by Kate Elliott
“Your presence here is most improper,” snapped Mother Sakhalin.
As if he were in a dream, Vasil took a step forward, then another one, then a third, and he sank down to kneel at the foot of the couch. His agony was palpable in every line of his body.
“He exiled you,” said Mother Sakhalin. Her voice shook with anger. “How dare you walk unannounced and unasked into his presence?”
“Leave him be,” said Tess suddenly, surprising even herself. “Look at him.” In the dim chamber, with his head bowed and his hair gleaming in the lantern light, Vasil looked like an angel, praying for God’s Mercy. She felt his pain like heat, and it soothed her to know that someone else suffered as she suffered.
“I knew,” said Sakhalin in a cold, furiously calm voice, “that the weaver Nadezhda Martov was Bakhtiian’s lover. That she first took him to her bed soon after he returned from Jheds, and that he never refused her when our two tribes came together.” Each word came clear and sharp, bitten off, in the hush of the tent. “Had I not known that, you can be sure that I would have forbidden my nephew to ever give his support to Bakhtiian’s vision. Because of this one.” She said the last two words with revulsion. There was no doubt what she meant by them.
Vasil’s head jerked up. “I did nothing most other boys didn’t try.”
Mother Sakhalin strode across the carpet and cupped her hand back. And slapped him.
The sharp sound shocked Tess out of her stupor. True, and confirmed by Vasil’s words and Mother Sakhalin’s action, what Tess had only suspected. She stared at them, unable to speak.
“An adolescent boy ought to be wild and curious,” replied Sakhalin in a voice both low and threatening. “Then he grows up to become a man. Which is something you never did, Veselov. Your cousin Arina is within her rights as etsana to allow you to remain in the Veselov tribe. But from Bakhtiian’s presence you were long ago banished, and that is as it should be.”
“I did not ask to love him,” said Vasil in a hoarse voice. “The gods made me as I am.”
With her left hand, Mother Sakhalin took hold of his chin and held him there, staring down at him, examining his face and his eyes. “The gods made your body and face beautiful. I have no doubt that your spirit is black and rotting. It is wrong, and it will always be wrong. Go home to your wife.”
She released him. He bowed his head. Tears leaked from his eyes and slid unhindered down his cheeks. He rose and turned to go, slowly, as if the weight on him, compelling him, dragged him both forward and back. And there lay Ilya, perhaps dying, whom he clearly loved.
“Let him stay,” said Tess in a low voice. Her anger welled up from so deep a source that she did not understand it. Vasil froze, but he did not look at her.
Sakhalin’s gaze snapped to Tess. “Do you know, then, that Bakhtiian almost lost everything because of this one? That they said that the reason Bakhtiian never married was because of this one? That the etsanas and dyans were forced to go to Nikolai Sibirin and Irena Orzhekov after the death of Bakhtiian’s family, and to tell them that they could not support a man who acted as if he was married to another man?”
Oh, God, not just that they had been lovers, but that Ilya had loved him in return. “But Ilya sent him away, didn’t he?” Tess asked, feeling oddly detached as she replied, as if one part of her was all rational mind and the other an impenetrable maze of emotions.
“He chose his vision, it is true.”
“Damn him,” muttered Vasil.
“Shut up,” snapped Tess. Vasil’s anger gave her sudden strength. “And he slept with women? That is true, too, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“And the etsanas and dyans did support him. And he did marry.”
“That is also true,” agreed Mother Sakhalin. “For what reason are you assuring me of what we both know to be true?”
Tess lifted a hand and motioned Vasil to go to the corner of the room. He glanced at her, swiftly, and then sidled over to a dark corner, where he almost managed to lose himself in the shadows. As a human soul fades into death.
A shiver ran through Tess, like a blast of cold air, but she forced herself to speak slowly and carefully. “You just told me that a woman like Alyona Orzhekov needed a good husband, one who could rein back her worst impulses, one she could respect, one she would listen to. Isn’t it also true that a man like Bakhtiian needs a good wife—one who can rein back his worst impulses, one he respects, one that he, and others, will listen to?”
Her gaze on Tess held steady. “That is true, and more true yet, I suppose. There hasn’t ever been a man like Bakhtiian among the jaran.”
“Has it not been agreed that I am that wife?”
Her lips quirked up. It was not quite a smile, not quite, but for all her outrage, Mother Sakhalin was amused. “Yes, it has been agreed. Not that the etsanas or Elders had a choice in the matter, but still, it is agreed that he chose wisely.”
“Thank you,” said Tess demurely. “But if that is true, then you must trust me in this. You must trust me to deal with his…affairs in an intelligent and judicious manner.”
“You’re well aware,” said Sakhalin slowly, “of the power you have over our fate.”
“Oh, yes.” Oh, yes. “I’m well aware of that.”
Mother Sakhalin inclined her head, once, with respect, with acceptance. “Then I leave this in your hands. May you judge wisely, and well.” She took her leave.
Silence descended. Wind shuddered against the tent wall. Tess could just barely hear Ilya breathing, a shallow, steady rhythm.
“Why?” Vasil asked, his voice scarcely audible above the bluster of the wind. When she did not answer immediately, he came out of the corner, his face a mask of light and shadow. “It’s true, you know. Everything Mother Sakhalin said was true.”
“I’m not convinced that the truth can ever be that simple.”
“Tess?” That was Sonia, calling from the outer chamber.
“It’s all right.” Then she laughed weakly and sank down to her knees beside Ilya’s couch. “Oh, gods, no it isn’t,” she said, her throat choked up with sudden misery.
Vasil walked over and sank down next to her. He bowed his head. What did it matter who Ilya loved more if Ilya died? And she had killed him. Wasn’t it better that Ilya live no matter what choice he made? No matter what choice he wished to make? And he had to live. He had to live.
Somehow, Vasil’s presence was balm. No matter that she might fear Vasil’s beauty, no matter that the jaran condemned him, still, a link bound the two men. As she thought it, as if Vasil felt her thoughts, he touched her on the hand. She caught in a sob and turned to him and embraced him for what comfort he could give. It was almost like being held by Ilya.
Then she heard footsteps in the outer room, and at once, like conspirators, they broke away from each other. Sonia came in and brought milk for Tess; she cast a skeptical glance toward Vasil and left again. Ilya breathed. The day grew hotter, and the air inside the tent, stuffy. Outside, the wind died down, only to come up again in the early afternoon. Otherwise, nothing changed.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
“DAMN HIM!” SWORE DIANA. The tent collapsed in a heap. She burst into tears.
A moment later Anahita strode by, her dark hair caught up in a loose bun. She adjusted her duffel bag on her shoulder. “Still hasn’t come back, has he?” she asked sweetly. “Do you think he’s going to? Or do you suppose he’s out there looting and raping with the rest of them?”
“Shut up! Leave me alone!”
Anahita smirked at her. Diana knew that in one second more she was going to hit the black-haired woman.
“Do you need help?” asked Gwyn, entering just in time to avert catastrophe. He set down a chest—Joseph’s disguised oven—and surveyed the ruin of the tent. Anahita flounced away.
“These tents just aren’t meant to be taken down by one person, and everyone else is busy…” And Anatoly was gone. Just ridden away sixteen days ago without saying good-bye,
although he had sent a message back to her through his sister, Shura. Diana had not the least idea when he might return, or if he would return at all. She began to cry again.
Gwyn laid a steadying hand on her shoulder. “Now, Di, this won’t avail you anything. Let’s get that tent in order, and load it into the wagons. They don’t wait for anyone, you know.”
Between her sobs, she helped him fold up the tent walls and roll up the carpets and bind the poles together. The sun breasted the horizon and spilled light onto the trampled field of grain on which they had made their night’s camp. On the march, she and Anatoly had done this together every morning, sometimes with one of the Veselov tribe’s children to help out. They had worked out a system: this edge of the carpet to be rolled up first; the lantern to nestle in this corner of the finely carved wooden chest that had been one of the groom gifts from the Sakhalin family; Anatoly to bind up the poles and she to layer and fold up the tent. Then he would ride off, but she could be sure of seeing him once or twice during the day—indeed, Arina Veselov had once commented kindly that Anatoly was a little immodest in his public attentions toward her—and almost always at night.
“Do you think it’s true?” she asked in a small voice. “About the looting and the…the raping?”
Gwyn shrugged. “I’m not about to tell you that war is pretty, Diana, and these last fourteen days we’ve seen how badly this land has been devastated since the news came about Bakhtiian collapsing. Still, they treat their own women with respect. I don’t know.”
Diana wiped her cheeks with the back of her hand, sniffing. “I’m sorry.”
“For what?” Gwyn demanded.
“Why did he just go off that way?” She struggled to stop the tears, and failed. “Oh, I hate this. I just hate this. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I hate this army. I want to go home.”
Gwyn sighed and hugged her, holding her while she sobbed noisily on his shoulder. “It’s been a difficult trip,” he said finally. “I think Owen is the only one not showing signs of wear and tear. It’s especially hard for you.”
“It wasn’t,” she said into the cloth of his tunic. “Not until Anatoly left again. But I wonder sometimes—” She broke off and pushed herself free of Gwyn’s embrace.
“What?”
“I don’t know. Here, if you hand me the tent folded over that way, up on my back like—yes, that’s right—”
“You can carry that?”
“It’s not that far, and it’s more unwieldy than heavy.”
“That’s what I meant.”
They trudged across to the wagons and deposited their burdens in the bed of a wagon, and then returned to fetch the rest of Diana’s things. “I wonder, though,” she said softly as she knelt to pick up the chest where her clothes and his nestled together, “if we really had all day to spend together, if we’d have anything to talk about. Even on the march, before the battle—it was sixty days or more, I think—still, most of what we did together was things.”
“Things?”
“I mean daily things. Setting up the tent. Taking down the tent. Sleeping. Eating. Helping with the chores at the Veselov tribe. Watching the children. I’m not sure we have anything in common.”
“Besides blond hair and handsome faces, you mean?” She made a face at him. He chuckled. “Can’t sharing a life full of daily things be something shared in common?”
“Oh, of course they can. But…” She swung the chest into the wagon and watched as Gwyn hoisted the poles and her carry bag into the bed as well. She piled the pillows on top. “Sometimes I talk about acting, and sometimes he talks about war. We listen politely to the other one, but I don’t care about strategy and how his uncle sent the right flank, or was it the left flank—you know. I don’t think he cares that much about acting. I think he thinks that it’s some kind of mystery he’s not supposed to know the secrets of.”
One of the Telyegin sisters walked down the line of wagons, checking the harness and the beasts—Diana thought of them as oxen although they were called glariss—hitched to the tongue. Diana waved to her, and the older woman waved back but kept walking. Ahead, at the edge of the field, the first wagons started westward, the rising sun at their backs. “Do you want to ride with me?” Diana asked as she clambered up to the seat and took the reins.
“Honored, I’m sure,” said Gwyn with a flamboyant bow. “This will keep Anahita off my back. She’s very insistent about having an affair with me, and I’m getting tired of it.”
“Oh, my. Is that an edge to your voice that I hear? I’ve never heard you ruffled before, Gwyn.”
As he climbed up, they were hailed by Hal and Quinn. “Can we come along with you?” Quinn yelled from a distance. They broke into a run and arrived, panting and breathless, and managed to climb into the bed, scrambling on top of the pillows, just as the line lurched forward. “We’re saving Hal from his dad. They got into a roaring argument.”
Diana glanced back to see Quinn bright with the excitement of having witnessed the altercation. Hal looked morose and angry.
“He’s so damned patronizing,” muttered Hal. “He treats these people like they’re experimental subjects—”
“We’re all experimental subjects to Owen,” said Gwyn.
“—yes, but we chose—well, at least you three chose—to participate in the experiment. I mean, look at what’s going on around us. Does he even notice? People dying. Children starving. Cities destroyed. I swear he only thinks of it as a canvas for him to work on, and work against. Did you see what my mother is doing? She’s recasting Lear with Lear as a jaran headwoman, and then the rest is pretty much the same, and rendering it all into khush.”
“Oh.” Diana felt a sudden, obliterating sense of discovery. “That’s marvelous. I think it’ll work, too.”
Hal swore. “What gives us the right to tamper with their own tales, their sense of history? We’ve already performed Mekhala’s story, and now we’re working on the second one, which if you ask me is a damned sight risky.”
“What?” demanded Quinn. “The old myth about the daughter of the sun who comes to earth? You can’t imagine they’ll ever suspect the truth, can you?”
“Isn’t that patronizing? This is supposed to be an interdicted planet. We shouldn’t be here at all!”
“They can’t stay interdicted forever,” said Gwyn softly.
“They haven’t!” exclaimed Hal. He lapsed into a sullen silence.
The wagon bucked and heaved up over the line of earth that demarked the field from untilled earth. In the distance, a burned out village stood silent in dawn’s light. A few walls thrust up into the air, blackened, skeletal. Nothing stirred in the ruins.
“And you know what else?” said Quinn in a low, confiding voice. “I think Hyacinth has a boyfriend.”
Diana snorted. “According to Hyacinth, he has a thousand boyfriends, and as many girlfriends, too.”
“Hyacinth does tell a good story,” said Gwyn.
“Oh, come on,” said Quinn. “Phillippe says that Hyacinth has slept in their tent every single night since we switched tent mates. Well, he said there were three nights that Hyacinth didn’t sleep there, but he knows it was a woman Hyacinth went to because—well, anyway, he knows.”
“Because he was sleeping with her himself,” muttered Hal.
“Oh?” asked Quinn tartly, “and you haven’t been propositioned, Hal? Are you telling me that you haven’t slept with even one jaran woman since we got here?”
Hal pursed his mouth mulishly and refused the bait.
“But anyway,” continued Quinn, “Phillippe thinks Hyacinth has a real boyfriend.”
“Isn’t that dangerous?” Diana asked.
“Well, you have one. Hell, you have a husband.”
“Quinn.” Diana sighed, disgusted. “Don’t you use your eyes?”
“I don’t want to talk about it anymore,” said Quinn, seeing that her audience was not prepared to amuse her. “And anyway.” Diana glanced back again t
o see Quinn undoing her carry. Quinn looked furtively to each side, and once behind, and then drew out her slate. “I have the first act of the recast Lear. Do you want your lines?”
So as they advanced across the countryside, they studied their lines and exclaimed over the twists Ginny had worked in to the basic plot. They passed a second burned village, and a third. In the early afternoon the walls of a city loomed in the distance. Carrion smells drifted to them on the breeze. A pall of smoke obscured the horizon. Diana had to concentrate on her driving as the wagon bumped and pitched across a succession of trampled fields.
“How are these people going to eat if all their crops are gone?” Hal mumbled.
“Oh, Goddess,” Quinn gasped. “Look.”
There, a stone’s throw away from the path of the wagons, lay a mound of corpses. A vulture circled lazily in and settled on a dead man’s chest, and began to feed. Rats scurried across the tumbled bodies. Diana wrenched her gaze away and kept her eyes on the back of the wagon in front of her. A blond child lay on the pillows in the bed, blissfully asleep. But the two women in the front glanced only once at the corpses and then away, as if the sight did not interest them.
More bodies littered the fields, in heaps, mostly, as if they had been rounded up and slaughtered en masse, although now and again a single body could be seen fallen in the midst of trampled corn, an arm outstretched—defiant or pleading, Diana could not tell. Quinn had her hands over her eyes. Hal stared with haunted eyes at the destruction.
“It’s been worse,” said Gwyn softly, “these last fourteen days. They must be taking revenge for that curse they say the Habakar priests put on Bakhtiian.”
Ahead, the city lay lit with fire, but as they came closer, Diana could see figures on the walls. She could see a pall like smoke sheeting the air between the walls and the vast army stretched out below. This time arrows shot out from the jaran side, too. A billow of black cloud rose up from inside the city, tinged with the stench of burning.