Future Dreams (13 page)

“We’re here at the request of Representative Rantigar, to reevaluate Tigh’s choice of arbiter,” Sitas said.

Tigh and Jame looked at each other, stunned.

Sitas turned to the Rantigar. “Please state your case.”

“Thank you, Tribune Sitas.” Rantigar nodded. “I’m here at the request of the parents of Paldar Tigis. They feel an Ingoran arbiter would be more suitable in handling their daughter’s case through the rest of the rehabilitation process. An Ingoran arbiter has the knowledge of how merchant families protect and nurture their members and can use this insight to ultimately convince the Tribunal that Paldar Tigis can be safely released into Ingoran society.”

“I’m perfectly happy with my choice of arbiter. Can we go now?” Tigh placed her hands on the table and half rose out of her chair.

“You don’t understand.” Rantigar kept her voice even. “The Federation Council has agreed to accept these conditions for your rehabilitation.”

“For the House of Tigis to shelter me? Keep me hidden behind the scenes, doing inventory and balancing the books? Slinking in the shadows as the family’s embarrassing little secret?” Tigh asked. “I’ll take my chances with Jame.”

“And put yourself at further risk of violence from your arbiter’s people?” Rantigar asked, incredulous. “The Emorans are a tribe of warriors and, unlike Ingorans, their way of dealing with displeasure is with violent confrontation. We agree on one thing, though. They’re as against having their princess represent you as we are.”

“That’s not true,” Jame said. “My aunt, the queen, has not expressed an opinion, one way or another, on any of my cases.”

“But the incident last night,” Rantigar said.

“Was the reaction of an old, misguided friend,” Jame said. “It was just an unfortunate coincidence that my friend arrived in Ynit on the same evening Tigh and I were sharing a meal in the Emoran safe house.”

“Where she shouldn’t have been in the first place,” Rantigar said.

“Why not? The Ingoran cuisine is excellent.” Tigh leveled a passive gaze at Rantigar.

“It’s not the proper environment for you right now,” Rantigar said.

“Isn’t that for me to decide?” Tigh still pinned Rantigar with her gaze.

“Right now, your parents know what’s best for you and you should honor that,” Rantigar said.

“My parents seem to have forgotten that I’ve passed my twenty-second birthday,” Tigh said.

“What?” Sitas turned to Rantigar. “You gave the impression her parents still have a legal hold on her.”

Rantigar’s smug expression faltered. “They feel that they do, given the fact she’s still the legal ward of the state until she’s considered safe for society and if this can’t be done, they’re ready to take over the legal responsibility for her.” Rantigar recovered her confident smile. “It wasn’t lost on them that, after two years of alluding capture, you were caught within a week of your birthday. They accepted it as a coincidence and you had lost track of time.” The words were laced with a strong cadence of warning to Tigh that her parents were willing to forgive her if this was a minor act of rebellion.

“It was no coincidence.” Tigh allowed the shocked silence to settle over the chamber. “Before I was recruited into the Guards, I was secretly studying what I needed to know to pass the entrance exams to get into the University of Artocia. I was going to run away on my sixteenth birthday—the youngest age they let students into the University—if my parents didn’t grant my wish to go there. I was still underage when the Wars were over and the last thing I wanted was to be cleansed and sent home to a life that I didn’t want in the first place. I hid where no one would think to look for me and counted off the days until I was legally my own person.”

“That’s not possible,” Leona said. “You were still Tigh the Terrible.”

Tigh clasped her hands together on the table. “I also had a brain. That’s why you recruited us. Remember? If Paldar Tigis didn’t want to become a merchant, what makes you think Tigh the Terrible wanted to return to that? I may have been ruthless and cruel but I wasn’t crazy and irrational.”

“Your parents aren’t going to let you go that easily.” Rantigar’s mouth hardened and her tense straight body trembled as the rage she tried to control fought to be released. She glanced at Jame.

“They have two other daughters who will make excellent merchants.” Tigh shrugged, not missing the speculative look Rantigar cast at Jame. “As for making it successfully through the rehabilitation process, I’m confident Jame will be able to present a convincing case to the Tribunal when the time comes. But if not, I’ll choose to remain a legal ward of the state.”

Before Rantigar could respond, Sitas held up a warning hand. “Tigh is within her legal rights to make whatever choices she wants.” She stood. “I want to thank the representative from Ingor for wasting our time this morning. I apologize for taking you away from your studies, Jame. And Tigh, I’m sorry for this misunderstanding.”

Tigh bowed her head. “Apology accepted. If I’d known Rantigar was being retained by my parents to intervene in my rehabilitation process, I would have warned you about it.”

Rantigar stood up and looked as if she was ready to fly over the table at Tigh.

Tigh stood, allowing the full power of her physical strength to saturate her body, and crossed her arms. “Give my parents my regards, Rantigar.” She turned to Sitas. “I’d like to put in a request to have bodyguards assigned to Jame until my rehabilitation is completed. I wouldn’t want any harm to come to her because she’s my arbiter.”

Jame put a hand on Tigh’s arm. “Now wait—”

Tigh silenced her with a serious glance.

“A most prudent precaution, Tigh,” Sitas said.

“Queen Jyac will appreciate your concern,” Tigh said. She turned and strode out of the chamber, followed by Jame.

Tigh paused outside the door in the corridor filled with people going for their midday meal and raised an eyebrow at Jame. “Hungry?”

Jame’s expression was a jumble of indignation and confusion, until it relaxed into resignation. “There’s one thing you’re going to have to learn about me. I’m always hungry enough to eat.”

Tigh laughed and led the way to the nearest mess hall.

WITH RELIEF, JAME scratched out the last sentence of her essay. Finishing it meant she could spend more time with Tigh after the evening meal.

“Done already?” Daneran looked up from her desk across the room. “I can’t come up with a third argument for Pilor’s Contradiction.”

Jame stood and stretched out the long sandmarks of sitting. “It’s a contradiction. That means any argument can fit into it. You just have to follow Pilor’s formula for presenting the case.”

“But it won’t make sense.”

“It may not make sense, but it’ll still be logical.” Jame grinned.

Daneran laughed. “That made no sense.”

“But it was a perfect example of Pilor’s Contradiction,” Jame said. “I think the purpose of this exercise is to teach us to extend our minds beyond the predictable so we can tackle the more complicated cases.”

Daneran crossed her arms in mock challenge. “This coming from the woman who won a case using Bailikon’s procedure.”

“It was a gamble,” Jame said.

Daneran snorted. “Now that’s an understatement. If she had struck back at your hired assailant that would have been it.”

“There was never any doubt about that,” Jame said. “The gamble was whether the Tribunal was under pressure from the Federation Council to keep Tigh from advancing through her rehabilitation.”

“I can’t believe you weren’t a little apprehensive about the attack,” Daneran said.

“I had more confidence in Tigh’s ability to control her violence than Tigh did herself,” Jame said. “In the end, I had to prove it to her.”

Daneran frowned. “Prove it?”

“We tested it.”

“You tried to attack her?” Daneran’s shocked expression was almost comical.

“Several times until she realized she’d been truly cured of the impulse to strike back,” Jame said. “The moment of realization had been a wonderful sight to witness. She finally started to believe the cleansing was successful.”

Daneran gave Jame a knowing look. “You mean Tigh isn’t trying hard to be successful for you?”

Jame stared at Daneran. “What do you mean?”

“You know what I mean,” Daneran said. “You’ve suddenly found something more interesting than studying all the time and she acts like a bashful puppy when she’s with you. Then our studious little Jame is in the middle of a confrontation between a jealous Emoran warrior and a former Guard. And all this time we thought that your whole life was going to class and doing homework.”

“Argis is an old friend.” Jame sighed at Daneran’s raised eyebrow. “All right. She’s more than an old friend but that’s over now.” She caught her breath at the words that had tumbled out.
It really was over
, she marveled, and her mind felt lighter and freer. “We entered into an understanding when we were both very young. Long before I came here. During my last visit home, I didn’t have the heart to tell her my feelings had changed. I thought that it was just the pressure from being so close to finishing my studies. Then I met Tigh. Argis had found out that I was arguing Tigh’s case and thought I was in some kind of danger from her.”

Jadic poked his head through the open doorway. “Ingel wants to see you, Jame.”

Jame rolled her eyes. “All right. Thanks, Jadic.”

“What about your story?” Daneran asked.

“I’ll tell you the rest later,” Jame said.

She smoothed down her tunic and stepped past Jadic into the common room.

She entered Ingel’s chambers and knew that this meeting had nothing to do with her studies. The furrow between Ingel’s brows as she studied a sheet of paper on her desk had Jame wondering what kind of trouble she could possibly be in.

“This is a letter from the Tribunal informing me a soldier has been assigned to you for as long as you represent Tigh.” Ingel held up the sheet of paper. “If this case has put you in some kind of danger, you know I have to remove you from it.”

Jame sank into the visitors chair. She had forgotten about Tigh’s request and how it would impact the school’s agreement with her aunt.
Why did things have to be so complicated?
Fortunately, Tigh had explained the true situation over the midday meal.

“Are you familiar with the Ingoran code of honor?” Jame asked.

“If an Ingoran catches another Ingoran engaged in embarrassing or illegal trade practices, then the Ingoran is honor bound not to report this lapse of judgment if the other Ingoran ceases the activity,” Ingel said.

“Tigh caught Rantigar,” Jame said. “It seems that Tigh’s parents retained Rantigar to get Tigh legally turned over to them. And it may have worked if they had been forthcoming about Tigh’s true age.”

Ingel frowned. “That information was collected when Tigh was recruited.”

“When I reminded Tigh of that, we stopped in the records chamber and discovered she had been listed as being only fourteen when she was recruited instead of fifteen. Her parents had signed the document,” Jame said. “Tigh can’t understand how such a mistake could have happened because merchants never sign anything without thoroughly reading it.”

“But what does that have to do with you being in danger?” Ingel asked.

“Ingorans don’t take on a less than desirable commission unless they’re certain about it,” Jame said. “Rantigar wouldn’t have risked her standing as a representative of the Federation Council if she thought she couldn’t deliver a rehabilitated Tigh to her parents. Being the first born daughter, Tigh is the heir to the House of Tigis and Rantigar, thinking like any other Ingoran, was sure she wouldn’t jeopardize that by antagonizing her parents. Under any other circumstances this would be true. But before Tigh was recruited, she was secretly studying for the entrance exams to the University of Artocia and was planning on running away on her sixteenth birthday if her parents didn’t agree to her wishes.”

Ingel fell back in her chair. “That explains what has baffled everyone since she was enhanced. No one could figure out how an apprentice merchant could turn into such a ruthless monster.”

“She was a gentle and studious person. Her parents had lamented she was too softhearted for the merchant business,” Jame said. “So Rantigar’s argument that her parents wanted her back into the family fold didn’t have the intended impact on Tigh. Not even when Rantigar said the Federation Council had already accepted a return to Ingor and to the family business as a condition for Tigh’s rehabilitation.”

“By Bal’s Children,” Ingel said.

“But they wanted Tigh to have an Ingoran arbiter,” Jame said. “Tigh wants me to continue as her arbiter. When Rantigar cited the incident last night, saying Tigh shouldn’t have been in an Emoran safe house, she reminded her that she was twenty-two and could do what she wanted. Rantigar was not expecting this little fact to come out and scrambled to cover her argument up to that point. But Tigh told her she had waited until her twenty-second birthday to be captured so she wouldn’t be legally bound to her parents.”

“What?”

“Tigh then apologized to Sitas, saying if she had known that Rantigar had been retained by her parents she would have warned the Tribunal,” Jame said. “Then she requested to have a soldier assigned to me for as long as I represented her because I stood in the way of allowing her to fulfill her contract with Tigh’s parents. But it’ll really be until Tigh can get a message to her parents, instructing them to settle their business with Rantigar and she’s free of the contractual obligations.”

“Ingorans have always thrived on intrigue,” Ingel said.

“I’ll be honest with you,” Jame said. “Tigh thinks I was in danger as long as Rantigar thought she could deliver Tigh and collect her commission. But that changed when Tigh caught her. Rantigar is honor bound to end the agreement she has with Tigh’s parents.”

“That’s true,” Ingel said, “but I don’t want to have to explain Ingoran honor codes to your aunt if anything happens to you.”

“Let me put it another way.” Jame sat up and scooted to the edge of the seat. “What would happen if you took me off Tigh’s case?”