Kitri was the last to arrive, and Felaras closed the door of the study after her, thinking, Thank you, oh gods, for Leaders I can work with.
The study was a little crowded with eight people in it, and a bit stuffy; the group included Felaras and the Trinity, of course (as her personal aides they were privy to everything and very good at being invisible when the time came), and the three chapter Leaders.
"Kasha, open the window, would you?" she asked, as the three Leaders arranged themselves around the hastily brought-in table. The desk was shoved up against the back wall, the room's two chairs on either side of it. Kasha threaded her way through the furniture to obey the request, then returned to the rear of the room for further orders.
Kitri led the Archivists; Diermud had held that position when Felaras had first taken the Master's seat, but he'd thrown it gratefully into Kitri's lap when Felaras had hinted it might be better for someone with more aptitude and inclination for worldly matters to have the Leader's badge. (Kitri's reaction had been hilarious. "Well," she'd said when Felaras handed her the badge of the open Book and the key to the Leader's study, "I appreciate the honor, but I thought we'd outlawed slavery here. . . .")
She was tall—taller than any man in the Order saving only Zetren. She was so thin that she kept a fire going in her study most of the year, for she felt the cold badly. She had large, spidery hands that could copy a text, make an inkbrush, or play a zither with equal dexterity. Her long grey hair would hang down below her knees if she let it; generally she kept it piled up on the top of her head in an untidy bird's-nest of a knot, stuck together with hairpins that she shed so constantly that one of the duties of her novices was to collect them and give them back to her at day's end. Deceptively mild hazel eyes were partially hidden by a contraption of wire and glass lenses—something Lisan of the Seekers had made to correct her failing eyesight—an invention so successful that a number of other members of the Order sported them now, and not just the older ones. She wore a long, loose tunic belted at the waist over breeches, both faded blue in color; clothing nearly identical in color and cut to every other piece in her wardrobe. One of Kitri's idiosyncrasies was that she searched until she found something she liked, and thereafter never altered it. This was a trait that endeared her to her novices, since it meant that they always knew what she would want and when she would want it.
Unlike Thaydore, sitting next to her—who never really knew exactly what he wanted when it came to his own needs. On the other hand, he would be satisfied by inexactitude in anything except his work, so it didn't matter to him if the fruit juice was warm, the soup cold, and his robe too short in the sleeves. He spoke for the Tower, the Seekers; and was himself a Flame rather than a Hand like Halun. He was nowhere near as old, nor as crazed, as he looked. His wildly untamed shock of hair had gone pure white in his twenties, and the vague, slightly demented look in his eyes was due more to preoccupation than anything else. He was supremely indifferent to his own physical surroundings, as witness his out-at-the-elbows, ink-stained robe, but he was implacable when it came to creating the best possible environment for the scholars under his authority. And there was one thing on which he and Kitri were in complete agreement—that the purpose of the Order was both discovery and education.
The one way in which they differed was on the point that Thaydore would assume without ever really thinking about it that those who wished to be educated would come to him. Kitri, on the other hand, was perfectly willing to load up a horse with books and go crusading for pupils.
And probably coerce them into learning whether they liked it or not, Felaras thought wryly, casting a glance over to her.
But these two would be getting exactly what they wanted out of a treaty with the Vredai. Given that, they'd let Felaras have about anything else she wanted.
The final chapter Leader, Ardun of the Sword, was an old friend, and had been one of Felaras's first novices when she'd reached full Watcher status. Bald as an egg, short, and bandylegged; he was, nevertheless, a man not even Zetren would willingly go against. He was the acknowledged expert in more forms of combat than Felaras cared to think about, for not only did the Order gather recruits from every corner of the civilized world, but one of the duties of the Sword was to actively seek out and master new martial arts. Most importantly, he was one of the calmest people she knew. This could be an asset in any meeting where Kitri was involved.
"All right, friends," Felaras said, when everyone had been seated around the table she'd set up, after cups of chava had been handed round by her aides. This done, the Trinity had settled unobtrusively on or around the desk at the back of the room. "Do we want to talk about the treaty first, or the delegation?"
"Let's get the delegation out of the way," Kitri replied, a hairpin clattering to the tabletop as she reached for her cup. "That's the easiest. I'd like your young Teo on it for Archivist; that gives you and me a direct eye on the proceedings, and he asked me last night if I thought you'd let him volunteer."
"Did he, now?" Felaras looked over her shoulder, and Teo blushed. "I have no objections at all, seeing as he's the closest we have to a knowledgeable authority on these people. Thaydore, do you have anyone in mind for Seekers?"
Thaydore coughed, and looked a little embarrassed. "Well . . . yes. And I hope you won't think I'm suggesting him because he's troublesome—"
"Great good gods—you mean Halun volunteered?" Ardun exclaimed, eyes widening with unconcealed glee. "How amazing!"
"Well . . . yes."
"Nice balance," Felaras observed, making no effort to conceal her cheer. "Teo for youth, Halun for experience—I'd say fine, personally."
Kitri spread her hands wide. "No objections here. How about for the Flame side of the Tower?"
"I thought Eriel? I admit she's rather—uh—mystical—"
Thaydore's expression as he pronounced the last word was something between exasperation and extreme distaste. Eriel's star-charts were miracles of exactitude, for which she had Thaydore's admiration, mathematician to mathematician. The trouble lay in her attempts to calculate formulae that would enable her to contact the "spiritual entities" she was certain were guiding the stars on their appointed tracks. No amount of gazing through Lisan's finest far-seeing tubes would convince her that she was viewing anything other than a kind of festival lantern held in the hand of one of those invisible creatures.
On the other hand, if Eriel had volunteered, it would satisfy the "signs-and-portents" faction, and might give her a much-needed dose of medicinal reality.
"Ardun?" Felaras asked.
He shrugged. "Better than some—and puts a female in the mix. I can't think of anybody I'd suggest as an alternative."
"Kitri?"
"No common sense, but I'd trust Teo to keep her out of trouble."
"All right, Eriel's in. Ardun, who for the Sword?"
He grinned crookedly. "I know who I'd like—but she hasn't volunteered, and—" He craned his head around and grinned at Kasha, who began glowering, though she didn't seem inclined to say anything, "—don't get your hackles up, Sparrowhawk!—I was about to say that the Master needs you too much."
"That I do, and I'll not part with her. So who?"
"Remember a woman named Mai? Scouts, mostly."
"I think so; not pretty, not plain, sort of a face-shaped face. Very quiet. Very good at being a piece of the landscape."