Earthly Crown (19 page)

So it caused no comment that Orzhekov’s looping sweep of towns along the lands tributary to Bakhtiian took longer than it might have, given a hastier commander. Indeed, it took so long that word reached them when they were still a day’s ride from the main camp that Bakhtiian had already returned from his mysterious trip to the coast with a host of barbarians in tow.

A number of the men dug out a fire pit near the commander’s small traveling tent and loitered there, hoping to glean additional information by proximity. Hobbled horses grazed on the outskirts of the little camp. Orzhekov stood outside her tent, talking with Tess Soerensen and Soerensen’s brother, Aleksi, who had joined up with them in late afternoon with the news.

“That one, Aleksi, he rides with Bakhtiian’s jahar, doesn’t he? But I heard he hasn’t even a family name. How’d he get so honored?”

“He’s Soerensen’s brother, you fool. She adopted him three years past.”

“But he’s an orphan, Leonid. I heard his whole tribe was killed, that it was a plague sent by the gods. That only he and a sister lived, and she died soon after. You’d think even a khaja woman would know better than to take in someone as cursed as all that—”

“Hush, you idiot. Have you ever seen him fight? He’d take your ears and your balls off before you even drew your saber.”

In the low round of laughter that followed this sally, Feodor Grekov strolled up to the fire and some of the men moved aside to make room for him.

“Grekov. Haven’t you any news for us?”

“Why should I have any more news than you, Yermolov?”

Several of the riders chuckled. Feodor flushed. “Well,” said Leonid with a grin, “you’ve shared her tent more than one night this trip. She must say something.”

Conscious of Orzhekov’s proximity, a few men offered suggestions, in low voices, of what their commander might say.

From her tent, Nadine had turned to watch Feodor Grekov settle down by the fire. She raised her voice and called over to her riders. “If you men haven’t anything better to do but sit and gossip around the fire, you can give the horses some extra grain. We’ve a hard ride in the morning, and an early start.”

The men grumbled, but they all rose.

“Just like a woman,” said Leonid good-naturedly. “If they think you’re giving their lover a hard time, then they work you to death.” But he gave Feodor a friendly slap on the shoulder as he left.

Nadine watched the riders disperse and then turned back to Tess. “If you’ll excuse me, I’d better go prepare our ambassador. We’ll reach camp by mid-afternoon, and if he doesn’t want to destroy his embassy completely, he has a couple of hard truths to learn about the jaran.”

“Dina, if you don’t mind me saying so—”

“I probably will, but you’ll say it nevertheless, so go on.”

Tess rubbed her hands together and blew on them, then slid her gloves out from under her belt and pulled them on. “You’re just putting his back up.”

“I invite you to try. You’ve a worse temper than I do.”

“Do I, indeed?” Tess glanced at Aleksi, who winked at her. She sighed. “Only where Ilya is concerned, and it hasn’t done me a damn bit of good yet. I’ll speak with the ambassador.”

Nadine stared past Tess at the elaborate nagged awning that Jiroannes’s servants had set up, as they did every evening, precise in their work. The tent entrance always faced southeast, toward the lands of the Great King. From this angle, they saw the back of Jiroannes’s head where he sat in his carved and padded chair. One of the Vidiyan guardsman stood next to him, holding a lantern to cast light on the parchment Jiroannes read. “I wish you luck. May I watch?”

“Aleksi and I will go. You may listen, but stay in the shadows. He doesn’t like you, Dina, so I’d rather he not see you.”

Nadine gave a sarcastic snort. “As you command, Soerensen.” But she did not wait to watch them go, rather walked out toward the horses.

“She’s moody,” said Aleksi.

“Dina is always moody. How did Charles seem? You got the letter to him?”

“Yes. He doesn’t look like you.”

“No, that’s true enough.” She pulled off her gloves and tucked them back into her belt.

“You’re nervous, Tess.”

She rubbed her hands together and started to jerk the gloves back out, then stopped herself, looking rueful. “Damn it. Yes, I am.”

“He didn’t seem frightening to me, though he’s a great prince.”

“You didn’t grow up being the only heir to the prince, Aleksi. I know he’s not happy that I stayed here.”

“But, Tess, you’re a woman, you’re of age. Where you stay is surely your own choice.”

If only it were. Or at least, if only it were so easy. He cocked his head to one side, waiting; Aleksi always knew when to wait and when to speak. He read her better, in many ways, than Ilya did, because Aleksi never layered any emotions on top of hers. But she was in too strange a mood tonight to nurse her anger at Ilya. She sighed finally and said nothing. Instead, she walked out onto the grass in a loop that would bring her by a roundabout way to Jiroannes’s cluster of tents.

“Bakhtiian is furious that you left camp,” said Aleksi.

Tess shrugged. “I’m not afraid of Ilya.”

“But you are afraid of your own brother.” He flicked at his chin with one finger, considering the stars. “I don’t understand the khaja,” he said at last. “And you even less.”

“What do you mean by that?” It was his turn to shrug, and Tess chuckled. “Tell me about the battle.”

“Some of the elders of the coast towns hired a mercenary force to waylay us. They did as well as they could, being khaja, but of course it was hopeless for them. Anatoly Sakhalin did a brilliant job of executing the charge and flight. He was wounded, but he says that one of the khaja women—” Aleksi switched for a moment to Rhuian. “—one of the actresses—saved him from being carried away by the angels. He gave her a necklace.”

“Oh, dear. What happened to the mercenaries?”

“Bakhtiian sent the captain to occupy Barala, the principal of the towns that hired him. He’s to execute the elders, collect tribute, send half to Bakhtiian and keep half for himself. Bakhtiian is going to send Suvorin’s jahar out to patrol that line of coast for the summer and perhaps into the winter as well.”

“Suvorin, eh? Ilya doesn’t much like Suvorin, so doubtless that will keep Suvorin busy and out of trouble.” Tess halted.

The square Vidiyan tents rose like blots of darkness some thirty paces before them. A Vidiyan guardsman sat on a rug to the left of the cluster of tents, polishing a silver tray and a set of silver dishes. The scent of aromatic herbs drifted to them on the breeze, swelling with the steam from a kettle perched on a fire of red-hot coals. The woman—the slave—knelt behind her master’s chair. Her hands lay perfectly still on her thighs, and her gaze seemed fixed on her hands. She did not move.

What kind of a world have I chosen to live on?
Tess thought. Yet it was no different from what Earth had been, with the same cruelties and the same kindnesses and the same hopes. And whatever else the jaran might be, they were her family. She took in a deep breath and let it all out in one huffing blow. “Now, Aleksi. You are to be silent and still.”

“As still as that one?” He nodded toward the slave.

“Lord. I wonder what she thinks of, sitting there. Silent in any case. I’m going to be respectful, which is what this boy needs, I think. In order to be able to allow himself to hear what I’m saying.”

“You’re never respectful to Bakhtiian.”

“Gods, if I was as respectful to Ilya as the rest of you are, he’d become insufferable. Shall we?” She walked forward around the outskirts of the camp and halted at the farthest fringe of awning. Aleksi followed two paces behind her.

Tess stood there, patient, until Syrannus rose and approached her. If Jiroannes was aware that she was there, he showed no sign of it. He kept reading.

“I thank you for recognizing me,” said Tess to Syrannus, in Rhuian. “I ask for permission for myself and my companion to enter, and to speak with His Eminence.” The final words, Jiroannes’s title, she spoke in Vidyan, and that did make Jiroannes glance up in surprise. He lowered his gaze as swiftly, still pretending to ignore her, but the line of his mouth tightened.

“Please.” Syrannus gestured for her to step onto the carpet. “If you will wait.”

The old man looked nervous, and when he turned to hurry over to his master’s chair, he wiped his hands on his black sash as if he were wiping sweat from his palms. The two men spoke together. Jiroannes handed Syrannus the parchment and the servant rolled it up carefully and called a second guardsman over to take it away. The first guardsman shifted position, angling the lantern light to include a patch of ground before the chair.

Syrannus hurried back to Tess and gestured her forward. She crossed the outer carpet and inclined her head respectfully to Jiroannes. “May the Great King live many years, and his affairs prosper, and your fortunes follow his,” she said, still in Vidyan.

Jiroannes hesitated. From what little Tess knew of Vidyan, she had now put him in a position from which he had either to greet her respectfully in return or else insult her deliberately.

At last, he spoke. “May your name dwell a thousand years in the heart of the Great King.” He did not stand. Neither did she kneel. After a moment, he signed to Syrannus, and the old man brought a stool.

Tess sat. It was parity, of a sort. “I hope, your eminence, that you will forgive my speaking in Rhuian, since I do not speak your language well enough to converse in it.”

“Where did you learn it? Surely you have not visited the Great King’s lands?”

“No, to my sorrow I have not. But I always seek to learn new languages.”

“Ah.” He appeared satisfied that some piece of a puzzle known only to himself had just fallen into place. “You are an interpreter.”

Tess suppressed her grin. “Yes,” she agreed, realizing just then the best tack to take with him. “But I am also a khaja—a foreigner—traveling with the jaran. In this, you and I are alike. Originally, I came from Jeds.”

Now he looked interested. “Jeds is a great city. The Great King has exchanged royal gifts with his cousin the prince of Jeds, and we have sent envoys there in the past. Indeed, a Jedan merchant admitted to the palace school taught me and the other young nobles Rhuian, since the Great King deemed it an important language to learn for those of us aspiring to become envoys and ambassadors.”

“Perhaps, your eminence, you will kindly allow me to tell you a few things I have learned in my years with the jaran. I have every hope that your mission will succeed. Certainly I hope to avoid war between Bakhtiian and your Great King.”

He prickled, definitely, but he did not dismiss her. “How did you come to be with the jaran?” he asked at last. “Are you a slave?”

For an instant, Tess allowed herself the pleasure of imagining how Nadine would react to such a remark, directed at any jaran woman. But then, Nadine would never make a good ambassador. “Your eminence, I am married to Bakhtiian.”

He blinked. In the cast of light from the lantern, his narrow face bore an almost demonic look, framed by the white cloth bound around his head and his pointed black beard.

But Jiroannes came from a polygamous culture. She could be any junior wife, of marginal importance, except perhaps that she was khaja and an interpreter.

“I beg your pardon, your eminence,” Tess added. “I did not make myself clear. I am Bakhtiian’s only wife. I am also the sister of the prince of Jeds.”

There was silence; a long silence, as the poor boy absorbed the full meaning of her simple declaration. “Your grace,” said Jiroannes at last, reluctantly but with a kind of fascinated horror. He stood up.

“Please, your eminence. Do sit down.” He sat. She considered his chastened face. Doubtless the knowledge that the Jedan prince had already deemed Bakhtiian and his jaran hordes dangerous enough to offer a marriage alliance to them made a formidable impact on the Vidiyan ambassador. Not to mention insulting her by calling her a slave. Lord, he really was quite young, and probably as spoiled and self-absorbed and isolated a young noble as she herself had been, growing up as the only sibling of the great hero of humanity, Charles Soerensen.

“Your grace, I beg pardon for any rudeness you may have received on my behalf.”

“You are forgiven.”

“Certainly I would be honored to listen to your wisdom concerning these jaran barbarians.”

How quickly they came to an accord, civilized cousins thrown in with the savages. Tess allowed herself a smile, and then she began, gently but firmly, to make him begin to understand how different things were with the jaran.

The slave-girl still knelt behind Jiroannes’s chair. Could the girl understand Rhuian? She did not move. She might have been carved from stone, so still was she. Tess realized that she wasn’t particularly angry with Jiroannes for keeping a slave. Disgusted. Resigned, knowing that the institution could not be erased with a wave of her hand. One had to work slowly. That’s what Charles would say. She winced internally. Who was acting like Charles now?

At last she took her leave. Jiroannes rose and bowed to her, then escorted her personally to the edge of the carpet. She walked out onto the grass with Aleksi and just stood there, breathing in the air. The wind brushed her hair. Stars filled the night sky, brilliant with promise. Over by Nadine’s tent, the fire pit had long since smoldered into coals. On a far rise, an edge of darkness against the darker sky, the tiny figure of a scout blotted out stars. Horses stood scattered beyond the camp, some staked, some hobbled. A few tents had been set up, but most of the men slept on the ground, dark lumps wrapped in blankets.

“I love the plains,” said Tess in a low voice, letting the sky and the sweep of ground envelop her. “It’s so open here.”

“Look there.”

Tess followed the line of Aleksi’s gaze to see a man pause beside Nadine’s tent and then duck inside. “Grekov, again? He’s in love with her. She’ll never have him, though.”

“But women have no choice in marriage,” Aleksi objected.

“Jaran women don’t, it’s true. But Nadine is no longer truly jaran. Jeds marked her too well.” Tess’s gaze flicked over the Vidiyan encampment and halted on the slender form of the ambassador, watching—what? But it was clear enough what he was watching. He, too, stared at Nadine Orzhekov’s tent. A moment later his slave-girl approached him and knelt at his feet. He retreated inside his own tent. She followed.