LC02 Crystal Flame

by Jayne Ann Krentz

  “Olara did not say that those who used the black glass were sane,” Kalena said calmly, finishing her cheese. “In fact, I got the distinct impression she thought them quite insane.”

  He was silent for a few seconds before saying, “It’s fortunate for both of us that you came awake at the scent of the keefer smoke. And you were very quick with that travel bag you hurled at the second man. You kept your head in a difficult situation and you probably saved both our lives.”

  Kalena felt unaccountably warmed and slightly amused. “Such praise from a man of your particular talents, Trade Master, is enough to make a mere female quite giddy.”

  He had the grace to look faintly chagrined. His eyes slid from her face to the creets and back again as he searched for words. “I meant what I said. I could not have wished for a better companion beside me in such circumstances.”

  “Even though I’m only a female and not really designed for such masculine labor?”

  His mouth twisted slightly. “You speak as if you resent being born female.”

  Kalena thought about that. “No, not really. I cannot imagine being other than I am, but there are times when every woman has cause to grow exasperated with the prejudices and misconceptions of men. You label us weak and then become resentful when we prove ourselves strong.”

  “No man denies that a woman has her own kind of strength.”

  “Such strength being acceptable so long as she confines it to the spheres of childbearing, running a house and providing a warm pallet for her husband?” Kalena asked with a hidden smile.

  “Do you enjoy provoking me, Kalena?” he asked with a sigh.

  “Sometimes,” she admitted quite freely.

  His eyes gleamed as he took another bite of cheese. “You don’t consider it slightly risky?”

  “You’ve said on more than one occasion that I might lack a certain measure of common sense,” she retorted airily. “Maybe I’m just too fluff-brained to have enough sense to restrain myself from provoking you.”

  “Or maybe you take a certain perverse pleasure from doing so.

  “Umm, a distinct possibility,” she agreed, nodding.

  “Some people think it’s dangerous to provoke me,” Ridge remarked, eyeing her narrowly.

  “Yes, well, I’ll admit that trick with the sinter is a little intimidating.” Kalena leaned forward, trying to see the handle of the blade where it rested just under his elbow. “It’s true what they say, isn’t it? You really can make the steel glow. I could hardly believe it that night in my chamber when I thought you were going to kill me with the steel.”

  He frowned. “If you have any sense you won’t mention that night again, Kalena.”

  “But the blade—”

  “Yes, I can make it glow,” he muttered, polishing off the last of the cheese. “It makes me feel like some kind of freak, but if you get me sufficiently angry, the steel will grow hot in my hands. It’s not something I’m particularly proud of. In fact, it can be a damned nuisance.”

  “It’s a very rare talent. The stories say there are few men in any generation who have such an affinity for fire. And it is only the steel of Countervail that will respond to the talent.”

  “It’s not exactly a talent,” Ridge exploded. “It’s a useless trick, good for nothing more than show. The steel glows only when I’ve truly lost control of my temper, Kalena, and that’s a very dangerous thing for me. It’s a talent that might someday get me killed.”

  “Get you killed!” She was startled.

  “No man fights well when he’s enraged. I’ve survived doing Quintel’s work precisely because I’ve learned to control the extremes of my temper, at least for the most part.”

  She looked at him wonderingly. “I see.”

  He lifted one brow. “I doubt it. Let’s change the subject, shall we?”

  “What would you prefer to discuss?”

  “Something infinitely more practical. Namely, why did those two men with the black glass come after us?”

  “I don’t know. This is your mission. I’m merely along for the ride and thirty percent of the Sand, remember?”

  His eyes gleamed. “It would seem that you are rapidly returning to normal, at least as far as your tongue is concerned. It must have been hard to maintain nearly three full days of silence.”

  “You were as silent as I.”

  “I spent the time thinking.”

  “As only a man would think,” she retorted. “This morning’s hard ride was out of necessity. But the pace you set for the past three days was deliberately designed to make me aware of your displeasure.”

  “Displeasure is a mild word for what I felt.”

  “Yes, I know.”

  “Tell me,” Ridge said somewhat gruffly, “what did you think you would do if you’d been successful in murdering Quintel? What did you think your future would be like?”

  Kalena looked toward the distant mountains. “I thought,” she said eventually, “that afterward I would finally be free. The image of my future has always been vague in my mind, but I believed that something important and wonderful lay ahead of me once I had fulfilled my task. I was wrong.”

  “What did you think you would be free to do?” he scoffed. “Even if no one knew you were the murderess, you would already be known as a trade wife. The marriage took place before you attempted murder. Nothing would have changed your status after you signed that contract and went through that ceremony. A fine ending for the daughter of a Great House. You would have found yourself on the same level as Arrisa and the others.”

  Kalena smiled. “Yes, I know. I couldn’t wait to find myself on that level.”

  Ridge was startled. “With your heritage? Your pride and family background? You wanted to be a trade wife?”

  “I wanted to be free. Arrisa and her friends are the only truly freewomen I have ever met. They come and go as they please, with no House lord to order them about. They are not required to remember the honor of their families in everything they do. They call no man permanent husband. They spend their grans any way they choose. They do not serve the males at the table when they dine. They are free to go out in the evenings to taverns and not worry that when they return some man will threaten to beat them for their behavior. They go adventuring on the trade routes and return with money that belongs only to them.”

  Ridge cut off the glowing description of Arrisa and her friends with a short, rather crude oath. “You know nothing of that world. It’s simply a case of the forbidden being more exciting than what you have. I must admit that probably anything would look more exciting than life on a farm in the Interlock valley. But to think of sacrificing your heritage for the sake of being able to get yourself arrested in a tavern brawl is disgraceful. There is a streak of wildness in you, Kalena. You need a husband to control it.”

  “And there is a definite streak of old-fashioned, hide-bound, straitlaced prudishness in you, Ridge, that would do justice to any Great House lord,” she returned easily. “Where did you come by such conservative notions, I wonder.”

  “Probably from having spent too many years growing up with the kind of ‘freedom’ that comes from not belonging to any House, even a small one.”

  “Ah, then we are truly opposite points on a Spectrum, aren’t we?” she mused.

  “Remember that, Kalena,” he said in mocking threat. “It probably means we’re well matched.”

  “That’s not what you thought the night you discovered you had married a failed assassin.”

  To her surprise, he didn’t rise to the bait. Instead, Ridge took the comment seriously. “I’ve had time to think about matters since that night.”

  She eyed him with a new wariness. “Come to any brilliant conclusions?”

  “A few” He shifted his position slightly, considering her intently. “I understand why you tried to kill Quintel.”

  That truly did surprise her. “You do?”

  He sighed. “If you have spent the past several years having it
drilled into your brain that Quintel was the cause of your father’s and brother’s death, then yes, I understand. Someone had to exact vengeance on behalf of your House. Seen from that perspective, I suppose you had no choice.”

  “That’s very generous of you, Ridge,” Kalena said in astonishment.

  “But that line of logic has a major flaw in it,” he continued bluntly.

  “What flaw?”

  “You have no proof that Quintel had anything to do with the end of your House. Nothing except the word of an embittered old woman who is given to trances and tale spinning, from what I gather.”

  “She is a fine Healer and a respected woman!”

  “She raised you with every intention of sending you to your death while allowing you to believe you would be free when your task was done.”

  “I would have been free!”

  “No, Kalena” he told her implacably. “In the end you would have died. There would have been no escape. No freedom.”

  Stung, Kalena got to her feet and paced toward the stream. “You don’t know that for certain. You’re only saying that to salvage some of your own pride. You don’t want to admit that you nearly failed to protect your employer. Your sense of honor is as great as any House lord’s. Your pride is above your station.” She glanced back at him derisively. To her surprise, Ridge was smiling ruefully, acknowledging the accusation.

  “So Quintel has informed me,” he said.

  “You admit it?”

  “Why not? It’s the truth. There will come a day, Kalena, when my sense of honor and my pride will suit my station in life.”

  She swung around to face him fully. “I don’t understand.”

  “It takes money and power and raw nerve to establish a fine House. More of all three to found a Great House and have it accepted. I’ll have the money when I return from this trip with a shipment of Sand. I’ll also have a guarantee of a permanent slice of the Sand route profits. And I have learned the ways of power from watching Quintel over the years. He has taught me much.”

  “I expect you were born with the necessary raw nerve,” Kalena snapped.

  “Perhaps I inherited it from my father,” Ridge said casually.

  “You said you don’t know who your father was.”

  “I know he was the heir of a Great House in Countervail. He seduced a young woman who had no House to protect her, got her pregnant and then abandoned her to the streets. She died when I was in my eighth year, refusing to name my father to me. She wouldn’t even tell me which House he represented.”

  “Why not?” Kalena asked softly.

  “Because she knew I would try to kill him and probably get myself killed in the attempt.”

  “So you were born with your pride as well as your nerve. She must have recognized as much and tried to protect you,” Kalena said, her voice gentle now.

  “Perhaps.” Ridge seemed no longer interested in the discussion of his childhood. He got up off the rock and walked toward the waiting creets, who were helping themselves to a patch of red and yellow wildflowers. “It no longer matters. One of these days I will be the lord of my own Great House and then none of the past will matter. Are you ready?”

  “Yes.” She walked toward her creet. Kalena had one foot in the high stirrup when she felt Ridge’s hands around her waist. He tossed her up into the saddle and stood looking up at her for a moment, one hand resting on her thigh with casual possessiveness. His golden eyes flared for a moment in the warm sunlight. The fire in his gaze was not gentle or sensual or persuasive. It was a little savage and utterly determined.

  “I must have a suitable wife when I return to Crosspurposes. A woman who can conduct herself like a fine lady when the occasion demands. A woman who has strength and nerve and who is willing to work hard. One whose loyalty to me is absolute and who also knows the meaning of honor.”

  Kalena lifted her chin. “I wish you luck in finding such a paragon. Do you want some advice?”

  His gaze narrowed. “What advice would you give?”

  “If you do find a suitable candidate for the post, you would do well to treat her carefully. She will be accustomed to good manners and the behavior of gentlemen. If you are wise, you will not threaten her, even occasionally, with a creet whip. Nor will you give her orders as if she were a servant. Furthermore, you will not force your way into her pallet when you have ale on your breath and a desire to copulate with any convenient female. You will wait for an invitation.”

  Ridge grinned in response to her short lecture. “Such a woman, if indeed I find one, sounds very dull. It’s fortunate that I have you instead of this paragon on this trip.” He smiled at her wickedly. “The one thing you never are, Kalena, is boring.”

  He turned away to mount his own creet, ignoring a muttered comment about having a head as thick as a zorcan’s. Ridge swung up into the saddle, aware that he was feeling unexpectedly good in spite of the morning’s hard ride and the two dead bodies that lay behind him in Adverse.

  He had been right to reestablish the sexual bond between himself and Kalena. Ridge acknowledged privately that the one place he felt he had some genuine control over Kalena was in a sleeping pallet. Last night had reassured him that her response to him still ran as deep in her veins as it had that first night, as deep and irresistible as his own response to her was. She was a proud, highborn lady, but last night she had called him husband and accepted him as much.

  Ridge was congratulating himself on that fact when he started thinking, not for the first time, about Kalena’s pride. Some of his masculine satisfaction slipped. It was true he had a right to demand her obedient surrender in the sleeping pallet, but he, of all people, knew how sharp a lash pride and honor could be. His actions last night must have stung her fiercely.

  He didn’t want to coerce her into doing her wifely duty, Ridge admitted to himself. He wanted Kalena to give herself willingly and eagerly. Morosely, he came to the conclusion that forcing her to surrender to him probably wasn’t a reliable means of inducing her warm and willing cooperation. His mouth tightened, as did his grip on the reins as he came to a grim decision. He would not force Kalena again. He was a man of honor and he understood the fierceness of her own pride. She had a right to that pride. He would give her some time to come to terms with her new responsibilities as his wife before he again claimed her. He had a lot of time, Ridge reminded himself. The rest of the journey lay ahead.

  Kalena’s sense of honor was as strong as his own, even if it had been deliberately warped by the aunt, Ridge reflected. One of the things he had to do before they returned to Crosspurposes was to ensure that Kalena understood Quintel was not guilty of murdering her father and brother.

  And Ridge had no doubt about that fact. Quintel might be capable of hiring men to act as his private weapons in order to deal with lawless bandits on the trade routes, but to murder the lord and heir of a Great House was quite another thing. Quintel was scrupulous about staying within the confines of the law. It was unthinkable that he would step so far outside it. Quintel’s own sense of honor was as rigid as any other lord’s.

  No, Kalena must be convinced that her House obligation had been sadly misdirected by an embittered, perhaps crazy old woman. After Kalena understood that, she must be shown that the free life she sought as a Lower class trade woman was not all she had imagined. She needed a husband who would ensure she didn’t forget her heritage. A husband who could, perhaps, even replace the heritage she had lost with one that was just as proud.

  Ridge frowned thoughtfully as he considered the long-term future. Clearly, his trade wife had plans of her own that she intended to implement when they returned to Crosspurposes. Her desire for freedom was going to be a problem. But several eight-days lay ahead of them, and much could happen to change a woman’s mind in that length of time.

  Eight

  The creets were in a playful mood that evening. They had plenty of extra energy because they hadn’t been pushed as hard as usual during the afternoon, but they
also seemed to delight in the bubbling spring near the campsite Ridge had chosen. Not long after they camped, the creets were happily bathing in the fresh water.

  As the late afternoon sunlight faded behind the distant mountains, Kalena sat curled on a rock overlooking the small stream. She watched the birds while Ridge finished the preparations for camping out on the trail.

  “The problem with putting all that extra distance behind us and Adverse this morning is that it threw off the travel schedule,” Ridge complained as he laid the fire. “My original plan was to be near a town every evening.”

  “You surprise me, Ridge. I would have thought you’d be accustomed to roughing it on the trail.”

  He threw her a rare grin. “Being accustomed to it doesn’t mean I like it. In fact, it has a tendency to make me appreciate the comforts of an inn even more than I might otherwise.”

  Kalena wrapped her arms around her knees and watched him with sincere curiosity. “I’m astonished to hear a man such as yourself admit to liking the little luxuries of life.”

  “You have a distorted view of my nature.”

  “If that’s true it’s probably because our time together has been a little tense,” she pointed out dryly. “We haven’t really had much of an opportunity to get to know each other.”

  He paused in his work and glanced at her. “I thought we were getting to know a great deal about each other in a hurry.”

  Kalena made a wry face. “I think we’re going about it the hard way.”

  He shrugged and tossed down a load of kindling. “Possibly. But it doesn’t make such difference. The end result is the same. You are my wife.”

  “Trade wife,” she emphasized quietly.

  He gave her a slightly challenging smile. “The distinction is meaningless until the end of our journey.”

  Before Kalena could respond to that her attention was distracted by her creet’s wild chirps. She glanced around in time to see the bird racing madly along the edge of the stream. The creet was flapping her little yellow wings in a useless effort to propel herself as fast as possible. The large male was in hot pursuit.