They entered the front courtyard by a gate engraved with vines. Five stone steps ran the length of the house, leading up to a terrace, and five doors were set at even intervals along the front. The center door was larger than the others, stuccoed white and bordered by hieroglyphs in rose, green, and gold, with luminous blue accents.

  As they neared the house, Kamoj heard voices. By the time they reached the steps, it resolved into two men arguing.

  "That sounds like Ironbridge," Lyode said.

  "Maxard too." Kamoj paused, her foot on the first step. Now silence came from within the house.

  Above them, the door slammed open. Maxard stood framed in its archway, a burly man in old farm clothes. His garb startled Kamoj more than his sudden appearance. By now he should have been decked out in ceremonial dress and mail, ready to greet Ironbridge. Yet he looked as if he hadn't even washed up since coming in from the fields.

  He spoke to her in a low voice. "You'd better get in here."

  Kamoj hurried up the steps. "What happened?"

  He didn't answer, just moved aside to let her enter a small foyer paved with white tiles bordered by Argali rose designs.

  Boots clattered in the hall beyond. Then Jax swept into the entrance foyer with five stagmen. He paused in midstride when he saw Kamoj. He stared at her, caught in a look of fury, and surprise too, as if he hadn't expected to reveal the intensity of his reaction to her. Then he went to Maxard, towering over the younger man.

  "We aren't through with this," Jax said.

  "The decision is made," Maxard told him.

  "Then you are a fool." Jax glanced at Kamoj, his face stiff now with a guarded emotion, one he hid too well for her to identify. In all the years she had known him, he had never shown such a strong response, except in anger. But this was more than rage. Shock? Emotionalpain? Surely not from Jax, the pillar of Ironbridge. Before she had a chance to speak, he strode out of the house with his stagmen, ignoring Lyode, who stood just outside the door.

  Kamoj turned to her uncle. "What's going on?"

  He shook his head, his motion strained. Lyode came up the stairs, but when she tried to enter, Maxard braced his hand against the door frame, blocking her way. He spoke with uncharacteristic anger. "What blew into your brain, Lyode? Why did you have toshoot at him? Of all days I didn't need Jax Ironbridge angry, this was it."

  "He was mistreating Kamoj," Lyode replied.

  "So Gallium Sunsmith says." Maxard frowned at Kamoj. "What were you doing running around the woods like a wild animal?"

  She would have bristled at the rebuke, except it was too far outside his usual congenial nature to make sense. She always walked in the woods after she finished working in the stables. He often came with her, the two of them discussing projects for Argali or enjoying each other's company.

  She spoke quietly. "What is it, Uncle? What's wrong?"

  He pushed his hand through his dark hair. "We can meet later in the library. You've several petitioners waiting for you now."

  She studied his face, trying to fathom what troubled him. No hints showed. So she nodded, to him and to Lyode. Then she limped into her house.

  *

  For her office, Kamoj had chosen a large room on the ground floor. Its tanglebirch paneling glimmered with blue and green highlights in scale patterns. The comfortable old armchairs were upholstered in gold, with a worn pattern of roses. Stained-glass lanterns hung on the walls. She didn't sit behind her tanglebirch desk; she had always felt it distanced her from people.

  A carafe of water waited on one table, with four finely cut tumblers. Kamoj was pouring herself a drink when the housemaid showed in her first visitors, Lumenjack Donner, a broad-shouldered man with brown eyes, and Photax Prior, a much slimmer man who could juggle light-spheres like no one else in Argali. Both were wearing freshly cleaned homespun clothes and carrying their best hats, with their dark hair uncut but well-brushed for this meeting. They bowed to her.

  Kamoj beamed at them, a smile warming her face. She had known both farmers all her life. "My greetings, Goodmen."

  Lumenjack's deep voice rumbled. "And to you, Governor."

  "Tidings, Gov'ner." Photax's hands moved restlessly on his hat as if he wanted to juggle.

  She indicated the armchairs. "Have a seat, please. Would either of you like water?"

  Both declined as they settled in the chairs. Kamoj sat in one at right angles to theirs, so she could watch their faces and judge their moods. "What can I do for you today?"

  Lumenjack spoke up. "Photax be cheating me, ma'am. I come to ask your help."

  "It's a twiddling lie, it is," Photax declared.

  Kamoj suspected that if they had agreed to seek an arbitrator, the situation was probably salvageable. "What seems to be the problem?"

  Lumenjack crossed his arms, accenting his husky build. " Photax is plowing my land and taking my crops."

  "It's my land!" Photax gave Kamoj his most sincere look. "He traded it to me last year when I juggled for his daughter at the festival."

  Lumenjack made an incredulous noise. "I wouldn't give you myland for throwing pretty gigags in the air." He turned to Kamoj. "I said he could have the crops, just last year, from a strip of my land that borders his."

  "You said the land!"

  "I meant the crops!"

  Photax shot Kamoj a beseeching look. "He be going back on his bargain, Gov'nor."

  Kamoj rubbed her chin. "Photax, do you really think such a parcel of land is a fair trade for a juggling show?"

  "That's not the point. He made a deal and now he's reneging." Photax glowered at Lumenjack. "You're as crazy as that madman Lionstar." To Kamoj, he added, "Begging your pardon, ma'am. Lionstar rode through my fields yesterday and tore up my bi-grains."

  Kamoj didn't like the implications. Lionstar seemed to be stirring from his borrowed palace more often lately. "Did he recompense you for the damage?"

  "Nary a bridal bell. He doesn't even stop." Photax gave a theatrical shudder. "He was riding like a man possessed. He's a cursed one, he is."

  She doubted it involved any curses. Lionstar's destructive behavior was problem enough by itself. "I will send a messenger to the palace. If he wrecked your crops, he owes you for them."

  Photax looked mollified. "I'd be right obliged if you would do that, Gov'ner."

  "That's why you're so set on Lumenjack's land, isn't it? Because you're going to be short this year."

  "I can't feed a family by juggling balls," Photax said.

  "So if you get your recompense," Lumenjack said, "will you quit trying to steal my land?"

  "Steal?"Photax bristled at him. "I don't steal. Yougave it to me!"

  "Why would I do something so stupid?" Lumenjack demanded. "What, I'm going to feed my family rocks?"

  Photax shifted in his chair, his mobile face showing less confidence now. "I heard you say it. So did my wife and other people."

  Lumenjack made an exasperated noise. "If I said the land, instead of last year's crops on the land, it was a mistake."

  "You gave your word," Photax repeated.

  Kamoj sighed. Technically, if Lumenjack had given his word, he did owe Photax the land. But the mistake was so obvious, she couldn't imagine Photax holding him to it if he hadn't already been in trouble due to Lionstar's rampage. "How about this? Photax, I will see to your compensation for the crop damage. For the disputed land, why don't you and Lumenjack split the yield this year and then call the debt done, with Lumenjack keeping his land. That way, neither of you suffers unduly from the mix-up."

  "I don't like giving him half my crops for nothing," Lumenjack grumbled. After a pause, he added, "But I will agree."

  Photax moved his hands as if he were feeling the weight of light-spheres. "All right." He stopped his ghost juggling and frowned at Kamoj. "Do you think Lionstar will make good?"

  "I can't say." She doubted it, but she didn't want to sound negative. "If he doesn't, Argali House can help you from our yield this year."

  "It be right decent of you, Gov'ner."

  "I wish I could do more." Her province needed so much. Not for the first time, she wondered if she should hasten her merger with Jax, to ensure Ironbridge support. After what had happened today, though, she dreaded facing his temper.

  She talked more with Photax and Lumenjack, catching up on news of their families. They took their leave on better terms than when they had entered, though now they were arguing about whose son could throw a bowball farther.

  She next met with the representatives of several committees she had set up: the storage group, which worked to ensure Argali had stocks of grain for the coming winter, when the village would live off crops grown during autumn; the midwives, who discussed childbirth techniques, with the hope that sharing knowledge would decrease Argali's heartbreaking infant mortality rate; and the festival group that planned the harvest celebrations.

  The housemaid finally announced her last visitor, Lystral, orLiquid Crystal , an older woman who was well-liked in the village. Instead of arriving with her usual good nature, today Lystral stalked into the room. She wasted no time on amenities. "Well, so, Governor, have you done anything about that maniac?"

  Standing by her armchair, Kamoj blinked. "Maniac?"

  "Lionstar!" Lystral's scowl deepened the lines around her eyes. "That misbegotten demon-spawn of a maddened spirit raised from the dead to bedevil the good folk of this land."

  Kamoj held back her smile. Granted, Lionstar was a problem, but she suspected it had more to do with human misdeeds than misbegotten spirits. "What happened?"

  "He and a pack of his stagmen stopped at my daughter's house in the country, where my grandchildren were playing. He jumped down at the well, helped himself to water, and broke the chain on the bucket. He's a demonic one, I tell you. No normal man could break that chain--and Lionstar didn't even notice! He scared the little ones so much, they almost jumped from here to the Thermali Coast. Then he just got on his greenglass and rode off. Never even pulled down his cowl. Not that any of uswant to see his pud-ugly face." She put her fists on her hips. "At least his stagman had the decency to apologize before they went tearing after him."

  "I'm sorry he frightened your family, Lystral. I'm sending an emissary to the palace. I will include a protest about his behavior and a statement of the recompense he owes you for fixing the well."

  "I be thanking you, ma'am." Lystral shook her head. "I wish he would leave Argali alone."

  Kamoj also wished so. However, he had a right to the palace as long as he paid the rent. She just hoped Argali could weather his tenancy.

  *

  The centuries had warped the library door-arch beyond simple repair. Kamoj leaned her weight into the door to shove it closed. Inside the library, shelves filled with codices and books covered the walls. The lamp by Maxard's favorite armchair shed light over a table. A codex lay there, a parchment scroll made from the soft inner bark of a sunglass tree and painted with gesso, a smooth plaster. Glyphs covered it, delicate symbols inked in Argali colors. Kamoj could decipher almost none of the symbols. Now that she had taken primary responsibility for Argali, Maxard had more time for his scholarship.

  He was learning to read.

  Behind her the door scraped open, and she turned to see her uncle. With no preamble, he said, "Come see this."

  Puzzled, she went with him to an arched door in the far wall. The storeroom beyond had once held carpentry tools, but those were long gone, sold by her grandparents to buy grain. Maxard fished a skeleton key out of his pocket and opened the moongloss door. Unexpectedly, oil lamps lit the room beyond. Kamoj stared past him--and gasped.

  Urns, boxes, chests, huge pots, finely wrought buckets: they crammed the storeroom full to overflowing. Gems filled baskets, heaped like fruits, spilling onto the floor, diamonds that split the light into rainbows, opals as brilliant as greenglass scales, rose-rubies the size of fists, sapphires, topazes, amethysts, star-eyes, jade, turquoise. She walked forward, and her foot kicked an emerald the size of a polestork egg. It rolled across the floor and hit a bar of metal.

  Metal. Bars lay in tumbled piles: gold, silver, copper, bronze. Sheets of rolled platinum sat on cornucopias filled with fruits, flowers, and grains. Glazed pots brimmed with vegetables and spice racks hung from the wall. Bracelets, anklets, and necklaces lay everywhere, wrought from gold and studded with jewels. A chain of diamonds lay on top a silver bowl heaped with eider plums. Just as valuable, dried foodstuffs filled cloth bags and woven baskets. Nor had she ever seen so many bolts of rich cloth: glimsilks, brocades, rose-petal satins, gauzy scarves shot through with metallic threads, scale-velvets, plush and sparkling.

  And light strings! At first Kamoj thought she mistook the clump on a pile of crystal goblets. But it was real. She picked up the bundle of threads. They sparkled in the lamplight, perfect, no damage at all. This one bundle could repair broken Current threads throughout the village, and it was only one of several in the room.

  Turning to Maxard, she spread out her arms, the threads clutched in one fist. "This is--it's--is thisours? "

  He spoke in a cold voice. "Yes. It's ours."

  "But Maxard, why do you look so dour!" A smile broke out on her face. "This could support Argali for years! How did it happen?"

  "You tell me." He came over to her. "Just what did he give you out there today?"

  He? She lowered her arms. "Who?"

  "Havyrl Lionstar."

  She would never have guessed Lionstar would see to his debts with such phenomenal generosity. This was so far beyond any expected recompense for Photax and Lystral's family, she couldn't begin to comprehend his intent. "Why did he send it here?"

  "You tell me. You're the one who saw him."

  Hai! So Maxard had heard about the river. "I didn't know he was watching."

  "Watching what?"

  "Me swimming."

  "Then what?"

  Baffled, she said, "Then nothing."

  "Nothing?" Incredulity crackled in his voice. "What did you promise him, Kamoj? What sweet words did you whisper to compromise his honor?"

  She couldn't imagine any woman having the temerity to try compromising the huge, brooding Lionstar. "What are you talking about?"

  "You promised to marry him if he gave you what you wanted, didn't you?"

  "What?"

  His voice snapped. "Isn't that why he sent this dowry?"

  Dowry? Sweet Airys, now what? "That's crazy."

  "He must have liked whatever the two of you did."

  "We did nothing. You know I would never jeopardize our alliance with Ironbridge."

  Her uncle exhaled. In a quieter voice he said, "Then why did he send this dowry? Why does he insist on a merger with you tomorrow?"

  Kamoj felt as if she had stepped into a bizarre skit played out for revelers during a harvest festival. This couldn't be real. "He wantswhat? "

  Maxard motioned at the storeroom. "His stagmen brought it today while I was tying up stalks in the tri-grain field. They spoke as if the arrangement were already made."

  It suddenly became all too clear to Kamoj. Lionstar didn't want the ruins of an old palace, the trees in their forest, or Photax's crops.

  He wanted Argali. All of it.

  Strange though his methods were, they made a grim sort of sense. He had demonstrated superiority in forces; many stagmen served him, over one hundred, far more than Maxard had, more even than Ironbridge. With his damnable "rent" he had established his wealth. He had even laid symbolic claim to her province by living in the Quartz Palace, the ancestral Argali home. Any way they looked at it, he had set himself up as an authority. Today he added the final, albeit unexpected, ingredient--a merger bid so far beyond the pale that the combined resources of all the Northern Lands could never best his offer.

  "Gods," Kamoj said. "No wonder Jax is angry." She set down the light threads, the remnants of her good mood vanishing like a doused candle. "There must be a way I can refuse this."

  "I've already asked the temple scholar," Maxard said. "And I've looked through the old codices myself. We've found nothing. You know the law. Better the offer or yield."

  She stared at him in disbelief. "I'm not going to marry that crazy man."

  Maxard brushed back the disarrayed locks of his hair, his forehead furrowed with lines that hadn't shown anywhere near as much yesterday. "Then he will be within his rights to take Argali by force. That was how it was done, Kamoj, in the time of the sky ships." He squinted at her. "I'm not sure my stagmen even know how to fight a war. Argali has never had one, at least not that I know about."

  "There must be some way out."

  It was a moment before her uncle answered. Then he spoke with care, as if treading through shards of glass. "The merger could do well for Argali."

  Kamoj was sure she must have misheard. "Youwant me to go through with it?"

  He spread his hands out from his body. "And what of survival, Governor?"

  So. Maxard's words came with sobering force, as he finally spoke aloud what they dealt with implicitly in every discussion about the province. Drought, famine, killing winters, high infant mortality, failing machines no one understood, lost medical knowledge, and overused fields: it all added up to one inescapable fact, the long slow dying of Argali.

  The province wouldn't end this Long Year, or next, maybe not even in a century. But their slide into oblivion was relentless. With the Ironbridge merger, they still might struggle, but their chances improved. She and Jax had regularly visited each other to discuss the merger. At worst, Jax would annex her province, making it part of Ironbridge. She would do her best to keep Argali separate, but if she did lose it to him, at least her people would have the protection and support of the strongest province on this continent. Although Jax didn't inspire love among his people, he was a good leader who earned loyalty and respect.

  And Lionstar? Yes, he had wealth. That said nothing about his ability to lead. For all she knew he would drive her province into famine and ruin.

 

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