Free Unbound by Shawn Speakman

with whatever makes a compass read askew in my hand.”
    “And yet here is your wife,” Darius persisted. “However did you accomplish this nasty business with the beasts of the Bourne, then? And really, how much longer do you think we should suffer this ridiculous distraction?”
    That’s when I did slap the insolent young horse’s ass. People gasped. It was like listening to one of the Rhea-fol plays. The comedic ones, where exaggerated reactions by the crowd are part of the fun.
    It actually made me laugh. Darius wasn’t laughing though. And I knew I was on my last pardon.
    I spared another look at Anna, and told the rest. “I had no idea why the races of the Bourne were buying humans. But I reasoned that if the only currency they cared about was human life, I’d simply buy my wife back from them.”
    The silence that came was heavy. Serious.
    I nodded to the cumulative disgust. “I found a prison in Sever Ens. Paid the guards there to hand over three women being held in the pit indefinitely for murder. Paid that same trader I’d found to take them into the Bourne and barter them for my wife.”
    “You’re something of a trader yourself, it would seem,” Darius said, his slapped face forgotten.
    “I’m not proud of it, if that’s what you’re hinting at.” I stared defiantly at him. “But I’d do it again.”
    Darius’s eyes were alive with thought. When his face finally relaxed, he’d found his way forward. “Though we study the motivations that underlie a person’s criminal behavior, the College doesn’t condone crime . . . of any kind.” He leveled his stare on me. “And under no circumstance do we place the value of one life above another. It’s contrary to every philosophical position the Grove holds. I can’t imagine the pain of losing your wife, but what you did is unforgiveable.”
    “By whom?” I asked, wanting badly to slap him again. “You? The College? The Grove? Or these gods it seems you’d like us to put away?”
    He opened his mouth to retort. I didn’t give him a damn second.
    “Because I don’t need the forgiveness of a bastard pup who struts the discourse theater like he’s nothing left to learn. And I don’t need it from a College that has treated me like a walking sickness because I don’t have the blush of health in my skin. And if this Grove of science is going to judge me, then it might as well start burning incense and saying prayers like the religionists it pits itself against. And I’d really love to know if you think I need the forgiveness of the silent gods.”
    I stopped, glaring at Darius. He was caught, and he knew it. He didn’t want to admit of gods, or any of the rest of it. That was for damn sure.
    The young debater stood his ground, though. And after several long moments, his wry smile touched light at his lips. Just enough that only I could see it.
    “Very well, Lour,” he said as a parent shushing a headstrong child, “let’s suppose, for now, that all this is true. It doesn’t argue for the existence of Quiet races bent on our destruction. It suggests only some phenomenon in the Pall Mountains. And slavery. Strange and maybe disconcerting things. But not stories to guide our science, or even our beliefs. Wouldn’t you agree?”
    I shook my head. Damn but this pup was good.
    And that’s when I turned to Anna. Understanding, she stood and came to my side, stepping slowly.
    She shared a long look with Darius, then me. There was sadness in her eyes, and trembling. But she started to speak anyway.
    “What Lour says is true.” Anna swallowed loud enough that I heard it. “I was taken by a highwayman. I went up on the blocks and was sold. A pack of traders took me and several other women north over the Pall Mountains. Maybe two weeks’ travel beyond it. I was placed in a pen. There were stalls for us. Flat bread each day. Muddy water.”
    Darius held up a finger. The bastard was interrupting. “And you’re telling us you were held by