on obviously-cheap clothing.  This could attract her attention -- even machine embroidery is expensive -- and cause her to notice the less-obvious stitching in the seams.  Or she could notice that top-stitching is done by hand, and later reports could note that even the long seams, which even the finest tailors do by machine, are hand sewn.   
The decedent's personal hygiene was unbelievable. He appears not to have bathed in weeks; facial hair had been allowed to grow without check.  His hands and one side of his face were peculiarly blackened, seemingly with charcoal. I infer he was a lunatic; his clothing was both idiosyncratic and marginally adequately sewn.  I cannot explain how a lunatic, one unable to bathe or shave, could manage such detail in designing his dress.  Nor can I explain from where he came, since a diligent check of secular, temporal, and eternal records finds no hint that such a lunatic is missing anywhere in the shire.  
An artist sketched his face (attached) and livery.  A careful medical examination revealed a variety of scars, most from weapons.  We believe he also had scars from smallpox.  I have ensured that all persons who entered the town were properly re-vaccinated. On completely removing his clothing, we found to our astonishment that the deceased had not been Rendered Fit To Serve Her Desires.  It is beyond my comprehension how this rite, which is honored even by the horse barbarians of the uttermost east, could have been avoided by a male after adulthood was reached.  Surely he must have been totally insane.  His clothing and personal effects were placed under seal.  
From the available evidence the pirates arrived by boat at points south of town, and departed by boat from the town. The boats disappeared as thoroughly as did the great canoes of the Sea Eagles.
 Given this nineteenth day of the seventh month of the Year 2446 by the Hand of Tomas Cheryl-sur-Maserin-sa-Torinsdale, Heir-Second of Torinsdale, Interlocutor at Large to the Shire of Cismontane-by-the-Sea." 
The sun was much closer to the horizon.  There was still time for a second letter, this to a good if now distant friend, someone who loved puzzles.  He began a second letter:  
"By Coachmail.  
Tomas Cheryl-sur-Maserin-sa-Torinsdale 
Caer Adurel 
Springhint the Nineteenth, 2446
to 

Roxanne-sa-Anglewood-brith-Emmitsford 
Keep of the First Ascension 
Dianasmere 
Dearest Roxanne, 
Oh fairest of the fair, (and such other modifiers as will suffice to paint the lily, not that it would be possible to overstate your attributes), 
I am faced with a most peculiar mystery, one perhaps suited to your talents and interests.  Ten mornings ago, someone or something marched through the local port (Longbeachport), slaughtered or kidnapped every inhabitant (ca. three greathands(!) in number ), and vanished.  The Sorority had a Hand present.  They died, swords unblooded.  We found one apparent villain, dead, peculiarly and absurdly armed.  
I attach a blind copy of my report as Interlocutor.  The villain may have been a red herring to hide the actual criminals.  Where did the culprits manage to find an adult male in the deceased's state?  I can't imagine.  The Sorority of the Sword ought to be interested in this event because it is not good form for a town under your protection to be taken and its population put to the sword (if you will forgive the antiquated language), without your inflicting casualties on the perpetrators.  Also, the Town Gate was forced open by means I cannot identify, means sufficiently odd that my usually imperturbable Cornet interpreted the means as sorcery, which to my knowledge it was not.  If you would care to visit Torinsdale, we would be delighted to have a famous guest.  If you were so inclined, I would personally see to your needs while you were here.  I attach a longer missive on our more familiar and pleasant news.  I remain keeping you and yours most warmly in my memory,
Tomas" 
Finally, Tomas noted, there would be his report to the Halls of Darkness.  That would be short and precise.  Once carefully written, it would be time for him to commune with The Lightnings That Speak.  His message would be born on sweet metaled wings, flying from Torinsdale to the Dark Lords in no time at all, or perhaps only so little time that no one had been able to measure it.
Spark-gap radio?  Ah, "metal  wings" -- must be a telegraph.
* * * * *
Well to Tomas's south, another messenger sat in a steelroad coach, sitting unsmiling while the miles rolled by outside. Every few hours, the horses were changed.  Lanterns and pavement meant the coaches would continue both day and night, but even for a messenger with an iron constitution Dianasmere was an eight-day of travel away. The Greatmistress  had been most emphatic that the missive was to reach the Sisterhood as soon as possible, and as soon as humanly possibly the missive would be delivered. She had committed the substance of the message to memory, but the message packet, sewn in oilskin, rode under her clothing.  Having thought of the message, she repeated in the voice of her mind what it said:
Enciphered: Starhand/J.  
Greatmistress Erica Linnasdotr - Ravens-sib 
Springhint Sixteenth 2546
Longbeachport, Cismontanebythesea 

addressing 

Council on Training, Advice, Comradery, and Leadership 
Sisterhood of the Raven 
We reached Longbeach Port seven days ago soon after Second Ascension.  There were no incidents in travel.  The Chapterhouse was damaged.  We occupy guest quarters.  Armory is intact.  Kitchens are being aired.  Longbeachport's surviving residents, two fisherfolk, four innkeepers, a blacksmith and daughters, are delighted to have close customers.  
The Chapterhouse was thoroughly searched.  The House Diary's last entry is 'Thunder. Fire - main gate. Screams.  Bandits. Duty Hand to gate.'  Fortunately, the House Diary was returned to its vault immediately, failing which it would have joined the other books of Longbeachport in being burned.   The Chapterhouse's front door was broken open.  Tomas Interlocutor said 'ram'.  Wall behind door was holed.  A fourth's gallonsweight lead weight was buried in plaster rubble beyond.  Weight and wall sections will be forwarded.  
The Temple was smashed. Something tore down a reinforced stone wall, gave those within slight time to prepare to defend themselves, and killed them.  Absent heavy siege machines, of which there are no traces, no one understands what could so thoroughly have broken the Sanctuary.  If those within left other clues for us, the clues were lost when the bodies were removed and the Sanctuary was washed and censed.  We can conclude that the something was visible to the Longbeachport residents.  They did not face an invisible demon of the upper air.  The women trapped within the former Sanctuary finally took up arms to defend themselves. 
There was a trail.  A large group of women (I say women, but the strange corpse was a man) appeared at a beach well south of Longbeachport, camped a half day or day, marched across fields to the road, and entered town.  There was no departure trail.  On the docks were scattered bits of clothing and general disarray.  I infer boats were used; where did they go? 
Joseline-sa-Torinsdale-sur-Maserin raised her High Levy without delay.  For a Domain Ladyling, she actually has some sense and energy.  The coast was searched for five leagues north and south of Longbeachport, with no sign of another landing.  Pirates and missing children vanished as if swept from the earth.  
May Her Aspect as Devastator fall upon them!  
Erica L. 

Chapter 4
Keep of The Ascension, Dianasmere
Flower 3, 2446

Mid-morning.  Roxanne-sa-Anglewood sat on her patio, a pot of herbal sun-tea close to hand, reading a stack of reports.  Leaning against the stack was the coach-mail packet she had vowed not to openuntil her work was done.  Overhead, beams of wood intertwined with freshly budding wisteria vines broke up the sunlight, setting dappled shadows across the table.  The season was already turning to Summer's heat.  By FireTouch, three months hence, the leaves would be a solid, cooling mass.  
Around her were the distant sounds of the Keep of the Ascension, the clatter of wagons on the horse-road below the town, and the shrieks of little girls.  They were headed home for lunch, with more school in the afternoon.  She tried to stay tightly focused on her reading, reports on training and equipage for Greathands of the Sisterhood across the One World. 

Greathand Lysimachia had sent a report by courier.  That was a red mark for them already.  They had not bothered to prepare reports in a timely way, so they had had to hire space on a steelroad coach to file on time.  She had given them the courtesy they deserved.  It would be the last report she read.  

She opened the document, scanned numbers in startlement, and suppressed a gasp at the Remarks section: 'On Springhint Eighth of this the 2446th Year of Her Perfected Revelation, pirates attacked Longbeachport.  Lysimachia's Third Hand died in combat. Estimates of special expenses are attached.' 
 
A whole Hand, Roxanne thought, dead at once?  No mention of recovery via weregeld?    Sisters did die by unnatural means.  Losing an entire Hand, eight well-trained women, only happened in wars.  The Senate would want a full report.  The information needed for that report, traveling via freight mail, might require weeks to arrive. 

She paused. Her dear friend never used coach mail.  It was an extravagance he refused to make.  Now, here from him was a large coach mail packet. She opened Tomas's letter, her subconscious comments to herself becoming increasingly sulphurous as she read.  The Sisterhood had lost a town!  Not a big town, but a town, walled, guarded, gated. Worse, they hadn't killed any assailants.  Some townsdaughter had killed one.

She read the Lysimachia report against Tomas's words.  'Died in their sleep' was not synonymous with 'died in battle'.  Was Tomas mistaken about how two women, whom he had personally found dead, had died?  Or was the Sisterhood report opaque? Tomas's invitation would have been extremely tempting, even without the mystery.  It had been far too long.  Arranging vacation time would be a challenge.  But a discrepancy between statements of the Lysimachia Greatmistress and a Cismontane Interlocutor was immediately the business of the Inspectorate. She would arrange to be ordered to go.

Who would give that order?  She had choices.  Sisterhood was to be surprised when she visited Longbeachport.  The Senate had been irked with her, and was unlikely to want her to make more trouble.  That left Temple.  Getting Temple orders would be straightforward.  Someone had sliced a pair of Priestesses open from gizzard to tail, spilling their innards on their own Altar.  

There came the distant sound of a door harp and the not-so-light patter of no-longer-quite-so-small feet.  "Dotty?" she called to her daughter.  "I'm on the porch."  

"Yes, Mum.  On my way."  A thump was pack going down -- perhaps even in the correct place; Dotty was really very good about that -- followed by a sweep of feet and the fairly gentle opening and shutting of the porch half-door.  Roxanne looked up and smiled as her daughter rushed into her arms.  
 
"School was really good today, Mum.  It was history, and we got to do maths, and -- did you really kill that many people, Mum?" Dotty asked.  

Roxanne paused. "What was history today, Dotty?" Kill people? Some women, their little fiscal irregularities uncovered by her inspections, resorted to violence to hide their deeds.  So far, those moments of excitement had always been been less fortunate for them than for her.  Despite rigorous physical training with sword and spear, travel for inspections might eventually kill her.

"About the Senate, the mothers of the re, re, Republic.  And we're doing everyone's mother's place.  And we got the Inspectoring ..Inspectoration ...Inspectorate? today."  Dotty continued.  

"Inspectorate," her mother whispered.   Once upon a time, each Greathand reported directly to the Senate.  As centuries passed, Senate interest in anything other than its social calendar faded.  Finally the Sisterhood was told to review itself. Several cycles of mild scandal made clear there should be a separate Inspectorate.

"Why did you decide to be an Inspector, Mommy?" Dotty asked.

"Actually, I didn't.  You become a Swordsister, or a Priestess, or a Senate adjunct.  And someone decides for you that you should do inspecting," Roxanne answered.   Dotty nodded thoughtfully.  She'd finally reached the age at which Mommy's job was interesting.  Roxanne decided not to explain that [she] had been promoted into the Inspectorate because promotion within the Sisterhood was inconvenient.  She had had too many good ideas.

"But you like it, don't you?  You always say you do," Dotty said.  

"Absolutely," Roxanne answered.  That was perfectly true.  She had found herself in an organization that actually rewarded innovation.  Her simple idea -- she couldn't imagine why no one had invented it centuries earlier -- was to systematize the quarteryear report, so a clerk, checking if a Greathand had the statutory allotment of uniforms, would always find the same facts in the same order.  Roxanne contrived the style as a labor-scavenging tool, something that helped the Inspectorate focus on substantial issues: quality of training, command irregularities, and patterns of corruption.  A decade after her reforms went into effect, the Senate promoted her to Greatmistress of Greatmistresses.  Enough rank, she realized, to command three and a half thousand Inspectors, Goddess forefend there should ever be that many.  

"Demara taught the lesson, and what the Inspectorate does.  And counted all the wicked people you caught, who tried to get away." Agate eyes turned suddenly very thoughtful.  "Mum?  Isn't that dangerous?  For you?  I mean, if you're trying to kill them aren't they doing the same thing back?" 

"Dotty?  Nothing dangerous has happened in a long time." Almost nothing, she added to herself, because since Dotty's birth she had taken exacting precautions to make it so. She also trained rigorously with sword and spear.  "But Demara and I knew each other for years and years.  When I was a lot younger things were interesting.  That's not what the Inspectorate does, not at all.  We don't kill people.  We pile up pieces of paper. Like these!" She pointed at the stack of reports. The full set of reports covered more than thirty-three thousand women, over 600 Formed Greathands of Sword-Sisters, each with its own home barracks, uniforms, training, food, supplies, and annual report.  

"We shuffle paper," Roxanne explained.  "No matter how many silly adventure novels get written about us.  How many people did she say I killed, anyhow?" If you believed every adventure novel, by now the Inspectorate would have depopulated North Shore.  

"Oh, four hands and three." Dorothy paused to think to herself. "That's three dozens less four, or, ummh, five and thirty."  Roxanne hugged her.  Converting that fast to men's and formal units deserved a reward.  "Did you, Mommy?"

"That was a long time ago," Roxanne answered. "I didn't keep count."  Demara did, so that number was probably correct.  The Sisterhood had gone through a difficult patch.  Then they discovered they no longer had a pliant Inspectorate that would close their eyes to error.  The Sisterhood had finally recovered from that attitude.  The three women last summer hardly counted.  The fools had attacked with kitchen knives.  What had they thought her sword was? They had been surprised when she came at them rather than waiting for them to encircle her.   However, they hadn't been surprised or anything else for very long.  

"Oh, good," Dotty said.  "You're sure?"  Mother nodded.  "Tomorrow we start reading about Sea Eagles.  Where do Sea Eagles come from, Mum?" 

"No one knows, dear," Roxanne answered.  "They went away, and never came back."  

"Never?" Dotty asked.   She had a well developed suspicion of people who said 'never'.  Sometimes they meant something else.  "Why not?" 

"Never.  So far. No one knows that, either, dear.  They showed up on their big boats, made trouble..." 

"Killed people.  And ate them!" Dorothy interrupted.

"and the Sisterhood stopped them," Roxanne said.  

"Maybe someone ate them instead." Dotty suggested.  Roxanne tried not to shake her head.  No one knew where Sea Eagles came from.  "Would it be fun to watch a real battle, Mum?" Dotty asked.  
 
"Not really," her mother answered.  "If you were far away, you couldn't see.  If you were close, you wouldn't like it.  Besides, there hasn't been a real battle in a greathand of years." 

"Oh.  Then I never will."  She sounded slightly disappointed.  "Could we have lunch now?" Dotty asked.  "I stopped at the baker, brought the bread and meat pies.  And at the milker I had my mug, boiled like you always say.  Oh, and I'm supposed to ask you.  My sib could do a trip, a six-week in the country.  We said in summer, but it can be next month instead.  Athena said she was sorry it was so early, but the other group changed their mind, so this was the chance.  Please?" 

Roxanne felt a moment's relief.  Dorothy was a wonderfully good little girl, but forever asking her aunts to put up with her for a few weeks was unfair.  In another year or two, Dotty could come along on the safe trips, but a week steady in a rail-coach would be a grueling experience for a young girl.  Still, she had to be fair and ask.  

"Dotty, you know those trips I sometimes take?"  Roxanne said.  The little girl frowned a bit. "I have another one, I think.  It's while you'd be in the country.  But you could come with me instead.  You'll ride in a rail coach for a week steady, day and night.  Cismontane-by-the-Sea is way north. You'd need your cold weather clothes."  Dorothy looked thoughtful.  

"Mum, can I go to the country?  Please?  At school we all promised each other we'd all go if our moms and aunts would say yes. I want to see the cherry trees blossom.  Please?"  There was a pause in what she was saying. "I mean, I'd love to go with you.  Please?  Especially if there's another flijtschiff in it.   But I promised." 

"You promised?  Then you should.  Besides, I go on lots of trips.  Most to places more interesting than far Northcoast.  I can take you another time," Roxanne promised. Dotty was very good about never mentioning the flijtschiff unless they were alone.  How Tomas had arranged the trip for Dotty was obscure.  Most Senators never rode in a flijtschiff.  

Dorothy smiled. "Isn't Northcoast where that nice man is from?    The one who took me on the flijtschiff?  The one who visited last year and brought me my necklace? The one I wear for Wintersdeep?  He was very nice to me.  Almost as nice as you or my Aunts." 

"You remember Tomas?!  He is very sweet.  And he's bright, too, especially for a man.  In fact, they made him a shire inspector -- Interlocutor.  There aren't a lot of men you'd trust with a real job, even one that only requires sitting and writing," Roxanne said.
 
"Is he good to you, too, Mum?" Dotty asked.  Roxanne only grinned.  "If you can't bring him back again, will you bring me home a baby sister?" 

Roxanne smiled.  "That is as the Goddess wills, Dotty."  She thought to herself.  "Of course, I might."  It had, after all, happened once with Tomas, though Dotty hadn't quite figured that out yet.  After all, this was the Republic, not a Ladied domain:  A well-brought-up young girl was very definitely not supposed to know her father's name.  In most cases, even if the young lady had wanted to know, her father's name could not be determined with certainty.  Dorothy happened to be different, but she could learn that when she was older and more level-headed about such things.  

"Can we have lunch now?" Dorothy asked. "Before the pies get cold?" She followed her mother into the spare, wood paneled kitchen, setting plates and knives and napkins on the table while mother set out apples and cheese and pies and pickled beets, sliced the bread, and drew fresh water from the main.  It was almost noon. They sat, waited for the bells to mark the moment, and sang in the Second Recension, Dorothy's high-pitched notes punctuating Roxanne's steadier, deeper tones.  

"Why are you going to Cismontane, Mum?" Dorothy asked between bites of pie, a slice of well-buttered bread, and carefully eaten sections of beet.  "Or can't you say?"  She'd finally accepted that mum sometimes did have secrets, even from her, and it was okay, because mum didn't like it either.

"Well, Dotty, if I go, it's because Temple or Senate or Sisterhood says so," Roxanne said.  "They still have to say.  But it's the usual.  One person says one thing. Another says another. I sort it all out." That was her task as Great Inspector of Field Forces.  The title was not an accident.  Once she set in place the system that allowed a single person to check every report, she had been politely set aside, her rank notwithstanding.  Roxanne, the Sisterhood claimed, was needed in the field, not in North Capitol reading memoranda.  They gave her the Distinction 'Great Inspector of Field Forces'.  Noting that her duties necessitated regular travel, the Sisterhood then appointed someone else to be Inspectorate member of the General Council. The Senate had grumbled, enough to insist that Roxanne was of Council Rank. If the Sisterhood ever served as an army, Roxanne was one of the dozen women legally qualified to command it.  In all these dealing the Sisterhood had not spoken accusations against her personal inclinations, but she knew the truth: The birth of her daughter was the precipitating factor. The Sisterhood [had] realized that Roxanne-sa-Anglewood-brith-Emmitsford was one of them. 
Ooh, who is *them*? 

"Oh.  I understand," Dorothy said.  Then she looked thoughtful.  "Mum, this place isn't near, ummh, Noralin, is it?  That's on North coast, isn't it?  One of the girls at school was saying, she'd heard from her Mom, the Sea Eagles came back last month and killed lots of people.  Except I didn't believe her, because the Sea Eagles never came back." 

Roxanne's eyes lit up. Noralin was on the other side of Torinsdale, but sometimes rumors traveled oddly.   How had Dotty heard that?  Roxanne had only heard unofficially and indirectly, and that today.  "Who said that?" she asked.  

Dorothy thought for a moment.  "Haley.  Haley Haleysdotr.  Her Mom's in the Sisterhood.  She came to school a couple months ago, wore this all-black costume.  For walking at night, no one seeing you." 

Roxanne remembered the name.  Haley's mother was in a Hidden Greathand, a group that did its work scouting, lurking, and observing.   Haley-sa-Greenfield was Advisor to the General Council, someone to tell the Greatmistresses of Greatmistresses, those who'd forgotten field conditions, what was possible and what no woman could possibly do.  "I'm going south of there.  To Caer Adurel.  But no one saw Sea Eagles, at least that I know," Roxanne said.  That was true.  The witnesses had all died.  What did they see, she wondered, just before then?   "Of course, it's north.  You have to be careful.  But it's not really dangerous."  Dorothy's mouth made a round 'Oh'.  "Now you should be going back to school, and I have to spend post-Recension at the Tower.  Let's see.  Tomorrow is Quarterday, so today you have rough-and-tumble games after lessons, right?" 

"Before lessons, too.  I've got pads and everything in my pack," Dorothy said. "That's why I wore my outdoors clothes -- all the girls did -- today." 

"Mistress Alanna doesn't mind, you wearing rough clothes, not scholar's robes, to class?" Roxanne asked.  

"She said to, days we do real rough and tumble," Dorothy answered.  "That's rough and tumble, morning and afternoon both, after all.  And she does, too, except last week.  Last week, she wore real armor, like you do.  And did all the rolls and drops we did, except she was a bit noisier.  But Master William -- he's the art teacher -- grumbles if we are not well-dressed, so we never wear rough clothes if he's showing up." 

"If he's showing up...?" Roxanne tried to keep the distress from her voice.

"Oh, mo-om.  He's a man.  What do you expect?" a querulous Dorothy answered.  

"Work?  You take the Council's silver, you do the Council's labor," Roxanne answered.  "Right?" 

"Right, mom," Dorothy said.  "He does.  When he's not sick.  But he's real old.  He's six dozen years and two years old.  When he's not sick, he's incredibly good.   He taught me how to draw people." 

Roxanne made a small note to herself.  Why was a goodman of a greathand and almost two hands years still teaching?  She had seen Dottie's drawings, and they were surprisingly well done. Some men did not end their years in an elder circle, but still, he was truly old.   She looked into the distance:  "That was the half-eighth chime.  Time for both of us to eat and go."

Chapter 4
Tower of the Eye, Dianasmere
Flower 3, 2446

The Tower of the Eye rose five stories above the steep, narrow hill that formed the northern end of the Keep.  Ringing the Tower was a plain stone wall whose gates were routinely locked and guarded, even in early afternoon, markers of a recent time in which corrupt public officials had tried through direct action to hinder the performance of the Inspectorate.  The City Mothers of Dianasmere lamented that the walls were unaesthetic. Their lamentations went unappreciated.

Guards greeted Roxanne and unlatched the gates.  An aide relieved Roxanne of her pack. Her papers were whisked off to her office, while she made her afternoon tour of the building. Each floor showed clerks and archivists hard at work.  All things considered, she thought, the Senate and Sisterhood had made an extremely peculiar arrangement of her administrative responsibilities.  She advised.  She could carry out projects by herself, or request that projects be done, but beyond her three students she lacked the authority to order anyone to perform any particular piece of work.  She could, however, report to the Senate on what had not been done, despite her recommendations.  Her requests for work all had to pass through the Greatmistress-Commander of the building, the building itself formally being a Greathand of the Sisterhood.  Roxanne's one bit of good fortune was that she knew well the Greatmistress in question.  

Greatmistress Leona Carolsdotr was a short, stocky woman, well beyond middle age, whose declining hearing led her to speak in a subdued bellow.  So far as she was concerned, there was a best way to perform every task, and a duty to perform that task the best way.  Roxanne found her to have one indispensable strength.  Leona was always willing to believe that besides the best way, there was a better way.  

"...the quarter reports with interesting features, Mistress Roxanne?  Might I ask what progress you've made with them?  We're always grateful for your suggestions," Leona said as she ushered the two of them into Roxanne's fourth-floor north-wall office.  The aide had thrown open the shutters, so bright spring sunlight passed through glazed windows.  

Roxanne gestured Leona into one of the well-padded office chairs. Courtesy of the former occupant, the office was ornately furnished.  Roxanne's predecessor had been very fond of creature comforts.  There was considerable suspicion -- under consideration by the Great Senate, because the Inspectorate did not inspect itself -- that her predecessor's ability to afford creature comforts was related to an inability to recognize certain deficiencies in financial reports.  

"All done," Roxanne answered, pulling reports one after the next from her pack.  Six hundred reports had taken two long weeks to read. "The usual bad actors, doing the usual things in the usual ways, and one anomaly I've chosen to consider myself.  Not, of course, that the Inspectorate itself is not free to review the same reports and come to the same conclusions.  My role is merely advisory.  I've marked in lead where we should, I recommend, compare with previous reports.  If I were in your place, I'd want to see the prior reports as well as the comparisons.  How is your work coming?" 

GreatMistress Leona judged the sun's height.  "The counting loom should be ready to weave soon, allowing we are passing these numbers as the pro forma claims.  Shall we see?"

"I found no wrong numbers.  However, there is something you need to know.  Greathand Lysimachia contrived, they say in battle, to lose a full Hand of women.  I have seen no other report of this," Roxanne said.

"My ears to the walls have not heard this either.  I allow it's in the fine printing at the end of the report?" Leona asked.  "What was the battle?"

"I have no admissible information on that," Roxanne said.  "However, I saw a discrepant report in faceless form.  I should probably go on, despite your usual taste."  Leona hated off-the-record information. "But my information must be under seal.  I suspect a need to inspect, and do not want to alert the inspected ones."

Leona nodded her agreement.  "How bad?"

"The Third Hand garrisoned Longbeachport, in Cismontane-by-the-Sea, way north of here.  Pirates attacked. The town died."  Leona's eyes rose.  "More than three greathands of people died or vanished.  The town was looted. There are no living witnesses.  There is an attested charge of True Necromancy, and a plausible accusation of Malevolent Sorcery.  Springhint Eighth," Roxanne said.  The only thing we are missing, Roxanne thought, from this pot of stone soup of a report, is the return of the Sorceress Nimue, or perhaps a Full Manifestation.

Leona sat back in her chair.  "Sorcery? The Daughter shield us? Your source is reliable?" she asked.

"Utterly," Roxanne answered.  

"How could we not know?  I need to think.  Shall we inspect the counting loom?" Leona asked.   

"Know?" Roxanne answered.  "How would news come here?  Freight mail, sent the day it happened, is still traveling.  Broadsheets from Cismontane, printed that week, are closer to us.  Who would pay sunspeaker fees to send word this far?  That's a greathand of relays, each with relaying fee. Lysimachia did send a courier, whose report just arrived.  Magicians may chat with lightning, but it will be a snowy day in Adirolph Granda before they tell us our bad news. Let's go."
I love that touch of realistic economics.
* * * * *

The top floor of the Tower of the Eye, the floor farthest removed from road dust, had once been used for storage.  Now it held a counting-machine, a mass of precision cut beryl-bronze gears locked behind crystal panels.  The massively solid roof above supported a seldom-used watchpost and the pair of wind turbines that drew water to the upper floors and raised the weights for the counting-loom and the rarely-used elevator.
There's something or the other wrong with the last sentence in the above paragraph.  

Roxanne had initially decided that it was better not to ask why Desdemona Gabriellesdotr had acquired the counting loom for the Greathand of Raporteurs.  Counting looms were fancified weaving machines.  You fed in stacks of cardboard, let massive weights turn the driveshafts, listened to gears click and clatter, and let numbers became totals or differences or complicated things.  

The counting loom had originally been the property of the House of Pwill in Dianasmere-on-the-Tweed, a money trader with which the Inspectorate had long placed a section of its endowment.  That House had made spectacular and unsuccessful loans to river merchants, and gone bankrupt.  The House's bankers were forcibly reduced to abject poverty, their property sold, their clothing reduced to the cloaks on their backs.  By Law, the Sisterhood was last in line in recovering its debts, and the Inspectorate last within the Sisterhood.  There had been a choice: the counting loom, or the pets and riding animals of the bankers' minor children.  

More conservative voices proposed that the riding animals at least had some use.  Desdemona Gabriellesdotr claimed the counting machine for the Inspectorate.  There was doubtless a scrupulously sound rationale for the choice, totally unrelated to Desdemona's desire to leave children their kittens and gerbils.  Once Roxanne saw the loom's utility for producing reports to the Great Senate, allowing dozens of cumulations to be made with complete accuracy in a half a day, she decided that Desdemona had the right of things.   

Today, she watched politely while a hand of clerks began the half-day's work that once would have required a greathand of women and a month of time.  The Inspectorate ran the calculation with a month to spare, just in case the counting machine failed.  Dorothy, Roxanne knew, would have been fascinated.  Now that the Inspectorate had the counting machine, it was valued at its replacement price, which was formidable.  

Waiting until the work was well underway, she whispered to Leona: "As I recall, you have the loan of three Acolytes nominally assigned to my instruction?  I must trouble you for their return." 

Leona nodded sagely. "I knew you'd want them back, as soon as you were done reading the more interesting Greathand reports.  They'll be in the Archives Wing, dusting books -- except, knowing the girls you choose, they'll actually be dusting books, not gossiping or luring some boy to a dark corner for a few games."  Roxanne looked skywards.  Leona was old enough to remember what Roxanne had done as an Acolyte.  

* * * * *

The Archives Wing had solid stone walls and floors.  The only wood allowed in the wing went into the reading tables and chairs.  A fortune in cast iron shelves held the records, those that were not stored more securely in sealed boxes.  In past decades, the large copying tables had been filled with hard-working acolytes.  The current Senate was less interested in making yet one more copy of historical materials.  

Roxanne stopped and listened.  Three girlish voices could be heard in the distance.  She hoped they weren't disturbing any users, though with the Annual Report this close it was likely that other work in their archives had come to a standstill.  She tiptoed closer.  They were actually talking about work, at least part of the time.  Her last two dozen paces were loud, boot heels ringing on the stone.  

Exactly as she had expected, there were her acolytes.  An entire standard of books had been moved to rolling racks.  One slightly grimy girl was scrubbing the shelves -- from the signs, being reasonably careful not to use too much water -- while the other two were primly dusting books and examining them for signs of decay or damage.  

"2036, Annual Reports," read Brigit Aniarasdotr.  "Goddess, these volumes go on forever..." she groaned.  

"Not quite forever," announced Roxanne. The three girls looked up in total surprise.  Roxanne spent a half-moment thinking.  Hadn't they heard her coming?  No, they were actually hard at work, so not afraid of getting caught, not like any number of Acolytes she had found in dark archival passages over the past decade, spooning or more with various boys or sometimes with another girl.  

"Greatmistress Roxanne?" Brigit asked, remembering after a bit to copy Astrid Astridsdotr's formal bow.  

"Good afternoon, Your Excellency." Gretchen Dorothea Threetowers, hands full of cleaning rags, freckles hard to see behind a layer of dirt, smiled perkily from her ladder.  A bend of head and shoulders replaced a bow impossible when feet were six feet off the ground.    

"I see you are working," announced Roxanne.  She ran a finger along one shelf.   "And the area you have gone over is actually clean.  Miracles will never cease."  It was, too.  Clearly Gretchen had put a lot of her strong shoulder and back into scrubbing the shelves, rather than just dampening and drying them.  From the stack of dust cloths, the books were doing equally well.  

"This standard might take half a hand, and a bit, to finish cleaning.   And cleaning yourselves up after -- those are your rough-clothes, aren't they, Gretchen?" The girl nodded.  "Good.  Right decision.  Be at my office in a hand and a half, clean and properly dressed." 

***** 
 
Roxanne sat at her desk.  Her note to Demara was drying.  Her next two projects had been thought through in some detail.  The door harp strummed.  

"Enter!" she called.  Three Acolytes, reasonably clean though obviously with damp hair, passed the door and bowed.  Each wore a formal gray hooded short-robe over gray trousers, carried a scholar's letter book under her left arm, and had a solidly peace-bonded shortsword belted at her waist.  They knelt in unison on their right knees, heads toward the floor, right hands holding sword-pommels.  She had, Roxanne remembered, told them to dress properly.    

"We are here to serve," they intoned.  

Roxanne bit her lip.  Someone had been drilling them in correct manners.  "We all serve the Five Aspects," she answered.  "Rise.  Use the couch after you stack arms."  The three girls folded themselves over the office's implausible piece of furniture.  Roxanne could not quite imagine why a working office had a leather-covered extra-large dining couch assigned to it, but the equipment was in the building specifications as ratified by the Senate itself, so getting rid of it was more work than it was worth.  

"For you I have two educational exercises.  The easy one: Gretchen, when we're done you'll run this letter to Demara-sa-Ashmarsh at the Lesser Temple. That's learning by practice to be a messenger. The hard one will keep you three busy as your service task until your tour is over.  

"The hard one is a legal formula.  'Additional Greathands as previously assigned remain in cadre or reserve.  Additional revenues remain as previously assigned.'  Any of you ever heard it?"   

The girls looked at each other for help.   "Someplace in the Sisterhood's Annual Budget?" Astrid asked.  "That's been our maths and law lessons the past month.  But there's no math or law--it's just a formula."  Brigit nodded agreement.  

"Gretchen?" asked Roxanne.  

Gretchen shook her head.  "It's not I don't believe you, Astrid.  It's just I don't remember it at all.  Was it something else important, and I missed it again?" She shifted uncomfortably on the couch.  

"That's the right attitude, all of you.  If someone asks what you know, say what you know, not what you just heard.  It is obscure.  But there's a lot of math.  It's near the end of every annual budget.  Cadre or Reserve are all the Sisterhood Greathands, like Jimsonweed, that don't have any people, or maybe only one woman.  There's no list of them or what they are paid.  I want a complete list of every Greathands, stored equipment, endowment, lands.  That's in old budgets and Senate minutes.  Your task is to make me a good list.  Someone else some day goes out and sees what's really there.

" 'Additional revenues' is all the money the Sisterhood returns to people who paid it, because we don't need all that money, not when three in a half-handth of all Greathands are cadre or reserve.  That's not tracked, either.  If we needed the money, we couldn't find it.  We can't even find cadre Greathands.  Read budgets against Senate proceedings.  After a few years of listing moneys as 'reverted to community', money becomes 'as previously noted'.  Your task is to make me a good list.  You will not complete this task in your tour.

"Oh, one last thing.  This is money.  People get upset, think that money is theirs for good, when it isn't.  You are not to tell your friends what you are doing just for gossip.  If you must ask for help, say as little as possible.   That is a direct order.  I do not give direct orders unless I expect them to be obeyed. If you're asked, just say you're indexing old archives.  Real dull.  Say --- Goddess, these volumes go on forever."  From the look on her face, Astrid had not realized that she'd been overheard.  

"If you're working outside here," Roxanne said,  "Senate Archives, Temple Archives ---- anything the Domains or Mages let you see, you are to wear your sword peace-sealed, not peace-bonded.  That's mostly you, Gretchen, you know all those places.  I'll get you an Inspectorate kon and bona fides." That should get their attention,  she thought.  And then we will finally have a good list of what the Sisterhood Reserves are, and where they are funded, should we ever need it.

Three wide-eyed faces, suddenly sharply attentive, stared at Roxanne.  They were Acolytes, serving Her Aspect as Warrior.  They were expected to be armed, but that arm was peace-bonded so all could see it was a token symbol.  A peaceseal meant you were ready to use your weapon, not just carrying it as a token of respect to Her Aspect.

"Seal does not mean you're under different rules.  You actually draw your sword, you answer to me, and to the Senate, and to a whole bunch of people who will be really, really angry.  Oh, Greatmistress Leona may get mildly annoyed, too." At the last threat the girls blanched.  "Unless you had good cause, of course.  Seal means you can draw, in a whole hurry, if you have to, because someone might -- not at all likely, or I'd get you an escort -- might decide they didn't like what you were doing and try to stop you. Allowing you were dumb enough to tell them what you are doing, which is why you didn't tell them.  Questions?" 

Astrid whispered to Brigit.  Gretchen's cheeks flushed.  Gretchen took a breath, turned back to Roxanne: "Permission to speak?"  Too startled to say anything, Roxanne nodded.  Who had been teaching these girls really formal manners?  "About, about the peaceseal.  What we're doing.  Is it legal?  Or is it something where we get permission afterwards?" 

"Totally legal.  It's just archival research.  Unifying scattered historical records,"  Roxanne said. Another mental note to herself.  What was being taught these days as Applied Sophistry?   "A practical aside?  You've heard 'Easier to ask forgiveness than permission?'"  Three heads nodded. "Asking forgiveness is sometimes a very bad substitute for asking permission."  Eyebrows rose.  "If GreatMistress Leona thinks you pulled a fast one on her to stay out late -- and she's heard of ones you never imagined -- she'll be on your case until you die.  For starters.  Even if you were right."  Nods of recognition.  "But if you tell her 'I met this real hunk of a boy at Temple yesterday, but he's only free after Second Recension, can I stay out late tonight?' -- and if you're on her good-gal list -- she might say 'just get back by sunrise.' "  Jaws dropped.  "Reminding her who previously used the question successfully is not recommended.' 
                                                             
"OK, enough of this.  These are note cards -- here's what we're looking for on each Greathand.  Start by working through current Senate appropriations for the six Greathands I listed. See what you find.  Gretchen, this is the letter, and a carrier.  I've got a list of places to go for information.  This is not easy.  We'll take it slowly.  At first.  Dismissed."   The girls headed for the door.  
 
"Gretchen?"  Roxanne called. The oldest of the three girls stopped in her tracks as her friends disappeared down the corridor.  "I'll get you an Inspectorate kon and peaceseal now.  No sense in tying what you wear to what you will be doing later.  Are Brigit and Astrid teasing about something I should know?  I thought I had brought teasing to an end."  Gretchen was that most unique of all children, a foundling, left on the Inspectorate's doorstep fifteen years ago.  Another Half-hand of Acolytes had made cruel references to her birth, mistakenly thinking that they would not be heard.  Leona and Roxanne had assigned those girls the task of ordering the old grand archives, loose-leaf papers numbered, dropped into boxes, but never sorted.  There were as many as ten thousand pages in a year, and centuries of archives unsorted.  They were to sort until they finished sorting, or finished their tours, with Greatmistress Leona taking a regular personal interest in their project.

"Yes, Greatmistress! Thank you for trusting me with a peaceseal," Gretchen said.  "Not teasing, not that sort.  In the archives last week.  This boy came around a corner with a stack of books -- I reamed him out later for not using a cart -- ran into me.  It was hang onto him, or books went flying.  Books are first, so I hung on.  We fell. They caught me on the floor on the bottom.  By the third time it got told, I had him flat on his back, kilt around his ears, me riding him dry." 

"I see." Some things never changed.  

"Besides, he was like most boys," said Gretchen.  "Way too fat to be good looking. Not at all like Astrid's younger brother. That's what I think, anyhow."  

"Oh, good.  The kon.  We'll have to see Greatmistress Leona," Roxanne said.  She'd have to speak to Leona about Astrid's younger brother.  This was the first time Gretchen seemed to have noticed a boy.  If Gretchen liked thin boys, well, before she had met Tomas she had found that the lack of competition for thinner men was a real advantage.  

* * * * *

"GreatMistress Roxanne?" Leona Carolsdotr waited politely at the door. "Might I have a personal word with you?"

Roxanne gestured Leona to the couch across her office.  "What is it, Leona?" she asked gently.  Personal questions were very unlike the Greatmistress of Acolytes of the Inspectorate.

"My niece, Gretchen Threetowers.  I do not question your judgement she can be trusted to wear a sword peacesealed, because she is mature, sensible, and equable in temperament, but I do worry that you think it needful.  She is my favorite niece, in fact my only trueniece, my circle having disbanded some years ago.  Is she safe?" Leona asked.

Roxanne checked her tongue.  What should she say?  "Leona, in this life none knows who is next to meet the Crone.  If I thought there were real danger, I would take more substantial precautions.  I expect someone may shout at her, or perhaps try to toss her bodily out of an archive room.  It's been done.  The Peaceseal encourages politeness."  Was that all?   "Don't tell her that.  If she is worrying too much, let me know, and I will speak with her.  But if she's told she'll never need her sword, the one time she needs it, she won't reach for it.  Until it's too late."

* * * * *

Evening.  Roxanne sat again on her porch, the sun's shadows stretching long across her courtyard.  The sound of a door harp.  Patter of little feet.  "Mum," Dorothy announced, "Demara-sa-Ashmarsh.  You said she was coming, so I invited her in." 

"Very good.  Are your lessons done?"  Roxanne rose gracefully to her feet.  

"Almost.  But I knew you'd want to talk to her, so I put it off so I'd have something to do when you were talking.  Now I've got to do it while there's still sunlight," Dotty answered.

"You're always so thoughtful, Dotty,"  Roxanne said.

"Will you be up late?" Dorothy asked.  Roxanne nodded. "Then I'll see you in the morning." Roxanne leaned over and hugged her daughter goodnight.  

* * * * *

Demara and Roxanne sat around Roxanne's kitchen table, their faces lit by the light of a single lamp.  The pitcher of sun tea was largely drained.  They had spent the sunset and well beyond working around different aspects of Tomas's letter.

"Temple doesn't maintain messengers the way the Sisterhood does," Demara reminded.  "News of the massacre doubtless started through the Temple Hierarchy before Tomas wrote you.  But that news must go from grove to tithe to shire....and be gathered with other news each time, to be forwarded as a large lump, not bits and pieces.  Then someone here has to read it and understand what they've got.  Then it gets to me.  That's why we have a Congregation of the Blessed Inquisition, after all, to ask questions.  Once I've got the information I can ask you -- completely innocently --- if there is a reason the Sisterhood has failed to protect The Mother's Own Handmaidens." 

"The next quarter month is handholding. The Annual Report to the Great Senate," Roxanne said.  "I'll need a quarter month to make arrangements to travel. But Dorothy's going to be away for a month and some, the month after, on a school trip.  So I should be free about the time your question reaches me, say a month from now.  I have the report on the Hand being killed.  That doesn't justify sending me rather than someone less senior.  

"Of course," Demara observed, "The Temple Report might hit one of our geniuses who believes that if you don't report bad news, it didn't happen.  Fortunately, Tomas's report -- the Appendix -- gives the tracking number and some quotes from the Temple Report, so I have the lever to shake it loose.  Shaking a missing message that important loose means I get to go find who lost the first message.  And congratulate them on rising into the ranks of the Beloved Missionaries." 

"Beloved Missionaries?" Roxanne asked.  

"To the Ice People.  Or the Horse Barbarians.  It's nice healthy outdoors work, the Horse Barbarians never having invented doors.  The Ice People are weak on the wall concept.  The Congregation of the Blessed Inquisition got really tired of dealing with idiots who would rather bury dirty laundry than clean it, " Demara explained grimly.

"Rumors got here quickly," Roxanne said.

"I traced that," Demara answered.  "Haley Haleysdotr, the mother, honors her obligations, regularly, with a mage.  A lightning mage, Black-Robe.  The mages heard the 'sorcery' accusation soon after the town was sacked. They are very interested, but they already have a top man on the scene."  Roxanne's eyebrows rose.  "I hadn't known, but they think very highly of Magus-Prime Tomas-sur-Maserin, whoever he is."  Demara smiled blandly, as though she had no idea.

Chapter 5
The House That Floats, Longbeachport
Shire Cismontane by the Sea
Flower 6, 2446

This should have been a beautiful day, Tomas thought.  The sun was shining through little puffs of white cloud.  The air had been freshened by overnight rains. Back home, the late-flowering tulips were bright with color.  His preliminary report on the Longbeachport murders was on its way to higher authorities. Now all he had to do was solve the crime.  Admittedly, 'all' left something to be desired.

Spoiling the pleasant day would be his dear mother, her Eminence the Lord Mayor of Union, the First Speaker of the Cismontane Provincial Council, several Priestesses, the Caer's Justiciar, the Union Sheriff, and if he were not lucky lawyers from relatives of the deceased. Evaine would be there, too, but she would not spoil his day.  Fortunately, when first he came here he had arrayed his escort in men's dozens, not in women's hands, so none could claim Torinsdale invaded Longbeachport.  He was an Interlocutor.  He ignored Domain-Republic borders. 
When I started reading the first sentence in the above paragraph, I thought that "Her Eminence" was in apposition to "his dear mother".

The others had spent the early morning riding or sitting in carriages, coming from their various homes to Longbeachport.  He had taken the sensible precaution of traveling the prior evening.  His quarters had been pleasant. Goodman Undrason had re-opened The House That Floats, so long as he had adequate customers. Three dozen Sisters of the Sword overflowed their Chapterhouse and its cooking facilities. Undrason filled the gap, providing spartan bed and simple food at only a modest charge. Tomas had taken a much more pleasant room.  Between them, the Innkeeper and Sisterhood had reopened the tavern's baths, so he was clean after his trip.  

His worst challenge this day had been deciding what to wear and which perfumes to use.  He could have chosen scholar's robes.  There was an accusation of sorcery, so he could appear in his mage's robes, which his audience had never seen.  After some thought, he chose Interlocutor's white.  White promised neutrality.  And with the white, two different perfumes, one for his hands and the other for his face and body, both from violet roses.

He had informed his guests that they would arrive and eat.  A shared meal might put them in a sweeter temper. Undrason had set out a buffet.  Bread, fresh-baked.  Cheese.  Butter, churned this morning.  Fish, stir fried with onions and potatoes.  Apples, stored over-winter and now stewed. The Sisterhood had carefully searched the reservoir and aqueduct, looking for dead animals. None were found.  Nonetheless, the raspberry tea was rigorously boiled. 

Voices could be heard outside.  There came a knock.  Tomas stood, smiling warmly.  It never hurt to smile.  Besides, women who saw a man smiling while they snarled sometimes concluded that the man was bereft of brains.  It never hurt to give yourself little advantages whenever you could.

The doors opened.  "Their various excellencies and personages, the Inquest to be attending," intoned the Swordsisters holding the doors.  They thumped their halberds, not too hard, on the porch.  It was a good porch, so they actually thumped strategically placed slates, not the porch itself.  Tomas smiled more broadly.  The Sisterhood had cooperated with his requests.  The first fight of the day could have been over precedences on being announced.  Now that his guests had all been announced, and none could say she had not been first.  He counted noses.  No lawyers were visible.

"Honored guests," Tomas said.  "Be pleased to enter.  Your food awaits.  As was Revealed, at dinner age precedes distinction."  The Quote was from the First Revelation, now six millennia old.  His guests would never agree on their relative ranks.  Date of birth could not be denied. Fortunately, Undrason's largest table was a circle.  They might sit some ways apart, but none could say they were seated lower than another.  "It would be simplest," Tomas said, "if you were to allow Goodlady Evaine to sit facing me, as I must record the Inquest, and she will most likely have the largest single speaking part."  And that, he thought, means that the two Interlocutors are not perceived as a team.   He listened momentarily to voices outside.  The Sisters were receiving the escorts of the personages as their guests. Domain escorts had happily agreed to picnic on the nearby beach, rather than raising questions of Domain forces in Republic towns. 

The eight managed a pleasant if early lunch.  Tomas provided most of the conversation. His guests had had very early breakfasts and were busy emptying their plates. Finally, with three loaves of bread and a crock of butter remaining, to be slowly eaten after other dishes were cleared, Tomas rapped his spoon against his teacup.

"Our purpose today is to hear formal complaints of True Necromancy and Malevolent Sorcery, treat efforts to catch the villains, and settle such other minor issues as may arise.  The order of hearing the complaints appears to be fixed by law, not by me," he announced.  Thus, he thought, I have forestalled all discussion as to whose complaint is to be heard first.  Let us ignore that some of the laws differ in age by centuries, the later laws seem to have been written by people unaware of the earlier laws, and the applicability of some of the laws is unclear.  Nonetheless, Her Excellency the First Speaker is going to be confined to the end of the discussion. 

"Objection."  The First Speaker lost no time.  "A meeting on complaints is to hear the complaints of the complainant.  Also, the order of actions is always open to review by a Joint Reconciliation Panel.  I move for re-ordering."

"In the interests of harmony, I shall not dispute you on the latter," Tomas said.  For one thing, he thought, Erica has already warned me that if I did, she would walk out of the meeting.  For another, one of us understands the first rule of politics.  "There is a move for re-ordering, I infer to hear first the First Speaker's issues.  Am I correct?"  The First Speaker nodded.

"Adjudicable issue," the Union Sheriff said, leaning back in her chair.  The slight clinks and clanks of her chain mail came from under her blue tabard and lavender cloak.  "I am under the command of the Lord Mayor.  Evaine is the Interlocutor's Cornet.  Hence, we are not independent and should be disqualified from voting."  Evaine nodded agreement.

"Agreed and so noted," Tomas said.  "Motion is not debatable.  A show of hands, then?  For the motion: The First Speaker.  The Mayor of Union.  Against the Motion: The Landgrafin.  The Priestess of the Vale. The Priestess of Union.  Motion fails.  I believe we begin with evidence for Necromancy.  Evaine?"  The First Speaker looked ready to [w]ring the necks of the two Priestesses, whose silence she had apparently expected.  Silence would have made the vote two to one, the other way.  Tomas had much time privately closeted with the two Priestesses, explaining to them the legalities involved.  Also, he had given them a promise that the crimes committed against the clergy of Longbeachport would be pursued.  Finally, he had remembered the first rule of politics: Count your noses.

"There's a sketch," Evaine said, "widely circulated, of what I found on the Temple Altar.  Two priestesses were cut to pieces, while still alive.  Their body parts were stacked on the Altar.  That's sacrifice of humans.  The stacking could read 'spider', a pattern specified by the Council of Altairis."  She held up the sketch and let the other women think. The sketch was so far outside human experience that it was difficult to recognize arms or legs or torso.  Tomas allowed that Evaine's armor was far less noisy than Erica's.  He hoped it would not matter whether she and Erica had come armed or not, but that was their prescribed mode of dress. "I cannot imagine why, other than True Necromancy, there would be for such a hideously cruel deed."
There is no way she can tell from a stack of body parts that the preistesses were still alive when chopped up.  I'm not sure a careful autopsy could determine that.
(why)Change your mind halfway through that sentence, did you?

"Do any of you know of any dissent?" Tomas asked.  "Or does the charge of True Necromancy stand?"

"It stands, I say," Katherine Katherinesdotr said.  She was Lord Mayor of Union, the nearest Republic town.  Her support of the First Speaker's protests to the Landgrafin of Torinsdale about Torinsdale intrusions had forced this meeting, but so far she was well-behaved.  Others nodded agreement.  Tomas whispered a prayer of thanks for a good beginning.

"Then we reach Malevolent Sorcery," Tomas said.  "That charge was the finding of Evaine-sa-Orowan as Interlocutor pro tem.  For this complaint, because sorcery is a temporal matter in the hands of the Archimagate, not a secular matter to be referred to civic authorities or an eternal matter under the view of the Lady's Handmaidens in Dianasmere, I must briefly don my hat as a sorcerer.  A real sorcerer, that is, not something out of a heroine tale."  He pulled his conical black hat from under his chair and perched it, modestly askew, on his head.  "I defer to Evaine-sa-Orowan."
I like changing hats *literally*!
She swallowed gently.  Tomas was preternaturally young to be an Interlocutor, but everyone accepted him because they knew his fairness and good temper.  She was more than twenty years his junior, and had to hope that no one would try intricate legal arguments against her.  "The issue at hand," she said slowly, "is the destruction of the city gate. There was--is--a deep hole in the road.  The watchtower fell sideways, directly away from the hole.  It broke across the city wall.  The gate was smashed to splinters, one of its hinges being found a block away on the roof of a building.  Nearby windows were all broken. Glass flew across the rooms, directly away from the all, and buried itself in the plaster.  You all handled one of the hinges and marked the weight."

"More than I could pick up," said Brianna Ruthsdotr. Other women nodded agreement.  Evaine had lifted one of the hinges, so others could see what lay underneath.  For her it had been a careful, hard lift of more than her bodyweight.  

"I propose an unspecified spell caused hinges, gate, gravel, and watchdaughter to fly.  The tower and windows tried to fly.  They failed," Evaine said.  "Spells of flying are regularly described in heroine novels.  Do not flijtschiffs fly? Here a spell went out of control.  Or was used to gain eldritch consequences.  Does our representative of the Lords Temporal of the Halls of Night have a different view?" She folded her hands under her chin.

"We speak," Tomas said, noting his words in his book as he spoke them, "for the Mighty Lords of the Great Hall of Night.  True sorcerers, holders of temporal power from before every Revelation, do not work for evil."  His audience began to look less comfortable.  He spoke more swiftly.  "Making a long matter short, we have no idea what happened to the gate.  Nor, since I believe the same method was used, do I know what smashed the Sanctuary's wall. I've never heard of a spell that smashes buildings.  Nor--I asked--have the Lords of Darkness."

"Does one ever know which spell a sorcerer used?" Katherine asked.  "If I want to charge a Mage with killing fish, do I have to say which spell he used, what material components it consumed, what verses he chanted?  Or can I say 'malevolent sorcery', and let corroborating witnesses agree they saw the accused jump up and down and point at the mill pond?"

"Mistress Katherine," Evaine said, "Sorcery is a generic crime.  Who except another Mage can say exactly how a magical deed was for sure performed?"

"I would turn the question inside out," Landgrafin Cheryl said.  "My dear son," she stared at Tomas, "cannot say the obvious, but we all saw what happened.  We all saw window glass driven like nails into plaster.  Can anyone name a way of doing this with mechanic arts? Is not Sorcery the One Art that does that which mechanic arts cannot?"

"The Landgrafin has the right of it," Erica Linnasdotr agreed.  "It's circumstantial evidence.  Women are hanged on circumstantial evidence.  A trial is needed, but there's fair cause to believe there was Malevolent Sorcery."

"I have not heard dissent," Evaine said, "that there is probable cause.  Probable Cause does not mean that a statement is true."  She waited for disagreement.  "Mage Tomas testified that Black-Robes Mages do not know the spell, but there are other mages."  Tomas's lips pursed when she mentioned the temporal schisms.  "Perhaps some are Sea Eagles.  So found.  I return the meeting to Interlocutor Tomas."  The pressure came off her shoulders.  She had been swimming in unfamiliar waters, waters which might have rapidly have become rough.  If  First Speaker Laurel Laurelsdotr had wanted to undercut Tomas, to establish that his jurisdiction was narrower than Tomas claimed, Katherine might well have made life interesting for her.  Legal questions, obscure precedents, and disputes of the meaning of laws might all have been raised.  Tomas would have had to sit there, unable to speak to the law while he wore a mage's black hat, while his Cornet was placed under legalistic siege.

"Moving along," Tomas said, "We come to the interesting part, namely catching the guilty, settling any complaints about what I've done, and, oh, yes, it might be nice if we stopped these people from doing it again. Do you agree that having Union suffer the fate of Longbeachport might not be a good thing?"  He looked at the women, most of whom had visibly not considered the question.  "I have been swamped with my formal duty, recording the grievances of the dead.  When the dead were to be buried, you buried them.  When lamentations were to be sung, you sang them.  When clues were to be noted and collected, you collected them.  Fortunately, I am surrounded by observant women and a skilled ratiocinator.  Brianna Ruthsdotr, you have been accumulating the clues we found.  What say you?"  Tomas looked blandly over the table, giving no hint he and Brianna had rehearsed their lines.

"First," Brianna said, folding her long, thin fingers together, "whatever office I may hold for the Landgrafin, here that is all left behind.  Here I solve puzzles to help Laurel, Katherine and Erica with their duties.  If you don't like what I've done, I'm happy to stand aside and help someone else do better."  Tomas watched the byplay between Erica and Katherine.  Erica ever so slightly raised her hand, bidding Katherine to hold her peace.  Of course, Tomas thought, Erica had the clearer idea of what Brianna had done.

"Second," Brianna continued, "the more you teach me, the more confused I am.  We have one pirate, dead. He was a man, poorly but expensively dressed.  He was most oddly armed.  He might have been a hermit, rejecting modern healing arts, public baths, and a decent dentist.  He might be a distraction, planted to confuse us. The buttons on his coat were all the same." She pulled a sketch from a side table, showing a single button greatly expanded through a nearseer view, "He had these odd metal things in his purse."  Small metal disks dropped on top of the sketch.  "I'd say 'coins', but the edges aren't milled.  Who ever heard of iron as a coinage metal?  Evaine's sharp eye spotted the rest, even without nearseer viewing. Would you?"

Evaine pulled the next sketch from the side table.  "These, courtesy of Greatmistress Erica and her women, are nearseer expansions.  The faces on the coins and on the button are much alike.  Same nose.  Same pointy jaw.  Same cheek scar.  I think the lump on the face's head is a funny hat, not hair-tentacles.  The squiggles on the button and on the coins are the same.  Except the coins have these other odd marks, where on a good Republican coin we would read 'Senate and People United'."  She paused to let them think.  Domains also had coinage, but the audience that needed to hear her words was from the Republic. 

"Particular squiggles repeat here and there, like the 'e's in 'Senate and People United', just as though squiggles were letters in some unknown typeface.  We searched his belongings carefully, finding similar squiggles, sometimes the same squiggle repeated."

"Is this Ice People writing?" the Priestess of the Vale asked.  "They do write, in their own way. There's a bitter theological feud,"

"A minor dispute," the Priestess of Union interrupted, "about a different style notehand."

"about the propriety of  transliterating the Revelations into the Boy's slashwriting," the Priestess of the Vale concluded.

"Retransliterating," the Priestess of Union grumbled.

"No," Landgrafin Cheryl answered.  "I've had Icefolk traders as guests, enough to learn their letters, which I find less difficult than a Gothish typefont.  These aren't vaguely the same.  I couldn't read them fluently, but if those words were slashwriting I could sound them out."

"The dead pirate," Erica Linnasdotr said, "the Union Chief Infirmarian examined the pirate's body.  He had clearly had smallpox, years before.  He was very short and light.  His legs were bowed. The Infirmarian thought you could get that with a truly bad diet."

"The more substantial clues are from Greatmistress Erica and her women," Tomas said.  "Best hear the testimony from the source."

"Honesty," Erica said quietly, "bids me to thank Evaine for urging my women where we might search.  We picked up every bit of trash, every piece of flotsam and jetsam, from the waterfront.  We found another odd jacket, just like the dead pirate's, and another pair of coins.  And on Springhint tenth, before the rains,  I sent a hand of women with shovels and rakes to the Long Point campsite.  They sifted the sand.  Not pleasant.  These pirates never heard of field sanitation.  We found a pair of clay pipes, another coin, and courtesy of Mistress Avis a set of tracks leading off toward Union."

"Tracks?" Katherine asked.

"Tracks.  A man, wearing shoes," Erica continued. "He walked southeast.  After a half-mile or so, he set down two packs, and marched dead ahead into the quaking bogs, seemingly not recognizing his deadly peril. If he followed the coast and lived, as seems unlikely, he entered the large unorganized area, the Vair Reach, south of the Shire."

"The pack is more interesting," Tomas said.  "I shall, however, have Brianna explain what was in it, because it's better ratiocination than I could have performed."

"I am here only to solve puzzles," Brianna reminded.  "The first pack had camping gear and some odd bits.  The second pack was less practical.  Wrapped in oilcloth we found a single thin book. The printing was very fine; I expect typeset.  We've had copies made on an expanded scale."
Hum -- earlier passages led me to think that they copied books by hand.  

"What did it say?" First Speaker Laurelsdotr asked.

"It's in no known typefont," Brianna answered.  "There are too many very different characters.  In the front was this."  She laid a sheet on the table.  A square grid of peculiar characters was seen.  "The first two columns are the same.  So are the first two rows. The third column omits every other character.  The third leaves out two characters in three--but note these character pairs toward column's end."

"Yes?" Union First Priestess Plum Ingasdotr asked.

"This is a multiplication table," Brianna announced, "with a times one column, a times two column, and so forth.  The pages in the book carry the same characters, one per page, in the same order--the book pages are numbered back to front.  The numbers are written backwards, so ten is zero-one not one-zero.  There's an odd detail.  The author did not reckon in hands, in either of the men's dozens, or in formal tens.  No, this table reckons in twelves, so one-zero, actually, zero-one, actually stands for twelve, not eight or thirteen.  That's unheard of."

"It's obscene, is what it is," the Priestess of the Vale said disgustedly.  Her Republic counterpart nodded in vigorous agreement. "Twelve is the Denier's number.  No one ever used twelves to count.  Do they, Tomas?"

"It is no secret," he said with his most blinding smile, "that the Lords of the Dark Halls reckon in tens.  Men reckon in lighter or grosser dozens and scores.  It appeared that Sea Eagles reckoned in scores."

"I have further evidence," Brianna continued.  "The book has its pages numbered.  Backward.  There are numbered lines.  The numbers count one to eleven, then start again at "01".  Find who writes this way, and we have found our pirates."

"This book," Erica asked, already knowing the answer, "What is it about?"  

Brianna spread her hands apologetically.  "Unknown," she said.  "It uses the same typefont as the coins.  There are no pictures. The rest of the pack held extra socks, clean small-clothes suitable for a thin small man, a tin box of preserved foods, an elegant smoking pipe with parcel of yet another dried smoking weed, also unknown to me, sewing implements, a parcel that could be a surgeon's kit but only if the surgeon had never heard of aqua viva or field cleanliness, a box whose contents resemble lampblack or dried crushed ink blocks but are not, a small bag of shiny black stones all the same type, and a sack of these."  She produced a thimble glass of metallic spheres.  "Evaine recovered similar ones from a plaster wall.  They're lead. They appear to be slinger's weights, smaller than commonly described." 

"I've never heard of a dozens cult," the Priestess of Union said.  "It's a prohibition from the First Revelation.  To break it, you'd have to learn to count in twelves."

"I am having the book copied," Tomas said.  "That's hard, when you can't read it, and don't know which bump on a letter signifies, and which bump is a decorative curl to make the type face more attractive.  I found four women whose hobby is drawing flowers precisely.  They use nearseers to make expanded copies of every page, and I am grateful to the Provincial Council for footing the copying bill.  Copying is extremely slow.  There is no stoneprinter nearer than Junction.  When she gets a master, there will be copies galore."

"We're searching houses again," Erica said.  "Evaine started this immediately, looking for infants, pets, food that would rot.  I sealed each house.  We're now re-opening them.  Money goes to the town vault, counted and labeled.  We're putting things in order for the heirs, looking carefully for anything left behind by the pirates.  We found one body--we identified her--a lot of small vandalism, a few odd bits and pieces.  The hat on the other side table matches the dead pirate's.  There were more strange coins. If the numbers on the two big coins are year marks, and if we did our sums right, the coins were minted in 1708.  Those coins are not seven centuries old, let alone three or more millennia.  The other sword is similar to the pirate's.  It's not sharp, either.  And we found--let's pass it around."  The object, a mix of wood inlaid with brass and polished steel, was about a foot in length.  A tiny lump of black rock was clamped to a handguard.   "That handle is like the pirate spear.  It has the strange handhold and finger guard, a different mediocre finger guard, the same iron pipe for a shaft.  But it's absurdly short for a spear.  There's no blade.  That thumbguard is not loose; it moves along a track.  This thing was recovered in a home, under a bed.  There was a considerable amount of blood; someone bled to death or near enough. If you held it by the pipe end, you'd have a feeble fighting hammer.  Yes, that part--it slides all the way out--under the pipe appears to be loose by intent."

"If we find someone else," Tomas said, "carrying similar coins, odd smoking materials, or books in this type face, they should be arrested"

"There are other strange events," Evaine announced.  Tomas could hear the masked irritation in Evaine's voice.  She had been largely shunted aside after the second day.  The First Speaker had arrived. Whenever Evaine made a suggestion, it was ignored as coming from her, no matter how sound it was.  Erica's remarks, a few moments ago, had finally been conciliatory.  "Longbeachport was taken by surprise.  If they'd been warned, the walls would have been held.  There'd have been fighting on the walls.  There was not. Someone would've fled by boat.  Whoever did this smashed the gate, and waited.  If they had charged through the gate, people on Gate Street, by the time they pulled on robe and slippers, would have been face to face with pirates, and hid back inside.  People on Gate Street had time to flee to Sanctuary. The pirates gave them a chance to move. Outside of town, pirates appeared at each farmhouse, killing those inside.  Other pirates made a line outside of town killing anyone who jumped the wall.  Ambushes were laid on the road.  Carters were trapped and killed.  I don't see how the pirates got townsfolk to flee so conveniently."

"In defense of your case," Erica said, "I do.  They shouted 'Pirates! Pirates! Her Sacred Truce!', and killed a few people to make clear they were serious.  The rest fled to safety.  Just like in a heroine tale, and Longbeachport was famous for pirate plays and theater, every Summer and late Fall."

"As you say," Evaine answered politely.  Tomas decided that they would believe Erica. He could read Evaine well enough to tell that she didn't believe the explanation would work, except in a pirate play.  "Now the other part.  The town was looted.  All books were piled outside town and burned.  Art was smashed or stolen.  Children of an age and some young women were kidnapped.  That's organized.  It's not one pirate steals statues, another likes jewelry.  It's 'every house was looted exactly the same way', down to taking change and leaving real money.  That's rehearsal. Complete agreement on goals.  Knowing exactly where to go.  The pirates, in heroine tale argot, 'cased the joint'.  They knew where to raid farmsteads.  They knew where to wait for carters. Find curious strangers.  Find people making maps.  You'll have the guilty parties," Evaine concluded.

"I shall ask Goodman Undrason," Erica announced.  "The tavern keeper sees almost every visitor.  He hears all the gossip.  He'll know where to look."

"One last piece," Evaine said.  "This was two or three greathands of pirates.  There's no record of pirates coming more than a hand at a time. They have obscure weapons.  If Tomas and thirty women tell these pirates they are under arrest, they will fight back, odds six to one in their favor.  Even if the pirates are all men, they seem to be trained to fight together.  That's a big advantage.  People who know each other, trust each other, know a common fighting style, can beat several times their number of popular militia, other things being even."

"They may fight," said First Speaker Laurelsdotr, "but not for long.  They'll fold when they see Swordsisters.  I'm sure Greatmistress Linnasdotr can handle all these things, unlike Torinsdale not needing Council advice, not that I would suggest that the Domains are less well-governed than our Republic." The Landgrafin stiffened.  "However, I have for Evaine a few questions bearing on the legalities."  The First Speaker rested her chin on her hands.  "First, notwithstanding the events you uncovered, Evaine, it appears that you entered the Republic under arms, when you are a senior Domain official. This is illegal. I allow you have a defense?"

"Indeed."  Evaine raised her voice, just enough not to be interrupted.  "I am the Interlocutor's Cornet.  Having word of a serious crime, one that drove Goodman Timothy Lottason to flee in terror, I came under an Interlocutor's kon to investigate, at the direct charge of the Interlocutor himself.  For interlocution, there are no borders between Domain and Republic."  The First Speaker nodded in agreement.

"Second, you summoned an armed host from a Domain to occupy a Republic town," the First Speaker continued.

"I summoned no one.  I was entirely surprised when the Interlocutor and his Swordsister escort appeared. The Interlocutor also had three dozens of his guards and a bannerdaughter, as he is entitled, " Evaine answered.  She had not been asked about Brianna Ruthsdotr's arrival, which was less regular, and would not answer a question she was not asked.

"But, my witnesses say, you were displeased to see Swordsisters arrive.  It showed in your demeanor," the First Speaker said.

Evaine shifted uncomfortably.  She was going to hurt a few feelings.  "I was indeed extremely displeased.  I was displeased that Union and Torinsdale both knew what happened here, and Greatmistress and Interlocutor marched down the road, no point or flank or tail to their formation, bows unstrung.  They could have marched into an ambush.  I remained displeased that I had to tell them to have bodyguards."  Tomas shifted uncomfortably.  That had not been an answer he expected, but her criticisms were obviously not rehearsed.  Worse, they were obviously true.

"Very well.  Tomas, when may we expect a full report of the evidence?" the First Speaker asked.  That, Tomas thought, was a standard part of every criminal investigation, namely a full list of illegal acts.

"I am not sure that you can," Tomas said.  The First Speaker stared bug-eyed at him.  "We are faced with a unique and terrible set of crimes.  We have a criminal conspiracy that killed hundreds of people.  We are overwhelmed with evidence. I have sworn the great task of finding the guilty and speaking to them for the Dead. That's a staggering duty. I will not let myself be distracted. I think I can name the dead and the missing, but I thought that before the Sisterhood found that last body, too.  I infer someone had an out-of-town houseguest, who in the panic donned the wrong nightgown.  We can't find the unexplained person's clothing to determine her name.

"Evidence? Ordinarily, if a door is broken, we record every stroke, the length of the axe blade, where on the door each blow fell.  In this town there are a good 300 doors, most forced, each differently.  Recording where every axe blow fell would require months of time, and seems unlikely to solve the case.  I did use forensic sorcery to preserve several prints.  However, close to two hundred people marched in sand for miles.  The count of prints they left behind was unimaginable, at least until it rained.  Record every step? Where would I get the material components for so extensive a set of spells?  It can't be done.  I can report that their left and right boots were the same, on pair after pair of feet, but the nails were unique to each boot.  They must have been hand-driven.  First Speaker Laurelsdotr, my duty is to the dead, not to quelling the complaints of the living.  If you wish to do something constructive, you might heed the words of my Cornet that the criminals may resist efforts to arrest them, not to mention that they may chose to repeat their hideous crimes, say in Union, by killing everyone. Worry about the next attack, not the last one.  It is my task, not yours, to find the miscreants. I am attempting to do so.  If you disagree with me you may appeal, in accord with law, but I find that my Cornet acted properly.  Therefore, you have no grounds for asking damages of my mother."

"So it may be," the First Speaker answered.

"So shall it be, pending such legitimate and successful appeals as you make to higher authorities," Tomas said.  "We have had the meeting that you requested.  We discussed your issues.  The glass I set counting the lawful hour of meeting has fallen empty.  I must move on to my overwhelming duties."  He stood.  Other women followed, leaving the First Speaker and Mayor of Union seated at an empty table.

Chapter 7
The House That Floats, Longbeachport
Shire Cismontane by the Sea
Flower 6, 2446

The Lesser Daughter was well beyond the zenith.  Evaine had packed her few garments, helped Tomas with his far more extensive luggage, saddled her horse, and helped Avis ready the horse cart.  Evaine had put her foot down when Landgrafin Cheryl proposed that she and Tomas return together to Caer Adurel.  The Landgrafin had a stout escort that needed a night's rest before marching back.  Nonetheless, Evaine said, Cheryl and Tomas should not travel together. It left too many eggs in one hat.  She had never argued with the Landgrafin before.  This time, too much was at stake.  To her great surprise, the Landgrafin had meekly agreed with her presentation.

Evaine's instructions to Avis were simple.  "If we're ambushed by infantry, we'll outrun them.  If it's cavalry, you'll flee and I'll charge.  If you can get out of sight, hide in the trees."  For the moment, though, they rode together, Avis and the cart leading the way with Tomas sitting backwards to watch their rear.

"I trust you enjoyed the meeting," Tomas said.  "It's always amusing to let someone outmaneuver themselves by being too clever."

"I thought the meeting was odd," Evaine said.  "Some of your orders were even odder.  However, I did what you said.  Next time, please, explain why."

"We're far enough outside of town," Tomas said, "Some things you need to know.  You almost worked it out yourself.  I had to keep you distracted.  Fortunately, Goodman Undrason was kind enough to pack an ample supply of sandwiches, for I am exhausted and hungry."

"Hungry, we credit," Avis said.  "Exhausted?"

"I have never worked so hard in all my life," Tomas explained.  "Would you like one?"  The women shook their heads.  "Before dawn to after dusk, and two Priestesses both insisting on extensive private meetings."  Evaine's lips came to an oh.  The Priestess of Union, in addition to her religious duties, was instructor in athletics for the town's young women.  She taught by example.  Much to Evaine's annoyance, gymnastics and endurance events were among her preferences, particularly those requiring a man's active participation.  Rational training and personal combat were far more sensible choices.  "The number of separate crimes is utterly staggering."

"I saw you work hard, Tomas," Evaine said, as softly as she could over the clatter of the horses. He did need sympathy and support. He might perform his duties with the Priestesses, but only as a duty that he little enjoyed.  As that strange line went, his heart belonged to only one other.  He was also no longer a young man.  "My questions were different."

"Such as?" he asked, sipping at his water flask.

"We agreed.  The pirates cased the joint.  Someone might have noticed.  Every time I might have spoken to the survivors you found something vitally important for me to do," Evaine said.

"You aren't suspicious enough," Tomas answered.  He ignored Avis's snort.  "After all, other than money there are few reasons for great crimes.  What do you know of Republic inheritance law?"

"Me?  Little," Evaine said.   Tomas saw many things that she did not.  "Tell me."

"Longbeachport and environs are held in joint by the community," Tomas explained.  "Yes, everyone more or less owned their house and goods.  But if someone dies, and their heirs are dead, the town inherits.  Almost every blood line in Longbeachport died.  The survivors inherit.  The pirates left behind a truly impressive inheritance, even split eight ways."

"Four," corrected Evaine.  "The smith Merryl and her daughter are newly moved, not yet shareholders.  They told me they have no claim on the inheritance. I missed their point.  They're close to desperation for lack of work, enough that I did something I perhaps should not: I told them that Caer Adurel's two smiths and machinist are all old.  None of their nieces followed them in their craft.  Goodman Undrason and circle hold only two shares.  They are discharging debt for refurbishing The House That Floats," she said.  "I didn't think they might be criminals. I did write down whom they inherit from.  The rest of the dead are "no known heirs" for Greatmistress Linnasdotr to trace down.  There are also missing people."

Tomas frowned.  "Goodman Undrason and the three young women of his Circle are characters.  The three women are from town.  He is that oddity of oddities, an adult foundling.  He appeared one day, stark naked, remembering nothing, not his name, his birthplace, not even the word for water.  Now he's a settled citizen, who remembers nothing of his past."

"He's a good Innkeeper," Avis said.  "Really quiet sort, even for a man. Usually whispers."

"But he sings," Evaine interjected.  "You didn't even notice, did you, Tomas?  For all the girls saying you are a most wonderful singing teacher, which I don't deny, you don't listen except to your students, do you?"

"Me?  I always listen to my students," Tomas said. "But I really only hear faults, not song."

"Which voice does Undrason use?" Evaine asked.

"Which voice?" Tomas asked.

"Tomas, you have spent two weeks listening to the hours being sung. In all that time, did you ever notice the Goodman's voice?" Evaine asked.

"Always in key," Tomas said.  Evaine had absolutely no ability as a singer.  He had never considered that she might be able to listen

"You're an alto, Tomas, and as many men as not are low sopranos.  Goodman Undrason sings basso, and touches lower," Evaine said.  Undrason had that physical deformity, one repulsive to many women.  Tomas never noticed.

"That is quite unusual," Tomas remarked.  "However, I do not believe the town was murdered because it did not appreciate Undrason's singing voice, which must not have been too bad, because I do not remember faulting it."

"That explains why his circle is small, no fault to him," Avis said.

"It does?" Tomas asked in surprise.

"It's a shame, because he was a nice man, truly considerate of those around him, and a good cook, but many women would no more want to wake up with a man who speaks in a rumble than they would with a man--other than the entirely desirable if never agreeable present company--who is thin as a rail," Avis said.  Evaine decided not to argue.  Tomas always ignored Avis's hints, even though Avis was an attractive, healthy young woman.

"I would not have thought of that issue," Tomas said, "Even after two weeks of work, I am not quite so thin as a rail, and would be happier to have real sleep." 

"Murder for money does not fit the circumstances," Evaine said.  Tomas's eyebrows rose.  "Where did the unnamed murderer find pirates, let alone two hundred of them?  Much further south, in sailing range of the Western Reach, you do hear of sloops with a hand of pirates stealing fishing boats.  They sneak in by night and cut them out.  What were two hundred pirates paid?  Why did they leave the money behind, burn all the books, leave all weapons except Snowpiercer, ritually slaughter the Priestesses, fail to loot The House That Floats, and recruit the pirate who died, an armed man who was not Fit to Serve Her Needs?  I do not know my question's answer. I disbelieve they were simple pirates, however I name them.  That's before we get to the something not sorcery that destroyed the gate and Sanctuary."

"What else could they be except pirates?" Avis asked.  "The dead man was no Sea Eagle.  He was surely not tall, blonde, pale-skinned, or clean.   Sea Eagles looted weapons.  They respected Her shrines and temples."

"I agree.  I don't see how to bend the facts to my explanation," Tomas said.

"Except one," Evaine said, "Except one.  Longbeachport might be like the Cowrieshell Garden Massacre.  Three centuries ago, CowrieShell Gardens was an isolated resort town.  One morning, its people were all killed.  We now know Sea Eagles killed them, beginning three centuries of Sea Eagle attacks.  At the time, it was a terrible and mysterious, but isolated, crime."  Tomas became more thoughtful.

"What you are saying," Tomas said, "is that this crime was perpetrated by a large group of people entirely unknown to us, but well trained and armed."

"I suppose," Evaine said.  He was trying to draw her out.  Obviously the attackers were not people well known to anyone.  Unarmed idiots could not have done this.

"You've found something you don't know, Evaine?" Avis asked.  "Other than when you'll join a circle or find a Mirror?"

Evaine giggled.  "There are lots of things I'm not sure about," Evaine said.  "Who did this.  How many men I've avoided.  The use of the tinder grains in the pack..."

"Grains?" Avis asked.

"You had to be there," Tomas said.

"Better you were not," Evaine responded.  "The stink is still in my nose.  The second pack had this carefully made copper box, filled with black sand."

"Charcoal, milled to a quarter a piece of corn," Tomas said.  "I thought 'tinder'.  So we tried using some to light a fire.  Fortunately, we were out of doors and upwind."

"Put it on a piece of paper, put it under some tinder wood, put a flame to the paper.  The charcoal burned incredibly fast.  And smelled to high heaven," Evaine went said.

"Smelled?" Avis asked.

"Sulphur," Tomas said.  "It was sulphur."

"The rock that burns," Avis inserted.  Tomas suddenly looked distraught.  Evaine made a mental note to herself.  That was his look when she blundered near a secret of the Archimagate.  The Mages had an unreasonable number of secrets, some rather silly.  The exact distance to the Shield, a distance a hundred times the length of the One World, came to mind.

"From the play, Tomas," Evaine said.  Let him not suspect that some secrets of the Archimagate were widely known.   "The play we saw when last in Longbeachport.  The Nine Deeds of the Circle of Nimue.  In the last deed, Nimue herself confronts the Demon Fondarel.  Her question is 'What stones burn?'  Fondarel speaks 'only sulphur, the flower of Hell'."

"In the play," Avis said, "Nimue produces a fragment of the Shield, the stone that burns without burning.  Fondarel, defeated at the riddle game, flees, freeing the rest of Nimue's Circle, each of whom did her deed and became trapped.  The Nine are reunited with their Mirror, their lover."

"The South-Coast play differs," Evaine said.  "It is more poignant and discordant.  On South-Coast, the play is 'The Nine Deeds of the Heroine Nimue', she does all deeds herself, she produces not a piece of the Shield, but a piece of coal, the other stone that burns, and she by herself is reunited with her sole lover.  The single-loving theme, the heroine being true to only one man and vice versa, only sometimes causes riots."

"I see," Tomas said.  "But what is a coal?  Not a lump of red-hot charcoal from a fire, is it?"

"Coal," said Evaine, "is a rare mineral that looks like charcoal, only much blacker and harder, that burns very hot while making little soot.  It is said to be charcoal buried in a rockslide and crushed flat.  There is a temple to the Gray-Eyed Aspect that maintains a coal flame in her honor.  It is a small fire, carefully tended, but the cost of maintaining it, month after month, year after year, is truly remarkable."

"Another stone that burns," Tomas said.  "Other than sulphur. Is that why the tinder kit burned spectacularly?"

"I've seen sulphur burned, enough to know the stench," Evaine said.  "I've seen coal burn.  Neither burns like that tinder. The smell was sulphur.  But the smell when we burned the powder--which by the way did start a fire--that was the smell at the gate when I arrived here."  Tomas shrugged.  The gate had not been knocked in by a cloud of smoke, however smelly.  

"I have heard of coal, now that you remind me.  There is none on North-Shore," Avis remarked.

"There's a larger worry than rocks," Evaine said.

"What is more worrisome than rocks?" Avis asked.

"Tomas," Evaine announced.  "I need to convince your mother that she needs a formed militia."

"Perhaps I forget something," Tomas said quizzically. "But I vaguely recall having inspected the High and Low Levies last year, all by myself.  Was it a dream?"

"The operative word, Tomas, is 'formed'," Evaine said.  "The Levies are individually skilled, most of them.  But formed?  Working as a group requires drill and practice.  Why?  Do you remember what I said when we left town?  If we're attacked by cavalry, you run, I charge?  Can I fight a half dozen riders all at once?  I don't need to.  If six pirates try to ride us down, they'll all spur their horses, each to a different speed.  They'll spread into a thin column.  I charge.  I fight six one-on-one passes, not one-on-six where I'd have work up a sweat.  Not staying in formation, that's not formed.  It's a lousy way to fight."

"You think the pirates were formed, like a Sisterhood Greathand, so we need to be the same?"  Tomas asked.  Evaine nodded. "In all the neighboring Republic towns, there are four, no, five Sisterhood Greathands, three hundred women.  If all came against Torinsdale at once, we'd raise the Levy.  You're saying that might not work, because the Low and High Levy are not well-formed."  Evaine frowned. Did Tomas think that the Republic had murdered its own people as a pretext for war? "Yes, I know we're not going to war with the Republic," he said.  "We're worrying about pirates.  There's a but.  The Landgrafin understands war with the Republic.  She does not understand the fate of Longbeachport, and why it means needing formed militias. She must be convinced. There remains a minor detail.  Who here can train women into being formed?"  

"Easy," Avis said.  "Tomas delegates the task to his Banneret."

"After all," Evaine said, "I have nothing else to do with my time.  There is also a hard task.  A question to answer.  Tomas, how often can pirates cast the non-spell? At what range?"  Tomas spread his hands in doubt.  "If it has range, say a hundred paces, it raises havoc with pikes.  I can see how far it affects targets.  I saw where windows broke and walls shattered. I would not want to be within forty paces of that spell's target."

"It's not a spell," Tomas said.  "There's no way to smash gates with magic."

"OK, it's a not-spell.  And it not-smashes a gate into kindling.  And if there's not just a few copies of not-it, not fighting in open order sounds not good," Evaine said.  "We train to close ranks to fight Swordsisters."

"This sounds bad," Avis said.  "How do you fight in closed and open order at the same time?"

"Let's say that if the pirates show, I want them to visit the Republic first.  Someone else dies. I take careful notes," Evaine said.  "Let someone else pay for my lessons." 

Chapter 8
The Tower of the Eye
Flower 23, 2446

The door harp gave its melodic clatter.  Roxanne turned from her office desk.  Standing in the open doorway was Gretchen, hands clasped, bowing gently, waiting to be heard. Roxanne gestured at the couch. Gretchen had lived her entire life in the shadow of the Tower of the Eye, had taken well to an adoption she was too young to remember, and had been raised into a Swordsister Circle.  Unlike some adoptees, she had known from an early age that she had choices of a future, but she had put her spirit into the profession of her adopting aunts. "Sit," Roxanne said, waiting patiently while Gretchen hung her sword on a wall peg.  "You are reporting for the three of you?"

"Yes, Ma'am. Astrid and Brigit are prepared to report, but we're all doing exactly the same thing.  We have no answers yet.  To be short, they took five of the six Greathands you listed, and are going back year by year through our records, which sometimes need sorting," Gretchen said.  "The records, saying what was done with the money, do not change often. I've been skipping a decade at a time, looking for changes.  It's slow, but not as slow as searching every single page for every year.  Finding the right volumes is tedious.  The bound books are not well ordered.  At least the books are dusted regularly."

"How far back are you?" Roxanne asked.

"A century and a third," Gretchen answered.  She shifted on the couch to avoid the afternoon sun coming through the windows.  "And I came to the end.  130 years ago, Jimsonweed was an established Greathand, facing the horse barbarians.  The Barbarian War ended, and Jimsonweed was reduced to cadre, a single woman in another Greathand.  The next year, the Appropriation for an active greathand stops, but the Table of Disbursements shows money going out for the Greathand, under new categories. The categories are numbers, not names. Now I have to work through a year of Senate Records, to understand what the numbers mean.  I think it gets easier, but until a century ago there were no Standard Fiscal Tables, the tables we learned in class."

"Look for indices," Roxanne said.  "They may be physically separate from the volumes.  Indices are slow to make, except for fabulously wealthy houses that throw a counting loom at them, so indices are done much after the main volumes.  Are you so far back the indices are writ by hand?"

"Not quite.  The really old volumes are stored separately, in gold mining tunnels behind the Tower of Insight.  These are all printed," she answered.

"You're doing very well," Roxanne said.  "Don't work yourself into the ground.  It's a beautiful spring, for once.  Are you still swimming?"

"The natatorium," Gretchen answered.  "Laps, half a mile, three days in four.  Sun to warm up after, though now the water is really warm. Mistress Carla is teaching me cooking, though I'm not very good."

"You're better than I am," Roxanne said.  "My daughter says I can scorch water--but she always wants me to cook for our Circle."

* * * * *

Laurel Laurelsdotr, First Speaker of the Province of Cismontane-by-the-Sea, leaned back in her wooden throne.  The Great Chair of the First Speaker was ornately carved mahogany, imported from South-Shore at much expense three centuries ago.   Since then, it had been carefully polished, but never ever given padding.  It was hot in summer and frigid in winter, but it was the Great Chair, and it was hers.  The final members of the Shire Senate Committee on Peace and Order were just filing into the room.   Around the Hall, aides were checking behind curtains, setting their scarlet and white interlaced-crescent patterns shimmering, and then shutting them.  The Hall was a tridecagon, with a narrow floor-to-ceiling window in eleven sides, and doors at two ends; when the session was closed, the translucent curtains were pulled shut.   Two Hands of Swordsisters stood guard outside, ensuring that no one other than Senators or staff could approach the Hall. The staff withdrew, closing the doors behind them.

"We are the Senate," she intoned.

"We are the People," the Senators answered.

"We are United," they chanted in unison.

"We had best be united," Laurel announced.  Yesterday, they had discussed this meeting's agenda.  No preliminaries were needed. "We face interesting challenges.  I wish I could tell you the fate of Longbeachport, but I cannot.  Our Shire Interlocutor searches, but has not found the guilty.  In fairness, Greatmistress Linnasdotr, who assisted closely in all parts of the investigation, reports that she is equally baffled.  She says the Interlocutor works diligently, efficiently, and honestly.  There are a plethora of clues, but no one can fit them together.

"We face a more serious challenge.  After the Massacre, Tomas-sa-Torinsdale entered Longbeachport with five hands of Torinsdale High Levy.  He had many excuses.  When I sought to raise the issue, under the Reconciliation of Differences Treaty, he arranged the required meeting agenda so that I would have no legitimate chance to raise questions.  There was no reason to do this, if his intent was pure.  I personally do not believe that Torinsdale staged the massacre, because I doubt they have the skill, but they sought advantage when it was offered.  However, Tomas-sa-Torinsdale is a mage, and has access to the occult.  For example, summoning demons to murder the population of an entire town. I fear Torinsdale Domain.

"Now we face the most serious challenge, namely that someone killed hundreds of our citizens.  They escaped with several dozen hostages.  From one end of the Shire to the other, the People live in fear of the unknown.  The guilty must be caught and brought to justice." Laurel Laurelsdotr took a deep breath.  She had stated the issues before them, with as little wailing and gnashing of teeth as possible.  She gestured at the Committee-second.

"There is great concern," said Sara-sa-Millersbridge, occupying her Seat as Lord Mayor of the Millersbridge Shore. "The concern is that the villains may return, or may not be brought to justice.  I see this task left in the hands of a man, a man from a Domain at that, and have no faith that these concerns will be removed.  There is fear that the villains are the Sea Demons, that we are unprotected, and that the Maserin Northern Road implies Torinsdale designs on the Millersbridge Shore.  There is concern that this is part of a pattern, one with the series of assassinations that over past decades have confounded wealthy Circles. Cannot my towns be protected, say each with a Greathand of the Sisterhood?"  Sara's last remarks received a round of applause.

"May I speak to that?"  Tina Phoebesdotr commanded the Sisterhood forces west of Merecester, through Millersbridges to the sea.  Laurel nodded. "There are six large towns in the Millersbridge Shore.  To satisfy your request, the Sisterhood would need to deploy its entire force in the Shire, including the retired and the disabled, and leave all else undefended, even Merecester, Union, and Noralin City."
Sara-sa-Millersbridge gestured again for the floor.  "May we not," she asked, "Call upon the Great Senate of North-Shore for additional forces?  It is we who are in danger, for once, not remote places that face Ice People or Horse Barbarians.  We paid to defend other places from them.  Now distant places ought pay to defend us."

"I have sent such an appeal," Laurel said.  "But even if our request is granted, time will be needed."

"There is an alternative," Robin Hawkesdotr said, her green eyes barely visible in the subdued light.   "Instead of waiting for Torinsdale to attack us again.  Instead of waiting for the Torinsdale blow to fall.  We could deliver our own blow first." Hawkesdotr leaned back.  She represented Merecester and environs, ranging east from the Millersbridges to Black Lake and the towns that dotted its southern shore. "It is inescapable that Longbeachport was destroyed by the Torinsdale Levy, disguised as pirates.  Who else could have found so many women, and rehearsed and launched such a violent attack?  Who else could have used sorcery to smash the town gate? Instead of sitting and waiting for another Torinsdale attack, we should strike back first."

Dana Nissasdotr nodded her agreement.  Her constituents dotted the woods and hills south from Noralin City to Union with small towns, woodlots, and sawmills, their goods being shipped down the Darkwater River through Union to the steelroad or three hundred miles south of the Vair Reach to the coast.  "Rather than dividing our strength in two dozen ways, we could bring the available Greathands together, request further Greathands of Swordsisters be forwarded from the south, and advance into Torinsdale to arrest the pirates, just as Torinsdale invaded the Republic without warning. Under the law, the Sisterhood may be greatly reinforced by summoning from our towns to the defense of the Republic the Walldaughters and those Temple Acolytes who have trained under arms.  In contrast, Torinsdale has no real host.  A rapid march to capture Caer Adurel will bring them to their knees."

Abby-sa-Darkwater, representative of Noralin City, shook her head in agreement.  "I need not remind you of the great losses we take because Torinsdale is a Domain.  Men and apprentices flee to their absurd tax system.  Goods that would properly be taxed as Surplusage and Abundage instead wend their way to Torinsdale, there to be traded for untaxable Torinsdale goods that are never properly sold.  A re-regularization of our arrangements with the House of Maserin--perhaps by installing a competitors as Landgravines--would do much to bring prosperity to all Cismontane-by-the-Sea.  This Judithson house looks particularly promising."

Erica Linnasdotr grimaced.  They were supposed to be discussing who had attacked Longbeachport, not planning a general outbreak of violence between the Republic and Domains across all of North-Shore.  Darkwater's ideas on economics foundered on the simple observation that roads from Republic to Domain were neither well maintained nor well traveled.  The exchange between Torinsdale and Cismontane-by-the-Sea, while lucrative for the individuals carrying it out, amounted to cartloads of cordials and perfumes being traded for fine and machined goods that Torinsdale did not manufacture.  Torinsdale also sold further south, but that trade was properly documented. The last decade had seen a significant decline in half of that trade, with Torinsdale making more and more items that it might once have purchased.  "Let me remind you," she intruded, projecting her voice over the quieter conversations around the room, "that we have trade with Torinsdale.  Our people go there; their people come here.  A criminal conspiracy this size could not be kept secret, not even in a pirate opera.  If Longbeachport had been attacked by Torinsdale, we would know.  And with respect to summoning the Walldaughters and the Acolytes to reinforce my Greathands, let me remind you that it is the Great Senate's policy that initiation of force is the monopoly of the Sisterhood.  We have Walldaughters and Acolytes, and on paper temple guards and wardens and road marshals and militias and even gatefathers and towerbrothers and Goddess knows what else, purely because the Sea Eagles might in principle return on some date.  They are there to protect our people, not to be an organized host."  She decided not to emphasize that, time and again, once a Shire had such a host, it had gained ideas about rearranging its relationships with the Republic, in ways that required much disorder or worse to settle. Laurel Laurelsdotr had no such ambitions, but some of the other women here might.

"Could your Greathands capture Torinsdale?" Robin Hawkesdotr asked hopefully.

"My Greathands," Erica answered, "are here to enforce law and protect the Republic.  I have heard no evidence whatsoever that these crimes were committed by people from Torinsdale.  I do not believe these discussions are appropriate. Also, if any of you have forgotten, Torinsdale has been heavily settled for a long time, and has nearly as many people as Cismontane-by-the-Sea.  While we rely on the Sisterhood and traditional bodies to defend the Republic, Domains have High and Low levies.  My Greathands might have as many women as their High Levy, but their Low Levy, however ill formed, is far larger.  If we had cause, which we do not, and were to lay siege to Caer Adurel, it would be challenging to capture, ignoring that within a week we would be swarmed under by their levies.  Furthermore, any such action here would rapidly spread to the remainder of the Republic, where it would create great disorder."  Erica contemplated the possibility that in a few years she would be reposted someplace else, someplace where the Shire Council was not largely filled with nitwits unable to see beyond the ends of their fingers to the contents of their Tax Vaults.

"What are we to do?" Sara-sa-Millersbridge asked.  "Are we to wait until another town suffers the fate of Longbeachport?"

"Let me urge," Margery Annasdotr said, "that the alternatives to waiting are all expensive.  The endowments for Peace and Order are not empty, but if the Sea Eagles are returning we cannot afford to fritter those endowments away on differences between Republic and Domains.  Given the hazards of the alternatives, and the lack of clear and compelling evidence that Torinsdale is at fault, or that this event is other than a freak, I do indeed propose that we do nothing."

"I shall make a suggestion," Laurel Laurelsdotr said, "one that meets many of the desired here without expense or risk."  The Committee quieted.  She had let them talk, but not for too long. Her suggestions were not commands, but were often received well.  Also, she had wanted the faction that desired war with Torinsdale to have its say, so all could agree it had been heard, but without upsetting matters in ways that could lead to a conflagration.  Tomas had done the opposite with her complaints, and he would be made to pay for his errors. "Until there is evidence, none can say who is at fault.  However, without tapping the endowments, as a step to calming the population, I would urge that we pass a resolution reminding each village and town of its responsibility to levy and spend wall fees, to raise Walldaughters and Acolytes, and to see that the Republic's laws on these matters are obeyed, even as they were obeyed when the Sea Eagles regularly sailed down from the far North.  We can say we acted, nothing irregular will be done, no disorder will arise, and our plea to the Great Senate for more Swordsisters can emphasize that we have done all we could within the limits of the law."  The Committee nodded its assent.  Laurelsdotr's plan was conventional, reassuring, safe, and cheap.  What more could you ask? "Also, while directives would exceed our normal powers, I would urge Greatmistress Linnasdotr to consider that if pirates are found, arresting them will involve greathands and greathands of women, acting as a group, and that the Sisterhood might well consider whether the skills involved in fighting a large-scale battle are adequately practiced."

"I am grateful for the First Speaker's advice," Erica answered.  "As it happens, I have ordered that each of our Greathands promptly conduct out-of-season cycles of the Fall Dances, and that—within a month—we conduct a Great Dance, the five Greathands fighting in a single formation.  The delay in the latter is the logistic complication of bringing five Greathands to the same place, having adequate open fields for the exercise, and generating adequate volunteers to pretend to be our opponents.  We do not know who our opponents are.  Should we prepare against Ice People pikes, horse barbarian clibinarii, South-Shore Swordsisters, or men with feather dusters and frying pans?"

"Thanking the Greatmistress for her wise question, to which no answer is known, I find this session has ended," Laurel Laurelsdotr proclaimed.

* * * * *
Roxanne-sa-Anglewood stood in her office.  A cool breeze blew through the screens on her porch, one of the remarkable number of affectations installed by her predecessor.  His conduct might have been irregular, but his taste in furnishings was impeccable, at least if you ignored the couch. It was late afternoon, with shadows lengthening.  Soon enough, an aide would appear to reset the western blinds. From the porch, she could see much of Dianasmere; from inside, she saw distant fields and woods.  The annual report of the Inspectorate on the state of the Sisterhood was almost complete.  If she held herself to the narrow standard of reporting that which the Senate had properly asked, the report was a masterpiece of accuracy and brevity.  The Inspectorate had examined every item that the Senate had requested; at each point, almost every Greathand was in good to excellent condition.   The supplement, a copy of the report of each Sisterhood Greathand, had been properly bound, the anomalous reports being presented first, Greathand Lysimachia being the very first in the volume.

For the last three years, she had suspected that at a deeper level the state of the Sisterhood was less sound.  It was difficult to be certain.  The Sisterhood was both the Republic's constabulary and its standing vast-host.  The former role dominated.  The latter role had most recently been taken against the Sea Eagles, whose raids from the Western Waters faded away fifty years ago.  Could the Sisterhood now function as a host?  The General Council did exercises representing their command
, but those were paper maneuvers, without even a single woman on the ground to represent the Greathands being maneuvered.  In each year, through the Fall Dances each Greathand practiced combat as a formed single unit.  For most Greathands, those exercises were carefully prescribed.  Every needful action was performed, but all in accord with a pre-ordained script leading to foreplanned victory.  Surprise and improvisation were never on the list of ordained actions to be practiced. 

The budget was more unsettling.  She had finally told Senator Greenthumb that she had to agree with him.  Something was more than a mite odd with the Sisterhood's budget, but it wasn't someone padding expenses for extra practice arrows.  The materials budget of the Sisterhood was one of the larger before the Senate, but the materials budget paled before the budget for salaries and pensions.  Where was money going?  She finally discovered that in addition to the appropriated, itemized expenses in yearly Senate budgets, there were unappropriated expenditures.  Money was spent in accord with the directions of prior Senates, transferred from account to account with dizzying speed in seemingly empty circles.  That money appeared in no financial report that she could locate.  However, transfer records only said how much was transferred, not why. To find explanations, one had to determine the year in which each transfer had first been ordered.  Transfers did get repeated from year to year, but each year's records said how the transfer would be recorded next year, not which directive from last year had authorized the current year's expense.  To address seemingly endless circles, she had casually traced through a few series of records, working ten or twenty years back.  Tracing was tedious.  The Senate Resolutions generally did not reference by number the prior year's governing resolution.  In each case she had checked, the expense had been totally valid all the way through to the present.  

Gretchen would soon be along with ... her door harp strummed.  "Enter," Roxanne said.

Gretchen, in scholar's gray tunics, sword peeping at her shoulder from behind her cape, knelt shallowly and entered.  The Inspectorate glyph was properly embroidered on her tunic, though gray threads on gray robes were not blindingly visible.  Her light brown hair and eyes distinguished her from many of her fellow students, who tended to gold-blonde or strawberry hair and green or sea-blue eyes. Gretchen's boots tapped on the floor tiles. In another month, the Senate Staff would go over to summer dress. To use the Senate Library, Gretchen would be expected to switch to sandals and shorter tunic. 

"Sit," Roxanne said.  "You've been hard at work all day."  Gretchen dutifully sat and opened her letter book.  One of the more pleasant things about dealing with Gretchen, Roxanne thought, was that she was well prepared, so when she opened her letter book her presentation was neatly stacked except for a public broadsheet jammed in at the bottom.

"I may report, Greatmistress," Gretchen said.  Roxanne nodded.  "I found that I had outpaced the remainder of my half-hand, that Astrid and Brigit were still working backwards one year at a time through the records.  I convinced them that skipping backwards would get them to their goal faster, and have been helping them with that, so that I have shouldered part of their burden when it was found to be the heavier.  However, after Jimsonweed was reduced to cadre, I found resolutions specifying what the transaction codes mean.  That took days.  Now I am putting together what the meanings imply.  The money meant for Jimsonweed is still being spent."

"Was being spent, 130 years ago, you mean," Roxanne offered.

"No, Greatmistress, I mean that it appears that it is still being spent this year.  I think." Gretchen explained. "Perhaps that's only an illusion, and money is only chasing itself in big circles.  But it appears that tax money as recently as last year came out of the Treasury and went into something...I don't know what yet."

"Surely all debts are long since discharged?" Roxanne asked.  Gretchen nodded assent.  "See what you can do with this.   Is that all?"

"There is another matter, Greatmistress.  Perhaps," Gretchen said.  "But if it's true, people ought to be more interested in spending on the Sisterhood."  She pulled two broadsheets from the bottom of the pack, and spread them on Roxanne's desk. 

"SEA EAGLES RETURN!" shouted the Dianasmere Star and Moon.  "A FRIGHTFUL MASSACRE" exclaimed the Capital Sun-Chronicle.  Roxanne scanned the articles, which were short on content and long on speculation.  The Star and Moon's artist had worked from a century-old travelogue woodcut of Longbeachport that she had seen before.  She was quite sure that there had been no mention in any report of Sea Eagles in breechclouts and cotton armor, let alone Eagle mages throwing lightning bolts from their eyes.  Unfortunately, the valiant walldaughters slaying Sea Eagles until overwhelmed by numbers equally had been equally absent from the real reports.  The Sun-Chronicle's artist appear to have worked from on-the-scene artwork from current documents, including a drawing of window glass embedded in plaster that she was sure had only appeared as an attachment to the Lysimachia annual report.  She hoped whoever in the Tower of the Eye had sold access to the sketch had been adequately rewarded for their courtesy.

The text speculations, including a column from a woman on the Council who should have had the sense to remain quiet and be thought a fool, told her almost nothing she had not known.  Here, however, the Star and Moon affected to have sources in the Dark Halls, the Hall of the Deep Sky, and the Hall of Fire, the three mages' circles having enchanted communication with the northwest.  "Encoded Sorcery Manuals" sounded like something from a pirate opera, but the author's description of the dead pirate was spot on accurate.   The knapsacks left at the shore of the quaking bogs were not in reports she had seen, but they wouldn't be, because it was fairly clear that their owner had committed no crime.  From the wording, the Star and Moon had a very abbreviated report of current details, with no pictures;  however, it was only a reasonably well-kept secret that mages' enchantments, like sunspeakers, sent only words.  She wondered which Mage's Circle had sold the broadsheet that report.

She realized that Gretchen was awaiting her response.  "These are incredible, Gretchen," Roxanne said.  "Except they happen to be true in fair part.  There really is a town of Longbeachport, and it really was wrecked up by someone.  But no one knows whom.  And the two articles solve a major problem of mine.  Consider what each paper said: 'The valiant Swordsister garrison died to the last woman with sword in hand.' and 'The attack was so sudden that half the garrison died in their sleep.'  Both of those statements, almost, are from actual reports, and they do not agree."

"I see," Gretchen said.  "Shouldn't the reports agree on that?"

"Oh, yes," Roxanne said.  "Absolutely!  And this is very important, so someone of high rank is going to have to go there and inspect.  Me, for example."  Gretchen grinned.  Roxanne stared at the front pages.  "They wanted ten drams each for these sheets?" she asked.  "Gretchen, dear, you didn't need to bring those.  You could have told me."  She fumbled in her purse.  "But if you are going to be eyes and ears on these things, you shouldn't have to pay for it yourself."  She paused.  "Oh, Astrid's younger brother.  For his mother's Circle, he grows the hosta and hollyhocks."

For a moment, Gretchen was baffled.  "That's really great of you," she said once she understood.  "But I'm wasting your time.  I should be going."
I'm baffled still.  Hostas and Hollyhocks?  Does this give Gretchen an edge in seducing him?  Did Roxanne give her this tip instead of the coin she was fumbling for?  

"Not at all," Roxanne answered, "Not at all.  But be on your way."

Chapter Nine
Caer Adurel, Torinsdale
Flower 20, 2446

The Landgrafin's Solar doubled as a sewing room, filled in cold times with women knitting and gossiping.  On rare occasions, it was the Landgrafin's private receiving room.  A previous Landgrafin had floored it with black ceramic tile, replaced stucco walls with black brick, and in a fit of extravagance double-glazed the windows.  Except in the depths of winter or summer, it maintained a pleasant warmth from early morning to late evening.

"You sent for me, Lady Cheryl?" Evaine asked from the doorway.  She had had enough warning to bathe after a morning training session with her latest class, and had changed from padded armor to trousers and tabard.  The afternoon training was in the Swordmistress's hands.  They had long since agreed that the Swordmistress could well handle lectures, and count off drill.  Evaine staged exercises that were physically demanding on the trainer.  The shortsword at Evaine's waist marked her rank and post as Armsmistress in the Landgrafin's Court.  She took the role more seriously than most; her sword was properly honed and ready for use.  If there had had been any suggestion of need, she would have worn a longer sword over her shoulder, but her fogblade was sufficiently valuable to be left under lock and key whenever possible. What might Lady Cheryl want, though?  There had been no indication.
I take the the "fogblade" is the longer sword?  Seems to me that the inconvenience of carrying a long sword would be as important as the value of it.

"Enter, Evaine, and lock the outer and inner doors behind you."  Lady Cheryl was in her mid-fifties, her hair not quite turning color though a few silver threads were mixed in with the gold.  A steady turn of riding the circuits and adjudicating disputes had left her fit, though not so pale-skinned as when she was a young woman.   Evaine's eyes rose slightly.  The double doors, the inner set being massive and barrable from within, isolated the Solar from any possible prying ears.  She could not remember the last time the Landgrafin had had them both shut.  "Please sit.  We have a difficult issue to discuss, on which your advice is more valuable than most.  However, I must command that you absolutely not discuss this with anyone else.  If anyone else asks, you should avoid answering, and if all else fails say that I placed my words under my seal."  

Evaine nodded politely. "My silence is promised."

"Five days ago, the Cismontane Shire Senate, rather, its Committee on War, met.  They use a different name for 'war'.  They were to discuss the Longbeachport massacre.  Is this news?" Cheryl asked.

"They've met several times.  Tomas has been a guest.  They get his reports on trying to solve the Longbeachport mystery.  He and Greatmistress Linnasdotr have a very positive way of working together—not that they can explain what happened," Evaine answered.

"Now we come to the part that is secret, that absolutely none may learn, not even my Daughter-Heir.  Five days ago, they met in closed session.  They did not discuss Longbeachport.  They discussed whether Torinsdale was responsible for the massacre, whether our sword-daughters slaughtered their people."  Evaine bit her tongue.  The Landgrafin did not like to be interrupted, no matter how absurd the Cismontane Senate's ideas were.  "They discussed counter actions.  Huge garrison forces in every town were a possibility.  But several of their most prominent members proposed instead that they should attack us by surprise, seize Caer Adurel, and install a Troisfontaine as Landgrafin."

"Forgive me, Lady Cheryl, but how can…" A realization came to her.  "I see."  Lady Cheryl had a spy in the Senate, and wanted that fact to be completely protected.

"Yes," Lady Cheryl answered.  "Yes.  And I need two proposals.  Urgently, I want the Caer shielded against an attack by up to five or ten Sisterhood greathands. Soon, but I need a well-thought-out plan, I need High and Low Levies or some part of them prepared to fight as a Host, not as a trained mob.  I have no idea how to do this.  I know you and Tomas have previously urged this step, to face the Longbeachport pirates.  I did not then see the urgency; I am now convinced the need is urgent.  The Swordmistress says she can train single Greathands, not more.  I wish to have available, not permanently under arms at my expense, a formed host of two or three hands of greathands.  Fifteen hundred to two thousand women.  I think that is enough, though I await your advice.  But formed hosts need weapons and armor.  What can I get in the fairly near future? What might it cost?  I'll give you a month or two to think about it, if you need the time.  If you see steps we are sure to need, please speak up sooner."

Evaine cupped her chin in one hand, her index finger resting on her lips.  The pose was more traditional on South-Shore, but it did give her moments to consider.  "There are three watchtowers ringing the Caer.  They overlook all lines of approach.  Give them watchdaughters and farseers.  In daylight, this gives you much warning.  Put a pair of watchers on the High Tower.  I realize this strains the Caer's staff.  In much weather, with windbreaks, knitters can do watching.  Leave most Caer gates closed when not in use.  Ditto, close many of the Keep's doors, and lock them from within.  Emphatically encourage everyone in the Caer to have arms at hand.  The Caer wall towers have fixtures for bolt-throwers.  The bolt throwers are stored in the Old Barn.  Get them out, fixed, oiled, and ready to work.  We are between harvest and planting.  The machinist is not overworked with reapers and threshers needing repair.  Have an adequate supply of spoolbows.  See that we have enough fighting bolts.   That is expensive. The machine shop needs more trained labor.  It happens that in Longbeachport there is a machinist, one of the few survivors, now almost bereft of customers, who might be willing to emigrate and bring her daughter."

"How many spoolbows do we want?" Cheryl asked.  "That starts to become expensive."

"The training armory has sixty.  The Caer armory has a similar number, many not in good repair.  For the host—about half the women should be truly skilled with the bow.  All should practice its use.   A spoolbow, a bolt-thrower, is much superior to a longbow.  Bolts are easier made than arrows, and carry farther.  Insist all bowdaughters perform rational training whether they like it or not," Evaine answered.   For serious strengthening, she thought, there is no substitute for lifting weights every day.
For fastest strengthening, lift weights every *other* day.  You get stronger on the days off, not on the days you strain yourself.  But for keeping already-strong soldiers fit, I see the advantage of training them to work hard every day without days of rest.

"I can ask this, but the Domainmoot will need to assent," Cheryl answered.

"On a seemingly different topic, encourage our haulers to trade more to Merecester and Noralin City and Union.  This is also profitable.  However, every hauler is a pair of eyes and ears, listening to gossip and watching prices.  You can't just line up large numbers of women and have them march off battle.  First you buy up all the sausage, cheese, vinegar, flour, and draft animals you need to carry their food.  If you do not, your host will starve and desert.  Nor can you march into Union, from points south, an additional dozen Greathands of Swordsisters, not without people noticing."
I know what you meant, but it sounds as though the sausage and cheese are going to carry the food!  I think a "the" before "draft" would do -- no, you need "and buy enough draft animals".  
Draft animals *pull* food -- *pack* animals carry it.

"Well thought out," Cheryl answered.

"If you are sure attack is close, close the windmills.  Lock up the gears.  Let the Rowan Field revert to a swamp.  The swamp blocks all lines of attack from the west or northwest.  Our towns do not train their walldaughters.  Having here a greathand or two of walldaughters, being scientifically trained as can be done by my trainees, means you have two extra greathands: You ensure that all towers can be held, gates are handled well, all can see that you hold a strong position, and you still have a maneuver force.  It also means that the walldaughters get trained.  The Sisterhood lacks siege weapons, does not train to storm walls, and would need to fill the moat before it could cross and attack us.  It would be convenient to restore the moat bridges as draw bridges.  That change is expensive.  So long as the Sisterhood can't get inside without warning, they will find it difficult to attack effectively.  Except the draw bridge, that's all 'this week' sort of thing.  Shall I see this is done?" Evaine asked.  

"You anticipate my desires," Cheryl answered.  "Do it all.  Encourage every town in the Vale to do the same.  If you draft for me a letter, I will have it copied and sent."

"Also, and I defer to your judgement on not ruffling the priestesses, the force you describe needs several greathands of cavalry.  That means three hundred horses, counting replacements, each with saddle gear. There is a horse tax, usually remitted, payable only in horses and gear, that you may need to collect."

"A horse tax?" Cheryl asked.  "Tomas found this one, too?" Evaine smiled.  "Good.  Perhaps remit half this year."

"Now, there is one minor difficulty," Evaine answered.

"There are always difficulties," Cheryl responded.  "But I am most impressed that you thought of all this, on the spur of the moment in answer to an unanticipated question."

Evaine placed her hands on her ears, then folded them across her chest.  "Landgrafin, as you alone know I am not ignorant of these topics.  And it may be that I shall find additional steps.  May I then present them to you?"

"Evaine-sa," Cheryl answered, "That will not be needful.  You are my Armsmistress, and have better judgement than I in these matters, for reasons we both know but even now shall not speak.  So, if you find additional deeds that need to be done, you may so direct—I believe that you will recognize when Domainmoot action is needed.  If you err, well, many know your good heart and will blame me. War is expensive.  You may draw on the Caer Treasury for—I believe ten thousand crowns with proper accounting would be a good start."

"I am most grateful for your trust," Evaine answered.  The sum of money was huge.  "May I call upon the dayworkers if need be?"  Most circles in the Caer, besides the parents and skilled workers, had several women who were strong and not entirely thoughtless but lacked skills.

"The dayworkers, and the Mirrors as well," Cheryl answered.  The man, rarely men, of a circle were often not heavily employed during the day.

"Those without skills or active trades," Evaine said.  "Now the difficulty.  I can keep my secret, but so soon as I start doing these needful things, they will be impossible to hide.  For the bolt throwers, I will discuss with the smiths what the shops need to do.  Once they come out of the barn everyone will see.  Just as we hear what the Republic says, so also the Republic hears what we do.  We need a mask, a dissimulation, to hide we prepare against them."

"You have the skills I shall not name," Cheryl said, "not even here.  But how shall we mask this?"

"We shall pretend," Evaine said, "That all this is preparation against the pirates who sacked Longbeachport.  It's perfectly believable in the Republic, even if we agree it's silly.  In fact, you should propose to the Republic that we should send a hand or two of Levy, all good volunteers, to train with the Sisterhood, so that when we fight together against the pirates that we know each other's customs in the Dance of the Sword.  You need not mention that these select women will also hear every bit of gossip about what the Sisterhood is actually doing."

Cheryl frowned.  Evaine could tell that this had not been what she wanted to hear.  The pirates were a Republic problem, not something that would bother a Domain, and they should stay that way.  "I am not fond of dissimulation.  Nor do I like talk of pirates.  It upsets people.  However, for a spy, dissimulation is a duty, so I shall not demur.  I shall let you get about with things," Cheryl answered grumpily.  "We need move as swiftly as possible."

Evaine rose, did her best formal bow, and left.

* * * * *

Roxanne sat again on her patio, a half-finished pot of boiled-bean-tea on the side table, reading the proofs of the Inspectorate Annual Report.   The Report was almost done, which was well, because in another day Dottie would be leaving with her friends, and she would be off to Torinsdale and Winterdeep Vale.  News of the Longbeachport massacre had won Roxanne the Temple's enthusiastic support, and directives that she and Demara were to proceed to Cismontane-by-the-Sea as swiftly as consistent with her family responsibilities.  The wisteria overhead were about to bloom in the morning sunlight.  She had waited all this time for their flowers, and now they would bloom in her absence.  

Bean-tea was a somewhat expensive affectation, the beans needing to be dried, roasted, and powdered before being not-quite boiled.  On the rare occasions that she wished for a pot she made it in the early morning in the Circle refectory, that outside Winterdeep being far easier than making a fire and boiling water in her own kitchen.  She told herself she was always scrupulous about contributing more than her fair hours toward her Circle's cooking, though she tended to stay with chopping and cleaning rather than concocting dishes. Dotty never complained about bean tea, since it meant she would be sent to the milker for breakfast, to bring home a pot of boiled best and fruit pies, with mother giving her a very small cup of bean tea, mostly milk and lightly sugared, to finish her meal.
Took me a couple of passes to parse that you were saying that it was much easier to go to the refectory to make coffee, unless the weather was so cold that she had to build a fire anyway.  
A few more commas might help.

The door harp strummed.  Roxanne heard Dotty's feet tapping to the door.  The voice from outside was indistinct, but Dotty's high pitched "Greetings, sister-in-name, and welcome to this our house" came through clearly.  Who?  There were very few Dorothies in the world, girls Dotty would greet through their name-link.  "Mum ... The Great Inspector is on the patio," Dotty said. Roxanne stood swiftly.  She took work home, where she could read it privately and quietly, but the Inspectorate almost never followed her.  She stepped to the patio door, looking through her simple kitchen to the vestibule.  

Gretchen Dorothy Threetowers, entirely formally dressed, crossed the threshold and did her full formal bow, knee to ground, left hand to floor and right to sword pommel.  "I greet thee, Great Inspector, and beg permission for private conversation on an important matter."  

That was the formula, Roxanne thought.  What on Earth had Gretchen found?  Dotty was not quite staring. "Rise, please, Gretchen.  Dotty, would you please take your book to the refectory and read there?  No, I will not complain if Mistress Anna slips you one cinnamon crust.  But not while you are reading, and wash your hands after."  Dotty grabbed her book and disappeared.  It would be two crusts, and a sausage roll, and an apple with cheese, but Dotty was growing, and a bit thin, and she would wash her hands.

"The patio is most private," Roxanne announced.  "And we will start with a little bean tea, that I may say your call was social."  Gretchen followed politely.  Her cloak went on a hook, her sword following, and she sniffed appreciatively at the black caff-bean tea before drinking.  "I allow that you would only be here if there were a truly serious issue," Roxanne said. "Not the teasers again, I trust?"

"No, Ma'am," Gretchen answered. "Nothing so harmless."  Gretchen could surely see the look of disapproval on Roxanne's face.  Roxanne had definitely not viewed the teasers as harmless.   Gretchen stared firmly at Roxanne.  "I have found a truly serious issue. Complicated.  I needed some help with what some words meant.  I didn't realize what I'd found.  So, since her house has done banking since forever, and her house was not named in the records, I asked Angela-sa-Martynsfield-vrith-Martyn to explain what the financial instruments were."  Roxanne frowned more deeply.  Angela had been one of the disciplined girls.  Angela had not said things herself, but she had failed to order her half-hand toward the paths of comradery.  "When there's been compensation, there must be forgiveness," Gretchen said.  "And Angela's been sorting a year of archives a week, every week, not complaining, since she was told to start.  The rest of her halfhand is on their second year, I think."

"An year of archive a week? That's impossible!" Roxanne interrupted.  "Not that I disbelieve you, but..."

"It's a counting loom trick," Gretchen said. "She showed me.  At first my head hurt, but then I understood how it worked.  She tried to teach her half-hand, but they'd have none of it.  She offered Banker's Secrecy on my questions, her house-name pledged, and I accepted.  She emphasized that if vrith-Martyn House was doing bad things, she could not tell them that we knew."

Roxanne's brows wrinkled.  Bankers did protect their clients' private affairs, and a vrith-Martyn would know exactly how profoundly serious a name-pledge was.  Her House's Great Hall was covered with larger-than-life paintings and mosaics of distinguished ancestors, many represented while being tortured and not revealing their clients' secrets. "We digress," Roxanne said. "Financial Instruments?"

"For the Greathand Jimsonweed," Gretchen said, "I traced their records back to 2303. When they were reduced to cadre. Cadre was a single woman seconded to Greathand Belladonna.  Their revenues were indeed assigned, but not back to their taxpayers.  Instead, they were used to buy Portions of Public Endowments.  I had to trace transfer numbers, through layers of transfer.  In the end, the Portions were Privately Held. I'd never have understood the search without Angela's help.  

"Public Endowments?" Roxanne asked.  "I think you are going to need to start at the beginning. vrith-Emmitsford is honored, but we've not had wealth, oh, in the past millennium."  Roxanne folded her hands.  She knew perfectly well what Public Endowments, Privately Held, were, but wanted to hear what Gretchen thought 'publicly endowed' meant."

"A Public Endowment is tax money, invested in a public purpose like a road.  The rule is that road use taxes are returned to the endowment for road repair, widening, that sort of thing," Gretchen explained.  "If the road taxes don't maintain the road, and restore and enlarge the endowment, the money was ill-spent.  Angela explained it.  For spending that buys things that last, like roads, you never actually spend taxes.  You form a public endowment with the taxes.  The endowment does it.  It gets back the road taxes."  Gretchen took a deep breath.  "Now it gets complex.  Sometimes there are not enough taxes for what people want.  Then people are allowed to donate to the Endowment.  Their money builds the road.  They get part of the road taxes back to them.  Part goes to road maintenance, part goes to them." 

"It's like a partnership?" Roxanne asked. 

"Not exactly. Angela said the differences were really important," Gretchen continued.  "If I put money into a partnership, and the spending partners do badly, I owe the partnership's debts.  I'd be like the House of Pwill's partners.  Reduced to the cloak on my back.  A Public Endowment is public.  Owned by the Senate.  If the road yields few taxes, I may not get paid much, but the debts are the People and Senate's.  It's like an interest-bearing note, back before the Revelation on Usury, or a limited-liability circle, back before the Perfected Revelation.  At least, that's what Angela said.  I think.  Please don't ask me what a limited liability circle is.  It sounded like a contract that said you were allowed to break your half of the contract, and the other person wasn't."  Roxanne nodded vigorously.  Gretchen had touched the essence of the thing, and why it was obscene.  "But privately held means I give the Senate money, like volunteering for extra taxes. They pay me thereafter my share of what the road receives in taxes," Gretchen hesitated.  "Very rarely, the Senate takes Public Endowments, say on the Great North Road, computes their value, and makes them available to donors.  You donate, get a Portion for a stretch of road that is surely earning a return for its Endowment, and the Senate has money for other purposes.  The Public Endowment is now partly Privately Held.  There is no law forbidding private sale of your portion of an Endowment to someone else.  They're income without labor or risk--there're theology issues here—so they are extremely valuable."

"What does this have to do with Greathand Jimsonweed?" Roxanne asked. 

"Once upon a time, Greathand Jimsonweed owed someone money," Gretchen said.  "They agreed to take payment over twenty or so years.  Jimsonweed was converted to cadre.  Its tax income was not returned to the ratepayers. The rates were instead dedicated to paying the person her debt.  Then she agreed, instead of money, we'd buy her like-valued Portions of a Public Endowment.  Except we bought the Endowment Portions for ourselves, just like the Fortress Trust, so no Senate Action was needed to approve private sale of a Portion of a Road Endowment.  You had to have read the records though two decades to see what they meant. The Portion was transferred to Held Property, to Storage of Unused Property, to Disposal of Surplus Property in Payment of Debt, the latter office recording 'Transferred Property of Value thus and so in payment of debt', but not what the property was, to the owner.  We handed the Portion over to the person we owed.  So far, it looks legal. During the twenty-year, the formula in the Senate Report became 'As Prior Year'.  About four layers of people do things with money before the Endowment is received by the counting house that also holds our Public Endowment Portions.  The House transfers the Portion to the Private Holder.  For last year's transaction, I walked the record as far as the transfer to the Counting House.  Each step is on its face proper."

"This has been going on for a while," Roxanne said.  "That's a lot of money."

"Also," Gretchen added, "Part of the road taxes go to widening the road, all based on the original Endowment's investment.  If done well, after years the Portion gets more and more income and becomes more and more valuable."

"You calculated how much more valuable?" Roxanne asked.

"I tried twice. Endowments are complicated.  They change in value with time.  Sometimes parts of the Public Endowment are discharged, so the endowment base shrinks.  The math was hard to follow. Angela helped me.  That's why I needed days.  Here's the answer."  Gretchen handed over a spool of paper.

"This is odd handwriting," Roxanne said.

"Greatmistress Roxanne, that is typeset. We had to use a counting loom to get it right, and did it only for the first year's transfer.  Angela did that for me, as a courtesy to a sister," Gretchen explained.

"A counting loom?  Ours?" Roxanne asked.  Decades of reinvestment would indeed be complicated.  But counting Loom calculations were expensive, especially for novel calculations.

"Hers.  Her House's.  She is a Keyholder, and has the Loom Privilege, and has been precepting since she was ten.  And this is a very standard calculation," Gretchen said.  "The handwritten notes are the check.  We took an investment and followed it ahead through five years to see that the counting loom's preception was sound."

Roxanne worked to the end of the spool.  "There's a fair amount of money, and that's only after two decades. So they actually were given significant amounts of money?"

"So it seems," Gretchen said.

"All's well that ends well," Roxanne said.

"There is one other matter," Gretchen said.  Roxanne arched her eyebrows.  "You hold the computation for one year of transfer.  We continued to make those payments and transfers every year since.  It was supposed to stop after a Twenty-Year. It didn't. The payments continue through to today.  Also, it's like Illicit Interest on Interest, though I don't understand it completely, if a hundred crowns become two hundreds in twenty years, in another twenty years they become not three hundred crowns, but more like four hundred.  In a century, there is a lot of money. That's the isolated number at the bottom or the roll."  Roxanne looked at the end of the tape and blanched.  "This is one debt of one cadred Greathand.  There are three Hands of Greathands--the Senate would say almost one thousand, nine hundred—cadred Greathands.  In the same year as Belladonna, alone, five other Greathands closed with debt owed.  They may be making similar payments.  I tried estimating how much money that would be—I must have made a mistake.  Perhaps twenty billion crowns?  I looked it up.  There's not that much money in all the world.  And paying two billion crowns a year?  That's like the Senate budget of the Sisterhood."

"The Crone's Frozen Knockers," Roxanne whispered under her breath.  Senator-Archimage Greenthumbs had spent the past quarter-century saying that something was fundamentally wrong with the Sisterhood accounts, that the number of Swordsisters did not match spending. Roxanne had spent part of her career trying to find his errors, or to explain why the Sisterhood was almost seven times as expensive as seemed reasonable.  A hand of years ago, he and she had agreed that they would meet in secret, she would try to find his errors or give him better numbers, and he would not fault the Inspectorate for doing what the Senate directed.  She also told him privately she could find no fault in his calculations.  Gretchen Threetowers appeared to have found what she had not, namely where the money was going.

"I do not know where the money went, after the Counting House," Gretchen finished.  "That's not in our records."

Roxanne nodded.  Looting on a huge scale would have vast numbers of participants, most only seeing a tiny innocent fraction of the accounts.  "Gretchen," Roxanne said.  "You are to tell absolutely positively no one of this.  That's not 'I want to cover it up.'  That's 'women protecting much less ill-gotten money routinely assassinate to hide their secrets.'  Astrid and Brigit I will shift tomorrow morning to my other big project, and I will speak to Angela.  You are officially working on Astrid's project, too, but you will be tracing these, instead.  You have a written report?"  Gretchen nodded.  "You present it on Quarterday afternoon when I return from North-Coast.  Wear full formal dress."

"To whom am I presenting?" Gretchen asked.  

Roxanne repeated a catechismal line. "The Inspectorate is seen and unseen.  The Greatmistress Council runs the seen. The Invisible Eye orders the unseen.  And you are about to report--you'll only hear my voice--to the Invisible Eye." Gretchen nodded weakly.  The Invisible Eye did nothing but write public reports.  The consequences of those reports could be dramatic.  And if they decided you were an idiot, sometimes they would point that out.  "I'd do it sooner, but I must return from remote Longbeachport, Shire Cismontane-by-the-Sea, and Torinsdale, first.  My orders were sealed by the Ladies of Dianasmere.  Evading them might reveal that we know something we should not. We now look equally shocked, I happen to have a quarter-flagon of winter wine, and would toast you on your success." She paused.  "Seriously, Gretchen, this was a wonderful piece of work.  All from being patient and taking notes."

Chapter 10
Caer Adurel
Flower 32, 2446

Evaine-sa-Orowan leaned around Tomas's shoulders, setting a large map directly in front of him.  "It took me days to find this," she said, "all in my copious spare time.  This is a tracing of a tracing, several times removed, of a map made by Gwendolyn-sa-Hobner, Gwendolyn the Sailor, of the coast and a bit inland.  We are here," she pointed, "then called Wintervale, not Torinsdale, but the coastline is mostly recognizable.  Except Gwendolyn went well north of here.  That's where Millersport was built, though the inland river is wrong, and fifteen miles beyond is as far North as other maps go.  But here, a good sixty miles north, is this huge bay, and beyond it--she says ice river but her words describe a glacier, and then very tall mountains.  I'm not sure what she means when she says the last mountain has no top."

"And this is interesting other than historically?" Tomas asked.

"Tomas," Evaine answered, "the pirates came and went by boat.  They're too many to have hidden south of Longbeachport in the Quaking Bogs.  I gather the Vair Reach is inhospitable to pirates, just as they were inhospitable to Sea Eagles, enough that three hundred women and their fleet could not pass unnoticed.  Therefore, only alternative, the pirates came from the North.  Perhaps beyond this glacier, which requires sailing around.  Crossing a glacier on foot is not fun.  But perhaps from here," she tapped the map, "where no one has mentioned going in centuries, it being legally part of the Vale that no one has interest in using, it being poor soil and too flat for watermills.   Perhaps windmills will make matters different. The coast is flattish for five or eight miles inland.  Going north this far should be a walk in the woods.  If the map is right."

"I suppose you found volunteers to be sent?" Tomas asked.  Evaine could read the look on his face.  For Tomas, fifty miles of trackless wilderness was uncrossable. He was asking who should be sent to their deaths.  She wondered what he would have made of her trip here.  Of course, he had more than once sailed in a flijtschiff, by which standard anything else was pedestrian.

"Avis will come with me," Evaine announced, "my going alone through the wilderness being risk without benefit.  And a couple-three women from the Winterwheat Greathand, they being in the Millersbridges for the year, will accompany also.  It's the Republic that the pirates attacked, after all. Having them along silences arguments about where boundaries are."

"Why do I suspect that you've already set this up?" he asked.  "You finished off your last instructor class for the season; you're supposed to have time for other duties."

"Suspect, Goodsir?  Suspect me? Would I do something surreptitious?  I did make preparations.  My duty, Goodsir," she answered, not quite keeping a serious tone in her voice.  "We'll take a cart and pair of greatmules to Millersbridge, meet Dara, Rianne, and Megan, pass on to Millersport and north on the coastal trail.  There's a spa with hot and sulphur springs.  I'll see about buying sulphur and having them send it to you--you said you wanted sulphur.  We may need to leave the cart there.  I'll have to see the ground. We'll go next week.  The Shield will be near full when we get near the harbor.  I'm guessing following the coast is a week, about the same back, assuming we don't hit a fordless river.  That gives me time to figure out how to satisfy your mother, to prepare for more pirates."
Eager anticipation -- doe Tomas have a clue with respect to the strange black powder and the flying gates and walls?

"A week," Tomas asked, doubtingly.  "And a week back?"

"Sixty miles.  If it's flat all the way, and I can ford all the streams, that's a very hard day's forced march.  Perhaps.  But get there at the end of a forced march, and needing to fight or run?  That's a chance I can skip.  I'd rather map and scout.  They might have pickets.  I'd rather have them walk into me than the other way around."

"I yield to your wisdom, save that I shall accompany you to Millersspa.  I did hear from Dianasmere.  The Edict of Altairis remains valid," he said. 

"Tomas, it must be my South-Shore breeding, but...do you have any idea how strange it sounds that no one has ever gone there, two weeks walk, except one woman and her boat crew, and that a millennium ago?" Evaine asked.

"I find it conspicuous," he answered, "but then, I am a Mage, and it is our Vocation to Pursue the Strange and the Unseen. If you were to search Torinsdale, asking women are far they ever traveled, some move from town to town, but less than one in a hundred has ever set foot in the Republic.  Why, few people ever set foot in the Sea Hills, let alone cross to the beautiful and wild shore a half-day's stroll beyond.   In Summerdeep, you can walk to the shore, picnic, and return home, all in daylight, but few people other than myself find seacoasts beautiful.  For most residents of the Vale, traveling is as incomprehensible as climbing a mountain to see the view.  Naturally, I do not know anyone who has ever done that."

"Naturally not, Tomas," Evaine said.  Soon after coming here, she had done precisely that, not expecting that the Landgrafin's response would be so entirely scathing.

"Now, there likely are a few women up there, people who so fear crowds that they hide in the wilds. Those people do not build towns or draw maps.  However," he continued, pointing at the map, "there is a ridge just beyond the hot springs, hard going except on the shore, and beyond the ridge is a Circle of Fisherdaughters, who capture the mussels and lobster for the Hot Springs Refectory.  I found this while sourcing sulphur. Most important, the refectory has four crescents in Higby's Guide."

"I see," she said.  He'd worked out what he hoped she would do, though not that someone had been there, and made his own plans.

"After all, when this map was made," he said, "crops yielded a third what they do now, the Vale no fewer people than now, so it was farmed intensively from corner to corner.  An artist standing in the High Tower painted the vale, late in Firetouch, as the sea of gold, the golden glow of wheat.   Now the farmed space around each town grows smaller and smaller, woods and wild plains fill the gaps, and we have more time for productive arts, less need for every hand to till and furrow without respite.  Someone seeking solitude needs travel hardly at all."  His mood changed.  "I should be most interested in learning what this feature 'The Mountain Without a Top', drawn as being hundreds of miles north, actually is."
"Need" is subjunctive, or something like that there.  I'm not sure what the reason is, but I am sure that the idiom is "he need not"

* * * * *

Waves rolled endlessly in from the horizon.  The beach was steep, covered with round black rocks. Its upper reaches were littered with storm-driven logs.  Evaine thanked her good fortune that the land above the beach was an open, flat field, well-drained sandy soil through which two greatmules had no challenge pulling a two-wheeled cart loaded with packs and supplies.  The occasional complication of a stream crossing was compensated by the extra supplies and forage they carried.  They had had an easy three days travel to Millersspa.  On paved roads, they'd both ridden in the cart.  Off-road, they'd taken turns at the reins.  

In Millersbridge they'd met the three members of Greathand Winterwheat, exactly as promised. Rianne and Megan were cheery sorts, but Dara took her profession a bit seriously. The Greathand's command cadre had been there, ready to resupply their stocks of food and forage.  It became apparent that the three knew Evaine was the Caer's instructor at arms, among other things, just as the three Swordsisters taught girls in their towns.  They were happy to exchange stories.  The Tales of Trainee Teresa the Terrible, who always followed every order to the wrong letter, were a universal constant.  Evaine soon realized that the three had been carefully selected.  Sorority Greathands might largely be local constabularies, but in Evaine's observation each Greathand had at least a hand of women who trained and exercised vigorously.  Rianne, Megan, and Dara were clearly from that group.

They'd had considerable discussion of travel and equipment plans.  Greathand Winterwheat had supplied a pair of mules, which trotted placidly along behind the cart.  They rotated with the greatmules at drawing the cart, so long as the ground stayed fairly flat. An expressed interest in sulphur springs had resulted in a tour.  The staff had to scrape sulphur from the baths.  Over the years they'd accumulated tons of nearly worthless yellow powder.  Someday the Noralin City steelroad would extend to Millersport, at which time it would be practicable to haul the sulphur to a remote market and make a decent profit.  Until then, the Hot Springs Circle continued to build its sulphur mountain, with the assumption that they'd not see its value but their children might.  When she'd mentioned it was Tomas the Mage who was interested in buying, the price fell.  Mages were by reputation improvident sorts, who might return in favors that for which they could not readily pay.
It's getting on toward time to tell us what greatmules are, and how they differ from mules.  I presume that we will presently learn why mules are brought along when they already have greatmules.

At first they had wondered how far north they could take the cart, before it they needed to leave it behind and continue with the mules.  The ground was certainly not a road, but the salt blow from the Western Ocean drove trees a distance inland, leaving an open and flat area for travel.  One or another of them always walked point, as far forward as permitted staying in sight above fields of sea oats.  They'd taken to stopping for lunch where the grasses were particularly deep with spring growth.  Mules given a fair chance to graze needed less oatmeal, letting them stretch supplies further.
I read that at first as meaing as far forward as they were permitted to walk, and wondered what sort of law, rule, or order that might be!  What are they going to do with the greatmules when they have to leave the cart behind?

Evaine had at first worried about the Swordsisters, who were lightly dressed for cold nights.  The Swordsister solution was a small tent with spaced layers of canvas, into which they fit with little room to spare, sharing body heat to stay warm.  Evaine and Avis preferred the extra weight of clothing that let you stay warm by yourself.  

As day followed day, Evaine sketched maps suggesting how far they had marched.  Staying along the coast made the trip longer than a straight overland march would have been.   When the view was clear, a line of mountains was indeed rising above the Northern horizon.  One distant peak whose top was always swathed in cloud was far larger than the others.  Evaine had only been somewhat certain that the large northern bay really existed rather than being a map-maker's phantom.   Once and again, they had passed clearings where someone, not a full circle but one or two people, had at some time in the past built a home and planted fields. Each of those places had been abandoned and fallen in on itself.  They had crossed the one significant marked river.  They ought to be close, perhaps another day's travel, to the bay, allowing that the old map was right.
"Only" should be moved forward one place, to be immediate to "somewhat", which is the word it modifies.  
"Certain", being a rather absolute word, does not go at all well with "somewhat".  Something more like "confident" is needed.

They wandered in and out of conversations. "Evaine," Rianne asked, "Your Interlocutor is a fairly thin and vigorous man.  Is it true what they say about thin men?"

"And that is?" Evaine wondered if she had been woolgathering and missed a conversation. 

"That they are not so thin in bed?  Is he?" Rianne asked.  

Avis giggled.  "You ask the one woman in Torinsdale who surely cannot tell you that...Can you, Evaine?"

"Well, no, now that you mention it.  Though if you asked about other thin men, I might say something." Evaine shrugged.

"But you work with him all the time," Dara objected.  "Is he given to other-love?"

"Hardly," answered Avis.  

"However," Evaine said, "Besides being Heir-Second, for which I am his Banneret, and Interlocutor, for which I am his Cornet, Tomas-sur has another title."  She paused.  "Tomas is a Lord of the Halls of Night, I am his Apprentice, and it is the Mages' inflexible rule that a Mage and his Apprentices never pass between the sheets."

"Tomas is a sorcerer?" a shocked Rianne asked.  "I thought that was a joke.  That rule is silly."

"Why, no," Avis said.  "He has a tower, its entrance locked, his dress robes and cape, all the appurtenances of a master of the arts of darkness."

"Does he turn people into sheep?" Rianne asked.  "The Gold Mage of Churshyn did that."

"No.  Nor sheep into people," Avis said.

"Milord Tomas," Evaine answered, "does not use the Dark Arts for ill."

"He uses them?" Dara asked.  "Have you seen him summon demons, tread the astral plain, transform gold to silver?"

"Actually, no.  He makes no secret that he can summon The Lightnings That Speak.  Indeed, he has had me help him, though all I do is stand in a walking mill and pace slowly, its moving belts disappearing from where I stand up into the room where he works his arts."

"Did you hear eldritch screeches?  The howls of the damned?" Dara asked.

"I heard nothing," said Evaine. "He told me that the odd smell was the Lightnings.  'They smell like sugared metal' is the only words that fit."

"Sweet metal?  I suppose I'd know it if I met it.  But you didn't answer my question," Rianne asked.

"I don't know," Evaine answered, "Not at all.  He is the Heir-Second.  He performs the deeds expected of an heir-second who is a man."

"Which he performs," Avis said, "By all reports, skillfully and dutifully, but without, what shall I say, great enthusiasm.  He was not averse to going on, but I had to ask, or he would have fallen asleep, or so I was told.  If he is a bit thin, none have complained that he was thin where it mattered.  Certainly, I would not."

In the distance ahead, Megan threw herself to the ground, then signaled for a stop.  She was at the top of a rise, had looked beyond and backed quickly.  Now she gestured expansively.

" That's hand-talk she's using.  Bay," Dara said, peering through her farseer.  "Boat. Pirate camp--camps.  She wants us to mask the cart and mules, then come up to her."  Evaine watched thoughtfully.  A Vale scout, trying to communicate back to a following levy, would have had to run back or shout.  She had not heard that Swordsisters used handtalk, but perhaps it was unique to Greathand Winterwheat.  South-Shore hosts used handtalk effectively.  Domain levies were ignorant of it.  She'd never considered introducing novel South-Shore methods to the women she trained.  She'd been trying to put South-Shore customs behind her.  That was the Landgrafin's desire.  Now the Landgrafin wanted her to take a freer hand in matters.

* * * * *

A half-hour later, four women lay near the military crest of the hill, peering around rocks and bushes in new bud.   They'd carefully searched.  If they had company, she was extremely well hidden.  Gwendolyn's Bay was the better part of a mile wide, and three miles long.  Most of its length was lined with steep cliffs and heavy woods, but at the landward end the ground flattened out.  In the middle of the bay, being held in place against an onshore breeze by two oardaughters, was a large rowboat. Evaine studied the boat with her farseer: all aboard the boat were men.  At the end of the harbor, they had a camp, two lines of pitched tents and cleared ground. Smoke rose from a cooking fire.  The beach was shallow sand; a boat could land easily. Dara brought out the Swordsister's large farseer and rigid mount.  Figures vaguely seen through a hand instrument came to sharp focus.  There could be no real doubt about who they were.  Some men wore pirate livery. Two men carried the peculiar pirate spears found in Longbeachport. 

"What do we do?" Rianne asked.  "We could attack, but there are a lot of them.  We could harass them, but they would chase us."

Evaine smiled.  The Republic's Swordsisters were not lacking in elan--they were prepared to attack against five-to-one odds.  "For sure that's not three hundred pirates down there.  They didn't come in that one rowboat, either; they've got more boats. Where?  Not here. Are there more camps?  We need to finish our search," she said.  "The front range, and that is an ice river flowing into the ocean, you can see the glint in the sun, must be more than ten miles forward."  The three Swordsisters nodded.

"I propose you three--you know the same handtalk, scout better as a group--work a few miles inland, work around the bay, go north as far as you can, see if you find more camps.  Take a mule or not, your call.  I'd guess two full days.  Stop at the ice river.  Ice rivers look safe.  They aren't. They're worse than quaking bogs," Evaine proposed.

"Two days.  We'll leave the mule," Dara said.  "But a ways back.  Across the big stream, and inland a mile.  There was a huge field of tall grasses.  We'll need to mask the cart tracks, too, just in case they send out scouts.  Okay?"

"Avis knows how to handle mules," Evaine agreed.  "I'll watch what these guys are doing.  Not giving away I'm here.  If we frighten them, we have to find them again."

"The camp," Rianne said.  "Huts, not tents. A large half-open shelter with a fire inside.  That has to be a cook tent. I can almost see what the cook is chopping--and he has help.  Most men are chopping down trees.  Perhaps they're clearing ground.  They just leave the trees lying.  There's someone on the shore, always looking toward the boat, and waving flags.  There he goes again.  The boat waves back."

"That's interesting," Dara remarked.  "The boat is waving again, but facing a whole different direction.  The guy in the back of the boat, he has a farseer.  And he's looking...there must be someone on the shore, sort of near that headland."  The women studied the opposite shore.  "There she is, well, he is," Dara continued.  "Up on top of the tallest hill on the coast.  And he's got, some sort of little table, but he keeps leaning on it, or near it.  And there's a tent in back too, two sides down, with table and chair and I think a chest inside."

* * * * *

Evaine hid in the gathering gloom, lying behind tall grass, looking up the trail toward the bay.  This was the sixth night since Dara, Rianne, and Megan had gone off to reconnoiter toward the mountains.  They had expected a two-day trip, and had been gone for six of those two days.  What could have gone wrong?  Sickness?  Ambush?  If ambushed, the men here had not known.  Now Evaine hid inland from the open shore, far enough she could lie on a bed of straw she had collected, without risk of being taken by surprise.  She considered the remaining rations, the time needed to return to Millersport, and the progress the pirates were making in the harbor.  

Less than a day of watching had convinced her of what they were doing.  It was survey work, not of a hill or a creek but of the bottom of the water.  The men had two surveying tables, not of a familiar sort.  Their dory, which on windier days carried a half dozen oardaughters, was being moved like a chessman from point to point on the bay, on a smooth if not square grid.  The man at the prow of the boat directed the rowers, so the boat would be lined up with the two tables.  Another man sitting in the rear would drop a line, weighted and marked, over the side, finding the distance to bottom.  He would signal what depth he had found; the boat would move to a new point and repeat.  It had taken some time to realize that the signaler counted water depth in sixes of--it looked to be about a foot.  Six, of course, was half a twelve-dozen.  At each point, the men on shore would signal a number, a number that climbed one at a time with each sounding, which the boat would repeat.  Careful watch of the lone man on the opposite shore showed that after each sounding he would go to a desk, write something, and return to his surveying table.  It wasn't clear why the pirates were hard at work--who could care if the water were six or sixteen feet deep?--but they had done much of the harbor, and would reach the end in another week.

All the while, the remaining men were chopping down trees.  She kept count.  There were two dozen men in all, of whom at least two always had spears.  Two were cooks.  Three, treated with deference, were apparently the Mistresses or Greatmistresses of the detachment.  One, dressed at the evening meal in cloud-blue robes, seemed to do little work other than fishing or helping the cook.  

One day, she had traveled well east, worked to the north of their camp, and investigated how close she could get to their lone man. The answer proved to be 'close indeed', close enough she could easily have rushed him.  Instead, she had the chance to watch his daily habits, walking up from camp in the morning, eating modestly before and after normal dinner times, and taking notes on the survey.  At the end of the day, he rolled up the one piece of paper on which he had been writing, put it in a carrier, and walked back to the camp.  The fascinating observation was his activity when not working...he read.  He had a steel chest, with lock and key, from which he produced books.  While the other pirates returned to their camp for an early and a late lunch, he sat with a half-loaf of bread, a cup filled from a small barrel, what appeared to be cheese, and read.  At the end of the day, he locked the chest and walked back to the camp.  The chest stayed behind.  He then returned to his tent to sleep.

She had formed a definite plan of action. Working through the plan, once and again, she found risks.  There didn't appear to be insuperable difficulties. Except, of course, she had no idea how good a pirate was with a sword or spear.  Her plan assumed that with surprise she could kill one.  Unfortunately, she and Avis had found bear tracks in the woods, so leaving the mules to fend for themselves was inadvisable.  The plan would still be far easier for two than for one.  What had taken Megan, Dara, and Rianne so long?  She would wait some time yet this evening.  The Shield was not far beyond full.  Slogging back to camp after sunset would not be a challenge.

The last bits of the solar disc were still above the horizon when a trio of figures appeared in the distance, one leading the other two by a few hundred paces.  Megan was limping noticeably.  When they approached, Evaine loosened her sword in her scabbard before rising to meet them.  It was unlikely that the three had been captured, let alone that they had been persuaded to bait a trap, but there was no reason not to be modestly cautious.

"Goddess and her Saints preserve us," Megan groaned as they closed, "Is it much farther to camp?"

"Under a mile," Evaine answered.  "Can you walk that far?  Do I need to fetch a mule?"

"We will walk," Megan announced.  "Slowly.  Very slowly.  My feet feel as though the Crone's yellowing frozen fangs had nibbled them half-off."

"Ours are little better," Dara said.  "But let's not stop.  If I fall, I may not be able to stand."

"Your packs," Evaine said.  "Hand them over.  I can carry the set a couple miles--it's not really that far."  The three Swordsisters hastened to hand Evaine their carryalls.  "Especially if you're out of food.  What happened to you all?  Swamps?"

"Distance," Rianne answered.  "Just distance.  Those hills are huge.  That's most of a hundred miles away they are.  Their top half is snow-capped, not cloud-covered.  That other mountain?  Those aren't clouds; that's its top.  All the top you can see; it fades into the sky."

"We got north of the bay," Dara said, "The coast is mostly flat.  You can see for miles, and we saw no pirates, so we did a speed march north.  Late in the day, after the first thirty miles, we realized we weren't getting close to the hills.  We thought another day would do it, and we'd speed march two days in a row.  Then we thought a few more hours--it was noon of the third day, and eighty miles.  The front of the mountain range goes almost straight up.  There really is an ice river, right into the ocean, a wall of ice hundreds and hundreds of feet tall."

"For another thing," Megan said, "the winds off the ice were cold, so cold we almost froze our backsides off.  We had to walk back.  When we got there, we considered that we'd done a hundred miles, and gone through most of our food.  We found oysters in the sand beaches.  And geese on marsh ponds. Oysters, more oysters--I'm hungry."

"Avis is making travel bread," Evaine announced, "and cooking up the deer I took.  I expected we might be moving fast tomorrow, enough we'd not want to stop to eat.  But dinner should be ready now."

"Oh, that's right, we set out to look pirates." Dara Said.  They're all right here, or beyond the ice river.  That mountain?  There's a formula I was taught, for watchtower heights, how far you can see from one.  It works backwards—when must you start sneaking?  The mountain is two hands of miles tall, not to its true top."  

"Sixteen miles tall?" Evaine repeated.  "That's a lot.  The tallest mountain in the Dark Range is, oh, nine or so."

* * * *

The tik-tik-tik of steel wheels on iron rails came to an end.  Ahead on the rails, horses snaffled and snorted as they were released from their traces and led off to water.   Roxanne and Demara looked around.  At long last [who?  or what] reached the town of Union, Province Cismontane-by-the-Sea.  The trip had taken the expected week, broken by a short overnight in Middleton.  The overnight had been long enough for a good bath, a warm meal, and comfortable if abbreviated sleep.  Then it had been back to the coaches, with time to stretch whenever the horses were changed, an occasional hour stop with a chance to grab some cold food, and day after day of sitting or lying on a fortunately well-padded railcart bench.  If it had been hot in Dianasmere, it had been chill in the mountains, with frost still touching the high passes and unheated coaches.  Finally they were able to disembark from the passenger express.  Another quarter-day delay let them board the next line and its thrice-daily freight haulage to Union.  From here, they would need alternative arrangements.  
Probably want a "had" before "reached", too.
Two thousand or so years ago, Roxanne thought, the trip would have been by road-coach or horseback.  She would have needed a month of pounding on rutted roads to get here.  If you bowed to the inflexible grip of the steelroad's schedulers, you could complete the journey in relative comfort in a fifth the time.  She followed Demara onto the loading platform.

"Greatmistress Roxanne?" a young lady asked.

"Indeed, I am Roxanne-sa-Anglewood," she answered.  Her questioner was in the black and grey working dress of the Sisterhood.  "I must apologize.  We have not met.  I did not entirely expect to be met here."  So much, Roxanne thought, for operational security.  But when you need a week to get permission to travel, and the record explaining the need for the trip is public, word will leak to distant quarters.  And, however faded, your rank slashes are entirely visible.

"I am Handmistress Gudrun Signildsdotr, and Greatmistress Linnasdotr has charged my Hand with handling your luggage, seeing that you are fed, and transporting you when you see fit," the younger woman answered.

"Yesterday evening I feasted on bread and cheese," Roxanne announced, "but it was good cheese and fresh-baked bread.  After three days in a steelroad coach I am not fit company for a herder's tavern."

"As it happens," Esther answered, "Greathand Dwarfwillow arrived this morning after three days freight haulers, all the way up from Middleton.  It's preparing an out-of-doors meal.  They would be honored if you would join them."

"The thought of warm food," Roxanne answered, "or cold as it may be, brings joy to my heart.  I should be delighted to visit a Greathand of which I know little.  We each have a Sister's standard travel chest, no more.  We will then need transport to—do you know where Shire Interlocutor Tomas-sur-Maserin might be found?  I imagine he is the best place to start my inspection."

Gudrun's face tightened.  "The Interlocutor may indeed be found, most likely at Caer Adurel.  He has asked the Sisterhood to search Longbeachport one more time for clues, having sought himself but believing that an extremely careful search may find that which has been overlooked.  To honor the wisdom of his thoughts, we found scrawled in charcoal on a plastered kitchen wall "Men Pirates Green-Cloaked Looters Beware thunders that slay."

"Beware what?" Roxanne asked.  "And Tomas is the Interlocutor."

"We are trying to understand the desperate message of a woman who was killed, charcoal still in hand, and dragged from her house.  A Hand of women is working through old plays, especially those dealing with pirates, to understand—well, 'thunders' must be a literary reference, we thought to a play not recently performed," Esther explained.  "It certainly sounds like something escaped from a heroine tale."

"Did Interlocutor Tomas suggest plays?" Demara asked. Roxanne could tell Demara's thoughts.  Reading old plays seemed an unlikely way to find a villain.

"The Shire Interlocutor did not.  He believes no such spell exists," Esther answered.

"I shall question him first," Roxanne announced.  "But I am keeping your women waiting, to no useful purpose, so let us be on our way.  I honor those who sacrifice their time pursuing obscure clues."  Roxanne kept her thoughts to herself.  Tomas was utterly methodical.  He would have accumulated whatever records existed related to the contradictions between reports on Longbeachport.  Where were the swordsisters slain?  Did they die with their faces toward the foe?

Chapter Eleven
Gwendolyn's Bay
Summertouch 11, 2446

Evaine waited patiently behind a stack of boulders, the edge of the headland a hundred feet ahead.  Avis lay thirty yards down slope behind her, covering her back. The Swordsisters were back at camp, sleeping off the effects of a week's very fast marching. The pirate, unaware that he was being watched, looked across his surveyor's table, waved his flags, and walked back to his tent, writing a few more lines.  The sun was sinking toward the horizon. He rolled up the paper and put it in a carry case.  As on previous nights he picked up a crate and turned.  The table would be folded and boxed.  He seemed in no hurry to finish his tasks. 

Evaine sprang from cover and began her run up the slope.   Her sword was in her left hand; a sandbag was in the right.  He seemed to have no hint of her presence. The breaking of waves against the cliff below masked the sound of her footsteps.

She reached his back.  Thunk!  The sandbag bounced off the back of his head. He dropped bonelessly to the ground, Evaine falling to land on top of him.  A moment's two-handed tug completed her work.  His neck was now broken.  She resheathed her sword.

"Avis," she said quietly, "Help me drag him, please?"  The two women pulled the body back over the crest of the hillock.  "We're out of line of sight.  You see how to adjust his clothing?"  Avis wrinkled her nose but nodded.  "I'm searching the pavilion."

Crouching low, Evaine went through the pirate's tent.  A pallet was stuffed with beach straw.  The side table held strangespear, shortspear, and sword.  The pirates were consistent; this sword, too, had a steel scabbard.  The table held a greatbook--blank paper pages except where he had written.  His chest was steel, its key on the folding table in front of it.  She dropped the key in her wallet and hefted the box.  Heavy!  The Swordsisters had marched two hundred miles or so in under a week--she could haul these eight miles back to the camp.

"I'm ready," Avis said.  "But he's too big for me to move by myself."

"Be there in a moment," Evaine said.  "He lived a very simple life--except his books, there's nothing here.  Get the other shoulder?"  Evaine and Avis hoisted the dead pirate and hauled him to the seaward cliff, out of sight of the pirate camp.  Far below and a few yards out, waves broke noisily.  "One, two, push on 'three'!"  The pirate fell over the cliff to land on the shore.  "No way they'll realize he was doing anything, except relieving himself, when he fell over the edge.  They'll not find him until morning."

"Until then," Avis said, "They'll not suspect his box is other than with him, wherever he is.  You have it?" she asked.

"Let's go," Evaine said, her fast walk rendered clumsy by the extra, unbalanced load on her arms.  She'd expected two or three books, not a chest.  She had often told her students, back at the Caer, that you did physical conditioning to be ready for the challenges you did not expect.  The chest lived up to the 'unexpected challenge' description.  Twilight was starting to deepen.  The Shield was full, but an after-dark walk back to camp remained an entertaining prospect.

* * * * *

The Sun had passed the zenith. The cart, towed by two greatmules, clattered ahead at walking pace, springs occasionally squeaking, with two pack mules on halters following behind.  Evaine had suggested that she and Avis bring up the back, ostensibly to act as rear guard.  She had actually ensured that two of the Swordsisters always rode, while the third led the way and was in no danger of becoming a straggler.  She was confident that Dara, Megan and Rianne had no thought of deserting.  Nor were they out of condition.  However, they had walked to and from the mountains, one hundred fifty miles of speed march with less than adequate food and shelter.

Evaine set a direction that kept them near the seacoast.  Now that she had seen a pirate camp, she was considerably more confident of spotting other places where pirates had stopped, camped, and departed.  Twice she had stopped to examine a section of beach, suspecting that matters looked out of place, but finding no clear evidence.  "Let's bring it to a stop," she called, "behind that bit of dune.  That's shelter, there's water in the stream, and I much want to look at the ground near the charcoal on the beach."

"I don't care if it's The Well of The Unicorn a hundred paces onwards, and the Boy of the Sea himself is waiting to be my Mirror, I cannot walk another step," Rianne agreed.  "We must have done fifteen miles today."

"Twenty," Avis said.  "So far.  And the day has just passed into Lesser Decension.  But we have marched fairly hard."

"We'll take another break," Evaine proposed.  She had not overlooked the miles either.  She did not add that the three Swordsisters were staggering. Between multiple fast marches, and not enough food, the three had ground themselves down, more than a single good sleep and a few meals would undo.  "That haze is deceptive, I think.  If you want a nap, see that your face is out of the sun."   There was a depression behind the first sand dune.  Sheltered from the breeze and sun by a half-tent, Megan, Dara, and Rianne were soon lying on warm sand, wrapped in their blankets and sound asleep.

"Evaine?" Avis asked.  "I think I might as well cook a solid meal, and perhaps we go farther in late afternoon.  Does that sound fair?"

"I can't argue."  Evaine nodded agreement.  "Except farther this afternoon is not likely.  There are geese coming onshore in that pond, and likely oysters in the beach.  Goosefat from a roast to fry the oysters sounds good to me.  But I'd go well down the beach before I went oystering.  That really does look like a pirate camp, and those guys had absolutely no concept of field sanitation.  Do you want help setting up?"

Avis held one hand up.  "The breeze is not too stiff.  I can set up the pavilion.  A change from walking sounds good.   I've tracked enough poachers to have a clear idea of how to take geese.  If you'd just help me with the mules?"  Evaine nodded.  Any geese Avis had taken herself were 'culling the flock' or 'sampling the health of the pond', not poaching at all.

An hour later, Evaine made her way down to the water.  The pavilion was pitched, four tethered mules were grazing on sea grass, and enough driftwood--from a fair ways away--had been gathered for a cooking fire.   The oysters having been harvested and a goose taken, Evaine could put the shovel to its other use, working through the sand.  Several rectangles were apparent in outline, not to mention the clear signs of repeated fires over several days.  Now to see if anything had been dropped behind, anything that might be a clue to their whereabouts or origins.  She started ten paces from where the tents had been, and began spading, penetrating down a few inches, turning the sand, and repeating once and again.  The hiss of steel going through sand was a counterpoint to the flutter of the breeze in her ears.

Excavating the entire patch took several hours.  Before she finished, the smell of roasting goose came occasionally over the dune, followed at last by the sharper tang of frying wild onions, wild carrots, and oysters.  She gathered up her finds and walked back to where Avis cooked and three other women were sound asleep.

"I know they said they'd help cook," Avis said, "They've been sleeping, so I left them.  They did all the hard work of marching north while I sat and guarded four mules and a tent."

"That week I got to lie on the ground and watch men measure how deep a bay is," Evaine said.  "Hardly any work at all.  And now I've left you to do all the work.  They cared about how deep really deep water was.  Why, I don't know.   However, they were here, too.  See what I dug up?" She spread a series of objects on the blade of her shovel.  "That's a broken button, almost like the others.  But it's a different face.  That glyph--it's 'forty-three'.  The matching glyph on the other set of buttons was 'forty-four'.  Those look like coins.   I'd need to sit and count to work out the date.  The sewing needle seems to have been dropped.  The knife was used for cooking, judging from the onion stuck into it, when the shank snapped.  I'd like a machinist to look at the steel, see how good it was.  Finally, the chunk of cloth is wool. The green looks to be the green from the dead man I found in Longbeachport.  Allowing that whoever makes their dyes does a poor job of it."

"Evaine," Avis said, "You killed a pirate.  Barehanded.  You captured that box.  Spotted what they were doing, there and perhaps here, though we do not see why.  Did more than your fair share of walking rather than riding.  So you did much work.  Mentioning work though, I estimate the oysters and onions and mushrooms have cooked, the goose is properly roasted, the water is boiling for tea, and the bannocks will soon be cooked. So perhaps awake our sleeping heroes, and we can eat?"

* * * * *

Evaine leaned back, head resting on a grass hummock.  At first she had thought she and Avis had collected far too many oysters, but oysters, properly seasoned and fried, had joined the goose in disappearing from sight.  Dara announced that she would wash the pans, and had done so.  Rianne had put the campsite back in order. Megan collapsed into deep sleep.

"The greatmules want another hour of grazing," Evaine announced.  "Which means I finally have time for what I want to do."

"Yes?" Avis asked curiously.

"There is this box," Evaine said, "for which I happily killed a man. I should like to know what is in it.  Though perhaps I should worry about pursuit."

"I'll stand watch," Avis said, "that tall dune is isolated, should give a good view to the North.  She wrapped her cape around her shoulders, and pulled her bow and bolts from the cart. 

Evaine made herself scan out to the horizon, watching the water as well as the land, seeing nothing in the great distance.  She turned back to her box.  She'd watched the pirate open it twice; there seemed to be no opportunity for any of the traps that laced heroine tales.  Nonetheless, she donned her combat gloves and helmet, set her shield against the box, and stayed in the shield's shadow while she worked the lock.  She decided that she was not really disappointed that the lock turned without revealing a cunning trap.  The top of the box could be brought back on its hinges.  The fit between lid and box was remarkably fine.  Perhaps the hammered copper ribbons were a seal.

The thick books were plainly and lightly bound.  Covers were a nondescript dark brown, little more than heavy tagboard.  The front paper said nothing--it was actually a segment of text.  She reminded herself that pages were numbered backwards--she might be looking at the back.  Indeed, the book's front did have an ornamental frontispiece, all in the pirate's strange typefont.  A search through the book showed heavy, somewhat coarse paper, slightly ragged typesetting, but no illustrations or clue to the book's contents.  Other books were equally impenetrable.  Part way through the box she found a volume almost entirely of illustrations.  It was a pirate-- well, it was a man, oddly dressed though not at all dressed like the pirates.  He was carrying one of the peculiar pirate spears, and doing something with it, something drawn in very considerable detail.  There were numbers with the pictures, too.  It was baffling, as was the next book, men in similar patterns of clothing, doing something with--a barrel on wheels?  A winebarrel, one end off, being brush-cleaned?  The next two volumes looked as though sense might be made of them.  The figures were constructions she remembered from Temple, from classes on the hidden meaning of surveying. Some figures were quite elaborate.  Right triangles were draped in large numbers of fainter construction lines.  What could be meant?  Tomas would undoubtedly know.

Another volume looked almost like a surveying manual, but surveys conventionally used straight lines, not intertwined curves.  A copiously illustrated volume did make clear that the artist drew men who had not been Rendered Fit to Serve Her Desires.  The illustrations of Service were somewhat eccentrically selected.  As a representation of tastes in the matter, they seemed disquietingly unbalanced.

So much for the first stack of volumes.  The top volume of the second stack--the fellow in the Frontispiece was unmistakably a Sea Eagle. Here were a group of Sea Eagles, each labeled in the pirates' mysterious script.  There was a tool shed, from the accompanying figures women and children of Sea Eagle warriors doing household work, a piece of road, and spread over two pages an illustration of a town.  The perspective was odd--had it been drawn from a flijtschiff?  Or was the perspective a choice of the artist, sketching as the town would be seen from above and to one side so more buildings could be seen?  From the number of houses drawn in an inset showing a block, and the number of people shown as living in a house, this was a city.

More wood cuts showed Sea Eagles, their towns, what appeared to be battles, pirate spears being deployed as pikes, and local maps.  Where were these places?  She couldn't tell.  If these were road and towns, the Sea Eagles controlled a considerable area.  Where could that area be? Other volumes had no pictures.  One had only blank pages.  Then, at the bottom of the box, was a stack of maps.  The topmost was easy to recognize; it was a hand-drawn map, very accurately rendered, of Gwendolyn's Bay.  Others were standard-print maps of North-Shore, the sort that she could purchase in Noralin City or order from points south, if you ignored that someone had gone in with a very fine pen and relabelled towns in pirate script.  There were a variety of notes and colored dots.  There was a small, heavily folded set of pages.  On unfolding, it was the west coast of North-Shore, empty water marked with odd glyphs, with another map gummed to it...that was certainly… different.  It was very interesting.  The rational explanation was that the mapmaker had been confined to a lunatic asylum.  She definitely wanted to see the look on Tomas's face when he saw it.  The stylistic features--a snake large enough to eat a ship seemed a bit improbable.  Well-engraved Sea Eagle figures...it was all interesting, and certainly gave an answer to where the Sea Eagles had been hiding.  Surely no one had envisioned that possibility.  It was _unnatural_.  The Landgrafin's priestesses would say obscene.  Then there were more maps, unrecognizable, all labeled in the pirate code.  

Comparing the maps with the book on Sea Eagles would be most edifying.  She would have to see what the maps looked like when she had the use of the large Library tables.  When the High Priestess of the Vale saw it, she would very definitely want to be the one carrying a sword. The High Lord of the Great Hall of Night would likely be as outraged as the Priestess, if not for the same reasons.  She refolded the maps, returned the books and the maps to their chest, and carefully relocked the box.  She had captured something surprising, but she needed the Caer's library to spread out and study.  While she examined the books, the sun had sunk a half the way to the horizon. It was time for the three sleepyheads to wake up and start walking.  On a road all three might ride, but over rough ground at least one of them had to go on foot, no matter how good the springs in the cart might be. 
And now I've really, really got to quit reading and go to bed!  28 October 2005  

Chapter 12
Caer Adurel
Summertouch 19, 2446

The sky was a deep blue through which the brightest stars and planets shone.  The Lesser Daughter had passed behind the Sea Hills and must now be reaching out to the western waters.  Evaine, riding alone in the cart, watched as shadows swallowed first the Caer's walls, then its Keep, and finally the banner on the High Tower.  The two great mules had lagged in late afternoon--it had been a long day--but their pace picked up when they recognized that they were almost home.

Evaine turned toward the stables.  A single figure could be seen through the doors.  Some help with undoing the traces and unpacking the cart might be had.  In the Republic, if she arrived at a Sisterhood Chapterhouse she would have a hand of junior sisters assisting her.  In a domain, whatever your rank, you did your own work, unless you paid for services.  For her, paying was not an option. She had negotiated that the Caer paid for and maintained her arms, armor, and whatever else she used in training students, had rooms and board and choice of second-hand plainclothes for her and her younger sister, but had pennies a day for incidentals.

"Good evening, Evaine," came the voice from the stables.  Susan Catherinesdotr, the Caer Equestrienne, was fond of working late.

"Good evening, Susan," Evaine answered. "Our friends here have had a long ride today."  She gestured at the great mules.  "But the hostler in Millersbridge said they had been eating too much goldengrass, and were starting to get fat."  She eased the cart to a stop, slipped off the traces, and led the animals to their watering trough.  Unlike horses, you could count on greatmules not to overwater themselves.  Then came the unpacking.  Scouting equipment went into the stable's stores.  The pavilion tent went on hangers; several minutes pumping sluiced it clean and left it waiting to dry in the morning sun.  Her own clothing and shelter canvas were neatly packed, though they would need cleaning on the morrow.

"These two?  Get fat?  They started that way.  Fat from birth."  Susan walked around them, checking their hooves.  "They'll need a day's rest is all, I be thinking."

"Is the bathing sluice still filled?" Evaine asked.  

"You won't be using the baths?" Susan answered.

"After.  Are there a robe and clogs here?  I haven't had a bath in two weeks.  I really ought to stay downwind of the sty, lest I affront the pigs," she answered.

"There are indeed," Susan answered.  She looked at the neat stack Evaine had made on a barrow.  "Your goods? Would you like help getting that to your room?"

"I'd be most grateful," Evaine answered.  "But I still have a second trip for that crate."  She pointed at the pirate's box, its steel gleaming in the last light.

"What is it?  Did it cost much?"  Susan asked.  "I've a second barrow for it."

"It belonged to a pirate, Susan," Evaine answered.  "One of the people who sacked Longbeachport, or part of the same band.  He paid for it.  With his life, as it happened."

"Say no more," Susan said.  "Where are we taking it?" 

"The Great Library," Evaine answered.  "It's heavy.  I'll help you transfer it to an interior dolly."

* * * * *

A half hour later, the sunset staining the sky in gold and orange, Evaine strolled back from the stable.  The greatmules were quiet in their stalls.  All her traveling equipment had been returned to its proper places.  Wheelbarrows were properly stowed.  She had stripped, soaped herself down, and let the stable's not quite warm water sluice her to decently clean.  Dressed in a slightly short housecoat, her regular clothing in a sack over her shoulder, she could now acceptably return to her room, recover her very warm and adequately long robe, and advance on the baths.  Dark or not, that water would still be close to hot. 

"Good evening, Mistress Evaine," the guard in the door tower greeted her.

"Good evening!  Is that you, Marjorie?  It's a bit dark to see." Evaine said.

"It is indeed, Mistress.  Though it's two of us here these days, and the keep gates barred from twilight.  Should we wait for Avis?  Did you kill any pirates?" Marjorie asked cheerily.

"I only killed one.  Avis is staying in Millersbridge," Evaine answered.  "She has relatives.  The Sorority is marching a Greathand or two north to rout out a pirate camp.  Avis will be guiding them.  I'm here to tell the Landgrafin what I found.  After I've had a decent bath and am fit to be in her presence."  Landgrafin Cheryl habitually sang the welcome to the Lesser Ascension, and was likely sound asleep, not to be awakened.  Not to mention, Evaine thought, that she had no urgent tidings for the Landgrafin, had already missed refectory dinner, and had spent two weeks in the Northern wilderness.

"The Landgrafin being at Northfort, it's Tomas here," Marjorie announced, "And two ladyfriends of his."

Evaine did not quite fall over her own feet.  Tomas-sur-Maserin, however dutiful he was in paying his obligations to The Five Who Are One, had never shown any interest in romantic involvements.  The Caer had a half-dozen Circles that would have eagerly welcomed him as their Mirror. He had politely not responded.  

* * * * *

Evaine lay back in the yet-hot water. Tomas's scheme for diverting the chimneys from the refectory ovens, capturing what would otherwise have gone astray, was heaven sent in three of the four seasons.  Fires that cooked for two hundred women produced copious amounts of heat. In Temple on South-Shore, she had been taught that heat was one of the elements of which all matter was composed, hot water being the solution of heat in water, just as bean-tea was the solution of sugar and toasted bitterbeans in water. The cooling of water was evaporation.  Just as brandy left in the open air lost its punch as the alcohol evaporated, so also did hot water lose its warmth as the phlogiston evaporated.  It had remained for a North-Shore mage to arrange for that fundamental knowledge to be applied where it did some good.  She had stripped, soaped down again, poured water from the bath to clean herself off, and now lay in the bath, submerged except for nose and mouth.
 
The light shifted.  Someone else, carrying a small lamp, had entered the baths.  She raised her head out of the water.

"Evaine-sa?"  Tomas's voice rang against the bath's tiles.

"Tomas?" she answered, sitting up, the splash of water loud in her ears.

"Roxanne said you would be here someplace.  She'll be along shortly with your dinner, liberated from the kitchens," Tomas said.  He walked to a corner seat, bare feet padding softly on the tiles, his robes rustling softly as he sat.

"Dinner?" Evaine answered enthusiastically. The prolonged soak had been extremely pleasant, but a solid meal, even half a loaf of bread, sounded most appetizing. She stood, water pouring down her back and hips, and reached for a strigil.  Two lamps sent bits of gold glittering across the bath water, gilding her sun-bronzed skin.  Her short-cut hair, black except for a white forepeak, pushed rapidly to damp.  Swipes with the polished bronze cleared water drops from her arms, leaving her dry enough that her towel would do the rest.  "I ate this morning, and had watered vinegar and waybread on the trip.  The mules of course fed themselves."

"You should not starve yourself," Tomas said, "Though you don't appear to have starved completely yet."

"Tomas?  Is that you?"  A female voice; an older woman. A flicker of light from beyond the door was another lamp.  There was a sound of slippers clattering to the floor.  Now in proper, bare feet, the speaker entered the baths.

Evaine smiled.  "Good evening," she said.

"Evaine-sa, this is my good friend Roxanne-sa-Anglewood, who I've mentioned before.  Roxanne-sa, the most excellent young lady now stepping from the baths is my Banneret-Sole, Cornet, and Apprentice, Evaine-sa-Orowan," Tomas announced.

"Charmed," Roxanne said. Evaine considered Tomas's good friend, who was tall, dark-haired, and from shadows on bare arms had at least a few scars on out-of-doors suntanned skin.  Then she recognized the tabard.  The Lidless Eye was the Sisterhood Inspectorate, and four shadowed wedges along the ribs made her a Greatmistress of Greatmistresses--as senior an officer as the Sisterhood had.

"I am pleased to meet you," Evaine said.  "Welcome to Caer Adurel.  Tomas has mentioned your name, and good sense, and wisdom."  And skipped, she noted to herself, your rank, your branch, not to mention your vigorous good health.  What else hadn't Tomas mentioned? Evaine picked up her towel from the heating rack and began to dry herself.  This was the coldest time of year for bathing, she reflected, with winter's touch still in the air, and the east wind making the air dry rather than winter dank, but it was still good to be clean.

"Tomas spoke of your professional competence, your skills as an arms trainer, but forgot to mention you might be an adventuress--though it seems you have certainly had an adventure," Roxanne responded.  Evaine slipped into her robe.  The garment was a deep-pile cotton, dyed the deepest and most practical of blues.  Some winter blankets were colder.  She tied her belt at her waist, noted that she actually had become a bit thinner from the trip, and tightened the collar at the neck.  

"I went for a long walk."  She picked up her lamp and followed Tomas and Roxanne through the vestibule to the deserted cafe outside.  She could smell the food Roxanne had rescued from the refectory.  "In pleasant company.  I met one unpleasant person, who is no longer alive to complain."

"She attacked you?" Tomas asked concernedly.

"He adhered to the Longbeachport pirates.  Under the Decree of the Council of Altairis he was numbered among the living dead." Evaine sat to face Tomas and Roxanne.  "Among other things, I threw him off a hundred-foot cliff.  After I broke his neck.   He is now numbered among the dead.  But, to honor She Who Judges by marking his virtues: He was fond of books.  He left a store of them that we could view after dinner."

"After dinner," Tomas announced, "You will fall fast asleep.  This I predict without consulting the powers of the dark or the wisdom of the unseen, let alone casting any occult influences, simply from knowing what you have done this day. I assume that if aught had needed doing you would have spoken already."

"Was there more than one pirate?" Roxanne asked.

"There were about twenty," Evaine said.  "The Swordsisters with us were prepared to attack them, even outnumbered five to one.  I preferred stealth.  Now I have recovered a crate of books, and---impossible to describe; you'll see it in the morning."  

* * * * *

The library glowed in the dawn, its white walls tinged dandelion-orange by the rising sun.  Evaine tiptoed on slippered feet, working around shelves of books to the rearmost, largest working table.  The room was deserted.  She had entered because she had one of the keep's few mistress keys. She hoped a library table would be large enough.  If not, she'd need help to shift its mate until they were side to side.  A twist of the key unlocked the pirate's chest of treasures.  She made a mental note to herself: a good locksmith or two should be encouraged to examine how the lock was made.  Poorly, she thought, to judge from how it turned, but perhaps it was dirty.  Was it on an identifiable pattern?

The books she set on a shelf.  It was the maps she wanted to see.  The top was familiar enough: it was a standard map of all of North-Shore, its paper stretching three feet from north to south and modestly less from east to west.  Someone had made notes on it, too, in an extremely fine but not especially legible hand.  Indeed, she could not read a word of it.  Were those curlicues some calligraphic handfont? Then there was the small map.  Could it really mean what it appeared to?  The next map was South-Shore, its tip stretching so far south as almost to be in sight of the pole, leading to every sort of fanciful speculation as to what lay hidden behind polar snowstorms.  Here was a map of the Western Reach, the vast dense tangle of islands lying off the coast of South-Shore.

The northernmost coast, starting just north of Torinsdale, had hand-drawn inserts. The coastline closely followed what she remembered.  More detailed sketches of harbors and inlets sat to one side, with oddly illegible note hands labeling details.  There was particular detail of Gwendolyn's Bay.  Curious scarlet lines reached out to sea.  She opened the attached map, this on very different paper, drawn to entirely different standards.  It was a very big island, but it was an island, wherever it was.  The next half-dozen maps all showed sections of land and coast, no place she knew.  Then she recognized.  The typeface was almost surely what the pirates used in their books.  But how did the maps fit together? What were the scales?  Some maps fit together, with terrain features carrying though from one panel to the next. 

Where did the rest go?  The odd maps were criss-crossed with pale red lines, each line being labeled--weren't those marks the pirate numbers?  A check against a book's pages confirmed that they were.  It was some sort of place labeling, not so different from the labeling on a South-Shore local map.  Using that analogy, it was not hard to work out where each map fit in with its neighbors.  After a bit, borders and rivers flowed cleanly from one map sheet to the next.  Other segments of unlabelled parchment were clearly oceans, still crossed with the odd lines, assembling like a giant unlabelled jigsaw puzzle.  At that point, recognition of marks on the North-Shore survey border set in.  They were continuations of the place labeling grid, distorted because the map of the One World was on a different absolute scale.  She moved mystery maps around until they matched.

The other islands started far, far offshore, perhaps as much as 300 miles.  They were very large--the largest was more or less as big as North-Shore, too.  There was the equator, and where it crossed South-Shore, that was a known distance.  The odd lines did strange things as you moved north or south, but at the equator they functioned as lines of longitude. She tapped her fingers on the table, counting under her breath, then snatched an abacus from a working desk and repeated.  The world was round, after all, its circumference being well known.  The pirate maps stretched almost all the way around.  Indeed, at the far west, the rough lines on the pirate map could be said to be a sketch of the Eastern Shore, if the cartographer had been seriously drunk.  The numbers there matched the numbers on the lines sketched on the real maps.  If nothing else, it was apparent why sailing around the world, going east from Adirolph Granda to reach Torinsdale, did not work. You ran into land, land where orthodox theology assured you could only be the watery domain of the Boy of the Sea.  Thus had foundered the circumnavigations regularly attempted by the Archimagate.

On the land nearest North-Shore were odd colored squiggles, very large and faint.  She has seen those before.  She padded on cat-silent feet away from the table to view the main hall.  The side walls held salvaged Sea Eagle shields.  Some shield squiggles matched squiggles on the map.  Was that island the source of the Sea Eagles?  A place separated from North-Shore by an uncrossable water barrier?  Not so uncrossable; the Sea Eagles did it.  How?  And how had the Necromancer Pirates hidden for so long their knowledge of the rest of the world?  Then recognition hit her.  These maps had been liberated from someone legally dead.  They were produced by a banned cult.  They were lawfully hers.  The copying fees for each of these maps, even for the half-dozen or dozen copies that someone might be able to sell, would move her at least a step above absolute poverty. 

A sweet bell rang in the distance.  She had spent a hand ordering the maps, while all the while the sun rose higher in the sky, and now breakfast was available.  She had not thought about it while she was working, but she was more than a bit hungry, not to mention she had become thinner on her trip.  She could trade tales with sister Gail, who had been enthusiastic to see her when she returned, but had fallen to sleep almost immediately afterwards.  Gail had been hard at work on her lessons with the Rosemistress, lessons on business practice that pained Evaine's thoughts.   

Evaine systematically stacked the maps, folding each as its owners had intended, set the stack back in the chest, and locked the chest again.  Footsteps behind her were the Librarian, Melissa Janicesdotr, carrying a tray as she tiptoed to her desk.  The Librarian had the unique privilege of eating and drinking in the Library, a privilege she exercised only at breakfast when none would see her.

"Good morning, Melissa," Evaine called, her voice modestly above a whisper.

"Evaine-sa! Welcome back!  It is good to see you have returned.  There were all manners of tales about what happened," Melissa answered.  "I suppose it is too much to hope you returned with a Sea Eagle book?  Something to make all my colleagues jealous?"

"A book?" Evaine answered.  "Not exactly."  Melissa reached her desk, set her tray behind it, and looked at the rear shelf.  There rose the stack, several feet tall, of oddly bound volumes.  "More like two.  Shelf feet, that is."  

Melissa gaped.  "May I?" she asked. 

 "As I captured these in battle, against those who are lawfully dead, their copying right is mine.  But you may surely look," Evaine answered.  She reminded herself to ask Tomas about the exact legalities.  Then she would cut a reasonable deal.  The Archimagate would want several copies for itself, and would pay for making them—and a copy or three additional each.  She had always had simple tastes, which was just as well, because in a very real sense she had been until now the poorest woman in the Caer, with essentially no income whatsoever, only the use of the Landgrafin's goods on the Landgrafin's business.  Fortunately, presenting herself to third parties was often the Landgrafin's business, so she had a little clothing that was not simply a cast-off.  Occasionally, she was able to barter lessons for something she wanted.   The bathrobe had been handfighting lessons for a trader. Even Gail, who had class-apprenticed herself to the Rosemistress, to learn distillation and perfuming, now had more of an income than her older sister, simply by being at the Rosemistress's place of work and running her errands.  In a very real sense, Evaine had no complaint.  The Landgrafin had received her and her sister, then a little girl, had allowed that Evaine would share duties with the Swordmistress, and that in return she would be the Swordmistress's Mistress of Drill, the Heir-Second's Apprentice, the Interlocutor's Cornet, and a variety of other duties requiring great discretion and a lack of inhibitions about resorting to violence effectively.

The Librarian, her breakfast forgotten, had found the Sea Eagle volume.  She stared in amazement.  The engravings were indeed Sea Eagles.  Where were these towns?   "I expect that the Landgrafin will want a copy," Melissa announced, "and will pay the Landmistress's rate." Which was low, but not impossible as a payment schedule.  It also put the book in the Library, where others might wish to pay more generous copying fees.  "For rare books," the Librarian added. Evaine became much more interested.

"You have your breakfast," Evaine answered, "but I must be to the refectory for mine.  The books might be said to be uniquely valuable.  Their price was a man's life.  So you may look, but they should be under lock and key until I discuss copying fees with Tomas.  Now my breakfast calls."

* * * * *

The Caer Refectory was high ceilinged, with whitewashed walls rising above a slate floor.  Rows of benches and trestle tables could with crowding accommodate the Caer's entire population at once, though in good weather most women took their meals on the terraces outside.  Evaine looked across the room, returning a pair of friendly waves.  As often as not the Rosemistress and her Circle ate as a group, the Rosemistress using the time to lecture on accounting or inventories or asset stripping or some other practical aspect of business. Were they here today?  If so, Gail would be with them.   

Some apprentices would have found the perpetual focus, morning, noon, and night, on the practical arts of perfuming and distillation and deriving income therefrom to be more than they tolerated.  However, the Rosemistress was one of the wealthier women in the Vale, even ignoring the extremely generous tuitions that Circles offered to persuade her to take able daughters as her apprentices.  Much of that wealth came not from her undoubted mastery of distillation and compounding but from her careful attention to the financial and operational aspects of manufacturing and trading on a large scale.  A thoughtful girl who spent a year or two as an Apprentice to the Rosemistress returned to her trade with newfound skills having little to do with roses.  For much less, a younger girl could listen to her lectures, but not her private lessons, in exchange for running errands.   Evaine found Gail's descriptions of trading finance to be tedious, but Gail found the discussion fascinating.  On the other hand, Evaine noted, Gail had a half-day or more of duties with the Heir-First as her junior Banneret, so it was not as though Gail actually heard more than parts and bits of what the Rosemistress taught.

As Evaine approached the table, the Rosemistress was already in full tilt on her topic of the day, of which Evaine heard only fragments: 'letters of credit', 'discount rate', and 'stripping of interest that we do not call interest,  and principal'.  The Rosemistress stopped long enough to clasp hands, and paused while Gail and Evaine hugged.  

"Ev, did you kill the pirates for us?" Gail asked.  "All of them?"

"Only one," Evaine answered.  "But he was a pirate, down to his funny clothes and funnier spear."

"You killed him?" a startled Rosemistress mouthed, not quite speaking.

"I also threw him off a cliff," she answered.  "A tall cliff.  Have you been a good girl, Gail?" 

"Me? Always.  Right? Even if I didn't get to kill a pirate," she answered.

"I will have that story for you at dinner, but now I am interrupting your lessons," Evaine said.  The Rosemistress pressed her hands together and bowed from the waist.  "Tonight you will get to hear about Copying Fees for rare books."  Evaine hugged Gail again.

"The Heir Second and friends are taking their breakfast under the South portico," the Rosemistress added.

* * * * *

Evaine, tray in hand, worked around tables to the South door.  She could not fault Avis's cooking on their trip.  Even under difficult circumstances, it had always been good.  The better part of two weeks walking, often in armor, had still been a bit wearing.  More often than not, she had been hungry.  The next time she did this, she would very definitely pack more food.

There, enjoying the early morning sunlight, was Tomas, his good friend, both of his sisters, the Landgrafin and her current Mirror—for all of his affected manners, Hector Cassandrasson had a solid head on his shoulders—the Priestess of the Vale, and a woman Evaine did not know, in the robes of a Priestess but wearing Dianasmere colors.  The Landgrafin must have returned from Northfort late last night. The final woman had to be Demara, Tomas's friend's friend. Tomas smiled at her and pointed at the empty space on the table, nodding gravely to emphasize his order.

Evaine bowed politely, sat, and let the conversation flow around her while she ate.  The core topic was apparent.  Inspector Roxanne-sa was here because it was closer to Longbeachport than alternatives with people, because the Shire Interlocutor was here, and, while it was not made explicit, of course, because Tomas himself was here.  Evaine allowed that what the Inspector did with her nights was up to her, and in the meanwhile Tomas had most of the known information, all in the same place.

From her questions, Roxanne-sa had spent much time preparing for this visit.  She had had a week in steelroad coaches, sitting with little to do other than to read carefully everything that she had been sent about the Longbeachport event.  The Landgrafin evidently had her own issues, related to the charge she had given Evaine a few weeks ago, issues she was not hesitating to raise in an oblique way.  Before she had left, a trip that had had the Landgrafin's blessings, Evaine had set in motion everything she had proposed to the Landgrafin.  Today she would spend seeing which of it had come to pass.  She had already spotted a trio of new bolt throwers on the High Tower—someone would have to construct range tables for them, but they were out of storage, the cobwebs and mouse pellets washed away, and they ready to shoot.  The chalkmarks on the lower moat bridge were obviously measurements for a drawbridge.

"Which brings us to you, Evaine-sa," the Landgrafin said.  Evaine listened attentively.  "Did you survey Our territory north of Millersbridge?  We have heard only tales, thus far.  Have you found the lurking places of the Sea Eagles and the Pirates?  Or did their cities once again fly away across the far northern horizons?"

"Indeed, mistress, I surveyed.  There is a map.  We found a pirate encampment.  It seemed likely they would soon flee, so Avis has raised the force nearest to hand to capture them, this being Sisterhood Greathand WinterWheat.  The Sisterhood agreed it was our territory.  Figure three days march each way, two days on site, and they left yesterday morning."  Evaine let her remarks sink in.  "It was a small camp, half a greathand of men, now less the one I killed.  To praise his merits to She Who Is, he was fond of books and maps.  His collection—which I captured in battle under the Edict of Altairis—now resides in the Caer Library."  Tomas pursed his lips.  He obviously recognized the legal reference.  "From the maps, if we believe they are faithful, we may say precisely where the Sea Eagles are from, wherefrom the Pirates apparently came, and the resolution of the Circumnavigation Paradox.  Also, under the rule that the first lawful holder of the first map of a place holds the place—the rule under which Wintervale was settled—Torinsdale is now a vastly larger domain.  Though the inhabitants may need to be brought to terms.  As you will soon see."

"You have a map of the North Pole?" the Priestess of the Vale asked.  "Torinsdale owns the North Pole?"

"The Circumnavigation Paradox?" Tomas asked.  "That has what to do with the Sea Eagles?"

"Actually, the pole I do not have," Evaine answered.  "A little further north than we went, an ice river bars the way, mountains as tall as the Dark Range bar the way, and beyond them a solitary peak seemingly towers two hands of miles tall."

"I'm sorry, didn't you just say that you had found the home of the Sea Eagles?" Joseline asked.  "Isn't that the same as mapping the far North?"

"As it happens," Evaine said, "No.  There is north, and there is the direction to the Sea Eagles, and it appears there is the direction to the Republics and Domains of the Pirates, and they are all different."

'Isn't that impossible?" the Priestess asked. "How many norths can there be?"

"Not really," Tomas said.  "For example, like the Sky Pirates of The Victorious Flight of Nimue All-Seeing", they could be hiding in the clouds overhead."

"Tomas?" Cheryl looked whimsically skyward.  "First, there are no clouds today.  Second, even if there were, the pirates came by sea, and left the same way, and because they did not go south, they must have gone north. Correct?"

"No, mistress, that is not—necessarily—correct," Evaine said, "As the maps make clear."

"Pardon me," Roxanne inserted, "Evaine, did I hear you say that the pirates have Domains and Republics?  Isn't that grandiose?  How much space can there be north of here for pirate towns, before it is too cold to live?  Or the Sea Eagle towns no one ever found?"

"From the maps, the Domain in which the pirate's friends printed their books is larger than Adirolph Granda, and it is by no means the largest Domain in the pirate lands," Evaine said.  "I estimate that the lands of the pirates are larger than North-Shore and South-Shore put together, and the lands of the Sea Eagles appear to be half as large as North-Shore.  As shown on their maps."

"Where are they supposed to put all this land area?" Tomas asked.  "Underground?  The Back Side of the Bracers?"

"They are in the list of places that are shown on the map as remote places, so far away that they are not on our usual list of places in which Pirate empires might be hiding," Evaine said.  "Perhaps when we are finished with your meals you would prefer to examine them?"

"We are finished," announced the Landgrafin, "but you are not, and we have questions that we would yet hear discussed while you properly break your fast.  No matter that my dear son looks ready to expire of curiosity, he will not, while you may yet expire of starvation."

* * * * *

The library's morning copyists looked up in surprise at the sounds of a dozen pairs of feet, Evaine and Landgrafin Cheryl in the lead.  "I had them on one of the large tables," Evaine explained, "in back, but that was actually not large enough.  However, if they are not in use, we could move the tables together."

"They are my tables," Cheryl said, "and however little I ever actually indulge in prerogatives, for once I shall do so.  The tables shall move.  Though it will be someone else's strong back that moves them."  She did not emphasize that several bad falls from horseback had left her walking with a cane, however much she remained physically vigorous elsewise.  "I see we are in luck.  Tomas, could I prevail on you and your friends to help?"  The tables came together.

"This is North-Shore," Evaine explained, "with marginal notes I cannot read, and South-Shore and the Western Reach."  She unfolded the maps one after the next.  "And these are two surveys of the Landgrafin's lands north of Millersbridge.  That," she pointed, "is where the pirates had a shore party.  This piece stretches from the far North southward—those red lines match up and are lines of constant latitude—the maps on the two sides are not to the same scale.  It is almost all water, but for some small islands.  This is the other side."  Evaine unfolded the map of the lands of the Sea Eagles.  "Those colored glyphs match the glyphs on captured Sea Eagle shields, that one, for example, and from the Sea Eagle book—the book I captured, Tomas—the one our Librarian is reading, that is the Land of the Sea Eagles.  The rest is in the secret code of the pirates."

"It's out in the middle of the water!" the Priestess of the Vale snarled.  "It can't be.  There must be a mistake."

"These fill in farther west," Evaine said, unfolding another map, "and appear to be empty water, though the image of a water snake large enough to eat a boat is a bit quaint, and then we come to these." She unfolded a further half-dozen maps.  "These fit together covering north and south.  The city marked in red," she tapped the map, "has its name in the frontispiece of the pirate books.  And beyond this blank of water-filled space, that outline running the length of the map could be said to be East-Shore, and while the blob looks little like the island province of Quartuhn, the rendering of the harbor entrance and the volcano cone should be familiar. The Circumnavigation Paradox is resolved.  Circumnavigators leaving Eastshore ran aground in the land of the Pirates.  Sea Eagles and Pirates are not hiding in the far north, but in that most exotic directions, the Far West, a place so exotic that heroine plays have their heroine-villainesses make their final departure by sailing off into the sunset.  Finally, because this is the first legal copy of maps to these places, anywhere in Domain, Republic, or Reach, all these lands are lawfully part of Torinsdale."

"This is obscene," the Priestess of the Vale announced.  "We live in the Land of She Who Is the Land, the Sky, and the Stars.  The other hemisphere and more is purely The Boy of the Sea's.  Never are the two entwined.  There can be no lands over the horizon."

"Curiously," Tomas said, "the Western Reach is as entangled as can be imagined."

"That is different," the Priestess announced. "The Western Reach is the earthly signification of their coupling, the Goddess with the Boy, Woman with Man, Land and Sky with Sea, thereby creating the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, the animals, and womankind."

"And what we have here," Tomas announced, "is further signification of the extended, very extended, entwinement in their coupling.  Why should that be surprising?  Entwinement, after all, even very extensive, is hardly unknown between mortal man and woman, so why should Divine Beings gain limits on where and when they, too, may entwine, or how deeply they may become entangled? Is this not true, Evaine?"

"Forgive me, your Grace, but as your Apprentice I am forbidden to engage in theological disputations," Evaine answered.  Tomas had insisted she learn all of the restrictions to which she was subject, in their full and glorious detail, detail that she could for once put to good use.  "I hope that you are finding my maps, maps I took in battle according to the Decrees of Altairis, to be of some interest."

Tomas slid over to her shoulder.  The space around the table had filled with loud arguments, not quite but almost at the point of shouting.  "You took it in battle.  These are lawfully yours, says Altairis.  I am confident that the Archimagate will pay extremely generously for permission to make copies."

"So I shall hope, Tomas," Evaine answered, "Though any reasonable fee will be a small fraction of the copying cost for such an ornate map.  There is also a book." She recovered from the Librarian a thick volume, opened it to a point marked by a seagull feather, and set it next to the supposed map of the Sea Eagle lands.  "These two gentlemen, Tomas, are clearly Sea Eagles.  Those lines identify them with the two marked towns on the book's map.  I know those are towns because they are so marked on this map in the book, we have sketches," she flipped to two other marked pages, "of places labeled with the same code that look like towns.  Also, this section of coast on the book map and those three town names are the same as this piece of coast," she pointed at the map on the table, "on the large world map."

"You have a convincing case for having found the Sea Eagles," Tomas said. 

Surrounded by arguments, Roxanne leaned over the map of Northshore, and studied closely several sections of it.  If words were sent in her direction, she ignored them.  "There is something interesting here," she finally announced, half to herself.  "Tomas, do you see that next to some town names, someone has added little dots of lavender ink?"  Tomas shook himself free of the ongoing discussion and drifted next to Roxanne.  He nodded in agreement, aware that Evaine was close at his other shoulder.  "I can't do every dot from memory, but every place I remember, where there are dots there are Sisterhood Greathands.  In Union there are two, and two dots.  Low Pass has four, three named for roses.  Look at the little lines of writing.  Every dot does not have them, but these four do.  These three words by Low Pass include the same squiggles.  If you compare back at Union, where one of the Greathands until recently was Gold-Climbing-Rose, there is a name label, with the same squiggles."

"How, of all facts, do you happen to know where every Greathand in the Sisterhood is located?" Tomas asked. 

"Tomas, dear, do you remember what I do for a living? Every quarter, all six hundred Greathands submit annual reports, each of which I proofread for anomalies.  Over the years, I have heard each town name, each greathand, and which is where, many times.  Besides, I don't remember all of them," Roxanne said, "which is why I have to compare with the 'Annual Report to the Great Senate', a copy of which happens to be in my trunk."

"But why?" Tomas asked.  "Is someone preparing to create a monopoly business in lavender weather capes, and wants to know where to have sales?"

"Tomas?" Evaine set one arm across his shoulder.  "I suppose tastes may differ.  If I were in the Sisterhood, I would find this map at least a bit alarming.   The Republic does not have Levies.  It has the Sisterhood.  This is where they all are.  If I were a pirate queen—I'm not, the pay is unreliable—this would tell me how many pirates I want to [have] at my side if I appeared here, or here, or even here to help with the looting."  At her last words, she tapped her finger on Capitol.  Roxanne became very quiet.  "I will let you imagine another reason for counting Greathands.  I know it's not a bookkeeper listing where to send pay vouchers.  Roxanne would recognize those maps.  Right, Roxanne?  If this map and labels were in common use in the Sisterhood, you'd know it."

"Indeed," Roxanne answered.  "This is no map I've ever seen."

"But how did whoever compile this information?" Evaine asked.  "The man I killed could not have walked through even one town. Even fully dressed, he would have been noticed and stopped. He didn't bathe a great deal.  He had long, curly moustaches and bushy eyebrows.  Travel to every town to search for greathands? That would take huge amounts of time.  Years."

"A week in a Shire Senate Library," Roxanne said.  "Perhaps a day.  The 'Annual Report' is printed.  It is one of the two dozen Annual Reports sent to every Shire.  If you know it exists, it is easy to find. Until the end of the Horse Barbarian Wars and the Sea Eagle raids, there was great interest in the Sisterhood services, and where we deployed relative to where taxpayers lived.  The Annual Report was supposed to quiet tension between provinces about how their money was being spent."
 
"Remarkably foresighted for pirates," Evaine said.  "Not at all like heroine-tale opera.  Real South-Shore pirates mostly avoid all contact with womankind, other than fellow pirates, and people far away who think they are honest fisherfolk.  However, men playing pirate may see the world very differently than it would be seen by sensible women.  Now, I would like the librarian to set my maps under lock and key. I agree to have them copied. I still have a list of duties I owe the Landgrafin that need be done this morning, and the two of you to escort to Longbeachport tomorrow."

Chapter Thirteen
Dianasmere
Summertouch 20, 2446

The warmth of a Summertouch afternoon filled Saint Brenda's Way.  Gretchen Threetowers strode happily along its deserted cobbles.  The street was her logical path home, no matter that almost no one else used it.  She was tired after pre-breakfast combat drill courtesy of Greatmistress Leona, full morning through dinner of lessons, and afternoon taking notes at the Archives of the Great Senate.  When Greatmistress Roxanne returned, she would have something thorough to report. Perhaps there would be time before supper to sneak off to the natatorium and do some laps.  The two boys she'd met last quarter moon might be there, she hoped.  They had said their guild kept them on a totally rigid schedule because they were boys, so they were not allowed to organize their own time.  Fifth hand after second recension, some days, they would for sure be there, because they both swam, lap after lap, until they were definitely not fat.  

"Threetowers?"  The voice calling her last name brought her out of her reverie.  Calling her by her last name was really uncouth -- though some of the snottier new Acolytes were that low, at least in her direction.  She faced three women dressed in rough-clothes, no colors showing.  All three wore masks.  

Muscles tensed.  Her breath cut at her nose.   A glance over her shoulder revealed another trio of women, three hands of paces behind her, also masked, one with knife, the other with sword.  

"Yes?" she answered uncertainly.  

"Kill her!  Get the case!" She couldn't tell which of the women spoke.  Two ran for her from the front.  One had a club.  The other had a short sword.  

Gretchen turned to run, recognizing as she did that she was trapped.  An oft-repeated precept about keeping your face to the enemy came to mind.  How did that work when you were surrounded?  Unbidden, her right hand had gone to her shoulder, grasped the sword-pommel, and twisted.  Peaceseal ruptured as she pulled her sword free.  

"Help!  Help!" Gretchen screamed.  Her voice echoed from building walls.  Try to get away, that was the lesson.  Fight purely defensively.  One of the women to her rear, the one wielding a butcher knife, was almost on top of her.  Gretchen's blade dropped into a two handed hold.  Her intended parry almost missed.  The assassin was holding her knife backwards.  Gretchen instinctively extended and slashed.  It was a weak blow, but her carefully sharpened sword sliced into the back of the woman's hand and laid open her opponent's arm.  The assassin dropped her knife, wailing in pain.  A low kick tripped a second opponent, sending her flying.  

Gretchen bolted down the cobbles.  Why was she so clumsy on her feet?  Shouts behind her showed opponents in each other's ways. "Help!" she screamed.  The women behind her had sword, club, and dagger.  The woman in front of her had a sword, and was trying to block her path. Blades met in a sharp ting of steel on steel.  Gretchen cut sideways, her opponent following.  She had to get around -- at least she could face them all at once, not that that mattered at four and one.  She continued her run, jumped at the wall, and pushed off into a rolling dive across the street.  Tumble recovery left her on her feet facing opponent with club.  Club swung.  Gretchen jumped inside the swing, sword slashing down the club at its holder's wrists.  The holder screeched and gave way.  Gretchen's sword snapped forward, slicing across face and spilling the woman's mask, then recovered.  The Inspectorate Swordmistress was going to have her hide tomorrow, Gretchen decided, if she lived that long.  She wasn't doing what she'd been taught.  'If you must draw your sword, fight purely defensively' didn't seem so easy in practice.  

Now she was one on one with a competent swordswoman.  Your blade is longer, she thought.  Use it!  Her opponent's reach and strength more than compensated.  Something hot swept across her cheek.  Her left eye was blurred.  She could see her opponents gathering their wits.  The second swordswoman was closing.  She feinted a dive.   The second swordswoman dropped low to block, leaving herself open for a crossways two-handed swing.  Gretchen felt the swing connect, then barely managed to parry the first woman, who was now on all-out attack.  "Mine," screamed the woman.  "She's mine!"  Gretchen backpedaled, fast as possible, her legs suddenly too short to get clear, wrists aching with every parry. 'Pure Defense' had seemed so easy against someone her own height and weight.  

A door slammed open.  Four figures in anonymous grey cloaks and masks poured through it.  Opponent froze for half an instant.  Gretchen saw the opening, swung in, saw opponent's fist closing on her eye.  

Brilliant pain.  Stars clouded her field of vision.  She was almost blind.  'Gather the Harvest' whispered her memories.  Gretchen swung at her opponent, once and again, fast as possible, tight, short strikes that left the older woman no time to make the attack Gretchen couldn't see clearly to parry.  Now her opponent was gone.  Where was she?  Gretchen swung wildly, tried to backpedal, found one foot refusing to hold her weight.  A desperate hard blink and sweep of arm cleared her vision, long enough to show four women running down the street, two more being carried.  

Four strangers in dark grey faced her.  All four had swords at the ready.  She faced them grimly, her own blade in a guard position. She was too dizzy to run. The Daughter-Warrior might win against tenfold odds.  She was just going to die.

"Sylvanus," came a distant voice, "Belike she thinks you're more of her opponents.  It might be simplest to view her as a companion under arms, in which case you may lawfully unmask."  Gretchen was totally baffled.  

The four figures in front of her, one after the next, carefully removed their facemasks.  

"We heard your calls for help," one of them said.  "At least, we thought they were your cries, though they seemed more in need of help." 

"I called for help," said Gretchen, still gasping for breath.  It took her a moment to realize that two of the people facing her were men.  She pulled free her neckerchief, used it to wipe her eyes clear again.  The neckerchief was ruby-red, sodden with blood.   She distantly realized that she must be bleeding badly.  Held one-handed, her sword shook wildly.  "I'm Gretchen Threetowers.  Acolyte-Resident, Keep of the Inspectorate.  I have, I mean,..." She realized her thoughts weren't making complete sense.  

"Sylvanus," came the voice again, "offer her our hospitality.  She's going to need a physician, at least for that head cut." 

"Please?" asked Gretchen, the voice echoing and re-echoing in her ears.  A distant memory made her clean her blade before resheathing it. "But my leg, I can't..."' Her thoughts dissolved in confusion.  She was distantly aware of the two men cradling her in their arms and carrying her indoors.  

When her thoughts became clear again, she found herself lying on a table, someone bathing her scalp, while someone else talked at her.  She realized that she must have been responding, but her memories viewed her as an observer in the conversation, not a participant.  

"Hello?" she said.  She had the attention of the people around her.  "Was I talking in my sleep?  It was a bit confusing." 

"Ah, the patient becomes a little more clear-headed," announced a woman behind her.  "Don't worry, dear, you took a stiff knock on your head, a couple sword slashes.  I'm almost sure your foot is not broken." 

Gretchen looked a bit to the side, felt a hand steadying her head, leaned back to match the hand pressure.  "This isn't very deep," said a woman's voice. "But you got clipped across the face -- you know, a lot of people hit with steel lined gloves would be out cold, you must have rolled -- Mercurio, give her the eye test again, even though she rolled she could have a concussion -- just look at the finger.  How many are there? There's just one?  Very good. Now let's see if the chest is stabilized."   Gretchen realized she was cold -- half-undressed, in fact, above the waist -- and something hurt when she tried to breathe.  

"She got inside your guard at the end," a different voice, an older man. 

"I couldn't see her," said Gretchen apologetically.  "I got hit in the head, and then I couldn't see." 

"No matter.  You might be better with a few stitches -- no, not your face, you won't have extensive scarring, might be that you'd rather wear your hair longer in front -- boys like that, trust me -- stitches in your side," the woman continued.  "but at some point I should be speaking to your mother or aunts." 

Gretchen stiffened.  They couldn't know.  Could they?  "My Aunt is Greatmistress Leona Carolsdotr, Tower of the Eye...How late is it?  I'm already in impossible trouble drawing my sword, and now I'm hands and hands late.  No I'll never..." 

"Young lady, you have been here not even a handth of a hand," said the man's voice.   "Stop worrying.  Besides, this, this altercation occurred on our land, so we are entirely within our rights to ask you to remain as a witness.  Now, who are you, that we may send word to your Aunt that you will be slightly late?" 

"Gretchen.  Acolyte Gretchen Dorothy Threetowers, Tower of the Eye," she answered.  Hadn't she already said that?  He was certainly fond of 'we'.

"We shall send word that you are delayed, and why," answered the man.

Gretchen stirred uncomfortably.  Why wasn't the mistress of the house saying that?  "And word also to your Mistress, you being an Acolyte?  Your Mistress being?" 

"Greatmistress Roxanne-sa-Anglewood," answered Gretchen.  What was Roxanne going to say?  Not only had she drawn her sword, she'd used it.  More than once.  Worse, what would Roxanne do?  No one would ever believe a bunch of strangers tried to kill her.  At worst, she'd have to walk out of her Circle to avoid disgracing them.  She tried to tell herself she was old enough to do manual labor, since she didn't have the skills for anything else.  

"Roxanne?" The woman's voice. "Greatmistress of Greatmistresses Roxanne-sa-Anglewood-vrith-Emmitsford?"  Gretchen nodded.  

"Oh, positively wonderful." Another man's voice, someone much older.  He didn't sound to think it was that wonderful.  "I hadn't heard the girls were playing assassination politics again.  Vernia, I'll have to take her home personally.  A full fistpair escort. Standard.  Musicians.  Get out my clown suit, I have to be formal.  And a palenquin for Goodmiss Threetowers here, curtained.  Viberg, send runners at once to sa-Anglewood-vrith and Greatmistress Carolsdotr, promising that we will return the Goodmiss so soon as Our physicians have stitched her up and We have spoken to her." 

"Palenquin?" Gretchen forced herself to look around, no matter her ribs burned when she moved.  Where was she?  The room had massive windows, hanging plants, the same strange guards...men carrying swords...Where was her sword?   She reached at her shoulder.  Not there!  

"I have it," announced one of the female guards. "Sometimes people take a bump cross-side the head, get a bit confused.  I'll give it back soon as you're seeing straight." 

"That could be now," announced the physician.  "When I finish along the ribs." 

"Palenquin," said the older man.  "You can't walk, and curtains make targeting much harder.  Targeting?  Yes, someone might try to kill you again." 

"Your tabard was a ruin," announced the younger man, "that before we cut you out of it.  Weren't sure at first you didn't have a serious wound in your side, but it was just bleeding.  You'll keep it clean, keep dosed with aqua viva, next few days, make sure it doesn't fester.  I'll find you something you can wear to get you home." 

Gretchen bit her tongue, dying to ask questions but enduring her ministrations in silence.  Who were all these people?  She had introduced herself, after all.  Or did they assume she knew them?  Stitches were slow and painful, notwithstanding the numbwine.   She couldn't tell how long things took. A considerable while.  They scrupulously let each of her wounds bleed first.  Finally her surgeon was finished.  

A door harp strummed.  A younger woman, liveried in colors Gretchen did not know, entered. "At the main gate.  Greatmistress Carolsdotr.  With two hands of the Sisterhood, fully armed and armored." 

The older man spoke.  "Bid them enter.  Invite the Greatmistress to attend us momentarily.  And I will need my clown suit now if not sooner." 

Gretchen leaned back, suddenly tired.  Leona Carolsdotr was about to have her hide for a doormat, perhaps even her skull for a drinking cup.  

"Just lie back," said the physician. "I'm bandaging things." 

* * * * *

The sound of multiple feet in a corridor.  A door swung open.   "Greatmistress Carolsdotr."  Gretchen tried to rise, was pushed firmly back into her couch. 

The older man stepped toward Leona. Now he wore formal robes, black trimmed with gold, unreadable from the back that faced Gretchen.  "We are His Sovereign Greatness, Retainer of the Lesser Hall of Night, Summoner of the Lightnings that Speak, Bartholomew Digbysson.  We understand that this person..." He gestured at Gretchen.  "...is your niece?" Dazed by the numbwine, Gretchen still put one and one together.  Those were Mage's titles, and her host was a magician of some note.

"I am her Guardian, as I have been since she entered my Circle," answered Greatmistress Leona. "Gretchen? What happened here?  How badly hurt is she?"  She stepped over to Gretchen. 

"Stitches, a few scars, nothing deep," answered the physician.  "She'll need some days in bed, nursing --- routine post-combat care --- should be fine." 

Gretchen, numb with fear for what was about to happen to her, repeated what she had done. She had violated Roxanne's direct orders, actually used a sword to fight someone.  She was about to be tossed out of her Circle with the clothes on her back -- except at the moment she didn't even have clothing.  

"Were there witnesses?"  Leona asked.  "Wait, we should get her words recorded." 

"Greatmistress?"  The speaker was a boy a few years older than Gretchen. "I am a Trained Witness and master of notehand, and have made a full record of all said since she was here.  I should be honored to prepare a full transcript for the Inspectorate." 

"Let this be done." Bartholomew was to the point.  "And we have had a good hand of talking to the Goodmiss, while her wounds were treated.  However, Acolyte, if there was anything you held back, that you felt you could not in propriety say, and wish to say privately to the Greatmistress, We and Our Entourage shall withdraw that the two of you may talk." 

Gretchen tensed in fear.  The moment the two of them were alone together, Leona would flay her with her tongue, then send her on her way.  

"No, nothing," she stammered. "I mean, I told the truth." 

"Were there any other witnesses?" Leona repeated.  What was wrong with the girl?  She seemed terrified. Had the Mages threatened her?  That seemed acutely unlikely.  She could understand poor Gretchen being frightened--how had she avoided dying, with six adult women trying to kill her?--but she was being afraid of the wrong questions.  

"We should introduce Our entourage.  Surgeon Amanda, Fistdozenthleader Vernia, Witness Dennis, Visitor of the Lesser Hall of Night Brian Susanson, File Leader Sylvanus, Dozenleader Mercurio, LightningTalker Ceres."  The guards bowed politely.  

"Indeed, myself, I witnessed" Vernia answered.  "I had the street watch that hour."  Gretchen tried to remember what Fistdozenthleader meant -- Greatmistress was close. "And I -- Vernia Trellasdotr -- have spent the past hour recording the sword dance and what I saw of the assassins.  I should be honored to prepare a full transcript for the Inspectorate." 

"Do you corroborate her tale?" Leona asked.  

"I did not hear every word of what was said.  However, the instruction to kill her was loud and clear," Vernia answered.  

"That's it," Gretchen said, half to herself. "I forgot.  They wanted my scholar's bookcase.  'Kill her and grab the case.' "  Gretchen stared at the floor.  

"I didn't hear her foot getting damaged," Leona said.  

"Greatmistress, she kicked a woman in the head.  With sandaled foot.  The one she knocked over," Vernia noted.  

"I did?" Gretchen asked.  She didn't remember that, not at all.  

"Hard?" Leona asked.  

"Hard enough to knock the woman flat.  Likely broke her neck.   She just lay there like a dishrag. Her friends didn't leave the body," Vernia answered.  

"Her ribs?" Leona said.

"While she was one-on-two, Greatmistress.  From the trail of blood and such, she gutted one of her opponents.  Enough the woman will not survive without a skilled surgeon and aqua viva," Vernia answered, "and likely not in any case."  

"I see," Leona said.  

"Well, I do not see," Bartholomew said.  "At the moment that is more important."  Leona stared at him. "Let me note that the street without, which is sometimes styled Saint Brenda's Way, is in fact the Ninth Processional of the Crouching Lion of Arhad, and is entirely within the territory of the Archimagate.  This crime is Our affair, because it happened on Our land." 

"Except for one minor detail, which I do not see," Leona continued.  "Why is my dear niece still alive?"  Gretchen roused from her fear enough to be half-offended.  "I mean, my dear niece is well-trained, and has always been an eager student.  But six on one?  That's, that's..."

"That's six rank amateurs," finished Vernia, "Getting her two on one once.  That's how her side was laid open.  The second got a distance blow in.   While she was gutting the first. And your niece is indeed well-trained, a credit to her Circle." 

"At the end, Greatmistress." Sylvanus removed his veil.  "When she was largely blinded, she chose Gather the Harvest to defend.  She did it very well.  She fought without panic." He looked at Gretchen. "That's not 'without fear'.  Is this difference understood?" 

"I know," Gretchen said.  "But I was terrified." 

"That's just being smart, Gretchen," Leona announced.  

The door harp strummed. "Eminence?"  Gretchen tried to remember the page's name. Willow Heathersdotr, that was it.  "There are close to two dozen members of the City Watch at the door, waving a Rescript, and claiming they are here to arrest one Acolyte Threetowers."  The room became very quiet.  

"Did you admit them?" Bartholomew asked calmly.  

"Eminence, the door is solidly bolted.  When I reminded them this building is the territory of the Archimagate, they became offensively insulting," Willow answered.  

Leona began to look worried. "My escort.  They are inside, and..." 

"Greatmistress, Your Dozenleader, ummh, your title, Handmistress Moira Megansdotr, she agreed with me.  This is the Archimagate.  She had words with the Watchdaughters.  The Watchdaughters -- they had words back.  Pointed words.  But Watchdaughters have swords.  Your escort has swords and shields and armor," Willow said. "They still threaten to force entry." 

"Mercurio," interrupted Bartholomew. "Secure and compartment the building.  Open the arms lockers.  Now!  Ceres.  Summon The Lightnings That Speak!"  Bartholomew's retainers saluted and ran from the room.  Gretchen's eyes widened.  The Archimagate was the land of sorcerers, its territories interwoven with the Republic and the Domains.  Talking lightning?  She'd never seen a magic spell being cast.  A bell began ringing, someplace toward the roof.  

"Willow?  Do you have a copy of the Rescript?" Leona asked quietly.  

"Through the mail slot," she announced, passing the document to Leona.  
Bartholomew read aloud over Leona's shoulder.  "Assault.  Burglary.  Use of a  Deadly Weapon.  Failure to PeaceBond a Deadly Weapon. Theft of Senate Secrets.  Criminal Libel.  Murder.  Violation of the Surplusage and Abundage Act of 2312.  Goes on a bit.  Wait a moment -- 2312 is definitions of Surplusage and Abundage.  How can you violate it?"  

A trembling Gretchen interrupted, voice shaking with half-disguised tears. "Greatmistress Carolsdotr?  I have disgraced you, disgraced your house, disgraced the Inspectorate.  If I can just have my tabard back, I will leave our Circle and let them arrest me." 

"Greatmistress Leona, do you notice something odd about this document?" Bartholomew 'asked.  

"Other than being an obvious passel of lies from beginning to end?" Leona snapped.  

"I was referring more to the lack of a Justiciar's seal or Interlocutor's chop.  Not to mention that the time from the fight to these people appearing at Our door was surely not a hand of the sun," Bartholomew said.  

Leona pursed her lips. "What about the time?" 

"Without disrespect, it is humanly impossible to get a Full Rescript -- not a Declaration of Pursuit but the Full Rescript that this claims to be -- through the Republic's courts in under a day.  This document is impossible," Bartholomew explained.   Leona nodded agreement.

"Greatmistress Leona," Gretchen interrupted, "I am two hands less two years old.  In two days, two hands less one year. I'm old enough to decide that it's time to leave for myself.  That's now, before I further disgrace you.  Please don't make it harder for me." 

Bartholomew looked across the room, for the first time understanding what Gretchen had said.  He wheeled, cape flaring, walked over to the couch, and crouched to be at Gretchen's eye-height.  "Gretchen?  Would you do me the kindness of listening me for a minute first?" he asked.  "Please?" He took her by the hand. "You're a little confused by numbwine. It leaves even the bravest prone to terrors." 

"What?"  She cleared tears from her eyes.  

"I've heard not one word that you did anything except refuse to die.  And be stubborn about it.  That's a virtue.  Well, it is here.  That road is Our land, not the Republic's.  Unless there is a very great deal you have neglected to tell me?" Gretchen shook her head vigorously. "Unless that, you committed no crime.  And those people at the door, unless I miss my guess, are neither Watchdaughters nor bearing a Rescript," he answered.  

"Watchdaughters with a Rescript?  Up to no good?" she asked sleepily.  

"People falsely saying they are Watchdaughters.  With a document that is not a Rescript."  Bartholomew let the point sink in.  "It's not signed or sealed.  It's just a piece of paper. You're hurt.  You're going no place except home until you recover.  You need to sleep, not be frightened by more nonsense." 

"But if they're trying to break in, shouldn't I get my sword and help?" Gretchen asked.  

Leona was at Gretchen's other shoulder.  "You did far more than expected.  Far more.  You need to rest."  Gretchen saw that Leona had tears in her eyes.  Why?  

A younger mage spoke to her.  Who was he? wondered Gretchen.  He still hadn't been introduced.  "After all, the Greatmistress and her women came all this way through the summer heat.  If there's going to be a fight, you should let them kill some people too, not keep them all for yourself.  Among the Sisterhood sharing is supposed to be a virtue, so you should share the decedents, shouldn't you?" 

"Oh, right."  Gretchen realized that she was starting to drowse away.  Numbwine, she remembered, puts you to sleep.  Now someone was drawing a blanket and counterpane over her.  Her breathing slowed to an even rhythm, through which conversations floated in a distant haze.  

"But what was in her case?" Bartholomew addressed no one in particular.  

"Your wisdom?" Ceres had reappeared. "The lightnings await your command." 

"Advise the Hall of Night that we have an armed party trying to break in.  Then advise the Chancellery of the same thing.  Seal the Tower. Have a runner at the door.  If there is a successful entry to the compound, advise the Hall of Night at once." 

"Yes, Your Wisdom," she answered.  She bowed gracefully and withdrew.  

"Your Wisdom?" said Vernia, "It might yet be possible to track the assassins.  Even city streets take trails when you're bleeding like a gutted pig -- which, of course, one of them was." 

"Let this be done, the law permitting -- perhaps Greatmistress Leona's escort can spare some daughters to make it legal," he suggested.  She nodded.  "So soon as the brothers and sisters are under arms, open the front door and let our visitors in.  Then capture them.  Is this possible?" he asked.  

"With Greatmistress Leona's support," answered Vernia. "Otherwise it would perhaps be needful to leave them outside or kill them." 

"Delighted to assist," Leona answered.  "I believe they will then be your prisoners."

"This may be done," Bartholomew answered quietly.  "Vernia, would you and Greatmistress Leona be so kind as to handle the details?"

Another messenger entered the room.  "Bartholomew," she said.  "A minor difficulty.  The sa-Anglewood-vrith is not at the Tower of the Eye, and they were reluctant to tell me where she might be found."

"Greatmistress Roxanne is in the distant north," Leona announced.  "Her duties took her to Longbeachport and Merecester, though I believe she is most likely at Caer Adurel in Torinsdale."

"I should know that place," Bartholomew announced.  "The name is familiar.  Brian, do we have a brother someplace there?"

Brian looked thoughtful.  "In Torinsdale.  Tomas-sur-Maserin."

"In that case," Bartholomew said, "We shall send him word tonight, asking him to seek out the sa-Anglewood-vrith if she can be found, advising her that her Acolyte is safe—you may wish to add your own message, Greatmistress."

"You are most incredibly generous to send a messenger," Leona said.  "We can be most entirely confident that Tomas will have absolutely no difficulty finding Roxanne.  And—I shall have to phrase it carefully, lest the message goes astray, she will doubtless be entirely grateful to learn, an eight-day hence, of what has transpired here.  Though if you were to delay your messenger a day, your prisoners' tales might be added, and she will learn almost as soon."

Bartholomew looked momentarily puzzled.  "The sa-Anglewood will receive her message rather sooner than next week," he answered.  "For your message will travel with the lightnings, and be in her hands this very evening.  But now, if we are to have prisoners, we must capture them.  Rather, I shall propose that you two make the arrangements for their capture."  He bowed shallowly and gestured at the doorway.

* * * * *

Evaine approached the door of the Solar and knocked once.  The sky outside was almost dark.   Landgrafin Cheryl and the Daughter-Heiress looked up from their company.  Roxanne and Demara, fresher from a day's rest, were in dress uniforms, clean if still slightly wrinkled from a week in a trunk.  The Priestess of the Vale had worn her pastoral robes, not one of her dress costumes.  Thomas was about to outshine them all put together.  Cheryl's lips tightened.  She disliked being interrupted.

"My Landgrafin," Evaine announced blandly.  "Your Son the Heir-Second will soon join you.  In his persona as Mage," she added.  To her recollection, 'mage' was the persona who lurked in the tower rooms but had never been seen outside.  The room became silent.

"Evaine," Joseline finally asked, "Is there some reason for that choice?"  

The Priestess of the Vale glared.  "I suppose," she announced, "it's not that he's going to try calling down lightning bolts or whatever."

Evaine swallowed.  "Your Grace," she said, "Tomas assures me that he does not do anything ill; if he did, he would have as Interlocutor to prosecute himself."  Deliberate pause.  "And the lightnings have been put away for the evening."  She maintained a rigorously straight face.

The Priestess smiled stiffly.  "I suppose I asked for that.  Tomas is a nice person, in most ways."  

Evaine swallowed.  If Cheryl decided that she had insulted the Priestess, matters could become very unpleasant in very little time.  She was reasonably sure that, when Tomas was much younger, the Priestess had hoped to make him Mirror of her Circle.  Tomas had instead...she told herself that she would not think ill of someone just because they honored that Aspect in a different way.  "Forgive me, Your Grace, but I only meant that remark literally.  Tomas is a Mage, and he has been communing this evening with the lightnings that speak."

Tomas's arrival spared Evaine further conversational challenge.  His robe was bright purple, the overcoat being a deeper purple bearing lines of bright-yellow lightning bolts.  A long, orange-lined black-and-green plaid cape whose stiff, vertical collar reached above his lower ears completed the ensemble.  A medallion in the form of a swooping bird hung from his neck.  "Mother," he said, bowing slightly.  "Beloved sisters.  Your Grace." He folded his hands, bowing slightly again.  He turned to Roxanne, smiling.  "Dearest friend, I bring you greetings from Leona Carolsdotr, sent this evening from Dianasmere."  He handed Roxanne a paper.

"This evening?" Roxanne said, scanning the message, her face the message in front of her.  "It's two thousand miles to Dianasmere."

"We communed through the lightnings that speak," Tomas explained.  "The assassination attempt happened in the Domain of the Crouching Lion of Arhad, but the girl is your servant.  The Lords of the Dark Hall felt it their obligation to inform you of the event.  If you have a response in the next eighth, it can be in Dianasmere this evening."

"Assassination?" Roxanne stared at the message.  She rose.  "Forgive me, Lady Cheryl, but my duty calls.  Tomas has brought me most troubling news, and I need to think."

"Go with our prayers," Landgrafin Cheryl answered.  Roxanne left the room.

"You can get a message to Dianasmere tonight?" the Priestess asked.

 "Through the mighty spells of the Lords of the Dark Hall," Tomas answered, "The Lightnings That Speak have this evening served the Lords' will, for the Lords' purposes, namely to advise Roxanne that this afternoon one of her Acolytes was almost assassinated.  Should she wish, the Lightnings will bend themselves to my will, for I am also a Lord of the Dark Hall, and the Lightnings do as the Ministers of the Lion of Arhad command.   A dozen conspirators lie under guard in the Lords' dungeons. Tomorrow they will be interrorgated."

"That's 'interrogated', dear," Cheryl said, correcting her son.

"Not the way we do it, Mother," Tomas responded. The rest of his audience decided they would rather not know.

Chapter Fourteen
The Lesser Hall of Night, Dianasmere
Summertouch 21, 2446

It was early afternoon.  Leona Carolsdotr sat at the entrance to Digbysson's dungeons, her attention fixed on Gretchen Threetowers.  The girl had been properly stitched up, dosed with aqua viva and acidified willow bark, and brought over in a well-sprung carriage.  Still, less than a day before she had been in her first and Goddess willing last fight of her life.  For all that she had carried herself well, she might readily have died. Gretchen maintained she was able to walk from the Tower of the Eye; she would instead be confined to bed for the rest of the day.

Perhaps, Leona reflected, 'dungeons' was the wrong word, as they were very definitely at the top of a respectably tall building.  However, the rooms in question were barred and guarded.  They held a dozen women who had tried yesterday to storm Digbysson's palace to kill Gretchen. If the rooms were lit, it was through a central light well with glass at the top.

A clatter and clank was a prisoner being brought from the cells.  She was short, blonde, and had not been particularly attractive before even she had been sliced up in a fight yesterday.  She might have worse hurts as well, but, between the hand chains and the shackles and muzzle, more was difficult to make out.
"even before"

"This is their leader," Digbysson announced, "The one who had bandaged wounds when she was captured yesterday, as though this was her second combat of the day."

Gretchen startled when she saw her.  "That's her," Gretchen announced to no one in particular. "That's the woman who tried to kill me."
The prisoner startled, Gretchen started.

"Twice, it would seem," Digbysson said, "That we know about," he added.  "Are you certain, Gretchen?"

"I see where I sliced her face up yesterday," she answered. "Crosscut above the left eye."

"And I see where she was caught in the act of trying to break into this Hall," Digbyson said agreeably.  The prisoner flinched.  "Very good," Digbyson said. "Prisoner, you have been informed of the charges against you.  You are entitled to call as a witness any citizen of the Archimagate who was present where you supposedly committed your crime, or any citizen who can place you elsewhere.  Do you wish to claim you are innocent of the things of which you are accused?" he asked, obviously not caring if the prisoner answered Yeah or Nay.  The prisoner glowered silently.  "Greatmistress Carolsdotr?  Lady Threetowers?  This person and her confederates assaulted and seriously injured members of my Tower, while resisting arrest, and has been identified as having participated in a crime leading to death.  She has declined to claim innocence.  Of course, falsely claiming innocence can be a crime itself, and she was caught in the act.  Under our laws, there being reasonable suspicion of an ongoing conspiracy, I could have her interrorgated."

"Murder?" Gretchen asked.  Had someone died, that she had overlooked?  She tried to remember what had happened while walking down the corridor.

"Indeed.  We found the bodies of the two women who died while assaulting you yesterday.  They died as a result of committing crimes, so it was lawfully murder—by the co-conspirators in the crime, such as this person," Digbysson answered.  "In any event, prisoner," he continued, turning to the woman in chains, "you will be given an opportunity to make a full and complete confession.  Because your conspiracy is ongoing—one of your fellows escaped yesterday afternoon—the Chancellery has agreed that your right to trial as a foreigner does not arise.  If you do not confess, you could be given a chance to commune with The Lightnings That Speak.  This would give me a chance to do something I enjoy, namely playing a round or two of Hearts while you enjoy our interrorgation chamber.  After a timed interval, you will be given another chance to confess."

They had reached a thick-doored room.  "Very good," announced Digbysson.  "All right, let me work through the checklist.  Strap her to the gurney.  Face down? Check.  Bucket in place? Check.  Chains not in communion with the deeps of the earth?  Check.  Don't worry, dear," he said to the prisoner.  "You are in almost no danger of dying. Though—have you ever made popcorn?  Good.  You know what happens to a corn kernel?  Well, sometimes that happens during interrorgation.   To one of your teeth.  Don't worry, with aqua viva there will be no danger of suppuration.  Well, rather little danger."  He looked at the guards.  "Vernia, would you please accompany Ceres to the Hall of Interrorgation?  The others of you, I think a round of seven-card Hearts should be about enough?"  Gretchen and Leona were slightly wide-eyed.  Digbysson gestured the two of them to a couch.  The prisoner disappeared through the padded doors.   "The soundproofing is quite excellent.  We will hear nothing."  Gretchen could only stare while Digbysson and company played cards.  Digbyson looked up.  "Actually, nothing is going to happen to her.  It is possible that there is a less worthwhile scheme of interrogation than the infliction of physical pain, but I cannot name it."

The doors opened.  Ceres, beaming happily, pushed the prisoner through the doorway.  The prisoner was sobbing uncontrollably.  Digbysson stared at the woman on the gurney.  "Well, let us get on with this.  The rule, prisoner, is that I will ask questions.  You will answer them.  The third time you are recalcitrant, or if you are caught in a lie, I will get to play Hearts, and you might commune with the Lightnings.  This would not be torture to persuade you to confess.  This would be punishment for crimes already carried out in our chambers."

Digbysson sat at a small desk.  Another member of his staff, pencil in hand, sat at his side.  "Let us begin at the beginning.  What is your name?"

"Pamela.  Pamela-sa-Fernborough."  At the name, Leona stared carefully at the woman.

"When you entered my building yesterday, was your Rescript valid?" he asked.

"Yes.  It was valid," Pamela answered.

"We checked.  It wasn't.  Also, it had no Chop or Seal.  Can you explain how a valid Rescript can have no signature?" he asked.  Pamela Pamelasdotr said nothing.  "That was her lie.  Ceres?  Take her away.   Sergeant, I believe this time it is nine-card Hearts." The woman was wheeled from the room.  The soundproof door slammed shut. "Gretchen?  She is in absolutely no danger, and will not even be scarred afterwards." 

"I am not sure I can approve of this," Leona said.

"As a rule," Digbysson answered, "the victim only gets to see demonstrations.  We only inflict pain as a punishment.  After pain, most people are willing to confess to absolutely everything down to assassinating the Sorceress Nimue while carrying on with the Boy of the Sea in public.  Such confessions are not helpful. Of course, the light is a bit weak, so they tend to think that the popping of a giant-kernel corn was a demonstration tooth.  The sleight of hand with the kitten is very well done, so almost never does a prisoner realize that the object that catches on fire and burns was not the kitten that just licked their face.  Mind you, the Lightnings can inflict pain, much like all the toothaches in the world, but that's not the point.  Hurting people to make them confess is worthless, even when the people who inflict the pain have almost no contact with the interrogation."  The Mage and his underlings played cards again.

As they approached the final round, the doors swung open. Ceres, by herself, wheeled Pamela Pamelasdotr back to her questioners.   "We had to sacrifice a kitten," Ceres said tonelessly. Pamela could not see the look on Ceres' face, which gave the lie to her words.

Digbysson finished the last hand, then sniffed the air.  "You flushed the bucket, Ceres?  Good.  Prisoner, couldn't your mother even manage to housebreak you?" He turned to Ceres.   "Please do remember this time that you are supposed to be rotating teeth.  We do not want to make money for the dentists.  Again.  This one looks stubborn.  If you would be so kind as to count the cards for small-dozen Hearts?"  He turned back to the prisoner.  "Under our rules, once you go back through the doorway, the Lightnings will commune with you for a fixed time.  That is because you are not being tortured to elicit a confession.  It is because you are being subject to pain as a punishment for past crimes.  You can confess as much as you want once in there, but the time will not be changed.  Now, where were we?  Oh, yes, can you explain how your Rescript could be valid?"  The prisoner shook her head.  "According to this, Gretchen Threetowers is accused of violating the Surplusage and Abundage Act.  Is that even possible?"

"No!  Well, I'm not sure.  We just put it in because it sounded impressive," Pamela answered.

"Now, would you care to explain honestly what you were doing?  I have several decks of cards.  I could have the cards for true dozens counted now," Digbysson grumbled.

"I am a Senator. You will release me at once!" Pamelasdotr snarled.  "I serve the People and the Senate, United, and am immune from arrest!  It is illegal for you to abuse me!"

"No," Digbysson answered, "You are not a Senator.  You are in the Land of the Crouching Lion of Arhad.  Here, you are a criminal, charged with capital crimes and breach of peace, from which you are not immune from arrest.  Here I am a Lord of the Halls of  Night, a representative of the Sacred Chancellery is present to confirm that I am conforming to Law and our Treaties with the Republic, and you are being questioned about your crimes.  Also, I have never tortured you.  I have sat here and played cards.  What happens when you commune with the Lightnings is beyond my sight and hearing.  Now, do you tell us about your activities, or do I get to play cards again?"  On the latter choice, he sounded optimistic. "The Lightnings do not kill.  We can continue this—someone calculated how long it takes to play a round of 37-card Hearts.  It's a fair while. Let us begin with the assertion given me that you ordered your fellows to kill Gretchen here, and steal her case."  Pamelasdotr wilted.

"Forgive me," Leona said, "But there is an extradition and immunity treaty."

"Indeed," Digbysson answered.  "And if we had found her on your land, we would have had you arrest her, and try her under your laws for her crimes here.  However, We found her on Our land, coming voluntarily through Our door, and she is being treated as fairly as every resident of the Hall of Night.  Or do you have a warrant for her arrest in your lands?"  Leona shook her head.

"I confess, and beg mercy," Pamelasdotr said.  "We tried to kill Gretchen Threetowers.  We tried to steal the case she carried.  However, Gretchen is alive and well, unlike two of us who answer now to She Who Judges.  And none of this would have happened if Gretchen had minded her own business." Pamelasdotr said.

Digbysson waved Gretchen to silence.  "What was in her case?" he asked.  Pamelasdotr stayed silent.  "You wanted to kill a woman for a stack of papers.  You must have known what they were.  What were they?  Ceres, we may also need the thirteen card round."  He waited.  "You have now been recalcitrant twice.  On your third incidence of recalcitrance, you will again have the privilege of communing with the Lightnings."

"The case contained Senate Records.  Well, copies, so far as I know, of specific financial transactions of the Senate," she answered, a streak of terror shading her voice.

"Financial transactions?  You tried to kill someone for financial records?  Aren't Senate records in the public domain, open to all, even foreigners like me?" he asked.

"Yes.  Yes.  Yes.  Yes," she answered.  "Please, keep your questions simpler.  I'm not trying to hide anything."

"This appears absurd.  What sort of a fool do you think I am to believe something so silly?  You will be leaving me having to decide whether you should be fed to the mice—for conspiracy murder—or fed to the ants—for recalcitrant perjury.  Of course, we do have a mercy rule for those who confess their crimes.  Perhaps you should continue to confess," he suggested. "Start from the beginning."

"She was copying lists of financial transactions.  Not any transactions.  Very specific transactions.  Important transactions.  We know which ones," she answered.

"Why did you care about these transactions.  Which transaction groups?" he asked.  She was momentarily silent.  He began counting cards.

"Public Endowments, Privately Held.  Transfers to the Office of Real Property.  Transfers to the Office of the Dead.  Transfers to the Office of Surplus Property.  Transfers from the Fortress Trusts.  Transfers from the Bower of Plentitude," she said, speaking as quickly as possible.  "Transactions to the Bower of Mathom. Too many for me to remember."

"What are these strange names?" he asked.  

Gretchen passed him a note. "I understand her," it read. "It's true."

"When did these transactions happen?  A year ago? Five years?" he asked.

"A century and a half.  The ones she was searching.  Or so.  Different years and decades. We weren't sure every time," she answered.

"I don't understand.  This is so long ago.  Why did you care?  Perhaps in time I ask Goodlady Threetowers why she cared—if she chooses to answer," Digbyson said.  "Let me continue.  Give me a tale that makes sense, or I shall conclude that you are recalcitrant."

"From the beginning," she answered.  "The Senate owes debts.  It pays the debts.  Sometimes, it pays the debts by taking Public Endowment Shares, and transferring them to Public Endowments, Privately Held."

"Items in the Bower of Mathom returned to the Office of Surplus Property?  There's a Transaction for that?" Gretchen asked, biting her tongue after she'd finished asking.

"Yes.  Wait.  It's a memo transaction, not a Senate Act.  You couldn't find them because they're not in the Senate Records.  It's just a note from one clerk to another 'we identified the proper owner; please send back the ownership chit,'" Pamela explained.

"I am baffled," Digbysson said.  "Everything you said sounds totally legal, and I am supposed to understand the Senate financial system.  Even if it is more baffling than  anything in the Arts of the Dark Mysteries."

"Everything I have described, each transaction, was performed as a valid act of the Senate," Pamela said.  "Memo transactions are created en bloc by statute.  And, recalling a bit of your law, I ask if anyone in earshot can contradict what I just said."

"True," Gretchen mouthed inaudibly, watching Digbysson nod in agreement.

"Why bother?" he asked.  "Why all these steps to pay a debt?  Why not simply give over the money?  Why did the Senate bother with this complicated charade?" he asked.

"It was in their interest," she answered.  "They didn't have the money, not at the end of the wars with the Horse Barbarians and the Sea Eagles.  Instead of paying my several-times-great grandmother a thousand crowns, they paid with 500 crowns of Public Endowment, and over the expected lifetime of the owner its yield would cover the other 500 crowns of debt, and perhaps a bit more if yields increase, as they often do."

"Your grandmother has embraced the Crone," Digbysson said.  "So because in some year the Senate paid her 500 crowns, we come to yesterday.  You and your friends tried to kill this young lady, for endowment Held Privately a century ago.  Why?" He noticed Gretchen putting her hand firmly across her mouth and raised his eyebrows.

"Held," Pamela said, "and still holds."

"So 150 years ago, the Senate owed a thousand crowns.  It paid five hundred in Endowment, and you—legally?—kept it?  And this is problematic?" he asked.

"Totally legal.  That's the plan.  Totally legal," she answered.  

Gretchen gestured at her mouth.  Digbysson nodded.  "If the Senate owed you a thousand crowns, when did they pay you, and how much?" Gretchen asked.

"The standard discount then was half, I think, so they would have paid five hundred," Pamela answered.

"All in one year?" Gretchen asked.  Digbysson resumed counting cards.

"Wait! Please!  I misunderstood the question.  I misunderstood.  The payment would be 35 a year for twenty years, or 60 a year for ten years.  The difference is risk recompense, not illegal interest.  We always took the longest period," Pamela answered.

"So for 20 years you got 35 crowns per year?" Digbysson asked.

"Precisely," Pamela answered.

"Year 21?" Gretchen asked.

"There was the income from the Endowment," Pamela answered.  

Gretchen cleared her throat.  "Would one of many concrete examples help?" Gretchen asked.  "Consider Greathand Jimsonweed.  There was a payment, one of several, of 19 Crowns per year of endowment in recompense for debt.  In year 18, payments were transferred to Old Business Algol."

"Algol is a star?" Digbysson asked.  "Isn't it?"

"Old Business Algol refers to noncontroversial items that are said every year and that therefore need not be retypeset. 'For Ascension Day the High Priestess of Xerinthe shall sacrifice to She Who is the Sky a dozen almond-paste cookies, the Senate paying a fair recompense of two silver pennies.'  Once an item is in Old Business Algol, it is ratified every year—but there is no Senate Record of what is there, except at the records for the past date at which the item was first Old Business Algol.  There are clerks with bins of tasks, sorted by day, which they execute automatically," Gretchen explained.

"The Crone's Knockers!  You found that!"  Pamela said.

"She found what?" Digbysson asked innocently.

"The payments and transfers were inserted into Algol Accounts and repeated via Algol incomes, which are not itemized, and not via Sisterhood Accounts," Pamela answered. "There is not even a blanket charge to the Sisterhood.  Rather, some specific tax, say on the sale of carrots in Meyerton, is allocated for the purpose, and its payers are told where it is to be sent."

"So in years 18, 19, and 20, nineteen Crowns are paid.  And?"  Gretchen cleared her throat ominously.

"Is there a falsehood?" Digbysson asked.  "Do I get another hand of cards?"

"Not yet," Gretchen said.  "Not quite yet."

"Let me finish," Pamela said.  "It does not stop.  In every year, from Algol there is a further payment of 19 Crowns.  That's what Algol means.  The process continues in perpetuity."

Digbysson looked thoughtful.  "In perpetuity?  After the debt was paid off?  So the Senate paid for the debt…several times over.  In 150 years, the payments would be close to 3000 crowns.  But the accounting balance.  I see where the real money is coming from, but where does the income from the sale of the Endowments go?"

"The Senate buys The Endowment shares from itself, which is usually a transfer of Endowment between two units of the Senate, so to simplify the Algol books the sale and purchase are cancelled out without being recorded.  Instead, the printed bonds are carried from one part of the Treasury to another, as per the Algol memo, and when the completed memos are returned to the Algol office, paired against the days' requirements, and all is done, the memos are simply burned.  The clerks in the Algol office see 'transfer a purchased inventory item—and a requisition code--from Office A to Office B' but never what is being transferred or its worth.  The original purchase of the Endowment is made with Sisterhood taxes, so it is legally a part of the Sisterhood endowment, and is stored in inactive files as an Algol item, even though it no longer belongs to the Sisterhood," Pamelasdotr explained.  

"The Public Endowment pay what the Girls claim is not interest," Vernia remarked, "Typically one crown in a year on a score of principal or more."

"How does the Sisterhood not notice that thousands of Crowns of its endowment are paying it no income?" Digbysson asked.  "The Sisterhood's income on endowment, however many millions of Crowns a year, should match what it spends on the Inspectorate, the Senate Guard, the People's Greathand, and so forth."  Gretchen giggled softly.  The mage for all his cleverness had a very simple idea of accounting, which commingled all taxes and expenditures, rather than properly attaching each named tax to a unique expenditure.

"We were discussing Jimsonweed," Pamela said.  "The expense slips are sorted among the active hands.  Those are counted and validated.  However, validation is done first at the Greathand level.  The slips for inactive Greathands are dropped into boxes, to be validated by the Greathand if the Greathand is ever activated, a process that never takes place, so no one looks at the events."  Gretchen, eyes focused, listened very intently, writing occasional notes to herself.

"What happens if Jimsonweed runs out of endowment?" Gretchen asked.  "Then the transfers should bounce, shouldn't they?"

"If they were accounted," Pamelasdotr answered.  "But everyone knows that Inactive Greathands after a few years have no expenses, so any material relating to them is received sealed—it's mostly memorial notices on relatives, which is why we insist on honoring in perpetuity the relatives of those who fell, to cloud the paper trail—dropped into the appropriate cask, and never examined.  If a cask fills, it is hauled into the salt mines and stored, and a new cask is started.  So no one is bothered.  The debit is dropped into the Jimsonweed box, and the Privately Held shares appear as matching credits, and no one detects that Jimsonweed has gone negative on endowment by creating Senate General Shares de novo.  Rather, no one was bothered, until one Gretchen Threetowers started marching back and forth between the twelve sets of ledgers involved, which we spaced as widely as possible between the Treasury buildings to make the search challenging, taking notes.  It took us a while to realize that she was sneaking into the Senate Library at night to examine their calendric records, so she could always fill gaps."  Gretchen put a finger across Leona's lips.  Someone else was doing night-time sneaking.  If she were sneaking at night, once she recovered, it would involve two boys and night use of the baths.

"I think I understand," Digbysson said.  "Isn't this theft?"

"Absolutely not!  It was totally legal.  There are valid acts of the Senate," she answered.  "Every one.  No law has been broken, because the voice of the Senate writes the laws.  Algol Amendments are passed, of course, by unanimous consent via the general orders, which are not transcribed verbatim, though the effects go into the Transaction Variation Tables in the Senate Minutes Appendices.  Those are coded, of course, not written out in alphabetic longhand, to save space."

"Why do I expect that the codes are unreadable?" Digbysson asked himself.  "Or close thereto?  But six women in your first attack, and some dozen in another, for three thousand Crowns?  That seems unbalanced.  And if you keep transferring Endowment to Private Holdings, what does that do to the Sisterhood's real income?"

"There is always more Permanent Endowment," Pamelasdotr answered.  Gretchen tapped her fingers on her chair. "In recent years, some of us have been trying to find old records to stop transfers, before the rate becomes unmanageable.  Then Gretchen came along.  We have clerks keeping tabs on what records are consulted.  We all thought she was someone else's project with the same task, because the more we looked the more apparent it became that matters had to be brought under control, and she was doing exactly what we were doing.  Then we realized that she was from the Inspectorate. She was an Acolyte of that pervert."  Gretchen clenched the arms of her chair.

"For the record, Gretchen, am I correct that you are the Acolyte of Roxanne-sa-Anglewood-vrith-Emmitsford?" Digbysson asked.  Gretchen nodded.  "Pamela, do you agree?  I read both as agreeing.  Now that is odd, because Greatmistress of Greatmistresses Roxanne is in my observation a charming if not quite young any more woman.   Yet you are calling her a pervert.  I'm sure there's some explanation for this discrepancy."  He looked at his next playing card.

"I meant what I said.  She lives in the Three-Fountain Circle.  Every one of them is a pervert.  They don't even maintain the pretense of having a Mirror in residence.  Each has a large house, with an occasional visitor.  The same male visitor each time.  Filthy!  For her daughter, she even knows…I'm not quite sure that is correct, so I shall not say it," Pamela said.

"Say no more," Digbysson answered.  Gretchen was baffled.  "I know what you are thinking, and shall not say other than 'you are saying what you believe to be true'. I have a highly favorable impression myself of Roxanne.  So there were these transfers, and your little share was perhaps detected.  But kill the young lady here?  According to you, it was all legal.  You could always have said you inherited it from your great-grandmother, and thought it was a payment in perpetuity.  Absent proof of bad faith, the cost of recovering 19 Crowns a year exceeds the income.  So why did six of you plot murder for 19 crowns a year?"

"I don't know the exact numbers," she answered.  "We each get a secret part, the twelve greatgrandmothers who found all the bookkeeping tricks and their children.  However, Jimsonweed was not the only Greathand, 19 Crowns was not its only debt, and after a time the income adds up."

"You don't know the numbers?  Really?" he asked.

"That's why we had the serious research project—trying to find all the transfers and shut them down.  We had to stop them before we took more money that the Sisterhood has," Pamelasdotr answered.

"Too?  Much?" Digbysson asked.  "More money than the Sisterhood has?"

"Of the entire public endowment of the Sisterhood, including not only the Greathand income but also the Fortress funds and the road funds and the sunspeaker funds, we have procured, oh, four shares in seven," she answered.

"The Crouching Lion's Flaming Balls," Digbysson mumbled.

"Four? Not five?" Gretchen asked.

"Four," Pamelasdotr answered.  "We do keep track of that.  That's how we knew things were starting to get out of hand, that if we were not careful we would be taking eight shares in seven."

"Senator Greenthumb?" Gretchen asked.

"We should have killed him.  Then Roxanne would never have become curious, because the books she sees are totally clean and completely line up with what is actually spent.  However, four parts.  The other shares are a parallel arrangement run by the Quartermaster Staff, which we think runs about two in seven," Pamela answered.

"So through various means you and your friends have managed to procure for yourselves much of the total endowment of a major part of the Republic.  True?  And to hide your secret you sought to murder this young lady?"  Pamela nodded in the affirmative.  "How often do you murder people to keep your secrets?"

"Not since I became an heir," she answered.  "There was a flurry, about twenty years ago, perhaps five people—I don't know who—and after each we refined our protections of the records."

"I imagine that there will be additional questions from these two," Digbysson said, pointing at Gretchen and Leona, "which as the grievants in a crime they are entitled to ask.  If you answer them to their satisfaction, I shall find that it will be not the ants, nor the mice, but transportation to the Mountain of Darkness to await a request for your trial on Republican charges.  Of course, if there is no request, you will be a long time waiting."

"Let me start with a simple one," Gretchen said.  "And I only want to complete the long list I already have.  Who is 'we'?  Oh, Your Lordship?  Does the Archimagate viewing lying by omission as lying?  So I thought.  Pamela, you will give me a complete list of conspirators, and then we will go over your omissions.  One at a time.  Slowly.  And perhaps his Lordship will offer to teach me how to play Hearts.  Unless he'd like to play Domains.  I really like multiboard Domains.  And then we will discuss Fortress Trusts, Wall Funds, and Special Reserved Discretionary Trusts."  Pamela turned pale. Gretchen reminded herself she owed Angela a big stack of favors.  She'd never have found all those accounts by herself.  She hoped the Senator would tell the truth.  At some point, Digbyson was going to conclude that the prisoner should be sent to the interrorgation chambers for real, and she did not want to be responsible for that.

Chapter 15
Three Fountain Circle, Dianasmere
Summertouch 8, 2446

Dorothy-sa-Anglewood marched up the stairs toward the High Road.  Her class had planned on another week in the country, but the message from the School Headmistress had been very clear.  Even if no one knew about the message when the class returned to Dianasmere.  That was grownups, so full of themselves they couldn't keep straight what they had just said.  That was Mum's job.  Listen to Senators say what they did, see what they actually did, and remind them so they would say it right next time.  It was all like arithmetic at school.  First time, you might not see that 3x7=25, in real numbers, or 3x7=21, in formal numbers, or even 3x7=18, in men's numbers, but you kept working and finally it was all obvious.  At least, that's what Mum said, so it had to be true.

It was not quite dark.  Half the girls just sat there after getting off the railcoach, waiting for their mothers, and watching the teachers try to figure out why their mothers were not there waiting for them.  Of course, most of them had packs that weighed as much as they did, so walking home alone would have been hard.  She had set her pack on its carrier, and then headed off by herself.  She knew where she lived, after all.  Mum always said you should take the initiative, not sit and see if someone else would do your work for you.  She couldn't have minded if the pack was a lot lighter, but she wasn't a boy to be afraid of the dark.  Besides, if you couldn't see people, they couldn't see you, either, so it was even.

Three Fountain Circle had its courtyard and homes at the very far end of town, with its front gate facing out across the valley. It abutted on two counting houses and a depository of Senate Records, the latter being a faceless stone building whose windowless outer walls shielded its contents from fire or other disaster.    Here was the front gate…and it was closed.  Locked, too.  Looking through the gate's lattice, it was all dark inside.  There was a sign, hard to read in the dim light.  "The Circle of Three Fountains is on Spring Retreat.  We return Oneday next." Dorothy counted on her fingers.  That was tomorrow.  All her aunts were away someplace; that was why no one was here.

That was a real bother.  Mum was off in the North, supposed to be there for weeks yet. She was supposed to come back next week, and be a good girl while her aunts took care of her.  That was fine with her.  Mum always came back from these trips with wonderful stories and presents, and her aunts were always nice to her.  Besides, Mum meeting all these people meant all sorts of interesting stories came beck to her.

That was fine, but how was she supposed to get through the gate, get her stuff unpacked, and go to bed? She couldn't reach the latch through the gate.  Unpack might wait.  That would be hard after dark. 'Go to bed at dark', this being early summer, that was a rule.  She looked hard at the brick pillars that held the gate.  She wasn't supposed to play on the wall, but letting yourself in was not playing.  The mortar lines between the bricks might be narrow for a grown-up, but she wasn't grown up, not yet.  Her pack gave her a foothold up. Climbing carefully, using the gate's frame to brace her back, she climbed to the top of the gate. Once, she started to slip.  A hard grab held her in place until she regained her footing.

The worst part of the climb was coming over the top of the gate.  Back down was easier.  She considered jumping, but she couldn't really see where she would land.  Behind the gate on one side were stairs down.  That would not be good footing.  Climbing a wall was a lot less fun than climbing an apple tree, but now she had done it.

From the inside, she unlatched the gate, rolled her pack along the ramp, and pushed the gate shut.  A hard tug confirmed she had set the latch properly.  Now it was very nearly dark, but she knew exactly where she was as she rolled her pack to her Mother's front door and slipped inside.  The striker-lamp should be on the front table.  Mum had spent much time—for Mum—being absolutely sure that her little girl could light it by touch in the dark.  She found the lamp, sloshed it slightly to hear the oil inside, pulled the oil-soaked wick to the side, and pulled back on the steel.  A 'crunch' and sparks marked steel hitting flint.  One spark ignited the wick, which she quickly rotated back into place.  The wick made its holder very hot very quickly, as singed fingertips had already taught her the hard way.

Her outdoor boots went into the vestibule, the frame setting next to it.  She hoisted her pack onto her back—too heavy to carry far but she was not going far—and carried it up the dark stairs into her room.  Downstairs, a quick search showed the pantry was quite empty. That made sense; she wasn't supposed to be here yet.  If she got really hungry, there was a bin of cashew nuts.   Tomorrow—if her aunts weren't here, she'd have to do something more clever—but Grace the Cook hated to travel and would surely be here and asleep, not complaining if someone appeared to help make breakfast early tomorrow.   She ran the water, washed her hands and face, went back upstairs, then realized that she'd need the lamp to unpack, and she had to put it out before she went to sleep.  Mum always walked the house before going to bed.  Suddenly she understood why.

There was a bang of steel on steel from outside.  What was that?  Several people were coming through the gates.   She had latched them again, hadn't she?  They didn't have a lamp or torch, but were talking just loudly enough to hear through her open window.

"…the sa-Anglewood brat is back…back door is covered…place is empty…No, lured the cook away, and snatched a key…grab the brat, knock her on the head to keep her quiet,  and be off…There's the window, the one with the light."  That was her they were mentioning! They were talking about her, and not nicely.  'knock her on the head?'  In stocking feet, she rushed down the stairs and blew out the light.  They were still coming. 

Of course they were still coming, she realized.  They knew where she lived, and when the light went out, they knew someone was here.  She dashed at the door, fumbled with the bar, and dropped it in place.  The bar was just for weather. It would not stop someone from kicking the door in. She turned to run, then remembered that 'back door is covered' likely meant someone would grab her if she went out that way.  She headed back up stairs.  There was a pounding at the door.  What should she do?  Hide?  No, they'd just keep looking.  Upstairs was two bedrooms, three closets, and a porch.  There was no place to hide there, not for more than half a minute.  She had to get out?  How?  

Into her closet.  Her New Moon robe from her first initiation was now a bit small, but it had been very loose to start out with.  It was also flat black, good for hide and seek.  That dropped over her head.  At first she couldn't see. She had it on backwards, so the veil was behind her. She struggled to flip it around.  She grabbed her shoes.  A snapping sound from below had to be the door going in.  Still in stocking feet, she ran to her mother's room.  Mum kept hinges oiled, so they never squeaked.  She slipped open the porch door, closed the door softly behind her, and looked around.  Voices underneath were another pair of these people, whoever they were.  They were not at all friendly, not to break into your house after dark.

Where was she going?  Down was just out.  There were people in the house, people behind the house, and probably people still in front of the house.  They really really wanted her.  She didn't know why.  But they were up to no good.  It was like the stories you read about Inspectors arresting criminals and Inspectors being killed by criminals.  Suddenly it came to her.  Her mother was an Inspector.  Those stories were true.  People actually got killed making them true.  If she wasn't careful, she could end up killed, too.  

She couldn't go down.  You couldn't jump porch to porch, not from this house.  So what could you do?  Finally came to mind. Up!  There was a wall ladder on the porch, letting you up to the roof to inspect shingles and gutters.  Ever so quietly, she climbed to the top.  An interrogatory push confirmed that the trapdoor was heavy or latched.  Fumbles found no latch.  She couldn't remember a latch.  She pushed as hard as she could.  With a rumble, the trapdoor came partway open, enough that she could fit through.  How would she lower it down without a noise?  There was a handle on top.  She lowered it flat and lay down on top of it.

A bobbing light had to be a lamp on the porch.  She froze.  Don't make a sound, she thought.  How could they not hear her heart tapping as fast as possible?  She could hear two women on the porch.

"Not here, either…got to be here someplace.  Okay, do a careful search—does this place have a root cellar? It connects to the neighbors!  OK, Jane, take three folks down to the cellar, spread out both ways.  Tab, you stay on the front gate.  Marge, one person on each wall still?  OK, she can't get out of the compound.  We just have to find her.  Let's move fast."

Dorothy's stomach clenched.  They were looking for her.  She'd forgotten the cellar, too.  That might've been the easier escape. Sooner or later, they would remember the roof.  She had to make her escape before they did.  Roofs did interconnect.  Last summer, several girls in the compound got into trouble by getting up to the roofs to play tag.  None of them had gotten hurt.  They hadn't hurt the roof.  Grace the Cook's lecture to the three of them hadn't quite scoured the paving, but being put in charge of sweeping daily for a month put some memories down.  She could worry about hurting the roof later.

She wanted to be well away from her house first.  They might finally search the roof, but first they'd peer through the trap doors.  Moving as softly as she could, she crept to the edge of the roofline and lowered herself the few feet to the next house.  The roofs tended to alternate higher and lower, not quite regularly.  The further away she was, the faster she could move safely.  Where was she going?  On the far side of the courtyard, a few of the roofs swept quite low to the road.  Rather, the road had been filled and leveled again and again until it was much closer to the roofline than had once been the case.  The lowest was within six feet of the ground.  That would be a hard drop, but if she hung from the gutters she could do it.  Then she could dodge into the city.

Flashing lights below showed where people were moving through homes, searching them.  It really didn't take a lot of time to search a house, and these people had all night to do it.  They kept moving, but so did she.  Now she was on the far side of the compound.  Someplace here was the person watching this wall.  Dodging her was like playing Tag—before you started your run for the goal, you wanted to be sure that you knew where the Goal Guard was hiding.  A first watch and listen found nothing.  That person had to be here someplace.  

There was a scent of pipeweed on the air, not too strong.  Someone was smoking.  That smell came from breezeward.  She peered up the alley, finally catching the distant rose glow of someone inhaling on a pipe.    That person was walking away from her.  The pipe vanished whenever the woman in the distance turned her head.  OK, she was behind and had a fair way to go before she got to the end of the alley.  Gretchen hoped she had the right roof.  Some of the other drops were much farther. She pulled on her shoes, wishing she had her boots to protect her ankles.

The guard had stopped?  Was the guard coming this way?  If so, Dorothy considered, she would have to sit and wait through a back and forth.  Indeed, now the guard had turned around and was coming toward her.  Dorothy flattened herself to the roof and waited.  Finally there were footsteps down below and then footsteps the other way.  Now was her moment.  She rolled to the edge of the roof.  There was the wall guard, walking away.  She almost jumped before remembering to look away from the guard.  No one was there.  She lowered herself over the edge, hung briefly from her hands and let go.  The fall was only a few feet, taken in the roll taught in school, but it seemed to go on forever.  She hit hard into the stone.

The wall guard stopped and looked around.  Dorothy lay in a clump, not moving.  She waited, and waited.  The guard turned around again and started walking toward the end of the alley.  Dorothy sprinted for the corner, stopping just short.  Where was the other guard?  She peered around the edge of the wall.  There seemed to be someone down in the distance.  She slipped into the shadows, staying pressed against the wall of the Depository until she could get completely out of line of sight.  She knew where she was going.

* * * * *

The Tower of the Eye was dark.  A solitary cresset burned dimly above its gate.  Dorothy, gasping for breath, reached the gate and knocked.  There was no answer.  She pounded, hard enough that her fist hurt.

"Who's there?" a voice finally asked.

"Dorothy.  Dorothy-sa-Anglewood.  They broke into my Mom's house and I ran away.  Please help me."  Suddenly Dorothy found that she was sobbing.  She'd been brave when she had to, but this was just too much.  "Help me."

"Just stay there." It was an older woman's voice.  "Handdaughter of the Guard!  Main gate!" she called.

"Do we just leave her there?" The second voice was a younger woman.  "It's Dorothy.  I know her voice."

"On my way."  Another voice.  Dorothy heard boots on the cobbles.  There was a soft conversation.  "She said what?  Steel!  Pop the gate, get her in, seal the gate again.  Okay, I'll argue with Greatmistress Leona afterward.  If I have no authority to do anything, why am I here?"  There was a grind of wood on wood.  The gates pushed out.  Hands grabbed Dorothy and dragged her inside.  The gates slammed shut.  Sobbing, Dorothy gasped out her story.

"Wake the Second Hand!  Tara, go up to the tower and tell Greatmistress Leona.  Yes, it actually had occurred to me that she might possibly be asleep.  Wake her up.   Have the Second Hand take the Guard posts.  Have the Night Hand here as swiftly as possible."  Dorothy, now dropped into a chair, felt a blanket around her shoulders.  She hadn't realized how cold the night was, but now she felt it.  She curled up on herself, not really hearing the conversation.  "Dorothy?"  The younger woman took her by the shoulders.  "Dorothy?  Can you come back to your house with us?" Dorothy nodded agreement.    "Yes, Greatmistress, I have the entire Night Hand here, and some extra volunteers.  We counted off, each Guard was spelled by the Second Hand.  No, Greatmistress, I expected you would stay here.  Hand, we are not quite going at a run, the sa-Anglewood has to lead us back."

To Dorothy, the second run seemed far shorter than the first.  She didn't think she could be running faster, but having friends around you made things seem much easier.  She didn't bother to run quietly.  The women behind her were all in chain mail, and rattled when they walked.

"This is your Circle, Dorothy?"  Dorothy finally recognized the voice.  It was Gretchen, who had visited her mother's home a few weeks ago.  "Yes, I know it is, but I must ask.  Tara, you and I will stay with Dorothy.  Someone is trying to kidnap her, it seems.   Yes, I'd love to lead from the front, but the surgeon said 'no armor' so I am in skin.   Is there a gate key…it's open?  Okay we'll go in. Anyone not in Dorothy's Circle can explain themselves."

The women with Gretchen, swords drawn, surged through the gate.  Lights were burning in Roxanne's home.  "There!"  Gretchen said.  "Remember, you might be meeting company, not burglars. Be polite."

The Hand shook itself out into a wide line and advanced through the dimness toward the house.  Gretchen and Tara had lanterns that set eerie shadows bobbing across the ground.  Dorothy stayed at Gretchen's side, wishing she could help.

The door to Roxanne's house popped open.  "Ice!  It's the Watch."  There were voices inside the house.  A cluster of women, three with torches, boiled out of the door.  Others had swords or spears.

 "Stop and drop your weapons," Gretchen shouted.   The oncoming women did not stop.  "Darn, but there are a lot of them.  Hand! Close up your line!  Dorothy, stay right next to me."  Gretchen found herself in melee with a taller woman waving a sword. Gretchen had always carried a hand and half sword, better for the reach.  One-handed, the other hand burdened with lamp, the sword was clumsy.

"I'll take your lamp!" Dorothy shouted.  She grabbed the handle.  Gretchen let go, grasped her blade two handed.  Suddenly the combat was much less even, much more in Gretchen's favor.  She parried, struck for the hand, heard a loud scream, knocked sword flying, and went straight in.  Her wrists hurt as her sword impacted, penetrated, and resisted twisting on the way out.  Her opponent gurgled with pain and fell screaming to the ground.  Sounds elsewhere were Gretchen's hand of Acolytes, properly armored with shield, sword, and helmet, fighting in formation against a larger but unarmored mob.

"Dorothy, light more to the right!"  Gretchen shouted.  She swung around the left end of the Acolyte line, where Rada was being driven back by a trio of ill-armed opponents.  Gretchen took first one and then another opponent in the back.

"I have the brat!" an older woman shouted in Dorothy's ear.  She grabbed Dorothy by the left shoulder, lifting her halfway from her feet.  "Lay down your arms or…" Dorothy, pulled to face her assailant, thrust her lamp at the woman's face, then tipped the lamp over, spilling oil and the burning wick across the woman's tabard.  The oil caught fire almost at once.

The older woman was instantly engulfed in flames.  Screaming, she ran across the court yard, a blazing comet streaking for the nearest fountain. She fell twice.  A hiss of steam and splash of water marked her final dive.

The courtyard became very still, the silence broken only by gasps of pain. "Are you laying down your arms?  Or are you answering to a higher judge?" Gretchen asked.  There was a clatter of wood and steel on the pavement.  "You will all sit.  The Watch will be here by and by.  Hand, sound off!  Who's here?"  Voices spoke out.  "Any of you try to stand," Gretchen said, "and you'll do it a head shorter.  Tara, please recover the person from the fountain.  Brigit, see to Astrid's arm, please. The rest of you see that our prisoners stay put."

* * * * *

Until two centuries ago, the Rowan Fields had been bog, low land that flooded.  A modest berm, drainage ditches, and a windmill had changed all that.  The fields were now a lush pasture for cows and sheep, dotted with the trees that gave the fields their name.  It was the Eighth-Day, when most labors came to a pause.  Along the berm strolled Tomas, Roxanne, Evaine, and the Swordsmistress.

"It's very easy to say what might be done," Evaine said, "but much harder to do it.  For example, the Caer moat is stone-lined.  You can see stones at the top.  But it's spent the last half century not being cleaned.  It's largely filled in.  It's actually ten feet deep, not the three waders find.  Chasing the carp and geese into the Mill Pond was easy.  Draining it was possible.  Digging it out is a lot of work, getting easier as it dries.  The bolt-throwers were stored dry and oiled, but after so long each one needed a fair bit of work.  The windmill operators were baffled at first when I discussed reversing the pumps to flood these fields, but finally said it would not be difficult."

"Carpenters and masons are not complaining about being paid to rebuild the drawbridges you want," Tomas said.  "It's a substantial project.  I expect it will be done this month.  The Caer had draw bridges, last century; it's just a matter of replacing them."

"What bothers me," Evaine answered, "is that I am supposed to be arranging the defense the entire Vale, not just the Caer.  All too many women and their village councils see no threat, no need to change what has always been done.  The Caer is vulnerable to a sudden attack.  If someone captured the Caer and the Landgrafin, there would be a real mess."  She tried to keep her frustration out of her voice.

"You are getting a great deal done, Evaine," Roxanne said, "and kept an eye on all of it.  Bringing walldaughters here for training was really clever.  You have several extra greathands of garrison. Mind you, your training is demanding."

"That's why we work as a team for training," the Swordsmistress said.  "They know I'm thirty years older than they are.  If I can keep up with Evaine, they can keep up, too."

"Short term projects are easy," Evaine said.  "Manning the outer towers requires two dozen people.  Keeping the gates shut is training for walldaughters.  After the unfortunate event with the cow, people understand that heavy bolt-throwers are killing tools, and are being careful to clear the fields completely before checking range tables.  The drawbridge is lots of parts—fortunately, the chains were greased and stored in the west tower.  Redigging the moat is some large number of woman-months of heavy physical labor.  I found a canal crew.  Then there's the hard part."

"Hard part?"  Roxanne and the Swordmistress spoke almost in unison.  Evaine told herself that she had brought them here to ask their advice.  If challenged, she would tell the Landgrafin that the conversation was dissimulation for Roxanne's benefit.  Her task was to convince the Swordsisters that Torinsdale had a formed militia whether it did or not.  

"The pirates took a town.  Fast. They killed everyone in it," Evaine began. "They did not have overwhelming numbers.  They then looted the town, by the numbers, taking the same things from every house.  That's a lot of discipline.  Whoever they are—I'd've loved to capture the fellow I killed but there was no way—they have a formed host.  You don't want to fight a formed host, even men, with unformed levies.  That's why we do the half-hand and hand walldaughter drills, in case people breach a wall.

"To fight in open field, Torinsdale needs a formed levy.  The Landgrafin's Greathand is formed.  It's too small.  How should it fight?  I don't know what arms the pirates carry—I can't believe that spear is a real weapon—what formations they use, how they fight halberd or sword or bow, what their training is.  The best I can say—no offense meant, Roxanne—is if it's not good enough to beat the Sisterhood in an even fight, it's not good enough, because Longbeachport was guarded by the Sisterhood, to no avail."

"No offense taken," Roxanne answered.  "If you aren't as good as the people you know, how can you fare well against people you don't?  There is a more serious challenge, one you saw. I've spent a week in Longbeachport, searching and getting the tour.  Something smashed the gate, smashed it to pieces.  How do you fight that?"

"I've had sleepless nights," Evaine answered.  "More than one.  It's all a matter of range and cost.  If the gatesmasher needs to walk up to you to do the gatesmashing thing, so there's no range, she has to run away before the spell—yes, Tomas, I know, it's not a spell—takes effect.  Chase after her, keep next to her, and she can't trigger her spell on you.  Not without frying herself.   If her range is not too long, a couple of hundred yards, spoolbows and bolt-throwers are the order of the day.  That's all assuming that you can recognize a gatesmasher when you see her.  But if the gatesmasher has the range of a large catapult, fighting one is a challenge, especially if the spells are cheap so she can use a lot of them.  For that case, I'd guess skulk around, make night attacks, get mixed in with her guards so she can't use her spell without frying her own women."

"Fair enough," the Swordmistress agreed.  "Having been Roxanne's escort to Longbeachport, and having seen the tower myself, I was most impressed whatever it was that smashed that gate.  Oddly enough, the North Tower was smashed, but the South Tower was unhurt."

"Were they built the same?" Tomas asked.  There had been no dead in the South Tower, no reason for him to ask it to yield its secrets.

"The South Tower was brick," the Swordmistress explained.  "Well after it was built, someone noticed Sea Eagles with a battering ram could poke through its walls.  The local walldaughters spent a fair effort filling its bottom two stories with sand, carefully packed and tamped.  You get to the tower's upper stories from inside the town via a bridge.  Does earth damp spells?"

Tomas bit his lips.  "Sand is not earth," he answered.  "Sand damps fires, properly used.  But this does not give Evaine the Formed Levy she wants."

"I am to the first step," Evaine announced, "forming by half-hand or hand.  From the dead man and his friends in the harbor, the pirates carry that clumsy spear, a not-good, somewhat short, sword, and some sort of sling.  The pirate was carrying sling-stones, those three-quarter-inch lead balls.  He had no sling on his person."

"Perhaps," Roxanne said, "their slingers are specialists, it being a hard weapon to master.  The dead one's task was to unburden the specialist by carrying extra stones for him."

"The pirate had no armor, no shield or buckler," Evaine said.  "I watched the pirates for days, while I was north.  They drill with the spear two-handed.  It's a thrusting weapon.  Their thrusts are shallow.  Their formations are odd.  Sometimes, they close up halfway tight.  Half the time, they spread out, a couple of extra feet on each side,  two yards front to back between rows of men.  Their march formation—if you can call it marching, because it's really guys going for a walk, no cadence or keeping in step—is way open, perhaps four yards between ranks, perhaps two-three feet of open space left-to-right between pairs of men.  Their pace was lackadaisical.  But much faster than their pace when they had closed up.

"My working thought: For hand-to-hand, one or two lines with spear or halberd, backed by people with sword or sword and shield.  A longer polearm—especially one not so clumsy—beats a shorter one.   Unless you have deep pike formations—that's a lot of work to train—some pirates will thread the halberds.  Then you want a reception committee, girls with swords.  However, these guys do not wear armor, not even a helmet. 

"Also, these people are fond of slings, ranged weapons like Sea Eagle atlatl spearthrowers.  I want to return the favor.  From longer range.  That's all the spoolbows and slotbows I can get, and people with rational training ready for long range rapid volleys."

"Evaine," Tomas asked, "Is it just me, or do you always come back to rational training?"

"Not always," she answered.  "Stairs are good, too.  Drill with real swords and target firing with real bolts is no substitute for drill with weighted swords and lifting weights.  The question is how to juggle bow and spear and sword.  My best guess is you copy mounted infantry. A half-hand of mounted infantry has a horseholder.  Most people have bows.  When you close for hand-to-hand bows are passed to a bowholder.  That means training at least a hand or two at a time, so people are used to moving in formation."

"Slotbows?" Roxanne asked.  "Not longbows?"

"With a longbow, the arrow shaft has to be as long as the draw.  That's too long.  Try it with slotbows, and bolts of different length.  A bolt as long as a longbow arrow runs out of impetus and falls to ground long before a real bolt," Evaine answered.  "Also, it's a lot easier to make bolts than arrows."

"Perhaps I'm missing something.  Isn't the draw a bit steep?" Roxanne asked.  "I admit that the Sisterhood uses only longbows and crossbows, and few of either."

"Different weapon," Evaine answered.  She held her tongue.  The Republic's ideas on missile weapons had always been a bit limited.  "The classic longbow is a long wooden stave, held vertically, with an arrow spanning from stave to string.  The Republic crossbows I've seen had horizontal staves, generally spring steel though sometimes emerald bronze, and a stock perpendicular to the stave, firing a bolt (not an arrow) that sits until fired atop the stock.  Republic crossbows have serious high-poundage short draws, and use cranks or gears to draw them.  The spoolbow puts wheels at the ends of the stave.  The string runs over the wheels.  Tomas assures me that it is a lever.  Spools can be put on longbows or crossbows.  I've seen only one cross-spool-bow, that in a museum.  The slotbow is a crossbreed: wood stave, held vertically, a central stock pierced and braced to permit the string to pass, a slot atop the stock to hold the bolt, and an arrangement so the bolt passes straight, not around the stave.  The draw is deep.  The poundage is way less than a crossbow. It fires like a longbow, and bolts carry farther than arrows."

"That was your bow you showed me?" Roxanne asked.

"Mine?  Actually, my bow is a yuwarl.  It has some additional bits, an extra slot and such, so I can fire from horseback, meaning the stave can be held nearly horizontal when I fire.  You lose some bend, and really need to pull to draw.  It's useful at times," Evaine said.  "Slotbows also beat crossbows because they are narrow.  Slotbowdaughters can be packed shoulder to shoulder and not get in each other's way.  They then need to stand in front of the speardaughters.  They shoot their targets without hitting the speardaughters. Alternatively, they must then withdraw through their line of speardaughters when the enemy approaches.  The other choice is that speardaughters kneel low, and have bolts passing above their heads."

"In the end," the Swordmistress said, "the pirates are odd indeed.  Until we have fought them we shall not know if our preparations are wise."

"Indeed agreed," Evaine said, "though we may know in advance if we are not ready, if the levy I am describing is not formed—cannot maneuver in formation—and lacks confidence in itself."

"If you want confidence," Tomas said, "something that gives it heart, you might copy the Trained Bands of the Archimagate, which maneuver while inspired by drum and bugle, and advance with drums beating and bugles playing.  Given local talent, bugles are inadvisable.  Backing each greathand with a hand of bagpipers, and some drummers, would have the same effect."

"How would you hear commands?" the Swordmistress asked.

"The virtue," Tomas responded, "more so with pipes, is that the screams of the wounded go unheard, maintaining morale."

"Unheard? So do the screams of the officers," the Swordmistress countered firmly, "telling their women what to do."

"Then you must plan carefully what your women will do," Tomas answered, "so that they will not need to hear their officers' commands."  Evaine tried to remember when Archimagate Trained Bands ever had gone into battle. Not often, she suspected, not if their leaders thought that there was no need for flexibility on the battlefield.

"This sounds too complicated," Roxanne said.

 "If our foes are trying to whistle or shout to their own women, and have a massed pipe band in their face, they too have challenges being heard," Evaine noted politely.

"Should I suspect," Tomas asked, "that you are getting a sharper picture in your mind of what your Formed Levy will do?"

"What? Yes.  How I will assemble them to drill?  Perhaps in pieces, and then bring the pieces together?  How do I get Village Councils to agree?" Evaine asked. They walked along for a while in silence.

"Perhaps you do not," Tomas said.  "After all, my dear mother authorized you to spend a remarkable amount of money.  There are a perfectly respectable number of young women, intelligent, healthy, whose skills are more seasonally demanded for planting and weeding and harvesting, who find they must give their day a week to their town because they cannot hire substitutes for Village Projects."

"Hiring their substitutes will be expensive swiftly," the Swordmistress said.

"True," Tomas said, "except that the Village councils have already hoisted themselves by their bootstraps."  He grinned.  "They were so insistent, back when mother was elected Landgrafin.  They forced her to sign that agreement."

"Agreement?"  Roxanne asked.

"The Writ of Privileges and Responsibilities.  Dealing with cash payments of road levies, volunteer laborers who prefer not to pay cash, use of volunteers on Village and Vale Projects, and payments for failure to supply or use volunteers.  The basic notion is that there are things that need to be done: road and water and sewer maintenance, for example, that benefit evenly the entire community, and are effectively handled by requiring each Circle, and in just proportion each woman not in a circle, to supply a certain number of days of labor each year, or to hire a day laborer to do your share.  Laborers are not entirely cheap.  However, there are Village projects like roads and sewers, and Vale projects like highways and Caer maintenance and levy training beyond the low levy.  The canals are privately owned, of course, and pay their way out of tolls and pumping fees.  Volunteers may choose to work on Village or Vale projects.  However, the villages insisted that instead of finding their nominal count of volunteers for Vale Projects, a number fixed several centuries ago, or hazard hiring replacements, they should be allowed to make a payment in lieu of finding the volunteer, at a very low nominal fee, so long as there are enough women to perform the actual few Vale projects.  The main outcome is that Villages having no highways—the main Vale Project—tell their women that if they volunteer to work for the Village, the village will send the Caer a few copper pennies each day, and they will not have to spend a half-day walking to and from wherever to serve the Vale. Contrariwise, if there are Vale volunteers beyond the need for Vale projects, which is often the case because there are few Vale projects, the Landgrafin is required to release the excess women to the Villages for their Projects, and to motivate her to do so she must pay a very modest Vale Remittance for each woman she retains to work for the Vale.  She does get to specify that the women be fit for the tasks at hand, that dating to the Village that sent three blind women—all excellent knitters--to serve on watchtowers."

"And this helps us how?" Evaine asked.

"Volunteering for the Vale is life-time cumulative, remember?" Tomas asked.  "A woman who volunteers for the Vale for a few years—volunteering days as a young woman that are legally worth more than days from a fossil like me--will never need to find a day laborer to replace her.  That's not true for volunteering for Villages.  Their time does not accumulate. They wanted to be sure they always have volunteer labor."

"Harken to Tomas, the wise and mysterious," Roxanne said, "who has plumbed the depths—not those depths again, Tomas, not until tonight—the depths of wisdom, and found revelations so obscure that none may understand them."

"Let me try again from the beginning," Tomas said.  "You want a volunteer levy.  Hiring people to do the job is expensive, especially if you want good people.  Fortunately, there is a path to obtain volunteers.  You ask for the use of Vale Volunteers in whatever number you want to train at a time.  You must equip and feed them, but the cash expense is limited to the Landgrafin's Vale Remittance.  The Villages may complain, because they expected to receive these women who had offered to work for the Landgrafin.   Now suddenly the Landgrafin is keeping these Volunteers and expecting them to do her Volunteer work, while giving pennies per week to the Villages instead.

"Why, however, would women want to volunteer for your task, which is unpleasant, prolonged, and, when the Pirates return, likely to be dangerous?  Answer: A Circle that forwards a single young woman as a volunteer almost certainly will need to provide no Village Volunteers during the period their woman is serving.  A Circleless young woman who serves this way for a modest number of years will in her life owe no Village or Vale Volunteer Levy.    If the pirates appear, you appeal to the Volunteers' love of their land, reminding them that they stand between their Circle and death and destruction at the hands of the Pirates and Sea Eagles. Now do you see?"

"In the Republic, you could not do this," Roxanne said.

"In the Republic, you would have found something equally clever.  Interest on pre-Revelation Sunspeaker Public Endowments.  Unallocated Abundages.  Right of Last Recovery.  Republic or Domain or Archimagate, we have succeeded, because against every challenge our laws and customs—and fine young ladies like the three of you--let us rise to the occasion."

Chapter Sixteen
The Hall of Justice Perfected, Dianasmere
Summertouch 25, 2446

"Be at peace and listen! Be at peace and listen!" The Bailiff rapped the butt of her halberd thrice against the floor, carefully striking the hidden drum.  The deep boom! echoed against the polished limestone walls of the hall, finally reverberating from the domed and glazed roof.  The Hall of Justice Perfected was the largest courtroom in the Republic, it was filled to overflowing, and the number of distinct parties waiting to be heard was remarkable.

"There enters Her Wisdom, Justice Dana Darasdotr.  All grant her your gaze, that she may see into your hearts and know the true from the false."  The Bailiff knew perfectly well that there were several ways to see if someone was telling the truth, one of which she had not just enumerated, but the formula predated the First Revelation.  Behind her was the softest rustle of robes.  No footsteps could be heard: Judges by convention walked barefoot while enrobed, a custom less convenient among the Ice People than here.  The ring of bells marked the Justice seating herself on her throne.
I make no sense of this clause in this context.

"All present give ear!" Dana Darasdotr spoke. "We are presented with a multitude of charges, countercharges, complaints, and pleadings, not to mention interventions by the Archimagate and the Factors of the Domains.  A list of these was posted before the Hall—did I miss anyone?"  She waited.  There was quiet.  "The Goddess be thanked," she did not quite whisper.

"My apologies to all of you that I have taken five days rather than the customary three to sit on these issues, however, the third day was a holiday, and on the fourth day I invoked my privilege of a one day delay.  I see that all parties realized that as a result they had the privilege of submitting supplementary pleadings," she continued.  "Many supplementary pleadings.  Because it perhaps will simplify matters, I will use my prerogative as Justice allow the Archimagate Consul to present his Intervention first.  Consul Digbysson?"

"May my words illuminate the truth," Bartholomew intoned.  "I speak to the criminal charges. I speak to the criminal charge of homicide levied against Dorothy-sa-Anglewood, for killing a woman by setting her on fire and drowning her, and to the criminal charges of homicide and assault filed against Gretchen Threetowers and the women of her Dozenth—I believe the Sisterhood structure terms the group a 'Hand'.  The treaty controlling our relations insists that citizens of the Archimagate who enjoy a Rank of Importance are entitled—for acts that are criminal in both jurisdictions—to be tried under our laws."

"Objection!" The Speaker was Marianne Morgandysdotr, the Senate's High Prosecutor.  Justice Darasdotr stared in her direction.  What was going on here?  There seemed to have been simple breaking and entering, the Inspectorate has somehow gotten itself involved, there had been a more than usually vigorous resistance to a normal arrest, what sounded to be an accident with a lamp, and everyone and her aunts was now in Court.

"State your objection," Dana answered.

"Surely, your Wisdom, no Archimagate citizen is involved in this dispute?" the High Prosecutor countered.

"I had wondered about that," Dana answered, not entirely sincerely.  However, Digbysson had a very sharp mind, unlike most Mages was entirely friendly, and while on Republic Territory was highly enthusiastic about honoring his obligations to the Goddess. Also, in earlier filings he had visibly been leading the High Prosecutor by her nose so she would raise this objection. "Perhaps the Consul was about to clarify this? And perhaps we will do better to allow pleas to be finished coherently in the absence of serious wrongspeaking?"

"Indeed," Bartholomew answered.  "However, it is a matter of fact as recorded by the Dark Lord of Death and Birth that Dorothy-sa-Anglewood is properly Dorothy Roxannesdotr–sa-Anglewood-vrith-Emmitsford-Tomassdotr-sur-Maserin, the Tomas in question being a Lord of the Hall of Night."

"And Heir-Second to the Vale of Torinsdale," the Factor added.  Dana stared tightly at the pair.  They had obviously rehearsed that line.

"You can name the girl's father?"  High Prosecutor Morgandysdotr looked to be two shades from apoplexy. 

"What do you think I am, High Prosecutor?" Bartholomew answered. "Some Horse Barbarian unacquainted with bathing?" The background whispers swelled to a tumult.

"Be at peace!  Be at Peace!" the Bailiff intoned, pounding her halberd.  "Be at Peace!"

"Objection!  Not relevant!" The speaker was the City Interlocutor, Crystal Crystalsdotr.  "The Treaties refer to persons having rank, not to their descendants."

Digbysson looked at the defendants' tables.  Dorothy, wearing her New Moon robe, was boxed by four of her aunts.  "I believe it would be simplest if the defendant were allowed to approach the bench, so that Your Wisdom can examine the necklace the sa-Anglewood legitimately owns and wears, with which I believe Your Wisdom is familiar," Digbysson said.

"Let this be done," Dana said.  She had heard odder useful requests. "Bailiff, escort the defendant—and the aunts of her Circle, she's a minor and entitled—forward."

The room was entirely still, the patter of six pairs of sandals being clearly audible.

Dana Darasdotr looked at Dorothy's necklace.  She had seen it before, since Bartholomew wore a matching one.  And she had slipped it off him, one evening, before they had gone flying, so to speak, higher than any mountain, through the night in her summer cottage.  "Dorothy-sa-Anglewood," she asked, "when did you steer a flijtschiff?"

"Last sum—my mother said not to tell that," Dorothy answered.  "Not to anyone.  It would be bragging myself up.  And no one would believe me."

"And they let you put hands on the controls?" Dana asked.

"I got to put the rudder over," she answered.  "That was hard, even with my whole weight on it.  And the flijtschiff turned. Wait.  I didn't mean to tell you that, either."

"Our lips are sealed," Dana answered. She raised her voice.  "As are the lips of all within earshot, and yes I can put the testimony of a minor under seal.  I just did. And this makes her?" Dana asked Digbysson.  "Flijtkapitan?"

"Flijtmeister," Digbysson answered. "The Hidden Wisdom of the Lion of Arhad revealed that this would be a wise protection, given the girl's mother's occupation."  Dana nodded blandly.  What did they think Dorothy's mother did?  She was basically a glorified accountant, wasn't she, if you ignored the romance novels?  "So she is entitled to be tried under the laws of the Dark Halls, in which self-defense has a very strong presumption of validity, unlike your rules here, indeed so strong that the Chancery—I have the documents—has already indicated that in the absence of additional information it would not consider bringing charges.  Furthermore, the sa-Anglewood's companions are reasonably presumed to have been protecting a minor from kidnapping.  Indeed, the sa-Anglewood was kidnapped, according to testimony already recorded, for a few falls of an apple.  Hoisted off the ground, she was. Protecting minors from bodily harm is also given a strong presumption of validity as a defense, within the Archimagate, and the Chancery has similarly ruled. I thus ask dismissal of all charges."

"May Your Wisdom grant your ears?" Crystal Crystalsdotr asked.  Dana looked over at her.  The Senate High Prosecutor was a pompous blowhard, but the City Interlocutor was much sharper of mind.  "Even allowing that the facts are precisely as the Consul has described them, intent plays a significant role.  I allow, pending verification of Consul's assertions, that the sa-Anglewood herself may claim to be tried under Archimagate rules, and we have multiple witnesses that she defended herself after being assaulted.  However, this defends the sa-Anglewood herself.  The complaints against Gretchen Threetowers and her Hand would only be nullified if it were shown that the primary intent of the Hand was to protect the sa-Anglewood, as opposed to having other intents with shielding the sa-Anglewood being secondary.  Would the Consul differ?"

"Please lay out your case," Digbysson answered, "Because with different facts I could happily argue either side of your assertion.  I do note, of course, that we have had preliminary hearings, in which the statement of each witness was taken, with cross-examination."  If he had had two busy weeks preparing for this event, the Republic officials must have worked themselves nearly to death.

"The Court has noted, it being in the pleadings, that the Inspectorate is a part of the Sisterhood, and is allowed to arrest common criminals whom it encounters," Dana said.  "Also, when a nest of women pile out of a house and attack a group of Swordsisters, there is a reasonable presumption on the part of the Sisters that the people have criminal intent, especially when no rational explanation for being in the house has since been offered even when requested."  Dana looked back at Crystal.  The women who had been in Roxanne's home had been invited to explain what they were doing there, and why they had attacked Gretchen, and had remained silent, or made contradictory claims that appeared impossible to believe.

"My question, to Handmistress-Acolyte Threetowers and her Hand, is whether they believed that they were protecting Dorothy-sa-Anglewood, or whether they were engaged in actions for Roxanne-sa-Anglewood," Crystal asked.

Gretchen forced herself to stand, telling herself not to look over her shoulder at the crowd.  "Your Wisdom, I didn't think about it that clearly."  Dana could tell that none of the counsels present had expected that answer.  "I knew that Dorothy was terribly frightened, and was reasonably sure since she is an honest girl that something was wrong at her home.  She needed to be taken home.  But I'd forgotten that Roxanne was still in the north, and thought this was an attack on the Greatmistress, meaning that Roxanne probably needed our help, and Dotty needed someone to protect her when she took us back."

"What did you do," Dana asked, "when you finally learned that there was an intent to kidnap Dorothy here, for reasons not yet established?"

"I," Gretchen swallowed.  When had she figured out that it was a real kidnapping?  "I watched the kidnapper," she answered, "that was easy to do because she announced that she was grabbing 'the brat', hoisted Dorothy by one arm, caught on fire, ran burning brightly across the courtyard, and threw herself into a fountain.  Then the women helping the kidnapper, I ordered them to sit down.  They did, the ones who were still alive."

"You didn't realize there was a kidnapping plot until just before the arrests?" Dana asked.

"I didn't know what was happening," Gretchen said, "except that something was seriously wrong, that Roxanne-sa-Anglewood might be in danger, and that Dorothy here needed to be taken home."

"May it please the court," the Domain Factor intruded.  Dana held back the question she had been about to ask.  The Factor's phrasing was only appropriate if some issue of Domain law intruded.  "Based on the information presented here, the sa-Anglewood is lawfully the Heiress-Fourth of the Domain of Torinsdale.  By the escape from the Three-Fountain Circle, that she described, and by seeking appropriate aid as confirmed by witnesses, she has shown the maturity of judgement that allows her to be treated as an adult for this event only.  When she asked Miss Threetowers and her friends to help her, and received their aid, she lawfully for this event only, because she is the Heiress-Fourth, as Heiress-Fourth received them as her armsdaughters, and thus Miss Threetowers and her friends are entitled to the protection of Domain law.  Fortunately, our law on this matter is very clear.  The sa-Anglewood did not act with malice, intent to do inappropriate harm, against the women who had entered her mother's Circle.  Miss Threetowers and friends acted with benevolent intent, at least until the other accuseds tried to kill the sa-Anglewood, Miss Threetowers,  and others, and then acted in mutual defense, which is a valid defense under Domain law."

Dana Darasdotr leaned back in her throne, holding up her hands for silence.  The Consul and the Factor had each offered an intervention, but that said only 'interests and treaty privileges' had arisen.  They had forwarded a copy of the relevant treaties with specific sections beribboned, and she had read those sections and the commentary carefully.  "The Court understands that it is the Domain assertion that the first set of accused parties are protected, because an eight year old girl raised her own private Host, borrowing them from the Vasthost of the Senate.  Isn't that the plot of The Girl Nimue Shatters the Horse Barbarians?"  The crowd tittered.  The City Interlocutor smirked.  Crystal thought that the Justice was ridiculing the testimony.  It was really a shame for the City Interlocutor that Dana knew the answer to her question, and that she had seen the play with Digbysson.

"Your Wisdom," Digbysson interjected, "the Poetess Chrystance who penned that play was very close friends indeed with my five-times-great-grandfather, and the girl, admittedly at age ten, whose historical deeds against the Horse Barbarians were inserted into that play, was their daughter, whose historical deeds including her age are reasonably accurately portrayed in the play."

"As is well known," Dana observed. 

"That is the Domain assertion, and Amethyst's Commentaries list at least five other occasions on which this issue has arisen," the Factor added.

Dana looked around the Court.  The High Prosecutor and City Interlocutor had been remarkable quiet.  "I gather that there is a need for consideration of issues, beyond those that are already presented in filings and rejoinders.  Let me return to the second group of Accused, the people found in the Three-Fountain Circle.  The ten of you may go to trial, based on the statements here presented, and further examination, or you may throw yourselves on the mercy of this court, provided only that you tell the Court all that you know of any wrongdoings.  I should remind you that if you are later found to have lied or omitted, you may then face further sentences as could have been imposed by a jury."  Dana did not spell out what she had told them privately this morning, namely that if they went to a jury they were going to be tried for conspiracy murder, and that a jury could have them crucified.  She, on the other hand, could only give them a prison term, so long as they confessed fully to everything.  She expected that several of them were not bright enough to remember or understand what they had done, but for the foolish the Goddess's Just Forgiveness awaited.

Their attorney rose.  A man, Dana noted, dressed in the antique black and white ruffles of a bar-pleader.  "Your Wisdom," he said, "my clients each wish to receive the tender mercy of the Court."

"So ordered," she said.  "Bailiff, take them away, and I will hear them individually in camera, over the next few months.  Barrister, the minimum sentence for any of the charges is a year, and hearings at any time before then cannot change their minimum stay." The Barrister bowed deeply.

"Your Wisdom?" The High Prosecutor spoke.

"I haven't forgotten you," Dana answered.  However much I wish I could, she thought.  "I have every intent of allowing the Republic to present its cases."

"Your Honor, the woman who the defendant –sa-Anglewood killed was a member of the Great Senate.  The sa-Anglewood also, says the Factor, raised a private Host. While there may be appeals to the Treaty Commission, for the nonce if we grant the claims of Consul and Domain we should apply other sections of the same treaty," the High Prosecutor said, holding out a copy of Amethyst's Commentaries.

"That may be true.  Do I understand that the other presented facts have been agreed upon by the principal parties, or do I need to hear all witnesses?" There were nods of agreement.  "I have yet to hear from the last set of parties, the Counsel for the Three-Fountain Circle, speaking for the –sa-Anglewood," Dana answered.  An older woman standing beside Dorothy's aunts bowed politely.

"Your Wisdom, I have previously asked that trial be delayed until the elder –sa-Anglewood could be summoned to return from the remote North to participate in her daughter's defense," Three-Fountain's counsel answered.  "I have also asked for a dismissal on grounds of self-defense, at the level self-defense could reasonably be understood by an eight-year-old.  The Prosecutor and Interlocutor have both rejected both requests, as is their privilege, saying first that justice demands a swift trial and then that if Dorothy had waited outside the gates, which she could have done safely, she would not have needed to kill the Senator.  This might be a reasonable complaint against an adult, but against a child of eight it offends good taste and the dictates of fair justice."

"By law, Court can take into account the issues you raise at sentencing, but dismissal is the High Prosecutor's prerogative," Dana answered.  The High Prosecutor would not ask to dismiss.  The High Prosecutor had argued in pleas that the death of the Senator was a capital offense, even for one of Dorothy's age.  Why?  What was going on?  "Are there any other issues?  Other than those already in the written pleas?"

"Your Wisdom?"  The voice was an octave above any woman's and quavered ever so slightly.  

"Miss –sa-Anglewood? Did your counsel approve of your raising an issue?" Dana asked.

"Your Wisdom, I approved of this issue, and as the –sa-Anglewood is the witness, she must introduce it if she can," the Three-Fountains counsel answered.  "Though I am ready as her second."

"I have two pieces of paper.  Would you look at them?" Dorothy asked.

"Approach the bench," Dana answered.  Dorothy, her head hunched into her cowl, approached, knelt on one knee, and handed over the papers.  "Dear," Dana whispered, "Keep looking at me, even when you back up.  The room's full of people and you might get frightened."  Dana winked.  Dorothy nodded.  "And what am I to see?"

"The left one is my grade report, with the Headmistress's seal in wax.  It has a nick in it, 'cause the Headmistress dropped her seal two years ago," Dorothy said quietly.  "And I have a stack of other reports from classmates, all with the same nick.  The right one has no nick in it.  But that's the letter from the school calling me home early, and my class home early, sealed by the Headmistress.  It says. It was made two weeks ago.  And the inks are different.  Principal makes her own gentian ink.  The letter calling me back is purple!"

"And where did the nick go?" Dana asked.  A forged letter, and the little girl had spotted it.

"When they make a Headmistress seal ring.  They make each one different.  And make two copies.  One for the school. One for the Senate. And smash the mold.  The letter saying come home? It's not signed with the School Seal.  It's signed with the Senate Seal. So a Senator sent us the recall letter, not my Headmistress. And I've got my Headmistress Octavia Octaviasdotr here to agree with me," Dotty explained.

Dana touched finger to mouth.  "Octavia Octaviasdotr, if you are here stand and answer!"  A much older, plump woman rose, leaning on her cane.  "Is Dorothy right?" she asked.

"Of course she is," Octavia answered, "She's very consistent at that.  And she's the one who noticed the seal, when half the parents in the school landed on me asking why I called the children home early, when I never did anything of the kind.  The Proctors had three copies of that letter I never wrote to them, each with my seal that I wear on my neck even when I sleep, and I never wrote those letters—though it looks like my handwriting even if the ink is wrong.  But Dotty saw the seal was wrong because my seal has that dent in the rose pattern, and this one on the recall letter doesn't."

"Dorothy," Dana asked, "I agree with your facts, but how do they matter?"

"Because," Dorothy answered.  "Because.  Because the letter was made with the other copy, the Senate seal, and it brought me back here all alone, and there was a Senator waiting to kidnap me, so it was the Senate doing this.  And, except I didn't plan to kill her, just make her let go.  She was hurting me!"  She burst into tears.  

Dana stood, circled her lectern and took Dotty in her arms.  Dorothy's Aunts rose and formed an outer cluster.  "I shouldn't be crying," Dorothy mumbled.  "Not in public."

"You're fine," Dana answered. She dabbed at Dorothy's eyes with her handkerchief, then let Dorothy blow her nose.  "Bailiffs! Seal the Court. No one is to leave.  If anyone attempts to leave, arrest them for conspiracy to commit murder."

Dana stood, as tall as she could. "A serious and facially credible charge has been levied against the Senate and by implication its representatives here.  The Court will advance now to the House of Seals to examine the evidence.  Counsels for each party, the accused, and the Headmistress shall attend me.  Bailiff, send two runners to the House of Seals, to protect the evidence—Octavia Octaviadotr's other seal.  The rest of you will wait here until I recover the evidence.  Yes, you are being obliged to remain so that nothing can happen to the seals before I reach them.  You are then free to go until tomorrow."

* * * * *

The next afternoon, the Court reconvened.

"I have received," Dana announced, "impressions freshly made with the School Seal and the Senate copy.  The impressions confirm the assertions of Miss sa-Anglewood.  I have spoken separately with each Counsel, asking recommendations.

"I find that there is credible evidence that the deceased or her colleagues used her authority and the authority of the Senate to act with malice against Miss –sa-Anglewood," Dana said.  The High Prosecutor rose to object. "With respect to the High Prosecutor's suggestion that a copy of the school seal was made at some earlier date, it is a curious fact that the Senate Seal is also flawed, and that flaw—Miss –sa-Anglewood found that one, too—appears in the false letter summoning the –sa-Anglewood.  The recall letter was therefore closed with the Senate copy of the seal, or a good replica.   The extent of the Senate's involvement is lawfully referred to the Council of the Wise at Dianasmere, so that She Who Is The Gray-Eyed One can clarify matters.  In the meantime, the High Prosecutor and Senate may make no charges against Gretchen-sa-Anglewood-vrith-Emmitsford, and current charges are dropped without prejudice."

"The City Interlocutor has correctly cited precedents in which Domain residents or Mages have invoked their rights, in which the outcome is always that the person using the defense is exiled from the Republic to place certain.  Each counsel agrees that the precedents, which are known to most schoolchildren, are correctly invoked.  The City Interlocutor has asserted her prerogative, pending appeals, that Miss –sa-Anglewood is lawfully to be exiled.  On the former recommendation, I have no legal choice but to agree.  The City Interlocutor has asserted her prerogative to choose the place certain to direct that Miss –sa-Anglewood is to be exiled," Dana shot a vicious stare at the City Interlocutor, "namely to the custody…of her father."  There were gasps from the Courtroom.  "I am repelled, but agree that the law is clear, and that the sa-Anglewood's circumstances as a minor would be protected by this exile.  Also, the High Prosecutor has presented me with a finding of the Senate Special Subcommittee on Inspection, decreeing that 'to demonstrate their loyalty to the Senate and People United' Miss Threetowers, her half-hand of fellow acolytes, and the Hand that joined her in Three Fountain Circle, are as an act of obedience to the Senate and People United to accompany Miss –sa-Anglewood to Torinsdale, there to form in accord with Treaty a bodyguard and escort for Shire Interlocutor Tomas-sur-Maserin 'until such time as the perpetrators of the Longbeachport Massacre are brought to justice'. 

"Having heard all this, I order and direct, the Lockwood precedent, that the exiled persons are to be given an appropriate escort to keep them out of further mischief.  Greatmistress Leona has assured me that four Greathands of Inspectorate forces are available, and they will form the escort."  Dana smiled.  She didn't know who was trying to kill the little girl, let alone why, but she had just guaranteed that they would be moved to someplace relatively safe.  "Unless the accused have objections?"  There was complete quiet.  After all, she told herself, she had obtained their agreement in advance. "Let this be done.  We find all criminal charges are resolved, that civil charges against exiled persons are invalid, that temporal charges are not within Our remit, and dismiss all remaining charges.

"The Goddess has spoken!  Her Will Be Done!" Dana closed.

"Her Will Be Done!" the crowd responded.  Dana allowed that Bartholomew had actually whispered 'The Crouching Lion Guard the Innocent."

Chapter 17
Noralin City, Cismontane by the Sea
Summertouch 27, 2446
 
The squeal of brakes, steel wheel against steel track, brought Roxanne from overdue sleep of exhaustion.  They had reached a final gentle downhill slope, the steel road following a carefully banked path into Noralin City.   Her thoughts still drifted across her half-awake mind:  First, she considered, I saw Tomas after all this time, which was very good.  Then I discovered the bad report was a copying error, a writer who read 'died in the battle', wrote 'died in battle', and on questioning thought they were the same.  Finally I received those terribly frightening messages through Tomas. Gretchen had scarcely avoided assassination. Dotty had almost been kidnapped.  Why?  What had Gretchen learned?    Now I have orders from the Sisterhood:  Dotty was being sent to Torinsdale under Court Order, with Gretchen as an escort.  Poor Dotty must be terrified. Why was Gretchen being sent here?  The message from the Inspectorate was laconic, only ordering that I should remain here and await her arrival. 

Dotty should be here on Summertide 5, Roxanne thought, if nothing happens en route.  In between I have a week to wait, and work I should be doing, so I am here, representing the Inspectorate.  After that, I shall have to see.  I am not about to abandon my daughter, even if it means that I must abjure my vows to the Sisterhood.  Torinsdale seems remarkably light on women with serious military schooling beyond the How-To-Fight-Skillfully-With-a-Sword stage, though Tomas's Banneret knows more about warfare than is reasonable.  Perhaps Cheryl will want to hire an additional expert.  I still don't believe, no, I do believe, knowing Tomas, that Evaine has been working for Tomas for six years, and they've never slept together, no matter what a babe she is.  It's not that anything is wrong with him.  The Torinsdale Swordmistress keeps quiet unless asked, at least when I am there, but she knows more than she lets on, too.  She hides it well, but that is a Letinvarhu accent underlying her vowels, on top of which her skin is the shade of milk chocolate.  

Flat, Roxanne noted, the ground is nearly flat, that's close to the flattest ground I've ever seen used by a city.  Noralin did rise modestly above the surrounding countryside, the city being seated on a low rise abutting the river, but it was scarcely on any slope at all.  The steel road itself stayed on an embankment, a dike that implied the labor of greathands of women over a course of years to complete.  Expensive, thought Roxanne, very expensive, but above all else a successful steel road has to be flat.  

The steelroad terminal was an imposing building whose stone columns and winged buttresses supported a high, steeply tiled roof.  Its scale was utterly out of proportion to the half-dozen disembarking travelers.  The period of construction was recognizable.  The Great Valley faction had briefly had control of the Senate, and was widely believed to have acted with malice by malinvesting Public Endowments of remote places in technically lawful ways that promised as little return as possible, ways such as overbuilt steelroad terminals.  That particular cycle of beggar-thy-neighbor economics had led to the Valley Time of Troubles, great commotion, and the Letinvarhu Secession.  Letinvarhu remained a separate Republic, a separation backed by a commitment so intense that Letinvarhu men were required to practice with sword and shield, spear and bow.  

From the terminal, doors large enough for passenger coaches exited in several directions, most promising not-yet-built branching steelroad lines.  Roxanne and Demara unloaded their trunk, surprised but not discomfited by the lack of a porter.  A kiosk in one corner of the station rented four-wheel luggage carts.  

"Harvest-Time Inn is the best," offered the storekeeper; "tell them I sent you, for a discount."  Roxanne nodded her thanks and resumed study of the map.  Here was a Sorority Chapterhouse; there was the Shire's Senate building.  The Inspectorate portolan promised a Tower of the Wise; it was actually indicated on the town map.  For all that the Archimagate and the Republic glared at each other, on the upper personal levels the Sisterhood always happily hosted traveling Mages, and the Archimagate returned the favor.

Noralin City's brick-paved streets were lined with oak and linden trees. The city's age and wealth were marked in the width and flatness of its roads.  At the expected street corner, Demara and Roxanne paused to stare across the way.  They should have been on two isolated side streets, facing a nearly windowless warehouse, placed and styled to remain unnoticed.  Instead, a graceful building on a main street was fronted by wide entrance stairs leading to a double door, large areas of window glass, and people entering and leaving.  They looked at each other.  They had read the map correctly, hadn't they?  That was the location of the Tower, wasn't it?  A carefully painted pair of wrought-iron signs named the roads; they were at the correct corner. They seemed to have reached a lending library.  Where, then, was the Tower?  

They stopped a passerby, a thirteen-year-old girl wearing Acolyte's robes, dutifully carrying a peacewrapped ash spear, and asked directions.  The girl gestured at the building the two women had been considering.  "Ask at the librarian's desk," she declared.  "The Librarian knows everything." 

Roxanne left Demara with the trunks--too heavy to drag upstairs on a needless errand, too valuable to be left completely unprotected--and went inside.  It was a library, posted signs promising the lowest book rates in Noralin.  An airy vestibule opened to a corridor of classrooms, a curtained reading room held several dozen children clustered around a single speaker, and the walls of shelved books and clusters of desks that marked the true library.  The reader, noted Roxanne, was a woman. The cut of her robes said 'mage', which was highly unlikely, not to mention that the color was wrong --- sky blue instead of black and white.  Roxanne advanced resolutely around the circulation table to the Librarian's office.  

The Librarian was a cheery goodman of more than sixty years; age had faded his hair to wisps of white.  His shirt and kilt were a plain gray, the simplicity broken by a sky-blue sash and matching slippers.  He exchanged the blandest of greetings with Roxanne, closing "and how then may I serve you?" 

"I seek the Tower of Wisdom," she answered, passing him her bona fides.  

He looked politely at the engraved silver plates. "Ahh, yes," he answered.  "Greatmistress Roxanne.  Your presence has been expected since yesterday evening." 

"Here?" she asked. How had he received word so quickly?  The Torinsdale sunspeaker link to Longbeachport worked briefly in the morning, but she'd not revealed her destination except to Tomas.

"Indeed," he answered.  "You must be tired from your travels.  Would you join us for supper?" 

"You are most kind," Roxanne said.  Was it possible to do anything in the far North without stumbling over a mystery?  "But we're charged to visit the Tower of Wisdom, and may be expected there as well." 

"This is…, oh, I'm being absent minded."  He opened a drawer, rummaged through it, finally producing a floppy, powder-puff blue beret.  A vigorous shake removed fragments of paper.  A mage's cap, noted Roxanne, except for the color.  "I, Michael-sa-Noralin-vrith-Cismontane, Blue-Hall-Mastermage and Chief Librarian of Noralin City, welcome you to the Public Library and Tower of Wisdom of All Noralin.  There, you see?  All is settled. You were indeed expected, our peers in the Hall of Night having sent word of your travels via The Lightnings That Speak, so rooms were readied for you." 

Comprehension lit Roxanne's face.  The Capitol's mages were all Black-Robes, who denied that there was a schism.  They would neglect to tell her that Noralin Shire --- or anyplace else --- was in the hands of the Grey-Robes, or the Gold-Robes, let alone the Blue-Robes, a small but considerably more open group whose numbers included women as well as men.  She wondered what this said about the Black-Robes' actual interest in collaboration with the Temple.  Perhaps nothing favorable.  More optimistically, perhaps the Capitol mages couldn't be bothered to remember where their writ actually ran, and where it did not.  

* * * * * 
 29 October 2005
Dinner was pleasingly late, giving Roxanne and Demara time for a welcome bath and adequate nap.  Michael-sa-Noralin's extended family, children, grandchildren, and apprentice mages, shared a common table, their guests being placed where they could most easily be heard by their hosts.  Talk ranged over a multitude of topics, from politics in the distant capitol to the rigors of cross-country travel.  Roxanne compared conversation here with Dianasmere.  Even allowing for the strange company, there was almost no small gossip; the focus was civic betterment rather than personal profit.  

The youngest of the grandchildren, a boy of nine, managed to sneak in a question: had Roxanne, who lived in the remote North Capital, ever seen a flijtschiff?  On learning that Roxanne's daughter had actually traveled in one, he became completely silent, staring and drinking in her every word as if she were some strange and mythical creature descended on wings of dewdrops and moonbeams from the day sky.  

Dinner, plain but carefully prepared, came to an end.  The younger children swarmed to clear dishes; Mastermage, two senior students, and his guests retired to his solarium.  A pot of herbal tea and blue-glazed cups awaited the five; the table was spread with a large map of Cismontane-by-the-Sea. Curtains had been drawn back to catch the sun, now low in the western sky.  Ceiling fans driven by a roof-mounted wind turbine kept the room cool.  

Pleasantries completed, conversation became more serious.  "I have onion-skin overlays," Michael explained, "showing everything unexplained in Cismontane-by-the-Sea and neighboring provinces this past year.  Almost all the plausible -- in my estimate -- reports date within the moon before Longbeachport died.  There is also a manuscript." 

"You've been most thorough," Roxanne said as she pored over the chronological list of events.  A third of the items involved miracles - Manifestations of an Aspect, Healings, Beneficent Rain, and the like.  These Michael had noted as 'apparently not significant'.  She wondered if the phrasing were a euphemism.  The Archimagate was rife with heretics, Hunter-Worshippers, agnostics, and perhaps a few atheists. Another third of the events were unexplained thefts, disappearances of livestock and the lot.  Vanished sheep were explained on page nine, which noted that the convicted sheep rustlers had been hanged in Torinsdale at the end of FallTouch.  The last reports, those shown on the onionskin overlays, concerned sightings various characterized as ocean-level clouds, winged whales, and monsters of the deep, seen from the coast over a dozen dozens --- nearly three greathands, computed Roxanne, in real numbers --- of miles.    The progress of the clouds north or south could on occasion be timed; it appeared that the unknown traveled no more than three or four dozen -- five hands of -- miles in a day.  Unambiguous, high-plausibility reports of the unknown ceased after the Longbeachport event.  

"You are most kind," he answered.  "This is my duty to my art.  There is an unknown, so it must be described, characterized, and named.   Thus far I can only describe.  Nor is there any reason -- except timing -- to correlate my unknown with yours.  The historical precedent for your event is grim." 

"The Sea Eagles?" Demara anticipated.   "They've not been seen in nearly a greathand of years." 

"Indeed, they have been absent for five dozen years and more.  Before then, they were the scourge of the coast, so that every town was walled, summer garrisons were large, and an occasional village still burned," Michael continued.  

"Hence the Longbeachport garrison?" Roxanne asked.  

"Quite."  The speaker was Alanna Michaelsdotr, the woman Roxanne had seen reading on first entering the library.  Roxanne had at first stumbled over her name, then recognized an obvious consequence of mages reckoning descent along male lines.  No Black-Robe Mage had ever let that custom be noticed, not in her earshot, allowing that the Black-Robes used the same naming customs for their women.  "Longbeachport and its valley have a greathand of greathands of residents, enough to justify near a hand of armsmistresses for instructing the young.  The valley had two hands of armsmistresses, a militia that mustered and drilled on Newmoonsday, a hand of the Sorority, a kept town wall.  All from memory of the Sea Eagles." 

"Ah. Yes," Demara said.  "The mysterious Sea Eagles, whose hidden capital keeps receding northwest along the coast, always just out of sight of our northernmost roads and villages.  By now they must be living someplace beyond the polar ice." 

"Where else could they be hiding?  It's the only explanation.  Unless you think they were a political scheme of the Black-Robes," Morris Michaelsson, the younger journeyman mage, observed.  

"Morris!" his father objected, not quite harshly.  

"Don't fear," Demara said.  "I recognize appropriate sarcasm.  All explanations are unbelievable. But I don't know where Sea Eagles live, either." 

"Here and now," Roxanne said, "Longbeachport.  The dead man was not a Sea Eagle.  Nor, given his medical state, was he plausibly born anywhere in the One World."
 
"Father would prefer that I not suggest that he seemed too earthy to have descended from the fixed stars," Morris noted.  

"The expedition North recovered an alternative explanation," Roxanne said.  "West.  Far west.  The captured maps to explain this are being copied."

"Maps?" Michael asked.  "Maps must be seen.  Seen and properly venerated. Then their import may be considered."  Roxanne relaxed slightly.  The Blue-Robes worshipped maps, giving them the honor that the Faithful gave to She Who Is The Sky, declining curiosity about a map's contents before the map was properly displayed and suitable sacrifices made to its indwelling spirit.

"The not-Sea-Eagle weapons were absurd," Demara continued.  "An iron spear?  A third-rate ill-made undersharp sword?  A wool coat?  Sea Eagles wore quilted cotton, used bronze or stone-inlaid wood swords, spearthrowers, and dartblowers, but rarely bows.  Poor materials, highly refined technique.  Beautiful workmanship.  Besides, Sea Eagles bathed regularly; he didn't."  Morris and Michael flinched.  

"His accoutrements were all absurd," Michael said.  "Swatches of fabric were forwarded here.  After…delousing."  His audience wrinkled their noses.  "Hand-spun, hand woven fabric, extremely expensive.  A green dye no dyer or fabric merchant can name or match.  Boots, made by a cobbler who though left and right feet are the same.  Wherefrom?  Why?" 

"There is a minor puzzle here," Roxanne observed.  She pressed her hands together, fingertips pushing against mirrored counterparts.  "One a Domain-bred Interlocutor would seem to have overlooked."  Her companions looked penetratingly at her.  "Longbeachport was a town with a good militia.  They are attacked.  They flee to the Temple and hide in the Sanctuary, weapons left outside -- orthodox, but not understandable.  They fled.  Why?" There was a quiet.  

"Perhaps," Alanna offered, "they guessed attackers were pirates.  There was a pirate attack on Millersspa, only six hands of years ago." 

"The anti-tax faction," observed Morris Michaelsson.  Seeing his father's upraised eyebrow, he continued, "Longbeachport politics had a big anti-tax union.  Walls, a Sorority hand, armsmistresses: they all cost money.  And time!  Time not spent on roads or dams or mills or sewers." 

"Or schools," his sister interjected.  

"Or libraries," their father added, hand spread in the rising-crescent good-news sign.  "Less competition this way." 

"The Longbeach Valley Council sent a resolution to Cismontane Provincial Senate," Morris continued.  "They called for changes.  They said that if attacked, it was surely pirates, so they'd do --- what they did.  They'd hide in Sanctuary, pirates being Faithful who respect it.  This frustrates the purpose of armsmistresses and walls and Sorority Chapterhouses.   The Sorority became annoyed.  Longbeachport had a wall and Chapterhouse; they shouldn't run and hide. " 

"The debate became murky," Michael's father said.   "They walked away and ignored each other.  Each side thought it won.  We now see who had Her Illumination." 

"Winning that argument was losing for Longbeachport," Alanna said.  "Was it Sea Eagles, or wicked pirates, or what?  Where'd they go?  Where'd the missing people go?" 

"The same was asked, daughter, of the prey of the Sea Eagles.  They too are gone," Michael Michaelson noted, "vanished forever." 

"Temple interests are more immediate," Demara said.  "The memorial from Dianasmere travels more slowly than we did."  She glanced at Roxanne, who nodded Demara to continue.  "A memorial we share with you now.  Soon it will be proclaimed.  Longbeachport is not unique.  Along Westcoast there have been a dozen such events --- all smaller --- in ten years.  Populations of isolated keeps and fishing villages – really single Circles, collections of a half dozen homes -- were found dead.  Children, sometimes a few younger women, were missing.  Each place thought 'pirates'.  When reports were assembled, odd pirate weapons, systematic death, systematic burning of books and art, and sightings of winged whales were common elements.  Every case lacked some elements. Once together, commonalities were obvious." 

"Dianasmere's interest is our coast," Demara said.  "Two hundred years ago, Sea Eagles struck inland, set siege to Noralin City, laying waste to all westerly.  Millersport and Merecester alone survived sieges.  Westerly then was much less than now. Cismontane has drained people from elsewhere.  Sea Warrior incursions took a century to grow from a double hand of men in a large canoe to a greathand of greathands host.  There were hands of years of isolated places being burned, no one suspecting it was not pirates, before the Cowrieshell Beach massacre.  This time, four years were enough." 

"Very serious, indeed," the mage continued.  "But why are you here?  Of course, the Tower of Wisdom is delighted to guest you.  However, Her Temple would have been the same." 

The two women stared at each other.  Roxanne spoke first.  "A sound question. I'm here because I was invited by Tomas-sur-Maserin, the Shire Interlocutor.  Also, I am charged with resolving certain incongruities in Sisterhood reports on the Longbeachport event." 

"A very conscientious Interlocutor, too, he is," the Archmage added, "not there's a great need for an Interlocutor.  The shire had two murders in five years, both solved before he could arrive." 

"But he's very nice," Alanna said, "and works pro bono.  He donates his shire-fees to buy and copy books." 

"I am here," Demara said, "to address the Sorority, its Priestesses and Wardens." 

"On that I wish you well," Michael said.   "They do as they see fit." 

"Oh, they'll listen," Demara answered. "Act is their choice, but they will listen." 

"Pray tell," Roxanne asked, "How ready would Noralin be for a siege, if one came?" 

"Now, that is my charge to know," Michael said.  "Noralin walls are mage-fiefs.  They're maintained by tithe-labor: Our walls are pretty, hence kept in good condition. The field-space without is planted in rose shrubs - rose-scent is a city export.  We get a fraction of the income.  Good arrowshot.  You can't crawl through longthorn bushes.  Empty space by the walls, within Noralin, was whittled down to the wall park.  Wall park? That's how grandfather arranged to keep the wall maintained.  Wall supports an inner embankment and park, open only to those who maintain it.  Cisterns need repair. Granaries are mostly empty - they bring rats.  Grain is largely stored outside the city.   That's fixable.  City militia?" He threw up his hands.  "Go through motions on Newmoonsday.  Need a six-month to prepare, except the trained band.  There's an artillery company: greatbows.  Behind walls, equipment is tolerable.  Be hard if you want archers - almost no fletchers or bowyers."  He looked at his daughter.  "Trella Trellasdotr and her son are excellent, but that's two fletchers in a big town.  If the city militia would use slotbows, there'd be adequate bolts." Alanna flushed slightly.  "Millersport has two Sorority Greathands: Lycoris and Lysimachia, Raven's House.  Noralin City, they just moved here, now has Winterwheat. Lycoris lost a Hand in Longbeachport.  Three Greathands is not enough for our city walls.  They'd need be other places, too.  

Roxanne and Demara frowned pensively.    What was here was not well prepared, almost any way you looked at it.  Nonetheless, urging preparedness against willow-the-wisps would ill serve Sorority or Temple.  

"Cisterns can be fixed, this Summer, in the dead time before harvest," Michael said.  "There's a fee on water, relaxed to the library. We paid for the aqueduct out of water fees.  Fee usually supports schools.  That's our chief vocation in the tower --- housing schools.  Even a Black-Robe deaconage.  They all pay rent --- we won't starve, if we rebuild cisterns for a year.  Should anyhow; a town fire could be bad.  There're those who'll work off-harvest for not much: clean, reline, test cisterns.  Granaries - Civic Council has them - might get them to rent for cheap to local farmers.  They miss a profit there, anyhow."  

The room had faded to shadow, the last bits of sunlight providing slight illumination. The teapot had been drunk to its leaves.  Morris Michaelson escorted the two visitors to their room.  

* * * * * 

The morning sun was bright in the clear sky.  Demara and Roxanne had eaten lightly, then dressed formally.  Demara wore her Temple robes, slate blue, the silver moon-disc and piping on each sleeve marking her Dianasmere origins.  Roxanne, satisfied that the wrinkles had indeed shaken out, wore her dress uniform, bright orange with scarlet piping and lining, the four sky-blue bands that proclaimed her Greatmistress of Greatmistresses blazoned across each shoulder, necklace bearing the lidless eye and crescent of the Inspectorate dangling from her neck.  A visibly nonbonded shortsword hung low across her hip.  In most cities, private weapons went bonded or unworn, but in uniform she was the ever-ready Left Arm of the Goddess.  The scarlet cape and wimple of the Inspectorate completed her accoutrement.  

The meeting was in midmorning, timed to accommodate Sorority Wardens, the provincial Senate's Security Committee, and several interested bystanders.  To Demara's dismay, the locals were divided between those convinced that Longbeachport had been attacked and plundered by pirates and those convinced it had been destroyed by Torinsdale.  Her careful description of other events, some several greathands of miles to the south, elicited no response.  Nor could her hosts explain where the pirates had gone, or how they had managed to escape with prisoners without being noticed.  The City Counselors did take careful notes on the virtues of filling the city granaries, observing that the granaries had been built, so Noralin City was losing money by having them empty rather than renting them.  

Afterward the two women walked the perimeter of the city walls.  Roxanne knew Demara's brittle smile and soft tones masked a cold fury.  In the entire city, the only thoroughly sensible person they had met had been a mage, and a Blue-Robe at that!  Careful steering of the conversation with the Sorority Greathand had won a general commitment to improve the training of the city militia, and to ensure that the city's walls and towers were properly guarded at night.  After all, if pirates could seize and destroy a village, they might at least raid a city.   The locals had had no counterargument to that.  Contemptuous references to Longbeachport and its anti-taxers hinted at the underlying politics.  The Sorority was convinced that the anti-taxers were at fault.  Pirates would never have dared to attack a town that properly honored its responsibilities to sword and spear.  

Noralin City walls were built on a nearly unique pattern: a steep outer brick facade was matched inside by a gentle filled-earth down slope, the town's main park.  The outer moat was stone lined, paved for use as a road, and properly pumped dry.   Roxanne spent some time studying the moat's ends at the river.  The moat was well below water level, and could be flooded.   Moat-as-road merited further consideration, thought Roxanne; it meant that someone had a real interest in the condition of the brickwork.  Century-old memories of Sea Eagle incursions were kept fresh, so town defenses were supported by most of the populace. 

"I spoke with their Training Officer," said Roxanne.   "The local Sorority does honor the Fall Dances, so the Sorority sometimes trains as a fighting unit, rather than only practicing to be pairs of constables in remote towns.  There actually is thievery, and friction with the local Domains.  Cheryl-sa-Maserin protects domain claims aggressively, though not unreasonably.  If they aren't faking their records, regular training is up to standards - speed, endurance, sword, shield, spear, and the like.  The Sorority spends a lot of time doubling as peacekeepers, but staff is not a practical weapon for a formation."  

"I think we have to wait for the Rescript from Dianasmere to reach here," said Demara.  "The right people need to listen.  Or the next disaster may alert people."  

Chapter Eighteen
Union, Cismontane-by-the-Sea
Summerfire 8, 2446

Dorothy-sa-Anglewood pushed the curls back from her forehead and squirmed in her canvas seat.  After the first day of the trip, the clatter of the steelrails against the coach's wheels had faded from her hearing.  Mum did this all the time, she told herself, often with less comfortable seats, worse weather, and fewer friends along for the ride.   She could do it once without complaining even once to anyone.  So far, they had had cool days and cooler nights, occasional light rain, and a stop every four hours to change the horses.  That meant every four hours, except at night when she slept, she had at least ten minutes to run in circles around the coaches.  Her friends and their escorts did the same.   They did it at a dead run.  They sheered her on as she sprinted until her lungs burned. Twice a day, morning and evening, they stopped and ate a serious meal.  After her first day, she decided that hot food at a strange hour was better than cold bread and cheese when she was hungry.  She now ate on the train's schedule whether she wanted to eat or not.  She told herself she had to be really really patient, no matter how much she wanted the trip to be over.  Her mother's friends had come with her, to be nice to her, or because the Judge told them to.  They couldn't hardly like spending two weeks sitting in a steelroad coach, even if it meant they were seeing places they'd otherwise never visit.  She was not going to do anything to make it worse, even if she sometimes cried to herself when she was sure no one was watching.

Her Aunts had helped her pack, made sure she had everything from the house that was hers, and took care she had plenty to read.  The Judge had decreed that exile meant exile from her Circle; her aunts could not travel with her.  Gretchen and friends took turns listening to her read out loud, until she got tired of reading out loud; then she read to herself.  Mum had told her, a year ago, she could read The Adventures of the Sorceress Nimue, all one hundred and eighty volumes of it, and The Adventures of the Girl Nimue, usually counted at more than 400 volumes,  whenever she wanted.  She'd read three volumes.  The parts with boys were dull, but the sorcery bits were fun.  She'd seen enough real swords that the sword bits were less interesting.  Now she had nothing to do but sit and read, at least until Gretchen and friends wanted a fifth for Domains.  They did that every afternoon. Domains was a really great game, one that made you think all the time, but made sure that you never really lost because you got to compete against yourself as well as against the other players.  Domains was a bit different than when she played at home. At home, she could play with the other girls in the Circle, for fun, or with Mum and the Aunts, for blood.  She liked both.  Here Gretchen sort-of-knew the rules, Astrid and Brigit were pretty good, and Angela-vrith-Martyn always saw moves and moves ahead.  Angela was almost as good as Mum and her Aunts, so you had to be really really careful or you would take your move and she would get the best points from your round.  

Of course, more often than not Angela would smile and shake her head when invited to play.   She was working through a stack of papers, papers she and Gretchen and Astrid and Brigit had put together, trying to find the patterns and put them in order.  Every so often she would write out a few paragraphs explaining what she had done.  Dorothy made a point of listening if Angela wanted to talk.  Sometimes she was very clear.  Sometimes there was something she didn't understand either, something that she wanted to talk about until she finally did understand her own thoughts.    Then Dorothy told herself she would listen extra-patiently, trying to ask only smart questions.

The other girls who had been with Gretchen, back when the Senator tried the kidnapping, stayed to themselves.  Dorothy had watched.  They spent time playing games, staring at scenery, or sleeping.  Dorothy finally worked it out.  They had happened to be on guard duty, the night she had gone to the Tower of the Eye, by chance.  They'd done what they were supposed to, and were trapped up in some confusion they did not understand.  At least none of them was fully bonded to a Circle.  None of them had left their Mirror.  Dorothy knew that was extremely impossible, even if she didn't quite understand why, even if Mom's Circle never had a Mirror, except the art teacher who they'd just invited to move in. They had some hope that whatever had taken them away would some day come to an end, that their mothers and aunts and friends would eventually undo what had been done to them.

Twice, they had stopped overnight in a town.  That had meant getting thoroughly washed for once in a decent bath, sleeping in a real bed, and being able to sleep very deeply without being perpetually awakened by jolts of the track, people talking, or strange lights and sounds. Early the next morning, she had been awake, dressed, and en route again.  Someplace, an overnight laundry had done her clothing, so that in the morning she had had something clean if not quite dry to wear.  Angela had done that for her—she hadn't even known there were overnight laundries at rail hubs.

The sky had turned from the color of steel to blue.  The clouds near the hills to the east had paled from ruby to pale pink.  Last night, she'd been told that they would be reaching Union sometime after sunrise.  She had not yet spotted the city walls, but they were passing circles of farmhouses and their fields of vegetables, crops that did not ship more than the few miles to a local town.  From the sound in the other cars, and the motions she could see on the coaches in the train ahead, people around her were making sure that they were packed and ready to unload their baggage.  She had done that last night, and was proud she'd remembered without being told.  Of course, her baggage and clothing was a lot simpler to pack than the baggage of the women around her, each of whom had sword and shield and perhaps a bow or javelin or throwing darts, several changes of uniform, and the like, not to mention the large chests on the luggage carts.

The horses' hooves on the train ahead were making a different sound.  They'd reached the area very close to town where steelroad rails were laid into a proper paved road.  The paving blocks kept down the dust that coaches would otherwise raise.  The line of trees ahead had gaps, though which stone could be seen.  That was surely the Union City wall, low, but Gretchen said it was behind something that was less a moat and more a small river.

For some reason, Gretchen and friends were all worried about what she would tell her mother.  Not what they would tell her mother, but what she would tell her mother, to explain why she was here.  She seemed to be the only person not worried about that.  She had the nice letter from the judge, and a big thick parcel of legal documents, wrapped in oilcloth in her trunk.  It explained everything. Besides, she knew what had happened.  That woman had lured her back to town, tried to kidnap her twice, and caught on fire when the lamp spilled.  If the woman hadn't wanted a lamp to be spilled on her, she shouldn't have announced she was going to do a kidnapping, right where Dorothy could hear her, and then grabbed Dorothy while Dorothy was holding a lighted lamp.   The Judge had asked her to write down what she had heard the dead woman say.

Once, as politely as possible, Angela had asked about the Interlocutor's command that she was to go to her father.  Did that upset Dorothy?  Something about that really really bothered Angela, and Dorothy couldn't figure out what.  Dorothy had decided that it didn't matter; it was some grownup thing that really did not matter at all.  She hadn't known before who her father was, or where he was.  She did know who Tomas-sur-Maserin was, because he had come to Dianasmere once and again and given her the necklace and taken her on the wonderful trip, but she had not known he was her father.  So far as she knew none of her classmates knew their fathers either, but that was the way things were in the Republic.  Among Magicians it seemed that rules were different, but different rules were like the different rules for kickball and tossball.  You had a place where the rules applied, places where they did not, and you didn't worry that the rules were not the same everywhere. Besides, she really did not have to worry, because Mum was someplace near Torinsdale, and so long as Mum was near she would always be completely safe.

* * * * *

"Greathands! From Column! To Line! Deploy left, deploy!" Evaine shouted.   Whistles shrilled in each formation, greatmistresses repeating the command to the women.  The five Greathands in earshot had certainly done the maneuver often enough, at least when each was by itself.  Drums now beating, the women of each greathand shifted their pace enough to move from a column of four files and many ranks, pivot left and settle into place as a line with three ranks and twenty dozen files.  Evaine nodded to herself.  If she put her voice behind it, she could be heard at a fair distance.  That would let her command three hundred women, not three thousand.  She could introduce smallhosts, formations of four or eight greathands, but then she would need someone to lead each smallhost.  Runners or mounted messengers were fine for the imprecise motions of the Low Levy, but for a Formed Levy she needed better control.  On the South Shore, you used arm talk, but that took impossibly long to train.  What else could you do?

"Greathands! Left Face!  Line to Column!  Resume the March!" she shouted.

The musicians of the Ninth Greathand, six pipers and two drummers following sixty-four women armed with halberd and bow and shield and sword, broke into a tune.  They must, Evaine allowed, have been at the right moment in the drum cycle, the sixty paces in 500-some in which their drummers had a musical accompaniment.

She had not expected that, so soon as the pipers began their cheery melody, half of the women of the Eighth Greathand would do a right flank face, and start marching in completely the wrong direction.  Most of them corrected their error, but not before the Eighth Greathand lost all order, with some women who had at first continued the correct march changing what they were doing to comply with the direction set by the women who made the mistake.  The Fifth Greathand, whose line of march was headed straight at a milling clump of women, managed to pivot left its own column, enough that they would not march into the confusion.  Further forward, the Sixth, Seventh, and Ninth Greathands, headed away from the chaos.

"Fall in!"  That, Evaine noted, was the Greatmistress of the Eighth, trying to get her women back in order.  She might have been well-advised to being them to a halt first, before putting them in parade inspection formation.  However, there seemed to be need for a learning experience.  This little confusion would be a learning experience for her as well as her women.

"Formations!" Evaine shouted, doubting she would be heard over the pipes, whose tune almost reached its end, "Stop!"  Two of the five rolled their drums and stopped.  The Eighth was already stopped, more or less.  The Sixth and Seventh Greathands continued their separate march off into the distance.  "Runner!"  She shouted.  "Go after the Sixth and Seventh.  They are to do about face and come back here, stopping when they reach the Ninth."  The runner struck right fist to brow and headed off.

Evaine, not in any great hurry, began a walk over to the Eighth.  She examined carefully the lines of the Fifth.  They'd correctly folded their files, dropping their halberdiers to the left end of each file.  On 'Stop!' they'd pivoted left, so that the halberds were out, halberdiers were at a kneel, and the rear rank of bowdaughters was ready to fire over their kneeling fellows.   "Very good!" she announced.  "Smart turn at the end," she added, 'better than piling up with whatever is up ahead."

She reached the Eighth, which was now at least at a stop and coming into parade ranks. The greathand commander was waiting while ranks dressed themselves.  "Anne?"  Evaine whispered over the older woman's shoulder.  "Would you please work out what happened here?  Deploy Left! and Right Flank! are supposed to be distinct commands.  What happened? I am sending the other Greathands to lunch, and your people may join them as soon as you have that question worked out…and you have done four drills of deploying from column into line and four of marching to the flank.  I think four each is enough.  The rest of you, it's time for lunch.  Barracks and lunch, in that order.  Proceed!"  The other four Greathands dispersed.

"Evaine?" Anne said.  "I already know what happened.  And can demonstrate.  But I think it was not us that made the mistake.  Observe.  Attention to orders!"  Drums beat.  "Greathand! Face Right!  March forwards, march!"  Drums played and pipes sounded, lapsing after a few moments to a single pace drummer.  "Flank left, flank march!"  Again, drums and pipes played, the Greathand making a proper flank left.  "Straighten the march!"  The marchers pivoted right, their line of march now being parallel with the column.  "From Column to line!  Deploy right! Deploy!"  Again, drums and pipes sounded, and the column turned right and re-ordered.

"I've had the drums and pipes play exactly the tunes you set with each order, the same tune every time.  That other Greathand, when they should have stayed with drums or played 'The Vale of Gold', played instead 'Come With Me, Sweetheart', which is the right flank tune," Anne explained.

Evaine nodded politely.  "I set a particular tune for each command?" she asked, half to herself.  She hadn't done that, not on purpose.   "We've had a separate field for each formation change and a fixed band rather than yours playing for each practice, so the fixed band and the marchmistress training each maneuver would work together more cleanly.  Oh, right.  The same fixed band, always, for each formation change, so we would have up to ten greathands, each practicing one move at a time, and a marchmistress who knew relatively well how to handle her change of march and what to watch.   The band kept playing the same tune every time.  The choice of tune was an accident, different for each maneuver."  Anne pursed her lips.  "But a very lucky one.  For sure, I can tell a band leader what the pipes are to do, more easily than I can shout orders at seventy women.  Okay, send your folks to lunch.  I have to think about this."  The Eighth Greathand headed for its barracks.  Evaine stood, thinking.  She'd considered drum and bugle commands, as on South-shore, but the drummers were not that skilled, bugle players were rare, and copying Southshore practice made her nervous.  Replacing bugle command calls with pipes playing familiar tunes that every piper knew was obvious, after you thought of it.  She certainly had not.   Pipes played tunes, not the whistle or bugle flourishes that sent orders.  However, when you were given an answer to your question, sometimes you had to see it was an answer and work with it.

Another runner, this one wearing the colors of Landgrafin Cheryl, appeared at her side. "Evaine?" she asked.   "Compliments of the Landgrafin, and you are requested to join her now if not sooner for lunch.  She realizes you have spent your morning on the Drill Field and are dressed appropriately for your task.  She allows that you have worked your women hard, and that they can survive an extra hour of rest."

* * * * *

The open porches behind the Refectory were banked on different levels, with masonry walls and thick plantings creating much privacy in little space.  The Landgrafin and her senior advisors ate at the most isolated section of deck, seated in an elevated ring at several small tables.  Evaine sat as far as possible from the rest of them.  A hard day yesterday, an unscheduled night march, and this morning's training meant that she was at best skimpily washed.   She had not complained when her younger sister had offered to fetch her lunch, so that she would not annoy the Refectory staff with her lack of cleanliness.

The Landgrafin rolled through pieces of business, from comments on crop planting and the weather to a letter of feigned regret from the Broad Canal Company: The women doing their work as Vale Volunteers, digging out the moat, were women who were not laboring for Broad Canals, extending the canal net.  The usual requests for steelroads, linking to the Republic steelroad net, or for a sunspeaker net linked to the Republic net, were turned down—though the Landgrafin was always scrupulous to add that if someone thought they could run a Sunspeaker net at a simple profit, they were welcome to try.

Finally questions relating the Pprates and the Levies were reached.  After an initial flurry of questions, interest in Evaine's maps and books had proved to be limited.  The pirate secret code had proven resistant to simple decryption; after the first week, the volunteers quit trying.  On one hand, it was hard to believe that anything more than simple substitution could be involved; shuffle codes would create books that could not be read with any speed by human beings.  On the other hand, it was apparent that there were far too many characters in the code, perhaps several hundred.  Apparently the same letter could be written three or six different ways.  That seemed to defeat frequency analysis.  If there were rules about which characters were used when, they were well hidden.  Copying the maps did not look simple, either, because the copyist had to duplicate all of the encoded marginal notes.  The Archimagate had made a formal, reasonably generous offer for copying rights, for its own uses, to which Evaine had happily agreed.  After years of living in essence off charity, she was going to have a real income, however small or tardily paid, whenever the Archimagate copyists were finished.

To her own surprise, her proposal for a formed levy had been greeted with enthusiasm, the more so as it became clear to young women that they could replace irregular interruptions with a single, prolonged, demanding effort.  Whether the levy would remain popular as a volunteer task, when it became clear that the single effort sometimes involved dying remained to be seen.

"And are you doing something about officers and file closers?" the Swordmistress asked.  It was her favorite topic.  Swordmistress was convinced that not weapons, not tactics, but leadership was the key to a successful levy.  Evaine wondered where she was supposed to find all these leaders, in a place where the military was the local constables and the local posse.

Elaine gestured noncommittally.  "I've recruited women to lead Hands and Greathands.  I've given them all tasks, mostly relating to seeing that the women in the hands do the right things, and ensuring that the Greathand has succeeded with rational training, fighting with weapons, and moving as a unit.  The best will be rewarded.  The worst know I will try to help them, but send them back down into the ranks, in a different unit, if they cannot make a go of it.  They also know that I watch performance as well as read reports.  I have been rotating handmistresses, so all learn what issues arise.  If you know where I might find a staff, please let me know."

"And how will you maneuver my host," the Landgrafin asked, "it being too large for one voice to shout orders?"

"You said something over food about using pipes to reinforce your shouts," Tomas said.

"I seem to have been handed the answer today," Evaine said, "By Signe Sifsdotr and her Greathand, which had accidentally learned to listen to their pipes, not just their officers."

"You will have the pipers shout in unison?" Tomas asked dubiously.

"What I am proposing," Evaine announced, not at all certain if Tomas knew what he was talking about, "is that the pipes and drums will be the commands.  It's no different than Sisterhood handtalk, which I saw Greathand Winterwheat use, except that you can keep your eye on your opponent and for sure hear tunes for 'push ahead stoutly', 'hold fast!', or 'to the rear, slow step!'"

"Has anyone ever done such a thing?" the Landgrafin inquired.

"On South-Shore," Evaine caught herself, "you may read in standard works, musical calls, whistle or bugle or the like, are standardly used this way."

"Effectively?" the Swordmistress asked. "I've never been there."

"They work well," Evaine answered.  At least, Evaine thought, if you know how to use them, as I did and that bitch on South-Shore had not, for all that she had had three decades of age and experience on me.   "Though you must remember the more numerous the commands, the more training needed, and the harder it is to include raw recruits in fighting formations.  However, pipes are a lot louder than bugles."

"What is this about wagons, cheeses, nuts, dried beans, vinegar, and preserves?" the Landgrafin asked.  "I see how you will recover some of the costs, but it is still expensive."

"Your Grace, that is feeding the Levy if it actually needs to go into battle.  Even if the pirates or whoever simply march straight at us, the Levy must be summoned, march to wherever the enemy hides, and fight them.  While marching, they must eat and drink.  A thousand extra women is more than most communities can feed, ignoring that the Formed Levy might need to march through an area devastated by its opponents, or fight outside a town that cannot be entered because the pirates are in the way.  Each woman marches with three or six days food on her back, and vinegar to acidulate water if safe wells are destroyed.  Following the levy are supply wagons—in some places pack mules are better—carrying additional days rations and other goods."

"But plum butter?  Why not flour for baking bread?" Cheryl continued.

"Your grace, a Levy fed on bread needs two pounds per day of it, and must stop every four days to bake fresh bread, as the old bread will in four days go bad," Evaine answered.  "Cheese, nuts, and beans are more expensive, but lighter.  Good wagons save money because with good wagons you need fewer horses to haul as many days meals for your soldiers, meaning you need to haul less forage—that's very heavy—for your animals, over what they will gain naturally by grazing when you camp."

"And your purchasing takes you where?" Cheryl asked.

"My working plan is thirty days of food for the entire force we have discussed," Evaine answered.  "I would prefer ninety days.  That is difficult to arrange.  With a year's notice, it's much easier.  Farmers each grow a bit more, and we store it securely.  This year, ninety days for two thousand women would start to disturb farm prices, especially given that I am buying a narrow range of items that sustain vigor efficiently.  An army that cannot stay fed will fall apart.

"The wagons let us fight well away from the starting point," Evaine continued.  She hoped the Landgrafin would not be too sticky on supply issues.  They really were important, no matter that the High Levy policing a town never thought for an instant about where their next meal would come from.  "The pirates, or the other issues we have discussed, may not respect Domain and Republic boundaries.  Certainly, the Sea Eagles seemed not to understand that the Republic and the Domains were not the same.  Most recently, we found pirates fifty miles north of Millersport.  A hundred mile march, fifty each way, for a large group, with the food on your back, is challenging, no matter that it's easy for a half-dozen women with time to hunt or fish or gather.  It's possible with supply wagons, in seasons when greatmules can be grazed."

A small bell rang at the stair to the porch.  Evaine looked beyond the Landgrafin, to see a runner, a girl she did not know well, from the High Tower.  "Your pardon, Lady Cheryl, but the watchers on the High Tower report that they see, on the Longbeachport Road, at least six sisterhood Greathands, and other groups of people they do not recognize."

"I do not remember hearing of this," Cheryl said.  "I thought Union did not have six Greathands of Sisterhood.  Do any of the rest of you know of this?"  Heads shook.

Evaine stood.  "Lady Cheryl, I must do the tasks you assigned me."

"Which task would that be?" she asked.

"To protect the Caer: The gates barred, the drawbridge raised, the wall engines cleared.  The Walldaughters in training to fall out in full armor to the walls.  The Formed Levy to fall out in working armor and arms.  The castle's daughters, all levies, to have arms at hand."  Cheryl gestured affirmatively.

* * * * *

The sun was halfway to the horizon, sending long shadows easterly across lawns and flowers.  Tomas and his younger sister waited atop the High Tower, studying through farseers the approaching formation of Republic soldiers.  They were surely not the six Greathands the West Tower had seen.  Those women had reached the Domain borders, turned around, and were marching home.  The women marching toward the Caer, now a half-mile away on an open road, numbered thirteen, with two wagons loaded with chests, drovers, and a passenger on the lead wagon.

Tomas stared carefully through the large farseer.  "Oh, my," he muttered under his breath.  There was no doubt about who it was, not with that hair and that necklace. "Oh, my. Gail?"  He spoke to the senior Banneret on the deck with him.  "Would you be so kind as to find my dear mother and give her two messages.  The first is that the people approaching the gate are a proper—man's—dozen of women dressed as armsdaughters for a Shire Interlocutor.  I allow that they are a present to me from the Republic.  The second is that they are escorting an eight-year-old girl who I can readily identify, since—among other things—she is my daughter by Roxanne-sa-Emmitsford, and hence (unless Joseline here has neglected to tell me something) Heiress-Fourth to the Vale."  Tomas managed to say the latter with a completely straight face.  This would be the first time he had mentioned Dorothy to her paternal grandmother.  "Oh, Dorothy is a Black-Robe Mage."

"A dozen Shire Interlocutor Armsdaughters.  Your daughter," Gail repeated.  "Forgive me, your grace, but I had somehow failed to know that you had a daughter.  Yes, I'll get the Landgrafin the message as soon as possible."

"You did not fail," Tomas said, "I neglected to mention the existence of the Heiress-Fourth, because it never seemed significant that I raise the subject."  Tomas decided that Gail was remarkably good at hiding her emotions.  Joseline's mouth was gaping. "Oh, and please, if you can find Roxanne, tell her that her daughter and a fair-size escort are now approaching the Caer."

* * * * *

"Formation!  Ready!"  Gretchen raised her right arm.  "Stop!"  She brought her hand down.  The dozen women following her came smartly to an end of the march.  The drovers clucked at their greatmules, which by and by wobbled from a slow walk to stationary.  They had at long last reached Caer Adurel.  The reception was decidedly not friendly.  Gates were closed.  A dismaying number of women with halberds and bows could be seen on the walls.  Off in the distance beyond the castle, a half-dozen Greathands of women were drawn up in formation.  They seemed unlikely to be practicing Fall Dances, but three hundred women to stand off thirteen members of the Sisterhood seemed a bit overstated, even if the thirteen included the mythical Swordsmistress of Letinvarhu and her Eleven Students.

"You all stay here," she announced.  "I'll go up ahead and see how they are welcoming us."

"What if we're unwelcome?"  Astrid asked.

"I'll cross that bridge when I get to it," Gretchen answered.  She had an explicit order to report with her formation to the Shire Interlocutor, and would do her best to carry it out.  She hoped that she did not have to storm the Caer in which he was lurking.  The walk toward the Caer was longer than she had at first expected.  Caer Adurel walls were not low.  The enclosed ground was decidedly not small.

A sally port opened.  A woman she didn't know came out, followed by a couple.  The man wore Interlocutor's Robes. That man had to be Tomas-sa-Torinsdale.    The woman was Greatmistress Roxanne herself.  Gretchen's heart started pounding.  She kept walking, her hands carefully clear of her sword, while the trio crossed the moat-bridge.

Suddenly, behind her: "Mommy!  Mommy!"  That was Dorothy.  She had been wonderfully well behaved the entire trip.  Now there was the sound of running feet as the little girl swept around Gretchen and into her mother's arms.

Gretchen stopped at fifteen paces from the trio.  Dorothy and Roxanne were tangled with each other, enough that she could announce herself before protocol questions arose.  "Tomas-sa-Torinsdale?" she asked.  "The People and Senate have ordered me and my," she almost said 'Hand', "my Dozenth here, to serve you loyally in such lawful ways you wish as Shire Interlocutor of Cismontane-by-the-Sea.  I am Gretchen Threetowers, seconded from the Inspectorate Sisterhood, and I and my women are at your service."

"I see," Tomas said.

"Seconded?" Roxanne asked.

"Perhaps 'exiled' is more precise, Greatmistress, but I am no longer a member of the Sisterhood.  I am an Interlocutor's Armslady," Gretchen announced.  "We have been sent here with orders not to return until we capture the Sea Eagles who destroyed Longbeachport.  We're also Dotty's bodyguards, which she suddenly seems to need.  She needed them even before we arrested the people we caught breaking into your home.  We arrested them, except the ones who died resisting arrest.  After we did, the City filed criminal charges against Dotty, for protecting herself from the woman who tried to kidnap her—what did they expect an eight-year-old to do?  Finally, the City mages announced that Dotty was properly Roxannesdotr–sa-Anglewood-vrith-Emmitsford-Tomassdotr-sur-Maserin and entitled as Tomas's daughter to our protection.  After that, it gets a bit complicated. May I please have water for our greatmules?"

"Protecting herself?"  Roxanne asked.  "The woman filed charges."

"The woman was deceased, Greatmistress," Gretchen said, "at your daughter's hands."

"So you no longer salute me?" Roxanne asked stonily.

"Those are my orders, ma'am," Gretchen answered.  "My extremely specific orders.  Despite the contradictory part.  I am an Armslady and serve the Interlocutor Tomas, and salute him."  It had been a very long day already, and she felt very tired, even without disputes about saluting, an arcane rite that she might perform every other year.

"So shall it be!  Gretchen, where did your escorts go?"  Roxanne asked briskly.  "The Six Greathands of them?"

"Back to Union, Greatmistress.  The four Inspectorate Greathands will by now be reboarding steelroad cars for the trip back to Dianasmere.  Though they may stay a couple of days as tourists.  None of them have ever seen the far north before," Gretchen answered.

"Tomas, these people are your guests," Roxanne announced.  "You'll have to settle with your mother how they are to be housed and bathed and fed, or what they are to do.  Leaving them standing out in the sun seems poor hospitality."

Chapter 19
Caer Adurel
Harvest 7, 2446

Tomas and Roxanne sat on a long wicker couch.  The early evening sun blew long shadows, trailing like banners in a high wind, across the fields away from them. Mary's Porch had been an unsuccessful pedagogical innovation, several centuries past.  It was covered, open to the air, large enough for three dozen people to sit comfortably, and immediately adjoined the library.  The fresh air was proposed to stimulate a child's mind.  In practice, the regular breeze meant that even the lightest drizzle sent water across the porch, soaking writing slates and copy books.  In clear weather, papers went flying.  As a classroom, the Porch had been impractical except in perfect weather.  It had taken forever to be abandoned.  Tomas was now pondering Roxanne's suggestion, a wisteria arbor.

The audience included Gretchen, Astrid, Brigit, Angela, Tomas's younger sister June, and a not-quite-bored Dorothy.  Roxanne could understand her daughter's impatience.  The grownups had gone over what had happened, time after time.  Did she have to listen to everything including the book-keeping parts from a hundred years ago?  So Dorothy leaned in a corner reading another Nimue book, another five hundred pages of fabulous and romantic adventure, seeming not to pay attention but occasionally putting in a sensible observation.

"You," Roxanne said to the four younger women, "seem to have put matters together effectively.  We have these people who have one step at a time diverted large numbers of taxes to their own purposes.  The last step that Angela uncovered, the Rotation Act that year after year automatically reassigns taxes to different purposes, so no one paying, say, the Carrot Tax in Goldenrose becomes suspicious that the Carrot Tax has been paying the same debt for the last century, was a masterstroke.  Alas, there appears to be nothing that can be done about it."

"How so?" Tomas asked.

"The bulk of my acolytes' papers were successfully subpoenaed by the Senate, by a subcommittee controlled by the conspirators, nominally investigating the Senator's death," Roxanne said.  She looked at Dorothy, who peered back guiltily.  "Mind you, I think the Senator in question got exactly what she deserved for trying to kidnap my daughter.  Most small children are taught not to grab at someone carrying an oil lantern, because they spill and start fires, an issue the Senator's aunts seem to have overlooked.  However, the actual proof, the specific list of Senate Acts, is now gone. I am ordered to attend to nothing except catching Pirates, and that I can only command people assigned to find pirates.  That's some of you, and there are no pirates to be found."

"Your records are in the Keep," Joseline said, "and you are two weeks travel away, ordered not to distract the Inspectorate by communicating with it while you are trying to solve the pirate problem.  They can't easily solve the problem for you, assuming they want to try.   I understand Angela lined up the legal details, how they did it, but that does not generate proof of what was done, or a reasonable list of specific charges."

Angela intruded in the conversation.  "I gave the Senate exactly what they asked for.  They did not ask what a nonresidential day acolyte, namely me, did on her own time, and did not get what I developed on my time.  That material is in any event the commercial property of the House vrith-Martyn."

"Worse," Roxanne said, "the Senate has taken the position that the death is a highly sensitive matter, and therefore it should be investigated by a Senate Select Committee.  The Senate directed the Inspectorate to leave the matter to them, and the Inspectorate is loyal to the Senate."

"When I was younger," Tomas said, "lived in Dianasmere, and attended University, the Capitol was full of scandal broadsheets.  Dorothy's trial and the Senator's death seem neglected, from the sheets you brought."

"There was competing news," Gretchen said.  "There was a stack of strange items out of South-Shore, a School Trust Fund that was missing money, and that filled most of the space."

"It helps," Angela said, "to own the scandal sheets.  You don't hide the news, so no one can say 'conspiracy'.  You make enough noise that the undesirable news gets overlooked.  Sometimes you need for a reporter to have an accident that is clearly an accident.  The latter is probably very rare; it's too risky.  Giving the reporter a lead to a more interesting scandal is more effective.  The reporter is clearly there and well, and doing a great job, but it's on your choice of scandal, not her choice of scandal."

"By and by," Joseline said, 'The One World will learn of this.  If you are right, they will be a bit upset.  It will be—well, if the people doing this hang on firmly to their lawful gains, it will be like the Valley Time of Troubles.  Only worse.  But then people will recover the money, and things will calm down."

"Some people will recover some of the money," Angela said.  "The Fiscal Houses you mentioned.  I know them.  They invest in places like Letinvarhu, South-Shore, Adirolph Granda, even the Western Reach.  Places from which it is difficult to recover stolen money.  Money on the scale involved here might buy entire domains in the Western Reach.

"There remains the difficulty of capturing the miscreants," Tomas said, "so some of you can return home, and some of you can get about your business.  But most of you are legally bound not to do anything useful.  I am an Interlocutor, but these crimes did not occur in my jurisdiction.  I could contact the Interlocutor of Dianasmere, but she must already know about what happened.  She does not appear to be doing something.  Without facts, it's not that you can write a book.  You could shout from the rooftops, but you are unlikely to be heard.  So what can be done?"

"Greatmistress," Angela said, "I have a rules question.  Perhaps two rules questions.  May I ask them?"

"Angela," Roxanne said, "I am truly sorry you are involved in this.  Or not involved, because you were not doing the records search with Astrid and Brigitte, and you did not help rescue Dorothy.  You were just part of Astrid and Brigitte's tetrad, and ordered to follow them here to protect my daughter."

"True," Angela answered.  "But I'm a non-residential acolyte, the Sisterhood's for no more than half the full day—of course I have to sleep—and that for only six days in eight.  The other days, I'm a vrith-Martyn, my House invented for-fee investment counseling, and I should be free to work for my House.  Shouldn't I?"  She hesitated.  Tomas looked uncomfortable.  "Yes, I know banking is illegal in Domains, and I wouldn't dream of doing something illegal here."

Roxanne looked away, out at the horizon.  That was not what she had wanted to hear.  "If you are not doing anything illegal, immoral in the sense of the Senate Acts on morality—that means no more than three Mirrors at a time, if I recall correctly--likely to damage the good name of the Inspectorate with the Body Politic—that's not the same as the Senate--or likely to interfere with your ability to perform your responsibilities to the Sisterhood, you can work hard at making vrith-Martyn wealthy."  Different women, she told herself, landed on their feet in different ways.  Several of Gretchen's comrades-in-arms were in profound depression, to the point where even an infirmarian's potions could do little to enliven them.  Several others were scheming to return to the Keep, or to move their aunts here.  A vrith-Martyn appeared to see the answer as 'how can I make the most money?'  Or was Angela up to something?  "What was the other question?"

"Why have we been sitting here the last two months?" she answered.  "I think the formula is 'I crave the boon of the Interlocutor's private attention to call his attention to a serious crime committed against the people of Cismontane-by-the-Sea.'  That's not the Pirates."

"May I keep Roxanne and my dear sister as counselors?" Tomas asked.  Angela might say no. What was she thinking?

"This concerns the issue Roxanne is not allowed to investigate," Angela answered.  "I could investigate on my own time.  I see great potential profit for vrith-Martyn."

"Then I shall not investigate it. I must leave and not hear about this.  The rest of you are free to go," Roxanne answered, standing and fluffing her cape.  Profit? she wondered.

"Yes, Dorothy," Tomas said, "You may go off for another cooking lesson.  Unless your dearest mother protests."  Roxanne shook her head.  Tomas was permanently not quite comfortable with telling Dorothy what she might or might not do.  Dorothy had taken well enough to discovering he was her father, a parental discovery that most girls never made.  On the bright side, Dorothy had discovered that working in the Caer kitchens counted toward her duty to her circle, and that she was trusted to chop vegetables and break eggs while waiting for a cinnamon crust.  Or an apple.  Or another cinnamon crust.

"Lady Roxanne, did you know that Noralin City is a Senate Reserve Repository?" Angela asked innocently as Roxanne stood.

"No," Roxanne said, her disinterest showing in her voice. "I'd forgotten all about the repository reserves."  Roxanne kissed Tomas on one check and left the room. Angela's listeners were baffled.  To Tomas's eyes, Angela's face lit up like the proverbial cat about to walk off with a sirloin steak from an unprotected grill.

"That explains it!" Angela said unthinkingly.

"Explains what?" Tomas asked.  She really was a very clever young lady, if somewhat inquisitive about the local Bachelor's Circles.

"A what repository?" Joseline asked.  "They keep excess Senators in cold storage?"

"Records," Angela answered.  "During the Sea Eagle Incursions, the Great Senate decided that the Sea Eagles might burn the Capital, at which point where would our legal records be?  So they took dozens of extra copies of their full minutes, and established buildings hither and thither in well-fortified and several hidden places.  If one place burned, another would have everything in place, so the Republic could continue.  If you are far from Capitol, you can still do a records search."

The door closed behind the last of the women.  "And now, Angela, what is this serious crime?" Tomas asked.

"Assuredly, the people of Cismontane-by-the-Sea who live in the Republic pay taxes.  Some of those taxes are used to pay debts of the Great Senate, such as the debts generated by the conspiracy.  Thus, thanks to the Rotation Act, the conspiracy Greatmistress Roxanne uncovered, in addition to taking the money of people all across the Republic, takes money from the people of Cismontane by the Sea, a crime you are charged with investigating.  And I ask that you investigate it," Angela said.

"Interesting," Tomas said.  "There is one small difficulty.  I am an Interlocutor, not an Inspector.  I need a named crime, for example, that the two half-pence of wall fees I paid to Longbeachport on May 14th last year were diverted to paying the debts of Greathand Belladonna, such debts having been previously discharged.  I need a specification of precisely which money appears to have been taken.  I don't have any records of a specific Cismontane-by-the-Sea tax, say the Noralin City Waterfall Abundage, having been spent on an improper purpose.  I know.  I looked carefully at the documents you brought.  Alas, none of them involved local money."

"Tomas and I discussed this," June said.  "The Antifishing Laws are really clear, Tomas being an Interlocutor.  He can talk about the conspiracy, but he can't investigate to find an exact crime himself."

"Those are very important laws," Tomas said, "They protect every citizen from berserk Interlocutors."

"They are so important," Joseline added, "that the Domains copied them almost verbatim.  Except where we made them stronger."

"However," Angela said, "The conspirators outsmarted themselves."

"They did?" Tomas asked.

"Under the law, planning to steal money at a future date certain is a crime," Angela said, "As much as stealing it now.  That's different than 'someday it will happen here'.  Isn't it?"

"I should hope so," Tomas said.  "The three women Roxanne killed last Summer, rather, the three women who tried to murder her and came off second best, were planning on walking off with goods that had not yet been received.  The crime had not yet happened.  But it was a criminal act all the same, planned to happen the next week."

"The Rotation Act traps them," Angela said.  "Last year they walked with the Silvergate Town Wall Fees, a Class H tax, using it to buy endowments for Greathand Jimsonweed.    Tomas cannot investigate this crime because Silvergate is across the continent, not in his jurisdiction.  Under the act, each expense rotates down the list, town after town in year after year. Someday they reach a tax in Cismontane by the Sea."

"Someday is imprecise, dear," Tomas noted. "Date certain?"

"To be precise, the Class H tax rolls have 87,412 entries, listed in the copy in the Torinsdale library.  Knowing last year they walked with the Silvergate Town Wall Fees, I counted down the list, and the Northfort-Millersbridge Third Bridge Road fee will be reached by rotation down the rolls in the year 19,202.  That is a future date certain, diverting that money is a crime, and thus the conspirators have planned to commit a specific crime in this Shire at a future date certain," Angela said.  "Not a specified date in the near future, but a date certain, namely the year 19,202."

Tomas held up one hand.  "I hadn't thought of this line," he said, "but your point is well taken.  I was only looking for money taken last year, not money to be taken sixteen thousand years from now.  I hear your complaint, and will research the law, though what you have said sounds right.  Now the other half—how do you plan that we investigate this, the repository undoubtedly being watched, without revealing our hand?"

"Tent pegs," Angela answered.

"Tent pegs?" Tomas asked.

"Tent Pegs?" June echoed.

"Tent pegs," Angela said.  "As you said last week, if the Sea Eagles have returned, all you can do under the Senate Edict is ask for volunteers and donations.  Oh, you can tell the two hands of us to go arrest the Sea Eagle Greathost.  But if you ask for donations, you need to know how much things should cost, which you can answer by exhaustively researching how much was paid for them over the length of the Sea Eagle incursions.  So I will go to the Archives. I will write you a detailed report on the cost and procurement of tent pegs, every year starting twenty years before the incursion."

"How does this work?" Tomas asked.

"I go to the Repository," Angela said.  "I establish to my watchers, who I am not supposed to notice, that I am actually working on tent pegs, and nothing else, and that I work very slowly.  I will deliberately work very slowly.  I take all my notes in Martyn notehand, which is fairly hard to read.  Unless you are a Martyn, of course.  After a month or so my watchers will get totally bored and flee.  I continue to work on tent pegs.  Very hard and rapidly, and only an hour a day, but doing as much as before, with the rest of the time going to researching where Cismontane money went.  My deeper cover on tent pegs is the legitimate statement that I am looking for how House Martyn can profit when you need twenty thousand tent pegs, preferably yesterday, not to mention canvas and cordage.  Not, mind you, that I will decline the offer of a tent peg contract at an appropriate price, if one offers itself.  Indeed, in my two days of eight, I might usefully pretend—in the Republic—to be scouting shire Cismontane for vrith-Martyn investment opportunities."

Tomas leaned back on the couch.  His role as Interlocutor had always focused on specific crimes: "My sheep were stolen."  "The corpse was murdered." And, most recently, "This town is full with dead people."  There had never been any question of public cooperation with his work, except by the guilty. Now there was a huge series of crimes, and no one knew to complain.  Worse, the crimes were all financial.  He was a mage.  He had his sums and differences, and had even plumbed the depths of theoretical surveying, but complicated numerical research was outside his skills.  On the other hand, fishing for crimes was very decidedly a forbidden act.  What should he do?

"I will want to see," he announced, "written up in fair detail so I can understand it, the details of the specific crime you are proposing has been committed.  Fortunately, I do understand Crimes by Legislation, because soon after I came home I had to prosecute one.  The Union City Council passed an ordinance, taking several hovels that they wanted to tear down and replace with a promenade and enclosed market, and the poor women who lived in them had the wits to complain to me that their homes had been stolen.  Sent the City Council to jail, I did, and compelled Union to tear down the promenade and replace the homes.  With respect to your scheme to search the Repository, the rest of us will elaborate on it."  

Chapter Twenty
Caer Adurel, Torinsdale
The Goddess's First, 2447

Pipes played wildly in the distance.  It was Ascension Day, the day after the shortest day of the year, and most of the Caer, indeed almost all the One World, was given over to wild revelry.  Someplace, a few women stood watches, supervised the windmills that pumped water, tended hearths, and fed the sick and the beasts of the field.  Others had spent the day before cooking, and were now serving the feast they had prepared.  In almost every Circle, Mirrors tended carefully their endurance as they performed their obligations to The Five Who Are The Goddess.  In Torinsdale, the weather was dry, so crowds not drunk but not entirely sober danced in the plaza.

The Caer Library was still.  North facing windows captured the light of a sunny winter's day.  Copyist's desks were cleaned, ink wells and pens ceremonially cleaned three days before in preparation for the new year.

The Library door clicked shut. A solid thunk! was the lock seating again in its latch.  Evaine's stocking feet made no sound on the cold flagstone floor.  Over her tabard and tunic she wore her warm fleece robe; a blanket lay across one shoulder.  The library was not heated—not until someone invented a heating method that created no risk of fire—save by its interior walls.

She had slept soundly, risen for the Second Ascension prayer as the sun peered over the horizon, and after a pleasant breakfast gone back to bed for an additional hour.  Today she would make a serious effort to solve her puzzle, but for that effort she needed to be absolutely awake.  Walldaughters standing watch had been pleasantly surprised when she had made several times the rounds of the Caer walls, on the last bringing them each a sample from the kitchens. The brisk exercise brought her fully awake.  And what the exercise does not, she thought, the cold will.

The interesting map was spread out on the rear tables.  Copyists' tracing papers were set aside.  She had before her the North-Shore map and all of the books she had recovered from the Far North.  She opened her greatbook and diary, setting it by the map.  Paper was expensive. One of Tomas's artificing ideas, brought back from Capital, had made pencils fairly cheap.  She allowed cheap was in the pocketbook of the beholder. With her income, anything was expensive. She sat where her table would catch the light.  Her feet, now cold, came up on a stool, to be wrapped in her blanket.

She counted close to three hundred letters in the pirate code alphabet.  Half of them appeared only at the end of words, or, if her guess about direction of reading was correct, at the beginning of words.  You would expect majuscule letters to look almost exactly like their miniscule counterparts.  In some cases the two forms were the same.  Others did not match at all.  Fortunately, whoever annotated the North-Shore map had been more conservative, and had seemingly used only the presumed-to-be miniscule letters to record something.

What?  A few towns had very short names.  For every Cairo or Caisson, there were a dozen Glorianopolisburghvilles.  Fine.  But here was Cairo, and there was Caitha and here were Nero and Caira.  Next to the town names were notes in pirate codehand.  So far as she could tell, only two letters appeared by each name.  That, and towns of short name that became extremely long in the pirate code, convinced most that the notes were not the town names, transliterated.  There were speculations that the letters were a code, indicating 'here be loot' or the like. However, Cairo and Caitha had one letter in pirate code the same, and Cairo and Nero had the other letter the same.  She'd noticed that several weeks ago, and finally it had come to her:  The code letters could be syllables, not letters.  The count of syllables seemed small, but there might be some trick.

She had plenty of material to work with, because someone in extremely tiny print had listed what appeared to be the translated names not just of the towns but of all Sorority Greathands that were protecting them.  Help with the project would be interesting, but that seemed difficult to obtain.  Tomas was busy with his students and his—this—library, and his duties as Interlocutor and mage.  His assistants, the hands sent up from Capital, were pleasant girls, but barely able to understand what help she wanted, let alone solve it themselves.  The vrith-Martyn girl was decidedly an exception, but Tomas was working her to the bone on his project, whatever it was. Gretchen was no dummy.  After all, she'd found the actual conspiracy, but now being Dozenthleader and helping Angela with something soaked up her time.  Torinsdale women were an extremely practical-minded lot, whose response to 'we could learn more about the pirates' ran toward 'you killed him already, didn't you?'.  There had been a flurry of projects last fall, people trying to read the pirate code to read their strange books, so there were a lot of notes, and a good ordered list of all letters, but no decipherment.  No, if she wanted this task performed, she would have to perform it herself.

There was a certain need to be clever—how would she keep track of which letters she had already identified?  The pirate hand had an odd feature; printed letters were all made up from straight-cut lines, so the letters sorted by how many cuts they contained, from one—there were four of those—up through a monster formed from nineteen slashes.  Nadia Martinasdotr sorted letters with equal slashes from tallest to squattest, and set them out on several pages.  For two letters, Evaine already had a guess.  The rest would be elimination, perhaps with backtracking.  For the moment, she would stay with short names that coded as shorter names; the remainder might become clear with time.

The day wore on.  The room never had shadows.  Southerly skylights and the mirrored ceiling captured bright light.  Near noon, thirst drove her to step outside, don sandals, and visit the refectory.  Dancing had stopped to honor Second Recension.  Alas, her sober voice was clearer than the voices around her,Making obvious that she had never been able to hold a tune or find a note.  Care to choose a secluded point to sit and eat gave her quiet.  Then it was back to her mystery.

At some point, she realized that each consonant was assigned to every vowel, so setting letters on a grid, with rah and ree and rai and onwards in a line, made sense.  If she wanted to forward decode, working from the real word to the strange symbols, the grid let her find the code characters.  The coders were inconsistent, or clever: rah and nah and their like each had two characters, with no obvious rhyme as to when one or the other was used; here and there were words with too many code characters that used both forms.  Why, though, did Caer Adurel become Cai-ra-ra A-doo-re-la-la.  For a few moments, she got very silly, singing it as an Ascension Day carol. Oh!  If every character coded a syllable, la or fi or goo, how did you code letters that were not syllables?  Grella became Ga-re-la, but Port became po-ra-ra-ta-ta.  The answer was finally apparent. Early consonants got sounds the reader was supposed to skip, and near-terminal consonants got both ta's or la's. That mean that in the town Gref, the coding being Ga-re-?-fa, ? might well be read 'fa'.  Why two letters for 'fa', though?

Finally, it was not her eyes were getting tired, she thought, it was that it was damn near dark, and except in dire emergencies, which this was not, the library remained unlit.  She closed up her books, refolded the maps so they appeared undisturbed, washed her steel pen, and put the books away.  Tomorrow would be another day, and she seemed to have made the major steps.  Many major steps, anyhow. In a list of a dozen Sisterhood Greathands, all named after roses, eight ended in roh-sa, and the other four clearly ended tu-we-ri-li-sa-sa-pa-pa.  Twerlisp? Could there be two sets of codes?  Her mind was spilling with ideas, but in a world lit by fire and lantern rather than mythical magelights libraries closed at dusk.

She slipped back to her room, donned coat and boots, and began her rounds of the battlements.  She had been sitting much of the day, standing and stretching when she realized that she was getting stiff.  One thing she had not done was become sleepy.  She had engaged completely in the chase, enough that she had forgotten dinner.

She found Tomas and Roxanne and Dorothy on the High Tower.  Tomas had a large farseer, and was using it to show Roxanne and Dorothy the dents in the Shield and Bracers.  Tomas had showed her the same, a few years ago, explaining that three millennia ago, when farseers were new, belief in the Shield's dents had been viewed as heretical.  The Shield, after all, was Her Own Armor, and hence perfect.  With time, calmer heads had advanced the sensible explanation, namely that the Shield and Bracers were not items of artwork to be hung over a fireplace or above library shelves, but were Her Working Arms And Armor, which, naturally showed the gnaw-marks where the Dark Wyrm had bitten on them.  Once the dents had been given a rational explanation, women ignored them, and mages drew extremely careful pictures, assigning a different name to each circle where a tooth had impacted.  Four circles of the battlements, an hour walk in the bright light of the Shield, had let her bring refreshment to each person on guard, give her a chance to nibble a few sandwiches, and move from peak alertness to the drowsiness that precedes deep sleep.  

Later, she was not sure if she had had a waking dream, while still on her feet, or if she had seen the obvious.  She had captured this very thick book on the Sea Eagles.  All efforts to persuade Sea Eagles to talk, whether gentle persuasion or Archimagical torture, had been equally unsuccessful, Sea Eagle captives committing suicide when given the least opportunity.  Until then, they jabbered nonsense syllables to insult their interrogators, daring their interrogators to persuade them to say real words.  However, she had made the time to read the standard manuals on the Sea Eagles, manuals she had heretofore skipped as being less important than other matters, and their battle cries were well known, a different cry being linked to each shield glyph.  Perhaps, someplace in the great thick book on the Sea Eagles, the author had recorded those cries.  Recovering meaningful words from that text would be an interesting test of the decoding.  That was a puzzle for the end of the week.  Now she wanted a warm quilt and a decently soft bed.

* * * * *

The day was gray with rain.  The Ascension Holiday had days to run, the last day being the wildest.  By custom Second-Day was spent on cleaning and fixing and bringing all to order, not to mention recovering from hangovers occasioned by the prior day's events.  For Tomas, with his suite, cleaning was much work; Evaine had a simple room with bed, cedar chest for Summer clothes, and a dresser for other clothing.  Gail had her own room, and was scrupulous about keeping it neat and clean.  That was one of the many wonderful things about Gail as a younger sister.  Her work clothing was the Caer's, cared for by the laundry and metalworkers; her own personal clothing was very limited.  She did ritually borrow a broom, sweep under the bed and dresser and all around, and leave the pane and counterpane on the bed open to air.  
Snirch!  I love the clothing cared for by metalworkers!  

She had slept the sleep of the exhausted, waking a little before dawn.  Yesterday she had bathed very early, today she washed, and tomorrow the baths would again be clean, though if she quit early she might be helping to clean them this evening.  She was still among the first to the kitchens, meaning that she smiled innocently and chopped onions and potatoes and apples for the morning meal. Custom prescribed that on this day the first to the kitchens would do the cooking, a task some avoided with vigor.  Usually the cooks were not too horrified by what emerged.  After all, it was truly difficult to make a complete disaster out of scrambled eggs or toasted day-old bread.

She worked briskly, so other could see she had done more than her share; having sampled what each of her fellow cooks made, she wandered off with a basket 'to feed the walldaughters', finally returned the empty basket, and vanished.  She had told the senior walldaughter where she might be found, though in a serious emergency the clangour of the tocsin would bring her out far [long] before a messenger could reach her.

Gretchen and Angela had made a list from north to south of every town and Greathand whose name had been recopied in pirate code, and a fair copy of the pirate code.  Her first task, which might need through Summertide Holidays, would be to take the list, and for each pirate name set out what sounds it became.  She would find syllables she had missed, check the copying, check each character appeared in her alphabetic list and her grid list, and see if everything worked.   A little thought said there were about 600 names, meaning close to 4000 characters to work though.  Perhaps by Summerheight eve she would finish.

She worked through one character after the next, finding as time went on that she remembered more and more characters.  At some point she became more efficient in how she worked. Yesterday she had made a number of mistakes.  That was not surprising.  Gretchen and Angela had made rather more errors.  After a bit, she fell into first checking what they had done.  She did not blame them. Copying gibberish squiggles, she saw, when you did not know when two squiggles differed through handwriting variation and when two squiggles differed because they were not the same character, must have been a horrific challenge.

One word followed the next while remote shadows drifted across the room.  Once she found she was making unreasonable numbers of errors, and took a walk.  The Caer was relatively quiet, with large numbers of women catching a prolonged early-afternoon nap to catch up with sleep lost last night.  Tonight many would get even less sleep.  The refectory was almost empty.  A half-hour washing dishes brought her more fully awake, not to mention earning credit with the outnumbered staff, those who were on duty rather than celebrating.  

Day followed day.  Finally it was Fifth-Day.  Late afternoon found her half way through the list.  She had matched more characters with the likely names, and concluded that the pirate scribe, whoever had annotated the map, spoke with a slight accent, so that to her the vowels in fee and die approached being one and the same, and were used almost interchangeably.  Tomas was not around to hear the interpretation, but it seemed likely that he would approve.  

* * * * *
Caer Adurel, Torinsdale
Thaw 1, 2447

The Spring Holiday had arrived.  Evaine's Levy was off visiting friends and family.  She had another chance to put a sustained effort into her decoding puzzle.  In any event, there were a dozen Sea Eagle chants.  For each, she could estimate how the Pirates would encode the Sea Eagle cheer.    Could she possibly find those particular words in five hundred pages of pirate text?  As it turned out, she could, and almost immediately.  The chants matched titles of a dozen later chapters, in three cases precisely.  In two cases, only the first character was mismatched; she chalked that up to a difference between small and capital lettering.  The remaining cases gave her probable new letters.

Each chapter had illustrations, showing several Sea Eagle warriors in different sorts of armor, atlatl – or so was the Sea Eagle chant before the spearthrowers were used – spearthrowers, dart blowers, swords.  Chapter by chapter, the pictures under each chant matched old manuals on Sea Eagles, except whoever wrote the pirate book was more interested in artifacts than in chants.  For the manual authors, largely aging members of the Swordsisters setting down experience, the association of chants with tactics had been the main focus.  The association of artifacts and chants was an interesting aside. Each set of chanters had differing tactics, but all used more or less the same spearthrowers, poor bows, obsidian-inlaid wood or bronze swords, and cotton armor. 

What did the chants mean, she wondered?  Were they some sort of Secret Society?  Sects, the way the Archimagate had black and blue and gold-robes?  She leafed through twenty pages on a chanter group, her eyes falling on a strange illustration.  Comparison with the captured maps led to recognition.  The illustration was a peculiarly stylized map of a specific part of the lands of the Sea Eagles.  If you allowed that particular groups of symbols marked towns, the names matched one and one.  

Several other pages gave a table.  One column had pirate marks in a strange order, and the other?  There was an example of using the table, a picture.  The illustration showed a Sea Eagle holding a large shield, standing by a column.  The shield bore a heraldic glyph, which was the first character of the encoded word on the column.  A pair of columns matched each Sea Eagle code character to Pirate codes, leading to a Pirate code she had no difficulty reading, because it was the chant that named the book chapter.  The purpose of the Table was then obvious: It was an encryption chart, permitting someone to convert between the Pirate and Sea Eagle codes.  The Table's author had scrupulously listed for each Sea Eagle code at least one pair of pirate code characters.  In each case where she knew the answer the pair was the miniscule and majuscule forms of the Pirate codes.  In one stroke, she had doubled her decryption success, because now the majuscule forms she had not yet tried to understand had been handed to her on a golden platter.  Almost every majuscule and miniscule character was paired, so she could construct tables letting her pronounce most of the Pirate printed code set.  There remained dozens of characters not used on the maps.   There was no obvious way to learn how they were pronounced.  Writing all that out is a usable form took her the rest of the morning, enough that she did not finish until well after lunch.  At the end, it occurred to her that no one ever said that Sea Eagles had writing.  There were odd scrawls on captured shields.  Now she could read—well, decode from Sea Eagle to Pirate to letters—the scrawls on a shield.  What did it all mean, though?

She wonder why the Pirates went to such a great difficulty to write so peculiarly, rather than simply keeping sensitive written materials under lock and key.  After all, if large numbers of people could read the code—clearly the case, or no one would have bothered to typeset book—encoding would not keep it secret.  Too many people could still read the book.  Why, then, did the pirates print books?  Perhaps a walk would clear her head.

* * * * *

A harsh wind drove towering clouds across the open skies.  Atop the Sea Tower, watchers huddled under heavy coats.  Dark shadows and bright sunlight patches flitted across the Vale.  

"The best of the day," Evaine said, her head peeping out of the staircase.  "The basket is still warm from the kitchen, though I am to be scrupulous about recovering the cloths wrapping the loaves."

"Her Hand shield you," Nadia-sa-Dianasdotr answered.  "Tis a fine brisk day, the Boy's Own Ocean Wind keeping [keeps] you fresh and alert."  She and her fellow watchers rapidly shared the loaves and slabs of cheese.  "You are always most kind to remember us, these last Days of Winter."

 "You are most welcome," Evaine answered.  "I am walking the castle walls.  I might as well do aught useful at the same time.  I've been in the library all morning, and was stiff and tired."

 "The Librarian is keeping hours?" Nadia asked.  "I'd have expected her to offer a half-hand near noon at most.  She has earned her Springhint Holidays as much as us."

 "She is, I expect, enjoying the presence of her Circle's Mirror.  He is new and young.  She is the only woman in her circle not yet a mother rather than a grandmother.  I've been trying to read pirate books.  The books about which so many jokes were made last fall," Evaine answered.  There had been jokes, mostly about the Pirate Manual on Honoring Obligations, and the peculiar range of methods it pictured.  Nadia had been one of several women who had tried unlocking the Pirate's code, each effort foundering on the impossibly large number of letters in the pirate alphabet.

 "I did find a solution," Nadia said.  "It is that in addition to having no idea what to do in a woman's presence, the pirate authors had no idea how to spell, and to hide this difficulty made up large numbers of nonsense letters."  The women all laughed at the joke.

 "This may yet be partly true," Evaine said.  "However, I have learned the reading of the pirate code."

"I congratulate you," Nadia said.  "How do you spell Caer in two letters?  I could never get beyond that."

"Three letters," Evaine said, "the last two writ almost atop each other.  They are not letters.   They are syllables. Pirates spell 'Caer' as "cai-ra-ra' and pronounce 'ra-ra' as 'R'.  Sa and sea and sigh and so and sue are each a different, single letter.  Of names on the map I can read many.  'Rose' now becomes 'ro-sa'."

"Evaine, that is astonishing," Nadia said.  

"It is one of these things where, once you see what to do, you only had to do it.  I needed a walk to wake up. The pirates have a second code under the first, which I have not yet read, unless you can find a pun that turns 'twerlisp' or tu-we-ra-ra-li-sa-sa-pa-pa into 'rose'."

"That was nine letters for 'rose'?" Nadia asked.  "When I saw how many letters came from one word, I decided there was no way I was looking at a code."

"I read one part of one pirate book.  The Sea Eagle book.  The Sea Eagles, each group of chanters, used their own codes.  The Sea Eagle book has a cross table between pirate and Sea Eagle codes," Evaine said.  "So, the Sea Eagle shields in the library, each with a glyph on its face? I can read each glyph. It matches a Sea Eagle chant.   It's like the Levy marching into battle shouting 'Torinsdale' and holding shields with large 'T's on them."

"There were several hands of women, Tomas, several mage friends of his who appeared for several days to supervise the copying, all while you were at Northfort last fall, all failing to break the code.  No one could make sense of it." Nadia asked.

"My friends did all the work.  I just had to write down the answer.  I did one small step, or two, pretty obvious things, and did some the cross-comparing.  Tomorrow I will know what the books say…unless they are double coded," Evaine answered.

"Why would anyone double-code a book?" Nadia asked.  "Actually, why even single code it?  These people are even more secretive than Mages.  I mean, everyone knows there is an Archimagate.  Mages publish lots of clever books.  No one knew there were pirates.  If they hadn't left behind the dead pirate in Longbeachport, we still might not know they were not Sea Eagles.  When the so-called secret of flying got stolen and published, fifty years ago, it wasn't in code; the book had just been locked up in the Dark Mountains.  There seem to be hundreds of pirates, and pirate boats, and pirate book publishers.  Their engravings are good.  The maps are well-drawn but crazy.  I believe that there are some little islands out over the horizon, places where She gave The Boy a nip on the shoulder, but the map islands are bigger than the Vale.  Yes, I remember your guess as to how big they are."

"To publish a book," Evaine said, "you need papermakers, and typecasters for that weird type and engravers and binders, not to mention artists who know where to find Sea Eagles, and money to pay these people for doing nothing useful.  You only print books if you want lots of copies.  Someone has to encode a whole crate of writing, which took an astonishing lot of work, not to mention someone had to make up the books.  One matches the pirate domains map, and I think is full of battle reports of battles that never happened. Not to mention they are not printed on normal paper, nor linen paper, and no one else seems to know what the not-paper is, other than very tough and very fine-textured.  Unless the pirates do nothing but write crazy books as practical jokes, those books were not from a place as small as the Vale.  A huge group a crazy people?  I will find out if the books are double coded or not, but if they are all written by crazy people I will not be surprised if I finally learn they are nonsense."

"Why would anyone code a book on Sea Eagles? It's not [like] there have been any since my grandmother was born," Nadia said.

"Perhaps I will learn," Evaine said, "but not by standing here, not to mention that my cape is far thinner than your coats, and I am getting a bit chilled.  You'll be back at the twilight watch?  Then I will have some answers."

* * * * *

A far more tired Evaine trudged up the stairs of the High Tower.  Shadows were lengthening eastward.  Soon the shadows of the Sea Hills would encroach on the Caer Walls, its Keep, and finally the green and gold porcupine banner that flew from the High Tower.  She had spent a full day of hard work, and had almost nothing to show for it other than an ink stain on one finger. 

The High Tower was almost empty.  The two statutory watchdaughters were there, but no one else.  Hilda Hildasdotr was looking out toward the Sea Tower, not noticing Evaine had arrived until she was half way across the deck.

"Good evening," Hilda called.  "Happy Ascension Day!"

"And to you also," Evaine said.  "It has been a happy week.  I hope you were not up here all afternoon?"

"Not hardly.  I had to stay sober today, which once a time would have bothered me, but not any more," Hilda answered.  "And I hear from Nadia you had close and intimate relations with a stack of books?"

"We suffered a lover's quarrel.  At least, I could not get them to rise for me," Evaine joked.  "But I settled the coding question.  I think."

"And that is?" Hilda asked.

"Neither double nor triple coded," Evaine answered.  "I can read aloud from any of them, very slowly.  There are letters I don't know.  They are much more melodic than the maps.   However."

"However?"  Hilda responded.

"However, when I read aloud, I chant nonsense syllables.  From the map, I can read 'Caer Adurel' or 'goladena rosa', for Golden Rose. From books I read 'kiritara panogomu', which is no word I can imagine.  So I thought at first they were double encoded, except this time I do not have a transliteration to help me break the coding.  The books have too many one-syllable words.  Then I realized one-syllable words were different in different books.  The capitalization was not the same either.  One book is filled with capitalized words; another has almost none.  The capitalized words had other short words before them, like 'the'.  Those  words were never used in other books.  I identify a few words in two books, and what they mean.  There are chapter numbers.  The word with the chapter number, the same each time, must spell "Chapter".  Six books had three words for "chapter".  The books on battles and the Sea Eagles had drawings of weapons.  I think I can guess words for 'spear' and 'sword'.  The words are entirely different in three books.  The books are double encoded with three different codes.  Why?  One code is bad enough.  Three?  I'm not sure it's word for word.  One book has way too many articles and prepositions.  It's so complicated."

"Perhaps there's a trick," Nadia said.  "These people have to read their books. Enormously complex codes…how can a normal human being read them at a glance?"

"I don't know," Evaine said, "except knowing how to pronounce each word is not enough. The sounds I speak must be replaced with other sounds. I found a word for spear.  In a drawing of an atlatl with a word after atlatl, which by the way is not encoded, you expect 'spear thrower'.  The code for 'spear' is not in the next word.  In fact, every word from a Sea Eagle chant I can read aloud, and the sounds are the chants in our manuals.  The table converting from pirate to Sea Eagle works. When Sea Eagle inscriptions are recoded in Pirate, the Pirate pronounces correctly as Sea Eagle code. That recoding works fine on shields in our library.  So things about Sea Eagles are not double coded."

"There was a very strange and old play," Hilda said.  "The villains hid their deeds, or tried to, by replacing words with other words, so 'steal' became 'give to charity'.  The Lost Sailor, that was it.  Performed here by a troupe from South-Shore, when I was a little girl.  Except it was so clever.  They introduced the phrases, one at a time, over a few hours. By the end of the play a villain gave a speech, half his words nonsense, but if you had lost yourself in the play you understood him clearly.  Perhaps the code is with words, so 'kitiriti panmogu' means 'chocolate brandy', and the reader is supposed to say 'kitiriti panmogu' and know that chocolate brandy is meant."

"It's…Oh, I see.  That makes sense.  But you would have to know a separate code word for every single word that there is," Evaine said.  "I see how it works.  Your idea explains everything.  But it's like the swordfight in Nimue and the Greathand of Darkness. She fights five dozen villains at once, leaves their body parts spread across the ground, and is not greatly hurt herself.  How could anyone do that?  It can't be done.  I have read of army commanders who could name every sword-daughter in their greathost, and their mothers. That was a unique feat of brilliancy.  If you memorized all the names, why bother changing the alphabet?  Kitirata pamnogu is already incomprehensible.  Why not just use normal letters?  I agree, you explain everything, except why.  But it's a really clever explanation."

"That's easy," Hilda answered.  "I looked at all the figures in all the books.  The pirates pretend to be from a land ruled by men.  They must all be idiots.  Why shouldn't their books be idiotic, too?"

"Fair enough."  Evaine giggled.  She hadn't considered that aspect of all the illustrations, but they were greatly short of women doing things.  The pirates thought their lands were ruled by incompetents and dilettantes.   How could a group of fools concoct something so complex as word coding?  "In four months, it is Summertide. I get another half-week to work on this.  Perhaps before I am old I will have read these books."

"There are tricks for decoding," Hilda said, "Supposedly counting looms make them simple, if we had a counting loom."  Evaine considered Hilda might as well have wished for a flijtschiff.

"There are counting loom tricks," said the other watcher on the tower.   Angela-vrith-Martyn looked briefly over her shoulder then back to the segment of Vale she was watching.  "But nothing that cannot be done by hand.   That's how Gretchen and I did letter indices for you, Evaine.  Sorting tricks.   If you want exactly the same thing done many times, like totaling accounts, looms are incredible.  But decoding is only similar things.  Words are too rich, too varied and textured, to shrink to a few numbers."

"For your indices I am most profoundly grateful," Evaine responded.  Angela had a talent for standing unnoticed.  In the twilight she had almost blent into the walls.  "But where do you know of counting looms?"  Can I rely on her, Evaine wondered?

"My Circle, my House, owns several.  I did my first precepting when I was ten.  I've been a Keyholder of the Looms of the House of Martyn since, since before I had my first boy.  And I was early with that.   Counting looms are wonderful tools, faster but far less clever than in tales.  When you become a Preceptor, your learn preception tricks, ways of doing in a few steps what could be done in many. Those were effective for the problem you are trying to solve.  With which I would gladly help you, if I had more time left after my tasks for the Interlocutor.  I did a little, and meant to tell you, but our paths never cross."

"What are you doing for Tomas?" Evaine asked.  "Allowing that it is not secret from me, who am but his Banneret, Apprentice, and Cornet."

"If it's secret from you, no one told me," Angela answered.  "I am not supposed to tell others.  Some guilty parties tried to kill Gretchen twice, and Dorothy once that I know of, and will try to kill me if they learn what I am doing. Will you hold it secret?"  Seeing the other women assent, she continued.  "I should keep some eye on the Vale, though it might be challenging to find sober warriors other than us to defend the Caer.  I go regularly to Noralin City, and spend a week or two with Mages there.  Officially, I am researching what it cost to fight Sea Eagles.  How many tent pegs.  How many pennies the peg.  That sort of thing.  Noralin City has a complete set of Senate Records.

"So I do the research I say I'm doing.  It say it's very slow.  I work very fast and very hard.  Because in the hidden time, I am collecting information for Tomas's report to the Great Senate.  The people who tried to kill Gretchen relieved Greatmistress Roxanne of her authority to inspect.  They forgot Tomas's power extends over all Cismontane-by-the-Sea.  Now Tomas is making a careful investigation on a crime to be committed here.  Someday. Once I learned how to search efficiently, matters became far easier to uncover."

"Something was stolen?" Evaine asked.

"Money," Angela answered.  "Money.  Unbelievable amounts of money.  Far more than was stolen in Great Valley Time of Troubles.  All by perfectly legal means, too. Almost.  I am writing his report.  When I am done we may be allowed to go home, some of us.  I could say more, but…if I said 'Public Endowment, Privately Held' or 'Old Business Algol', would you know what I meant?  Other than 'we don't have them in the Vale.'?" Evaine shook her head.  "Fair enough.  In any event, Evaine, I thought you'd find the other part more interesting."

"Other part?" Evaine asked.

"There are three pirate books on battles.  They have funny diagrams that I think show how the battle was fought, which greathands went where.  But mixed in are drawings of pirate hosts and vasthosts and how they fought, once upon a time. You remember those pirate coins Tomas found?  They had numbers, years on them.  The battle pictures had numbers, from almost the numbers on the coins going back a thousand years.  Some  pictures were battles with, well, they look like Sea Eagles.  The others, all that time?  Clothing kept changing.  Weapons did not.  Funny spears like the one you found.  Men with swords.  Blocks of pike.  Things I couldn't figure out.  And clouds.  They seem to spend a lot of time throwing sand or blowing smoke or something, so part of the battlefield you can't see from the rest."

"Now that's worth knowing," Evaine said.  "So pirates actually fight with those spears. What I'd like to do is give myself a swift kick in the backside.  I spent all this time trying to read funny letters. I kept working just on the map, the one place where I knew what the words said.  I missed the obvious.  The books show people with swords and armor.   You could get facts out of pictures.  How do they fight?"

"A lot like us," Angela said.  "I'm, my house expected me to become a banker, so I studied finance.  But the Inspectorate demands I know how to use all sorts of weapons.  I was doing my Circle's obligations to the Senate.   I spent lots of time learning weapons and fighting.  Not like the Greatmistress, of course.  But an Inspector might fight, and might need to inspect Swordsister records, so we had to learn enough."

"I can see where I am going to have to speak with Tomas tomorrow," Evaine said.  "This is really important. I need your time to show me. So how do they fight?"

"Big blocks of men with those funny spears.  Pikes.  Cavalry, with swords.  Funny things I can't figure out.  Unless they roll beer tubs into battle.  City drawings showed walls, like the Caer," Angela said.  "There were drawings, men fighting Sea Eagles.  Of course, they were men, so you don't expect skill, but a lot of them were not wearing any armor.  The Sea Eagles were cutting them up."

"Tomorrow," Evaine said.  "It's a Shield Day.  Can you meet me at breakfast?  Then we can look at the books again," Evaine asked.  

"Sure," Angela said.  "I'm happy to."

Chapter 21
Northfort, Torinsdale
Summertouch 13, 2448

The heat of full summer bore down on the open fields around Northfort. The sun's glare was masked by thin clouds, but Evaine still wore her broad-brimmed straw hat.  The sun might not be sharply visible, but her rays could still burn an unprotected face.  On a day like today, she had to be careful not to work into the ground the women she was training.  She'd had to be more and more careful of that.  The weather was hot.  The part of the day she spent on formation drill was bringing her to higher and higher levels of conditioning.  Her new women, fresh from their vocations, were healthy but no more fit than the last group of new women, or the group before that, or any group she had had in the now-more-than-a-year that she had been training the Formed Levy.  They were mixed with four Greathands of women who had passed through the training cycle a half-year ago, and were now having their skills brought to peak condition.   Skimming off the best handleaders from prior cycles and making them her assistants made it possible for her to do all the work she wanted done, though she had worried—if the best handleaders were here, what should be said of the women actually leading individual hands?

She hoped that she could pass off all training to the selected handleaders.  So far her hopes were being satisfied.  Drilling women in sword and bow and polearm required intensive work, but that work largely involved repetition.  Memories of the Sea Eagles meant that an adequate number of women stayed in good practice with some weapon, even before they reached her training grounds.  Formation drill was more challenging. Drilling formations to respond to pipes had not been easy.  No one had ever done it before, not in Torinsdale.  With enough repetition it could be learned.  She had kept matters simple.  On South-Shore, a first line unit might respond to a hundred or more different bugle calls and hand gestures.  That sort of training took years to attain.  It fell apart if you fought several battles and brought in large numbers of replacements.  She had selected a far smaller number of tunes.  To choose the right tunes, tunes every woman would know and could pick easily out of the tumult of battle, she had taken the advice of others.

At the moment, all was quiet.  She had marched the formations off the field, to rewater and sit in the shade.  If she wanted to stand in the open and do her own sword-drill, not at the slower times to which her women trained, that was up to her.  And if she wanted to stand under the shade of her own tree, sipping water tart with vinegar, that was also her privilege.  She had first discussed the early afternoon's work with the handleaders, letting them do the talking.  There was the usual grumbling about rational training.  The grumbles had muted now that the women could see how effective rational training was, especially for archery.
 
To her surprise, maneuvering in greathands had worked well, even the first time. Perhaps that was not too surprising.  The greathand maneuvers, seventy women moving as a single block, were simply the hand maneuvers writ large.  The same commands were used.  It had still been surprising, the first day that eight trained greathands were present at once, to assemble them up in a line and sound advance, to see nearly six hundred right feet striking forward at the first sound of the pipes.  Over a half-mile of advance, the formation held reasonably together.  Reversing the facing and marching the line back across the field while marching at a time and a half had left the line in fair order.  Archer drill, the halberd line kneeling so archers could fire over their heads at announced ranges, had worked adequately.  They had drilled that more.  The slow backwards march, face to the enemy, was clumsy.  They drilled a great deal more of that, on rough ground and slopes as well as the drill field.  Most women did not like to walk in a direction in which they could not see.  Keeping step under those conditions was demanding.  It could still be done.  Evaine did not intend to use the maneuver on the battlefield if it could be avoided. An unpracticed host might still need to disengage.

Her Grace the Landgrafin remained imprecise as to how large a formed levy she wanted.  Evaine had been unable to give good advice.  If she were confident that the Pirates were Sea Eagles in different clothing, a hard core of formed troops and the low levy should be more than adequate.  The historical Sea Eagles lined up in crude rows, a very colorful mob of brilliantly-dyed clothing and cotton armor, and charged pell-mell across the field, their initial line spreading out as faster men outran their neighbors.  They had been men, too, but surprisingly tough to fight, though Sea Eagles never quite learned that hitting formed lines when you were disordered and spread out was inadvisable as a battle tactic.

None of this took her anyplace personally.  She might be respected, but to gain entry to an established Circle you needed some evidence of your ability to earn a substantial income, pay your entry fee, care for your sisters in your Circle, help raise children, and not overwork the Circle's Mirror.  She qualified poorly on any of these, not that she often had time for the last of them.  For the first, she had neither true income, nor any chance for any unless someone wanted to buy a copy of her maps.  The Archimagate had sent one copyist who was extremely precise but exceedingly slow.  Someday, she would be paid for one or two map copies.  

There were Circles formed by women whose life objective was day laborer.  If you wanted to sit around and drink hard cider from dinner into the night, night after night, it was an option.  In her experience, which she felt no need to repeat, getting drunk was unpleasant during, more unpleasant while, and most unpleasant after.  Such Circles raised their children, if they had any, poorly.  Most of them recognized their limits and avoided children as much as possible.  At least Gail was doing very well, maturing into a fine young woman.  She had passed through the Vale's school expectations, reading and rhetoric and figuring and toolwork several years before many of her friends.  She spent more and more of her time with the Rosemistress, or sitting in the library reading the books the Rosemistress directed.  Fortunately Lady Cheryl raised no complaint that her Banneret-Third did less work for the Caer.  She said that Evaine made up for her sister.
 
She should let the women take a while longer to cool off.  She really had worked them hard today.  A stare into the distance revealed a rider coming along the North Road.  From the dust, her horse was moving at a gallop.  Whoever it was, the rider should be more restrained, before one or more of the local priestesses threw a fit about mistreating the Goddess's animals.  Evaine hoped none of those people ever saw horse cavalry after it had made a charge.  Now the rider was reining in to turn at Northfort's main road.  That became more interesting, because the rider had to be coming here, and there were few people a rider could be in such a hurry to meet.  Few people, that is, other than one Evaine-sa-Orowan.  When the rider closed on the field, Evaine slipped off her hat and waved it vigorously.

The rider slowed to a walk and turned for her.  Wilma-sa-Velmasdale, she recognized, one of the women with the force the Landgrafin had posted north of the Millersbridges, on land that was nominally hers, though never before used by Torinsdale.  Wilma brought her horse to a stop and dismounted in a clean vault.

"Welcome to Northfort, Wilma," Evaine announced.  "Is there news?" She whistled for a runner, directing her to have the horse led away, walked, cared for, and watered.

"There is indeed news," Wilma answered, "and after I have told you, I must ask for a fresh mount, for I have ridden today the twenty-odd miles from the Ice Tower, and must ride most of another thirty to take news to Caer Adurel.  Unless a sunspeaker net is up and running?"  Evaine shook her head at the last question.  She had repeatedly urged the Landgrafin to put up a sunnet.  Equally often, the Landgrafin had noted the expense.  

"Mounts we have," Evaine agreed, "and one will be ready for you shortly."  She gestured at two of the women who surrounded her.  "News you have."

"The Pirates," Wilma said, "have reappeared.  A modest group on barges, in Saint Dana's bay—that's about ten miles north of the Hot Springs Spa.  They landed late yesterday, and today appear to be camping.  Inland from them, marching in loose column, perhaps 1500 men, wagons, perhaps a greathand of horse cavalry, the men in the livery of the Longbeachport marauders.  The column makes slow progress.  They were spotted the day before yesterday by scouts, and appear to be marching perhaps eight miles in a day at the most.  They veered to the coast at Saint Dana's bay, and this morning were offloading barrels and boxes from the barges."

"Fifteen hundred men?" Evaine asked.  "How are they formed?  How do they march?"  The Republic defenses of the Millersbridges, even if their low levy showed up rather than fleeing, was going to be outnumbered.  Her formed levy, and the High Levy, and the local Sisterhood Greathands, might match their numbers, if they all showed up at once.  Ignoring, of course, that her formed levy had never been tested in the field.

"A large column," Wilma answered.  "I saw it.  A dozen—that's a pure dozen, twelve—men across.  About a pace open spacing left to right.  About six paces between each rank and the next.   They don't march in step or count cadence.  The second group of five hundred men had its own band, playing brass instruments and drums, not that well.  Those men might have been listening, but were not paying attention, because each man picked up his feet whenever he saw fit.  And they were followed by an extensive baggage train, at least as long as the men on foot."

"Sweet Goddess, what a packet of men," Evaine said.  "The two Sorority greathands in the Millersbridges must be outnumbered, oh, twenty to one as a round number."

"They will be attacked in a few days," Wilma said.  "Perhaps tomorrow.  If the pirates are up to mischief."

"I doubt they are here for tea and watercress sandwiches," Evaine said.  "If they marched today from Saint Dana's Bay, they would get to Hot Springs Spa in late afternoon, and tomorrow they would get involved with the Millersbridges.  But if they are resupplying, and at that rate of march they needed a week to march from Gwendolyn's Bay and would need resupply, they might need a day or two.  Did anyone get close to them?"

"No, Evaine.  Their horsemen, riding in pairs, wove a net around them.  Their column was half a mile or more long.  Sneaking close was not done.  We had several people we hid in deep brush, right along their path, dug in and camouflaged, but their column swerved for the bay at that point, and no one got close," Wilma said.  "One of the women who'd gone north with you took a hill position with a good farseer and counted them as they marched."    

Evaine blew twice on her whistle. "Mistresses and trainers.  Here!  Now!" She turned back to the messenger.  "Is there a dispatch?  We're getting you a horse, and if you stop at the refectory we can feed and water you—that's a long ride ahead."  She scanned the dispatch.  "Good reporting, but you said it all. Her Hand shield you!" she waved farewell to Wilma.  "The rest of you, listen up.  We have eight greathands here.  They will go back to dormitories, strip from training kit, bathe, don full combat march gear—yes, the gear we inspected yesterday, so I know everyone has it in good order, pack march kit, stack training padding for the laundresses, tag off two women per greathand to guard the dormitories, fill water bags, draw four days iron rations. You, without exception, will be ready to march by late afternoon.  Yes, that's a bit late.  That's because we're doing this for real.  Training staff will load the march wagons with the march kits, all the available slotbow bolts, other items as per plan—I know we are short of bolts—and be ready to go by the same hour.  We've been practicing this every third day.  My compliments to the cooks, and don't start dinner.  We are marching to Borderfort and will eat there.  Yes, if you dilly-dally your march will end after dusk.  The Northfort support staff will carry out their packing plan, and by the evening of the day after tomorrow move field support as planned to Borderfort.  

"Messengers, we've been over the plan before.  You are to cover the northern Vale. Summon the formed levy to appear in Borderfort by tomorrow noon.  I have authority to spend money; this can always be said after the fact to be a calling-out practice.  We were supposed to do one this summer.  However, in each town you should tell the village council that there are perhaps two thousand pirates a day's march north of Millersbridge.  They should see to their low and high levies.

"Two thousand pirates?  1500 on foot and horse.  200 in boats.  All the people riding in wagons and carting goods.  I don't believe a wagon train longer than a column of march, but a cart for two hands might be the case.

"Dania, I will have a message for you, for the Landgrafin and Caer Adurel.  In short, I am assembling the northern Formed Levy so it is ready as needed.  I am urging the Landgrafin to summon the southern Formed Levy from the southern Vale, assemble at Center, then march north.  It would certainly be timely if the Landgrafin were also to summon the entire High Levy to Borderfort, and to leave Walldaughters and the low levy to guard towns and the Caer.

"Ceria, you are to ride now to Borderfort, be sure their gates are closed and barred, and tell them we are coming for dinner.  The Cavalry Greathand is spread along the northern border.  They are to be assembled at Borderfort with their reserve Sisters, by tomorrow noon—preferably, by tomorrow morning.  I expect we are going to need reconnaissance, and a lone rider is not going to do that, not if the other gal has a cavalry screen."
* * * * *

The sky was its pre-dawn steel, shading slightly toward pink where the sun would eventually rise. Evaine stood on the wall of Northfort, a mug of tea in one hand, looking out toward the northern horizon.  All was quiet.  The messenger who had arrived from the north just at sunset reported that the pirates remained at Saint Dana's bay, still unloading from barges, with a lackadaisical effort to throw up trenchworks around their tents.  Once the pirate column had gone into camp, most of the horsedaughters, no, cavalrymen, had likewise gone into camp, leaving pairs of riders on rises a mile or two apart.  Those riders would see an approaching host.  Sneaking between them to watch closely the pirate encampment had not been challenging for her women.

More annoyingly, a messenger on an exhausted horse had appeared from the Caer, directing that the northern Formed Levy was to remain at Borderfort, awaiting the appearance of the Landgrafin and the remainder of the Formed Levy later in the week.  With some luck, the Landgrafin would be here by noon.  A council of war could be undertaken.  Evaine asked herself who in all of Torinsdale had even the least understanding of warfare.  Other than herself there was the Swordmistress and Tomas's Circle-of-two Roxanne, who as a Republican officer was not given great trust by the Landgrafin.  Evaine had cultivated taking long walks with Roxanne and listening carefully, especially when Roxanne explained the accounting methods that gave you honest logistics, and the inspection methods that gave you compliance with orders and intentions.  Evaine had sent riders to Millersport, Merecester and Noralin City, nominally to ensure that Republic officials were aware of the situation, and unofficially to observe if [whether] the Republic did anything to respond.  The Republic's government was fairly efficient, but it seemed extremely expensive, and could take its own good time about doing things, things like telling its cities and towns that they were about to have visitors.

She could expect no messenger from Center before noon, no further messenger from the South before evening, and at best had to wait.  By this evening the Southern formed Levy might have assembled, in which case they might be ready to march by tomorrow noon.  Each of her Greathands had found dormitory space, though Borderfort was now quite full.  She had instructed their Greatmistresses to do a careful inspection after dawn, figure out who had forgotten what, and sort out what was missing.  Some number of women were going to be fast marching back to Northfort, recover their belongings, and return this day.  With good fortune, only a few such women would be found.  They had done the inspection yesterday, after all.  How much could people manage to lose in a day?

"Am I disturbing you?" The voice came from behind her.  Evaine turned.  The Swordmistress!  From the cup in one hand and bowl with apples and bread in the other, she had arrived very recently and done what any good soldier should.

"Swordmistress!  I wouldn't have expected to see you," Evaine announced, "not until evening."

"We drove through the night," she explained.  "Rather, my drivers drove while I slept.  The Shield is at its brightest.  We burned a fair bit of midnight oil.  However, the Landgrafin felt my wisdom was needed here, while her authority was needed to ensure the various levies were raised in a proper manner. She is moving diligently to assemble them, but such matters need more than the fall of an apple.  I would wager that she will be here in three days, with the Formed Levy, the High Levy, and some hands of volunteers.  She could be here sooner, I think, but it would be 'who forgot what?' not 'ready for action'.  In the meantime, I brought us a decent breakfast."

"Breakfast was most thoughtful of you," Evaine answered.  "I am reminded that the most difficult part of warfare is waiting, resisting the temptation to do something, anything, however foolish.  Sometime this morning the riders I sent to Millersbridge and Merecester will be back.  We will learn if [whether] the Republic paid any attention to our warnings."

"Do you have that little confidence in us?" The voice came again from behind Evaine.  It was Roxanne-sa-Anglewood, with Tomas just behind her carrying a tray and a more substantial breakfast.

"Your Grace," Evaine managed a proper bow to Tomas, left arm to ground, right leg crossed behind left.  Tomas looked skyward.  He was always just as happy without the bowing and scraping that Evaine, almost alone, was scrupulous about offering. 

"We drove out together," Tomas answered.  "She did the smart thing.  She slept," he added, gesturing at the Swordmistress.  "Roxanne came with those of her guards who can sit atop a horse.  They are sleeping now."

"The Great Senate," Roxanne said, not quite bitterly, "ordered me to remain here and constitute a force to destroy any new incursion.  I was to do this without, of course, calling on the Sorority, town militias, temple acolytes, or other people with useful work to do.  So my vasthost, all dozen or so of us, is doing what they were directed.  Two were left behind to keep an eye on Dotty.  She's being very good about all this, but the people who tried kidnapping her twice may try again if she is not watched.  Oh, and Angela-vrith-Martyn is in Noralin City 'researching the archives on past Sea Eagle Incursions and what it cost to repel them'.  I gather I am only outnumbered about a hundred to one?"

"Close to two hundred to one," Evaine answered.  "Are you willing to share some of them with my girls?  Sharing is a virtue, after all."  Roxanne giggled.  Evaine knew about Angela.  Noralin City had the northernmost copy of the great Senate Archives, every paper, all carefully stored in the warehouses behind the City Library.  Angela was officially researching the Sea Eagles, and careful to do that if ever watched.  She was actually completing something ornate on Senate finances, something Roxanne was not to hear about.

"There is actually a reason we came," Tomas said. "Not one that needed to be spelled out in every detail.  If you were here by yourself, Evaine, you would have to wait with the Formed Levy.  Waiting here means you are not in Millersbridge, seeing how the Pirates fight.  Now that the four of us are here, the Swordmistress being entirely competent to lead or drill the Greathands, we can undoubtedly find some excuse to see what is happening."

"Despite your Mother's expressed desire that you all remain here?" the Swordmistress asked.

"She only expressed that as a desire," Tomas answered, nibbling on a sausage.  "Unless there were important alternative reasons."

"Surely," Evaine said sweetly, "Your mother did not intend that Your Grace not perform his sworn duty?  Lady Roxanne is of course free to go where she wills if she sees fit."

"Duty?" the Swordmistress asked wryly.

"Duty," Evaine answered mildly.  Seeing Tomas in doubt, she continued.  "The Pirates are wanted criminals, who Tomas must arrest, rather, he must go to their vicinity and order me as his Cornet to arrest them.  By myself.   After all, there are only 2000 of them.  In the mean time, after the Greathands here are fed and their gear is inspected, they do formation drills to pipe and drum, in full field kit, mixed with column march and converting to battlefield order, started, middled, and ended with entrenchment drill.   That's good for a day.   When additional women arrive, they are to be quartered—I expect the Greathands already here will need to clear out of their barracks and set up tents in the Old Sheep Field—and then told to fall in and drill with the Greathands already on the field."

"When do you propose that we go?" Tomas asked.

"The cavalry Greathand and its reserves will be here this noon or so," Evaine said.  "Several hands are already here.  They would be better for a half-day rest.  The pirates are resupplying, and will not appear—I predict—in Millersspa before tomorrow at the earliest," Evaine answered.  "Tomorrow, we will have the best part of a thousand women here, most with at least a half-day refresher on pipe commands, and can decide whether we can wait for the Landgrafin and her levies.  I strongly prefer waiting, having the women do more solid days of pipe and drum drills, alternating with the archery line, unless the Sea Eagles march through Millersbridge and descend us.  While the Formed Levy is drilling, we three with cavalry escort can do reconnaissance.  I expect the Sea Eagles will be visiting Millersspa by then."

"Do you have cover to the north?" Roxanne asked.

"Every border tower has watchdaughters posted.  Other watchdaughters are hidden in the woods watching the towers.  There are three metalled roads from the Vale north into the Republic, though 'metalled' is stretching it for the Sea Coast Road.  The Pioneer Greathand assembled early,"

"Told you it would," the Swordmistress said, "Pioneers do."

"was broken into hands, and marched off along those roads.  There are stretches of woods.  They are trimming every tree limb over the road, within fifteen feet of the ground, fixing washouts, clearing debris, that sort of thing.  That's on both sides of the Border.  The Treaty prescribes road maintenance.  We're making sure roads are maintained," Evaine answered.  "They took wagonloads of conduit tile to fix serious washouts.  When we march, we won't be getting halberds stuck in trees or boots stuck in mud."

"I can do formation drills today," the Swordmistress announced.  "I slept soundly last night, in a good well-sprung shay.  Your Greatmistresses had better be able to do everything, and now is the last chance to find out if they can't."  Evaine nodded in agreement.  Almost never did the Swordmistress speak up this way.  "Millersport Spa is forty miles from here, a long day's ride starting now, none of us being Horse Barbarians.  You want to get the lay of the land before then, decide where we are marching when we march.  Unless you all have lost your minds, you want to be fighting the pirates over someone else's territory, and there's only one someone else hereabouts."

Evaine considered.  "Roxanne's guards need sleep, not to mention remounts, the cavalry is having shoes checked and gear tended, I want to speak to my greatmistresses, let them know what I expect and that you are completely in charge, see if anything is seriously wrong.  That's all this morning.  We and some escort leave after lunch.  We need to leave Roxanne's women here; their horses need rest."

"They need to join us later," Tomas said.  "They are Senate-assigned Interlocutor Guards, should do their job, and can quiet dissent when you appear with three dozen Torinsdale cavalry.  You're just there to support my lawful activities."

"We leave promptly after lunch," Evaine said.  "Your girls will be told where to find us.  There's plenty of time before sunset to reach where I want to be, which is between Merecester and Millersbridge.  I need to think about that some more."

Chapter 22
Borderfort, Torinsdale
Summertouch 14, 2448

"You'll find out what shape the Seacoast Road is in," Evaine told the women lined up on horseback before her.  A fly buzzed around her head, then retreated to the shade.  One of the horses nickered gently.  "Three Hands of Pioneers went down it yesterday; they are trimming trees, fixing washouts, and getting the road back in some shape.  I don't know how far you'll get without wearing the horses too much.  You should be at least to SurfRoar Tower for the night.  If you are early, push to the coast.  There  are adequate inns for your number in Periwinkle and Shearwater.  You have a copy of the Lessor Rights Rules, if anyone complains that you are formed and under arms.  Make careful note of serious problems with the road, beyond where the Pioneers are working.   It gets little traffic, no matter what it had fifty years ago.  It may have fallen apart.  I don't plan to march the Formed Levy down it.  I want to know if I can.  After Periwinkle, head up the coast.  Someplace near Millersport or north you should find Pirates.  We aren't there to fight them, just to watch.  Joanna, I've given you a map of where I plan to go.  We should meet tomorrow evening.  The Pirates may show up where they are not expected.  If you stay at SurfRoar or later:  Two women on watch at all times.  All arms immediately at hand.  Be on your way, then."  

"To the left," Joanna called.  "Column of twos.  At the Walk, Walk!" She tugged at her reins and headed down the road, letting the women of her detachment shake into position behind her.  A cloud of dust rose and drifted slowly through the Summer's heat.

Evaine's horse shifted under her, eager to follow the women headed out.  Evaine tugged at the reins, bringing her horse around.   The horse bent forward to graze. The field was covered with mint, buzzing with every sort of bee greedily devouring the pollen offered by thick-packed flowers.  "The rest of you, we are riding the East Road toward Millersbridge.  That's four hours.  We stop every hour, give the horses a chance to rest.  We are not trying to set time records.  We need the horses fresh tomorrow, even if we are leading some remounts."  She turned to Tomas and Roxanne.  Roxanne was probably the best rider here; Tomas sat gamely in his side-saddle.  "Your Grace, you and lady Roxanne are of course welcome to join us if it pleases you."

"Formation, by column of twos, at a walk, follow me."  Evaine nudged her own horse into motion, Roxanne and Tomas falling into place on each side of her.  "First hand, tag out a party of two as point, two hundred paces ahead.   Two dozen women and a column of remounts and greatmules loaded with supplies fell in behind the column. "Mind you, Tomas, I would be more comfortable having you here if you did not need to ride sidesaddle, and if I had any idea of what we were riding into."

"I am a man," he answered, "and thus have little choice as to how I set athwart a horse.  Allowing, that is, that I wish to remain able to satisfy my Obligations to Her.  However, I have dutifully under Roxanne's instruction learned how one is supposed to ride a woman's saddle, and can do so if some emergency arises."  That was a sensible precaution, he thought, not to be confused with insensitive suggestions that he should just borrow a cavalry horse for the week and sit on it as a normal woman would, with one leg indecently on each side of the horse's body.

"Evaine, I have not used your time while you were putting things together today," Roxanne said, "because I knew we could talk now.  But I wondered as to your plans."

"I sent some people down each major road," Evaine said, "because sometimes there are washouts or worse, and no one complains.   If the Host is marched down a road with washouts, it would be unfortunate.  The SeaCoast Road people may also encounter the pirates before we do, if the pirates use those barges to land from the sea.  I plan we get to Merecester and listen carefully.  The Ice Tower people know we are coming this way and would in any event naturally send messages down this road.  The pirates need a day to reach Millersspa, after they start marching, and a day to cross the creek at Millersspa with wagons, there not being a decent ford.  Then they can be all over the place." Evaine shifted her weight.  Under her chain armor [mail] and padding, she was hot.  She'd carefully packed water.  Carrying water made her ride safe, not comfortable.   Helmet and armored gloves were tied to her saddle.  They were unlikely to blunder into battle by surprise.  Her task in any event was to lead, not to fight, even if she was more deadly wielding a sword than any of the women she was leading.  She was an adequate horsedaughter, but she did not like riding.  It was something you did, something that had to be done, but not something she'd do if she could avoid it.

"It would be embarrassing if this were a feint," Roxanne said.

"I am very aware of that," Evaine answered.  "It was my chief worry when I asked the Landgrafin to bring the southern Formed Levy to Borderfort.  If a large pirate force lands tomorrow at Longbeachport, how would we respond?"

"You were thinking a feint to draw us out of place," Tomas said coolly, "not a feint to wear us out, having us summon levies that were not needed?"

"I meant draw out of place," Roxanne answered.  "The other I hadn't thought of.  In the Republic, there's so much money relative to the Swordsisters that it's not a problem—or shouldn't be."

"When you have one Swordsister for a thousand citizens, and that counts the women who are trained but inactive, finances should be simple," Tomas said.  And, he thought, when Angela finishes her project, about which I cannot tell you, it will be simple again.  "The Vale now has a member of the Formed Levy for every hundred women, all fed by the Landgrafin's purse at the same time.  The Landgrafin's purse has many other demands on it."

"The Landgrafin spoke of tripling the current Formed Levy," Evaine said.  "Ignoring how they get trained, armor starts to get expensive.  With time, women leave the Formed Levy and bring their training to the Low Levy.  Low Levy training is strictly how to swing a sword, shoot a bow, hold a halberd, rational training that might be continued, and a bit of lecture on sanitation and wound dressing and the like. With more drills, the Low Levy could be improved.  A lot."

"Are the pirates drawing us out of place?" Roxanne asked patiently.

"They'd have to know really well how the Levy was organized and funded," Evaine said, "to know that calling it out regularly was a problem.  We'd be walking the Caer's halls tripping over their spies before they learned our financial limits.  The Formed Levy is inside the Landgrafin's Purse.  It's not even seen by town councils.  Pulled off center to up here is possible.  The timing is hard.  They'd've done better to lure us to Longbeachport, then land seriously at Periwinkle.  The southern levies are better than the northern—they might not know that."
When do they start suspecting the tavern keeper?  Scroll bar is only halfway down . . . lots of complications yet to come.

* * * * *

Merecester's city walls gleamed in the afternoon sun.   The walls were two layers of cut limestone, the city mothers having dug the modest distance to bedrock to ensure a sound foundation, separated by eight  feet of carefully tamped, well-tiled sand.  A modest distance beyond the walls, excavations marked the start of a moat, a project that to Evaine's eye had been pursued over the past year with little diligence, and was truly unlikely to be complete before it was needed.    She would have hoped that news of the pirates would have motivated townswomen to turn out with shovels and barrows, but visibly this was not the case.  There were several women at work; Evaine allowed they were people who owed Vale Service or whatever equivalent the Republic had, and saw a way to perform their task without great unpleasantness or a need to travel.

Ahead stretched across the road were a trio of Swordsisters.  Greathand Winterwheat, Evaine thought. They wore a bright blue tabard with a gold sheaf across the chest.  "Formation," she called. "Off the road, onto the verges, and stop."  She blew her whistle, drawing the point's attention, and held up her hand marking that they should also pause.  A nudge with heels urged her horse to a trot, one that she reined back to a gentle walk as she passed the point guards.  Riding a horse by holding the reins in two hands, the hands held so they were both visible to the Swordsisters, was a bit showy, but might avoid difficulties.

"Her Peace Be With You!" the lead Swordsister shouted.

"And with you, also," she answered, bringing her horse to a stop at a comfortable speaking distance.

"You seem to be outside Torinsdale," the Swordsister said.  "I am Handmistress Tania Svetlanasdotr, and I am charged with inquiring why you are here."

"I am Evaine-sa-Orowan, Armsmistress to her Grace Cheryl, Landgrafin of Torinsdale, but Evaine will do.  And as you are of Greathand Winterwheat, I have friends among your number. We made a long trip the year before last to Gwendolyn's Bay. I still look forward to their return visit, as my guests at Caer Adurel.  I promised them copying rights for certain pirate books and maps that I captured."  Evaine paused.  She had hoped for a friendlier response.  "However, I am escorting Tomas-sur-Maserin, Interlocutor of all Cismontane-By-the-Sea, Roxanne-vrith-Emmitsford who to you is Greatmistress-of-Greatmistresses Roxanne, and we are here because there is a Pirate host immediately north of here."

"However, you are under arms.  In the Republic, this is not allowed for groups, except among Swordsisters," Tania responded.

Evaine forced herself to remain calm. "First, under the Deed of Lease from Torinsdale to Miller Vigdisdotr, under which this land is held, Torinsdale is allowed free and unrestricted passage to Torinsdale lands north of here.  Second, Torinsdale is entitled under the Lease to protect Millersvale if the Republic cannot.  With three Greathands of Swordsisters, and two thousand pirates, we question what you will do."

"You are still under arms," Tania repeated.  "In the Republic, this is unlawful."

"Two thousand pirates?" a second swordsister squeaked.

"Counting carters and drovers likely able to fight, or at least guard the camp.  As counted by one of your own Sisters guesting at the Ice Tower, though I did not learn her name," Evaine answered, putting a smile on her face.  "The column of march, with wagons, was much of a mile long."  Evaine turned back to Tania.  Her smile vanished.  "Finally, as a point of law, if you insist, we are not in the Republic.  We are in the Vale of Torinsdale, on land leased to Miller Vigdisdotr and her descendants.   Republic law here applies only to Republic citizens and their foreign guests, which as one in the service of the Landgrafin and the Interlocutor I am not."  I shall skip noting that I am an Apprentice to a Mage.  And let us not, she thought, get into questions of where I was born or who else may claim me as a citizen.  "Finally, you are about to be visited, so far as I can determine, by a group of people whose customary treatment of towns does not include respecting sanctuary, leaving homes unlooted, or leaving survivors.  Don't you think you have more serious issues to face? If we are unwelcome here, we will be moving on after we water our horses."  It's too early for dinner, she thought, or I would stay, just to see the look on her face.

Evaine blew her whistle twice.  "Formation!  Behind me.  Column of threes."  She turned her glare on Tania.

"She's right, Tania," the second Swordsister said.  "I've met their people coming though here often enough, always very nice people, too."  Tania frowned but backed off the road. 

"Column.  At the walk.  We'll be watering at the duckpond.  Forward!" Evaine called.

Chapter 23
Alanna's Farm, Millersvale
Summertouch 15, 2448

Evaine, lying flat on her back, looked up from under her blanket.  It was the deep of the night. The smell of grass was sweet in the air.  The Shield had set.  Stars like powdered sugar thick-sprinkled over blackberries covered the firmament.  One fell from the sky, streaking burning-white across the dome of heaven to fade at the end to a dim red spark.  The Priestesses taught that those were souls, tired of the Blessed Isles, who were returning to Earth to enjoy another mortal life.  The Mages claimed that falling stars were stones that fell from the sky.  Tomas had one as a paperweight.  From its heft, it was iron, iron with holes seared in it as though it had been so much ice placed in a hearth's blast.  A firefly set up camp at the far end of her coverlet.  The insect flared, star-bright, once and again.

She listened carefully.  There were the soft sounds of women sleeping in the warm night.  A horse snaffled softly. Crickets chirped in the distance.   Four very soft sets of feet were the sentries, pacing off the camp's perimeter for their hand of awakeness.  Some had grumbled about so many sentries.  She wondered if there were enough.  Sentries would be awake only an eighth of the night, not a quarter or a half to be tired tomorrow.    Her sister Gail breathed a few feet from her.  Remembering Gail reminded her of her worries about her sister.  She was bright and hard-working, and someday soon would want an apprenticeship.  There was no way, Evaine thought, that she could pay for an apprenticeship for Gail, and that would hurt Gail's feelings terribly.

Evaine had rented the ground and set camp several fields off the road.  They had bought firewood for cooking dinner, and then carefully buried the coals.  Anyone passing through the darkness would likely not even suspect they were here.  That was just as well.  She wanted to watch the pirates, not have them surprise her while she slept.  There was too much about them that was incomprehensibly strange, from their coding of books to their demolition of Longbeachport's gate to their most peculiar weapons and clothing.  She might be the tigress in the trees, but she wanted to watch most carefully to see if the strange creature on the plains was a new sort of cow, or a lioness. She felt a desire to match steel with one, but allowed that she would rather watch and see someone else discover that the pirates wielded enchanted flaming swords and wore indestructible silken armor.  Satisfied that all was well with her women if not with her family, she drifted back into sleep.

* * * * *

Evaine woke to a nudge at her shoulder.  "First trace of light," was the whisper.  She slipped from under her blanket, folded it, and began her morning stretches.  The chill air bit through her small-clothes.  Soon enough she would make the wake-up call.  Last night, she had sent a rider to the Inn at Tayberry, a building across the bridge from the town, to pay for three dozen breakfasts and cold-washing privileges for the morning.  The Inn-keeper had been apprised as to who would be arriving, and how they would be dressed.  Her Inn was a usual stopping point for anyone the Landgrafin had sent north to the Ice Tower, so the Innkeeper was accustomed to Torinsdale levy women appearing while wearing arms and armor.

There was a motion across camp.  That would be Tomas, who went to sleep early and rose earlier to watch the sunrise.  She had never quite had the nerve to ask him if mages actually believed that the Sun was a material avatar of the Lion of Arhad, an Eye or a Testicle depending on which Revelation one believed, but Tomas was fond of rising before the sun.  Evaine did enforce sleep discipline on the march.  Women went to sleep early, rather than sitting around the campfire gossiping and playing cards—extinguishing and burying the fire helped—and remained still under their blankets until wake-up rather than rising, making noise, and rousing their neighbors.   

The sky was now somewhat bright.  A sharp blast of Evaine's whistle awoke those women who were not already awake.  "The sooner we are awake, the horses tended, dressed, packed, and have the area as clean as a baby's fresh-bathed bottom, the sooner we can ride for breakfast," she reminded.  Millersbridge was an hour and then some away.  Breakfast would be a bit late, enough that before they ate the touch of hunger would keep them focused.   Not without the traditional grumbles, they stood and began to strap on padding and armor.   She checked the ties on Gail's clothing. Gail wore a felted pad with leather on top, not the thick cotton under chain [mail] under tabard that the Levy wore, but for a girl Gail's age, not yet to quite full growth, leather was weighty enough.

* * * * *

The Inn at Tayberry had a low decorative wall and several side courtyards.  The Innkeeper had set out trestle tables, enough for three dozen women to eat at once.  It was a bit later than Evaine had hoped, but she had been extremely picky about seeing that the campsite was clean before they left.  She viewed the Republic to be neighbors, neighbors whose good will was worth tending carefully.  Besides, she told herself, she was not precisely in a hurry, because she needed to let the pirates play their first cards before she could respond.

"And what are our plans for the day?" Tomas asked conversationally.

"Wait," Roxanne answered.

"Indeed," Evaine continued, "Wait patiently.  The pirates have a host, half a greathand of greathands, and are trekking through a roadless wilderness.  They can find forage along the way, once, the land being rich with grass, but it's not farmed.  They can't stay put, not without their horses and greatmules eating out everything green.  They must move.  It remains unclear where."

"You have messengers?" Tomas asked.

"I had Gail visit the Tayberry Sunspeaker tower and return with early news," Evaine answered.  "The Republic Sunnet reaches Millersport. Now, I have some indication where the pirates are this morning."  For all his interest in the Dark Arts, Tomas was sometimes entirely unworldly.  Perhaps he just expected everything to be done for him.  "Close to sunrise, a group of pirates approached Millersspa.  The few women remaining there fled and sent a rider south to the sunnet line to Millersport.  From there, word was sent to Noralin City.  We are on the sunnet line. This sort of news is promptly posted.   The Millersspa women report a great fleet of boats of odd design—your guess as to the size of a great fleet is as good as mine—sailing south along the coast, passing Millersspa after sunrise.  I will check again when we pass around Millersbridge, but at any reasonable speed those boats could not yet have reached Millersport, if that is where they are going."

"You two have been staring at that map," Tomas said.  "What do you see?"

"Roads," Roxanne answered.  "Solid bridges."

"All those pirate wagons," Evaine said, "move swiftly on road, slowly overland.  It is no wonder the pirates made only eight miles a day, not if they did not want to kill their horses.  But after they reach real paved roads, they can move swiftly.  The Sea Eagles did, after all.  Once they cross the Millersspa creek, which is not entirely simply[e] for wagons heavily laden, they might march along the coast toward Millersport.  They might parallel the hills toward Millers Mills. They might advance on an intermediate path, through Daisy toward Millersbridge."

"So you would go here?" Tomas tapped on the map.

"A good location," Evaine said.  "It puts us astride one path and between the other two.  If we follow the Millersport Road, we pass several towns with Sunspeaker towers, towers usually crewed only an hour a day near sunrise, but today I imagine crewed for the day with women waiting to hear gossip.   Besides, I have a Hand that came down the Sea Road.  They meet us here.   Then we cut north to the place you are suggesting."

* * * * *

Tayberry was the largest of the five towns between Millersbridge and Millersport, and the closest to Millersport.  Its sunspeaker tower sat atop an adjoining hill, flanked by the last of several windmills that brought water up to it, the slopes below covered with the berry fields after which the town was named.  Gail waited patiently in the tower's shadow, sitting legs folded under her on a long wall.  She did have a farseer, though not a strong one. After the morning fog had cleared she was able to look up the coast to the north.  She was tempted to ride back to Tayberry proper where sister Evaine and her women waited, to tell Evaine that the view was absolutely spectacular, but Evaine must have known that.  You could look up the coast as far as the hills, where a large column of smoke rose, and along the coast road through a series of towns.  One must have been the chief fishing port of the whole region, to judge from all the boats that had sailed into town over the past hour, scudding landward ahead of the breeze.

Millersport was a largish town, interesting to study through farseer.  Its walls stood [a] modest distance out from the nearest homes.  Apparently the walls had begun life as sand dunes, which had over time been given a brick front face and a broad moat of uncertain depth.  An aqueduct, its arches swooping gracefully, brought fresh water from the town reservoir. There were really only three or four arches, Gail counted, the water having been brought along the surface until almost the edge of town.  Some of the windmills lining the sea wall doubtless pumped that water, together with whatever else had ended in it, into pipes leading a distance out from the coast.  Inland towns would have more complex arrangements for protecting water supplies, but the line of rocks that shielded Millersport harbor allowed townspeople to run pipes far out in the ocean.  Was anything happening in town? She looked carefully at the walls, where here and there a walldaughter looked out at the surrounding countryside.  There seemed to be more walldaughters than she would have expected, Gail considered, but perhaps that was just a difference between the Republic and the Caer.  The Caer was close to the center of Torinsdale.  Millersport could get no farther from the remainder of the Republic without sinking into the ocean.

The visible town gates were being opened and then closed again, being left closed whenever no one was entering or leaving town.  She could only barely see their tops.  For a stretch, the town walls overlapped each other, so that anyone entering town would pass between two walls, make a hairpin turn at the inner end, and then find herself facing the main town gates.  The outer gates were largely for show, though they would stop riders.  

Now the outer gates were opening, as they had been doing every so often all day.  She wondered what the budget was for clearing their tracks.  She had heard the Landgrafin complain to sister Evaine, more than once, that closing and opening gates cost money, for reasons she explained in great detail.  Indeed, if she looked carefully, there were a pair of gatekeepers with brooms sweeping out the traces along which the gates rode.  Out through the gates came Swordsisters in their lavender cloaks.  A fair number of them, actually, in formation, moving at more than a brisk walk.  She looked around town again.  Since she had last looked, the number of walldaughters on the battlements had increased, and there seemed to be more people on the walls, mostly to the North.  Now the Millersbridge sunspeaker was flashing.  The Swordsisters had come a distance, the women at the lead carrying banners.  At the coast road, they turned north.  Evaine would have known what the banners were.  One was the Republic banner, the old-style acronym for 'The Senate and People United'.   The other banner was a burst of color, probably the guardian flower of a Greathand.  Indeed, they were now around the corner where she could count, and that did appear to be an entire Greathand of Swordsisters, with a second Greathand following perhaps a hundred yards behind.  Following them both were a trio of horse carts.  

The Millersport sunspeaker was still flashing. A sunspeaker message was not cheap to send.  Usually sunspeaker messages were short.  The sunspeaker above her was repeating the message.  The tower generally waited until a message was finished before repeating it.  This message was too important or too long for that delay. The message was going from here to Millersbridge, words leaping over the miles in the blink of an eye.  She had once asked Tomas how fast a flash of sun traveled.  Apparently that speed was a great mystery that generations of mages had tried without success to solve.  The traditional debate was whether the speed was simply fast or whether a flash took no time at all to reach its destination.

On one hand, Evaine had been very specific that she should stay here until she read a sunspeaker message saying where pirates had actually attacked.  She had carried up from town a stack of pastries for the sunspeaker crew, to make sure she learned about those messages.  Thus far, there had been no messages to report.  The column of smoke far to the north, right along the coast, was bigger than ever.  On the coast road, it was hard to be sure how fast the Swordsisters were moving.  No, there was someone walking along the road, and they were rapidly passing her.  They must have picked up their pace, almost to a run.  A few of them clearly were running; they had gotten well in front of most of their fellows.  That was what Evaine had the formed levies do, when they went out on a march: Put a group of people well in front, to see what was there before it saw you.  Or something like that.  Evaine was a wonderful sister, but she could be incredibly tiresome when she was talking about what Formed Levies should do.

There appeared to be more commotion in town.  She got down behind the wall to brace her farseer.  Some people were running up the stairs to the top of the wall.  The wall had several observation towers on its north face.  Those were getting crowded with people.  The wall had greatbow mounts spaced along its length.  Here were walldaughters clearing space around each mount, and other people taking the oil cloths off the greatbows.  The Millersport greatbows were big, larger than the ones at Caer Adurel.  Their steel staves had to be six feet from end to end.  Something had upset the people of Millersbridge.   Common sense said 'Pirates', but she knew that if she just told Evaine that Evaine would have been beside herself.  Gail reminded herself that it all made sense.  Evaine already knew there were pirates here someplace.  Evaine wanted to know where and how many. 'Millersbridge is alarmed' did not answer her question.

If there had been two people up here, life would have been a lot easier, she told herself.  Then she could have waited and watched, and someone else could have told Evaine that something was happening.  In the mean time, she could see several columns of black smoke along the coast to the North.  Perhaps there were brushfires, and the Sisterhood was being sent to extinguish them.  The Millersport sunspeaker had finally stopped.  If there had been an interesting message, in a little while she would get her copy of it.  Perhaps they would send the really cute boy down with it.  He was definitely the sort to lure off to a quiet place for a few vigorous games, if he were allowed and she could find the time.  He looked, alas, to be the sort who was kept busy every moment, so he would learn perhaps a trace of womanly responsibility before he grew up.  

A door swung open.  An older woman, one she hadn't met, came out.  She was carrying an empty basket and neatly folded cloth: the pastries had been eaten.  Gail stood and ran toward her.  The woman was doubtless busy, and would rather not be kept waiting.

"There you are," she announced.  "These are yours, and," she held up a roll of paper, "you have a missive carrier on your belt.  To answer your curiosity, the pirates appeared at Millersspa.  They are crossing the Daisy, not going farther.  Hundreds of them landed outside Gull Harbor.  Millersport's two Swordsister Greathands have gone off to arrest them.  Thank you ever so much for the biscuits.  They were a wonderful change from my own cooking.  Oh, and my son Don asked me to ask you if you were staying in town overnight."

Gail's face turned down.  "I wish.  But I really doubt it.  We're really only passing through.  Evaine—she's the one who sent me up here—wanted a good look at the pirates.  Now we get it.  Tell Don I'm sorry? Please?  But now I really have to run."  She scrambled for her mare, who had waited patiently in the shade, tied in easy reach of a water trough.  The horse snorted lightly when she retightened the cinches on the saddle, but complained not at all to be given a chance for a run down the hillside lane. 

* * * * *

"Piper!"  Evaine shouted.  "Piper!  Blow 'to horse!'."  She looked around.  The women of the formed levy were where they should be, more or less, and none of the people accompanying them were missing.  The stablekeeper's daughter, Nancy Karasdotr, who doubled as courier for the sunspeaker tower and said she knew the local roads, had her own horse saddled and ready to go.  She had been sweeping out the yards by the stable, Evaine keeping a watchful eye on her whereabouts, and came over at a call.  The piper began her frolicking tune.

"Nancy, the pirates landed by boat at 'Gull Harbor', which is not on my map, and are burning Millersspa," Evaine explained.  "The Swordsisters are marching on Gull Harbor, at a slow run down the coast road."  

Nancy rolled her eyes.  "They have this attachment to marching by the map," she said. "I've carried messages for them.  They are moving along the coast, so they take the Coast Road, which is not straight, and this is Gull Harbor.  Pippin's Bay on the map is the water, Gull Harbor being the town.  We can beat the Swordsisters there easy, even not pushing on the horses."

More quickly than Evaine had expected, women returned from what they had been doing and prepared to ride out.  None had strayed too far, and none appeared to have spent too much time in the tavern common room fortifying their courage.  Tomas and Roxanne had been facing each other over a stones board, their skills evenly matched, and had been among the first to be ready.

* * * * *

Two Greathands of the Sorority ran along the Coast road, their pace readily matched by more lightly equipped scouts out to front and flank.  The officers, Greatmistress and Scoutmistress and Banneret, led the advance; well to the rear of the formation followed Healer and Priestess in two-wheeled, horse-drawn carts.  Healers and Priestess could readily have kept pace afoot with a Greathand's run; the weight of surgical gear, medicines, and ritual implements demanded wheeled transport.  The pad-pad-pad of one-hundred-thirty-three pairs of shod feet had as occasional accompaniment the trill and whistle of scouts' signal pipes.  

"Mistress?" Scoutmistress interrupted her superior's reverie. "The pirates emerge from Gull Harbor.  Our vanguard was seen.  The pirates come at us." 

"At us?"  The Greatmistress failed to keep the surprise out of her voice.  What sort of woods thieves did not scuttle away when the Sorority approached?  Arrested woods thieves, soon enough.

Scoutmistress paused, listening to the distant trill of whistles passing messages from beyond line of sight.  "The pirates form line at the town's edge." 

More distant whistles.  "Greatmistress?" Scoutmistress knew perfectly well that the Greatmistress was adept at reading scout signals, but protocol required that she relay her Scouts' words.  "Four hands of riders.  Left-flank-front.  Hilltop.  Friends - Torinsdale  kons." 

"Scoutmistress?"  The Greatmistress asked herself what Torinsdale was doing here, a good five leagues from their nearest land.  'Riders' implied urgency.  Perhaps they had received the same warnings.   How could the news have reached Torinsdale so quickly?  "We flank left, intercept the Torinsdale crew, make clear the pirates are ours.  Banneret.  Split off a hand to accompany the carts." The vanguard double-hand was well ahead, watching Gull Harbor.  With the vanguard, a support detachment, and the scouts, Healer and Priestess might safely stay on the road.  

"Torinsdale may wish the raiders for themselves," noted the Scoutmistress.  

"The thieves are ours!" snapped the Greatmistress.  "For Longbeachport, they shall pay. And pay.  And pay." 

"We don't know they're the same ones," noted the Banneret, first detaching an eight of troopers.   Yvonne Karthasdotr told herself that it was her duty to remind the Greatmistress of oversights, however absurd they might appear.  

"The Mother's ever-pestering children have mercy on me!  How many crews of pirates numerous enough to attack a town can there be in one shire?  Or do you believe that smoke-coming-from-the-tail nonsense about hundreds of pirates in Millersspa?"  The Greatmistress's tone matched her certainty; this had to be the same band of thieves.  

"Signal from left-flank-front," said the Scoutmistress. "Torinsdale scouts say three --- that's absurd  --- Torinsdale's scouts say to ours that three Greathands of pirates are in the town." 

"Fast-walk!" commanded the Greatmistress.  The formation's run slowed to a gentle jog.  Torinsdale holdings were mostly woodland. Republic townsfolk poaching on a lorded domain gave a perpetual cause of friction; Torinsdale had excellent scouts to discourage such behavior.  She could only wish the Republic were so well supplied with scouts.   If Torinsdale scouts said the pirates were in Gull Harbor, the pirates were in Gull Harbor.  However, three Greathands of hoodlums remained absurd, beyond the bounds of sane possibility.  "Left the march!  The hill with seven pines!"  Still in step, a hundred and twenty women left the road, loping across grassy pasture land, leaving behind Healers, Priestess, and escorts.  

"We do not charge and slay the pirates at once?" asked the Banneret.  Her [I deleted a paragraph break here; I presume it was an artifact of multiple conversions, rather than a typo] instincts said to sound the run, to be on the pirates before they had time to flee.  

"They're coming for us.  Ten minutes will freshen the lasses and make all ready.  I want to check the ground, too.  Soon this will be a pursuit to Goddess-knows-where," noted the Greatmistress.  

"Disperse and rest at the hilltop!" shouted the Banneret. The formation spread itself across the hill, point taking the hill's crest and staring cautiously over the hilltop at the land beyond.  

A tap of hooves announced the riders.  The nearer sisters looked askance at perfectly healthy women who rode when they could run.  Frowns turned to grimaces when they realized that one of the riders was a man, admittedly properly side-saddled and kilted.  The riders stopped, seemingly unmoved by the glares of two Greathands.  For a moment the only sound was the stiff breeze catching the riders' kons, sending the small flags snapping above their shoulders.  

The lead rider, a tall girl who looked scarcely old enough to wear the sword she had across her back, let alone draw the wheelbow behind her saddle, approached the Greatmistress.  The Greatmistress waited for the girl to speak.  This was Republic territory; the interlopers could disadvantage themselves by opening their mouths first, as she finally did.  

"His Grace, Tomas Cheryl sur-Maserin-sa-Torinsdale, Heir-Second of Torinsdale, By Our Lady's Grace Interlocutor for Cismontane-by-the-Sea, greets you, bringing grave and urgent tidings," she said. 

The Greatmistress's eyebrows slid up.  Someone had spent a lot of time teaching the girl formal manners.  The girl's hands braced unclasped across her chest, a perfectly innocent form if one did not note the lanyard looped across her right thumb.  From that pose, one trained in quickdraw could have the sword out and swinging before the other party more than blinked.  The Greatmistress wondered if there was any likelihood at all that the girl knew more of the ritual than the placement of the thumb.  

There was a half-instant's awkward silence.  The only sound was the flapping of kons in the sea breeze.  The Sorority Banneret spoke, slightly too late, slightly too loud. "Greatmistress Martina Johannasdotr, House of the Raven."  

"My escort," said Tomas.  "Evaine-sa-Orowan, Banneret-First to my sister, Joseline Cheryl sur-Maserin-sa-Torinsdale, Heiress-First of Torinsdale.  And Evaine's sister Gail-sa-Orowan, Banneret-Third."  The two girls sat rigidly in their saddles.  The Handmistress decided that the younger girl would do better not to pretend to look dangerous.  The older girl, who was older than she had at first appeared, might not be completely pretending.  "As prescribed by law, I have my escorts as Interlocutor.  And my good friend, Roxanne-vrith-Emmitsford—that's Greatmistress of Greatmistresses of the Inspectorate Roxanne, when she is with you rather than me."

"My officers," continued the Greatmistress. "Mother of Scouts Gwendolyn-sa-Biwa.  Banneret Yvonne Karthasdotr." The Heiress-clans and their hours of meaningless titles were nothing to interest any decent servant of the Goddess's Own Republic.  Lady Roxanne's rank was in a different chain of command.

"Greatmistress," spoke the man, pausing to unfold and drape a white stole over his shoulders.  Runes, sewn in white on white, removed all doubt that he was an Interlocutor.  "Well met to find you here.  Torinsdale brought its daughters to watch what befell Gull Harbor, but brought not a levy that might engage in battle." 

"What have you seen?"  asked Johannasdotr.  

The Interlocutor glanced at his party, as if not quite sure who should speak, then answered.   "Walking up from the outer harbor, three Greathands of pirates, liveried, armed with iron-shafted spears.   They landed some hours ago, spent time organizing their ranks, and finally started up the highway.  Their boats left for the north. They passed an eighth-mile or less from one of my sister's woodsdaughters.  They entered Gull Harbor.  There were screams, and smoke, and sounds of thunder. I came to watch." He sketched the land between the hill on which they stood and Gull Harbor, a single roll of hills and mile of fields separating here and there.  "Many people fled Gull Harbor, most toward Millersport, some toward Daisy or Millers Mills. 

"An interesting chance, leaving a woodsdaughter so close to their path," observed the Greatmistress.  

"When you see where people are, and anticipate where they are going, it is not so difficult to stand across their path.   Oh." He paused, annoyed that he should have neglected to mention the other interesting fact.  "The pirates, those who passed close?  They were clearly male." 

A titter of laughter faded outward in an expanding circle.  Tomas decided that he would rather not have heard the words passing between the soldiers.  Surely no lorded domain allowed bondage or slavery.  The Republic's more relaxed attitude on the question made the background '...can I keep mine...only two each...but they might have good endurance...' a bit too serious.  He decided that Gail could survive a set of brightly flushed cheeks.  

"It might be the path of wisdom," Tomas continued, "if we were to summon reinforcements.  You are, after all, outnumbered close to two-to-one." 

"Against men?  With spears?" The Greatmistress managed not to laugh.  "How long were their spears?"  Her stare silenced rude comments from the background, murmured questioning as to which spear was meant.   

Tomas gestured to one of his scouts, one of the women he had carefully not introduced.  Every so often, poachers were most easily caught by sending your own people into the Republic. It helped if the townsfolk did not know they were dealing with a scout and not a traveler.  

"Mistress, I lay behind a screen, within a ten-pace of the closest of them.  They didn't see me.  The spears are perhaps four feet long, with a two-handspan spearhead not in line with the shaft beyond.  Shafts were metal.  The spears had a huge pommel, larger than any sword I know.  And a ghost of a handguard.  Clumsy-looking things they were," Tomas's scout answered politely.  

"Shields?" asked the Scoutmistress.   "Bucklers?  Bows?" 

"Surely no shield.  No bucklers.  No bows.  Some wore swords.  They had a hand of riders.  Someplace, they had drummers and pipers.  They barely kept a formation.  Their ranks were clean, but spaced a good four yards apart.  They did not keep step.  I did not see scouts, only half hands of outwalkers at flank and point, half a hundred yards to each side of the Greathands.  The closest half-hand were surely men --- they paused to make water.  The marchers looked to be men.  Their handmistresses might be women.  They rode cross-saddle, which no man can do," said the scout.  

"Iron short-spears, no shields," said Yvonne.  "Can't cut them.  Reach little better than a sword.  Need a little care, but they run or die." 
(Oh, arr, cringe -- I don't want to read what is going to happen next.)  
By the way -- I suppose this should be in a cover letter, but I'm thinking of it now -- The One World reminds me a lot of Harald, which I'm reading in installments on a Baen website, in that it's a fantasy without magic, and logistics, rather than raw courage and nobility, determines the outcome of battles.  I don't know which Baem editor bought Harald, however.

"They'll run," announced the Greatmistress.  "We run them down.  Kill them every one." There was the slightest stir in the circle of women around her.  The Sorority trained for the Dance of the Sword, trained to fight as half-hands, teams of combatants that untrained criminals could never match.  Mass fights, a Greathand of women on a side, were the stuff sung in year-histories, events that happened a few times a decade in all the One World, and then only on the farthest frontiers, at least since the Sea Eagles had vanished.  The Autumn Dances trained every Greathand for mass combat, but a Greathand might never use that training. "Formation?" she spoke softly.  

"Greathands! Give ear!" bellowed Yvonne Karthasdotr.  All became quiet. 

"Wings of the Eagle!" shouted the Greatmistress.  "Greathand Lycoris to the left.  Greathand Lysimachia to the right.  Archer's hands to the center.  Align!"  She drew her sword, gesturing toward the town.  Women ran to their positions, tunics trimmed in scarlet sprays and yellow stars sorting apart.  Archers strung their weapons.  Swords were loosened; a hundred small motions marked a formation preparing for battle.  Scouts closed to a loose gather at each end of the line. "We will close to a greathand of paces. We hit them with arrows. They break ranks and run -- one way or the other -- then we slice them up.  If they're so dumb they stand there like cattle, we'll go to them.  No advance until I order it.  We will close at the walk, beating swords on shields to terrify them." 

"Watch your hand-sisters," called the Banneret.  "Who seeks sole glory dies alone in the dark!" 

Greatmistress Johannasdotr judged all was ready, or close enough.  "At the mark!"  she called. "Fast-walk! For-WARD!"  The Greathands began their advance.  

Tomas waited for the Swordsisters to move away from him.  "People?" he spoke quietly, "Applewine Hill should give us a good view."  He pointed out the tallest part of the rise before them. "Also, there are now refugees there, from whom I will take depositions once the pirates have been slaughtered or captured.  At the trial, fresh evidence will be the most convincing."  He decided not to dwell on the sentences that Republic courts were likely to give these pirates.

"I want to be closer," announced Gail.  Her sister glared but said nothing.    

"Gail."  Tomas's voice was dry and soft. "I am but a man, and my sister has sent you to protect me. Now, you would not abandon me, me being a man, would you, just to see a little better?" 

"No, your grace! No! Never!"  Her cheeks flamed far redder than when she had heard the rude words of the Sorority.  

"Yet it would please me if you would now lead us on the way to yonder knoll, to see that our path and place is safe for me," Tomas continued.    Also, he noted, so you can get away from us and get over your cry at having been tongue-lashed in public, for expressing sentiments I full well understand.  

"By your leave."  She managed not to choke, then nudged her horse to a trot.  

Tomas waited. "As we are now properly preceded, we may ourselves advance," he eventually said.  His scouts mouthed reminders that two of their number already occupied that hill, that sunspeaker would have warned if ought was wrong.   He had nodded deeply and pointed at the figure leading their way, a figure who now appeared to have caught a fragment of dust in one eye.  

* * * * *

The riders reined in at the forward crest of Applewine Hill.  Evaine dispersed pairs of women to watch the side and rear. "From here," Tomas announced, "all may be seen, without hazarding pointless injury."  He produced a far-seer from his saddlebag.   "These are the horses I specified?" he asked.  

"Yes, your Grace."  Evaine answered.  Still mounted, she produced her own farseer from her saddlebags.  "Your Grace?  May I ask?  Why we spend every thunderstorm this past half-year exercising the horses?" 

"Perhaps for no reason," he answered quietly, peering through his farseer.  In the plain rose Gull Harbor, a fair town astride a brook, with smoke rising from every other home, and a stream of figures running from the farthest houses, fleeing something one could not see.  In front of the town stood six close-packed rows of men, liveried in deep blue with white undercoats and fanciful floppy hats.  After every dozenth file of men was a gap, a rider in the gap.  At the center of the lines were a half-hand of riders, gaudily dressed, and a quartet of marchers with flags and drums.  There could be no doubt they were men, not when farseers clearly revealed neatly curled mustaches.  Evaine wrinkled her nose.  A man who could not be bothered to be shaved was merely loathsome, like some far-eastern tribesdaughter who bathed but twice a week.  What sort of perverse vanity led these men to grow and trim the hair of their face?  And what were men doing fighting?  It was indecent.  

"Perhaps for the soundest of reasons," Tomas continued.  "When LongbeachPort died, the Summer before last, there came over the miles the distant sound of thunder.  It would be best that our horses are not discomfited by such noises."  Tomas wondered where the men came from.  Surely not from the north; that hid a dozen hermits, not this host.  Perhaps Evaine's maps were true.  He decided not to repeat to his listeners the scrawled warning from Longbeachport, scrawled in charcoal on a kitchen wall, 'beware thunders that slay'.  The phrase sounded more fit for a tale of Nimue, but it made the hair rise on his head.

The Greathands of the Sorority drew up before the pirates, half-hands of daughters in loose diamonds, formation sufficiently dispersed that sixteen hands of women occupied more front than did half again their number of men.  The women stopped, a solid hundred yards away from the pirates.  

"A storm?" asked Gail, who'd slept through the event.  Tomas was heartened that she had learned her lesson without sulking.  For a man to instruct a woman in her duties required fabulous delicacy and tact.  

"May be.  Yet something shattered a solid gate.  Something drove a lead ball through a gate-guard's plate armour.  Something, pointedly, hurled the roof from a sanctuary.  Something.  Perhaps something loud," he answered.  

Evaine spent a half moment glancing at him.  She did not believe tales that he hid talking mirrors in his tower, that he offered Lord Hunter's Sacrifice to the New Moon.  He did Summon the Lightnings That Speak.  He had formed a Circle-of-Two with Roxanne, he could even name his own daughter, yet he had not been struck dead by Her Avenging Hand.   He had knowledge that had no apparent earthly source. She looked back to the confrontation.  All had stopped.  

A horsecart trotted forward.   Behind it, the Greathands slowly advanced, coming to forty yards of the men they faced.  The Priestess, clad in silver-grey, one hand at the reins, the other holding moonstaff with its hanging banner, rode to the center of the pirate line.  At this distance, her voice did not carry, but Tomas had no difficulty guessing what was being said.  She was giving the ritual call to lay down arms and surrender to the Lady's Grace.  Given the penalties these men faced, that surrender was hardly to be expected.  He had not expected a pair of men clad in sky blue robes, cowls, and gold trim to step forth from behind the drummers and confront the Priestess.  

Gail wished the Priestess would get out of the way so the battle would start.  She had never seen a battle, never really hoped to see one, and now one was happening right under her nose.  It was wonderfully romantic, something out of a heroine-novel.  Evaine wondered what sort of men would challenge the Lady's Own Voice.  Tomas sur-Maserin watched carefully the fringes of the town.  There didn't appear to be more men lurking in the shadows.  Indeed,  the last rank had been faced rearwards, as though someone feared a surprise from that quarter.  That said to him that the entire force of pirates stood drawn up in close order.  

One of the blue-robes grabbed at the Priestess's pony, to be met with a slash of the moonstaff.  Blue-robes stepped back, hands shaking in her direction.  She rode off, moving toward safety behind the Sisterhood.   

The men stiffened, their front ranks dropping to one knee.  Spears came out, sharply ready.  Evaine asked herself how the men proposed to advance.  Squatting was not a position from which to begin a charge.  The men could see the double-hand of bows, not fifty paces to their front.  Even allowing that the Sisterhood had dreadful archers, if the men sat on their bottoms they'd be shot to pieces, then swarmed over by sword-hands while they tried to stand.  What were the men doing?  The archers came to the ready, bolts in one hand, strings ready to be drawn taut.  

A puff of dark smoke, then another and another, covered the front of the formation.  The onshore breeze blew the smoke back across the men.  Then more puffs of smoke appeared.  She convinced herself that the smoke seemed to come from the men's peculiar spears.  A loud clatter, like truly loud drumming, assailed her ears.  Tomas's horse started, forcing him to spend moments drawing sharply at the reins.  Her own mount moved nervously, but responded to leg pressure to stay still.  
  
Another burst of smoke made visibility even worse.  Evaine noted that Daughters were falling in their tracks while archers stood awaiting orders. Something was causing women to fall to the ground, in some cases with great jets of blood spurting from severed arteries.  That had to be the plumbati, she allowed, the slingers who could bury a lead shot deep in a wall.  But where were the slingers?  She couldn't see them.  They had to be there someplace.

A third cloud of haze appeared, traveling swiftly down the pirate lines from one end to the other.  Sorority Greathands stood in place, waiting for some unheard order.  Unhearable, corrected Evaine quietly, unhearable; that noise is so loud that command whistles cannot be heard.  Alternatively, the Greatmistress is so startled that she must collect her thoughts, when rapid advance or retreat might be more advantageous.  Now let us hope when I am in the same predicament that I will not do as badly.

Spearmen were rotating through their ranks, standing spears on the ground, and doing something that could not be seen clearly even through a farseer.  The gesture looked vaguely obscene, but also in another context familiar.  Perhaps by evening she would remember what lurked at the back of her mind.   She had seen such clouds of smoke before.  The pirate books had engravings of battles, and the engravers showed masses of opaque smoke.  Whatever the men were doing, it appeared to have nothing to do with battlecraft.  She told himself that they could not possibly be spending their time making obscene gestures at the Sorority, which was not displaying itself to great advantage.  There came additional crashes; yet more clouds of smoke appeared as if rising from the earth.  

Finally the sorority reacted.  Bowdaughters, those still standing, began to draw and shoot. Evaine noted that spearmen struck with arrows behaved as would other mortals.  Some dropped their spears to clutch at bolts.   The rider with an arrow through his head looked quite satisfyingly dead as he lay on the ground.  More crashes, and more again.  The Greathands began an advance at the walk on the spearmen, swords beating on shields.  She could not hear the Paean, not with the wind at her back, but they were undoubtedly singing it at the top of their lungs.  The Sorority Greatmistress had decided that the men would take panic when threatened. Her guess seemed to be in error.  An immediate charge at the run would have been a better choice of tactics.     Evaine counted the Sorority losses.  An immediate rout might have been a better choice, too..

Evaine looked over her farseer, forcing herself to see the battle as a whole.  At least half the Sisters had fallen.  As she watched, further clouds of smoke and thunderous crashes rose.  The women who closed on the spearmen faced a heavy line that fought purely defensively, the men in the front ranks seeking only to hold the Sorority back from their rear.  Swords, she noted, many in the front row of men dropped their spears in favor of swords when a woman closed.  At least something here made sense.  The spears were unimpressive, though they might well scare a horse, but when women closed on them the men had the sense to draw a real woman's weapon. 

Sorority swordsmastery was impressively effective.  Where a woman actually reached the pirate line, you could see great gushes of blood and body parts flying.  Pirate body parts, mostly; the men were clearly not wearing any armor.  It was as though the men barely knew to wield their blades.  The men were too numerous and close-packed for single combatants to make a rapid impression.  A few women did penetrate the pirate lines, leaving bodies stacked around them before they were dragged down.  The ranks of the attacking Greathands grew thinner and thinner.  
                                         
Then all ended.  There was a final thunderous drumroll.  Healer and Priestess and ponies fell in their tracks.  Two Greathands of the Sorority lay on the field, strewn like rose petals fallen from the last flower of a warm autumn.  Distant screams could now be heard.  Tomas had frozen in his saddle.  The spearmen stood and advanced at a slow-march, carefully dressing their ranks, prodding at bodies, occasionally piercing one through with short-spear.  They were assuring that no survivors remained on the field.   Evaine offered the Lady thanks that her women had only had a late breakfast.  Only about a third of them were losing their most recent meal.

Evaine could count two dozen men lying on the ground. From the actions of their comrades, some were only wounded and might perhaps recover from their hurts.  Blue-cowls appeared and stood over each of the pirate dead.  Why?  Their actions made no sense whatsoever.  The Swordsisters had not disgraced themselves.  She had seen no member of the Sorority abandon her sisters and flee. What had happened to them was so eldritch that they had not recognized their danger before they died. 

Chapter 24
Applewine Hill, Millersvale
Summertouch 15, 2448

Tomas roused himself from his paralysis.  "Attention to orders!" he shouted.   He tried to pitch his voice high, not quite reaching a woman's tones.  For all that he was an Interlocutor, some of the women around him would challenge his authority if he gave them time to think.  He would not give them that time.   What should he do?  He was the Lady's Interlocutor.  Formally, a crime had just been committed.   It did not, however, appear to be quite the moment to ride over to Gull Harbor and inform the villains of the piece that they were under arrest and should come quietly.  They might have different thoughts on the matter.  Worse, refugees from Gull Harbor were beginning to crowd around the hilltop.  Soon, one of them might decide that the forced loan of his horse would be a lifesaving move.

"Torinsdale!  To me!"  He continued. Three dozen women formed a tight ring, most looking in at him.  Evaine, he noted, looked outwards, and had conspicuously loosened her sword in its scabbard.  "Gail, I will give you a message.  You are to take it as swiftly as possible to Millersport.  There it is to be forwarded by sunspeaker to the Shire Senate in Noralin City, and thence through Union to Longbeachport and Caer Adurel.  You will then ride as swiftly as possible through Millersbridge to Northfort, with my second message.  You may need to stay overnight in Gooseberry or Tayberry.  I need to stay here to see more of the pirates and their weapons."  However much, he thought, that I desire nothing more than to flee the scene immediately, that is not consistent with duty.  He began to write a letter.  "Evaine, it would be convenient to delay the pirates for so long as possible, so that Millersport may ready itself."

"Third Hand," Evaine ordered, "You will go back on the Hill Road to the road to Daisy, go to Daisy, and take the road from Daisy toward Millersspa.  After Daisy, ride in extreme open order. Be really alert.  You are riding straight into the pirates, and you can count on finding them.  Be sure they don't find you first.   Find them.  Scout them out.  Report what they are doing.  We're basing in Taylor's Glen.  Return before tomorrow evening."

"Fourth Hand, follow the Third Hand, but at Daisy take the road to Millers Mills, and from Millers Mills take the road from there toward Millersspa.  Same caution orders.  Same mission.  Same report.  Same return.   If the pirates take Daisy, you may be out by yourselves.  Sylvia, you know the paths north to the Star Tower.  Fall back there if need be.  Third and Fourth Hands can safely stop at the Daisy Inn for dinner.  Leave people on the approach roads.  There may be pirates about already.  Also, each town you pass, tell the locals their Sorority protection just got wiped out to the last woman.  They should try protecting themselves.

"Gail, when you get to Tayberry, tell the wagons and their escort to take the Hill Road to Daisy. Tell them to advance to Taylor's Glen and camp.  It's really deep in woods and hard to find.  All of you! Our supplies are moving to Taylor's Glen and the Star Tower road.  Remember that."  

Evaine turned to the refugees.  "Those of you from Gull Port, here is not a safe place to be.  Are any crippled or infirm?  I see you three in the barrows.  The rest of you, head south. Take turns helping women carry their mothers. Be on your way," Evaine pointed with her sword toward Millersport.  The devastated women, whose town had just been captured by Sea Eagles or worse, began walking south.  Soon the hillside had emptied.

Tomas, who had been writing, gave his first message to Gail, who read it out loud before she tucked it away.  "The fifth priority.  Noralin City.  The Mistress of Swords, Madelyn.  The First of Justice, Andara.  The First Speaker, Shire Council of Cismontane-by-the-Sea.  Paragraph.  A state of rebellion exists west of Merecester.  Pirates are a formed liveried body of men, more than three greathands strong.  Pirates engaged, recessional today, Piper's Bay Common, by two Sorority Greathands under Handmistress Johannasdotr.   Sorority Greathands were obliterated, apparently no repeat no survivors.  Pirates took light casualties.  Towns west of Merecester have no defense other than their walldaughters.  Tomas Cheryl-sur-Maserin, Lady's Own Interlocutor, above Pippin's Bay Common.  End."  

Thomas's second message followed.  "Mother, there are hundreds of pirates here and by report two thousand more following.  Bring to Northfort the Formed and High Levies.  Fight pirates here, or fight pirates in Torinsdale.'

Gail waited while Tomas pulled two kons from his saddlebags and fixed them on her shoulders.  The white was the Interlocutor's kon, marking her as his personal messenger.  The solid black, which she had seen only in a classroom, was the Disaster kon, symbolizing that truly terrible things had happened, and that she was the bearer of the worst possible news.  "Millersport may be nervous," he said, "though if you ride fast you will be the first with the bad news.  Their gates may be closed.  In that event, you wear an Interlocutor's kon, so you should ride up to the gate and shout 'Open in the name of the Goddess', which should almost surely gain you admittance.  Now, go!"  And that, he considered, gets the junior member of the party out of any possible mischief.  He looked at Evaine and winked, getting an answering wink in return.

"First and Second Hands," Evaine said, her voice not quite raised, "Prepare to carry out harassing fire.  You will accompany me to the treeline yonder.  First Hand, you were selected as the women with the best range with your bows.  Dismount.  Use the trees for cover.  At the whistle, start putting arrows into the pirates.  That treeline is fifty feet up from them. You should have the range.  Second Hand, you will be horseholders and remount aids for the First Hand, one on one, as drilled."  

Some of the women shifted uncomfortably on their horses.  "If you watched, the pirate slingers—the folks who killed the Swordsisters--sat on their behinds trying to find their backsides with both hands, until the Swordsisters were 30 paces away.  We're going to be a hundred or a hundred fifty paces away, hard to see, and if you will use your wits you will put a nice, thick tree between most of your body and most of the pirates," Evaine said.  "Or are you going to abandon me and your sisters?"  She turned her horse and started down the hill.  Her thoughts ran ahead of her.  Someone had paid the price trying to fight the pirates.  Now was the time to see if she had learned from the lessons they'd purchased.

"At the walk! First Hand, Advance!" the First Hand's Handmistress shouted.  She rode to the lead of the line, incidentally slapping on the rump the horse of the one still-hesitating woman.

"When the pirates start moving at us, leave," Evaine said over her shoulder.  "Don't hesitate.  There'll be more chances to kill them later.  Stay together, so none is left behind."

* * * * *

Spoolbow bolts zipped off the wooded hill into the pirates.  The range, Evaine found, was what she had estimated, long but not impossible.  The target was easy: a large body of men standing in neat lines doing nothing.  Perhaps their officers were telling them what to do, even as she had told her women what was to be done.  One man and then another fell to the ground.  

The officers—she allowed the gauds on horseback were officers—rode into their lines, waved swords in the direction of the trees, and waited as their men brought up their spears.  Again, puffs of smoke enveloped the spear line.  Again, there came the distant sound of peculiar drums.   There were odd noises in the treetops.  Branches and leaves fell to ground.  Once and again, smoke and drums repeated.  Man after man dropped, struck by Torinsdale bolts.  A load thunk and spray of wood-dust marked something hitting a neighboring tree, very hard.  She could not see her women, but the stream of arrows from around her did not appear to have diminished.  She focused at the gauds on horseback.  One of the gauds went over, his horse rolling on top of him.  Then another and another fell.  Two of them rode forward, pointing their swords at the trees.  

The men began to run at the woodline, many of them setting their spears carefully on the ground before they drew their swords and charged.  "Withdraw!" Evaine shouted.  "Withdraw!"  Handmistress whistles shrilled.  This was the difficult part of harassment attacks.  There came the moment at which you had to pull back.  In an ambush, too many women got their temper up and failed to flee in a timely way.   She sprinted for her own horse, dropped her bow into its carrier, and clambered into the saddle.  Here came the other women out of the back of the woods.  She counted, then counted again.  All sixteen were there.  They followed her lead, going to a gallop along the road and back to Tomas. They'd done it right.  She would have to praise them—and urge them to leave a little sooner next time, because now they would be overconfident.  

One rider clutched an arm, letting a companion lead her.  The wall of men finally appeared on the near side of the copse of oak.  There was the distant sound of a musical instrument.  A flute?  No, more like a trumpet.  The men stared at the backs of the fleeing women, then turned about and disappeared.  Evaine had had time to count bodies on the ground.  For women facing considerable range and a gusty breeze, not to mention a healthy dose of fear of the unknown, her bowdaughters had done a good piece of work.  The number of pirate casualties reinforced her suspicion that the men wore no armor whatsoever.

"OK," Evaine said.   "I count twelve of theirs down.  That's great for five or ten bolts per person, especially that range, that breeze, off a hill, first time in combat. Deann, what happened to you?"  The target of her question was a statuesque women, just short of six feet in height and two hundred pounds, almost all muscle, whose preferred weapon was the axe hanging from her saddle.  

"Took a hit on the arm," was the answer.  One hand clamped down on blood-soaked clothing above the other elbow.  "Not that painful.  Fingers still work."  Evaine peered.  The wound bled slowly.  Roxanne had already moved over, packed the wound with a boiled dressing, and wrapped it, enough to staunch the bleeding.

"OK," Evaine said, "First Hand, ride around Gull Port and up the Coast Road toward Millersspa, until you make contact with the pirates.  Remember caution.  Remember our base is northeast of Daisy.  Let base know if the pirates advance beyond Millersspa, or twice a day by single rider in any event.  Be back tomorrow evening.  Oh, if any of the Coast bridges are wood, it would be a shame if they had accidental fires that put them out of commission.  Second Hand stays here, keep an eye on the pirates. Shoot them up if you get a chance.  Half a hand holds horses.  Half a hand shoots. We were a bit slow backing out this time.  Next time, back out sooner and faster.
Paragraph break in the middle of quote caused momentary hesitation in reading.

The rest of us drop back a half-mile, do field check on Deann's arm, that likely means Deann getting out of armor and padding, and you'd rather not be doing that and have pirates start chasing us, and then I'd expect to drop Deann and companion back to the Millersport Infirmarian. Let's go." She nudged her horse, letting Tomas and Roxanne fall in beside her.  

"A peculiar battle," Tomas finally announced.  "From what I've read of battles." 

"Peculiar? How so?"  Evaine asked.  Her mind kept taking her back, so she saw once again Sorority Greathands in battle formation, lavender cloaks in loose diamonds, archers in a crisp single line, scouts in clusters at the flanks.  Then there came fog, and sharp thunder, and distant figures dropping to earth.  It was scarce comfort that, far too late to matter, the Greathands had gone to the attack, and that Sorority swordmastery was far superior to pirate speardaughtership, so that some number of pirates lay gutted or beheaded in Gull Harbor Common.  She had already had doubts about how well the Sorority trained its officers.  Those doubts were confirmed. Greatmistress Johannasdotr had marched straight ahead, preparing to roust out a crew of chicken thieves when she obviously faced no such thing.  If the Landgrafin were correct about the Republican threat, which Evaine seriously doubted, and the Torinsdale Formed Levy went up against the Sorority, the Formed Levy would carry the day.

"Actually, I should prefer that you tell me," Tomas said.  "Rather, I prefer that you tell me each thing that you remember.  That also goes for you, Roxanne.  This is what you learn if you become an Interlocutor:  Witnesses should not talk to each other.  If they do, they can agree wrongly on what happened.  My training is learning to hear what the living and the dead actually say and saw." 

"As is your wish," Evaine answered. Her voice hollow, she began to recount what she'd seen a sunhand previous.  Once again, her account was interrupted by questions -- questions, she noted, that most often were simple repetitions of her own words, the inflection subtly changed.  "Let me guess, Tomas," she finally added, "The women dying.  That was not sorcery, either."

"Mmh.  The smoke might have been.  Drums? No.  I would guess those weapons are blowguns, and from the way people went over the darts were poisoned," he said.

"Tomas, I can use a blowgun.  They do not put holes in people or rupture arteries," Evaine answered.  "Nor do they chew up armor, the way something wrecked up Deann's.  That looks like what you'd get with a greatbow bolt, one that grazed the chain mail and went on its way, bleeding being armor driven through padding."

"What do I remember?" Deann said.  "I didn't see anything coming, but I heard something like a big bee, there was a hammering sound from the tree I was leaned up against, and then my arm hurt."

"We'll get you back together," Evaine said, "or Millersport will. When you and your second can move, get to the glen northeast of Daisy—you've both been there, haven't you?"

* * * * *

Lengthening shadows stretched out to the east. Gail's horse clopped wearily up the road toward Tayberry.   The Millersport Stablemistress had assured Gail that Blossom was still fresh, a judgement that was proving seriously wrong.  Pushing beyond Tayberry was out of the question.  Gail's chief worry now was whether she would reach Tayberry without hurting her horse.  However, here was the road to the Sunspeaker tower, and there was the fountain and horse trough it supplied for passers by.   She pulled off the road, keeping a careful eye while Blossom drank, lest she drink too much.  The bucket Gail dropped over her own head was more welcome; she'd be dry soon enough in all the heat.

"Hello."  The voice was from behind her.

She looked up.  It was Don, the boy from the Tower.

"I saw you coming up the road," he said.  "And hoped you might stop, your horse dragging so much."

"I did stop," she said.  "Blossom is going no farther than a stable tonight, not unless the pirates appear.  I have to bargain with the Inn for a room, or bench in the Commons."

"Inn is full up," he said. "Has been since afternoon.  People are coming up from the coast, places north, with wild tales about Sea Eagles.  And a battle.  They don't seem to realize the Sisterhood is in Millersport. They'd arrest any Sea Eagles.  If you believe in Sea Eagles."  Gail turned pale.  "My Mum's old Circle came up from Duckweather.  They're staying with us.  We're so crowded I'm sleeping in a hammock in the yard.  If it doesn't rain."

"I saw the battle," she said.  "I saw it.  I'd tell you about it, but I'm carrying messages, and have to deliver them.  Could you take me to Town Hall?  And the stables? "

* * * * *

Taylor's Glen had reached the shadow of evening.  Roxanne sat at a trestle table, carefully re-weaving Deann's chain mail with steel wire.  Field expedient, she told herself.  She would be done before daylight faded.  Hobbled horses grazed on a wide lawn, occasionally drinking from the burbling stream that formed its lower boundary.  Evaine and a half-hand of women worked in the stream, hefting rocks into place and shoveling gravel and sand.  

"A lot of rock to move," one of the women grumbled, "I suppose it counts as rational training."

"It could, Nadia," Evaine answered, using a steel pry bar to roll a boulder into place.  "It counts as 'we have four dozen horses, the creek is not always so full, and there's a fine narrow in the creek here for a dam, enough we'll have a pond for the horses to drink.'  Besides, it's fairly deep at the end, enough the horses are less likely to wander away."

"And you can be planning while you're not talking," Nadia Nadiasdotr said.

"I can be thinking," Evaine answered.  "Though I'll think more," she paused, bracing arms and legs to give a hard full-body shove, "if we hear back from the women I sent out for a look-see.  Mayhap we will.  Mayhap we must wait for tomorrow evening and look ourselves.  We've gone as far as we should with the horses today, if they are to stay fresh."

"Is there time?" Nadia asked.  "Where will the pirates be tomorrow?"

"About where they are today, I think," Evaine said.  "The ones at Millersspa have to get their wagons through a big stream with a mud bottom.  A lot of wagons—that's a day.  The ones at Gull Harbor—I don't think three hundred men can do more than hold the town.  At Gull Harbor, the Coast Road is pressed tight between hills and water.  Those men might be a blocking force, something to keep the Sisterhood from moving north until the main pirate force has arrived."

"The Coast Road has too many bridges," Tomas said, looking up from his reading, "to be a place to advance an army.  If someone swims in from the sea and takes out a bridge, sets it on fire, pries out the keystone, whatever, the road is blocked."

"I would worry," Roxanne said, "about how many horses the pirates have, and how much cavalry.  Cavalry could make it challenging to spy out their march, not to mention that the town forces hereabouts are little different from Low Levy, not trained to stand up to a horse charge.

"What I would like to do," Evaine said, "Is to hide our road to the Glen, but hiding roads is a challenge. For now, back to work.  More dam, less damn!"

* * * * *

It was almost dark outside the loft.  Gail had persuaded the stables to take in her horse, even if the Inn would not take her.  'No room in the Inn, none at all, and I've people sleeping on the floors.'  The hostler had finally agreed she could sleep in the hayloft, so long as she used no flame.  After all, she had a good horse, so she was not going to be a thief, and she had a sword she knew how to use. If someone did try to steal a horse, Gail would discourage the thief.  

The Tayberry town council had listened politely to her words, but only because she wore the Interlocutor's kons on her shoulders and read aloud his message on the pirates.  Having listened, they then began discussing action, finally suggesting that she go on her way, since she had told them all that she knew.  She had returned to the stables.  Peeling out of leather and padding until she wore only her longshirt had been a delight.  She had been careful to drink to be sure she was well-watered, but she had still roasted all day.  Now she had made a nest in the hay and could drift off to sleep in the cool of the evening.

"Gail? Are you there?"  Don's voice, very soft, came from the stairs.  "I brought you some dinner.  I knew the Inn was only feeding guests.  It's not much.  My mum's old Circle are fond of eating."

"Up here," she said.  "Don't be loud, I'm supposed to be the only one in the barn.  What did you bring, Don?"  Dinner proved to be a basket with a loaf of bread, cheeses, several ripe tomatoes, still-warm sausage, and the remains of a bottle of raspberry wine.  Gail tried her best to share, Don protesting that his Circle had already fed him.

"So, tell me about the battle," he finally asked.  "Did they fight back, or just run away, before the Pirates got arrested?"

"The battle? The Pirates won."  She stopped.  He really did not know.  The Town Council meeting, after all had been closed to the public.  Slowly, with many pauses, she described what had happened, from the Sisterhood disdaining Torinsdale assistance to their bodies lying strewn like violet stars on a grass-green sky.  Toward the end, it was harder and harder to say anything, even after he held her hands.  "And that's all," she said quietly. "But I don't want to talk any more," she announced, bringing down her mouth over his.  He didn't resist when she pushed him back into the hay, pinning his body with hers.

Chapter 25
Daisy, Millersvale
Summertouch 17, 2448

Daisy was built on a gentle slope, its higher eastern side reaching back almost to the town reservoir.  To its South were the vast fields of sunflowers from which the town earned its living; the road west passed between steep hills as it carried the Daisybrook on its winding path to the sea.

Evaine and two hands of Torinsdale cavalry waited on the northern side of the Daisybrook, Daisy and its roads at the bottom of a near-vertical slope.  Third Hand had returned last night with news about where the pirates were marching, had ridden to warn the people of Daisy, and had been emphatically told that foreigners had no role in defending a town of the Republic.  Evaine considered cursing under her breath, but found it not worth the effort.  The people of Daisy had already cursed themselves.  Daisy had a mediocre town wall, not more than ten feet tall with several large gaps.  The gaps could have been barricaded.  The wall still provided more cover than the open field in which Daisy's town ill-Trained Band had drawn up.  The most that could be said for the Daisy position was that it was anchored on the south by a cliff, on the north by the Daisybrook, that Daisy had skirmishers out on each side, and that the pirates coming down the road were not even trying to flank them.  Nor was the position so wide that the women could not hold its width.

What were the pirates doing?  Their march pace was remarkably slow.  They advanced in truly open order, with twelve or more feet between ranks and several feet between files.  When the fields were wide enough, they marched 12 abreast. They made no effort to march in step, and little effort to keep the time provided by their band. They had a few cavalry in support, perhaps a  half dozen in advance of the formation, a half-dozen who would have ridden flank when there was an opportunity, and horses for the gaudily dressed officers who rode well to the lead of the column.  Evaine had worried the pirates might copy the Horse Barbarians and deploy a real cavalry force.  There was every reason to suspect that a Republic Low Levy confronted with charging horse cavalry would fold and run.   She told herself that it was only her guess that the peacocks on horseback were Pirate officers, though they behaved the way officers might.   They might alternatively be a cavalry troop in dispersed formation.  A trail of wagons, four dozen wagons for 500 men, was nearly to the formation's rear.

Mixed in with the men on foot were a half-dozen black-painted logs on wheels.  Were they battering rams?  They looked odd to be rams.  They also looked to be impressively heavy, with teams of six horses pulling.  While the pirates deployed into battle formation, the rams came to the front.   They were dragged into the field and turned around, their tow-horses moving off to the rear.   Meanwhile the men were marching and countermarching. Tomas carefully sketched the paths they took.   The men near the rams did obscure things.  The foot men, their clumsy spears over one shoulder, paced back and forth.  As a deployment to battle, it was remarkably slow.  The Sisterhood commander who deployed so slowly against her, Evaine thought, would be given an educational experience.

Now the officers were coming together in a knot near the center of the field.  The men had stopped marching and formed lines, five or six ranks deep in different places, slightly behind the row of logs.  Other men stood around the logs.  Were the logs designed to roll forward and smash the Daisy lines?  She had reconnoitered the field.  The Daisy women stood on a slight slope, appreciably above the field held by the pirates.  Rolling forward would not work.

A great puff of smoke appeared at the end of one log.  The log jerked back.  A dark object sailed forward, visible as a blur against the grass.  There was a loud rumble, more like thunder than drummers playing.   The object struck the ground—at least, there was a burst of dust—and swiftly passed over the Daisy line.  One after the next, logs emitted puffs of smoke and flying objects.  One struck a cluster of women.  Gouts of blood sailed in all directions. Four women were left on the ground.  Evaine peered through her farseer; those women looked most likely to be dead.
It struck the ground, then passed over the line?

No sooner had a log stopped moving back than a group of men leaped into place around it to push it forward again. Others stood around it. After a while, a fresh puff of smoke appeared.  A thunderous roar was heard. Another ill-seen object flew out.  They were stonethrowers, Evaine decided, stonethrowers of unfamiliar design.

Evaine considered the distances.  The stonethrowers were a really long bowshot from the Daisy line.  For a greatbow team, the distances would only be moderate, but Daisy had no greatbows.  For a heavy-draw spoolbow, the range was possible for a strong woman.

Standing in a tight line in front of a group of stone throwers, with no way to respond and no reason to suppose the enemy would run out of rocks, was not advisable.  Evaine frowned.  The Swordsister commanding the Daisy forces had several unattractive alternatives, of which standing still seemed to be the worst.  She could try advancing to bow range, but she had few archers in her line.  She could back out of stonethrower range, and hope that her women would hold formation while backing.  That would open her flanks.  Also, the stone throwers could simply follow her.  She could try charging the men, but she had no better than even numbers.  Most of her women were not Swordsisters practiced with sword or axe.  Torinsdale low levies were far better trained than the Daisy levy appeared to be.  Worst of all, instead of standing in front of the line where she could be seen, the Swordsister in command and her fellow swordsisters were standing in the line with the other women.  They had no way to see what was happening to their sides, and the women relying on their presence mostly could not seem them.

"Those are onagers," Tomas announced.  "They are described in Marcovious.  They throw giant darts.  They're basically funny-shaped greatbows, perfectly capable of killing you if you get in their way.  But these seem to be very clumsy, hard to point, and slow to draw."  Evaine decided not to argue.  She had seen onagers in use, once and again.  These were not onagers, not at all, though they threw a stone.  

"Now that is interesting," Tomas said.  "The men who cluster around an onager."  He had raised his voice enough that every woman could hear him.  Evaine decided it was a good distraction.  "Watch the third one, the one that just threw a stone.  One man pushes a rod into the end of the log.  That log has to be hollow.  Another man is pounding the other end of the log with a big mallet.   Something gets forced into the end of the log, and is pushed into place with a long stick.  That's a really long stick.  The hollow must run most of the length of the log.  Now they do it again.  Finally, the men jump to the sides.  If you watch, every time they prepare the onager, they do the same thing.  Finally, the fellow off to the side comes up to the log, waves his hands, and another stone is hurled."

"It takes a while," Deann said.  "Far longer than firing a greatbow."

"Deann, do you know the egg timing chant?" Tomas asked.  "If you would give it to me out loud, on my mark, and let Lady Roxanne count the rounds, we can say precisely how long."  Deann began the childhood nonsense rhyme, said thrice-eight times over boiling water to soft-boil an egg.  Now the entire formation was listening to Deann's singsong, distracted from the battle below.  

After a while, Tomas continued: "They throw a stone every three minutes or so. Against a charge they might hurl one rock, that in a direction that the women charging can anticipate.  Once is nowhere near the number of bolts a good bowdaughter can loft in the same period."

"Do they have a spring inside that they are compressing, like in a jack-in-the-box?" Evaine proposed.  "It's a remarkable spring."

"Tomas," Roxanne said, "Just as bowdaughters have fast-fire, so these people may have the same, and be able to cast a stone in less than three minutes."  

The thunder went on and on.  "Attention to orders!" Evaine finally shouted.  "The Daisy line is not going to stand.  Sooner or later, they will charge, try to back out, or flee.  When they do, unless the pirates have no brains at all, they will charge in pursuit, or countercharge.  You will all see why running away is a fast way to die.   But while you are watching, we are at no more than medium range, and you are going to put as many bolts as you can into the pirates.  Clear enough?" she asked. 

"You aren't starting now?" Roxanne asked.

"I want to see what other tricks the pirates have in their pockets," Evaine answered.  "Lessons in defeat are expensive. I am happy to pay with someone else's blood.  The Republic had the chance to give you the women and arms needed to be ready for this.  They refused. The woman of Daisy had my offer of help, and refused.   Also, pursuit takes a while, we have only so many spoolbow bolts, and can fire only so many before exhaustion sets in."  Evaine pointed at the right of the pirate line, which was performing a complicated evolution.  After some minutes, one group of pirates had formed a deep column behind the pirate line.  The remaining pirates had spread their lines to cover the full width of the ground.  "So we shall wait and see.  I doubt we will wait forever longer.  The Daisy line is starting to look a bit ragged. Something about that stone thrower and not being able to answer.  If you watch carefully at the far end, where there are a few trees near the cliff, there are women backing into them."

"Dear," Tomas said to Roxanne, "Do not blame yourself. You tried to give the Swordsisters down there advice.  They refused to listen."

"I was afraid they were going to arrest me," Roxanne said.  "They threatened to.  This is third village where we stopped on this road.  Each time I was turned away in almost the same language."

"Exactly the same language," Evaine said.  "Someone told them what to say.  Except you were not about to be arrested."

"How not?" Tomas asked.

"These people keep forgetting.  Millers Vale is rented from Torinsdale.  It has been for the last six hundred years.  They are even delinquent on rent.  If the dummy down below had proposed to arrest Roxanne, I would have countermanded her order.  I, and two Hands of Torinsdale cavalry.  She refused my offer of assistance, which she badly needed.  And now, oh, here we go, she's standing out in front of her line. She's doing the shout-answer routine, must be working them up for a charge," Evaine said.  "Okay, let's move our line right—I want to be behind the pirate line when this starts—Yes, I see they can't cross the Daisybrook, not in any reasonable time."  

Down below, the Swordsister continued her harangue of the women of Daisy.  Their responses gradually got louder and louder.  

"The pirates see they are about to get charged," Evaine said.  "You can see their officers getting more nervous.  They've even clustered their men up into a solid line. In fact, here we go."

The Daisy Trained Band began to move at the pirates, first at a walk, then faster and faster.

"There go the men again," Roxanne said, "First two lines are squatting. Next two lines are tighter than shoulder to shoulder.  Their spears are ready."

"Roxanne, dear, those are not spears," Tomas announced. "I have examined one carefully, especially the loose parts.  In particular, the completely loose part that except for size is just like the pole they keep sticking down the stonethrower.  Those spears are stonethrowers—well, shot throwers, and somehow work like slings.  Remember we could not find the slingers at Gull Harbor?  We just saw spears and smoke and men making odd gestures?  The slingers were in plain sight.  They were the spearmen.  Their spears are the slings.  The smoke then and now is the same.  The odd gestures the men made at Gull Harbor are the same as the ones with the logs, except the logs were horizontal.  To prepare a spear to throw a stone you pick it up and poke it with a rod while it is standing vertical."

"But, Tomas, we completely took apart the strange spear. There are no bowstaves or springs hidden inside.  You even sawed the spearshaft open lengthwise.  How can an empty if dirty pipe whose back end was hammered and welded shut be used to throw stones?" Roxanne answered.  "Magic?"

Evaine decided they had friendly arguments like this all the time, so she did not need to get involved.  She was too busy cursing under her breath.  If the Daisy women had advanced to, oh, roughly where they were now, a hundred yards from the foe, and stopped, they could have engaged with their own bows.  Instead, they were breaking into a run.

When they closed to seventy-five yards from the pirates, clouds of smoke began to appear near the pirate line.  Not drums, Evaine thought, there are no drums.  That noise has something to do with spears throwing shot.  A few women fell to earth, but the Daisy line swept forward.  At sixty yards, the large stone throwers all released at once.  Not single stones, Evaine thought. With all the dust, they must be throwing bags of gravel.  Directly in front of the throwers, holes appeared in the Daisy lines.  Over five-yard widths, every woman in the line went down.  Evaine swallowed.  You very definitely did not want to stand directly in front of one of those things.  She drew her bow.

"Torinsdale!" she screamed, not sure she could be heard over the stonethrowers, "Rapid fire!  Hit their people on horseback! Engage!"  She let her mind be swept up by the bow mantra, one eye distantly watching as further ranks of spearmen hurled shot at the attackers.  The men around the stone throwers were manically running through the motions of preparing their onagers for another throw.   Roxanne had been right.  They could reload at speed.  Several logs belched smoke, tearing fresh gaps in the line of running women, before the Daisy Trained Band hit the Pirate line.

"Perhaps Daisy will win," Tomas said.

"Not a chance," Roxanne answered coldly.  "Outnumbered three to two, undertrained, oh, and now we see what the pirate column does.  It's a countercharge.  At fifty men deep it will surely break the Daisy line, at which point the Pirates will take Daisy in the rear.  Not to mention those gaps made by the stonethrowers.  Daisy had no reserve to fill them.  Pirates are starting to wedge into the gaps."

Evaine shifted her fire, down to the Daisybrook.  The Pirate who had been searching for the source of arrow fire suddenly took one through the head.  His two companions lasted little longer.  Her arms began to hurt.  Rational training or not, ten rounds a minute sustained for minute after minute was demanding. The other women with her were slowing their fire, not without leaving left large numbers of wounded and dead pirates on the ground below.

On the plain, an officer was pointing across the Daisybrook at the slope, and turning some of his men.  One man after another used his shot thrower, sending leaves falling to the ground around Evaine. "Back from the edge!" she shouted.  "Get behind trees.  Keep shooting!   Tomas!  Roxanne!  You too!  Get back." Behind the officer, the battle was going poorly for Daisy.  The left wing of the Daisy lines was broken to pieces.  Several knots of women were completely surrounded.  The right wing was bending back toward the Daisybrook.  The only gratifying part of this, Evaine allowed, was that the number of men on the ground was not small, and many of them had been put there by the women of Daisy.  The number of men left on horseback was even smaller.  The surviving pirate officers were concentrated off to the other side of the valley, not really in good reach.  Evaine paused and changed the pulley on her bow.  It would be a bear to draw, but she had the range to fire across the valley.

The Daisy line, outnumbered now close to two to one, collapsed.   Women broke and ran for town.  The surviving Swordsisters, fighting without fleeing, were cut down from all sides.  The mass of pirates rolled forward like a great wave overtopping a sand fort.  The girls and grandmothers watching from the town wall stared in horror, only a few realizing that it was now past time to flee.  Her arms burning with strain, Evaine put bolt after bolt into the pirates, carefully targeting the pirate officers.  Finally she had to stop. She had fired almost every bolt she had carried, her arms burned, and a large group of pirates had turned their shot-throwers on her hilltop. The pirates were no longed mixed in with Daisy women, because those women had run away or were lying on the ground, dead or dying.  It was time to leave.

"To the horses!" she ordered.  "Mount and count!"  They dashed through the trees to their horses.  

"You'll be one short," Roxanne said.  "Kay stayed at the edge and took a stone in the face.  She—the whole back of her head was gone.  She died almost instantly."

"She rises to the sky," Evaine chanted quietly.  "She sits among the stars.  She lies on the tender bosom of She Who Is."

"Counted," Tomas announced.  "All, less one dead."

"Up the reservoir trail," Evaine ordered.  "We'll see what they do, then ride to Millers Mills."

* * * * *

Screams echoed faintly across the width of the Daisy reservoir.  Smoke rose from the town.  Pirates walked back and forth through the town gates, pushing barrows and making a stack of books and other papers.  The town had an open temple, one without roof or solid walls.  The pirates had captured several temple priestesses.  Pirates in blue cowled robes cut the throats of prisoners, then dismembered the two priestesses while they still lived.  Other pirates were stacking lumber, higher and higher.  A pile of dead pirates rose next to the lumber pile.  Next to the town gate was a line of wagons.  They were being filled with objects taken from town.

"Tomas," Evaine said, "This matches Longbeachport, complete with heaping all the books in order to burn them, slaughtering the priestesses on their own altar, and looting the town."

"Agreed," Tomas said. 

"We've been here before.  We've seen what happens to a town the Pirates capture. We don't need to see another one.  It's better to see if Millers Mills will take our aid when offered.  Besides, the pirates may have yet another weapon up their sleeves," Evaine said coldly.  She examined the women she was leading.  They were not quite in shock. Losing Kay so suddenly had disoriented many of them.  The atrocities visible in Daisy were entirely outside human precedent.

"The gatesmasher comes immediately to mind," Tomas said.  "I allow that something happened to the Longbeachport gate. None of the weapons we have seen thus far did that.  On a different note, the pirates seem to be less knowledgeable on marching tactics than your women.  I tracked carefully how they moved from column of march to line to column.  They have blocks of men, twelve men wide and five or six men deep.  Those blocks can march more or less straight ahead, or they can wheel left or right, each file changing direction to follow the next when it reaches a fixed pivot point.  All the more complicated maneuvers you spend your time teaching are not in their repertoire.  They also march slowly, not in step or rhythm."

"Tomas, is that all you can talk about?" Roxanne whispered.  "Women are being butchered like cattle, no, worse than cattle, you stun a cow before you slit its throat, and you are timing their marches?  Don't you care what happened to Daisy?"

"Dearest, I care more than anything else," Tomas answered.  "But we could not have changed what happened, not even if you had engaged the pirates from the beginning.  Who here has any slotbow bolts left?  So I thought.  You killed almost all the pirates that you could.  A few more swords toe to toe would not have made a difference. The women of Daisy would not do the one thing that might have mattered, namely cravenly cowering inside the rubble of their Town walls instead of smiting their foes tooth and nail."

"And you sit here taking notes?  Is that all you can think of, a better historical record?" Roxanne continued angrily.

"No, beloved, not a better history, a better tactical manual.  That's what finally beat the Sea Eagles.  The One World learned from its defeats and Pyrrhic victories how to defeat the Eagles who rise from the Boy's Sea.  I am but a man.  I cannot wield a blade.  I can take detailed notes, from which Domains and Republics may learn something." Tomas shrugged apologetically.  "I suppose I could don my scarf as Interlocutor, ride over to the pirates, and announce that they are all subject to arrest.  I fear they would not cooperate.  I may cry bitter tears, but cannot change what we see.  Yet."

"I need four honest volunteers with strong stomachs," Evaine said.  "OK.  You are to stay hidden. Goldenrod Hill is probably the best place.  Keep watch on the town.  Everyone else, hand over all your remaining slotbow bolts to the people who are staying.  Pirates will be busy for a while.  I want to know where they go if they leave.  They earned a bloody nose here. They may retreat to their lairs to lick their wounds.  The rest of us are going to Taylor's Glen.  Where we will form," she added, "a work party to drop trees to block the roads west from Daisy."

"And what I shall need," Tomas said, "So soon as I have finished writing it, is one rider, to take a message to the Millersbridge sunspeaker.  Oh, I have to seal it—they probably have never had a sixth priority message before."

"Sixth?" Roxanne asked.

"While some may quibble, I find there has been an outbreak of the Heresy of Necromancy, as described by the Council of Altairis.  They are also worshippers of the Spider Goddess, a practice thought extinguished prior to the First Revelation," Tomas said.  "If brought to trial, a good barrister might make the case they are something else, but he would have to make that case.  These people are even worse than the Sea Eagles, who in many incursions respected Her Priestesses and Their Sacred Places."

Chapter 26
Taylor's Glen, Millersvale
Summertouch 17, 2448

I find that despite pausing to reformat them, I don't actually *see* the datelines.  This blind spot is far from universal, but I gather that it's fairly common -- and there isn't a *thing* a book designer can do about it:  in this advertising-saturated age, the more you do to emphasize something, the farther it retreats into the background.  
Fortunately, you seem to already have that covered -- none of your transitions has been the least bit confusing.
Taylor's Glen was crowded with women.  Tents were laid out in neat rows.  Horses were being rested and grazed downstream of the reservoir.  Woman labored with spade and mattock to throw up earthworks covering the camp, with broad gaps through which women on horseback might sortie.  Other women were fitting together prefabricated gates, sized to block gaps when the cavalry was not sortying.   Evaine counted tents—she was looking at the entire Cavalry Greathand, and much of the reserve Greathand in addition.  

No sooner had she stopped her horse than half a dozen women clamored for her attention.  "Enough!" she announced.  "Is the command tent where it belongs?  Those questions are for your Greatmistresses to settle.  Who is the hostler?  The horses of the hands with me have been hard-ridden for several days.  Settle them, feed them, check their shoes. Help my people check saddle gear.  No, Tomas, you are not handling your and Roxanne's gear, that's why you have an Interlocutor's escort.  They should be here by now. There they are. Priestess?  Kay Kaysdotr sits among the stars.  There will be those who wish the evenchant for her.  Now, where is the command tent?"

Central in the camp, a rectangular pavilion tent closed on three sides held a trestle table and camp chairs.  A half-dozen bedrolls and surgeon's kit were packed against one wall.  Gretchen Threetowers, clad in mottled-brown shirt and trousers, an Interlocutor's kon fixed to one shoulder, listened carefully to another woman, similarly clad.  Evaine stepped across the threshold, whispered 'finish' at Gretchen, and waited.  'The rest later,' Gretchen said, sending the other woman on her way.

"How may I help you, Armsmistress Evaine?" Gretchen asked.

"What news from Torinsdale?  I see close to two Greathands of women but no Greatmistresses here in this tent," she said, "which is likely as it should be."

"Greatmistress Elizabeth is supervising the wall construction.  Greatmistress Pauline is supervising the camp.  I am here, if any matter arises," Gretchen said.  "The Torinsdale formed levies will be assembled at Borderfort no sooner than tomorrow evening."  Evaine gnashed her teeth.  Summoning the formed levies had proven remarkably slow. That had to be fixed.  "The Landgrafin sent here both cavalry Greathands, or as much as had appeared promptly, and a message for you.  The Swordmistress remains at Borderfort drilling the formed levies, and reports that they are as ready as they will be in the next few days."  She handed Evaine a missive carrier.  "The Interlocutor's Escort is here.  We arrived just after you left."

"Good," Evaine said. They were alone. "First matters first.  You are the Interlocutor's Escort, first and foremost.  On one point, you must be discreet but careful.  Tomas is not a young man, despite the color of his hair.  Or the color of his chestnut oil.  He is a man, and only his barber knows for sure.  He must be protected from himself, from exhaustion, from road sickness.  Unlike normal sensible men, he is not in the habit of complaining that he is cold, hungry, bored, sleepy, tired, or all at once, even when the complaints are true, so you must see that he is kept warm, fed, and encouraged to sleep.  Bored is never an issue. Is his escort all here?"

"Angela-vrith-Martin is in Noralin City.  She was sent word by sunspeaker this morning. She should be here by nightfall," Gretchen answered.  "Gail somehow talked the Tayberry sunspeaker people into sending the message to Angela, as a courtesy."

"Angela is riding how far?" Evaine asked doubtfully.  That distance approached being a horse-killer.

"Her House had sent her a horse.  A Pelosian stallion.  For once it will not complain of insufficient exercise," Gretchen answered.  Evaine wondered what stud fees for the Pelosian would be.  Unfortunately, Angela had an unnaturally profound understanding of the value of money.

"Anything else I should know?  I have to read the Landgrafin's message.  Please summon Elizabeth and Pauline and their Bannerets," Evaine said.

"The coast towns north of Gull Harbor are being abandoned, their inhabitants fleeing east to Daisy and Millers Mills.  We have word of smallhosts of Pirate infantry marching on Daisy and Millers Mills, and yet another thousand Pirate infantry marching into Millerspa from the north.  Elizabeth sent a hand of riders to reconnoiter north from the Ice Tower, to see how many more Pirate columns are coming.  That will take days to yield an answer.  There are rumors of ghost riders, strangely dressed people on ponies, seen atop remote hills everywhere west of Merecester, south almost to the border."

"Ghost riders?" Evaine asked.  "Since when?"

Gretchen waved her hands.  "Sometime yesterday, I think.  Definitely this morning.  When the Cavalry Greathands rode through, we saw some.  We thought it was Cismontane low-levy militia in odd dress uniform."

"Drat!" Evaine said.  "I sent Gail off by herself yesterday, as a messenger.  She could have ridden into them."  She is an excellent rider, Evaine told herself, light, on a good horse, which she is careful to rest.  She should be safe.  The fear still gnawed at her.  "But I should read what my Landgrafin has instructed me."  She opened the missive carrier.

"Evaine,

We are pleased that you have taken the initiative to reconnoiter this threat to Torinsdale our Domain.  We understand that our son the Heir-Second has elected to accompany you.  We understand that this was his initiative, and consider that you will do your best to protect him.  However, he has presented us with a charming and intelligent Heir of the next generation, and our Daughter the Heir-Third is recently with child, so it is not the case that Tomas must be treated as finest West-Reach porcelain.  In any event, the spirit of the Boy of the Sea and, it seems, the Lion of Arhad are strong with him, and you must endure that which cannot be changed.

We are assembling the Torinsdale Formed Levy, and should be ready mid-day the day after next for it to be given such orders as we, thee, and Lady Roxanne may mutually agree upon.  It is our expressed wish that you and Lady Roxanne should present yourselves to us at this time, or as soon thereafter as is practicable given the outcome in the field.   While we are hesitant to appeal to Her Aspect as Warrior, we can conceive of no reason other than war why thousands of Pirates should appear on our coast, and believe it better to fight a war on land that is rented to others rather than to wait for that war to visit Our Domain.  We have also summoned Our High Levy, which will be ready some days hence, and urge that you use our cavalry as seems most efficacious to delay and harass the Pirates until we are ready. 

As an aside, we concede that the Pirates are clearly not a Republic plot to start a war with Torinsdale.  There is no place from which the Republic could have summoned several thousand male warriors.  
 Given by Our Hand this Seventeenth Day of Firetouch,
   Cheryl, by the gift of the Domainmoot, Landgrafin of All Torinsdale.

The clapper at the open side of the tent rattled.  Elizabeth and Pauline entered the tent.  Roxanne and Tomas were only slightly to the rear. Evaine smiled blandly and began the customary round of pleasantries. 

"I gather this is the most recent map of pirate deeds?" Evaine finally asked.

"Yes," Elizabeth answered.  "A pirate force almost four smallhosts in size reached Millersspa. The crossing of the river at Millersspa was very fast.  They appear to have erected a bridge in almost no time. A smallhost crossed the river and started slowly down the Coast Road.  From Millersspa another pirate smallhost—perhaps five hundred men—marched on Daisy. A force twice that has camped about where indicated and will reach Millers Mills tomorrow.  Finally, two more pirate smallhosts are about to reach Millerspa from the north.

Evaine considered the Landgrafin's orders.  "Had Cheryl heard that Gull Port was captured by Pirates in boats?" she asked. 

 "She has learned by now," Pauline said.  "Your sister passed us going the other way on the Northfort road and told us what had happened.  Word doubtless reached the Caer by sunspeaker through Noralin and Union yesterday, but Dame Cheryl is at Northfort, not at someplace served by the sunnet.  We gather that Daisy has fallen, its women fled or put to the sword."

"The last is indeed true.  I saw.  Daisy fell," Evaine said.  "The pirates committed unspeakable atrocities, just as they did in Longbeachport.  The Daisy Levy put up a fight, unwisely conducted given that the pirates had superiority of number.  The pirates have a variety of odd weapons, stonethrowers, and weapons midway between bows and slings in effectiveness.  The weapons might be frightening to some the first time they were encountered.  On the other hand, they are mediocre swordsdau… swordsmen, and wear absolutely no armor."

"Swordsmen?" Elizabeth sniffed. "What will we do?"  She did not sound alarmed.

"I believe we must consider," Evaine answered.  The pirate force marching on Millers Mills was a serious complication.

"While you are considering," Tomas said, "I have two horses to unsaddle, comb, and feed."

"I took care of that," Gretchen announced.

"There is a matter of my putting up a tent," headed.  [he added?]

"Interlocutor Tomas, your time is far too important to be spent on such details," Gretchen said.  "Your tent is being pitched as we speak."

"And I should contribute to preparing dinner," he tried feebly. 

"Your share of the onions will be chopped by a volunteer," Gretchen explained.

"Who put you up to this?" he asked.

"Up?  Me?  We're just doing what is expected of an Interlocutor's escort," Gretchen said innocently, oblivious to looks being passed around the tent.

"Three thousand men is three tons of food a day," Evaine said, apparently ignoring the interchange.  "If they don't count on good water, and ship wine or vinegar to be diluted, that's several more tons. Something like six hundred horses is nine tons of fodder a day.  That's fourteen or so wagonloads over good roads, though they may well expect to procure fodder locally.  It's still five or six wagons a day. 'Procure', Gretchen, is a synonym for 'steal'.  Saint Dana's Bay is a long haul for wagons; half the load on a wagon would be fodder for the horses hauling the wagon.  

"They couldn't graze?" Gretchen asked.  "It's all wild."

"Very soon, it would be grazed out," Evaine answered.  "They come from the sea.  Though why they care if water is two smoots deep, or three, or anything more than a few feet, is beyond me."

"Smoot?" Pauline asked.

"The mariner's unit of depth.  Lawfully, five and a half feet, though mariners by custom use a slightly longer length," Evaine explained.  "The measurements of water depth, in the books I recovered: any number under a smoot and a half was rubricated."

"The men at Daisy," Roxanne announced, "are busy looting the town and treating their wounded.  They'll need another day to get in order."  

"The men marching on Millers Mills made poor time—and it's a paved road—started marching the day before yesterday, and will reach Millers Mills tomorrow morning," Elizabeth said. "This I have from Swordsister scouts, women whose usual duty is training walldaughters in towns along that road.  Those towns, by the way, are largely empty, with women fleeing or taking shelter in the woods."

"You've been here some hours?" Evaine asked.  "Enough to rest the horses?"

"Enough for a modest ride," Elizabeth said.  "Not enough that it would be wise to ride from here to, say, Millers Mills today."

"Millers Mills must today defend itself," Evaine said. "However, there are two roads south and northeast east out of Daisy, to Millersbridge and Millers Mills. I would like to put a hand of women on each of them, two to watch toward Daisy, the rest with axes to drop trees across the road where it will do the most good.  That is just a delaying move.  Those women should be back here by nightfall."

"Evaine," Roxanne asked, her voice almost pleasing, "Can I do nothing to persuade you to come to the aid of the women of Millers Mills?  I know full well what the Swordsisters have in Cismontane, and where.  They would be hard pressed to send any additional women to Millers Mills, other than Greathand Winterwheat, which is spread from Millersbridge to Noralin City and beyond, and which because of their cooperation with you is held in disfavor by the Shire Senate."

"Politics is wonderful," Evaine said.  "We shall have to see what we find at Millers Mills, where the pirates will after all outnumber us ten to one, but I will see what I can do.  Which reminds me, I would like saddlebags filled with slotbow bolts, to the extent practicable, and pack mules as feasible used to bring more from Torinsdale.  We ran out of bolts today after a single engagement.  What is the Republic doing to defend its own towns?"

"We rode through Merecester and Millersbridge," Pauline said.  "Merecester has a serious wall, and a local Temple that revived Wardenage and Vergage.  The Shire Senate complains, though the local Swordsisters, Greathand Winterwheat, cooperate vigorously under the table.  The better half of the women of Merecester have been trained, beyond Republic low levy standards, and that's a thousand women.  Millersbridge has a town council that yesterday believed that pirates are a hoax to increase tax levies.  They have a wall, but are fighting a tax dispute with the Swordsisters.  They now have refugees from Gull Harbor on their hands, telling eyewitness accounts of terrible things.  This appears to have attracted their attention.  Also, they are starting to get people from Tayberry and Gooseberry and Bayberry who have suddenly decided to visit relatives at points east.  Millersport regularly stood off Sea Eagle attacks, survived two sieges, and invests in its walls, even though no Sea Eagles have been seen in many years.  As of this morning, no one had asked Greathand Winterwheat to do anything.  However, I gather several Greathands are being brought by steelroad from Union up to Westverge.  That's ten miles west of Noralin; it's the end of the steelroad, and the border between the Republic and rented Torinsdale land."

"Have we heard from the women I sent north along the Coast Road?" Evaine asked.  Heads shook around the room.  "Tomorrow, whoever we have here, except a skeleton watch, is going to Millers Mills.  Full armor, swords sharpened, extra bowstrings, four days trail rations, night gear, all available slotbow bolts."

* * * * *

Mid-morning.  Evaine sat on a treelimb fifteen feet off the ground.  Tiger claws or no, climbing a tree in full armor was not the least strenuous exercise that she could imagine.    She had decided to be amused by the stares of her escort as she climbed the tree by sticking to the bark.  However, she had three cavalry hands as escort, one on each side of the fields to her front, and one behind a hedge fifty yards to her rear.   If the pirates noticed her, she would be grateful for their cover while she descended.

Four hundred yards to the north, a long column of pirate infantry snaked slowly along the road.  To say that they marched was an exaggeration.  They kept neither step nor time, even with drummers playing and brass playing a cheery if off-scale tune.  They did keep their ranks decently straight, not too challenging with three or four yards between them.  Their flankers were a good fifty yards out.  Every so often, there would be a break in the ranks.  Sandwiched between groups of men would be stonethrowers, narrow carts painted in the trim colors of the stonethrower carriages, and supply wagons.

The wagons had two horses each.  She tried to estimate the tonnage of supplies the Pirates were carrying with them, and kept getting completely unreasonable answers.  They seemed to be prepared for a month of campaigning.  Block after block of men, six wide and ten deep, had trudged along the road, accompanied by nine stonethrowers, outriders who strayed very little from the road, officers on horseback, and two bands.  At a guess, five true-dozens of men were a pirate greathand, five greathands were a smallhost with flags and extra officers leading, and she was looking at her third smallhost.  Sandwiched in between were a hundred one-horse wagons. They were making a bit better than two miles an hour.  Somewhat before noon, they would reach Millers Mills, whose front wall lay in small pieces on the neighboring field.  The town council had decided that the time had come to take down its old wall and rebuild it, down to the foundations, and two days warning had only allowed turning the incomplete wall into a low rubble barricade.  Notwithstanding reports from Daisy, whose town council was held in contempt, the Millers Mills militia was lining up to fight in the open.

The third smallhost was the last, to be followed by another fifty supply wagons.  The men had another hour or two of march to reach the Millers Mills commons, an hour or more to deploy, and then each side would learn what stratagems the other had up its sleeve.  Evaine had watched carefully.  There appeared to be no new pirate weapons.  She had not recognized the stonethrowers as weapons until it was too late; she might do better this time.  She was sure that she had seen each type of equipment before.  At Roxanne's urging, Millers Mills had had brought out every bow they could find, and laid range stakes so women would know clearly the distance to the enemy.

The last of the pirates marched around a wind in the road and vanished from site [sight].  Evaine rappelled down the tree.  As she dropped, a rider led her horse out from its hiding place.  Sounds of hooves marked the escort coming together into a single unit.
When did she fix the rope she rappelled down?

"Southern trail around Crow's Nest Hill," she ordered.  Their local guide, Jennifer Jessicasdotr, fell into the lead, the cavalry following in column of twos. The tree-lined trail was dappled with sunlight.  An evening rain shower had dampened the ground enough that no dust rose.
 
Jennifer stopped and held up her hand for quiet.  The women slowed and waited.  "Ghost riders," she whispered.  "On Crow's Nest Hill.  I see five."

"We want prisoners if we can! Piper," Evaine said, "Sound 'At the gallop. Charge!"  She spurred her own horse into the clearing around the hill.  Twenty-five women on horseback made so much noise that they must have been heard.  Indeed, there were the ghost riders.  Three in pirate green, dismounted with their horses behind them, were looking toward her.  Two in very different dress were staring toward Millers Mills, where from the hilltop the Millers Mills Levy might already be visible. She drew her bow.  "First Hand!" she shouted. "Around the hill to the left.  Take the hill top from the west!" She targeted the rump of a riderless horse.  "Second Hand!" Around the hill to the right!  Take the hill from the north!" One and then another ghost rider horse screamed in pain, bucked, and ran down the far side of the hill.  Their fellows stampeded, following them in their wake.  "Fourth Hand! To the right!  Take the Hill from the East. Prisoners if you can!"

Evaine dropped her bow in its rack and dismounted one-handedly.  'Hill' was an exaggeration for a steep rise of a hundred feet.  Her side of the rise had been gardened, once in the past, with bramble bushes and longthorn roses, through which a single wide set of stairs ascended.  Her horse would rebel if she tried riding up it.  She'd take the stairs on foot.

The men shouted and gesticulated, but their horses were too far gone to recover.  The three short men in green pointed at the Torinsdale cavalry surrounding them, screamed, and began running down the stairs toward Evaine.  Three on one, she said to herself, were not ideal prisoner-taking odds.  Fortunately they were advancing in a file, not three abreast as sensible women would.

She took the first man's sword on her shield, her sword slicing in and down to ruin his arm.  The continuation passed through his stomach. A fast side step and kick tripped him.  She caught a second's thrust on her shield; her right arm, recovering, made a perfect collect the melon, sending a headless corpse down the stairs, his head rolling after it.  A shout below said the first man was not yet dead.  The third chopped down, sword screeching as it slid along her blade and bounced off the guard of her sword.  She kicked in, connecting with his knee as her shield slammed into his face.  The grate of metal was her shield block protecting her head and side from his recovery.  She hit him again with her shield, then parried using a spiral deflection that first let his blade grate along the mail in her arm and then send his trapped blade hurling into the air.  He began to recoil dazedly.  Her right fist behind a steel-lined glove smashed his jaw and dropped him unconscious.

A glance over shoulder confirmed that the man at the bottom of the stairs was too busy holding his stomach together to move.  Just as well, because the fourth and fifth men were now sprinting down the stairs toward her.   The fourth had no helmet.  Golden hair.  Blue eyes.  A certifiable Sea Eagle lookalike.  He threw something, two somethings, at her.  Her shield covered her face; sword partially blocked something that hit in the ribs, bounced off padded mail, and went on its way.  Now he was almost on top of her.  She side-stepped, kicked, and hit him hard with the flat of her sword, striking across the back of the head.  He began a forward somersault which did not quite clear the decorative wall around the landing.  The loud hollow sound was the top of his head hitting rock.  He completed his somersault, and from the sound rolled down the next flight of stairs.  

Number five pulled up and stared. He was her height, no, taller, and carried a large sword held two handed.   He was shouting unintelligibly at the top of his lungs.  He swung from the right, high; she brought up sword to parry, shield supporting to block.  The blow staggered her.   He must be Deann's size, she recognized, just as his kick knocked her completely off-balance.  She fell on her back, arms slapping to break the fall.  He swung, both hands on the crossbar of his sword's pommel, blade coming straight down at her stomach, all his weight behind the blow, as her slap continued into a tuck somersault straight away from him.  The gong was his sword hitting the pavement hard enough to crack a paving block.  She snapped into a pike, finishing the somersault with both feet planted square on the ground.  Not only was he the largest pirate, he was by far the best fighter.

He charged down at her, blade swinging from the left.  She lunged ahead, shield and shoulder bracing for his swing, sword swinging up as his came down.  Left foot dropped back, bracing with locked knee.  They hit.  She lifted with right leg.  His momentum took him off his feet so they rolled up and over.   He was too close for another sword swing.  She hit him in the jaw, once and again, as his left arm grappled her head. She rolled back, drawing him into a roll down the stairs.  Her legs flared to time the roll.  She landed on top of him, his breath whoofing out as her weight, hardened by steel mail, slammed into his rib cage.  She followed with a hard kick to his knee cap.   He hit her in the head with his sword pommel, his blows deadened by her steel helm.  Her left arm slammed shield into his face, once and again. He pushed her away.  She sprang to her feet, realizing that a circle of women with drawn blades and bows had surrounded them.

He rose dizzily, one eye closed, and tried unsuccessfully to put weight on his left leg.  Failing, he leaned back on his right.  His sword, she saw, had broken.  She had put every ounce of her strength into her last parry.  Pirate metallurgy had failed the test.  His left arm hung limply at his side.  He turned his sword, putting the end to the ground and holding it by the ball of the pommel.  

That must be a surrender, Evaine thought, unless it is treachery.  She repeated his gesture with her sword.  He slid his hand down the blade, handing her his sword pommel first.  She wiped her sword and resheathed it, then took his sword in her right hand.  He pulled from his belt two shortspears, handing her each of them.  She slipped off her shield, and stacked his weapons, including a belt knife, knives from up each sleeve, and razor-sharp stiffeners from the backs of his boots, on the shield's hollow side.

"Tie his hands?" Tomas asked.

"I think that's unnecessary," Evaine answered.  "The boot knives we would not have found if he planned trickery.  That's a serious surrender.   Besides, he has abroken leg. Have we checked his friends?"

"Number one is gut-stabbed, needs a surgeon and aqua vita. His arm is open to the bone, too.  Number two is seriously dead.  Number three is stunned.  We searched him and tied his hands.  He's awake now.  Number four has a real concussion.  I'm rigging horse litters for two," Deann announced.

 "Put the other two on their horses.  Send them with heavy escort—a hand and a half--to Merecester jail," Evaine announced.  "We have a battle to watch." She removed her helmet, feeling her head for bumps.  

"Evaine, are you undamaged?" Tomas asked.  

"Nothing hurts a lot.  No damage apparent," she said.  "Am I bleeding visibly?" Tomas felt the back of her neck. "There's nothing like a little healthy exercise to get the blood flowing," she added.  Across the landing, the tall prisoner pointed at her, said something completely unintelligible, tugged at his hair, and sank to one knee, his head bowed.  She'd wrecked his knee; the pose must have been incredibly painful.  "Is he all right?" she asked.  "I certainly hit him hard enough." She walked over, put one hand under his chin, and peered into his eyes, which were the same size.  She pulled very gently upward, bringing him back to his feet.  She smiled.  He smiled back.

"This seems to be his horse," Roxanne announced. "The barding matches his cape."

"Be on your way, then," Evaine said.  "Number one really needs a good infirmarian."

Chapter 27
Millers Mills, Millers Vale
Summertouch 18, 2448

Millers Mills surrounded a forty-foot waterfall.  A token spray of water passed over the lip.  The remainder was stored behind a low, wide dam until it was demanded by the mills.   The Millers Mills town wall surrounded the ends of the dam, swept over the escarpment in a pair of frozen stone waterfalls lined at their bases with rose bushes in brilliant ruby flower, and wrapped the rest of the town in graceful stone towers.  One long section of the wall was only rubble, blocks of cut rock piled into irregular mounds.

Warned of the approaching pirates, the Millers Mills militia had fallen out in a long line, a line thinned to hide the extent to which they were outnumbered by the Pirates.  On each flank of the line, two dozen women on horseback sat in single lines, affecting to be a much larger group of trained cavalry.  The pirates had appeared on the extreme left end of the field.  Pirate infantry marched down the length of the field, executed a hairpin turn, and marched back, finally wheeling the spaced units from their open column into a solid line facing Millers Mills.  Stonethrowers had rolled through gaps in the pirate line of march to face Millers Mills.  So far, Evaine noted, they were doing exactly what they had done last time, down to forming the assault column that at Daisy had shattered the low levy line.

Evaine sniffed at their tactics.  The assault column on the Millers Mills left would drive the defenders back on the town that they were defending.  A far more sensible assault column on the women's right would drive between the defenders and their town.  If a column on the right broke the Millers Mills line, as it seemed highly likely to do, the levy would have to abandon hope and take shelter in the wilderness, or alternatively launch a must-win attack against ordered lines just to recover the imagined safety of their town wall rubble.  If she had made that mistake in the Temple, when she was twelve, she would have been making soap for a week.  

Evaine looked through farseer at the pirates and their march order.  They wheeled precisely as Tomas had said, never using more sophisticated maneuvers to change their routes or facings.  They marched in groups of sixty, twelve abreast in five ranks, always in very open order.   In wheeling right, the rightward man in the first rank stood still while his rank wheeled, resuming his march just before the next rank reached his position.  The maneuver required careful timing.  For soldiers who ignored the beat of their own drummers, the wheel required the careful attention of every officer.   To form line, each pirate greathand of marchers wheeled one last time, turning twelve ranks abreast into twelve files, each formation occupying in line more or less the distance it occupied in the march.  The Millers Mills militia had had their opportunity to attack and throw the pirates into disorder.  They had declined to take it.

Pirate stonethrowers began to pound the Millers Mills lines.  'Pound' was perhaps an exaggeration.  A stonethrower here might shoot every five or six minutes, its stone more often than not going astray.  Nonetheless, each time a stone hit the Millers Mills lines, two or four women fell dead.  Those losses might be stomached for a while, Evaine thought, but eventually the militia would find the losses unendurable.

There was a whisper at her shoulder.  "Evaine," Gretchen said, "Elizabeth has the cavalry in the woods.  We have a dozen hands, all resupplied with bolts.  Horses are being rewatered.   People ate on the march.  If you want it, I have something for you."  

Evaine nodded agreement, and was delighted by buttered heavy rye bread wrapped around lettuce wrapped around a still-slightly-warm sausage.  Water tartened with a dose of vinegar and two pears followed.  "Much better than trail mix," she said.  "This will go on for a while.   At least our horses become acclimated to the racket.  The pirates are still ordering their lines.  And now they are advancing…see how they get disordered after sixty or seventy steps?  Now they reorder themselves, which takes some time.  They set up five hundred yards from the Millers Mills lines, except their stone throwers.  They'll need a span or more to get close.  Half a span is enough to water the horses, people to digest their lunch, and top off with a bit of trail mix."

"What are we going to do?" Gretchen asked.

"The pirates will have a hanging flank, something we can shoot up.  Perhaps we wait and watch.  We aren't enough people to change the outcome of the battle, not when the Millers Mills people refuse to use the wits She Who Is wasted her time giving them," Evaine answered disgustedly.  "Please pass word back to Elizabeth that she has half an hour to be ready."

Evaine waited patiently as the pirates advanced.  After their second bound forward, they had had to drag their stonethrowers with them, slowing their advance even farther.  When the pirates closed to two hundred yards from the Millers Mills lines, they compressed their ranks and resumed their shuffling advance, ending a hundred twenty yards from the Millers Mills lines.

The pirates had sent out skirmishers, once and again, skirmishers who backed away from hand-to-hand combat and retreated from concentrated bow fire, not that Millers Mills had many archers, and by every indication few arrows for any of them.  Evaine had been little inclined to share her supplies, but Millers Mills used longbows, not slotbows, and could not use the bolts the Torinsdale forces carried.  The skirmishers withdrew before the stonethrowers were brought into play.  The pirates also sent out small groups of men in blue cowls, seemingly not armed, who unintelligibly harangued the Millers Mills lines, but offered them no injury.

The rear ranks made mincing steps forward, closing the ranks.  Skirmishers dashed out, this time to be met with thrown stones.  Whatever arrows Millers Mills had had in stock must have been exhausted.  Something peculiar was happening on the nearer flank.  Four men, brightly dressed, were conferring with the blue-cowls.  Next to them was a modest barrel with carrying posts.   The four men knelt before the blue-cowls.  The rear column was changing its stance.  Its stonethrowers were gathered like cornstalks.  Backpacks were doffed and stacked.  Swords were loosened in scabbards.  There's only one reason for that, Evaine thought.  She turned to Gretchen.   "Formation," she shouted.  "To your horses!  Be ready for a charge with lance and saber."  She peered along the front of the pirate formation.   The stonethrower crews had loaded and paused.  The lines had stopped.  Individual soldiers kept looking to their right, looking at the men with the barrel.  Very briefly, the pirates were very quiet.

The four men hoisted the barrel, the travel rods resting on their shoulder.  An officer stepped to the back to the barrel, did something that could not be seen, and shouted the same one-syllable word repeatedly.  The four men took off at a run, a wedge of skirmishers flanking them on each side.    Several women stepped forward from the line to throw rocks.  The lead skirmisher ran one through with his stonethrower spear, threw a stone at a second at no range, and hit a third woman in the head.  The Millers Mills line surged at him, dragging him down before he could turn to run.  The men came within yards of the surging women, set down their burden, and ran for their lives.  The remaining skirmishers fled behind them.

That, thought Evaine, was decidedly strange, like nothing she recognized from any battlefield.  The Millers Mills line edged forward to examine the barrel.

Bright-red light.  Deafening noise.  A gigantic slap, hitting as hard as diving flat from a great height into water, knocked Evaine back.  She shook her head, trying to clear her ears.  Falling from the sky were rocks, clods of earth, and body parts.  She clung to her tree, her shield covering her head.   Her horse shook its head, but responded to a stiff yank on its reins.   She had seen bodies fly through the air.  The Millers Mills line had a wide gap in it.  In the pirate line, every stonethrower threw a rock, throwing up clouds of smoke.  The column of men gathered its wits and ran at the gap in the Millers Mills line.

Evaine sprinted for the cavalry line.  "Formation!" she shouted.  "Calm the horses!  Single line!  Close Order!"  A few horses had bolted and were being chased.  Where were the Heir-Second and his escort?  "Gretchen!  You are here to protect the Interlocutor, not join us."   She looked at Tomas, and spoke softly.  "Gatesmasher.  It's a big box, needs several men to carry it."

She mounted her own horse.  The Millers Mills line was fragmenting, rear ranks walking or in some cases running from the battle.  The pirate column charged, each man running at his own speed, the column opening into a loose swarm of men.  Now the Pirate line began an advance at the walk.

"Attention to orders!" Evaine shouted.   "I do not ask you to do anything I will not do myself.  I don't know which magic was used on the Millers Mills line.  It takes four magicians dressed like peacocks and a barrel the size of a small horse.  Stay away from them and you're safe.  We are going to save the women of Millers Mills.  We are doing one charge, close order, lance and saber.   We then fall back and engage with bow, the half and half drill."   Bannerdaughter and piper fell in behind her.   Roxanne came up to her side.   Evaine looked left down the line.  It was in respectable order.  "At the walk. Dress that line!"  With a clatter and jingle the Torinsdale cavalry began moving forward.  They cleared the trees.  "Slow trot!   Forward!"  The first men to notice their advance had stopped to point in their direction.  Evaine checked her women.  They were still in good order.  "Fast trot!  Keep your spacing!"   The line accelerated.  They were still several hundred yards from the men.  "Piper.  Serenade the advance.  When I draw, play 'Steel'."

The piper broke into an anthem.  The Torinsdale cavalry now had the attention of large numbers of men.  Their officers were shouting something, rather too late to form their men into lines.  Evaine drew her sword, waved it overhead, and leveled it at the enemy.  The piper's tune changed from a sweet melody to an atonal howl.  Women's voices rose in the Paean to Her Aspect As Warrior.  Eighty women drew sword or leveled lance.  Pirate warriors turned and ran.  Evaine nudged her horse to greater speed to lead the charge.  She swept by a pair of pirates and lopped off their heads.  That, she thought, should get everyone's blood up.  Ahead of them, pirates turned in panic and ran.  "Roxanne," she said, "Don't get ahead of me.  We're going to pull off before we get stuck."   The charge rolled through a diffuse cloud of fleeing pirates, cutting them down.  Resistance began to thicken, slowing down the charge.  Few pirates fought back, but the press of fleeing bodies obstructed the advance.

"Diane! Play wheel left!" Evaine ordered. The piper shifted her tune.  The Torinsdale horse complied, each hand turning to form a broad column.   Some women ignored the call and continued straight on.  "And forward!"  The cavalry surged ahead.  Stonethrower crews, uncomfortably close, were trying to turn their clumsy machines.   "Again, 'wheel left!', then 'steel!'"   Hands wheeled left again, trying to form a solid line. They advanced again at the trot, returning toward their original positions, running down more pirate infantry.  Evaine stood in her stirrups, looking back.  A few women had charged madly and failed to listen for pipe calls.  They were now pulled down, or riding through unexpecting pirates.  She gestured at Diane, stilling her pipe. "Line left, bows!" she ordered.  "Third Hand! Fourth Hand!  The area to our right!  Clear it of pirates!  Formation! Bows! Large groups first.  Shoot!"   

She looked around.  They had not charged as much as two hundred yards, but that was enough to have swept through three hundred pirates.  The survivors were running across the field, disordering the pirate center.  The area behind them was rapidly being cleansed.  To their front, fleeing pirates were not quite a hundred yards away.  Bolts fell like rain into enemy backs. "First Hand!  Second Hand!  Target, extended range, enemy large stone throwers."  Several were being turned about toward the Torinsdale forces.  There were enemy troops blocking their shot, but Evaine suddenly recognized that she didn't know if the enemy viewed this as a reason not to cast stones in their direction.

"You saved Millers Mills," Roxanne offered.  

"We made a dent," Evaine answered.  "The further half of the pirate line is still ordered.  They took some dead.  Mostly they're just disordered.  Disorder only wins battles if you have forces to take advantage of it.  We don't.  Their routed men are reforming. We'll walk toward them, and put more arrows into them, but once they reorder we're too few to make an impression.  Half the Millers Mills militia has deserted already.  They were hit with sorcery.  Fifty percent losses."  Evaine looked thoughtful.  "Barbara, would you recognize the Millers Mills commander?"  The woman nodded.  "OK.  Take my message to her.  My message is she is now outnumbered three or five to one.  She has no wall to hide behind.  She has lost.  She should get the grannies and children into the woods, each carrying a few days food that they hopefully have packed already, have her women fall back to shield them, and head for Merecester. We will be leaving soon."
 
Evaine watched the arrow fire against the pirates, keeping a wary eye to flank and rear.  The Third and Fourth Hands had cleared the rear of pirates and formed up as a reserve.  Some women had ridden through to the far side of the battlefield, and now faced a very long ride up the escarpment trail and around the millpond to rejoin their units.  In the charge they'd lost eight women, while leaving more pirate bodies on the battlefield.  The rattle of small stonethrowers clattered across the commons.  One of the formed pirate units had forced its way to the front and was targeting her cavalry.  Other pirates were using stonethrowers on the Millers Mills militia, whose survivors still stood in front of their town walls.  Pirate interest in advancing has been cut short, but the pirates carrying stonethrower spears enthusiastically tried to kill their opponents while standing fifty yards from them.

"Formation!  Fast fire on the line throwing stones at us.  And the people behind them.  This is a two minute fast fire.  We will then withdraw," she said.

Barbara returned.  "The Millers Mills Swordsister in command refuses to budge.  She's mightily peeved you may leave."

Evaine stared at the pirate mob.  The formed pirate unit had done an about face and was marching out of bow shot.

"Wits of rock, she has," Evaine grumbled.  "I can't fix it.  Roxanne, you might make notes on the need for command training.  In my opinion." Roxanne nodded numbly.  Evaine recognized Roxanne's pain.  Roxanne's sword duty to the Daughter-Warrior was protecting the citizens of the Republic, Evaine told herself, and there was nothing Roxanne could do to save the women of Millers Mills.  Earlier this morning, she'd tried pulling rank on the Millers Mills armsmistress.  From someplace that woman had been given explicit orders to ignore Roxanne's words.  

"Formation!" Evaine shouted.  "Seventh, Eighth, and Ninth Hands, Stand Fast.  Bow hands, case bows.  Column of fours, from the front! To the Millers Mills Road, the first bridge. Bring the supply packhorses into the middle of your formation.  Ride!"  Evaine gave the movement a few moments to begin.  "Barbara, find Tomas and his escort.  They should be watching through the trees.  They are to accompany the Greathand across the bridge.  If you do not find Tomas where expected, come back here immediately and tell me.  He may have gotten into some mischief."  

She turned back to the remaining cavalrywomen.  "We have three dozen axes with the packhorses.  After we are across the bridge, we will work back and start dropping trees across the road, and across the woods near the road.  Your hands will provide cover, a couple hundred yards up the road, so axedaughters are not taken by surprise.  On this side of the bridge is that low flat area with culverts under the road.  Every culvert will be filled on the upstream side, and buried so you can't see them on the downstream side.   Fill them with rocks until the road is well underwater.  The entire Greathand will work on this.  Stay with your horses; stay alert.  Finally, four volunteers.  Work in pairs.  Find good vantage points above the Falls.  See what the pirates do to Millers Mills.  That's what they'll do to Torinsdale, too, if they're not stopped.  I want every woman in Torinsdale to hear as many accurate eyewitness accounts of pirate atrocities as can be arranged. OK, let's be out of here before they start tossing stones our way again."

Chapter 28
Taylor's Glen, Millersvale
Summertouch 19, 2448

Evaine sat on a fallen tree, disconsolately watching the first hint of sunrise brighten the leaves.  She'd added willow extract to her tea, last night and this morning, and things still hurt.  Yesterday, no bones had broken.  Her teeth were intact.  Nothing seemed to have torn; her morning stretches all worked.  Rolling down stone stairs with a large man—or a small bear; he was furry enough—was not fun, especially when you were both trying to bash each other's head in.  At least he had been the one who ended wrecked up.  She had bruises where chain mail and padding had not entirely protected her.

She had had the time to think about what should be done next.  The pirates marched slowly.  They would be slowed further.  The message last night was that the Torinsdale Formed Levy would be yet another day late.  Tomas had wanted to ride to Merecester last night.  That was simply not possible, given the hour and the miles already on the horses.  She had a spare mount.  He had only one horse that tolerated a rider sitting side-saddle.

Elizabeth, Pauline, and Gretchen appeared from beneath the trees.   Tomas and Roxanne, hand in hand, were close behind.  She'd had them wakened early; they would now go off a distance where they would not waken the sleepers.  She stood, hoping her twinges had not pushed her to limping.  The bruises hurt, would be worse tomorrow, and still worse the day after.

"To make matters short," she announced, "we had our first real fight yesterday.  If I count this correctly, we have five missing, eight known dead, two escorted off to the Millersbridge infirmarian, and another six lightly wounded.  Five horses had to be put down.  Gretchen, you had Glenda up in a tree, properly seated mostly behind the trunk. She counted had a hundred men lying on the field from our charge.  We've diverted Millers Mills' refugees to the Parker's Paddock trail, which gets them swiftly to the Millersbridge-Tayberry road.

"The Landgrafin asked us to delay the Pirates. That's what we are going to do.  I propose that we split forces.  Gretchen, I'm going with Tomas to Merecester.  You and yours are his escort. I must then go to Northfort to meet the Landgrafin. Roxanne will go where she chooses.  She takes a half-hand of escorts.  The supplies and wagons are moving on back roads to the Star Tower as a reserve base of operations.  Three cavalry hands are riding around Millers Mills.  Two will reach the Millersspa highway, destroy every bridge, and drop trees to block the road.  The last hand will advance to Millersspa, or close to it, find positions where further pirate forces can be spied out, and report when they appear.  Two hands will go to the Daisy-Millersbridge Road, destroy bridges, and drop trees. One hand each will go to Millers Mills and Daisy and harass the pirates with bow fire.  Don't get too close.  Be careful with overwatch, at least two layers.  That means two or three people at once are shooting at the pirates.  Pirates have people with horses; anyone with feet on the ground as an archer may get trapped without a little help from their friends.   The bridge-burners will fall back on Millersbridge in two days; if that's fallen, fall back on Merecester and then on Borderfort.  Send a half-hand or less north from the Ice Tower to Saint Dana's bay.  See what sort of a camp they have there.  Everyone else will fall back to Millersbridge, destroying bridges as you go.  Elizabeth, you will be in overall charge.  Your main task is to support the Millersbridge levy, if they will take your support.  That means bow fire against close-formed pirates on foot.  It means countercharging any pirate cavalry, so long as odds are even.  You will not charge pirate infantry.   We've done that once; you know what it feels like.  Once was enough until we need it. I have a list of who goes where.  Alternatives?  Questions?  Discussion?"

"What is the Republic likely to say about their bridges and trees?" Elizabeth asked.

"Each group will carry one of these," Evaine announced, pulling a packet of letters from her pack.  "It is a rescript from the Landgrafin.  Millers Vale is rented from Torinsdale.  The Landgrafin is invoking the terms of the lease.  The Republic is required to stop bandits who might disturb the Peace of the Vale.  The Republic did not. We are entitled to do it for them."

"Should someone be checking Gwendolyn's Bay?" Roxanne asked.

"Angela-vrith-Martyn will be in Merecester today.  She has a Pelosian stallion that will be glad of the run to and from," Evaine answered.  "Pelosian or not, she should leave no sooner than tomorrow."

"What about side roads?" Elizabeth asked.  "Shall we block them?"

Evaine hesitated.  She hadn't considered that.  "Drop trees across them at each crossroad.  They're mostly narrow.  The pirates march wide.  From our prisoners maps, the Pirates don't know where they are.   Few are more than graveled and crowned.  Perhaps the locals can be persuaded to pull up and hide bridges and set watchers on them."
 
* * * * *

Tomas, Evaine, and their escort rode swiftly along the Merecester pike, a road beginning to fill with women wheeling possessions in barrows as they walked for the imagined safety of Merecester or Noralin City.  After all they had seen, they were little interested in talking.  Merecester town appeared in the distance, city walls and lower homes at the outskirts rising to towers and shops near the town square.  Tomas signaled for a pause and fumbled through his saddlebag.  "Here, I am the Lady's Interlocutor," he announced, "whilst you, Evaine, are my shield and sword." A white silk kerchief sewn white-on-white with runes went around Evaine's neck.  "It is better for you to wear the Interlocutor's kon, if you would."  She nodded agreement, surprised that he would ask her leave.  He pulled a pair of silk-white flags from his pack, tying one to her back and letting her tie one to his.  

They rode around the town, reaching at last the public paddock.  Tomas pointed Gretchen and her friends at a local tavern.  A remarkable number of women, considering the hour on a working day, were standing in the streets talking.  They caught fragments of conversation as they passed a particularly loud crowd.  "Sea Eagles…Not Sea Eagles, dark haired…Sorority has arrested them all…saw three of them going to gaol...no, nineteen of them, and one was seven feet tall…Gull Port was burned to the ground…my sister from Daisy got here this morning, said they'd burned the town.'  Someone there was a Millers Mills refugee who had already reached Merecester. 

Tomas singlemindedly ignored the stares of passers-by, his objective the six stories of sunspeaker tower.  The courtyard held a line of women, some shouting at each other, and a half hand of Watchdaughters keeping order.  At the front entrance, a clerk tried to bar his way.  "No more messages today," the woman announced.  "We're backed up for a three-day." 

"The sunnet serves the Republic," Tomas answered calmly.  "I am here on the Senate's business. I have an immediate message." 

"Man, I don't care whose business you're on.  We're full up with messages, in and out," the clerk answered disdainfully.  

"Do you see these?" Tomas asked loudly, hands pressing against the runes on his stole. "I act with the authority of the People and Senate themselves.  I have a message for immediate transmission." 

"There's no immediate.  I've said that once already, mister. Don't you understand?  Those people have paid for their messages, and they get them sent.  In order," the Clerk's voice rose sharply.

"We are not discussing commercial missives.  I have important official messages to transmit."  Tomas barely managed to contain his anger.  

"I get really tired of explaining things to you.  Now, you can stop raising your voice, or I can ask the Watch, who is standing right here, to remove you.  I don't care what you get away with against farmers, this is the big city now!"  Her face flushed.  

Tomas inhaled, forcing himself to be calm.  A Watchdaughter, drawn by the crowd and commotion, leaned against one wall, eying him coldly.  He reached under his cloak, producing a silver amulet with central jewel.  Any number of people who had not learned of his promotion were about to find out.  It had had to happen, sooner or later.  "We are The Lady's Own Interlocutor, and We are on The Lady's Business.  In The Name of the Lady, get thee from my path."  He pressed on the amulet's face, revealing the inner face. The stone flashed shield-white.  The Watchdaughter leaned back on her staff.  This was higher legal authority, not something she wanted to cross if she could help it.  The clerk glared pig eyed but stayed in the doorway.  

"Cornet?"  Tomas's voice was silken soft.  Too late, he hoped Evaine would remember her formal title in the Republic. 

"Sir!" Evaine's voice carried over the crowd.  Her hands snapped up across her chest.

"There is an obstacle unlawfully blocking this doorway.  Remove it!" Tomas ordered.  

"By your command!"  Evaine shouted, stepping around Tomas at the clerk.

"Formally," he noted dryly, "Your answer should be 'In the Lady's Name', for I speak as the Lady's Own Interlocutor, and thus you are Her Vengeful Hand Upon This Earth."  Evaine took a half stumble and recovered.  

"Here, here" said the Watchdaughter, her staff shifting forward, "let's not have any unseemly hint of weaponry.  Especially," she added half-contemptuously, "weaponry you can't be old enough to know how to use." Evaine took another step.  The Watchdaughter's face sank.  The girl's sword was suddenly in a two-handed guard, high across the chest, and the Watchdaughter hadn't seen the girl make the draw.  

"This is a Temple Weapon," Evaine announced blandly.  "I earned its use."  She hoped she sounded calmer than she felt.  Cutting down the two of them with complete surprise would have been very easy. Fish Above, left step, Split the Melon would have done it.  Here a threat was required, even though the threat weakened her position if a real fight started.  However, Merecester was close to Torinsdale, close enough that Cheryl would decidedly not look kindly toward a Banneret making unnecessary disturbances of civic tranquility, as by killing local citizens, no matter how much the collective wisdom of Merecester would be improved thereby.   "Be so kind as to hold your peace." 

The Watchdaughter stared at the sword, its golden face seemingly covered with oily glass.  Thirty years on the Watch had taught her how to recognize a fool with a big knife.  The girl in front of her was not a fool, and she was holding very competently a named sword she claimed to have earned.  Worse, the goodsir behind her was waving a bespelled amulet.  The Watchdaughter set her staff against the building's wall and took a half-step away.  The Sunspeaker Guild's clerk had a long history of being pointlessly officious, and was about to be handed her head, at least morally.  It couldn't happen to a nicer person. The clerk withdrew into her office, backing as fast Evaine advanced, suddenly stopping when she ran into something behind her.  

"What is this?" came a voice.  Two birdlike hands grabbed the clerk by the collar and thrust her out of the way.  Tomas explained, not at length.  "My apologies, Interlocutor."  The voice proved to come from an older woman in a Guild Firstdaughter's's tabard.  "Our light is yours." The clerk disappeared.  Tomas and Evaine followed the Guildmistress to the roof, Tomas taking a table to prepare a final draft of his message.  Evaine, finally satisfied that all was well, sheathed her blade and leaned against a wall, hands pressed against the stone behind her.  She told herself that Tomas would not see that her hands were shaking, let alone wonder why, not so long as she was holding a stone wall.  

Tomas finished his message and looked up at the signaler, who had dutifully been sending bulk messages while waiting for Tomas to finish writing.  Tomas waited for her to end a message and pause. "A missive.  The seventh priority.  My Interlocutor's amulet suffices for authority and pay."  He waved his chest-length necklace at the woman, a touch of fingers, revealing the runes again. At worst, he told himself, someone will send you a large bill for sunspeaker time.  Her curt nod marked acceptance.  He read his message slowly while she signaled.  

He waited for the signaler to finish transmitting.  He hoped her evident shock had not interfered with transmitting his words accurately.  The Guildmistress, a fat pond carp from gold-orange trousers and yellow-trimmed tabard through to her gaping mouth, awaited his further remarks.  "Be so good as to have that message copied, read aloud outside, and taken to the city council and the local citadel.  For some palms I shall be at the House of Three Swans, preparing my written report."  

"The Lady's Grace steady your hands," she offered.  

"Her Light be with us," Tomas answered automatically.  

Evaine fell into step behind him. "House of Three Swans?" she asked politely.  She couldn't remember a Temple of the Aspect of Joy of that name, but Tomas had done stranger things.  

"Merecester's most distinguished hostel, beyond the North Gate.  I need a private room to write.  Most important, I most recently ate at the Lesser Manifestation, and am positively famished," Tomas announced.  

"All this," she said quietly as they tripped down the last flight of stairs, "and you can still want to eat?"  She was pushing the limits of what she could properly say.  How could he be so calm after what had happened?  

"When it is impossible to eat or drink, then it is most important to feast," answered Tomas.  

* * * * *

The House of Three Swans stood literally on the city's edge, outside the city wall.   Its outer face was whitewashed, slit-windows lining a high second floor.   The stable daughter took charge of the horses, promising them good walks, proper currying, water and feed.  Tomas stared at the stables, a separate walled facility a substantial distance across the road.  'Secure enough,' he muttered distractedly.  The Inn's central courtyard was bright and cheery, with fountain, trees in first bud, and two decks of porches.  

The innkeeper opened a small dining room, sent for tea and an ample dinner, and left Tomas his privacy.  Evaine sat outside in front of the door, her orders to guarantee his peace save for fire, battle, or the city council.  

A few minutes later the innkeeper' daughter reappeared to stare at Evaine.  Evaine rose to her toes, simultaneously slipping sideways so she had clear space behind her.  "My mother told me to say that she usually doesn't tell people, but she was once was in your position, to the Lady's Presence in Cismontane herself, she was," the innkeeper announced.  "She was plain Jamie Jamiesdotr then, not Jamie-sa-Fountainhill." Evaine flexed her hands, asking why she was suddenly tired.  She reminded herself to watch the corridor both ways, that it was feet and hands, not face, that communicated an attack.  "She said to tell you, not when anyone else could hear, that one of the things she learned her first year was to forage." 

"Forage?" Evaine asked politely.  She remembered an introduction, "Evaine-sa-Orowan, Banneret." 

"Morgandy Jamiesdotr-sa-Fountainhill.  Your Interlocutor, being a man, thinks only of his own stomach, never minding yours, though you're young and he could do without food for a few days yet," she snipped.  

"His Grace asked if I would eat, and I said I was his guard," Evaine answered defensively.  

"Now, mother said I shouldn't be suggesting what you do, because that might be putting on your sense of rightness.  But a secret of being on guard, not starving or fainting of hunger, fainting leading to a seriously bad job of guarding, is milk and sandwiches small-cut, so one hand is free and mouth is almost the same," announced the innkeeper's daughter.  She waited. 

"Please?" Evaine asked. "But I don't have money." 

Jamie smiled. "You're his guard, his party, and his bill." She held up a hand to stop Evaine's protest.  "That part of law is my mother's to know.  I put your horses' feed on his bill; I'll do the same with you." 

"Please?" Evaine asked.  A small part of her mind noted that the woman was staring at her swordhilt.  

"Are you temple-trained?" Jamie asked suddenly.  Evaine noted that the woman was close to her age.  

"Falls of the Rainbow, Aya Apulchta, South-Home. An earned blade," she shrugged.   "The Temple Master said I am almost entirely lacking in talent." 

"Hmmh," Jamie said.  "Far indeed from home, you are.  And I should not have called you 'girl'.  Humble apologies." 

"Accepted.  No offense taken."  Evaine squirmed slightly.  It was just a sword, after all. Only after her second sandwich did Evaine remember that Tomas had eaten this morning, but she'd had only trail snacks since last night.  The clump of boots and thump of padded staffs came from the front of the building.  A servingman peeked around the corner. "City Council," he warned.  Evaine had moments to wipe her hands, square her cloak across her shoulders, and come to attention blocking the door.  

Down the corridor came two Watchdaughters, one bearing the city's standard on short staff, a half dozen older men and women following.  A few wore formal guild or council regalia.  The smith had obviously come direct from her forge.   The Sunspeaker's Guild's Firstdaughter recognized Evaine and smiled.  A trio of Swordsisters and the Watchmistress brought up the rear.  

"Who comes?" Evaine challenged, not that she didn't already know.  

"Their Ladyships Themselves, the Council of Syndics and Goodmen of All Merecester, the Interlocutor himself to be seeing, an it please you," answered the oldest man, his voice a singsong incantation of the legal formula.  Evaine knocked, waited, knocked again, and opened the door.  She decided she didn't want to know what would happen if Tomas told them to go away, and the Council then ordered their loyal Watchmistress and Swordsisters to compel his attendance upon them.  Her mental image of herself at that point was an overripe apple and two millstones.  She certainly did not complain when Tomas invited the Council in, and suggested that she have lunch.

From the commotion beyond the end of the corridor, it was clear that news of the battles had spread widely.  No sooner was she recognized than half a dozen people offered to buy her food, if only she would tell them what she had seen.  If she were no longer on duty, she noted, she was obliged to honor the Innkeeper's peace sigils, barring weapons from the common room.  A trouser pocket yielded a sky-blue silk bag, large enough to wrap and peace-seal her sword hilt.   Sword stayed across back; a fogblade was too valuable to trust to a common room's armourer.  

Serious lunch, fresh bread and grilled fish and preserved cabbage and fruits, was wonderful.  The common room was remarkably quiet, a large audience hanging on her every word.  She did not expect a caramel custard, not at a mid-day meal in midweek, but found she was still hungry.  She told herself it would all go on Tomas's bill.  Overheard words in the background were the innkeeper telling someone 'the woman is still on duty, and no you may not ply a girl her age with my finest dessert wine, no matter that your editor produces the premier news-broadside in all Cismontane Shire and will pay me well for it'.  

Once and again, a runner entered the common room, asked directions, and was sent to the rear, where Tomas still held court with the City Council.  The first woman had been a Torinsdale forester wearing domain colors; later arrivals had a sash tied around one arm.  Merecester Civic Guard, Evaine told herself, those are their colors.  Each returned from the private dining room, had trail rations and water forced upon them by the innkeeper, and left at the same pace at which they entered.  None gave any report to those outside.  

Evaine, her meal finished, found her duty post occupied by three Watchdaughters, who politely urged her to go back to the common room and rest.  After all, this was Merecester, not a village at the edge of the sea, they noted; there would be no pirates coming here, not in a hand of years.  She yielded to their judgement, even though they sounded more confident than was reasonable.  What did they think losing the battles yesterday meant, anyway?  The ride that had taken her part of the morning seemed unlikely to require all year, even for pirates. The broadsheet correspondent approached her and asked leave to make a few questions.  

"If it's questions you want," Evaine answered, "only if you answer some of mine in turn."  There were several loud handclaps from the audience. 

"Iris Irisdotr I am, Evaine-sa-Orowan," she answered. "Your questions I shall try to answer."  The correspondent gritted her teeth and began asking details of the battle.  

After the first few rounds of questions, Evaine found that the woman was a mother-lode of knowledge about pirate events she had not seen.  Evaine listened carefully, trying to memorize everything that was said.  Their conversation was brought to a stop by a runner, a boy with ink-stained hands and muscular build.  "Iris," he announced, "you are coming back now with whatever story you have.  The pirates are in North Millersbridge, burning and looting, and herself wants a special edition at once if not yesterday."  The youth shifted gawkily.  

Printer's devil, decided Evaine, he gets unnatural muscle from shifting type cases.  "When?" asked Evaine.   "When did they reach North Millerbridge?" 

"Oh, that would be telling," answered the youth.  "Then you shan't be buying our broadsheet." 

"Please?" asked Evaine.   

"Oh, no," the youth answered tauntingly. "We'll have that news soonest.  I must be leaving." 

"Hold!" Evaine shot to her feet, left arm grabbing the youth while right pulled Interlocutor's sash from one pocket, sash dropping around her neck before the youth could try to shake her free.  "Hold in the Lady's Name!" 

"You're being an Interlocutor now?" challenged the youth.  Iris Irisdotr scuttled from the room.  

"I am the Interlocutor's Banneret.  You know about a crime, you must report it to the Interlocutor."  She hoped she wasn't making up too much of the law as she went along.  Also, Interlocutors didn't take Bannerets, but she couldn't remember the right title.  She wasn't sure she could drag someone before Tomas and force him to report a normal crime, but maybe the law about not profiting from crimes stretched to cover broadsheet correspondents.  People who didn't run to report crimes were outside of her experience.  The youth offered no resistance when Evaine dragged her off to the private dining room. She decided that the lack of resistance was just as well.  His behind might be pleasingly small, but his arms were not, at least not if the two of them were not in agreement as to which way he was to be walking.  

Tomas and the Syndics were poring over a map.  Three Swordsisters, one in all-black riding leathers, and a Watchmistress stood behind them.  Two temple clerks sat at a side table carefully transcribing Tomas's report from Alduran lead to proper indelible ink.  The youth stammered out a description.  Greathands of pirates had appeared before North Millersbridge, which was a few miles from Daisy.  The civic militia had been mustered.  Tomas mumbled under his breath when he learned that they had chosen to fight in the open rather than stay within the town.  There had been an exchange of arrowshot.  Rather, the militia had had a few archers. There had been much smoke and noise.  Pirate spear had advanced; a few militia survived by fleeing.  

Evaine saw that stacks of wooden ha'pennies lay atop the map.  Five at Millers Mills, three in Daisy, one at Gulfport, six spread out from Millersspa toward Millersport.  A Swordsister took two ha'pennies from Daisy and moved it to North Millersbridge.  

"So," the Swordsister announced, "close to three thousand pirates.  Siege weapons.  These are not criminals.  This is armed rebellion."  The Sisters and Syndics began to argue back and forth over causes.  The youth from the broadsheet stood quietly, staring at the map.  

"No, it's a fresh Sea Eagle invasion," the Swordsister in riding leathers insisted, the brooch that proclaimed her Handmistress winking in the afternoon sunlight. 

"Enough!" interrupted Tomas. "I don't care if they are Sea Eagles, or are the unnatural consequence of mating tomcats to bulls.  They are an infernal menace, and," he turned to the map, his slim, long-nailed fingers pointing, "they are here and here and here.  And very soon, perhaps before you finish your silly squabbling, they will be here in Merecester.  And who will protect your men, your children, your shops and homes?"  There was a period of silence.  

"We never squabble," sad the second Swordsister petulantly.

"Of course," smiled Tomas. "Could there be any doubt?  Evaine, I'll need you for the courier duty I mentioned earlier.  In a quarter-candle?"  She nodded.  He turned to the Clerks. "The same quarter-candle to finish?  Good.  I am most grateful to you, and to the Guardian of the Five Aspects who granted your aid." 

"Our pleasure," answered the older Clerk.  "Her Wisdom asked, at your convenience, to receive your more personal thanks, an it pleases you." 

"So shall it be," he answered, smiling.  He had met the Guardian before.  "After quarterday next, I presume?  By which time these pirates will be detained, and Rites of Thanksgiving will be in order." 

"So mote it be," answered the Clerks.  "So shall it be!" intoned the Swordsisters, hands clashing against chests.  They turned back to the maps, comparing notes with Tomas.  

"Now," Tomas finally announced, "Arranging a town's protections is your duty, not an Interlocutor's.  You heard my recommendations, me speaking as a historian.  You heard when Torinsdale can be here.  You heard Greatmistress of Greatmistresses Roxanne's observations.  Of these," he picked up the ink copies of his message, "One goes by messenger to Noralin City, and the other by armed courier to my sister."   He gave one copy to the Handmistress, and looked across the room.  

Evaine, her helmet and mottled brown cloak under one arm, waited at the door.  "My horse is saddled, Your Grace," she said. Tomas slid the document into a missive carrier and handed it to her.  She touched her forehead and ran from the room.   

"Armor?" asked the Watchmistress.  

"Don't armed couriers need arms?" inquired her Second.  

"The Lady of Torinsdale honors her duties to her linewomen.  You disdain detaching combatants to scout, but the pirates send out pairs of wandering riders.  Riders might intercept a runner."   Tomas decided that if they hadn't yet noticed that Evaine had worn a sword and chain mail all the time she was here, he wasn't going to despoil their ignorance, assuming this to be possible without the services of a stout piece of timber.  Perhaps two pieces of timber; roof beams cracked when swung at heads so thick.  The Watchmistress couldn't believe a man knew anything about fighting, no matter that he was a learned historian, and had refused to consider his advice.  The Sorority Handmistress was little more pliable.  The more he heard of their concept of defending Merecester, the more he wanted to be someplace further east, much further east, very, very soon.  Innkeeper Jamie-sa-Fountainhill had at least listened when he said the pirates were inordinately fond of bows, slings, or the like --- something that slew at a distance. 

Tomas headed for the front of the Inn.  His horse should be waiting, his gear packed, ready to be loaded on the afternoon coach.  Surely the pirates would hesitate before attacking Merecester, would they not, when there were a half-dozen small towns and hundreds of farms available for looting?  He and Roxanne would have enough time to escape.  His stomach rolled.  He wanted to spend a month in the library, not galloping across fields from dawn to dusk.  Fields were cold, wet, and dangerous.  

He was intercepted by the Innkeeper.  "The coach from Millersbridge is palms late. It's not coming.  I made other arrangements for you.  Not as pleasant as a coach.  Better than waiting for pirates, but we need you in Noralin city." she explained. "And I packed a meal for your courier.  She may dress the Swordsister, but someone needs teach her foraging." 

Tomas managed a deep and grateful bow, then mumbled agreement with her last injunction.  She was right about Evaine.  Some practical aspects of being a Bannerethad been skipped by her Temple.  Of course, she had not been being prepared for lower rank.    He'd already seen three towns sacked, and deeply feared that Merecester would soon follow.  It was very definitely time to be elsewhere, even if he had to waddle away on his own two feet.  Outside the Inn, he found a trio of two-wheel coaches, two carrying temple guards in grey and silver capes, one with a driver for him, all armed with longbows and ashen spears.  Roxanne, Gretchen, and their escort followed behind. 

"For guards I'm most grateful; perhaps I shouldn't ask how you arranged them," he said.   She nudged him onto the lead coach, and they were off.  "Wilma Wilmasdotr."  Tomas's driver introduced herself.  

"Tomas.  Tomas Cheryl-sur-Maserin," he acknowledged.  

"There's a better answer to your question.  Merecester militia is temple-sworn.  Jamie-sa-Fountainhill stands as Warden of Spear and Bow.  She asked; we came at once," explained Wilma.  

Tomas began to put one and three together.  Innkeeper Jamie had been entirely solicitous of his needs, and entirely knowing about affairs of the sword.  Handmistress and Watchmistress hadn't tried to shoo her from the room, or silence her when she asked questions. Her questions had been sensible, too.  It was no wonder that the Temple Precinct named her Warden, no matter that the usage was nearly archaic.  "I see," he managed.   "To her and you I am most deeply grateful."  

Tomas let his memory find associations.   The Dame of Torinsdale was scrupulous in enforcing every precedent, every privilege of Domain toward Republic; to bolster her stance, Torinsdale library had an extensive set of law and chancery books.  This past year the local Priestess had spent every one of her free moments in the library.  Tomas had offered his aid.  He'd learned that the Temple was thoroughly alarmed about the fate of Longbeachport and was seeking precedents that allowed it to increase its protections.  Wardens and Wardenages, for example.  Broadsheets reported that the Great Senate had been little interested in Longbeachport's fate, a town far away in the distant west where wilders hid in the hills and death and devastation were commonplace.  They were seemingly unconcerned that hundreds of citizens and goodmen had perished without explanation.  The Temple took matters far more seriously.  Tomas knew precisely where to look.  Marcovius the Lesser's volumes On Laws for the Just Conduct of All Warfare assembled in one place references to all precedents, decrees, and rescripts on raising and arming militias and hosts.  He had written seven hundred years ago, but that was a century after Tolnen Field.  There had since been much fighting against Sea Eagles and Horse Barbarians, but the military history of civilization in seven more recent centuries represented only marginal embellishments to his words. 

The discomfort of his circumstances brought him back to the present.  The coach was roofed, and properly sprung, but it was still open, so that the cold and misty drizzle beset his face.  Looking around, he saw riders on a hillcrest, silhouetted against late afternoon sky.  A moment of panic overtook him.  He forced himself to affect calm, draw a farseer from his pack, and survey the knoll.  It was a pair of pirates, splendidly arrayed in red and gold trousers and coats, silver tunics, and straw hats.  He gestured to his driver.  

"Been there all the time we've been passing," she said.  "Not moving at all.  Saw another  pair a half-palm ago; they rode off as we approached." Tomas's stomach crawled.  He'd seen the pirates crush defender after defender.

* * * * *

The sky held the last breath of early evening, with thin clouds shading toward apricot cream splashed across a blue-white field.   Mistress Vigdis Vigdisdotr stood in her studio, contemplating dozens of pieces of a half-dozen types of wood, and the circular teakwood tabletop into which the wood soon be inlaid.  The tree of life was a difficult pattern to capture, but this time every piece had finished just as it should.  Today she'd finished shaping the last of the leaves, polished them flat, and set them on top of their final place.  Tomorrow would come the hour of the inlaying mill.  

There was a tap at the door.  Her chief journeydaughter waited outside, head inclined, face pale.  Vigdis raised one eyebrow.  The contemplation of the work was something important, something that one could not disturb for every sort of reason.  

"Forgive me, mistress" said Astriea Astridsdotr, "you instructed that you were not to be disturbed except for fire, flood, or the return of the Sea Eagles." 

"I smell no smoke, and the season is wrong for the river to be rising," Vigdis answered.  

"The, the," Astriea's throat locked.  She coughed.  "The Sea Eagles." 

"What!  What about the Sea Eagles?" Vigdis asked.

A second figure appeared in the doorway.  A Temple Messenger, Vigdis noted, in riding leathers, her goddess-green cloak fringed in the classic open-hand pattern.  Vigdis felt her heart chill.  Above each shoulder, the rider wore a flat-black kon.   

"Mistress Vigdisdotr?" asked the rider.   "By decree of the First Speaker, the Provincial Senate of Cismontane-by-the-Sea is summoned to emergency meeting this night in Noralin City.  A chariot and driver is available for your use now." The messenger produced a missive carrier from her belt.   "These are further details."

"An emergency meeting?" asked Vigdis, already collecting in her mind what needed doing in the next hour, "with a day-handth's notice?  That's unbelievable.  We're paying for three full great-hands of the Sisterhood, in Merecestershire alone.  What are they doing?" 

The messenger frowned. "I was told that there've been battles at Gull Harbor, Daisy, and Millers Mills." 

"But if the Eagles are routed," said Vigdis, her hands busy replacing cleaned tools in their proper chests, "why do we need an emergency meeting?" She turned to her journeyman.  "Astreia, I must beg you the courtesy of shutting my shop this evening, no matter how bad an example this is for the apprentices."  Astreia bowed.  

"Alas, mistress, the Sea Eagles were not routed. Greathands Lycoris and Lysimachia took frightful casualties.  The Sea Eagles won the field, and put half-a-dozen towns to the torch. Millersbridge is threatened. The Millersport levies have all been raised." continued the messenger.  "And now I must go, for there are two other Senators I must yet summon."  

The messenger handed the document and a broadsheet to Vigdis, and scurried down the corridor.  The missive repeated what she had just said.  The broadsheet, the Merecester Times, had broken out its Fourth Revelation typeface.  "A FEARFUL SLAUGHTER", ran the headline.  "The Lower Valley Burns!  The Sea Eagles return!  Sea Eagle sorcery at Millers Mills!"  There was an illustration.  From the date, someone must have worked half the night on it.  Sea Eagle Necromancer-priests, rather well-drawn, were shown as hurling lightning bolts from their cupped hands.  One stuck a line of women, hurling bodies through the air.  Another struck the town gate, sending timbers, gate towers, and sections of wall flying.  Behind, the town was engulfed in flames. The articles were somewhat short of facts.  Surely there could not be three thousand Sea Eagles besieging Millersport, and another three thousand at the gates of Millersbridge?  Greathands Lychoris and Lysimachia might have taken a few casualties, but the broadsheet had them and every levy that faced the Sea Eagles wiped from the face of the earth.

Chapter 29
Deborah's Trail, Millers Vale
Summertouch 19, 2448

Evaine rode briskly up the trail from Merecester.  This far south from Merecester, the trail was unpaved.  The shire had dutifully tiled smaller streams and bridged wider ones; between the bridges the way might politely be described as largely flat.  A path that led from Republic to Domain territory was, after all, unlikely to be heavily traveled.  

The sun's descent had been masked by darkening cloud.  Now an occasional drizzle floated off the sea, soaking her cloak and putting down the dust on a road not yet quite turned to sandy mud.  Her eyes darted left and right.    Her bow, strung, waited in the case behind her left shoulder; her sword was across her back.   Once out of sight of town, she had practiced draw and replace, confirming once again that cloak let her reach and sheathe both weapons.  She set the fastest pace her mare could keep, given that they had been up early and made several rides in the last few days.  Repeatedly, she peered over her shoulder, looking lest pirates might take her from behind.  

She spent half the ride worrying about her younger sister.  Gail had been sent off on her own, a move that seemed perfectly reasonable at the time.  The pirates were in Gull Harbor, and Gail had ridden away from Gull Harbor.  She was a modest weight on a very large and fast horse. She had had no trouble clearing the field of battle.  The further legs of Gail's ride were the difficulty.  

In Merecester she learned that the pirates deployed extensive sets of outriders.  The Sorority of the Sword had seen pirate scouts, riders apparently ordered to avoid contact with all other human beings.  Before the battle, the Sorority Handmistress had been so contemptuous of people riding horses that she hadn't bothered to tell Tomas that pirate riders were in evidence.  After all, to her mind they were of no possible military consequence.  Tomas, assuming that the pirates were only in Gull Harbor, had concluded that it was safe to send Gail as a courier.  Now Gail was riding through the midst of pirate outriders.  Evaine told herself that Gail was a good horsewoman on a fine horse, using a road with open fields on both sides.  

The road passed through a wide meadow, the gentlest of slopes then rising toward a wide tree line.  The section where the woods closed to the road made her nervous.  A rider on a fresh horse could run her down.  

Shadows shifted in the woods.  She stared at the movement, nudging her mare to greater speed, her right hand reaching back.  The mare responded, snaffling in gentle protest.  The movement turned into a trio of riders, spurring their horses to a trot in her direction.  Men? Riding cross-saddle? Wearing trousers?   Pirates!  Two held curved short-swords of unfamiliar pattern, arm and blade held low and pointing stiffly forward.  The third's weapon was unclear.  If it some sort of a mace, it would better be held back to be swung, not pointed out in front of the rider.  Was it a short equivalent of the stonethrowing spear?  The men draped over their horses, their stirrups so low as to skim above the ground.  Why were they mistreating a horse too small to carry even a man's weight?  
Even a man's weight?  Earlier it was mentioned that a man was expected to be more massive than a woman, about like our world -- and she expects men to be FAT.  Perhaps there was an "unarmoured" left out?

Temple training brought bow to hand, a steel bolt in place.  The yuwarl was a local rarity, a bow whose asymmetric design let it fire horizontally over the head of an advancing horse.  The mare responded to leg pressure, turning to ride directly at Evaine's opponents.  Her breathing slowed and deepened, the mantra of steady aim displacing other thought.  She drew and fired, the bowstring singing as it passed over pulleys.  Wheelbows were decidedly not cheap; she had put a year's gift money into buying one.  Now the bow would pay for itself.  

She managed a half-dozen shots, the first at extreme range, the last at forty paces.  Her second and third shots were close enough that the pirates shied side to side, breaking their formation.  They spurred their horses, coming to the gallop.  Her fourth shot took a pirate in the shoulder.  After the fourth shot, there had been a loud crackling sound.  Her heart feared her bow had broken; head said the noise came from ahead.  Something louder than a bumblebee passed by her ear.  The mace was indeed a stonethrower. The lead rider dropped mace into saddlebag and drew another.    She lost focus for a moment, forced herself back, and fired.  Her fifth shot was true, taking the lead rider in the chest; her final arrow took his horse through the forehead.  The creature died instantly, collapsing in a roll that sent its dying rider spilling across the ground.  

Left arm reached back, thrusting her bow clumsily into its case.  The other two riders were all too close to her, the first now near enough that she could see his absurd mustache, his bizarrely bushy eyebrows, his peculiar conical hat.  Temple training released the sword-draw mantra, a ululating scream that echoed across the field.  Right hand drew sword.  Mare jogged sideways.  The conscious part of her mind noted that the other's horse was scrawny, but not a half-grown pony; she faced a very large man.  He was still only a man, she told herself, not a woman to have studied sword-skill.  Nor was he nearly as large as the bear she had subdued yesterday.    Swords clashed.   Her parry deflected his blade away from her horse; a cross-swing, her blade now pointing rearwards, passed across his side, fogblade cutting through coarse cloth and quilting beneath.  

Her second opponent, sword high, left arm hanging limply, was on her.  Opening the Way put both her arms into a two-handed, backbladed parry.  
Her conscious mind distantly noted that the men were both remarkably tall and fit, almost certainly with more reach and strength than she would want to meet at the same time in a toe-to-toe fight.  A mental shrug: She'd had plenty of practice against a tall opponent stronger than she, whenever she practiced with Deann or the Swordmistress.  She often won, and that against a mistress of the sword, not a mere man.  She nudged her mare right, putting her horse's superior weight behind her own.  
The horses collided, the opponent's much lighter beast staggering from the crash.  She had not expected her opponent's sword to shatter.  Top the Pumpkin was her instant follow-through, palms taking the shock as blade impacted his skull.  He fell dead to the earth.

She wheeled her mare.  The first pirate lay under his horse, neither moving.  The surviving pirate had stopped.  Hands clutched to his side, he tried to staunch his wounds.  He looked back at her, eyes pleading.  What could he expect, given his crimes?  A single bowshot dispatched him to She Who Judges.  Evaine hoped that had been the mercy he wanted. Republic criminal procedures could be excruciatingly thorough and detailed at ensuring that those who at first denied their guilt finally admitted their transgressions.  

Pain caught up with her, sharp and deep.  She barely managed to clean and replace her sword.   Momentarily her vision grayed.  She made herself look for bleeding.  The plate on her left shoulder had been peeled back.  Padding beneath was shredded.  Her undertunic was a ruin.  That was the left arm; she'd noticed her parry's flaw without feeling the pain that explained it.  She wasn't obviously bleeding; a probing hand suggested she'd have massive bruises soon enough. Her overtunic was torn along the right side, armor badly scored beneath.  Her parry had barely deflected her opponent's sword, enough that it ran along her armor.  The fellow was unnatural; he had had the strength of a large woman.  The other must have been strong, too, enough that his sword broke rather than being dropped.  

What had happened to her armor? The passes-de-combat had been on her right, sword against sword.  Neither man had a lance to reach her right-to-left.   Nonetheless, her left shoulder armor was thoroughly wrecked up.  The noise, she realized.  It might have been a small stonethrower, in which case the stone had been inches from taking off her head. She could move her left arm, so it wasn't broken.  It still hurt.  She made herself concentrate on the present.  The pirates were dead.  Of their horses, one was dead, one had run off, and the third stood near its dead master, grazing placidly.  She nudged her mare up to the grazing horse. An apple dropped from her saddlebags caught the horse's attention.  She tied a lead line to the horse's reins. Her own mare peered over its shoulder at her, looking accusingly until it received an apple of its own.   She clucked encouragingly.  The pirate horse fell in line when she rode off.  A scout would search bodies.  She was a courier, short of time.  

Evaine tried to remember what else she was supposed to do after a fight.  Temple training was like drinking from a waterfall.  There was plenty of water. Most of it went to waste.  Checking your wounds was automatic.  Her horse would have let her know if it had been hurt.  The mare had been seriously annoyed by the collision. She had resumed her usual placidity.  Looting the enemy was something done by Republic soldiery.  That was if you were generous enough to call the Sorority soldiers, rather than overarmed, undertrained bailiffs.  Their performance was mixed.  Roxanne's former students were certainly excellent.
 
A twist of memory recovered lectures on exotic weapons and their schools.  Throwing stars.  Blowpipes.  Chain-scythes.  Oh, yes: 'A dance of swords is a lesson.  Your foe is your teacher.  Respect her as you did me.'  That was the lesson, more than once.  

So, what had she been taught? Attacking a good archer with a short stonethrower didn't work, as the lead pirate had learned.  She'd made a mistake there, too, perhaps.  Should she have shifted aim, last shot, trimmed the odds by dropping the next rider?  Or reseated the bow without shooting? She'd cut things very close, reseat and draw almost not being in time, though reseating the bow had been slowed by her bruise.  To what school had the men belonged?  They fought on a pattern; they must have had a school.  A pirate school, it seemed, across the ocean, but a school. At first they'd advanced at a fast trot, swords down like lances, suddenly coming to a gallop when they saw her bow's range.    She'd have to ask the swordmistress, and discuss counters, too.  If she hadn't been wearing armor, her parry might have been inadequate.  But if she had not been wearing armor, she would have been appreciably faster, and the parry would have succeeded.

There was a mistake.  Pride.  She'd thought of them as men, not persons with killing weapons who might be skilled in their use.  Worse, she'd just seen someone else make the same mistake.  Greatmistress Johannasdotr, facing an armed foe of unknown origin that outnumbered her force three to two or worse, evidently saw they were just men and attacked without considering tactics.  'Wings of the Eagle' was one step above 'Mob them, mob them, don't give them time to think!' 

What was the lesson?  What should she have done?  If she'd had Swordsisters to command, that is.  Her army would handle Pirates well, unless they had yet more magic tricks up their sleeve.  If she were greatmistress, she might have moved elsewise against the pirates.  Spearmen had to hold a tight formation to be effective.  A line composed entirely of spearmen could barely advance, let alone change front swiftly.  A threat to the front, followed by a fast run to the side, would have let the Greathands surround an end of the spear line, getting local superiority in numbers and attacking from both sides.  Archers firing along the length of a line could scarcely miss, no matter how much the Sorority disdained the bow and had poor archers.  

The land grew wilder and wilder.  She reined back her horse to a slower pace, finally stopping once and again to listen for pursuit.   Another palm or two, a time approaching twilight, would get her to a Torinsdale watchpost.  Finally her circumstances came to her.  She'd been in a fight for her life, one she might have lost.  There had been no one to back her up, no one to tend to her if she had been seriously wounded.  It might have been her innards spilled across the sandy Republic soil.  Wracking sobs overtook her, continuing until she stopped at a stream to wash hands and face.

* * * * *

The clop of horse's hooves against road pavement slowed.  Tomas awoke from his nap.  The sun was sinking toward the western ocean.  "Where are we?" he asked quietly.

"Approaching Bear Knoll," Wilma Wilmasdotr answered.  "We'll see Noralin City once we are over the ridge."

"So shall it be," Tomas answered.  "But from the number of people already in flight, the Inns may be full, so once again we shall sleep on the open ground."

"Tomas," Gretchen asked, "You are a mage.  You commune with the Lightnings that Speak.  You hear the voices of the utter dark."  Tomas nodded politely.  Gretchen knew more about him than she really should. It certainly had not been through pillow talk.  "Can the pirates be stopped?  They destroy everything in their path, without ever losing, as though they were a force of nature rather than men with spears."

Tomas affected a thoughtful pause.  He was only reasonably certain of the answer.  "The five who attacked Evaine were defeated.  If she had not stopped them, the rest of you would have.  The pirates won with superior numbers, often far superior numbers.  They have some clever battle machines, which they used by surprise.  Surprise and superior numbers are standard keys to victory.  Also, the pirates did not win every bit of every battle.  At Daisy, your arrows killed a respectable number.  At Millers Mills, Evaine's cavalry charge disordered their flank and killed a goodly number of them."

"But the Gatesmasher?" Gretchen asked.  She had seen bodies hurled tens of feet into the air.

"If you see gaudily dressed men carrying a large box running in your direction, you should stand aside," Tomas said.  "Or shoot the men full of arrows.  The gauds ran from it before it did, whatever it did.  They feared it as much as you should.  There may also be cleverer tactics, but I am only a man and cannot fathom them.  However, Evaine-sa is South-Shore Temple-Trained, and was found Almost Entirely Lacking in skill, so she doubtless sees more than I."
This is the second time it has been mentioned that the South Shore Temple prounced Evaine lacking.  I suspect that this doesn't mean what Wilma thinks it means -- particularly the way Thomas phrased it.

"Forgive me, Sir," Wilma asked, "Did I follow that Torinsdale is trusting its levy to someone found to have no skill or talent?"

"Well, that's actually up to the Domainmoot," Tomas said.  "The Landgrafin has this range of powers under her contract with them. They are entitled to appoint a Warlady if the Levies are summoned.  However, Landgrafin Cheryl charged Evaine-sa to prepare her a host fit for fighting Pirates, so it would be rational that Evaine-sa command the host she most precisely understands."

* * * * *

Tomas-sur-Maserin dashed along the streets of Noralin City, his escorts for once having to scurry to keep up with him.  "The Library," he announced, looking at his notes, "is the next street corner, on the left.  When I enter, I change hats from Interlocutor to Mage, and you are free to do as you wish until I come back out. Then I meet the Provincial Senate."

"Detachment will secure the building!" Gretchen shouted.  

Tomas ran up the steps, let Gretchen hold the door for him, and stepped inside.  A chalkboard listed places and people. Tomas headed for the main desk, fumbling in his purse for the relevant article of clothing.

"Where is Michael-sa-Noralin?" Tomas asked at the desk.  

"I am he, indeed," the Librarian answered, his jovial face peering up at the unexpected visitor.

"I am Tomas-sur-Maserin, Initiate of the Lesser Hall of Night, here to ask your aid this day," Tomas said, donning a floppy, pitch-black cap.  "I invoke the First Common Cause Rule."

"My study is behind us," Michael said weakly.  "Dorothy, you have the desk.  Try to see that not too many of our collections are robbed."   Michael led Tomas to his office and closed the door behind them.   "I honor the rule.  Just because it has not been invoked in the current Revelation is no reason to question its validity.  May I ask the issue?"

"You have heard of the pirates?" Tomas asked rhetorically.  "They are accompanied by mages.  Their mages wield spells of unparalleled power."  He drew a broadsheet from his pocket.  "This broadsheet caught up with me this evening.  The drawing of the mages and their spell's material components are inaccurate, but the effect of the spell is portrayed correctly.  The mages are not Sea Eagles.  They did not cast lightning bolts from their fingertips or eyes.  The material component is a large box that must be delivered to the place where the spell acts. The picture of bodies flying is accurate, though they tend to go flying in pieces.  I would advise the Halls of Night, and you may wish to notify the Halls of The Deep Sky."

"I will need an exact message," Michael answered, "Then I shall summon The Lightnings That Speak.  Mind you, I have no idea what we are facing, or how it may be overcome, but if The One World has been invaded by mages from across the Polar North, assuredly the Four Halls shall stand together to set them down.  Did the spell really send bodies flying?"  He gestured in bafflement.  "We are far indeed away from our Halls of Wisdom, and must make do with whatever we have at hand, but I can imagine no spell that would have the effects that you describe."

"You cannot imagine how enthused I feel about the task facing me," Tomas said.  "I am a historian and accountant, who has toyed a bit at the spells binding the Lightnings That Speak.  The best I can say is that the pirate spell uses highly visible material components, must be delivered up to the affected area by the magicians casting it, smells of burning sulphur, and makes truly loud noises."

"Anything beyond sulphur?" Michael asked.

"No.  But the pirates are fond of sulphur for other uses.  The Longbeachport pirates carried a sulphur based firestarting or perhaps smokemaking material.  It burned highly vigorously, not like pure sulphur, was black to start out with, and made clouds of smoke," Tomas said.  "I still have pounds of it, not that it seems to have much use.  Perhaps we will capture some of their mages so that we can question them."

"This sounds unpromising," Michael said.  "In several centuries of Sea Eagle attacks, no one ever questioned one successfully.  The more extensively they were tortured, the more unintelligibly they babbled.  Admittedly, after the first few decades, those questionings were often perfunctory."

"Torinsdale has a set of captives.  One might be a Sea Eagle, except he wears clothing and lacks scars.  The others are, let us say, different.  They are momentarily in Millersbridge, but so soon as they can be moved—one was seriously wounded and is recovering—they will be relocated," Tomas said.  "We have some hope that they can persuaded to read to us from their books, showing how the books were encrypted.  Assuming, of course, that our particular prisoners happen to know the particular code that was used."    

"Books?" Michael asked.

"Pirate books.  Several dozens of them.  Captured by my Apprentice.  Hadn't you heard?" Tomas said.

"If the Deep Sky Hall knew, it failed to pass the word along.  Or word was lost along the way.  But those books are rare.  How much are you charging for copies?" Michael inquired.

* * * * *

"They appointed who as Warlady?" Evaine said disbelievingly.  Landgrafin Cheryl disliked being challenged, but the situation was unreasonable.  "Does he have any knowledge of warcraft at all?"

"Bulent Judithson?  He's been in bar brawls," Cheryl answered.  "He also is a vintner and runs a large tavern in Center, close by Domain Hall.  He cultivates Domain Counselors, gives them bed and drink at reduced prices, and sometimes forgets to bill his customers their tabs.  On the other hand, because he is close to the Hall, he regularly is appointed caterer.  His food comes from close enough to be hot on arrival.  His bills, well, they have ample justifications in their attachments."
Corruption may yet kill us all.

"If he's Warlady," Evaine asked, "Doesn't that mean he proposes the Levy's budgets?"

"Which have historically been accepted," Cheryl said.  "His budget was remarkable.  Remarkably large, that is.  I invoked Privilege: If the Domain wants it, they have to pay for it.  Of course, they get to keep what they buy."

Evaine pressed her left shoulder, which still ached.  She had ridden into NorthFort and been summoned instantly to the Landgrafin's presence.  Her actual desire was food and a long soak in a hot bath, but neither was immediately at hand.  The Landgrafin was starving for information; Evaine's voice had quenched her hunger, leading the Landgrafin through accounts of three battles and a skirmish, closing with 'forgive me, Lady Cheryl, but I should have an infirmarian check my wounds.'  At that moment, Lady Cheryl sprang her surprise: The Domain Council had appointed a Warlady.  It was not Evaine-sa-Orowan.  Lady Cheryl did not say so in quite so many words, but it was pointedly evident that the new Warlady appeared more interested in profitable contracts for his friends on the Moot than in taking the battle successfully to the enemy.  Evaine's shoulder was promptly forgotten.

"Where is Bulent Judithsson?" Evaine asked.  "He is Warlady, and might have some questions about how his host is to be advanced into battle."  Lady Cheryl gazed skyward.  "He is here, isn't he?"

"The Warlady and six Greathands of formed Levy, the six most recently raised, are marching on Millersport.  It seems there was a landing south from there along the road.  They left yesterday morning," Cheryl announced.  "He announced that the best training is practical training, so he would take the Greathands to be trained and give them training via practice." 

Evaine took several deep breaths.  "There is a host here.  The Warlady is someplace else.  Who did he put in charge in his absence?"

"What a radical idea," Cheryl answered.  "I'm afraid these finer points of warcraft were not central to his conception of military theory.  Just as well.  I can imagine which of his cronies he might have appointed.  But he said he'd be back in a day or so, so it would not matter." 

Evaine's anger washed out of her.  "It's too late to do anything," she answered.  "Even if Tomas had a flijtschiff at his beck and call, Bulent would have gone into this battle late this afternoon.  I suppose if he was badly enough outnumbered, he might back out.  How many wagons did they take?"  Lady Cheryl held up thumb and index finger in a circle.  "Two days there, two days back.  Did they pack standard march loads?  They'll only get somewhat hungry.  Tents?  What were they planning? Staying in hostels in the Republic?  The ones already full with refugees?"

"If the Goddess favors him," Cheryl answered, "he will be triumphant on the field of battle.  Surely no one will doubt Her wisdom.  If he is catastrophically unsuccessful, as is reasonably expected from someone with the brains of a turnip, perhaps he will die.  Perhaps the formed levy will perform a historically valid maneuver.  We are not on South-Shore, so he will not be strung up by his heels, but the women of a host can choose to reject their Warlady in favor of another, so long as I do not object.  In the mean time, dear, you have had a very long day, several others equally long previously, and need a good bath, a good meal, and a decently soft bed.  Someone to repair your armor.  I'll see to that.  And an infirmarian, though you are not bleeding. I'll send her to the baths."

Chapter 30
The Gaol Tower, Millersbridge
Summertouch 19, 2448

From the Diary of Rudi von und zu Manningtonmontanusberg

Juli 29, 1654
I find myself in the strangest of circumstances, namely I am a prisoner of the women of the Lands beyond the Shallow Sea.  I suppose I should be greatly embarrassed to be so humbled.  However, I fought in single combat a Valkyrie, a daughter of He Who Conquers descended to Earth, and for part of the fight had the better of her.  I did leave her with a variety of bruises.  It is then no great shame that I was bested. Should this Diary ever reach elder brother Adolph, he has won his childhood argument with me.  Valkyries, as distinct from their horses, can fly, at least for short distances, as I may attest by having seen one do so.

This is my second trip to the Lands Beyond.  I came here two summers ago, with the Brothers of the Holy Sword of His Most Worshipful Majesty Alonzo X’s court, when they captured and purified a coastal town.  They purified.  I took the opportunity to drop various trinkets into my pockets, following which I was no longer poor.  Rather than join the rites of purification, which I am assured are theologically distinguishable from the Flower Festivals of the Half-Conquered Lands, I went out on horseback to reconnoiter, to get a feel for the lands his Most Faithful Majesty, His Most Militant Majesty, His Most Manly Majesty, His Most Worshipful Majesty, His All-Unifying Majesty, the Serene Emperor, and I imagine the Khan of Khans and the Emperor of the Sun will by and by be purifying, or at least looting.  Also, I have already seen a Flower Festival, and dismembering women while they are still alive is something I do not wish to watch, unless I have the opportunity to prevent a recurrence, as by mildly reproving the perverts committing the deed while I cut them to ribbons.

As I have said before, the Lands Beyond differ greatly from the Lands of He Who Conquers and the lands of the Pagani in two respects: They are remarkably wealthy, and they are populated almost entirely by women. Wealthy? In a small fishing village, every road is paved.  Every home has the luxuries enjoyed by his most Faithful Majesty in his Palace of Glass, starting with large wall mirrors.  Water flows from the walls.  There are flowing-water privies, no, a device even more clever, and horses are demonstrably banned from town roads, so that towns smell better than the countryside.  The furnishings of a typical private home are those of the nobles of the Unifacatorio, who all read and write fluently, so each noble has his own library.  The amount of clothing to be found in a home is remarkable. 

On the other hand, the economic philosophers whose works I have read all remark on the most important requirement for a thriving economy, namely that a few people be rich and many be poor.  If all were rich, who would agree to serve as another’s servant?  Even a poor noble of King Wilhelm’s court needs several dozen persons in his domestic establishment.  If all were rich, you could hire no servants, and the economy would collapse.  I can report that the philosophers are correct.  By any standard I know, the inhabitants of the Land Beyond are all wealthy, and correspondingly they have almost no servants.  The homes I examined, some fairly capacious, would have a bedroom for the lady of the house, perhaps one or two other bedrooms, each for a single child, and absolutely no quarters for servants.   I am obscure as to where their men slept, though the lady of the house’s bed was usually quite large.  My Captain-General could not believe what was before his eyes.  He remained convinced that servants were hidden in subterranean barracks, whose entrances were as a token of delicacy masked, and sent his men hither and thither to find them.

Men?  There are men here.  I can peer through my cell windows, counting people on the street. This is more difficult than it sounds.  Men here are clean-shaven.  The women wear trousers and loose-fitting tops, and are physically vigorous.  Women cut their hair fairly short for a man.  Many men wear ornate ringlets.  It finally dawned on me, after some time, that when I saw a couple arm in arm or closer that they might well not be a woman and a boy.    My colleagues from Wilhelm’s Court wax poetic about women as pillows.  I am an Imperial Rider, I have used my helm as a pillow, and that is what I expect you would feel here if you instead used one of the local women.  When doing heavy labor in warm weather, they dress showing as much skin as women in the Serene Emperor’s seraglio, and there can be no doubt that there was little padding over well-developed muscle.  By my count, every man in the Land Beyond must have ten women chasing after him.  It is no wonder that the men are too exhausted to do useful work.

When I was invited to join this year’s expedition, I was delighted to accept.  My colleagues had noted that last time I had done an excellent and thorough job of spying out the surrounding countryside, made no complaints about conditions on shipboard so long as my horse was well fed, and had kept my silence about what had been found in the Lands Beyond.   I had taken careful note of which of my trinkets sold at the best prices, relative to their weight, and those are the items I planned to collect.  Fortunately, I have been too busy to collect any, so that my captors will not think that I am a looter.

Our expedition was assembled by the Holy Father’s Voice For the Half-Conquered Lands, including six infantry regiments of His Worshipful Majesty, a regiment of Unifacatorio mercenaries, mixed cavalry from His Most Manly Majesty and Nordheim including myself, artillerists of the Serene Emperor, His Most Faithful Majesty’s Albionic Marines, and various odds and sods. 

We sailed to our most excellent destination harbor. Colonel DuPlessix of His Most Faithful Majesty’s Engineers had almost completed his survey before his most tragic accidental death, guaranteeing our ships could land safely..  Ships after all are merely a tool to reaching the Zone of Holy Combat. Like wagons or boots, when they wear they are replaced.  Our ships?  As I write they are careened and being caulked.  Perhaps on the way home we will not need in calm weather to help with the pumps.

My task was to prevent reconnaissance by the forces of the Land Beyond, a task complicated by the difficulty that we know next to nothing about these forces.  There is apparently a detailed map, which the Captain-General keeps to himself.  He supplies us with crude sketches. His Most Faithful Majesty’s Caballeros regarded screening as a lark, especially while we were marching though empty fields with good grazing.  They galloped about hither and thither, excitedly finding a wide variety of tracks and traces.  If there were any Land Beyonders spying on us, they were not seen.

We captured a resort town with excellent therapeutic hot springs, set a pontoon bridge across its river, and divided our force to march on several towns with unpronounceable names.  The first fell after a spirited engagement. We had been tasked with riding around the town, which we did as the battle was closing, finding the expected roads south and east.  The Caballeros were out doing the same, but in my experience they are so undisciplined that they seldom provide useful information.

I returned to a victorious but chaotic scene.  After the enemy line had collapsed, the enemy remembered they had archers, and dishonorably targeted His Worshipful Majesty’s officers.  Casualties were severe.  He Who Conquers' clergy took de facto command, and set about a rigorous purification of the town’s survivors.  I begged a need to report their triumphant success, and rode north to our other major column.  I would prefer not to watch a purification.  

Captain-General Gonzalez was delighted to see me.  He gave us legitimate military responsibilities.  I gave him a private report on the circumstances to the south, which he fully understood.  We were the advance guard, posted to a rise where we might spy out what army might be raised against us.  My good friend Three-Feather Jaguar, a faithful third-generation convert and Vulture Knight, joined me in spying out the town.  Our escorts were three members of the Royal Cavalry Regiment, Henri Montesquieu, Pierre Villepain, and Francois Quatrefontaine.  Yes, Francois Quatrefontaine, the finest duelist of Wilhelm’s court, who once fought two opponents at once and killed both of them.  Pierre announced he heard a troop of cavalry behind us.  I foolishly assumed it was our Caballeros, at last caught up with us, and gave my attention again to the town.

I erred.  It seems that the women of the Lands Beyond do have cavalry, as two dozen of them emerged from the woods at the gallop and made to surround the rise on which we stood. In the same moment, arrows struck two of our horses in the rump.  Staked or not, they promptly bolted.  My noble steed, undoubtedly recognizing our horses’ peril if unescorted, followed behind to protect them.  Henri immediately saw our best route of advance, namely that the knoll had three shallow grassy sides up which two dozen cavalry were thundering, and one steep gardened side with ornate staircase, with a single person between us and the woods.  I was not a coward, but if I am to fight people who are on horseback while I am on foot, at heroic odds of five to one, I prefer to do it in the cool of the gentle shade, such as that provided by a thick stand of trees. He Who Conquers commands me to be brave, not to be stupid.

To my surprise, the person at the foot of the stairs ran up the stairs while we charged down.  The three members of the Royal Cavalry might have done better to form a line before advancing, but they were cavalrymen, not dragoons to have thought of such issues.  On first pass, Henri was mortally wounded, his stomach sliced open, Pierre I am astonished to write was decapitated by a single blow, and Francois was in the course of a few seconds disarmed and knocked unconscious.  

Three-Feather Jaguar, who stands in the first rank of the Vulture Knights by virtue of his performance in their combat games, sent a pair of throwing stars in our opponent’s direction before closing.  One was taken on the shield; the other bounced from her chest.  I might have taken that as an omen.  Our opponent sidestepped and disabled Three-Feather with handfighting, the sort of tricks displayed by soldiers of the Sun Emperor.  Not, mind you, extended hand combat like two young lions in a tavern fighting for a serving-maid’s courtesies. Three Feather and his opponent ran past each other, and he flew headfirst into a stone wall, leaving him hors de combat.  

I recognized that something was decidedly unnatural about the Lands-Beyonder I was facing.  It was not that he had beaten four opponents, one after the next.  I have done that.  It was that he had beaten four truly excellent opponents, in almost no time, and was not even breathing hard.  Seeing no alternative, I attacked.

My memory of our combat is not the best.  During it, I was struck repeatedly on the head and face with a shield and a metalled glove, and by the end my vision was filled with little fiery comets.  However, I do remember knocking my opponent down with a good solid sweep-kick, learned because I watched closely the Sun Emperor’s warriors when they showed their tricks, stabbing down with my sword for the coup de gras, and watching in astonishment as she bounced from the stones and flew—I truly mean flew—heels over head to land on her feet.   Yes, I mean she, though I did not know it at that moment.  There was also our second collision, in which she picked me bodily off the ground, I managed a grapple, and we went tumbling down the stairs until she landed on top of me.  Hard.  I would judge, counting her armor, that she must weigh, oh, as much as a tall member of the King’s Musketeers, say a hundred sixty or a hundred eighty pounds. They, however, have their buff jackets, and she wore chain mail.  I must remember to tell Father, should I ever see him again, that rumors that mail slows you down a great deal are a bit exaggerated, at least if you are a Valkyrie.  At some moment I cannot remember one of my shoulders was dislocated, and one of my knees was badly twisted.  Also, at some point our swords hit hard enough that mine shattered.

By this time, a dozen of their cavalry had surrounded us, I could scarcely see my opponent, and I could only hop on one leg.  I proffered my surrender, failing which I would fight briefly to my death.  My surrender was accepted.  I think.  No one in these lands speaks any civilized language.  We had communicated with gestures, as though we were quite deaf.   They promptly resocketed my arm. Henri was gut-stabbed.  I pled that he be put out of his misery.  They have instead carried him here, did surgery on him, and miraculously a week later he is still alive and perhaps on the mend.  Francois is perpetually at his side.  Three Feathers never regained consciousness.  He died the next day.

I said my captors were women. There was one man, with a dozen women as escort.  The escort wore a distinct livery.  All carried swords, but they were young and attractive, so I presume they also performed other services.  He rode his horse side-saddle, had elegant ruffs on his jacket, and so far as I can see had every task performed for him.  I think he must have studied pitching his voice a half-octave high.  The Nobles of the Unifacatorio would have recognized him as a fellow.  He wore a truly fine rose perfume.

Then, having surrendered, and given over every one of my weapons, I doffed my hat.  My opponent removed the helmet.  To my surprise, I had been fighting a woman.  I suppose I should have realized that my opponent must be one of the gentler sex,, but when someone has just spent several minutes beating you to a pulp you tend to assume they are ["it is" would workl a young man.  No, not a woman.  Her hair was black, except at the peak, where there was a small patch of white, the mark of He Who Conquers’ daughters.  I had fought not a woman, but a Valkyrie come to earth. I endeavored to prostrate myself.  She insisted that I rise.  

For those who have never seen a Valkyrior [variant on purpose?  I'm not versed in the lore.] in the flesh, I would note that she was taller than most men, her eyes were blue-gray, her complexion was fair but well tanned, and when I later saw her in a simple hussars trousers and shirt rather than heavy chain mail, she was adequately but not flabbily endowed, her waist was narrow, her hips were wider than on many women though not through larding, and her behind—I suppose if a woman rides on a flying horse from which a fall is always serious the derriere of steel become desirable, even if you can fly.  Her face was perpetually in a smile.

My imprisonment was odd.  I was given a substantial cell, scrupulously clean.  I was taken everywhere with a large heavily[-]armed escort.  Do not think ill of my hosts! Recall that we could not speak to each other, so my captors had no way to understand that I had given my word as a gentleman of Nordheim that I had surrendered and offered parole. Also, they have never heard of Nordheim. We rode a considerable distance, Henri in the horse-litter growing slowly weaker though being carefully tended, passed through one town, and reached another, larger one.  Each town center had a huge tower, at least thirty paces in height.  Before my capture, His Most Worshipful Majesty’s priests assured me that the towers were being built higher and higher until the Land Beyonders could invade Heaven.  It is a mark of the mental state of Alonzo’s subjects that they believe this absurdity.

I cannot claim to have been mistreated. After some pantomime it was made clear that I was to remove all my clothes.  I was drenched and supplied with first-rate soap.  After being rinsed, I was prodded into a large tub of warm water and soaked at length.  There was appreciable insistence that I submerge my head repeatedly.  Finally, I was dried and supplied with new and clean clothes.  Being bathed with an inquisitive audience was not a modest experience, but, as seen in the books I recovered last year, the women here are wantons with the morals of harlots.

At twilight of my first day of captivity, I, Francois, and three Unifacatorio mercenaries were held in the same place, three adjoining cells. The five of us conversed, having agreed that we would each speak aloud in our own language, which the rest of us could usually understand.  Being prisoners, we had little to do other than talk.  Henri, whose death we expected in a few days, had made clear that he would rather die listening to friends and fellow soldiers than die in silence. We tried to oblige him. We spoke for some considerable time, without realizing that we had an audience.  The audience finally revealed her presence by entering the cell block.

The young lady was dressed as a man, in boots, long trousers, long-sleeved high-necked loose blouse in moderate brown, with a peculiar white sigil sewn on the chest and each arm.  She wore no jewelry or make-up.  Her light-brown hair was long enough to be tied in a bob in back, a length which for a Beyonder woman is unusual.  The Beyonders are so primitive that they do not know how to make metal scabbards for their swords; her somewhat long blade, worn across the back, was appreciably curved.  Our four guards rose; I saw no salutes passed in either direction.  It was my intuition that this was an important person, though my judgement was based only on the quality of the stitching on her clothing.

She sat and listened, occasionally taking notes, while we resumed our conversation. Finally, she rose came to my cell, and began talking at me.

It took me a moment to realize that she was speaking in Nordheimer, though with no accent I have ever heard.  She spoke--read, actually--several sentences describing Nordheim.  She named my Sovereign, though she was misinformed, since it is several years since Wilhelm, the 45th of his name, succeeded Wilhelm, the 44th of his name.  Only later did I realize that she wrote out each number, but never spoke the words.  She then turned to Henri and Francois, and repeated her performance.  In Farazosa, their native language.  I had time to listen.  When she spoke her sentences, she dropped a modest number of syllables.  At the name of his Sovereign, Henri made an effort to rise, and had to be pressed back into his bed.  

Finally, she turned to our Unifacatorio mercenaries, and made had an inauspicious start.  Assuredly, the mercenaries were not slaves of Alonzo X, and were deeply offended to be addressed in His Worshipful Majesty's tongue.  For prisoners dependent on the good will of their captors, they were decidedly impolite.  I intervened, ordering them to be silent and sketching on the floor of my cell—difficult, the floor was highly clean stone—the major lands of His Continent, trying to clarify from where each of us came.  She listened carefully, then produced from a thin box her own, highly accurate, sketch map of our lands.  I managed a pantomime,  pointing at each land, and acting out fighting between the lands of Alonzo X and the Unifacatorio.  She said a few words to our other guards, then repeated my pantomime with her saber.  She was not my Valkyrie, but nothing was wrong with her drill in form or speed.  She turned to our mercenary contingent, made a contrite gesture of apology, and spoke some sentences on the Unifacatorio.  In Intermontagnac. Her accent was abysmal, but the gesture was heartfelt, and she won their forgiveness.

She turned back to Francois, discussing single words with him. I caught ‘battle’, ‘sword’, and ‘spearthrower’.  He corrected her pronunciation.  She listened closely.  They worked through the alphabet, though not in a rational order.  It took me a fair while to understand, but I realized that they were discussing the calendar, finally establishing the current year, her birth year, and Henri’s birth year.  She was older than I would have guessed.

Finally, she produced several sketches, which I immediately recognized as the town that had been purified the Summer before last.  She then pointed at each of us.  I gave the true answer, namely that this had been done by the priest-soldiers of Alonzo X.  She immediately recognized that our mercenaries were in Alonzo’s uniforms, producing a good pastel print of a soldier of Alonzo X in regimental uniform.   I could recognize the regimental uniform; it was the unit that traveled here.  We tried to pantomime the notion of mercenaries, men hired to fight.  She appeared baffled by our gestures, but recognized that there were unplumbed depths of complication.

I think she learned a few words from us.  I am quite sure that she mixed words from different languages without even trying to keep them separate.  I am not, He who Conquers knows, a subtle man.  I would never be an effective lawyer, except in Rimeheim, where ‘I demand to represent my client by trial by combat’ remains an effective plea.  It was only after she left that I noted the puzzle.  How is it possible that she knew anything at all of our lands?  Then I partly understood.  She was not really speaking, when she addressed sentences to each of us.  She was reading, giving sounds in the right order, not understanding how syllables combine to words, not recognizing that the same letter has somewhat a different sound in Nordheim, Farazosa, and Intermontagnac, not knowing that some letters are only half-spoken.  Henri and I discussed this back and forth.  She had a nearly complete list of the letters, but knew the sounds of four out of five.  Henri supplied the remainder.  Her pronunciation of the letters she knew was far sharper, with a few conspicuous errors, than her pronunciation of the letters Henri taught her.   Henri is a man of letters, a novelist whose words are awaited by readers across His True World.  His imagination is amazing.  He was at first as baffled as I as to how a people who believe there are no lands west of the Shallow Sea could know our tongues.

Henri finally announced that he could see two alternatives.  First, the espionage effort in these lands, whose details are His Worshipful Majesty’s closely-held secret, might have been turned, so that for all these years we have had double agents working against us.  However, if this were true, the agents would surely have explained gunpowder to the women, and we would not have faced armies armed only swords, bows, and arrows.  Second, after last Summer’s raid, a soldier and Colonel Gastogne’s valet each disappeared.  They might have been interrogated.  The soldier had clearly been made into a portrait.  But how you conduct an interrogation when you do not know the language?  

Chapter 31
North Torinsdale
Summertouch 20, 2448

Angela-vrith-Martyn rode swiftly northward through the morning light, her Pelosian stallion holding effortlessly its swift pace.  The land east of the coastal hills was a wide, grassy plain crossed with shallow streams and dotted with small ponds.  She'd left Millersbridge at first light.  Her horse had rested, but she had burned the midnight oil writing Tomas a letter on the Pirate prisoners and their coding methods.  Now she had a long ride indeed, unless she decided to call it quits at suppertime and finish tomorrow.  That would be up to her horse.  Pelosian stallions were almost inexhaustible, but Butterbean had perhaps not been ridden enough to keep him in peak condition.

She had regularly gone back and forth from Caer Adurel to Noralin City.  Noralin City held a Senate repository library, a supply of all the information needed Tomas wanted for his financial investigations.   Tomas allowed it was three long days of riding.  It was two shorter days, and a day stay in Merecester.  And if the young man who was a printer's devil for the local newspaper had all sorts of questions, questions she was scrupulous to answer so as to reduce tensions between the Torinsdale and the Republic, it was also true that days of shifting chests of lead type gave him the most incredible muscles and endurance at night.

Greathand Winterwheat had been extremely cooperative when she'd announced what supplies she wanted.  Winterwheat had sent women to follow her, riding to a destination on Evaine's map, but no local horse could match the pace hers was setting.  Nonetheless, her saddlebags were full, for her as well as for her horse, she had a more than adequate stock of bolts for her bow, and her sleeping bag was fall weight.   

She wished she could have stayed longer, to talk with the prisoners, but the message Tomas had left in Millersbridge was entirely unambiguous.  The Pirates were not descending from heaven.  They were landing their canoes someplace along the coast, and marching south.  Wherever they were landing, the canoes might still be on-shore, in which case a raiding party might be able to block their retreat by burning their boats.  Observers near the landing sight would provide advance warning of additional pirate forces. North of Gwendolyn's Bay, the coastline was a steep cliff.  The pirates were almost certainly landing at Gwendolyn's Bay or points south.  She was to ride to the Bay and sweep the coast until she uncovered their landing place, preferably without being detected.  
Must Angela do this, rather than a more-experienced -- and easier to replace -- woodsdaughter?

It was not an entirely comfortable role for her.  Evaine had cut through five pirates almost as though they were not there.  If she had to face a pirate, she preferred to fill him with arrows from a safe distance, and that only if she could not entirely evade his notice.   Her idea of combat involved ledgers, abaci, and ink, not sharp objects and bloodshed.  She had left her armor in Merecester.  It clanked.  It would tire her horse.

She had taken meticulous care to spell out to Tomas what she had done for him.  If something happened to her on this expedition, she had to hope that her notes and letters were clear.  Her hosts in the Noralin Library believed that she was researching expenses that had arisen in fighting the Sea Eagles, which was partly true.  She had researched those, and rather scrupulously at that.  However, she had also found in the Senate records a long series of expenditures that had been diverted, spent other than to their intended purposes, by the criminals who had almost killed Gretchen.  Those expenditures were funded by taxes levied in Cismontane-by-the-Sea, so they fell under Tomas's jurisdiction as Interlocutor.  This time, however, when Tomas made his report, a copy of Tomas's report, with all the tables, would relocate itself to the Dianasmere Reflector, the Merecester Observer, and other places to the south before anyone could place it under seal. 

The real frustration was having only a few hours to speak with pirates.  It would have been far easier if she had had Evaine's books with her, rather than only the few pages she had copied.  Having Gretchen there would have been even better.  She had spent days studying those books, and had a very sharp memory.  After all, Gretchen had uncovered the conspiracy without knowing that it was there.   

The encipherment scheme finally unfolded itself.  The pirate code symbols indeed uniformly stood for sounds.  The symbols accurately represented names of cities and towns of the One World, and chants of the Sea Eagles, because the symbols were intended to encode sounds, and did so successfully.  Other sets of sounds from the books, spoken out loud, were understood by the pirates as words, because they had memorized the codes that stood for words.  'The One Tongue' might be pronounced 'Nordheimer', 'Farazosa', or 'Intermontagnak'.  By pirate convention, if you started using words from the Farazosa code book, you only used words from that code book.  

Unfortunately, no one would believe her interpretation of the code.  Her interpretation faced one insuperable obstacle: In order to use each code, you would need to memorize tens of thousands of code words.  Then, to speak, you would need to think about what you were going to say, lay our your exact words, recall from memory the code word for each real word, speak the code words in the right order, and wait while the person to whom you were talking reversed the process and decided what you meant.  Each step involved delays.  She had listened to the men talk.  There were no delays in their conversations.  How were they doing it?  The code very certainly did not take letters or sounds onto letters or sounds; words that were the same length when spoken normally became words of very different length in the Farazosa or Intermontagna codes.  She knew how commercial codes worked, even how the very expensive but unbreakable counting loom codes worked. There were codes that could from a distance looked like the Pirate codes, but no one could speak them.  You needed codebooks, and coding tables, and sweated[-]through hand conversions. 

Could it be a hoax?  She had tried a few simple tests: Have one of the pirates say things in the Farazosa code, in response to a picture she sketched, and ask a pirate who had not seen the sketch what she had drawn.  The pirates seemed to use the codes to talk.  She had determined very few code words.  Perhaps the communication was an illusion.  Perhaps there were real code books, but only for a few words.  She had spent hours writing out what she had learned.  Tomas could make sense of it.

Once and again, she ascended a rise to survey the surrounding land, being careful not to let herself be outlined against the sky.  Her horse never complained much of a few minutes of pacing back and forth while she stared through her farseer.   There was no smoke, no sign of the trail that a marching host would leave in its wake.  

The approach of evening found her far north of Merecester.  There were no good maps of these grasslands.  She had made penciled notes as she rode, marking off smaller and larger streams, and two creeks deep enough that she had searched for a ford.  Her horse could have swum, but the bags were a heavy load.  She didn't want to soak her horse or herself in cold water.  Besides, unless she missed her guess, the raiding party would be on foot, and needed to know where there were shallows.  As best as she could judge, she had come about the right distance north.  The height of the mountain wall matched Evaine's sketch.  The Mountain Without a Top, distantly glimpsed through cloud and haze, properly loomed in the further distance.  It was far more difficult to tell how far east she was of the coast.  She had inclined her path to the west, up to the coastal hills, but in a trackless prairie that was navigation by blind guess.  A Horse Barbarian might know to the inch where she was on the Grass Sea.  She did not.

Fairly soon she should stop for the day.  She was to search out the pirate ports.  She needed to be entirely alert for their sentries.  She might need to retreat quickly, for which she wanted her horse to be rested.  Butterbean might be happy to be ridden further, but her endurance was pushing toward its limit.  The next creek was broad and shallow.  A ride upstream brought her to a small island, large enough that she and Butterbean might rest unseen, without tracks leading anyone to her resting place.

* * * * *

Morning.  Angela rolled out from her sleeping bag.  She'd selected the ground carefully, finding a place that was flat, dry, and reasonably free of rocks.  She stretched.  Goddess, she though, but she was stiff.  Two very long rides in three days was a great deal.  Today there would likely be yet another long ride.  The women of Greathand Winterwheat had said that the wind off the mountains was cold; last night had been chill.  Her horse snorted.  "Butterbean?" she asked.  "Is it water, food, riding, or a mare you want?  You get the first three only."  She led her horse to the stream, checked that Butterbean was securely tied again, and moved a short ways upstream.  The horse drank; she washed, enough that the chill air left her almost shivering.  Butterbean got his morning corn and oats.  She boiled water for bitter-bean tea while she packed her camping equipment, checked her gear, and tested the edge on her sword.    A long series of stretches and sips to finish the tea were complete just after the sun's disk peaked across the horizon.

She made a careful check of Butterbean's hooves and coat.  Pelosians had been bred since the Second Revelation for speed, endurance, and docility.  Butterbean was unusually patient.  All was well.  Horse gear was properly loaded and cinched. The fire was thoroughly extinguished and buried.  A careful search of the surrounding ground showed no gear left behind.  She rolled into her saddle.  They were off.

Where was she going?  On a map, the plan was simple.  The challenge was reaching the coast north of Angela's Bay, but not too far north.  Her best guess was that riding due east would do it.  She might work indoors much of the day, but she still had a fair estimate of how to find east from the height and bearing of the sun.  Her maps were useless.  There was Evaine's good map of the coast, a less detailed map of the prairies northwest of Noralin City, and an in between region where the map might as well have been left blank.  It would be really annoying to discover her path was blocked by a large lake, a match to the Lake Caroline that fed the waterfalls above Noralin City, but such a lake might be in the way  Sane people didn't wander off into the woods, days and days from civilization, to see what was there.  There might be a commercial opportunity, she considered, but even the House Martyn would find it expensive to build a string of towns into the northern wilderness in the hope of finding beaches of diamond sand or mountains of pure silver.

The correct direction was almost upstream.  She held Butterbean at first to a gentle pace, enough to let him warm up while she worked through day old rolls, cheese, and two apples.  Butterbean happily took the cores, and then a third, intact pear.  The ground ahead might be described, she decided, as 'indistinct'.  There were low rolling knobs of hills, most covered with trees.  The general trend was upward, never very steeply.  She kept her eyes and ears open, never seeing sign of human habitation.  After a few hours, the creek faded into tiny streams.  An occasional pond marked a family of beaver.  

Finally Angela found she was riding downhill again, following watercourses that grew broader and broader.  At midmorning, she reached the ocean, whose waves broke noisily at the base of the coastal cliffs.   She tested her bowstring, checked that her saber was not jammed in its scabbard, and turned Butterbean south, staying slightly inland where she might be less readily spotted from a distance.

The next set of rises looked much like those Evaine had sketched as forming the north side of Gwendolyn's Bay.  A substantial column of smoke rose from inland, roughly where the bay might end.  Angela stopped and dismounted.  A careful search with farseer revealed no sign of sentries or garrison on the headlands.  Now what was she to do?  Tomas's letter was marvelously lacking in detail.  The hill at the entrance to the bay gave a view of its entire depth.  It appeared she could ride there, look, and back out.  If she were seen, 'gallop like mad' appeared to be a workable escape plan, unless pirate horses were much better than horses elsewhere.  She was not afraid of one man, but a group could be a challenge, not to mention that her objective was to avoid being noticed.  The cover between here and there was mediocre.  Evaine had managed to sneak up on a pirate surveyor, Angela noted, but he was concentrating on his work, and she was Evaine.  

The headland was reached without challenge.  If there were a garrison, they showed no sign of seeing her.  She rode almost to the crest, dismounted and tied Butterbean, and crept to the hilltop.  There were no people, no tents, no signs of a recent fire.  And in the bay—what was it?  She dropped flat, staring through her farseer.  Those were people, not seabirds, on its back.  It was a boat, not a gaudily-decorated log.  It was huge.  She tried to estimate its size from the height of a man on its deck.  More than a hundred feet long, she estimated, structures at the front and back ends rising twenty and thirty feet out of the water, three masts and a dozen sails, the tallest mast rising above than the headland on which she lay.   There was a porch on that mast, and men obviously playing the role of watchmen.  Slowly, majestically, the boat was advancing out of the bay.   Those men were looking down at her, and might see her.  She rolled into bushes. 

She pulled a sketchpad from her carry-case and began drawing as fast as she could.  A complete drawing was impossible.  There were big ropes and small ropes down to the limit of her vision.  She looked carefully at the men near the back of the ship. Some were wearing the green and white costumes of the Longbeachport pirates.  It was a great shame she was a dreadful artist, but she could expect plenty of help on turning her sketches into a real drawing.  

* * * * *

Late afternoon brought Angela to the south headland.  She had ridden around the bay, staying miles out from the water, trying once and again to work in toward the pirate camp.  The pirates had no obvious outposts.  If anyone saw her, they did not challenge her.  They had a camp, a large cleared area, and at the edges of the camp watchtowers with sentries.  Down at the water's edge was something odd, something she could not identify other than it was tall, dark, and extremely long.

From the south headland, the view was much clearer.  The objects along the shore were Pirate boats.  They had been brought up to the shallow water, or as close as could be arranged, and rolled on their sides.  Men were standing on their sides, perhaps working.  On shore were stacks of barrels, piles of logs, masses of objects covered by canvas, and long rows of tents.  The smoke arose from large pots near the shore's edge.  Perhaps someone who knew something of sailboats could explain what she was seeing.  She again spent the time needed to make detailed sketches.  

Evaine would be more interested in the landward defenses, walls, towers, moats—there didn't seem to be any, other than the watchtowers.  A more careful search found no sign of any horses.  There were large numbers of men roughly dressed doing manual labor, perhaps a hundred men in green and white lounging around or lackadaisically building a palisade, men more elegantly dressed in white shirts who seemed to be telling others what to do, two dozen men in blue cowls and capes doing something unintelligible, and three collections of gaudily dressed older men seated under pavilion tents.  She had not identified a single woman in the group, though under the loose, flowing shirts and shorter-cut hair a woman might be hidden.  Many people standing on the sides of the boats had stripped to the waist.  Clearly, those people were all men, and remarkably furry ones, at that.

No horses here did not mean no riders elsewhere.  A camp here did not mean no camp elsewhere.  It was time to be on her way down the coast.

* * * * *

A very wide trail marked where huge numbers of pirates had passed.    The grass was beaten down.  The ground had been churned by wagon wheels.  Angela rode close to the shore, looking for signs of landings.   The ride was nerve-wracking.  Any Pirate rear-guard would be in the coastal hills, between her and the safety of the wilderness.  She eased back on her pace, trying to keep Butterbean ready for an escape.  She did search for tracks, and twice covered her own, riding up and down sandy creek beds, staying just below the water's edge, to mask her trail.  

After a dozen miles she came to the traces of a large pirate campsite, and after another dozen or so miles to another campsite.  At the second camp, there had visibly been landings of small boats, the ground at the water's edge being broken down so wagons could be driven up to the surf.  The pirates left little behind.  An abandoned wagon retained its broken axle, but its wheels, contents, and yoke had all been stripped.  The carpentry could charitably be described as 'crude'.
 
Finally the rendezvous point came into sight.  Greathand Winterwheat, the women who had done this march last time, was absolutely certain that the hill was unique and could not be missed.  They'd been right, though from a distance there was no sign of the party she was to meet.  Nor should there be, she considered; they were supposed to remain inconspicuous.

Her approach was through the surf, the waves breaking across the beach instantly erasing her horse's tracks. There was no sign of watchers.  Angela loosened her sword in its scabbard, checked that her bow was at hand, and released the cover on her bag of arrow bolts.  She might be being cautious.  She might be riding into an ambush.

Angela was almost at the base of the hill when a woman stood from behind a tall stand of grass and pointed directions to the hilltop.  It was Rianne; Angela had found the women who had traveled here before.  Angela rode to the top while Megan and Dara covered her tracks behind her.  Butterbean snorted politely at the three women's horses, but rapidly turned his mind back to the barley mash with which he was presented.  

"Rianne! Megan! Dara!" Angela said.  "Great to see all of you.  Was your trip safe?"

"The first half-day was interesting," Dara answered.  "There were Pirate riders all over the place, though never more than a pair at a time.  Torinsdale gave us an escort, two hands of cavalry, until we were north of Millersspa.  Then we came up the coast.  The Pirates had landings in Saint Dana's Bay, and met a large band marching south—the one you must have been tracking."

"There are none north of here," Angela said.  "Until you reach Gwendolyn's Bay.  Then you have hundreds of them, all sorts, a line of huge boats on the shore.  They don't use canoes."  She described what she had seen.  "Tomorrow I should carry through to Millersbridge, though it sounds I should slip well west first, and pass through Merecester."

"That's a day's ride by itself, or more," Megan said.  Angela smiled. 

* * * * *

Brighter light glared through the window of Angela's room.  She awoke from a sound sleep.  The bed besides her was empty; Arthur Martinasson had been ordered to report to work at dawn.  She and Arthur had, she remembered as her brain cleared, said a proper goodbye.  He would be a bit late, but women understood that men were like that. The proprietress of the Merecester Tattler planned to bring out an extra issue to announce the soon-to-be-reported victory of the Sisterhood over the pirates at Millersport.  The battle was anticipated after dawn today.

She had arrived in Merecester after suppertime.  Every Inn was full.  Every Circle was hosting so many relatives from coastward that people were sleeping on the floors and grateful of the shelter. Greathand Winterwheat was shamed to report that they were hosting Greathands Yarrow and Rowan, and had not even floor space for sleepers.  Mercifully, Merecester bathhouses were sized to accommodate Noralin City laborers for the apple harvest.  She and her clothing would be clean, though her spare clothing would yet be damp.  The mistress of the House of Three Swans had agreed to stable Angela's horse, but the haylofts were filled with guests, and by the way the cost of fodder was up from last week.  

A pass by the Tattler's offices found Arthur still at work, leading to a more positive invitation.  Last night, she had been stiff, but not that stiff.  This morning, Arthur had left her a note on her final change of clothing: 'Visit me at work.  Have a free breakfast.'  She dressed, put her pack over her shoulder, and opened the window.  Three rungs of ladder led to the ground.  The door, of course, led to the courtyard and common rooms of Arthur's bachelor's circle, a space that by custom was never seen except by the Circle itself.  She peered left and right.  A good quarter of the windows sported stairs.

She ordered her thoughts.  First the Chapterhouse, in case Tomas had sent another message, then Arthur and breakfast, and last the baths, so her clothes would be as dry as possible.  Finally, her horse, Millersbridge, and Borderfort.  

The streets were crowded, not with traffic but with women standing and talking as though they had nothing to do.  Likely many of them did not. They were fugitives from Gulfport or Daisy; their homes had been looted and burned.  Angela did stop to listen to two women freshly arrived from Millers Mills, exhausted after several days trek through the wilderness.  From the back of the crowd, she heard only parts of sentences "…all bearded men…their mages throw lightning bolts…bodies went flying…escaped only by running…giant snakes, chained and hooded, that breathe flame…Torinsdale cavalry saved half of us…no, abandoned us…Pirates immune to cold steel…no, they die to a sword thrust…Pirates can't be stopped; to fight them is to die.  Run or die, no other choice."

The Tattler's offices were close to the east wall of town.  Disorder in the yard spoke of heavy wagons recently brought in, loaded, and dragged to the town gates.  Now a dozen women sat on benches having a late breakfast.  

"Angela?" asked an older woman in ink-stained blouse.

"Angela-vrith-Martyn," she answered politely.

"I'm Susannah Miriamsdotr, publisher.  And I owe you breakfast, and half an apology, because I sent Arthur to his room to collect his worldly goods, and told him he now works for our Noralin Office.  He's a dear boy, and will be safer there, no matter how much we will all miss him," the older woman answered.  "And if you would tell me aught of your travels, I would be most interested."

Angela helped herself and sat.  Susannah's own daughter was not quite inconspicuous at taking notes while Angela talked about her long ride, the strange pirate ship, the prisoners Torinsdale had taken.  She emphasized every bit she had heard of Evaine capturing three men and killing two, without aid.  There were too many rumors about pirates being as indestructible as Demons from a Nimue tale.  The men she had met were clearly more or less human, and bled like any woman.  She skipped over Evaine's talents as Armsmistress.   She had seen absolutely no sorcery, only men with spears and by report slings and noisy stonethrowers.  The pirate boat had indeed sailed off due west, but perhaps it wanted to be clear of the coast before it turned north or south.

In return, Susannah Miriamsdotr described all the Republic had done to respond.  The steelroads were running to capacity.  A dozen Greathands of the Sisterhood had been brought up to Westverge, where they joined the Cismontane-by-the-Sea Town Guards and half the Noralin City Trained Band.  Two Greathands of walldaughters with spoolbows, wheeled greatbows, even thousand-pound-draw greatbows from the Noralin City walls had been brought forward.  The lot had marched, been loaded into carts, or dragged down the road to Millersport, to be joined by a half-dozen greathands of the Torinsdale formed Levy under the leadership of the Millersport Warlady, one Bulent Judithson.  There they awaited the pirate host encamped at Gull Harbor.

"Bulent? Judithsson? Warlady? Six Greathands?" Angela understood that she knew little about military science, but something sounded very wrong.  "Did something happen to Evaine?  Evaine-sa-Orowan?  The woman who captured the five pirates near Millers Mills?"

"She is fine.  Doris, give me the enemy broadsheet.  They scooped us, and will not do that twice."  She passed Angela a copy of the Merecester Daylight Shield 'We See The News That Others Do Not' and the astronomically impossible running head.  Evaine had ridden to Borderfort, been ambushed by three pirates, and reduced them and their horses to so much hamburger.  The Domainmoot had appointed Bulent as Warlady.  Why?  He was the bloated oaf who had attacked Evaine's sister and almost lost his arm.  

"Signal repeat," an older woman called from the roof.  "Enemy marching onto field.  Our forces in line.  Torinsdale assault columns ready." 

Columns? Angela mouthed.  Bulent had spoken up to the Domainmoot, saying Evaine's tactics were all wrong, and attack by column 'the sharp sword that pierces our enemy's vitals' was the correct formation for successful combat.  But the Torinsdale women had drilled for attack in line using massed archery, not Bulent's cockamamie scheme that treated people like sections of a weapon.  

"Which six Greathands did Bulent take?" Angela asked.  Susannah passed handwritten notes for an article.  The names were the most recently formed units.  There followed some folderol from Bulent, implying that these were the women least contaminated by Evaine-sa-Orowan's eccentric and ignorant military thinking.  Angela mumbled under her breath.  There were several terms for what was likely about to happen, but none that would be used in mixed company where delicate male ears might be offended. "I should be going," Angela announced.  "I am expected in Torinsdale."

"Do be careful," Susannah answered.  "Though the Torinsdale High Levy cavalry has spent two days chasing down Pirate riders, killing a fair number of them."

High Levy? Angela thought.  The High Levy was expensive to summon.  Its presence meant Landgrafin Cheryl was taking the pirates very seriously indeed, more seriously than the Republic seemed to.  Late last evening, the Merecester gates had still been open, walls were not obviously held, and most women seemed to expect that the Sisterhood would soon have all matters well in hand.  At Daisy, the pirates had beaten a town militia, not real military forces.. 

* * * * *

Despite her best efforts, Second Recension was being sung before Angela reached Millersbridge.  The Three Swans stables had been crowded, enough to strain Butterbean's docility.  The short road around town was closed.  That was actually good: A gap was being dug to flood Millersbridge's deep but currently dry moat.  Watchtowers were actually in use.  Along the Millersbridge Road, a thicker and thicker flood of women made forward progress challenging.  Millersbridge had sent on refugees from Daisy, Millers Mills, Tayberry, Gooseberry, Bayberry, and Cloudberry, providing each with two days food and directions to Westverge.  Angela suspected that the steelroad lines would not accommodate more than a few of them.

Millersbridge was in chaos, streets crowded with barrows and carts, wagons loaded with small children and a few aunts being packed and dragged out of town.  What had happened?  Even Bulent Judithson was not that much of a dolt.  Surely the Sisterhood had matters under some control?  She rode the circuit of the town walls, finally spotting the royal blue and gold of Sisterhood Winterwheat holding the western watchtowers.

"Hello, Winterwheat," she called.  "Is there news I ought to bear to Torinsdale?  It is I, Angela-vrith-Martyn, who rode the circuit to Gwendolyn's Bay."

The woman on the tower stared down.  "News?  You haven't heard?  We, the town council.  No, we have urgent news.  Duty hand!  A half-hand to protect the horse.  A half-hand to escort the vrith-Martyn to the Chapterhouse, if she is willing."  Angela nodded agreement.  

The postern gate popped open.  Four women, three with swords drawn, popped out.  "That's a stallion," the fourth said, "Will he bite?"

"Put your hand flat," Angela said.  "A mail glove is good.  Now I'll set this pear on top.  Hold still; he's very careful, and doesn't like meat with his fruit." The pear disappeared.  "He'll sniff a bit," Butterbean did not quite knock the woman down, "like an overfriendly puppy.  He is now your good friend.  He will not complain if you let him graze the verge."

Angela was led at a sprint through town, her escort not quite knocking down people in her path.  The Chapterhouse neighbored the sunspeaker tower, which was under siege by women clamoring to send messages. The large 'closed' chalked on the barred front door did not seem to be inhibiting the crowd.  Angela concluded that the large room and dozen people within the Chapterhouse qualified as a meeting, one in which order had been abandoned and women were just short of coming to blows.  Ignoring the commotion, her escort marched up to their Greatmistress and announced: "This is Angela-vrith-Martyn, Interlocutor's Guard, who will bear messages to Torinsdale."

"Goddess bless," came the answer.  "This covers most," she said, passing a broadsheet.  It read 'Millersbridge Monthly Extra, Front Page Draft.  DEFEAT!  The Sisterhood crushed!  Torinsdale routed!" Angela scanned the further pages.  There had been a battle.  She did the math in her head.  There had been 700 Swordsisters, perhaps 400 Torinsdale Formed Levy, some hundreds of others.  They had waited for the Pirates to deploy, and eventually had attacked. It seemed that the greatbows were never properly deployed, so their crews 'waited gallantly for a clear shot at the enemy, until their positions were overrun'.  The Torinsdale columns 'charged directly the giant firebreathing snakes', whatever they were, 'of the Pirate hordes, advancing in heroic column straight into the foe's mouths.'  Apparently this led to serious casualties.   Some sort of volunteers on one flank were charged by cavalry.  They apparently routed through the Sisterhood, disordering their ranks.

"Where are they now?" Angela asked.

"The survivors got chased around the town walls," the Winterwheat Greatmistress said.  "Millersport wall engines kept pirates under sustained fire until they reached the Sea Gate.  By then the Sisterhood re-ordered, the wall engine fire got too hot for the pirates, and Millersport could open gates.  That's about 800 survivors.  Millersport counted 400 of our dead on the field, and estimates some like number are running."

"Bulent Judithson?" Angela asked. 

"Led his forces from the town walls with signal flags," was the answer.  "Not like their Armsmistress, to lead from the front.  Now the pirates have completed their lines around the town.  If you want to rescue him, you may be able to bring him out by sea."

"Such a shame," Angela said, "Torinsdale has never had a fishing fleet.  I'm sure the Republic has more important activities for its lobsterdaughters.   I'll be happy to carry your message, or that of whomever here, to Torinsdale.  I know I'll be asked by Evaine-sa-Orowan how many women you have here, how they are armed, equipped and trained, and what your intentions are."

"Here?  Three Sisterhood Greathands by this evening.  Six hundred townsfolk, I think," the Greatmistress answered.  "Four hands of Torinsdale cavalry, out there someplace, told emphatically not to get locked up in town.  By tomorrow, some number of women fleeing from the battle. The four Berries have walldaughters, all holding their ground.  The Sisterhood had no plans to bring up more people beyond the ones at Millersport.  It will take days to summon more."

"I'll need your message," Angela said.  "And what you can tell me about the Millersport garrison."  She smiled.  It was a real shame that Gail hadn't cut off Bulent Judithson's arm, preferably via the windpipe.  If anyone was in charge of the Millersbridge defenses, it was not obvious.  Half of the people in this meeting still hadn't noticed she was here.  She was not going to ask the Greatmistress's name; people must have forgotten they had not been introduced.  "Sand seems to damp pirate spells.  Having seen Longbeachport, I urge you to start piling sand behind each of your gates.   Lots of sand.  You? That's whoever you put in charge here."  She collected her messages and went on her way.

Chapter 32
Northfort, Torinsdale
Summertouch 24, 2448

"Your Warlady?" Landgrafin Cheryl observed pointedly to the Domain Council and her advisors, "Your Warlady cowered on the walls of Millersport while the battle raged before him.  He deployed the forces of Torinsdale, the forces that we raised and paid for out of my purse, incompetently, negligently, and with total disregard of the basic principles of warfare.  At great expense and effort, our forces were equipped with the best modern bows, and drilled to engage our foes from line with massed bowshot from considerable range.  Your Warlady had our women discard their bows and halberds for swords and bucklers, discard their chain mail for plain cloth short skirts, apparently because this dress is standard in Tales of Princess Nimue, advance into battle with no supply train and insufficient food, and charge in column the enemy stonethrowers after being supplied with descriptions of their effects.  The columns blocked the fire of most of the supporting greatbows, which had been removed from the available rise of ground so that they would shoot 'level'.  Our formations were shattered to pieces.  Our women were slaughtered.  Of six Greathands of the Torinsdale Formed Levy, the least trained of those in our host by the way, the equivalent of two are surrounded in Millersport—minus, I note, much of their equipment—an equal number of women are fled in all directions where they spread every variety of foul rumor, and a third of the women who marched with the Judithson lie dead on Millersport Common, where they are food for the gulls, the crows, and the turkey vultures.  To add insult to injury, I am in receipt of an extended sunspeaker message from your Warlady, screaming for help, for which you will be given the bill because he is your Warlady, blaming his defeat on the useless weapons, inadequate swordsdaughtership, cowardly attitudes—that's wanting to wear armor in battle—and general poor training of our Formed Levy, all to be blamed on my Armsmistress, Evaine-sa-Orowan.  I have supplied my Armsmistress of a copy of this document, as it would appear to be grounds for civil suit for libel against him and those who employ him.  That's you as individuals." 

Landgrafin Cheryl paused in her rage and pinched the sides of her nose.  She had at long last been persuaded to establish sunspeaker links running the length and width of Torinsdale.   They did not yet have the efficiency of the Republic's sunnet, but they did mean that an accurate account of the Battle of Millersport had reached Northfort on the day of the battle.  "Curiously, our High Levy has never complained that their training was lackadaisical.  Did I miss anything, Armsmistress Evaine," she continued in a near-whisper.

Evaine glared.  The Torinsdale Domainmoot grimly sank back in their seats.  Evaine said nothing.  The Domainmoot began to look more hopeful.  Suddenly, Evaine smiled.  "Oh, my Landgrafin, a few minor details that I only raise for the sake of completeness.  Despite what he said about me, it would be remiss of me not to speak favorably of Bulent Judithson as a man of, how shall I put it, outstanding generosity and excellent thrift."  The Landgrafin started to speak, then recognized that Evaine's voice dripped with sarcasm.  "According to his book-keeper, Bulent Judithson has regularly forgiven the extensive debts to his Inn of members of the Domain Council.  He provides them with his best accommodations during Council Meetings, and in patriotic support of the Domain Council does not charge some of them for room, board, or other services.  He proposed, had passed through council, and almost instantly was able to spend generous appropriations in support of the Formed Levy.  Of course, sometimes when you have little knowledge of military affairs, it is wise to consult with friends, and see that they allow you to act in a just manner.  For example, this document represents the purchase on the day Judithson became Warlady of twenty thousand bow bolts at thirteen pence each, from Elyssian Fields Traders and Factors, with repeat orders stretching out into the far future, paid in part in advance.  Fortunately, Elyssian Fields is owned by Counselor Lara Magdasdotr, who could be trusted to set a just price, fair both to the Domain and to her as Factor.  The immediately earlier purchases of the very same bolts by Elyssian Fields from Sawyer and Sawyer, largely owned by Counselor Mara-sa-Highridge, as seen on this document, were for an irrationally underpriced seven pence each."  Evaine paused to let the numbers set in.  

"The Domain doubtless benefited greatly from paying thirteen pence per bolt, rather than the by inference greatly unjust one pence, two drams per bolt that is a commonly posted price at general stores across the domain, let alone the nine drams per bolt that I paid for a large order on behalf of the Trained Levy," Evaine continued.  "Also, Bulent was so efficient that he was able to spend the money almost instantly on taking office, while I needed several weeks to decide what the Host wished to purchase.  At some point, one might wonder why Bulent bought so many bolts, when it was his intent to have his host discard their bows, but I am sure he and his friends will remove the cloud of ignorance from our eyes on this matter.  I must, my Landgrafin, have gravely erred, in that I only bought bolts because I planned that your women should use their bows, and have missed their well-known alternative use."   Evaine leaned back slightly on her stool.  Someday, someone was going to try to assassinate her, and having the space needed to move swiftly might protect her life.  "We can be equally grateful that, in a dozen other cases listed on these documents, Bulent was careful to pay fair and just prices, rather than the unfairly low prices offered elsewhere, for example in general stores, and to deal only with the firms that could be relied upon to offer fair prices, these being firms that happen in each case to be owned in fair part by Domain counselors who had voted for his elevation to Warlady, rather than by common citizens lacking the moral elevation of our Council, as seen on these lists."

Evaine stared across the table.  From the look on Cheryl's face, Angela had not managed to reach Cheryl in advance of this evening meeting.  Cheryl thus had not heard the outcome of Angela's forensic bookkeeping efforts.  Angela had been a real trooper in doing the analysis.  She had appeared yesterday afternoon, given her legitimate report, and listened to a description of Bulent's appointment by the Council.  Evaine proposed that the Council's Acts arose from an outbreak of collective idiocy.  Angela promptly told Evaine that Evaine was the idiot, for not following the money.  She had then proceeded to prove that Evaine was right.  Mercifully, the Levy account books were at hand, and Angela spotted a dozen transaction prices that were clearly out of line.  How Angela found other parts of the transactions was a bit baffling to Evaine, no matter that Angela had toiled through the night.  In at least once case Angela said that she had gone to the supplier's factor, affected to be from Bulent, and asked what price would be asked for bolts for direct sale.  The answer was that the bolts had originally gone for five pence to Elyssian Fields, but that ten pence with Bulent and Angela being given three would be acceptable.  Evaine suspected that a few details of the search had been omitted from Angela's description.   Bulent's accountant, who had accompanied Bulent to Northfort to meet with the Domainmoot, had wilted on learning her daughter had been at Millersport Field.  An attack of conscience or perhaps panic caused to her reveal the truth about Bulent's books, the ones listing what each Councilor actually owed his Inn, the ones he always kept in his or her close company.

"Now, Evaine," Tomas said unctuously, "I know you have many other roles than Cornet to the Lady's Interlocutor, so I cannot much fault you for error in not having tracked this crime yourself, but did you ensure that the Openness Rules were followed?" 

"Indeed, your Grace, I did," Evaine answered properly. She managed a straight face on hearing Tomas speak Angela's preplanned question.   "Noting that Council Decrees forbid the acceptance of gifts while the Council is active, I prepared a list of these events, and sent them to each party on the Council with a request for public explanation.  Also, noting that the Just Price Resolution of 1312 requires that the prices paid by the Domain be publicly posted, I ordered and directed that a list of the prices we have officially paid for each of a series of supplies be read at evening assembly to each Greathand present at Borderfort, so that all may know that the official prices of record in the Levy Account books are fair and just, and that the prices I paid were unfairly low.  This occurred perhaps an hour ago."  She passed the list of prices around the table.  How many Counselors were about to have apoplexy?  Not enough, she imagined. The Just Price Resolution did occasionally appear in Council Minutes, always phrased as 'the Alternative to the noble speaker's motion is to go back to the Just Price Resolution of prior ages', an alternative that was never accepted.

"I believe," Landgrafin Cheryl said, "that some purveyors to the Domain will want to prove that their prices were fair and just, and am confident that, since they will have no trouble doing so, that they do so very promptly."  She glowered.  Evaine's evaluation of her went up several notches.  She had just been very fast on her feet.  " Of course, it is my privilege to accept a return of Domain moneys, if an error in pricing is discovered, but I think it would be inappropriate of me to agree to accept such moneys from a current, as opposed to a former, Council Member.  If I did I would suggest a false lack of confidence in the Council's ethics.  I believe at this moment that a short recess is in order, and so decree."

* * * * *

Cheryl called to order a somewhat shrunken Council meeting.  In front of her rose a neat stack of commercial notes, refunds from former Council members.  Each was accompanied by a printed statement signed by the former Domainmoot member agreeing in advance to fees and penalties.  "I observe," she said, "that this Council's Warlady is in Millersport, under siege, and hence indisposed.  You have the option of appointing a deputy.  You have the option of noting that if the Deputy encounters the Warlady himself, that command of the host would instantly switch from the Deputy to the Warlady, leading to command confusion.  You have the option of asking if the Warlady's leadership has been convincing."  

"And who would you have us appoint as Warlady?" asked Goodman Timothy Robertason, master of Torinsdale's largest counting house.  "Cutting through this legalistic sea of foam, perhaps I should ask the Swordmistress, our most knowledgeable expert in warfare."

"The Swordmistress is not," the Swordmistress answered, "the most knowledgeable here in warfare."  She saw bafflement at her phrasing.  "The person who was the Swordmistress became a Forsaken One, abandoning personal identity to the Goddess's Aspect As Warrior.  But that person mastered the sword, and is Mistress of the Sword, not mistress of leading bodies of women and men.  The Formed Levy is intricately and systematically trained.  Its leader must understand that training.  The choice is self-evident."

"You would have us appoint Evaine-sa-Orowan as Warlady?" Timothy asked.  "She is not from Torinsdale.  She is not even from North-Shore.  What can she know of battles?  You would.  Your rationale is overwhelming. I so move.  As senior member, the chair being vacant, I ask for debate.  A naysayer first?  Anyone?"

"Is anyone uncomfortable that the sa-Orowan is neither from a Domain nor the Republic, but from the farthest part of South-Shore?" asked Demiana-sa-Center, whose millwright business had branched into manufactories.  Her question was met by silence.  "Let this be recorded as the present position of this Council, the Domainmoot.  I propose accepting the motion."

* * * * *

Two dozen Greathands stood in two long rows, their ranks interspersed with groups of wagons.  Much of the High Levy would follow with much of the supply train.  It was mid-morning.  Evaine had spent hours addressing smaller groups of women, giving them pep talks about facing the Pirates, assuring them that yes, the Pirates did have odd weapons, but if you hit them with arrow fire or cold steel or even punched them hard, they died.  She could personally attest to each of these.  Now it was time to advance.

"Ready!" she shouted. The band major raised her staff.  "Torinsdale Ruffles, sound!"

Tweet! Tweet! went the whistles. Thump! Thump! went the drums.  Aroow! went the turbine horn.

"Formations. Right!"  Evaine's commands echoed down to the ranks.  Women turned to face the line of march.  At the head of each Greathand, up came the Torinsdale banner, a gold porcupine on a lime field, and the Greathand banner, a colored banner hanging below a bronze porcupine holding a silver disc in its paws.  "Ready! From the left.  Formations Ahead!"

Drummers began a ready cadence.  Down on the field, two dozen Senior Handmistresses  raised their voices.  "Ready! Walk!"  Fifteen hundred right feet stepped out.  Two dozen paces forward, pipes sounded briefly, and Senior Handmistresses began the oldest of all Domain march chants.

"Same song, next verse!
Never gets better, never gets worse."

Marching formations responded, fifteen hundred voices loud:

"Rabbits have no tails at all,
Tails at all, tails at all.
Rabbits have no tails at all, 
Just a powder puff."

The Senior Handmistresses repeated:

"Same song, next verse!
Never gets better, never gets worse."

and on went the march.

Evaine looked around the field.  The march had commenced.  A Greathand of cavalry was spread to front, flank and rear, providing warning against ambush.  Now the lead infantry Greathand would pick up its step, moving to fast pace until it led the march by a solid half-mile.  As it did, the cavalry would spread even farther out.  Very soon she would mount her own horse and join the formation at its center.  The road was wide enough for two wagons; wagons would drift to the right of the road, while women marched down the left.  Horses left their traces behind them.  There was no reason to march through more of that than necessary.   Roxanne, Tomas, and his escorts would accompany her, the Landgrafin's misgivings notwithstanding.   Tomas did know something of sorcery, though it appeared that as sorcerers the Lords of Night were outclassed by the Pirates.  Roxanne had been a member of the General Staff, nominally qualified to command the truly large bodies of women that the Republic did not have at hand.  She had warned Evaine that two dozen Greathands was too many bodies of women to have one commander, a sentiment with which Evaine agreed—if only she could find someone to command a wing or the reserve.  Finding women to command a Greathand was already a challenge.

Fortunately, the Landgrafin's newfound granddaughter was an utterly becoming little girl, one who tolerantly accepted that her mother had to travel often and do dangerous things.  Landgrafin Cheryl was pacified by the sight of Dorothy politely doing what she was told.   The unscheduled arrival of several of Dorothy's aunts, in some cases with large manufacturing establishments ready to be unpacked and set up at the waterfall north of the Caer, had not strained Cheryl's sympathies.

The difficult challenge, Evaine thought, was where her force should go.  Between Millersbridge and Millersport the pirates apparently had 4000 men, more or less, far more than she had or was willing to fight at one time if any other choice were available.  If she waited for them, they would unify against her.  She had to force two battles and win both, without taking crippling casualties in the first battle.  Northfort was close to Millersbridge, and much farther from Millersport.  If the Pirates scouted out her army marching down the SeaCoast road, they could unify their forces before she reached Millersport.  Worse, in the Republic the SeaCoast road became the coastal highway, linking sleepy though well-walled fishing villages. Pirates had boats, and could readily drop blocking forces in front of or behind her march.  At several points, the coastal highway crossed steep ravines, unfavorable places through which to advance against opposition.  On the other hand, near Millersbridge she would face a Pirate force that had taken losses at Daisy and Millers Mills.  That force had apparently finished with its looting, regrouped, and was working slowly southeast.  Its associated cavalry was being aggressive about reconnoitering Millersbridge and its western approaches. While it was difficult to predict if any would appear, Republic reinforcements would come via steelroad to Westverge and then march through Merecester to Millersbridge.  

On South-Shore, an important part of warfare was getting inside the mind of your opponent.  Against pirates, finding your opponent's mind raised puzzles.  The pirate force at Millersport had used the same battle formation that they had used at each earlier battle, except this time it had made sense to put the assault column on the pirate right.  Fortunately, the Swordsister Mistress-of-Greatmistresses who commanded half the battle had put the Torinsdale forces on her left, close in on the city wall.  Even after being disrupted by the pirate stonethrowers Torinsdale and Sisterhood forces on that flank had been thick enough to stop the pirate assault, at least until the rout became general.

At Millersport the pirates were now digging proper siege trenches and berms, inner and outer.   That pirate force would probably sit stay in place, trying to break the Millersport walls.  The last message of the morning said that last night they had tried a half-dozen gatesmasher spells, five of which had failed to perturb a city wall backed with tens of feet of sand.  One had shattered an outer gate, letting pirates enter a long diagonal vault from whose top women were happy to shower the pirates with arrows and large rocks.  After a hairpin turn, that vault ended in another, intact gate.  The Pirate force finally retreated, leaving many dead behind. 

On the somewhat bright side, through four battles the Sisterhood leadership had used exactly the same tactics, namely forming a single deep line of women armed with swords, spears, scythes, and whatever came to hand.  Their few archers took a toll of pirates.  Swordsisters advanced at a walk.  Pirate stonethrowers then exacted a far larger toll, following which the pirates charged.  In every case, the pirates had had great superiority of numbers, enough to win the day.   If the pirates were given another chance to do battle, under the same apparent conditions, they would probably rise to the occasion and use the same strategy they had used before.  After all, their strategy always worked.

Sisterhood leadership had takes no advantage of the strong points of Sisterhood training, notably in swordsmanship, equipment for hand-to-hand combat, and ability to deploy rapidly.  At Millersport, the Sisterhood stood an hour while the enemy finished marching to and fro across the prospective battlefield.   Her guess about pirate field formations was confirmed by the Millersport battle.  The pirates, for no apparent reason, worked diligently to march and countermarch so that the first pirate Greathand onto the field would end up at the extreme right of the Pirate line, even if this greatly slowed deploying into line for battle. 

It was too late to change her mind about how her forces were armed and trained.  The Torinsdale Formed Levy was committed to battle, against a still-mysterious opponent whose uniforms, weapons, and tactics had never before been seen in the One World.

"A dram for your wishes," Roxanne said unexpectedly.

"I would be far happier," Evaine said, "if the Formed Levy was twice or thrice as large, if the Sisterhood had not wasted its forces through poor tactics, and if the pirates would get back in their boats and sail away.  None of these wishes seems readily attained."

"Perhaps the Sisterhood will send up fresh forces," Roxanne answered, "though that will take time.  And with good fortune they will not be too terrified of pirate magery to give battle."

"The pirates stood up poorly to a cavalry charge," Evaine answered, "the advantage of numbers not being enough when you are disordered. They seem not to do well, sword against sword, when the Sisterhood closes.  They march slowly.  If I seem short-spoken, it is that all this is on my shoulders.  I guessed how best to fight someone I'd never seen.  tomorrow or the day after will show if [whether] my guess was right.  If it was not, I get to conduct that most challenging of all maneuvers, the retreat."

"And Millersbridge?" Roxanne asked.  "If you retreat?"

"The pirates might win, yet be so bloodied that they do not advance," Evaine answered.  "The Sea Eagles were like that, I read."  She grimaced internally.  This time the pirate assault column, if they kept to form, would hit the left of the Torinsdale line.  If it broke through[,] it would cut her force off from Torinsdale.  If she carried on the right, she could pivot her line against theirs.  A general loss would tend to leave her driven back to the northeast on Merecester, leaving Torinsdale unguarded.  Anchoring the reserves on the left might tend to cancel that.  Perhaps the Swordsisters would provide support.  Perhaps she should set her line partly to the left of the Pirates', then pivot left to take the pirates in the flank.

* * * * *

Evaine sat on a camp stool in the camp's command pavilion.  The Torinsdale Formed Levy was be prepared to march with its tents on its back, but cooks and infirmarians and armorers and priestess [priestesses?  the priestess?] actually needed significant cover in inclement weather.  Landgrafin Cheryl had overridden Evaine's objections and commanded that the leadership group have its own pavilion.  That mass of canvas had been carried on muleback.  It was already set up, ready and waiting, when the great mottled gray-green snake of the Torinsdale Formed Levy slogged its way down the final long hill into the Millers Vale plain.

Outside was the directed chaos of the Levy settling in for the night.  Rows of tents were going up, women were digging a trench and berm around the camp, water and firewood being set into place for the cooks, and latrines and horse lines being laid down.  Evaine would inspect when preparations were well under way, but in the meantime she would let her women do the tasks for which they had trained.  Two Hands of women picketing the tent ensured that she was left undisturbed.

Relatively undisturbed, in any event, because Tomas in Mage's Cap and a Blue-Robe Mage in full regalia, one Michael-sa-Noralin, had emphatically requested an audience.

"And what are your issues?" she asked once pleasantries were past.  Tomas had said the issues were important.  He rarely exaggerated.

"There are two," said Michael-sa-Noralin.  "The first and simpler is that one of my daughters is in Millersport.  She commands the Lightnings That Speak, she has the needed material components, and thus we can talk with her as need be."

"Talk?" Evaine asked politely.  "I'm Tomas's Apprentice, but my knowledge of sorcery is limited to the principles the Lords of Night require of every Apprentice. Perhaps, I'm busy commanding a host, the consequences of the spell are more immediate than its workings."

"As a practical matter, the particular spell that is actually available gives us communication much like that of a sunspeaker.  It's not as fast as a commercial line, because neither she nor I have that skilled a hand, but it will run day and night in almost any weather, because neither fog nor snow nor wind obscures our words," Michael explained.

"So, fifteen words a minute?"  Evaine asked.  Michael nodded.  "You said 'almost' any weather.  My experience is that 'almost' can become interesting."

"The wild lightnings," Tomas said, "are jealous of their tamed brothers, and in summoning The Lightnings That Speak the Law of Similarity causes the wild lightnings to be similarly drawn to a lightning speaker or hearer.  If wild lightning draws close, only a foolhardy mage does anything but still his spells and protect his material spell components."

"Thunder storms are thankfully rare, and will only appear here when most annoying," Evaine said.  "Now, what did you mean about a 'lightning hearer', if it is not too much of a secret?"

"There are two distinct sets of material components for the spell," Tomas said.  "There are the hearer components that let you hear the voice of the lightning.  Over short distances these can be fairly simple.  There are the speaker components that compel the lightnings to talk, which are large, complex, and fragile.  We have both sets in Millersport, and both sets in Millersbridge, so word may be passed hither and thither as you will, without the Pirates having any clue of our acts."

Evaine bit her tongue.  Relieving a besieged city was complex, because the people inside rarely knew what the relief columns were doing.  The tactical advantage was potentially enormous.  "But how," she asked, "can you be sure that Pirate mages are not using their own Lightnings That Speak, letting them listen to our words."

"First," Michael said, "the messages are coded, and I am fairly certain they have had no opportunity to learn the code.  Second, well, that was the other issue I wanted to discuss with you.  It involves your agreement not to tell all and sundry what I am telling you, though under the Common Cause Rule Tomas will now learn."

"My lips are sealed," she answered.

"In short, we Blue-Robes have lightning speakers." Michael said.  "So do the Black-Robes and the Gold-Robes.  For a lightning speaker and hearer to communicate, they must be made similar to each other—Law of Similarity.  Thus, I can talk with fellow Lords of the Sky, and Tomas can talk with fellow Lords of the Night, at the same time over the same space, and our conversations don't get in each other's way.  Between here and Millersbridge, with enough sets of material components, tens of conversations could pass at once, each speaker being mute to every hearer other than its own.  I skip details.

"Some decades ago, one of my colleagues discovered that every speaker and every hearer could be assigned a number, depending on details of the material components.  The number described the similarity." Michael said.

"You could assign a number saying how similar two components are?" Tomas asked.  Evaine could hear his surprise.

"More precisely, we assign a number in a range ten to several hundred to each component," Michael said.  "If two components have the same number, they can speak and be heard.  As the numbers are made more and more different, the voice becomes inaudible, so to speak.  Thus, for example, Tomas's speaker is a 141, and other 141's hear him.  My speaker in Noralin is a 167, and other 167s hear me, and so on.  But Tomas is a 141, so his hearer cannot hear my 167 speaker.

"It was a feat of brilliancy to show that all of the components of a speaker or of a hearer combine to a single number, and that very different combinations of components can be used to create speakers that are similar to the same number.  Also, every speaker has a number that can be assigned."

Evaine could see Tomas mutter under his breath.  The Black-Robes had obviously not known about this until now.

"As a further consequence," Michael said, "It is possible to build a hearer—speakers are more challenging—that can readily be tuned, like a harp string, so that one hearer can listen at different times to several different speakers.  Indeed, a small bank of components can be used to build very sharp-eared hearers that can be made similar to every number, including numbers well larger than those for which speakers can be built.  With such hearers, by waiting patiently you can hear Blue-Robes, Gold-Robes, Black-Robes, and all the rest talking via the Lightnings that Speak, even at distances of hundreds of miles."  Tomas bit his lips.  "So I and my children have listened, as carefully as we can.  That's why my daughter was in Millersport.  It is on the water, and has several extremely tall towers.  Having listened, we find that the Pirates are inaudible. We find not a trace of any sort that Pirate mages have harnessed to their service the Lightnings That Speak."

"If you did?" Evaine asked.

"There is a counter spell.  I create a speaker whose similarity number matches the one in use by the pirates, and make it shout, so that the Pirates cannot hear each other," Michael said.  "The counter spell is straightforward, once you know what its speaker is to be similar to."

"You mentioned your daughter was in Millersport," Evaine said.  "Could you build a speaker that was sufficiently small and portable that it could be carried with an army?  If someone, say, the Pirates, could do that, they could talk through the miles and the night.  It would let them, it would let them do militarily impossible things, like effective attacks by converging columns."

"I could build hearers," Tomas said, "that could be carried on a horse, and that would need a few minutes to activate.  Thus, a hostmistress could tell her women who were far away what to do, and the people with the horse would hear and obey.  But speakers are extremely large and fragile, and need a tall tower."

"The Pirates cannot commune with the lightnings?" Evaine asked.

"So far as I can tell, they do not.  They could be listening," Michael said, "and I would not know, but we use codes."

Chapter 33
Millersbridge, Millers Vale
Summertouch 26, 2448

Evaine and her escort stood by their horses.  Polly's Hill was only a modest rise, but it was the highest bit of land close to and southeast of Millersbridge.  From where she waited, she could see the entirety of the Millersbridge Commons, extending east from the town toward the ocean.  From the town walls to the woods was a good third of a mile, the road from Gooseberry entering the Commons at its southern end.  That was the road down which the pirates were slowly advancing, from which they would deploy to battlefield formation.   The most distant two hundred yards of field was torn up.  She'd kept every available shovel busy all night, digging deep east-to-west trenches.  When the pirates entered the field, they'd find the far parts of the field to be impassable.  They'd need to deploy four hundred yards from the town walls, within range of the greatbow engines on the city wall.  There weren't enough engines to kill all the pirates.  There were enough engines to discomfit crews and horses moving the pirates' large stonethrowers.  The pirate hand stonethrowers were unimpressive though noisy weapons.  Their large stonethrowers at short range were a horse of a different color. 

The motion on the road had to be pirates, maintaining their usual lackadaisical walk as they came from Gooseberry Common.   They had surrounded Gooseberry and its sunnet tower, staying out of bowshot from the walls, but had not stormed the place.   They'd be here soon enough, making it three hours and less than six miles they'd traveled since well after sunrise.  Then they would begin their deployment.  In the same time, her women had leveled their camp, marched to the town, stacked and picketed their gear, been familiarized with the battlefield, taken up positions not in good line of sight of the woods opposite across the battlefield, and been fed.  This morning pirate cavalry had also scouted out the field.  They should have seen the Militia, a few Swordsisters, and at any time no more than a few greathands of Torinsdale forces.  The town militia had insisted on deploying in front of the walls.  They would at [least?] distract pirate scouts.   They would be behind her women, so if they routed they would not cause problems. She was not counting on Torinsdale forces passing unseen, but contradictory scouting reports would be good enough. 

There, entering the field from the Gooseberry Road, came first a trio of riders, then a half-dozen riders with banners followed by three dozen men on horseback.    They were mounted indecently for men, Evaine noted, what with each man's legs straddling the back of his poor horse, but mounted nonetheless.  Half the party wore leather coats.  The other half was dressed as gaudily as High Priestesses for New Year's Moon-Rites.  That was a command group, she decided, sticking its nose in more enthusiastically than was completely wise.  Unfortunately, she had not prepared for her opponents to do something totally foolish.

They stopped and pointed at the trenches. Someone had not told the pirate officers that the field had been improved.  That said something about their outriders.  Several of the pirates spurred their horses, coming along the road almost at a gallop until they reached the end of the trenches, then heading off north, parallel to the Millersbridge militia line.  Placing those trenches had been an exercise in guesswork.  If they were too far from Millersbridge, the enemy would deploy without being subject to harassing fire.  If trenches were too close, they might decide they did not have room to deploy on the field she had chosen for them.  Then they would go someplace else, someplace less suited to her plans.  Not to mention, of course, that digging deep trenches was hard and dirty work, a project with which the Millersbridge militia had only given grudging cooperation. After too much digging, her women, rational training or no, would not have been in peak condition for today.  The trenches were thus not all she could have wanted, but they should be good enough.

The Pirate officers clustered together.  The sisterhood had provided a high-power tripod-mounted farseer, enough to let her see their faces.  From the gestures, the pirates had not expected serious resistance other than the city walls, and were consider[ing] what they should do about it.  They needed to act quickly.  The infantry, for all their laggardly ways, was getting fairly close.   The most fancily dressed of the pirates began pointing at his fellows with—it looked like a peacock featherduster.  When he pointed, officer after officer galloped off, each with an escort , riding north across the fields, somewhat on this side of the ends of the trenches.   The pirate commander rode slowly along the road and began waving to his underlings spread out across the field.  Once and again, one of them moved closer or farther from Millersbridge.  What were they doing?  

Now came the infantry in their strange open order.  In the front was a knot of marchers waving flags.  Following them came rank after rank of men.  The first rank reached the senior pirate officer.  The rank pivoted left, the man on the far left stopping while his eleven fellows fast-walked in a quarter circle to wheel their line through ninety degrees.  Then they marched forward, getting out of the way just as the next rank of men reached the pivot point.  Evaine counted.  There had to be a dozen officers standing at the corner of each circle, watching the evolution.  When you got down to it, not only was it a very cumbersome way to turn a formation, but it was very demanding on timing and spacing, things these people did not do well.

She made herself contemplate the remainder of the battlefield and the spaces beyond.  There were no signs of pirate flanking maneuvers through the trees.  South of the road, trees soon became first swamp and then river.  North of the battlefield, the ground was rough; the scouts she'd deployed would give warning if pirates tried passing through.  Her Greatmistresses had grumbled about the number of women she had detached to watch the other approaches to town, especially those to the west and south on the wrong side of the river.  None of them had ever heard of a pinning attack. At Millersspa the pirates had crossed the brook as though it were not there.  Her Greatmistresses needed to have the significance explained to them. 

Five ranks of men had pivoted; there was a now an open break in the march order while more men approached the pivot .  "Claire?  Jane?" She addressed two of the messengers.  "Ride to the north and south wings.  I want our people brought up to the battlefield first stop line now."  The pirates had committed.  Her people needed to be in place when it was time to move.  She turned her attention back to the pirates.

Now a pirate stonethrower, dragged by four horses, rolled into sight.  The circle it took was rather wider than that taken by the men.  It was turned north, parallel to the pirate marchers but much closer to Millersbridge.  The stonethrower started another circle, turning to head for the town.  "Signal," Evaine ordered.  "Orange flag.  Wall engines to engage stonethrower."  Flags fluttered in acknowledgement on the city wall.  The distant, profoundly bass twang of bolt throwers was heard.  Steel shafts sailed out above the battlefield, first bracketing the area around the pirate stonethrower, then hitting it, its team of horses, and the men walking with them.  Some men fell; others crouched in the stonethrower's shadow.  One horse, dying, was cut from its traces; others were lashed around, dragging the stonethrower until it faced Millersbridge.   The surviving horses were led to the rear.  A puff of smoke enveloped the stonethrower.  A dull blast as of thunder was heard.  A dark object emerged from the stonethrower, flew majestically over the Millersbridge walls, and disappeared into the east.    The stone was certainly impressive and the range was considerable, but over the course of several battles the pirate aim with stonethrowers had left something to be desired.  Now the men around the stonethrower were doing whatever you did to persuade a thrower to toss another stone, while bolts from wall engines landed on all sides of  them.  Millersbridge greatbow crews had more enthusiasm than training, it appeared.  Fortunately, they had a fair amount of time, so man after man of the stonethrower crew fell victim to Millersbridge greatbow fire.

She told herself to stay calm.  If her women saw she was not worrying, they would take heart.  At least, that was what Temple training said.  That bit of training was much easier to memorize than to put into practice.  She stared at the pirate column marching across the field.  Last night, she had heard grumbles when she had insisted that the back trenches be spaced so evenly.  She had had her reason.  Spaced trenches gave her a wonderful and exact measure of how far across the field the Pirates had marched, not to mention how fast they were traveling. 

 The Torinsdale formed levy was marching to its stop line, Sisterhood greathands taking flank positions.  She had not expected the Sisterhood to have so many women, nor to be so cooperative.  Apparently four complete defeats had left them chastened, and open to reason, though not chastened enough to honor her request to urge the Millersbridge militia to remain within its town walls.  She might not be able to stop the pirates, but forcing the pirates to storm a town whose walls were firmly held might make the difference if she lost the battle.

Now another pair of stonethrowers appeared.  They too were dragged along, finally to make right turns and point at the Millersport walls.  Once again, Millersbridge greatbows engaged their draft teams and attendant horse handlers, more than one of whom fell dead.  Each machine threw a single stone, this time firing low enough that the stones must have fallen to earth or struck the town walls.  The men handling the new stonethrowers turned and walked quickly to the rear, leaving some of their fellows on the ground.  Someone had adjusted, she noted, rather quickly, to an unfavorable situation.  And when they have all the stonethrowers in position, she thought, they will bring out all the crews at the same time, and men with large shields to cover them—if they have men with shields someplace—and the greatbow fire will be much less effective.  She wondered if she would have adjusted as quickly to an enemy surprise, yet another odd weapon, and decided that she really did not know.
"She noted" breaks the sentence awkwardly -- and could be done without.

More and more men started their disorderly saunter across the field.  A trio of pirate stonethrowers made their turn, and were taken under fire.   One stonethrower lost three horses and was disabled.  Two were dragged into position and used to toss single stones cityward. The first stone struck the city wall.  The other sailed up and over, visibly passed through the walls of several tall buildings, and was finally lost to sight.  Every so often, a pirate greathand would march parallel to the main group of men, but further to the rear.  That, Evaine concluded, could be a second line as a reserve.    Pairs and half-hands of pirate horsemen were being positioned on one flank or the other of the Pirate forces.

The lead of the pirate column approached the north end of Millersbridge Commons.  This was the moment on which she earned her keep.  Her plans assumed that the Pirates would fight as they had in the past, that they would march and countermarch so that the leadmost greathand of their column would end to her left.  In that case, very soon their parade would execute two quarterwheels, the first to set them marching toward Millersbridge and the second to send them on the return path south.  If the Pirates broke their usual custom, they would be about to finish their deployment, and her women would need to move swiftly indeed to respond.   Her working plan for that case was to deploy in echelon on each flank.  If the Pirates concentrated and attacked one flank, the other flank was supposed to attack, vigorously, what would now be the Pirate rear.  She preferred to hope the Pirates would fall on the other flank, so her flank would attack.    She'd had to leave Tomas and the Swordmistress commanding the right.  Tomas and the Swordmistress might hold a line in place, but neither of them had a particular grasp of how to conduct an attack with a large group of women.  The Swordsisters all had to be on the same flank, because of the Swordsisters on the field[,] only Roxanne had the rank to command a Sisterhood formation this  large.  At least for today, the Swordsisters were agreeable to following Roxanne's lead.  Evaine forced herself to smile and rubbed her hands together.  The gathering of pirate officers at the north end of the field was suggestive of planned turns.  The pirate columns were still waddling their way through the grass toward them.
Might use a punctuation mark instead of "because".

There!  Exactly what she had envisioned.  The first pirate rank reached the end of the field and began a pivot, the nearest marcher standing still while his fellows to his left walked and ran in quarter circles.  They completed the turn, and he stepped off, just as the next Pirate rank was reaching the pivot point.  The rank marched ahead, not so very far, and began another pivot.  From the number of officers watching the procession, the required timing for two close-spaced turns must have pushed the limits of the men's training.  Ever so slowly, the pirate line waddled back the way it had come. 

"Red flag," she called.  "Two waves."  That was the 'stand ready' command, the warning that in a few moments the Torinsdale forces would begin their deployment.  There would be a little delay: one set of flag commands had to be passed across the city walls to Tomas and the Swordmistress.  Evaine waited patiently as the pirates continued their stroll.

"Red flag," she said.  "Continuous wave.  Drummers.  Ready!" She allowed two hands of falls of an apple.  That should be long enough for the flag wave to be passed across town. "Drummers!  Play forward, quick time.  Command group.  Mount!  Follow me."  Drum rolls on the hill were soon echoed by drum rolls in the distance.  She vaulted onto her horse, waited for others to imitate her, and set her horse in a trot down Polly's Hill.  

"We are advancing to the center point," she said.  "If there's a pirate stonethrower pointed at it, we'll move to the side."  Behind her, the beat of drums and the calls of Greatmistresses chanting "Right!  Right!" at quick time grew louder.  The Torinsdale Formed Levy would deploy in a very shallow crescent, horns toward the pirates, with half of the greathand at each end deployed perpendicular to the main line to cover the flank.  Behind the left flank, placed as reserves against the expected Pirate strike column, would be two greathands of wall daughters with pike or two-handed sword and half-plate, and select volunteers.  Half a greathand of cavalry were posted further out from each flank to discourage pirate cavalry, which mercifully was weak.  Two further greathands of Formed Levy and the Second Cavalry Greathand were her reserve.  Supposedly the Millersbridge militia would advance on command to reinforce—if they did not rout first.

Whistles to the left marked the Sisterhood's Greathands moving forward.  Positioning the Sisterhood, Evaine reflected, had required thought.  They had to stay far enough back that the Pirates would not target them with stonethrowers, but close enough to the fight that they were a usable reserve.  Unfortunately, Sisterhood bowdaughtership was at best mediocre.  Few women in the Sisterhood carried bows.  Those who did could be put to the front, but one hand of women from each Greathand was not enough women to be effective against a large mass of Pirates, especially when the Sisterhood used classical longbows and avoided rational training. The Sisterhood would form in a checkerboard extending out from the left flank forward toward the woods, sufficiently far back from the main line that they were unlikely to draw the thrown stones to which they could not respond, but close enough that they could advance when the Pirate's reserve column began its charge.  And if the Pirates tried a new formation, the Sisterhood could move quickly to new positions.  In her observation, pirates only used stonethrowers while standing still, and seemed to be reluctant to throw stones over the heads of people in front of them.  Thus, the charging pirate column would fight with sword and spear, and it would mask the Sisterhood from most pirate stonethrowers.

She reined her horse to a stop near the center of the Pirate line.  Her escort dropped into place at her side.  From her right, Tomas, the Swordmistress, and their escort were riding toward her.  Tomas's wing must have started about the same time as hers, but he would be later to reach the center.  Pirate stonethrowers had no crews, but were pointed somewhat left or right, not at the center where she stood.  Pirate infantry continued to wander about.   The Pirate commander, whose title might be God of the Peacocks for all the colors he wore, was holding something up to his face.  A glance through the Sisterhood farseer confirmed he held his own farseer.  He appeared to be inspecting her cavalry reserve.

"So far," she said to Tomas, "So good.  Your wing cavalry is coming forward."

"The people on foot are close behind," Tomas said.  "The pirates are moving the way you said, only slower."  A rattle of drums behind him marked the Formed Levy marching around the town walls, the Torinsdale banner flapping in the breeze, women in mottled grey-green marching four abreast in quick time.  

"Timing is good so far," Evaine remarked, gesturing at the column of women coming onto the field behind her.  They started sooner, had the longer march, but the columns should meet almost at middle.  She surveyed the Pirate line, whose march shambled forward uninterruptedly.  Suddenly the pirate commander was swarmed with subordinates.  What was he planning? 

"And now they meet," Tomas remarked, gesturing at the two converging columns of women.   Drums rattled an alert.  Pipes sounded briefly.  The columns came down to a regular march and a slow march, finally stopping just before they collided.  Whistles blew.  Along the line, women pivoted and faced west.  In the first two ranks, polearms dropped level; their bearers dropped to one knee.  Behind them, two ranks of bowdaughters came ready to draw.

Evaine scanned the length of her line.  The women at the two flanks were marching forward to form the horns of the crescent line.   Behind and to the side, reserves and Swordsisters were taking their assigned positions.  She had to wait.  Her women had almost reached their positions. Once in place they really needed a few minutes to shake down their line before they started moving again.  Above her head came the soft whistle of Millersbridge greatbows engaging the marching pirates.  The range was long.  Pirate formations were open.  Only a few bolts struck their targets, though those that did left a line of bodies along the pirates' path.  And the pirates?  Their senior officers seemed to be locked in conversation.

She had to wait. Changing her formation before it finished deploying would be inadvisable.  "Tomas," she whispered, "Women talk to you.  How was your women's morale this morning?"

"Reasonably good," Tomas answered.  "Your breakfast speech fired up most, but frightened a few.  The fired up know how terrible a pirate conquest of Torinsdale would be.  Even them [those] that don't believe pirates slice up Priestesses and slaughter everyone else."

"Good.  May it stay that way!" she answered.  Soon enough her women would see what remained of Cloudberry  and all those who had not fled in time.  "Line riders," she called, "We will advance to a hundred yards from the enemy stonethrowers.  Engage the stonethrowers first.   See that each Greatmistress knows how far we are moving.  Have the reserves follow.  Lizelle, when the advance starts you will ride to the pink range stake—that's the next stop line—so people see where they are going.  Go!"  A half-dozen women rode away.

"And now both horns of our line are deployed," she observed to Tomas.  "Lines have dressed.  My counterpart is doing something, but I shall not wait to see what.  Drummers!  Attention to orders!"  Drums began a roll, echoed up and down the line.  "Prepare to advance." Drums rolled once and again.  "Command pipers.  Advance tune, fast march, eight bars!"  Pipes blared and stopped.  The Band Major raised her staff, waved it twice, and set it down.  Along the line, drums began beating out a march.  The Torinsdale line began its advance.

Across the field, pirates began running to their large stonethrowers.  They're dressed differently, Evaine thought, the pirates who handle the stonethrowers have different color trim on their clothing.  They're not quite their commanding officer, who outshines the maples in full fall foliage, but they certainly will not pass unseen in the distance.  
Now they have to ready their next stones.  She realized that the Millersbridge wall engines were still firing at the pirate infantry.  "Signal!  Orange flag!  Repeat until acknowledged."  Colored flags sent nowhere near the words that a sunspeaker might, but her request that sunspeaker operators be trained would take a considerable while to complete.  "Command group.  We will advance in open order, staying well behind the main line."

Her people were moving forward as quickly as was safe.  The pirates reached their stonethrowers and were refilling them.  More likely than not, the stonethrowers would get off a toss, perhaps two, before her women were in position.  She had little to do other than to wait, and survey where the action was not.  The pirate infantry continued its march.  Some gave nervous glances across their shoulders at her advancing lines.  Down the Gooseberry road, a considerable number of men, more than she could readily make out, were forming up in a column.  Clumps of pirate cavalry were beginning to line up on each flank.    A scan of the swamp and river revealed no sign of pirate flankers.

Thump!  Thump!  One and another pirate stonethrower enveloped itself in charcoal-gray smoke.  The stones sailed over the Torinsdale line.  One struck the town walls, sending rock splinters flying in all directions.  Another rolled through the Millersbridge Militia, sending women recoiling from seemingly innocent rolling rocks.  The Torinsdale Formed Levy forged ahead, closing on their planned stop point.  Here and there, the line wavered.  Women who had seen a stonethrower ball pass directly overhead became skittish.  That could be very bad, she thought.    Once her women closed, the rate of fire of a mass of bowdaughters greatly outweighed what each stonethrower might do, but first her women had to close.  More thunderclaps rolled across the field.   One stone and then another stuck the Torinsdale line, dropping women in its track. Perhaps she should have had more infirmarians following the line.  Every time a stone dropped one or two women, one or two others would drop out to try to assist.  You could do only so much with training, with a formation none of whose people had ever seen a battle, and then you had to trust to cold reason, you had to trust that people really believed and understood that turning and running was a way to die, not a way to live.  

"Don't be so pessimistic," Tomas said.  How he knew what was in her heart was sometimes beyond her.  Perhaps he was indeed the mage he claimed to be.  "The Millers Mills line stood firm, when it could see it was outnumbered three to two and had no way to fight back.  Your women know they are trained, prepared, and moving up into range of their bows."

"Easily said, Tomas," she answered, shifting uncomfortably.  "I must anticipate what other tricks the Pirates have under their greatkilts—well, what they would have under their greatkilts, if they had greatkilts."

"Not much," the Swordmistress announced, "Not much at all, since they apparently have to carry copies around to play with, to remind themselves of what they are supposed to do as men."  Evaine's escort burst into laughter at the Swordmistress's words.  Well, Evaine thought, men reloading their stonethrowers really did appear to be doing that, more or less.  "And their aim is terrible!" the Swordmistress continued.  "Hardly ever gets in to women where they intend."  The laughter turned to guffaws.

"Next time, Swordmistress," Evaine said, "Next time, after we finish slaughtering these boys, next time I want the whole levy to hear that.  However, I do believe the line is closing up on Lizelle, and Millersbridge is redirecting their wall engines."  The latter had been accursedly slow to adjust, Evaine thought.  Wall engine bolts were finally dropping near the stone throwers.

Drums rolled.  The Torinsdale line stopped, front lines dropping to one knee, polearms coming forward.  Bowdaughters pivoted, bows coming up.   Some Greathands went to volley fire.  In others, individual women began shooting at the stonethrowers and their crews as soon as they had position.  

There were a dozen stonethrowers, Evaine thought, one of which was only now being turned into position. A third or more of the women in the Torinsdale host had bows and a decent line of fire.  They were at fair range, with a following breeze.  Aimed shots would consistently come close, and each stonethrower was surrounded by a cluster of men.  In the fear of battle, many shots would miss, but so long as they stayed with 'slow fire, aimed fire' they would be somewhat effective.   Millersbridge had been slow to respond, but now their wall engines had largely found the range, and if a few bolts had gone too close to her women's heads none had been hit yet.

What was happening elsewhere on the battlefield?  The pirate cavalry, such of it as there was, had spread out in single lines on each flank.  If their mistresses—masters?—were competent, they would see that they were outnumbered, Torinsdale was far better placed to receive a cavalry charge than the pirate infantry was, and therefore the pirate cavalry should hold, and countercharge if Torinsdale cavalry attacked.  Her people had those orders, anyhow.  The pirates had poor horses, for the most part, not counting the magnificent stallion she had captured from Rude Mangberg—or whatever his name actually was.  It seemed to have more syllables than was possible.  The pirates were not poor riders, not at all, just ill-mounted.  

Their infantry was marching and countermarching, slowly.  Their procession had advanced further than she would have preferred, but the stonethrowers had to be eliminated first.  Next time, she would take the field more quickly.  The pirate assault column appeared to be forming up.  "Danielle," she said.  "Ride to our left flank.  The walldaughters should advance until they are twenty yards behind our lines, centered as best they can to receive the enemy column.  They'll have to adjust when the enemy charges.  I've been over this with Greatmistress Yvonne once and again.  And my compliments to Greatmistress Roxanne, and I believe she should finish advancing her women so soon as she can."

Less and less often, a Pirate stonethrower growled across the gap between their lines. Evaine peered through her farseer.  Stonethrower crews had fled, or lay dead on the ground.  "Drummers!" She called.  "Beat Attention to Orders!  Beat Advance.  Pipers, Play Advance, Slow Advance."  Drums and pipes sounded.  In the distance, Lizelle heard the command and rode to the next range stake, exactly as planned.

"Slow?" the Swordmistress asked.  

"Slow," Evaine answered.  "These guys might decide to turn and make a disordered charge. I want our lines absolutely ready to receive them.  And I think, as we'd discussed, it is now time for you and Tomas to move to the right wing reserves," Evaine added nervously.  "That's a big clump of men they have on their left, if they decide to stop following around and start running at us."

Evaine turned back to the battlefield.  Her opposite could not be too pleased with what had just happened.  At Daisy, the pirate's large stonethrowers had been a potent weapon.  However, unless they were truly enchanted, without their crews pirate stonethrowers were inert lumps of wood.  What would she do in her opposite's place?  Accelerate the procession, she thought, get the pirate host into battle formation sooner rather than later?  That would be easy for a Torinsdale host, she thought, telling the drummers to play quicktime or double time.  Pirates did not seem to have drummers, not drummers who sounded the march pace.  The pirate assault column, each battle, had been thrown in later rather than sooner, after Republic lines had begun to fray.   Their peacock of a commander might succumb to the need to do something, anything, whether good or bad, in which case he might send his column in early.  He had not done so last time, arguing that the pirates expected that the enemy line to be broken up before the charge could thrust home effectively.  Their commander might wait, assuming that his men and their discipline and weapons should carry the day.   Given what he had seen of Republic bowdaughtership, that was a sound plan. It was a shame that she wasn't going to give him the time he needed to complete that plan. 

She wondered if [whether] he  had spotted her or not.  The messengers riding away from her and back might be a giveaway, but she had not used that many messengers.  Her clothes were no different from her women.  His personal formation was bedecked with banners and streamers.  The Torinsdale banner to her left was no different than the banner carried by every Greathand.  She was at the edge of an idea, but first: "Drummers!  Beat Attention to Orders!  Pipers!  Play Halt!"  The roll of drums echoed across the lines as one greathand after the next came to a stop.  Tomas had explained to her why voice commands never acted at the same time everywhere, and she had allowed for what was now about to happen.  Besides, deepening the bend in the Torinsdale lines was not a disadvantage.

Once again, speardaughters dropped to one knee, and archers came to the ready.  Hopefully most archers would remember not to fire before they had targets, and then remember to fire when they had targets.  She realized what she had been trying to understand.  "Michelle," she said.  "Where the road enters the field, there is a large group of men.  The ones dressed like peacocks with all the flags.  Look through the farseer here, be sure you have the right ones.   Ride as swiftly as you can to the Millersbridge wall.  Ask that the largest wall engines, the ones with the range, engage that formation, and nothing else, until everyone in it is dead."  Let's see, Evaine thought, how Hostmistress Peacock thinks while he is being shot to pieces.

Once again, her archers had gone to slow aimed fire.  They were at hunting ranges, where every arrow fired had a decent chance of striking its target.  The women to her left waited patiently.  The pirate march and counter march had not yet brought them across the field into range.  A few of the tallest women with the heaviest bows were shooting at the more distant enemy procession.  That was extended range, even with the breeze, but one man and then another went down.  On the right, the women under Tomas's command had a deep column of targets, at ranges at which hits were not challenging.  The pirates continued their march.  That bespoke good discipline, she decided, to be able to continue while men died left, right, and center.  

A sharp snapping sound, off to the right.  She immediately spotted the dark puff of smoke where some pirate had loosed his hand stonethrower.  She could pick him out: He had stopped and was performing the loading spell.  Tomas would not be pleased that she knew that the Pirates were using sorcery, even though the signs were obvious.  Much handwaving with a wand gave it away.  Now one and another of the pirate's fellows stopped to throw their own stones.  Around them, men were continuing their march.  Their formation began to disorder.  Stopping to shoot was not much of a delay, but the reloading spell was rather slow to cast.  While a man stood there reloading, he blocked the path of the marchers behind him.  The marchers deviated their path left or right, instead of walking by him  They lost their formation, such as it was.  

Pirate officers tried to unknot the lines of marchers.  The peacocks made such fine targets.  Even through the black smoke clouds of pirate spellcraft, the pirate officers could readily be identified from their uniforms.  They were not as good targets as the deep knot of men making the reverse march, but they were individually more important.

South of the confusion, the pirates continued forward.  Eight pirate greathands marched to the left.  Every minute, the front of the pirate line came in range of a fresh Torinsdale Greathand, which promptly took it under fire.  Aimed slow fire was not nearly as impressive as fast-fire at filling the air with bolts, but it was far deadlier.  The lead pirates had a large gap behind them, a gap marked by the bodies of their fallen sisters…perhaps 'brothers' was more appropriate, Evaine thought, given their gender.

The confusion where men had stopped to throw stones was even worse.  It appeared that one pirate Greathand had stopped its march, while a second had tried to march through the first, thickening the formation to the point that it presented a dense hard-to miss target.  There were more clatters and puffs of smoke.  Someone was ordering groups of men to turn their stonethrowers on the Torinsdale forces.  The confusion spread rearward through the pirate ranks, with Greathand after Greathand stopping or trying to continue its march.  When confusion had happened at Northfort, the day she recognized pipe calls as a form of command, the Torinsdale Greathand whose path was blocked had spontaneously executed a turn to avoid a collision.  The pirates had far worse marching skills and less leadership.

The enemy command group was breaking up.  Rather, it was sending out large numbers of riders, men dressed relatively plainly, with only the gaudiness of a woods duck rather than a peacock or parrot. Sooner or later, the Millersbridge wall engines might take that group under fire.  Sooner than now would have been preferred, but did not seem to have happened.  She could imagine where a mythical heroine, a Nimue or a Nulla, would decide the chapter had gone on for long enough, and it was time to lead from the front with a victorious charge.  So far as she could tell, the enemy still outnumbered her women, and were still largely in good order.  So long as they were willing to take casualties and lose the limited order they had, without hurting her back a great deal, she was willing to let them die.

Off to the right, an enemy Greatmistress had recognized the folly of marching his unit into the chaos now ahead of him.  A pirate unit in the front marching line began executing its highly ponderous turn, pivoting left out of the line of march and straight toward her women.  That turn would take time to execute.  Then his boys would be all out by themselves.  On the other hand, if they marched far enough the pirates would be almost on top of her women.  At very short distances pirate stonethrowers could actually hit something.

What was happening in the enemy rear?  The second line of enemy greathands, each turned to face Millersbridge, had been waiting patiently.  Now it started advancing, one greathand after the next, each group a dozen men wide and five lines deep.  If this had been the original plan, those men would have better been started midway between the main enemy line and its countermarching van, but they had instead been all the way in back, where their advance would force them twice to thread the gap in the main enemy march.  Even in the pirate's highly open order, passing those two lines through each other would be a challenge.  Indeed, when they stopped after sixty or eighty steps to reorder their formation, they stopped just short of the enemy main line marchers.  There they waited for gaps, and passed through at a run. 

Lizelle tapped Evaine's shoulder.  "Cavalry forming up, our right," she announced.  Evaine stared through her farseer.  Indeed, the enemy cavalry facing Tomas's women did appear to be sharpening their line.  Now the pirates were moving ahead, first at a walk and then at a trot.  The response was a bit slow.  If the Torinsdale cavalry received that charge while standing still, they would likely break. Then the right flank would be in trouble.  Halberds and boar spears or not, a Torinsdale infantry line receiving a cavalry charge might well fall apart from simple fear.  Once disordered, they would be easy prey for a general enemy attack.  Here, however, came the Torinsdale response.  Tomas had sent an entire greathand of cavalry, two solid lines, against the pirates, and was now riding slowly and deliberately in front of the third Torinsdale cavalry line, placing himself to keep that third line from advancing.

The Goddess only knew what was about to happen.  No one in Torinsdale had ever heard of formed cavalry until she introduced it. The Torinsdale horsedaughters advanced from a walk to a slow trot.  The cavalry lines would not reach full speed before they contacted.  Evaine glanced across the remainder of the battlefield, seeing only matters proceeding as expected.  The enemy reserves might eventually be a difficulty, but they moved slowly, and had stopped again to dress their lines.  Wallbows were firing on the enemy command group.  Some time or dumb luck would be needed for an effect.  Now the cavalry lines were closing.  A cloud of dark smoke above the enemy cavalry had to be enemy stonethrowers, fired at short range from atop a fast-moving horse.  In the Torinsdale lines, women dropped from their saddle.  Horses bolted from the noise—but had no place to go other than straight ahead into the enemy lines.  Other horses in both lines shied, refusing to run into horses ahead of them.  Where gaps had opened in one line or the other, horses dodged sideways, as if they were riding at a gated fence, except that with several horses trying to pass the same narrow gap at the same time they instead bounced off each other and were thrown back into the face of oncoming horses. Animals reared and collided.  Riders went sprawling.  In the midst of all this, Torinsdale women and pirate men hacked and thrust at each other.  The details were hard to see through the smoke, but the outcome was that a diminished and disordered line of pirates, most moving at no more than a walk, emerged to contact an equally slowly-moving second Torinsdale line.

This time, barely moving horses were prepared to agree with their riders' desires to close with their foes, so horses came nose to nose while Torinsdale and pirate blades crossed.  The pirates were substantially outnumbered. Torinsdale women engaged when possible as pairs, one woman meeting the pirate's sword while the other administered a lethal blow.  

Lizelle tapped Evaine's shoulder again.  "The enemy command just got mucked up," she announced from behind.  "Looked like their boss's horse took a wall bolt, started to drop over, and their boss tried to dismount.  His horse rolled on him. He's now flat on the ground, not moving, with a half-dozen people around him.  Their reserves have advanced up to where their first line should be—where their countermarch passed—and are changing formation, packing up fairly close.  Our people are dropping arrows on them.  Here go the pirates.  Their front rank is kneeling, and they're using their stonethrowers."  Clouds of smoke obscured the pirate lines.  Evaine wondered how well they could aim when they could not see.  Screams marked women being struck by stones.    Not many, and not only in the forward line.  Someone had dropped in the nearest reserve Greathand, and noise behind her spoke of casualties to the Millersbridge militia.  Armor didn't appear to offer much protection against enchanted stones, as she'd learned on her ride back from Merecester, if they ever hit you.

Greathands closest to the enemy were shooting back, sending bolts into unarmored men packed shoulder to shoulder.  Watching carefully, you could see how long it took a man to reactivate the spells on his stonethrower: quite a while.  Even with slow fire, women could draw and aim their bows far faster.  The rattle of stonethrowing spells could be heard, once and again, but at the points of contact the pirates were outnumbered, not to mention that bows appeared to be substantially more accurate than stonethrowers.  Pirate inaccuracy was not all to the good, Evaine allowed.  Pirate stones that totally missed the women being targeted could strike the reserves, the Millersbridge militia, or one Evaine-sa-Orowan.  Torinsdale accuracy meant that pirate officers were effectively being targeted.  Many were kind enough to distinguish themselves with brilliant uniforms, uniforms now draped across the field. 

She glanced at the right flank.  Tomas had managed to recover his cavalry, which were reforming behind his remaining, fresh cavalry line.  The disordered infantry had turned into a large knot of men whose surviving officers were gradually sorting them out. Behind them, someone had finally brought the north-going pirate procession to a stop, so no fresh units were being fed into the confusion.  That was not entirely good: A long line of pirate units would remain in good order.  However, those well-ordered units were stuck in the rear, where they were not fighting effectively.  Across the field to the left, the pirate van was marching stubbornly ahead, its numbers appreciably thinned, but it remained in as much order as pirate units ever did.  

There was a great deal of shouting off to the left.  That was the pirate assault column.  The pirate commander was still flat on his back, but someone almost as gaudily dressed was riding his horse along the length of the column, waving a somewhat short sword.  He must have been haranguing them, she decided:  He would wave his sword, they would wave back, and after a few instants loud shouts could be heard.  He had ridden to the far end of the column and now was riding back.

And what was Tomas doing?  The formed levy was continuing to pummel the disordered Pirate formation.  The regular cavalry greathand had formed an extended line out to the far right, angling steeply deeper toward the enemy.  What were he and the Swordmistress preparing to do?  That was a terrible formation for stopping enemy cavalry. Of course, if Tomas had decided there were almost no remaining enemy horsebrothers, he might have other plans.  

Across the field, pirate units were making pivot turns in place, rotating until their front faced east toward her line.  That was a definite change in the pirate formation, not at all the same as what they had done in prior battles.  Runners were spreading out from Greatmistress Roxanne's command group.  Evaine told herself to have confidence in Roxanne.  Roxanne might never have seen a battle before, but her theoretical training was perfectly sound, Sisterhood Greathands were adequately drilled in moving as units, and Roxanne had discussed her plan carefully with her subordinates.

A shrill of pipes came from the right.  Now she understood what Tomas had decided.  On the extreme right, the enemy was still in well-ordered open formation; further to the left, the enemy lost coherent order.  It was not clear how their marchers would take to being hit with horse cavalry, but if they were disordered and driven left their procession and march reversal would be stopped again.  In any event Tomas did have a cavalry reserve, on the freshest horses.  In front of the charge, bowdaughters were going to rapid fire.  Goddess willing, most of them would stop shooting before they killed Torinsdale cavalry.  On the left flank, a checkerboard of Sisterhood Greathands was moving out to the southwest.  The last bit of Torinsdale cavalry, accompanied by such Republic women as had horses, saddles, and some idea about fighting on horseback, were screening them against pirate riders.  She hoped the screen would work.  The Sisterhood doctrine on fighting horse cavalry--extreme open order, drop low, slash the horses' legs--demanded rigid discipline and extreme self-confidence. Not to mention a willingness to accept casualties.  

"Danielle," Evaine said, "Go to the Millersbridge militia left wing.  That's the ones with the pink flags.  Ask their officers to bring them forward to about twenty yards behind our lines, lined up where the pirate column is going to hit.  They're asked to advance and firm up our line, when it starts to fold under the column's weight."  She hoped she was not timing things too tightly.  However, militia walking forward and trying to stay in line was probably steadier than militia standing still with time on their hands. They were behind her forces, but she still didn't want them to be seen breaking and running.   In the center, the pirate plans were apparent.  Their officers, whoever was running things while the lord of the peacocks lay unconscious, had decided that they would never get to their planned formation, and was going to try a general forward attack.   Their starting position was a bit of a mess.  They'd lost the stonethrowers, had the front third of their procession shot up while it marched across the front of the Torinsdale lines, had their second line shot up considerably, and had had their right flank disordered.  Tomas's cavalry charge had gone home while she was watching the rest of the battle.  Men had fallen back—or been cut down—until they formed a solid cluster against which horsewomen could make no progress.  Then Tomas recovered his cavalry[,] let his bowdaughters pound a mob of men standing shoulder to shoulder, in order so tight that an archer really could not miss.

On the left flank, the assault column had sped up to a slow run.  Appreciably in the lead were older men in white shirts with puffy sleeves, waving swords, boys following them carrying their coats.  The Greathands facing them went to fast fire with their bows.  That couldn't be sustained for long, but very soon the women would be discarding bows for sword and shield.  Indeed, after a few moments the greathands directly facing the column began changing weapons, their speardaughters rising to receive the enemy charge. Greatmistress Roxanne was pivoting her line to parallel the assault column's.  How was she getting fast control?  Careful examination revealed women of Greathand Winterwheat dispersed through the area, forwarding her orders through handtalk.  

Evaine looked back to the Pirate center.  Their various formations had been brought forward into a single line, wreathed in smoke wherever pirates were turning stonethrowers on their distant opponents.   Some elements had an officer disguised as a parrot in front of it.  Perhaps 'tom turkey' was more like it.  The birds appeared to be warming up the men's enthusiasm for a charge.  

"Drummers," she called.  "Attention to orders."  She waited while the rattle and boom of snare and kettle traveled along the line.  "Pipers!  Play 'Fast Fire!'"  The pirates had been kind enough to assemble their line the only place they easily could, inside bow range, and would now get a lesson in the disadvantage of their choice.  Fast fire could not be sustained, but soon enough there would be a further order.

On the left, several women were standing in front of the spear line, awaiting the imminent arrival of the Pirates.  Even at this distance, Deann was immediately recognizable from the axe she carried, an axe that disarmed the lead officer, the arm being separated from the body when her axe cleaved through neck and ribcage.    Her companions were modestly less effective, at least until a second axe blow took the second officer in the small of his back.  He dropped bonelessly to the ground.  She and her companions then backed discretely [discreetly] between the spear points, limiting how many men could attack them at once, incidentally making it challenging for any man to thread through the spears and attack their holders.

The pirate column hit the Torinsdale line, which momentarily held and then sagged as men began to force their ways between the spears and halberds.  Walldaughters with polearms and two-handed swords advanced to strengthen the line, while the end of the pirate column broadened as men moved outwards to reach any of their opponents.  To the left, the Swordsisters charged at the run, in step, taking the pirate column in its flank.  Roxanne had timed that move very well.  Evaine saw Roxanne had communicated the order to charge by standing well to the front of her women and leading the advance.  Someone was bringing forward the Millersbridge militia.  They should reach the Torinsdale line before Torinsdale folded.  Approaching more quickly was the last reserve Torinsdale Greathand on that flank, whose officer had decided on her own that this was where her women should engage their foes.

In the center, bow fire was slowing.  You could only draw a bow so many times before muscles tired.  The bow fire had done its work. One and then another pirate greathand began running at their opponents, all order being lost.

It would be far better to encounter those men while advancing rather than while standing still.  "Drummers!" She shouted.  "Attention to Orders!"   Her own drummers repeated the call.  She paused while drums rolled.  "Pipers!  Play Steel!"  She paused.  "Slow advance, advance! Continuous play!"  She could not be heard down the line, but the drum major's signals with her staff would be entirely clear. That would be a bit of a racket, but the racket might be less heartening to the pirates than the earlier quiet.  Bows were passed to carriers.  Swords were drawn.   In reasonable unison, the Torinsdale forces began their slow, steady, nearly implacable pace toward their disordered foes.  A hundred and thirty bagpipes began playing the advance tune, not all in the same scale, the racket at least sufficing to drown out the screams of the wounded.  The wail of the pipes was indeed loud, loud enough that she could no longer hear pirate stonethrower spells being cast.   To judge from the smoke, they released a fair number of those spells, but only from the few pirate units that were standing rather than charging.  

She had to write two messages: "The Millersbridge Militia, center and right, is requested to advance at a walk."  "The Reserve Greathands," all two of them, she thought, "will move to the right flank and reinforce the line."  She did a hand count.  If pirates could be defeated at all, her forces would win in the center.  Indeed, while some pirate units were charging, others were at a standstill, and in their rear men were beginning to leak away from the fight.  On the left, the pirate column had been pinned by Roxanne's flank attack. Torinsdale lines had bent deeply, but masses of reinforcements meant that the lines could stretch.  Off in the distance to the left was a cavalry skirmish, a skirmish that looked fairly even.  Someone had used initiative: To her left, two Greathands had taken a flank left before their advance and were impaling the right face of the pirate column.

Tomas's women were being driven back.  The pirates he faced were badly disordered.  Many were wounded.  But there were a lot of them, and they were taking their anger at their casualties out on the women they could finally reach.  Even after the Millersbridge militia reinforced, the Torinsdale line began to break.

Straight ahead, there was a classic encounter out of manuals on the Sea Eagle attacks.  The Torinsdale line held its dress well.  The pirates, many wounded, most hauling their clumsy spear-stonethrowers, spread out as they ran, so each man encountered the Torinsdale line at a different moment, paying a steep price for his rashness.  To the left, Evaine saw, it appeared that Pirates did not study the use of the sword carefully, did not expect their foes to attack them in the flank, and did not appreciate how much of a disadvantage their lack of shields and armor was.  At least, they did not, until the Sisterhood, lavender capes flaring, gave them an object lesson in close order combat.

She had not expected Tomas to lead--well, try to lead until Gretchen and Angela grabbed him—a cavalry charge into the sagging line.  The cavalry charged without him, winning just enough time that her reserves could arrive and support.  The cavalrywomen then backed off, stood in their saddles, and began firing their bows over the heads of the levy in front of them.  What was Tomas doing now?  He was sending his last cavalry off to take the pirates in flank and rear.

Evaine looked around.  Her last reserves were committed.  The most she could do would be to gather up her command group and make one charge.  That she would avoid until she lost the battle and Torinsdale needed help to win free of the field.  Defeat seemed unlikely.  Tomas might yet lose on his flank, but on the left men were falling away from the assault column.  In the center one and then another greathand found it was facing no opponents.  One unit stopped, identified the Pirate command group as a target, and started a fresh oblique advance.  Others turned, taking pirate forces in flank and rear.  Several stood awaiting orders.  She noted carefully which were standing, not taking the initiative.  Those could use better officers.  She sent riders with orders on where to go next.  Neither the Pirate assault column nor the large mob facing Tomas broke until they were completely surrounded, by which time it was too late for them to retreat.  The remaining fight took a solid fraction of an hour. In the end the pirate smallhost lay dead on Millersbridge field.  Only the Pirate blue-robes tried to surrender.  They were cut to pieces by women who had seen the Daisy massacre.   The pirate commander had been captured while he lay unconscious on the ground, and taken off to an infirmarian under heavy guard.  If Angela were correct about how the pirates coded their books, it might in the end be possible to question him about the pirates' bases.

Chapter 34
Millersbridge Gaol
Summertouch 26, 2448

From the Diary of Rudi von und zu Manningtonmontanusberg
Imperator 1, 1654

My cell has a large but barred window.  The jail is on the fifth floor, more than forty feet off the ground, allowing me to look over the town walls at the fields beyond.  To my great good fortune, I had a crows-eye seat for a major battle.  Around nine in the morning, I heard the distant sound of a military band.  In the distance, marching east on the chief road, I saw first horsemen with banners flying and then infantry marching. 

While I suppose what I am saying to my future readers is obvious to some, others will not have spent their breathing hours as professional soldiers, and thus will not recognize the antecedents to the disaster that befell Captain-General Piccololini, who in most respects is a truly excellent officer.   So with apologies to those of my readers who can envision without any prompting what is supposed to happen on each and every battlefield, precisely as commanded by He Who Conquers, I remind those of a more pacific nature: The forces of Piccololini had the misfortune to enter the battlefield on their right, requiring each line to march the width of the battlefield, make two right quarter-wheels to create a new column countermarching with respect to the first, and then march back the width of the field, leaving them deployed in a line across the field with the honor regiment in the position of honor at the field’s right.  The zone filled by units doing their first right wheel, marching twelve abreast by division the calculated distance toward the enemy, and then making a second right wheel by ranks to march back across the field, is a clumsy mass of men--the ‘hook’. As the lines marched, Captain-General Piccololini deployed his artillery one cannon at a time, somewhat to the front of his intended first line, as would any competent Captain-General anywhere in the world.

I could not see what Piccololini's army was facing.  I heard cheers and singing but saw no singers.  These voices must have been the city militia, deployed almost in the shadow of the walls.  Atop the city walls were extremely large, deep-draw cross-bows.  From the one I saw, each had a dozen women pulling as a team to draw the bow.  They began firing at Piccololini’ artillery, dropping heavy steel bolts out six hundred yards.  A bolt is far less damaging than a cannon ball, but the rate of fire is much higher.  On careful examination, all of the bows on the wall concentrated their bolts on whichever artillery piece had reached the field and was being dragged into position.  At least three cannon stalled, their horses felled or stampeded.

The deployed cannon did fire. The range was long.   A few balls hit the city wall and the women I could not see. Some sailed over the walls.  Mercifully, none hit my jail cell. The crews of the wall crossbows became invigorated, concentrating their shots on one cannon and then the next.   I could see where the horses standing ready with the caissons were taking losses and where gun crews were thinned out.  Indeed, most guns got off only a few rounds during the entire battle.  

There then came the sound of drums.  Entering my field of view from each flank came additional women, flying from their column head a banner bearing a strange device, a golden animal I do not recognize on a green field.  In a land whose people wear a remarkable range of clothing, these women were entirely different: They were all dressed in precisely the same manner, clothing of mottled gray-green, as if they were the liveried servants of some great house.    Unbelievably, they marched in packed order, deploying both from the left and the right of the field.   The columns met in the center and came to a stop.  I don’t see how such a march order is possible.  I do not know if among these women the place of honor is to the left or the right, but at least one of those columns needed to perform a further evolution, reversing its order of march, to move its first company to the place of honor.  No such evolution occurred.  Instead, the women instantly pivoted on one foot and were deployed in line, in a small fraction of the time Piccololini still needed to complete his deployment.  Indeed, when the women formed line, perhaps a third of Piccololini’s first line had passed through the hook and was countermarching.  The rear two-thirds of his army was still crossing the field from his right to his left, approaching the hook for the countermarch.  

More often than not, battle openings are moments of great courtesy, sometimes with bands saluting their opponents’ honor by playing the personal marches of every Sovereign, friend or foe, represented on the field.  Today, such courtesies would be absent.  There was a sound of drums.  The women began an advance, launching their attack far before Piccololini could finish deploying.  Other formations followed the women’s main line.  

The women advanced at a fast walk in a single line, four deep, followed on the left flank by units of what I believe to be the Beyonder’s regular army in their violet capes.  The women also had two reserve lines, the first a chequering of small companies, and the second from its street clothing what I take to be town militia in a dense packed crowd.  I could see in the distance where Piccololini’s sword column had formed up on his right, well behind the two lines Piccololini was attempting to deploy.  

The fast walk accelerated to a slow run, the women’s lines still remaining tolerable [in my dialect it's "tolerable, but Standard is "tolerably"] well dressed.  I could not see how their lines could be so well maintained, even on a flat field.  At a hundred thirty yards from our lines-to-be, a hundred yards from our cannon, the women stopped to dress their formation. Their first two ranks knelt.  Their rear two ranks, archers all, began firing at Piccololini’s guns.  Our artillerists responded manfully, but when five hundred archers target the crews of a dozen guns in good bow range, the outcome is certain. 

Drums beat.  The women stood and resumed their advance, closing to a bit more than one hundred yards from Piccololini’s forces, whose lines were twenty-four deep as they continued to round the hairpin.  The women’s front lines went again to one knee.  The archers began to fire.  Their rate of fire was inferior to that of His Most Faithful Majesty’s Gwydionic Archers, but they did not seem to tire after the first minute, either.  Man after man dropped in his tracks.  At this point, Piccololini might have tried to go to fast time, allowing that his men were still in open order and could dodge around each other.  He relied instead on the stolidity of his men under enormously galling fire.  Unfortunately, some fellow unshouldered his musket and fired on his assailants.  His chances of hitting anything at a hundred yard's range were nonexistent.  At the range in question, if Piccololini’ entire first line had fired, they might have killed a dozen women. One and then another of the shooter’s fellows imitated his example and, of course, having fired, began to reload.  Each of these men would now be fixed in place for the next minute, not to mention, because they were reloading, marchers would tend to veer sideways to increase the distance between themselves and men performing the reloading drill.  No matter how careful a man is with his match, a man reloading his sacred weapon is always at some risk of conflagration.  Through the hook and then rearwards, the evolution, which depends on the most precise timing, devolved into chaos.  Meanwhile the van of Piccololini’s line, a regiment and a half, continued their march across the field of battle, oblivious to the difficulty that no one was behind them.

The enemy had not cooperated with Piccololini’s entirely orthodox plans.  He could have had more infantry support for his artillery, but that really did not matter, because the enemy did not try to close.  Seeing his first line was disordered and under attack, he ordered the demiregiments of his second line to advance and give the first line cover while it re-ordered.  His Caballeros had formed on his left.  He ordered them to charge to take the women in their flank.  

One enterprising lieutenant, realizing that his division could not possibly advance through the chaos, ordered them instead to do a right wheel, the twelve men of each rank pivoting on the heel of the left rank closer and then marching straight ahead . This turn had three effects.  First, his entire division of sixty could fire on their opponents, and began to do so.  Second, by pulling his men out of the column of march, he opened a gap permitting units behind his to reorder.  Third, his men presented themselves as a target, an opportunity not ignored by my captors.  His men dutifully advanced and closed ranks preparatory to fire.  By now, they were sixty or eighty yards from the enemy.

Piccololini had kept his cavalry with the second line as a reserve.  Their advance took some time, long enough for the foe’s cavalry to form up and advance in two tight lines.  They moved first at the walk and then at the trot.  Recall that this was a small battle, and our horses had had to be shipped across the shallow sea.  Piccololini had perhaps three dozen caballeros, who soon spurred their horses to the gallop, while the women had perhaps twice his number advancing in two echeloned lines.

It is nearly impossible to force horses to run into each other.  No matter how great the valor of the rider, the horse foolishly remembers that collisions are painful, and ungratefully seeks to decline the holy honor of participating in the battle sacrament.  The Caballeros fired their pistols, a task challenging to accomplish with accuracy while at the gallop, and sought to close.  A few succeeded.  The rest veered off to encounter their foe’s second line of riders.  At low speed, they succeeded in kissing at least steel if not the preferred parts with their foewomen.  I expect they thought they had easy targets.  At this they were in part correct.  The Land Beyonders are typically not as good riders as are our men.  

Alas, riding is only one of three skills needed by a cavalryman.  There is also swordsmanship, a skill in which the Land Beyonders are not deficient.  Furthermore, while I have always attacked on horseback with the sword thrust, a blow ten times as fatal as the hack, Piccololini’s nobles are oppositely inclined.  Hacking against an opponent wearing mail armor is very different than hacking against an opponent wearing a cotton shirt, particularly when your opponent’s blade is preternaturally sharp and hacking back.  Finally, as important as riding is choosing one’s mount.  Piccololini’s men rode geldings.  The Land Beyonders are so wealthy that they ride into battle on mares, and as anyone who has watched a paddock knows, in a near collision between a gelding and a mare it is the gelding that inevitably gives way.  In short, our cavalry charge was not successful, would likely not have been successful even if the odds had been even rather than one to two, and soon riderless geldings could be seen running off the field.

While this was going on, Piccololini’s van advanced rightward across the field.  It continually came under the fire of new groups of women, each group fresh and carrying a full quiver of arrows.  The men left behind themselves a trail of bodies and blood.  Piccololini's second line, halting every 75 paces to reorder its ranks, came even with the front that the first line should have occupied, and began to take the same losses.  As before, officers were the archers’ preferred targets.  The second line stopped, closed ranks, and began an exchange of fire at considerable range with the women.  Both sides were taking casualties, but when a musketeer can fire one round or fewer in a single minute, and an archer can five or eight times the number of shots, the lesser lethality of bowshot is only one of several issues.

As I later learned, at about this moment Piccololini’s horse was struck by an arrow.  While attempting a fast dismount from his dying steed, he knocked his head and rendered himself unconscious. His second-in-command, Captain-General Parlenihongo, seeing the battle was not resolving to his satisfaction, elected to launch the general attack.  I can understand his sentiments.  The orthodox battle plan was becoming unhinged.  Parlenihongo was a great leader, but, as he is the first to say, he believes that the clash of steel and the thunder of matchlocks and cannon will always trump clever maneuverings in an appeal to He Who Conquers.  It could also be said he was in dire ground, and in dire ground one always fights one’s foes, this being the most certain way to win literary immortality by dying gloriously.

The swordthrust column had been slowly advanced.  Parlenihongo ordered it to charge, burying itself someplace in the enemy’s left flank.  Its Colonels leading with sword drawn, as befits a real man, a column of men six wide and fifty deep hurled themselves at the enemy.  To be precise, they hurled themselves at the section of the enemy line that was still fresh and had not yet seen battle.  Penetrating a virginal enemy line can be as difficult and unpleasant as the matching other penetration, but sometimes there is no choice.  Simultaneously, Parlenihongo sent aides de camp to his van, ordering its divisions to wheel to face the enemy and advance.  At least, I saw riders gallop to the front of the march, and observed that many marchers did after some confusion make right wheels by division and begin an advance on the center of the enemy’s line.

During this exchange, the enemy had not been entirely inactive.  Their cavalry on their right, having driven our horsemen from the field, reformed, turned right, and charged the hook.  As they closed, they did face scattered fire from our men, emptying more than one saddle.  Alas, some of the fire took horses in the breast, enraging them so that they galloped into our lines.  The enemy charge was carried home at the trot, our men recoiling before it.  The hook was driven appreciably in.  When it solidified, the women were recalled.  On the left flank, the enemy positioned reserves directly in the face of the swordthrust charge.  Other women, the professional soldiers, formed their own column and dashed off toward a place where we had no men deployed.

As our column closed on their line, the archers near the point of impact discarded their bow[s] for swords.  Their first and second lines rose, revealing clearly that they were equipped with polearms. The first few ranks of men were halted by the pikes, but later ranks forced their way around their impaled colleagues to fall upon the enemy swordswomen.  The women's flanks sagged under the weight of numbers, their four ranks facing our dozen or more, and began to collapse. 

The mob of violet-capes turned, not as one but turned nonetheless, and hurled themselves at the flank of our swordthrust column. Where their lines contacted ours, their swordsmen advanced, leaving a trail of body parts behind them.  As we had learned when I was captured, the locals are extremely fond of razor-sharp swords.  Our column, taken in flank by the violet-caped professionals, lost all momentum as it turned to fight.   Simultaneously, the enemy second line in this part of the front, revealed to be pikemen – perhaps I should instead write pikegirls -- arrayed four deep, advanced in good order to reinforce.  Not all were pike-girls.  Some appeared to be wielding Nordheimer two-handed swords.

I could not hear our orders being given, but from what I saw I am certain that the order to all of our men must have been ‘General Advance! Charge!’  For men still mired in the hook, the advance would have been a mob, but charging as a mob was a better outcome than standing still while arrows rained down and enemy cavalry reformed for a second attack.  Most of our boys recalled their courage and their faith, and dropped their muskets to draw swords.  The remainder preferred to feed the enemy the cold steel of the bayonet.  

Led by their Colonels, our advance began.  Actually, while elegant, that phrase is incorrect.  The enemy had, contrary to the Law of War, been targeting our officers, and disappointingly few Colonels, Majors Lieutenants, or even Sergeants were still alive to lead.  I could identify at least one unit being led by its colour boy.

The battle had reached its crisis.  All our men were committed.  Our line approached theirs.  The clatter of enemy drums suddenly stopped, to be replaced by a new rhythm.  At this call, archers discarded their bows and drew steel.  There came a moment of silence.  I then heard the most unearthly shriek I have ever heard in my life.  If the earth had opened up, letting those of us on the surface hear the demons of the underearth being tormented by the Saints and the Valkyries, the din could have been no more ghastly.  These were the enemy bagpipers, of whom I had once heard one play a few days earlier.  I estimate that the enemy had well over a hundred of them standing close behind their own lines.  I stood almost equidistant from the pipes and from our men, and I could not hear the crack of the muskets, from those formations still firing, over the infernal cacophony of the pipes.

When the pipes began, the enemy line started its own advance, again staying in perfect order.  Now, it is well known that it is almost unknown for two lines of infantry to meet, steel against steel.  With great regularity one side or the other will break before contact.  However, our opponents were armed with sword and pike.  These are not ranged weapons.  The women had had drilled into them since birth that the only way to inflict casualties was to come nose to nose with the foe.  Well, breast to breast, and not in a way our men would greet with enthusiasm.  Making such a din that no orders could possibly be heard, the women marched forward implacably.  On the right wing, our men were doing poorly against theirs, even before several of their divisions executed a flank left and took the swordthrust column in its other side.  On their left wing, their cavalry again charged our men near the hook, this time taking the mob in the rear flank.  

The lines were now in contact.  Near our left, their lines did briefly give way before the mob from our hook.   The enemy Captain-General used her remaining squadrons of cavalry in a countercharge, one that tore into our disorganized men, giving the enemy time to re-order and bring up reinforcements.   On our far left, their lines rolled to form an arc.  On the right, taken from three sides, the swordthrust column broke.  First a few men began to step back from the line.  Then the great number of men turned and fell back, some of their violet-capes running in good order after them.  In the center, first the honor regiment and then the men sent to support them, seeing their charge opposed by unbending steel and screaming demons, broke and ran without contacting the enemy.

Their cavalry, recalled and reformed, and more of their professionals ran in pursuit, proving again the homily that most casualties are caused by sword thrusts to the back.  Other parts of their line pivoted right, taking the hook in its other flank.  Toward the end of the fight, our men in the hook were so compressed that they could scarcely draw, let alone wield, steel.

Quarter was not given.  It was as thorough a defeat as I have ever seen on the battlefield.  
I *adore* these glimpses of an alternate view!  
But somewhere back before the first diary entry -- or perhaps during his description of his capture -- it should be mentioned that he got his writing materials back.  

Chapter 35
Millersbridge Common
Summertouch 26, 2448

Evaine leaned back on her camp stool and stretched. She had not returned to camp, but could not very well complain if her women erected the command tent around her while she sat listening.  It had been an early morning and a longer afternoon.  The wounded were being treated, within the limits of resources.  Dead women had been buried.  Several greathands of Formed Levy and such carts as could be procured were being used to haul pirate corpses to a fresh-dug mass grave and drop them in.  Local women who had fled to Millersbridge were persuaded to lead Swordsisters and other volunteers along local roads and paths, searching for fleeing pirates, and not incidentally creating a screen to detect a second pirate attack.  At her request, Lady Cheryl and the Torinsdale levy were coming forward from their blocking positions on the Tayberry road to occupy Tayberry proper.  There they'd be reinforced by three Greathands of the Sisterhood, and an equal number of Greathands of Formed Levy, ones that had never contacted the enemy.

She had not realized what Tomas had meant by 'Dianasmere has validated your invocation of the Council of Altairis', not until Roxanne put the Decree into effect.  At battle's end, after the surviving Pirates had [been] routed from the field, a half-dozen greathands of the Sisterhood made a march across the battlefield, systematically beheading every Pirate they found, including the seemingly dead.  Evaine made a vigorous case for retaining prisoners as laborers, and retaining officers for interrogation.  Roxanne, noting that they were on Republic soil, refused to agree.  From the number of ears, the better half of the Pirate host had died on Millersbridge Common. 

Evaine counted herself lucky that the Torinsdale cavalry had swept up a dozen of their highest-ranking, or at least oldest and most gaudily dressed, officers, and spirited them away to Torinsdale.  She saw to it that her prisoners of the prior week were similarly made to disappear from the Republic's system of justice.  Roxanne complained, but only politely, namely that her count would be a few pairs of ears short.  The Torinsdale cavalry had to some extent indulged itself in what ancient writers viewed as the cavalry's prime prerogative, namely being the first to reach and loot the enemy's camp.   There was considerable disappointment that the pirates did not seem to use money.  Perhaps, being men, they couldn't handle such a complicated concept reliably.  They did have ample stocks of small change, some of which would be appreciated by local jewelers after being melted down and purified.

Evaine had given a pointed order that her share was to be the books and records.  She was not sure that she believed her own interpretation of the pirate maps, but there had to be a fairly large pirate encampment hidden someplace, and there would be maps to it.  To field a force as large as what had been seen, the encampment would need to be considerably larger than the Vale, just to have enough men of the right age.     

Tomas, his bodyguards, and Michael Michaelsson had gone to the Pirate camp and began a search of their own.  Tomas was imprecise as to the target of his search. The direction 'if you know what is it, it is not what I am looking for' was slightly vague.   He might not use the M word, but someplace there were pirate mages, their books of sorcery, and the material components for their spells.  Tomas had not complained when Evaine asked that the pirate coded books all be saved.  Now that there were a few pirate prisoners, the chances that the books could be decoded appeared to have increased.

Early that morning, Roxanne had set scouts where they could watch the pirate camp.  Fleeing pirates set the cooks and carters in a state of alarm, but they held their posts until a half-dozen Greathands of Evaine's blocking force had appeared on the Tayberry road.  Then the cooks had fled every which way, soldiers abandoned their stations, and men ran into the largest tents and emerged with hands laden.    There was no sign of a disciplined withdrawal, nor of particular tents being emptied systematically.  The carters might have looted before retreating, but it seemed unlikely that all the pirate magicians had escaped with their materia magica.

Pirates carried their personal items in their packs, and stacked packs before going into battle.  Those packs now lay neatly mounded along the Millersport road.  Tomas and the local constables were moving those packs to the Commons' hay barn, there to be opened to make a careful search for valuables that might be returned to their owners or used to pay for the damage that the pirates had wrought on Shire Cismontane by the Sea.  That move had encountered a surprising delay.  The proposal that pirate carts be used to move the packs encountered the challenge that pirate carts did not have axle bearings, and were at best marginally mobile if lightly loaded. The stolen goods were a very odd lot: jewelry and portable small decorative items she could understand.  Cheaper loom-woven cloth, the brighter colored and more fancily patterned the better, was more puzzling.  No money.  No stolen swords. The pirates apparently preferred their own weapons.

Now what? She asked herself.  She had needed at least two decisive victories, if not three, without wrecking the Formed Levy, to beat the pirates.  She had just gained the first of these.  Some pirates had escaped.  They were being chased down by Swordsisters and women who knew the terrain.  One Greathand scoured the battlefield for pirate swords and hand stonethrowers.  A count of these said that few pirates carried their weapons when they fled. Pirate swords were not very good, but they were better than what some of the Millersbridge militia had carried.  She had seen a Sea Eagle glass-club in Torinsdale, in a museum trophy case.  Some women in the Millersbridge militia had wielded them as weapons.

It was not clear what she could do with captured pirate weapons.  The hand stonethrowers didn't seem to be very effective.  Large wheeled stonethrowers, interspersed in your line, could be an amusing way to break up an enemy attack.  At least, they would be a way if someone could figure out how they worked.  Until the appropriate bits of sorcery could be replicated, they were hugely heavy, inert pieces of bronze.  Tomas had had them dragged until they faced away from Millersbridge, there being no way to tell if they might be ready to throw a stone.

So what should she do?  What could she do?  There was a reasonable block in place against a pirate counterstroke, not to mention that Millersbridge was several days march away, at the pirate marching pace, for the pirate host besieging Millersport.   The Torinsdale Camp had been relocated to the immediate vicinity of Millersbridge, and by this evening that camp would be adequately enclosed.  One of the virtues of having a larger army was that a smaller and smaller fraction of the army was needed to make adequate entrenchments for the evening's encampment.   

Half of her force had been in intense hand-to-hand combat.  The pirates wore cloth and carried clumsy spears or blunt swords that they did not know how to use well.  Her women had had chain mail and carried carefully sharpened swords in whose use they had been rigorously trained.   The pirates died.  A fair fraction of her women still had wounds that could be serious unless properly treated and allowed to heal.  As histories had warned of the Sea Eagles, however poor the organization or weapons[,] Sea Eagles tended to be ferociously strong.  

The battle had made a significant dent in her supply of slotbow bolts.  Not without some grumbling, women and shovels had been lined up to spade the entire Common and recover all the slotbow and greatbow bolts that could be found.  Some enterprising soul was encouraging children to search the woods and ditches behind the field, paying a modest price for each bolt.  She had detailed some of her more lightly wounded women, those who had to stay thoroughly clean but were not otherwise impaired, to guard the children from stray pirates. 

What should she do next?  A direct attack on the force besieging Millersport looked inadvisable.  Even when everyone was brought together, and her mildly wounded had recovered, the pirates had a substantial superiority in numbers.  Roxanne agreed that the Sisterhood, volunteer militia, and local inhabitants could rout the Pirates out of northwest Cismontane by the Sea, perhaps needing to isolate strongly held posts near Daisy or Millers Mills.  Evaine suspected that the pirates had abandoned those places.  The road net really did converge on Millersbridge; they had to have been fighting pirates from Daisy and Millers Mills.  The Pirate host that attacked this morning had been an entirely adequate blocking force, preventing Evaine from sending any large group of women down the Daisybrook into the Pirate rear.  Now that blocking force, reserves and all, was gone.  The Pirate rear was vulnerable.  

"Evaine?"  Gretchen's voice interrupted Evaine's thoughts.  Gretchen was an excellent gatekeeper, not to mention that most people trusted her because she reported directly to Tomas.  The Torinsdale Levy thought she worked for the Heir-Second, the Sisterhood thought she was a Swordsister, the Provincial Senate thought Gretchen reported to their Interlocutor, and the magicians assumed Gretchen was loyal to Tomas the Sorcerer.  Tomas announced he wanted her to stay here as his eye. Gretchen told Evaine that she would do her best to see that Evaine was only interrupted for real emergencies. "Noralee Michaelsdotr, and messages from Millersport."

Evaine stood and forced a smile to her face.  Noralee was one of her father's apprentices, a mage who communed with The Lightnings That Speak.  "How fares the day, Noralee?" Evaine asked.  "I can offer you a place to sit."
Whose father?  Must be Noralee's.

"You have conquered, Evaine, and saved us all from the Pirates," Noralee answered.  "So the day goes indeed well."  She accepted the offer of a camp stool.  "The Lightnings bring me word from Millersport, and through them by sunspeaker from Tayberry.  The Pirates continue their siege of Millersport.  The Tayberry sunspeaker tower—it's way up on a hill outside of town—was searched by the Pirates, and then abandoned.  The Tayberry-Millersport sunspeaker still works.  Tayberry reports that Lady Cheryl's women, and the women you sent from here, have reached Tayberry, set out scouts, and blocked the road.  Lady Cheryl says she understands she should not give battle if outnumbered, if it can be avoided.  She is digging a wall to strengthen her position.  She will continue to dig so long as she is there.   

"Millersport reports that the pirates finally blocked the town's two aqueducts, but its cisterns are full and its wells are adequate.  Pirate stonethrowers are firing on the town walls, to no effect.  The Pirates have repeatedly tried their thunder spell against the town walls and gates, equally without effect now that the gates are backed with sand.  As of a few minutes ago, there were no signs that the Pirates at Millersbridge knew that they had lost a battle here.  They continue erecting trenched parapets, facing inward and out."   Natalie leaned forward and crossed her arms across her chest.

Evaine brought a map to memory and totaled up the distances.  Something seemed wrong.  "Did Lady Cheryl mention how she managed to reach Tayberry so quickly?" she asked.  "A rider from here to there, packing camp, and a march; that's a lot of miles."

"Rider?  Didn't Tomas mention?" Natalie asked.  "The Blackriver Mage reached Northfort yesterday, bringing a communor—the material components for summoning the Lightnings The Speak -- with him.  He can't send very fast, but he can hear us clearly.  The first leg of the message Rode with the Lightnings, so Lady Cheryl was ready to march as soon as she heard from you where she was to go."

"I see.  I am most grateful for your aid," Evaine said.  It was good to know what Tomas forgot to mention.  Blackriver was well south of Union.   The Blackriver mage had indeed moved quickly.  "If it is not a secret, to where can you talk through the lightnings?  Locally, I mean."

"Here," Natalie said.  "Northfort.  Noralin City. Millersport.  Caer Adurel with Tomas in residence.  Places much farther away."  

Evaine looked thoughtfully out of the tent.  Being able to speak into a besieged town could be a major advantage for someone trying to lift the siege.  But the Lightnings only spoke to fixed points.  Where should those points be, allowing the Mages would cooperate?  "Be so kind as to ask the Blackriver mage to stay in the Vale, and ask him if he would be so kind as to forward word from us to those in the Vale," she finally said.  "Lady Cheryl is linked to Millersport, and we are here."  Natalie nodded in agreement and withdrew.

Where was she? Did the pirates have a rear? Evaine wondered.    Their supplies were apparently carried on boats, boats that were extremely large and needed deep water to harbor.  Their true rear, if you believed the maps, might as well be on the far side of the Shield.  Large boats seemed to limit the pirates to three landing points: Gwendolyn's Bay, Saint Dana's Bay, and Gull Harbor.  The first two were too far to be good supply points.  

First things first.  The battlefield would be cleared by tomorrow, though systematic searches of pirate packs and belongings would take longer.  The Provincial Senate had made Noralin City medical facilities uniformly available to all wounded.  Volunteer infirmarians were even now converging to Millersbridge. 

"Evaine?  Greatmistress Roxanne.  The Swordmistress.  The mistresses of the Engineering Greathand," Gretchen announced.

"Enter, and be seated around the map, please," she answered.  The women exchanged pleasantries and settled into place.  "For all I asked you to be here, I should ask first how your women are faring."

"No more have died," the Swordmistress said. "Some will.  Pirate stonethrowers, when they hit you, tear terrible holes.  Like wall bows.  On the bright side, the Millersbridge militia now agrees they want to defend from behind walls.  Or at least trenches and mounds of earth.  After the first few stonethrower rocks went through their line, sending people flying, some started digging.  Vigorously.  But half of my people and most of Greatmistress Roxanne's are chasing pirates."

"Except 'my people' no longer applies," Roxanne announced.  "The broadsheets reported what I did two days ago.  Supposedly I convinced ten Greathands that they were a host, perhaps even a greathost.  Because I am of Council Rank, and they were a host, I was fit to command them."

"That was a correct decision," the Swordmistress said.  "There is nothing wrong with Sisters as individuals.  Good training.  Good drill.  You know in principle how to command a large group of women—though practice will help.  Problems like heading off every which way, charging so soon as they see an enemy, not using walls and terrain?  You mostly stopped that, excepting that Millersbridge militia headwoman."

"Who is now out of office," Martha Marthasdotr said.  Martha was a shorter stockily-built woman who had led the Engineering Greathand since it was first formed. 'Much easier than directing a canal excavation,' she had announced.  "Town Council got its brains together.  Or remembered she'd said the militia should do an open field run-as-fast-as-possible charge and trample the pirates into the ground, and then saw what pirates look like."

"So two days ago word went back to Union and Blackwater and Northwest, that I was in charge," Roxanne continued.  "Late this afternoon, word came back from Dianasmere as direct orders to the Greatmistresses here, including one Greathand that is not here but the broadsheets got the name wrong, that they were not ever to be under my command, but should elect one of their own to lead them.  The orders were extremely much to the point."  The women gathered around the table stiffened.  

Roxanne's face wrinkled.  Evaine could see: Roxanne was about to break down in tears.   To Evaine, the question was obvious.  Roxanne had done a good job.  Her timing of the flank attack had been near-perfect.   What was wrong with the Sisterhood's upper leadership? What was their issue with Roxanne?   "Fortunately the Greatmistresses remembered—I prompted one of them privately—an Interlocutor can command as many Sisters as need to arrest a criminal.  The folks besieging Millersport are criminals in need of arresting.  That's a lot of criminals, so Tomas will need all their help to do the arresting. So Tomas has been elected Hostmistress."

"Tomas?  Hostmistress?  That's truly precious," Evaine said.

"I think still he had not yet been told," Roxanne said, "That he is a hostmistress with a host.  Some Swordsisters are staying here.  Some went off to tell him.  Most of them and anyone else with a sword are busy chasing fleeing pirates.  I have the three senior Greatmistresses waiting outside, if you would be willing to have them join us."

"Where they happen to be busy talking with four Torinsdale Greatmistresses, the ones you've said would be good choices to lead half-hosts, when you were ready to form half-hosts next month," Martha remarked.

"Tomas will be delighted," the Swordmistress said.  "He's always looking for new things to do, new places to go."  She smiled broadly.  Evaine flinched.  Tomas viewed travel as an unnecessary evil.  She couldn't imagine how he had ever reached Union, let alone University, even when he was a much younger man.  Until she learned about Dorothy, she had found it incomprehensible that he had within the past few years traveled repeatedly to Dianasmere.

"This raises some challenges," Evaine said. "I see I've been wisely outmaneuvered into doing what I should.  Gretchen!  The Greatmistresses outside?  Invite them in?  And more campstools?"  Shuffling of feet, another round of pleasantries, and the snap of unfolding campstools later, a somewhat crowded tent stared at the map.

"We have to wait for Tomas to make his wishes known," Evaine announced.  "But he listens carefully to good suggestions.  Perhaps you have alternatives.  However, the map shows our choices.  The pirates surround Millersport.  They are fortifying Gull Harbor, and have watchposts in between.  They have a big but unfortified camp on Gwendolyn's Bay.  Their boats are dragged from the water.  Bottom cleaning and caulking, with big winches to beach the boats.  What do we do?"

"March on Millersport," Wilhelmina Syfsdotr declared.  She was the oldest and from the scars most hardened of the Sorority Greatmistresses.  "That's where the most people are in danger.  Rescue them first."

"Wait for reinforcements," suggested Nanonia Nanoniasdotr, the second most senior of the Sorority Greatmistresses.  "If we have sufficient numbers, they will see that they are enormously outnumbered and flee, never to return."

"Listen to the wisdom of Evaine-sa-Orowan," Martha countered loudly.  "Listen to her, because she trained the Torinsdale High Levy that beat the pirates, and beat them in battle.  Unlike everyone else who tried."  Evaine wished the ever-blunt Martha had not added the last sentence.  "And keep a strong force here, so if they try a riposte against our scattered pursuers, we can give them another bloody nose."

"The map is pretty clear," Evaine said.  "The large pirate force is at Millersport.  That's not quite three thousand men, a dozen or more large stonethrowers, and an entrenched position.  At Gull Harbor are perhaps a thousand men, much more thoroughly entrenched.   Whoever leads them is all too fond of the shovel and basket.  Gwendolyn's Bay is a much smaller group of people, perhaps five hundred, not fortified or in good order.  I have scouts out, and ten greathands close enough to their arms to grab them up.  A riposte is unlikely. We don't have siege equipment.  Attacking an entrenched camp is an act of desperation.  I propose making them come to us."  Eyebrows raised around the room.

"We spend two days chasing down pirates hiding in woods.  Our lightly wounded heal up.  Torinsdale can resupply.  Then we reoccupy Millersspa, invest Gull Harbor and Millersport, so pirates cannot rejoin their people or easily escape north.  Those are lightly held lines, but very well trenched.  If the pirates sally in force, the people at Millersport and Gull Harbor retreat.  Pirates from here who try rejoining their forces end up getting killed, without us having to hunt them down.  The Engineering Greathand goes north from the Star Tower, to clear a trail for the Gwendolyn attack.  Clear is mostly gravelling fords—nasty, hard work. Our next serious attack is at Gwendolyn's Bay.  We send about eight Greathands and the formed cavalry. The objective is burning every pirate boat, kill anyone there. Thoroughly destroy all their supplies."

"As always, you want their books?" Wilhelmina asked.

"Copying fees get shared over everyone who goes," Evaine answered.  "Those who go, get to keep other captured valuables.  Except pirates have never heard of money.  Where is the loot?  Return.  Leave a covering force to capture stray pirates.  Could the Engineering Greathand leave for Star Tower in the morning?" 
  
"Now," said Martha Marthasdotr.  "An hour is better.  That gets us to the Tower at dusk."

"Sisterhood forces need Tomas's approval.  The Torinsdale forces are the Eighth, Twelfth, Fifteenth, and Eighteenth Greathands, and cavalry fit to ride.  I allow you and Tomas settle who leads the Sisterhood Greathands, but Eighth Greatmistress leads the Torinsdale forces."  The Swordmistress smiled approvingly at Evaine.  "In overall command, the Torinsdale Swordmistress."  The smile turned to a frown.  "Who is from far away and deals fairly with all.  My recommendation is a go-through attack, horses with muffled hooves, minimum noise until you start your charge, good archers shooting up fixed targets in front of the charge line.  Avoid large stonethrowers.  That force leaves tomorrow early, cavalry to scout Gwendolyn's Bay on day three, attack dawn of the fourth or fifth day.  Be back as soon as possible.  

"There will be another day here of treating wounded, burying pirates, scavenging their camp, putting gear back in order. The seven of you sort out which two Greathands go now to Millersspa and which other two set up well outside Gull Harbor, with lots of scouts against pirates raiding form town. The better part of a thousand pirates escaped the battlefield.  It would be better that they are hunted down and given the justice of the Council of Altairis.

"Now, after we get matters put together here, to deal with the Millersport pirates I have a plan…"

Chapter 36
Gwendolyn's Bay
Summertouch 30, 2448

The Swordmistress lay on her stomach, peering under a carefully cropped bush down the slope to the Pirate camp. The ground was not warm.  Winds blowing off the mountains to the north meant that days stayed cool and nights stayed cooler.  Clearly the pirates were not expecting an attack.  Their huge boats lay on their sides, dragged up on the shelving beach while men worked on the hulls.  Above the waterline were carefully piled heaps of rocks and rows of pirate large stone-throwers. Slightly further inland were large canvases covering rows of barrels and crates. A central path was lined with large, colorful tents.  The tents were surrounded by a very low fence; at least, she could see through her farseer a line of white painted posts, and could see that people walked around the area enclosed by the posts, rather than walking through it.  Further off to each side were rows of wooden lean-tos.  The pirates had started a fortification effort. Beginning at the water line, and extending a short distance in, was a wooden palisade against which sand had been packed.  She had watched for long enough to see pirate laborers drag a tree trunk into position, dig a hole for it, put it into place, and then pile more sand on its rear face.  At the rate they were going, it would take them months to put a palisade around the encampment, months that they were not going to have.  

A line of four watchtowers covered the inland side of the pirate encampment.  The towers were square, perhaps two stories tall, with a covering roof and enclosing railing.  To reach the second floor, one went up a narrow stair that had no gate at either end.  There were two sentries in each tower, one standing to look out in the distance while the other sat, holding a pirate small stonethrower.  She could see no horses, no cavalry entering or leaving, no signs of small groups of men going out on patrol to determine what might be approaching their camp.  Of course, they had absolutely no indication that Torinsdale knew of their camp, and they were several days march from the nearest settled location. She would never have been so careless, but, after all, she was a woman and they were only a small group of men.  

East of the camp, the ground was reasonably flat for hundreds of yards.  Close to shore, there had been a grove of trees; the pirates had cut all the trees down.  It would be challenging to move a large group of women very close to their camp in the dark and launch a dawn surprise attack.  However, if their only sentries were the men in the towers, it might well be possible for a small group of women shortly before dawn to sneak up to the towers, kill the sentries, and signal for a group of women a substantial distance back to begin the advance.  

What should the attack do?  What did "go-through" mean in this context?  Send in the cavalry first, with orders to run down the large tents, cut straight through to the boats, and burn them?  Once the boats were burning, the cavalry could cut back and engage the lean-tos.  By that time, the people in the lean-tos would be awake, but they would also be engaged by infantry.  It appeared that the first, large lean-to in each row of shacks was open on two sides and contained a large stack of pirate small stonethrowers.  The men she saw walking around the camp did not appear to be carrying weapons.  If they slept the same way that they walked, her attack would keep the pirates from reaching their stonethrowers.

Now she would bring up here each greathand commander, let them look at the camp, and explain her plans.  They would make their own suggestions.  The task of the cavalry was the most complicated, because it had to ride through a barely-lit enemy camp at first light, set fires, be sure every boat was burning, and finally turn and attack.  The pirates appeared to be coating the boats with tar.  That should burn well.  Dumping oil on the boats and setting the oil on fire should be adequate.  Her women had carried with them, carefully packed, jugs filled with the most flammable oil that could be found in Millersbridge.  Now the cavalry would put the oil to use.

The infantry had its own challenges. Evaine's training emphasized close order moves in tight formation.  The better-trained units could perform those maneuvers at time and a half, but that was very different from a pell-mell run across irregular open ground.  A forward run in somewhat open formation would mean that when her women hit the pirates, they might not be in good order.  They would need a pause line.  She'd send in the Swordsisters first in open order, followed by the Torinsdale women.  If the pirates decided to hide within the perimeters of their camp, fighting in close quarters between their lean-tos, life might still get interesting, at least until the lean-tos started burning.

* * * * *

It was very close to dawn. The last strap of the right bracer had just set into the ocean.  The Swordmistress peered through the darkness.  She simply could not see anything of the Pirate camp.  Someplace ahead of her, sixteen women of the Sorority clad entirely in black had had crept through the night until they found the pirate watchtowers. There had been no outcry, no thunderbolt marking a pirate stonethrower being used.  There also had been no signal, no flash of a covered lamp.  

Besides her waited a single line of cavalry.  Behind them were nearly 500 women. Even after muffling the horses' hooves and carefully readying each woman to move as quietly as possible, it was not possible to move closer to the enemy without their risking that the enemy would hear them moving. Now she had to wait for the first hint of dawn, enough light that horses could trot and women could run without an overwhelming risk that they would break their legs.  

The stars became more difficult to see.  The sky at first glimmered and then in the east took the color of steel.  That was enough light.  She raised her sword, waved it repeatedly while women alerted their neighbors to what she was doing, and then pointed at the foe.  The cavalry in open order began its advance, first at a walk, then faster and faster.  Following them came four Greathands of the Sisterhood.  Behind and to their right were four Greathands of the Torinsdale Levy.  To her great surprise, no one burst into a battle cry.  They had been ordered to remain silent, but that order was difficult to remember.  There were soft whispers, handmistresses reminding their women not to say anything.  They had practiced this advance several times, but practice was very different from the battlefield.

The Swordmistress fell in at the rear.  For all that she could beat almost any woman here, either with the woman's choice of weapons, or with her bare hands, her task was to win the battle, not to kill a few pirates for herself.  The cavalry was pulling away from the women running behind it.  Over the cavalry she could hear nothing from the pirate camp.  Elfrida Ellirasdotr pulled up next to her leading a saddle horse.  The Swordmistress grabbed the saddle pommel and hoisted herself onto the horse's back.  She much preferred to fight on foot, but the extra feet of height would better let her lead.  She hoped that little leadership would be needed.  In an attack of this sort, either things worked well or there was a complete mess from which no one emerged with a good name.  

The cavalry crawled across the landscape.  That was a matter of perspective, the Swordmistress thought.  The Torinsdale cavalry was actually as close to a gallop as she had ever seen them.  They still had to cover a good third of a mile to reach the watchtowers, never mind to reach the pirates.  She reminded herself that the enemy commanders were probably sound asleep.  At least, the women who had arrived here the day before yesterday, after a very hard ride on several horses, had carefully watched the pirate camp at dawn, and reported that there was no activity at first light, there was almost no activity at sunrise, and the gaudily-dressed men came out of their tents after the sun was well above the horizon.  Even the cooks did not begin preparing breakfast until they had full sunlight.  A Torinsdale camp that observed such indiscipline would have given Evaine conniptions.  On the other hand, the Torinsdale camp would have gone to bed at dusk, while men here sat around their fires singing and drinking until deep into the night.

"I can see people waving from each of the watchtowers," Elfrida said.  "All dressed in black, not in the blue of the watchtower guards. We must have taken the towers."

"That camp is sleeping as soundly as a bear in far-east mid-winter," the Swordmistress answered.  "But if the men always stay awake as late as we saw, it is not surprising  they're still asleep.  Muffled or not, the horses should soon be waking them."  She watched as the cavalry line moved closer and closer to the watchtowers.

There came the distant sound of a pirate small stonethrower casting its spell.  The Swordmistress could not spot a woman falling from her horse.  The stonethrowers did raise a racket. Perhaps some sentry had seen what was coming and decided he knew how to rouse his fellows from their slumbers. 

The cavalry line was beyond the watchtowers.  Clearly her people had taken the watchtowers; only the signal back had failed.  She was still too far away to see what the women in the towers were doing. They had bows; they could be firing over the heads of the cavalry at any men who were standing to see what was causing the noise.  Realistically speaking, most of the pirate encampment was at extreme archery range of those towers. The women in the towers might follow the cavalry on the attack, but from the towers to the pirate encampment what was still the best part of three hundred yards.

The pirate tents, the ones closest to her, began shaking in the morning breeze.  One after the next, they fell over. Men emerging from them had stepped into the path of a cavalry charge.  Men who remained inside were now buried in their own canvas and silk. Men outside were cut down.  If the cavalry did not kill them, the following infantry would. She surveyed the advancing lines. Sisterhood formations were always somewhat loose and ragged. The diamonds might be closely packed, but the sisterhood combat formation was a loose triple line of women, a half hand at a time in a diamond, the point of the diamond toward the enemy.  The Torinsdale Formed Levy was holding formation reasonably well. A fair part of that was the handmistresses, each keeping an eye on her fellows and ensuring that the women under her command did not get too far ahead or lurk too far behind. Nonetheless, Torinsdale would dress its lines before it hit the enemy shelters..

The cavalry had rolled through the line of tents, most of which were now down.  She did not see anyone standing in the charge's wake.  The cavalry had raised enough dust that more was hard to see.  The infantry reached the flat ground before the pirates' camp.  Without a slope pushing them on, women began to slow.  Their formations gradually became sharper. Her runners had formed a line a hundred yards beyond the watchtower, waving green flags to mark where Torinsdale formations should stop before resuming their charges. The Swordsisters would continue their charge into the large pirate encampment, with Torinsdale following them at a slower pace to bolster the Swordsisters where needed.

The cavalry reached the pirate boats. Horsedaughters pivoted to face out, to protect their sisters while oil was spilled and set afire.  There was a great unknown here. Some lumber could readily be set afire; other sorts would smolder incontinently but decline to burst into flame.  However, she could see the first puffs of smoke.  She could also see that some of the horsedaughters facing outwards had drawn their bows and were firing into the pirate encampment. The range was quite short.  Those had to be aimed shots.

In front of her, the Swordsisters picked up their pace. The first men had stuck their heads out of their huts, shouted, and often leaned back inside to awaken their fellows.  More and more men were waking up, but for them the time was quite late. The Swordsisters had crossed the edge of the pirate encampment and were attacking the nearest men. Some men had realized that they should arm themselves and were dashing for the open huts in which their weapons were stored. Already the Swordsisters were getting in their way. Other men were standing there, jaws dropped, looking in astonishment at a mob of angry women armed with swords.

The Swordmistress gestured at her two reserve greathands, indicating that they should stay at her side as she rode toward the melee. A few stonethrower spells were cast. For once she saw women fall, injured or dead by the spell's influence.  The men casting the spells were rapidly overwhelmed, knocked to their knees before the spells could be renewed. Men drifted backwards and got each other's ways.  Hut after hut was knocked down by the dithering mob.  Few men had a weapon.  The combat might have gone on for some time, but the Swordmistress had left the men a place to retreat.  A few at first, then more and more of them, backed away from their huts and ran for the woods.

Suddenly a giant of a man rose up from the outermost hut.  He grabbed a hut's roof beam as a weapon and swung it at the advancing Swordsisters, flattening first one and then another.  The next two women he attacked ducked and sprang back. His swings did not connect, but the Swordsisters' advance in that part of the encampment had been brought to a stop. A few of the braver women tried to close with him, but his wild swings with his beam drove them away. Someone thrust in with a spear.  He reached out, grabbed the spear, pulled its wielder to him, picked the woman holding it up one-handed, and broke her back across his knee. Other women fell back away from him, afraid that they might be next. The Swordmistress deeply regretted she had not led this charge: The giant would have been good practice.

Now he was surrounded.  He stood by himself, the solitary marker of the position that had been held by the pirate horde. Suddenly his chest and head were transfixed by arrows. Sisterhood archery left much to be desired, but each greathand did have at least a few bowdaughters. It was their weapons that brought down the pirate.  He might block one arrow or another with his club, but the majority penetrated.  The Swordmistress allowed that she had not commonly seen men beheaded, their heads then being thrown like toy balls over the heads of their allies, but that was precisely what next happened to him.  With that act the pirates broke and ran, only to be shot down by the Torinsdale Formed Levy coming up on their flank. 

  * * * * *

The prospect from Applewine Hill gave a beautifully framed view of Gull Harbor.  The town's whitewashed walls gleamed in the dawn.  Pinpoints of brightness sparkled in the deep water near offshore.  The early morning sunlight burnished the giltwork on the huge pirate boat anchored close in to the town. Around the town, cut deeply into the town common, was a deep ditch and tall earthen rampart.  Through her farseer, Evaine could see sentries posted on the battlements.  Whoever commanded within the town appeared to leave little to chance.  The sentries were doubled, day and night. The rampart had an extension running parallel to the shore to prevent swimmers from landing.  There were sallyways through which the garrison could sortie, but those ways were shielded by walls so no archer could fire through the gates.  Someone had diverted the stream so that it ran into the ditch, which was now flooded. Eyewitnesses who had seen it being dug estimated that the ditch was deeper than most women were tall, and too wide to jump, even if the far side of the ditch had not risen immediately in the rampart.   There were ways to force such defenses, but they were expensive in time and labor, potentially created many casualties, and had never been tried against defenders equipped with pirate stone throwers.

The faint sound of many shovels in the distance marked Evaine's women digging a counter wall, a pair of barriers designed to keep the men in Gull Harbor inside and men coming from elsewhere outside.  At least, so the walls would appear to the men within Gull Harbor.  The outside wall had wide gaps through which her women could advance to reinforce the inner wall. She preferred to keep her women outside both walls, where they would be free to move if need be. The worst challenge was the pirate boat.  It rose in a high tower at the front and rear. Reaching forward from the front tower were a dozen or more pirate stone-throwers, much larger than those that had been dragged to Millersbridge by the pirate host. They had demonstrated the ability to lob large stones, relatively accurately, at the Sisterhood greathand that had been so unwise as to attempt to attack the town by itself. That was an expensive lesson she would not repeat with her own women. 

"Evaine?" Gretchen's voice came from almost overhead.  "Something is happening in town." Gretchen was 50 feet up in a tall tree, carefully roped into position, staring with farseer over the field and the town walls.  "The main street is filling up with a column of men. They're standing shoulder to shoulder. They never did that before."

Evaine thought carefully. Whatever the town garrison was doing, it marked a change from a day of sitting quietly.  They did know her women were out here. The counter wall was far enough from the parapet to be out of range of small stonethrowers, but given the open fields the town's defenders could hardly miss what her women were doing. "Melanie," she said, "Ride now to the main camp and sound Come under Arms.  They are to assemble in the tree line as planned.   Then ride to the walls we are building and warn the women to prepare for a pirate raid. If they see the pirates opening the gates, they should fall back at once.  Jamie, please bring up our horses.   We may not be staying here much longer." 

She looked at the women around her.  All things considered, everyone looked reasonably calm.

"Don't you want the women doing construction work to fall back now?" Roxanne asked.

"I want the pirates to come out and attack," Evaine said.  "They won't do that without some bait.  But the bait was chosen to be fleet of foot, and half of the bait are bowdaughters prepared to disrupt a sudden pirate charge.  It will take the pirates some time to get matters in motion, so we must wait."  Waiting, Evaine told herself, was the most challenging part of being in command.  It was all too tempting to do something for the sake of doing something, even when waiting as quietly as the barn cat for the field mouse was the indicated course of action.  The gentle clatter of hooves behind her marked the horses being brought up.  Even to her careful eye, there was no sign of the Torinsdale Levy being brought into position in the woods a few hundred yards beyond the construction walls.  

"Evaine?" Gretchen's voice sang out from the sky again.  "There is a long line of men walking out of town.  They are dividing themselves between the water gate and the east gate of the pirate rampart.  The ones in front appear to be waving swords.  The ones in back have stonethrowers."

Evaine leaned back on her heels.  The men were coming into her view, walking in a long column with no regular order.  A line of blue-robes accompanied each column of men.  If she looked carefully, spaced along the column were groups of men in gaudy uniforms.  Every archer in Torinsdale knew that she should target the gaudily dressed men first. 

"Let's be on our way," "Evaine said.  "They'll take a while to get into position, but then [when] they move may move quite quickly.  When that happens, I need to be with our main force." The women mounted their horses and headed down the rear face of the hill.  

 * * * * 

Evaine waited patiently in the brush.  She had found the smallest of hillocks, so she could stare over the trenches and wall to Gull Harbor. The pirates were taking their time about doing whatever they were going to do.  The woman seated at her side peered at Applewine Hill through her farseer, transcribing the sunspeaker notes that Gretchen was sending.  It seemed that the pirates had formed two compact lines, and were jumping up and down waving their arms.  However, they were right against the gates.  Evaine was happy to let them charge.  She wanted the pirates to be well out in the open before she unleashed her counterstroke.  

"Pirates have stopped moving," was the repetition of Gretchen's latest message.  "They're taking bars off gates.  Now men in each line are waving to the men in the other line.  Here come the gates." 

"Look alert," Evaine called. Voices passed her order down the line.  

The Gull Harbor gates opened.  Two lines of pirates, led by officers in their white linen shirts, began running across the gap between the Gull Harbor walls and the lines Evaine's women had been digging.  Half of the women digging trenches made an exaggerated show of pointing at the men and began to run.  The other half took up their bows. Evaine thought carefully about the timing.  She wanted the charging pirates to be well beyond the wall they could see before they realized that they should flee .  The bowdaughters on the wall had specific orders.  Their targets were the pirate officers, the people who might order pirate units to retreat when they discovered that they had been led into a trap.  

Now she had to wait.  It would take the pirates minutes to advance from Gull Harbor to the trenches, and during the last third of that advance they would be subject to speed fire by the archers on the parapets.  The archers had to time themselves, to make their escape before they were overrun by the pirates.  That had been rehearsed several times.  She could see the archers beginning to shoot.  First the officers at the lead of the column and then those further back began to fall.  The men in the charge were cheering wildly.  They had their temper up and would not stop for a few casualties.  

Archers turned and ran.  The lead pirates slowed and began helping each other to scramble over the western trench and up the not terribly tall rampart facing them.  Some of them might have been surprised by the depth of the trench on the eastern side of the wall, but they were able to slide to the bottom.  The nearer side of the eastern trench sloped only shallowly, letting them resume their charge.  That was all to the good, Evaine thought.  They were not supposed to look back and see what the rampart looked like from this side.

"Drummers!" she called.  "Beat forward, slow!" she commanded. [better as one sentence, without "she commanded.]  Her women needed to advance ten or twenty yards through brush before reaching an open field.  Then they could form up and began [begin] a reasonably swift advance.  They needed to be in place about the time the rear of the pirate columns crossed the parapet.  That timing would be harder than it had sounded when she planned this. She had expected the pirates to advance in line or in a tight column.  Instead, the pirate columns were spreading, faster men outrunning their slower neighbors, men in the lead waving on their companions behind them.  In battle, you took what you got.  What she was getting was not as good as she had hoped.  

The Torinsdale women reached their marked stop line. They formed up in almost no time.  "Drummers!  Beat the advance, regular time." Evaine ordered.  The Torinsdale line began walking at the pirate columns.  The Pirates continued their charge.  Apparently the pirates were too worked up to notice that they were now outnumbered.  "Drummers!  Formation, stop!" The drum roll shifted.  Women in the leads line dropped their halberds level and went to one knee.  Women in the rear lines brought up their bows.  There had been time to place range stakes; each woman could tell with great accuracy when her targets had come into her range.  She reminded herself that she would not always have that advantage on the battlefield.  Individual women, those who had the heaviest bows and the best range, were already firing on pirates.  So far, her women were being more effective at enraging the pirates than at killing them.  Men lay dead on the ground, but their friends drew anger from the deaths.

Now the lead of the pirate column had closed to a hundred yards.  All of her women had a better bow range than that, but engaging at maximum range was the wrong decision.  She wanted the head of each pirate column to be well inside the aimed fire zone, and that was where they were.  Also, her own people had had to clear the field of fire, and had now done so.   "Shoot!" she shouted.  A cloud of bolts rose from the Torinsdale line and descended on the pirates.  

Barring disaster, she had nothing to do except watch. The pirates were running straight forward into the massed fire of their own number of Torinsdale women.  To the extent that the pirates paid any attention at all to what was in front of them, they were spreading sideways to avoid a column head that was being shredded by bow fire. Individual pirates continued to run at the enemy, but the van of each column was dying so quickly that the pirate forces got no closer to their foes.  

She pressed her hands against each other. It was a beautiful summer day, a breeze off the ocean keeping the field from becoming too warm.  Now all she could do now was to wait while her women did what they were trained to do. She was confident that sooner or later the pirates would break and run.  She hadn't expected the battle to be this easy.  If the pirates had formed in line and made a controlled advance, her women and their men would have exchanged bowshot with thrown stones, with some of her women rising to the sky.  The pirates were beginning to hang back, men closest to the rear stepping rearward toward Gull Harbor. 

"Drummers!  Beat forward!" she ordered. The Torinsdale line advanced, supporting groups of Swordsisters anchoring each wing.  The line stopped every dozen yards to allow the archers to engage the enemy. Suddenly the pirates began to turn and run. A few stayed behind calling to their fellows until they were shot down. "Drummers! Beat fast forward" she ordered.  "Pipers. The advance tune."  The screech of pipes drowned out voices.   The Torinsdale women stepped quickly across the field, a few women pausing to ensure that the pirates they passed were indeed dead. Sisterhood Greathands advanced at the run, sweeping wide on each flank.  Now the fleeing men had reached the eastern trench and the parapet, only to discover that the parapet had an inner ditch and  was much taller on this side than on the other. A few men succeeded in scrambling up the entrenchments, but most stopped in confusion.

At seventy yards from the enemy position, Evaine brought her women to a stop. Once again, women with spears went to one knee, while women with bows engaged the enemy.  It was like a fishing in a barrel, Evaine decided.  Anyone who was a half-decent bowdaughter could hardly miss the targets before her. Meantime, the Swordsisters had swept up to and beyond the parapet, trapping the enemy on both flanks.  There came the occasional crackle of a stonethrower, as one pirate after the next concluded that orderly withdrawal was not an option.  Once and again, a small group of men would turn and charge their tormentors, only to be brought down by Torinsdale bows.  At the end, she signaled for the Swordsisters to make their charge. They ran to close with the enemy. Torinsdale women, pipes blaring, advanced at the fast walk that allowed them to hold their line. Evaine was not positive that the pirates had no reserves.  Until she was, she wanted a formed force against which any pirate counterattack would break like a wave on a granite cliff.

For once, she had a good chance to observe Pirate swordsdaughter—perhaps that should be swordsman, she thought, though swordsboy was more like it—ship at close range.  Most pirates were short.  They were still remarkably strong, as tactical manuals also said of the Sea Eagles.  However, their training seemed minimal, about what she would expect of women who had completed their first course of rational training and been allowed to handle swords for a few months under the careless eye of a poor teacher. Many pirates seemed unaware that their blades had edges as well as points.  The flat was used to batter down the opponent's guard, but the killing attempts were thrusts.  Strong thrusts, she decided, that sometimes knocked women on their backs. More often than not, those were thrusts into mail and breastplate that bruised and lacerated without killing.  At least a few Swordsisters would still end this fight sitting among the stars.  

The pirates' greatest weakness was that they fought as individuals, not pairs or half-hands.  When four women attacked four pirates, they paired first on one and then the other, leaving all dead.  When two pirates attacked two women, they attack one-on-one, until one woman had a free instant to land a blow on the wrong man's unguarded flank. Their officers, the few who still lived, were much better than other men with the sword, but they still fought as individuals, not as part of an organized group.

At battle's end, Swordsisters and Torinsdale line chased the surviving pirates much of the way back to their own town.  Evaine thought the outcome was entirely expected: The Pirates had sortied with the best part of a thousand men, marched into a trap, made a foot charge without armor against massed archers, and been decimated.  Historically, horse barbarian charges with armor and barded horses against well-formed archers shielded by pike had often been a disaster for the barbarians.  Horse barbarian charges hit home far faster and were far better protected against arrows than the Pirate charge; they still failed.

* * * * *

The battle had ended.  Evaine allowed herself a faint smile.  The first part of her plan had worked as well as could have been hoped. The pirate garrison of Gulfport had lost more than eight hundred men, while her forces had lost well under one hundred.  To judge from the clothing on the fleeing pirates, almost none of the pirate officers had survived.  The pirates still manned their own ramparts respectably.  By her estimate, every pirate was standing watch at the same time. The pirates had tried to stop her from putting lines around Gull Harbor, and had failed.  Their army was at Millersport.  Their supplies had come from in the north, passing through Gull Harbor.  Now the Torinsdale Formed Levy blocked the path from Gull Harbor to Millersport.  Had she been the pirate commander, she would have preserved the force that died at Daisy, to protect lines of communications.  That force had instead been wasted in an attack on Millersbridge.  

What would the pirates do next?  She preferred that they do something foolish, and would do her best to obtain their cooperation in the matter.  As close to the pirate rampart as seemed safe, every woman she had was hard at work digging two trenches and two parallel walls of circumvallation.  The women had swords and bows close to hand, though a pirate sortie while outnumbered four -to-one would be a positive outcome, if not for the pirates. Rather before those walls were complete, teams of women replaced every quarter-hour would begin digging new trenches and city-facing ramparts, as fast as they could work for the quarter-hour, creeping ever closer to Gull Harbor without exposing themselves to pirate stone throwers. Heavy greatbows had been brought forward from Millersbridge and were being mounted on Applewine Hill.  The height advantage let them enfilade most of the pirate ramparts.  Pirates standing sentry would be open targets.  All these events might motivate the pirates to act.

After trenches were close enough to the pirate ramparts, she would need earthwork storming ramps.  Storming a pirate-held town was problematic.  A pirate large stonethrower facing the end of a storming ramp would prove a lethal obstacle to women trying to enter the city.  Perhaps storming would not be necessary. The pirates might well view storming cities as a solved problem, and choose to withdraw when they saw they were about to be over-run.  

So far, the pirates' only response had been to send a troop of riders galloping toward Millersport.  Her women had been ordered to let them pass.  If the pirates panicked, they might come out of their Millersport fortifications.  She would set up permanent residence on Black-Sky pass before she tried storming their Millersport position, the numbers being against her.

"Your pardon, mistress," Gretchen intruded on her reverie.  "The Greatmistresses of the Sorority Greathands have announced an extremely urgent need to talk with you, about what they will not say."  Bother! Evaine thought.  The Greatmistresses had been distracted all morning, something about a message yesterday morning from North Capital, though they had been happy enough to whip their women into action against the pirates this afternoon.  "They await you at your command tent."

Evaine's tent stood close to the uphill end of the Torinsdale encampment.  The Levy might be elsewhere, but sentries still stood attentive watch on the ramparts. Isolated pairs of women stayed on watch inside the camp, seeing that goods that were supposed to be safely stowed remained so.  Tomas, Roxanne, and their escort had returned to his tent, where Roxanne was doubtless composing a report on the day's victory, and Tomas was doing something as Shire Interlocutor.  It was something he declined to discuss, except it involved Angela-vrith-Martyn, the Noralin City Library Archives, and the cost of constituting a vast-host to fight the pirates.  She wished it were someone other than Angela, who had made significant progress in decrypting the pirate codes, and in interacting with the pirates who could speak in code, and now was too busy to do more of either.

The Greatmistresses rose when Evaine entered her tent.  "Good afternoon," Evaine said, "but stand not on ceremony, and sit, especially the two of you who were wounded this morning."  Indeed, Chrysanthe Astreasdotr had her left arm in a sling, where a particularly large pirate wielding a steel bar had smashed her shield and broken the arm behind it.  He had promptly been swarmed and cut down.  Kristina Kristinesdotr's face would be scarred for the rest of her life, a pirate swordblow having laid open her cheek down to the bone.

"We have received orders," Nanonia Nanoniasdotr said, "from Capital.  The orders are unambiguous.  The Sisterhood is ordered to fall back on Noralin City.  Under the command of Wilhelmina Syfsdotr.  Under the guise of letting our wounded to recover, we can perhaps remain here another day or two, but after that you are on your own."

"I find this highly embarrassing," Wilhelmina said.  "We are here to protect the people of Cismontane-by-the-Sea from pirates and Sea Eagles, and no sooner do we find our enemies then we are ordered to leave the enemies in peace.  Our people in Millersport are under siege, and we are ordered not to rescue them."

"Leave?" Evaine asked.  "Why?"  Her heart sank.  She had four Greathands off in the north, two at Millersspa, four with the Landgraffin at Tayberry, and three trapped inside Millersbridge with their idiot of a commander.  That left her fewer than a thousand women; Sisterhood troops present here or en route doubled her force.  Against the men besieging Millersport, her combined force might be outnumbered three to two.  Without the Sisterhood, her women would be outnumbered three to one.  Three to two demanded extreme caution.  Three to one was near-impossible odds, no matter how badly the pirates were led or equipped.

"Food," Wilhelmina said.  "Which is to say, money." She frowned, like a small child who knew quince jam and quince pies and had just bitten into an obviously-sweet raw quince.  "Also, I am appointed to replace Tomas and command the Sorority host.  He has already been told."

"Is something wrong with the supply trains?" Evaine asked.  The other half of the message, replacing Tomas as commander, was not necessarily so serious.  There was a rustle of canvas behind her as Tomas and Roxanne entered the tent, gestured for the others to remain sitting, and installed themselves at one corner of the map table.  Where had he come from?  He must have been summoned at the same moment she was.

"The difficulty is not the supply trains," Wilhelmina said, "but the supplies to be put on them.  I was sent a long detailed explanation, enough to make my head spin.  In short, the Sisterhood has run out of money to pay for our food."

"They've run out of money?" Evaine repeated.

"How will it help to go home? Won't you still have to eat?" Thomas asked innocently.

"Different tax," Roxanne snapped.

"The Republic is withdrawing almost half our total force?"  Evaine asked.  "Tomorrow?  When it is Republic cities being burned?"  This was an unbelievable disaster.  They were already outnumbered by the pirates, but without the Sorority forces her position would be extremely difficult.

"My home shire receives a tax, or tax relief, to feed a certain number of Swordsisters for the year," Wilhelmina said.  "With a stack of accounting rules ensuring that the money is spent honestly and well. That money is to feed us in our barracks in the Shire, nowhere else.  There is a separate Remote Forage account to pay for any Swordsisters who eat away from their barracks, and the Republic's Remote Forage Account is running empty."

Gretchen whispered in Tomas's ear.  He nodded in agreement.  "It is my recollection," Tomas announced, "that the Remote Forage allowance should permit every Swordsister in the Sorority to spend two months of the year away from her barracks.  We have here only a modest number of Greathands of the Sisterhood, here for under a month.  How can we have exhausted the funds of the entire sisterhood?"

Evaine cast a skeptical eye at Tomas.  He was not a thoroughly impractical man, but he had never previously shown precision knowledge of Sisterhood accounting methods.  This sounded like the issues Roxanne could not discuss with them.  On the other hand, there was something decidedly odd about his tone of voice.

"My lord Interlocutor," Wilhelmina answered, "Each Greathand here should have a solid month or more of forage allowance remaining, without going beyond its fair share of the total.  I cannot explain this deficiency."

Tomas raised his voice.  A great deal.  "Is there any person here who can explain this situation, which obstructs my execution of my duty as Interlocutor to arrest and execute these pirates?  Or alternatively to execute and arrest them."  His voice fell almost to a whisper.  "Oh, hello, mother." Cheryl-sur-Maserin and several attendants swept into the tent.  She wore riding clothes in Torinsdale lime and yellow. The massive silver chain around her neck bore the Torinsdale seal.   "What a coincidence that you happen to be here," Tomas said blandly.

Evaine swept off her stool and went to one knee, Gretchen following her.  The other women came to their feet.  Tomas and Cheryl exchanged a ceremonial hug.  "Evaine, dear," Cheryl said, "you do me much courtesy, but let us all sit back down.  Also, I seem to have interrupted Tomas's question, though I have one of my own."  She paused.  "Does the Sisterhood not recall the terms of the Miller Lease?  We are quite certain that our ancestor required that the lessor's Republic supply and maintain the Miller Valley defenses, subject to force majeure and other exemptions none of which seem to apply at the moment."

"Indeed, we do," Nanonia answered.  "I asked Provincial Senate.  The Mages sent our question yesterday morning, via the lightnings, to Capitol.  And the Republic argued. The answer from North Capital is that there is no money, and we are to leave promptly.  The Great Senate hopes to renegotiate the Miller Lease terms, preferably on more favorable terms, recalling that the Valley is far from civilization, now has few surviving towns, and is infested with Pirates.  The Shire Senate was taken greatly aback by the Great Senate response and is re-examining its accounts."  Evaine bit her lips.  Magical instantaneous communication made remote parts of the world very close.  If the pirates had similar magical communication, around the world pirates already knew that their Gulf Harbor force had been smashed.

"Perhaps the Cismontane Provincial Senate will raise the money," Cheryl said, "which will not salvage the lease, but may protect the remainder of their towns from destruction.  And perhaps the Lease can be renegotiated, on more favorable terms. For Torinsdale. Or perhaps the lease ends. And perhaps we shall propose that Torinsdale supply the Sisterhood, for the nonce, though we should prefer in that case to choose the officers who lead above the Greathands.  Unless the infestation is purged, none of this matters.  I believe, however, Tomas, that when I came in you were in the middle of asking a question."

"My Lady," Wilhelmina said, "Your offer is entirely acceptable." 

"Agreed," Nanonia said.  Evaine stared at the tableaux.  Tomas had said 'coincidence' all too firmly when his mother entered.  And Wilhelmina and Nanonia had been far too fast to agree to her mother's somewhat vague offer.  

"In that case, I believe you know Greatmistress Roxanne," Cheryl said, "Who has my confidence, is a member of the Sisterhood who knows your training and customs, and who has training commanding large numbers of Swordsisters in battle."    The Sorority women in the field had not been pleased when Roxanne had been removed from her command, no matter what a few of their superiors thought.  There were doubtless legalities with their accepting Cheryl's choice of leader, but there was probably an exact precedent. There were, after all, 6000 years of equally valid precedents.  This whole thing was staged, Evaine realized.   Tomas reached his question, and Cheryl had just happened at that instant to appear at the door.  Cheryl had made a highly ambiguous proposal, and the Swordsisters immediately supported it.

"Returning to my question," Tomas said patiently, "Is there any person here who can explain to me how it can be that the Sisterhood is out of money?  Anyone?  Don't be boyishly shy now."
 
"There is, sir," Gretchen announced.  "But I was given the explanation in the lands of the Archimagate, via legal processes honoring the Crouching Lion, and am legally bound not to speak until released by a Lord of the Halls of Night.  Have we one such here to release me?"  Evaine glared at Gretchen.  Those lines sounded like nothing she had ever heard Gretchen say.  Gretchen had spoken longingly of acting as a career.  It seemed she could memorize lines fit for an Adirolphan bedroom farce and deliver them with straight-faced conviction.  Besides, she knew perfectly well the answer to her question.

Tomas fumbled through his bag until Roxanne pulled a cloth from her pack.  He draped the dull-black fabric over his shoulders, while others dropped cape and cowl over his shoulders.  There, thought Evaine, was Tomas the Mage in his plain robes, which the people around him just happened to be carrying.  "As it happens, We are present.  We release you.  We note for the record that Our release is proper."

"The short answer is that the money was stolen," Gretchen said. "Well, removed with a misleading authorization.  I have details." She pulled a bound set of pages from under the table.  Astonishing what you could find under tables, Evaine thought.  Gretchen began to read.  Evaine stared at the thickness of the book and blanched.  Did Gretchen plan to read all that?

"Is this the document that I have previously been presented?" Tomas asked.

"Indeed, it is, Mighty Lord of Darkness," Gretchen answered.  "My Lord Interlocutor, and My Hostmistress, also," she added.

"The one before you, of a mere one thousand and a few pages.  The one I had prepared," Tomas said, "detailing my criminal investigation as Shire Interlocutor of the planned theft of the Millersspa carrot tax, totaling four iron pennies in a good year, and some unspecified amount in the year 21,543, that's the year when it is to be stolen, and bringing charges against various Senators and other persons for stealing those pennies from my jurisdiction, these all being matters totally within my jurisdiction."

"What document?" Roxanne interrupted.

"And, incidentally, describing to the Great Senate in an Official Criminal Complaint a variety of similar thefts outside my jurisdiction, purely to show that this material theft is part of a larger pattern of similar criminal acts, because showing that an act is part of a pattern is a lawful form of evidence for the quilt [guilt?] of the accused, even though the total pattern includes, oh, three quarters of the Great Senate's warfare budge…." His attempts to finish his sentence were smothered by Roxanne's lips across his mouth.  Tomas had indeed found the unstoppable path to demonstrating and revealing the conspiracy.

Finally, Tomas was able to remove his stole and cape.  "Then, as Interlocutor, speaking for those who have allegedly been separated from their wealth, let us have my report read before large assemblies of women," he said.  "And let us advise that those two newspapers that they may now sell their broadsheets with your report, detailing many criminal acts against the Republic, all found by me as supporting evidence for the criminal charges I have filed.  And let us provide each person here with a copy, because financial crimes against the Republic are answered within a wider jurisdiction than mine.  And let the Blue Robe Mage who is within earshot be pleased to commune with the Lightnings That Speak, sending the codewords to Noralin City and thence to their commercial recipients in the House of vrith-Martyn.  However, there is a more pressing problem, namely a host of pirates is besieging Millersport."

"Evaine, Roxanne, you're in charge.  Are there plans?" Cheryl asked.

"Being carried out," Roxanne said.  "Today was the second part, if the Swordmistress's attack went well."

"Their strength is those big boats," Evaine said.  "They bring in supply, from where I can't reach.  But those big boats have a weakness.  They need deep water.  That's here, St. Dana's Bay, or Gwendolyn's Bay. Here is blocked by the siege.  They can't get out.  They can't cart supplies from the north.  When their folks at Millersbridge find out I've corked their bottle, they've got to come to me.  That means I choose the ground.  They'll have numbers, three to two.  That means it will take longer for them to die.  However, the pirates may come again next year.  The Sea Eagles did.  It would help to expand the Torinsdale Formed Levy.  Considerably.  We're here because Torinsdale is helping the Republic.  If pirates landed across the Sea Hills, and marched on Torinsdale, we'd be fighting alone. The numbers would be very bad."

"Beseiging a boat sounds difficult," Tomas said.  "It's a wooden wall, a dozen feet tall, with a moat.  No way for cavalry to charge it. If you try filling the moat, the boat sails away.  They know this.  The past hour, their rowboats were going back and forth, taking men off the ship and landing them."

"Reinforcing the Gull Harbor wall garrison," Roxanne said.  "Evaine really thinned them out."

Evaine looked thoughtful.  "That's it.  A boat.  It's a funny wall.  With a wide moat.  But it's just a wall.  Someone's been counting the men going off the boat?" she asked, knowing the answer was in the affirmative.  "Let's give them a day to settle down."  Heads nodded in agreement.

"I have one minor question," Roxanne said.  "What was the part about sending word to vrith-Martyn?"

"They're bookmongers, dear," Tomas said, "have been for a greathand of greathands of years and a few more.  And dabble in banking."

"Bookmongers?" Roxanne's eyes narrowed.  

"Yes, ma'am," Angela said.  "I asked if I could work on profit for vrith-Martyn in my own time, and it was agreed I could.  So I wrote a book.  That book.  Records of criminal complaints are legally salable for whoever sets them in type.  So we did.  Rather soon, namely bookstore's have evening hours tonight in many places, this being high summer and vrith-Martyn having made an arrangement with the Deep Sky to pass the word, that book is on sale all across the Republic."  She smiled.  "The Senate can subpoena one copy of any book, but it's not like Gretchen's notes that got locked up.  The rest remain on sale."

"Would someone please start at the beginning," Chrysanthe Astreasdotr asked.  "Someone is stealing four iron pennies? Eighteen thousand years from now?  This is a serious crime?"

"Greatmistress," Gretchen said, "The four pennies are the crime.  The other twenty-three billion stolen crowns, including your meal money, are simply material evidence of a predeliction to a certain criminal behavior, giving credence to my claim that the pennies would be stolen."

"Twenty-three Million!" Chrysanthe gasped. 

"Billion," Tomas said.  "Billion. A large part of the One World."

* * * * *

Four days later, Evaine stood on the shore, waiting for the moment to launch her attack.  It was an assault literally without historical precedent, as strange as if she had joined Nimue in midair, to make a boarding operation against a cloud-castle.  There had never been a boat like the pirate's.  She told herself that it was simply a town wall with an odd footprint.  The Pirate ship conveniently had a giant lantern hanging from its stern. Watchful eyes through large farseers remained convinced that, behind the lantern, the pirates had almost no watch at all on deck. After all, they were far out in the water where they could not be attacked.

Every day, pirates had industriously removed barrels and boxes and several truly large stonethrowers from the pirate boat, rowed or towed them to shore, and installed them in the Gull Harbor earthworks.  Evaine's trench construction had slowed considerably: The pirates were using huge stonethrowers against them at short range.  Trenches could continue, but they had to be deep enough to protect their occupants.  That morning, the Swordmistress and most of her women had returned.  A few remained in the far north, chasing down pirates. She also brought the Millersspa garrison.  Walldaughter volunteers from all Cismontane had replaced the Formed Levy in Millersspa.  The Swordmistress assured Evaine that her women had done what the pirates had forgotten, namely adequately forting up a camp so that a surprise attack could not overwhelm them.  Evaine promised them a day's rest and a day's walk to Tayberry to recover for a few days from their long march.

Evaine's volunteers had had intensive days and nights of practice.  Storming a wooden ship was little different from storming a wooden palisade, except town walls usually had a narrower moat.   Also, wooden palisades were often taller than the ship.  Roxanne remembered details of floating siege ladders, pivoting steps with floating bases.  There had been no lack of labor or the right materials to build a dozen of them.

It was Summer.  The water was not that cold, and the women would not be in it all that long.  Evaine was far less worried about people getting chilled, and far more worried that the women would not stay together in the dark.  A thoroughly disorganized attack would only succeed in waking the pirates.  The Swordsmistress had talked Evaine into a second surprise attack: Once sailors focused their attention amidships, she and Evaine would board from the stern.  They had climbing claws.  They would drop a ladder behind them for others to follow.

It was now very late indeed.  The Shield, the Bracers, and even the Bracer's Open Belt had finally set below the horizon, leaving only starlight to illumine the night.  The moment had arrived.  Evaine, Swordmistress, and a half-dozen swordsisters lifted their float and began a walk toward the water.  They all wore black body stockings, enough to hide them from sight of the watch.  Behind them, other women began walking parallel to the dunes, whispering 'Go now! Go now!'  The attack force had hidden out of line of sight of the water, carefully staying warm and limber until the moment for the attack.  Now they would see if [whether] their preparations had been adequate.

Evaine noted the water could have been warmer, summer or not, but they did not have that far to go.  Kicking vigorously, being careful not to break the waterline with their strokes, they began pushing their float toward the pirate boat.    There was a bit of a breeze, enough to raise wavelets.  In the dark, their wake was unlikely to be seen.  They did need to worry a bit about timing.  They had farther to go, they had started first, but they also had fewer people to keep in line.  Greatmistress Nanonia had arranged birdcalls, little wooden objects that made noises like seabirds, but even in the dark those had to be used very sparingly.  

The boat's walls rose out of the dark, growing taller and taller like a cresting wave that had not yet broken.  There was little to see.  A dim light glimmered near the forward mast.  The stern lantern set shadows rising upward into the masts above.  The watch appeared to be a trio of men near the stern, a man on the high bow section, and a final man who walked around hither and thither and then rejoined the men at the stern.  If someone was watching the water close around the ship, he was staying out of sight.

From directly under the lantern, the climb still looked possible.  There were waves, not enough to set the pirate boat tossing back and forth.  The sides of the boat sloped outward, but not so tall [high, far?] that the ladders would not reach to where the sides sloped in again.  The stern of the boat rose vertically.  The porch at the three-quarters point was not a blockade, as it would have been if it had wrapped around the stern.  There had appeared to be windows across the porch, and at other points; a climber had to be careful not to shadow herself against the horizon.

Sea birds chirped toward the bow, once and again.  That had to be Greatmistress Nanonia and her women.  Evaine told herself they had all reached the same place at the same time. It was now past time for her to start climbing.  She steadied herself on the float and took hold of the corner of the stern.  Climbing claws sank in easily.  The wood was pine, or perhaps eucalyptus.  Boards ran horizontally, with ledges where one board overlapped the next.  She could almost have gone up the wall barehanded, at least on a perfectly calm day in broad daylight.  Evaine began climbing, one hand or foot after the next, trusting the women below her to know what they were to do next.  She had to move carefully, but it was a simple climb, not something strenuous.  She wasn't even wearing armor.

Here came the porch.  Her climb slowed almost to a stop.  There could be someone on the porch taking a late night constitutional.  That person would need to be silenced, quietly, which required surprise.  She listened.  She could barely hear the Swordmistress climbing on the other side.  Ever so slowly, she lifted her head, one eye peering between posts.  Nothing.  The porch was quite empty.  There had been a watch on the deck above; she saw no sign of them.  To her surprise, a set of very steep stairs led up from the porch to the top deck.   A vertical lift, shoulders straining, brought first one foot and then more easily the other up to the balcony flooring.  There were several windows, closed, and a doorway, seemingly not open. 

Ever so quietly, Evaine rolled over the railing and set foot in the porch. As she did, the Swordmistress's head appeared over the far rail of the balcony.  She was pressed close against the wall.  A sentry on the floor above would have had to lean far over the rail and look straight down to see her.  Working swiftly, Evaine began pulling up the line she had trailed behind her.  A heavy rope ladder with padded grapples followed.  The railing was massively solid.  Grapples went around it.  She pulled on the trailer line, once and again, signaling the women waiting below to start climbing.

Almost-muffled taps were the storming ladders folding into place against the ship.  She wished she had not been able to hear them.  They would be far louder inside the ship where men were presumably sleeping.  On the other hand, she knew what she was hearing. The lookouts did not.   Now the women forward would swarm up the ladders, the woman in the lead carrying a grapnel in case the ladder proved too short.  That uncertainty [had] made her really nervous. Roxanne had been unworried, confident that the ladder heights were correct.

The first head appeared at the top of her rope ladder.  She helped pull the woman over the top and pointed at the door. 

Voices could be heard on the deck above, first quiet and then bellowing. Evaine bolted up the stairs, confident she could not be heard over the shouts of three men, not to mention the sound of several small stone throwers, truly loud at short distances.  She reached the top of the stairs as a man, screaming, appeared in front of her.  He appeared to be calling over the rail, not looking at what was below him.   Her swordthrust went into his throat and up, the momentum of her run carrying her forward as he rolled silently to the side. A real pain it will be, she thought, if your sword lodges in his worthless skull.  She twisted her blade, hard, the tip briefly sticking until her left-handed punch knocked his head back.

This was her first close look at a pirate boat. The sterndeck was smaller than she had expected, its rear being dominated by a large vertical wheel.  A mast pierced its center.  Leaning over the deck's front rail were four men, all shouting at the top of their lungs.  Three were casting the preparatory spells on their small stonethrowers, while the fourth, sword in hand, was several steps down a central staircase.  Leave him for last, she thought, as she sprinted across the rough timbers.

Her blade, sweeping left to right, clipped the first man's neck, neatly severing his spine.  The second turned, screamed, and brought about his stonethrower.  Her blade came down across it, the ring of steel against steel sounding loud as a bell, driving its end deckward.  The pirate lurched backward, not quite fumbling his weapon.  Her second blow thrust at his face.  He brought his weapon up to parry, leaving him open for a cross-slice that lopped off his hand.  He barely screamed before losing his head.  The last man on the deck dropped his stonethrower and drew his sword.  As she closed, his blade wove a delicate figure eight in the air, while his booted feet began a dance beneath him.

Drat!, she thought, I rate a highly competent opponent, not from any school I know.  At least he's not wearing armor.  She stepped right, working around so he stood between her and the fourth pirate.  Their blades wove against each other, tip to tip.  Of course, she noted, he doesn't know my school, either.  He tried an intricate parry leading to a slash against her left arm.  She used the tiger claw's shank as a bracer, the clash sending sparks flying.    The shank was thicker than most swords.  Hurt like hell, she noted, but her arm did not break. Still, he was strong as an ox, and not nearly so slow. She shifted to a whirling attack, one that perpetually used her longer reach to threaten a thrust into his face, dropping her left arm back as though she had been hurt.

He stepped ahead, blade coming right to left, trying to use his weight to break through her guard.  Her left foot dropped back, knee bracing.  Their swords locked, pushing left; their shoulders impacted [they got clogged up?]. He hit not a flexible target but a rigidly braced post.  He rolled off her center, stumbled, but managed to parry while recovering.  Once and again, they tried to break through the other's guard, each failing, Evaine's superior reach never quite connecting.

Suddenly he stepped into her attack, deliberately taking her sword thrust into his left arm, momentarily pinning her blade.  His own sword came across, driving for her unprotected heart.  She pivoted back on her right foot, her left arm coming up and across.  The screech of steel against steel marked her short-sword, now in the left hand she had pretended was injured.  Tomorrow she would be bruised where the tiger claw had hit. Tonight nothing was wrong with her left arm.   A shallow sting in her upper arm said her block had been adequately successful.  Trapping an opponent's sword by taking it into your body was not a school move she knew, no matter the school, but that's what he had done.  Meanwhile, her weight had settled on her left foot as her right foot struck out, low, kicking the side of his left knee.  There followed a satisfying series of pops and crackles.  She sprang back, freeing her sword, leaving his left arm a bleeding ruin, then drove to his left.  He tried to turn on one healthy leg.  He had made a desperate move; it failed.  He blocked high as she feinted.  She thrust low.   From his silence, she concluded, she must have struck a kidney, the pain paralyzing him until she followed with her killing blow.

Women were pouring onto the maindeck.  Two had engaged the defender of the staircase, while others were fighting watchmen.  The men were brawlers, not soldiers.  They fought well for individuals, some of them, but had no response to team attacks.    She stepped to the stairs.  Slaughtering an unsuspecting man from behind scarcely counted as a kill.  

Her arm hurt.  She was soaking wet everywhere.  Her left arm was bleeding, the blood warm against the chill.  She pulled the wet but clean field dressing from her pouch, managed pressure on the arm, and gratefully accepted assistance from the two women who had come up the staircase.  Greatmistress Nanonia had urged she stay on the sterndeck.  Her women knew each other, knew their own fighting styles, and were less likely to kill each other by accident than they were to kill her by mistake in the dark.  

Sooner or later, the men sleeping below would awake and come to their boat's defense.  So far, there was no sign of them.  She looked around carefully, then up the mizzen mast.  If anyone was up there, they were staying very quiet. Where were the other women who should have been following her?  She was alone on this floor of the boat.  

There was, however, plenty of noise.  A door opened on the forecastle, and men rushed out of it.  Unfortunately for them, it was a somewhat narrow door, through which they exited one or two at a time, to be met by a dozen or more well-armed women.   That contest was the sort Evaine liked most.  It was grossly uneven, and her side had all the high cards.  

"Evaine!" The shout was from behind her.  A head peered over the top of the stairs.  There's more men below.  We need reinforcements."  The head disappeared.  

Evaine looked at the lower deck.  Two hands of women had formed up near the rear of the maindeck, awaiting orders.  "You!" Evaine shouted, pointing in the dim light.  "First reserve hand.  Up here!"  The women obeyed at the run.  "Down the back stairs.  Inside.  Your sisters need help!"  The women sprinted for the rear of the ship.  Evaine told herself that close quarters in near-dark was the worst possible condition for people using different styles to fight side by side.  A few moments later, first an ornately dressed older man and then his escort appeared on the stairs.

"He was asleep in the back room," the Swordsister announced.  Evaine wished she could see who the sister was.  "He saw he had two sabers at his throat and spread his hands."

"He's the only prisoner?" Evaine asked.  

"The others don't surrender.  Thanks for the reinforcements.  Don't send more.  That's all that will fit, and we're halfway to the front of the ship now," the Swordsister said.

Evaine pointed at the man, then at a bench that ran around the mast.  The man sat, looking gloomily at the sky.  Suddenly he burst into a bright smile.

"Krenza Da?" he said in a low voice, his hands pressed together, making a sitting bow to Evaine. She looked at him closely.  She had captured pirates, led them around, but never ever had one started a conversation.  The pirate made a series of hand gestures, slowly and elaborately, pointing at the sky, at his loins, at the air a few feet off the ground, a back and forth wave with one arm, and several more complex gestures.  Evaine peered thoughtfully.  He surely was not propositioning her.  He pointed upwards again.  This time, in the cage half way up the mast, there was a motion.  A head, not large, stared down.  Then she understood.  She pointed at the figure above, at the ladder down, and repeated the sword motions she had seen when the large furry pirate surrendered.

The pirate changed his voice, speaking slowly and softly at the sky overhead.  This time, someone in black pants and white shirt crawled down the ladder, ran across the deck, and hugged the older man.  A little boy.  He turned, slowly drew his knife--not large, but still gleaming in the lamplight, balanced it on his fingers, and presented it to Evaine. She gravely accepted it and carefully placed it into the somewhat waterlogged bag at her belt.  The little boy backed away, sat, and tried to hide under the man's shoulder.  Suddenly Evaine understood.  She repeated the man's first gestures, getting an enthusiastic positive response.  Whoever the man was, the little boy was his son.  Pirates, like mages, reckoned descent along the male line.  How odd.  How could that possibly be made to work? 

Behind her, the clamor had died to quiet.  Someplace from the depths of the ship a man's scream was heard, not repeated.  Evaine realized that the older man was weeping, and trying to hide his feelings from the boy.  He had lost his ship, his friends, and if his luck was bad the life of his son.  That, she told herself, he did not need to worry about, though there was no way to tell him, not while he spoke only in code.  Civilized people did not murder children, no matter what his allies from across the waters did.

There was a bobbing light behind her.  "Evaine?"  The voice was Natalie Pirasdotr, the Swordsister infirmarian.  "Checking for damage."

"Left arm," Evaine answered.  "Upper, hurts like the dickens, does not feel deep."

The light was much closer.  "Eew.  No, it's shallow, must have clipped a small vein for that much blood."  There was a sting of salt water pouring over her arm, then a burn of alcohol.  "That needs cleanup after first light," Natalie said.  "Pressure should do it now." Evaine felt boiled cotton lint and a wrap being applied to her arm.  "I thought you couldn't talk to pirates," Natalie continued, "but on the stairs I heard you talk, and he answered."

"I don't know their codes," Evaine answered.  "I know like two words in each.  But it's the place they speak each code, and the code's name.  So 'intermontagnac' is the code name at 'unifacatorio', and so on.  And these prisoners, I think their code is spoken in 'Soowalk', and it's called 'transmontagnac'." She pointed at them, repeating first place and then code name.  She noted that the prisoners were nodding their agreement.  "Transmontagnac.  That's a whole new Pirate code we never heard about.  Why so many?  It's crazy.    And why do they ignore real words?  Why bother with coded speech, and pretend they can't hear us talk?"

"Perhaps they can't?" Natalie said.  "Memorizing a code is so much work, perhaps it's all they have time to do."

Evaine stared at her two captives.  That gave her an idea.  "Soowalk." she said, pointing out at the ocean "Transmontagnac," she added, pointing to her mouth.  The captives smiled.  She pointed at the shore. "The One World."

Very slowly, the older man raised his hand, to point at his mouth. "Transmontagnac." He gestured expansively. "Franzosa." He gestured much less expansively.   "Amigo," he continued, pointing at the boy's mouth, then taking him around the shoulder.  The look of pride on his face was obvious.  "Transmontagnac. Intermontagnac.  Franzosa.  Albionic. Duiwitch. Rielandish. Parlenihonion. Ina," he brought his hands very close together.  He pointed at the shore.  "Parlefemina." 

"Pana," the little boy said quietly, "Krenza na?"  The older man nodded.  The little boy pointed at the shore and spoke more loudly.  "The One World. The Wordz Uvva Gawdsss." 

"The One World," Natalie said, schoolmarmishly correcting someone who was after all a boy and could not be expected to get anything right.  "The Words of the Goddess."  Evaine hoped her jaw had not dropped too much.  In several centuries  there had never been the least hint that a Sea Eagle could be persuaded to speak instead of mumbling patterned noises.  Now this little boy had innocently done what all her prisoners and generations of captured Sea Eagles had not, namely revealing that Sea Eagles could talk.

The little boy repeated very carefully, "The words of the gawdess.  Ghadess. Goddess."

"Goddess," Natalie answered, the little boy echoing her word, this time accurately.

"Wait a moment," Evaine said, "How does he know that, if they only speak codes?"  Did he know, or did Natalie just teach him?

"Oh, that's easy," Natalie answered.  "All medical scholars agree.  Speaking the Goddess' Words, it's an innate ability.  Like breathing.  It doesn't need to be taught. Unless your head is damaged."

"So why do we train children in colors and numbers?" Evaine asked.  

"It's like muscles and rational training.  Without rational training, could you bench press half again your own weight?  I must go. I may have more patients someplace," Natalie announced.

* * * * *

The day was bright and sunny.  Having captured the Sea Eagle boat, Evaine's women had decked it out with half-a-dozen large Torinsdale and Republic banners.  Some attention to the anchor ropes revealed that, by pulling and releasing on several capstans, the front of the boat and its large stonethrowers could be turned to face Gull Harbor.  The Swordsisters had turned the boat.  No one knew how the stonethrowers worked.  Perhaps the pirates didn't know their ignorance.  Evaine worried:  Could the pirates try storming their ship?  They had sent one rowboat, a dozen men pulling, a dozen men carrying swords and pikes, out from the shore.  The Torinsdale women she had put on board at dawn's light had filled the pirates full of arrows.  The women on the ship then threw overboard the bodies of all the men they had killed.  The pirates showed no further interest in putting out from shore.  Through the morning, more and more smoke was seen rising from Gull Harbor.  

The Torinsdale women on the pirate boat had had a second task.  They were to search the boat, back to front, and procure all the Pirate books they could find. The Pirates had their secrets, but they were too fond of writing for their own good.  Someplace in all the books, not to mention a stack of objects that looked remarkably like broadsheets, might well be the answers Evaine wanted: What were their goals?  What were their forces?  Where did they come from?  She had her wonderful maps of the world, but even she found them difficult to believe. Most books had been in the captain's cabin.  The captain and his son had been entirely happy to cooperate in packing all their goods into a half-dozen chests, big and heavy but not too heavy to be winched one at a time onto a clammer's large barge.  All those chests and their owner were now safe on land, under close Torinsdale guard.  The Sisterhood might talk about the Council of Altairis, but her prisoners had properly surrendered and would be conveyed safely to Caer Adurel.  

Evaine had been otherwise occupied.  The fight on the ship had been brutal, but only a small group of women had been involved.  There was no shortage of infirmarians, and three were giving her arm careful attention.  Harbor water was supposed to be clean.  Dressings were supposed to be fresh-boiled.  They still carefully cleaned her wound, which set it bleeding again, something they allowed to clean the wound, until finally they closed things up, gave her a half-dozen stitches, and dosed her with aqua vita. The aqua vita would be repeated for the next week.  They would be excruciatingly careful to watch over her, but even under the best conditions battle wounds sometimes killed. The infirmarians grumbled no end when she told them to stitch her without dosing her with numbwine first.  She absolutely had to stay clearheaded.  The pirates were supposed to panic, and when they did a very delicate hand might be needed to control the battle.  The stitches did hurt, though less than the original swordthrust.  She told herself it was far less than the pain her opponents had experienced.

Pirate large stonethrowers began tossing rocks, the thunder of their spells echoing across the water.  She had worried that the pirates might toss stones at their own boat, but they were throwing stones from Gull Harbor's inland side, attacking an area of the Torinsdale lines that was not yet deeply entrenched.  From the sound, they were casting their spells as rapidly as they were able, far more rapidly than the slow rate they had used earlier to throw stones at her encircling lines.  There were only so many reasons they might do that. The Torinsdale women on the far wide would need to stay very low, or move sidewise to avoid the direct line of stonefall, but after a few minutes they would flee in pretended panic.  

"Signal from Applewine Hill," Gretchen said, reading the message through her farseer. "Pirates are packing the south wall and the space around the sally ports.  They're tossing stones at our siege trenches. They've lined up horses and carts to the rear.  The people you put on Applewine Hill are ready.  Applewine Hill says the coast road is clear.  OK, our people are doing the pretend rout.  Their people are coming off the east wall and running south."

"They're going to make a run for it," Evaine said.  "They can't flee north; we're blocking them.  Flee by water?  We grabbed their boat.  The siege trenches must have spooked them.  They think we were going to attack them, in a few days.  Not that I was going to storm the town, but they don't know that.  So they are getting out, before the siege lines surround them completely." The pirates were fleeing exactly where she had wanted them to.  A reasonable number of them were even going to reach Millersport alive.  Not all of them, and very few of their officers, and certainly none of their wagons or supplies, but some of them would escape to Millersport.  She settled back on her camp stool.  She had been up for more than a day, and was just a bit tired.  There was one more conversation she meant to have.  There were no Swordsisters in earshot.  Now would be a good moment.
 
Tomas," Evaine said quietly, "There is something very strange here.  Something that concerns your mother."  Tomas raised his eyebrows.  "Boarding across deep moats?  Those folding ladders?  Bunches of Swordsisters practiced in quiet night attacks?  That's not routine training.  The Swordsisters here were prepared for something, and it for sure wasn't storming a giant fishing dory that no one knew existed a month ago."

"But what else is there?  Millersport has moats, but surely the Republic has no civil war forcing an attack on Millersport," Tomas answered.

"Tomas," Evaine answered, "A bit outside the Caer Adurel walls?  Deep?  Muddy? Recently dug out at great expense?"  

Tomas frowned deeply. "Your point is well taken.  But if I may change the topic slightly?"

"Yes," Evaine answered.

"In the entire host of Torinsdale, there is one person who cannot be replaced. You.  There simply isn't anyone else who knows how to run an army."  He let his words sink in.  "This is not South-shore, where every woman plots to be Empress of the South, every circle can field a hand of warriors, and little girls are taught battle tactics before they learn to read.  North Shore, for all that it beats South-Shore whenever South-Shore invades, is a land of relative peace.  If something happens to you, our goose is most likely cooked.  Am I not correct?"

"I wish you wouldn't put it that way," Evaine said.  "I've done what I can, no more."

"No one else can do what you do.  No one," Tomas said.  "And therefore, as Heir-second, Shire Interlocutor, and Guest of the Lesser Hall of Night, your three-fold superior, I must absolutely insist:  You are not to lead from the front.  You are to send others to lay siege to boats and capture pirate cavalrymen.  You are to keep yourself alive, for if you do not the pirates will surely kill us all.  This I command."

"Yes, sir!" Evaine answered.  "No more rolling down staircases with male werebears.  No more duels with people who scarcely know how to sharpen a sword, not that they think sharpening is important.  No more swimming in cold salt water in the dark.  My heart is truly broken." Tomas did not appear to believe her final sentence.    But."

"But?" he asked.

"But I am still your sworn bodyguard, an oath I cannot take back," she said.

"I shall be most scrupulous to need no guarding," he answered.

"And you should stop selling Roxanne short as a battle commander," Evaine said emphatically.  "The Sisterhood gave her a feeble set of tools with its Swordsisters.  So much as they let her, she makes good use of them.  If something happens to me, she will lead Torinsdale's forces well.  More than adequately, anyhow, and better than anyone else. If your mother can be made to see sense." She wished there were more than a slight chance that Cheryl would listen to reason on this topic.  "But we have company."

Gretchen waited at a safe distance, waiting until Evaine gestured her forward.  "I've missed seeing you, the past four days, you and a hand of cavalry."

"Yes, Evaine.  But I'm happy to have found both of you at once--I hope your arm is not too serious--so I can ask for a pardon," Gretchen answered.

"Pardon?" Tomas asked.

"When you asked, a few days ago, how to make a pirate stonethrower toss a rock, and I said I had an idea, you said you were too busy to hear it if it was long and I should get the material components I said I needed, since they cost nothing.  And Evaine was too busy even to talk to me.  So I did.  With a cavalry escort.  The components are extremely valuable," Gretchen answered.

"You think you might have an idea?" Tomas asked.

"I know I have the answer, if I can figure it out," Gretchen said, "though perhaps I should beg your pardon for committing a crime in the process."

"Crime?" Tomas asked.

"Stealing from the library the instruction books, how to make a pirate stonethrower work," she answered politely.

"If the books are unhurt, I think we…" Tomas began.

"Wait!  How can you steal something that doesn't exist?" Evaine said.

"But they do." Gretchen took her carry case, set it on the table, and opened it.  Within lay two of the pirate books that Evaine had captured. "This is a pirate playing with his stonethrower--it's what they do to prepare one.  Except you can see every detail.  And this," she opened the second book, "is not a beer keg going into battle, to keep the boys from getting thirsty.  It's a large stonethrower, and complete instructions on how to make one toss a rock.  All in pictures.  I'd have grabbed a copy, but there isn't one yet."

Evaine leafed through several pages.  "You're right.  I pardon you," she said.  "There's that stick going down the pipe.  My book.  My pardon.  And I looked at this hard!  I just didn't see what it was.  Bother!  So now we can throw big rocks the pirate way."

"Not we," Tomas said.  "Not you.  When new spells are uncovered, they can be dangerous.  A line of martyrs to the Dark Arts, the Great Sky, and the Golden Sun line the historical trail of the Communor, the flijtschiff, and every other great enchantment. We can discuss what the pictures mean, but a junior mage, not my apprentice striving for immortality, will try to duplicate the acts that they represent."
Well, about time!  Payoffs like this keep me reading.  And a while above, you explained why they have been so dense about the pirate codes.

Chapter 37
Tayberry, Millers Vale
Firetouch 12, 2448

Roxanne and Evaine stood on the highest deck of the Tayberry sunspeaker tower, looking over its stone parapet.  They were careful not to get in the way of the guilddaughters winking their mirrors, and had left their escorts on the next floor down, but the deck was still crowded.  Roxanne kept her eye to a large farseer.

"The pirate boat appears to have docked," Roxanne announced.  "They must have had the Boy's own time towing it, even in a dead calm, but it's docked.  And there goes a crane, out over its deck.  They will be a day, lifting all that brass."

"Still, another day," Evaine said, "and pirate stonethrowers will be in place on Millersport's walls.  Even if they never toss a stone, they send a message."

"Some women," Roxanne said, "would be chafing at the bit to bring the pirates to battle.  Aren't you?"

"Chafe at the bit?  Fight to say you fought?  That's how the Horse Barbarians lost an easy dozen battles, and the Sisterhood lost Tolnen Fields," Evaine answered.  "Not me.  The Levy had close to three weeks in the field.  That's pushing, if you want to stay healthy.  A week, marching all through Tayberry baths, getting everything clean, equipment maintained, and people well-fed, was time well spent.  And rational training peaked up everyone's condition."

"I see no changes in pirate fieldworks," Roxanne announced.  "No pirates digging, either.  No sign of pirates assembling."

"Time to go below, then" Evaine said.  "If we're done, we're in the way."  She helped Roxanne crate the farseer, to [and] move it back to the lower deck.  "Getting our girls out of Millersport, that was a real stroke of genius you had," she added.
One infinitive with "to" and one without violates paralllelll.  (Wish I could spell that.  The spellchecker on this cockamaimie program always approves of everything.)

"Oh, Evaine.  It was just the obvious," Roxanne answered. "We're sailing boats into Millersport with food and wine, all the way up from Longbeachport.  They sailed back with Levy survivors.  That witless lardbarrel Bulent Judithson had the levy switch from armor to skirts a half-day outside Millersport.  Those arms were just waiting to be loaded on carts.  A bit rusty, but waiting."  Evaine gnashed her teeth.  Stripping rust from chain mail was a real pain.  On the other hand, she had just recovered close to three greathands of Formed Levy, in need of some training yet but otherwise sound.

"What I want to know," Evaine grumbled, "is where the Judithson ever heard of political asylum.  Speak of weird points of law."  On the fair side, Bulent Judithson had removed himself permanently from Torinsdale.  If he returned, Lady Cheryl would hang him, if he were lucky[,] by the neck.  

"Besides," Roxanne said, "you let the pirates stew in their own juices.  They know they lost Gull Harbor.  They know if they send foragers out the foragers don't come back. They can see your forts.  They keep getting more aggressive about foraging; they must be short of food."

Two levels down, the younger daughter of Michael-sa-Noralin sat at a table, printing letters as a bell chimed in front of her.  A communor, the hearing part, was hidden in a box.  Evaine had seen the inside.  There was nothing there.  Some metal foil and wax paper? A spool of wire whose core was a bit too small and tended to fall out?  A glass cylinder filled with metal powder, that shook each time the bell rang?  There was nothing there, no sign of tamed lightning, but somehow messages passed from Noralin City swifter than even sunspeakers could send them.  Swifter, that was, if the message was not too long.  Communors used some variation of flash-code, and none of the mages had the swift hand of a good Sunspeaker Guilddaughter.  On the other hand, the lightnings that talked spoke both day and night.

"Evaine," she said, "A message from Gull Harbor.  The greathands there have leveled your siege walls, loaded the last pirate weapons and supplies onto wagons, tied the last pirate stonethrowers to barrels and put them into the water, and are heading our way.  The Sorority has reoccupied Gull Harbor and is enhancing its walls and wells."  Evaine nodded.  Last time, the pirates had walked into Gull Harbor without a struggle.  This time, Gull Harbor had significant sod and earth walls growing by the day, and a decent garrison.  The pirates would not be landing supplies at Gull Harbor, not and be getting them south to Millersport.  She would never have imagined a way to move more pirate stonethrowers for [from] Gull Harbor to Millersport, other than dozens of  rollers and teams of oxen, but the local stonemasons knew the solution.  Rope the stonethrowers to barrels, drop them in the sea on a calm day, and tow them.  That was the cheapest way to move really large pieces of stone or long logs along the coast, logs not needing barrels, and stonethrowers would move the same way.  "And Millersport says they are ready to emplace the stonethrowers so soon as they are offloaded."  Evaine nodded again.  The second message could have come by sunspeaker, but it had been transmitted by mages.  "And my dad is waiting for you at the tower base.  He's explained why pirate charcoal is so odd."

* * * * *

Michael-sa-Noralin, his mage's robes reduced to a plain blue kepi that almost clashed with tawny librarian's robes, sat patiently at a picnic table under a spreading elm.  He had set out a considerable lunch, enough for Evaine, Roxanne, and escorts, and stared west at the deep sea, breaking his meditation to rise as they approached.

"Ladies," he said, bowing and gesturing.  "I have good news.  Not to mention, I have prepared a lunch."  Lunch was something that Evaine could happily endorse.  She arose early, had a very long day, almost always without a chance to sit and catch her breath.  Evaine's escorts rapidly filled the rest of the table.

Dishes passed.  Plates filled.  Small talk filled the gaps in requests for bread and butter and salt.   Evaine turned her smile on Michael.  "The news?" she asked.

"Yesterday the Gull Harbor volunteers succeeded in filling a stonethrower, and throwing the stone, a dozen times without mishap," he announced.  "And--from a safe distance--we caused another small box of pirate charcoal to do whatever it does."

Evaine's smile broadened.  That was good news.  Even with the picture book, and careful farseer watch of pirates operating a stonethrower, a few issues had been obscure.  Spread on the ground, dry pirate charcoal burned very quickly.  Wet pirate charcoal half-dissolved in water, which made no sense.  Inside a stonethrower, pirate charcoal did something else, something that made a great racket and threw a stone.  At least, it threw a stone if you touched a lit slow-match to a hole in the top of the stonethrower.  Once, the volunteers trying to duplicate the book's steps had made a mistake.  A sharp-eyed observer, watching from a good distance via farseer, had caught the error.  To keep it burning, the slow match had to be set on top of something dry, not laid on the ground.  A volunteer had laid it, so far as could be seen, on top of an open barrel of pirate charcoal.

The gatesmasher spell promptly escaped from the barrel, in a great gust of wind that killed three woman and upended the stonethrower.  A day's discussion was followed by efforts at spellcasting using the paper cylinders, filled with charcoal, carried by each pirate.  Quieter, but still piercing, sounds followed.

"The charcoal," Michael announced, "has had trapped within it an essence of true fire.  Exposed to a bit of fire, a match, an open flame, even a tiny piece of a tamed lightning, the law of similarity draws out the hidden flame, causing the charcoal to burn."  His listeners nodded.  Evaine listened attentively.  Mages were usually extremely circumspect about their work.  Sometimes they had very odd descriptions of simple natural events.  "However, the escape of the flame can be swift, or it can be so sudden as to defy description.  The difference is simple.  The Great Sky, the Sapphire Wall that the Lion of Arhad has erected to protect the One World from the Hungry Stars, has many thaumaturgic influences, notably in causing humors to become balanced and curing angry disturbances.  Thus, we calm ourselves by meditating on the sky and the sunrise and sunset.  When pirate charcoal is burned under the Great Sky, the light of the Sapphire Wall ensures that the fire escapes calmly into the day.  But when pirate charcoal is burned in the caverns of darkness, the true fire's escape is swift and violent.  That violence, transmitted by the law of contagion to the stone, gives the stone the impetus that lets it fly through the air.  The contagion signifier, of course, is that the charcoal and stone have been loaded by identical tools into a deep copper cauldron, namely a pirate large stonethrower, making them similar.  The brazen tube is a tool promoting the transfer of humors from one object to the next, namely motion as a humor of fire from the charcoal to the stone.  From this, we conclude that pirate charcoal must be stored very carefully, so that it does not come in contact with any sort of fire, because once it is in touch with fire it schemes to make its escape and transfer its humor to any stones or other moveable objects in the vicinity.  Walls, for example.  Also, to avoid the doleful influence of the laws of similarity, the persons working the stonethrower should not wear red clothing, eat hot red peppers, wear any wool clothing likely to spark as it is moved or shoes with steel nails likely to spark on stones, or work on fourthday.  Are my invocations of similarity and contagion adequate?  They are, after all, the scientific explanation for all that has transpired, to date, with the stonethrowers."

"Let me be sure I have this right," Gretchen said.  "Precautions: No red peppers.  No red clothing. Nothing that makes a spark.  No wool, no hobnailed boots, no communors, no lamplighters, the match held in the air not near the charcoal.  Is perfume from red flowers safe?"  She ended with a question.

"Given the outcomes, it would be better to not to take the chance.  They smell red, after all.  No geraniol bases.  No red roses.  No dandelions," Michael continued.  At the last, Gretchen stared in surprise.  "Dandelions are theologically scarlet.  Everyone knows that.  Red hair to judge from the pirates is not an issue.  Oh, you're right about the communors.  By the way, the flame that trails a thrown stone is itself fire.  If you leave a box of charcoal in front of the stonethrower when you command the thrower to toss, the charcoal may ignite.  That's the funny pictures in your book, with the big and little boxes, I think, that we couldn't quite figure out.  The pirates keep their charcoal well back, and bring to the thrower only a little box that they spoon into its mouth.  And that's why they wash the thrower pipe after every use.  To ensure no loose flame is left."  Gretchen nodded and kept writing.  "Today until sunset is Fourthday.  No work.  But there's a touring actress group in town to entertain the troops, and they're performing 'Nimue and the Glass Warrior'.   Early this afternoon, as it happens.  They spent a half-month in Noralin City, so everyone almost saw it.  It's truly excellent.  And now they are here."
They almost saw it?  I suspect a transposition.

* * * * *

The sun was well down in the west.  Bright traces of cirrus clouds, sharp wisps of mare's tails with straia as fine as the eye could see, covered the sky.  Evaine sat on a wall near the Sunspeaker tower, nibbling on a half loaf of bread wrapped around sliced lamb, lettuce, cucumbers, and fresh butter.  Her schedule for the evening was clear, and this was her one sure opportunity to eat.   Besides, the clouds were beautiful.  The wind had freshened since morning, enough to send cooling fingers through the curls in her hair.  She had been concerned about the stonethrowers being towed from Gull Harbor, but they had reached their destination safely and were being winched onto the docks.  Other stonethrowers were being raised onto the Millersport walls.  Stonethrowers, above all, were extremely heavy.  It was just as well they were in Millersport.  Of all places, a major fishing port and harbor had the tools needed to move large weights efficiently through great heights.

Tomas and his escort should be back from their play soon, she thought.  They had all been distracted, while she had worked.  Reports on health and disease, cleaning of uniforms, repair of swords and armor.  Procurement of bolts for bows.  Progress in rational training of the Levy.  Disagreements with Sisterhood about rational training and its merits.  Deepening of entrenchments.  Fortunately, Lady Cheryl was handling negotiations with the Noralin City Council, which finally realized that they preferred the pirates be defeated before they reached the Noralin City walls.  Noralin was not poor.  Vast fields of roses supported perfumeries.  The waterfalls below Black Lakes, while still underused, provided power for dozens of saw and other mills.  Noralin would pay, and would loan money to Cismontane-by-the-Sea.

"You ask her," came the voice from the road.  That was Astrid, Evaine recognized.  

"No, you ask her," Brigit answered.

"Don't look at me," Tomas responded.  "It was a sword and sorceress play, not the sort of history that sensible young women should all be reading."  Evaine decided that he was not quite serious.  The young women who sent their time reading histories and arithmetics rather than plays were in great danger of becoming magicians, albeit blue-robes rather than black-robes like Tomas.

"I suppose you're all leaving me with this task," Gretchen said. "Because I've actually used a sword to kill someone, and get taken seriously?"  Evaine's ears twitched.  What was this all about?  Her sandwich was very nearly finished.  The apples would need to wait.

"How was the play?" she called, timing to ask the question just as they came up the road.

"Incredible," Astrid answered.  "No, perfect," responded Brigit.

"Perhaps a bit bloodthirsty," responded Tomas, "with five battles, masses of stage sorcery, bodies littering the stage like fallen leaves, and a truly fine deus ex machina conclusion, Nimue's swordpartner admitting she is the Daughter Incarnate."

"Some of the sword work was a bit much," Gretchen answered.  "Two women fighting thirty is a stretch, I think.  And some of the southern magic sword styles looked overdrawn.  Do the strikes really all have names?"

"Actually," Evaine answered, "Yes.  Samples seen in the 361 Poses, a copy of which is in the Caer Library.  Which I soon hope to see again." 

"Evaine, Harvest Scythe is only something from a heroine operetta, isn't it?  The heroine waves her sword back and forth, and heads rain like pumpkins?" Gretchen asked.

"There actually is such a move," Evaine answered.  "And if you could do it, heads, well, they really do fall like pumpkins from the vine.  Two or three of them.  But I don't teach it.  It's not useful."

"You never used it?" Gretchen asked.  "It's so wonderful.  One sword sweep and a dozen heads fall to the ground."

"Well," Evaine shrugged.

"The truth, Evaine," Gail said.  Evaine glared mock-seriously.  Having her younger sister here was sometimes annoying, but Gail had been extremely energetic in persuading the Landgrafin to station her in Tayberry as a messenger.  Evaine had worried considerably that the Rosemistress might become displeased with Gail.  Private messages through Tomas had finally confirmed that there was no issue.  Most of the Rosemistress's great-great aunts had been eaten by Sea Eagles. The Rosemistress viewed fighting the pirates as an important part of business.  There had been hints that Gail had a boyfriend in Tayberry, but the supposed boyfriend was never in sight when Evaine passed through.

"Must I?" Evaine asked.

"It's true isn't it?" Gail started. Evaine cut her off.

"Harvest Scythe is a favorite of playwrights.  Swish.  Swish.  Across from shield to sword side with lead edge of blade, back with rear edge, blade horizontal, right above the shoulders.  Shoulders and spine push and back.  Collect multiple heads. Open dramatic battle with panache.  It's a real blow.  I did a four.  Once.   The record is six heads, done most recently during the prior revelation." 

"That's what they meant in the play," Brigit explained.  "Nimue and The Glass Warrior.  Nimue faces the Glass Warrior, a woman she cannot defeat, no matter how hard she tries.  Hand to hand, sword, sorcery…she never gets more than a tie, and those leave her beaten into the ground and her opponent scarcely touched.  Then they must fight side by side.  The Glass Warrior collects seven heads with one Harvest Scythe.  Nimue knows at once: The Glass Warrior is She Who Is The Stars, her aspect as Warrior, descended to Earth.  The Aspect tells Nimue that not even She can do an eight."

"I did a four," Evaine answered.  "Barely.  A seven?  It was a play.  Were the spell effects good?"  Live performances were not quite her cup of tea, no matter that almost every woman in the Republic seemed to have memorized every Nimue plot, but they'd distracted these six for the afternoon.

* * * * *

Tomas and Roxanne stood shoulder to shoulder at the top of the sunspeaker tower.  His arm was around her waist.  Her hand rested on his shoulder.   The sun was setting.  The sunspeaker guilddaughters had retired for the evening, leaving the two of them to set up farseers and watch the Millersport walls.  Yesterday evening, the first large pirate stonethrower had been winched to the top of the walls, dragged into position, and roped to freshly installed mounting piers.  All today, the remainder had followed.  Tomas had watched that process as closely as he could from the distance.  To put a stonethrower on one of Caer Adurel's towers, you would need to build a crane first.  Millersport walls had sloping back sides, marking the sand dunes they had once been, and Millersport had ship cranes for winching lobsterboats out from the water. For Millersport, emplacing cannon had been a novel used of standard tools.

Now he could see a half-dozen women in forest-green clothing making a dance around the first stonethrower.  They were taking every precaution they knew.  However, the Mages of the Deep Sky notwithstanding, the operation of the stonethrower was something of a mystery, picture book of throwing instructions or not.  Perhaps it would throw a stone.  Perhaps something interesting would happen.  Perhaps nothing at all would happen.  Until it was better understood, the space on the wall around the stonethrower was kept clear of bystanders.  The matchholder stood twenty yards away, doing nothing until the stonethrower was ready.  Her match was held at the end of a bamboo stave.

Their work appeared to have completed.  A half-dozen women in deep green clothing retreated along the walls.  The matchholder approached, ever so gingerly.  A whirling donut of smoke emerged from the stonethrower.  The stonethrower lurched back, a burst of haze marking where the mounting piers had been yanked by the toss.  There had been some debate about the piers.  The Millersport women finally agreed they did not want to be hauling several tons of metal up a sand-dune, twice, and sank deep pilings to anchor each stonethrower, exactly as had been done on the pirate boat.  The stone was too small to see, at least from here.  If it did damage, the damage was challenging to see from Tayberry.  Tomas counted to himself.  After the expected number of moments, a sharp noise like a clap of thunder was heard.

The women in forest green had marched to the next stonethrower, and were repeating their rites.  While they did, other women began scrubbing down the first stonethrower.  Trials had shown that the cauldron became heated; it would be swabbed with water until it cooled.  In Gull Harbor, repeated trials tossing a stone showed that pirate charcoal coated the cauldron interior with ashes.  Each cauldron had been scrupulously cleaned before mounting, and would be kept clean to ensure the reliability of the contagion spell.  Evaine had been quite emphatic to the women operating the stonethrowers.  They were to be cautious, not rush their work, and learn how to drop stones into the pirate camp.  She had expected that to take a while.  The pirate stonethrowers were very odd weapons, and every one was different from its neighbors. 

Evaine had privately told Tomas and Roxanne that she didn't expect the stonethrower to kill many pirates.  Breaking their morale, or what was left of it, was more to the point.  The pirates had surrounded Millersport, on the land sides, with a pair of walls: an inner wall to contain Millersport, and an outer wall to keep Evaine's women away.  The pirate camp was all toward the outer wall.  They'd learned the hard way that most of their fort was in range of the large Millersport bolt-throwers.  They must have planned to use the large pirate boat to lay siege to the city on the water side, but that boat was now in Torinsdale hands.  The pirates had strength of numbers, but they were cut off from supply, and had lost a stack of the large stonethrowers in which they appeared to place much confidence.  Furthermore, the survivors of their Gull Harbor garrison, many wounded, had made their way to the camp, to tell of the terrible defeat at Gull Harbor. 

Tomas leaned into Roxanne's shoulder.  "Two years ago, love, we were all at peace.  If someone had told me that Sea Eagles--worse than Sea Eagles, who wanted prisoners but left homes unlooted--were returning, I'd never have believed it.  Now towns are burned, women slaughtered.  Like the Sea Eagles, there's no way to make them stop, no way to strike back, no way except make their losses so bad they choose not to return.  I work feverishly as Interlocutor.  Am I doing anything useful?  We've caught the Longbeachport murderers, or their friends.  They sit in their camp, hurl stones and gatesmasher spells at Millersport, and thumb their noses at the Swordsisters outside, Swordsisters who can make no effort to arrest them."

"Tomas," Roxanne answered, "You're too gloomy.  Close to half the pirates moulder in their graves.  Or they've been spirited off to Caer Adurel to be interrogated.  The men down there are trapped with no place to flee.  They must be running short of supplies, short of throwing stones and charcoal, short of medicine.  When they're short enough, they'll stand up on their hind legs, and try to bite the Torinsdale Levy around the ankles. Evaine is doing much to bring that day closer.  And when it arrives, the pirates will be frightened, hungry, and forced to attack us, one side or the other, over our walls."

Tomas thought carefully.  "The Millersport walls.  If they take Millersport by storm, they'll perhaps capture their boat back and be able to flee."

"That many men?" Roxanne said.  "Not in one boat.  And I've ordered it be towed tomorrow, into the harbor, out of mischief, out of range of the pirates and their schemes." Her words were punctuated by the distant thud of yet another stonethrower.  Tomas nodded.  They were not yet throwing stones at the rate the pirates did, which was just as well.  Mistakes were clearly dangerous, and speed brought error in its train.  

After a few more rounds, the teams of observers who were being talked through the loading process would be brought forward one at a time and talked through the process while they did the work.  Then the observers would spend several rounds saying exactly what they were doing, with the keeper of the check list repeating slowly the written instructions to guide them.  Finally, they would throw a few stones on their own, with the regular team watching from a safe distance.  Roxanne had been very emphatic about one command.  Anyone who ever responded to a shouted 'stop' with a 'why?'  rather than a 'stopped' was to be removed immediately from the training team.  

"Am I interrupting anything?" Evaine asked from behind them.  "I wanted to see how the pirates are taking to their own stonethrowers.  I'll let them enjoy it for a few days before I unveil my next step."

"Oh, no, nothing," Tomas answered.

"Next step?  How many steps ahead do you see?" Roxanne asked.

"One is enough," Evaine answered.  "If it's the right one.  But this one was being set up for most of a week."

"What now?" Tomas asked, his curiosity raised.

"Millersport reservoir has one large stream feeding it," Evaine said.  "Its overflow goes down the old stream bed, straight into the pirate camp.  But upstream of the reservoir is a flood diversion.  To protect the reservoir earth-fill dam, high water goes under the Tayberry pike, around Daylily Rise, and into the sea well north of the pirate camp.  So we have been building a new barrage.  There's a lot of earth yet to be moved, and I can't put everyone on moving it.  The pirates might decide to sally.  Finally we block that stream, so all the water goes north.  Soon thereafter, the pirates' water supply is shut off."

"Using food and water as weapons?" Roxanne asked.

"I'll use wind as a weapon," Evaine answered, "or dreams, or the Shield's shadow.  If I can find its use.  I'm even using…pirate enchanted charcoal.  Though it seems mostly good at making loud noises."

Chapter 38
Millersport Reservoir, Millers Vale
Firetouch 16, 2448

"All in position," Michael-sa-Noralin announced.  "Even the wood rails for the rock carts.  That took extra days, as I predicted."

"When you dam a large stream," Evaine said, "You move quickly, or the flow piles up.  Dropping rocks into a fast current is hard.  Wheelbarrows would have been too slow."

"All was rehearsed yesterday," Michael added. "This morning we are ready."

"Then go!" Evaine answered.  Michael drew a whistle from his coat pocket, blew two short blasts, and then a long one.  Rail carts loaded with rocks began rolling forward.  One cart after the next was tipped forward, its cargo falling into the gap in the dam.   As swiftly as they were rolled forward, the carts were pulled back and switched onto the return track to be filled again with rock.  Evaine had hundreds of women waiting to reload the carts for another trip, and another beyond that if need be.

The gap grew perceptibly narrower, the current through the gap swifter and swifter as the water level began to rise.  Evaine smiled equably, her tension limited to her hands, which stayed behind her back under her cape. There were ways to handle even greater water flows, but the engineering with spillways and gates and diversions became much more complicated.  She and Michael had agreed: filling the gap quickly should be adequate.  Now she would learn if they were right, or if one of her plans had failed.  Failure was not good.  A fair part of the strength of the Formed Levy and the Sisterhood was its self-confidence, and its confidence in her leadership.  The 'her' made her nervous.  She would much rather that her women had confidence in their sisters, their training, and their greatmistresses, not confidence in a single mortal woman.  She had put the greatmistresses and training more to the fore, but too many women still looked to Evaine herself to solve their problems and defeat the pirates.   

Now they were approaching the culvert, the large wooden arch Michael had had built at the center of the gap.  The fill against the culvert was gravel, not heavier stones.  Loud thuds and cracks as gravel rolled down from the carts to strike the culvert reminded her to worry that falling stone could do real damage.  With most of the stream blocked, water rose higher and higher against the dam.  Fresh workers pushed more carts out onto the gap, dumping their loads and then hastily shoveling gravel over the upstream face of the dam.  Water had been surging through gaps in the rocks.  Now that flow was being slowed.  Sand and clay followed the gravel, the newly-built segment of dam finally being as waterproof as the sections around it. 

Michael and Evaine walked the length of the dam, Michael taking notes on leaks that needed plugging.  Michael's older daughter, armed with leveling table, stood on one bank, checking that the height of the dam was uniform throughout.  She waved to Michael, a complex pattern that Evaine realized must be a handtalk, though not the patterns that she knew.

"Very good," Michael announced.  He waved broadly to a working party on the culvert, then blew three short notes on his whistle.  A swing of an axe cut the support rope' sending a drop gate heavily weighted with stone down across the culvert.  Water spray rose high in the air as it reached the rushing stream.   The force of the water slammed the gate against the culvert, blocking all flow of the creek.  "It will take a while to fill," he announced.  "The flood diversion should be reached in an hour or two, plenty of time for people here to close up the leaks in the dam.  But there's almost no water going downstream, so there's no reason not to close the reservoir spillway immediately.  And then our strange visitors will start getting thirsty as well as hungry.   I expect it will take them until late afternoon to realize they have a serious difficulty.   And, mentioning hungry, our first work crews will soon be fed their lunch."

"The stonethrower teams are waiting in Millersport," Evaine announced.  "The pirate boat had a lot of charcoal on board, but the pirate stonethrowers eat a lot of charcoal, too.   If we'd used them continually, we'd run out of charcoal.   Until today, they've been throwing stones on occasion to learn how to get the stonethrowers the right range."

"I've heard various accounts of how you hit things with pirate stonethrowers," Michael said innocently.

"Mostly, you get the cauldron very very close to what you want to hit," Evaine answered.  "At any distance, they are way less accurate than large bolt-throwers.  The Millersport people have been firing a couple of them over and over, carefully cooling and cleaning each time.  At 400 yards, a stone is likely to land within, oh, fifty yards left or right of where the stonethrower seems to be pointed.   The distance out the stone lands isn't very accurate, either.  That's throwing lots of stones to test.  And we've had our stonethrower crews watch pirate crews through farseers, watching carefully.  If pirates enchant stones before they're thrown, no one can spot it."

"Not surprising," Michael said.  "Mind you, real magic is not much like Nimue on stage.  However, my daughter in Millersport says they can identify each thing the pirates do as something they do.  There's nothing left over for spellcasting, at least on-scene. Perhaps it's like a longbow: Practice makes you better.  My daughter suggested copying high-art cooking: weigh the charcoal, don't just ladle it.  That helped some."

"We're truly grateful for the aid of the Deep Sky and the Dark Halls," Evaine said.  "The Lightnings let us speak at night.  Tomas's huge rock throwers like careful tending, but throw big  bundles of rock.  At least, they will very soon."

"Trebuchets do that," Michael answered.  "They're not useful in battles, not unless you have war mammoths to pull them. But the pirates are sitting still.  There's been plenty of time to build several, just out of pirate line of sight, with range tables."   

"By dinnertime," Evaine said, "The pirates see they've lost their water, and everything starts dropping on them.  If they sortie, we'll be waiting for them."

"Pirate stonethrowers.  You have mixed feelings about them?" Michael asked.

"The small ones are pretty worthless," Evaine answered, "Except with dumb luck and point blank range.  Mind you, I would not like to be the person closing to melee range against a pirate greathand that could shoot every stonethrower just before I reached them.  The large ones do a lot of damage when they hit, which is not often.  Are they worth the effort?  The pirates think so, so we lined up bunches of them to toss stones at them.  Maybe you can make them better, so they can be aimed.  Without aim, they are pretty feeble tossing single rocks.  The gravel toss is much more impressive."

"Hard to tell," Michael said, "What impresses pirates.  You saw the pirate picture book, on how our levies armor themselves?"  

"It, it, all I could do was laugh," Evaine said.  "That armor didn't protect anything.  And if it was some sort of appeal to Her Aspect As Wanton…it seemed to be good steel in the most inconvenient places.  Armor that does not protect thighs, stomach, arms, neck--and leaves open thrusts to the heart?  And puts pointy things on the chest--at least it's naturally padded underneath.  I couldn't guess.  Was it satire?  Do they think we're completely incompetent?  Of course, from Longbeachport, they might.  Now we're teaching them we're adequate."

"Evaine, thou conquerest!" Michael answered.  "Every time you face them, they perish."

"I've been very lucky," she answered.  "Their battle planning is stylized.  Every time, the same one formation.  They move really slowly.  If they moved as fast as us, they'd be lots harder to fight."

"The Lion's Fiery Paw shields us," Michael said.  "As you prefer, Her Aspect as Warrior stands with us."

"We came prepared," Evaine answered.  "Those battles were very close-run things.  If a few roads had entered their battlefields left rather than right, they'd have deployed in a third the time.  And not been shot to pieces while doing so.  And if they'd stayed more together, not sought battles they didn't need, I'd've had to fight one big army, not a bunch of diddling little ones.  Torinsdale High Levy wasn't big enough for that--might've had a Second Tolnen Field battle, dying but so wrecking up the other gal's army she has to quit, but I doubt it--if we'd done open field battle against all of them at once, we'd've lost I expect."  She shrugged.  "I expect their officers, if we can break their speaking codes, can tell me my mistakes, things that frightened them that we could've done and didn't.  But mentioning 'move slowly', is there any news from the South about Angela's book?"

"A bit," Michael said.  "Broadsheets trumpeting its appearance--actually, ignoring its appearance, mostly, broadsheets mostly being owned by the conspiracy--need weeks yet to reach us.  However, the voice of the Deep Sky says every copy was sold in two days, someone sent Swordsisters to shut down the Martyn presses and forgot why Martyn House is out in the country with good walls and every daughter trained under arms, namely they're bankers, forgot Martyn has long banked for the Deep Sky, and got surprised when their bungled attack on Martyn House reached broadsheets across Northshore in under a day."

"I thought the conspiracy had bought up all the broadsheets," Evaine said.

"Indeed," Michael said, "But there are always more.  And someone forgot.  A broadsheet is a good printing press, and some fast typesetters and editors.  Just what every book publisher has."

"Oh, dear," Evaine said.  "vrith-Martyn, for example?"

"Voice of Vrith-Martyn is now very widely circulated.  It's published across Northshore, and gets its news from one coast to the other in--Tomas would expect you to say it takes no time at all," Michael said.  "There can't be lots of common stories.  Lightnings speak only slowly, even with tricks.  That's not needful.  Everyone was robbed, and Angela's book tells you how to find out how much.  Conspiracy has been trying to lock up records, not let the people see the people's records.  That's gone over poorly I gather.  No riots yet, though."

"In the end, Her Light of Truth burns through the darkness of ignorance.  If they'd been less greedy, they'd've never been noticed," she noted.  "But now I have an appointment in Tayberry.  The Archon of the Vair Reach."  Evaine realized she had no idea what to expect.  The Vair Reach was the long disorganized coast south of Longbeachport, a coastline that stretched for perhaps a hundred very twisty miles before reaching the Republic again.  Its governance was, how to put it, unusually complex, but here the Reach had sent two Greathands of archer-sworddaughters to Torinsdale's aid.  They had arrived today after much of a week's march across the Vair, the full length of the Vale, and a fair part of the lower valley.  She'd put them up in Tayberry, expecting they'd need a day's recovery, but they said they were ready to fight this evening.  All they wanted in return was that Evaine would  train the Reach's levies to Torinsdale Formed Levy standards.  Except where the Reach's standards were higher.  She said she could train their instructors.  Lady Cheryl reported the Formed Levy suddenly had gained large numbers of volunteers, all also in need of training.

* * * * *

Tall white clouds, their bases slate-gray with the rain they carried, blew in from the ocean, so sun and cloud alternated across the Torinsdale line.  The pirate lines, inner and outer, were several miles long.  So long, Evaine thought, that they could not be held heavily by the pirate forces on hand.  However, they really did not need to be held heavily at every point.  The pirates in their camp substantially outnumbered her women, so if she tried an attack she might take a section of wall but would then face superior numbers.  That was not a sound choice, even against warriors as peculiar as the pirates.  Instead, she would pressure the pirates, who were perhaps running short of food, and who ought to realize that their water supply had just been compromised.  Losing Gull Harbor could not have helped their morale, either.  She would pressure them and they would respond, preferably poorly.

"Millersport is ready,"  Michael announced, keeping his eyes on the Millersport sunspeaker tower and its signal flags.  "Tomas says trebuchets are ready."  Evaine looked at her own women.  She'd kept the bulk of her force blocking the Millersport-Tayberry road.  They were deployed behind field entrenchments.  Pirates sortying here would be struck by massive bow fire.  For men without armor, advancing against heavy bows and well-sharpened swords was extremely costly. She expected the pirates would eventually try to make their escape.  They might leave along the coast road, north or south.  That would pry them out of their defenses, make them march along roads interrupted by a series of steep ravines whose bridges had been burned.  They could climb down and up, but they'd leave supply wagons and large stonethrowers behind.  They would also face reception committees on the far side, reception committees deployed under conditions where superior pirate numbers would avail them little.  

The pirates could circle south of the reservoir, striking for Millersbridge.  But she could see them try that, and could reach blocking positions before they completed that march.  There were directions her women did not cover well, southeast, for example.  Those directions led into largely trackless woods and hills, finally emerging after days of wandering in Torinsdale proper.  Southeast might be inconvenient to answer, but only if the pirates didn't fall apart on the march. 

"Proceed," she ordered.  Women standing on a platform behind her began waving scarlet flags.  Evaine watched the trebuchets.  Massive weights fell vertically, skidding along the throwing arm as it spun in its circle.  At the far end of the beam, a hanging net spun up and over.  At the peak of its trajectory, a basket of small rocks hurtled forward at the enemy.  A trebuchet, she considered, could throw a dead horse or a boulder through a quarter-mile.  That was fine for breaking down walls, but here she faced unprotected men.  One pound rocks, dropping through a considerable height, were perfectly adequate to break bones or heads.

The Millersport stone-throwers took slightly longer to come into action, but after a half minute the Millersport city wall was swathed in charcoal black smoke. A moment later, an enormous crash like several nearby bolts of thunder rattled her ears.  She could see stones fly over the Millersport moat, overtop the inner pirate walls, and land in the pirate camp.  One stone sailed over the outer as well as the inner pirate wall, struck the ground, and rolled toward her women.  She was pleased to note that women almost in its path flinched sideways.  Stonethrowers had one virtue.  They threw stones a long way.

Now she would wait. Even with women vigorously cranking the trebuchet windlasses to hoist the counterweights, and other women on ladders loading the trebuchet bucket with stones so soon as it was dropped far enough, a trebuchet did well to be fired several times in an hour.  That was actually a greater weight of throw than a pirate stonethrower could manage in the same time, but the gaps in which no stones were thrown made the trebuchet less useful on the battlefield.  The women in Millersport were preparing the pirate stonethrowers again, but loading close to two dozen pirate stonethrowers took time, especially when the teams doing the loading had been instructed to work slowly to avoid mistakes. Whoever had enchanted the pirate charcoal should have done a better job of enchantment, so that the charcoal only took fire after it had been loaded in a cauldron of similarity. As matters stood, a barrel of pirate charcoal was a danger to everyone around it. Indeed, the Millersport women had dug vertical holes in the top of their wall, so that the pirate charcoal was stored significantly below the level of the ground.  If it took fire it might only flame in an upward direction. As recommended by Michael-sa-Noralin, the walls of each hole had been draped in blue velvet to enhance the effect of the Sapphire Wall of Arhad on the charcoal.

Finally the trebuchets were again ready.  They had been repointed as well, so that when they threw their load of rocks the rocks would come down in different places.  Signals from the Millersport wall indicated that only half the pirate stone-throwers were ready. That was unsurprising. After enough practice, she would not object if the stonethrower crews worked more swiftly, but first they needed to practice. She had not bothered to order that the pirate stonethrowers be repointed.  Those stone-throwers were so inaccurate that it was hardly worth while to aim them at all.  Once again the trebuchets threw their stones. Once again, Millersport walls were swaddled in black smoke.  This time, the stones from Millersport all landed between the pirate walls.

The pirates began to throw stones back. They could not be actually see the trebuchets, so they had to estimate from where the trebuchet stones came.  Then they had to throw stones up over the Torinsdale lines before the stones could fall to hit the trebuchet .  Supplying the stones with just enough impetus that they would travel out to the trebuchet, and then fall from the sky onto the trebuchet, appeared difficult.  The city walls were a better target for the pirates, but stones thrown too low simply buried themselves in the sand, while stones thrown too high landed on the far side of town.  She faced a variation on the same problem. Stones thrown by a trebuchet did not always spread out enough before they reach the ground. Thomas and Michael had suggested changes in the trebuchet buckets, some of which were being tried, but so far as they knew trebuchets were normally used to throw really big stones at really solid targets.  Perhaps the best solution would be the simplest: Load with a mixture of small and large stones so that it took less time to fill the bucket.

The afternoon wore on. "Signal from Millersport," a sunspeaker guilddaughter announced.  "They say their stonethrowers are hot and must be cooled.  The pirates have moved away from the trebuchets, and are congregating at places we're marking on the map.  Pirates moving in range of Millersport bolt-throwers are being fired upon.  Dozens of pirate tents are burning where Tomas added vials of burning oil to the rocks."

Evaine stared at the sand table.  Wooden pegs marked rough counts of greathands of pirates and where they stood.  Perhaps a thousand pirates had moved to near the North Coast Road. Another thousand spread thinly lined the pirate walls. More than a thousand stood on a line between Millersport and the trebuchets.  Millersport observers said that the men near the north road were in disorder.  The men between Millersport and the trebuchets were facing the trebuchets and forming into long lines a half dozen men deep.

"Signal from Millersport," the guilddaughter announced. "Pirate riders are galloping along their walls. As they pass pirates are leaving the walls and marching north. Pirates near the North Coast Road seem agitated."  Evaine clenched her hands.  The pirates had no way to know the maximum range of one of Tomas's trebuchets.  He was not sure he knew, either, though he thought it would be difficult to beat 400 yards.  The pirate large stonethrowers could hit out to a considerably larger distance, though their aim was so poor that it might be a great while before they hit any particular target. 

"Messengers!" Evaine said sharply.  "Message to all Greathands.  Prepare to move.  Prepare to move to Plan C."  The sand table made the distances obvious.  Long before the pirates could collect all their men from the length of their walls, she could move her women into line just behind Tomas, ready to move forward when the pirates charged.  "Message to Tomas.  Plan C. Ask that he hold his stones until the pirates start crossing their wall.  That's probably an hour or more from now. Millersport stone-throwers should shoot again so soon as they are cool."  Weapons that had to be nursemaided, like so many horses that overheated and then tried to drink too much water, were a new experience to her.

Messengers spread out from the command tent.  Women roused themselves from the ground and stood in formation.  Bannerdaughters fell into place, guidons coming high so soon as their greathand was ready to move.  The Vair Reach Contingent, for all that it had been on its feet for a week and had little time to rest since, took no longer than her own women to fall into formation.  They would go to the flanks of the Torinsdale formation. They wore swords, but had no shields nor armor.  Against pirate swordsman, that was not an ideal circumstance. Pirates were ill-trained and carried dull blades, but they were not slow and they were not all weak.  They did poorly against well-trained Swordsisters who had shields, body armor, and sharp blades.  Against the Vair Levy, which viewed shoot and scoot, your sisters providing overwatch fire, as a good bow tactic for open ground, the pirates might do far better.

Horses were brought up to the command tent. A guilddaughter was folding and packing her pocket sunspeaker. When they reached their new position, there would be a time before she could again speak to Millersport. Evaine told herself that was not crucial.  She had outlined a plan to Millersport, but left all the details to them. They had done a fine job of carrying out her recommendations.  At worst, the pirates would do an about face and attack the Millersport walls instead of attacking the trebuchets. Millersport would have to handle their own wall defenses, as they had been doing all along.

Whistles blew.  Drums began to sound the march.  The lead units in the column began north without further orders, other units falling in as they were ready.  Her women had cleared a path behind the dune, cutting grass, draining bits of marsh, and bridging two small streams, all out of pirate line of sight.  She had under a mile to move, and very soon now would be moving to quick time to do it.

To her complete astonishment, her women had only covered three-quarters of a mile when one trebuchet after next tossed its load of stones.  What? What was happening?  The trebuchet observers on the dune top were running down the dune waving wildly. Women at the trebuchets stopped what they should be doing. Some began running east. Others were grabbing up swords and shields.

Evaine spurred her horse to the gallop, pulled ahead of the column, and headed up the dune, her cavalry escort following in her wake. Something was happening in the direction of the pirates, something she had not expected.  She reached the top of the dune, raising her hand for her escort to close on her.  There was the wall and trench her women had dug. Two hundred yards away was the pirate trench and wall, shallower and lower than the wall she had ordered her women to dig, but a wall and trench nonetheless.  And a quarter-mile north, well more than a thousand pirates were swarming over their own wall toward the trebuchets.  The pirates had not waited to gather their forces.  They must have charged more or less at the same time that her women had started to move north.  Even allowing that they had a sandy wall to climb, the pirates were considerably closer to the trebuchets than her own women were.

This was not the moment for hesitation.  A meeting engagement was a really bad idea.  "Teranika!" she shouted at her nearest messenger.  "Cavalry greathands to come forward at the gallop.  Form line parallel with the dune, one bowshot back, as far north as the farthest trebuchet, engage pirates with bow when they cross the dune!  Briana!  Ride along the dune.  Women in the path of the pirates are to engage with bow, then drop back through the trebuchets, reform on the cavalry.  Brigandy, tell the trebuchet crews to fall behind Yarrow Stream, now.  And get Tomas out of there.  The rest of you, follow me!" She turned her horse, and headed back to the infantry.  

This was as good a place as any to turn the line.  "Column!" she shouted, "Column flank right!" She rode her horse to the line she wanted followed.  "Greatmistress Cleona.  The pirates are coming over their wall. Advance to Yarrow creek, play "stop", left face, and prepare to advance at the enemy.  They'll be over the dune soon enough. Got it?" Cleona repeated her orders.  "Then sound 'Double Time!'  Varanna?  Work back along the line, tell each Greatmistress the pirates will soon be crossing the dune, and we are forming line facing north.  You see what we're doing?  Marjorie, ride back along the line.  The word is 'double time as soon as you have the space'.  Brigandy, ride back fifteen or so Greathands.  The Third Smallhost is there. When they reach here they are to do 'column left' not 'column right'."  Evaine listened briefly as each messenger repeated what she was to say and headed off.  
 
This was going to be an entire mess, Evaine realized, watching evolutions around her.   Protecting the trebuchets looked close to impossible. For once the pirates had been reasonably quick to get off the ground with their movement.  Or perhaps word of their positions had lagged reality a bit too much.  However, her cavalry was advancing into position, greathand after greathand was coming to double time, and the wall garrison was not yet retreating over the dune. She needed to be where she could see, and be seen by her women, who would doubtless be alarmed by their change of orders.  

At the top of the dune, she saw that pirates were still clambering over their walls and pulling themselves out of their trenches.  Some pirates, bands of a half dozen or dozen, were already walking or running forward.  Most were falling into tangled knots of men not in any real formation. Her wall holders were standing and waiting.  A few women, unfortunately not always the women with the heaviest bows and the longest ranges, were sending bolts more or less rapidly against the enemy.  

Here along the dune top came the Vair Reach levy and two greathands of Swordsisters.  The Vair Levy was advancing at close to a run, stragglers already trailing.  Evaine waved for them to stop.  They halted, shifted their weight from foot to foot to keep from stiffening, Evaine waiting patiently while their officers gathered.  

"The pirates are sallying," Evaine announced, loudly enough that all the women could hear her.  "I want you to advance along the dune top.  Go as far north as you can get before the pirates start coming at you.  Then turn.  Shoot over the wall at the pirates. The pirates will get across the wall.  When they do, drop back over the dune.  Beyond the trebuchets is a cavalry line.  Form up there.  Swordsisters should reinforce the wall, not quite shoulder-packed, roughly the wall in front of the Vair Levy.  Fall back and south before you get surrounded."  The Vair Levy and Swordsisters headed north. 

Behind the dune, Torinsdale women were moving swiftly to the positions she had ordered.  The sixteenth greathand in line reached the pivot point, almost turned the wrong way, but managed a left flank.  After the first few files passed the turn everything shook out cleanly.  Evaine guided them up to the wall and a stop, then rode back, lining up one greathand after the next.   She had enough women to cover her line, but not so many extra that she was happy with the situation.  It would have been better if more of the Sisterhood was with her, but most Swordsisters were in blocking positions along the North and South Coast Roads.  Taking the pirates in the flank required that the pirates show up and present their flank, which they were doing slowly.  

Now the pirates were cheering and screaming and grunting like pigs in torment.    Finally, she saw, they advanced, as always leading with their right flank, their center and left trailing.  They were carrying a mix of swords and spears.  Here and there men carried scaling ladders to cope with the Torinsdale wall.  She'd had that built where the dune was steepest, not that it was ever very steep, and back filled.  Archers took a toll on the men as they closed, soaking the yellow soil with scarlet trails of blood.  That would weaken the attack, but far too many men were facing not nearly enough women.

Covering the closest trebuchet, the Vair Levy behind the Sisterhood began to shoot by volley, a solid hundred bolts dropping into the front of the pirate masses.  Those men went down like barley before a harvester.  The Vairites, she noted, followed South-Shore bow drill, the arrowmistress shouting 'Pull!', but bolts flew the quarter second apart that marked aiming and timing breath.  North-shore, bowdaughters held drawn bows until the arrowmistress shouted 'Let Fly', losing accuracy and wearing down arm muscles far faster.  She could see but not hear an exchange between Levy and Sisterhood Greatmistresses.  The levy divided their fire, shooting left and right of the Sisterhood line.  Covering the flanks, Evaine recognized, because the pirates will soon enough lap around both ends of the Sisterhood line.  She realized that the Sisters had absolutely no intent of withdrawing before they were surrounded, and wondered what the Vairites were planning.  She hoped it was not discarding bow for sword.  True, pirates had done very poorly at sword to sword against Swordsisters, but that was with something like even odds, sisters in armor, and sisters only needing to face front.  The Vairites were outnumbered, had no armor, and needed to face all ways.

Already pirates were reaching the Torinsdale line.  Pirate scaling ladders dropped forward.  Other pirates gamely tried to climb a sand cliff taller than they were.

"Be prepared to advance!"  Evaine shouted.   Her stallion responded at once to her reins and trotted back to the road.  At the road, the line bent.  Her shouted orders made clear which greathand was to hold, and which was to advance.  A knot formed in her stomach.  She was about to push the limits on complexity of field drill.  Facing left, she shouted "Drummers in front of me.  Down sticks.  Pass order along."  Facing right, she shouted "Drummers!  Beat 'hold for orders'!"  The call echoed down the line to the east. "Beat 'advance on flag!' " The second call and accompanying pipe tones rolled down the line.  Putting all her wind into her voice, she shouted.   "Listen up!  I am giving different orders to the line behind me.  Do not echo them!   Is that clear!  Do not echo them!"  After 'advance on flag', a drum order should be ignored, but half the line was too busy being frightened to remember that.

She turned left.  "The Third Smallhost will advance at the fastwalk.  Drummers.  Up sticks!  Attention to orders!  Play advance!"  Drums and pipes played.  She looked over her shoulder to the east.  As expected, dozens of women had heard the advance drum rolls and pipe call and moved out of formation.  However, the line was still in place, and those women were falling back where they belonged.  To her left, near to four hundred women, what was left of a smallhost after several stiff battles, were stepping neatly forward.

"Advance banner," she said quietly, taking the flag from her escort.  She stood in her saddle, waving it vigorously over her head.  Along the line, drummers played and pipes shrilled the opening bars of the advance tune.    They could not quite see yet what they were advancing against, but well down the line the first women came running over the dune, falling back from pirates who now held sections of the wall.

The view from atop the dune showed pirate successes.  The pirates had reached the wall over a good quarter-mile of its length.  To the north, women were falling back in good order, pausing momentarily at the top of the sand to shoot into pirates climbing toward them, then retreating, the pirates in pursuit.  The pirates seemed more interesting in helping friends climb the wall than in chasing a few opponents.  Still, one knot of women had managed to get itself surrounded.

Close up, pirates trying to climb the wall in the face of the Swordsisters were doing poorly.  Man after man raced up scaling ladders, to be cut down when they reached the top.  Pirates north and south of the Swordsister line were coming over the wall. The Vairites continued to send arrows into the pirates appearing at the top of the wall.   Vair women nearest the wall finally stacked bows and drew swords.  To Evaine's surprise, the remaining Vairites continued to shoot over the heads of their sisters.  That took real confidence in marksmanship.

"The Third Smallhost," Evaine said to its hostmistress, "will advance to and through the Vair formation.  While you're cutting your way through to the Sisterhood, you'll have to peel off enough women to cover the wall to shield your rear.  You have a reserve line.  Use them.   Stop with the Sisterhood holding your flank, and engage the pirates beyond with bows.  Vair uses our slotbow bolts.  Be nice and share supplies."

She rode back to the top of the dune.  For all that both wings of her host were at quick time, a gap was opening between the Third Smallhost's right flank and the entire right wing.  Geometry, she remembered distantly, if the right wing is advancing diagonally they don't move north as fast.  That gap would close as soon as the Third smallhost stopped, and in the meantime was not where the pirates were headed.

Ahead of her, pirates were being sandwiched between the Sisterhood and the Third Smallhost.  There was still a hundred fifty yards separating them, but very soon Vair archers would have to stop shooting this way or risk hitting her advancing women.  Of course, Vair confidence in their marksmanship was very high.  The pirates formed clumps and segments of line, pushing hard against the Vair women, but only forming up in front of her people.  

One huge knot of men was advancing.  They were led by pirate officers in their white shirts, bearers carrying their fancy dress coats, backed by several very tall pirates oddly dressed and a large collection of men waving swords.  The tall men were so lackadaisical about their circumstance as to be smoking pipes. Evaine positioned herself facing them, just behind the Torinsdale lines.  Here was where the battle was about to warm.  Here a loud voice pushing reserves forward would be most effective. Suddenly the very tall men produced liquor casks and appeared to drink from them.  

Evaine was pleased to see that some of her women were as fast as she to recognize what was happening. " Magic!" screamed one woman. "Those casks!  They're earthbreaker spells," another woman shouted.  The line flinched.  Several women broke formation and ran straight at the pirate magicians with polearms extended.  Others followed in their wake.   "Archers!" screamed one handmistress.  "Kill the magicians!" Too late, Evaine thought.  The pirate officers drew pocket stonethrowers and shot at the advancing women.  Two fell to the ground.  A third dropped her shield and broke into a faster run, a bright gout of blood shooting from her left arm.  She was dead, Evaine recognized, or so close as to make no difference, but her halberd took one magician in the chest.  She fell on top of him.  The other three magicians threw their casks toward the Torinsdale women.  One woman dropped sword and shield, caught the cask, and threw it back.  A second fell on top of the cask, forcing the cask to earth.  That might dampen the spell.  Evaine dreaded the woman's fate. The third cask landed in the middle of the lines in front of her.  Women threw themselves away from the cask, some falling to the ground while others ran in all directions.  The first cask landed at the foot of a pirate officer. His sword sketched the fastest trace of a salute to the woman who had tossed the cask back.  In her dreams afterwards, Evaine was always certain the pirate officer had closed by blowing the woman a kiss.

Ear shattering roars drowned out all other noise.  Evaine's stallion reared wildly, then toppled sideways. She kicked free from her stirrups and rolled her feet back, pushing off from the horse toward the distant sand.  She hoped her horse would not roll more than once.  The second roll would include her.  Her somersault was more forward than sideways; she barely missed landing on a woman's body, tried to end on her feet, and found herself sprawled on the sand.  Afterward, she realized she had remembered the fall-breaking strike to protect her head.  Soft sand or no, the impact still hurt.  Often enough, she had screamed at women who had taken a fall and not gotten up immediately.  Half-automatically, she levered herself up from the ground, got her right leg under her, and stood. 

Directly in front of her was a broad gap in the Torinsdale line, a gap at which large numbers of pirates were running. There were fewer pirates than there might have been, because quite visibly one of their spells had been turned against them. However, there were still a very large number of pirates are running straight at the gap, a gap in whose middle she stood.

"Torinsdale!" she shouted, "To me!"  She wondered if she could be heard, or if everyone was as a deaf as she seemed to be. She heard herself as if she were screaming while standing in a deep bath, her head under water.

Fogblade swept off her back into her hands.  A look over her shoulder showed reserves coming up, quickly, but not quickly enough.  Backing away from the pirates would chew up morale no end.    Of course, so would dying.  The pirates spread as they advanced, the officers gradually increasing their lead over their men.  The pirate wizards faded from sight.  She dropped into a Stalking Bumblebee, waited, then leaped into a Strike of the Cobra just before the first pirate reached her.  Her thrust slid through his guard, ruining his throat before it severed every artery in his neck.  A side-step and downswing killed the officer's coat holder.   A second officer jabbed wildly at her, losing his fingers to a Weeping Willow and his stomach and liver to a Crescent Moon.  Her backswing was parried by the third officer.  She rolled his blade into a trap, then kicked in his knee.  As he fell, she removed the top third of his head.  A low drop and spiral roll left her standing several paces to the side.  Four pirates in the intervening space lost hamstrings or legs at the ankle.

Now women were running by each side of her, women who were shouting her name as they ran down the leading pirates and hit the front of the advancing pirate mob.  The smallhost lined bowed forward in the flanks, its advance in the center stopped cold by the mass of pirates facing it.  That was not all to the good.  The Swordsisters and Vair Levy were increasingly pressed.  To her right, the larger part of her force was advancing on the trebuchets.  Every three dozen yards, the advance would stop, women in the front ranks kneeling while women in the back ranks plied their opponents with bowshot.  Seventy five yards down the dune, Vair archers were firing carefully aimed shots into the pirate rear.   Twice, she saw a pirate mage take a bolt through the head or chest.  They had done their spell crafting once, but would not get another chance to make mischief.

"Horse," Angela said from behind her.  Angela-vrith-Martyn had ridden down Evaine's stallion, dragged it back, and held it firmly to permit Evaine to mount.

The view standing in the saddle was far clearer.  Swarms of pirates were massed around three trebuchets, trying to destroy them.  A trebuchet was a collection of very thick wooden beams carefully bolted together.  These were green wood which Tomas regularly had doused with water, making them remarkably hard to burn.  Pirates with hatchets were chopping away, but that was rather slow work.  Considerable numbers of pirates were milling about or walking toward her cavalry line, which engaged them with bow when they got too close.  Pirate officers were trying to herd another large group of pirates into lines, a task complicated by Torinsdale archers who made those pirate officers their pinpoint targets.  The large knot of men in front of her was standing firm against her women.

"Brigandy," she said, "Ride around to the cavalry greathands.  My compliments to the greatmistresses, and they are to be considerably more aggressive about engaging pirates near the trebuchets, at least with bow.  They can advance parallel to the end of the infantry line.  Varanna, the 14th and 15th greathands  in the reserve line are to come up and replace the 19th  and 20th.  The 19th and 20th are to do a go-through attack, double time, to reinforce the Vair Reach archers."  The go-through was iffy, but the pirate lines were entirely disordered, and the Sisterhood with the archers was too outnumbered to stand alone.

Evaine held her breath to calm herself.  She had minimal reserves left: one greathand here, one at the far end of her line.  The pirate formations were disordered, more like swarms of men than legitimate ranks and files. As she watched, the hostmistress of the Third brought the remaining reserve greathand into the line.  A pirate in cloth coat had real challenges against a well-trained woman wearing chain mail, even ignoring that pirate sword handling left something to be desired, but the pirates had superior numbers.  There went the go-through attack, she though[t].  More than a hundred women began moving ahead at a run, their formation tattering with each step despite the incessant pound of drummers and wail of pipes behind them.   However, there were few pirates in their way until they were nearly onto the Vair Reach line, and those pirates had their backs to their new opponents.  Pirates attacking the Vair line were hit from the rear.  They fled or died.    For a while, the Vair formation was going to be disordered.  Torinsdale women replaced their Vair sisters in line, but that was not a practiced drill.

Over the field, pirates began to drift back toward their fortifications.  At first the motion was slow, individual men who stood still or took a step back.  Then small groups of pirates turned their back to Evaine's women, walked back some dozens of yards, and turned again.  

A shrill of pipes in the distance came from the cavalry greathands.  'Steel', Evaine recognized.  Then 'Advance!'  The advance was deliberate, no more than a slow trot.  Most women had lances down; others had swords.  The surviving Torinsdale infantry in that part of the line came running in their wake.  The charge was not quite what she had had in mind, when she asked for 'more aggressive'.  Moving up the bow line would have been safer.  

Ahead of the cavalry, pirates began to run away.  They had no formation, very few surviving officers, and had been taken while standing.  Now men began to jump off the trebuchets.  Those men had officers trying to hold them in place.  On one side of the farthest trebuchet, men stood firm.  On the other side, they jumped and ran.  Pipes shrilled in the infantry line.  They had been advancing slowly, by steps, rear ranks serving as archers.  The line went to the walk advance, bows over shoulders, swords drawn.  The full line of pipes started to serenade the pirates with the advance tune.

The pirate withdrawal dissolved into a rout, men fleeing for the safety of their lines.  Vair archers, freed now from fighting with sword, began dropping volleys into the retreating pirates.  Aimed fire took the pirates directly to Evaine's front.  That mass of men quivered, its resolved fading, and suddenly broke.  When it did, the surviving Swordsisters charged them from the rear.  Now the men were crowded from all sides, pressed into a smaller and smaller space.  Some were so tightly pressed that they had no room to swing a sword, not that dull swords were markedly effective against polearms.

Evaine smiled.  This was her favorite type of battle.  The enemy tried to run away.  Your people piled their corpses shoulder-high.  That was an exaggeration.  Almost never were pirates piling up more than two or three deep.    Around two of the trebuchets, men were clinging to the upper beams, seemingly daring women to climb up after them.  Massed bow fire at five paces dealt with them swiftly.  The Torinsdale line had advanced beyond the rise held by the Vair archers.

In the distance, she heard drums from the line.  Pipes stopped playing.  The command tune was 'Left flank march!'  Oh, bother! She thought.  The left half of the Torinsdale line was turning its line of advance, every woman pivoting through an eighth-circle and continuing the march.  The right half of the line was continuing straight ahead. Inexorably, a gap was forming in the middle, and there was precious little that she could do about it. The best that could be said for the situation was that there were no organized groups of pirates to exploit the situation. 

Along the Torinsdale parapet, pirates began to pile up like rice in a draining colander.  Each one had to go over an eight foot drop, get back to his feet, and move away from the parapet before the next man could come down the side.  That was a slow process, especially for men who tried to climb down the parapet rather than sliding on their backs.  The crowded masses of men were making fine targets for the archers who were still active. In the distance, the cavalry charge had been broken off in the face of dense clots of pirates who were too thick-packed to ride down.  The cavalrydaughters went back to their bows.  They faced slight resistance from a few pirate officers, who drew their small stone-throwers and tossed stones into the cavalry line. The very small stone-throwers seemed to be effective little more than sword point away.  At larger ranges they made noises, but it was difficult to see that they hit anyone with any frequency.  The release of stone-throwing spells did, however, serve to attract the attention of Torinsdale archers to surviving pirate officers, who were rapidly filled with bolts.

Evaine stood in her saddle.  Was there any was she could turn this into more of a rout than it already was?  She had almost no reserves.  Actually, no reserves at all, because her remaining reserve greathand was being brought down at the double to fill the gap in her lines.  No one seemed to be doing anything obviously wrong, especially when she allowed that changing orders was often more dangerous than executing wrong orders well.  She would need to discuss with her hostmistresses why the Torinsdale line had split, but that was a question of judgement, and the pirates were fleeing for their lives.  And now the left edge of the Torinsdale line was reaching the parapet, pivoting to hold it, and giving Torinsdale bowdaughters fine lines of sight on pirate backs.  Swordsisters filled the gaps along the wall, not that the pirates were trying to climb.  If the Vair archers had slackened their fire, they had been doing fast fire for most of the battle, and were likely both short on bolts and seriously tired.

There were the trebuchet crews, inspecting their machines, checking that the bolts remained tight, that no beams had been damaged badly. A trebuchet was a collection of thick wooden beams, bolts, and heavy weights.  You could take it apart, or you could try to set it on fire, but it was not something that would be easily broken.   A pirate gatesmasher spell might break one, but the pirates hadn't tried that.  One crew had already started to winch their trebuchet down and prepare for the next shot.  The surviving pirates would be beyond their wall by then, but having reached safety after a panicked flight, they very well might stop and catch their breaths.

A galloping rider on a winded horse came up to her.  "Warlady Evaine!  Warlady Evaine!" she shouted.  "Urgent message from Greatmistress Roxanne."  She pulled a cylinder from her saddlebags and handed it over.  Evaine realized that she probably should have anticipated what she was about to hear, not that she could do anything about it.

"Evaine," the message read.  "The blocking force on the Gull Harbor road is being attacked by several thousand pirates. I must be reinforced, perhaps sooner than is possible, or I must withdraw."

"Bother," Evaine whispered under her breath.  Roxanne's lines were well back from the pirate lines, but the extra few hundred yards of open ground would make little difference.  The pirates would still spend more time crossing their own moat than they would closing on Roxanne's barriers.

"You heard Roxanne's words?" Evaine asked.  The messenger had better have heard them and listened closely.  "Was Roxanne truly prepared to withdraw?"  Roxanne had perhaps 500 women; she would be outnumbered by three to one or so.  Few Swordsisters used the bow well; the pirates would close on Roxanne's positions with relatively few casualties.  At pointblank range, the pirate small stonethrowers were probably effective weapons.  She had been careful to engage pirates at greater distances, but Roxanne might not have that option.

"Yes, Warlady," the Messenger answered.  Fianna, Evaine thought, the messenger was Fianna Gailsdotr, a woman who had performed well during training as handmistress and greatmistress.

"That's a relief," Evaine said.  "As you can see, we are going no place until we are finished with our own battle.  That's, at a fair estimate, most of an hour.   Then, for us, up to the Hill Road, out to Bluefin, back down the coast road to Roxanne, that's another hour or more.  That's so late it's meaningless."  Evaine did not quite gnash her teeth.  She had reasonably expected the pirates would take hours to get in place and start an attack, and that she would have fair warning.  She had also expected them to blast away for a prolonged time with their large stonethrowers before making an infantry assault. Without that time advantage, the pirates could be all over the Swordsister blocking force before she could reinforce them.  "So advise Roxanne."

"At once, Warlady," Fianna answered.  

"Sunspeaker to Tayberry," Evaine said.  "Querry Millersport locations of pirate forces between their walls.  Have pirates toward Periwinkle moved?"  It would be annoying, Evaine considered, if the pirates now tried an advance up the Tayberry Road.  She'd have to chase and do battle with their rear guard.  

A careful survey of the battlefield found nothing surprising.  The pirates were falling back, many at a run.   Their last order had shivered to atoms.   Sisterhood medical support was working across the battlefield, incidentally cutting the throats of any pirates they found still alive, though most women were fairly careful to make sure they did not leave living pirates behind them.  She had passed general orders that Torinsdale should try to capture pirates of prominence, but she had personally killed all three of them.  There were standing orders that pirate mages were to captured alive, so that they might be induced to reveal how one enchanted pirate charcoal.   The small stonethrowers were poor weapons, but extra bolts in one's quiver often proved useful eventually.  The order on pirate mages faced one challenge: no one knew what a pirate mage looked like.  She had managed, when the pirates fled from Gull Harbor, to capture a pair of pirate blue robes.  They had been stripped of their cowls, wrapped in plain cloth, and ridden off to Caer Adurel to await later attention.

Evaine passed Angela her reins and dismounted.  The fracas to her front had died out, literally for a mass of pirates who did not scream for long after they were down.  She had hit hard from her vault off her horse, and motion now would avoid stiffness later.  Besides, she told herself, she wanted to look at her maps, better done while standing on her own feet.  Her forces here would be tied up for quite some time.  The women near Periwinkle would need forever to march back and forth.  That was why their retreat had been so extensively mapped and planned.

"Message from Tayberry," a voice said from over her shoulder.  "From Millersport.  Pirates have abandoned lines south of the Tayberry road.  They are now all north of the Tayberry Road and moving north.  Large pirate mob is storming North Coast Road barrier.   Millersport is lobbing stones at the rear of that mob, all else being out of reach. They appear to have crossed the barrier near the beach.  Tayberry says Millersport-side pirate wall has been abandoned everywhere."

A pirate had finally been competent, Evaine thought.  They had launched a pinning attack here, enough to entangle her reserves, and were going to break out to the north.  Where were they going?  That was less clear.  Perhaps they believed St. Dana's bay was still in their possession.  Perhaps they simply wanted to escape from her trap.  Running out of water might have focused their minds.  Getting in front of them, let alone around to reinforce Roxanne, was impossible.  

There was an alternative.  "Message to Millersport, Periwinkle, wall garrisons south of Tayberry road," she announced.  "That's sunspeaker to Millersport, riders to wall, Lightnings That Speak to Periwinkle."  Attacks by converging column were hazardous in the extreme, because they could not be timed effectively.  Sunspeaker and magic changed that precept.  "Pirates are abandoning walls and heading north.  A few may remain behind.  Advance immediately in open order toward the pirate wall, with ladders as available.  Do not advance straight at large stone throwers.  It takes only one man to release one.  If practicable, cross the wall.   Move north in good order, clearing entire area of pirates.  Withdraw if numbers unfavorable.  Stop at Tayberry road."  She hadn't planned a storming attack on the pirate lines of circumvallation, but some days Her Aspect as Warrior beat you over the head with an opportunity.  The pirates were fleeing north, and her women would follow.

Chapter 39
Caer Adurel, Torinsdale
From the Diary of Rudi von und zu Manningtonmontanusberg
Magister 17, 1654

The Beyonders have given us remarkably generous quarters in a walled keep, almost a walled town, I believe well to the south of the place where I was captured.  We are fed well, though on a diet richer in vegetables than would be customary in Nordheim.  Every other day, we are marched to a public bath, bathed, and given fresh-cleaned clothing.  Yes, that is every other day, not every other week.  

'We' are a remarkably diverse group. Fleet-Captain Gonsalvo and his son Giorophoro share the chamber across from mine, a chamber as large as an Admiral's suite on a troop carrier. Gonsalvo has been allowed some of his books.  Our three Unifacatorio mercenaries spend their time playing cards and chess.  They joke that if they are here for long enough, they will all retire on their gambling earnings.  Henri Montesquieu and Francois Quatrefontaine have taken up writing poetry. They spend half their day congratulating each other on particularly felicitous turns of phrase.

My nominal superior, Captain-General Piccololini, has gradually recovered from his extremely serious fall.  How his horse managed to roll on him without breaking half his bones is beyond me.  He shares his cell with Captain-General Mondragoni, the former commander of all our forces.  For all that Piccololini's motions are still pained, and Mondragoni is fit and active, it is Piccololini who watches Mondragoni, while Mondragoni lies trapped in a pit of blackest despair.  He lost his army to a band of women.  Worse, it really appears that his forces outnumbered the women who defeated him.  

Finally, two brothers of the Order of the Sword and a brother of the Order of Casimir share a smaller cell in the farthest corner of the floor.  The Sword-Brothers were stripped of their robes, but the Brother of the Order of Casimir was allowed to retain his.  We profess bafflement as to why, though I privately believe the answer to be obvious.  Casimirians whisper advice in the ears of the great and powerful, and elsewise stay out of sight.  The Sword-Brothers systematically purify the enemies of He Who Conquers, and our enemies saw them doing so.  Slicing people to pieces while they are still alive is not an effective way to make friends among the heathen.  Indeed, when after various battles the Sword-Brothers have sought to transfer their allegiance to the local rulers among the women, they instead share the fate of the people they purified.  My heart is deeply broken.  

All right, I confess.  I have never really believed in sorcerers, except as something to add spice to a comic opera.  I have also never seen a man summon lightning from his fingertips.  Fortunately, their sorcerer had the exquisitely refined manners of a Unifacatorio nobleman, and summoned a very tiny piece of lightning scarcely a few inches long, rather than summoning a bolt that smashes mighty oak trees and incidentally cooks alive every witness to his deeds.  We are all firmly convinced that he is a sorcerer.  He wants something from us, but he sees the world from such a strange viewpoint that we are unable to divine the import of his questions, questions that of course must be acted out in pantomime.

The Fleet-Captain's son has been cleverer than the rest of us combined.  While we sit, Giorophoro has managed to be allowed the freedom of the Keep, with an appropriate escort, of course. While we talk to each other, he talks to our guards, and is learning to speak Parlefemina.  Actually, that is not what they call their language, but their name goes on for more syllables than I can readily count.  He also has managed to gain the friendly company of several young women.  One, several years his junior, is learning Franzosa and Intermontagnac from him.  She always has a substantial bodyguard, a half-dozen alert women wearing full armor.  I conclude that she is the daughter of someone important, likely the Lord of the Manor.  Perhaps 'Lady of the Manor'.  A second woman is a few years older than he, attractive and energetic.  Hopefully the two of them will not get into too much mischief, though when not much older than his age I would certainly have had a different opinion on the desirability of getting into mischief, at least with a young lady who looked like her.  Curiously, my parents would have shared my current attitude toward the question.  The third is the handsome grown woman who first addressed me in Nordheimer, a language which I now know she can read but not understand.  She and a team of scribes keep us all busy, hours every day, learning our languages.  

I may be in error about learning.  They are recording what they deduce of Intermontagnac and every other language we speak, but they are not taking the learning into their hearts.  Nor, when we offer to help them digest their new tongues, do they seem to understand what we are offering to do. Francois has proposed an explanation, one that fits the facts, but otherwise is even more fantastic than his hero's flight to the Sun in his most recent play.  He proposes that not only do all women speak the same Parlefemina, so that it is the only language they know, but they do not know that there are foreign languages, let alone how a foreign language is to be learned.  Mind you, there is a much more effective way of learning a foreign language than the one he imagines, but it requires having several of these women on my side of my bars, and the services of a comfortable bed.

I have as a fellow soldier made a point of listening to Captain-General Mondragoni's accounts of his defeat.  Even the knowledge that his foe is a Valkyrie who beat me in hand to hand combat does not cheer him.  Mondragoni had thought to execute an entirely orthodox campaign.  He established a fixed base out of reach of the enemy, who could not have known that it was there, marched south, and laid siege to the principal local port, leaving a more than adequate screening force to cover his supply lines.  The siege proved extremely difficult.  The town gate and walls should have crumbled at the touch of a petard and various blasting charges.  They shrugged off the explosions.  Then Piccololini lost a battle and most of his screening army.  Mondragoni does not blame Piccololini for losing the army.  Piccololini faced a challenging battle, and had his horse roll, knocking him unconscious.  His subordinates proceeded to lose.  As one of the few witnesses to the battle, I could disabuse Mondragoni of certain of his misapprehensions, in particular his belief that the battle was only lost after Piccololini was knocked on the head, but I do not believe that it is advantageous for me to correct the record.  

The enemy attacked Mondragoni's supply line, laying siege to our second-class nearby port.  When we sortied, we were defeated.  I have listened to several accounts of the events.  I infer that our men tried a surprise attack in column with sword, against a foe with large numbers of truly excellent bows.  

The women then captured the warship in the town's harbor.  Gonsalvo has no idea what happened to his ship, other than that he awoke from an undisturbed sleep to find several swords at his throat.  For a time he thought that his crew had mutinied, and that was about to die at the hands of the mutineers.  At down's light, our men in the town discovered that the warship's large cannon had been repointed at the town, that reboarding the ship was impossible, and therefore that they were obliged to flee.  Blocking forces were well fortified. A pursuit killed most of the escapees.

Mondragoni found himself boxed between the town walls and a relieving force.  His supply of powder was low.  He planned to wait for resupply from the north.  He had believed that the enemy did not know the secret of gunpowder, a belief that persisted until the morning that the women first towed Gonsalvo's ship into port and then began shelling Mondragoni's camp.  The enemy already had giant crossbows, making it unhealthy to expose yourself in the part of Mondragoni's camp that was close to the town walls.  The range of the cannon was greater than that of the crossbows.  

Waiting was no longer an option.  Mondragoni made a sortie against the enemy lines, but his force had had morale failure.  They routed, disgracing themselves in the eyes of He Who Conquers.  Mondragoni says he inflicted substantial losses on the women he was facing.  Simultaneously, Mondragoni tried a breakout north, encountering obstacle after obstacle while rearguard after rearguard was chewed to pieces by pursuers. The enemy women finally cornered his broken troops and killed them.  Mondragoni was one of the few survivors.  

While I doubt my observations will ever reach a Captain faithful to He Who Conquers, I think it is still worthwhile to discuss why the Faithful lost each battle.  The serious difficulty is that the women here are ignorant of the teachings of He Who Conquers and His Prophetic Generals, and fail to comply with the Divinely Ordained patterns of battle.   They do not even form swordthrust columns as a tactic. Furthermore, their arms and training are not similar to those encountered elsewhere.  Perhaps it is also the case that our men are too busy admiring the figures of their opponents to remember their own martial figures.

It is the case that the women have excellent bows, firing crossbow bolts to great range, but based on longbows in their design, so that the draws are more gentle than with crossbows.  On close examination, the innards of the bows are filled with little wheels whose purpose evades me.  In any event, the women engage effectively with bow at ranges at which muskets are disappointing in their effect, using ranges and rates of fire that one would not expect, at least from bowmen in the lands of He Who Conquers.  It would further seem that the women have all been issued enchanted swords that do far more damage than one would anticipate, even though the women insult their blades by wrapping them in leather rather than metal scabbards as directed by He Who Conquers.  It does seem that going hand to hand, dueling foil and cotton shirts against fine swords, chain mail, and pole arms, is inadvisable.  Unlike the natives of the Half-Conquered Lands, whose warriors always fell into disorder during the charge, when women maneuver they maintain formation most excellently.

I have watched the women train. Their training is exhausting even to watch.   They spend large amounts of time picking up and setting down buckets filled with sand.  Perhaps there is some twisted religious rite involved, because they repeat precisely the same motion time after time after time, exactly like a cloistered monk chanting himself into a state of elevated consciousness.  Particularly odd is their sword training.  Instead of having women cross blades with each other, the more experienced teaching the less experienced by pain of example, they drill moves, all the while wearing actual armor. The High Warriors of the Sun-Emperor's court do this, I have read, warriors training moves for months or years without ever kissing blades with a mock opponent, but no sensible soldier does anything of the kind.  Most odd is the duration of their training, not an hour or two in the morning, and another hour in the afternoon, but hour after hour after hour, down to quick time marching from drill field to breakfast--they practice before breakfast, as though they were farm bumpkins who needed to milk their cows--and back again.  The number of bolts fired on the practice range is awesome.  Of course, bolts seldom break, though it may be work to dig them up where they landed, so they are unlikely to run out.  However, what am I to make of women sitting in rows on bleachers while another one stands in front talking, as though they were budding Masters of Law memorizing their precedents? Masters of Law at least sit quietly, while the women on bleachers keep bobbing up and down.

* * * * *
  
"Evaine-sa?" the Vair Grandmother asked politely, her prim lips framed by snow-white hair.  Evaine looked up with a start. She was working hard, pushing closer and closer to exhaustion, and had found that a few short naps across the day left her alert and full of vigor into late evening.   She had not quite been napping.

"Delphinia!  Good to see you.  I was afraid you would all leave before I saw you again."  Evaine was on her feet, smiling, pausing her words to hug the older woman.  The Vair Reach contingent had made a major difference in the final battles, but had uncomplainingly suffered grievous casualties.  She gestured the older woman down onto a camp stool.

"We are indeed about to leave," she answered.  "Our dead are buried.  Our wounded are recovered, or able to ride horse-litters to Millersport and a Vair Reach sailboat.   We will miss the generosity of our hosts.  Your kindness and concern for our women speaks highly of your mother's Circle.   Lady Cheryl did mention a shortage of long timbers for ridge-poles, and we shall be sending a fair number at a very good price."

"I still owe you an apology, one I cannot make good.  I tried to protect you all, but Vair suffered grievous casualties," she answered.  

"Evaine, put that behind you," Delphinia said.  "Our daughters had to cross swords with them, to see how well steel bites their hides. We did.  Honor the dreams of the volunteers who died facing the pirates.  But I have for you a proposition, one entirely legal."

"Ask," Evaine said.  "What can I do for you?"

"Your contract is year to year," Delphinia reminded.  "You get bed, board, second hand clothing, and a few pennies in a week.  But your contract ends. This year-end, join us. We trust foreigners and let them buy adequate space.  We want you to train our militia.  Our archers are a source of pride, but when swords kiss steel, we want our daughters to be more deadly than they were last time.  We need someone better than us to train our daughters. You, for example. We pay respectably well, not poorly, the way Lady Cheryl does."

"I have not spoken of Lady Cheryl's pay," Evaine said.

"You have been totally honorable," Delphinia said.  "But we know you asked her for a change in your circumstances.  Your request was highly appropriate given all you have done.  We are surprised that Lady Cheryl did not agree.  In the Reach, a Senior Battlemistress--we rarely have one--who earns her keep is paid well indeed.  I shall speak no words on this."  She handed Evaine a sheet of paper.

Chapter 40
Caer Adurel, Torinsdale
Wintertouch 11, 2448

"Evaine," Tomas announced, "You are my Cornet.  You will be accompanying me to Union this afternoon."

"Union it is," she agreed.  Her eyebrows crinkled. "What is the event?"

"It seems that the Great Senate suddenly turned around and agreed with Angela's book," he said.  "I received a signed and sealed letter this morning.  The Great Senate sent north, because the criminal complaint was in Shire Cismontane-by-the-Sea, eight Senators, and two Greathands of Senate Lunar Guards to protect them.  The Senators…the Senators are the eight women who Angela identified as the current ringleaders of the tax misallocation ring.  So I am to charge them, formally, with misdeeds, and then they will return to Capitol for a fuller investigation."

"They came here?" Evaine asked.  "Wouldn't it be cheaper for you to go there?  A lot cheaper?"  A gaggle of Senators coming north did not sound to match Angela-vrith-Martyn's expectations.  For all that Angela seemed to care little about her own money, she was very sensitive to protecting other people's wealth.  After all, that was what her house had done through several revelations, as she had had drilled into her from birth.  Perhaps before birth.

"In any event, we leave tomorrow morning, arrive for lunch, have dinner, and the ceremony is at Shieldrise in the Union Pavilion of Justice.  I will be exquisitely polite, because it might in principle be true that they happen to be innocent.   I was sent a copy of the city map and our promenade, my route from my Inn to the Senatorial abode in the Pavilion, planned to show off to the great and powerful of Union that justice is being done.  Here's the letter if you want to see it."  He passed Evaine a rolled manuscript, waiting while she scanned it carefully.  "Is something wrong?" he asked.

"The latest broadsheets from Capital--I read those; they might indicate a threat to Torinsdale--speak of a Senate so riddled with internal dissension that it is unable to form a quorum.  There have been riots--I suspect street demonstrations not random mass destruction--in major towns as far east as Adirolph Granda," Evaine said.  "Most places, there seems to be a vigorous group of people saying Angela's book is a pile of lies.  They say exactly the same thing on the same day in very different places.  Apparently their controllers are too cheap to use multiple ghost writers.  Now suddenly here are exactly the people you wanted to charge, being brought north to present to you.  And it so happens the Senate has flipped on Roxanne, want her and Dotty to show up to witness the charging, and show that all is forgiven on those criminal charges against Dotty."

"And we should complain if finally justice is being done?" he asked not quite in exasperation.

"They also want Dorothy and Roxanne there as witnesses," Evaine said.  "And they say you can skip your escort, 'because ', because you won't need one: the town is secure and there are no stray pirates wandering  about."

"This is excellent news," Tomas said.  "Because there have been reports last month that the remaining pirates have been spreading farther and farther into the Republic, so that they have been hunted down even in the Vair Reach."

"Not to mention we are catching several a week in the Vale," she added in exasperation.  "Though far fewer than two months ago.  But only because we have searched diligently."

"Is something the matter?" Tomas asked.

"As the Torinsdale Armsmistress, I shall ensure that you have a proper escort," she announced flatly.  "You may array them by men's dozens, but you will have an Interlocutor's guard. Dorothy is a Land-Heir and will have an escort appropriate to her rank.  And inside Union you will each have a bodyguard, as specified by the Treaty of Settlement.  If I could talk you out of going, by directing that they brought here, I would do so."

* * * * *

Tomas sat stiffly upright in the carriage seat.  It was a fine day.  The awning kept the sun off his head.    At first he had not approved of Evaine's demand for bodyguards, but mother had been insistent.   After due thought he had even agreed that they were right. Besides, he told himself, he had never heard of an Interlocutor with a substantial escort, but now he had four greathands of them.  His wonderful daughter had been entirely happy to be decked out as a Torinsdale Land-Heir, her cape lined with the black silk that marked her as a Black-Robe mage.  She had four Greathands of Torinsdale Formed Levy as her escort.  Evaine had assured him that those forces were more than sufficient to deal with any ambush outside Union, even ignoring the cavalry greathand posted on the flanks.  Inside Union, there might be assassins, but she had given him escorts.  She was still worried about an assassin with crossbow, but inside Union he would be a short man wearing a padded silk gown, white with black trim, surrounded by tall women wearing good armor.  He did not dwell on the two carefully separated boxes of material components he had brought with him.  Evaine had not asked why he had selected as a witness neither Angela nor Lady Cheryl but a Blue-Robe apprentice mage, a girl half his age whose thaumaturgical duties included an hour a day throwing heavy rocks underhand at small posts in the practice field.  

As they closed on Union, Tomas could see confusion on the walls.  He had insisted that the Interlocutor sigil be flown as a standard, not a banner, so anyone in front of them could be in no doubt of who he was.  Nonetheless someone had lined up a half-hand of Union Civic Guards to stand across the foot of the moat bridge, incidentally blocking all other traffic into town.

Evaine's voice rang out, clear as a peacock's trumpet, from the front of the formation.  "Drummers!  Sticks up!  Pipers!  Ready!  Ready 'Her Left Arm Strikes Ever Justly!' Play!"   The Pipemistress, ensconced on horseback at the formation's front, raised and lowered her mace.  Pipers began the seldom-heard if unusually melodious Interlocutor's March, precisely as they had been practicing it since this morning.  Tomas assumed that many of the notes were coming off in more or less the right order.

Road traffic toward Union began to drift into the neighboring fields.  Another four Union Civic Guards appeared across the road, joined by an older woman.  The Torinsdale--no, he corrected himself, Interlocutor--formation came closer and closer to their line.  He hoped Evaine had not decided to ride them down.  The Pipemistress raised her baton, stilling the pipes and drums.  Not, Tomas considered, that drums were needed.  The pound of boots on the paving was quite audible enough.

Evaine raised one hand, waving.  That was a command gesture, Tomas realized, though he had no idea which one.  He hoped it was not 'Charge!'.  Her hand came down. Thump! Thump! The Torinsdale women took two steps and stopped, bannerdaughters ten yards from the Union line. Evaine turned in her saddle, pointing at him, and gesturing him forward.

"Come along, dear," he said to Roxanne.  "We're wanted, for a change."  Roxanne took the ladder down the side of the wagon, then helped Tomas to the ground. 

"Interlocutor's Guard!" Evaine shouted.  "Outwards, face!  Two steps! Forward!  Spears and swords!"  Ahead of Tomas, the women of his guard pivoted and moved to the edge of the road.  The first line dropped their spears to horizontal, while the second row of women drew their swords.  Tomas was gratified to note that they had avoided puncturing spectators.  He walked between their lines, Roxanne unnaturally following in his wake.  She was a woman, who should naturally lead, but this was his event.

Finally he reached the Union Civic Guards.  His bannerdaughter posted to his right, slightly ahead of him.  Evaine, on horseback, rode to his left.  

"His Grace, Tomas," Evaine announced, "Lady's Interlocutor of Shire Cismontane-by-the-Sea, and his lawful escort, a legal proceeding to be attending."

"Is something wrong?" Tomas asked blandly.  "I am here at the invitation of the Great Senate, at an invitation forwarded to me through Union.  I am to be quartered at the Golden Mare Inn, my escorts being housed in the Sisterhood barracks opposite.  I am to read allegations against Senators sa-Hilbert, sa-Euler, sa-Fermat, and their alleged accomplices tonight, somewhat after Shieldrise.  Is there some reason why my path is being obstructed?  We have had a long walk, and I am tired.  I am hungry.  I would prefer to lie down and recover from the rigors of my journey."  He noted Evaine struggling to keep a straight face.   Given the chance, she would suggest something cruel, say that the worst rigor of Tomas's journey had been waiting for Roxanne to peel him another grape.  They had been good grapes, too.

"All these soldiers are your escort?"  the Union officer asked. "I am Greatmistress Annike, should it matter."

"The women wearing white neckerchiefs are the escort," Evaine answered. Tomas had already decided that he didn’t want to know how many old bedsheets had been sacrificed for those pieces of cloth. "The others are the Guard fixed by treaty for Land-Heir Dorothy Gretchen Roxannesdotr-vrith-Emmitsford-sur-Maserin, whose mother stands before you."  

Greatmistress Annike crossed her arms.  "Be so kind as to have the land-heir come forward," she said.  "With her escorts.  The rest of her party must camp outside town, at such place as it chooses on the City Common."  She pointed over a small lake at a green field.  Roxanne waved at Dorothy, calling her to the front.

Dorothy approached. "Land-heir and Mage," Evaine corrected, "Dorothy Roxannesdotr is a black-robe mage, her proof-spell being the steering of a flijtschiff."   Dorothy fluffed her cape out wide, the black lining contrasting with the brilliant Torinsdale gold and green of her coat and trousers.  Several Union women lurched a half-step backward at the sight of the black.  They seemed to have forgotten that Tomas was also a mage.  Evaine stretched, readying herself for a very fast draw indeed if any injury were offered to Dotty.  Dotty's two escorts were hardly slower at coming ready.   

Tomas continued his bland smile.  His dear daughter only had two escorts.  It was a bit difficult to disguise that Deann, at six feet and two hundred pounds, was a large though not at all fat woman, but the Swordmistress, dressed to hide her build, looked more innocent.  Annike looked carefully at Dorothy's brooch, the Winged Lion of the Flijtmagerie, and the lining of her cape.

"Pass, friends," Anneke announced meekly.  "May your stay be pleasant and prosperous."  Anneke shooed the gate guards to one side of the bridge.  The Interlocutor's guard resumed its march, Tomas and Roxanne being swept up in the middle.   The Torinsdale levy pivoted right and began its march across the Common.

* * * * *

Tomas swept into the Golden Mare's largest room, Roxanne and Dorothy in his trail.  They were preceded by the Innkeeper, a stout woman of thirty years who had brooked no nonsense from the City Council.  The City Council wanted her to continue to rent to regular customers.  Her answer was simple.  The Great Senate had rented her Inn in its entirety for three days, and so for those three days every room was the Senate's.  Where her guests slept was up to them, they having paid for every bed.

Evaine surveyed the room approvingly.  The very large third-floor window faced the Sisterhood barracks, which Tomas's guards now filled.  The lower panes of glass had been lightly frosted for privacy.  Even with curtains open, an assassin would need to fly on the back of an eagle to peer in.    Dorothy's room was equally secure.  Evaine had posted guards in the rooms on every side, the corridor, and every stairway landing.  Several hands of women ringed the building, while a substantial number of guards sat in the tavern room and near the kitchen doors.  Others had been sent to wash and bed, to be fully alert for the night watch.  There was a widow's walk around the roof cupola.  She had stationed archers there, one of whom was instructed to watch the sky.  She had found a woman who had actually seen a flijtschiff and would recognize one if it appeared.

The Inn had a windmill on its roof, pumping water to a large attic cistern, which it maintained bathing and sanitary facilities around the building.  In any emergency, Evaine noted approvingly, it could also be used to resist fires.  The brick-lined fire escape stairs were a more convincing safety precaution.  The 'Interlocutor's Guard' happened to be the four best units in the Torinsdale Formed Levy.  The next four were camped just beyond the Union Common.

At some time in the afternoon, Union's purveyor of specialty cordials would make her appearance, to meet with Tomas to plan after-dinner beverages for each of several events he was staging.  They were all very small and select, nothing to break anyone's budget, but they would be of the highest quality.  The purveyor in question had moved to Union from Torinsdale an eight-year ago, professing to be a devout Republican disgusted with Domain politics.  She gave excellent prices to town officials, and was always willing to lend an ear to misfortune.   She was also Torinsdale's chief spy on this part of the Shire.  Her highly successful export-import business in Vale cordials justified regular trips back and forth by her salesdaughters, some of whom also carried other messages.  Evaine already knew what Domain forces appeared to be in Union.  The woman whose parallel meatpie baking and delivery business put women in every corner of the town would know the rest.

Somewhat later, the women she had sent out into town, out of uniform, would come back.  Officially, they were getting the chance to see a town they would elsewise never visit, worship at several shrines, or talk to distant relatives.  They would actually do all those things.  They would also look carefully at their surroundings.  The limit was that Torinsdale did not train spies, so they might overlook the obvious.  On the other hand, the Republic did not train spies, so Evaine's women could be fairly clumsy without arousing suspicions.

She had made a courtesy visit to the Pavilion of Justice where Senator sa-Hilbert and collaborators would meet them.  The Lunar Guards had the building surrounded. When asked, she maintained she was just familiarizing herself with the route Tomas and party would be taking in the evening.  She expressed worry that pirate mages might try striking at Tomas or his party.  The Lunar Guards expressed sympathy that she had had to cope with a man's night fears.  She was also quizzed about the pirates, their weapons and tactics.  She gave the answers that she could.  When she asked 'did you bring armor along, should the pirates appear?' the answer was that Lunar Guards never wore armor.  It clanked too much.  Nor, it seemed, did they have archers: Bows were less practical inside Senate buildings.  She allowed them to handle her fogblade.  Most of them only tried holding it two-handed, which said something about their conditioning.   In return she got to handle a Lunar Guard sword, a rather short, beautifully silver-chased weapon whose sharpness, guard, and balance left much to be desired.

* * * * *

Finally evening had arrived.  Tomas's Party assembled in the Inn's Great Room.  Tomas, Roxanne and Dorothy were the actual party.  Deann and the Swordmistress were Dorothy's escort.  Evaine was formally Tomas's Torinsdale escort, while Jessamine Larksongsdotr in her formal blue-robe gown was Tomas's Archimagate escort.  The tavern supplied two bearers, their lamps hanging at the end of long poles.  Evaine looked carefully over the group.  Tomas wore Interlocutor's white and black.   His Interlocutor's brief case was slung over one shoulder; a small bag stamped with the Archimagate seal went over the other.  Roxanne wore her dress uniform as Great Inspector of Field forces.  Evaine had wished there were some way to work body armor into Roxanne's clothing, but that option appeared to be unavailable.  Dorothy yawned--this was well after her normal bed time--but stifled her yawn and smiled when she saw Evaine looking in her direction. Land-heirs did not yawn, not matter the hour, not when they were on public display.  The landlady looked worried.  Was anything wrong, Evaine wondered?  Perhaps she worried too much about what should be an elegantly formal occasion.

"The Shield has risen.  Are we finally ready?" Tomas asked.  One of the many things Evaine liked about Tomas was that he was always prepared early, so that if something went wrong there was time to take corrective action.  Their eyes met.  She nodded ever so slightly.  "Then let us be under way," he directed.  They headed for the door, Evaine very slightly in the lead.

Lights still burned in windows of homes and apartments.  The Shield burned brilliant white above the eastern horizon, setting long wavering shadows fluttering across the ground.  A lone cat stared in their direction and ran from sight.  Waiting for them were fife and drummers of the Civic Guard and a Union bannerdaughter.  This was, Evaine reminded herself, supposed to be a demonstration of the triumph of civic good.  To be a demonstration it had to be witnessed.  The drummers would indeed summon witnesses, only a few of whom would be displeased at being summoned from a sound sleep.

Fife and drummers sprang to life, snare drums pounding while fife players began their feline screeching.  Evaine remembered South-shore, where musicians were expected to play tunes.  In the Republican, volume and atonality ruled the day.  Evaine would have been happier without them.  Often you could hear assassins before you saw them, but hearing an assassin over that Boy-inspired screech and pound would be impossible.

Their path passed several squares lined with townsfolk.  Evaine had not expected several of them to throw rice.  The flower petals tossed from two upper windows were also unexpected.  On the other hand, Union greathands had taken the brunt of the losses in the Battle of Millersport, losses that might have been avoided if the Sisterhood's taxes had not been systematically stripped by the conspiracy.

This was the last plaza before their destination, Evaine noted, a small octagon, with solid doorless walls on five sides and alleys to east, west, and north.  A somewhat improbably-proportioned statue of Her Aspect as Mother occupied the southern faces.  In full daylight, Evaine had been able to read the plaque under the statue: The entire square was supported by a perpetual endowment left by one of the town's founders, a woman whose wealth--to Evaine's taste--had greatly exceeded her good sense in how to invest it.  Of course, when built the statue had been outside the town walls.

The pipers and drummers pivoted at the jog in the alley, turning and vanishing from sight.  Evaine had stared at a street map of Union, carefully enough to remember features of roads on each side of the route, but the effort had been more than she would want to try regularly.  Union Property lines were the consequence of several thousand years of purchases, negotiations, circle divorces, revelations… Roads ran many ways, but rarely straight.

The fifes sounded oddly muffled in the distance.  Without conscious thought, Evaine settled into the least conspicuous of the quick-draw postures.  The bannerdaughter came to the turn, hesitated, and dashed around the corner.  Evaine glanced over her shoulder at the Swordmistress, who nodded back.  The rest of their party was oblivious, but they had both seen something a bit off-key.

Around the corner came a woman Evaine did not know, wearing the antique toga of the Great Senate, a line of Lunar Guards to each side.  The alley was four women wide, Evaine thought, that with women packed a little too close to be able to use weapons effectively.  The Lunar Guards had not yet drawn swords.  Less noise that way, Evaine thought.  Tomas's lampbearers stumbled to a halt.  Evaine took additional steps forward, closing most of the distance on the women in front of her.  Her eyes fastened blandly on the Senator.

"Why, Senator sa-Euler," Roxanne said, quite loudly.  "Fancy encountering you and your friends here this evening.  We were told you would be waiting for Tomas at the Pavilion."

"A pavilion you will not be reaching," sa-Euler answered, "not in this incarnation. Lunar Guards!"

"Lunar Guards!" Tomas shouted.  Evaine had not realized how effectively Tomas could project his voice.  If he had been a woman, he would have a great future as a Drillmistress.  "I am the Goddess's Own Interlocutor!  Place this woman…"

"Kill them!  Kill them all!  And the one-loving pervert's..." the Senator continued, her voice not quite competing with Tomas's.

Evaine's fast-draw was well ahead of the Lunar Guards' response.  Tactical awareness said two hands of Lunar Guards were charging down the north alley, and another three hands were in the east alley behind them.  Roxanne and the Swordmistress had swords half-drawn.  Swordmistress grabbed Deann by one shoulder and pivoted her to face the East alley.  Tomas was…this seemed not the moment to be removing a phial of perfume from his cosmetic case.

"under arrest!  Or face…"  Tomas continued.

"…spawn of a daugh…"  Senator sa-Euler's voice choked into a gargle as Evaine's sword sliced her windpipe in twain.  

"…the wrath of She.." Tomas shouted.

Evaine continued her sword-swing across the two nearest Guards. One lost eyes.  The second was separated from her forebrain.  The backswing cost the first her hands, sa-Euler her liver, and a third Lunar Guard her sword-arm.  The tactical situation was really bad, Evaine thought, the alley being slightly wider than was really convenient.  On the other hand, the Lunar Guards took a moment to fall, thus getting in each other's way.  She kicked in a convenient knee on the second rank, left hand and throat thrust with short-sword being matched by skull-cleaving straight-down blow with her fogblade.  Roxanne's sword took the fourth directly below the ribs.  

"Mommy!" Dorothy screamed.

"…who is the Goddess," Tomas concluded.

The wild ululation of the Letinvarhu battlecry could be heard directly behind her.  "Torinsdale!" came Deann's high-pitched voice.  "Ready!"  That was Tomas's apprentice.  Soft, Evaine thought, hit'em where they’re soft, less wear on you than skull-slicing.   Her left hand was parried, so she kicked in another knee, her right arm and fogblade taking another Lunar Guard behind the neck.  Roxanne's kick disentangled her sword, the Lunar guard falling backwards into her comrade.

"The Lion of Arhad!" Tomas screamed.  "His flaming eye.  FIREBALL!"  There was a burst of light from the northern alley, bright golden flames followed by screams of pain.   A deep thunk! had to be Deann's axe.  Evaine told herself not to look at the flames where she might lose her night vision. Instead she waded ahead.  Lunar Guards in the third rank had swords almost drawn, but didn't seem to have noticed yet that their first two ranks were no longer in front of them.  Lopping a woman's hands off was not instantly fatal, but markedly reduced her ability to fight. The third woman she beheaded, simultaneously delivering a chest kick.  That woman fell backwards, her still-beating heart spraying vast quantities of blood back into the lines.

"Mommy!" Dorothy screamed again.

"Ready!" Jessamine's voice was remarkably atonal.

"His flaming eye!  FIREBALL!" Tomas shouted again.  This time, the flames were directly behind her.   She was quite sure that once again, an instant before the flames, she had heard the sound of breaking pottery. Roxanne had just dropped her second opponent.  The lampbearer at her side stepped forward, away from the fire, directly into the sword of a fourth-rank Lunar Guard.  She began to fall, her slackened fingers releasing their grip on her pole, which tumbled back...

"Ready," Jessamine said.

"Tomas!" Evaine screamed.  "NOT IN FRONT OF ME!"  Being surrounded by flames was not a good idea. Perhaps she should have given that order to the Apprentice. 

Dorothy grabbed the lamp-pole.  It rocked back and forth.  She was a bit light and short to hold it easily.  

"Roger that," Jessamine said. "HOLDING!"

"That way!" Tomas shouted.  "Their rear ranks!"

"Ready!"

"His Flaming Eye!  FIREBALL!" Tomas screamed.  A thunk of breaking porcelain was followed by a brilliant yellow flare and more screams.  The distant smell of roast pork touched Evaine's nostrils.

Evaine found she had reached the jog in the alley. "Dorothy!  Keep the lamp below and behind me!"  An attack; fog blade went underneath and disemboweled opponent then continued right to take another in the chest. "Roxanne! Stay behind me." Backstroke beheaded another woman who could be kicked backward into her fellows.  "Kill the wounded."  

Evaine trapped an opponent's sword with your arm, her counter thrust with short blade going in under the opponent's armpit.  A matching kick to knee toppled a second opponent backward.  

Evaine dropped into the battle stillness, her conscious mind wiped clean of distracting thoughts.  Once she was aware of an opponent to her left trying to move behind her.  Dorothy pushed the burning hot bronze case of her lamp into the Guardsman's face.  That opponent shrieked and dropped her sword to reach for her face, only to lose both hands to Evaine's fogblade.

Suddenly she realized that there was a wide open space in front of her, an open space of flat paving stones and a trinkling [a portmantau of "trickling" and "tinkling"?] fountain. There were no more opponents.  Much later, she would find that she was able to remember every move she had made, all confirmed against Thomas's detailed and careful recording of the manners and places of the deaths of the greathand of women who had stood in her way.  There are been sixty-four women along this alley, of whom Roxanne had independently killed perhaps six.  Evaine was a distantly aware that the Swordmistress had once asked if she wanted to be spelled on the fighting line.  She had had no conscious mind with which to generate a response.

Her breath pumped like great bellows, deeply and rhythmically. Her lungs burned. Now she could feel a dozen hurts. She had used bracers to take the blows of Lunar Guards that she had been too busy to parry perfectly.  Several sword blows had been allowed to grate along the side of her chest, shredding her clothing but failing to penetrate her chain mail.  She listened carefully. There were no more screams behind her.  Roxanne had been asked to kill all the wounded and had done so.  Just before she reached this plaza, the dull thunk of Deann's ax had fallen silent.  ' No more here' had been Deann's voice.  The Lunar Guards to her rear, those who had survived Tomas's fireballs, had learned as the last lesson in their lives that it was inadvisable to attack an axewoman and a Letinvarhu Swordsmistress when they wore armor and you did not.

Her clothing was soaking wet. Blood, she realized it was the blood of her opponents.  "Dorothy?" she asked. "Are you unhurt?"

"No one touched me," Dorothy said. "No one touched me."  She was obviously trying to cry, but could not.  

"I'm all right," Roxanne said. "Dorothy? Listen to me. No one hurt me," Roxanne said.  Evaine suspected that Roxanne was exaggerating slightly.  

"Just a few cuts," the Swordmistress announced. "Just enough to leave a few scars."  

"No one touched me," Dorothy said. "No one touched me."

"Swordmistress?" Deann asked. "Please, my leg," Deanna said.  She was limping badly.

"Over to the fountain," the Swordmistress said.  "Roxanne, please give me a hand."

"No one touched me," Dorothy said. "No one touched me."

"Well, someone touched me.  One of these wretches," Thomas announced, "got a drop of blood on my robes.  They will never be the same.  I have no choice.  I will sue their estates for damages."  Dorothy dropped the lamp, giggling helplessly. The lamp clanged off the pavement, bouncing twice, and came to rest, still lit.  Through her gasps for breath, Evaine considered whether it would be viewed as impolite to break her superior's jaw.

"Oh, daddy," Dorothy said. "You're terrible!"  She obviously did not mean it. Thomas picked her up and hugged her.

Evaine understood. Thomas had made a truly terrible joke, and brought Dorothy out of her shock.  Evaine staggered to the fountain.  Deann leaned back on the bench, allowing the Swordmistress to view her calf.

"Long," the Swordmistress said. "Deep, but didn't cut anything important, I don't think. Can you wiggle your toes? That's good. I'm going to wrap it, but you're going to need an infirmarian and a good dose of aqua vita."  

There was no movement anywhere else in the square. To the best of Evaine's recollection, she had advanced fast enough that the Lunar Guards had been unable to flee. The last three ranks had been kind enough to turn to run, which had greatly simplified her task.  She took the bucket from the fountain and poured water, first over one arm and then the other.  Her clothing was a total ruin.  Ever so delicately, she used the tip of her fogblade to slit it, so that it fell off onto the ground.  It had  no more decorative purpose and was so soaked with blood as to hinder her movements.  The bobbing light behind her had to be Dorothy and the lamp.  She vaguely recalled that at some moment the other lamp bearer had turned and fled screaming.  

"Evaine?" That was Thomas's voice. "Are you hurt?"  

"I don't see any bleeding" she announced. "Sometimes you don't feel things, even if you're wrecked up, but I'm just washing their blood off of me. I don't see any new appearing.  Though I'm banged up enough, it might not be good tomorrow."  She could hear shouts in the distance. "Torinsdale!  Torinsdale!"  That was the formed Levy.  Someone was attacking them, or they decided to come to her rescue, almost in time.  

"Thomas?" she asked.  "Were those real magic spells?"

"All magic is real. All reality is magical." Thomas answered politely.  Evaine realized that was one of the stock phrases she had been required to memorize when she became his apprentice. 

She was still breathing very heavily, but her heart was no longer pounding like a smith's hammer.  If you just stood here, she was going to stiffen up.  "Thomas? It seems to me that we should visit the rest of the Senators, before they realize that their plans did not quite work out the way they expected, because when that happens they may decide they have a sudden need to visit someplace else. Snowheim, for example."  She pointed at the road leading to the Pavilion of Justice. "Are we all ready to move?" Heads nodded in agreement. 

Dorothy looked reluctant, but gamely announced "I'm safer with you? Aren't I?"

Roxanne was mumbling under her breath. "They were going to kill my daughter. They were going to kill my daughter."

"They didn't, mommy," Dorothy said, taking her mother's hand.  Now Evaine's heart felt a very different pain, for Dorothy had gone through something that no girl her age should ever be asked to experience.   And if the Senators were really unlucky, Roxanne would get her hands on them. Evaine finished cleaning her sword and its scabbard, and resheathed her sword, checking that the draw was completely free.

* * * * *

Waiting at the front of the pavilion were Senator sa-Hilbert, a final hand of Lunar Guards in a double rank, and a hand of Civic Guards. A priestess of Her Aspect as Mother stood behind them.  Evaine marched straight at them, her aspect cold as winter ice.  The Priestess was here for the legal ceremony, the one the Lunar Guards had tried to prevent.

"You are all under arrest," Evaine said.  "Don’t reach for your weapons."  She stopped a few feet in front of them.

"You outnumber them three to one," Senator sa-Hilbert said. "And one of them is a man.  Kill them!"  The Senator’s guards reached for their swords.  Evaine screamed, a shrill screech devoid of modulation. Her sword flew to her hands.  She swung horizontally at shoulder height, right to left as she stepped forward, then left to right, her shoulders and spine driving the fog-blade’s razor-sharp back-edge. 

The Senator’s eight guards, heads rolling every which way, fell to the ground.

"The only reason you’re not the ninth," Evaine said to the Senator, "is the Shire Interlocutor has a few questions for you."  She paused.  "You can tell Gretchen.  Harvest Scythe," Evaine said to Tomas.  "Sometimes it even works."

"But, but," Tomas stammered.  "They’re all dead. All eight."

"And?" the Senator asked flat-facedly.

"Tomas, you’ve killed people yourself," Evaine said. By turning them into human torches, as it happens, though she hadn't been able to watch the event.

"You don’t understand.  It’s in the play," Tomas stammered to the Senator.   "The Glass Warrior.   We saw it together in Millersbridge.  Remember, Senator? She Who Is as Warrior can only do a seven." That last sentence startled Evaine. She had not known that senator sa-Hilbert had visited the pirate battlefront.

Senator sa-Hilbert remembered the play.  She counted.  Screaming a wail of despair, she ran across the courtyard toward the Pavilion.  "The Goddess!" she shrieked.  "The Goddess!  Her Five Aspects come against us.  We are undone!  Flee!  Flee!"

Evaine glared at the Civic Guards.  Very quietly, she said "You are under arrest.  Put down your weapons and sit. Unless you think you’re a lot better than this trash on the ground."  Three women dropped their swords and ran. First the Handmistress and then the other women dropped to their knees and placed their hands on the ground, their swords resting across the backs of their palms.  To Evaine's great dismay, the Priestess followed them to their knees and then executed in her direction a true full prouskinesis, the bow every priestess memorized for the unlikely event that she needed to salute a Full Manifestation, an event that to Evaine's knowledge had last happened at the start of the Perfected Revelation.  "I believe, Tomas, that we may now make your arrests.  And from each of you, in due time, I shall ask the courtesy of a letter, to the Aya-Apulchta Temple, validating my Eight.   All this time they thought I was almost lacking in talent."

"They were very wrong," Tomas said.  

"And now with some luck they will perhaps esteem me utterly without the possibility of talent, or thereabouts," Evaine said. "Once upon a time, I would have thought that mattered," she finished tiredly.  "No one except me has been almost lacking in a century, but there have been only two utterly withouts in the current Revelation.  Sometimes when you get older different things become more important.  I think now I would care far more if the copying fees from all the pirate books for once let me buy new rather than aged second-hand clothing."  

Tomas looked pained.  He had never asked his mother what her contract with Evaine was, and had only recently learned it was penurious. If Evaine's clothing always appeared a bit threadbare, he had assigned that to her always wearing roughclothes for arms training, not having a Circle, and having no Mirror to sew repairs for her.  In truth, it was the best clothing she could afford to buy. 

Chapter 41
Caer Adurel, Torinsdale
Wintertouch 23, 2448

"Evaine?"  Gail had waited patiently while her older sister had given orders for the morning training.  "I need to talk to you."  Evaine frowned.  She was swamped with things that absolutely had to get done immediately. Gail continued: "It could wait. But it shouldn't.  I mean, next time you might not be here to ask.  And I'm supposed to tell you Lady Cheryl wants to see you in the Solar."

Evaine dropped onto a camp stool, gestured her sister onto the other.  "Gail, for you there's always time.  Well, may be not during a battle."   For once, Lady Cheryl could perfectly well wait.  Gail was family.

"I," Gail hesitated, "Rosemistress said I had to ask you, and you had to say yes."

"What do you ask me?" Evaine asked, putting on her brightest smile.

"She said, she asked, she wondered," Gail said, "because we left our Circle behind when we came north.  She asked if her Circle could adopt me.  Not away from you, but so I'd have aunts when I grew up.  Besides, she wants to take me as her apprentice, and, it's kind of expensive, for someone outside her circle."

"The Rosemistress wants to take you as her apprentice?" Evaine asked. "That's fantastic! That's wonderful." An enormous burden of responsibility, heavier than any mountain, dropped from Evaine's shoulders.  The offer was wonderful, too. The number of women whose daughters clamored at the Rosemistress's door to become an apprentice was truly staggering, even if you only counted those women whose daughters who wanted a year or two to become educated in business. "And you're right, I know what her fees are, and I could never pay them."

"Then you'll let her Circle adopt me?" Gail asked. "I don't want leave you!  I don't want to be someplace else. But it's so good of her."

"Gail, every girl should be able to grow up in a circle," Evaine said.  "I've done the best I can for you, but I'm just the Caer's armsmistress, not someone who could buy into a circle you would want to be in.  That's what we gave up when we left South-Shore. What does the Rosemistress want from me for your adoption?"

"Want from you?" Gail asked. "Evaine, there are papers you have to sign, before the Caer priestess. And you have to want to agree. I don't want to leave you alone." Gail was almost in tears. Evaine and leaned over and hugged her.  "But she isn't asking a dowry. She knows how little money we have. Besides, she says you saved Torinsdale and the Republic from the pirates. Or whatever they are. So we all owe you our lives and that's worth lots. Besides, I found her some truly absolutely wonderful places to grow roses that she didn't know about."

Evaine cupped her chin in her hands. This far north, it was tricky to grow really good perfume roses. They wanted a south facing slope, and good irrigation, which tended to be expensive.  "How could the Rosemistress not have found a place to grow roses?" The woman was famous for her meticulous attention to the fine details of producing perfume. In particular, any landholder anywhere in the Vale who had suitable soil and land was apt to be the recipient of a commercial proposition.

"I found acres of extra steep land," Gayle said. "In the Vale. South facing. Already irrigated.  And landowners not using it for much, who didn't know there were possibilities."

"Should I ask where?" Evaine asked.

"Tayberry," Gayle said.  "All the land south from the Tayberry sunspeaker tower is absolutely perfect soil, and it goes downhill a long ways."

"Tayberry?" Evaine asked.  "That's right, they are legally in the Vale now, and seem more and more interested in staying with us."

"Besides," Gail said, "I have friends there."

"This is the boy who keeps not being around when I pass through?" Evaine asked.

"Except he really hasn't been there, and at this point his Circle thinks it's an incredible joke."  Gail sat up straighter. "After all, at this point we're really good friends. Why wouldn't he want to meet my sister?"

"Gail? He does have other girlfriends, doesn't he? You have met them, haven't you? I mean, I would want you to be in a healthy relationship." Evaine realized she had no idea which tone of voice to take in asking those questions, but she did have to ask them, especially with Tomas and Roxanne providing a contrary example.

"Four, I think," Gail said. "The fourth is very much an on and off sort of thing.  I mean, Thomas and Roxanne are really nice people, and show people like that can be really nice people, but I wouldn't want to be all alone with only one other person. I mean, I really like them both, and they're nice people, but that's not what I want."

"You're sure about four? You don't have to answer that," Evaine said, "not if you don't want to."  Perhaps she should not have asked.

"I'm sure about two others," Gail said.  "After the pirates surrendered, we had time to lure him off for a few games, two of us and him at a time."

"Good!" Evaine said happily. "And his Circle owns the sunspeaker tower and the land where you want to grow the roses, doesn't it?" Gail had solved any issue of apprentice fees.  "When do you want the adoption to go forward?"

"We weren't sure when you would be here, so we thought the day after tomorrow is as good a day as any, but only if you are completely happy doing it." Gail looked firmly at her sister.

"Of course I'm happy!" Evaine said.  She was, too, she realized.  Gail deserved the chance to grow up in a normal family, something that she simply could not provide.  "I've stayed up nights wondering how I was going to take care of you when you wanted to become an apprentice, and knew I couldn't handle it."  Gail jumped up and hugged Evaine.  They were quiet for a minute.  "Except I should go talk to the Landgrafin."

"I'll tell her you're coming as soon as you're finished here," Gail announced.

* * * * *

"You sent for me, Lady Cheryl?" Evaine asked.  Lady Cheryl sat in her Solar, repairing the toes of woolen socks while she waited for Evaine.  At Evaine's voice, she rose, clasping her hands and bowing politely.

"Indeed," Cheryl said.  "Be so kind as to bar the outer and inner doors, then please be seated." She waited patiently for the sound of door seals matching and bars setting in place.  "There is tea if you wish it," she added, letting Evaine pour two cups.

"I do not know where to begin," she announced.  "On one hand, I am most profoundly grateful that you saved the life of my son, his light of love, and their daughter the land-heir of the next generation.  I am happy to be equally pleased that large numbers of women who sought to kill them both now repose in the arms of the Boy of the Sea.  I have already heard you protest repeatedly that you simply saved you own life, cannot deny that this is true, but do not wish to hear it again."  Evaine blushed.  "I do not and cannot wish to appear at all ungrateful.

"Our friends in other places have confirmed that certain members of the Union City Council connived with Senator sa-Hilbert and her friends to have all of you murdered.  Sa-Hilbert and friends now reside in our dungeons, precisely where you wisely brought them, where they have been informed that if they tell all I will pardon them of attempting to murder my son and grand-daughter.  I will even grant them political asylum, which they badly need.  I expect that if they attempted to remain in the Republic they would suffer an unpleasant fate.  At least, Senator sa-Hilbert's successor, Senator sa-Goedel, so advises me.  Besides, the Republic granted that worthless man political asylum, and must pay a price.  Tomas advised them that the punishment for unconfessed conspiracy murder of a land-heir is death.  By exposure.  I gather that they are confessing.  Rapidly.

"I informed Union that it was to open its gates to the Torinsdale Formed Levy, to hand over the malefactors who they agree exist, and to allow us to search for evidence of others.  They refused.  Accordingly, We have summoned our Formed Levies, and will be laying siege to Union. We have informed the Union City Council that if Union falls, it will be annexed to Torinsdale under our personal rule.

"We have also been in communication with the Shire Cismontane-by-the-Sea authorities, providing them with the confessions of the sa-Hilbert relating to Noralin City and Black Lake.  Tomas wisely asked about those early on.  The conspirators had waxed wroth that they could not gain a financial foothold in the Shire, because the Shire was too cohesive, and therefore that they had taken a long list of actions to injure the Shire.  These actions included a series of assassinations, namely all the assassinations the Shire had long, reasonably, but incorrectly, blamed on me.  Noralin City wishes to join Millersvale in the Vale, if reasonable terms can be arranged.  For such a benefit, I will indeed be reasonable.   However, Union is a choke point on communications with the rest of North-Shore, and Noralin fears to come over if their trade can be blocked at this one point."  She raised her eyebrows.

"Lady Cheryl," Evaine said, "the Formed Levies have slight training in siegecraft, and, by being a near-island on a broad river, a siege of Union would be challenging even to the best of armies.  Also, I would most strongly urge you to hesitate before starting a war with the Republic, as by capturing places unwilling to cross over voluntarily."

"We agree," Lady Cheryl answered.  "However, our son is also a Lord of the Dark Halls, and the ire of the Dark Halls is greatly engorged by a plan to murder two black-robe mages, one of whom namely my darling granddaughter surely had no part in this dispute.  My daughter was an innocent party, and still they sought her murder.  We are advised by the vrith-Conyngham, himself, that Union will be invited to surrender or face the mighty fires of darkness," she announced.  "I gather this means that they've been told they can surrender, or they will be attacked by a flijtschiff.  That flijtschiff will act in coordination with our Levy and volunteers of the High and Low Levies.  Harvest is largely past.  We expect many volunteers.  We expect that they will need to do little fighting."

"We now come to the more difficult issue," Lady Cheryl said.  "We are entirely grateful to you for your reconstruction of our Levy, giving us a host that has overcome the pirates of the uttermost west.  We are also mindful of your advice that a far larger levy is needful, a request made more practicable by the imminent changes in our borders with the Republic.  However, we have three complications, on which we would first hear your inclinations.

"First, the Vale Council is greatly unsettled that the command of our Levies has been entrusted to one not born in Torinsdale.  We realize that soon 'born in Torinsdale' means a far larger area.  They nonetheless name many frightening precedents.  Second, we note that our newest land-heir's mother has indicated a desire to remain permanently in Torinsdale with my dear son.  Her expertise is inspection, and if there are to be no changes excellence of training can come from her skills.  However, we do not have a need for two mistresses of training.  Finally, we have considered your request for a change in our agreement with you, relating to renumerative aspects.  We are indeed profoundly grateful to you for all that you have done, but a deal is a deal, and we have done well by you and your sister."  Lady Cheryl rested her chin on her hands.  "Your sister has spoken to me of the Rosemistress's wish to adopt her into the Circle of Roses. We believe this is a wise change for her, not that you have ever been other than a loving aunt and excellent parent to her."

It took Evaine some time to realize what Lady Cheryl meant.  "I am here by your grace," she said, her voice not quite trembling.  At least Gail would come out of this safely.  "I have always been grateful that you admitted me into the life of the Caer.  As you alone know, I came here to get away from violence, terror, the clamor of war, the iron-sharp taste of victorious battle.  I don't seem to have done too well.  What would you have of me?"

"At year end, our annual agreement comes to an end. Mindful of the firm demands of our Vale Council, we find that we will be unable to renew it.  Furthermore, we find it the path of wisdom that We immediately assume personal command of the Vale Levies.  We have deputized the Swordmistress and our dear son, aided by his brighter half, to command the two flanks of the Formed Levies.  Over my son's protests, of course.  We understand that you may wish to leave sooner than year-end, and will forgive you the remainder of your service should you wish to depart earlier than Wintersdeep.  We understand that you have a modest amount of personal property, notably your salvage from the captured pirate boat, that you may wish to take with you or have sent to you later.  We do not object if you wish to remain living within the Vale, though not in Caer Adurel or in contact with Our Levies.  I imagine that there are a number of Circles that would gladly welcome you."

Inside, Evaine had gone almost completely numb.  "You will…Will you welcome Gail as a resident of the Vale?" she asked.

"I will indeed," Lady Cheryl answered, "and give such proof as none may dare question."

"Protecting Gail lifts an enormous weight, my greatest burden, from my shoulders," Evaine answered.  "I love her, and cannot care for her as a girl should be cared for by her Circle.  I shall seek not to trouble you with my presence in the Vale any longer than need be. Is there aught else?"  The Landgrafin shook her head.  Evaine rose and bowed stiffly.   I should have anticipated this, she thought.  The Vale would be frightened by an all-too-successful foreign hostmistress living in their bosom, even one who they scarcely paid beyond room, board, and second-hand clothing.  And they are right, too; there is a history.  Fortunately, solutions had arrived, if not as soon beforehand as she would have liked.  Gail was being adopted, and had a junior circle forming around her.  

* * * * *

Tomas finished dismissing his students.  When he was at the Caer, far less often than he preferred, he tutored the older students in the more advanced issues of mathematics, on occasion even abstract surveying, and covered for other teachers as might miss a day to illness.  He always preferred the younger students.

Evaine waited outside until the last student left.  "Tomas, we need to talk," she said, closing the door behind her.

"I know of what," Tomas said.  "I am deeply pained, but my mother's heart is closed.  I argued my best on your behalf."

"Oh, Tomas," she answered.  "Your mother is being sensible, that's all.  She knows who I am, and is wisely afraid to leave me near an army that might do what I tell them to.  Besides, she said I am free to leave soon.  She even said Gail may stay forever.  What more could I ask?"

"Some would ask much more," Tomas answered.  "I wish I could at least offer you copying fees on your maps, but that work is no more than half done."

"I come to you as apprentice," she announced.  "I have a favor to ask.  I pray ask you to summon the Lightnings that Speak, this evening, and send word to the Mage of the Twilight, asking him to tell the Vair Grandmothers that I accept their offer, and can be in Longbeachport in four days."

Tomas repeated her words silently, as though hearing them but not hearing their meaning.  "As you wish," he said.  "The Twilight Mage has to choose to carry your words--but he's a very reasonable person.  What was the Vair Grandmother offer, if I may ask?"  Tomas listened in horror to Evaine's answer.  It meant he would have to do work.  A great deal of work.  On a regular basis.

* * * * *

There was a firm knock at the door of Evaine's room.  "Yes?" Evaine said.  She really did not want to talk.  The situation really was too tiresome for words.  She was, of course, allowed to stay, but her pride chafed at that thought, not to mention that someone might decide that it was really necessary to assassinate her.

"Evaine, we need to talk," Angela vrith-Martyn said firmly.

"What about?"  Evaine asked.  "Oh, please do come in.  I'm just sorting and packing and still need to go to the library and recover my books."

Angela looked around the room. Evaine's summer and winter clothes were stacked on bed and chair and desk.  "Packing, I see?" Angela said, not quite in a question.  The stacks, Angela thought, were remarkably modest for someone of Evaine's rank.  Her Circle's servants' servants traveled with more.  "Evaine, I was terribly sorry you were being sent on.  It was awful for you, after all you did.  You deserved much better."

"The Landgrafin," Evaine said stiffly, "is within her privileges.  Besides, she's completely right.  I've seen things like this on South-Shore.  They can go bad."

"But not with you," Angela countered.  "That's not why I wanted to talk.  I know you're busy. It's about your books.  The Pirates are here.  The decoding team is here.  The books are better here, too."

"That gets me no copying fees," Evaine said flatly.  "If I take them with me, get a Vair printer to make the fonts, reprint the books, that's money for me.  Some day."  She looked thoughtful.  Not to say a Martyn imprint might not sell more, but reprinting might not be as important to them as to her, might happen late or never.  "I don't get money until the books are reprinted and sold, and I want to make it happen.   Now there should be some interest.  And that happens sooner if I take the books.  Until they're reprinted, I see almost no copying fees.  And, truthfully, if I'm not here any more, I need the money."

"But Martyn can get you copying fees sooner," Angela said.  Evaine's shoulders rose.  "Tomorrow, for example," she added.

"Copying fees?  How can you make copies by tomorrow?" Evaine challenged.

"Copies?" Angela asked.  "Evaine, hasn't anyone ever explained to you about publisher's advances?"  Evaine shook her head in confusion.  
<muffled exclamations of glee>  I love this development.

* * * * *

The grove and altar were filled with the sweet smell of new-mown hay.  Evaine wore the least shabby of her tabards.  Gail wore the white cotton holiday clothing she had purchased late last year.  The Rosemistress and her circle had appeared wearing long dresses and puffy-sleeved blouses, richly embroidered with the roses from which they made their Circle's fortune.  This being a happily ceremonial occasion, and not too late in the year, the priestess presided sky-clad. To Evaine's surprise, Gail had brought as witnesses Tomas and Roxanne, Lady Cheryl, and both of Cheryl's daughters.  That did explain how the Landgrafin was keeping her promise about Gail.  It also explained why a dozen greathands of Torinsdale's Formed Levy were standing guard around the grove.  Every Torinsdale heir except Dorothy was here at the same time.

The Priestess struck the hanging chime.  All waited for it to ring down to silence. The Rosemistress and Gail's new aunts placed their hands on the altar.  "We, the Circle of the Roses of Torinsdale, do invite and accept Gail-sa-Orowan into our Circle as our adopted daughter.  We pledge that we shall accept and treat her in all ways as our own child."  The priestess scattered perfume on them. Evaine was quite sure that the perfume was the best that the Rosemistress's circle could produce, literally worth more than its weight in platinum.  It was being dispensed like cheap wine on NewMoonsDay.

Gail placed her hand on the altar.  "I, Gail-sa-Orowan, do consent and agree to be adopted by the Circle of the Roses of Torinsdale.  I shall love and respect and honor and obey my new aunts as I have always respected and honored and loved and obeyed my beloved Circle, my sister, whom I am now departing."  The priestess repeated her gesture.

The witnesses placed their hands on the altar. "We, being the land-heirs of Torinsdale and the Great Inspector of Field Forces of the VastHosts of the Republic, do swear that we have witnessed a free and uncoerced agreement of two parties to bring a new daughter into the Circle of Roses. May the Goddess in all her aspects shield, protect, and confirm the wisdom of this act." The Priestess passed her blessings on those at the altar.

Now it was finally Evaine's turn. "I, Evaine-sa-Orowan-vrith-Alexasford-mo'er-Snowhome, Gail's sister and protector, Gail's living Circle, do willing and voluntarily consent that Gail departs me and us, and joins her new Aunts.  May the Goddess in all Her Aspects protect my sister and protect her new Aunts."  The priestess handed Evaine a chalice holding rainwater mixed with spring wine.  Evaine took the first drink and passed it to her sister. The objective, almost always close to satisfied, was that the chalice would be emptied by the participants.  

When she spoke her full name, the Rosemistress had nodded knowingly. Evaine had had a private meeting with the Rosemistress's Circle, to make clear who she was and who they were adopting, so that they would have no hesitation after the fact. She had been modestly surprised that two members of the Circle had heard of  Evaine-mo'er-Snowhome, though not that Evaine-mo'er-Snowhome, Evaine of the Fifteen Battles, was sitting across the hearth rug from them.  Until now, she had told no one other than Tomas and Lady Cheryl, but the Rosemistress's Circle had to know they were adopting Gail-sa-Orowan-vrith-Alexasford-mo'er-Snowhome, not Gail of almost no name.  Evaine had assured them that the number of battles had been slightly misstated by the broadsheets.  She saw no reason to explain that it was considerably larger than fifteen, and she had won considerably more than the two-thirds of them reported by the broadsheets.

The Priestess sang the closer.  "May Her left arm protect you! May Her wisdom illuminate you.  May Her bright shining shield guide your steps for all of your days."  She struck the hanging chime. All were quiet until the last bit of its singing note faded from hearing.  "So it has been done. So shall it be."  The priestess pulled her ceremonial robes over her shoulders and cinched the belt firmly at her narrow waist.

"There will be a reception at the Caer refectory," Thomas announced in his most profoundly quavering male voice. Evaine grinned at him. He was, after all, the only man present, so it was his duty to take care of food and drinks and other items that only a man could handle properly. 

* * * * *

From the Diary of Rudi von und zu Manningtonmontanusberg
Invincible 9, 1655

This being the month of His Proclamation, we now open our new year in the lands of the farthest east.  In North-Seacoast, I think, that being how the native name is translated.

I fear I have twice annoyed my companions, other than Captain Gonsalvo and his son Giorophoro.  First, after some months of trying to teach His True Languages to the heathens who surround us, I decided that Giorophoro was correct, and have started learning Parlefemina, both from him and from them.  My companions were profoundly dismayed that I, a Warrior of His True Faith, should lower myself by agreeing that Those Who Are to be Conquered could possibly have anything to teach me.  When we advanced into the half-conquered lands, did we ever stoop to learning their wild babblings?  Of course not.  We take third-generation Jaguar Knights into our ranks, but they are Jaguar Knights who have learned how to speak fluently a true language.  Nonetheless, I am learning Parlefemina.  Slowly, imperfectly, but I am learning their tongue.

Second, I had a heart to heart conversation with Gonsalvo and Giorophoro, and defended Giorophoro for having madea correct decision.  After all, he has been given the freedom of the Keep, almost, and several young women as his escorts.  One of his escorts managed to lure him off alone, and, so far as he could tell, offered to get into very considerable amounts of mischief with him.  Well, perhaps that was her offer.  He had the good sense to leave her uncomplaining, but tried to explain that he wanted to be able to talk to her freely before he went to other places. Of course, when neither party can speak the other's language completely, there is great room for misunderstanding.  I would, however, much prefer that the misunderstanding not include 'this boy has tampered with my daughter, so I am going to chop off first his head and then yours'. 

Needless to say, when our other companions heard what had happened, they were entirely disapproving.  They have certain particular ideas about what a man should do under these conditions, and were unhappy to hear disagreement.  Indeed, they were so unhappy that they refuse to speak to me.  In a sense, this change is for the better.  I can spend all my time trying to talk to the guards in their language, or trying to, meaning that it will be that much sooner before I, alone, can be whispering sweet nothings in the guards' ears.  After, of course, I have determined the lay of the land, if you will forgive my pun.

We were visited by my Valkyrie.  She was in less than perfect health.  The prison guards were happy to explain.  We are deeply separated by our slight knowledge of each other's tongues.  Nonetheless, I am quite sure of the claim: She was set on by sixty women, all competent swordswomen, and killed more or less all of them.  

Finally, today Gonsalvo and his son assure me that they saw above the keep a dragon.  A water dragon, silver white like a giant knackwurst, wingless and flying.  The rest of us saw no dragon, but heard a most strange roaring while it was apparently passing over.  From the behavior of the natives, staring and pointing at the sky, it was an extremely rare but unfrightening phenomenon.

* * * * *

Evaine, her greatmule and cart pacing briskly, clattered up Longbeachport Road to the peak of Weathertop Hill.  She was about to leave the Torinsdale Domain and enter the Republic.  The border rankled Lady Cheryl more than a bit. Republic towns north and west of Union, contemplating the damage done by the pirates and the lack of Republican support for their defense, had adhered to Torinsdale.  Their enthusiasm was greatly increased when they learned their estimated new taxes.  They abandoned Union to its own resources.  Union had agreed to Lady Cheryl's terms, notably that they would levy no tariffs on the Torinsdale trade.  The sight of a flijtschiff commanded by angry mages had done much to focus their minds on the desirability of accepting terms, particularly when the alternative likely involved Union burning to the ground. An honest inquiry would determine which members of the Union Board of Syndics had conspired to kill Tomas. 

However, the Longbeachport valley survivors, numbering in the thousands, had categorically refused to join a Domain, and sent appeals to Capitol for aid against a Torinsdale invasion.  Lady Cheryl knew when to cut her losses.  She offered a respectable fee for the privilege of using or improving the Longbeachport road east from Torinsdale to Union, and promised them tariff-free passage through Union for their goods.  They were entirely mollified by Lady Cheryl's generosity.

Lady Cheryl had been equally gracious to Evaine, agreeing that she could take a cart and greatmule, and that the carter following her that afternoon could return with greatmule and cart the next day.  Her gratitude had been substantially warmed by Evaine's farewell speech to the Formed Levy, in which Evaine thanked them for their hard work and vigorously urged them that it was time for Torinsdale to lead its own host.  The Formed Levy had insisted on hearing Evaine, then cheered Lady Cheryl after Evaine spoke highly of her.

Over the rise the sea could be seen. The colors were fabulous. Evaine stopped.  She was in almost no hurry.  There was no need to pretend she was doing anything other than staring at the ocean.  It was a beautiful day, with the first touch of fall air freshening the breeze.  

She had said her good-byes to Gail.  That had been hard, but Gail understood it was better for her to move entirely to her new family, and cut completely her ties to her old one.  To leave their Circle, most adoptees moved from one town to another.  Gail was staying with all her friends.  It was her Circle that would be leaving her. Gail had been more worried about Evaine being safe than about not seeing her sister every morning.  

Evaine's farseer revealed Longbeachport in the distance, the gate half-repaired.  At anchor in the harbor was a truly large boat, so big it had two masts.  The Vair Reach flag flew from the masthead.  She clucked at the greatmule, sending the cart into motion down the hill.  The Vair women had arrived earlier than expected.  They might well want to leave earlier, too.  Evaine accepted that the phase of the Shield somehow set hours at which it was astrologically propitious for a boat to set sail, and perhaps there was also a practical issue that she needed to understand.  
I do like these little tidbits.

* * * * *

The floor rocked gently under Evaine's bed.  The Vair Reach boat had set sail while she was taking a long overdue nap.  Now she was awake, and would see the boat under way.  Watching her balance, she climbed the stairs to the main deck.  The sky ahead of her was filled with a vast spread of gray-white canvas, carefully mended.

"Evaine.  Evaine-of-the-Vair-Reach, for so you now are," Grandmother Delphinia said from behind here.    "Here you are a passenger, we are the ship's crew, and passengers do not need to do any work. It's unsafe, for starters. I shall, however, hope that you will not take fright.  We are about to sail out of sight of shore."

"Good afternoon, grandmother," Evaine said.  "Vair sailors are the best in North-Shore. I'll try to keep out of your way.  And I'm looking forward to watching the land sink beneath the horizon."

"Then get up here, and stand at the side of the rail.  Do the waves bother you?" Delphinia asked.

"Waves? Not at all," Evaine said.  She carefully watched how the other women walked, and tried to copy them.  From the sterncastle, Evaine could see the boat's two large triangular sails, and a trio of smaller jibs, all stretched taut under the fresh breeze.  At the top of the mainmast was the cagelike birds-nest with two watchdaughters searching the horizon.   In almost every direction, the sky came down to kiss the waves.  Dead astern, a small lump of land marked Longbeachport.

"We are almost in the arms of the Boy of the Sea," Delphinia said.  "Very soon."

"He is said to be an ardent lover, but sometimes hard to please," Evaine answered.  She hoped she remembered that line correctly.  Vairites honored the Boy as well as the Goddess, and now she would be doing the same.

"Indeed," Delphinia answered approvingly, watching the wind catch the sails.  "Challenging to please, but never impossible."

"If I am allowed to ask?  How fast are we going?" Evaine asked.

"Nine miles in an hour," Delphinia answered.  "And with this wind we'll be doing it all day and night."  Evaine looked thoughtful.  "You wonder when you'll arrive?"

"I was estimating.  Not a suggestion.  Not a request.  A number," Evaine answered.  Delphinia looked inquisitively at Evaine. "My notorious maps.  If, if, someone sailed this fast, west, in a couple-three days she'd reach the lands of the Sea Eagles.  Of course, that's a long way from land, and the wind is blowing the wrong way."

"Indeed," Delphinia answered. "Though the wind is less wrong than you would think, you being a landlubber."

"My great-great aunt did that," the helmsdaughter announced.  "Said she'd follow Nimue to the Sunken Lands.  She vanished, she and her crew and ship."

"If you didn't know where land was," Delphinia said, "and weren't careful at night, you'd sail straight into the shore Evaine found for us."

"The land of the Sea Eagles is full of people," Evaine said.  "If you landed, you might well be taken prisoner.  But if you went very carefully, in a very fast boat, you could get a feel for the place, the people, spy out the pirate armies.  It might pay the Reach for someone to visit."  She let herself relax.  The pirates had been beaten.  Gail was safe in a real Circle.  Her new employers promised to be more generous than the old.

The tang of salt air alternated with the smell of bread cooking in the galley. A pair of gulls cried overhead.  The bright sun warmed Evaine's shoulders and set the waves in cerulean flames.  Some moments, she considered, were so beautiful that they ought to last forever.
And a very satisfactory ending.  
I have a dozen questions left, but I feel that *you* have the answers.  (Whether the author actually knows all the off-stage details doesn't matter, but leaving the reader *thinking* that he does is essential.)  
I found the world complete and plausible & hope somebody buys it.  I didn't see any structural problems, but I"m notoriously weak on mega-crit.  (Proofreading is my bag.)  

								J.A.B.