by Kate Elliott
“It’s so late,” she said stupidly. “I guess I’ll go.”
Of course he came after her. She accidentally took the wrong corridor, one that led along the gardens, but she did not have the courage to turn back. Afraid to run, afraid to turn back—what damned use was she?
She stopped and turned to face him.
But when he caught up with her, he took her by the arm and stared, simply stared, at her. The moon lit them. She was trembling.
“Let go of me.”
“Tess.” He put his other hand on her other arm.
“Are you drunk?” she said, breathing hard. She strained away from him.
“Drunk?” His voice was low, intense. “I only now see things clearly.” His pull was like the drag of the tide; she could not help but be drawn in.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She tried to twist her arms out of his grasp, but his hands were too strong.
“You rode down the Avenue with me,” he whispered, his face lit by the moon and the wine. “You are my wife.”
“You led me into it.” He slipped his arms behind her back, enclosing her. The heat of his hands seared through the cloth into her flesh. His lips were parted, so that the line of his mouth seemed soft and yielding. “I didn’t know.” Her voice came out hoarse. “You know I didn’t know. You knew then. You trapped me.”
“Trapped you?” His voice was like the touch of soft fur. He held her so close that she could feel the beat of his heart. “Do I fill you with such aversion?”
He did not let her answer but kissed her. Such compulsion as this was impossible to resist. The world could have gone ablaze at that moment and she would never have noticed. All she felt was him. There was no cruelty in Ilya Bakhtiian—if she had not known that before, she knew it now when it could not possibly be disguised. But there was passion. Gods, yes, enough of that.
They were forced eventually to pause to catch their breath. Reason flooded back. She pushed away from him. His eyes opened, and his grip tightened.
“No,” she said. “Let me go.”
“No.”
“Let me go, Ilya.”
“I will not.” They had reached an equilibrium of opposing forces, she retreating, he restraining. He let go of one wrist and with his free hand traced the hard ridge of her spine, all the way to her neck. He drew his hand over the swell of her shoulder and down, fingers a caress on her skin, around her collarbone to the hollow of her throat, and leaned forward to kiss her there, lightly. She couldn’t control her breathing. She shut her eyes.
“Bakhtiian. I will not submit to treachery. Now let me go.” She felt his breath brush her neck but she held herself rigid; clenched all her muscles like a fist. If she gave in now, she would never respect herself.
He drew away. Slowly, reluctantly, he relinquished his grip on her.
She spun away from him and ran. When she reached the little room the priests had given her, she flung herself on the bed and wept. Her throat still tingled where he had kissed her. Finally she fell into an uneasy sleep filled with vivid dreams in which Ilya Bakhtiian played all too large a part.
In the morning, as she walked down the hall before breakfast, he came out from a side hall. They both stopped.
“Forgive me.” He looked pale and tired and subdued. “It was no better than treachery, and I was wrong to force myself on you in that fashion when you were ignorant of the consequences. I cannot withdraw myself as your husband, not now, but I will no longer trouble you.”
He bowed, as courtiers bowed in Jeds to the Prince, and limped away, leaving her to stare after him. She walked on in a daze to the eating hall. Yuri waved at her from his seat beside Mikhal. Kirill was sitting across from them, looking pale himself. She hesitated and then sat down beside Kirill and surveyed Yuri and Mikhal wearily.
“I thank you for your support last night.”
“But Tess—” Yuri began.
“Spare me, please. Did Niko kick you or something?” Yuri flushed. “Well, it didn’t work.” She did not look at Kirill, but she felt him shift beside her. “I slept alone. Gods, I’m not even hungry. Excuse me.” She rose.
“Do you want company?” asked Kirill in a low voice.
Mikhal began to object, but Yuri silenced him with a hand on his sleeve.
“If I wanted anyone’s company, it would be yours, Kirill, but no, I—” She hesitated, seeing the Chapalii rise en masse and politely thank Mother Avdotya and then file out the door. She ought to go with them but she was not entirely sure it would be safe to go alone. She glanced at Kirill. His color was a little high but he looked composed and remarkably calm. Could she ask him to escort her? Would it be asking him to betray his loyalty to Bakhtiian? What if Cha Ishii took a jaran presence to mean that Bakhtiian was supporting her and not him and reneged on the payment for this journey? Whatever love existed between her and Kirill, his place in Bakhtiian’s jahar was of far more value to him than her convenience.
“If you’re going to spy on the khepellis,” Kirill said suddenly, “then one of the jahar ought to go with you to make sure you don’t do anything foolish enough to antagonize them. We can’t afford to lose those horses, after all.”
“I’ll go,” said Yuri. “No, I think you’re right, Kirill, but I think Ilya would elect to send someone other than you.”
“Bakhtiian knows the worth of my loyalty to him.”
“I’m leaving,” said Tess, and did so. Kirill caught up with her outside. “How was that settled?” she asked.
“I reminded Yuri that I am his senior and twice the scout he is as well.”
“That was low of you.”
“But true nevertheless. Tess, if you want to follow the pilgrims, they went that way not this way.”
“Oh.” She laughed. “Very lowering to think that Yuri is twice the scout I am. Yes, there they are. Cha Ishii.”
Cha Ishii stopped, but he made a fleeting sign with his hand and the others went on while he waited. They vanished around a corner, leaving Tess to face him alone. Kirill stood silently at her back.
“Lady Terese.” He bowed. She glanced at his belt and saw that he was not wearing his knife.
Dumb, my girl, that is what we play now. “The shrine is indeed beautiful, Cha Ishii,” she continued in court Chapalii, “but I do not understand why you came so far under such brutal conditions merely to survey such an alien place.” Humans had necessarily to learn to speak the language of their emperor but few had occasion or opportunity to master the complex symbology that made up the written tongue and governed the decorative arts. Few understood how interrelated they were. Perhaps he would actually believe she did not recognize this place as Chapalii.
Pink spread up his cheeks. “You could not be expected to, Lady Terese, though you had already discerned that we were not priests.” He placed his hands in that arrangement known as Lord’s Supplication. “If I may be allowed to acquaint you with our work?” She nodded, and he turned and conducted her into the most opulent sections of the palace. Kirill trailed three steps behind them. Ishii ignored him as thoroughly as he would ignore one of his own stewards. “We are, in fact, archaeologists.” Color shifted in subtle patterns on his face.
“Indeed! Archaeologists. Why masquerade as priests, then?”
He clasped his hands behind his back. “In the Earth form I believe this word translates as ‘the study of antiquity,’ and it therefore demands some perspective of time and culture which these people cannot possess, being of a more primitive stamp. To their understanding, a religious expedition is comprehensible and not so far removed that our activities in systematic measurement cannot be construed as a form of worship.”
“I understand your concern, but surely, Cha Ishii, you might have applied to the duke for permission to conduct your study.” She smiled, enjoying this fencing, and glanced back at Kirill. He returned her gaze blandly since he could not understand a word they were saying.
“This did precipitate embarrassment, Lady Terese.
It was deemed necessary to continue our investigations in secret because we feared that your brother would forbid the expedition.”
“Was there such a pressing need to continue it?”
He directed her along a whitewashed hallway and thence into a magnificent salon decorated with a tile pattern on floor and ceiling and walls that, seeming to repeat, never quite repeated itself. “We have been investigating the relics of this particular civilization for many years now.”
“On this planet?”
“No, indeed, Lady Terese. This is a star-faring civilization which predates our current Empire. We were greatly surprised to find traces of it here.”
I’ll just bet you were, she thought. This confession rang truer than anything he had ever told her before. They must have been dismayed to find relics of Chapalii provenance here on the planet of the human duke who, of all their enemies, would surely use any information he acquired against them. “I am intrigued. Perhaps you can enlighten me further.”
Whether he believed that she had been misled by these confidences or whether he tacitly agreed to continue their little fencing match she could not be sure. Perhaps he hoped for the best. In any case, he began a vague discourse on the supposed attributes and history of this civilization, all of which sounded plausible, none of which sounded too betrayingly Chapalii. But it was when they were standing under the dome, staring upward, that Ishii said unexpectedly:
“You were right to wonder why I would conduct an expedition that my rank and birth ought to render repulsive to me. If my father’s father had not precipitously died, leaving his affairs in the hands of his wife for one year before his heir could return to take things into order—There were grave losses. Our family was inevitably and immediately cast down from the status we had so long held. What could we expect, having left to us only five estates and two merchant fleets? And I, younger son of the youngest son—” Was there a trace of wry humor in his words? She could not tell. “—was chosen to accept this task. Much will be restored to us, Lady Terese. You see that I could not refuse my duty.”
“Indeed, I see,” replied Tess, quite shocked. They went on as if he had said nothing.
Coming out into a little courtyard of slender pillars engulfed in green vines, she saw a lone Chapalii disappear into the garden. Ishii was looking at the palace, examining some design on the wall, and had not seen him.
“I will walk alone now,” said Tess, dismissing him. She waited for him to retreat inside. “Which way did he go, Kirill?” she asked in khush as soon as Ishii was gone.
“What, the other one? This way.”
He led her into the garden. It was a clear day for autumn. A breeze cooled her cheeks, stirring the ends of her braided hair. He stopped on the edge of a grassy sward and gestured to a little fountain burbling merrily on the other side, up against a fringe of trees. Hon Garii stood there alone, one hand in the water.
“Stay here,” said Tess in an undertone. She marched across the grass.
Garii turned. He flushed pink and bowed deeply. “Lady Terese.”
“Hon Garii. We have created certain obligations between us. Is this not true?”
“You honor me with your acknowledgment, Lady Terese. I alone rashly instigated these obligations. That you have chosen to indulge me in this matter reflects only credit to you.”
“Yet your family is pledged to Ishii’s house.”
“This is true. And to pledge myself to you, Lady Terese, must seem to a Tai-endi like yourself the grossest and most repugnant of behaviors. But I have observed and studied, and I have reflected on this man, Bakhtiian, and seen that by his own efforts he creates opportunity for himself. I am clever. I am industrious. Yet my emperor decrees that I must toil in the same position as my father’s father’s father, and suffer the consequences of an act committed by an ancestor I could not even know. Does this seem fair to you?”
“No, truly it does not. But Hon Garii, to work for me is to work for my brother, the duke. You must know what this means.”
He bowed again. “I am yours, Lady Terese. Command me as you wish.”
This was it, then. She took in a deep breath. “I must see the maintenance rooms. I must know the truth of this palace, why it is here, and why Cha Ishii was ordered to investigate. Will you meet me tonight in the eating hall after the rest are asleep?”
His skin remained white, colorless. So easily did he betray his emperor. “As you command, Lady Terese.”
She nodded. “Then return to your duties now, and say nothing of this to anyone.” He bowed and walked past her back to the shrine. She let out a long sigh and tested the water in the fountain with her finger. It stung. She wiped her finger on her sleeve and turned, hearing Kirill behind her.
“What an unmelodious language they speak,” he said, looking after Garii’s retreat. He hesitated and considered the grass, a peculiar expression on his face. “Tess, what does it mean that your brother is this prince in Jheds?”
Coming from Kirill, it seemed a puzzling question. “It means that he rules a great city and a great deal of farm and pasture and woodland lying all around it and supervises a port with many ships and rich trading from lands close by and lands far away across the seas.”
“When you go back to Jheds, what will you do? If you are his heir, then—then you would become like an etsana, wouldn’t you? You would have your own tent, and eventually children. You would need a husband, or a man to act as your husband—” He pulled his hand through his red-gold hair. “Tess, no one ever said—Bakhtiian can never go back there. He has given himself to this work now. Whatever he wants from you, he can’t go with you.” He looked at her finally, hope sparking in his eyes. “But—” He broke off, took in a deep breath, and went on. “But I could.”
Foliage covered the verdant height of the surrounding hills, wreathed here and there with a curl of cloud, like some half-forgotten thought. An insect chirruped and fell silent. “Oh, Kirill,” she said, and stopped.
He smiled a little wryly. “I know very well, my heart, that your brother probably already has some alliance arranged.”
“No,” she said in an undertone. “He doesn’t. I won’t lie to make that my excuse. I can’t take you with me.”
You can you can you can. Her thoughts raced wildly. His leaving would not alter anything; his knowing the truth about where she really came from would never matter. But what would life be like for him? She would be his only anchor in the bewildering confusion of space, of Earth, of the Empire. He would be utterly dependent on her. The kind of love they had was not strong enough to weather that sort of relationship, was not meant to. One or the other of them would soon fall out of love; one or the other would grow to resent their circumstances. And once he had left, Kirill could never return. She could not tear him apart from every seam that bound him to the fabric of life. Kirill loved her sincerely, she believed that, but she also believed that Kirill loved and had loved and would love other women as well. That was the real difference between Kirill and Ilya: Kirill was far more resilient.
“Gods, Kirill,” she said, moved by his asking, by his offering. “Believe me, if I could, I would take you.”
He hung his head, and she grimaced and went to hug him. He allowed this freedom, he put his arms around her, but after a moment he disengaged himself gently. “I believe you. Tess, I will always respect you most of all for your honesty.” He kissed her chastely on the cheek, hesitated, and then walked away.
There was a stone bench beside the fountain. Tess sat on it and leaned her head back, letting the weak heat of the sun beat on her face.
And I used to think my life was complicated. Life as Charles’s heir was beginning to seem like child’s work now. She felt thoroughly exhausted and yet she had an uncanny feeling that she was waiting for someone else to accost her. Get it all over with in one long, miserable scene. King Lear must have felt like this, battered by one storm after the next. Then, because the comparison was so ludicrous, she chuckled.
&nbs
p; Boots scuffed leaves. She looked around. “Hello, Vladimir. You startled me.”
“You were here with one of the khepelli,” he said accusingly. “Ilya has said all along you were a spy.”
Tess examined Vladimir. His vanity was the vanity of the insecure. He had taken great pains with his appearance, had trimmed his hair, and shaved his face so no trace of beard or mustache showed. Jewelry weighed him down: rings, bracelets, necklaces—were all of them from lovers? He had a deft hand for embroidery but no taste at all, so that the design adorning his sleeves and collar was merely garish. The ornately-hilted saber that Ilya had gifted him, the legacy of the arenabekh, simply capped the whole absurd ensemble.
“So I am, Vladimir,” she agreed amiably, “which is why I sent Kirill after him.”
He blinked. “But—” He shrugged suddenly, a movement copied from Bakhtiian, and sat down carefully on the grass. “Why did you come here, then?”
“I’m traveling to Jeds. I thought you knew that.”
“I know what you say. Josef told Niko that you can read the writing here. But no one can read that, not even Mother Avdotya.”
“How do you know?”
“I was born here,” he replied without visible emotion. “Or at least they say that I was.”
“You must know Yeliana. You must have grown up with her.”
“She was very young when I left.” Behind him, through a ragged line of bushes, she saw the slender lines of a statue, something human, its features worn away so that there were only depressions for the eyes and a slight rise to mark the lips. “She is as much of a sister as I have ever had. But I did not want to become a priest.”
“So what did you do?”
He shrugged again, that childlike copy of Bakhtiian. “I rode to join Kerchaniia Bakhalo’s jahar-ledest. Ilya found me there.” So, thought Tess, your life began when Ilya found you. “I’m very good with saber,” he offered by way of explanation for this inexplicable action on the part of the great Bakhtiian. “And Ilya had lost his family.”