The moderator’s droned words snipped his smile. “Please welcome Rosamunde Lyre.”
What? No way. He clutched the curtain to keep from falling. What the fuck was Rosamunde doing here in a closed session?
“Come forward, my dear, and take the podium.” The moderator stepped down.
The Assembly stood and clapped for Rosamunde serenely walking down the center aisle, one hand resting lightly on her rounded belly. Still a deb until she took a husband, she wore a pink maternity robe. Her skin glowed with maternal calm. Her rounded figure symbolized the ultimate goal of a woman.
Palmer escorted her down the aisle, his hand on the small of her back should she falter. He regarded Rosamunde’s tummy bump with heavy-lidded eyes only a blind fool would mistake as platonic. Her mother, escorted by Cyrus and William, followed a few sedate steps behind, the three beaming like proud grandparents. Quiggs fingered the hilt of the poisoned stake in his weapons belt.
Palmer assisted his daughter up the two steps of the podium before standing aside with the First Family. William, as First Husband, stood to the right of his wife, Cyrus to her left. Palmer stood on the end by Cyrus. The Third Husband visibly flinched when Cyrus pulled him close, linking hands to demonstrate solidarity. Or maybe not a gesture of solidarity, but the pleased afterglow from a morning fuck.
Frankly, Quiggs hoped the husbands fucked the cheat incontinent. As he wondered why the Assembly welcomed Rosamunde, he saw a guard pushing a beribboned wheelbarrow down the aisle. All eyes veered toward the gleaming pile of gold coins minted centuries ago, the fabled bounty at long last removed from its vault. The applause escalated in tribute to this historic moment.
Oh, no. No, no, no, no, no.
Quiggs choked down a yowl, bouncing foot to foot. The Assembly was presenting Rosamunde his rightful bounty. His, his, his!
Rosamunde waited for the Assembly to take their seats. Her voice held a shy tremor as she addressed them. “Thank you for awarding the bounty to my child.” She rested her palms on her belly. “This child is a reminder to all of us that buried deep inside the best of men is an inherent stain. It is a mistake for women to relax their guard.” She paused dramatically. “A mistake for which I have dearly paid.” She dabbed her eyes with a lacy handkerchief, though she could no more squeeze out a tear than a feral a drop of pity for its prey. “Never forget our laws were created to protect women from this stain. The time has come to ask ourselves if it is safe to allow the formation of a separate territory across the canal. I say we must protect ourselves by annexing the outbank to our Triangle and govern it by our proven laws.”
Clever timing. The governor used Rosamunde’s plight to incite a prompt vote to retire Max, then a swift auction of the farms. Rosamunde would walk away with vast tracts of land for sputternut orchards bought with the gold coins conveniently at her feet.
And Grandma would get a share for cooperating.
Rage consumed him. Timing? He’d show them timing!
Quiggs stepped onto the stage. Eyes widened, obviously concerned why a border patrolman was interrupting the session. He heard the audience murmur.
Rosamunde’s voice stuttered to a stop at the distraction. She scowled at him. “Explain yourself, soldier. This is a closed session.”
He removed his helmet and tucked it under an arm, giving her a good look at his flushed face and short dark curls matted with sweat. “You lying bitch!”
Rosamunde’s glowing complexion turned dead white. “Q-Quiggs… you’re alive?”
The guards appeared uncertain what to do. They stood rooted, tapping their batons against their thighs and glancing at each other, waiting for someone else to make the first move against the hero who’d killed the vines.
Quiggs forgot his eloquent speech. Angry words shot up. “You’re carrying Palmer’s bastard! I never touched you! I’d sooner breed a stinking feral!”
Rosamunde’s chest heaved, panic setting in.
He raged on, words ringing like ax strokes to expose the rot behind her infallible wall of womanhood. “You were fucking your third father before you caught me with Beau. Our marriage was already dissolved, yet you forced me into the lottery. When you discovered you were pregnant, you and Palmer hired an assassin to kill me. You stole my inheritance, my inventions, my freedom, my name. Now you steal my bounty for Palmer’s child.”
Rosamunde’s composure crumpled. “I… I… I…” Totally flummoxed, she looked at her family for help.
Quiggs faced the Assembly. “The bounty belongs to me. Bear witness should I die, I declare Commander Max Bronn my beneficiary. However, if you grant me a new trial where I have the chance to defend myself against the outrageous lies, I’ll donate half the bounty to your qualified sons for the purchase of farms. So… who’s in?”
The Mothers nodded at each other to give him a fair trial. Shit, this was easy. He waited for the governor to protest.
Governor Lyre’s horrified expression said it all. She was a scorned wife. She shrieked at Palmer, “You bedded our daughter!” The entire room witnessed the heinous accusation.
The Mothers leaned forward to catch every word.
Palmer dropped the pretense. “I loathe my marriage.”
“Shut up, Palmer!” Rosamunde cried.
He shook his head at her. “You were meant to be my wife. Your mother bought me to fund her campaign. She knew I hated submitting to Cyrus and William. She knew and watched.”
“Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!” the governor shouted.
William gripped Palmer’s arm before he could escape. “You defiled our daughter!”
“Your daughter, not mine!” Palmer swung his free fist at William’s perfect nose. Blood spurted. William screeched but held tight.
Cyrus grabbed Palmer’s fist before it landed a second punch. “Always denying us, blaming your headaches when all the while you—” Cyrus bellowed from a hard kick at his kneecap.
Governor Lyre shook with rage. She yanked Rosamunde off the podium and slapped her. “You seduced my husband!”
Rosamunde sank to her knees, sobbing. “Never, never! Palmer raped me!”
“You begged me for it like a bitch in heat,” Palmer spat. His head snapped back from William’s punch.
Quiggs smiled. Well, damn. Could it be this simple? Both admitted having sex with the entire Assembly listening. He hadn’t factored in Rosamunde being here, shocked stupid by his appearance and casting the blame on Palmer. She depended upon a carefully spun web of lies to support her. Quiggs alive, confronting her, was an unforeseen event tearing a wide hole in the middle.
Rosamunde held a hand to her stinging cheek and wailed that the excitement endangered her baby. The governor lifted her black skirt and aimed a hard kick at Palmer’s balls. She lost her balance, hitting William’s balls dead center instead. He doubled over and vomited on Palmer, who gagged. Cyrus took advantage and punched Palmer’s liquid brown eyes.
Quiggs savored the spectacle. The First Family had walked the bridge with their eyes on the prize instead of their steps. They’d fallen off, and no one was tossing them a rope.
The elderly moderator returned to the podium and tapped her gavel. “A trial wastes our time. I submit Quiggs Fallon is innocent of all charges. All in favor, please stand.”
The entire Assembly stood.
The monitor warbled, “Quiggs, we declare you a free man. What was stolen will be returned. The lottery drawing was illegal. You are free to marry and live the life you deserve.”
He whooped and tossed his helmet in the air.
Except he didn’t want a wife. He wanted to continue living with Max.
A guard leaped onto the stage. He thwacked a baton against his palm. “I got you now, you little shit.”
Oh, fuck. Quiggs recognized that tinny voice—the assassin. He was younger than he sounded, in his late twenties, with a long, narrow face and a forehead deeply scarred from slashing claws when he’d served in the military. The cruel eyes and toothy smile said he knew it was o
ver for himself once Rosamunde started talking, but he was taking Quiggs down first.
Where the fuck were the guards? Waiting for an engraved invitation to save him? Quiggs stalled. “You’re the one who threw me over the wall. You placed the boiler nest on my balcony. Did Rosamunde keep half your fee for not finishing your job?” He dodged a swing. Barely. “For fuck’s sake, somebody help me!”
He glimpsed the guards separating the First Family. It looked like a bloodbath over there. He feinted toward the front of the stage. The assassin lunged to intercept, and Quiggs sprinted for the curtain. He intended to dive under and hide among the props backstage, but he tripped over his helmet and fell to the floor. The baton fanned the air where his head had been.
“Fucking little shit!”
The curtain was a few feet away. Quiggs rolled for it and butted into a pair of legs. The bastard was fast. Quiggs groped for the poisoned stake in his belt. He was worthless in hand-to- hand combat, but a surprise thrust into the thigh would incapacitate his attacker within a minute. The baton splintered the stake, the blow numbing Quiggs to the elbow.
A boot stomped down on his stomach, pinning him. “You cost me a wife!” The pale blue eyes shot hatred down at Quiggs.
What woman would let herself be courted by this ugly brute? Understanding dawned. “Rosamunde?” Quiggs wheezed.
The man boasted, “My Rosamunde fancies a man with vigor.”
Quiggs caught his breath. “Seriously, you and Rosamunde? Taking turns with Palmer?”
“She swore she was done with him. Called him a mewling boy.”
“You’re an idiot to believe she’ll give up Palmer.” The taunt earned a kick to his ribs.
“Think you’re so smart? Your brains will look as slimy and gray as the dumbest fuck around when I’m done with you.” The assassin grinded his boot in Quiggs’s stomach, then swung the baton high with both hands.
Pinned to the floor, the breath squished out of him, Quiggs squeezed his eyes shut. He regretted there’d be nothing left of his face for Max to kiss goodbye.
He heard the air whistle. Oh, fuck. This was it. The baton glanced off his shoulder without force and rolled to the floor.
Quiggs opened his eyes. Was the fucker toying with him?
An odd look shadowed the ugly face. He clutched at an arrow lodged in his throat. A second arrow whistled past, driving through the left eye in a kill shot to the brain. The right eye rolled up as the assassin toppled into the curtain, the heavy folds swallowing him.
“About damn time,” Quiggs muttered at the guard dropping his bow on the floor to kneel beside him. The hands had wicked claws, which sheathed an instant before running his hands under Quiggs’s tee for cracked ribs. “M-Max? You… here?” He sounded as shocked stupid as Rosamunde.
“Take several deep breaths.” Fingers traced each rib with a delicacy belied by the harsh voice.
He inhaled the musky battle sweat of a feral. Max at his fiercest.
“A raft of herders caught up to where my barge had tied off to deliver supplies. They were curious why Dean Cagney was running toward Port Memphis with a border patrolman carrying my courier pouch. So was I. I jumped off the barge and raced to your hut with men lagging behind me.” Max pulled his hands away. “I don’t feel anything poking out.”
“Heh. Give me a minute and feel lower.” Quiggs grinned up at him.
Max gave a humorless laugh. “I read your letter. No feelings for you?” His gray eyes flashed with pain. “You marched off to your death thinking I have no feelings for you? I ought to—why didn’t you hide and wait for me?”
“Because you were supposed to seek revenge for my death. You were supposed to have the people fighting on your side to change the laws. Not just men. Women, too.” Quiggs tried to sit up and groaned. Definitely bruised ribs and a sore stomach for a week.
“I almost lost you.” He wrapped an arm around Quiggs’s waist. “Had I arrived here a second later, you would have died.”
He flicked a look at Max through his lashes. “Dying was the whole point of surrendering myself. It’s now or never to fight for us, our people, the Triangle. Stand up to the Mothers and fight for what we deserve.”
“I won’t start a bloody rebellion.”
“The rules are a thousand bloody cuts bleeding every man dry as surely as a sword thrust to the heart. Look around you. The Assembly is a group of long-winded Mothers. You’re the force to knock the breath out of them.” Quiggs’s words were treason. He glanced at the Assembly. If they heard, they would order him killed outright.
The Ruling Mothers weren’t paying attention. They shrank in their seats, dazed by the number of grim herders, soldiers, and citizens of all ranks filling the auditorium. Ignoring the Assembly, the security guards were removing the First Family from the room down the center aisle, with Rosamunde pleading her condition and the governor aloof as if this were a brief family squabble before she resumed her duties. William and Cyrus held bloody handkerchiefs to their faces. Palmer lay senseless on a stretcher.
On opposites sides of the auditorium, Dean Cagney and President Brooke tore the red draperies from the walls with policemen helping them. Etched in stone on each wall was the original Triangle of Equal Rights in the old language.
Max’s eyes frowned around the room.
“It’s now or never,” Quiggs pleaded.
“Always so fucking right.” Max moved aside as medics arrived with a stretcher. “Later, my—” Quiggs wasn’t his concubine. Affection was unseemly. “Later, Mr. Fallon.”
“Later, Commander Bronn.”
Max took the center of the stage with his hands on his hips, feet apart. “So who out there wants me to retire?”
The Ruling Mothers looked at each other. A few dozen stood. “We do,” they said, smoothing their skirts, calmly regarding him as if he were but an annoying insect to pinch between a thumb and forefinger.
“Get out. You are no longer members of the Assembly.”
They huffed at his audacity and linked hands in unity.
A ruthless edge entered his voice. “Get out before I add your skulls to my cuffs.”
They waited, confident the other Mothers would join in. None did.
“I’m not bluffing, ladies. It is my sworn duty to defend the Triangle against its enemies. You are the enemy. Your rules will destroy us.” He displayed his claws and bared his teeth.
The Mothers dropped hands and fled the room, screeching, with every woman for herself.
Those remaining shrank in their seats.
Max boomed out. “Until a new government is established, I’m in charge of the Assembly. Does anyone have a problem with that?”
The elderly moderator tapped Max on the arm. Oh, fuck, no. If Max harmed her—
She handed him the gavel. “Take it, my boy. I’m retiring.”
The rebellion ended without bloodshed.
Quiggs missed the rest. The medics strapped him to a stretcher and carried him off the side of the stage.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Three Weeks Later
Quiggs paced Dean Cagney’s office, waiting for the ruling.
Today, the New Assembly voted on whether or not to exempt Quiggs from mandatory service. If exempted, he became a civilian. Free to vote, to wed, to marry. Or he could choose to remain single, free to enjoy sex in pleasure houses, bathhouses, alleys. On a desk, a rug, a park bench at night. Anywhere except in his apartment. Inviting a man for sex in his apartment was equivalent to a serious wedding proposal.
It was an open secret Max refused reciprocation.
The exemption from service was a sure thing. What had Quiggs pacing impatiently was a vote allowing men to wed without vowing reciprocation. Once it passed, Max would become the first man to invoke the new law when he wedded Quiggs in a simple ceremony this afternoon. They planned to seclude themselves in Max’s apartment for three days, where he hoped Max would finally, finally confess romantic feelings for his husband instead of hinting at them.
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A sideboard held cider, crackers, and pepper jellies. Quiggs missed cheeses and custards. He missed the mugs of warm milk stirred with spices at bedtime. He missed sleeping with Max, whose formidable presence had sped up a mostly peaceful transition into a new regime.
The New Assembly consisted of thirty men and thirty women—twenty from each port city—with Max the self-appointed chairperson, whose vote was often a tiebreaker. Today was one of those tiebreakers, if all women obstinately voted to keep mandatory reciprocation in wedlock and all men defiantly voted it optional.
Members of the New Assembly called themselves legislators. During the first session, Max informed the women to stop squabbling over a proper uniform and get down to business, or he’d assign all legislators a uniform of tees and drawstring pants. The women thought he bluffed. He wasn’t. They covered their borrowed tees and pants with long coats buttoned from the ankle to the throat, while the men wore the rattiest garments they owned.
Max repealed the uniform code the following week. Women wore fitted black suits minus the annoying bustles, the men crisp white shirts and dark pants. A new government commenced.
Given a choice of joining with or fighting against soldiers, the police defected to Max’s side. Objections dwindled to a few bitter ousted Ruling Mothers.
Each day of spraying reclaimed more land from the vines. Three crops of greens won approval in the dining halls. Due next week were fingerling potatoes along with a patch of oats. Construction of the first farming village was underway, financed by Quiggs’s bounty.
A vote to end the concubine lottery lost by a wide margin. Not surprisingly, the men argued to keep it. A concubine gave them the illusion of a wife. Actually, better than a wife, considering how vicious women behaved to get their way. Rosamunde, confined to an apartment with her trial deferred until after she delivered her baby, was the worst example. In exchange for a benevolent execution, Palmer had confessed to everything. The ex-governor, William, and Cyrus were stripped of their land and assets and sentenced to twenty years of hard labor on a new penal farm in the outland. They had plotted to get their hands on the new land. Now they would.
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