I defy anybody to say anything unkind about Mistress Jasmi. I remember one man frantically cramming small valuable possessions into a saddlebag as he prepared to flee south into Partann and all he said was, “It’s that damned notebook.”
Mistress Jasmi is what is sometimes known as ‘an army brat.’ Her father was a man-at-arms in the service of Lord Cartin, and she was born in Partann, in the back of a wagon. For the next fourteen years, she spent every campaigning season in the field with her mother (a sutler or victualler) and some of the winters in distant garrisons. Unfortunately what is merely excitement and carefree fun when you’re eight can be terrifying when you are old enough to grasp the full implications of what is happening around you. So it was in her fourteenth year that Jasmi and her mother returned to Port Naain at the end…