"Good. I too would like a chance to rid the universe of a few more Wolf freebirths."
"Why don't you just travel to one of their camps, walk in, and challenge them?"
"A fine idea, Horse. I will consider it. Who is that out there, just this side of the big ice floe?"
Another swimmer was heading toward the ledge. It was Diana. She climbed onto the ledge, caught her breath, and said, "I did it. You should have seen his face. He brought his hand down so hard on that desk he values so much that he got all the papers on it mixed up. Some even fell on the floor without him picking them up immediately for a change."
"Slow down, Diana," Horse said. "What are you talking about?"
"Did you find a way to resign as coregn?" Joanna asked.
Diana took a moment to compose herself, then spoke. "Nothing as trivial as the coregn job. Remember, Joanna, the night in the camp when you told me about the freeborn Khan in Clan Wolf?"
"Yes."
"Well, I have thought about it a great deal. And I recalled what Ravill Pryde told me about how, since both my parents were trueborn, my genetic makeup was almost trueborn."
"But not," Joanna said. "You can never be trueborn when birthed naturally."
"I suppose it is true. Technically. But a case can be made, and I intend to make it."
"A case?"
Diana nodded and could not resist an accompanying smile. "I confronted Ravill Pryde in his office. I told him that freeborns become bloodnamed warriors in Clan Wolf, and that I am as close to trueborn as I am to freeborn so that I am neither, as he said himself, and that both my parents were in a sibko from the Pryde line.
"He asked me why I was bringing up all this information. And I told him. 'Star Colonel Ravill Pryde,' I said, 'for all these reasons, I demand to compete for a bloodname when the next Trial of Bloodright for a Pryde name occurs, and further, I demand that, as one of the current bloodnamed warriors of the Pryde line, you sponsor me.' "
Joanna and Horse looked at each other, amazed. "Diana," Joanna said, "you surprise me. But that is not possible, is it, your competing for a bloodname?"
"Possibly not. I went on to remind him about how I exposed the Clan Wolf spies, and that on Twycross he had told me I was due a reward for my bravery on the plateau. He said that, as a reward for that, a bloodname was somewhat extreme."
"I admire your tenacity, Diana," Joanna said, and Horse nodded agreement. "But I doubt that even Ravill Pryde, for all his vaunted skills, can pull that one off."
Diana's face clouded slightly, but she smiled. "I do not know, Joanna. Things are changing. In the Jade Falcons, we have new breeds of warriors, even genetic experimentations of bizarre proportions. We do not know what will happen to the invasion of the Inner Sphere once this truce is up, or even if the truce might not be broken beforehand. You, Joanna, have not only redeemed the Falcon Guard shame of Twycross but have become part of history. In a universe like this, with so many alterations in my own short lifetime, who can say what will happen to any of us? Horse, you could become a high command officer."
"Not likely."
"Joanna, you could decide that your destiny is with a canister nursery"—Joanna's grunt was scornful—"or you could be killed by a Clan Wolf whelping looking for his own line in the Remembrance.
"And I could compete for a bloodname. Things change."
Horse gave one of his low rumbling laughs. "Or, on the other hand, we could all drown trying to swim back across Sudeten Lake."
"Which I think we had better do," Joanna said. "The air is turning cold again."
Without looking at each other once, the three dove off the ledge, almost in unison, and began the long swim back.
I am Jade Falcon Page 27
