"It's not a joke, damn it, Yalith!" Sharral waved both hands in frustration.
"No, it's not," Yalith agreed more soberly. "But whether we like it or not, at this particular moment Soumeta is only saying what a dangerous number of other war maids think. So I can't just let you or Balcartha step on her-not without giving her a little more rope, first, at the very least-without running the risk of further alienating the people who already think I'm being too accommodating. Like Saretha and her crowd."
Sharral's lips tightened as if she wanted to dispute that. Unfortunately, she couldn't.
"All right," she sighed. "You win-or lose, or whatever it is you're doing! I'll show her in."
"Thank you for agreeing to see me on such short notice, Mayor," Soumeta said as Sharral closed the office door behind her and Yalith pointed at a chair on the other side of her desk.
"Did I do that?" Yalith asked pleasantly, arching both eyebrows and steepling her fingers in front of her chest as she leaned back and rested her elbows on the arms of her chair. "That's odd. I could have sworn Sharral just told me that you had an appointment with me."
Soumeta flushed, and Yalith smiled internally. Had the other woman really expected that a meaningless polite formula could somehow convince Yalith to gloss over what amounted to an arrogant demand that the mayor see her?
"I suppose I shouldn't have done that," Soumeta muttered after a moment. "It's just that it's important that I speak to you, and I didn't think Sharral was even going to tell you I was here."
"Sharral tells me about everyone who asks to see me, Soumeta," Yalith said evenly. "Whether she likes them or not."
Soumeta's flush deepened. It was especially obvious in someone with her fair skin and golden hair, and Yalith let her stew in her own juices for several seconds.
"Very well," she said finally. "You're here. What was so important that you simply had to see me?"
"Mayor Yalith," Soumeta gave herself a visible shake and leaned forward in her chair, "the situation in Lorham is worse than ever, and it's getting steadily worse still. We have to do something!"
"And what, precisely, would you like me to do, Soumeta?" Yalith asked with deadly patience.
"We can't just stand there while Trisu and his toadies systematically tear down everything we've accomplished in the last two hundred years!" Soumeta protested. "It's bad enough that he's violating our boundaries with that gristmill of his, or our prerogatives with those road tolls, but now his so-called market master in Thalar is squeezing us completely out." She bared her teeth. "Do you think for one minute that someone like Manuar would dare to do that without Trisu's backing?"
"First," Yalith said levelly, her dark eyes trained on Soumeta like twin ballistae, "we're not 'just standing there.' Second, there seems to be some question as to exactly what Master Manuar is or is not doing in Thalar. Third, when the Council and I specified that you were to be our official representative to him, we also instructed you not to be confrontational. The object was to make a firm statement through a spokeswoman official enough to make our concern plain, not to antagonize the man."
"Antagonize him!" Soumeta exclaimed. "Mayor, he claimed Jolhanna was responsible for all our difficulties!"
"I've read your report, Soumeta," Yalith said. "It's . . . unfortunate that you excluded Theretha from your meeting with the market master."
"Are you accusing me of misrepresenting what Manuar said?" Soumeta demanded harshly.
"I'm saying a second viewpoint on the conversation would have been useful." Yalith held the younger woman's angry eyes with her own. "And I'm suggesting that Theretha, who knows Manuar personally, might have been able to prevent the conversation from getting so out of hand so quickly. And, frankly, Soumeta, I'm also suggesting that intransigence is often in the eye of the beholder. You went into that meeting with blood already in your eye-and don't pretend to me, or to yourself, that you didn't-and that's hardly the way to evoke a cooperative atmosphere."
"I went into that meeting determined to be just as reasonable as Manuar allowed me to be," Soumeta snapped. "You and the Council had sent me as our official representative-was I supposed to just stand there and let him lie to me about Jolhanna without calling him on it?"
"Yes, we sent you as our official representative. We also stressed the importance of being reasonable. Of bending over backward, if that was what it took, to make it abundantly clear that we aren't the ones provoking the problems."
"And letting him shuffle all the blame off on Jolhanna would have made us look 'reasonable'?" Soumeta barked a sharp, angry laugh. "It would have proved to him that we were weak enough to let him get away with a barefaced lie!"
"What you ought to have done was to tell him that you could not believe Jolhanna would have deliberately or knowingly provoked problems between us and the Thalar merchants. You should never have accused him of lying about it. Instead, you should have assured him that both I, as Mayor, and the Town Council would look into his allegations most carefully. And you should have pointed out to him that while we were looking into them, it remained his responsibility to ensure that the Thalar market, as opposed to the individual merchants in it, abided by the terms of our charter."
Soumeta muttered something under her breath and looked rebellious, and Yalith suppressed a sudden burning desire to snap the other woman's head off. She settled for glaring at Soumeta for a breath or two before she continued in that same, meticulous tone.
"You should also have listened to Theretha. She wanted to stay, to look for Herian. For that matter, to speak to Manuar herself. Instead, you bustled her back off to Kalatha."
"The Council charged me with responsibility for her safety," Soumeta grated through clenched teeth. "In my judgment, her safety was at risk in Thalar."
"But it's the soundness of your judgment which is really in question here, isn't it, Soumeta?" Yalith asked softly.
"If you didn't trust my judgment, then you shouldn't have sent me in the first place!" Soumeta shot back.
"You weren't my choice," Yalith told her flatly. "I didn't object to it, which I probably should have. But I didn't choose you for the job because, frankly, I was concerned that something just like this might happen."
"It's time we stopped being afraid of them!" Soumeta said fiercely. "It's time we pushed back instead of just letting them push us! If you can't see that, then others can! We're just lying down for them, reacting to every fresh infringement with one more tearful protest instead of kicking them in the balls, and that's not being reasonable! It's spreading your legs for them and inviting them to-"
"That's enough!" Yalith slapped her desktop so hard her hand stung, and Soumeta's mouth snapped shut in shock. The mayor leaned over the desk towards her, her normally mild eyes crackling with anger, and the younger, taller war maid shrank back in her chair.
"You're young," Yalith told her icily. "Older than Theretha, perhaps, but that's not saying all that much, is it? You're impatient, you're angry, you're not terribly smart, and you're just spoiling for a fight. Well, unless we're luckier than we have any reasonable right to hope, you may have found us one. I don't expect you to understand just how serious the problems you've helped create really are, because you're too busy patting yourself on the back and congratulating yourself on having 'taken a stand.' But I do expect you to obey the instructions you're given. I also expect you to keep a civil tongue in your head when you address the Mayor of Kalatha. And you'd better remember both of those things, girl, because if you can't at least pretend to the most basic courtesy or obey the instructions your superiors give you, then I will discuss with Balcartha whether or not you are fit to be trusted with any responsibility, including your position as an officer of the Town Guard. Is that perfectly clear, Fifty Soumeta?"