Winter 2007 7

"The community." Weft looked bored at the questioning. "Why, how do you do law enforcement at your home?"

"Aaiiii have never had any problems in my current digs so far." She twitched him a grin. "I'll burn that bridge if I cross it."

"Where is that? I don't think you told me anything. Well, I know it has fisher birds." Pretty.

Helmine was stuck making mental notes about grammar and the peculiarities. Some of it gave her a headache, but she supposed she would pick up the patterns sooner or later. Contrary to appearances, she was listening to the discussions going on regardless of language.

Finally she folded the paper and put the pen away, leaning back in a relaxed manner.

By following his own thoughts rather than the conversation nearby he couldn't understand, Daaren arrived at the same question as Weft. "How do you deal with people who break the peace where you're from?"

"Fisher birds? Oh, right, the bird mask! I got that from an itinerant trader who passed through Tharmayn. Nice coastal town that, though I think fisher birds were more common elsewhere."

"Where I come from," and Suitov experienced another instant of species-confusion, "the person in charge of keeping the peace is most of the time a local person called the writer. That's nothing to do with someone who writes for a living; it just happens to be the same word. The writer's job is to solve any local disputes that aren't complicated or serious enough to need a law authority. A writer has deputies, depending how big the area is. In villages with several hundred people -- well, for example, in mine there were six, two of them part-time, the last time I was able to pay proper attention to things.

"During times of international impoliteness, though, the chatling becomes more important. Among his jobs is making sure the muster soldiers behave themselves. By another eccentric tradition, he can perform marriages. A chatling mainly does clerk work. His subordinate, called the sousha, does more of the running around and arranging hearings and punishments." And that was probably far more detail than he wanted to know. Ah well.

"So you live near the coast?" Weft asked Nico, looking interested. The sea made him a little nervous. All those wild fish. He'd quite stopped listening to the mage lord.

Suitov's explanations about the writer got a smile out of Daaren. "Where I'm from, the record keeper is usually a judge in matters that can't be solved between the families. They write down births and deaths, and most also chronicles of their area.

What is a chatling's duty when you are not under attack?"

"Tharmayn is directly on the coast, harbor town, yes." Nico saw no reason to mentioned she'd moved away from there a short while ago.

"Generally being bank managers or notaries or clerks. Chatlings are usually hired on with the rest of the army. When things are civil, nobody much is allowed to keep a standing force except the monarchs. It's supposed to stop anyone else thinking they fancy the job and marching their soldiers into one of the crown cities."

Weft nodded to Nico. "What do you do there?"

"Paperwork." Putting it like this amused her. "Last, anyway. They found someone with tidier handwriting, so I'll have to look around a bit."

After a thoughtful pause, Daaren asked, "And how is a writer picked?"

"Well, it has to be someone who wants the job, knows the area and can keep abreast of the gossip," Suitov said. "In my area they have to be able to read and write, too, but almost everybody can. We have a Kingsmail station in Hounston. That's like a major post office."

"But it's easy to be neat," Weft said, startled into unguardedness by Nico's way of phrasing things.

She did not take it badly. "I've heard it depends on how you first learn writing. If you don't learn 'neat' from the start, it can be difficult to un-learn the sloppy handwriting. Or I just don't have the patience."

The concept of organised mail services was not entirely alien to Daaren. "I think I meant who picks them." His interest was ebbing visibly, though. On second thought, he did not really want to get drawn into a discussion of monarchs.

Helmine regarded her nails for a moment, wondering about a few things as she sat. She had this ugly feeling she couldn't quite place, as it certainly didn't fit next to skull-cracking rage or cold-blooded backstabbing urge. In the end she finally placed it next to suspicion as itching feeling of not being told something.

A thought crossed Nico's mind, and she turned to Helmine.

"Speaking of patience, did you ever find that red stick you were looking for?"

"The local people. Traditionally the candidate's mother gets the final veto." It was unclear how serious Suitov was being with that last statement.

He'd been looking for a different topic for a while. Local politics made him think of national politics, which generally made him want to talk animatedly about everything that was wrong with said politics, which was likely to end in him being labelled either a crashing bore or a possible revolutionary, neither of which options pleased Suitov.

"How is the temperature now, by the way?" Having finished with the chestnuts, Suitov had one arm resting on the windowsill behind him. He had been tinkering throughout with the magic he'd used to insulate the little structure. Most of the work was being done by the warm bodies inside it now.

"All right." A bit less stuffy would have been nicer, but it was nothing to complain about. He pulled the pan over and started filling it with the chestnuts.

"You are keeping it?"

"Yes. Weft was cold," Suitov said simply.

"How do you know him?"

Suitov's first impulse was to say with great reluctance, and as with most of his impulses of this nature, he mastered it and sent it back to its kennel.

"Professionally. You could say he's a bodyguard of sorts. Not in my employ, more's the pity. I'd be dead many times over if not for him."

Weft was glad Suitov couldn't see his face, and would have been disheartened to know how much Suitov could read in the softening of his shoulders. This was not forgiveness. It was the prelude to the possibility of him considering it.

"Costume balls are not part of the job description," Suitov added, still talking to Daaren. "I'm ambivalent to those, personally."

"I wonder why some people like them. Having to pretend irritates and tires me."

"I find it depends on the other people there," Suitov said, avoiding the subject of pretending. He enjoyed it -- when it was for a purpose. Or should that be when there was a audience?