"Not really," Vyrl answered. "Why?"

"He said you were followed by Ironbridge stagmen."

"Ironbridge? Why?"

"Azander seemed to think you would know."

"I've no idea," Vyrl said.

His response disquieted Kamoj. Ironbridge was nothing to ignore. What was Jax up to?

Watching her, Vyrl sat on the bed. "What is it, water sprite? What troubles you about Ironbridge?"

Dazza drew in a sharp breath. Startled, Kamoj glanced at her. The colonel had the look of a healer whose patient had just showed signs of a recovery the healer had feared would never happen. It made no sense to Kamoj. Vyrl wasn't sick, at least that she could see. Except for the rum. But he wasn't drunk now, and all he had done was ask her about Ironbridge.

He hadn't noticed Dazza's reaction. Intent on Kamoj, he said, "Talk to me."

"It is forbidden," Kamoj answered.

"To talk to me?"

"For me to talk of Ironbridge."

"Why?"

"Because you and I have a dowered merger."

"Why does that make a difference?"

She wasn't actually sure why tradition forbade discussing other bid candidates with the winner of a hostile merger. Rules changed in situations like this, when the balance of power tipped so far in favor of one party.

"Hostile" was probably the operative word; if she spoke about Ironbridge she could aggravate Vyrl and so bring harm to herself, Argali, and Ironbridge.

"It is forbidden," she repeated.

Vyrl glanced at Dazza with an expression that clearly said: Can you do something with this?

Dazza considered her. "If Prince Havyrl gives you permission to speak about Ironbridge, can you do it?"

Vyrl made an exasperated noise. "She doesn't need my permission to talk."

Kamoj looked from Vyrl to Dazza, at a loss to understand the strange hierarchy of authority here.

Dazza tried again. "Can you talk to me about it?"

"No," Kamoj said.

"Who can we ask?"

Who indeed? Maxard, perhaps. He hadn't married Vyrl. He was less likely to incur Lionstar wrath by talking about Kamoj's relationship with another man.

"My uncle," Kamoj said.

"We can send someone to Argali tomorrow." Vyrl grimaced. "Which'll be forever with how long the nights here last."

Kamoj wondered what he meant. Nights weren't long in autumn, not compared to winter, when snow covered the world and blizzards roared down from the North Sky Islands.

Dazza was watching her. "This is about your customs, isn't it? All of you here, you're afraid of showing disrespect. That's important. Respect. To custom, to authority, and to the land."

Relief settled over Kamoj. Dazza understood. "Yes."

Vyrl blinked at the doctor. "Where did you get all that?"

With a scowl, Dazza said, "From talking to your ever-so-patient butler the last time you went riding during one of your binges. I wanted to know why no one stopped you."

"Don't start with me, Dazza."

"Why? Because you happen to be more sober now than you've been in weeks?

You're going to kill yourself."

Vyrl ignored the comment. "What did my butler tell you?"

Dazza tilted her head at Kamoj. "They all feel that way. I think they're genetically engineered to obey authority. I've never known such a docile, cooperative people."

"They have armies." Vyrl paused. "If you can call thirty farmers who practice ritualized swordplay every now and then an army."

Kamoj wondered why he found that strange. An incorporated man's stagmen rode in his honor guard when needed and otherwise worked to support their families. Ironbridge had the only army that trained all year round. Only Jax could afford to pay a good wage in every season.

Given what she had seen in the past two days, though, it wouldn't surprise her if Vyrl had his men training all year too, while he supported them at a rate ten times greater than anyone else without even realizing it. Most of his staff and stagmen obviously came from Argali. She and Maxard employed the best in the village, so Vyrl must be drawing from the outlying hamlets, which were even more impoverished. By hiring locals instead of his own people, he had been supporting her province even prior to their merger.

"Their 'wars' are more like arguments," Dazza was saying. "In the rare instances when they do fight, it's a ritualistic ceremony. Ironbridge is the only province with real calvary or troops, and they're more of a police force. I doubt you could convince these people to defy authority even if you paid them to do it."

Kamoj blinked. What an odd notion. Why would anyone pay them to be defiant?

Vyrl smiled at her. "They wouldn't. It was just a manner of speech." He didn't see Dazza's startled look; by the time he turned back to the colonel, her face had resumed its normal mien.

"I'll send someone down tomorrow morning to talk to Maxard Argali," he told her. "See if we can untangle all this."

"I think that's a good idea." Dazza packed up her book. She smiled at Kamoj, grat.i.tude on her face. Why? Kamoj saw nothing she had done to make the doctor grateful.

After Dazza left, Vyrl lay back down on the bed. The bags under his eyes had darkened again.

"You look tired," Kamoj said.

"Just a headache. I should have asked Dazza for something." His scowl came back. "But then I would have to listen to her harp on 'my drinking.' Tell me she can 'treat' that too. As if I have a problem. It's ridiculous. I have a few drinks, I go to sleep, I'm fine."

Kamoj knew he wasn't fine. But she had no idea what to say. All she could think of was, "I can rub your head."

"That would be nice, Kamoj." He paused. "Is that right? Kamoj?"

"Yes." She drew his head into her lap. As she ma.s.saged him, he sighed and closed his eyes.

After a while he said, "What you said before, about us having a 'dowered merger'what does that mean exactly?"

"Merger is perhaps not the best word." It implied a more balanced partnership. "Your corporation absorbed Argali."

He opened his eyes. "My what?"

"Your corporation. It was far too big for us to best."

He sat up, facing her. "I don't understand. It was a dowry. I know that's the word. Our anthropologists double-checked. The dowry is the property a man brings to his wife at marriage, right? Drake told me that in your culture, inheritance goes through the female line, and that the women court the men.

To get a highborn wife, you need a good dowry. So I, uh, got one."

Dryly she said, "The man is usually more subtle in making his interest known."

He squinted at her. "I don't actually remember what I did. I think I told my stagmen to clear out a storeroom and send the contents to Argali House. I almost fell over when they said you had accepted it."

She stared at him, unsure which stunned her more, his manner of instigating the take-over, or the extent of his corporation. "That was only one stockroom's worth of your dowry?"

"Well, yes, I guess you could put it that way." He studied her face. "I don't understand how the idea of a corporation got mixed up here with a dowry.

You make it sound like I bought you."

That was, in fact, how it felt. Kamoj doubted he would appreciate her saying it, though, so she hid the thought by imagining a blanket over it. "It seems normal to me." She tugged on his arm. "Come lie down again."

His face gentled. "I won't argue with that." He lay down, putting his head in her lap, and closed his eyes. As she rubbed his head, she thought what an irony it was that a merger certain to become a legend may have been a whim born of a drinking binge. Would he regret it tomorrow? What if he changed his mind? She had no wish to return to Jax. He might not want her anymore.

If Ironbridge spurned her, Argali would starve, and even if Jax wanted her back she would still be humiliated by the Lionstar rejection.

Vyrl spoke quietly. "My father told me something when I was young: If you plant in the wrong place, you still have to tend the crops."

"Was he a farmer?"

"Yes."

"Am I the wrong place?"

"G.o.ds, no." He opened his eyes. "You're like sunlight. I was lucky. What if the beautiful nymph I saw rising out of the river turned out to have a personality like shattered gla.s.s? But regardless, it's my responsibility to see this through now. I would never humiliate you."

Relief trickled over her. She also rather liked being compared to sunlight.

His grin flashed. "I'm glad you like it."

Blushing, she said, "How do you know everything in my mind?"

"I don't." When she raised her eyebrows, he added, "Usually I just pick up emotions. My ability to do even that falls off with distance, roughly as the Coulomb force."

Coulomb force? "I don't understand."

"It's complicated."

Her voice cooled. "And I am too slow to understand?"

"Kamoj, no. I didn't mean that. I just don't know how to explain it, except as I learned it."

"Then explain it that way."

He hesitated, as if unsure how to proceed. "I've an organ in my brain called the Kyle Afferent Body. The KAB. It's too small to see without magnification.

Certain molecules in it, that is, certain bits of my KAB, undergo quantum transitions according to how they interact with the fields produced by the brains of other people. That meanswell, I guess you could say my KAB varies its behavior according to what it detects. Those variations determine what neural pulses it transmits to certain neural structures in my cerebrum, which interpret the pulses as thought." He stopped, watching her face. "I'm not doing this very well, am I?"

"I don't know," she admitted. "I don't understand some of your words."

He tried again. "My brain can pick up signals from yours and interpret them.

The process isn't all that accurate, so it's easier to get emotions than thoughts.

It only works close up because the signals aren't that strong."

Although the words made more sense this time, it sounded as strange as before. "You do that with me?"

His voice gentled. "For some reason you're more open to me than most people. I felt it that first time I saw you, when you were swimming. You were so beautiful. So alive. So happy."

She smiled. "So naked."

Vyrl laughed. "That too."

She went back to ma.s.saging his head. After a while his lashes drooped and his breathing deepened. Then he jerked, and opened his eyes. When they closed again, he forced them open. Watching him struggle, Kamoj wondered why it was so important to stay awake.

The third time he started to fall asleep, he rolled on his side and pressed his lips against her leg. Distracted, she stopped rubbing his head. He was peeling off her other stocking, kissing her thigh as the silk slid away. After he had pulled it all the way off, he slid his hand back up her leg. "Your skin is even softer than glimsilk."

Kamoj reddened, fl.u.s.tered again. "Ah. Uh. Oh."

For some reason her idiotic response made the corners of his mouth quirk up. He sat up and pulled her into his lap. "I always thought I liked this room austere. I never realized before how cold it is."

She laid her head on his shoulder. "It would look softer in moonlight."

"Morlin," he said, "turn off the lights."

"Their web contacts aren't complete," a man said.

"Hai!" Kamoj sat up with a jerk and yanked her dress down over her thighs.

Vyrl stroked his hand down her back. "It's all right. He won't bother us."

"He is here? Watching?"