by Kate Elliott
“Their copy of The Recitation does not include the ‘Gospel of Elia,’ or the ‘Testimonies of the House of Narsene.’ ”
“What is the house of nar seen?” Katerina asked.
“A merchant house with whom the Peregrina—the Pilgrim—traveled while she was searching for her brother. In those days whole families would move together along the trade routes, and one such house sheltered the Pilgrim. Their testimonies of her miraculous gifts were bound by the law of the anointed church into The Recitation.”
“Then why aren’t they in this copy?”
“Because the northerners are heretics.” Jaelle was getting tired of repeating herself. Princess Katerina could read like a scholar, play castles like a man, and learn languages with the skill of a merchant bred to the caravan routes, but she could not understand the simplest explanation of heresy and the apostasy of the northern church when it sundered itself from the true and anointed faith of the southern church. “They may call themselves the true church, but they speak with the Accursed One’s mouth.”
“Who is the accursed one again? Oh, yes, the older brother. ‘Fathered by an unholy man.’ But they came of the same mother, so I cannot see why they should be treated differently.”
Katerina sat on the window bench, as she often did, as close as possible to light and air, a stone’s width from freedom. The bruises on her face had mostly faded, and once her shock had faded she had stored her anger neatly away inside herself, as the caravan women learned to do when they were cheated of their pay or forced by a soldier. But she still paced the circumference of the chamber many times each day, and the pattern emerging on her loom was a pleasant blue and green that shot through with sharp red bolts of lightning.
“Because Hristain and the Pilgrim were the children of God, not of a man. The Accursed One’s father was merely a man, or even, some say, the Evil One himself, taking a man’s form.”
“I am also a child of the gods. But I cannot fly up to the heavens as your Hristain did, nor can I turn water into milk or sew a sundered body into a living one.”
“But God did not pour His essence into you.”
“But if God poured his essence into some body, then that body would be God, would it not? Not a true person anymore.”
“No, no. Hristain is both God and man.”
“How can one person be two things?”
“It is the mystery of two natures in one substance.”
Katerina giggled.
“It isn’t right to mock God’s holiest mysteries! Whole churches have been excommunicated for less.”
“I beg your pardon.” But Katerina didn’t look sorry, and Jaelle abruptly realized that the other woman was teasing her. “What does it mean, ex communicated?”
They both heard the guards come to attention below. Katerina leapt up from the window bench and ran to the arrow loop that overlooked the outside stairway, but she could not see the landing from there. Jaelle knew that well enough, having tried herself many times before. After a bit, a guard opened the door into the chamber, and Lady Jadranka entered. Three servants followed her, laden with wood, bags of yarn, a fur-trimmed cloak and several gowns, and a tray of meat and cheese and bread, and a jug of wine. The lady looked somewhat embarrassed.
“I beg your pardon for neglecting you, Lady Katherine.”
Katerina politely inclined her head. “I give you greetings, Lady Jadranka. I hope you will let me compliment you on your fine translation of the book of travels.”
Lady Jadranka allowed herself a smile. “But if you have not read the original, Lady Katherine, then how can you know that the translation was fine? I might have written anything.”
“If you had chosen to write anything, then you might as well have written a book of travels under your own hand, would you not?”
Lady Jadranka covered her mouth for a moment, hiding a second smile. “It would be unseemly for a woman to advertise herself in such a coarse fashion, unless she were a holy woman writing of God’s words to other nuns.”
“But surely Sister Casiara of the Jedan Cloister is well known for her legal tracts and her letters on philosophy.”
“I have only heard her name, never, of course, read anything she is purported to have written. She is from the south. The false words of the southern church have given church-women there an unbecoming immodesty in their learning.”
“No more immodest than khaja men. I am sorry to have to tell you so, Lady Jadranka, since you offered me sanctuary, but your son raped me.”
Lady Jadranka went very still. She signed to the servants, who surely could not understand Taor, and they set down their burdens and swiftly left the chamber.
“You need not tell me what my son has wrought, Lady Katherine, in his haste to satisfy himself. But he is a man, and men will have their way.”
“Have their way!” Katerina looked like she had been slapped. “How can you say so?”
“Seven days ago, my son came late to my chamber. He was bruised and battered, and he sat at my table from Resting to Midnight writing down a list of properties and other holdings to be passed on to any sons you might bear by him. Then, when he had finished and his lip began to bleed again, he tore it up and burned it. He left then, and said nothing more of it, but I have lived too many years not to understand what was going on. By dint of his own ambition and a bit of help from my own sources of news along the trade routes, he is now married to the greatest heiress in the northern kingdoms. Yet his thoughts tend only to you. What he is offering you is a greater portion than any daughter of mine will ever see. What must you have to grant him peace of mind?”
Katerina marched over to the bed and yanked down the coverlet. “He forced me to lie with him. In this very bed.”
“He would not have had to force you if you had not resisted. It is foolish for a woman to fight against what she cannot change. You are his prisoner.”
“I am still a woman! This would never have happened among my people.”
“Certainly the shame of you, if they heard of it—”
“I have nothing to be ashamed of!”
“Perhaps a princess of your royal line is not accustomed to being a concubine. I can understand your displeasure, but he is already married, and was betrothed to Princess Rusudani many years ago when she was simply another young princess to be betrothed away from her family. No one suspected then that she would become so important.”
“He is welcome to be married to Princess Rusudani. I want satisfaction for his crime.” Katerina was so angry that she was shaking.
“My dear girl.” Lady Jadranka walked over to Katerina and drew her to the window bench, helping her sit down. Her tone was solicitous. “My poor child. You don’t understand, barbarian that you are. He committed no crime against you.”
Katerina’s chin began to quiver. Surprisingly, she did not let go of Lady Jadranka’s hands. “Do you mean that you khaja do not account it a crime when a man forces a woman? Aunt Tess told me so, but I didn’t believe her.”
The older woman sighed, heartfelt. “Yes, some men are punished for rape, if the act has violated the code of law. But my son took you in war. Therefore you belong to him, to ransom or to sell as a slave or to take to his bed, as he wills.”
“I belong to no one but myself and my mother’s tribe,” Katerina retorted, but she burst into tears. Lady Jadranka soothed her, and after a bit looked up at Jaelle and signed, and Jaelle hastily poured a cup of wine and took it over to them. Katerina gulped down the wine.
“When I was wed to the king of Dushan,” said Lady Jadranka, “I was as good as sold to him, my father gaining the honor of his only child elevated to such a high position and the king gaining access to my father’s riches. I never liked my husband. I never cared for his attentions in the marriage chamber, but I endured them, and in return for my forbearance was rewarded with a son.”
“You had no daughters?” Katerina asked quietly.
“Yes, but they are all married and gone away from
me, now. In truth, when the king set me aside in favor of a princess, I was not displeased. My inheritance was safe in my son’s hands. It was only Janos who took offense to his father’s action, and it is true that it lowered his position at court. But he need not think of that now. Nor should you. It will not be, perhaps, the position you expected, but many would envy you.”
Katerina stubbornly did not answer.
Lady Jadranka signed, as any woman worn down by the trials of the world would sigh at a young woman’s intransigence. “In truth, Lady Katherine, my son is still angry at your treatment of him. It was he who ordered that you be fed on bread and water, and be confined, to see no one.”
“Then why are you here now?” Katerina asked, not without hope.
“My son has ridden out to his hunting lodge with a number of his retainers, leaving me and Princess Rusudani alone with our attendants and servants. The princess will not go against his wishes, of course, but I thought I might come up and relieve your solitude each day, bring you better food, more yarn, such things.”
“Books,” said Katerina instantly.
Lady Jadranka nodded approvingly. “If that is what you wish. But I can only intercede for as long as my son is gone, and that will only be for a ten-night. I hope you will be more inclined to listen to his suit when he returns.”
“I will not be his mistress, his concubine, his whore, none of those khaja things. I am a jaran woman. I am not a slave to any man.”
Lady Jadranka smiled wryly. “I hope you will let me be your friend, Lady Katherine. I fear that you need one here.”
Jaelle desperately wanted to ask Lady Jadranka why she was courting Katerina so assiduously, but of course she dared not. Perhaps it was only concern for Janos, that he might not be torn in two between his wife, the brilliant heiress, and the woman he was infatuated with. Any mother would do as much, and more, especially for her only son. Especially for a son who was married to a woman with a strong claim to the throne of a great kingdom. But Jaelle did not know enough of the nobility to be able to judge whether Lady Jadranka acted only out of ruthless ambition or out of a truly solicitous nature.
The prospect of riding again thrilled Vasha so much that at first he didn’t really mind leaving the rest behind. But when they stopped at twilight to feast in a tent set up by servants, he felt the lack of Stefan, and he wondered how his father fared. Prince Janos seated Vasha in the place of honor, at his right side. A cousin of some kind sat on his left, and to Vasha’s right sat another of the young noblemen in Janos’s train, a shock-haired, hearty fellow who spoke not a word of Taor and, in the end, laughed a great deal and drank so heavily that he had to be carried off to his bed.
Vasha drank sparingly, and so was able to walk outside beside Janos without aid after the feast was over and most of the men hauled away to sleep off their excesses. Vasha thought, approvingly, that Janos was not a man to indulge himself in excesses. Rather like Bakhtiian.
It was an odd thought, strange as it passed through his mind, and that thought together with the slap of the night air and the scudding gloom of clouds that hunkered down over the torch-lit clearing ripped away any lingering unsteadiness from his mind. It had often been said, in Vasha’s hearing, that Bakhtiian’s only excesses were the intoxicating vision sent him at an early age, that of the united jaran tribes who were fated to conquer the khaja lands, and the perhaps unbecomingly vehement passion he displayed toward his wife. Was Janos in love with Rusudani? Vasha glanced at the other man, his profile limned by flickering torchlight. He had seen no sign of it, watching the two of them together in the solar while he and Janos played castles. Janos showed a proprietary interest in his wife and seemed to appreciate her beauty, but never anything more. Perhaps Janos was just better than Ilya at concealing his emotions.
What was Ilya doing now? Pacing, no doubt, or reading for the ladies’ amusement, caught within walls of stone. But attending on the women was probably the part of his captivity that chafed him least. Canvas rippled in the wind that was coming up, and the thin flap of a banner teased Vasha’s ears, like the echo of the jaran camp, so far away, lost to him.
“Come sit with me,” said Janos. He walked away through the grass to another tent, small and round. Servants swept the entrance flap aside so that he could enter without breaking stride. Vasha blinked away the brightness. Six lanterns blazed, hanging from the cross-poles. Janos seated himself at a table and a steward brought him a cup of mulled wine while a second servant pulled a chair forward for Vasha and offered him wine as well. Vasha cupped the warm mug in his hands, breathing in the spicy scent, but he did not drink. He watched Janos.
The prince flipped impatiently through a stack of documents. He separated six out and handed them to the steward. “These go to Lord Belos.” He pushed three more to the bottom of the pile, pressed his signet ring in a tray of wax brought to him by the steward and sealed four others, and, last, set the remaining two documents side by side on the table and stared at them.
“Did you like your father, Prince Vasil’ii?” Janos asked without looking up from the documents.
“Like him?” The question surprised Vasha into taking a drink of the wine.
“You have shown remarkable tolerance toward me, considering that I am the man who killed him. So I wonder if there is a reason for that, some old enmity between you.”
Vasha shook his head, not willing to trust his voice.
“Then you are polite to me only because you are my hostage? What is the custom, among your people, when one man kills another?”
“It depends. In my grandmother’s time, if it was purely a matter between two men, then a man’s kinsmen would avenge him. If the matter extended to the camp, then it would be taken before the etsanas—the headwomen—of the tribe, and the council of elders. There might be a fine, or in a particularly bad case a kinsman of the murdered man might be allowed to take on a vendetta. Now there is the Yarsos, the Code of Law, written down in a book.”
“What does it say?”
“It would depend on whether the killing occurred in time of war or time of peace. Whether it was a jaran man or a khaja man who was killed.”
“Then a jaran man, in time of war.”
Vasha set the cup down on the table, carefully steadying it so that it would not tip and spill on the documents. He had copied enough of them, under Tess’s supervision, and knew how laborious a process it was to write one out. “Prince Janos, it does not matter what the Code of Law says. This matter lies outside the Yarsos. Bakhtiian’s death will be avenged by the jaran army.”
“Even if that army was controlled by a man who was willing to count himself my ally? War is a hard business, Prince Vasil’ii, and if we avenged every death brought about by war, we should have no more men left to fight.” Vasha considered the khaja prince for awhile in silence. Janos, seeing that he was lost in thought, went back to studying the two documents. How would he feel about Prince Janos if Janos truly had killed Bakhtiian? How would he feel about the man who had murdered his father? But Janos had not killed him. Janos had fallen for the ruse. So what use was it to speculate on what had not happened, except to uselessly tangle his ability to think clearly? Because Janos was offering him something, and Vasha needed to know what it was, and now, of all times, not to make any stupid mistakes.
“War will come to you nevertheless, Prince Janos. Andrei Sakhalin cannot protect you from that, nor will he ever control the jaran army, and if he gave you such assurances, then he lied to you.”
Janos shrugged. “White Tower withstood two sieges in my grandfather’s time, and its defenses are stronger now than they were then. Dushan itself is at peace with the jaran, in return for peace. I possess two valuable hostages. I hold an alliance with a jaran prince from the greatest of the jaran tribes, by your own admission, even if you say his position is not as strong as he claims it is.” He tapped the right hand document. “My wife is the granddaughter of the Mircassian king.”
“This is all true, but
why tell me? I am only your prisoner.”
“I have here letters brought by two envoys. These two envoys are here in this camp, waiting to address me. One is from Prince Basil of Filis, sent to my father, the king of Dushan. My men intercepted him on his way north.”
“That is a dangerous game, Prince Janos.”
Janos fingered one corner of the right hand document. “But I have information my father does not possess. This letter comes from King Barsauma of Mircassia. His envoy has traveled many leagues, first to Tarsina-Kars, then to the convent of the Holy Knife, in the Kolosvari Hills, and thence, by other routes, here to me. King Barsauma is old, his health failing. It is never wise for a king to die without designating his heir, or else the church and the lords will tear the kingdom asunder in order to grab more for themselves. His wife bore him six children, four boys and two girls. With the unexpected death last spring of his eldest son, all of them are now dead, just as poor Rusudani’s three brothers have now all died, before their time, during the ten years she was shut away in the convent. She has two younger brothers and a younger sister, of course, but they are by her father’s second wife, the one he took after her mother died. So that means, of all the claimants for the Mircassian throne, only two have any solid claim. One is an invalid, a boy not more than twelve years old, the youngest child of the king’s deceased brother by a vicious woman whom all say the king cannot abide. The other is King Barsauma’s last living grandchild, who is now my wife.”
Janos lifted a hand, and the servant poured more wine into his cup. Vasha self-consciously took a sip of his own wine, which was cold and flat; the spice had lost its flavor with the heat. Another man brought a new lantern in and replaced one whose wick was sputtering.
“King Barsauma seeks Princess Rusudani. He wants her to travel to Mircassia to be invested as his heir and to make a proper marriage. He does not, of course, know that I have already married her. Prince Basil of Filis has thrown his support behind the invalid child. He writes of this to my father, whom he supposes may aid him.”