by Kate Elliott
“Except her husband?” Janos asked softly.
“Except, at times, that of her husband,” Vasha murmured.
Rusudani’s hand moved into his field of vision and retreated, and he felt her shift, her movement like a wave against him.
“Lord Belos,” said Janos, “see to your duty.”
The steward bowed and left.
“All that you have,” said Rusudani softly, “came to you through women. I trust you remember that.”
“What I have, I intend to hold on to.”
Vasha lifted his eyes and met Janos’s gaze squarely. He had the sudden, appalling thought that Janos meant, not his mother’s lands, not his wife’s inheritance, but Katerina. Could it be that Janos loved Katerina? But how could a man both love and rape a woman? It was impossible. He must be either lover or rapist; he could not be both together.
Vasha risked a glance at Rusudani, so close to him now that if he leaned forward he could kiss her on the mouth, but she was not looking at her husband. She looked beyond him, at Lord Belos, who brought forward three guards to escort Bakhtiian away. Ilya merely rose and, book still clutched in his right hand, went with them, taut as any caged beast. Lord Belos followed him out.
“I will send for my mother to sit here with you,” said Janos. “While we wait.”
“No need,” replied Rusudani. “I will retire to my chamber.”
Janos watched her go. Vasha did not dare to. Finally, when the ladies had all left the solar, Janos sat down again, facing Vasha across the table. He looked restless but determined. “Shall we play?”
That night a footstep sounded in the stairwell, and a scratch came at the door. Jaelle swiftly slid out of Katerina’s embrace and got up, pulling a cloak around her. A moment later the door opened. Princess Rusudani slipped inside, holding a small lantern, and held two fingers up to her lips. Lowering them, she untied a small pouch from her gown and held it out toward Jaelle.
“Do not ask questions,” she said in a low voice, glancing toward Katerina, who still slept, worn to exhaustion by her endless pacing on the day just passed. “In the morning you will go down to the gates and tell the guard who wears a blue ribbon tied at his belt that you have my leave to go down to the market. You will find the herbwoman and from her you will get a drink, herbs, whatever she might have, that will cause men to sleep, enough for at least twenty men. There is more than enough coin. Get other herbs as well, the love potion if you can, or else that which whores take so that they will not conceive.”
Jaelle glanced up at her, surprised that a convent-raised woman would know of such things, but Rusudani was in the grip of a passion and seemed oblivious to her.
“Tomorrow evening, after supper, I will come here with my attendants to visit Princess Katherine and to read from The Recitation. You will give me the herbs then. I will find some way to distract the others so that you may give them to me without them noticing.”
“How did you get past the guards tonight, my lady?”
Rusudani’s gaze did not leave Katerina, and Jaelle grew even more nervous. “Does she love him?” Rusudani asked suddenly, ignoring Jaelle’s question. “Does Princess Katherine love my husband? I am not blind. I know he has taken her as his concubine. He is not an ill-favored man, and he can be gracious, when he chooses to be.”
Only the banked coals, a dull, somber red, and the flickering candle flame gave light to the room. Rusudani’s face glowed, shadowed and illuminated together by the flame from her lantern. The rest of the room was dim, unreal. Jaelle did not know what to say. In any case, Rusudani needed no reply, no acknowledgment. She went on.
“I hold no grudge against her. Like me, she was taken by force. I would only regret it if what I must do now will cause her pain.” She turned, and her eyes were lost in shadow. “Take the pouch. Do as I say. We will meet again tomorrow night.”
Then she was gone, closing and barring the door behind her, like a dream. So long did Jaelle stand there in the darkness, wondering if it had been a dream or a true visitation, that finally Katerina stirred from the bed, murmuring, and Jaelle jerked guiltily and went back to curl under the warmth of the covers. Reflexively, not truly awake, Katerina pressed against her and draped an arm over her, taking comfort in Jaelle’s presence, as she always did now.
Did Katerina love Janos?
Jaelle felt Katerina’s breath against her neck. No, she did not love him. Jaelle knew that to be true. In some odd way he interested Katerina, appalled her, fascinated her; in a very obvious way he had earned her enmity. Katerina sighed and murmured words, formless in sleep but pure in tone. A lover’s words. And there the words lay, once spoken, tangible things marking the quiet night chamber just as torches lit the parapets of the besieged city, so that the army outside would know that the forces inside were alert to the threat: She loves me.
Love is dangerous. Jaelle had only to reach out and touch the little pouch of coin that lay in the folds of the cloak. Whatever scheme Rusudani had concocted, it did not grow out of any love for her husband. But Jaelle knew that in the morning, she would go down to the castle gates and beg leave of the guardsman with the blue ribbon tied to his belt to go beyond, into the marketplace. Not for Rusudani. Once she would have said it was only for herself, to find the least opportunity to improve her lot, to put coin away for unlucky days, to give favors to others so that they might owe her one. Now, she supposed she did it as much for Katerina and Stefan, in the hope that somehow, however unlikely it might seem, what Rusudani planned might help them. But by seeking to help them, she made herself vulnerable. And that frightened her.
At dawn, the Mircassian envoy again approached the tent of the Prince of Jeds.
“Where is Prince Janos?” Tess asked without preamble. She was exhausted. She had hardly slept. Early on she had dreamed that Ilya had come back to her, as if from the dead, and after that she had been afraid to go to sleep again.
“Your highness.” The envoy was sharp enough. Neither did he waste time in pleasantries. “Prince Janos offers you an alliance with Mircassia.”
“How can he do so? Does he have King Barsauma’s ear?”
“He has the king’s heir. I can vouch for this, your highness. I was sent by King Barsauma to secure Princess Rusudani, to bring her back to Mircassia and invest her as the heir.”
Caught despite herself, Tess indulged her curiosity, even though she knew that the least sign of interest weakened her position. “There is another heir, a young man, Barsauma’s nephew.”
“He has fled to Filis with his mother, your highness, now that he has been repudiated by the king. Prince Janos has married Princess Rusudani. He can offer you an alliance with Mircassia.”
“Surely Princess Rusudani could offer this herself. She is the heir.”
“She is only a woman—” Flushing, the envoy broke off.
Tess smiled. “I understand the situation well enough, Lord Envoy. Tell me, since it seems obvious to me that Rusudani’s consort will be the king in her stead, do you think Prince Janos will meet with King Barsauma’s approval? It hardly serves me to make an alliance with a man who cannot fulfill its terms. You may tell me the truth, Lord Envoy. I grant you immunity, now, and whatever may happen next.”
Startled, he glanced away from her, at the camp, at the jaran soldiers, a grim-looking lot, and at the castle, which gleamed white in the morning sun, proud but not impregnable. “He is not the prince King Barsauma would have chosen, your highness, but he is well enough. The king will not be disappointed.”
And so, Tess thought, the jaran could have an alliance with Mircassia and be spared fighting that powerful kingdom at all. It was a shrewd offer. It was tempting.
But it was from the man who had killed Ilya in an ambush.
Tess stood up so abruptly that her chair tipped over. A soldier caught it before it could hit the carpet and set it upright again.
“We will begin our attack at dawn tomorrow,” she said, one hand clenched, “if Prince Janos does not
surrender himself to us by that time. Take that message back to him.”
“Do not speak in haste, your highness,” said the envoy, bolder now that she had granted him immunity. “Prince Janos holds two hostages. He is willing to trade them for an alliance.”
Her heart skipped a beat. At first she could not force the words past her throat. “What hostages might I be interested in?”
He took an hour to reply, a second, a million years. Now would come the name. She waited, but he did not speak, and then at last when she thought she would freeze, would burn, would dissolve into nothing because she could not bear to wait one more instant to hear, his mouth moved. He spoke.
“Prince Vasil’ii and Princess Katherine, your highness.”
At first, a spike of warmth, the unspoken reply: Thank God Vasha and Katya are alive. Then, she plunged into the darkest depths. Not Ilya, and any man whether shrewd or foolish would know enough to bargain for his own life with the life of Bakhtiian.
She wanted to turn and walk into her tent. She wanted to shut herself away and scream. But she could not.
“Are there others?”
“A few soldiers, your highness, servants, nothing more.”
“How can Prince Janos prove that these hostages exist, and are alive? One of my own soldiers must go with you into the castle and identify them.”
“I cannot agree to this without Prince Janos’s permission, your highness.”
He was stalling, of course. But Janos had played his strongest card, Tess was sure of it. She still had a fresh army. She could afford to wait one more day. “Tell him what I have said, then. Return to me at dawn tomorrow.”
He bowed.
Even after he left, she did not retreat into her tent. Out here, in the daylight, under the eyes of the whole army, she had no choice but to stay composed, to look strong, to keep in control. She was afraid of what would happen if she was alone.
Jaelle left just after dawn to go down to the marketplace. It was easier than she had expected to get past the guards, who had either been bribed or cozened by Rusudani, and she was surprised to find the market in full spate, as though the people crammed within the town chose to pretend that no army sat outside the walls, waiting to break through. She found Mistress Kunane and her cart. This time, without the doubtful presence of guards, Mistress Kunane was eager to take an overgenerous payment of coin in return for the herbs Rusudani had asked for.
“It’s for the little ones,” Jaelle explained, slipping the bundle of herbs into the pouch she wore at her belt. “They cry all night, they’re so frightened.”
“Give it to them in wine,” said Mistress Kunane, counting through the coin carefully. “That will make it work better.”
Another customer came forward, and Jaelle escaped, relieved that the herbwoman was too busy to question her closely, as she had done last time.
Only one man could now be spared to stand guard outside Widow’s Tower, and he was too preoccupied with his own thoughts to do more than take the coin she offered him when he let her back in.
“What does Rusudani want sleeping herbs for?” Katerina asked.
“I don’t know.”
Katerina looked thoughtful and went to stare out the slit window, where she could see the distant streaks that marked the enemy campfires.
At midday Jaelle heard the clatter of boots and armor on the stairs. The door opened to admit Prince Janos and a flock of guards. Katerina rose slowly. Then she gasped and took a step forward. She spoke a word in khush.
Too late Jaelle saw the man surrounded by guards: a jaran soldier, his armor covered by a handsome red and gold surcoat. The next instant the guards had hustled him out, and the door thudded closed behind them, leaving Prince Janos alone with the two women.
“That was my uncle, Gennady Berezin,” said Katerina, surprised into the confession.
Janos circled her at a careful distance, but she kept turning to face him. “He agreed to enter the castle in order to identify you and your cousin, to take news of you back to the Prince of Jeds.”
“What of the other prisoners?”
Janos dismissed them with a wave of one hand. “They aren’t important. They remain in the dungeon. You are the one who matters.” He said it warily.
“Now what do you mean to do, Prince Janos?”
“Use your life to bargain for my own.”
Katerina smiled bitterly. “It is worth so little to you?”
With two swift strides he closed the gap between them and grasped her hands in his. She began to pull back, then stilled, reading a new emotion in his face. “It is worth that much to me. More than you wish to understand.” He struggled within himself, his voice thick with longing, for her. Jaelle stared, seeing him stripped away to nothing, naked, as if his desperate circumstance had brought him to reveal his weakness to the woman he evidently loved. Because it was always weakness in a man to reveal that he loved a woman. A man’s desire for her was the only power a woman had. “If I had only been more patient….”
“It is too late for regrets, Prince Janos. You have condemned yourself.”
Strange, Jaelle thought, that the woman, locked away, might seem more powerful at this moment than the man who had imprisoned her.
“Is there no hope for me?” he asked hoarsely.
She jerked her hands out of his. “I have my honor to uphold.”
“It is no dishonor to a woman to be taken in war. You are mine, and I have used you more kindly than any other man would have.”
“Than any khaja man, perhaps. Do not slander the men of my own people.”
“But you are mine.” He took hold of her shoulder with one hand and with the other caressed one of her braids, twining it through his fingers. “Is what the men of your people do when they marry, when they scar a woman’s face, any better than forcing her? Had I done that to you, had I taken a blade and cut your face, would you have come willingly to my bed?”
Pale, she twisted out of his grasp, and he let go of her. “I would have no choice.”
“Tell me how this is different, Katherine. We use different words, we have different customs, because we are what you call khaja, but for me to take you as my mistress is no different than for a jaran man to take you as his wife. You have as little choice in either.”
Katerina crossed to the window seat, but she did not sit down. Her posture was stiff, her expression bleak. “I pray to the gods that my aunt may come soon,” she said, and would not look at him as she said it.
“I fell into a rage,” said Janos softly. “It will not happen again. I will not touch you again without your consent. Is that enough?”
Jaelle had to sit down, she was so astonished to hear him say it.
But Katerina only said, “No.”
“I will draw up a contract—”
“I do not want your lands or your wealth.”
“What do you want, then?” he asked, growing exasperated.
“I want to be free.”
“Free to leave here and be scarred by a man of your own people?”
Now she turned. Her color was high. “Free even of that, Prince Janos. You are right enough, that I might as well be your mistress as another man’s wife, but I will not be either!”
It was a clear, cold day outside, and harsh lines of light striped the chamber and the rug. Katerina’s eyes were as cold as the sunlight, and Janos blazed, like the fire, answering her. “You will never forgive me for one night’s anger.”
“I can never forgive such a thing. Only a man would ask a woman to do so.”
He moved. Amazed, Jaelle watched as he knelt before Katerina and lifted one of her hands to his lips, kissing it tenderly before he let it go. “I remain your servant, Princess Katherine. Always, and forever.”
She looked taken aback. “Then I order you to let me go, to return to the army camped outside these walls.”
He smiled wryly and stood up. “Only a woman would ask a man to do so. My castle is besieged, Princess Katherine
. A man in my position does not divest himself of his most prized possession except in dire need. And I confess to you, my pale rose, that your beauty and your fierce soul will be out of my reach if I am dead.”
While she stood, speechless and unmoving, he leaned into her and kissed her, then stepped back quickly, as if to avoid any blow she might throw at him. But she did not move. “No man will offer you what I do, Katherine, no man will cherish you as I will, nor will I cease my suit, so long as I live.” He placed a hand over his heart and bowed, slightly, as any man ought to a princess, and left the chamber.
Dust trailed down the beams of light as the afternoon sun sank low enough to slant in through the arrowslits. The fire popped in the hearth, and Jaelle jumped, startled, and added another log to the fire.
“No man has ever spoken to me in that way before,” said Katerina into the silence. Her voice trembled.
“He loves you,” said Jaelle, although it was hard for her to say the words. “That is not a luxury often given to princes, or so it is said. A prince must marry for lands and alliances, a merchant for what connection it can bring him and his family. A slave cannot marry at all, except at his master’s whim.”
“I will never marry.”
Jaelle made the sign of the knife. “Be careful what vows you make to God, Katerina. He might hold you to them.”
But Katerina fixed her gaze on Jaelle, so searing a gaze that Jaelle froze, afraid to move. “Don’t you understand? I don’t want to marry. I don’t care for men in that way, not truly.” Her voice caught, but she lay a hand against the stone wall as if for support and went on. “Scorn me if you wish, but it is what I am. I could love you, Jaelle, but I will not burden you with what you do not want. I know you are fond of Stefan.” She paused. “Now you know my secret. You may betray me if you wish.”
Jaelle shut her eyes, then opened them, because it was cowardice not to look on Katerina, who had just offered her a glimpse of her inmost soul. “I will never betray you. I swear it, my lady.”
