"You are such a fraud, Jorge. I could almost like you. 'What we must do, we do.' Spoken like a true-born, Jorge, but filth in the mouth of a freebirth."
Pershaw stood up and walked to the window behind his desk. Aidan tried to sit up, but the immediate dizziness forced him to lie back.
Standing with his back to Aidan, Pershaw spoke without turning around. "I have just delivered the vilest humiliation to the leader of the Clan Wolf warriors. I could hear his hatred in his voice. And despite my satisfaction at winning, I suffered my own humiliation. I am grateful that my gene heritage did not go to the Clan Wolf vaults, and I have you to thank for that, Jorge. It was your plan and your subsequent deeds that protected my Bloodright. But this victory will, in all our codexes, always be tainted. We trueborns should not have to thank a freebirth for our victories, and I will forever be conscious of the shame."
Aidan could find nothing to say. He had no wish to be arrogant, no need to exacerbate the shame.
"How is Lanja?" Aidan asked.
"She died," Kael Pershaw said quietly.
"I am sorry."
"Yes. Your courage in dragging her to camp has proven to be fruitless."
"That is not what I am sorry about."
"I do not know what you mean, but I order you not to tell me. When you are well enough to go, you are dismissed."
Pershaw walked out of the room. His strides were long, longer than usual, as if he needed to hurry away.
Aidan closed his eyes. In his mind's eye, he saw his Summonerfall onto the command dome, this time with him in it. That might have given him some feeling of victory. Nothing Kael Pershaw had said could provide it.
As his eyes came open suddenly, he wondered how much longer he could bear the trueborn's continual scorn.
* * *
Dwillt Radick raged at his subordinate, Craig Ward.
"If you had seen his objective, perhaps you would have taken care to shoot better, hit the freebirth's 'Mech at an angle to force its fall in another direction."
"It was not possible. I was attempting to protect the dome. He unexpectedly bent his 'Mech over the dome before I had a chance to divert fire. He was deliberately drawing the fire in. He—"
"I know all that! I have studied the tapes. You failed, Craig Ward!"
The accusation was too much, the charge that set off the explosion.
"Perhaps I did misjudge! We all do in the heat of battle. Even you."
"Not to that degree, Star Commander."
"Then let me ask you this, Dwillt Radick. What misconception of strategy led you to establish a permanent command center instead of accepting the responsibility of directing the battle from your cockpit in-"
"I could charge you for that."
"Take it to a Circle of Equals."
"Perhaps I will. When we return." Radick took a deep breath. This Craig Ward, he felt, would plague him for years to come. "Establishing a permanent communications center is more efficient than directing from a command 'Mech. The techs can follow every phase of the battle as the leader directs while fighting off the enemy."
"And leaders have done so for centuries. You cannot give over the battle to techs. You must—"
"I set up the battle like a soldier, like the great military experts of former times, using all the facets of strategy, tactics, and logistics."
For a moment Craig Ward remembered his place. "With all due respect, sir, perhaps thinking like a soldier is inferior to thinking like a commander."
"As you did? Blundering into an engagement where you had the clear advantage, but then losing it? Was that action from the mind of a commander?"
Craig Ward saw, from the way Dwillt Radick shook with fury, that he had overstepped his bounds. Quickly he invoked all the cautious subordinate rituals that slowly defused Radick and brought the two of them back to their normal, uneasy peace.
21
Kael Pershaw's glare was more piercing than a xenon searchlight. Any other recipient of that gaze would have reconsidered the action that drew it. But Aidan was not just any other. He thrived on glares. Especially from Kael Pershaw.
"I knew you were freebirth, Jorge, and I knew you were arrogant and stupid, but I did not think you would interrupt a sacred ritual with a foolish and insulting gesture. If not for the valor of your recent performance, I would consider shooting you on the spot."
"If you do not accept my case, then I promise to meet you in the Circle of Equals to prove it."
Resplendent in their ceremonial dress, the gathered Jade Falcon warriors muttered among themselves, an ominous sound. Some of them would gladly join with Kael Pershaw to kill this upstart freebirth who had so airily insulted one of their most cherished rites.
"What manner of case could you have, freebirth?" Kael Pershaw shouted, his voice still in the timbre of the ceremony Aidan had interrupted. "Freebirths may not compete for a Bloodname!"
"That is true. As a freeborn warrior, I would have no right to make the claim, and you would be justified in shooting me immediately."
"It seems you have just called for your own death, quiaff?"
"On the contrary. I said if Iwere a freeborn. You see, Star Colonel Pershaw, I am not freeborn. My birth is just as true as yours, and that of every trueborn here."
The murmur of the assembled warriors grew louder, as did its angry tone. Never in memory had a single warrior crammed so many insults into so few words. How dare this freebirth claim to be trueborn?
Kael Pershaw raised his hand to silence the warriors. He was certain now that something had affected Jorge's brain. Perhaps the battle had jarred some synapse, or perhaps the man's own inferior genetic strain had stirred up some chemical imbalance that had finally pushed him over the edge. Pershaw nodded toward his Personal Guard to come nearer so that they would be ready to pounce on Jorge if he started to run amok.
"I will disallow what you have said thus far if you will sit down and be silent, Star Commander Jorge. Your recent valor may have earned you a fraction of leeway, but it is now used up. Understand this: You may not compete for a Bloodname and may not put forth a claim."
"You have not been listening. I may make a claim. I am canister-born and sibko-bred, from the Mattlov-Pryde genetic line. My name is not Jorge; it is Aidan. Clan law permits me to compete for the Bloodname of Pryde, which was that of my genemother Tanya Pryde. She is a former Galaxy Commander whose exploits are well-documented in Jade Falcon annals."
Aidan's neck tingled, and he wondered if it was a reaction to the combined rage of the warriors gathered around him, most of whom looked as though they could kill him immediately.
That was not going to stop him, though. Without a pause Aidan began the story of his life on Ironhold, as cadet, as failed Trial participant, as successful freeborn qualifier.
* * *
Joanna was beside herself. The fool! Ter Roshak had warned him never to reveal his trueborn origins. Roshak had promised to kill Aidan if he ever confessed that Roshak had manipulated events to give Aidan a second chance at becoming a warrior. What stupidity could have made him claim the right to a Trial of Bloodright now?
Even as the thought crossed her mind, Joanna knew the answer to the question. How often did a warrior get a chance to earn a Bloodname? She knew from her own experience how few and far between were the opportunities. Aidan had probably been planning to make this claim for some time. Overall, the Blood-name of Pryde was a mixed one, with some good lines and some mediocre. This particular line, however, one of the twenty-five that had come down through the generations from its original holder, Aeneas Pryde, had been claimed two generations ago by a Jade Falcon hero named Teukros Pryde, and until recently by Ileana Pryde. It was a particularly noble and intrepid line, one for which only the best warriors could compete. In his announcement of the new Trial of Blood-right, Kael Pershaw had cited Ileana Pryde for her courage in backing her BattleMech against a high cliff wall and fighting off a succession of Snow Raven Clan 'Mechs in a fierce battle for territory on the planet York. Ileana had met her own death in that battle, he said, and thus did the Bloodname become available.