Indomitus Est (The Fovean Chronicles) (61 page)

    
In a few long strides I moved past the neat rows of tents and through the pickets, Genna pursuing me.  Free Legion soldiers on watch stood aside to pass us.  I lengthened my stride as far as I could without running.  She in her leathers had no problem keeping up.

    
“What is the matter, White Wolf?” she asked me.  “Why do you run from the one you once loved?”

    
I spun on her then, not as far from our camp as I would like but at least not inside of it.  My hand clamped down on her neck, I pressed my face down into hers.

    
“That name,” I said, “is not yours to use, and I never loved you.”

    
She looked straight into my eyes, her small hands on my forearm.  I felt her fingernails in my skin, digging deep. 

    
I had never felt such hate, not ever.  The helplessness of the situation burned in my stomach. 

    
“So this is what you are, Lupus?” she hissed back at me.  “Go ahead and slap me if it makes you feel better.  Think you’d be the first?”

    
“If this is how you act, then no,” I said.

    
“It isn’t me who acted badly in this relationship, Lupus,” she said.

    
“There
is
no relationship, Genna,” I said, feeling my hand tighten despite myself.  “There was nothing but convenience and sex.”

    
“You put your seed in me, Lupus,” she said, her fingernails tight in my forearm.  “What should I think after that?”

    
That gave me pause.  In a land without contraception, what
did
it mean when a man put his seed in a woman?

    
Like I had done with Aileen.

    
Who had never once been unable for “women’s reasons.”

    
“Going to hold me like this all night?”

    
I released her and straightened.  She rubbed her throat.  I felt sure I had marked her, and I could feel the blood wet on my forearm.

    
“You need to stop doing this, Genna,” I said.  “You need to get on with your life.”

    
What had I done?  What had I
been
doing?

    
“So everyone keeps telling me,” she said.  “And still, you flaunt that whore in my face every chance you get.”

    
That woke me up.

    
“She isn’t a whore.”

    
“So I was the whore, then?”

    
I sighed.  She wanted to go down this road again, as if I would finally get it this time.  Give in and she attacks me, deny it and she attacks me.  Taking it apart and putting it back together in her mind, until the parts were worn and made no sense.

    
Genna was a woman so driven by goals, that if she didn’t meet one then it destroyed her, and then she ravaged everything around her as she clawed after it.

    
Had I put the goal inside her with my seed?  Is that what this meant here?

    
“You had to know what was on the other side of the door, didn’t you?” I asked her.

Her whole face changed, furious to shrewd in a heartbeat. 

     “What door?”

    
“In Outpost X – the vault door.”

    
“You know what was on the other side.”

    
“But you didn’t,” I challenged her.  “You had to know.  You would have done anything to get through that door.”

    
“You don’t know anything about Outpost X,” she said.

    
“Oh, I don’t?”

    
On her breast, the question mark turned upside down, the only one with no color, flickered, as if a firefly had traced its outline.

    
She touched the space between her breasts, looked down at her leathers, then up at me.

    
“What are you hiding, Genna?”

    
She turned and sprinted back into the night, toward the forest and away from the camp.  I took a few steps after her and then stopped.

    
No one could match her in the forest.

     I went to my tent and missed my wife.  Sammin saw to my safety and also retired on the cot next to mine, his sword by his side.  I had shown him the latches that released my armor – he didn’t seem to like it but also didn’t comment.  He made the best of what he saw as a bad situation and wanted to do his time and return to Royal service.

    
I lay there for a while with my eyes shut and thought of Shela.  In the comfort of Thera she would bring a new life into this world, with a husband to support her and gold to bring food to the table.  Shela loved me, of that I had no doubt. 

    
What courage did it take for a woman to offer that same gift with no such promise from the man?  What were the consequences to the woman when the man up and left her, as I had done?

    
Twice.

    
I closed my eyes and wished for Shela, even though she couldn’t be here in her condition.  It wasn’t safe and would be selfish of me to even suggest it.  Still, I didn’t like the loneliness.  I let a tear slip silently down the side of my face, a tolerable indulgence with no one there to see it.  It would be nice to have Shela’s soft love now.

    
“Be still, my husband,” I heard her sweet words and felt her breath in my ear.  I stiffened and felt for the Sword of War. 

    
“And you would dispatch me so quickly, having summoned me from so far?” she asked.  I
smelled
her – my wife.  I felt her warmth in the bed next to mine, heard the cot creak as she moved, felt the now-familiar bulge of her stomach at my hip. 

    
“This is impossible, I said harshly.  “I spoke to D’gattis about this translocation.  Energy is equal to mass times distance – there isn’t enough power to move anyone so far -”

    
“Shhhhh,” she said, and pressed her warm, wet lips to mine.  Her tongue darted past my teeth in the way that only she did – her taste told me more than anything else.  Either Shela or the most perfect illusion in history.

    
“The house guard is going to freak,” I said finally.  “Let me get rid of Sammin -”

    
She chuckled and I knew that it had already been done.  She pressed her hands along my body and, as the night surrounded us, all became right with my world.

    
Sammin awoke furious the next morning and we’d already received a message from Thera saying that the Duchess was missing.  My Wizards’ proficiency at keeping an eye on things, like my Oligarchs’, left no time wasted in letting me know that the Ducal bed laid empty.  I had Shela send back a dispatch saying that she had decided to join me, and let them wonder as to how.  I wondered that as well.  Sometimes the mysteries of Power did more to keep the subjects in line than the actualities of Power.

    
“I woke up in a little tent, at the edge of camp,” Sammin complained, right in front of the men.  The rest of the Free Legion greeted Shela as Free Legion soldiers marshaled for the journey west.

    
“I regret your inconvenience,” I said, by way of apology.  I had already learned that it lay beneath my station to actually apologize, even when at fault.

    
That should have settled it, but Sammin was pissed.  “I tell you, Rancor, I will have none of it,” he continued on.  One of the sergeants gasped.  I managed to hold my face straight, but barely.  “If you want to satisfy yourself with the Duchess like a common soldier that is certainly your
prerogative
, but it is my
responsibility
to protect you.”

    
“Oh, I agree entirely, Sammin,” I told him, putting on my best Ancenon air.  “I happily offer you satisfaction.”

    
That gave him a moment’s pause.  “Satisfaction, sir?”

    
I nodded.  “I would prefer swords, of course,” I continued, watching his look of amazement.  “Marshal my command as witness and put on what armor you think might protect you, but if you would have none of this then I can certainly oblige you.”

    
Sammin had just realized what he had done at that point.  I don’t think that Glennen’s court acted awfully formal and he expected to get away with disrespecting me.

    
But then, I came here to bring about change.

    
“I hardly expect to match you, sir,” he said, with the tiniest amount of condescension he could still manage.  “It would hardly seem fair.”

    
“You yield quickly for someone who called himself a veteran when I met him,” I answered back.  Now he’d treated me like an upstart noble, and that just pissed me off.  I couldn’t be sure that I had any advantage over him.  Glennen had informed me that Sammin had worked his way up through the ranks.  I doubt he had done that by being too nice of a guy.

    
He stiffened predictably.  “I do
not
yield,” he asserted.  He tried to express with his weathered face that I couldn’t back him down this way, but the old Randy hadn’t expressed himself much since coming here, and frankly I missed him.

    
Sometimes, someone calls you out, and you just fight.

    
“And yet you suppose that you can speak to me, and use my first name, as if you were my equal?” I said.

    
“I suppose that you wouldn’t
act
like a buck in rut.”

    
No backing down now, not after that.

    
“Then assemble the men.  We’ll see who lays in a rut.”

    
He sighed and turned on his heel.  Shela had already fetched my armor and sword.  Wolf Soldiers scrambled about their duties while looking sideways at me.  The Free Legion still hadn’t really noticed.

    
“You are making the right decision, White Wolf,” Shela told me, pressing her face close to mine as she buckled my armor.  “This will increase the morale of your troops to know that no man can stand against you and live.”

    
“That was my thinking,” I said.  “Flip-side, if he gets away with that, they will all think they can push me around.”

    
“Flip on your side?” she asked, looking into my eyes.

    
I just shook my head.

    
My armor went on pretty easily with Shela there, and Sammin returned in a light mail coat and some extra-long broad sword with an ornate hilt.  The mail clung to his massive forearms and torso – this man had lived by his sword longer than he had lived by his tongue, relying on one to protect him from the other.  He looked me up and down, spat on the ground and stuck the end of the sword in the dirt.