Earthly Crown (22 page)

“But why should you kill him?” Tess asked at last, her voice perfectly calm because she was still too surprised by this sudden confession to know what to make of it. “What good would it do you?”

He stood up, pushing himself up with one hand on the table. It rocked slightly, and then he lifted his hand and crossed to Tess in five strides. “Unless he never meant to come out on the plains at all,” he said quietly. “We have nothing to negotiate. Jeds is too far away and I am young in my power. In time, certainly, but I can just as well ride north and east along the Golden Road. What if he brought no entourage because he never meant to leave his ship? If you had come with me to the coast, he could have put you on board the ship and sailed south.”

Which was perfectly true. Trust Ilya to have seen it. Trust Charles to have made the point clear without ever stating it aloud. And leaving her to deal with it. “But what about the actors, then?” she asked, knowing the question was a flanking action.

“The actors,” said Ilya, with the merest quirk of a smile, “are all mad, clearly. But like all entertainers, they must know they are welcome anywhere. Like all singers-of-tales, they are given both the favor and the protection of the gods. I will do them no harm.”

“And meanwhile, you have offered me a grave insult. How dare you have so little respect for my dignity that you would lead my horse as if I was a child and then drag me by main force back through camp like that?”

He looked taken aback by this direct attack. He looked a little embarrassed. “Tess.” He placed his hands on her shoulders and slid them up to cup her face in his palms. He swayed toward her.

“Don’t think this will work,” she murmured, and then she leaned into him and kissed him, running her hands from his belt up the smooth silken line of his back. The hard knot of his belt buckle pressed against her, and she had to shift her hips slightly to keep her saber hilt from tangling with his sheathed knife.

He broke off the kiss and sighed, gathering her into him, and kissed her along the line of her jaw up to her right ear. “If he takes you away from me,” he whispered, as softly as an endearment, “then I promise you that I
will
destroy Jeds.”

Tess stiffened in his embrace and slid her hands around to his chest, bracing herself away from him. He let go of her. “What if I decide to leave of my own free will?”

So many expressions chased themselves across his features that it took her a moment to recognize the one that lay underneath all the others. He was afraid. Ilya was afraid of losing her.

He threw his arms around her, enclosing her, and yanked her tight against him. “By the gods, I will stop you.”

“How?”

He did not answer in words. Words contained the least part of the language they spoke to one another. The heat of his hands burned on her skin. Tess traced the line of his beard, traced his lips, with her fingers. Her hands ranged down to the clasp of his belt, and she eased it away and let it drop onto the soft pile of carpets.

“Tess,” he said again, hesitant.

Tess got her hands under his shirt and slid them up, over his chest, teasing the nipples and then, when he was breathless, steering him backward through the curtain into the sleeping alcove. By shifting her foot, she tripped him, and he tumbled down onto the heap of silken pillows, pulling her with him. Astride him, she eased off his shirt, and let him unbuckle her belt and thrust it away. She captured his hands and pressed them against her.

“Promise me,” she said. “Promise me you will not threaten my brother.”

“Damn you.” He was angry, still, but he was also laughing. “It gains me nothing, now, to kill him, and you know it.”

“Then it costs you nothing to promise me. He is your ally, Ilya, you must believe that.”

He shifted his hips beneath her and used the toe of one boot to pry off the other. “He cares nothing for me, Tess, except that I married you.”

“That isn’t true.”

“Isn’t it? Then tell me he would have come here, that he would even send an embassy to the jaran, if you weren’t here.”

“Jeds is far away—”

“Gods, Tess,” he said, exasperated. With an expert twist, he freed his hands and flipped her over, so that he lay on top of her. He found the tip of her braid and undid it, loosening her hair until it lay free, spread out on the pillows.

“You haven’t promised me yet,” she said stubbornly.

He sat back with a great sigh and took off his other boot. She lay still on the pillows, watching him in the soft light of the lanterns. He kept his black hair cut short, a fashion that had spread among his soldiers, and he was obsessive about keeping his beard neat and trimmed. Whether by accident or by design, the lantern light haloed him, giving him a haze of light, as if the gods had long since marked him as their own. Which they had, according to the beliefs of his own people.

“I promise you that I will not threaten your brother as long as you stay with me,” he said.

“Ilya!” It was her turn to be exasperated.

“We’re negotiating, my wife. Now it is your turn to make a counteroffer.”

She sat up and took off her boots, and regarded him. Oh, she was still angry with him, but right now, it didn’t matter. She laughed. “I’ll consider it. Now, my husband, I think it time to remind you that you have been gone for a month, and you have certain obligations to your wife that you have not yet fulfilled.”

“Most willingly,” he murmured. “Gods, Tess, I missed you.” He sank down with her into the soft bed of pillows.

Later, lying quiet, she stroked his hair while he kissed her fingers, one by one.

“We’ll make a child,” he said, and because it was habitual with him, it came out more an order than a request. “Do you know, by the time Niko was my age he was a grandfather.” Then, content for now, he sighed and nestled his face against her neck, tangling himself in with her and, as he often did, he fell asleep immediately.

A grandfather.
The word looped over and over in her thoughts as she lay still, staring at him. Thirty-seven—not old at all. But here, if he lived another thirty years, it would be a miracle. Whereas she could expect to live another eighty or ninety years: the thought of living in a universe without him in it—she winced away from even thinking about it.

She sought out the silver in his hair, but there was not enough yet to show up in the dim light, not enough to lighten his black hair. He had sun-weathered skin, but like all the jaran, the wrinkles came late and slowly. She traced the scar on his cheek—the scar of his marriage to her—and farther down, to one on his shoulder, along his chest to the flat line of his abdomen, to his hips. Easing out from under his arm, she pulled away from him and covered him with a thick quilt of fur. He slept, undisturbed by these attentions.

But the signs were beginning to show: cuts, superficial wounds that did not heal as quickly, wrinkles at the corners of his eyes. He would grow old, truly old, and she would still be young.

She dressed, braided her hair, and went outside. It was dark now and most of the camp was quiet. In the direction of the Sakhalin encampment some kind of carousing was going on, doubtless in celebration of Anatoly Sakhalin’s elevation to a command of his own.

Under the light of lanterns hung from the awning of her tent, Sonia sat with Nadine. She was sewing together two strips of woven cloth, with Nadine aiding her.

“Well, well,” called Sonia as Tess ducked under her awning. “So you survived that, did you?”

“Damned arrogant bastard,” said Tess, bending to give Sonia a kiss. “It’s good to be back.”

Sonia chuckled. “You should have greeted him first, Tess.”

“I can’t believe you say that, Sonia. Of all people.”

Sonia grinned. “Oh, not for his sake, or even his dignity, Tess. You must think of the rest of us, although I trust he'll be in a better humor when he wakes.”

“He ought to be. Where
are
the children?”

“I sent them off to the Sakhalin celebration.”

“Aren’t you going yourself?”

“Mother warned me that I mustn’t defer to Mother Sakhalin
too
much.”

“Oho,” said Tess, “very clever, then, to send the children but not yourself. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to return to my brother.”

“I hear that Anatoly Sakhalin has fallen in love with one of the actors,” said Sonia. “Perhaps you’ll look her over for me.”

Tess shrugged. “I don’t know who you mean.”

“Yes, you do,” said Nadine suddenly. “The one who fainted. Well timed, you know, from a tactical point of view.”

“Good Lord. What would Anatoly Sakhalin want with a khaja wife, anyway?”

Both Sonia and Nadine laughed. “My dearest Tess,” said Sonia with a grin, “he wants to be like Ilya, of course.”

“Gods.” Feeling that this expressed everything that was left to express, Tess took her leave and walked back through camp to her brother’s enclave.

Here it was not quiet. Coming up on the two sets of tents pitched just beyond the army, Tess recognized with a shock the life of a society that was at once familiar and distant to her, after four years on Rhui. Day and night were equal to these people. Even though here they had to rely on lantern light, still they did not put aside their activities with the sunset and begin again with sunrise. She paused in the gloom outside the ring of light, watching.

Under Charles’s awning sat Charles and Cara and David—those three she knew from before. Maggie sat with them, and a handful of others she had not met. As she watched, a trio walked in from the side, laughing and talking in voices trained to carry: a few of the actors, evidently. Tess marked out Diana, the young golden-haired actress; she was pretty, of course, but more than that, she seemed to carry light with her wherever she went. Rather like Ilya, however ironic that might be, except that Diana shone with sweetness and a fine, generous spirit, not with stark power.

Tess felt a presence move at her back and she turned to see a man approaching her. He was tall and bulky—not fat, not at all, but much bigger than jaran men.

He halted beside her, crossing his arms on his chest. “The Tess I knew wouldn’t have spotted me coming.”

“Hello, Marco. I didn’t get a chance to greet you properly, before. I wanted to thank you for your letter.” She chuckled. “How long ago that seems. ‘Your dear old uncle Marco,’ indeed. I always thought you didn’t much like children.”

“I never know what to do with them,” he replied curtly. She glanced at him, curious, but he was looking at the group under the awning. He was looking at Diana. “Is it true that you’re married to him?” he asked without taking his eyes from the young actress.

“Yes, it’s true. Didn’t Charles tell you?”

“He didn’t tell anyone, but I guessed, and he didn’t deny it. Cara only found out five days ago, because she read the letter you wrote to Charles.”

“Of course. He wouldn’t want the Chapalii to know, since by their laws a female upon marriage takes her husband’s status. And since Rhui has no intelligent life, by Chapalii measure, that would mean I had descended to the level of horses and wolves. That’s why Charles told them the fiction that I’m out here doing linguistics research, isn’t it?”

Now Marco turned to look at her. “Tess, didn’t you know that according to the Chapalii Protocol Office, you’re dead?”

She laughed, short and surprised, put her hand to her throat, and lowered it again. “Am I, really? But then—?”

“Then what? Charles did not protest the announcement, so in fact you’re officially dead and only a few of his intimates and now, of course, the Bharentous Company, know the truth.”

“But, Marco—” She felt a surge of hope and lifted her cold hands to suddenly hot cheeks. “That means he’s free to adopt. He’s not bound to our blood tie any longer, and he can adopt someone else as his Chapalii heir.” It was like a cord bound around her heart had been cut through, freeing her. “That means he doesn’t need me anymore.”

“I wish it was that easy. The cylinder from the Morava site is a priceless piece of information for our side, Tess, but it’s configured awkwardly and we’ve got to have the parameters of the system installed at Morava in order to get at its deep structure. Those damned chameleons don’t have any standard programs. It’s all in the interrelationship of systems. If Rajiv can’t crack it, then we’ll have to bring in one of the Keinaba experts.”

“Keinaba? You mean the Chapalii merchant house? How can you bring them in here, or to Morava?”

“They’re Charles’s now. They transferred their house pledge to him. It’s all proper and affirmed by the emperor himself. It’s a long story, anyway.”

“What does that have to do with his adopting a new heir?”

“He’s holding you in reserve, Tess. You’re the ace up his sleeve. Charles didn’t make the proclamation that you were dead. Another Chapalii duke did.”

“Oh, hell. Charles is jumping feet first into court intrigue, isn’t he? If he needs to discredit this other duke, then he’ll produce me, and—there you are—public shame. The Tai-en will have to leave court and perhaps even be stripped of his title.”

Marco shook his head. “Tess, you amaze me. You speak their language better than any human I know, and you seem to understand how they work. Don’t you see that Charles can’t afford to lose you?”

“Lose me, or my expertise?”

“There’s no difference.”

She stared at the gathering under the awning, at these outlandish alien beings, large of limb and clothed in gaudy, foreign clothing. They laughed, and the pitch of their voices as they spoke was strange to her, producing exotic sounds and disorienting syllables. Then she realized that they were speaking Anglais and that she could understand them perfectly well.

“Marco,” she demanded, “why are you talking to me in Rhuian?”

“I didn’t want to startle you. Do you want to go in now?”

“No. But I will anyway.”

“Lamb to the slaughter,” said Marco in Anglais.

Tess snorted in disgust and walked in. Charles noted her immediately, of course, and stood up. Formally, he introduced her to Rajiv and Joanna and Ursula, and Maggie introduced her to the two other actors, Gwyn Jones and Hal Bharentous. A moment later, Tess realized that Marco had not followed her in. She glanced out into the darkness, but could not see him, lurking or otherwise. She sat down on a camp stool and wondered what in hell she was going to say to these people.