Earthly Crown (31 page)

“Sunset is at 1900 Standard. Meet at 1800 hours.”

“As Yomi says. Now.” He paced from one end of the platform to the other, as if measuring it, studied the scattering of clouds in the sky, and motioned to Hyacinth. “Puck. We’ll walk the awakening scene first and then go back to the beginning.”

Hyacinth smiled charmingly. “But you haven’t told us what we’re doing yet.”

Owen blinked.
“A Midsummer Night’s Dream,
of course. Come, come. We haven’t much time. I’m a little concerned about the division between our world and the faery world. But one must assume that all human cultures have some understanding of a spirit world, of a world coterminous with our own. I believe that the mythic element must touch all human cultures, that it is there that we must seek our initial contact.”

At first Diana felt weak all over. Then she was furious. What would they think? What would Anatoly think? It was like a slap in the face, like making fun of something that was serious, not a lark. “You can’t!” she blurted out. “Owen, you can’t do it.”

Owen blinked at her, looking bewildered. “Can’t do what?” he asked. Anahita tittered.

“You can’t make me play that part. It’s…it’s…” She clenched her hands into fists and found that she was too upset to go on.

“But it’s perfect. Love’s misunderstandings. Weddings. A comedy. It will play to the audience, and we will find a bridge across which we can communicate.”

Hyacinth coughed into his hand, hiding his smug grin. “Poor Owen. I’m having no problem in communicating.”

Unexpectedly, Hal spoke up. “Di’s right, Dad. Considering what happened with Burckhardt, isn’t it a bit inappropriate? What if the natives take it as an insult?”

Owen regarded first Diana, and then Hal, with a penetrating gaze. His usual vagueness sloughed off him like a duck shedding water from its back. “I hear your reservations. But. I am right in this. Now. Hyacinth, shall we begin?”

“I refuse,” said Diana, before she realized she meant to say it. “I refuse to play Helena. You’re asking me to insult my…my…” The word was hard to say, but she forced herself to say it. “My husband.”

“Ooooh,” said Anahita. “My, my. Aren’t we the little queen today?”

“Anahita,” said Gwyn in a soft voice. “Shut up.”

Everyone else was watching Owen. Owen scratched at his black hair, frowning a little. Then he clambered down from the platform and walked over to stand in front of Diana. She wanted to take a step back, but she did not. He pulled at his lower lip, studying her with his dark eyes.

“Are you a member of this Company?” he asked finally.

She swallowed, but she met his gaze. “Yes.”

His voice dropped. In an undertone that could not be heard five feet from them, but carried clearly to her, he said, “Then do as I say. It is your choice, Diana. You are free to go, if that is what you wish. Although I would hate to lose you, that goes without saying. Now, will you play the part?”

Her hands were still tightly fisted. She lowered her gaze away from him. Of course she was out of line, disputing with him in this way. Of course she was free to go. She had always been free to go, as were any of them. “I’m not free to go, and you know it,” she said in a whisper, because it was true. She was an actor. Her whole life had led her to this. “Yes.” She could not look up at him. She felt their stares like a weight on her. “I’ll play.”

“Good.” He said it curtly but not without sympathy, and then turned and hopped back up on the platform.

“From Puck’s entrance,” said Yomi.

“Sorry,” muttered Hal, with a lift of his chin motioning toward his father.

“Thanks,” she said, and took her place. And forced everything else out of her mind, to concentrate on her part: Helena, scorned by Demetrius—Demetrius, who together with Lysander loves Hermia—until out in the enchanted wood, by the mistaken conjurings of Puck, both Demetrius and Lysander forget their love for Hermia and compete for Helena’s affections.

They broke at noon, and Diana went and sat in the big Company tent while the others trooped off to assemble the stage and screens over in the jaran camp. Joseph was assembling food for the company. He had a fire going outside, with a huge kettle full of soup set on a tripod over it. Inside, he frowned at the solar-powered oven that sat disguised as a chest in one corner of the tent. “We’ll need more flour soon,” he said. “And I don’t know how to requisition it. Otherwise we’ll have to give up bread.”

“And you make the most wonderful bread, Joseph.” Diana propped her chin on her fists and stared at the canvas wall. The filaments that led up to the solar strips sewn into the ceiling blended into the canvas fabric, lending the barest sheen to the fabric if the light struck it right. “I hate being confined to camp like this.”

“It’s a good lesson,” said Joseph thoughtfully.

“What is?”

“Well, marriage, a legal or spiritual partnership of whatever kind, is restrictive in that you must think of another person and not only of yourself and your desires. You are no longer as free as you once were, responsible only for yourself. Not that I think that that’s necessarily the meaning these people give this custom of seclusion—I wouldn’t presume to know that—but it’s one lesson to be gained, nevertheless. Is there someone outside?” He ducked his head out the flap and then turned back to look at Diana, a quizzical look on his face. “I believe they’ve come to see you.”

He disappeared outside, and Diana heard a brief exchange. She stood up. Joseph reappeared. “Go on,” he said. Then he smiled. “And good luck.”

“You don’t think I’m a fool?” she asked, because Joseph and Yomi were the rock on which the company was laid, the solid foundation that held everything together, and she trusted their judgment.

“We’re all fools sometimes,” said Joseph cheerfully. “But foolishness is one of the saving graces of our lives. Go on. I can’t have them in here. The bread’s about to come out.”

She pushed past the entrance flap and blinked to adjust to the sunlight. Sonia Orzhekov and Anatoly’s grandmother waited for her outside. Elizaveta Sakhalin was a tiny woman, quite old, but Diana felt cowed by her presence nevertheless.

Sonia smiled graciously and took Diana’s hands in hers. “I hope you will allow us to have a talk with you.”

“Of course.” Diana dared not refuse. She felt like a giant, towering over Sakhalin, and yet she felt as well at a complete disadvantage.

“Will you come with us, then?” Sonia asked, with a kind smile. “We discovered that you have no tent of your own, so we took the liberty of bringing one with us, which we set up out here.”

“Out here” lay just beyond the Company’s encampment and not quite within the jaran encampment. “That’s very diplomatic,” said Diana, seeing that the colorful tent was sited to belong to both camps, and yet to neither—the meeting of two independent tribes. “And generous, too. It’s a beautiful tent.” Which it was, striped in four colors on the walls. The entrance flap bore a pattern of beasts intermingled, twined together.

“You must thank Mother Sakhalin,” said Sonia. “She has gifted you the tent. Here, now, come inside. We sent Anatoly out of camp for the day, knowing we would bring you here, but you really ought to be inside until sunset.” Sonia pulled the tent flap aside and gestured for Diana to precede her. Diana hesitated, and then motioned to Sakhalin to go in first. That brought the first softening of the old woman’s features, but the smile was brief. She ducked inside, and Diana followed her. There was room to stand up, but barely, and the walls sloped steeply down from the center. Sonia came in last. She showed Diana how to sit on the large pillows that covered half the rug that made up the floor of the tent.

“I spoke to Mother Yomi,” said Sonia as she, too, sank down onto a pillow. “She agreed that you might wait out the rest of the day in seclusion here, as is fitting. She said some preparations were necessary for your performance tonight, but one of the other women of your Company will come by to help you.”

“Thank you,” said Diana, aware that Elizaveta Sakhalin was studying her with a frown on her face. “I…I hope that you will tell me anything I need to know, about… about…”

Sonia grinned. Her eyes lit, a trifle mischievously, perhaps, and Diana felt suddenly that here she had an ally, not an enemy. “As for what to do with Anatoly, I think you need no instruction from me.” Diana flushed and twisted her bracelet around her wrist. “As for the rest—well—first Mother Sakhalin wishes to ask you a few questions.” She spoke a few words in khush to Sakhalin, and then the grilling began.

Elizaveta Sakhalin wished to know about Diana's family. Were they important? Wealthy? Had they any skills to pass on to her new husband’s family? Did they own horses? How many tents made up the family? Only after Diana had stumbled through this inquisition, scrambling to answer the questions truthfully without revealing anything about where she really came from, did Sakhalin’s questions narrow in on Diana herself. Did she have any particular skills to bring to the marriage? Any marriage goods? What was an actor? Was it like a Singer?

In fact, it was clear that Elizaveta Sakhalin thought her grandson was marrying beneath himself, that he had fallen in love with a pretty face, marked Diana on a whim, and now was going to marry a woman who had nothing but her looks and her curious status as an actor to recommend her. And she
had
nothing. Diana stared at her hands as silence descended, and she realized it was true. To these people, she had no knowledge and no skills that made a woman valuable, and no family except the Company, here.

“Well,” said Sonia apologetically, “Tess came from an important family in her own right. You mustn’t mind Mother Sakhalin’s disappointment, Diana. You must understand that the Sakhalin tribe is the Eldest of all jaran tribes, and she the headwoman of that tribe, so of course—”

“So of course she expected her grandson to marry a woman of higher rank,” said Diana bitterly. If only they knew what an honor it had been for Diana to be accepted into the Bharentous Repertory Company, or how many actors she had beaten out for the place. It was absurd; millions of people knew her name, millions had seen her perform, on stage or watching through holo links, and this old woman, this barbarian of a tribe that didn’t even know the rest of the universe existed, thought she wasn’t good enough to marry her grandson.

“Diana,” said Sonia firmly, taking one of Diana’s hands in her own, “I understand that actors are Singers, that they are gifted by the gods with their art. But Mother Sakhalin believes that jaran Singers are the only true Singers—that can’t be helped. Most jaran care nothing for khaja ways, and why should they? But I can see that you are a woman who thinks well of herself and has a position she is proud of. I have been in khaja lands, and I know you are a Singer. Still, you are not in your land now, and Mother Sakhalin is worried about her grandson. Who is, I might add—” She shifted her head so that she could wink at Diana without Sakhalin seeing, “—since she can’t understand me, her favorite grandchild. Make him happy, and she will come to love you.”

A rush of gratitude overwhelmed Diana. Impulsively, she reached out and took Sonia’s other hand in hers. “I thought you came to try to talk me out of the marriage.”

Sonia looked puzzled. “It is Anatoly’s choice, and while I might think that choice was rash, I cannot now interfere. Not even his grandmother can interfere.”

“I…I thought—” Now she glanced at Mother Sakhalin’s stern face, and then away, because the old woman terrified her. “I thought perhaps Anatoly no longer wanted to marry me. That you came to tell me that. It isn’t—as if we know one another very well. He might have had second thoughts.”

Sonia laughed and squeezed Diana’s hand reassuringly. “Men never have second thoughts. Anatoly, like most young men who have gotten what they want, has been infuriatingly well-mannered for the past nine days.”

If the rug had been yanked out from under her feet, Diana could not have felt more unstable. It really
was
going to happen. “But I don’t know—that is, what is expected of a wife here? What do I do?”

Sonia sighed and released Diana’s hands. “How like Tess you are. I begin to think you khaja women are hopeless. But perhaps that is because you have servants or slaves to do all the work for you.”

“We don’t have slaves!” Diana broke off. She could not begin to imagine what these jaran women must do, every day, to keep their families fed and sheltered and clothed and healthy. Her world and their world barely intersected, and in their world, she was as ignorant as a baby. “I hope you will help me understand what things I need to do.” She hadn’t the faintest inkling of what she was getting into.

Sonia shook her head. “You need a woman of the tribes to help you, to treat you as a sister. I can’t offer, because I have too many responsibilities as it is. But perhaps…” She turned to Sakhalin and the two women had a rapid conversation in khush. Diana could not understand a word they were saying, could not even recognize any of the khush words she had so laboriously learned from the program on Maggie’s slate. “That is settled, then,” said Sonia finally, nodding her head with a satisfied look on her face. Even Sakhalin looked mollified. “The tribes are moving. The main army leaves tomorrow, and our camp moves as well. We will meet up with Arina Veselov and her tribe, and I will ask her to take you in. That will do, I think. You’ll like Arina. I think you must be of an age, you two. She and her husband know Tess well, too, so they will understand about your khaja ways. But you’ll have to learn khush, although I believe Kirill has learned some Rhuian these past three years. Is that acceptable to you, Diana?”

“To me, yes.” Pitched into this unknown sea, Diana was not sure she could swim. “But I’ll—you’ll—Arina Veselov will have to speak to Owen and Ginny first. I need their permission for any drastic change in my circumstances. I have my duties to the Company.”

Sonia repeated this speech to Sakhalin, and the old woman voiced her approval of Diana’s deference to her elders. “Mother Sakhalin says that until we meet up with the Veselov tribe, you and Anatoly may consider the Sakhalin camp your own.”