Well, now she's confused about why they're confused, they surely can't have mistaken her for respectable?  Maybe it's the cross-dressing specifically?  "...not all the time, it's not worth the work to be reliably deceitful close up, but out in the desert I mostly did?"

"I suppose you'd have to, to adventure?" ventures Grec.

"Yes- foreign women adventurers would come through sometimes, but usually in search of more challenge than they started with."

"Is there much to draw foreign adventurers there?"

"Oh yes- not the wise foreign adventurers always, most which are worth the risk have by now been adventured, but the ancient Pharaohs and their courts left many trapped tombs out in the desert.  It was one such which sent us here."

"Ah, of course. That can't be a usual result, can it? I'd expect most of the time you just get killed by a mummy."

"Or a not dead cat, or a great scorpion, or an elemental, or just a rock fall, yes.  We were very fortunate."

"An undead cat? A lion or a dire one, presumably, nobody would make a -" He gestures housecat size.

"Oh, they loved cats!  Some lions, but also all kinds- the small ones often go in packs like granary cats.  It's uncertain if they were meant as guards or just companions, some even hold they remain by accident if there was enough necromantic energy about- they're understandably difficult to capture for study..."  She's talking faster again, barely managing to keep her accent this side of comprehensible.

"Oh huh, accidental undead cats, you wouldn't think there'd be - obviously it can happen with zombies but that's when there's a soul, and cats haven't -"

"I know little of zombies, is it true they- pass along like unto a disease?"  Everyone acts like you're going to run off to Geb the minute you learn more than how to re-kill them.

"They can, yeah. We get a fair number of them around where I came up, people doing improper burials they don't want to tell the priests about. I suppose there'll be even more now with no priests even for the deaths everybody knows about."

"Oh, I'm so sorry to hear that."  She chews on her lip, frowning.  "And it would be some time for enough more priests are chosen to replace them, and people may not trust the Iomedaens-  um.  The foreign ones."

"I'd bet the foreign ones will have all the work they can stomach from those less choosy," shrugs Grec, "but there won't be enough of them."

"And paladins are particularly useful with undead, but they must first find them...  oh!  Is Disrupt Undead a common spell, would a laundry wizard likely know it?"

"I've heard of it but a laundry wizard wouldn't have it."

"I'm sorry."  Aaaaa every possible thing she can say on this subject is politics- really they've been on politics for a bit now- nope 'it's weird Disrupt Undead doesn't heal' is also politics- 

"...they mummied also the cats.  The ancient Pharaohs did.  Perhaps- that's why."  

"Ooh, you can mummify cats! How's that done?"

Thank you she can get herself unstuck after an only mildly obvious pause once he's accepted the subject change.  "I don't know the Taldane for many- nor the necromancy at all- but the physical procedure ought be the same for a cat as a man?  Uh-" she makes a few abortive attempts at mime- "I believe there were used certain- powders?  Like salt but not salt?  And then of course, um, field dressings to hold together the body."

"Field dressings," Grec chuckles, but then he's happy to speculate about the magical end of the process.

Khalida will be delighted to hear his speculation and throw in a few fairly insightful questions, it's never been worth braving the potential Looks to ask after necromancy when there were other spells both easier and/or safer to get and more useful once she had them, but it is in fact a whole school of magic she's barely touched on.

It's not his specialty (he's an abjurer) but it's not one he's totally neglected either.

She hasn't picked a specialty yet and she's not sure how she'd ever choose, there's just so much out there- did he pick abjuration because of the Worldwound or before that?

"Before that. Though I did suspect I might wind up going, a lot of wizards who can hack it better than laundry do."

A black cat much too large to be domestic appears hovering in the courtyard, flanked by a couple of oxen. All three are laden with panniers strapped across their backs and sacks piled on top of those. Lowering its burden to the ground, the cat calls out "Archmage Ione's familiar here with a supply run for fort 11?"