by Kate Elliott
“Oh, Goddess,” said Ginny under her breath, “what will Soerensen say when he hears of this? He was so insistent that we not break any taboos.”
“Go on, Hyacinth,” said Joseph gently. “You may as well tell us the truth now, since I think you’ve done as much damage as you can by—”
“By lying?” Hyacinth flung his head back. “Well, it’s true, that I exaggerated. It’s true I joked about sleeping my way through the camp, and sleeping with everyone, and, no, I never did. Oh, men looked at me in that way, a few of them, but they never did anything about it, except once, and then he was ashamed, and it was all so secret and quick and shameful that it was ugly instead of joyful, and it made me feel dirty since he clearly felt that way. Women propositioned me, lots of women, and they were fine and pleasant, those I went to. But you know I prefer men.”
“But then if you knew they thought it shameful, if you knew it was wrong as a cultural norm, then why did you go ahead this time?” Ginny asked, shaking her head. “Why? We’re in their culture, Hyacinth. We can’t just tromp around in our seven-league boots and trample wherever we go.”
“If it was wrong? You know it’s wrong, how they act. Punishing someone for what’s only natural.” He was no longer sobbing, but tears leaked from his eyes again. “Do you know what they’re going to do to him? They’re going to exile him. Ostracize him. You know what that means, don’t you? He’ll die.”
Diana stared. The truth was, she had never thought Hyacinth capable of thinking much about anything. He was a decent actor, with a chance to grow in time if he worked at it, but the rest of the time he was such a damned flighty, shallow, pretty boy that it was hard to take him seriously or even to believe that he could feel this deeply and understand this much.
Gwyn sighed. Yomi covered her eyes with a hand. Joseph shook his head.
“Then why did you do it?” demanded Ginny.
“I didn’t know,” he said, anguished, and Diana believed him. “I know they’re savages, and I knew enough to know that the kind of primitive war they wage would be ugly—but you can learn to look the other way.”
“Oh, Goddess, maybe you can,” whispered Diana.
“But I thought because they’re pretty open about their sexuality that they wouldn’t be so harsh. I knew I had to be discreet. And it was my fault. He said I ought to leave, and I said—well, and then we fell asleep. And then it was morning.” He began to weep in earnest again. “It isn’t fair. His life has been hard enough. He and his sister were orphaned and sent to live with their aunt, but she didn’t treat them well, and then he became an outlaw—I don’t understand that part—and now they let him ride with the army again, but I think they’ll be happy enough to see him go. It’s a good excuse to get rid of him. He’s worried about his sister.”
“Hyacinth,” asked Yomi slowly, “how long has this been going on?”
He shrugged. “A month? Right after that skirmish up in the hills we were caught in. Longer than that, I guess. A while.”
Yomi turned to Diana. “Do you know anything about this?”
“No. It’s not a subject I ever—discussed—with my husband. Or with anyone else, for that matter. Just with Hyacinth. But I thought he knew what he was doing!”
“You don’t understand.” Hyacinth stood up. “It’s my fault. If we don’t do something, he’ll die.”
“What do you suggest we do?” asked Ginny quietly. “We’re traveling with them, Hyacinth, not the other way around. I remind you that we work under the duke’s interdiction.”
“Tits!” swore Hyacinth. “You know damn well we’re breaking that interdiction anyway. All the plays. Theater. Everything. It’s so much piss, if you ask me. We’re influencing them just by being here—and his own sister is married to the king! I think it’s for the better, too. They need to be civilized. Do you really approve of the way they kill? Slaughter wholesale? And now they’re going to kill Yevgeni just because he loves men rather than women, as if that means anything.”
“They’re not going to kill him!” Yomi exclaimed.
“Do you think he has a chance, sent out into hostile countryside alone?” Hyacinth sounded disgusted.
“You’re dependent on the tribe, here,” said Diana softly. “Everywhere, here, whether you’re in hostile country or out on the plains.”
“Yevgeni said there used to be a tribe that was just men, just fighters, who had left their tribes because they—because they wanted that freedom. He was with a group of them when they came into the army, but he says that the last real group of them died.” His beautiful, mobile mouth twisted down into a bitter grimace. “They died saving Bakhtiian’s life. I told him that he should demand to see Bakhtiian. If men like that would save Bakhtiian, surely Bakhtiian owes them a favor, to save Yevgeni.”
“Hyacinth.” Gwyn shook his head. “But custom has to be strict in a place like this, in a society like this. Isn’t it true that they have to be rigid to survive? Isn’t inflexibility necessary in a hostile environment?”
“I don’t know,” said Hyacinth peevishly. “I just know that Yevgeni trusts me, and I’m not just going to stand by and let him be exiled.”
This fierce declaration brought only silence.
“What precisely do you intend to do?” asked Yomi. “I remind you that you are a member of this troupe, and bound by its rules as well.”
“I forbid you to interfere,” said Ginny.
Diana twisted her hands together. She had seen so much suffering in the last months. So much of it had been distant suffering, the suffering of strangers and it was true that it was easier to ignore it, to displace it, to thrust it aside; it disturbed her to know that she was learning to do that. Perhaps one had to learn to do that to survive, to make existence bearable, to make happiness tenable, in a world so full of pain. But if offered the chance to do one thing…
“I could go,” she said softly. “I could talk to Arina. He must be from her tribe, or in her tribe’s jahar, if she has jurisdiction. What did you say his name was, Hyacinth?”
The hope on his face was painful, the more so because Diana knew very well that her pleas had only the force of sentiment behind them, with no authority whatsoever. Unlike, say, Tess Soerensen, she had brought nothing to her marriage, no power, no ties, no value, and while it was possible that Mother Sakhalin had forgiven her for that, still, no one was likely to do Diana any favors for the sake of her connections.
“His name is Yevgeni Usova. His sister’s name is Valye. She’s one of the archers. He’s so proud of that, that she’s one of the women training to be mounted archers. She’s really assigned to Anatoly Sakhalin’s jahar, but he didn’t take any women with him when he went because they were going so far into khaja territory, and they didn’t want to risk it.” Diana felt sick, suddenly, feeling that she hadn’t clearly understood how dangerous the mission Anatoly had undertaken was, but Hyacinth went blithely on, reminiscing about his boyfriend. “So she was training with Kirill Zvertkov to begin with, so they remained with the Veselov tribe until Sakhalin gets back. But they didn’t want to leave Yevgeni there, with the Veselov tribe, because he used to ride with Veselov. The cousin. Vasil, that’s his name. They say he’s very handsome, the cousin, and charismatic. I think Yevgeni is in love with him, though he never says as much to me. But he rode with him for three years, and longer, really, before that. But they let him stay because of Valye—he’s the only family she has. Now what will she do? They won’t trust her either, or she’ll do something stupid like try to follow him into exile. She’s sweet but not very smart. But she adores him. She worships him. Oh, Diana, do you think you can do something?”
“I’ll try,” said Diana. “With your permission, Ginny, of course.”
Ginny swore under her breath. “What are we supposed to do? Take him in? Take him back to Earth with us? Like a pet dog?” Hyacinth went red. “Oh, don’t yell at me, young man. You’ve caused enough trouble. I want you to think clearly for a minute—if you can—about what i
t would be like for one of these people to be jerked out of the world they know and thrown headlong into ours. It won’t be an easy transition, no more than it would be for us if we were really and truly abandoned here without any of the fail-safes and modelers and slates and medical supplies and equipment and weapons we brought with us.”
“That happened to Tess Soerensen,” said Diana.
“And let her be a lesson to you, Hyacinth! Now. Go on, Diana, and why don’t you take Gwyn, too?”
“Let me go,” begged Hyacinth.
“No,” added Ginny. “Mother Veselov already gave you into our hands. They don’t want you back. Owen’s not going to take this at all well, my boy, if it means they’ll forbid you performing as well. And we’re supposed to do Caucasian Chalk Circle sometime in the next five days.”
“You can even think of that? With a life at stake?”
“Hyacinth, we all have our limits. I can’t save the world. I can’t stop this war. Maybe, just maybe, I can communicate a few things through art.”
He flung himself back into the chair and buried his face in his hands. The entire line of his body spoke agony.
“I’ll go now,” said Diana, more to be rid of this scene than because she desired the next one.
CHAPTER FORTY
TROUBLE CAME IN THE guise of a woman. It always did, Jiroannes reflected. The guards snuck two whores into camp and he caught them at it. He was not sure whether the guards intended to pay the women or simply kill them afterward, but the women looked desperate enough, thin and dirty and ragged. One had a child with her, a wild-eyed little creature with weeping sores around its mouth and a red rash on its arms. Once, Jiroannes would have left his men to it. They deserved some reward for their months of service in these God-forsaken lands. Jiroannes had not touched Samae in twenty days, and already even the sight of the whores’ scrawny thighs and grimy abdomens moved him to lust. The guards had gone much longer without women.
“Syrannus,” he said as the whores straightened their clothes and the guards rebound their sashes, “chase the creatures away.”
“Yes, eminence. May I give them some food?”
“Give them food!”
“Eminence, in these lands, whores receive payment.”
“Do what you wish. Don’t bother me with it.”
The next day, the guards mutinied. Politely, it was true, but they sent a delegation consisting of the captain and his two lieutenants to present their grievances to their master. This would never have happened in Vidiya.
Jiroannes received them on the carpet. Lal attended him, standing behind his chair with a large fan, which the boy worked up and down. Samae was out getting water from the river. She did the work Lal used to do, and the boy had quickly learned the more elaborate business of being a personal body servant.
“Your eminence.” The captain knelt and bent to touch his forehead to the carpet.
“You may speak.”
“Eminence, you must know that the jaran women will have nothing to do with us. They call us names, eminence, foul names, and scorn us, and there are none who will accept coin or cloth or food for lying with us. Now you forbid us congress with these women who are willing enough to come into our camp. This is unjust. The Everlasting God has also decreed, eminence, that it is improper for a man to pass more than ten days without knowing a woman, for fear he will succumb to baser lusts.”
It was true, of course. Jiroannes sighed. “I will consider your grievances, captain. I will have an answer for them tomorrow.”
The captain touched his forehead to the carpet again, rose, bowed, and backed away. His escort backed away as well, until they were far enough away from the tent that they could without deliberate insult turn their backs on their master.
“What are you going to do, eminence?” asked Syrannus.
Jiroannes smoothed out his trousers. The hot, stifling air made him sweat, even with the turgid breeze stirred into life by Lal’s tireless fanning. “I have no choice, Syrannus. I must take this matter before the jaran.”
“Ah,” said Syrannus, and nothing more.
Jiroannes sat, brooding. Smoke cast a pall over the air, adding to the stifling heat. Although the Vidiyan camp was now situated at the end of ambassadors’ row, in the least desirable site, still the tents of the jaran army spread out beyond his camp. Farther, at the eye of the storm, a city bled smoke into the heavens. Jiroannes could see its wall from here, a distant line. He thought there might still be some fighting going on there, but he could not be sure. Now that Mitya was gone, Jiroannes had no inside source of information. For twenty days he and his party had drifted along in the wake of the army, moving at the right time, camping at the right time, and otherwise utterly at sea. He did not know the name of this city, or which general was in charge of this assault. The guards had heard a rumor that Bakhtiian was ill, that he was dead, that he had been witched by the Habakar priests and that his spirit had left his body to do battle in the Otherlands for this kingdom. It might be true, for all Jiroannes knew. He missed Mitya’s information.
He missed Mitya’s friendship.
What a strange thing it was, to think of having a friend. There had been other boys at the palace school whom he had liked, but one never trusted anyone at the palace. He sighed.
“Syrannus, you will attend me. Together with two of my guards.” He rose. Lal dropped down to kneel behind the chair.
“Where are we going, eminence?”
“I don’t know. We must find Bakhtiian, I suppose, or if he isn’t here, then whomever is in charge.” The two guards took their places at his back, and they walked together out of their huddle of tents. Syrannus went ahead to accost a pair of older jaran men who were repairing a shattered cart wheel. He spoke with them for a while and then returned to Jiroannes.
“Eminence, these men say that Mother Sakhalin is in charge of this camp.”
“Mother Sakhalin? A woman?” Jiroannes sighed again, but these days he felt only mild shock at such tidings. “Where will we find her tent?”
“In the center of camp, eminence.”
“Bakhtiian is not here, then?”
“Eminence, the men say that it is true that Bakhtiian was witched, that he lies as one dead up in the pass. They say that until he wakes again, the army will lay waste to the countryside.”
Jiroannes shuddered. Fleetingly, he imagined this army trampling through the lush gardens of the Vidiyan palace, careless of the destruction they wrought to the fine architectural and decorative work that they certainly could never appreciate. But they could destroy it. It was easier to demolish than it was to build, especially for savages.
He hung his head and stared at the rings on his fingers. Topaz, that one, malachite, a thick band of plain gold, and a single diamond set in gold leaves bound with pewter. All along, it had been easier for him to scorn the jaran as the barbarians they definitely were than to try to understand them and build a bridge across which he and they could truly communicate.
“We will attend Mother Sakhalin,” he said softly.
Syrannus looked surprised, but he bowed his head and led Jiroannes to the center of camp. In the jaran camp, in the late morning, things were fairly quiet. Dawn and late afternoon were busiest, what with milking and watering and meals. A couple of boys pushed a handcart filled with dry dung through camp. Crippled men repaired harness. Two older girls churned milk to butter. Little children ran here and there, attended by the elderly. If the besieged city on the horizon disturbed them they did not show it.
At the center of camp they found a ring of guards, but just a single ring, nothing as elaborate as the triple shield that had surrounded Bakhtiian’s tent. They waited here while a messenger was sent in. Some time later a young jaran woman arrived to escort them. Jiroannes swallowed this insult with no change of expression and followed her in, Syrannus alone attending him now.
Mother Sakhalin held court in much the same way Bakhtiian did, but she was rather more ruthless, Jiroannes decided.
He recognized her immediately: the ancient crone he had seen watching the mounted archers at practice, that fateful day, twenty days ago. He recalled now how scornfully he had thought of her then. Here she sat in judgment like a queen, seated on pillows on a dais with two other women, one very young and very pretty, one almost as old as the old woman, seated on either side of her. The escort motioned to Jiroannes to stand to one side. He stood and waited. Syrannus waited behind him. A cluster of women and old men argued in front of the dais. As far as Jiroannes could tell, they haggled over grazing and watering rights. One tribe had watered its herd too early, and in revenge the other tribe had grazed its herds on fields reserved for the first tribe. The old woman presided over this dispute with an expression of deep disgust on her face, and in the end she stripped both tribes of their current rights and assigned them worse rights—the last to go down to the river? the stoniest patches of grazing land?—than they had previously owned.
“You see,” said Jiroannes in a low voice to Syrannus, impressed despite himself, “that will teach them to bother her with such trivial matters.”
A troop of horsemen rode in and dismounted, all but one of their number. This last, a dark-haired young man, remained seated on his horse as if he were somehow in disgrace. A girl armed with bow and arrows was called forward to stand in front of the queen. She threw herself down and began to plead in a high voice, but the queen silenced her with a wave of a hand.
“The punishment is exile,” said Mother Sakhalin. She turned to the pretty young woman beside her. “Your dyan will strip him of all that binds him to your tribe.”
“My dyan is not here,” said the princess. Her thick black hair was bound back in four braids and overlaid with a rich headpiece whose jeweled links hung to her shoulders. She regarded the scene gravely. The audience hushed. Glancing around, Jiroannes realized that in the course of moments the number of people attending had doubled. Stillness hung over them. “But my brother will act for him in this matter. Anton?”
One of the jaran soldiers came forward. If he were this woman’s brother, then surely he was a prince, but Jiroannes could see no difference between him and the other men by the way he dressed. He was much older than the princess. Perhaps he was a bastard child of an early concubine and thus not a legitimate heir to power. He inclined his head respectfully to the two women and then turned to the mounted man.