* * *

Back they went to the mediation chamber, which was again filled with spectators disguising themselves as witnesses. One of the galleys was curiously empty, he saw. The other was occupied by another man dressed as a warlord and the kneeling figure of yet another woman. The man was only vaguely familiar, although Meoraq noted that his lordly garb was, unlike that of Arug, functional rather than ceremonial, and he carried several admirable scars prominently across his powerful body. The woman, however, he recognized at once despite her bent back and ducked head.

Meoraq glanced again at the empty galley and snorted. He folded his arms, resting his hands close to the hilts of his sabks. “Where is the baby?” he asked, interrupting the high judge mid-prayer.

“If you had come when I first sent word to you, you could have seen it born,” the lord said, also interrupting the judge, who was attempting to both apologize and reprimand Meoraq at the same time.

“Why would I want to?”

“Honored one, please!” snapped the high judge. “This is a formal matter!”

“I am not in the mood for formalities,” said Meoraq.

“So be it.” The lord stepped forward, beckoning behind him to one of his many men. “I am House Saluuk,” he said, for the benefit of the court’s scribe. “Once Saluuk Tzugul and a Sword of Sheul. This is my daughter.”

“I remember,” said Meoraq. And he did, although the fires had burned hot in him that day. He remembered her not because she was pretty, which she was, rather, but also because she had been particularly tiresome in conquest—breaking the ritual after only a few stammered lines and then trying to flee the arena hold. He’d been forced to pursue and to hold her down, neither of which he minded much in the burn of Sheul’s fires, but she’d also screamed all the way through the sex, and afterwards, just lay there in a heap, sobbing. A bad night, and one that had a way of slipping back into his thoughts when he was alone and his mind unquiet. A Sword of Sheul knew no remorse for the things he did in the grip of holy fire, and yet…she had been so small beneath him, so small as she lay weeping on the floor…

And now there she knelt, and there indeed was the infant, carried in a servant’s arms to be displayed before the court. It was the right size; he wondered whether she had been corrupted after his conquest or before.

To think he’d lain awake so many nights, haunted by her tears.

“I remember,” Meoraq said again, coldly. “And I remember that Sheul’s blessing was for myself alone. I do not acknowledge that child. Its blood is the blood of Gann.”

Shocked gasps met this accusation and then whispers flew. Lord Saluuk’s throat began to pale in streaks of color, but he betrayed no other sign of emotion as he reached down, took a fist-hold of his daughter’s wrap and yanked it open, revealing her scarred shoulder as she twisted her face away.

Meoraq had been many years a Sheulek and knew it had made him cynical. He was used to expecting the worst of people, but this, he never anticipated.

“Lies!” he roared, at once full in the grip of Sheul’s killing fires. It was his training alone that kept his blades in their sheaths; every bone of him wanted to draw and paint every damned wall of this room with blood.

Breathe. A Sheulek is a master of every impulse.

“Lies,” he said again, hissing but at least not shouting. “She may have been virgin—I will not say otherwise—but she did not burn and that is not my mark!”

“I stand before you, judges, in the sight of Sheul.” The steward released his daughter to her huddle and faced the tribunal. “Every servant of my household is present and able to swear that this woman has been in proper confinement every hour of her life, save that when she was last in this arena.” He swung to stab at Meoraq with his stare, saying, “Or do you say House Saluuk allows its daughters to rut wild in the alleys?”

“I do not,” said Meoraq, just as coldly. “Whether she goes out or her bulls sneak in should concern House Saluuk, but it is no matter to me.”

“You come very near to making a personal insult, honored one,” one of the judges said with a respectful nod.

“I do not come near,” snapped Meoraq. “I make it boldly! Your daughter has gone to Gann and that is not my mark upon her.”

Before Lord Saluuk could make his snarling reply, the woman flung out her bare hands and cried, “I have been with no man but you!”

The whole of the tribunal stared at her.

Her father was first to recover. In two swift strides, he had returned to her side and slapped her to the ground.

“Oh yes, she knows her place well,” another judge remarked, but Meoraq killed what little humor that stirred up with a glance. The woman’s tears as she knelt at Lord Saluuk’s feet were too much as they had been a year ago when she had been huddling at his own feet. The sound woke the infant, who added its own wails until the servant holding it was ordered to take it into the hall. Meoraq found himself scowling suddenly into its little face as it was carried past him; it flinched away as from Gann Himself, clutching at the servant and renewing its cries, now with terror.

As soon as it was gone and the door shut against its noise, the high judge rose and raised his hand. “Stand the girl up.”

Lord Saluuk obeyed, and none too gently. The girl sent a wet-eyed, imploring gaze at Meoraq, who folded his arms against her and refused to look away. She was a good one for heart-stirring looks, it seemed.

“Steward, it is your duty to make those of your House aware that what is said before this tribunal is said in the sight of Sheul. A lie spoken to Him is a wound to one’s very soul.”

“She knows,” said Saluuk, giving his daughter a glance as hard as a second slap.

“So be it. Girl.” The high judge leaned sternly over the tribune wall, addressing himself to her directly while the lesser judges struggled not to react. “Before Sheul, who do you name as the father of that child?”

“Before Sheul, I swear that I have been with no man but Sheulek Uyane.”

Meoraq flared his spines, but that was all. One embarrassing outburst was enough for this tribunal and it would be hers.

“Before Sheul,” the high judge went on, narrowing his eyes, “who put that mark of conquest upon your flesh?”

Meoraq’s spines flared again as his hands drew into fists upon his biceps in anticipation of the lie he must endure…but the lie never came.

The girl bent her neck and did not answer.

The high judge leaned back in his chair and stroked at his throat.

“Why do you waste our time interrogating a woman?” Lord Saluuk demanded. He unsheathed his sabks in a swift hiss. “If this man will not acknowledge his seed as the Word itself demands, I will challenge him and let Sheul be our judge!”

“This man,” said Meoraq with contempt, “will meet you, steward, and Sheul will end your lying bloodline.”

“Enough! How dare you draw a bladed weapon in this hall!” The high judge struck his hammer on the tribune wall, and again, until Lord Saluuk grudgingly resheathed. “There is no need for bloodshed! You! Fetch a wax tablet from the archivist’s stores! If the honored one will make his mark, a simple comparison shall be enough to determine the truth here.”

Meoraq grunted approval, eyeing Lord Saluuk, whose expression had taken on a narrow, calculating stare. The servant was dispatched to the stores, but he had been gone only a moment when the steward suddenly turned and caught his daughter by the throat.

“Will the marks match?” he demanded. “Answer, girl!”

His grip made any verbal reply impossible, but her choked wails held such hopeless despair that no words were necessary. Lord Saluuk released her with a shove and said, “I have been deceived and so wasted this tribunal’s time. I shall pay whatever fine you deem appropriate.”