"That's not a wise place to sing that particular ballad," Kethry observed, "Seeing as that's where your scouts tend to spend their pay."
"Hai -- but it wasn't my scouts that got him," Tarma chuckled, "which is why I'm surprised you hadn't heard. It was Tresti and Sewen."
"What?"
"It was lovely -- or so I'm told. Tresti and Sewen sailed in just as he began the damned thing. Nobody's said -- but it wouldn't amaze me much to find out that Sewen set the whole thing up, though according to my spies, Tresti's surprise looked real enough. She knows what Kal'enedral means. Hellfire, we're technically equals, if I wanted to claim the priestly aspects that go with the Goddess-bond. She also knows how you and I feel about the little warbling bastard. So she decided to have a very public and very priestly fit about blasphemy and sacrilegious mockery."
That was one of the few laws within Hawksnest; that every comrade's gods deserved respect. And to blaspheme anyone's gods, particularly those of a Sunhawk of notable standing, was an official offense, punishable by the town judge.
"She didn't!"
"She ruddy well did. That was all Sewen and my children had been waiting for. They called civil arrest on him and bundled him off to jail. And there he languishes for the next thirty days."
Kethry applauded, beaming. "That's thirty whole days we won't have to put up with his singing under our window!"
"And thirty whole days I can stroll into town for a drink without hiding my face!" Tarma looked very pleased with herself.
Warrl heaved a gigantic sigh.
"Look, Furface, if you like him so much, why don't you go keep him company?"
:Tasteless barbarians.:
Tarma's retort died unuttered, for at that moment there was a knock at their door.
"Come -- " Kethry called, and the door opened to show one of the principals of Tarma's story. Sewen.
"Are you two busy?"
"Not particularly," Tarma replied, as Kethry rose from her chair to usher him in. "I was just telling Keth about your part in gagging our songbird."
"Can I have an hour or two?" Sewen was completely expressionless, which, to those that knew him, meant that something was worrying him, and badly.
"Sewen, you can have all of our time you need," Kethry said immediately, closing the door behind him. "What's the problem? Not Tresti, I hope."
"No, no -- I-I have to talk to somebody, and I figured it had better be you two. I haven't heard anything from Idra in over a month."
"Bloody hell -- " Tarma sat bolt upright, looking no little alarmed herself. "Pull up the spare chair, man, and give us the details." She got up. and began lighting the oil lamps standing about the room, then returned to her seat. Kethry broke out a bottle of wine and poured three generous goblets full before resuming her perch. She left the bottle on the table within easy reach, for she judged that this talk had a possibility of going on for a while. Sewen pulled the spare chair over to the stove and collapsed into it, sitting slumped over, with his elbows on his knees and his hands loosely clasped around the goblet. "It's been a lot more than a month, really, more like two. I was getting a message about every two weeks before then -- most of 'em hitching about one thing or another. Well, that was fine, that sounded like Idra. But then they started getting shorter, and -- you know, how the Captain sounds when she's got her teeth on a secret?"
"Hai." Tarma nodded. "Like every word had to wiggle around that secret to get out."
"Eyah, that's it. Hints was all I got, that things were more complicated than she thought. Then a message saying she'd made a vote, and would be coming home -- then, right after, another saying she wouldn't, that she'd learned something important and had to do something -- then nothing."
"Sheka!" Tarma spat. Kethry seconded the curse; this sounded very bad.
"It's been nothing, like I said, for about two months. Damnit, Idra knows I'd be worried after a message like chat, and no matter what had happened, she'd find some way to let me know she was all right."
"If she could," Kethry said.
"So I'm figuring she can't. That she's either into something real deep, too deep to break cover for a message, or she's being prevented."
Kethry felt a tug on her soul-self from across the room. Need was hung on her pegs over there --
She let her inner self reach out to the blade. Sure enough, she was "calling," as she did when there were women in danger. It was very faint -- but then, Idra was very far away.
"I don't dare let the rest of the Hawks know," Sewen was saying.
Tarma coughed. "You sure as hell don't. We've got enough hotheads among us that you'd likely getabout a hundred charging over there, cutting right across Rethwellan and stirring up the gods only know what trouble. Then luck would probably have it that they'd break right in on whatever the Captain's up to and blow it all to hell."
"Sewen, she is in some sort of trouble. Need stirred up the moment you mentioned this; I don't think it's coincidence." Kethry shook her head a little in resignation. "If Need calls -- it's got to be more than just a little difficulty. Need's muted down since she nearly got us both killed; I hardly even feel her on a battlefield, with women fighting and dying all around. I don't talk about her, much, but I think she's been changing. I think she's managed to become a little more capable of distinguishing real troubles that only Tarma and I can take care of. So -- I think Idra requires help, I agree with you. All right, what do you want us to do? Track her down and see what's wrong? just remember though, if we go -- " She forced a smile. "-Tresti loses her baby-tender and you lose your Masterclass mage."
Sewen just looked relieved to the point of tears. "Look, I hate to roust you two out like this, and I know how Tarma feels about traveling in cold weather, but -- you're the only two I'd feel safe about sending. Most of the kids are what you said, hot-heads. The rest -- 'cept for Jodi, they're mostly like me, commonborn. Keth, you're highborn, you can deal with highborns, get stuff out of 'em I couldn't. And Tarma can give you two a reason for hauling up there."
"Which is what?"
"You know your people hauled in the fall lot of horses just before we got back from the last campaign. Well, since we weren't here, Ersala went ahead and bought the whole string, figuring she couldn't know how many mounts we'd lost, and figuring it would be no big job to resell the ones we didn't want. We've still got a nice string of about thirty nobody's bespoken, and I was going to go ahead and keep them here till spring, then sell 'em. Rethwellan don't see Shin'a'in-breds, much; those they do are crossbred to culls. I doubt they've seen purebloods, much less good purebloods."
"We play merchant princes, hmm?" Kethry asked, seeing the outlines of his plan. "It could work. With rare beasts like that, we'd be welcome in the palace itself."
"That's it. Once you get in, Keth, you can puff up your lineage and move around in the court, or something. You talk highborn, and you're sneaky, you could learn a lot -- "
"While I see what the kitchen and stable talk is," Tarma interrupted him. "Hai. Good plan, 'specially if I make out like I don't know much of the lingo. I could pick up a lot that way."