The Novels of the Jaran (214 page)

“What kind of opening?” she asked reluctantly, even while she knew it was already decided.

“Oh, nothing too overwhelming, I think. Not as bad as the last one, anyway.” His smile became conspiratorial, including her in the memory of how stultifyingly official the last reception had been. “It’s an exhibition of photography.”

“Photography? Like the two-dimensional stuff?”

He chuckled warmly. “Some of it, I suppose. I don’t know all the technical terms.”

“Father,” she asked suspiciously, “why are you going to an art exhibit? Are you angling for someone to do a portrait of you?”

Now he really laughed. It was such a rare sound that Ilyana cherished it. “I don’t think so. There’ve been so many, after all. But you will come with me, won’t you? It’s at the Little Tate, and there’s that nesh-enhanced exhibit of the Floating Gardens of Babel in one of the adjoining galleries.”

It was actually the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, but she didn’t correct him. “Oh, all right,” she said, not immune to bribery. Then she felt a pang. “But I really should stay home with Valentin and the little ones.”

“I’ll send them upstairs.”

“Valentin doesn’t get along with Anatoly Sakhalin, Father. You know that.”

It was the wrong thing to say. Her father clenched one hand, and his gaze fixed on the haze of the false fire. “Certainly Anatoly Sakhalin has his own views of the world, and a certain position to maintain as a prince of the Sakhalin—” Which was to say that Vasil did not like him much, either. “—but if Valentin behaved like a boy and not like indolent khaja chattel, Sakhalin would not despise him. Valentin has to become a man someday.”

Ilyana winced, her father’s tone was so biting. “But, Daddy,…” she began.

He cut her off. “It is kind of you to plead for him, Yana, but if you continue to protect him, he will never grow up.”

Tears stung at her eyes. She bent down and chopped furiously at the vegetables. It wasn’t fair. Why could no one see that Valentin had taken it hardest of all, torn out of the tribes and transported to this strange new world? It had happened to Valentin twice now, first losing his father before he could understand what had happened and then losing the aunt and uncle who had sustained him through those difficult years when Karolla had lived in the Veselov tribe alone, her husband an outlaw. Their father had returned to them, but Vasil had never forgiven Valentin for not accepting him instantly, even though it was too much to expect from the wary five-year-old child Valentin had been back then. And Vasil had compounded the offense by taking them away from the jaran forever.

Her father’s hand touched her hair and stroked down to cradle her neck and jaw, the way he had comforted her when she was a child. “I… I…” she said through her tears, but she could not go on.

“Tell me, heartling,” he said quietly.

“I’m worried about Valentin. I’m worried about him guising too much.”

He withdrew his hand. “There is nothing wrong with Valentin that he can’t cure by acting as he ought! We will not discuss this any further, Yana. You’re making excuses for him. And he still hasn’t apologized to your mother.” But, relenting, he kissed her on the forehead and then stood up. “We’ll leave after supper.”

She sighed, brushed away her tears, and dumped the vegetables into the stew.

One of the reasons Ilyana hated going to receptions with her father was that he never, ever, traveled like most people did, on public lines. He always had to hire a private carriage, no matter how expensive, no matter how exclusive it made him look. Vasil Veselov liked being exclusive. He liked pressing the sumptuary laws to their edge, never quite crossing into the pale. Not even Kori’s Uncle Gus or her Aunt Parvati, who was a member of Concord Parliament, took private carriages. Gods, even Charles Soerensen, the only human who had gained a rank within the Chapalii Empire, traveled like everyone else did. Everyone knew that.

Ilyana wore a plain blue silk tunic and a calf-length silk skirt, ornamented with a belt of wooden beads and a single gold necklace, but her father, to her horror, got himself up in jaran clothes: the scarlet shirt gaudily embroidered down its arms and along the collar, the black trousers and black leather boots decorated with gold tassels, and gold bracelets and enough necklaces to make him gleam. He looked positively barbaric.

Their arrival at the Little Tate Gallery caused a sensation. The carriage sank down beside the broad steps and spit out a tongue of stairsteps down which Vasil made his entrance onto the street amidst the crowd of arriving pedestrians. Ilyana slunk along next to her father, trying to disappear, while he was pointed at and swarmed and in general made much of. He had a word or a touch or a glance for every soul who came within ten feet of him. They bogged down in the gallery foyer until a tall, red-haired woman plowed through the crowd and made an opening for herself before them.

“Veselov! I’m honored to see you here! I’m Margaret O’Neill.” She stuck her hand out, the khaja way of greeting.

“I remember you,” he said, taking hold of her hand and lifting it to his lips, an affectation he had picked up from old-time “moving” flat films.

She snorted, giving him time to finish the gesture before she extricated her hand and turned to look at Ilyana. “Charmed, I’m sure. This is—” She hesitated, and a peculiar expression swept her face and vanished. “Ilyana, isn’t it?”

“Ilyana Arkhanov,” said Ilyana crisply. “I’m sorry, M. O’Neill, but have we met before? If we have, I beg your pardon for not remembering.”

“Call me Maggie.” She smiled, and Ilyana liked her immediately. “You were younger though. I last saw you—what?—eight years ago when we were all leaving Rhui. I don’t expect you would remember me. Here, come inside. There might even be a photo of you, Ilyana.”

“Of me?” Ilyana’s heart sank, weighted down by an awful sense of foreboding. Maggie O’Neill. Leaving Rhui eight years ago. They passed through the double doors and into a well-lit gallery cut by zigzagging white panels and spittled with big white cubes. Maggie O’Neill’s records adorned these surfaces. Her records of the jaran.

With leaden feet Ilyana stalked over to the nearest cube and gaped at the three-dee film grown up from its surface. A young jaran woman played and sang, accompanied by an intent young man on a drum. Ilyana could understand her, of course; she didn’t need to read the words scrolling by along the rim of the cube or listen in to the translation plug. The Singer sang the story of Mekhala and how she had brought horses to the jaran tribes, freeing her people but in turn binding herself in marriage to the wind spirit who had aided her.

“Isn’t this
marvelous
?” said a man in passing to his companion. “And they made it a flesh-only viewing, too. It’s all of a piece with the subject and materials.”

Ilyana hunched down just a little lower and sidled over to the nearest panel. Old-fashioned flat photos were displayed here, but somehow the primitive subject matter looked right on the two-dimensional surface. She reached out to touch a photograph of a woman, heavy in a felt coat, seated before a loom, then withdrew her hand abruptly. There, two boys stood by a cluster of sheep, faces dirty, smiling at some joke. And there, a light-haired girl sat on horseback, a bow slung over her back. And there, a troop of riders marched off to war, gloriously armed with spears tipped with flags and rank upon rank of sabers.

All her unwanted old childhood memories came rushing back, overwhelming her. She could hear the harness jingling and the noise of the horses, and then she realized that there was another white cube behind this panel boasting a living, moving three-dee, this one of a jahar riding endlessly off, ready for battle.

“And look, Amber,” said a woman’s voice breathlessly behind her. “I
told
you braving the crowd would be worth it. Isn’t that Vasil Veselov in the flesh? Goddess, look how he’s dressed. I could just die.”

Ilyana cringed. She edged away toward another panel and pretended to examine a panoramic photo of a jaran camp spread out along a flat horizon of gold. She could hear conversations from the other side of the panel, but she felt protected here, invisible. She had lost track of her father.

“I don’t know, Youssef, I think all the fuss a little ridiculous myself. Consider the genre as well. I just don’t think the primitive recording techniques add anything to the subject, even though I’m sure they’re meant to be a commentary on the planet’s interdicted status.”

The comment elicited only an uninterpretable grunt.

“M. O’Neill, how nice to see you again,” said a familiar, sharp voice that Ilyana couldn’t quite place.

“Ah, M. Pandit. How wonderful to see you. I’m so
pleased
you could come.” Maggie O’Neill’s voice sounded so deadpan that Ilyana couldn’t tell whether she was being sarcastic or polite. “But a little surprised to see you at this kind of event.”

“My husband is interested in the arts,” replied M. Pandit. “I can’t help but be interested as well in an exhibition of this kind. The planet of Rhui is interdicted by Chapalii protocol dictates, after all, and under Duke Charles’s order, as well. I’m just surprised that this kind of material would exist at all. Of course, we all know about the unfortunate death of his sister on Rhui. Such a shame. But one can’t help but be interested in seeing pictures of a planet few of us will ever visit, especially knowing that Terese Soerensen spent her last days there. That she might even have been—why, here, look at these native women. How easily any of
us
might blend in among them.”

Ilyana had a sudden vivid memory of Tess Soerensen kissing her good-bye, in the formal style, on either cheek. She had really liked Tess Soerensen. But she also had a premonition that Tess’s image would appear nowhere in this room.

“So true,” said Maggie in fulsome tones. “As you know, Marco Burckhardt has been doing anthropological surveys of the native populations on Rhui for many years now. I happened to spend some time with him, and I did a little recording of my own. I did so feel that it might be important to make a permanent record of some of the Rhuian natives. I think it illuminates something of our own past to us, don’t you? I couldn’t resist showing it here.”

“Especially not with a native brought back from Rhui, in defiance of the interdiction.” M. Pandit’s tone was menacing.

Maggie laughed easily. If she was cowed by M. Pandit’s veiled threats, Ilyana could not hear it in her voice. “Yes, there were compelling medical reasons, as well as aesthetic ones… but I won’t go into that here. Also, as you know, Veselov originally was contracted to the Bharentous Repertory Company, a bit of an—experiment—by Owen Zerentous, but he went on to—ah—bigger and better things. I’m lucky to have him here today. His presence can only add luster to my exhibit. He’s so very famous now, you know, as well as quite handsome. But they were all in general a good-looking people.”

Ilyana bit down on a smile, liking Maggie O’Neill even more; she was being so obviously sardonic with the stiff, nosy old M. Pandit, not caring about Pandit’s ominously authoritarian curiosity. Ilyana wished she had such confidence.

“Ah, there you are, Jazir,” said M. Pandit abruptly in an altered tone. She almost purred. “M. O’Neill, have you met my husband?”

There was a strange, brief silence, like a skip of breath. “No, I haven’t,” said Maggie finally. “How do you do?”

Ilyana suddenly caught sight of her father, standing at the end of the row of panels, staring, staring, at a still three-dee portrait of a black-haired, bearded man dressed in the simple red and black of a jaran soldier, one hand resting casually on his saber hilt, his glance thrown to one side. The jaran man looked intensely severe. But Ilyana knew, seeing him, recognizing him with a stab that ran right down through her and flooded her with prickles, that he was caught forever in the moment just before he smiled at someone unseen, beyond the range of the camera.

How could she not know? She bore his name. The extraordinary fervor of her father’s concentration as he stared at the image of Ilya Bakhtiian troubled her. Vasil never showed this kind of emotion outside of his acting; it might give other people power over him. She knew, as she knew when the air changes, heralding storm, that something was about to happen. With a jolt, she uprooted herself and hurried over to him.

In time to see him lift his eyes and focus on a group of three people on the other side of the panel. One was Maggie O’Neill. At first Ilyana didn’t recognize M. Pandit because the emerald uniform disguised her, overwhelmed her. A quisling uniform. M. Pandit was one of the human officers in the Protocol Office—oh, they didn’t call themselves quislings, of course. Everyone else called them that behind their backs. M. Pandit wore three platinum bars on the lapel of her uniform, and Ilyana gulped down a sudden lump in her throat. Three bars. It was the highest rank a human officer could attain in the service of the Chapalii—the highest rank, that is, except for the ennobling that Charles Soerensen had inadvertently achieved.

Between the two women stood a young man, one arm folded passively around M. Pandit’s elbow. He was a good-looking young man, as befitted a trophy husband, with short dark hair and a neatly trimmed beard, deep brown eyes and a narrow, defined face. His expression was serious. But then he glanced up at Vasil Veselov, smiled brilliantly and briefly, and looked down again.

In that brief gesture Ilyana clearly saw the resemblance. He looked enough like Ilyakoria Bakhtiian that anyone might laugh good-naturedly over the odd coincidence. Anybody but her father, who gazed with unnerving steadiness at the other man. Anyone but M. Pandit, who skewered the famous actor with an aggressive stare.

Anyone but Ilyana, who had long ago learned to recognize trouble coming. And she had a very, very bad feeling about this.

CHAPTER SIX

Spider’s Web

T
HE JARAN CAMP DROWSED
under the afternoon sun. The dusty air hung in a heat haze over the tents, and the cloudless sky seemed to breathe in and out with the pulse of the sun.