Earthly Crown (15 page)

The model moved. Rose, lithe as any wild predator. Diana felt his movement. David lowered his sketch to see Bakhtiian walking straight toward them. David recoiled, nearly falling back down onto the ground, and almost dropped the sketch. Began to scramble to his feet.

“No,” whispered Diana urgently. “Keep sitting, keep still. Stillness doesn’t startle them.”

She held her place, and David, looking ashen under his dark complexion, sat still beside her. Bakhtiian halted before them. There was a moment’s uncomfortable silence. Then Bakhtiian crouched, far enough away from them that he couldn’t touch either of them if he reached out. “I beg your pardon,” he said in his perfect Rhuian. “We haven’t been introduced. I am Ilyakoria Bakhtiian.”

In the first instant, she realized that David had gotten the eyes wrong. This close, she saw the depth of the intensity, of the sheer, driven force in them. “I’m Diana Brooke-Holt,” she said, and her voice spurred David on.

“David ben Unbutu.” It came out in a rush. “I’m sorry. I should have asked your permission to draw you, but—” He hesitated.

“Here,” said Diana, breaching the sudden silence. She took the pad out of David’s hands. “It’s very fine. Would you like to see it?”

Addressed by her, Bakhtiian lowered his eyes. “I was hoping I would be allowed to look at it.” Crouched thus beside her, eyes cast almost bashfully to the ground, he seemed much less threatening.

She handed the pad to him. There was silence but for the distant sounds of the camp settling in to dusk and the impending night.

Diana rose, and David drew in a breath and rose as well. After a moment, Bakhtiian stood up. “You must know how good you are,” he said finally, directly, to David. He gave the sketchbook back to David, holding it as if it was something he considered valuable. “You have great talent. Is this your profession?”

“No, I’m an engineer.” David looked taken aback by Bakhtiian’s politeness.

“Ah—and you?” His gaze shifted for the briefest moment to Diana’s face.

“I’m one of the actors in the repertory company.” She faltered. “Do you know what that is?”

For a terrifying moment she thought she had offended him. The corner of his mouth tugged up, softening his expression. “Yes,” he said gravely.

“You speak excellent Rhuian,” she said impulsively.

“Thank you,” he replied, still grave.

She had a brief hallucination that he was suppressing laughter, dismissed it.

He turned back to David, regarding him with obvious respect. “Perhaps you would be willing to undertake a commission.”

“A commission!”

“That is the right word, isn’t it?”

“Yes. I was just startled.”

“Perhaps you would undertake a commission to draw my wife.”

David’s mouth dropped open. Diana pinched him in the leg. “I would be honored,” he said in a constrained voice.

“The honor is mine,” Bakhtiian replied, as formal and impeccable as if he were a noble of Jeds and not a man who had killed in cold blood. “When we’ve arrived at the main camp, we can discuss the arrangements further. Now, if you will excuse me.” He inclined his head and left them.

David swore under his breath.

“Well,” said Diana.

“In case you’re wondering,” said David, “the answer is no. I’m not brave. Not at all. Not one bit. And especially not after seeing him execute that man.”

“But then why did you sit here and draw him? You must have known that would attract his attention.”

“I know. I know. But I couldn’t resist, seeing him sitting there. What an image.” He examined the sketch with a frown.

“‘But, sure, he’s proud; and yet his pride becomes him,’” murmured Diana.

David sighed and closed the sketchpad carefully. “Thanks for your support, by the way. Goddess, I hope his wife is a good subject. I’d hate to do anything that antagonized him. Shall we go eat?”

“H
E DOESN’T LIKE ME,”
said Charles Soerensen.

Cara Hierakis had knelt next to him to lace up her boots. She did not bother to look up. “What possible reason would he have not to like you?” When Charles did not reply, she answered herself. “Perhaps he considers you a threat to his power. I just don’t understand why all the mystery about Tess. I feel that there is something I’m missing.”

She waited expectantly. A misting rain fell, though they remained dry here under the awning. Charles merely shifted in his chair, moving one arm to rest on the padded armrest. “I just wish he weren’t so cursed polite all the time,” he said.

“Yes, he was well brought up, wasn’t he? I like him.”

Charles stood up. Cara glanced up at him, then stood as well, turning.

Bakhtiian, flanked by four of his men, approached them. The rain let up just as the sun came out, casting a glow on the cluster of monochromatic khaki-colored canvas tents that housed Charles’s party and the Company. Beside the central tent, two of the actors crouched by the fire pit, rubbing their hands together to warm them over the bright lick of flame while they waited for the kettle to boil. About twenty paces away, two of Bakhtiian’s riders watched this display with perplexed interest.

Bakhtiian did not give the scene a second glance. He paused outside the awning of Charles’s tent, and when Charles nodded, he stepped under the awning, leaving his attendants behind. First he inclined his head to Dr. Hierakis: only then did he turn his attention to Charles.

“We must move quickly today. My scouts have brought me word that a force of armed men, mercenaries, is marching to meet us. Some of my riders will help your party break camp and load your wagons and then guide you along the swiftest route toward our main camp while the bulk of my troop engages the enemy. I would not want you in any danger.”

Watching Bakhtiian’s face, Cara wondered if he meant the comment to be sarcastic, but she could read no insincerity in his expression or his tone.

Charles studied him a moment in silence. “Obviously,” he said, “your strength as an army is mobility. Will your opponent be equally mobile?”

“They’re mostly foot soldiers. We’ve already encircled them. They should pose no threat to your people, but it would be safer for you to travel farther out onto the plains.”

“I will see to it that my party understands,” Charles replied, “but I wonder if it could be arranged for a member of my party to observe the battle?”

Bakhtiian blinked.
“Observe
the battle?” he asked, as if the idea of observing a battle was so fantastic that it had to be repeated to actually take form.

“She studies war,” Charles explained.

“Ah,” said Bakhtiian. “The one who walks like a man.” Then he glanced swiftly at Hierakis, and said, “I beg your pardon.”

“No offense taken,” replied Cara, torn between amusement and apprehension. The thought of a battle worried her. How could it not? She had lived in Jeds long enough to know the sorts of ugly wounds that swords and spears and arrows produce in human flesh. But more worrisome was this constant undercurrent of sparring between the two men, as if there, too, a battle loomed, but neither general was yet willing to commit his forces.

Charles fought to suppress a smile and finally gave up. “Yes. That would be Ursula. Can it be arranged?”

“Yes.” Bakhtiian glanced over his shoulder and spoke words in khush. One of his attendants jogged away. “Is there anyone else who would like to—observe?” he asked.

“I would,” said Charles.

Bakhtiian did not reply for a moment, as if waiting for Hierakis to apply as well. When she did not speak, he nodded curtly. “I will arrange it. Now, if you will excuse me.” He left, attendants in tow.

“Charles, why in hell do you want to watch men killing each other? Ursula will be faint for the chance to see this, and since she has as much sensibility as a grave digger, it doesn’t concern me, but you—?”

“Cara, my dear, Tess has trained to fight in this man’s army. I want to see what she’s let herself in for.”

“Lady bless us,” responded Cara, suddenly enlightened. “You don’t suppose she was
wounded,
do you? That would explain why she didn’t come to meet us—”

“I’ll go roust Ursula.” Charles left her without waiting for her to finish.

Used to his abruptness, Cara merely knelt and laced up her other boot. Then, glancing once at the actors by the fire, whose numbers had tripled, she slipped into Charles’s tent. Since he had so little baggage, it took her very little time to find the folded parchment square that the young jaran rider named Aleksi had delivered to Charles at the end of that awful banquet. She flicked the brooch at her collar so that it bled light into the dark interior. Tess’s writing! She began to read.

“Dear Charles, I apologize for not coming to meet you, although why I’m apologizing I don’t know, when I had every intention of riding to the port but was forestalled by Ilya, who compounded the offense by forbidding me to leave camp until he returns with you and your party. Despite the fact that I have trained for over three years, he refuses to let me fight. While this may be an act you applaud, you cannot understand how it undermines what I am, and the entire fabric of my relationship to the jaran. If he did, in fact, marry me because—”

Cara had to stop reading for ten entire ten seconds, just absorbing this astounding fact. From outside, she heard a wagon draw up, and the lowing of beasts. She forced herself to read again.

“If he did, in fact, marry me because I am different, then he is doing everything in his power now to absorb me into his world entirely, however much he does it unconsciously. But then, Ilya is such a—” Here Tess had scratched out several words with such a thick stroke that Cara could not puzzle them out. “I will not let that happen.”

A sudden lance of natural light interrupted her. Charles walked in. He paused, one hand still on the tent flap, holding it open. She touched her brooch, and the slim beam of light vanished.

He regarded her quizzically. “What’s that?”

“Tess’s letter to you.”

“You might have asked.”

“If I’d asked, you would simply have hidden it better. I’ve known Tess almost as long as you have, Charles. You might have shared this with me.
Married!
To Bakhtiian!”

Charles smiled. “It gives me such pleasure to see you astonished, Cara, because it happens so rarely. Let me remind you that under Chapalii law a woman who marries loses all connection to her birth status and takes on her husband’s status entirely. Given that the natives of Rhui, again under Chapalii law, qualify as wildlife—not even as intelligent life—that puts Tess’s position as my heir rather in jeopardy. As it were.”

“You can scarcely think I’d trumpet this marriage to Chapalii Protocol. And in any case, you never contested her death declaration, so it seems to me that it’s a moot point.”

He let the tent flap down, drowning them in dimness. “Tess’s marrying can never be a moot point. I didn’t contest the declaration, but neither did I acknowledge it. That leaves her fate open to change.”

“And frees your hand to play your cards when you will. Still, there are rumors enough floating around that Tess is not dead, but in hiding.”

“Yes, and that serves our purpose as well. We humans understand rumors, and Chapalii do not.”

There was a silence, broken at last by Cara. “Do you know, Charles, I’m a little hurt. Marco must know.”

“Of course, but only because he guessed. And he swore not to tell
anyone,
for the same reasons. If only I know, then it can go no farther, no matter what the persuasion.” In the gloom of the tent, his voice carried with a mildness that was, Cara knew, deceptive.

But she still felt hurt. “Have I ever told you that the one thing I most dislike about you is this tendency you have to hoard information? You may smile, since you’ve heard it a hundred times, but you must start trusting others.”

She had long since grown used to his silences. This one was rueful. He got that funny little half smile on his face and crossed the room to her. “My love, I trust you entirely.” He embraced her, and they stood for a while that way. Finally, he eased himself away from her and kissed her lightly on the cheek. “It’s the Chapalii I don’t trust. Please recall that they murdered my parents.”

“I haven’t forgotten it. Goddess, how could I? Still—”

He chuckled and released her hands. “I yield. It’s now time that you know the whole of it. Read the rest.”

“I appreciate your openness,” she said dryly, and she flicked on her brooch light and scanned the page.

“Now I regret letting Aleksi remove the contraceptive patch in my left arm. Not entirely, because Ilya wants children so badly, but I had hoped—it sounds incredibly ridiculous to me now to say that I had hoped to have some experience, to have acquitted myself well as a fighter, before being bound to camp by pregnancy.”

“Pregnancy!” For the first time since beginning this journey, Cara felt real alarm, the pound of adrenaline, warmth flushing her skin. “But the incompatibilities! It could be lethal!”

“Now you see why I brought you, Doctor.”

“But wasn’t she told—?”

“How old was Tess when she lived in Jeds with us?”

She shook her head, having to count back years and calculate. “Ten? Twelve? She was a child.”

“Too young to get the lecture all the adults working on Jeds have received. And neither you nor I ever expected her to return so precipitously.”

“Or so secretly. Much less marry. She’s just a little girl. I never thought she would grow up.” She shook herself with disgust. “How I hate it when I don’t think.”

Charles smiled, a quirk of the lips. “We are here now. There’s no reason Tess can’t come home with us, when we leave. That will put her out of danger.”

“Charles. Charles. You can’t possibly believe that it will be so easy. Married! There’s a very good reason. You’ve met him.”

It was too dark to read his expression, but his mouth tightened, and his lashes shadowed his eyes. “We shall see,” he murmured. “I must go.”

Light flashed and vanished, and she was alone. “Goddess,” she swore. Still, what if it could be done? One Earth woman and three Rhuian women had gotten pregnant by men from the
other
planet and all of them had died, inevitably, from antigenic reactions caused by incompatibilities between Earth and Rhuian humans. But one of the babies had lived. Surely with proper monitoring, with complete studies of both parents, a pregnancy could be brought to term successfully. Think how much she could learn from it! The rate of mutation, the alterations the Chapalii had made within the DNA of the Earth population moved to Rhui, the changes, the adaptations, that had come about by themselves on Rhui which could be measured in contrast to Earth’s template—indeed, the development of a fetus molded of both worlds—all of this could be measured and quantified in such a controlled experiment. Added to what she had already learned, to her studies of the fundamental process of human development and aging—