by Kate Elliott
Then, ignoring the unsettled problem lingering in their midst, the riders greeted each other. Arina dismounted and went to hug a brown-haired woman—yes, it was indeed Bakhtiian’s khaja wife. She, too, was one of the rare people Vasil would never forget: he was not sure whether he hated or loved her more for what she was to Ilya. Tess. She walked across to Kirill and smiled up at Zvertkov.
“She loves him,” said Vasil under his breath, and he glanced over to see what Bakhtiian made of this greeting. But Ilya was sitting stock still, moving only with a twitch of his hands here, and here, to keep his restive stallion from walking forward. He was staring at the sky. Otherwise, the movement as the two parties greeted each other excluded him, although he was its center.
“Vasil,” said Anton mildly, “Tess Soerensen loves many men, and women as well. She has a generous heart. If you try to stir up trouble there, I think you’ll find trouble, but only for yourself.”
“I’m only surprised that anyone, loving Bakhtiian, could find room in his heart to love another.”
“Ah,” said Anton. “As well you might be. If you will excuse me.” He reined his horse away to go greet Niko Sibirin.
Vasil cursed under his breath, aware that he had just given himself away. Beside him, Tess Soerensen reached her arms up to take little Mira Veselov down from the saddle, and she turned to look up at Vasil. Behind her, Bakhtiian had shifted his attention to his wife, and his expression, fixed on her with the child in her arms, was painfully naked: no man ought to reveal himself so, not in public, at least.
“Well, Vasil,” said Tess. “How like you to come along when you’re least expected.”
“And least wanted?”
Tess smiled, not entirely kindly. “How is your wife?”
Vasil flushed. “Karolla is well. As are the children. Arina was very kind to them.”
“Yes, Arina has indeed been kind to them. But I must say I’ve always thought Karolla deserving of kindness.”
“I have always been kind to her,” retorted Vasil, stung by this accusation.
“I am sure you have been. But I can’t imagine it was kind to desert her for so long.”
“I didn’t—” He stopped himself, and then laughed at her expression. “You’re cruel as well as clever, Tess. How I’ve missed you.”
Tess’s entire face lit up with amusement, and she laughed. “Have you, indeed?”
“Tess!” Bakhtiian had reined his stallion two lengths closer to them, and his expression lowered to fury once again. “The child.” Jealous! Ilya was jealous of him for gaining Tess’s attention.
Tess swallowed the last of her laughter and carried the child over to her husband. Surprisingly, Mira was not afraid of this grim-faced man in the least. The little girl reached right up to him. Ilya plucked her out of Tess’s arms and settled her in the saddle before him, and shot a glance toward Vasil that was filled with such venom that Vasil was immensely heartened.
“Zvertkov.” The tone was stiff, but Kirill rode over to Bakhtiian quite cheerfully. “Have you any riders ready for the army?”
“Yes. A whole troop that I recommend you fit entire into one of the commands. They’ve worked quite well together—boys who came to me three years past, who’ve grown up here, and two girls.”
“Two?”
“One fights well enough.” Kirill winked down at Tess. “As well as Tess, I must say.”
Vasil saw how Ilya frowned at this comment, how a certain indefinable tension settled around his shoulders, yet Zvertkov seemed immune to it. “And the other?”
“Well, not every man has the gift for fighting, so why should every woman? She’ll not get herself into trouble, and she wants nothing else but to ride. Has nothing else. She was with Mikhailov.” Kirill glanced back at Vasil and then away. “Also, Veselov brought men with him.”
Bakhtiian’s gaze jerked to Vasil and then wrenched away. “How many?” He halted, seemed to inhale resolve like air, and turned to hail Arina. “I will end this now,” he said. “Mother Veselov. And you. Why have you come back, Vasil?”
As if it were warmth, Vasil basked in the intensity of Ilya’s regard, let it flow over him and envelop him. “My father is dead. I am dyan by right.”
“I do not approve it.”
“Whether you approve it or not,” said Vasil lightly, “it is not your decision to make.”
“Is it not? Anton, come here. Arina, are you determined to allow this man back into your tribe?”
Arina bowed her head. “Even though you disapprove, Bakhtiian, I will allow him back. For his wife’s sake. She has suffered enough.”
“Even if I ask you to forbid him?”
Her voice was even, and calm. “Even so.”
“Very well. I cannot interfere in your decisions. But he will not be a dyan in my army, whether your tribe elects him or not.”
“I refuse the command,” said Anton. “I bow to the greater wisdom of the gods.”
“And in many tribes it would be wrong. But not here. You are my choice, Anton.”
Anton, too, bowed his head before Bakhtiian’s wrath, but his voice remained mild. “Nevertheless, I refuse.”
“As do I,” said Arina.
Well, there was no argument against that. Ilya sighed and settled back, and Mira reached up to rub her fingers along his trim beard. His expression altered instantly and he smiled at the little girl. “So be it. Kirill, I leave it to you to split up the men he brought with him into other jahars. No two together.”
“No!” Vasil started forward and then reined his horse back sharply, coming close to trampling his own cousins. He was furious. “They are my men. They have been loyal to me for three years now.”
Bakhtiian smiled coldly. “Exactly. Now they will learn to be loyal to me. As is the rest of this army, Veselov, a fact you had best learn quickly. Now, if you will excuse me.” He gave little Mira a kiss on the cheek and handed her back to her father. “Tess. Niko.” He gathered his party back together swiftly and with the single-minded purpose characteristic of him. He did not look toward Vasil again, and they rode away, back toward the army streaming past on the plains below.
Arina mounted. So did Anton. With a lift of her chin, Arina signaled something unspoken but understood to her husband, and Kirill took the rest of the party aside, leaving the cousins together.
“Vasil,” Arina started, and lapsed into silence.
“You have honored me with your trust,” Vasil began. “I will never betray you.”
Anton sighed. “Won’t you, Vasil? I almost believe you.”
Arina looked out at the party of riders approaching the army beyond. “Vasil.” Her expression was pained but hopeful. “I was too young, really, to know much of what went on…before…between you and Bakhtiian. But you must see that whatever power you may have had over him, whatever feelings he may once have had—well, this isn’t anything that ought to be spoken of, as you well know.”
“Do go on,” said Vasil softly.
“The past is gone, Vasil. You can’t recapture it.” Anton, too, stared out at the army. “Look at that, out there, and you can see. We have another destiny now. Don’t try to interfere with it. We can only protect you so far. Beyond that—”
“Beyond that, Vasil,” said Arina firmly, sounding very much the etsana, “Bakhtiian will not hesitate to kill you if you make him angry again. That he has not done so now is only because of his respect for Anton and me. Do you understand?”
“I understand.”
“Good. Then come, Anton. Vasil. We have much to do.”
She rode away, and Anton followed her. But Vasil lingered, watching as Bakhtiian’s party mingled in with the vanguard of Bakhtiian’s army. “I understand very well,” he said to himself. “I understand that Ilya is afraid of me. And that gives me hope.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
“NO,” SAID OWEN. “I WANT more curve in the arms. Both arms. Higher. The gesture represents exultation with yet a hint of supplication. There. Hold that.”
; Diana thought her arms were going to drop off. She could not keep her mind on the rehearsal. Endless hours jolting along in the back of the wagons as the army moved south, and then not even the comfort of any company that she craved at the end. She was surprised, each evening, at how bitterly she missed Anatoly. She was sick of the company of the other actors, except for Gwyn, but he was usually off watching the natives. He was learning khush quickly, and making himself known and liked, and slowly but surely he incorporated bits of gesture, bits of speech, asides into his acting that blended with Owen’s vision and yet always, in their impromptu and brief performances every evening, got the most reaction from the audience that gathered to watch them.
“Now, the expression. That’s good, but more of a blankness, Diana.”
“That shouldn’t be hard,” said Anahita in a stage whisper. Hyacinth giggled.
“Smooth the lines of the mouth.” As always, Owen worked on, ignoring the comment. Perhaps he didn’t even hear it. He fell so far into his work that Diana wondered if he ever thought or talked about anything else, but she had never had the nerve to ask Ginny if that was so.
“You’re not with me, Diana,” he added chidingly. She hurriedly fixed her thoughts on her mouth, on the droop of her eyelids, on the exact tilt of her chin, and on her arms, lifting toward the heavens.
“Yes! Now hold it.”
Her heart bounded, uplifted by his single word of praise. It was for this, and for those moments when the ensemble work went seamlessly, when the house was gripped by the spell and the barriers between audience and players dissolved completely, that Diana worked and lived.
“Gwyn, enter. Good, but I want more movement in the shoulders. Yes, there’s the gesture.”
Since Diana still faced forward with her eyes lifted toward the cloudy sky, she could not watch Gwyn go into his mie. Drops of rain wet her face. Anahita sneezed and began to complain about staying out in such bad weather. If Owen noticed the onset of the drizzle, he gave no sign of it. Diana’s arms ached. She shifted her gaze down from the thick clouds to her fingers, and set about memorizing the exact angle and line of each individual digit. Ten of them, one for each day they had been traveling. One for each day since her husband—the word was less strange now than it had been before—had left her.
“Phillippe,” said Owen, “the drum beats. Wind demons, your entrance.”
The rain fell in double time to the drumbeats. Diana stood so still that she could practically feel each point, each moment, that a drop of rain struck her bare skin. Hyacinth and Quinn, the wind demons, prowled about her and Gwyn, moving in a sinuous, threatening line.
Owen clapped his hands together twice. “Break.”
Yomi said, “You have one hour. Meet back here.”
“Yomi, we’ll need light. Joseph, can you rig an awning over the stage?” Owen fell into an intense conversation with Joseph about shifting the placement of the various tents.
Diana shook out her arms and hopped down from the platform. At the edge of the encampment, about forty children had clustered together to watch the rehearsal. Now that it was over, they raced away into the jaran camp. Late afternoon faded toward dusk.
“I don’t want to attempt Tamburlaine yet,” Owen was saying to Ginny and Yomi. “We can’t know if it will offend.”
“And Marlowe is so damn talky,” said Ginny, “especially if you don’t know the language. Certainly the verbiage will lose a great deal in the translation.”
“I’m thinking Caucasian Chalk Circle. But after we present the folktale.”
“Owen,” broke in Anahita, who like the rest of the actors had been eavesdropping, “you can’t expect us to put up something this new on so little rehearsal?”
“Of course I can. If you wanted safety, Anahita, then why did you come on this trip? I asked Tess Soerensen specifically for a jaran folktale that we might render into a gest and so make it clear to our audience what we mean by our acting. I am still of two minds about the performance of Dream. Did it indeed connect? Or were they simply being polite and curious? Certainly they were closest to us for the epilogue, when we drew the parallel from the play into the actual wedding and thus linked the two. But it’s by no means clear to me yet even with our impromptus and scenes that they understand what we mean to convey with our craft. What we do here is rather more ephemeral, it seems to me, than their epic singers, who perform a tale over and over again in the same fashion.”
“Do you really think it’s that different?” asked Gwyn. “Or just different because it’s not a medium they communicate by? Anyway, once rehearsal is over, we perform a play the same way every night. That’s no different than their epic tales. I like it when we take chances, like this folktale.”
“Owen,” said Ginny, “I’ll finish the cuts on Caucasian this evening and then you can see how much physical business you want to substitute for what’s left.”
“I don’t see why we’re doing Caucasian,” said Anahita, making a great physical business of showing her disgust with an overblown sigh and a toss of her curly black hair.
Gwyn winked at Diana.
“The deeply rooted feelings of mother and child, Anahita,” said Owen. “Surely that will connect. Now, Yomi, about the—”
“I’ve got dinner for anybody who wants it,” said Joseph, pitching his voice to carry over Owen’s. “Hal and Oriana, could you hurry it up and then help me rig this awning?”
The company dispersed. Ginny dragged Owen along toward the big tent, where the food was, although she did not attempt to interrupt his conversation with Yomi. Diana lingered. She rubbed her hands over her arms to dispel the last of the ache but mostly to warm herself. The army had marched into the hills here, and the elevation brought cold nights.
Gwyn appeared beside her. "”Going out?” he asked softly.
“Do you know,” she said suddenly, “that of everyone I know, Gwyn, I admire you the most. You accomplish what I’ve always wanted to accomplish in acting. You present the part without any self-consciousness—not that you become it, but that you play it so seamlessly. It’s because your ego is involved with the process itself, with how well you act to your own satisfaction, to the achievement of that communication, and not with how well and how much people think of you, and if they give you enough attention and praise and adulation.”
He chuckled. “Thank you. If I’d only wanted adulation, I could have stayed in the interactives. I got enough of that there to last me a lifetime. I’m not interested in being noticed or lionized.” Then he smiled again, an almost wolfish grin. “Only in being the best. But don’t tell anyone I confessed that to you.”
“You’re not afraid to take risks.”
“Neither are you, Diana. Don’t ever lose that quality. Once a person stops pushing and growing, she is as dead in the spirit as if she were dead in the flesh.”
Diana smiled in return, but pensively. “I thought I might—I was introduced by Sonia Orzhekov to the family that has agreed to act as my—well, as my and Anatoly’s foster jaran family, I suppose we would say. Although it’s a strange thought, having three families.” When Gwyn looked puzzled, she explained. “My family at home, the Company, and now Anatoly and whatever my marriage to him has brought me. But I thought I might go there now. They said I was welcome any time.”
“Do you think I might go with you? Or is it forbidden for married women to walk about with men who aren’t their relatives?”
“I thought you were going to say, with unmarried men. Are you married?” She began to walk, out into the jaran camp. He walked beside her. “Or am I allowed to ask that question?”
He considered for a moment, serious. “You’re allowed,” he said finally. “In fact, I am married.”
She felt her mouth gape open, and shut it as quickly. “But then Anahita was telling the truth when she said—”
“Anahita!” Gwyn laughed. “I don’t think so. No, the woman I’m married to is someone altogether different.”
Diana wanted to ask
more, but his tone did not encourage questions. “Well, we’ll tell them you’re my cousin. Which you are, in a manner of speaking, in the craft. Their camp is in the third circle out from the center, to the northwest.”
“Ah, then you’ve identified the pattern. It’s interesting that they pitch their camp in exactly the same layout, by tribe and family, every time they set up camp.”
“It does make it possible to find your way around. Of course, the main army must be way ahead of us by now. There aren’t that many men around.”
“Once there’s a battle, there will be more.”
Diana shuddered. “Here, Gwyn, teach me some more khush words. It’s terrible trying to learn a language without a matrix. It’s so slow.”
“I can’t say that I know many more words than you do, Diana. But here: Tent. Horse. Girl. Boy. Except that I’m still trying to work out the familial terms. They seem to have a lot more of them, and more specific ones, than we do. And more terms defining a woman and what stage of life she is at than for a man. There’s a boy, an adolescent, and then I can’t tell whether the shift to ‘man’ is defined by a man’s getting married or becoming a fighter. Then when he’s too old to fight, he becomes an Elder. If he lives that long.”
“And for a female?”
“I haven’t worked that out yet, but I think puberty, marriage, childbirth, first grandchild, and menopause all define shifts in a woman’s status. But I’m really only guessing. It’s easier for me to learn about the men.”
“Do you like to travel?” she asked suddenly.
“Yes.”
“I do, for now. But I can see that I’ll get tired of it. Packing up every day and going on at this pace is bound to pall eventually.”
“We’re moving pretty fast, for a group of this size. I can’t begin to count the number of wagons, much less the people involved. How do they feed themselves?”
“You haven’t seen all those dirty animals being herded alongside? I suppose once you conquer a country, you can expect it to feed you. I don’t know. How they get along on a daily basis at all mystifies me. Look, there’s the camp.” She hesitated at the farthest rim of the circle of tents, peering into the camp to see if she could recognize anyone. A woman rose from beside the campfire and came to greet them.