The Novels of the Jaran

by Kate Elliott

  “And you make the most wonderful bread, Joseph.” Diana propped her chin on her fists and stared at the canvas wall. The filaments that led up to the solar strips sewn into the ceiling blended into the canvas fabric, lending the barest sheen to the fabric if the light struck it right. “I hate being confined to camp like this.”

  “It’s a good lesson,” said Joseph thoughtfully.

  “What is?”

  “Well, marriage, a legal or spiritual partnership of whatever kind, is restrictive in that you must think of another person and not only of yourself and your desires. You are no longer as free as you once were, responsible only for yourself. Not that I think that that’s necessarily the meaning these people give this custom of seclusion—I wouldn’t presume to know that—but it’s one lesson to be gained, nevertheless. Is there someone outside?” He ducked his head out the flap and then turned back to look at Diana, a quizzical look on his face. “I believe they’ve come to see you.”

  He disappeared outside, and Diana heard a brief exchange. She stood up. Joseph reappeared. “Go on,” he said. Then he smiled. “And good luck.”

  “You don’t think I’m a fool?” she asked, because Joseph and Yomi were the rock on which the company was laid, the solid foundation that held everything together, and she trusted their judgment.

  “We’re all fools sometimes,” said Joseph cheerfully. “But foolishness is one of the saving graces of our lives. Go on. I can’t have them in here. The bread’s about to come out.”

  She pushed past the entrance flap and blinked to adjust to the sunlight. Sonia Orzhekov and Anatoly’s grandmother waited for her outside. Elizaveta Sakhalin was a tiny woman, quite old, but Diana felt cowed by her presence nevertheless.

  Sonia smiled graciously and took Diana’s hands in hers. “I hope you will allow us to have a talk with you.”

  “Of course.” Diana dared not refuse. She felt like a giant, towering over Sakhalin, and yet she felt as well at a complete disadvantage.

  “Will you come with us, then?” Sonia asked, with a kind smile. “We discovered that you have no tent of your own, so we took the liberty of bringing one with us, which we set up out here.”

  “Out here” lay just beyond the Company’s encampment and not quite within the jaran encampment. “That’s very diplomatic,” said Diana, seeing that the colorful tent was sited to belong to both camps, and yet to neither—the meeting of two independent tribes. “And generous, too. It’s a beautiful tent.” Which it was, striped in four colors on the walls. The entrance flap bore a pattern of beasts intermingled, twined together.

  “You must thank Mother Sakhalin,” said Sonia. “She has gifted you the tent. Here, now, come inside. We sent Anatoly out of camp for the day, knowing we would bring you here, but you really ought to be inside until sunset.” Sonia pulled the tent flap aside and gestured for Diana to precede her. Diana hesitated, and then motioned to Sakhalin to go in first. That brought the first softening of the old woman’s features, but the smile was brief. She ducked inside, and Diana followed her. There was room to stand up, but barely, and the walls sloped steeply down from the center. Sonia came in last. She showed Diana how to sit on the large pillows that covered half the rug that made up the floor of the tent.

  “I spoke to Mother Yomi,” said Sonia as she, too, sank down onto a pillow. “She agreed that you might wait out the rest of the day in seclusion here, as is fitting. She said some preparations were necessary for your performance tonight, but one of the other women of your Company will come by to help you.”

  “Thank you,” said Diana, aware that Elizaveta Sakhalin was studying her with a frown on her face. “I…I hope that you will tell me anything I need to know, about… about…”

  Sonia grinned. Her eyes lit, a trifle mischievously, perhaps, and Diana felt suddenly that here she had an ally, not an enemy. “As for what to do with Anatoly, I think you need no instruction from me.” Diana flushed and twisted her bracelet around her wrist. “As for the rest—well—first Mother Sakhalin wishes to ask you a few questions.” She spoke a few words in khush to Sakhalin, and then the grilling began.

  Elizaveta Sakhalin wished to know about Diana's family. Were they important? Wealthy? Had they any skills to pass on to her new husband’s family? Did they own horses? How many tents made up the family? Only after Diana had stumbled through this inquisition, scrambling to answer the questions truthfully without revealing anything about where she really came from, did Sakhalin’s questions narrow in on Diana herself. Did she have any particular skills to bring to the marriage? Any marriage goods? What was an actor? Was it like a Singer?

  In fact, it was clear that Elizaveta Sakhalin thought her grandson was marrying beneath himself, that he had fallen in love with a pretty face, marked Diana on a whim, and now was going to marry a woman who had nothing but her looks and her curious status as an actor to recommend her. And she had nothing. Diana stared at her hands as silence descended, and she realized it was true. To these people, she had no knowledge and no skills that made a woman valuable, and no family except the Company, here.

  “Well,” said Sonia apologetically, “Tess came from an important family in her own right. You mustn’t mind Mother Sakhalin’s disappointment, Diana. You must understand that the Sakhalin tribe is the Eldest of all jaran tribes, and she the headwoman of that tribe, so of course—”

  “So of course she expected her grandson to marry a woman of higher rank,” said Diana bitterly. If only they knew what an honor it had been for Diana to be accepted into the Bharentous Repertory Company, or how many actors she had beaten out for the place. It was absurd; millions of people knew her name, millions had seen her perform, on stage or watching through holo links, and this old woman, this barbarian of a tribe that didn’t even know the rest of the universe existed, thought she wasn’t good enough to marry her grandson.

  “Diana,” said Sonia firmly, taking one of Diana’s hands in her own, “I understand that actors are Singers, that they are gifted by the gods with their art. But Mother Sakhalin believes that jaran Singers are the only true Singers—that can’t be helped. Most jaran care nothing for khaja ways, and why should they? But I can see that you are a woman who thinks well of herself and has a position she is proud of. I have been in khaja lands, and I know you are a Singer. Still, you are not in your land now, and Mother Sakhalin is worried about her grandson. Who is, I might add—” She shifted her head so that she could wink at Diana without Sakhalin seeing, “—since she can’t understand me, her favorite grandchild. Make him happy, and she will come to love you.”

  A rush of gratitude overwhelmed Diana. Impulsively, she reached out and took Sonia’s other hand in hers. “I thought you came to try to talk me out of the marriage.”

  Sonia looked puzzled. “It is Anatoly’s choice, and while I might think that choice was rash, I cannot now interfere. Not even his grandmother can interfere.”

  “I…I thought—” Now she glanced at Mother Sakhalin’s stern face, and then away, because the old woman terrified her. “I thought perhaps Anatoly no longer wanted to marry me. That you came to tell me that. It isn’t—as if we know one another very well. He might have had second thoughts.”

  Sonia laughed and squeezed Diana’s hand reassuringly. “Men never have second thoughts. Anatoly, like most young men who have gotten what they want, has been infuriatingly well-mannered for the past nine days.”

  If the rug had been yanked out from under her feet, Diana could not have felt more unstable. It really was going to happen. “But I don’t know—that is, what is expected of a wife here? What do I do?”

  Sonia sighed and released Diana’s hands. “How like Tess you are. I begin to think you khaja women are hopeless. But perhaps that is because you have servants or slaves to do all the work for you.”

  “We don’t have slaves!” Diana broke off. She could not begin to imagine what these jaran women must do, every day, to keep their families fed and sheltered and clothed and healthy. Her world and the
ir world barely intersected, and in their world, she was as ignorant as a baby. “I hope you will help me understand what things I need to do.” She hadn’t the faintest inkling of what she was getting into.

  Sonia shook her head. “You need a woman of the tribes to help you, to treat you as a sister. I can’t offer, because I have too many responsibilities as it is. But perhaps…” She turned to Sakhalin and the two women had a rapid conversation in khush. Diana could not understand a word they were saying, could not even recognize any of the khush words she had so laboriously learned from the program on Maggie’s slate. “That is settled, then,” said Sonia finally, nodding her head with a satisfied look on her face. Even Sakhalin looked mollified. “The tribes are moving. The main army leaves tomorrow, and our camp moves as well. We will meet up with Arina Veselov and her tribe, and I will ask her to take you in. That will do, I think. You’ll like Arina. I think you must be of an age, you two. She and her husband know Tess well, too, so they will understand about your khaja ways. But you’ll have to learn khush, although I believe Kirill has learned some Rhuian these past three years. Is that acceptable to you, Diana?”

  “To me, yes.” Pitched into this unknown sea, Diana was not sure she could swim. “But I’ll—you’ll—Arina Veselov will have to speak to Owen and Ginny first. I need their permission for any drastic change in my circumstances. I have my duties to the Company.”

  Sonia repeated this speech to Sakhalin, and the old woman voiced her approval of Diana’s deference to her elders. “Mother Sakhalin says that until we meet up with the Veselov tribe, you and Anatoly may consider the Sakhalin camp your own.”

  “But isn’t that his family? Wouldn’t he live there anyway?”

  Sonia cocked her head to one side. She wore her hair in four braids, each bright with ribbons woven in the hair, and her head was capped by a beaded net of gold that hung in strands down to frame her face. “When a man marries, he goes to his wife’s kin to live. Tomorrow, if you wish, you may move your tent into your people’s encampment, and Anatoly will move there as well.”

  Except that inside the encampment lay concealed the forbidden technology that they used every day. “But—”

  “Or you may wait, if you wish, and see what agreement you and Mother Yomi reach with Arina Veselov.” Sonia stood and shook out her skirts and helped Elizaveta Sakhalin to rise. Diana got hastily to her feet and went to hold the entrance flap aside. “If there is any wedding finery that you wish to borrow,” said Sonia, pausing before she left, “let me know.”

  “That much I think we can manage,” said Diana, and then realized how snappish she sounded. “But thank you.” She smiled sincerely at the other woman. Sonia smiled back. Sakhalin did not smile. The two women took their leave.

  Diana let the tent flap fall back into place, leaving her in the gloom of the tent. She sat down, then threw herself out along the pillows, and sighed. What was she doing here, anyway? What did she think she was doing? And here she was, stuck in the tent with nothing to do. Of course, she could walk out any time she wanted. She did not have to go through with the marriage. Everyone said as much; she knew as much. But when it came right down to it, she could not bring herself to hurt Anatoly by publicly repudiating the marriage in such a fashion, not when Sonia had just said that he still desired it. And she absolutely refused to give Marco Burckhardt the satisfaction of knowing that he was right.

  “Diana?” It was Joseph. “I brought some of your things. And a camplight for the tent. And some food.” The tent flap rustled aside and he stuck his head in. “Here you are.”

  “Bless you, Joseph. How kind you are.”

  He grinned. “I’ll send Anahita by later to help you with your makeup and costume.”

  “Monster.” She laughed, feeling suddenly heartened. “Don’t you dare. Go on, you must be busy back at camp.”

  “‘I go, I go; look how I go; Swifter than arrow from the Tartar’s bow.’ Lady knows, I’ve heard that line enough times.” He retreated to her applause.

  She ate a little and then took out her journal and wrote. “My dear Nana, I’m not sure how to explain this to you…”

  Quinn interrupted some time later. “Diana.” She crawled in. “What a gorgeous piece of weaving. Where did you get this? Oh, from his grandmother. My, my. Now there’s a formidable woman, even though she barely comes up to my shoulder. You must have charmed her.”

  “She doesn’t like me.”

  “Surely not.”

  “Well, I don’t know whether she likes me, but she certainly doesn’t approve of me. Did you bring everything?”

  “Mirror. Kit. Gown. Seshat sent baubles, for afterward—after the performance, for whatever they do for a ceremony. She thought you ought to sparkle, even though we don’t have the kind of gold they do. Those women do weight themselves down with it, don’t they?”

  Diana fingered the gold bead necklace that Anatoly had given her. “I suppose it’s a marker of status.” Which she sorely lacked. “Oh, well. Let’s get ready.”

  They were old hands at putting on makeup. That accomplished, they changed into the simple gowns that Joseph had designed to fit the greatest range of plays, using smaller accessories to give them character and place. It was dusk when they emerged from the tent and walked over to the encampment where the others had gathered.

  Yomi counted them off. “In two more minutes, Hyacinth will be late,” she proclaimed. One minute and fifty five seconds later, Hyacinth appeared. He had highlighted his eyes with black pencil and tied various odds and ends—scraps of material, beads, bracelets strung together—to his tunic to lend him an air of being subtly different from the rest, of being a spirit from that parallel world that intersects our own.

  Owen looked them over and nodded, satisfied. “I hope you are ready, because now we see.”

  “Where’s Ginny?”

  “She’s at the house already, helping the audience settle in.”

  They marched, a ragtag troop, through the quiet dusk of the jaran camp. The walk seemed to last forever to Diana, past the dark hulking tents, past smoldering campfires, toward the murmur of voices, toward the people gathered on the ring of empty ground in front of which their stage sat. She caught a glimpse of the audience as they came up behind the screens: a huge mass of bodies, uncountable, waiting for them rather like a predator waits for its prey. She recognized no individual faces; it was too dim for that. The stage was lit by lanterns. One screen without its fabric center had been set on stage, to form a doorway through which the players could pass from one scene, or one world, to the next. No other scenery existed, only the players and what they gave to their audience.

  Yomi called the five minute warning. Gwyn and Anahita shook out their tunics, preparing to enter. Joseph stood ready at stage left with their changes of costume, since they were doubling parts. Owen vanished around the stage to go sit in the house. The play began.

  Diana was aware of the audience only as an intent, listening beast, but the beast was theirs. The force of its concentration was like a pressure on them, faltering here and there when the scene passed its understanding, then snapping back, fixed and tangible.

  Though the night was cool, Gwyn was sweating from the exertion of playing two major roles. But he was magnificent, as always: his Theseus was martial and strong, his Oberon utterly unlike, ethereal and just slightly spiteful. Even the audience could not confuse the two, though they were played by the same man. As for Anahita—well—Diana had always thought she played Hippolyta too stridently and Titania as a hair-brained twit, but she was powerful, nevertheless.

  The lovers fled to another part of the forest. Love became confused, and then was righted at last. The audience did not laugh once, but their attention did not waver. Puck gave his final speech and extinguished half of the lanterns. Exit.

  Dead silence.

  Behind the screens, Diana looked at Hal and Hal looked at Gwyn and Gwyn shrugged. A rustling noise carried to them.

  “They’re all standi
ng up,” said Yomi.

  Gwyn chuckled suddenly. “Who ever said they’d know how to applaud?” he asked. He wiped sweat from his forehead and shook the moisture off his hand.

  Owen appeared, looking intent and excited. “Di, where are you? Come on, come on.”

  “Come on where?” she asked, shrinking back.

  “The rest of you, too, up on the stage—this isn’t a bow, they won’t understand that—but don’t you see? We can cement the link. We can complete the circle in their minds. The masque of a wedding followed by an actual wedding. Come, Diana.”

  “Owen, wait,” said Joseph. With economical skill, he stripped the makeup from Di’s face and then adorned her with the costume jewelry Seshat had brought. “That will do. You may go.”

  Owen grabbed Diana’s wrist and dragged her away, back around the screens. By the time they got to the front, the other actors had filed onto the stage and formed themselves into a neat semicircle. The audience was standing, murmuring now, but Diana saw that their silence, their rise to their feet, was their way of showing respect for what had just been given them. A clot of people stood at the foot of the platform, but only one of them mattered. Her heart began to pound. He stared at her, and he looked nervous, worried even. Owen released her ten paces from Anatoly, and she halted.

  Anatoly wore the brilliant red shirt of the jaran riders, embroidered in a fantastic pattern down the sleeves and along the collar. Gold-studded epaulets shone on his shoulders. Gold braid lined the rim of his black boots. He wore two necklaces at his throat and gold bands on each wrist, and his saber’s hilt glinted in the lantern light. A belt of gold plates girdled his wrist. Then his grandmother stepped forward and addressed a long speech to Owen. It had the cadence of poetry.