Earthly Crown (33 page)

She just stood there, the lantern heavy in her hand. His pale hair seemed lighter by contrast with the shadows in the tent. His lips moved, forming soundless words. Gently, he took the lantern from her and hung it from a loop on the center pole.

“Anatoly.” She dug for words, khush words, to speak to him, but they had all evaporated.

“Diana—” He said a whole sentence, but it was meaningless to her, nothing but sounds strung together.

They stood a moment in awkward silence. He lifted one hand to trace the scar on her cheek. His fingers slid to trace her lips, and she kissed them, and his other hand sought her hips, to draw her closer to him, and she slid one arm around his back and caught her other hand in his hair…

Then, as quickly as that, she discovered that in fact they did speak the same language.

A
T THE EDGE OF
the firelit glow cast by the roaring bonfire, Ilya Bakhtiian halted beside his wife where she stood in the gloom. Tess glanced up at him, then back out at the camp.

“They left, then?” asked Bakhtiian.

“Who, Anatoly and Diana? Yes.” She turned to face him, watching him as he watched her, measuring. Her lips quirked up. “No stranger than you and I.”

“Perhaps. But I doubt it. She will leave him.” Once, he would have hesitated to touch her in public, since it was unseemly. Now he lifted his hands without the least self-consciousness to cup her face and stare at her, searching. “I love you,” he said, and that was all, although it was a question.

“What would you do if I left?”

His lips drew out, tightening, and his face went taut. He dropped his hands from her face and grasped her hands instead. “You will not. I forbid it.”

“You can’t forbid it.”

“No.” The admission was shattering, wrung from him. “I cannot. But if I could, I would.”

“The ambassador from Vidiya has a slave. A woman.”

Now she had gone too far. “How dare you compare me to that pompous, overdressed boy?” he demanded. “How dare you even suggest that I have made such a thing of you?”

“To make you think, damn you.”

“Then go. You are free to choose.” He was so angry that he was shaking. “We ride south tomorrow. I can leave a jahar to take you to the coast with your brother, if that is what you wish. What I wish, you know well enough.”

“Oh, Ilya.” She embraced him suddenly. He was tense, stiff, but his anger could not sustain itself when she showed the least sign of her love for him. She felt him relax against her, and he sighed into her hair.

“Damn you,” he muttered.

“Come with me.”

“Where?” He drew his head back and frowned at her, suspicious.

She chuckled. “No, not to Jeds. To see my brother, now.”

“Why?”

“To tell him the truth. That I don’t intend to leave the jaran. Not now, at any rate. Not this year.”

He was still frowning. “When, then?”

“When you die, damn you. Now stop bothering me and come with me.”

He laughed, surprised, and hugged her tightly. “We have an old tale,” he whispered into her ear, “about a woman who poisoned her husband because she wanted to marry another man.”

Tess smiled and pressed into him, returning the embrace. “If you can find me another man to marry, then I’ll consider it.” She broke free of his grasp and pushed him away. “Now, you’ll come with me, and you’ll stay quiet while I talk with Charles.”

“Yes, my wife,” he said meekly, and he walked with her across camp to Soerensen’s encampment. At the gap, they passed about fifty paces away from the little tent that sat on the grass between both camps. Bakhtiian fought down a smile and he stopped Tess with a hand on her shoulder, and bent and kissed her. The night shielded them. “After,” he murmured, releasing her.

“Don’t distract me. You don’t know how hard it is for me to do this.”

Under the awning of Charles’s tent, Marco Burckhardt sat with a thin tablet on his lap. Charles sat next to him, staring at something on his hand. Two lanterns lit the two men, one to either side of them, and from the slightly askew flap of Dr. Hierakis’s tent, a steady glow could be seen coming from the interior. Then both men looked up, saw Tess, saw Bakhtiian, and Marco collected something from Charles’s hand and took it and the slate back into the tent before Tess and Ilya reached the awning.

Charles stood up. Cara emerged from her tent, glanced at the converging lines, and walked over to stand next to Charles. Marco reappeared from the tent.

“They’re hiding something from me,” Bakhtiian muttered, and he glanced at Tess to see what her reaction was. Tess flushed, but he could not see the color of her skin in the darkness, so she was safe.

“How long will the carousing go on?” Cara asked with a smile as she motioned them to come in under the awning.

Bakhtiian acknowledged her first, with a nod, and then Charles, and last Marco. “As long as they wish. The army rides south tomorrow. They’ll earn this celebration tonight.”

“The poor child won’t have much of a honeymoon, then,” said Cara. “But I saw that she was safely put to bed a little earlier. Where are you going, Marco?”

“Out to carouse,” he said curtly. He excused himself and left.

They watched him go. Charles’s expression was unreadable. Cara shook her head. Bakhtiian arched his brows, looking puzzled. “He doesn’t seem like the kind of man Sonia would take to her bed.” He glanced at Charles, as if to gain corroboration from the other man, and Tess was struck by how clearly he treated Charles as an equal. There were many men, men of the jaran in particular, whom he treated with respect, but there was no question of where the ultimate authority lay. No question but here: Ilya did not defer to Charles—he did to women, of course; that was so deeply engrained in him that Tess doubted he would ever lose the habit—but neither did he attempt in the slightest to command him.

“Sonia likes a challenge,” said Tess.

“Is that where he’s been at night?” Charles asked. “I had wondered.”

“And you didn’t ask?” Tess spoke the words and an instant later realized how sarcastic they sounded. “I have to talk to you,” she said quickly, to cover her embarrassment and to get it over with. This was something best done quickly, before she lost her nerve. Somehow, seeing Anatoly and Diana escorted off into the night to their tent had made her determined to talk to Charles now, however much she wanted to put it off.

“Please sit,” said Charles. Cara and Tess sat down next to each other, in chairs. Ilya hesitated. “I have pillows,” said Charles suddenly, “and something I brought for you from Jeds.” He vanished into the tent, emerging with two large pillows and a velvet bag. He tossed the pillows onto the ground so that the two men could sit side by side and on the same level.

Ilya’s lips twitched, and then he smiled. “Well done,” he said, and sat down. Charles sat down beside him, opened the velvet bag, and drew out two objects: a book and a clock.

He gave Ilya the clock first. It had a simple design, a white unnumbered face framed with mahogany; a spring door in the back opened to reveal the mechanical workings.

“This is different,” Ilya said, “than the clocks I saw in Jeds.”

“The lines and hands mark out the hours of the day.”

“Like a khaja wall marks out land,” said Ilya, glancing up at Tess. Then, turning back to Charles, “Its simplicity lends it beauty.”

Charles offered him the book and, of course, he took it. Ilya never could resist a book. He ran his hands along the leather binding in a way that was almost amorous, and then turned it to the title page and then to the text. He gave a short bark of laughter. “‘Being convinced that the human intellect makes its own difficulties—’” He closed the book and handed it up to Tess. “True enough words,” he said to Charles.

“The New Organon.
Francis Bacon,” read Tess. “Charles!” Both men looked up at her expectantly. She stroked one arm of her chair, tracing the patterns in its carved wood with her fingers. “Charles,” she said again, and lapsed into silence. A book and a clock—the one by a philosopher who had helped develop the scientific method, the other, well, Ilya himself had compared a device that measures time in artificial increments to the walls that interrupt the natural flow of the land. These were the worst weapons Charles could have brought; and he knew it, and she knew it.

Cara rescued them from the uncomfortable silence. The doctor leaned down to rummage in a cloth bag crumpled at the base of her chair and drew out a mass of yarn, and began to knit.

Ilya’s face lit with interest. “That is like weaving. May I ask what it is you’re doing?”

“It’s called knitting. The women of your people don’t knit? Who did the marvelous embroidery on your shirt?”

He tilted his head to one side, looking pleased and a little shy. “I did.”

“You
did?” Cara laughed. “Well. That ought to teach me not to make unwarranted assumptions. What were you going to say, Tess? Would you like something to drink? Some Scotch, perhaps?”

“I don’t think so—”

“Certainly.” Ilya cut across her refusal. “We would be honored.” He shot her an admonishing glance. Sharing food and drink was one of the two fundamental courtesies that bound the jaran tribes together.

“Perhaps you’d like to come with me,” said Cara, to Ilya.

“No. I want Ilya to stay here.” His presence was both the spur and the anchor, forcing her to go forward, keeping her stable. She clutched the book in both hands. “And you, too, Cara. It’s no long speech. It’s very little, really, it’s very simple. I’m not going back.”

Charles rested his elbows on his knees and leaned forward. “You’re not going back where?”

“To Jeds, with you, when you go back. When you leave.” She burned with heat. She knew it, could feel the flush on her face, could feel her pulse pounding. “It’s only fair to tell you, so you don’t keep thinking…that maybe I will. That I’m going back. I know that’s what you came for. But I can’t go. Not now.”

“Why is that?” Charles’s voice was cool, neutral.

Ilya sat straight, his chin lifted in triumph, and he looked at Tess, not at his rival, as if, having won, he could now dismiss him.

Why did she have to defend herself like this? And why must she do it so damned badly? “Because I love him,” she said in Anglais.

“Love is a compelling reason,” said Charles in Rhuian, and Ilya shifted his gaze to Charles. “But alone it is not always sufficient. I think it isn’t all that is keeping you here.”

“What do you mean by that?” demanded Ilya. Whatever ease had existed between the two men at the beginning of the conversation vanished, evaporating in the heat of Ilya’s question.

“Ilya,” said Tess.

“I’m getting the Scotch,” said Cara, “and I expect you two to behave yourselves until I get back.” She rose and strode off to her tent.

Charles raised his eyebrows. His gaze caught on Bakhtiian’s, and a moment later the two men smiled stiffly at each other.

“Serves you right,” muttered Tess. Cara returned with the bottle of Scotch and four sturdy glass tumblers. Ilya held up the one she gave him and turned it, watching the light splinter and catch in the crystal.

“This is beautiful.” He lowered the glass so that Cara could pour a splash of the liquor into it. With the others, he lifted it and drank. Tess lowered her glass and watched him, saw his eyes round at the potency of the alcohol. He choked back a cough and took another sip, cautiously this time.

Cara chuckled. “Now,” she said, “you
will
come with me, Bakhtiian. I have a few things to show you, and some questions to ask about your army’s medical logistics.”

Ilya looked at Tess, and she sighed and nodded. He rose and obediently followed Dr. Hierakis.

“It’s an interesting culture,” said Charles, watching them go. “And rather admirable, in its way.”

“Yes, well,” she replied sarcastically, “Francis Bacon will soon put an end to that.”

“You don’t approve?”

“He’ll never use the clock. They just don’t think that way.”

“Doubtless,” said Charles, sounding sardonic in his turn, “in the Great Chain of Philosophic Being, their culture ranks far above our own.”

Stung, she tossed the book with purposeful disregard onto Ilya’s pillow. It landed next to the clock. “You know it’s ridiculous to compare cultures in that fashion.”

He looked serious all at once, and Tess did not know what to make of his expression. “Tess, I have faith in you that you would not have stayed with the jaran if they were savages.”

But his sympathy made her feel worse. She curled her hands around the tumbler and stared at the Scotch, swirling it around in the glass. “They’re killing a lot of people, Charles. Lots of people. Hordes of them.”

“As will I, if I lead another rebellion against the Chapalii Empire. That’s my choice, isn’t it?”

Tess set the glass down on the rug. She could hear Cara talking softly behind her, and Ilya’s softer replies. “Charles.” She wrapped her fingers together, unwound them, and let them fall to her lap. “You made a choice to make a cause the center of your life. I can’t live that way. Someday I’ll come to the end of my life and when I look back, I know what measure I’ll make of how well I lived. That measure is in the lives I lived beside.”

“But someone must live for the cause. Or else we remain slaves. Well-treated slaves, it is true, but slaves nevertheless.”

“You’re right, of course. I never said I wouldn’t do my part. But you’ve given up everything else for your work and I can’t—I won’t—do that. Otherwise my life is a desert—nothing.” She hesitated, not wanting to hurt him, to judge him, but he merely watched her, unfathomable. “If anything of me lives on after I’m dead, it will be my linguistics work, and, I hope, children as well.”

“You’ve thought about this a great deal.”

She steepled her hands and rested her lips on her thumbs, then raised her head to look at him again. “I’ve torn at myself. Half of me says that I must give myself entirely to your work, that it’s my duty to you, my duty to humanity, that’s most important. It’s a litany that runs through my head. But what use would it be for me to sacrifice myself for that? I’m not a leader. I’m not like you. Or like Ilya, for that matter. I don’t want to be a leader, I’m not cut out to be one. I can contribute in other ways. I will. But I won’t give up my family to do so.” She said it with passion, and only a moment later realized how it must sound to him.