by Kate Elliott
“Send one of the boys in to take these things away, if you can’t stand to touch them. Did you bring anything for me to wear?”
“No, I—I’m sorry. I didn’t think.”
“Oh, never mind it. Grandmother will have thought of it.”
“Yes,” said Diana bitterly, “she always does think of everything.”
“There’s much you could learn from her, Diana. No etsana runs her camp as well as my grandmother runs hers.” He stripped out of his trousers and tested the water with a foot. “Ah,” he said, in a way that made her suddenly, achingly aware that he was naked, and close by her. He slid into the tub, which was barely large enough for him to stretch out his legs. Diana took a step toward him without realizing it, halted, and then walked over and knelt beside the tub.
“Where’s the—” he began. Diana found the stuff they used for soap and started to hand it to him, then set it down, threw off her cloak, and rolled up the sleeves of her tunic. “Here, could you unbraid my hair? Gods, it’s gotten long. I used to wear it that way when I was younger, but not since I joined the army.”
“You all wear it like Bakhtiian, now.”
Even with his hair as filthy as it was, she could not help but tangle her fingers in it as she unwound the braid. He sighed and lay back against her hands. She dipped a hand in the hot water and started to wash him, his neck, his back, his arms.
“How far did you ride?” she asked in a low voice, aware of his skin under her hands, of the gritty scrape of soap against dirt and sweat, of water sloughing off him. “Where did you find the king?”
“A long way. It would take the army—oh—one hundred and twenty days perhaps to travel as far as we rode southwest. In the end, the khaja bastard tried to row out across a lake. I think there was an island out there, and maybe his gods.” He chuckled. “But I was damned if I would let him get away after all that. I threw off my armor and rode after the boat.”
“Do you know how to swim?”
“Swim? Oh, in the water, you mean? No. My horse did.”
“But you might have drowned!” One hand, slick with soap, lay open on his chest. He caught the other in a now-clean hand and rubbed it against his beard. He smiled and shut his eyes.
“But I can’t die. When I saw you, after that battle, I thought you were an angel sent down by the gods from the heavens to take me up to their lands. The gods know my wounds were bad enough that they might have killed me, but they didn’t, because you were there. As long as you’re with me, I can’t die. So why should I fear?”
Diana buried her face in his neck. Tears burned at the back of her eyes. Absently, he stroked her arm with his other hand. “When the king’s men saw we were coming after them, even into the water, they threw him overboard, hoping to gain mercy for themselves. I’m surprised they rode with him that far. He’d abandoned his children and family already. So we caught him and brought him back. There were plenty of riches, too, with his family, but those will go to Bakhtiian.”
“You sent me some things, the necklace, the earrings, by a messenger.”
“Well, those were fairly won. Do you see the scar on my left thigh?”
She saw it, white and jagged but cleanly healed. She sank her hand into the water and ran it down his leg. He shivered all over and said something meaningless, and she drew her hand back up to his chest and kept washing him. “Did it gain them mercy?”
“Who?”
“The men who were with the king, giving him up like that.”
“Of course not. If they’d break allegiance to their own king, their dyan, then how are we to be expected to trust them? Diana, why did you lift him up off the ground?”
She pulled her hands away from him. As he shifted in the tub, arching back to look at her, the water slipped about him, lapping against his legs and the side of the tub. “I felt pity for him.”
“But he brought the gods’ wrath down on himself three times! First by killing our envoys, second by running away from battle, and third by abandoning his children. These khaja eat birds, you know.” He shuddered. “Savages. I only left him alive because I knew Bakhtiian wanted him. Here, can you find my razor? I’d like to shave.”
She rummaged in the bags and found the razor. He reclined and watched her through half-closed lids, the barest smile on his face. He looked content enough, having done his duty to Bakhtiian, gained glory in the doing of it, and come home to his beautiful wife. But he didn’t look smug, just at ease. Goddess help her, the truth was there for her to see, as bitter as it was. Even knowing how casually he had killed, how simple and pitiless his judgments were, how appalling, compared to what compassion and mercy she believed was due any human soul, still she cared for him.
“You look sad,” he said, puzzled.
Still, she would leave here, Rhui, the jaran, him. She had to. Her work lay elsewhere. “What would you do, if you weren’t a rider?”
“What would I do? But I am a rider, Diana. What would you do if you weren’t an actor?”
But I am an actor. She brought the razor back to him and watched him as he shaved. Then, because it gave her pleasure, because it gave him pleasure, she washed his hair. After that, she found the ceramic pitchers of warm water that the servant had left by the tub. “Stand up so I can rinse you. Look how filthy that water is.” But she did not look at the water, only at him.
Clean, he stepped out of the tub. “Now,” he said.
“Anatoly! Your grandmother—”
“—will not send us out into the rain this night, you can be sure. It’s a long walk from here to your tent, my heart. Shhh.” Rain drummed softly on the roof of the tent. “You see, she left pillows and a blanket along the wall, there. It’s raining again.”
Only much later, when he lay sleeping beside her, did she remember Marco. Had he come by her tent that night, only to find her gone? Anatoly stirred and shifted, opened his eyes, and smiled to find her there.
“Elinu,” he said. My angel.
CHAPTER TWENTY
THEIR TOUR OF THE engineering works led them under the ground, down to where the sappers worked. The khaja laborers pressed back against the damp earth walls of the gallery as Aleksi and his escort ducked by them.
“Once we’re under the wall,” said David, “we’ll burn the props and the fall of the mine will cause the wall to collapse.”
Aleksi did not like being underground, nor in such a closed space. The other jaran men liked it less. Only Ursula seemed more excited than nervous, peering around in the wavering lantern light, breathing in the dank, stuffy air, lifting one hand to touch the earth a hand’s-span above her head, but then, everyone knew that she was a little mad.
David wore a loose cotton shirt pulled up to expose his arms. Dirt stained the cloth, and sweat darkened it all down his back. He glanced at the others and bent to whisper to Aleksi. “We’ve twenty feet to go to the wall. But ten feet out and four to the side there’s another tunnel coming. They’re countermining. We’re going to need to post some kind of guard down here. Those sabers aren’t going to work down here, or your lances, or bows.”
“Short swords and short spears,” said Ursula. “Thrusting weapons, mostly. You won’t be doing much cutting in these close quarters. ‘The best use of the companion sword is in a confined space.’”
“David,” murmured Aleksi, “how do you know there’s another tunnel? Is it from your box, your machine?”
“Yes. We can measure it—oh, I can’t explain it now. We’ve seen everything we can down here. Let’s go back up.”
They edged back past the laborers. Aleksi noted how David said a few words, here and there, to the khaja men stuck down here. All of the people in Charles’s party were like that: they spoke to everyone, even to the khaja, however briefly. Only Ursula behaved like a normal person, interested only in the task at hand. After all, when the attack began, most of these laborers would die in the front lines, taking the brunt of the assault.
They wound back through the mines and c
limbed up until they came out into a trench covered by thick hides, and thence out along a rampart built to screen the mine entrance from arrows. From here, Aleksi looked out over the grassy sward that separated the outlying district from the massive walls of the inner city of Karkand. Once, he supposed, animals had grazed here. Now nothing stirred. Pennants fluttered on the walls above. A few figures moved, patrolling the heights.
With a sharp thud, a siege engine fired, casting a missile into the city. Up until yesterday, they had thrown rocks and dead animals and corpses in. Now, with the Habakar king in Bakhtiian’s hands, they had stepped up the assault. Aleksi himself had watched at dawn when the first pot of burning naphtha had been launched. The sun sank in the west, lighting the walls with red fire. In the district where the palace towers gleamed, a thread of smoke flared up. By the southern curve of the walls another column of smoke rose.
“Down,” said David abruptly, shoving on Aleksi’s shoulder. As Aleksi ducked, he heard the distant echo of a thunk, and he rose to see a cloud of dirt and splintered wood rise in the air behind them, in the suburbs, and dissipate, falling back to earth. The defenders of Karkand had their own siege engines, but unfortunately for them, the jaran camp lay far out of their reach. The defenders could only attack the well-defended siege engines brought up to fire on them, or those portions of their own suburbs that lay within range of their catapults. Still, as the preparations for the assault grew up, ringing the inner city, the defenders stepped up their fire as well.
“Shall we go?” Aleksi asked. “This khaja warfare leaves a bad taste in the mouth. I’d rather fight out in the open.”
“It’s true that, as Sun Tzu says, ‘Attacking a Fortified Area is an Art of last resort,’” said Ursula, “but you have to adapt yourself to the conditions that present themselves. Are you coming, David?”
The engineer drew a hand across his brow, wiping off sweat. “No. I’ve a few more things to supervise here. We need more guards here, too. Some equipped for the tunnels, and another jahar. There was a sortie out from the eastern portal last night, according to the laborers. The auxiliaries posted here had a hard time of it. I don’t want any more of my workmen killed.”
“Your workmen?” Ursula asked, with a grin that Aleksi could not interpret.
“Charles gave me a free hand. Indeed, he urged me to do what I could.” David glanced at Aleksi and then away. “Let’s not discuss this here, Ursula.”
She saluted him mockingly and. followed Aleksi out to where riders waited with their horses. That was another thing that puzzled Aleksi about these people from the heavens: He could not tell where each one stood according to the others. One might defer to another and then be deferred to by that same person. The prince was clearly in charge, yet he deferred in his turn, at times, and the members of his party usually treated him as casually as they treated each other. Was this how the gods behaved in the heavens, among their own kind? But they weren’t gods—Tess assured him of that, and he could see it for himself.
They rode out through the suburbs. Here, beyond reach of the Karkand catapults, siege towers rose, built by conscripted laborers marched in from the countryside and from as far away as Gangana and guarded by the Farisa auxiliaries who hated their former Habakar masters and who had been overjoyed to throw in their lot with the jaran. The wheels of the towers rose almost twice Aleksi’s height and were as thick as the length of his arm. Farther back, they built the scaffolding for the Habakar king.
At the gate of the outer wall, the grain marketplace did a brisk business, heavily guarded by jaran riders. Passing through the gate, they came to the huge churned-up field where once a portion of the jaran camp had lain. Much of the camp had moved a morning’s ride out from the city, having used up the forage and muddied the water beyond repair. Also, there were rumors that the King’s nephew had gathered an army and was even now marching north, to lift the siege. Aleksi knew that Bakhtiian fretted over Tess’s safety. Still, Sakhalin ought to stop the king’s nephew. And the governor of Karkand had not escaped to join the royal prince. Now and again riders slipped out from Karkand and eluded the jaran net, but such small parties could at best bring intelligence to the Habakar prince and none of them rode as fast as the jaran couriers.
At camp, Ursula left Aleksi to go to Soerensen’s encampment. Aleksi rode on past ambassador’s row and up to Tess’s tent. A council had gathered before the awning. Yesterday the clouds had cleared away, but the air still smelled of rain and the ground had only just begun to dry out. It was a bad time to mount a siege. Aleksi left his horse with his escort and walked around to listen in on the council.
“—despite Mother Hierakis’s directions, we’re seeing more fevers.”
“This rain makes fighting difficult.”
“Nevertheless,” said Bakhtiian, “it is time to take the city. We have the king, and I don’t want to winter here.” He glanced at Tess, and Aleksi felt sure that Bakhtiian also did not want his wife to bear their child here. Tess looked a little pale. Sonia sat next to her, and Mitya beyond Sonia. Josef sat next to Ilya, and next to Josef sat Kirill Zvertkov, who had been elevated rather quickly to such a place of honor.
Aleksi sank onto his haunches at the far edge of the awning and settled in to watch. A little later Ursula arrived, with David in tow, and the council shifted to accommodate them. They began to discuss how best to launch and sustain the assault on Karkand’s walls, and what to do with the Habakar king. Tess got to her feet and retreated back into her tent. Aleksi rose and circled around and slipped in the back entrance.
“Are you all right?” he asked, seeing that she was already resting on the pillows. Her paleness frightened him.
“Yes. Just tired. I’m just so tired today.”
“Shall I get the doctor?”
Tess shook her head. “You could get me something to drink. Cara’s at the hospital. She had a horrible argument with Ilya this morning over how many resources she ought to put into tending to the khaja laborers. Ilya wanted nothing done with them, but Cara told him that if he wanted to rule all people then he had to treat them all as his people. Gods, he was furious—spitting furious.” She smiled fleetingly at her memory of the scene. “But what could he do? She’s right.”
“She is?”
“Aleksi!” She sighed. “I hate it here. I just want to get away from here. I want to go back to the plains.” He brought her water and sat beside her. They listened as the council droned on outside. He felt comfortable with her, and he could tell that his presence, quiet and steady, comforted her. She shut her eyes and after a while she slept.
Aleksi ducked outside. Bakhtiian glanced back at him, and Aleksi nodded, to show that Tess was safe. Bakhtiian turned back to the discussion of scaling ladders and the assault on the towers, of shields and infantry, of mining and the vulnerability of mudbrick walls.
“As at Hazjan, we must bring the archers into firing range behind cover, and much of the early assault will be done on foot with some of our troops mixed in with the Farisa auxiliary behind the cover provided by the laborers. If we can get the gates open, then we can send squads in, but otherwise, as we’ve done before, we’ll use khaja warcraft to take the city. I see no point in further discussion. How soon will the mines be ready?”
“Oh, ah …” David glanced around and then, reluctantly, spoke. “Certainly in two days I can—”
“One day. Tomorrow we will roll the king out on the scaffolding onto the ground before the main gates of the city. He’ll be left there until we kill him or he dies by other means. They’ll have one day to consider him. We’ll start the assault at dawn, day after next.” Bakhtiian rose. “Excuse me, Josef. Kirill, Mitya, attend me.” He strode off, Kirill at his side, Mitya two steps behind, leaving the council sitting in silence for a moment before they all burst into talk and rose themselves, hurrying off, some after Bakhtiian, some to their own commands.
Sonia paused beside Aleksi. “He’s moody,” she observed.
“Bakhtiian?”
“Yes. He’s worried about the reports from the south. He doesn’t like sitting here in one place. He knows the army is better off in the field. Anyway, they’re going to wheel the khaja king out on a cart in front of the walls and offer to kill him quickly if Karkand will surrender.”
“And if the city won’t surrender?”
She shrugged. “He doesn’t deserve a merciful death for what he did to our envoys and to Josef.” She looked past Aleksi toward Josef Raevsky, who sat patiently, waiting for Ivan to come help him away. “Do you think I should marry him?”
“Marry who? The Habakar king? That wouldn’t be very merciful for him, would it?”
“Aleksi!” She laughed. “No, Josef.”
“Josef!”
“It would mean less work for us, if he slept in my tent, since he’s with us most of the time anyway. And a fair reward, for all he’s given, to marry into Ilya’s family.”
“Do you love him, Sonia?”
“No, but I like him very well, and the children do, too. When are you going to mark Raysia Grekov, Aleksi?”
His heart skipped a beat. “Never. I’m not going to marry.” He paused to catch his breath and had a sudden intuition that he ought to be honest with her. “You must know I don’t want to leave the Orzhekov tribe.”
Sonia considered him. “True enough. And we already have one of the Grekovs in our camp now. Two would be too many.”
He grabbed hold of this distraction. “Don’t you like the Grekovs?”
“They’ve gotten a little above themselves since Feodor married Nadine. Haven’t you noticed it?” Aleksi shrugged. “Well, I’ll look and see if I can find a young woman who might come to our tribe. Maybe one who’s lost her husband.”
It took him a moment to understand what she meant. “Sonia!” Why should she do this for him? Not just to make him happy, surely. “Is there some other reason you want me to marry?” he asked suspiciously.
“Yes. I need more help. Another woman in camp would be welcome.”