In Love and War - Chapter Fifteen

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The long, flat rays of the late afternoon sun burnished the waters of the large pool. Diomis Lenor watched, his mouth twisted with both contempt and admiration, as his only son dove into the water from the highest platform, cleaning cleaving it. Sitting next to the pool in a lounge chair his wife, Jonica, who was shamelessly clad in a barely-there red bathing suit, gaily clapped her hands, the rings on her long, slender fingers glittering in the sunlight.

"Well done, darling!" she cried.

Gend's head pushed up through the water. He waved to his mother, a wide, white smile on his broad, tanned face. Then, noting his father standing nearby, his smile slipped away. He slowly swam to the side of the pool. Jonica turned as Diomis walked over to her.

"You look upset, my husband," she said in her affected girlish voice. "Well, I hope you don't plan on remaining in your sulky mood. You promised to go to Rygast Savon's party with me this evening and I don't want you spoiling it."

Diomis only grunted as he waited for Gend to get out of the pool. Jonica was almost 50 years old, but she didn't look a day over 20. As a result of the surgeries she'd undergone and the drugs she'd taken over the last ten years, she now looked younger than Gend, who had recently turned 25.

The fact his wife wanted to keep her youthful beauty did not bother Diomis, for he was the envy of his friends as a result of her obsession with her looks. But that it took quite a lot of his money for her to keep up her youthful facade, and she insisted on acting like she was still a young girl did bother him. Greatly.

"I have a reason for my, as you call it, sulky mood," Diomis said to his wife. "I received a communiqué from Onara."

Jonica's face twisted with disdain. "Really? Has that hussy finally come to her senses and accepted Gend's offer of marriage?"

Just as Diomis was about to answer, Gend climbed out of the pool. Picking up a towel, he dried off his tall, muscular body. Diomis stared at him. He had, over the years, sometimes wondered if Gend was really his son. His reasons for doubting so were quite legitimate. Jonica was not only vain, but indiscreet and had had a number of affairs over their 30-year marriage.

And there was Gend himself. He was as conceited and self-centered as his mother, the two of them nothing more than spoiled children, seeking only to indulge their mindless pleasures; Jonica's for spending money on expensive, extravagant things, along with her obsession for the unnatural preservation of her youth, and Gend's for eating, drinking and fornicating, and his current, and quite costly fascination with exotic alien weapons.

But, there was no doubt, at least physically, that Gend was Diomis' son. He was the spitting image of his father. The same square-jawed face, bronze- colored, sunken eyes under a heavy forehead, hooked nose, which in Gend's case was broken, and large, muscular body.

But, where Diomis' black, gray-streaked hair flowed across his broad shoulders, Gend was completely bald except for a black glossy braid at the back of his head. A hairstyle he had recently adopted, having observed and admired it on a Fedelorian ambassador. Diomis sniffed with disdain. Another of his son's affectations, along with his avid interest in collecting alien weapons.

"Yes, Father," Gend said as he threw down the towel and flopped into a lounge chair next to his mother who smiled indulgently over at him. "Has Onara finally seen the light and realized her destiny lies with me and only me?"

Gend winked over at his mother. She responded by giggling. Irritation surged through Diomis. Fifty-year old woman should not giggle. He cleared his throat loudly to get hers and Gend's attention.

"Onara has accepted the offer of marriage we tendered to her."

Both Gend and Jonica sat up, staring wide-eyed over at Diomis.

"She has?" Jonica cried. "Then we've won."

Her long, black eyes glittered and Diomis knew she was thinking of how she would spend the money that would come to them from Onara's marriage to their son.

"We haven't won yet," Diomis said brusquely, wanting to draw his wife out of her daydreams of blissful squandering.

"What do you mean?" she snapped, peeved at his tone. "Of course we've won. She's accepted the proposal. Once Gend marries her, all she has will be ours."

"Onara has called for a challenge."

"What?" Jonica shot out of her lounge chair, shock on her face. "How dare she!"

"A challenge?" Gend also got out of his chair. "What kind of a challenge?"

"It's an ancient rite," Diomis explained. "Long ago, males of the noble class would fight for the right to marry a woman."

Gend's bronze-colored eyes shone with a fervent light. "A battle?"

Jonica quickly shook her head, her thick, reddish-black hair swinging across her shoulders "It's preposterous, outrageous. The Assembly won't stand for it."

"They have accepted her right to call for it," Diomis told her.

"But why?" Jonica cried. "It's an archaic rite. No one has called for a challenge in centuries."

Diomis shrugged. "I have no idea why the Assembly agreed to it. When I see Lorus at dinner tonight I will ask him. But, it doesn't matter why they accepted it. There will be a challenge."

"With whom?" Jonica asked.

"The Jedi. Kenobi. He has asked Onara to marry him."

Jonica turned away, her hands balled into fists. She walked back and forth in front of the pool, her long smooth legs scissoring as she paced.

"No, I won't accept it. There mustn't be a challenge." She stopped and looked over at her husband. "Declare war. If Onara won't marry Gend, then invade her lands and take what is rightfully ours."

Diomis strode over and grabbed his wife's arm, shaking her. "You stupid cow!" he shouted. "And just what am I supposed to invade with? I have no money with which to pay for a large enough force of arms with which to defeat Onara. Thanks to you and that spawn of yours and all the money you've spent in pursuit of your pleasures, we're nearly penniless. I threatened to go to war with Onara because I hoped she would do anything to spare the suffering of her people. But that's all it was. A threat. Gend must accept the challenge. We have no other choice."

"Penniless?" Jonica mouthed, her eyes staring wildly up into his.

"Yes, penniless. With all the uncertainly in the Republic of late, many of my investments have fallen through. And the two of you," and he glanced angrily between his wife and son, "spend money as if there's no tomorrow. Well, at this rate, if we don't get back Dalan's provinces and wealth, along with all Onara owns, there will be no tomorrow for any of us."

"Penniless?" Jonica repeated dully.

Diomis released his wife's arm, turning from her in disgust. Money. That was all she cared about. She had stopped loving him a long time ago.

He looked over at his son. Gend was glaring at him, his bronze-colored eyes burning. He adored his mother and hated when Diomis yelled or manhandled her, but he dared not confront his father about it. Not if he wanted to continue to live.

"You will fight this Jedi and you will kill him. Understand?" Diomis said firmly.

"No!" Jonica was stirred out of the horror of her impending poverty by concern for the only thing she cared about besides money. Her son. "You can't let him fight."

"Why not?" Diomis asked.

Jonica ran over and took Gend's arm. "It's ridiculous. He shouldn't have to fight anyone so he can marry that skinny, bug-eyed girl. Make her marry Gend."

Diomis crossed his arms over his chest. "And how am I supposed to do that?"

"I don't know. But I won't let my son fight that Jedi."

"It's all right, Mother," Gend said, staring hard at his father. "I want to fight him."

"No, Gend," Jonica cried, gazing anxiously up at him. "You can't fight him. He's a Jedi. They're sorcerers. Witches. He'll cast a spell on you."

Diomis shook his head. "Kenobi will not be allowed to use his powers in the challenge."

"So you say," Jonica sneered as she looked over at her husband. "How do you know he will keep his word?"

"He is an honorable man," Diomis said simply.

Jonica's lips, the ones she'd had surgically altered to look fuller, twisted with derision. "Honorable? How honorable a man is he? He cuckold Dalan."

"You know he did not, Jonica," Diomis said sternly. "As did everyone else. I told you spreading that rumor he'd had something to do with Dalan's death would not work."

Jonica shrugged, brushing off the failed attempt to dishonor Kenobi in the eyes of the tribunal. She continued to cling to her son's arm. "Gend will not fight him. He must not fight him."

"Mother, please," Gend said, extricating his arm from hers. He walked over and stood in front of his father.

"I look forward to meeting the Jedi in combat. And I will kill him, Father. Have no fear of that. Onara will then be mine, and all she owns will be ours. And, rest assured, I will not be as weak and foolish as my poor cousin and fall in love with her."

A leer then spread across Gend's face. "But I will bed her. And, forgive me, Mother, but you're wrong. Onara is not skinny or bug-eyed. She is very beautiful, one of the most beautiful women on Ahjane, with the body and face of a goddess."

Jonica snorted scornfully. Gend smiled at his mother. "You being the most beautiful, of course." He turned back to Diomis.

"And Onara, whether she wants to or not, will bear me sons to continue our family name and daughters to be married off to increase our wealth. But, most important of all, she will be what she should have been from the first. A compliant, submissive Ahjanese wife. And if I have to beat her obedience to me and to our family into her..."

Gend shrugged his broad shoulders, his mouth spread in a wide, white smile. "So be it. But, I promise you, Onara will do as she is told once she is my wife and give neither of you any trouble."

Diomis nodded. That was exactly what he wanted. Once Onara was married to Gend, it would be he who would control her wealth and her properties. Gend would sink back into his mindless indulgences and not care what his father did with Onara or her wealth.

Diomis smiled as he stared at his tall, muscular son. He had no doubt Gend would defeat Kenobi, not only because the Jedi would not be allowed to use his witch powers in the challenge, but because Gend had spent years learning to fight and wield all manners of weapons. Though he had yet to be tested in actual combat, there was no doubt in Diomis' mind his son was the superior fighter. The Jedi would not stand a chance.

Then, once Kenobi was dead and Onara married to Gend, Diomis would begin his plan to one day rule Ahjane. For a change was in the wind. He could sense it, the way one could sense an approaching storm. A time was at hand, both on Ahjane and out in the galaxy. A time when the strong would rule the weak and all that mattered was power and whoever wielded it. Diomis planned to be ready when that time came.

"That is good to hear, my son," he said. "But first you must win."

Gend grinned broadly at Diomis, his earlier anger at his father having vanished with his eagerness to face Kenobi.

"Don't worry, father," Gend assured him. "I will win. The Jedi will die and Onara, and all that is hers, will be ours."

To be continued....