She didn’t move a single step closer, didn’t even unclasp the hands folded before her, but he suddenly felt an irrational desire to back away from her as if she’d crossed the room, slammed her fists on the bench in front of him, and shouted in his face.
“My freedom is gone. A career I fought an entire world’s rules to establish has been ripped out of my hands and smashed to pieces. My family-my mother and my father-no doubt believe I’m dead; that I was savagely murdered by barbarians! I have nothing left. No money, no home, no possessions. I don’t even own the comb I used on my hair, this morning, or this dress.” She lifted her arms at last to display the well-made but admittedly plain gown. “And you have the gall to ask why I am angry?”
He swallowed down a throat gone terribly dry.
“You pompous, arrogant jackass! My husband and I lie awake each night wondering if you or someone in your government will override Jasak Olderhan’s authority over us. That you’ll seize us and use some ghastly form of questioning to learn what you want to know. We’ve read your journals. We’ve seen the lies in them. And we’ve seen the demands Mythal is making. I believe the term is ‘mind ripping’? Stripping every fact out of a victim’s mind, leaving behind nothing but a piece of meat that still breathes?
“What you would do to us is terrifying; what you would do to an unborn child I might carry if my husband lies with me-that goes beyond terror to nightmare. Yet you can sit there in your brave uniform, wearing your brave medals-decorations you earned for facing situations far less deadly than what your army did to me-and dare to ask me why I’m angry?”
He blanched whiter with every word.
“As if that weren’t enough,” she hurled those furious words at him, “someone in your government and your military is deliberately lying to the public. They’re lying about me, my husband, my people. They’re lying about the actions of your soldiers. Even the Governor of New Andara’s furious about it. Yet you sit there and ask me why I’m angry? Holy Triads preserve us, do you expect me to be happy?”
A dreadful silence crashed down across the interrogation chamber. Brith Darma was breathing hard, and he didn’t have to glance at the officers on either side of him to know they’d been hammered just as hard by her stinging accusations as he had. He could hear it in the way they were breathing. What was even worse was the lethal accuracy of those accusations. Someone-and he’d give his right arm to know who-was leaking systematic lies and distortions to the news services. And some of the more rabid, ultra-conservative shakira lords wouldn’t be above harming a child, unborn or otherwise.
But he dared not show her how badly she’d rattled him.
“Happy?” he echoed softly, forcing his voice to remain steady. “No. I don’t expect that.” Then he put a whiplash in his voice. “But I do expect prisoners of war to show respect to their captors!”
“Respect?” Her eyes went incandescent and her small hands clenched into fists that nearly shredded the skirt under them. “I gladly give my respect to those who earn it. Gadrial Kelbryan’s earned my respect for life. Jasak Olderhan did his damnedest to kill me, just as I did my damnedest to kill him; but he’s earned my respect again and again, for the way he handled the men of his command in combat, for the way he cared for his wounded, for the respect and the mercy he accorded me when my shock was so deep I could barely keep my sanity from disintegrating in my hands.
“I respect Otwal Threbuch for the incredibly difficult tasks he performed. He survived that first firefight, when we were shooting down every man we could center in our gun sights. He managed to reconnoiter our portal fort, survived the second battle, and slipped across to the Arcanan side of a guarded portal without being caught. Any man who can do that has my respect. But he deserves my respect far more for the way he broke the news of Halathyn vos Dulainah’s death to Gadrial.”
That surprised Brith Darma.
“Why?” he frowned.
“He had to tell her that a man she loved as a second father had been killed-by his own soldiers. I’ve seen a lot of soldiers. Every portal my crew passed through has a fort sitting in it. We stopped at every one of those forts, picking up supplies, replacing gear. I’ve seen a lot of men like Chief Sword Threbuch, the kind of men who find it difficult to talk to civilian women, to talk about anything emotional, whether happy or painful. Yet he broke that ghastly news to her gently, on his knees and with tears in his eyes. I profoundly respect a man like that.”
Then her voice went scathing, again.
“But you,” she raked him with her gaze just as rudely as he’d raked her, “haven’t even bothered to give me your bare name. I don’t know how things are done in your society, but in mine, gentlemen and soldiers-particularly officers-are neither deliberately arrogant, nor rude, nor cruel to women.”
The second silence was even worse than the first.
This woman was dangerous.
Brith Darma sat rigidly still, staring down at her through eyes trying to widen in shock and dismay. She might be a prisoner, but she was neither cowed nor frightened, and she was far, far from alone broken. Despite every ordeal this woman had endured, despite facing a lifetime of house arrest, she retained enough spirit to spit in his eye and make him cringe in shame.
If a Sharonian civilian, a woman, displayed this magnitude of sheer guts, it was little wonder the men who wore the Sharonian uniform had smacked Hadrign Thalmayr into the mud like a swatted mosquito. These people were trouble. Brith Darma studied her in silence for a moment, mulling over possible responses. He decided to address her barbed and accurate accusation of rudeness with an attempt to judge her reaction to authority.
“You want to know who we are? Very well. Fleet Third Kordos is on this board as a representative of the Arcanan Navy. His rank is the third highest possible for a naval officer. Commander of Legions Githrak is the head of Army Intelligence. And I am Horvon Fosdark, Earl of Brith Darma and Commander of Wings for the Arcanan Air Force. My rank is the second highest in the Air Force.”
Her smile and formal curtsey shocked him. “Thank you, My Lord. I won’t say it’s any kind of pleasure to meet you, but it’s much nicer to at least know who is shouting at me.” She then folded her hands neatly in front of her once more and waited.
He sat blinking in consternation. She was too damned small to be this much trouble. He frowned down at her where she stood simply waiting for him to bring forth his next shout, and her attitude and accusations stung even deeper than she probably realized, since one of the tenets of the Andaran code of conduct was the importance it placed on how an officer and gentleman, particularly one born into the peerage, treated ladies. Worse yet, the fact that she surprised him on a constant basis worried the hell out of him. If he couldn’t accurately predict the responses of a civilian prisoner of war, how poorly would he and his brother officers fare against her world’s officers?