Not that either Nokolai or Leidolf—or Toby, for that matter—were aware that would happen. “Cobb wasn’t his original surname. He changed his name and place of residence about thirty years ago. Ah—he’s close to eighty, Alex thinks.”
“He’s got a sheet under the other name?”
“Not unless you consider being registered by the government and given gado a criminal record.”
“Thirty years ago … he must have been among the early catches. Was he kept under gado for long?”
“A handful of months. The gado affected him. It may be why he struck me as angry. It didn’t drive him insane thirty years later.”
“Hmm.” Tap, tap, tap. “So what was his original name?”
His legs wanted to move. He didn’t let them. He didn’t answer, either.
“Rule, I need the name. I need everything about him, including what he did, who he was, before he became Raymond Cobb.”
“I don’t know it. I didn’t ask.”
She frowned. “You knew I would.”
Yes, he had. That’s why he didn’t get the name from Alex. “I’m …” He spread his hands. “This is difficult. I’m his Rho, but I don’t know him. I hold his life, but I don’t know him, not the way I know every member of Nokolai. Within the constraints of what is best for the clan, I owe him support—but it’s a different clan. It’s not Nokolai. I don’t have a feeling for Leidolf,” he said, his voice tightening. “I’m doing my duty, but it’s all being worked out in my head. I have no feeling for the clan.”
Rule’s restlessness mounted. He wanted to move, to pace, to … I’ll check on Jeff back in economy in a moment, he promised himself. Not right away, but soon.
Lily tilted her head, considering. “Not having a feeling for Leidolf is several steps up from hating their guts. That’s progress.”
His breath gusted out in something less than a laugh. “I suppose it is. It’s not enough, but it’s progress.”
“The, uh … what you carry doesn’t help with the way you feel about Leidolf?”
“It creates a tie, but … this is almost impossible to discuss here.”
She unfastened her seat belt, pushed up the armrest, and snuggled up against him.
Automatically he put an arm around her, but he frowned. Lily was seldom willing to cuddle in public. “If you’re trying to relax me—”
“I’m trying to get you to talk. Whisper in my ear.”
“Hmm.” He nuzzled her hair, breathing in the apple scent of her shampoo … and beneath that, Lily. Just Lily. The lingering sense of being trapped eased. “You’re a smart woman,” he murmured.
“True.” Her voice was barely above a breath—easy for him to hear when she was this close, impossible for anyone else. “Also a curious one. Tell me why the mantle doesn’t help you feel loyal to Leidolf.”
“It’s not a matter of loyalty, but of a bond, one based on experience. I lack that experience.” He knew she worried about the effect the Leidolf mantle had on him. He tried again to reassure her. “My thoughts and feelings are my own. My decisions are my own.”
“So you’ve told me. I guess your Lady wouldn’t have infected you with—”
“Infected?” Rule’s eyebrows rose.
“Maybe injected is a better word. She wouldn’t inject her Rhos with something that wanted to take over. That could make more problems than it solved. But it does affect you, even if not in a takeover way.”
“Affect isn’t the word I’d choose.” He lowered his voice even more, to a whisper no human other than Lily could hear. “You know that each clan’s mantle is different from the others.”
She nodded, her head moving against his shoulder in a pleasant way. “Because they’ve been carried by different people, right? The mantles are affected by the Rhos who carry them. You said that, though you couldn’t tell me how, exactly.”
“You might think of it as an imprint. The mantle doesn’t change its essence, but it accepts the imprints of all adult clan.”
“Is that what happens at the gens compleo? The mantle accepts the imprint of the newly adult clan member?”
“More or less. But the imprints of most clan are, ah … important, yet insubstantial. The Rho’s imprint is more significant.” He frowned, hunting words. “In the months since Frey died, there’s been a change in some elements of—no, that’s the wrong word. Scent comes closer. It suggests a subtle and complex mix that may vary with the situation, yet has an underlying integrity.”
“That’s not clearing things up for me.”
He smiled. “You always smell like Lily, even when you change shampoos. Leidolf still smells like Leidolf, regardless of who’s Rho.”
“But you’re the new shampoo.”
He grinned. “Yes. Herbal scented, perhaps. The thing is, there remains that which is Leidolf, unaffected by me or any other Rho. My own suspicion—this isn’t in the stories, so it’s just a guess—is that the differences exist because each mantle was ineradicably stamped by its first holder.”
“The first Rho of each clan.”
“Yes. And according to the stories, the first Leidolf Rho was high dominant.”
She heaved a frustrated sigh. “How come there’s still so much stuff I don’t know? Okay, I’ll bite. What’s a high dominant?”
“All Rhos are dominants, of course, but high dominants are different—and rare, fortunately. In my lifetime, I’ve only known two. A high dominant is incapable of submitting. Circumstances don’t matter. He will die rather than submit to another’s authority.” Even with a mantle enforcing that authority.
“Victor Frey,” Lily said flatly.
His eyebrows lifted. “Good guess. Yes, he was a high dominant, but he’s an extreme example of an extreme condition. The other one I knew—Finnen Ap Corwyn—was a friend. Not close, because he was Cynyr and lived in Ireland, but I liked and respected him.”
“Past tense?”
As usual, she’d plucked the significant detail from the pile. “Yes. He was killed in Challenge several years ago. I don’t know the circumstances; it was a Cynyr matter. But I assume he challenged because he could not submit. His death grieved me, but it didn’t surprise me. Or him, I suspect.”
“So high dominants aren’t always evil bastards, but they are über dominant, right? And that tendency is part of Leidolf’s mantle.”
“Über dominant sounds like über bully. The inability to submit to others is not the same as requiring everyone to submit to you. But yes, there is a certain approval of dominance built in.” In fact, Leidolf had a rep for throwing high dominants more often than other clans. It had been a Leidolf high dominant who founded the youngest clan—Ybirra—back in the 1800s, after leaving his birth clan. Tomás Ybirra had gathered enough strays to begin his own clan, though no one outside Ybirra knew how he’d acquired a mantle to unite them.
“So what you carry inclines you toward dominance, not conciliation.”
“Those who become Rho are not by nature conciliatory,” he said dryly. “What is it you’re trying to ask?”
She waved one hand vaguely. “It’s more trying to grasp than ask. I get the feeling dominance means something different to you than it does to me. Never mind. We started this discussion with me asking if what you carry helps you want what’s best for Leidolf. If you answered that, I missed it.”
“I’m trying to answer. It … the more clearly I feel a decision aligns with Leidolf’s best interests, the more what I carry aligns with that decision. If I’m unsure, or if I reach a decision more through my head than my heart, then it … withholds itself. My decisions for Leidolf are all coming from my head,” he said, his throat tight with frustration. “I want to do the right thing more than I want what’s best for Leidolf.”