Quantam Rose Read Free Page B

Had Jax been more offended than she realized?
    Maxard didn't answer, just moved aside to let her into the entrance foyer, a small room paved with tiles glazed white and accented by Argali designs.
    Boots clattered in the hall beyond. Then Jax swept into the foyer with five of his stagmen. He paused in mid-stride when he saw Kamoj. Then he went past her, over to Maxard, towering over the younger man.
    "We aren't through with this, Argali," Jax said.
    "My decision is made," Maxard answered.
    "Then you are a fool." Jax glanced at Kamoj, his face stiff with an emotion she couldn't identify.
    Shock? He strode out the door with his stagmen, ignoring Lyode.
    Kamoj turned to her uncle. "What's going on?"
    He shook his head, his face impossible to read. Lyode came up the stairs, but when she tried to enter the house, Maxard stretched out his arm, putting his hand against the door frame to block her way. He spoke with uncharacteristic anger. "What blew into your brain, Lyode? Why did you have to shoot at him? Of all days I didn't need Jax Ironbridge angry, this was it."
    "He was mistreating Kamoj," Lyode replied.
    "So Gallium Sunsmith says." Maxard frowned at Kamoj. "What were you doing, running around the woods like a wild animal?"
    Kamoj stared at him. She always walked in the woods after she finished working in the stables.
    Maxard often came with her, the two of them discussing various projects for Argali or just enjoying each other's company.
    Quietly she said, "Uncle, what is it? What's wrong?"
    He blew out a gust of air. "Wait for me in the library."
    She studied his face, trying to fathom what troubled him. No hints showed. So she nodded, to him and to Lyode. Then she limped into her house.

    * * *
The centuries had warped the library door arch beyond simple repair. Kamoj leaned her weight into the door to shove it closed. Inside the library, shelves filled with codices and books covered the walls. The lamp by Maxard's favorite armchair shed light over a table there. A codex lay on the table, a parchment scroll made from the inner bark of a sunglass tree and painted with gesso, a smooth plaster. Glyphs covered it, delicate symbols inked in Argali colors. Kamoj could decipher none of the writing. But as she took responsibility for Argali, Maxard had more time for his scholarship. He was learning to read.
    Behind her the door scraped open, and she turned to see her uncle. With no preamble, he said,
    "I've something to show you."
    Puzzled, Kamoj accompanied him to an arched door in the far wall. The storeroom beyond had once held carpentry tools, but those were long gone, sold by her grandparents to purchase grain. Maxard fished a skeleton key out of his pocket and opened the tanglebirch door. Unexpectedly, oil lamps lit the room beyond. Kamoj stared past him-and gasped.
    Urns, boxes, chests, gigantic pots, finely wrought buckets: they all crammed the storeroom full to overflowing. Gems filled baskets, heaped like fruits, spilling onto the floor, diamonds that split the light into rainbows, emeralds as brilliant as the eyes of a greenglass, rose-rubies the size of fists, sapphires, topazes, amethysts, cats-eyes, jade, turquoise. She walked forward, and her foot kicked an opal the size of a polestork egg. It rolled across the floor and hit a bar of metal.
    Metal. Metal. Bars lay in tumbled piles: gold, silver, copper, bronze. Sheets of rolled platinum sat on cornucopias filled with fruits, flowers, and grains. Glazed pots brimmed with vegetables, and spice racks hung from the wall. Bracelets, anklets, and necklaces were everywhere, wrought from gold and studded with jewels. A chain of diamonds lay on a silver bowl heaped with eider plums. Just as valuable, dried foodstuffs filled cloth bags and woven baskets. Nor had she ever seen so many bolts of rich cloth in one place: glimsilks, brocades, rose-petal satins, gauzy scarves shot through with metallic threads, scale-velvets, plush and sparkling.
    And light strings! At first Kamoj