"She wants to stay with me," Vyrl said. "She told me."
"You have witnesses to this?" Jax asked.
Vyrl looked at her. "Tell them."
Kamoj wanted to disappear. She tried to take a deep breath, but the boning of her underdress cut into her ribs.
"You have your answer," Jax said.
Anger sparked in Vyrl’s voice. "That’s because you have her too terrified to speak."
"If you came to this Inquiry to throw insults," Jax said, "I don’t see much point in continuing."
Dazza spoke quietly. "Vyrl, perhaps we should–"
"I won’t leave without her," Vyrl said.
"We can discuss this more privately."
"No.
"Vyrl–"
"I said no."
Dazza exhaled. "All right. Kamoj told me herself. Her marriage to you puts her in an almost impossible position. If she signed an annulment, then given her history with Ironbridge and the circumstances surrounding your merger with her, no Imperial court in its right mind will honor your claim to Argali."
He clenched Greypoint’s reins. "I’m not ‘claiming Argali,’ damn it. I want my wife back."
"Legal won’t see it that way," Dazza said.
"They’ll do whatever I tell them."
Her voice cooled. "Yes, you could use your titles to take what you want. But you would be forcing the courts into breaking laws meant to protect cultures such as this from exactly this sort of mistreatment. I suggest you think long and hard about the consequences. Once it’s done you can’t reverse the damage. And believe me, Vyrl, the political fallout of abusing your position that way would be ugly."
Vyrl stared at her. "I’m not the one breaking laws." He turned back to Kamoj. "I know you don’t want to stay with him. Tell them, Kamoj. Tell them."
She could still hear Jax’s words: I will do more than burn Argali to the ground. You will watch Maxard and Lyode die. She struggled to project feelings of contentment, but her mind kept replaying the nightmare of the previous night, the roughness of Jax’s hands on her ribcage, or kneading her thighs the way a cat prepares a place to sleep, or clenched on her arms as he pinned them to the mattress.
"You bastard!" Vyrl’s voice exploded at Jax, and Greypoint danced under him, on the verge of rearing.
Jax spoke mildly. "Is something wrong with you, Lionstar?"
Greypoint tried to move toward Kamoj, but one of Vyrl’s bodyguards grabbed the reins, his hands a blur. Kamoj hadn’t believed a person could move that fast. Vyrl swore at the man, and the guard’s hand dropped to a tube hanging from his belt, one of the weapons that put people to sleep.
Kamoj saw several Ironbridge stagmen exchange glances. If Vyrl kept acting this way, Jax wouldn’t need to discredit him. Vyrl would do it all by himself.
Dazza, however, was focused on him. "What did you think you picked up?"
Vyrl spoke tightly. "He comes from the same stock that produced the Traders. Think about it."
She glanced at the Jagernauts. "Did you get anything?"
The man said, "There’s so much hostility between Prince Havyrl and Governor Ironbridge, it’s swamped everything else."
The woman nodded. "Governor Argali is frightened. But I’m not sure who she fears, us or Ironbridge."
Jax spoke in a cool voice. "As strangers here, you may not realize the insult you give with this discussion." He stopped for a well-timed pause, then touched Kamoj’s hair in a show of reassurance. "Of course this causes my wife concern, particularly given what she has recently endured."
Vyrl ignored him. "You don’t have to stay with him, Kamoj. We’ll protect you."
The way he had protected Argali? She kept her mind numb.
"Damn it," Vyrl said. "You aren’t bound to him. You have free will."
"I want you to stop harassing my wife." Jax took a breath, like a man provoked past reason, yet struggling to remain calm. Then he used his soft voice, lowering it as if he spoke only for Kamoj, yet still loud enough for the others to hear. "I am sorry. But there seems only one way to resolve this. I must ask you to speak." He paused. "To the Ascendant woman."
That startled Kamoj. He wanted her to talk to Dazza? It made no sense.
The colonel spoke in a gentle voice. "Kamoj, did you sign the Ironbridge contract of your own free will?"
"I can’t write," Kamoj said. "Jax signed it for me."
"That’s not legally binding," Vyrl said.
"Did you understand the documents?" Dazza asked her.
"Yes," Kamoj said. The shorter she made her answers, the less chance she had of provoking Jax.
"Did you object to the signing?"
"No."
"Were you coerced?" Dazza asked. "Threatened? Did you at any time express the wish to return to Prince Havyrl?"
"No." Kamoj answered only the last question. Did they actually believe she would acknowledge being threatened in front of the person who had done it and sixty of his armed soldiers?
"She’s too frightened to say anything," Vyrl said.
Jax spoke coldly. "Lionstar, if you persist in violating the procedures of this Inquiry, Ironbridge will withdraw."
Suddenly Kamoj understood why Jax wanted her to talk to Dazza. Although she knew the colonel outranked everyone, the others must see her as an enigma. Women with authority rode with bodyguards. If a woman formed a merger with an incorporated man, he usually offered the services of his honor guard as part of his dowry, but only after they were married. Nor was Dazza an Archer. By coming alone with Vyrl and his stagmen, Dazza put herself on the level of a bondsgirl. When Jax let her question Kamoj, he undermined Vyrl’s authority by taking the Right of Inquiry away from him and giving it to someone perceived as having no authority at all.
"Kamoj can speak to whoever she wants," Vyrl said. "You don’t own her."
"Of course I own her," Jax said. "The contracts are signed, and this time for a dowry beyond the ability of Argali to match."
As soon as Jax spoke, Kamoj knew he had finally made a mistake. It wasn’t only Vyrl who reacted: Dazza and the Jagernauts also stiffened.
"This world is a member of the Skolian Imperialate," Vyrl said. "We may not have instituted formal assimilation procedures yet, but you are still under our umbrella. Slavery in any form is illegal according to our laws. If you signed a contract that makes Kamoj your property, you’re in trouble."
Jax’s hand clenched on his quirt. "You can’t ride in here and demand we change customs thousands of years old because it suits your purposes. According to your own people, your laws require your government to work with ours to find resolutions to societal clashes without destroying our cultural sovereignty. Perhaps it has escaped your notice, Lionstar, but I am the government here." Malice touched his voice. "Besides, the moment you married Kamoj in one of our temples, according to our ceremonies, with that obscene dowry you sent her, you became her owner. It would appear you too are ‘in trouble.’"
"She isn’t anyone’s property," Vyrl said.
Kamoj couldn’t bear to listen any longer. She knew Jax. Beneath his control, his rage was growing. She was the one who would bear the brunt of it.
"Jax, I want to leave," she said.
His voice softened. "Of course." In a louder voice he said, "Ironbridge invokes a Close."
"I’m not leaving without Kamoj," Vyrl said.
Dazza spoke quietly. "If she doesn’t want to go with you, do you really intend to force it?"
Vyrl stared at Kamoj. "We can protect you from him. Just say the word." His voice caught. "I can offer you the stars. All he can offer you is a lifetime of fear and pain."
Jax spoke evenly. "Answer him, Kamoj."
"I am the dutiful and willing wife of Ironbridge," she said. Was that enough? Would they leave her alone now? Did the people she loved have to die before they would listen?
"We can protect you," Vyrl said. "All you have to do is ask."
Kamoj felt Jax move the quirt. "I want to stay with my husband," she said.
"Governor Ironbridge."
"No." Vyrl clenched Greypoint’s reins. "No."
"She gave you your answer," Jax said. "What else did you expect? That being forced to spend a few days with a complete stranger, a man whose only interest was in assaulting her, would supersede a lifetime of dedicated companionship?"
"She never wanted to marry you," Vyrl said.
"Are you stupid?" Jax asked. "She told you what you wanted to hear. It is you that she fears, Lionstar."
Vyrl watched Kamoj. "Is that true?"
Jax stroked her hair as if to comfort her. "It’s all right. Answer him. Then we can go home."
"Yes," she lied. "It’s true."
Vyrl stared at her. Then his expression closed on itself. Quietly he said, "Good-bye, Kamoj."
Good-bye. The word echoed in her mind. Good-bye.
Vyrl motioned and his party reformed around him. When he pulled on Greypoint’s reins, the stag danced toward Kamoj. It shook its head, once, twice, three times. She recognized the pattern. Many a greenglass went through that same dance with his young, herding them to where he thought it best they go.
Vyrl rubbed Greypoint’s shoulders and pulled the reins. The stag kept trying to dance toward Kamoj. The third time Vyrl pulled, Greypoint relented and turned with the rest of the company, heading into the woods.
Good-bye. He was going. Forever. As Greypoint receded into the mist, dismay broke through Kamoj’s deadened thoughts.
Behind her, Jax’s muscles relaxed. He leaned his forehead against the back of her head and whispered, "It’s over, pretty rose. We can go home now. Finally." Then he straightened up and pulled on Mistrider’s reins, bringing the stag around.
Kamoj swallowed. Home. It was done. She and Vyrl had bounced off each other and hurtled away.
That was when she snapped. She had no idea if it was her first true act of free will or a mental breakdown born of her depleted condition. She only knew that she broke inside. Leaning to the side, she strained to see around Jax. Her body protested every move: bile rose in her throat, pinpricks danced on her skin, pain thrummed in her head.
Then she shouted, "Vyrl! Don’t go!"
XI
THE BURROW
Resonance Lifetime
Jax swore and yanked her back in front of him. A roaring filled her head, produced by her act of rebellion. Spurred by Jax’s quirt, Mistrider ran through the trees like fog blown by the wind. Jax called to Lector and the stagman pulled alongside, their mounts running side by side.
"Take her to the burrow," Jax said. He passed Kamoj over to Lector’s stag without even slowing down. Seated in front of Lector, Kamoj felt numb. Jax wheeled Mistrider around and took off, disappearing into the mist and the darkening night.
Lector rode hard through the trees. When Kamoj shivered, he pulled his cloak forward, around her. What had possessed her to call Vyrl? He had seventeen stagmen and Jax had sixty, plus forty more in camp. Ironbridge would slaughter Lionstar. Then again, Vyrl’s people had their Ascendant weapons. They might slaughter Ironbridge. Either way, people would die.
When the fading light turned the mist a darkling pearl color, Lector slowed his stag, letting it find its own way. Finally he stopped. As he jumped down, his cloak swirled away and icy air clapped around Kamoj.
He eased her off the greenglass, sliding her down to the ground. "We cannee ride any longer. It be too dark."
She tried to nod, but the day’s drizzle had turned to snow and she was shaking too hard. Watching her, Lector removed his cloak and gave it to her. As she wrapped it around her body, he tapped his stag with a signal to wait. The greenglass stamped its feet and bared its teeth, its breath curling out of its nostrils, heavy with a spiced musk odor, adding condensation to the fog.
Lector led her forward into the darkness. The scents of the wet forest permeated the air, eddying and flowing around them. Even after Kamoj contracted the membranes in her nose, she was swimming in a sea of smells.
She pulled the cloak tighter. "We need shelter."
Lector leaned down. "Eh?"
"Shelter." Her teeth clattered together from the cold. "We need shelter."
"Aye." He guided her around an upended tree with moss hanging from its roots. They approached the looming shadow of a hillside, closer and closer, until its darkness folded around them. When Kamoj reached out her arms, her hands brushed over dirt walls laced with roots.
"You best wait here," Lector said.
She stopped, listening to the tread of his boots. A spark jumped in the air about ten paces away. Then a sphere of light appeared, with Lector at its center holding a lamp. They were in a burrow with earthen walls held together by networked roots. The wavering light threw shadows on the walls, revealing bags of food in one corner, along with a blanket.
"It inna so bad, heh?" he asked.
"Lector, let me go," she said.
"I cannee do that, Gov’nor Argali."
"What if I just left?"
"I would have to stop you, ma’am. I’m sorry. I be liege to Ironbridge. I cannee fail him."
Kamoj hadn’t really expected otherwise. She doubted she could have survived in the forest anyway, on this freezing night, dressed as she was, having eaten only one meal in over two days.
Lector set the lamp on a ledge formed by a tree root. Then he took the blanket from the corner and spread it on the ground. "For you, Gov’nor."
"Thank you." She sank down onto the blanket, grateful for the solidity of the ground. "Are you cold?"
He settled himself on a large boulder near the entrance. "Heh?"
"Cold." She offered him the cloak. "Aren’t you cold?"
"Please keep it, ma’am. Cold never much bothered me."
Like Jax. Unlike Jax, however, Lector seemed to notice when it bothered others. Grateful for a bulwark against the chill, she wrapped the cloak around herself again.
Lector stretched out his legs and leaned against the wall. "I can tell you what makes ice on my spine. The magics in these woods. You be better off without Lionstar. That demon prince would trap your soul."
"I don’t think it’s magic, Lector. It just looks that way. And Lionstar is no demon."
"Heh?" Lector leaned forward. "Who is the demon?"
Her voice caught. "Me. I caused these problems."
"Why do you say that? You hanna done nothing." His voice gentled. "This madness will end. You will see."
She swallowed. "It’s kind of you to say that."
"I’ve a daughter your age. When I look at you–" He shook his head. "It be a father’s nightmare."
The sound of dirt skittering across leaves came through the entrance, followed by the tread of boots. Lector stood up and drew his sword.
"Step and call," a woman said.
"Come," Lector said. Sheathing his sword, he stepped aside to let Tera and a stagman enter, followed by a taller man. Jax.
The Ironbridge governor glanced around, his gaze scraping past Kamoj as she got to her feet. To Lector he said, "Did you have any trouble?"
"None at all, sir."
"Good." Jax sat on a boulder. The soldiers sat then, too, Lector on the other boulder and the others on the ground. With five people crowded into the burrow, Kamoj stayed on her feet, pressed against the earthen wall.
Jax regarded Lector. "I need your counsel."
The stagman sat up a straighter. "It be my honor."
"I must decide a course of action," Jax said. "Everything has changed now."
"What happened, sir?" Lector asked.
"Lionstar insisted I let him speak to Governor Argali." Jax made an incredulous noise. "Seventeen stagmen and one old hag, and he threatens me. When I gave the order to my archers to fire, it was like ordering the slaughter of bi-hoxen."
Kamoj dug her fingers into the wall. The question Is he dead? hung in the air like a mist-o’-mime.
"What did they do?" Lector asked.
Jax leaned forward. "One of Lionstar’s bodyguards drew his weapon so fast it made a blur. An es
sence came out of its end. It made orange sparks in the air. The tree he pointed it at exploded in a burst of orange light. Lionstar’s other bodyguard swept her weapon through an arc and more trees exploded." He grimaced. "As fast as an archer can knock a ball, his bodyguards could have killed my entire company."
"It be sorcery," Lector said. "I feel it in these woods."
"It just looks like sorcery." Jax considered Lector, then the others. "Do any of you read?"
Hai! Kamoj wanted to shake him. How could he talk about reading now? Was Vyrl alive or dead?
"I can read and write my name," Lector said. "My wife’s name too, and those of our children. I know a few other words."
The other stagman spread his hands. "I cannee read at all."
"I be knowing my name," Tera said.
Jax looked disappointed, but unsurprised. Kamoj wondered what it was like for a man with his intellect to live in a place where almost none of the population could even read, let alone offer him an educated discussion.
"A codex in my library describes weapons similar to Lionstar’s," Jax said. "They rely on something called ‘particle physics.’ The source of the orange light is a sub-electronic particle called an abiton, the antiparticle of a biton. It has a rest energy of 1.9 eV and a charge of 5.95 raised to the negative 25th power. Whatever that means. And this charge is called Coulomb. It’s the same as the name in the Amperman line, I’m sure of it. The gun uses a magnet of 0.0001 Tesla and its accelerator needs a radius of five centimeters." He held up his hand, his thumb and forefinger a short distance apart. "This is a centimeter."
The others remained silent, watching him as if his words were an incantation.
"If his people have these weapons," Jax said, "they may well have other devices described in the old codices."
"It be a bad omen," Lector said.
"Is it? Or the promise of the future?" Jax rubbed his chin. "Then there is Lionstar’s language. He speaks pure classical Iotic."
"You mean Iotaca?" Lector asked.
Who cares what they speak? Kamoj thought. Tell us what happened.
"That’s right," Jax said. "The temple language."
"But no one understands it any more," Lector said.
The Quantum Rose Page 16