“I am the Count of Tolamer,” I said. “I’m a stallion, not a mare. I’m not asking your permission; I’m giving you an order.”

Despite his advantage in height, I still lifted him a few inches off the ground. He also blocked the line of sight his people might have used to shoot me.

“Uh … Count?” Dorna said. “I hate to interrupt your flirting, but you ought to see to the children—”

I glanced over. The soldiers were pointing their weapons at Dorna and Brother Qown and, yes, even Arasgon, although the nervous look in their eyes suggested they were less certain about the wisdom of threatening the enormous fireblood.

“Tell your people to back down,” I said to Dedreugh. “Or they can watch as I rip your jaw from your face and choke you with your own tongue. You don’t use that tone with a count. Nor do you raise weapons against those under my protection. Do you understand me?” I paused as he made strangling sounds. “Blink if you do.”

His fingers plucked at mine, but he blinked, then gasped and sputtered when I released his neck. “Lower your weapons!” he rasped to the men behind him.

When he finished, he turned back in a heated rage. “On your word, you’ll help me bring these criminals in, or being a count won’t save you.”

I raised an eyebrow, wondering how Barsine Banner’s ruler had been training his people. I remembered the baron as a hard stallion, fonder of the whip than the carrot. If Dedreugh’s attitude proved anything, he’d grown worse over the passing years. “You seem confused, Captain. A baron is lesser ranked than a count. And I already offered to bring them in, didn’t I?”

He backed away, glaring. He had poor thudajé. I had proved my idorrá over him, but he reacted with resentment, not honorable submission to my will. He was a bully, a thorra, one who thought their physical strength was the only strength that mattered when proving their right to dominate. I could see the threat in his stare: Watch your back, or when I get my chance, you’ll suffer for this humiliation.

I narrowed my eyes. Our system had functioned for five hundred years. It worked because people understood their place.

He proved himself less by insisting on idorrá over me. Equally intolerable after I’d already forced him to submit. There have always been those who mistook idorrá and thudajé as synonyms for male and female.

Outsiders make this error.

I would hardly have the right to call myself a count if I’d let someone of such common status treat me thus.