Quantam Rose (23 page)

Tulain picked up a blue paper and glanced at Vyrl. "This is your conversation with Colonel Pacal when you took Governor Argali riding." She scanned it, then read, "'Look at this. My wife. A farm girl like a virginal sex goddess out of an erotic holomovie, and all she asks is a simple life, a husband who doesn't beat her, and the freedom to walk in the woods.'"

When Jax turned his head away, Kamoj didn't think he was acting. Vyrl's words probably did offend him, though not for the same reasons everyone else looked uncomfortable. Jax considered it his right to beat her.

"It's not the way it sounds," Vyrl said. "I was drunk."

"It also says your stagman Azander had a bruise on his face where you hit him." Tulain paused.

"What exactly did you mean by 'a husband who doesn't beat her'?"

"Saints almighty, Major, I was in the middle of a convulsion when I hit Azander." Vyrl's fist clenched on the table. "If you want to know what I meant about beating, ask him." He stabbed his finger in the air, at Jax. "He thinks it's his right. In bed, no less."

Jax rose out of his chair. "You will not speak of my wife that way."

Vyrl stood up. "She's not your wife."

"Gentleman, sit down," Ashman said.

Jax took a breath and let it out. Then he nodded to Ashman. "My apologies, General." He sat down, leaving Vyrl standing. After an awkward moment, Vyrl sat down as well.

Kamoj hated this. Jax was making Vyrl look worse and worse. Neither Tulain nor Ashman seemed disposed to speak in Vyrl's defense and she didn't dare. Dazza, however, could. Kamoj looked across the table, trying to send a silent plea to the colonel.

Dazza blinked at her. Then she turned to the Arbiter. "Major Tulain, a fairly easy way exists to establish the truth of at least some accusations being made or implied by both parties in this disagreement."

"Go on," Tulain said.

"I can examine Kamoj," Dazza said. "If she's been mistreated, I'll know. And I can probably tell by whom."

Jax tensed. "My wife has suffered enough indignities at the hands of you people. I will tolerate no more."

Vyrl leaned forward. "Are you afraid of what they'll find?"

"Why don't we ask Governor Argali?" Tulain said.

Kamoj gritted her teeth. She didn't want anyone touching her. The idea of being "examined" was revolting. All she had wanted was for Dazza to speak in Vyrl's defense.

"Why can't you all leave her alone?" Jax said. "Hasn't she suffered enough?"

Tulain regarded Kamoj. "Governor Argali, no one will force you to be examined. But you have the right. If it shows you've been mistreated, it could change the nature of this hearing."

"Change it?" Kamoj asked.

"At the moment," Tulain said, "the only evidence supporting Prince Havyrl's contention you are being coerced is that the servants at the palace were bound, gagged, and unconscious. Governor Ironbridge claims you asked they be restrained to keep them from stopping your departure. No one saw you leave, Morlin was down, and none of our orbital facilities were monitoring the palace at that moment. Our attention was on the fires and Prince Havyrl."

The fires. What was next in the path of Ironbridge's vengeance? "I want to stay with Jax," Kamoj answered. "I've told you that. Can't any of you hear? What else do you want from me?"

They were all watching her now: general, colonel, major. Too many titles. The priestess was frowning and the Ironbridge judge's face had gone hard.

Vyrl spoke softly. "Kamoj, last night you shouted for me. Why? If you wanted to stay with him, why did you call me back?"

"You misheard," Jax said.

"Everyone heard her," Vyrl told him.

The Arbiter spoke. "Prince Havyrl, you are the only one who thinks he understood her actual words."

"Damn it!" Vyrl hit the table with his fist. "I heard it because she said it."

Jax sighed. "What my wife shouted was an oath. I'm sorry this is so hard for you to accept, Lionstar. You heard what your overwrought mind wanted to hear, not what she said."

As Vyrl stood up, his face flushed, the Arbiter said, "Prince Havyrl, please. Sit down. Your outbursts help nothing."

Vyrl clenched his fists, but he sat down. Kamoj couldn't focus on his face. The room was dimming around her.

The Ironbridge judge spoke. "Governor Argali has repeatedly stated her wish to remain faithful to her husband. What more do you people require before you stop tormenting her? The only reason this Inquiry exists is because Havyrl Lionstar refuses to believe the truth. He is the one who took her to his bed without her consent."

Diskmail clinked, and Azander appeared at the table. The Arbiter glanced at him, then at Vyrl and Jax. When neither made an objection, Tulain spoke to Azander. "Yes?"

"I be sorry to interrupt," Azander said. "I wish to make a testimony."

Jax blinked. So did everyone else. Kamoj wondered what Azander was doing.

"What do you wish to say?" Tulain asked.

"When Prince Havyrl be near to dying in the large metal bird, Governor Argali spoke for him. She convinced them to take him home instead of to the Ascendant."

Tulain nodded. "Yes, we have that in your testimony."

"But it not be said proper on that parchment you read," Azander said. "It mattered to Governor Argali that he be well treated. The caring for him, she has it."

Dazza spoke to the Arbiter. "I know what he's saying, Cara. And he's right. I've seen it too.

Kamoj has worked miracles with Prince Havyrl, reached him when none of us could even come close.

His well-being genuinely seems to matter to her."

Jax spoke with unexpected affection. "Of course it matters to her. That is the kind of person Kamoj is. She cares about everyone. It is one of the many reasons her people respond so well to her." His voice tightened. "That Lionstar took advantage of this doesn't excuse his behavior."

Vyrl stiffened, but this time he controlled himself. None of the others seemed to know how to respond.

General Ashman spoke to Vyrl. "Did you know she was like that?"

"Not when I married her," Vyrl said.

The two of them kept looking at each other, fighting their own private war, which Kamoj suspected had been going on long before she met Vyrl. Finally Vyrl stood up. His guards tensed, and several Ironbridge stagmen dropped their hands to their belts, reaching for swords they no longer carried.

Vyrl ignored them and walked away, stopping only when he reached a brazier near the edge of the tent.

He turned and spoke to Ashman. "Imperial Space Command went to great lengths to get me, lengths so extreme it boggles the mind. Why? Because I'm a great leader? A vital member of ISC? A brilliant strategist? No." He tapped his head. "Because I'm a Ruby telepath. So why do you doubt me now when I say I know what that thing"-He pointed at Jax-"is doing to Kamoj?"

"Because you've been in a telepathic catatonia for over a year," Ashman said.

Dazza spoke quietly. "Vyrl, she's the first person you've responded to since you came on board the Ascendant. How can you be sure of your reactions?"

He lowered his arm. "I'm sure."

"You're the only one who has picked up anything about abuse." Dazza motioned at his bodyguards.

"They haven't."

"They aren't Ruby telepaths."

Ashman glanced at the Jagernauts, who had moved to stand near Vyrl. "What are you getting from her?"

"Fatigue," the first man said. "She desperately wants this Inquiry to end."

The second man nodded. "She resents ISC presence here."

That's right, Kamoj thought. She had given her answer and they had to respect it. More than anything, she wanted to sleep. She stood up, intending to demand an end to the Inquiry. Before she had a chance even to form the words, the world went gray and tilted sideways. The floor came up at her. Jax jumped to his feet and caught her as she collapsed. Sagging against him, she heard voices, something about Elixson, then more voices.

"Keep that hag away from her!" Jax ordered.

"Ironbridge, don't be a fool," Vyrl said. "Colonel Pacal is a healer, better than any you have here in camp."

Jax lifted Kamoj into his arms. Then the fresh smell of his bed enfolded her. Someone had washed the covers. Jax made a blur above her, wavering in a grey mist. Lying on her side, she let the mist thicken until she could no longer see him.

A change in the pitch of voices brought her mind back into focus. Jax and Vyrl were standing a few paces apart now, by the bed, their faces flushed, their voices rising in volume.

"-think you can take whatever you want," Jax said.

Vyrl clenched his fists at his sides. "That problem is yours, Ironbridge, not mine."

"Argali is none of your business."

Vyrl stepped forward, raising his fists. "We have laws-"

"Don't threaten me." Jax put his hands against Vyrl's shoulders and shoved him away.

They came together like wrestlers, grappling with each other. Jax stumbled back, and with a crash he fell across the Inquiry table, knocking over a lantern. He and Vyrl wrestled, locked together, Vyrl closing his hands around Jax's throat.

The Jagernauts were also moving, so fast their bodies blurred. One grabbed Vyrl and the other Jax, both guards straining as their captives resisted. They yanked Vyrl and Jax apart, one of the Jagernauts holding Vyrl by the arms, the other holding Jax.

Vyrl swore, struggling in his guard's iron grip. For an instant Jax looked too stunned to respond.

Then he tried to jerk his arms away from the giant who had caught him, a move he could easily have managed with a stagman, had one of his soldiers been stupid enough to try restraining him. It made no difference to the Jagernaut. Only when Jax quit fighting did the Ascendant stagman let him go.

"You have no right," Kamoj said. She wasn't sure who she spoke to: Vyrl, Jax, or the people from the Ascendant. Perhaps all of them. She wanted everyone to leave. She tried to get off the bed, but her body wouldn't respond. It occurred to her that if she didn't eat soon, she would die.

The bed creaked. Then someone lifted her head into his lap, just as she had often done with Vyrl.

She rolled onto her back and looked up to see Jax's face above hers. Kneeling behind her, he held her head on his knees while he stroked her hair with the same inborn rhythm she had used on Vyrl.

A bruise was purpling his face and a large tear made a ragged hole in the shoulder of his shirt.

He looked far more vulnerable than Vyrl, who stood at the end of the bed flanked by his gargantuan bodyguards with their antimatter weapons.

Jax raised his gaze to Ashman. "Why don't you all go back to your starships and leave us alone?"

The general spoke quietly. "You will have to let my doctor examine Governor Argali."

"No," Jax said.

Kamoj swallowed. "Jax . . . I don't feel well."

He stroked her hair. "Elixson can take care of you." Glancing at his healer, he said, "Why is she sick?"

"She needs food and rest," Elixson said.

"I fed her," Jax said. "Just as you said. Right after we spoke."

Elixson stared at him. "Sir, the Current has gifted you with an endurance well beyond normal folk, that you can go a day and more without food, walk through sleet and never notice, or ride for days without rest. Your wife is a hearty young woman, but compared to you anyone is fragile. You must learn to account for that. She has to eat four times a day, at least two of them full meals. She must sleep at night and wear warm clothes when she is exposed to the weather."

Dazza spoke in a cold voice. "Governor Ironbridge, exposure and starvation are considered methods of coercion."

"You don't call what you people are doing coercion?" Jax looked around at them. "Sending Argali a corporation I could never match even if I worked at it my entire life? Playing with the future and well-being of the Northern Lands as if it were nothing? Attacking my camp during a 'truce.'

Threatening us with your soldiers and your weapons and your 'assimilation?' How many times does Kamoj have to tell you she wants you to go away?"

Dazza spoke softly. "Why, Kamoj? If you're sick or in pain, I can help."

"We don't want your help," Jax said.

Kamoj thought of the knife in Jax's boot and said nothing. She heard the rustle of camp outside, the snort of a greenglass, the shuffle of boots. Her mind was beginning to dissociate from her body.

Dazza pulled off her belt. Or not the entire belt, but part of it. When she ran her hand along the strip, it changed itself, turning into a flexible tube.

The colonel spoke to Jax. "This fires a needle that contains a drug. It won't harm you, but it will put you to sleep almost immediately."

Several Ironbridge stagman started toward her. As soon as they moved, Ashman motioned to Vyrl's bodyguards and they stepped forward.

Jax shook his head at his stagmen, a sign for them to back off. Relief flickered on their faces.

Kamoj knew they would have defended Jax if he hadn't stopped them, but against the Jagernauts it was obvious they had no chance.

Jax spoke bitterly to Dazza. "So you lied about carrying no weapons. Why is it that I have no surprise at this deception?"

Kamoj could see how vulnerable he felt. He hid it well, but he more than anyone understood the capabilities of the Ascendant's minions. No one seemed to realize the danger in making him feel trapped. They had left him no outs, and she was the one who would pay for it.

As Dazza raised her sleep tube, Kamoj felt Jax reach into his boot. Kamoj tried to roll away, but he held her in place. Then he slapped the knife against her throat.

"The only way you will have her," he told Vyrl, "is as a corpse."

Everyone in the tent froze. After a moment, Dazza spoke carefully. "Governor Ironbridge, don't hurt her."

"Kamoj, sit up," Jax said.

She dragged herself up to her knees, and Jax pulled her between his legs, so they were both kneeling, she with her back against his front. The flat of his blade chilled her neck. When he shifted position, the knife's razor edge nicked her skin. Vyrl stood at the foot of the bed, watching them, one fist clenched at his side. His bodyguards had their hands on their weapons, and Kamoj had no doubt they would protect Vyrl even if it meant her death.