Four and Twenty Blackbirds by Mercedes Lackey Page B

plain almost to the point of austerity, Ardis's quarters were warmed by a fine, draft-free stove, her reading-chair comfortably cushioned, and the light falling on her papers was as clear as fine oil, a carefully-trimmed wick, and a squeaky-clean lamp could provide.
    But I'm tired, overworked, and getting no younger. Briefly, she wondered what her life would be like if she had wedded according to her stature, as her family had expected her to. At this hour, she would probably be receiving callers in a luxuriously-appointed reception room, giving final orders for a sumptuous formal dinner, and thinking about which dress she would wear to the evening's ball or party.
    I'd be bored, which would be worse than overworked; my mind would have gone to mush, and I would probably have joined some stupid group devoted to mystical rubbish out of sheer desperation for something different in my life. Or I'd be having affair after frantic affair, like so many of my female relations are doing, because they are shackled in loveless, lifeless marriages with nothing to occupy their minds.   
    "I could read those and give you a summary," said her secretary Kayne Davenkent, a clever and steady young novice that Ardis had plucked from the ranks of the scribes just last summer.
    Ardis didn't immediately reply, but she smiled to herself as she recalled the occasion that the novice had been brought to her attention. Like most novices in the Order of the Justiciars, she had been assigned to the copying of legal documents from all over the Twenty Kingdoms; these copies were sent out to Church libraries everywhere, in order to keep everyone current on legal precedent in all of the Kingdoms. There were only two forces common to all of human life on Alanda, the Church and the High King; and of the two, only the Church substantially affected the life of the common man. Kayne had persisted in questioning the authenticity of a recently acquired document she was supposed to be copying, which had irritated her superior. Ordinarily, he would have taken care of the problem himself, but he was of the faction that had not been in favor of Ardis when she asserted her control over the Abbey of the Order of the Justiciars at Kingsford, and he delighted in taking the smallest of discipline problems directly to Ardis rather than dealing with them himself. He probably hoped to overwhelm her with petty details, so that he and his faction could proceed to intrigue her right out of her position while she was drowning in nit-picking nonsense.
    Unfortunately for his plans, she was already aware of his intentions, and in particular this attempt to irritate his superior had backfired. Intrigued by the notion of a novice who stood her ground against a Priest's judgment, Ardis demanded the particulars, and discovered that Kayne was right and Father Leod was wrong. Further, she discovered that in disputes of a similar nature, Kayne was usually right and Father Leod wrong.
    Intelligence, acute observation, courage, wit, and persistence, and the ability to think for herself rather than parroting the opinions of her superior—those were qualities all too often lacking in novices, and qualities that Ardis appreciated. Knowing the young woman was wasted in her position, she had snatched Kayne up for her own staff before Father Leod knew what was happening.
    "I know you could give me a summary, and a good one too, but you know why I won't let you," Ardis replied, putting her head back against the padded leather of her chair, her eyes still closed. "I told you why a week ago when you made the same offer—which is appreciated, by the way, even if I don't accept it."
    "Because a summary won't give you the sense of things they aren't putting down," Kayne repeated, with a little well-bred irritation of her own. "That sounds rather too much like mind-reading, and I can't see where it's all that important in personal correspondence." Her irritation showed a little more. "It also sounds,