From Part 27 ...
Lois felt Kal’s hands on her shoulders. “You’re doing a wonderful job,” he said, with an encouraging squeeze through her gown. “I can’t discern anything at all.”
She eased back into his touch and looked up to meet his eyes. Understanding flowed between them.
Together they were more than enough.
Lois raised her shoulder and brushed his hand with a soft kiss.
When her mouth lifted from him, he crouched at her side.
“Lois,” he said. “I’m -.”
The door flung open and four armed soldiers charged in.
They were followed by Nor, Ching and Yent.
Kal straightened, though his hand remained on Lois’s shoulder.
Nor stepped forward. “Kal-El,” he said, his voice coldly triumphant. “You are hereby informed that under the Law of New Krypton, having failed in your duty to provide the necessary heir within the allotted timeframe, you have been deposed as the Supreme Ruler of this planet.”
Part 28
Two of the soldiers charged Kal with such exaggerated intent, Lois had the fleeting impression that this was a sick joke.
Except Kryptonians didn’t joke.
And the barbarous gratification on Nor’s face left no room for anything approaching comedy.
With a soldier clamped on each arm, and two following closely behind, Kal was marched from his own bedroom.
Lois darted around them and filled the doorway of the chambers, facing them with every ounce of defiance she could muster. “Where are you taking him?” she demanded.
“Move aside,” Nor barked from behind the soldiers.
She held her ground.
Nor skirted the soldiers and advanced on Lois – only stalling when he was so close she could feel the waft of his breath upon her cheeks. “As the Supreme Ruler of New Krypton, I am ordering you to move aside,” he snarled. “If you do not, you will be shot and your body dragged from the doorway in a manner befitting an alien whore.”
Lois heard Kal gasp. She looked through Nor and saw the anxiety ripe on Kal’s face. Lois pulled back her focus and, with a final contemptuous glare at Nor, stepped aside. He strutted through the doorway without a further glance in her direction.
As Kal was propelled past her, Lois managed little more than a glimpse to his face. His naked anguish froze her heart and turned her blood to ice.
Yent followed.
Then Ching, his eyes averted.
They forced Kal to follow in the wake of Nor – along the corridor and into a meeting room. Lois watched through the wall as they shoved him roughly into a chair.
Her instincts burst from every pore – instincts that compelled her to go to Kal.
But she knew with certainty that her appearance in the meeting room would achieve nothing other than to compound Kal’s distress.
Who could she trust?
Lois spun from the scene in the meeting room and sprinted along the corridor. She emerged from Kal’s building as the first light of dawn swept the courtyard. Hurrying through the gates, she turned left and sped towards the home of Riz and Tek.
At Number Fourteen, she rattled the door. “Tek!” she screamed.
He appeared, looking dazed.
“They’ve taken Kal,” Lois said in a rush.
“They’ve what?” Tek asked.
“Nor and the other two nobles came to Kal’s room with four soldiers and he said that Kal had been deposed from being the Supreme Ruler because he hadn’t provided an heir within the time allowed.”
All colour drained from Tek’s face. “Give me one moment,” he said.
Only as he retreated into the house did Lois realise he was wearing nothing but flimsy shorts. He disappeared through an internal door and returned seconds later wearing long pants and an unbuttoned shirt and pulling a jacket across his shoulders. He stopped briefly at the door and slipped on his shoes. “Let’s go,” he said.
“Where are we going?” Lois asked as she settled into a jog alongside Tek’s rickety stride.
He buttoned his shirt as he ran. “Firstly, we need to ascertain if his action is supported by the Law,” he said.
“And if it is?”
“We strategise.”
“And if it isn’t?”
“We’re at War.”
Neither option did anything to ease the tightening knot of fear that had lodged against her sternum and was threatening to erupt into her throat.
“Where did they take him?” Tek asked as they passed through the gates.
“To one of the meeting rooms,” Lois said. “I can show you.”
As they approached the door to Kal’s building, the sentries blocked the entrance, their rifles poised. “I work here,” Tek said shortly.
“Our orders from the Supreme Ruler are that no one is to enter this building,” one of the sentries said crisply.
Lois looked into the faces of the previously-vapid guards. She didn’t recognise them. “I am to marry the Supreme Ruler today,” she said.
“You speak of the former Supreme Ruler,” the other sentry said.
His disdainful tone snapped Lois’s restraint. She clasped a rifle barrel in each hand and pushed sideways. She felt Tek brush past her with a quick movement as he slipped through the doorway and into the building.
Lois thrust the weapons further apart and both sentries stumbled sideways. She ran after Tek.
When she arrived in Kal’s chambers, Tek had already moved the bookcase and opened the hidden door. He lifted a book from the hole and after a quick inspection discarded it to floor with a lack of care that caused her to wince. The second followed. The third he opened and flicked through the pages.
Lois waited with brittle impatience. “Well?” she said, unable to hold her tongue a moment longer.
Tek didn’t respond. He merely continued reading.
Then he again rummaged in the hole and withdrew another volume. He laid it on the floor, crouched next to it, opened it and scoured the pages.
Thirty long, agonising seconds later, his shoulders slumped and Lois heard his groan of despair. “He’s got us.”
Lois’s heart stopped. “What do you mean ‘he’s got us’?” she asked frantically.
Tek gestured to the books. “The Canon Law – law from both sides – says that if a Supreme Ruler has not supplied the people with an heir within the first one hundred, twenty-five months of his reign, the next in line can initiate a Move to Depose.”
“How long since Kal became the Supreme Ruler?”
“One hundred, twenty-five months,” Tek said. "To the day."
Lois felt the knot tighten further and inch higher. “So Nor can do this?”
“Yes, he has the full backing of Canon Law.”
“Shouldn’t this be something everyone knew before now?” Lois screeched.
Tek lifted his shoulders with a gesture of defeat. “I have never heard of it before,” he admitted, shamefaced.
Then Lois understood. She scurried to Kal’s desk and returned with the book they had examined together such a short time ago. She handed it to Tek. “They ripped out the page,” she said.
Tek inspected it. From his mouth gushed a word that didn’t translate – though Lois was sure she could have supplied a few Earth equivalents.
“What are we going to do?” she asked, dreading his answer.
Tek stood slowly from floor. “There is nothing we can do.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Tek,” Lois chafed. “There has to be *something* we can do. Nor can’t commandeer the leadership of the entire planet just because a baby wasn’t born on time.”
“You’re right,” Tek said. “He can’t *just* do it. He’s waited over ten years for this opportunity.”
“I bet it is an opportunity he engineered by subverting the reproduction process,” she said.
“That would mean Ching has to be involved as well.”
“Why wouldn’t he be?”
“He’s North. And only a fool would willingly side with Nor.”
That was true. “What will Nor do to Kal now?” Lois asked, desperately trying to contain her escalating panic. “When will they let him go?”
Tek stepped closer to her. “Lady, you need to decide if you trust me totally.”
“I ... Kal trusts you.”
“There won’t be time for explanations,” Tek warned. “You need to decide beforehand if you trust me.”
“You ... you said there is nothing we can do.”
“There is nothing we can do about Nor being the Supreme Ruler. His claim is supported by Canon Law.”
“That is so unfair,” Lois raged. “Kal has been a wonderful leader for this pl-.”
“Do you trust me?”
Tek’s quiet question stalled her indignation mid-stream. “Your support for Kal is absolute, right?”
“I will do everything ... as my father did ... to protect Kal-El and those he cares for.”
For the first time, Lois perceived the potential price of his loyalty. “Tek,” she said. “You have a wife and two children. You can’t risk them. Even for Kal.”
They heard footsteps and two armed soldiers tramped into the chambers, followed by Nor. “I see you have already established the legal authority of my action,” he taunted.
Tek gestured to the volume of the Law of New Krypton. “Someone removed part of the Law,” he said, his accusation clear as he eyed Nor.
Nor gave the book a cursory glance. “I think it is likely that you and the alien wench ripped that page from the book just now in a pathetic attempt to try to save Kal-El from his destiny.”
“Of course we didn’t take the page,” Lois fumed.
Nor turned to her with ominous deliberation. Time crawled as his evil eyes bored slowly into hers. “The only reason you are still alive," he snarled, "Is my anticipation of witnessing your distress as your impotent hero is finally overthrown.” His upper lip curled with evident distaste. “Bind her – ankles and wrists,” he ordered the soldiers.
One of the soldiers drew two lengths of thick rope from his belt.
Lois bit back her retort.
Nor sniggered at her silence. “After you have bound her, keep her and the servant here until you receive orders to escort them to the courtyard,” he directed the soldiers.
Nor picked up the two ancient books containing the Law from the North and the Law from the South – his ticket to tyranny - and left the room.
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Kal had watched from between the ends of two weapons as Nor had exited the Meeting Room.
Nor had filled the past half an hour with a long-winded exposé of the Canon Law as it related to what he referred to as ‘Krypton’s Great Day of Reckoning’. Each word hammered the spike deeper into Kal’s heart.
The mantle of the Supreme Ruler had gone irretrievably. Of that Kal was sure.
Nor was not a man to make a move this significant without being absolutely sure of his facts.
And he’d had more than ten years to check and re-check his facts.
Now Nor had gone from the Meeting Room and heavy silence consumed them.
Yent and Ching stared ahead.
Yent’s shock was etched upon his face. Kal was sure he’d had no previous knowledge of this.
Ching’s face was set to blank, but his eyes gave him away. They had avoided Kal with such determination, Kal was convinced Nor’s subterfuge had not come as a surprise to the young man.
Nor was now the Supreme Ruler of New Krypton.
Within Kal, sickening fear unfurled to every part of his being.
Fear for his people.
Their future had been obliterated. Every gain of the past decade had been razed to nothing. Instead of peace, there would be oppression, instead of justice, there would be anarchy.
There would be no mercy at the hands of Nor.
Yet it was easier to think of the future of his people than to contemplate Lois’s future.
She was a stranger – an alien – in a savage world. And now, she was devoid of any protection.
Kal thought back to the moment he had met Lois – how she had looked at him without the slightest deference. One such look now – directed towards Nor – would cost her her life.
Her audacity as she had stood in the doorway had chilled him to the core. Nor would have no compunction in killing her, Kal knew that.
He swallowed down the bile that had billowed into his throat and willed his voice to submission. “Lord Yent,” he said.
Yent broke from his stupor and turned his face to Kal.
“I ask a petition of you,” Kal said.
“What is it?”
“I ask that you take my fourth concubine, the alien woman, into your household.”
“I have no desire for her,” Yent said. “She is an alien being – not even Kryptonian.”
“No!” Kal shut down his compulsion to defend her and forced himself to steady speech and calm thought. “I am the grandson of Bon-Ra – the man who ruled South Krypton for over three decades. In his name, I ask that you consider my petition.”
Yent didn’t respond.
“I ask that you take her into your household for her protection,” Kal said.
A smattering of understanding seemed to touch the eyes of the older man. “If she falls to me, I will take her,” he agreed.
A helix of intermingled dread and hope twisted through Kal. *If* she falls – if she didn’t, that would mean Nor or Ching had already taken her. Or Nor had already ordered her death.
But amidst the dread was hope – the tenuous hope that he had secured a safe future for Lois. “Thank you,” Kal breathed.
Yent’s attention drifted away.
Kal’s mind flooded with every memory of Lois. They brought such sweet torture – of all that he’d had ... and all that he’d lost.
Would he have any opportunity to communicate with her? There was much he needed to tell her.
But his life was no longer his own.
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Through several walls, Lois watched Kal, her heart breaking.
She watched as roughly hewn pants and a coarse jacket were delivered to him.
She watched as he put them over his sleeping clothes.
She was still watching him when another soldier stamped into the chambers and delivered the order that they were to assemble in the courtyard.
The soldier who had tied her ankles and wrists gestured to the door.
Lois stared at him, eyebrows raised, lamenting that her disdain would probably not register.
He gestured again with his weapon – more insistently this time.
Lois dropped her eyes past her bound wrists and to her ankles. “Do you intend to carry me?” she asked, her tone dripping with insolence.
He understood – finally – and crouched beside her. When the rope was loosened enough to allow an undignified shuffle, he straightened and clipped the edge of her shoulder with the butt of his rifle.
Slowly, she moved out of Kal’s chambers, wondering if she would ever return.
In the courtyard, the Kryptonian people had gathered.
There was silence.
Yet it was a silence that crackled with the raw edge of foreboding.
The soldiers spurred her forward to the line of Kal’s household. As she was positioned next to Mo, Lois glanced sideways. The faces of the four women were coagulated with trepidation. Even Ard had realised their lives had changed irrevocably.
The trickle of people through the gates dried completely and the gathered mass waited.
She looked into the building and located Kal. At gunpoint, he was moving towards the door. Soon he would join them in the courtyard.
Lois searched his face, wishing it were possible for him to see her ... possible for them to connect.
There was an understated gasp from the crowd when he reached the door.
His eyes sought her. Their connection came alive with a bittersweet concoction of love and relief and despair and fear – sprinkled with the essence of hope that refused to be denied now that they were together.
Kal was ushered into the courtyard, flanked by two soldiers and followed by two more.
His lips were moving. She honed in on his words.
“I love you, Lois.”
“I love you, Kal,” she mouthed back.
Before she had finished her words, they turned him, forcing him to face the balcony – and their visual link was broken.
Minutes passed – each one stretching longer than the one before it.
Nor would keep them waiting, Lois thought grimly.
She heard the murmur of words – so low it blended with the silence.
“I love you, Lois. I love you, Lois.”
His words reached inside her and pulled her tears from the accumulation of fear and anger that sat like granite in her gut.
She blinked them into submission, knowing that if they escaped, her bound hands would give her no choice but to let them slide down her cheeks.
The door to the balcony opened.
Ching emerged and stepped to his right.
Yent emerged and stepped left.
Again, there was a period of waiting as the crowd was suspended on the whims of their Supreme Ruler.
Then he stepped into sight; Lord Nor, his puny body encased in a tight black suit with an ‘E’ lying on its side across his chest, carrying the ancient books of law from the safe in Kal’s chambers.
From the depths of Lois’s stomach rose a torrent of acrid nausea. She swallowed furiously and closed her eyes as the world swayed. Mo’s hand gripped her elbow, steadying her.
Lois heard the soft thuds as the open palms of the Kryptonian people responded to their new Supreme Ruler with the greeting of acknowledged inferiority.
There was a modicum of satisfaction that her bound wrists prevented her from joining them.
“Minions of Krypton,” Nor began. “I, Lord Nor of the House of Dur, have brought a Move to Depose against the former Supreme Ruler on the grounds that he has not supplied the required heir within the stated timeframe of one hundred, twenty-five months.”
The people didn’t respond. Lois suspected they already knew the essence of Nor’s announcement.
“My claim is fully supported by the Canon Law,” Nor stated. “My position as the Supreme Ruler is incontrovertible.”
The silence was deeply disturbing.
How could they stand there ... passive ... while this most evil of men stole their future?
Surely, they could not be so naive as to not realise the coming carnage?
“Kal-El is now in exile,” Nor said. He then paused as if to indulge in self-congratulations. “As such, he is no longer permitted to keep wives nor concubines.”
Mo’s grip on Lois's elbow tightened.
“According to the Law, his marriage is hereby annulled.”
Just like that, Kal became a single man.
“As the longest-serving Regal Noble, it is the duty of Lord Yent to direct the distribution of those women who no longer have a master.”
Yent moved forward. “I call Za, formerly of the House of El, out of the House of Ra.”
Across the courtyard, the crowd parted and a woman emerged. Lois gazed at her – the woman who until moments ago, had been the indissoluble thorn in Lois’s relationship with Kal, but now was a fellow-refugee in their sea of uncertainty.
As she passed Kal, Za looked at him. Her face was masked, but her eyes signalled something ... Lois wasn’t sure what.
They positioned her before the balcony and the accompanying soldiers stepped back.
Za looked up to the balcony, her shoulders back and her stance unflinching. Lois couldn’t quash the reluctant respect that budded for Kal’s wife.
Former wife.
“This woman is offered,” Yent announced.
There was a moment of heavy silence. On the balcony, Ching stepped forward. “I will take her as my wife,” he said.
Lois saw no response from Za.
No doubt she would be disappointed with this development – now there could be no child with the man she loved.
Unless ...
Unless *Ching* was the man she loved.
From the balcony Ching’s eyes lingered on Za – it was all Lois needed to confirm her suspicion.
Ching had been a willing accomplice to treason – not for power, but for love.
Za turned from the balcony and stepped to Kal. “I knew nothing of this,” she said, so quietly Lois doubted the soldiers guarding Kal would have heard.
Lois heard it though.
Kal didn’t respond verbally and Lois couldn’t see his face. Za hesitated, then stepped towards the crowd.
“No!”
Nor’s voice rang across the gathering of people. Their heads lifted.
“I will take Za of the House of Ra,” Nor announced.
“I have already taken her,” Ching protested.
“I am the Supreme Ruler,” Nor reminded him. “I take her as my concubine.”
Lois saw the betrayal cut a swathe through Ching’s features. He stared at Nor. Nor ignored him – offering not even the suggestion of a sideways glance.
The composure had seeped from Za’s body. She stood, a lonely figure adrift from the crowd, reminding Lois of debris left in the wake of a disaster.
Kal’s shoulders were rounded in abject defeat. Lois knew that this - the callous dismantling of his household ... the people he had brought into his protection – would wound him deeply.
Za was shuffled away by two of Nor’s soldiers.
“Bring forth the concubines,” Yent ordered.
The soldiers herded the four of them to the space in front of Kal.
Lois twisted enough that she could make eye contact with him. He was tantalisingly close. Within touching distance ... except her hands were bound.
“Lois,” he said.
His voice ... her name. It calmed her and shook her and strengthened her and rattled her – all at once.
“Lois, you cannot come with me,” Kal said, his voice suspended on the knife-edge between vehemence and despair. “My destiny is exile. I cannot protect you. I have no resources and no recourse in the Law. I have spoken to Yent and he has agreed to take you. He is not a cruel man.”
Lois shook her head, every atom rejecting Kal’s suggestion.
“Lois,” Kal said desperately. “Listen to me, my love. This is the only way.”
“No, Kal,” she whimpered. ”I want to be with you.”
“You cannot come with me.”
Lois resisted the push of the soldier as he tried to bundle her closer to the other concubines. “I don’t care if we have nothing, Kal,” she cried. “If I have you, I have everything.”
Kal glanced away and she saw his eyelids flutter as they battled his rising tears. But when he faced her again, his resolve covered his face like a cold steel mask. “You can’t come with me,” he grated.
The authority inherent in his words sucked the mettle from her dissent. The soldier firmly clasped her upper arms and turned her forward.
Two men emerged from the crowd. One took Mo, one took Jib. Then a third one came forward and took Ard.
Then they waited.
Lois knew they were waiting for someone to take her.
No one moved.
“I will take her,” Yent said.
Lois broke from the grip of the solider and rammed into Kal’s anguished eyes. “No, Kal,” she sobbed. “No.”
“I’m sorry, Lois,” Kal said brokenly. “I’m so sorry. This is the only way.”
“I don’t care if you have nothing.”
“Please, Lois,” Kal begged. “Please go with Yent. You will be protected and he will treat -.”
From above them on the balcony, Nor’s voice sliced through their conversation. “I am higher than Yent,” Nor said. “I take her.”
“No!” Kal roared. He stepped from between the soldiers. Standing shoulder to shoulder with Lois, he confronted those on the balcony above him. “You will *not* take her.”
“I am the Supreme Ruler,” Nor said. He considered Kal, his contempt tangible. “I take her as my concubine.”
“NO!”
“You have no means to stop me,” Nor said.
“I offer my life,” Kal said.
Nor grasped the railing and peered down at Kal. “Repeat what you just said,” he ordered.
Kal stared back at Nor, his head high. “In return for you allowing her to fall to Yent,” Kal said. “I offer my life.”
