by Kate Elliott
But the signs were beginning to show: cuts, superficial wounds that did not heal as quickly, wrinkles at the corners of his eyes. He would grow old, truly old, and she would still be young.
She dressed, braided her hair, and went outside. It was dark now and most of the camp was quiet. In the direction of the Sakhalin encampment some kind of carousing was going on, doubtless in celebration of Anatoly Sakhalin’s elevation to a command of his own.
Under the light of lanterns hung from the awning of her tent, Sonia sat with Nadine. She was sewing together two strips of woven cloth, with Nadine aiding her.
“Well, well,” called Sonia as Tess ducked under her awning. “So you survived that, did you?”
“Damned arrogant bastard,” said Tess, bending to give Sonia a kiss. “It’s good to be back.”
Sonia chuckled. “You should have greeted him first, Tess.”
“I can’t believe you say that, Sonia. Of all people.”
Sonia grinned. “Oh, not for his sake, or even his dignity, Tess. You must think of the rest of us, although I trust he'll be in a better humor when he wakes.”
“He ought to be. Where are the children?”
“I sent them off to the Sakhalin celebration.”
“Aren’t you going yourself?”
“Mother warned me that I mustn’t defer to Mother Sakhalin too much.”
“Oho,” said Tess, “very clever, then, to send the children but not yourself. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to return to my brother.”
“I hear that Anatoly Sakhalin has fallen in love with one of the actors,” said Sonia. “Perhaps you’ll look her over for me.”
Tess shrugged. “I don’t know who you mean.”
“Yes, you do,” said Nadine suddenly. “The one who fainted. Well timed, you know, from a tactical point of view.”
“Good Lord. What would Anatoly Sakhalin want with a khaja wife, anyway?”
Both Sonia and Nadine laughed. “My dearest Tess,” said Sonia with a grin, “he wants to be like Ilya, of course.”
“Gods.” Feeling that this expressed everything that was left to express, Tess took her leave and walked back through camp to her brother’s enclave.
Here it was not quiet. Coming up on the two sets of tents pitched just beyond the army, Tess recognized with a shock the life of a society that was at once familiar and distant to her, after four years on Rhui. Day and night were equal to these people. Even though here they had to rely on lantern light, still they did not put aside their activities with the sunset and begin again with sunrise. She paused in the gloom outside the ring of light, watching.
Under Charles’s awning sat Charles and Cara and David—those three she knew from before. Maggie sat with them, and a handful of others she had not met. As she watched, a trio walked in from the side, laughing and talking in voices trained to carry: a few of the actors, evidently. Tess marked out Diana, the young golden-haired actress; she was pretty, of course, but more than that, she seemed to carry light with her wherever she went. Rather like Ilya, however ironic that might be, except that Diana shone with sweetness and a fine, generous spirit, not with stark power.
Tess felt a presence move at her back and she turned to see a man approaching her. He was tall and bulky—not fat, not at all, but much bigger than jaran men.
He halted beside her, crossing his arms on his chest. “The Tess I knew wouldn’t have spotted me coming.”
“Hello, Marco. I didn’t get a chance to greet you properly, before. I wanted to thank you for your letter.” She chuckled. “How long ago that seems. ‘Your dear old uncle Marco,’ indeed. I always thought you didn’t much like children.”
“I never know what to do with them,” he replied curtly. She glanced at him, curious, but he was looking at the group under the awning. He was looking at Diana. “Is it true that you’re married to him?” he asked without taking his eyes from the young actress.
“Yes, it’s true. Didn’t Charles tell you?”
“He didn’t tell anyone, but I guessed, and he didn’t deny it. Cara only found out five days ago, because she read the letter you wrote to Charles.”
“Of course. He wouldn’t want the Chapalii to know, since by their laws a female upon marriage takes her husband’s status. And since Rhui has no intelligent life, by Chapalii measure, that would mean I had descended to the level of horses and wolves. That’s why Charles told them the fiction that I’m out here doing linguistics research, isn’t it?”
Now Marco turned to look at her. “Tess, didn’t you know that according to the Chapalii Protocol Office, you’re dead?”
She laughed, short and surprised, put her hand to her throat, and lowered it again. “Am I, really? But then—?”
“Then what? Charles did not protest the announcement, so in fact you’re officially dead and only a few of his intimates and now, of course, the Bharentous Company, know the truth.”
“But, Marco—” She felt a surge of hope and lifted her cold hands to suddenly hot cheeks. “That means he’s free to adopt. He’s not bound to our blood tie any longer, and he can adopt someone else as his Chapalii heir.” It was like a cord bound around her heart had been cut through, freeing her. “That means he doesn’t need me anymore.”
“I wish it was that easy. The cylinder from the Morava site is a priceless piece of information for our side, Tess, but it’s configured awkwardly and we’ve got to have the parameters of the system installed at Morava in order to get at its deep structure. Those damned chameleons don’t have any standard programs. It’s all in the interrelationship of systems. If Rajiv can’t crack it, then we’ll have to bring in one of the Keinaba experts.”
“Keinaba? You mean the Chapalii merchant house? How can you bring them in here, or to Morava?”
“They’re Charles’s now. They transferred their house pledge to him. It’s all proper and affirmed by the emperor himself. It’s a long story, anyway.”
“What does that have to do with his adopting a new heir?”
“He’s holding you in reserve, Tess. You’re the ace up his sleeve. Charles didn’t make the proclamation that you were dead. Another Chapalii duke did.”
“Oh, hell. Charles is jumping feet first into court intrigue, isn’t he? If he needs to discredit this other duke, then he’ll produce me, and—there you are—public shame. The Tai-en will have to leave court and perhaps even be stripped of his title.”
Marco shook his head. “Tess, you amaze me. You speak their language better than any human I know, and you seem to understand how they work. Don’t you see that Charles can’t afford to lose you?”
“Lose me, or my expertise?”
“There’s no difference.”
She stared at the gathering under the awning, at these outlandish alien beings, large of limb and clothed in gaudy, foreign clothing. They laughed, and the pitch of their voices as they spoke was strange to her, producing exotic sounds and disorienting syllables. Then she realized that they were speaking Anglais and that she could understand them perfectly well.
“Marco,” she demanded, “why are you talking to me in Rhuian?”
“I didn’t want to startle you. Do you want to go in now?”
“No. But I will anyway.”
“Lamb to the slaughter,” said Marco in Anglais.
Tess snorted in disgust and walked in. Charles noted her immediately, of course, and stood up. Formally, he introduced her to Rajiv and Joanna and Ursula, and Maggie introduced her to the two other actors, Gwyn Jones and Hal Bharentous. A moment later, Tess realized that Marco had not followed her in. She glanced out into the darkness, but could not see him, lurking or otherwise. She sat down on a camp stool and wondered what in hell she was going to say to these people.
“You’re looking well, Tess.” David sat down beside her. He smiled, awkward, and Tess was so thankful for the sight of a familiar and unthreatening face that she smiled warmly back at him. “You’re looking very—” He hesitated. “Very well. Very different.”
“Thank you, David. It’s been a long time. You’re looking well yourself. Lord, it sounds strange to hear myself speaking Anglais after all this time.”
“How do you like it out here?”
He was kind, really, to make this kind of small talk, to try to set her at ease. But David had always been kind, and Tess recalled his sojourn at Prague, their six-months-long love affair with fondness for what he had given her: confidence that she was attractive in and of herself. Without him, she might have spent her whole life believing that any least bit of attention paid her was only on account of Charles. He had recalled her to the self-respect she’d had as a child; for that, she would always be grateful to him.
“…and how did you get that scar?” David asked and, daringly, lifted a hand to touch her cheek. Tess had a sudden, vivid memory of the time they’d taken one of the ducal shuttles into Earth orbit and tried to make love in freefall. He met her gaze and she knew, immediately, that they were thinking the same thing. They both laughed.
“Sojourner warned us, didn’t she?” Tess said. “But we refused to follow her instructions. How is she, anyway? Do you know?”
“She’s doing very well. Handfasted to an aspiring young diplomat named Rene Marcus Oljaitu. After she finished her dissertation two years ago, she talked Charles into letting her and Rene apprentice to the Keinaba house.”
“Well. Good for Sojourner. Firsthand xeno experience, and they’ll be the first humans placed directly inside a Chapalii house, even if it is only a merchant house.”
“Don’t underestimate the Keinaba, Tess.” Charles placed a stool beside her and sat down. “They’re one of the richest merchant houses in the Empire.”
“But, Tess,” said David, “you never did tell me how you got that scar. In a battle?”
Others stood around them. Of course, she was the curiosity of this little gathering, the center, the focus. They’d had each other on the long journey, and now they had her. “No, it’s—” She hesitated. How to tell them: it’s what the men do when they marry their wives? Thrust in among her own people, she recalled her own reaction when she first found out about the mark of marriage. It was barbaric. It was mutilation.
What would they think of her, knowing that she had allowed herself to be mutilated? What did they think of her in any case, sitting here with her jaran clothes and her long hair braided in jaran style, looking quite jaran, except for her brown hair and green eyes and her unusual height, for a woman? Like an actor, desperately trying to live a role not meant for her.
“It’s nothing,” she said finally. Charles was looking at her approvingly. What did he think? That she knew better then to jeopardize his position, and her own, by revealing a marriage that would ruin her status within the Empire and perhaps cause him to face ridicule and shame? Shame, which was fatal. Or could he even imagine what the scar represented? That she had marked—mutilated—her own husband, quite against jaran custom, in return?
She didn’t belong with these people anymore, these people from her impossibly distant past.
“May I please?” Maggie dislodged David from his seat. “Tess, look at this.” She handed Tess a flat rectangle, smooth of surface, curved at its edge. “I took the abstract you wrote for Charles and applied a rather primitive translation program to it. For khush, you know.”
Tess stared at the computer slate in her hand. An illegal slate, brought downside, brought with the party. Of course Charles did not fear Ilya. He must have weapons with him, just as Cha Ishii and his Chapalii party had hidden weapons with them, four years ago, when they had made their illicit journey together across the plains with Bakhtiian and his jahar.
Then a word caught her eye. “That’s wrong.” She tapped a few keys, and found the program structure, and recoded a few lines. “No, it’s fine, Maggie, but you’re right, it’s a primitive program for this kind of translation work. And the abstract I sent to Charles was limited in and of itself, since I had to hand-write it. And it was a preliminary draft, in any case, and very rough.”
“Here, my dear.” Cara Hierakis leaned in and offered Tess a cup half-filled with some dark liquid. “I brought a good supply of Scotch with me. Will you have some?”
“Scotch?” Oh yes, Scotch.
“I suppose,” said Ursula, drifting by on the edge of the conversation, “that they drink fermented mare’s milk out here.”
Tess blinked. “At festivals. How did you know? They call it—” She took a sip of the scotch, made a face, and huddled back over the computer slate, seduced by its promise. “Oh, if I only had a modeler, I could compile a full translation model in all media, networked through…Hell, through Rhuian, Anglais—not Chapaliian, of course, the Protocol Office doesn’t let you interlink Chapaliian—Ophiuchi-Sei.”
“But we do have a modeler with us,” said Maggie.
“You do! This is wonderful!” At that moment, Tess glanced up to see that everyone was beaming at her in relief, as if they had only now been reassured that the poor misguided thing had been rescued from the barbarians intact.
At that moment, Tess decided to get drunk.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
THAT CHARLES SEEMED WILLING to sit by and watch his sister drink herself into oblivion appalled David. There she sat, the center of attention, tossing off the Scotch as if it were water. What drove her he did not know, but he recognized well enough the desperation the action stemmed from.
He sidled over to Diana, who was talking to Jo Singh and Rajiv on the outskirts of the group. She glanced his way, excused herself, and met him on the edge of the carpet.
“Diana, you seem skilled at creating diversions—”
She looked past his shoulder at Tess. Tess was laughing at something Cara had said even while her hand groped for her cup again. “I can see that an exit is called for.”
“Bless you, Diana. Did anyone ever tell you that you’re a angel?” She flushed abruptly and, to his surprise, looked embarrassed and unhappy. “I’m sorry. My stupid tongue.”
“No, it’s not your fault. But David, she looked so marvelous riding in on that horse, so…so competent and adventurous and confident. Did you hear the way she lit into Maggie’s program? Nicely, of course, but it’s clear she's brilliant with languages.”
David chuckled. “The Rhuian complex we all learned from was written by her at the age of twenty-one.”
Diana’s eyes widened. “Is that true? I’ve never learned a language faster than through that matrix. It made the connections so obvious. But then why is she—” She hesitated, and David could see that she very much wanted not to say anything negative about Tess Soerensen. He glanced back to see Tess shift on her stool and almost overbalance and fall off. Cara steadied her and shot Charles a meaningful glance, but Soerensen ignored her.
“I don’t know. But I remember when I won top honors from middle college and the accelerated slot to apply to the Tokyo School of Engineering—which is the most competitive, the best of the best—and they threw a big party for me at my village. I felt like a fraud, because I hadn’t worked as hard as the other kids in my region and the ones at Yaounde College. All their praise sounded cheap because I knew the truth even if they didn’t. So I got drunk.”
“That’s funny. I got admitted on my first audition at nineteen to the Royal Shakespeare Academy in London.”
“That’s young, isn’t it?”
“Very young, these days, and I always felt guilty about it. Some people accused me of having connections, but I didn’t. But then, I never wanted to do anything but theater, and lots of them had already spent time in the holos. Still.” Diana considered the party under the awning. A clot of actors had invaded, and since at least three of them—Hyacinth, Anahita, and Jean-Pierre—were already drunk, Tess did not stand out so painfully.
“Oh, I don’t mean to say that she feels like a fraud, or feels guilty, but that she feels something, and that it’s driving her to this. If you can—”
“Pull focus off of her, that’
s what you want, of course.”
“Yes, that sounds right. Then I’ll ease her out and take her back to wherever it is she sleeps.”
Diana sighed. “I wonder what her life is like, with the jaran.”
David snorted. “Dirty, cold, and harsh. Don’t get any wishful illusions here.”
“They don’t seem so barbaric to me.”
“After what we’ve seen? The wounded? And Bakhtiian executing that man for rape?” David gazed out at the camp beyond, at the tents and the occasional fire, stretching out so far on either side that he could not see the end of it. He had good night vision and as he stared, he saw a single figure crouched in the gap between Soerensen’s enclave and the jaran camp, watching them. He felt cold up and down his back and then shook his head, impatient. Of course they would watch Soerensen’s camp. Why shouldn’t they?
“It’s all right.” Diana laid a hand on his elbow, a brief warmth, and removed it again. “I’ll go. Do your part, but you’ll have to be quick. What I have in mind won’t last long.”
She eased back into the throng and before David realized what she was about, she had started a loud argument with Anahita about somebody named Grusha. Anahita at any time was a formidable presence. Drunk, she was uninhibited, and David marveled as Diana applied just the right words to manipulate Anahita into dragging Charles into the argument.
David circled around and came up to Tess from behind. Cara still stood there, hovering like a protective mother. When she saw David she looked relieved. He put his hands on Tess’s shoulders.
“Come on, Tess,” he said in a low voice. “Time to go home.” Cara helped him lift her up and steer her out from under the awning and into the covering darkness between the two large tents. Tess stumbled on the level ground and swore in a foreign language.
“You’re drunk,” said David.
“I know,” she said.
“Let me help you back to your—to wherever you sleep.”