"Vyrl, I'm sorry. But I want you on the cruiser."

His eyes closed. "Then the h.e.l.l with you."

"Doctor-Colonel," Kamoj said.

Dazza looked up. "Kamoj? Are you hurt?"

"No, ma'am." She tried to make her voice calm, so Dazza would listen to her, but it made the words come out stilted. "If you break the spirit of a greengla.s.s, you can still force it to serve you. But it will serve neither willingly nor well. Break the king of the stags and the entire herd dies."

"What the h.e.l.l?" a healer said. Another said, "She's just a kid. She's probably scared."

"No." Dazza was watching Kamoj. "I know what she means." She pushed her hand through the silver tendrils of her hair. Then she said, "Major, change of orders. Take us to the palace."

The disembodied voice said, "Will do, ma'am."

Kamoj closed her eyes with relief. When she opened them, Azander was watching her from the other side of the bird, where he stood against a wall.

He nodded as if to thank her for intervening on Vyrl's behalf. Then he dropped his gaze to indicate respect. She swallowed, grateful he saw her as an ally now instead of an enemy.

"Colonel Pacal." One of the healers working on the Ironbridge man spoke.

"We've a problem."

"What's wrong?" Dazza asked.

"We're having trouble replicating this man's erythrocytes. We need a transfusion from someone native to this biosphere."

"Do you have a compatible donor listed in the files?" Dazza asked.

"We aren't sure." The healer glanced up at Azander. "Can you try? You're the closest match."

Azander nodded, seeming to understand the odd words. He moved away from the wall and knelt by the Ironbridge soldier. The healers attached tubes to his arms that went to their various machines. Silent and tense, they concentrated on their displays, their faces furrowed as the studied the flickering ghosts.

Suddenly one of them said, "It's good."

With obvious relief, the healers made more adjustments to their boxes, then used the tubes to connect Azander with the dying stagman. Soon red liquid was moving through the tubes. Azander remained utterly still, like a statue, staring at the liquid as it flowed, his face pale. With a jolt, Kamoj realized his blood was in those tubes.

Finally a healer said, "We have replication." Others went to work on Azander and his blood stopped flowing. Soon they had him free of their machines.

"Will your patient survive?" Dazza asked.

A healer working on the Ironbridge archer said, "It looks like it."

Kamoj stared at them. Who were these people, that they could give life to a man who for all intents and purposes was already dead?

Turning back to Vyrl, Kamoj saw he had succ.u.mbed to the sleep makers. Or she thought he had. Then he mumbled something.

Dazza leaned closer. "Again?"

"Kamoj," he said.

"She's here," Dazza said. "We're going to the palace."

"Good . . ." Vyrl's breathing eased into sleep.

He looked so pale. But Kamoj saw no blood, neither on his body nor spilled onto the bird's guts. In fact, she couldn't see his wounds at all. Where ragged gashes had rent his body, now new skin showed. Then she realized the "skin"

was a bandage.

"Colonel." The voice came out of the air. "We're coming into the palace."

Dazza glanced at the healers around the Ironbridge man. "As soon as we have Prince Havyrl off the shuttle, take your patient up to the Ascendant. I don't want him anywhere near the palace until we figure out why the two of them were trying to kill each other."

An odd sensation came over Kamoj, as if she were falling. The bird jolted and its dull thunder stopped. In a whoosh of air its mouth gaped open, leaving only a shimmer. Sunshine poured into the stomach.

With the Lionstar stagman at her side, Kamoj walked through the mouth.

Incredibly, they came out onto the courtyard in front of the palace. The stagman glanced at her and spread his hands, the disquiet on his face mirroring what she felt. Only moments ago they had been in the forest.

The healers brought Vyrl out on the floating stretcher, with a silver sheet over his body. Servants threw open the doors of the palace and the healers strode inside.

Kamoj slept in a sitting position, leaning against the headboard of the bed.

Vyrl lay next to her, either asleep or unconscious. Each time she awoke, she saw Dazza in an armchair by the nightstand, watching Vyrl, dozing, or studying images in her book-box.

Sometimes the colonel spoke to the nightstand. Different voices answered, most in unfamiliar languages. A few used their odd Bridge dialect. Dazza discussed Azander's paramedic training with one, saying she wanted more of the household staff to learn it. Another voice told her the Ironbridge stagman was recovering on the Ascendant. Later someone said a delegation from the Ascendant had gone to Ironbridge to speak to Jax.

From what Kamoj gathered, it sounded like Vyrl's people were holding the second Ironbridge archer in Argali, until they decided what to do about his shooting Vyrl. Apparently the Lionstar stagman had knocked him out with a sleep weapon. Kamoj didn't understand how a tube could carry sleep or how a person could throw that sleep at others, but nevertheless, it had happened.

She was dozing when a rustle of sheets woke her. She opened her eyes to see Vyrl jerking, restless with his dreams. Dazza sat slumped in her chair, asleep, but when Vyrl groaned she snapped awake. The doctor took one look at him, then opened her case and removed a black tube. She stood up, leaning over Vyrl as she brought the tube to his neck.

"Wait," Kamoj said. "He hates that."

Dazza exhaled. "I know. But if he jerks like that, it could tear open his wounds."

Vyrl's fingers curled into claws. His breathing had grown ragged and his forehead contorted as if he were in pain.

"There might be another way." Kamoj slid the pillow out from under his head and put herself in its place, sitting cross-legged with his head in her lap, his curls spread across her legs in red-gold profusion. Then she ma.s.saged his head. As she worked, his face relaxed and his breath slowed to an even rhythm.

"Well, I'll take a launch off a lily-pad," Dazza said.

Kamoj looked up at her. "Ma'am?"

Smiling, Dazza said, "It seems you're effective alternative medicine."

Kamoj hesitated. "May I ask a question?"

"Of course."

"That sound Vyrl's body was making today, when he was hurt. How did it do that?"

"He has an implant," Dazza said. "If he's in trouble, it sets off alarms, including the siren. It also activates a neutrino beacon. That's how we found him." She paused, her head tilted as she considered Kamoj. "May I ask a question?"

It felt odd to have the doctor request permission to seek information. Kamoj had no idea what position "colonel" occupied in the hierarchy of things, but Dazza clearly ranked high among Vyrl's people.

"I will answer to the best of my ability," Kamoj said.

"Why did Vyrl try to kill the Ironbridge man?"

"Because he tried to kill Vyrl."

"The Ironbridge soldiers claim they acted in self-defense." Dazza settled back into her chair. "We've done scans on them. They're both telling the truth as they see it."

"Didn't know who I was," Vyrl mumbled. He opened his eyes and looked at Dazza, his gaze bleary.

She leaned forward. "How are you feeling?"

"Lousy." He closed his eyes. "Flaming sedatives."

"I'm sorry," Dazza said. "But I had to do what I thought necessary." With the look of someone who already knew what response she was going to get, she added, "That's why I've posted Jagernauts as your bodyguards. You will have two with you at all times, even in the palace. Right now they're on the landing of this suite."

His eyes snapped open. "d.a.m.n it, Colonel. I'm tired of privacy being a luxury I'm forbidden."

She crossed her arms. "What did you expect? That ISC would stand by while you steal state-of-the-art special operations gear, ride off in a drunken rage, and almost get yourself killed?"

Vyrl scowled at her.

In a quieter voice, Dazza said, "Why would an Ironbridge archer try to kill you?"

After a pause, Vyrl answered. "Because of what he saw. It probably looked like I was threatening the other Ironbridge man with his own sword. And I had Kamoj. The archer was defending his partner and Kamoj's honor. Or else he thought like the first one, that Kamoj was committing adultery with me."

"Adultery?" Dazza asked. "With her own husband?"

"Interesting concept, yes?" Vyrl hesitated. "The stagman . . . ?"

"He will live," Dazza said. As relief sped across Vyrl's face, she added, "You d.a.m.n near killed him. Why did you stab him? He was just trying to recover his weapon."

"Why do you think? Someone shot me. Then this one lunged at me. I reacted in reflex."

"I hadn't realized you knew how to use a sword like that."

He shrugged. "I learned on Lyshriol."

"You trained with swords on your home planet?"

"All highborn boys do there. It's part of the culture."

"It just seems so" Dazza squinted at him. "Barbaric."

Vyrl scowled. "What, if I crisped him with a laser carbine, that would be civilized? h.e.l.l, we could be really civilized and have the Ascendant drop an antimatter bomb on Ironbridge."

Dazza didn't answer, and Kamoj could tell Vyrl's words bothered her. She had been prepared to hate Dazza, after what Vyrl had told her this afternoon.

Instead she kept remembering Dazza's tears, so uncharacteristic of the craggy colonel, when the doctor realized Vyrl was going to live.

"What I don't understand," Vyrl said, "is why Ironbridge stagmen are prowling around my woods."

Dazza glanced at Kamoj. "Would you feel more comfortable if I told him?"

Kamoj nodded, wondering what Dazza knew.

"Told me what?" Vyrl asked.

"We sent people down to talk with Maxard Argali," she said. "It seems your bride was betrothed to Jax Ironbridge."

Vyrl stared up at Kamoj. Mortified, she averted her eyes.

"Their marriage was arranged years ago," Dazza said. "Apparently Ironbridge is quite fond of her."

Kamoj almost gagged. If Jax was fond of her, she would hate to see how he treated people he didn't like.

Vyrl spoke gently. "Look at me, water sprite." When she met his gaze, he said, "I'm sorry. I should have realized a woman such as yourself would already be spoken for."

She wished she could disappear into the woodwork. Vyrl glanced at Dazza and tilted his head toward the door.

"Uhah, yes, well." The colonel stood up. "I have to check in with the Ascendant. I'll look in on you later."

When Kamoj and Vyrl were alone, he said, "I truly am sorry. I figured there might be others, but I a.s.sumed if something was serious, you would refuse my offer. It didn't occur to me that you would have no choice." After a moment he added, "Or maybe I didn't want it to occur to me."

"You established your bid legally," Kamoj replied. "No one could match it."

"I don't get it," Vyrl said. "How did the concepts of slavery and a dowry get mixed up together here?"

"Slavery? What do you man?"

"Don't you hear what you're saying? I outbid him for you. How can you not hate me?"

"You did nothing wrong."

"I bought another human being. That's wrong. On top of which, it was a woman who had already given her word to another man." Dryly he added, "A woman younger than most of my granddaughters."

Granddaughters? Older than her? Surely she heard wrong.

Then again, Jax was Vyrl's age and he had illegitimate children everywhere, some of them adults with their own children. That, she realized, was what bothered her. Not that Vyrl had children but how he came about them. With Jax she had almost managed to convince herself she didn't care what he did.

With Vyrl, an agony of jealousy rose in her.