Chapter Twenty-Five
January 15
The winter air was crisp and the sunlight crystalline as it drenched the target range on the outskirts of Portalis. The temperatures had been freezing since Jathmar and Shaylar arrived, but Arcana’s use of magic to heat their homes and offices had produced one consequence no Sharonian would have anticipated: no coal smoke. As a result, the distant tree line was a sharp, dark thicket of bare branches, undimmed by the grey smudge of urban smoke. They were as clear here with Jathmar’s eyes wide open as they would have been in this same meadow in Sharona if he’d closed his eyes and stretched out his Mapping Talent.
He drew a deeper, fuller breath than any he’d taken since their arrival at Portalis. He didn’t try his Talent-he had no desire to face either a headache or the heartache of its extremely reduced range. It was enough to enjoy the familiar bite of cold air and the joy of being outdoors. They’d been confined in one room or another since their arrival, allowed outdoors only long enough to dash into or out of the duke’s motic or ornate, improbably speedy coach for trips between Garth Showma House and wherever the current day’s inquisition happened to be located.
For this trip the shiny new motic and its driverless GC had been deemed unacceptable. The angry crowds outside the huge townhouse undoubtedly had something to do with that-the motics’ restriction to pre-set, predictable routes would have been a nightmare for the duke’s security personnel-but Jathmar wasn’t sure he wouldn’t have preferred a vehicle controlled by the central traffic system. It might have been more susceptible to ambushes, but at least he’d have been confident the journey itself wouldn’t kill him!
The duke’s black coach horses, on the other hand, had whipped through the city streets so fast his hands had gone white-knuckled gripping the seat arm while Shaylar leaned against him, eyes shut tight, the whole way. He’d braced for collision so many times he’d spent the whole city portion of the ride stiff as a brick. Yet not even that speed had prepared him for what those horses could do on open roads, like the one leading to this army post.
He’d been convinced they’d sprout wings and fly. Instead, they’d merely whipped along the open highway so fast their coach might well have outraced a bullet. Not one from a modern gun, of course, but they’d have given one of those early, slow-moving balls from a Ternathian matchlock a real run for its money.
The journey to this firing range had scared him nearly pissless. But now that they were here…He could actually breathe, out here. The knowledge that they must go back to those hateful walls, which pressed more closely and more unbearably with every day, was a physical agony he could scarcely bear. Confinement was killing them. Slowly, cruelly killing them, and they had no hope of clemency from their captors.
Jathmar intended to enjoy every moment out here to the fullest, despite the unexpectedly large, avidly curious, openly hostile audience. He turned his gaze to the viewing stands where the entire Commandery sat in a glittering array of gold and silver and bronze devices on their fancy dress uniforms: forest green and gray for the army, a crimson as vivid as any tropical fish for the navy, and the velvet-ink black of night skies for the air force. He hadn’t seen anything resembling Marines and had opted not to ask, since giving his captors new military ideas was not on his agenda.
Also seated in the viewing stands were the members of the newly appointed Parliamentary War Operations and Intelligence Committee, led by the Speaker of the Union, himself. The committee’s interest in their planned demonstration was both obvious and intense ad, unlike the military’s board of inquiry or y court, the committee included two Mythlans: one garthan and one of the shakira he’d heard so much about, during their travels and since their arrival.
The shakira-Gerail vos Durgazon, the Union minister of industry-wore a supercilious sneer that appeared to be permanently etched into his face. Jathmar had detested him on sight, and not just because prior experience had amply confirmed Gadrial and Jasak’s attitude towards shakira in general. No, he had a very specific and personal reason to detest this individual representative of Mythal’s hereditary overlords: the truly filthy way the man had looked at Shaylar. Part cold-blooded hatred, part carnal lust, and part thwarted rage, that smugly superior, violently hostile look told Jathmar Minister vos Durgazon had no intention of abiding by military regulations or Arcanan law, should Shaylar ever fall into his custody.
The garthan, on the other hand, had the gentlest, kindest eyes Jathmar had ever seen. He hadn’t expected that, particularly from a Mythlan, but Gadrial had told him Jukaru Tumnau, the Minister of Health, although unGifted, with no trace of the Healing capability, was one of Arcana’s best psychiatrists. He’d also been a close personal friend of Halathyn vos Dulainah-which helped explain the notorious bad blood between him and vos Durgazon. Tumnau wasn’t about to accept anything the Sharonians told him without considering it very, very carefully, but he wasn’t automatically hostile, despite vos Dulainah’s death. In fact, what Jathmar read most strongly in Tumnau’s eyes was an almost childlike curiosity, which rippled through a deep and glimmering compassion.
A long table stood just in front of the viewing stands. That table provided seats for the officers of Jasak’s court-martial. There were five: three Andarans, one Ransaran, and one Tukorian, and Jathmar already had cause to view all of them with a cold hostility. They’d spent the entire day, yesterday, questioning each of the witnesses in what they referred to as a mere “preliminary inquiry.” Those questions had been fairly sharp when directed at Jasak Olderhan, patient and attentive when directed at Otwal Threbuch, grim and scornful when leveled at Bok vos Hoven, and gently respectful when addressed to Gadrial Kelbryan.
As for Jathmar and his wife…
The officers had badgered them with a remorseless barrage of questions that were hostile, scathing to the point of deliberate cruelty, and contemptuous of every syllable they uttered in response. The board of inquiry before which they’d first appeared had been difficult enough initially, but its members had quickly taken their tone from Commander of Wings Brith Darma and become almost courteous. Not so the court-martial board. If he’d been inclined to be charitable-which he wasn’t-Jathmar might have put that down to the fact that they were scared to death by what had already been reported to them and were taking that fear out on the closest example of what they were frightened of. The reasons for their attitude didn’t much concern him, however; its consequences, on the other hand, most assuredly did.
Of course, he thought with a certain bitter amusement, I have to say they learned better, too, didn’t they? And a godsdamned sight quicker this time around.
His lips quirked in a smile of memory, and he shook his head. There were huge differences between Sathmin Olderhan and his own mother, but under the skin, the New Ternathian farmer’s wife and the Arcanan duchess were more alike than either of them might have believed. Duchess Garth Showma had already tolerated quite as much abuse of her son’s shardonai as she intended to, and she’d sailed into the hearing room at Shaylar’s side like a Ternathian battleship breaking an enemy line.
Commander of Twenty Thousand Helfron Dithrake, Count Sogbourne, the senior and presiding member of the empaneled court-martial, had been less than pleased to see her, though he hadn’t been stupid enough to say so in so many words. His courteous suggestion that Her Grace might, perhaps, want to await the witness in the lounge had been answered only with the sort of cold stare with which governesses reduced unruly children to terrified obedience, and the count had shown he was even smarter than Jathmar had thought by dropping that line of suggestions immediately.