"Indeed, and what of the Rhaetian Consul who made off with half your treasury when he fled the land?"
"True," said Thorolf equably. "But if an official of ours do prove a fool or a knave, we cast him out at the next election. The Locanians have no voice in choosing their rulers, as all us Rhaetians do."
"All but your women," said Yvette acidly. "Aha, that punctured your self-satisfaction!"
"Well, ah," said Thorolf, "the general opinion is that women be not equally endowed in such matters."
"Thinkst not I be as able a politician as the best of your men? I work as hard for my people's welfare as do any of your senators or consuls. But in your land every Rhaetian with pintle and stones in's crotch may vote, be he as dumb as an ox, whilst the ablest woman is barred. Why not give male trolls the vote?"
Thorolf raised a quizzical eyebrow. "Trolls are not deemed human. If we start down through the animal kingdom, as well extend the franchise to bulls and billy goats."
"Trolls are human enough to beget offspring on human women and to burrow for ores to make your nails and swords!"
"True, but trolls are still not citizens. When my sire was senator, he proposed defining them as human, thus entitling them to the law's protection; but the others took it as a jest."
"You evade the point, Master Thorolf. A folk cannot thrive without stability, and that requires a framework of hereditary lordships."
"And what stability, forsooth, has your feudalism given the Grintzers?"
"Enough of this subject, Sergeant! How come you to ride a mare? Methought men of valor eschewed them, lest they be infected by womanish qualities—or those traits they falsely attribute to my sex."
Thorolf chuckled. "Mere superstition. Salnia's as brave amongst horses as you are amongst women. And she takes me whither I would go."
"Rhaetian practicality!" said the Countess with a trace of a sneer. "Are you never chaffed about her?"
"One of my men jibed me. I picked him up by the ankles and dipped his head in a rain barrel until he agreed to hold his tongue."
"Fear not that I shall ever taunt you, at least if there be a rain barrel nigh! But how came you, with your connections and learning, to this lowly rank?"
"Not so lowly, madam. I am responsible for the welfare and conduct of a hundred men—or should be were my company up to strength." After a pause he added: "When I returned from my studies abroad, seeking an academic career, I obtained a readership at Horgus College."
"What transmogrified you from apprentice professor to soldier?"
"A trifle of trouble," said Thorolf uneasily, sorry that he had brought the subject up. "What trouble?"
" 'Tis a flat, weary, arid unprofitable tale."
At Thorolf's hint of reticence, Yvette came alert, like a cat that espies a dilatory mouse. "Tell me nameless!" she said in tones of queenly command.
"If you insist. When the Franconians conquered the Duchy of Dorelia, a crowd of students burst into my classroom, demanding that I sign a manifesto on behalf of freedom for the Dorelians. I refused."
"Wherefore?"
"I said that, first, this was a class in Tyrrhenian literature and not a political forum; second, that my signature would do nought to loosen King Chilperic's grip on the land; and finally, that it mattered little to the Dorelian masses whether they were fleeced by a duke or a king."
"What's this about people being 'fleeced' by their natural lords? In my country ..."
"Hush!" Thorolf drew rein and, turning his head, held a finger to his lips.
"But—" began Yvette.
"Quiet! Not a word!" snapped Thorolf. "I listen for pursuers."
Yvette subsided, scowling. When Thorolf was satisfied he could hear no jingle of arms or creak of harness, he clucked the mare into motion.
"Insolent upstart!" shrilled Yvette. "Thus to order about a peeress born! In Grintz you'd be flogged till the skin of your back—"
"But this is not Grintz, and you have no bullies to jump to your commands. If you give trouble, I'll set you down instanter, and without my borrowed garments. Is that your wish, Countess?"
Yvette silently fumed, her breath sibilating through clenched white teeth. Far above, the scarlet sunlight lingered on a snow-crested peak, then slowly shrank and faded. The only sound was the patient footfalls of the burdened mare.
At last Yvette muttered a few words that Thorolf took for a grudging apology. She asked: "What did the students next?"
"One emptied a slop pail over my head."
"And then?"
"I threw him out the window and asked if others would care to follow him. None volunteered, hearing the yells of him who'd broken a leg in's fall. His family went to law and won a thousand-mark judgment against the college. And away went my professorial plans."
"So you became a soldier?"
"Indeed. My father said: 'With those shoulders, and having no talent for commerce or finance, 'tis the army for you, my lad.' "
Yvette exclaimed: "But every Rhaetian's born with a ledger in his fist; else he's like a fish that cannot swim." After a pause, she added: "Hast fought in a battle?"
"A small affray with revolutionaries from Tzenric. They promised to abolish taxes and give every Rhaetian a stipend, so that none need ever work again."
Yvette tightened her grasp on Thorolf's belt and shook her head. "Just the sort of mountebanks your democratic fools might elect! Didst cross blades with those joltheads? "
"I made a few hits; but in such a brabble none knows for certain who does what to whom. In truth, I cared but little for the outcome. I'm a peaceable wight who'd liefer spend his days in scholarship.
"Now tell me of your plans anent the Duke. That coronet should fetch a few thousand, but such a purse would not long survive an assault upon a dukedom."
Yvette chewed her lip. "I could doubtless raise a good few thousand more within a year—"
Thorolf interrupted: "Still insufficient, I fear. Since King Chilperic has hired away our likeliest bullies for his Dorelian war, the pay of mercenaries has risen. My company is down to eighty-odd, since lusty youths earn more as camp cooks and stablemen."
Yvette sniffed. "Trust Rhaetians to value money above honor!"
Thorolf chuckled. "As says the buffoon in one of Helmanax's plays: 'Who hath honor? He that was buried yesterday.' "
"Might I not engage your Rhaetian regulars?"
"Nay; the Consul has forbidden the hiring thereof for foreign adventures."
For half an hour, only the chirps of birds, the hum of insects, and the horse's hoofbeats broke the silence of the descending road. At last Yvette spoke:
"Then I must needs seek magical help. I hear that the King of Locania, since he got the religious bee in's bonnet, hath exiled all his magicians. Many have found a haven in Rhaetia."
"True," admitted Thorolf.
"How about Doctor Orlandus, the great Psychomagus?"
"He advances grandiose claims, but I trust him no more than I trust the ice on Lake Zurshnitt in spring. Some dub him one part wizard and three parts charlatan."
"They say he doth command those spirits called deltas."
Thorolf shrugged. "I know nought of that. I do know howsomever an able iatromage, Doctor Bardi. He waxes old and infirm but retains enough prowess to banish the colds in my head.
"And, Countess, if it be not unmeet to ask, should not your husband, the Count of Grintz, and his retainers defend your county?"
"I am the late Count's widow. As a woman without issue, I am by law sole ruler until I wed again."
"What befell the Count? Battle or a tisick?"
"Neither. Count Volk had seen his eightieth winter when my sire, the Baron Grombac, betrothed me to him, thinking it a brilliant match. On our wedding night, this dotard braced himself and actually sheathed his blade ere his poor old heart gave up."