Arrisa stood on the stone path along with three other women. All were dressed in a dazzling array of bright tunics and flashing jewelry. They greeted Kalena with wide, infectious grins as Arrisa made introductions and Kalena knew the evening that lay ahead of her would be unlike any other she had ever experienced.
“Let’s be off,” Arrisa commanded, taking charge of the small crowd. “I have ordered an evening meal at the Sign of the Dark Key. After all, we’ll let the night take us where it will. Don’t worry, Kalena, we’ll have you back here in time for your wedding.”
Helpless to stop Kalena and thoroughly disgusted by that fact, Ridge opened the great hall doors and watched the brightly dressed flock of women disappear down the street. Their cheerful laughter floated back to him on the soft evening air. Tomorrow night, he promised himself, things would be different. Kalena would learn what it was to have a husband. She was tasting the heady air of freedom tonight, probably for the first time in her life, but she would only have one night of it. Enough to satisfy her curiosity, Ridge told himself, but not enough to corrupt her.
Ridge further calmed his temper by telling himself that Arrisa knew better than to go too far when it came to showing Kalena the life of the freewomen of the town. She knew she would answer to Ridge if she got Kalena into real trouble. Arrisa was a little wild, but she was not stupid, he decided. She would exercise some discretion this evening. In addition, Kalena would undoubtedly discover that the fast nightlife offered by Crosspurposes was more than a little shocking to her country bred sensibilities. Her good upbringing should afford some protection and caution.
Consoling himself with that thought, Ridge slammed the heavy moonwood door and continued down the hall toward Quintel’s apartments. Tomorrow night, he vowed silently once again, tomorrow night everything would be different. Unconsciously, he reached up to touch the silken embroidered R on his shoulder.
The dark hour of midnight came and went without causing a single, disturbing ripple in the boisterous party. Kalena noticed the time when she happened to glance at a water clock as they entered the fourth tavern of the evening. She and her new friends then sat at a low plank table in the smoky room and ordered another round of red ale to share. Almost everyone else in the tavern was male, although a few other bold women were scattered here and there. Kalena and her friends were drawing stares, just as they had done in the last three taverns, not just because they were women, but because their laughter and the jests were becoming increasingly loud. Kalena’s voice was already quite hoarse from the effort of projecting above the general din.
“A toast to the new trade wife!” the blonde woman named Vertina announced for perhaps the tenth time. Each toast had been a bit bawdier than the last. “May she finally learn the truth about the Fire Whip.”
“What truth?” Arrisa demanded, lifting her tankard.
“Why, the truth about his ability to make the steel of Countervail glow red hot,” Vertina said with a wicked grin. “I figured if it’s ever going to glow, it will do so in bed. Pay attention tomorrow night, Kalena. The steel between your husband’s legs is from Countervail, you know. Ridge was born there, I was told. I, for one, have always been curious to know just how hot it can get.”
Kalena flushed at the crudeness of the joke, torn between laughter and shock. Even after spending the evening with this crowd, she was still finding herself startled by some of their ribald remarks. “I’ll, uh, try to pay attention,” she mumbled into her tankard.
“That reminds me,” another woman interrupted, pulling a small lanti skin pouch out of her pocket. “I have the bride’s present. Surely it’s time we gave it to her?”
Amid more loud laughter, everyone agreed. Kalena smiled expectantly. She had never received many gifts from Aunt Olara. “That’s very kind of you,” she said, meaning it. Eagerly she accepted the pouch, untying the leather thong. Inside, she saw a powder. Cautiously Kalena sniffed. For a moment she couldn’t identify it, and then she remembered Olara preparing a certain concoction at the request of neighboring farm women. The pungent odor of the selite leaves identified the powder. Kalena’s cheeks turned red again.
“Thank you,” she murmured. “It’s very thoughtful of all of you.”
“You should probably start taking it now,” Vertina said. “Just a pinch. Use the ale to wash it down.”
“But, I, uh, won’t need it until tomorrow night,” Kalena protested gently.
“Ha,” Arrisa said laughingly. “You don’t know that for certain. No telling what the rest of the night holds. Take the powder and be safe, Kalena.”
It would do no harm, Kalena decided. Good-naturedly, she took a pinch of the powder women took to prevent conception and washed it down with a swallow of ale. When she was finished a cheer went up around the table.
A loud male voice from across the room shouted for the tavern keeper. “Can’t you keep those women quiet?”
Arrisa smiled broadly, then responded, “Why don’t you take a trip to the Dark end of the Spectrum?”
Another man from the opposite corner of the smoky room seconded the opinion of the first male. The woman with him jumped to her feet and announced her disagreement with her partner’s attitude by dumping ale over his head.
“Close your mouth, Bleen, they’re not bothering you.”
Bleen’s roar of rage was followed by a desperate bid for peace by the tavern keeper. That proved unsuccessful, however, as several other males joined with the first in protesting the presence of Kalena’s group. It proved too much for Arrisa and the others. Kalena was startled to see her new friends jump to their feet and grab for full tankards of ale to hurl across the room at the offending males.
Pandemonium ensued with the inevitability of night following day. Before she quite realized what was happening, Kalena found herself in the midst of a tavern brawl. There was, she discovered, only one rule: you stuck by your friends. She grabbed her own tankard and sent it flying across the room.
Somebody called the Town Patrol almost immediately. The officers arrived shortly afterward.
The patrol runner presented himself at Quintel’s door half an hour after the brawl had been quelled.
“Tell Quintel’s Whip that we have a woman claiming to be his future wife in custody,” the runner said gravely to the sleepy servant who opened the door. “Ask Ridge if he wants her to spend a night in jail or if he’d prefer to come claim her.”
Four
Kalena heard the ring of Ridge’s boots on the stone floor of the patrol office a few seconds before she saw him. She was grateful for the brief warning, which gave her a chance to paste what she hoped was a winning smile on her face. She was sitting on a hard bench, Arrisa and the others arranged beside her. Kalena was aware of the other women’s uneasiness.
“I think I would have been better off spending the rest of the night in jail,” Arrisa muttered gloomily.
“She’s right.” Vertina groaned, holding her head in both hands. “If you would just let the patrol take us downstairs, Kalena, things might be a great deal easier in the long run.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Kalena declared with sweeping confidence. “Ridge will get us all out of here.”
The other women looked at her as if she wasn’t quite right in the head. But before Kalena could speak, the Fire Whip was striding into the room, filling it up with the force of his barely leashed fury. Kalena finally realized why his temper was legendary. The gold of his eyes was molten with the force of his anger. He pinned Kalena for an instant with that scorching gaze, ignoring the other women. Then he spoke to one of the patrol officers. His voice was far too soft for Kalena’s comfort.
“That’s her. Release her. I’ll wait for her outside.” He turned to stalk back into the outer office without another word.
Frantically, Kalena took hold of her unsettled nerves and sprang to her feet. “Ridge, wait! What about my friends?”
“Uh, Kalena, maybe you should just shut up and go with him,” Arrisa advised in
a low tone.
But it was too late. Ridge had already swung around in the doorway, his hand resting a little too casually on the handle of his sintar. His face was a frighteningly expressionless mask. “Your friends?” he repeated in a gentle voice laced with liquid fire.
Kalena realized her pulse was racing. She was stunned to find herself quelled by the temper of a man who couldn’t even claim a decent House name. For the sake of the Spectrum, where was her own pride? Kalena rallied herself, keeping her head high and her voice as serene as possible. “Perhaps I should have said my wedding guests, Ridge. I have invited my friends to the wedding. I cannot allow them to spend the rest of the night in jail.”
There was a moment of frozen silence while Ridge looked at her across the width of the room. The patrol captain waited warily for the explosion, obviously a little uncertain about what to do when it occurred.
Kalena licked her lower lip and decided to ride out the storm by making an effort to placate the man she had contracted to marry. If she were honest with herself, she had to admit that the situation was largely her own fault. The man had a right to be angry. Quietly she said, “Ridge, please. As a wedding gift to me, will you arrange for their release?”
A strange light flashed in his eyes. “Come here,” he said evenly.
Kalena hesitated, every nerve in her body aware of the challenge in him. Ridge had obviously had more than enough of her bravado this evening. He didn’t repeat the command; he simply waited. Kalena counted a few more seconds, then walked slowly across the room to stand in front of him. Everyone else held their tongues and their breath.
“You’re asking for a wedding gift?” Ridge didn’t move in the doorway.
“Yes, please.” Kalena kept her hands tightly clasped in front of her. She looked up at him with earnest, hopeful eyes and waited with what she trusted was a wifely humility. The thing was, it wasn’t an act. At this moment she felt very much like an errant wife pleading for a bit of mercy from her husband. For the first time she was confronted with the fact that Ridge held real power over her in this situation. He could choose to grant the favor or withhold it. Nothing she had done so far this evening had predisposed him to grant any favors.
“If you would claim a gift, Kalena, then you must be prepared to give one in return.”
Kalena took a deep breath, aware that in the matter of gift giving, as in everything else in life, a balance must be maintained. “Claim your gift, Ridge.”
“Yes,” he said, as if to himself, “I think it’s time I did.” He took her arm and glanced at the captain. “Release them. I will see to it that damages are paid.”
Relief flowed through Kalena, washing out the tension and uncertainty. The crisis was past. She began to wonder why she had been so nervous. Of course Ridge would never have left her to sit in jail or denied her the boon of freeing her friends. He might have a temper that originated in the Dark end of the Spectrum, but he was a decent man. “My thanks, Ridge!” Impulsively she stood on tiptoe, threw her arms around his neck and hugged him gratefully. “I can’t tell you how much I appreciate your generosity.”
He looked down into her face. The fire had faded from his eyes, and was replaced by something else, something she couldn’t quite identify. “You can tell me how grateful you are later when we reach Quintel’s house.” Disengaging himself from her arms, he guided her firmly out of the room.
Kalena turned to glance over her shoulder as she was led from the room. She grinned happily at her relieved friends. “I had a wonderful evening. Thank you very much, and I hope to see you at the wedding. You will be sure to come, won’t you?”
“Are you kidding?” Arrisa asked with a laugh. “Wouldn’t miss it for all the crystal in Talon Pass.”
The walk back to Quintel’s house was conducted in absolute silence on Ridge’s part. But he had no real need to speak. Kalena occupied the entire time with a bubbling account of her evening on the town. Ridge listened without comment as they followed the light of the firegel lamps down the main avenue to their destination.
Kalena’s tale didn’t begin to wind down until the doors of Quintel’s house swung open to admit Ridge and herself. She had a brief moment of anxiety at the thought of explaining the evening’s events to the Master of the House. But that fear was put to rest as Ridge steered her forcefully in the direction of the guest quarters.
“I must admit, you were very generous back there in the patrol office, Ridge,” Kalena concluded magnanimously as they approached her room. “I know Arrisa and the others appreciated your actions as much as I did. I realize you probably don’t wholeheartedly approve of everything that happened this evening, and under the circumstances I think you behaved very nobly.”
Ridge spoke for the first time since they had left the patrol office. “You, on the other hand, behaved like an ill-mannered, ill-bred, ill-governed female who needs to be introduced to the business end of a creet whip.”
Kalena gasped at the unexpected threat. “Ridge, what a terrible thing to say! No one but a Houseless bastard would use a creet whip on a woman.”
“I am a Houseless bastard, or hasn’t anyone bothered to inform you of that fact?” He didn’t pause at her door, but continued down the colonnaded path toward his own apartments.
“Oh, for Spectrum’s sake, I didn’t mean that,” Kalena said, shocked as much by her own bad manners as his. “It was just an expression. Ridge, please try to understand. I have never in my life had such an evening as I had tonight. It was so exciting. I felt so free…”
He threw her a faintly mocking glance. “You felt free sitting there on a bench in the headquarters of the Town Patrol waiting for me to bail you out? You’ve got an odd notion of freedom, woman.”
“Not then,” she said, waving the culmination of the evening’s events aside with a careless hand. “I meant earlier. We went where we wished, sat drinking in the taverns just like the men do, and when the fight broke out we held our own.”
His mouth quirked wryly. “You held your own, did you? How many poor males did you brain with an ale tankard tonight, Kalena? Or weren’t you keeping score?”
She laughed up at him. “I tried to keep score but it got complicated. Do you keep score when you get into tavern brawls, Ridge?”
“Don’t look at me so innocently. I haven’t been in a tavern brawl in years, but the last time I was I sure as hell wasn’t keeping score. There’s no point. The only thing that counts is coming out in one piece. Do you realize you could have been injured tonight? Some idiot might have pulled a sintar or broken your nose with his fist.”
“I would have looked very interesting at the wedding with a broken nose.”
“It’s not funny, Kalena. It was a stupid and dangerous thing to do.”
“I’ll bet you’ve done lots of things that were much more stupid and much more dangerous.”
He groaned. “I’m beginning to think we have a basic problem here.”
She smiled questioningly. “What problem is that?”
“A proper wife is supposed to display a certain degree of, well, alarm, or at least some reasonable apprehension when her lord is forced to bail her out of jail after an evening such as you spent tonight.”
“I’m not a proper wife,” Kalena declared with gleeful satisfaction. “I’m going to be a trade wife. And technically, I’m not even that, not yet.”
“You will be soon enough,” he stated brusquely. “Why do I have to keep reminding you that even though this is meant to be a short-term marriage it’s still a legal marriage? During the course of it you are still subject to your husband.”
She tilted her head thoughtfully. “Surely you don’t expect me to cower in fear whenever I’m in your presence?”
He looked briefly irritated. “There’s a difference between going in fear of me and behaving with some discretion. I told you not to get involved with Arrisa and her crowd.”
“Do you pay a lot of attention to people who advise you not to do what you want to do
?” she asked with great interest.
He glared at her. “We’re not discussing my behavior. It’s your actions we’re dealing with here.”
“The thing is, Ridge,” she said quite seriously, “I had a great time. Freedom is a wonderful thing, isn’t it?
“I wouldn’t know,” he said quietly. “I’ve never had a lot of it.”
Startled, she came to a halt and swung around to stare searchingly up at him, “What are you talking about? You’ve been free all of your life.”
“That’s a matter of interpretation. I’ve been living with a single goal all my life. The only freedom I’ve had was in picking and choosing the various means I could use to reach that goal. Sometimes the choices aren’t pleasant.”
Fascinated, she continued to study his intent face. “What goal is that, Ridge?”
“I’m going to found my own House. A Great House.” He challenged her silently, as if expecting her to mock his dream.
But Kalena felt no amusement. “Such a goal will require much from you, Trade Master. It might even get you killed.”
“With any luck, it will get me rich instead.” He caught her arm and pulled her forward. “But in the meantime I remain a bastard. Just ask anyone,” he added with a grim smile.
Kalena came back to her senses as he tugged her after him. “Where are we going? My rooms are back there. Surely you’re not thinking of actually…actually…” Her voice trailed off as he stopped in front of his room and shoved open the arched door. He wouldn’t really beat her as he had half-threatened earlier, she told herself. He couldn’t do such a thing. Even if he had no claim to any House, he would not embarrass the Great House by which he was employed by abusing a woman.
“Relax. I didn’t bring you here to beat you, Kalena,” he told her mildly, pulling her into the chamber and shutting the door.