Earthly Crown (56 page)

Rajiv tapped his fingers lightly on the hard surface of his slate. “We will not know how much additional information was hidden within the interstices of that cylinder unless we can install it on the original equipment it came from, the equipment here. The Keinaba house consoles could only access the top layer of information, and there was clearly more coded in underneath.”

“So.” Charles said the word and then said nothing for a long moment. Through the small window set high up in the wall, David saw stars and the thick leafy crowns of trees. “This we know. I think we have no choice but to call down an expert from Keinaba house.”

“Call down a Chapalii?” Maggie asked. “On planet? That would be breaking your own interdiction.”

Charles snorted. “I’m already breaking my own interdiction. And they’ve seen Chapalii here before. Any other objections?”

Rajiv bent his head. “You know my feelings.”

“What are your feelings?” Maggie demanded.

Rajiv glanced up at her, his dark eyes glinting. “I suggested it. There is one technician I have worked with. She is one of these
ke,
one of the nameless ones of their lowest caste, but she is an artist with this machinery. I cannot forgive a society that condemns such intelligence and promise to that kind of subjugation for no better reason than that her parents were born of parents who were born of parents…and so on.” His eyes flashed with anger. His dark brows were drawn down, and a pulse beat in his jaw.

“A Chapalii female!” Maggie exclaimed. “I’ve never met a Chapalii female. I thought they were all in purdah or something. Restricted. Secluded.”

“It is true,” said Charles slowly, “that they are rarely together with Chapalii males. Beyond that, I have formed no sense of what their status is. But the Tai-en Naroshi offered me the services of his sister to design a mausoleum for Tess.”

“How morbid. At least you didn’t take him up on it.”

“But I did.” Charles smiled, not with amusement precisely but at some ironic joke. “They work at a slower pace than we do, though. Cara believes they’re quite long-lived.” He brushed his hands together briskly and stood up with decision. “Then if there is no more discussion, I’ll send for a deputation from Keinaba.”

“But Charles,” said David, “can you trust them? Surely asking them to uncover this information—the Tai-en Mushai is almost a Lucifer kind of figure in their history, as far as I can tell. Or at least, that’s how Tess described him to me once. Will the Keinaba family agree to help you uncover his past? To start in motion what may prove to be another rebellion against their own emperor?”

“I think that they’ll do anything I tell them to do. This is one way to test that.”

David just shook his head. “You’re damned cool.”

“Don’t forget that I saved their house from extinction by my intervention. They owe me everything. They are bound to me like—” He shrugged. “Well, aren’t there any historians here who can provide me with a good analogy?”

David had known Charles for forty-five years now. He and Charles and the other Charles—who was now Marco—had gone to university together. David’s path had parted for a time from that of Charles after university, but in the end he had come back to him, to the cause, to the rebellion, to the endless struggle for freedom. David felt more and more that he knew Charles less well the longer they were together. As if the closer David got, the more Charles receded, or at least that the force repelling David grew stronger the longer he was exposed to it. Not that Charles was in any way cold to him, that he didn’t trust him, listen to him, even joke with him now and again in the way he used to when they were young, but that Charles himself was retreating far down into the depths of the Tai-en, the duke, the only human who had any true power within the Chapalii hierarchy. David loved Charles. He respected the duke, but he wasn't sure that he liked him much.

“Where is Marco, anyway?” he asked, thinking of old times. “I haven’t seen him all day.”

“Out scouting for a landing site, in the event we were forced to this decision. But I expect him—”

Someone came running down the hall. A moment later the door burst open and Marco plunged into the room, pulling up short. “Just got a frantic message in from Tess. Christ in Heaven. She and Cara—” He swore fluidly and imaginatively in Ophiuchi-Sei. “She talked Cara into slipping Bakhtiian some damned serum or other to try for a temporary halt to his aging.”

“What!” That was Jo. “But the physiological discrepancies could be lethal!”

“Exactly. That’s what the message was about. Here, I’ll play it back for you.” He unhooked his slate from his belt and laid it on the table. With a pass of his hand over the shining surface, and a single spoken word, an image appeared above the slate, Tess’s image. Her message was garbled and almost incoherent, but one fact came through clearly: Bakhtiian had slipped into a coma and Cara didn’t know the likelihood of his ever coming out of it.

“Goddess above,” swore Maggie. “Talk about breaking the interdiction.”

“Well?” asked Marco after Tess’s image froze and he keyed it to vanish.

“Did you find a good landing site?” Charles asked.

There was silence, while everyone else sorted out the sudden change of subject.

Marco blinked. He ran his left hand back through the thick shock of his hair. “Yes, in fact, I did. But what about—?”

“If Cara is there, then there is nothing further I can do. Now. I’ll need a scrambled message, Rajiv, to be sent to Odys through Jeds and thence on to Keinaba. I want them to arrive as soon as possible. Marco, when is the new moon? I think we’ll have the best chance of getting them in unseen then.”

“But Charles—” David burst out. “What about Nadine? Surely she deserves to know. We don’t even know what kind of rules for succession they have. Won’t she want to ride back?”

Rajiv had already opened up a branching pathway over his slate, encoding a signal and encryption into it. Marco had a strange, almost disturbing expression on his face as he watched Charles.

“David,” said Charles, “I would dearly love to tell Nadine Orzhekov about her uncle’s illness. How am I to explain how we got the news so quickly?”

“You’re right,” muttered David.

“It would be damned convenient for you if he died,” added Marco in a low voice.

“It might be,” said Charles. “In fact, it would be, and it’s damned inconvenient for me that I find myself standing here hoping that he doesn’t die. Because I rather like him.”

“The Tempest,”
said Maggie suddenly. “That’s the right analogy. Doesn’t the magician Prospero save everyone’s life? Aren’t they all bound to him, the humans and spirits both?”

“What are you talking about?” David demanded.

Charles laughed. “Doesn’t he play with all their lives? Thank you, Maggie. I’ll take that as a vote of confidence. I think. Jo, let’s go down to your room and you can show me how you reached your dating results.”

They dispersed. Maggie following Charles and Jo out the door. Rajiv did not move, but he was well sunk into a working trance, manipulating his pathways in a shimmering three dimensions in the air above his slate. David sighed and moved to follow the others. “Aren’t you coming?” he asked Marco.

“Which makes me Caliban,” said Marco under his breath. “And of course
she
plays Miranda.”

“What?”

Marco started. He shook his head. “Nothing. Never mind. Yes, let’s go see Jo’s results. So, David my boy, I hear you’re the spitfire’s new favorite.”

David chuckled, since this was old, familiar banter. “You should talk. Wasn’t her cousin—the blonde one—courting you the entire time we were at camp?” In charity with each other, they left Rajiv to his task, light glittering and spinning in the tiny room like the web of a sorcerer’s working.

T
ESS KEPT VIGIL.

All that day, although in the afternoon Sonia made her walk outside. “You must keep up your strength, Tess,” Sonia scolded. “It does a woman no good to weaken herself when she’s pregnant.”

Cara brought up one of her wagons in the late afternoon. That night she and Ursula, with Aleksi aiding them, set up a bed which would monitor Ilya’s condition continuously. With some clever drapery of fabric, the doctor arranged an intravenous system to keep him in fluids; then she set up her cot out in the outer chamber of their great tent. The wind shook the tent walls incessantly, so that the noise became like a lullaby, monotonous and soothing. Tess slept, a little.

In the morning Sonia charged Aleksi with taking Tess for walks, one in the morning, one in the afternoon. Cara made some excuse about the bed, but since Sonia had been in Jeds, she accepted the excuses and was dissuaded from investigating too closely. In any case, she had the rest of the extended family to provide for, and the Orzhekov tribe to administer, and Tess to worry about.

Tess sat by the bedside, not stirring unless someone approached her directly. Katerina drew aside different flaps within the tent to let the wind through, to cool it down, but the air remained stuffy. In the afternoon, Aleksi came.

“Come.” He took her hand and drew her to her feet. Ilya lay still and silent on the bed. “The doctor will watch. You must come outside and walk.”

She went, because it was easier than protesting and because he was right. Outside was an armed camp. The gold banner whipped in the wind atop the tent. Vladimir and Konstans stood on either side of the awning, white-faced, like statues. Two rings of guards circled the Orzhekov camp, the great tent at the center. A stone’s throw out, a line of unmounted men paced; farther, horsemen rode a tight circle. Sonia held court under the awning of her tent, and supplicants came forward one by one to address her. Beyond, the stark outline of the ridgetop shimmered against the blue sky. It was hot, and the wind was hot, and the sun beat down on the height like a hammer.

The light and the weight of her anguish bewildered Tess. “What’s going on?”

“The rumors are spreading,” said Aleksi. “Sonia is letting etsanas and dyans in one by one to assure them that all is well.”

“Which it isn’t.”

“Tess.”

“I’m sorry.” She felt dizzy. She rested a hand on his arm.

“We’ll walk,” he said sternly. They made a circuit of the inner ring of guards, composed mostly of men from the Orzhekov tribe itself, who were also part of Ilya’s own thousand. What was wrong? they asked her. Was he ill of a fever? Was it true that a Habakar priest had witched his spirit out of his body, and that they were even now battling in the gods’ lands for control of the Habakar kingdom? Tess found meaningless words to reassure them, but mostly Aleksi talked. They walked one circuit around, and then a second. The second was easier, because the guards let her walk in peace.

“A third time,” said Aleksi, “and then you must eat. Tess.” He hesitated. She plodded on. She felt heavy and full, and her breasts were beginning to swell. She had a horrible irrational fear that she was going to get the child in exchange for Ilya, and she realized that she wanted Ilya more.

“If I could take back what I did—” she said, and an instant later realized that she had said it aloud.

“What did you do?” Aleksi asked.

“Dr. Hierakis is eighty-two years old.”

He caught up to her and, with a touch on her elbow, stopped her. Then he looked once to each side, as if he thought the wind itself might be listening. “You mean that.”

“It’s true.”

“But she looks no older than—Ilya. Perhaps a little older, because she carries herself like an Elder. How old is your brother, Tess?”

“He’s seventy-seven. Fifty years older than me.”

“How can you have the same parents?”

“Because we live longer.”

“Are you zayinu? They say the old ones lived long lives and never aged. But they fled across the seas and under the hills long before the jaran came to these lands.”

“No. Well, yes, in a way, but only because of our machines. We are like you, Aleksi. We’re the same, it’s just that our machines allow us to live longer and travel farther.” She sighed. “You don’t believe me, do you?”

But his face was quite still. She could not tell what he was thinking. “Can you make us live so long and stay so young?”

She hung her head. On this height, the wind had scoured the ground clean of vegetation and loose soil, leaving only a hard-packed earth surface and the rougher solidity of bare rock. “That’s what I was trying to do.”

“Ah.” They continued their walk in silence.

“Tess!”

Her heart pounded wildly. She spun around to find the source of the voice. There he was: Kirill, riding through the lines. He swung down from his horse, threw the reins to a waiting guard, and ran over to her. She did not care that they were there in the open, where everyone could see; she hugged him hard and would have held him longer, but he disengaged himself from her gently. He took a single step back from her, to emphasize that they stood apart.

“Tess,” he said more softly. “Is it true?” She nodded, but could not speak. “Gods,” he said in a low voice. “But we have come so far.” He shifted to stare at the tent, at the bright walls shifting in the wind, and Tess realized that although the sling still cradled his arm, his shoulder looked odd to her.

“Kirill.” She grasped his withered hand, clutching the fingers where they peeked out from the cloth sling. And felt them move.

She shrieked, and then, for the first time in two days, she laughed, because she was so surprised.

He took hold of her shoulder with his good hand. “Shhh!” He glanced at Aleksi, but Aleksi only smiled enigmatically and looked away. “Don’t say anything. Gods, don’t cry, Tess.” He stroked her hair, briefly, and dropped his hand from her. “Five days ago my arm began to tingle all over. It hurt. Yesterday my hand came alive. Tess.” He stared at her earnestly, the fine blue of his eyes no less bright than the brilliant bowl of the sky. “If the spirit can return to my arm, then surely Ilya’s spirit can find its way back to his body. Fight its way back, if I know him.”

“Then he will be a Singer,” said Aleksi quietly. “He’ll be gods-touched, like Raysia Grekov.”

“Gods,” echoed Kirill in a muted voice. “Like his own father.”