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so completely I
had no mind of my own, and addressed all her protests to him as the
active member of our partnership.
    “My husband is not acting alone,” I said. I
searched her mind for the maternal feelings I knew were there.
“That man in the barn starved me, left me and my son to die.
And he told my daughter I was dead.” I nodded at Jana where she sat
cradling her doll. “That her own mother was dead. Can you imagine
the effect that had on her?” I thought of all that had happened,
everything my children and I had endured, that Reynaldo had still
to pay for. I was no longer defending my husband but pleading my
own cause. “He threatened to kill my son, my baby son who is not
yet two years old, to make me obey him.”
    I could see Lucretia softening and spoiled
things by pushing too far. “Your god is obviously a man. Only a man
would expect a mother to love the enemy of her children.”
    Lucretia stiffened like a front-line soldier
preparing to receive the charging enemy ranks on his spear point.
“I see yours is a true marriage of minds,” she said, speaking now
to us both. Her voice deepened to a command. “Let him die. I am not
asking you to forgive him. Just let him die.” It was easy to see
how she had held Ladakh Fortress all these years on her own.
    “My lady,” Dominic said, using formal,
courtly speech, a warning of his serious purpose. “My lady, that
man, as you charitably call him, is indeed my enemy. He stole my
family from me, would have killed my wife, and my son and heir.”
Dominic could barely bring himself to think of the danger Jana had
been in, would not refer to it in her presence. “According to my
faith, and I do have one, that man is now mine, to dispose of as I
see fit.”
    Lucretia Ladakh shed unconscious angry tears.
“Please, Margrave,” she said. “You attended our schools. You know
the teachings even if you do not follow them. ‘Vengeance is mine,
saith the Lord.’ You must have heard that many times.”
    Dominic chose not to understand Lucretia’s
words. He showed the same icy smile I had seen when he learned that
Reynaldo had been communicating with me and said, “Yes, I am lord
here, as you point out. The safety of all law-abiding inhabitants
in my land is my responsibility. Vengeance is mine, and I am taking
it, in my own way, in my own time.”
    Dominic reached for my hand again, presenting
a united front. “‘Gravina Aranyi is indeed my true wife.” His
undisguised pride in me was exhilarating. “What I do is dictated by
her wishes, and mine, no one else’s.” He inclined his head in a way
that, while courteous, was a dismissal. “If my treatment of my
enemy offends you, we will leave as soon as ‘Gravina Aranyi can be
safely moved. We will not trouble you any more than is necessary,
and I thank you, and your entire household, for the forbearance you
have shown up to now.”
    Lucretia blinked several times, her eyes made
more beautiful, magnified by her tears. Her lips trembled, but she
stayed true to her resolve. “Since I cannot change your mind, my
lord,” she said, “then I must accept your offer to leave.” The
Eclipsian tradition of hospitality is sacred. It was unheard of to
ask even the poorest, most unpleasant guest to leave before he was
ready to go. By practically throwing a ‘Graven lord and his family
out of her house, Lady Ladakh had demonstrated the strength of her
religious convictions in a most dramatic fashion.
    “Tomorrow,” I said. “We will all be gone at
first light.”
    “By the balls of Erebos,” Dominic whispered
when Lady Ladakh had left. “That was a rash promise to make.”
    “Nothing could keep me here any longer,” I
said. “I would go now if we could.”
    Dominic stroked my cheek. “But at first
light? The strain of such early rising might give you a
relapse.”
    I kissed his fingers one by one. “No,” I
said. “It is you who must rise early, to carry me out. I intend to
sleep all the way home.”

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