Ok, I can't agree with all the Cawti slamming. It's painfully obvious that in _Teckla_ we only hear Vlad's side of the story. Vlad feels irritated and maddened by Cawti's seemingly inexplicable behavior, so we do, too. I think, from what we learn in _Orca_, that Cawti's motivation becomes much more understandable. At any rate, she had a great deal of courage to confront Vlad and eventually leave him. Her spouse was a hired killer--it doesn't get much worse than that. At 11:22 AM 6/7/02 -0400, Beldarrin at aol.com wrote: > I'd have to agree with what I've so far, pertaining to "Teckla." I rather enjoyed it myself, even though (and perhaps even because) it was so different from the winding, whirlwind excitement-adventure of "Jhereg" and "Yendi." It did, however, make me want to strangle Cawti, as well. Vlad's a nice guy and he doesn't deserve to be treated like Cawti treated him, just because he wasn't a born-again Teckla/Easterner sympathizer. Her evolution from assassin to horribly irritating pissed me off and I was actually happy when Vlad left South Adrilahnka (I think I spelled that wrong - it looks really weird) at the end of "Phoenix."