"Asaro, Catherine - Skolian Empire 6 - Quantum Rose" - читать интересную книгу автора (Asaro Catherine)

Baffled, she said, "Then nothing."

"Nothing?" Incredulity crackled in his voice. "What did you promise him, Kamoj? What sweet words did you whisper to compromise his honor?"

Kamoj couldnТt imagine any woman having the temerity to try compromising the huge, brooding Lionstar. "What are you talking about?"

"You promised to marry him if he gave you what you wanted, didnТt you?"

"What?"

Anger snapped in his voice. "IsnТt that why he sent this dowry?"

Kamoj stared at him. "ThatТs crazy."

"He must have liked whatever the two of you did."

"We did nothing. You know I would never jeopardize our alliance with Ironbridge."

Her uncle exhaled, his anger easing into puzzlement. "Then why did he send this dowry? Why does he insist on a merger with you tomorrow?"

Kamoj felt as if she had just stepped into a bizarre skit played out for revelers during a harvest festival. "He what?"

Maxard motioned at the storeroom. "His stagmen brought it today while I was tying up stalks in the tri-grain field. They spoke as if the arrangement were already made."

It suddenly became clear to Kamoj. All too clear. Lionstar didnТt want the ruins of an old palace, or the trees in their forest.

He wanted Argali. All of it.

Strange though his methods were, they made a grim sort of sense. He had already demonstrated superiority in forces: many stagmen served him, over one hundred, far more than Maxard had, more even than Ironbridge. With his damnable "rent" he had taken the first step in establishing his wealth. He even laid symbolic claim to her province by living in the Quartz Palace, the ancestral Argali home. Any way they looked at it, he had set himself up as an authority to reckon with. Today he added the final, albeit unexpected, ingredientЦa merger bid so far beyond the pale that the combined resources of all the Northern Lands could never best it.

"Gods," Kamoj said. "No wonder Jax is angry." She set down the light threads. "There must be some way I can refuse this."

"IТve already asked the temple scholar," Maxard said. "And IТve looked through the old codices myself. WeТve found nothing. You know the law. Better the offer or yield."

She frowned. "IТm not going to marry that insane person."

"Then he will be fully within his rights to take Argali by force. That was how it was done, Kamoj, in the time of the sky ships. Do you want a war with Lionstar?" Dryly he added, "IТm not sure my stagmen even know how to fight a war."

"There must be some way out."

He spoke carefully. "The merger could do well for Argali."

She stiffened. "You want me to go through with it?"

He spread his hands. "And what of survival, Governor?"

So. Maxard finally spoke aloud what they obliquely dealt with in every discussion about the province. Drought, famine, killing seasons, high infant mortality, failing machines no one understood, lost medical knowledge, and overused fields: it all added up to one inescapable fact, the long slow dying of Argali.

With the Ironbridge merger, their survival might still be a struggle, but their chances improved. At worst, Jax would annex her province, making it part of Ironbridge. She intended to do her best to keep Argali, and continue as its governor, but if she did lose it to Ironbridge, at least her people would have the protection and support of the strongest province on this continent. Although Jax didnТt inspire love among his people, he was an intelligent governor who earned loyalty and respect.