we leap aboard the Righteous Rage bandwagon du jour.
And maybe—oh please, oh please—just maybe enough people are realizing that it’s a bad thing when a good cause gets taken over by the ideology equivalent of ’roid rage and becomes a Noble Crusade.
(You remember the Crusades, right? Origin of such Noble actions as the massacres of the Rhineland Jews, Richard the Lionhearted’s slaughter of nearly three thousand Muslim prisoners, and the sack of Constantinople, where huge numbers of Christian civilians were slain. Wow. Way to perpetrate full-service, all-embracing ecumenical atrocities, people.)
O what a Work-in-Progress we are. But as long as we’re not a Work-in-Regress, I’m willing to hang on if you are.
I’m also hoping we can share a few laughs along the way.
* * *
Editor’s Note: As of the writing of this Introduction, I have no idea as to what the cover of this book will look like. Please be aware that such matters are entirely out of my hands, though given the title of this series, I would be very much surprised if it did not feature one or more women whose bodies are covered to varying degrees by chainmail, plus a measure of other textiles, fabrics, tanned hides, and/or gewgaws.
If you don’t like what you see, smite me not from out of the House of Virtue and Rectitude. Yea, rather do I bid thee unleash thy chastisement where it might do some real good, like against those who still stand between women and equal pay, decent healthcare, and the simple, precious right to live secure lives.
It doesn’t matter if we choose to wear a chainmail miniskirt or a Mother Hubbard when we take on the trolls of this world, as long as the job of troll-slaying gets done. Go smite someone else. I’ve had a hard day, and I am this close to throwing my cat at anyone who gives me yammer about the cover art.
She weighs eighteen pounds. You can’t say I didn’t warn you.
A Chick Off the Old Block
by Jody Lynn Nye
Jess heard Duchess Caitlin calling from the top of the tower.
“Jessamine! Oh, Jessamine, come and help me!”
The girl sounded as though she was in genuine distress. Jess plumped the two full buckets of water she had been carrying under the nearest bench. Lifting her heavy green woolen skirts in both hands, she took the stone stairs two at a time along the winding spiral stair toward the girl’s bower.
“What is it, my lady?” she called.
“Oh, Jessamine, hurry!”
Her mistress was in danger! It must be an intruder! Who would dare to invade the citadel of Kalb De in full daylight?
Jess bounded upward, reaching for the knife she wore upside down against the small of her back, and rushed into the duchess’s room. None of the junior maidservants nor any of the pages were in the round, tapestry-lined chamber. Eighteen-year-old Duchess Caitlin, heiress to the grand ducal throne of Kalb De, battled with her enemy alone in the light of the huge, multi-paned window. Jess rushed to come to her aid, then halted, staring.
It looked as though an armored knight was indeed attempting to assail her beautiful young lady, but it was only the ghost—or rather, the shell of one. The girl’s long golden hair was tangled in the face piece of a steel helmet, while her slender body was half-encased in odd pieces of metal and leather. She struggled to free herself from both. Jess burst into laughter.
“Oh, mistress, what are you doing?” Sheathing her dagger, she hurried to the girl’s aid. “Stop fussing and let me help.”
Caitlin dropped her hands to her sides. Jess began to unwind the long, golden tresses one at a time from the hinged faceplate.
“Have I not told you time and again, mistress? Plait your hair, then cap, then coif, then helm?”
“I remembered the cap only after I tried to put on the helm,” Caitlin admitted, her smooth, oval face screwed into the likeness of a wrinkled apple. “Then I couldn’t get it off again.”
“Small wonder we men- and women-at-arms wear our hair short, isn’t it?”
“But you have long hair now,” Caitlin said, with a glance at Jess’s thick brown braid. “As long as you have served me.”
“Only so I won’t shame you in court, my lady,” Jess said.
Caitlin gave her a fond look. “You could never shame me,” she said.
Jessamine had come to be the small duchess’s companion, maid of all work, and finally lady-in-waiting entirely by chance. In Kalb De, the second birthday was always Choosing Day, when the heir