by Kate Elliott
“Of what?” They reached a courtyard of red brick surrounded by a flowering hedge. In the center, a fountain splashed.
“Of when my mother died and then Mother Kireyevsky and all the others suddenly began treating me like a servant.”
“Ah.” Mitya led Vasha under the shade of a grape arbor. He sat down on a wood bench whose legs were themselves carved with clusters of grapes and leafy vines, but Vasha was too humiliated to sit down. He hadn’t known he was going to say that; it had just popped out. Now Mitya would scorn him. But Mitya put some grapes in his mouth and ate them, looking thoughtful. “What did you do to make Sakhalin send you back, then? You must know that Bakhtiian will be angry.”
Vasha paced. “Stefan and Arkady and Ivan and I went out and stole some khaja horses.”
Mitya snorted. “And?”
“And? That was enough.”
“Are you sure there wasn’t more?”
“It isn’t that we took her, Mitya, it’s that she… came along with us.”
“Who?”
“Princess Rusudani.”
Now Mitya looked startled, but Vasha was saved from his recriminations by the arrival of a dark-bearded, turbaned man floridly dressed in a jade-green overtunic embroidered with stylized gold suns and, under it, blue and white striped baggy trousers. He halted ten steps away and bowed low. “Your Highness.”
Mitya beckoned him forward. “What news, Jiroannes? There will be a feast tonight, out in the park.”
Jiroannes glanced at Vasha and away as quickly. “I will see that the pavilions are set up, Prince Mitya. Will the queen and her ladies be allowed to attend? The queen’s pavilion can be set up a decent distance away—”
“No, no,” said Mitya impatiently. “That is, well, my cousin Katerina Orzhekov is here. Oh, Vassily, perhaps you don’t recall my chief minister, Jiroannes Arthebathes.” Vasha acknowledged the minister with a nod. The minister looked puzzled, but merely bowed, saying nothing. “In any case, you must consult her as to the arrangements.”
“I will ask the queen’s chamberlain to deal with the matter, sire.”
“Was there other news?” Mitya asked, evidently content with this settlement. “You have that look about you.”
“Nothing, sire, except that my wife Lady Tarvesi… but it is nothing.”
“Ah. Is she not expecting a child?”
“She has given birth, sire.”
“The baby is healthy?”
“Yes, your highness.”
Mitya grinned. “Well, then, I am happy for you, Jiroannes. The gods have blessed you.”
To Vasha’s surprise, the minister did not look particularly pleased. “It is only another girl, Prince Mitya. Nothing to celebrate. I beg your pardon.”
Mitya rolled his eyes and cast a glance at Vasha. “I have never thought it safe to begrudge the gods the gifts they choose to give us, Jiroannes.”
“No doubt you are wiser than I, your highness.”
“A tribe’s name lives on through its daughters, may they prove numerous and healthy. But of course, it is different with you khaja.”
“Yes, sire. I hope I have not offended you.”
Mitya scratched an ear. “Not at all. I hope the child flourishes. If she is too much bother to you, I am sure you could foster her to the tribes.”
The expression that passed across the minister’s face was almost comical as he tried to hide his dismay. “Of course, if that is what you wish….”
Mitya sighed. “But you have two fine sons by Princess Laissa, Jiroannes. Surely that contents you.”
“They are fine boys, it is true. But it is also said that the Everlasting God shows love for a man by granting him the strength to sire many healthy sons. Whereas I…the two boys, that is all, and from my other wives and concubines, only girls.”
Mitya cleared his throat, and at once, Jiroannes bowed again. “Thank you, sire.”
“You may go,” said Mitya.
“The khaja are very strange,” said Vasha once the minister had vanished behind the hedge, hoping that Mitya had forgotten about Vasha’s horrible misdeeds.
“Melatina apologized to me when Anna was born.”
“Apologized to you? What for?”
“That she had failed to give me a son. I was furious. What man would not want a daughter?” Mitya paused and glanced around, looking unsure of himself for the first time. “Vasha, do you wonder, sometimes, if jaran and khaja can ever truly breed together? Or live together in a land, or rule together? Or their children live as both one thing and the other?”
“But they must. That is the vision the gods granted to Bakhtiian.”
“It is not so easy from where I sit,” said Mitya.
They feasted that evening under white pavilions set out on the grass. In the distance Vasha saw a gold pavilion. It was empty, a reminder of the argument that had raged all afternoon about the disposition of the women. The argument had raged in Habakar fashion, delivered by messengers and go-betweens, Princess Laissa scolding Melatina for even considering feasting in public with her husband, Melatina begging Mitya to allow her to set up a tent for the women to feast separately and Mitya, of course, acceding to her wishes. Once settled, the accommodation had fallen apart when Katya declared that it was unseemly for women and men to feast separately. And when a daughter of the Orzhekov tribe gave an order, it was obeyed.
Given no choice, Mitya simply proclaimed that it was to be a family meal and thus, an intimate one. Vasha could count the number of diners on his fingers: Prince Mitya and Princess Melatina, and Melatina’s young sister who lived with her at court; Princess Laissa and the minister Jiroannes; Katya, Vasha, and Andrei Sakhalin. At the last minute, no doubt to foment trouble, Katya had brought along Princess Rusudani, who sat quietly at one end of the table, Jaelle attending her. It was a quiet dinner. Mostly, Andrei Sakhalin talked. Vasha could see nothing of Princess Laissa but her dark eyes, and they made him nervous.
Servants passed to and fro, serving and removing food, lighting fresh lanterns, and Andrei Sakhalin told (again) the story of the battle on the River Djana, this time against the counterpoint of the murmuring of the interpreters. Vasha caught a moment of delicate interplay between Laissa and Melatina, and a moment later Melatina quietly suggested to her husband that it was time for the women to retire. Mitya agreed at once. To Vasha’s surprise, Katerina did not object.
It was Princess Rusudani—isolated at the far end of the pavilion—whose reaction surprised him the most.
“I beg your pardon, Prince Mitya,” she said suddenly. She had said not one word before this, except to acknowledge Mitya’s first greeting. “I would beg an audience with you.”
Mitya blinked. Melatina, who had already risen, sank back down onto her couch. “You may speak. Of course.”
Rusudani’s uncanny calm amazed Vasha. “In my company rides a holy priest of the Church, to whom Princess Katherine has given permission to travel to the great city of Sarai. It is my hope that Brother Saghir be allowed to meet with the Bakhtiian, that he may speak to the Bakhtiian of the true faith and expound the word of God.”
“For what king is this priest an envoy?” asked Mitya.
“For no king but He who is King of all of us.”
“Does this mean, then, that he is an envoy of Bakhtiian?”
Katerina coughed. Nonplussed, Rusudani simply repeated herself. “He is God’s envoy, Prince Mitya.”
Mitya glanced at his wife, but she said nothing. “It is a matter for Bakhtiian. You must present your petition to him.”
Princess Rusudani accepted this pronouncement with equanimity. Princess Melatina rose again, and this time in a sudden flurry of activity all of the women left, escorted by various attendants. Minister Jiroannes begged to be excused as well, and Vasha watched as Mitya by almost imperceptible means and without saying as much, convinced Andrei Sakhalin to take his leave as well.
“When did you learn to do that?” Vassily asked when they sat alone under the pavilio
n. Servants carried away the remains of the meal and brought a silver-plated tureen and a pitcher of cool water for the two men to wash their hands. “How did you do that?”
“Do what?” asked Mitya. He was a little drunk.
“Get everyone to leave like that? Even Andrei Sakhalin.”
Mitya considered Vasha, frowning. “Do you like Sakhalin?”
“He’s kind enough to me. He’s very friendly, and he doesn’t scorn me.”
“He tolerates you because you’re useful. I tolerate him because he’s a Sakhalin. And he tolerates me because I’m Galina’s brother.”
Impulsively, Vasha blurted out the next words before he realized he meant to. “Katya’s taken him as a lover.”
Mitya grunted.
“Don’t you care? I think it’s disgusting.”
“I am not about to dictate to any woman what lover she ought, or ought not, to take. Katya has spent two years with Sakhalin’s army, Vasha. She has enough demons chasing her that you don’t need to add to them.”
“What do you mean?”
Under the lanterns, Mitya’s pale hair glinted, and he looked for an instant as young as the fifteen-year-old Mitya Vassily had first met, when he came to the Orzhekov tribe eight years ago. “If you don’t know, then you had better ask her.”
“She won’t talk to me.” Vasha rested his arms on the table and stared out at the park. Wind soughed along the walls and roof of the pavilion, and the tiny silver flags trimming the open sides fluttered and stilled. A haze hung over the sky, dimming the stars. He could smell the city, now that the wind had shifted. Mitya said nothing. Vasha did not like the way the silence pressed in on them, and since he feared to talk of his own problems, he changed the subject. “Mitya …do you… are you glad you’re here?”
“I am doing my duty for Bakhtiian.”
“Yes, but…” A lantern guttered out, and at once the shadows shifted, spreading and altering in shape. “Are you glad to have married a khaja woman? Do you… do you love her?”
“Naturally I love her,” Mitya said carelessly. “She is my wife.”
“But what do the Habakar think of having a jaran prince to govern them?”
There was no answer for a moment and then, a soft snort. Mitya had fallen asleep.
Vasha stood up and crossed to his cousin, touching him affectionately on his fair hair, and went to stand under the line of flags. The servants had gone, all but two silent jaran guards and, farther, like the shades of ghosts, four riders at attention. It was so quiet that Vasha could hear the distant slur of the river. Closer, he heard the slip and slide of fabric.
“My lord. Mitya!”
Mitya snorted and roused. “What is it?”
Vasha, caught in shadow, turned to see Princess Melatina sit down beside her husband. Mitya draped an arm over her shoulders and pulled her close against him, murmuring something Vasha could not hear.
Melatina rested a palm on his chest. Seated thus, with the light caught on her torso, Vasha could see the swell of her belly, still slight, under the soft lines of her silk robes. “Mitya! It is unseemly to let the false prophesiers consort with the jaran.”
Mitya blinked several times in quick succession. “Hmm?”
“The unbeliever. The Almighty God enjoins us to tell only the truth, and the words her priests will bring to the jaran are lies.”
“My heart,” said Mitya, sounding a bit annoyed, “that is for Bakhtiian to judge. I have given you your temple here in the palace. I have saved the temple in Salkh. What more can you want?” He shook his head, clearing it. “Vasha was here. Where did he go?”
Suddenly embarrassed to be eavesdropping, Vasha slid around the corner while the two of them were looking elsewhere and escaped into the darkness.
They spent one more day reprovisioning. The next morning Katerina had an ugly fight with Mitya, but in the end, when they rode out of Hamrat, Mitya’s little daughter Anna went with them.
Dread overtook Vasha. They had begun the final stage of the journey. All too soon, he would come face-to-face with his father.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Gateway
DAVID BEN UNBUTU REGARDED the horde of children surrounding Ilyana with dismay. Recovering, he smiled wryly. “Who are these?”
Ilyana let go of a held breath. He was going to agree. He hadn’t said so yet, but she could tell by his expression that he had accepted his fate. “These are my brothers Valentin and Anton, and this is my sister Evdokia. This is Portia. She’s Diana and Anatoly’s daughter.” She added, “She and Evdi are both four years old,” and then wondered if M. Unbutu would be insulted by having the obvious pointed out to him.
“Perhaps I need to clarify my question.”
“Oh, I know,” said Ilyana quickly. “It’s supposed to be my tutorial, but I have to take care of them, so I thought, maybe, I could bring them along, maybe, I hoped, that they could….” She trailed off. They all stood in one of the passenger lounges, a rectangular room lined with benches. The alien fragrance was muted here, but then again, she never saw Chapalii on the passenger deck, so it was no wonder it smelled neutral here.
“I can take care of myself,” muttered Valentin.
Ilyana bit down on a retort. “Valentin,” she said reasonably, “it isn’t my rules, it’s the ship rules. You’re not allowed to run around on this ship. Or even just sit anywhere you want to.” There were not, thank the gods, any obvious neshing ports here either. Maybe the Chapalii didn’t nesh.
“You’re the eldest, I see,” said M. Unbutu. “That puts you in charge.”
She nodded warily. Maybe he did understand.
He rubbed at his chin with his knuckles. “I was going to start by discussing tension and compression, but… on the other hand, maybe we could build some tiered programs so that we could all follow along the same lesson at different levels.”
“If you got a nesh port, I can do some building for you,” Valentin blurted out. “I can build an immersion program, even.”
“Uh—” Ilyana began.
“Slow down.” Chuckling, M. Unbutu sat down on a maroon bench that seemed more grown out of the wall than set there and shook his head.
“What’s a mersion program?” asked Evdokia.
“I got a suitcase of multiblocks in our cabin,” said Portia, piping up brightly.
“Those are little blocks you can stick together any way, into people or buildings or animals or stuff,” added Anton.
“Don’t worry.” M. Unbutu seemed to be stifling a laugh. “I had those when I was a kid. Those would be good for model building, and for the little girls—”
“I am not a little girl,” interrupted Portia. “I’m a big girl.”
“—for the two younger girls to play with. They shouldn’t be spending all their time sunk in an immersion program, anyway.” He looked at Valentin with interest. “Can you really build an immersion program?”
“Yes.” Valentin’s clipped reply had the effect of making the boy seem more, rather than less, knowledgeable.
Ilyana clenched her hands so tightly that her nails bit into her palms. She didn’t want to betray Valentin’s addiction to M. Unbutu. What would he think of them? But she hadn’t expected this. She hadn’t wanted to bring the younger children along in any case, but she hadn’t had any choice. They were her responsibility.
“I just don’t have experience teaching kids this young,” said M. Unbutu with a sigh. Fear gripped Ilyana’s heart. What if he wasn’t going to agree? It was a lot to ask, not just that he tutor her, but that he put up with the younger kids as well. “Do you have any suggestions?”
“I could—” Valentin began.
Ilyana cut him off. “They could play some games, play with blocks, and maybe do some basic immersion programs. It isn’t like we’ll be on the ship for that long.”
“Yes, but what about when we get to Duke Naroshi’s planet? Has there been any discussion of what kind of tutorial program you kids will be on?”
I
lyana shrugged. Probably Diana had plans for Portia, but Ilyana knew that her parents would expect the children to do their work around the tent and otherwise take care of themselves. She didn’t want to say that aloud.
M. Unbutu sighed. “Well. I may have some old programs buried in my modeler, some elementary mathetics programs, that kind of thing. Valentin, perhaps your first project could be to excavate those for me.”
They had been on the ship for almost a whole day. Ilyana could see how Valentin’s hands practically twitched at the thought of getting onto M. Unbutu’s modeler. Sure, each room had a net screen embedded in the wall, but Valentin hated flat screen work.
“Sure I can!” Valentin said enthusiastically. “But I could do a better job getting it out through a nesh port.”
“Yeah, I’ve got one of those.”
“Valentin,” muttered Ilyana.
“I’ll have to get your parents’ permission first, though.”
Valentin shifted from one foot to the other, impatient. “Sure, M. Unbutu, but you know that we did nesh work all the time at school. It’s part of the mathetics program.”
“Is that true?” M. Unbutu asked Ilyana.
“Yes,” she said reluctantly. She chewed at her lower lip. What was she going to do? Just blurt out that Valentin was nesh-addicted? But he had to do some nesh anyway, to avoid going into withdrawal. Maybe if she could just monitor him closely enough, she could ease him off the addiction; “We do. Valentin even got a recognition for his chamber that he added to the big Memory Palace project.”
Valentin snorted. “That wasn’t that good. That was just our flat, with all of Mother’s crazy walls and stuff.”
“That’s exactly the answer, then,” said M. Unbutu. “I’ve got a partial version of the Memory Palace. We can let the younger kids explore it. There are a number of teaching chambers on different subjects embedded in one of the wings of the palace, and there’s a whole wing on architecture and engineering that I was planning to use with you, Yana. My modeler is just capable of holding open several chambers at one time.” He set his modeler on the floor and knelt in front of it, opening it up so that it resembled a flat black plus-sign against the pale marbled floor.
