Shield's Lady

kind of trouble have you gotten yourself into?”
    “The Avylyns tell me I have gotten myself married to a Shield,” she admitted starkly.
    “Married.” Etion snapped to his feet behind the desk. He winced and massaged his head. “Married? To a Shield?”
    Sariana couldn’t bring herself to turn around and meet his gaze. Humiliation warred with desperation. “Etion I am so horribly embarrassed. I should never have come here, but I didn’t know where else to go.”
    “Calm yourself, my dear.” He came up behind her and started to put his hands on her shoulders in a comforting grip. There was a small hiss and a rather nasty display of teeth from the scarlet-toe. Etion dropped his hands quickly. “Tell me exactly what has happened.”
    Sariana curled her fingers into small fists at her sides. She was on the verge of blurting out every last detail—including how and why she had hired a Shield for the Avylyns—but at the last instant she changed her mind. Etion didn’t need to know all the facts, only the most crucial ones.
    “It is all terribly simple. I…I had a little too much punch to drink at the Avylyns’ party last night and I wound up in bed with a Shield. This morning in front of the Prime Family of the Avylyn Clan he claimed I was his wife. They believed him.”
    “Prisma and light,” Etion swore heavily, his voice hoarse and startled.
    “I know.” She spun around, searching his face wildly for some sign of hope. “Is that really the way the law works here, Etion? Have I actually married the man?”
    Etion stared at her for a long moment. Then he moved away. He sank down onto the edge of his desk and picked up the beautifully chased little arithmograph he used for making calculations. His fingers absently played with the keys.
    “It’s possible,” Etion said at last.
    Sariana felt her last hope dissolving. She clung to her composure with all her waning strength. “Tell me what you know about this stupid pact.”
    “I’ve told you, I know very little about it. It’s unusual to run afoul of it. The Shields keep to themselves for the most part, but they apparently have a few unquestioned privileges. One of them is the right to seek a wife when and where they choose. They are not bound by traditional social class customs or laws when it comes to selecting their mates. The only rule I’ve ever heard, and that one’s rather fuzzy, is that the woman in question must be willing.”
    “But I am not willing.”
    Etion hesitated and then asked bluntly, “Not this morning, perhaps, but what about last night?”
    Sariana felt the jaws of a huge trap closing on her. “I didn’t realize what I was getting into. I thought I was getting involved in an affair, not marriage.”
    Etion was silent for another long moment. “It seems to me that there is something about the Shield having to provide proof of the marriage. Something to do with opening his weapon kit in front of witnesses.”
    Sariana winced. A stinging sensation in her palm made her realize she was digging her nails into her hand. “Yes.”
    “You did that, Sariana? You opened a Shield’s kit in front of witnesses?”
    “The entire assembled multitude of the Avylyn Dime Family.”
    “You have a problem, Sariana.”
    She whirled around to confront him. “I know that. The question is, how serious is it and how do I solve it?”
    Etion looked at her helplessly. He rubbed his temples again. “I don’t know. I just don’t know. As long as you are living in the west, you must abide by local law. You know that as well as I do.”
    “I’ll have to leave.” Sariana began to pace the room. “I’ll have to go home.”
    “Home to what?” Etion asked bluntly. “There’s nothing for you at home except a dead-end career and a marriage that offers considerably less potential than this one does.”
    Sariana’s head turned sharply. “Are you implying that my…my association with this Shield might have some potential?”
    “Who knows? The Shields are unique. They have a certain degree of power here in the west or they wouldn’t be allowed to live by their own laws. You know as well as I do that the original social philosophers were adamant about the laws applying equally to all social classes. With the exception of the Shields, the westerners have abided by that philosophy, just as we in the east have followed it. Think about it, Sariana. The Shields must have wielded some fairly impressive authority in order to get themselves