Free Closer to the Chest by Mercedes Lackey Page A

clearly did not have the financial means to hire someone else to do it for them.
    â€œWe found the Sisters a small farm, much more suited to their needs, on the outskirts of the city. Not so much a farm anymore, really; but there was a handsome floored barn that could be converted to a chapel, and enough land to give them ample room for gardens.” The smooth, cold voice made it all sound perfectly reasonable, and exactly the sort of thing that surely the women would have welcomed. Amily could not find any fault with what he was saying, rationally speaking. Was it his inflection? The way he was saying this as if from the moment his group had entered the city it was a foregone conclusion that he would get whatever he wanted?
    Well . . . all right, this god of his is titled “the Patriarch.” So this religion is probably one of those that thinks that women should be properly subservient, give whatever a man asks for, and take what men are willing to give them.
Irritating, to be sure, but unless they did something illegal—and she was rather sure, looking at that smug profile, this fellow knew Valdemaran law—it was their business and the business of the worshippers of this “Sethor the Patriarch” how they conducted their lives.
    :We allow the Holderkin to live as they will,:
Rolan pointed out.
:We can do no less for any other religion. “There is no One, True Way,” Amily.:
    If she had been alone, she would have pulled a sour face at that. Hadn’t that been drummed into her head from the time she could talk? It wasn’t as if she was going to forget it. As it was she kept her expression as stony as that of the priest.
:I know. Unless he starts sacrificing virgins, scourging “harlots,” or doing something equally illegal, he and his cult can do what they please. But I don’t have to like it.:
    She resolved, however, to find out where the Sisters ofArdana had gone, and look in on them. Just to be sure they were all right, and that they hadn’t been packed off to some ramshackle hovel with a leaky roof and rotted floors.
    :The Temple roof leaked,:
Rolan reminded her.
:And they had had to close off much of the building because they could not repair it . . . :
    If she hadn’t been standing here on her best behavior, she’d have rolled her eyes.
:You know very well what I mean.:
    :I’ll find out where they’ve been relocated to,:
Rolan replied. With the implication that she should remember what her
job
was, and stick to it.
    She thought about making some sort of sharp answer, given that the Companion was playing “conscience” in the most patronizing manner possible, but then she reminded herself that this was relatively “new” to Rolan as well as to her. He hadn’t had a female Chosen before. They didn’t have
precisely
the sort of open, accessible communication he’d had with her father. And he surely knew just how badly she wanted to rattle that arrogant old Priest. He was just being cautious.
    The King continued to make polite . . . but pointed . . . conversation. She could see what Kyril was doing; of course, the King had decades of practice at getting people to reveal far more than they thought they were revealing. Under the guise of idle interest, he was finding out just how big the group was, what their source of income was, and as much of their core beliefs as it was politic to discover. During all of this, she might have been part of the furnishings for all the attention the High Priest paid to her. It was
pointed.
The more she stood here, the more certain she became that this was not merely that he had some sort of vow against acknowledging the presence of a female. He was making it absolutely clear that she was utterly beneath his interest.
    On the other hand . . . it might be irritating, but it means he’s going to underestimate me.
    That gave her a little more sense