The cart rolled on, jolting up the narrow path, crushing vines and roses under its wheels. Tera sat next to Kamoj, as she had throughout the ride, silent, watching her captive. Bound and gagged, Kamoj had shivered at the start of the trip, until Tera wrapped a carpet around her shoulders.
Kamoj glanced at the boda-bag on Tera’s belt. She had neither eaten nor had anything to drink since yesterday.
For a while Tera watched Kamoj watching the boda-bag. Then the archer spoke, her Ironbridge dialect so strong Kamoj could barely understand her. It sounded like, "Be you still o’piece, move I yer quieter?"
Kamoj nodded, hoping she had guessed the correct meaning of the question: will you be quiet if I take off the gag?
Tera removed the gag, then pulled the sponge out of Kamoj’s mouth. The archer took the boda-bag off her belt and unscrewed the top. Tilting its narrowed end to Kamoj’s lips, she squeezed the bag, making wine squirt into Kamoj’s mouth. As much as Kamoj disliked the harsh mead brewed in Ironbridge, she disliked her searing thirst even more. She sucked the bag dry.
When Tera lowered the bag, Kamoj said, "Will you untie me?"
The driver answered, what sounded like, "Maybe a’can," to which Tera responded, "Lector, we cannee risk her a’run." Kamoj wasn’t sure if Lector was an oath or the driver’s name; either way, it came from a contraction of Electromotive Force. Legends painted Lector as a great hero who converted humans into energy. Why converting people into energy was heroic, Kamoj had no clue, but the name was popular in Ironbridge.
"I won’t try to run," Kamoj said. She almost meant it; she had no idea where they were now, besides which, she would be even colder wandering in the woods than sitting here under a carpet. Even so, she was willing to try an escape.
She didn’t fool Tera, though. The archer made no move to untie her. "Out there you be peat for Argali vines," she said.
"Look," Lector said. "That wild greenglass again. I’d spend a Long Year to catch that beaut."
Kamoj looked, and saw a huge stag keeping pace with them, half-hidden in the trees. She doubted Lector would have success with this greenglass. Greypoint would never allow anyone but Vyrl to ride him. And it was Greypoint following them, she was certain. But why? The Current only knew what the animal had thought yesterday when a giant metal bird took away Vyrl. Had Greypoint been pacing the woods since then, undecided whether or not to return the Quartz Palace?
Tera was watching her. "The animal follows you." She grinned, showing teeth browned from chewing cabarque leaves. "We caught us a forest nymph guarded by the king of stags, heh?" Her smile faded. "Or else we caught us a witch."
"Donnee talk of Argali that way," Lector said.
Tera answered something about, "vile business" and "Lionstar," to which Lector nodded in agreement.
Their words were an unwelcome reminder to Kamoj of Vyrl’s dismal reputation. No one had trusted him before and now he had trampled their customs. All in the Northern Lands would have the same thought: if a stranger could overthrow Argali and humiliate even Ironbridge, no one was safe. Jax must have marshalled that fear to augment his army, bringing in archers like Tera who usually served on a highborn woman’s bodyguard. He would have left enough archers and stagmen to protect Ironbridge and taken the rest with him. While Vyrl rode on Ironbridge, Jax was somewhere up here, high in the mountains, sealing his plans for Argali.
As the bi-hoxen plodded onward, Kamoj brooded. Would the Ascendant help Vyrl find her? Could they find her? She had no concept of what the Ascendant could do, no referent to understand either it or its people. Besides, either Lector or Tera would go back and hide their tracks. Probably Tera. She had a venerable name, one that originally derived from the Volterra line in Argali, though the Volterra penchant for travel had long ago spread it across the Northern Lands. Volterras had a knack for solving problems that involved a preferred direction. They made good trackers.
Groggy from hunger and drunk from mead, Kamoj fell into a daze, watching the trees go by. The cart finally rolled into a high mountain clearing. Saturated in mist, a camp lay before them, black tents with purple tassels hanging from their roofs. Stagmen moved about the clearing, cutting wood, mending clothes, cleaning weapons, tending campfires. They all wore boots and fur-lined clothes, protection against the sleet that drizzled from the overcast sky.
When Tera tugged the carpet off Kamoj, a blast of freezing air cut through Kamoj’s underdress to her skin. Then Tera pulled her out of the cart. As Kamoj’s bare feet hit the iced ground, she gasped and jerked. With her hands tied behind her back, she lost her balance and fell against the cart.
Lector came over to her. He lifted Kamoj up, settled her in his arms, and then set off into the camp, carrying her with one arm under her knees and the other behind her back. She gritted her teeth against the stares of the encamped army. Her rose-hued dress was the only bright color in the camp, and she knew glimsilk glowed on overcast days. It was like a beacon drawing attention to her loss of status. Jax had stripped her of authority in both a literal and figurative sense.
Lector stopped at a large violet pavilion with black tassels hanging from its fringed roof. When he nodded to the two stagmen posted outside its entrance, the taller man inclined his head and went inside the tent. Kamoj was shivering uncontrollably now, her dress frozen in the sleeting rain.
The flap lifted, releasing a puff of warm air. The stagman looked out at them. "He meets with an advisor now. He be calling you when they finish."
Kamoj stared at him. Did Jax mean to freeze her?
"Sweet saints, man," Lector said. "She cannee survive this cold."
Another stagman inside lifted the flap, releasing more warm air. "You may come now," he said.
As Lector carried Kamoj into the tent, warmth closed around her. She closed her eyes, hating herself for the gratitude she felt. Did Jax plan these things, or did he just have an inborn instinct for controlling people?
Silk panels hung on the walls, violet, silver, and black for Ironbridge. Rugs covered on the ground and a bed made up with purple velvet stood in one corner. On the floor, braziers with iron grates gave out heat that rippled in waves, distorting the air above the scrolled grills.
"Over there," a man said. That voice Kamoj knew. Jax. Looking over her shoulder, she saw him sitting with a judge at a table across the tent. He returned to his meeting without acknowledging her.
Lector set her on a pile of furred blankets near a brazier. As he covered her with the furs, she craned her neck to look at Jax again. Unexpectedly, he was watching her. When he realized she had caught him doing it, he turned away, focusing on his advisor, who was struggling to decipher a map.
Heat from the brazier warmed Kamoj, melting the ice on her clothes. She began to feel again: rivulets of water ran down her neck from her hair, Lector’s jacket scratched the skin of her arms, and waterproofed fur rubbed her thighs. Closing her eyes, she soaked in the warmth. She knew she was passing out but she didn’t care. Exhausted, she let darkness carry her into oblivion.
IX
IRON ROSE
Internal Bound States
In the drowsy contentment of first waking, Kamoj reached for Vyrl, her husband. She found only empty air. Opening her eyes, she looked up–at Jax Ironbridge.
Her serenity vanished. She was lying on Jax’s bed, her arms free now. The tent was empty except for the two of them. It was also dark; the only light came from dimly glowing braziers. She had no idea how long she had slept. A heavy, slumbering night had fallen outside.
Jax was sitting on the edge of the bed, leaning his weight on one hand while he watched her. His hair hung around his face, straight and black, with streaks of grey. He wore a governor’s clothes, rich and well-tailored: violet shirt, black suede pants, and black knee boots edged with silver fur. The silver-thread design of a bridge decorated the cuffs and collar of his shirt. Kamoj wondered which of his mistresses had embroidered it.
"How long have you been there?" she asked.
"A while." Leaning forward, he stroked her hair away from her eyes. "You looked so pretty sleeping. An Argali rose."
Argali. Argali. She jerked away from him. "You burned it."
His smile vanished. "Perhaps next time you will think before you humiliate Ironbridge."
She pulled herself into a sitting position. "How could you do it?"
Jax watched her with focused intensity. "If your former husband has any wits about him, he will evacuate the villages in time."
Former? "Lionstar and Argali have a merger."
A muscle in his cheek twitched. "It’s being dissolved."
"You can’t do that."
"Of course I can." He trailed his finger across her lips. "I have a gift for you."
The change in subject disoriented Kamoj. "What?"
"I had intended it as a wedding gift." He paused. "But I will give it to you tonight, even if we won’t sign the contracts until tomorrow."
"Contracts?"
His voice hardened. "I learned a great deal from the Ascendant delegation that came to Ironbridge. This Drake Brockson, the man they call an anthropologist–he and I talked a long time. He has concerns about what he calls ‘our native sovereignty.’ Lionstar’s actions here disturb him."
Although Kamoj knew the judges of her own people would side with Jax in this, she had expected disinterest from the Ascendant, perhaps even help. It hadn’t occurred to her that Vyrl’s behavior might have offended his own people as well as hers. At least they had been helping with the fires. Was Argali burning even now?
"Are the–" Kamoj stopped when she saw Jax’s mouth tighten. She recognized the warning signs.
Jax stood up, the dim light casting shadows across his body as if he were a living statue. He had Vyrl’s height and musculature, but the resemblance ended there. Where Vyrl was tawny, alive like the land in autumn, Jax evoked stone and iron.
A tanglebirch chest stood at the foot of the bed, carved with bridges and rivers. Jax went to it and took out a black lacquered box. "Ten years ago I traveled with some of my stagmen to the Thermali Coast, where the ships sail in." He came back and sat next to her again. "I got this from a merchant who sailed from another continent." Setting the box in her hands, he added, "I’ve kept it for you."
Kamoj almost flinched. Given the circumstances, how could she accept a gift from Jax? Painfully aware of him watching her, she lifted the lid. Inside, nestled in a bed of gold velvet, lay a porcelain egg, exquisitely designed, with silver filigree curling over it like lace.
She spoke awkwardly. "It’s lovely. But I can’t accept–"
He touched his finger to her lips. "Look inside."
Still she hesitated, but when irritation flashed across his face, she undid the latch on the egg. Gold velvet lined the interior, and jewelry sparkled within it, two earrings and a long necklace, all made in the Argali design, gold vines inlaid with ruby roses.
"Sweet saints," she murmured. "They’re beautiful."
"Indeed." Jax picked up the earrings. Holding back her hair, he inserted the earrings himself, with an expertise that suggested a long practice of putting jewels on women. The rubies dangled against her neck, clinking together, their tiny bells making soft chimes.
He held up the chain next, letting its rubies glitter in the dim light. "Kamoj, you’ve truly a lovely stone as your namesake."
She swallowed. "You are kind to offer me such a necklace. But I can’t–"
"It’s not for your neck." He laid his palm against her waist. "It goes here. Actually, with a waist as small as yours, it will rest on your hips. Women in Thermali wear them under their clothes. It’s very pretty."
"Oh." She didn’t want to know how he saw what women in Thermali wore under their clothes.
Jax set the egg and the box on the floor. He let the chain slide through his hand, until it pooled on the velvet spread in a shimmer of gold and rubies. Then he got up again and went back to the chest. This time he took out a braided cord made from glittering scale-hemp, with tassels on each end. Threads of beaten gold and bronze wove through the braid, and jeweled dust powdered its surface. It resembled the old farm belts she often wore, except instead of being functional, this was designed for beauty.
Jax stood by the chest, watching her with a shuttered look. "I had this made when you and I were betrothed."
Kamoj had no idea how to respond. Never in a decade of Long Years would she have imagined Jax indulging in the sentimentality of these beautiful gifts. "You are too generous."
"Am I?" He returned to the bed with slow, deliberate steps and sat next to her. Taking her hands in his, he wound the cord around her wrists. Then, with a jerk, he tightened the belt. "Am I, pretty rose?"
Kamoj flinched as the cord bit into the rope burns on her wrists. "Jax, don’t."
"Why?" He twisted the belt tighter. "Is what I have for you not good enough now you’ve had his wealth to play with?"
"I didn’t mean that." Her eyes watered from the pain. "What are you doing?"
"Giving presents to my love." His voice sounded clenched. "To the woman who humiliated me the moment a richer man made her a better offer."
"You know I had no choice."
"You had a choice. You could have said no." His lower eyelid twitched. "You think it was hard for you, being carried through my camp like an unwilling bondsgirl? How do you think it was for me, having you walk away, knowing you were going to another man’s bed after I had waited almost your entire life for you?" Incredibly, his voice shook. "It happened so cursed fast. One moment I was looking forward to seeing you and the next you were gone."
She stared at him, stunned by the depth of his reaction. "I–I’m sorry."
"It doesn’t matter. You’re mine again." Gritting his teeth, he added, "Except he had you first."
"Jax, please–"
"Please, what?" Then he slapped her across the face.
"No!" Kamoj tried to lift her arms, to protect herself, but he held her wrists down with the cord. "Don’t!"
"You want me to stop?" He hit her again. "How could you do it?"
"Jax, no!" Kamoj stuttered as he struck her a third time. "Stop. Please."
Reaching to his boot, he pulled a knife out of it. "Whether it happens again is up to you."
"What are you doing?" She tried to jerk away from him, but he held her in place by the belt around her wrists. With methodical strokes he sliced up the belt, shredding the gift until it was no more than a pile of raveled glittering threads.
Her voice caught. "Jax–"
"No." The blade glinted as he lifted it in front of her. Then he cut the shoulder straps of her dress. "I will hear no more."
Staring at the knife, Kamoj swallowed and remained silent. Jax laid her on the bed. His blade felt like ice as he cut away her dress. She stared at the tent overhead, at the cloth shaking with falling snow. A tassel hung from its highest point, bobbing back and forth. She focused on it, trying to numb her mind to the blowing snow of Jax’s touch.
Some time later he fastened the gold chain with its ruby roses around her hips. His hair brushed her face, the scent of his astringent shampoo wafting in the air, mixed with the tang of his sweat. His clothes scratched her skin, the buckle of his loosened belt scraping back and forth on her thigh. She built a dome of ice in her mind, a place where she hid in numbing cold.
Later, he lay still. Eventually he rolled off her and sat on the edge of the bed, his booted feet planted on the ground, his elbows on his knees while he stared across the tent, lost in thought. Then he undressed and laid his clothes in a neat pile on the nightstand. Numbly, Kamoj wondered if he always undressed afterward instead of before, or if this was a game he played with her emotions.
When he saw her looking at him, he smiled. "Curious?" His voice had quieted, as if he had spent his rage with his passion. He pulled down the covers under Kamoj and slid into bed with her, then drew the soap-scented velvet over them both. She felt an absurd relief that the blankets were Argalian wool and the sheets spic
e-cotton, instead of exotic silks.
That was when she started to shake. Why, she didn’t know. It was over. Done. Yet now her icy protective numbness cracked wide open and she shook like a vine during a storm.
"It’s all right," Jax murmured absently, pulling her into his arms. After a while he added, "Perhaps Lionstar did me a favor."
"A favor?" Her voice sounded hollow.
"I got you two years earlier than I expected."
"Oh."
"What will he do now, do you think?"
"I don’t know."
"Attack Ironbridge. Perhaps he will be killed." A chill edged his voice. "Imagine it, Kamoj. Your marauding lover from the stars stabbed through the way he stabbed my stagman."
She knew the Ascendant would never let Vyrl risk his life. But she couldn’t rid her mind of the image: Vyrl in agony on the battlefield, bleeding to death.
Jax turned her over onto her side, with her back spooned against his front, a bitter parody of her wedding night. He drifted to sleep with his thumb hooked in the chain around her hips.
X
THE RIGHT OF INQUIRY
Three-Particle Scattering
"Something is wrong with her," Jax said. "She won’t wake up!"
Another voice said, "She’s tired, Governor Ironbridge."
Kamoj opened her eyes. Sunlight filtered through the sides of the tent. A rumpled Jax stood by the bed, looking as if he had thrown on the first clothes he found, a white shirt, black pants, and black boots. She recognized the stocky man with him: Elixson, an Ironbridge healer.
"When did she last eat?" Elixson asked.
"Yesterday morning?" Jax asked. "I don’t know."
Elixson stared at him. "That’s at least sixty hours. Probably longer, I would guess. She needs food."
Jax looked unconvinced. "I’ve gone longer without eating and not even noticed."
"She only has one stomach. She’s needs sleep too. If you keep her up–"
"Your opinions are noted," Jax interrupted, his voice cold.