The Dlinnyy sat with a sigh in the chair Kosh had pushed forward.  "I don't know why I didn't notice those three weren't making oath.  I expected trouble from Ilin.  He's been stubborn and rude since your sire died."

"You could attack their castles as soon as possible with as many men as possible,"  Useomkdok suggested.

"What would the casualties be?" Stanis asked.  "I've heard about your winter."

Kosh looked thoughtful.  He glanced at  Useomkdok, who shrugged. "They'd be high, probably," Kosh said.  "The entrances would be heavily defended, which would leave men on the surface a long time, longer than at Garden 4.  Then, too, the storms get worse as Ghorr advances, so you could expect to lose troop and supply transports to storms.  Yes, losses could be high."

"Ignore the rebels, then," Stanis advised. "What harm can they do before spring, I mean Thawtime?  They'll be confined to their homes like everyone else.  In spring, if you must punish them, your casualties will be from fighting, not the weather.  No commander sends men out to die of snowplague or frostbite."

"Moaekod's rules," Anen put in harshly.

"That plan would cause such a loss of honor our House would never recover," the Dlinnyy added more gently.  "Ignoring rebellion is cowardice, and a reputation for cowardice would lose us what political power we've got.  Going down to make peace with slaves may have been foolish in the eyes of the Families, an exhibition of weakness, but nobody says it was a cowardly thing. It took much courage."

"Houses survive on honor almost as much as fighting ability, Stanis," Kosh explained.  "Anen made the best decision for Garden 4 and his House, but it wasn't a traditional one.  You must already see how important tradition is here.  Anen has to punish those vassals now, Ghorr be damned.  If he doesn't, his other vassals may abandon Kurharay and what they see as its weaknesses for the protection of a stronger House.  Some might even deal with Moaekod to get a slice of this Holding."

Anen dropped his head into his hands.  He shook it slowly from side to side several times.  "There must be some way other than a surface attack.  There must be."  He looked up, his face haggard.  "Stanis, the Academy taught that every problem has three or more solutions.  What else is there?"

The Dlinnyy's hands twisted in her skirt.  She did not look at any of the men.  She began, hesitantly, to speak.  "We could---we could settle with them.  Give them the land around their manors, or the mine, in Nikitina's case, in return for recognition of Anen's Kererrship."

Kosh shook his head.  'No, Dlinnyy, they already hold the land in return for fealty.  The land couldn't be cut out of the Holding legally and, even if it could, Moaekod wouldn't want patches of disloyalty within its boundaries."  He turned to Anen. "Even if you confiscate the land, you'll still wear the name 'coward' unless you forcibly retake the land."

Anen sighed.  "Somewhere in the universe there are problems that include desirable solutions." He stared for a time at his spread hands.  He closed them suddenly.  "By the Four Sentinels!  There's got to be a low-cost solution!"

Nobody said anything for a long time.  The ventilator fans whirred softly and once in a while Useomkdok, who had a head cold, sniffled.  Then Anen's gloom fell away.  The words rushed out.  "We cut off all their fuel and raw materials.  Medok, can we buy from the Gild all fuel allocated to that sector of the Holding for Ghorr and Meghast?"

"If the Gild will take short-term mortgages for it."

Kosh picked up the idea excitedly.  "No light, no ventilation, no power for the mine---I doubt they'd hold out a day after they figured out what turning off the fuel pipe would mean.  It'd be the shortest rebellion in history!"  He paused and the glow faded from his face.  "It'll also do you, personally, no good, Anen.  Czars-of-House always make their names, their reputations, in battle.  No man earns power and position by diplomacy alone."

Kosh snorted his contempt for such rules.

Anen flinched and turned to the regent.  "Lady Mother?"

The Dlinnyy met his eyes squarely.  "It's your decision, Anen.  Just remember, the expense would be heavy, and your oath-feast has already put a strain on our resources." She stood briskly.  "I'm returning to our guests.  If you need a signature for any legal documents, please let me know."  She swept gracefully out of the room.

"Medok, how will our accounts look if I buy the fuel?"

"Besides the mortgages to the Gild?  Until you bring those men into line you get no income from the mine or from Ilin's blown glass works.  The combination of mortgages and those losses and the expense of the feast might bring down your House, Anen, if your vassals hold more than the usual fuel reserves."

Anen blew out a resigned breath that stirred his forelock.  "If I let all of my vassals rebel without punishment, this House falls.  If I send my armies out into Ghorr, most of the men won't come back.  If they hold a season's fuel, Kurhuray falls, bankrupt, into the hands of whoever can pay off the debts.  Medok, what do I do?"

"It's not my place..."

"Place? What do you mean?"

"This House has always been strict about rank, milord."

"This House is less strict now.  About the fuel idea, Medok?"

Useomkdok looked down and shuffled through some of the papers on the table before him.  "Check with your officers, Anen.  My skill is numbers, not tactics."

"I don't trust them.  They're my sire's men.  I'm beginning to understand why a Kererr usually dismisses or executes his predecessor's officers."  Anen looked grim.  He glanced at Stanis and Kosh.  "What do you two think?"

Stanis nodded thoughtfully.  "It could work."

Kosh shook his head.  "I don't know.... It goes against all tradition, Anen, and you've damaged yourself, at least in the short run, by the way you've handled Garden 4."

"Wait'll Family and enemies hear what I still must do with Garden 4," Anen muttered.

Kosh went on as if he hadn't been interrupted.  "On the other hand, if you lose a lot of men on the surface fighting your vassals, you won't be able to hold off Moaekod when he figures out a way around his trustee.  It's your future. You had to decide."

It was true, and Anen had known it.  In the end, all House decisions were his.  It's natural to want to share a burden like this, he told himself.  I'm not soft because I don't spring to attack.  But his sire's ghost hung over his shoulder, laughing at him.  Anen licked his lips.  "You may return to the feast, Stanis.  Offworlders can't be part of a military discussion. Thanks for your advice."

Anen ordered his officers, including General Rerfidail, to join him.  He kept his face and his emotions under strict control as he explained his plan.  They opposed the plan to a man.   They presented tactical objections, political objections, traditional objections.  They offered the usual and unusual ways to penetrate the living levels of a smallholding.  They argued that not using the army would ruin the army's morale.  They sneered at the fuel embargo as a "tradesman's trick."  They brushed aside Anen's repeated objections to the very high casualties of their solutions.  At last, frustrated, tired, and hungry, Anen ended the meeting with an order.  "All of you are assigned to the clinic, in a rotation of one day shift and one night shift, to tend the wounded from Garden 4.  Dr. Paar and the millens already down there can show you what to do.  You, General Rerfidail, as commander of the Holding forces, do one rotation per day."  Anen spun away from the officers and headed for the door, adding curtly as he went, "Those of you not on duty may report to the Charming Haunt for whatever remains of my oath-feast."

Benix and Bubov caught up with him in the hallway.

"You, Benix, you can't support my plan at all?"

"In all my years in the service and in my sire's tales of his, no one has brought a vassal to heel or ended a rebellion without bloodshed.  Your House keeps an army to use it, milord."

"I must send men to die in Ghorr because of that?"

They had reached the servants' door under the Haunt Gallery.

Benix appeared to consider the question seriously.  He cleared his throat.  "A man, or a lord, proves himself in combat, milord. There are those you won't convince until you do so."  Then Benix shrugged.  "However, the Kererrs Kurharay have always done as they wished with their vassals.  By your leave, lord.  Duty calls and I must go."

Anen watched as Benix's straight, spare figure marched off. That was an officer he could depend on, but he was now sure he was going to have to get rid of most of the others.  The question was, how to weed out the reluctant and the downright disloyal?  That was another problem.

He and Kosh entered the Haunt together.  The servants had set up a long table on the dais and had filled the floor of the Charming Haunt with more tables.  The Dlinnyy, Cim, and Stanis sat on the dais at the Kererr's table.  The feast was well along. Anen mounted the steps, motioned Kosh to follow him, and slid into the Kererr's chair, with its high, carved back and very hard seat.  Stanis, who shared a long platter with Cim, looked up from the drumstick he was eating.  "The meeting with the army went badly."

Anen nodded.  "We can't talk about it here." He reminded himself this was an oath-feast and should be a celebration.  He brightened with effort and asked in a teasing tone.  "Did you leave anything for Kosh and me to eat?"

Stanis waved grandly and a line of servants in Kurharay livery appeared with platters of roast young pig and broiled opea rumps, tureens of gravy with bread for dipping, meat pies, vegetables of many kinds arranged in animal- or bird-shaped piles, jellies, and salads.  "These are just the leftovers," Kosh said, laughing.  "You two should have seen the supply we started."

Anen looked at the crowded platter he was to share with his mother and his churning stomach flinched at the thought of food, but he stabbed a slice of opea and bit into it.  The dark, rich meat was tasteless to him.  He was barely aware of it at all, his mind being on the decisions ahead of him.  Tradition or not, he would not send men to die in the wind and cold of Ghorr without trying almost everything else first.  He knew the Puredorv held it a matter of honor to send soldiers to the surface to fight during a siege, if your opponent would let you send them up.  He also knew nobody fought in winter.  Nobody.  Weather conditions became deadly very fast.  Which meant his promise to Garden 4, of a new chief farmer and freedom for the slaves, must be taken care of quickly, somehow, within days.

A serving wench filled Anen's mug with wine. Anen lifted the drink to his lips and looked out over the colorful crowd of guests while he sipped.  The wine began to relax his taut nerves. Surely, Anen told himself, an experienced ruler doesn't feel this tremor in his knees, this churning in his stomach when faced with a vital decision.  They'll go away when I'm surer of what I'm doing, I hope.

Somewhere near the front of the Haunt, a falcon changed position on her master's wrist and her bells tinkled.  The Haunt itself was very quiet, except for the scrape of utensils on platters, the thunk of mugs on the wood tables, and a low buzz of conversation.  Once a hungry baby squalled and its mother carried it out.  Now and then a child choked and was patted, cried and then silenced.

"It's time for The Pie, Anen," the Dlinnyy whispered.

Anen looked up in dismay.  The Pie signaled the end of the meal, and he was just beginning.  Then he laughed at himself.  He was Kererr.  He could eat when and where and as long as he wanted.  He motioned to the heralds fidgeting under the edge of the gallery.  The four of them stepped forward briskly, lifted long trumpets, and blew a flourish.  Four kitchen serfs rolled a cart carrying an enormous pie to the Kererr's table.  The Family chef followed, bowed to the Kererr and Dlinnyy, and handed Anen a big knife.  Anen stood, bowed ceremoniously to the cook, and walked to the pie.  He heard rustling in the Haunt and low, tinkling sounds as guests unhooded their falcons.  The crust of the pie quivered.   He hesitated.  He had everyone's attention.  Should he tell the Family now what he was going to do to the rebels?  No, now was not the time; he must not appear to ask permission or even approval of his decision. And there might be, probably were, spies out there, who would carry the plan to the rebels, or to Moaekod.  No, he would announce the fuel cutoff after he'd accomplished it.

Anen slid the knife carefully through the pastry and opened it from side to side.  The crust exploded upward and a cloud of yellow birds burst from the pie.  Five or ten dogs rushed out from under tables, barking and leaping.  Children shrieked with glee and some of them jumped up on their tables to try to catch one of the birds: Five Gilddalers went to any child who caught one.  Overhead falcons screeched and stooped and, at the tables, falcon owners shouted wagers across the room.  Anen remembered the excitement he had felt when he was young enough to catch a bird.  Now the scene in the Haunt looked barbaric and slightly repulsive.  He glanced at Stanis.  Anen had gone with him to a wedding feast on Raaros.  There the guests left their pets and small children at home.  They had not gamed and fought and finally passed out in drunkenness.   That part of this banquet was yet to happen.

Stanis did not look disgusted.  His big blond head swung from side to side eagerly.  "This is fascinating, Anen.  Are all your feasts like this?"

"Just big. Family occasions like coming-of-age, weddings, oath-feasts."

"The food!  The colors!  The Pie!  How, by Svarog, did the birds stay alive?" Stanis's eyes sparkled and danced.  "I'd like to be here for your coming-of-age."

"If I live to my coming-of-age." Anen stood abruptly and pounded on the table with the hilt of his ceremonial sword.  It was some time before the human uproar diminished enough that Anen could be heard.

"Friends, Family, hear me now!  As I'm sure you noticed, Ilin, Korol, and Nikitina did not renew their oaths.  I promise that in less than two Gildblinks, these Houses will renew their oaths, and pay compensation for the delay."

The Haunt rang with shouts of approval. Anen acknowledged them with a nod and sat down.   The Dlinnyy looked worried. "Sixteen Gild-days, Anen?  Was that wise?  How can you promise that?"

Anen leaned close to her and spoke very quietly.  "With no fuel there's no ventilation, Lady Mother.  Say nothing about this until the fuel is mine. Tell not a soul."

The Dlinnyy nodded, then straightened and rang a little bell.  A page set a bowl of cheese and fruit in front of Anen.

"The bell's the signal for the buffoons," Anen told Stanis.  "If you liked the feast, you'll really like this."

The juggler entered the Haunt, balls a blur above his head.  The tumblers bounced, flipped, and rolled into the middle of the Haunt, where they began pushing tables back to make room for some barrels and a springboard.  Before they finished, a fat, black-bearded man strutted into their cleared space, towing a large, black Vrell (a distant relative of the Terran black bear which is native to Folvo III) on a chain.  The crowd gasped, both at the Vrell's immensity and at having such a notoriously dangerous brute so close.  At a command, the Vrell stood on its hind legs and began to shuffle in a circle.  The tumblers' red, contorted faces told their anger, but they dared not risk attacking the man because of his pet monster.  They would have to wait until the pair finished and collected the money thrown to them.   The tumblers would now have 2nd place and the money thrown would be less.

Anen watched the tumblers lose the silent struggle.  He turned to Stanis.  "Our guests will watch and drink, Stanis, and then the fights will start.  Were it not for this emergency, I would have to sit here and watch until the last drunken lord fell under the table." Anen rose and turned to the Dlinnyy.  "Lady Mother, I'm leaving to go talk to the 1st Merchant.

The negotiation with the 1st Merchant ran into the early morning, but it ended well. House Kurharay now owned all the fuel for the rebel sector, fuel which would be held by the Gild till Kurharay wanted it.  Anen went to bed satisfied that his plan would work, slept late, and woke up groggy.  He swung his legs over the edge of the bed and sat there, assembling his wits, hearing the muffled beat of a Purples patrol go by and the quiet whirr of the fans.  He dressed and headed downstairs.

The stairwell smelled of hot and fresh bread.  Anen's stomach reminded him that it'd been empty for a long time.  He'd been going to the 3D room, but the enticing smell detoured him towards the Charming Haunt.  A Kurharay cousin, perhaps five years older and twenty kilos heavier than Anen, met him on the level 4 landing and blocked it with his body.  Anen looked up at him coolly.

"I hear you're trying to 'persuade' our rebel vassals to keep oath, Anen."

Anen stiffened at the hostility in the man's voice.  "Military plans are supposed to be secret." His voice was icy.

The cousin's mouth twisted down at the corners. "You can't keep a dimwitted plan like yours secret," he sneered.  "There's nothing 'military' about it.  Are you afraid to fight, Anen?"

"Who are you? Why are you living in this castle?  I see no reason to tell you anything!"

"Cutting off their fuel is a stupid idea!" The cousin's mouth turned down even more.  "Power is all that species understands, the power of Kurharay soldiers.  I'm..."

"Have I found a volunteer to fly over Nikitina's smallholding in Ghorr?" Anen's voice was deceptively low and silky.

"You have not!  I have a family. Which I would take back to our own castle if it weren't so late in the year.  I'm ashamed to be connected to such a coward.  I surely won't sup with one.  My family will eat in its quarters from now on." The cousin turned to go.

Anen grabbed the man's arm in steely fingers and spun him around.  "You either eat in the Charming Haunt with the rest of the Family or you don't eat and if you speak with disloyalty to anyone else, I'll send your personal family home in a flitter no matter what the weather is.  You are the coward amongst us, Cousin.  You'd send other men, who also have families, into weather you yourself are afraid of." Anen flung the man's arm away.  "My sire didn't warn me against traitors in my own House!"

The cousin looked down at Anen, remembering briefly, perhaps, that he was the Kererr.  Then he lunged.  Anen stepped to one side, his arms and feet flashed in several quick movements, and the cousin lay on his back, one arm at an unpleasant angle.  "Don't make that mistake again, Cousin," Anen said conversationally.  "I might be smaller than you, but I can't be bullied, and I won't be so gentle with you a second time.  Get that arm set, then pack your family's belongings and leave.  By tomorrow.  You!"  Anen stepped into the corridor and stopped one of the prefects in a passing patrol.  "Take this man to his quarters and watch him.  He's to pack and be ready to leave here in the morning.  I'll tell the duty officer your orders."

Anen stalked on down the corridor to the 3D room, left his message by com with the duty officer, ordered up a fast meal of fresh bread and opov, had a com-tech call Ilin, cleared the 3D room of all but the needed operators, and waited patiently for Ona to appear.  When the picture cleared it was not Ilin, Anen saw Anen saw but the Lady Kazhaf, his spouse, as close and real as if she were in the same room.  Anen's whole body tightened, and he glanced quickly at the techs.  Their faces were stiff with horror.  A vassal had refused to face his lord, sending a woman to speak on his behalf.  Anen wished he could dispense with the techs entirely, but he could not run the equipment alone.

"Peace be on your House, Lady of Ilin," he said tightly, rigid inside with an insult so extreme that even his years on Raaros could not shield him from it.

The Lady Kazhaf lifted her head proudly and faced Anen squarely, but he noticed that her eyes were red-rimmed, and her hands were quaking.  Her voice, too, quaked as she lifted a paper and began reading it.  She neglected to respond to the ritual greeting and Anen was quite sure that, too, was on orders from her spouse.  "There is no negotiation between a man and a woman, Anen of Kurharay, so I've sent my female to deal with you." She spoke so softly Anen had trouble hearing her.  Her voice caught and her eyes flicked up from the words.  Two gleaming tears slipped out.  "Milord," she said, almost in a whisper, "this is not my will.  He is wrong, dreadfully wrong to defy you so, but he is the lord of this House, and I must obey him."  She looked down at the paper again.  "Congress will, in time, see the error of its ways.  Until it does, Ilin is a free House, entitled to seek a liege lord where it will, if it will.  I swear no allegiance to Kurharay, a Family without a Czar.  There's no strength or honor in a person who dickers with slaves."  In Puredorvese, the non-gender of "person" was, alone, a gross insult.  Anen needed no coaching to remember that; it was bred in the bone of every Puredorv from the moment of learning to talk.  Ilin was tempting his lord, taunting him.  Anen sucked his breath in and fought down the blind rage that hit without warning.

You have dealt with insults before, he reminded himself.  It's just that none of them were aimed at the feelings bred into you; they were the fighting words of other cultures.  Keep your head.  Say what you must and be done with it.

Anen counted, slowly backwards, from 20 in Galax.  Some of the red fury left him.  He cut any further reading from the paper off with a wave of his hand.  "You have said too much already, milady," he warned very quietly.  "Oath-breaking is a felony. Your lord is twice the fool to add fighting insults and open rebellion to his crime.  I will not risk men's lives for a fool.  Tell your lord that he's got two Gildblinks to make his oath.  Beyond that, there will be no need for Ilin to swear, for there will be no Ilin."  The Lady Kazhaf's face went white.  "Nay, lady," Anen said gently, for it was not her fault.  "I will not have to touch your Holding.  Ilin himself will have condemned all of you.  No fuel has flowed to Ilin since this morning.  None will until oath is made." Before she could say anything, Anen ordered the connection severed.

Calls to Korol, and Nikitina followed.  The insults were less extreme, but both lords clearly thought to win independence of the "woman" of the Kurharay clan.  Nikitina stated plainly that he would never swear fealty to a "woman," leaving Anen to decide if he meant the regent or Anen himself by that remark, and Korol said only that he and Nikitina were neighbors and in-laws, he would stand with Korol.  Anen left them with the same curt demand---their oath in return for the fuel to maintain their Holdings.  The 3D techs looked at him with new respect; it hadn't taken them long to figure out what happened to a Holding deprived of fuel. Anen hoped his vassals were quick of mind.

He went slowly down the stairs of the Charming Haunt, forgetting that he'd ordered his meal brought to the 3D room, listened impatiently to another cousin's complaint about his handling of Garden 4, then ordered his meal brought to him and joined Useomokdok in the administrator's office.  He sat on a bench near Useomokdok's desk and slumped back against the welcome support of the room's wall. "I needed someplace to hide for a while," he explained to Useomokdok somewhat sheepishly.  "My method of dealing with vassals won't be liked by the Family any more than Garden 4 was.  In fact, one cousin has already become violent to me about it.  And I thought at least military planning was secure."

Useomokdok's eyes ran over him.  "You don't look ruffled by the encounter with the rogue cousin. I don't guess the same can be said of the cousin."

Anen's mouth twisted up at one corner, reluctantly.  "He's likely in the clinic now, getting an arm set."

Useomokdok smiled a little.  "I suspected as much.  You were lenient with him."  Useomokdok came to stand before Anen.  He set a hand on the young lord's shoulder.  "Think, Anen.  Not of the rigid minds of your House but of the lives you're saving.  Your vassals have to yield or die.  I think none of them are suicidal.  These rebellions will be settled."

"Will they?"

"You having doubts already?  Your intuition has been trained, Anen.  How long will Nikitina hold out?"

Anen's eyes narrowed.  Useomokdok already knew he had called his vassals.  Could any act or decision be kept quiet?  Useomokdok nodded his head toward the tray with the food on it.  "No spies, milord, just a page who got here faster than you did."

Anen grimaced at his suspicions, knowing both that suspecting everyone meant survival on this planet and that such wariness could destroy the few friendships he had among the Puredorv.  "How could I not have doubts?  I know nothing about ruling other than what I observed my sire do when I was a child and what I read in books at the Academy.  And those two sources had very different ideas and methods. I was trained to make peace, Medok.   Here, I can't do that.  Not in one lifetime.  Instead, I'm expected to make clan war skillfully and beat vassals to their knees in short order.  And my efforts to save lives are met with condemnation and contempt.  Sentinels!"

"Those lords won't wait until the lights go out and the fans go off.  House Korol has but one escape stair.  Is Korol going to wait until he must evacuate hundreds of people up that one stair?  Into the storms of Ghorr?"

"I pray it will not be so."

"And Ilin---Ilin is stubborn, Anen, but he's not stupid.  Nikitina, well, who knows?"  Useomokdok poked through some of the papers on his desk.  "Not all of the Puredorv are rockbound and blind.  Do you the matters with the Gild and those vassals on paper or chrometape, lord."

"Either.  Use your own judgement."

"I'll do both, then, to be double safe."  Useomokdok slid a flat recorder out of a drawer, laid it on the desk top, and began talking into it.

Anen sat in Useomokdok's office, staring at the wall and listening to his own thoughts whirling in his head, until his stomach loudly demanded food again.  He gritted his teeth and went out to face his outraged Family.  He was just in time to eat midday, but he was not to eat in peace.  He had just sat down when Bel Zokrenova, another cousin, planted himself in front of him, hands on hips.  "Say that it isn't so, Anen.  You're not letting Ilin, Korol, and Nikitina get away with this.  You wouldn't disgrace the Family that way."

"No, I would not disgrace the Family.  I expect the rebels to surrender, on my terms, in eight or nine half-days."  Anen began cutting a piece of xop hide into bites, though his appetite had suddenly left him.  Bel did not leave.  Anen looked up, holding his temper in check with considerable effort.  "If you have more to say, Cousin, say it.  I don't like to be stared at while I eat."

"Isaac says the army is still in barracks."

"Isaac is afraid to talk to me himself, is he?  Poor Isaac."  Bel flushed at the mock-pity in Anen's tone.  Anen chided himself for such a childish blow.  "Get to your esteemed husband's point, Bel," he snapped.

"If there are no soldiers to make them, why should your vassals yield?  I see no action against them. Taking no actions dirties the Family's hoor."

Anen set his fork on his platter wearily.  "You want fighting, Bel?  Or do you want those three oaths?"

Bel's forehead crinkled.  "You can't get one without the other."

"Oh, I can't?" Anen speared a piece of meat and ate it.

Bel's frown deepened.  "Isaac says you have some foolish plan to stop their fuel.  What will that do?  Even in the worst days of Chakra and Gosan, the castles are warm without fuel.  You know that."

Anen chewed his meet thoroughly before answering.  "You and your fine spouse haven't thought this out, Bel, and I'm not going to take your fun away by explaining it to you."

Bel flushed and threw back her head until her long, black braid almost brushed the floor.  The braid swished like a cat's tail.  "Your soldiers are idle, and you won't lead them."  Her voice got louder.  "You haven't chosen a man's way to deal with this, Anen.  Your sire was right about you.  Only women use words instead of weapons."  Bel spun away and stalked off, braid still swishing.

Heads turned in the Haunt to watch Anen's reaction.  The insult stung, especially since Bel had delivered it in the hearing of much of the Haunt, but Anen bit his tongue on a retort.  Answering her back couldn't help, it could only make the matter worse.  He had no personal doubts about his masculinity, but he was well aware how great the insult was to Puredorv eyes.  Idiotic Isaac, who sent his woman, knowing a man's life would be in danger after such words.  Anen wished fiercely that Isaac had delivered his own message.  He watched Bel flounce the rest of the way back to her seat.  He tasted the warm salt of blood in his mouth.  His right hand and arm had tightened until they hurt.  He slowly raised his right hand to his lip.  The fingertips came away bloody.  The pacification officer does not show his feelings.  Emotional displays often induce the outcome of an issue.  The words raced through his mind again and again, but rage and hurt and frustration were pressing very hard against Anen's wall of control.  He sat in the Kererr's chair long enough to kill any suspicion that Bel had driven him away, then he stood and went to his quarters.  He didn't run, as he would have liked to do.  He didn't slam the door behind him, though that would have felt good.  He did lock it.

It's too much, he wanted to shout out loud.  It's too much for any person to stand! He leaned against the back of his leather chair.  I control my feelings until I want to burst!  Crisis after crisis piles up and I have neither training nor experience to handle them.  I'm blundering where I need to move skillfully.  I have skills, but they're not the skills my House needs now.  I had my life planned.  I wanted a Navy career.  I wanted to be based on Raaros.  I wanted to space out as a Navy negotiator.  Maybe with time and experience I could've been---but that's past.  I'm here, in the thick of a clan war and I'm being pushed to start another war, of the very kind Tair trained me to prevent.  Sentinels, help me!

He remembered times his sire had teased him to rage and forbidden him to show it and how he had gone to his room to this chair and beaten it in frustration.  He needed that relief now.  He didn't not want even Stanis to see how incompetent and overwhelmed he felt.  He pounded the rolled top edge of his chair and until his fists were bruised and his arms ached.  Drained, he slid over the chair's arm into the cushioned seat and sagged against the padded back.  He dozed.

Soft paws awakened him.  Anen hugged Aster, then set the little animal on his shoulder.  He knew he would have to keep busy to maintain outward control of himself through the waiting to come.

Three interminable days passed. Anen endured the anger and ridicule of the Family with what patience he could muster.  He visited the clinic every few hours to check on the men there and to be sure the officers were doing their rotations of nursing duty.  He made surprise visits in the middle of the night and the wee hours of the morning.  In the first two days Anen dismissed more than half the oldest officers for disobeying the nursing order and sent them out of Castle Buruq to live in the city.  General Rerfidail fulfilled his dreams to the letter and no more.  Anen wanted to dismiss him, too, but he had no senior officers with even close to as much experience and he needed an experienced leader should Moaekod attack again, so Anen set Benix and the pilot Viktor to watch Rerfidail.  Any hint of disloyalty or betrayal and Anen would do without the general's experience.  The general's attitude towards his new duties was obvious.  Of the other men's, Anen couldn't tell.  He wondered whether the duty had any value except as an indicator of potentially dangerous officers.  Then he saw one of the remaining officers rush to the sanitary after changing the dressings on a young soldier's severely frostbitten feet.  On another visit he saw an officer faint when Dr. Paar told him one of the patients he was nursing had died.

These men, at least, will remember the human cost of Zuluy's decisions, or lack thereof, he told himself.  But uncertainty plagued him.  Would clinic duty make the millens and other officers consider the cost of tactical decisions?  Had he been right to make them nurse their men?  He had been right about negotiating with the slaves.  Hadn't he?  Or had that encouraged Ilin and the others to rebel?  If turning off their fuel failed....

The slaves! he thought in dismay.  Dear God, I forgot to free those slaves.  This will be the final stupidity in the Family's eyes, to "reward" the slaves for their revolt.  But I promised.

A part of Anen cringed from the effect his promise would have on his already tough life in the castle.  But he had promised, and the slaves were keeping their side of the bargain: The conveyor tubes from Garden 4 were bringing the garden's quota of vegetables and fruit to the castle again.  Anen left the clinic and walked towards the com center.

He passed the kitchens, which occupied the large middle core of clinic level, and he passed the political "guest" quarters, where Zyn-the-smith was confined.  He stopped and went back to the smith's door.  He looked at the plain black knob, thinking.  He set his hand to the knob but didn't turn it.  I'm already gambling the future of my House, he told himself, what harm can one more small risk do?  Zyn-the-smith has abilities I shouldn't waste.

He touched the unlock code into the holes ringing the knob and entered the smith's room.  The smith lay on the bed-ledge, propped up on one elbow, gnawing a knuckle bone.  He looked up as Anen entered but did not stop eating.

"Get up, Zyn-the-smith.  You're going back to Garden 4 as the new chief farmer I promised your people. "

"Lord?" The smith's face showed deep skepticism.

"I'm not jesting you.  I mean it. 

The smith sat up with shocking speed for a man of his bulk.  "You won't regret it, lord."

Anen smiled. "I don't think I will, either.  Take whatever you want from here and get to the flitter pad.  The weather's clear right now and I want you at the garden as soon as possible.  I'll go ahead of you to the com center and send word to the farm that they're all now free men."

The smith nodded and began dressing for outside.  Anen liked the way the man took the news, as something that was his just due, and made no noisy thanks or professions of gratitude.  Anen left him to pack his few possessions and went on down the corridor to the com center, punched the code on the entry lock, and pushed the door.

"Milord!" The shocked tech recovered himself quickly and went down on one knee.

"Up, man.  I want a narrow-beam transmission to Garden 4."

Narrow-beam was supposed to keep outsiders from hearing House communications, but Anen learned within hours that the beam hadn't been narrow enough.  Baron Bubov called by 3D.   A page informed Anen of the call just as he was sitting down in the library with Usemomkdok and Kosh to look at castle defenses and supplies.

When Anen entered the 3D room, just down the corridor from the library, the tech had already fine-tuned the image on the 3D screen.  The baron sat in a deeply padded brown chair, one side of a fire in a fireplace visible behind him.  Every detail was as real as if the baron had been in the Kurharay 3D room.  Even the napped upholstery of the chair looked real enough to touch.  Anen glanced at the hard surfaces and unconcealed technical equipment in his sending room.  There was no chair of any kind to sit on, no fireplace or bright tapestries for a cozy appearance.  A "man" needed no such "frills," according to Lido P. Kurharay.

"Ahem."

Anen brought his attention back to the baron.  Bubov's round face looked worried.  "Peace be on your House, Anen Kurharay."

"And on yours grace, and peace, Baron."

"Have you in truth freed the slaves on one of your gardens, Anen?  Gaito Moaekod has been talking to his allies about such on the broadest band he could manage, planning with them what to do when the slave revolts you've caused begin.  He says no slave will work for a master once he's freed.  He also says you've begun to 'reap the fruits' of your stupidity at Garden 4, citing the rebellion of Ilin, Korol, and Nikitina.  Half of Mirl'da V must've heard of it by now, from Moaekod directly, or by tuning in."

Anen sighed.  The effect of his promise to Garden 4 was going to be far worse than he'd imagined.  He met the baron's gaze.  "Yes, Baron.  Freedom was the condition for releasing the garden family and returning the garden to full production."  Anen went on to explain the manager's greed, urged on by someone from the manor claiming to speak for Anen.  "As to slave revolts, Garden 4 has been sending its quota and sometimes a little more ever since.  That doesn't sound like a revolt to me."

The baron listened, sucking on a porcelain pipe.   He neither praised no blamed, but he looked less upset.  He nodded slowly after Anen finished his explanation.  "I needed to know the truth, Kurharay.  This kind of news can't keep going if it's false, you know.  Did Moaekod really think he could get away with this?"

Anen's mouth tightened.  "He doesn't need to get away with it, Baron.  He appeals to ancient prejudices, then, no matter how Garden 4 works out, the men who believe slaves must always be slaves will find dire consequences in it.  They'll see what they need to see to go on believing as they do."  Saying the words brought to Anen how frighteningly true they were, and he burned with a savage anger against Gaito Moaekod and the blind lords who would believe this troublemaking.

Bubov is with you, Kurharay.  Every step of the way.  I'll do what I must to break through Moaekod's hints and innuendos."  The baron cleared his throat and fingered the large medallion on his ample chest.  "May I possibly speak with Kosh?  I might as well as long as I'm 'here,' so to speak."

Anen nodded, grateful for the baron's support, had Kosh paged, conversed socially with the baron until Kosh arrived, then left the 3D room.  He turned towards the back stair, so he could go to the Charming Haunt without passing Family guest rooms or the quarters of resident Family.  He didn't want to face any more scorn.  I only have to take it twelve more days, he reminded himself.  Only 12 days.  They surely can't hold out past 12 Ghorr with the fuel turned off.

A junior officer passed Anen without looking at him or saluting.

"Troopleader!"

The young officer kept walking.

"Troopleader, halt!"

The officer stopped but did not turn.  Anen was very briefly thankful not to have the embarrassment of having to chase down one of his own officers to discipline him.  He strode to the man and whirled him around.  The officer, though young, was older than Anen by two or three years.  He looked at Anen with contempt.

"I'm your commander, soldier.  You didn't salute."

"A commander commands, 'milord.'  He doesn't sit on his tail and wait for Thawtime."

Anen, goaded almost beyond bearing, raised his fist to smash the sneer on the other's face.  He stopped himself, lowered his hand, and took one step closer to the troopleader.  He was shaking with the effort of restraining himself.  The officer's eyes widened in shock.  He took a quick step back.

"No, I will not strike you," Anen said very quietly.  "Be thankful I'm not my sire.  He would have had you executed!"

The troopleader's face paled at the tone and his lower lip quivered.  He tucked his chin tight against his neck to make the quivering stop.  He had enough good sense not to say anything more.

"You should be executed," Anen went on, "but I'm only going to kick you all the way down to subprefect.  You'll have your belongings out of your quarters and into prefects' barracks within one hour and you'll work in the scullery until Thawtime."  Anen stepped to one side so he could reach the intercom buttons without taking his eyes off the troopleader.  "Captain Leonid, to level 4, barracks side, now!"

"You don't even have the nerve to order an execution." The former officer was regaining his arrogance.

Anen looked at him coldly for a moment.  "Would you rather die than wash dishes and peel vegetables?"

The man didn't answer.

"Don't tempt me, sub.  I'm not as bloodthirsty as my sire, but if there's a second time you'll get my sire's sentence, beginning with being flayed alive in front of your men to show them authority must be treated with respect."

The man turned white and said nothing more, not even after Captain Leonid arrived.  Anen charged Leonid with seeing that the soldier followed his orders and watched Leonid and the former troopleader march down the hall and around the corner.  He rubbed his hands across his forehead and down the side of his face, then turned and detoured to his own quarters.

The room was not empty.  Stanis lounged in the leather chair and Mooses perched on the foot of the bed.  Mooses opened, then closed, his mouth.  He wouldn't meet Anen's eyes.

"Tell him!" Stanis ordered.

Mooses cleared his throat and picked at the knee of his stokhoz.  He still did not look up.  "I bring a message, milord, from Gaito Moaekod.   This one," he waed a hand in Stanis's direction, "had me bring it here and wait for you.  He didn't say it was urgent.  My lord of Kurharay, I mean.  I copied it out---Medok is in Buruq---and was going to...." The rest of his sentence was just a mumble.

"I heard the first part of the transmission clear out in the hall," Stanis added.  "Moaekod claims to have overheard a declaration of freedom for your slaves broadcast and wondered if you made it or if someone in this House is talking in your name."

"'Wondered.'  I'll bet he 'wondered.' He knows my voice.  He called on a wide band, too, in his 'concern,' didn't he?" Mooses nodded miserably.  "He's been talking to his allies on the widest band about the slave rebellions that will surely come through my stupidity.  Now everyone who was tuned to that band knows he called me, too.  He put in the part about someone talking in my name to get a reaction from me, I think, to see if I know someone here stirred up Garden 4 for him.  By my Sire's Blood!"  Anen took a deep, unsteady breath.  "I sent that declaration to Garden 4 by narrow band.  Moaekod must have a spy post somewhere, monitoring our com-band.  Give me the transcript of what he said."

Anen skimmed the page, then spat a string of original and inventive curses on the entire Moaekod clan and their troublemaking.

When Anen stopped for breath, Stanis raised one eyebrow.  "That's all well and good.  But what are you going to do now?"

"Do? Do?" Anen sank onto the bed's edge, spreading out his hands hopelessly.  "There's nothing more I can do until I hear from my rebel vassals.  If I hear from them."239Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡirFo1MhilR