Beatrix Holloway
Session 1: A Dragon at the Fair
Beatrix spent the morning of the Midsummer Fair on the north tower with a crossbow the size of a cart, bored, counting pie stalls. At noon the sky over the Tally Cliffs went bright and then very large, and something the colour of an old coin came down the valley with its wings folded half shut. She had it in her sights for the length of three held breaths. Then she saw the pennant, faded and patched and flying a marigold that nobody had flown since the Founder’s day, and she lifted her hand off the trigger.
The dragon landed on the roof of the Wool Exchange, read out a clause of a lease that nobody in the square had ever seen, and asked for the rent. Before the dragon took wing again, Beatrix walked to the foot of the Wool Exchange, took off her helmet, and promised her, loudly enough for the square to hear, that she would not raise a weapon against her while the lease stands. By evening Beatrix had fought a swarm of burning shedlings through the bread ovens, dragged two apprentices out of a smouldering awning, and stood in Queen Hesper’s hall while Wystan Pye called her a coward to her face. Queen Hesper listened to both of them. Then she made Beatrix a Warden of the Lease, which the Chancellor did not enjoy.
Session 2: The Wax Vaults
Under Sealwright Hall Beatrix learned that a sword is a poor tool against ink. The smirches put out her eyes twice with a slap of black, and twice Odda Quarrel rang her clear. She carried the lease-case to the reading table herself, because it was heavy and because she wanted to be the one holding it when they opened it. When Clemency Vare lifted the lid and found the cut, Beatrix was the first to say what everyone was thinking: somebody inside this building did it. On the stairs afterwards she promised Clemency that if Jory could be found alive, the Wardens would bring him back alive.
Session 3: Under the Sallow Hills
At Maudry’s Barrow the clay chorister sang, and Beatrix sang back, badly, the verse Gammer Tansy Holt had taught them the night before. The door opened anyway. Inside she stood at the foot of the Founder’s bier and asked permission, out loud, before she took the sword. Nothing answered. She took it, and made her fourth promise of the campaign to a woman two and a half centuries dead: that the rent would be paid, and paid fairly.