He gave her knee-boots, purple suede-lined with silver fur. After she put them on, he pulled her up to her feet by the bed and drew her into an embrace, folding his cloak around her body. It came to just under her eyes, like a veil of dark Argalian wool. As always when his mood eased this way, she felt intense relief mixed with another emotion harder to define. It ached within her, so extreme it hurt. Hate? Or love? It felt far less pleasant than anything she had experienced with Vyrl. But no one had ever promised love would be pleasant.
A chime came from outside, a mallet hitting a small gong. Jax raised his voice. “What is it?”
His stagman stepped inside the tent. “The panel be here, sir.”
Jax motioned Kamoj at the bed. “You can sit there.”
Uneasy, Kamoj sat on the edge of the bed and folded her hands in her lap. The stagman let two people into the tent. The man she knew, an Ironbridge judge, one of Jax’s advisors. The woman wore the robe of an Ironbridge priestess. Although the designs embroidered along its sleeves and hem resembled spindly hieroglyphs, the codices named them with different words. Circuit diagrams.
Jax, the judge, and the priestess all sat at a wooden table across the tent. Parchment crackled as the judge brought out his scrolls. The three of them were soon deep in a discussion. Kamoj felt dizzy from fatigue and lack of food, and barely able to breathe in the tight clothes, but she struggled to concentrate on their words.
They first considered the legal situation Jax faced. No precedent existed where a merger was so precipitately lost after so many years of investment. It was inconceivable—until it had happened. They intended to draft legislation to make sure it never happened again. As much as Kamoj agreed, in principle, that they needed laws to prevent someone from disrupting their lives as Vyrl had done, it made her own situation no easier.
The Ascendant was a complication. Apparently its minions believed their laws applied to her people. Yet neither Jax nor his advisors feared reprisals. In fact, they seemed to consider the Ascendant an ally, albeit a wary one. For some reason its legal people wanted to know if Kamoj had consented to sleep with Vyrl. As far as she was concerned, her marital bed was none of their business. What they should have been worrying about was the economic disaster Vyrl had precipitated in the Northern Lands by yanking Argali out of its merger with Ironbridge, all the while planning to leave her province and her people.
When Jax began to tap his riding quirt against his palm, Kamoj recognized the sign of his anger. Nor was it directed only against her and Vyrl. Jax had no grounds to censure Maxard for bowing to Lionstar, so instead he and his advisors spoke of other matters, making Maxard sound incompetent, unfit for any position of authority. They started on Lyode next, calling her morals into question, and spoke of taking her away from her husband so she couldn’t have children. Kamoj understood Jax’s message: unless she cooperated, those she loved would suffer.
When they moved onto Vyrl, she almost gagged. They planned to claim he raped her in a drunken fit. The Ascendant’s people had translated the contract scroll Vyrl had read at the wedding. It was indeed a merger contract, with gibberish about commercial licenses, zoning ordinances, business insurance, and property. Vyrl apparently could be held to its terms, which included provisions to negate a merger made through coercion.
Jax and his advisors all signed the document that annulled the Argali-Lionstar merger. When the judge said the Ascendant required Kamoj sign as well, Jax penned her name. Then they wrote down every term of the Argali-Ironbridge merger and signed that contract as well. Finally the judge rolled up the scrolls and put them in his valise. They all stood and talked a bit more, speculation about when the riders sent to Argali would return with news of the fires. Then Jax dismissed them.
When Kamoj and Jax were alone, he came over and smiled at her. “It is done, pretty rose. Ironbridge and Argali are merged.”
Kamoj just looked at him. She had known all her life that someday this would happen, but she had never expected it this way, stripped of her power and freedom, with her province in flames. Had Jax deceived her all these years? Perhaps. But she suspected it would have been different had Vyrl never interfered. Did Vyrl and his people have any idea how much damage they had done? Did they care?
Jax rummaged in the chest and brought out a silver brush with rose-colored bristles. He sat next to her, more at ease now, as if penning his claim to her lands, heritage, authority, and self had eased him.
He showed her the brush. “When you and I were betrothed, Maxard gave me a small inheritance your mother asked you be gifted with on your wedding day. This was part of it.” He rubbed a curl of her hair between his fingers. “Shall I brush it for you?”
She stared down at her hands in her lap. “All right.”
He spent a long time with her hair, easing out the tangles with an ease she doubted came from taking care of his own hair. Then he brushed hers in long, slow strokes, from the crown of her head to her hips. Eventually he slid his arms around her waist and kissed her neck.
Outside, the gong chimed. Jax grumbled under his breath, then called, “What is it?”
“A rider came back from Argali,” a voice answered. “He says it be urgent he speak with you.”
“It had better be urgent,” Jax muttered. He went to the entrance and pulled aside the flap. “Come in.”
An Ironbridge stagman entered and bowed. “My apologies for disturbing you, Governor. But I thought you should know. They’ve doused the fires. Lionstar be riding up here now.”
“The fires are out already?” Jax asked. “All of them?”
“Aye, sir. It be the metal birds. They spray a liquid that swallows flames.”
“How did Lionstar find us? Tera hid the trail.”
“He rides that wild greenglass. The spirit animal.”
Kamoj blinked. Greypoint had fetched Vyrl? She had never heard of a greenglass doing such a thing.
“How many men does he have with him?” Jax asked.
“Seventeen stagmen. The rest ride to Ironbridge.” He squinted at Jax. “A woman be with him too.”
“Really?” Jax looked curious. “A bondsgirl?”
“I don’t think so. An older woman. Grey and craggy. Not at all pretty.”
Jax nodded. “You’ve done well. Get my mount and have sixty stagmen ready to ride.”
After the man left, Jax turned to Kamoj. “So. He comes. Sooner than we expected but still too late.”
“You’re taking sixty men against seventeen?” she asked.
“Sixty stagmen and you.” He spoke in a deceptively soft voice. “Make no mistake, Kamoj. You will let Havyrl Valdoria see that you are my dutiful and willing wife. If ever I believe you are even thinking otherwise, you will regret it.” He shifted the quirt in his hand. “If you ever try to go back to him, I will do more than burn Argali. You will watch Maxard and Lyode die.”
Kamoj wrapped her arms around her body. “I’ll do what you want. Just don’t hurt anyone.”
“That is up to you.” He took off his cloak and threw it on a chair, then went to another chest and took out his sword belt. She wondered what good he thought a sword would do against the Ascendant’s defenses. Not that it mattered. Jax had already defeated Vyrl using the Ascendant’s own laws.
Saints, but she wished she had spurned the Lionstar merger. Vyrl’s people would never have let him attack Argali, even if such had occurred to him, which she doubted now. But how could she have known? Every one of his actions had sent a message in the ways of her people, carrying threats of violence and war.
Jax took her to the entrance of the tent. As he lifted the flap, Kamoj tensed. They both had on only flimsy clothes, and his shirt was still unlaced, open to the air.