by Kate Elliott
Eventually he found his voice. “May I be allowed to offer good greetings on my part, Lady Terese,” he said, his voice as expressionless as any well-trained Chapalii’s had to be, but the hint of blue in his cheeks betrayed his consternation.
“You may.” For a moment she let her anger get the better of her, and she lapsed out of Chapalii and into Anglais. “Just what the hell do you think you’re doing on an Interdicted planet? Where your species is very specifically prohibited?”
He regarded her blankly. Of course, as a member of the ruling culture, he had no reason to learn her language. “Cha Ishii, I feel sure that you are well aware that you and whatever people are with you are violating the duke’s Interdiction order covering this planet. I think you must also be aware that I can have you stripped of all your wealth for this infraction.”
But his color faded, and he regained his pallor. “You are also in violation of this edict, Lady Terese.”
“I am heir to this system. If I choose to journey through my brother’s demesne, I do not need your permission.”
He flushed violet and then, looking up, went pale again. “But I comprehend, Lady Terese, that we are here now, and to reveal us for what we are to these natives—if indeed they could understand it in any case—would be an even greater violation of your brother’s edict.”
“Tess.” Yuri sounded nervous as he glanced from Tess to Cha Ishii and then behind her. She turned. Bakhtiian came up, looking grim, with Nikolai Sibirin in tow. He stopped equidistant from both Tess and Ishii.
“Evidently you know one another,” he said in Rhuian. He did not sound pleased. His gaze settled for one uncomfortable moment on Yuri, who looked distinctly anxious, and then flicked back to Tess and on to Ishii.
“Why, yes,” said Tess sweetly. “We do. I was hired to act as an interpreter for their party. How unfortunate that we became separated. I am sure Cha Ishii will agree with me.” She added, in court Chapalii, “You will, of course, agree, Cha Ishii. Do you require my efforts to translate for you?”
“I am not unprepared, Lady Terese. I speak some Rhuian.” He twisted to address Bakhtiian in that language. “Certainly it was unfortunate.” Tess was stricken to silence by astonishment at his knowing such a primitive tongue. His command of the language was rough, but serviceable. “I apologize for any inconvenience this oversight may have caused you.”
“No inconvenience at all,” replied Bakhtiian. Tess did not know him well enough to be sure if he meant the remark to be as sarcastic as it sounded to her. “Had you mentioned her before, I might have been able to reunite you sooner.”
“But Ilya,” said Yuri, “you knew someone was following them before we even met them at the lakeshore.”
“Yuri. The horses need water.”
Yuri reddened from neck to brow and mumbled something in khush, glancing back at Tess as he left.
His summary dismissal did not improve Tess’s mood. “I confess myself curious to know why I was left to walk that long when you knew I was following you.” She stared straight at Bakhtiian. “But I now need to speak with Cha Ishii. Alone.”
Something subtle shifted in Bakhtiian’s already severe expression, a narrowing of the eyes, a tenseness in his lips. “Indeed,” he said, scrupulously formal. “You introduced yourself to me before, Terese Soerensen.” He did not stumble, only slowed, over the awkward syllables. “But I have never introduced myself. I am Ilyakoria Bakhtiian.” He gave a polite bow, like those Tess remembered from the court at Jeds, but she felt it was as much mocking as respectful. She returned it, mimicking him exactly. He did not smile. “If you will excuse me.”
Someone, off in the group of men clustered around the corral, laughed, choked it back, and there was a murmur of voices that quieted abruptly as Bakhtiian turned away from Tess and returned to the horses. The older man lingered.
His short, light silvering hair and weathered face and hands offered Tess abundant signs of the natural aging that did not show in his posture. “If I may interrupt a moment,” he said in heavily accented Rhuian. He inclined his head in a brief nod of greeting, not really waiting for their assent. “We have not met. I am Nikolai Sibirin.”
Despite his sober expression, some light in his eyes made her want to smile at him. “I am honored,” she replied, when she saw that his introduction was meant for her. Ishii, as attuned to nuances of hierarchy as all Chapalii must be, stepped back to afford them privacy for their conversation.
Sibirin hesitated, mulling over words. “While I do not, by any means, recommend unquestioning deference to Ilyakoria’s leadership in these matters, I do find it inadvisable to provoke him deliberately.”
Tess recalled the execution in vivid detail. “Yes, I see. Thank you.”
“Well,” said Sibirin apologetically, watching her closely, “perhaps you do and perhaps you don’t. He’s not usually so volatile, but when he is, one steps carefully and rides with a light hand on the reins.” Then, to take the sting out of the words, he smiled. By the lines in his face, she could see that he smiled a great deal.
“I have been known to have a quick temper. And I’m grateful for your people’s hospitality.” He nodded, satisfied, and she could not resist a question. “Did you learn Rhuian in Jeds, too?”
“No, no. Only Ilyakoria and three of his kin have traveled so far. But I have always liked other tongues, and I try to learn as many as I can. Most jaran speak only khush.”
“Then I shall have to learn khush.” Having said it, she felt a sudden consanguinity, not so much that feeling of having known someone before but rather of being certain that she would like him very well, and he, her. He smiled and excused himself, leaving her with Ishii.
Three other Chapalii had appeared from inside their tents. They merely stood at the entrance flaps and watched as Ishii bowed again, acknowledging that her attention had returned to him.
“Well,” said Tess to herself in Anglais. Her initial flood of anger had dissipated with Sibirin’s gentle words and she was better off for it, able now to measure with a cooler heart what she said. “Cha Ishii. You will understand very well that I am shocked and disappointed that you and your party, with the connivance of Hao Yakii and unknown others, have willfully chosen to violate the Interdiction of this planet by the duke. But perhaps your explanation will bring matters into a more positive perspective.” She folded her hands in front of herself in that arrangement, palm to palm, fingers of the right hand concealing the left thumb, known as Imperial Judgment.
A hint of violet colored Ishii’s face, but it was only a suggestion, paling to white. “We are pilgrims, Lady Terese.”
“Chapalii have no God.”
A swell of color flooded their faces. One of the Chapalii back by the tent put his hand on his belt. It was a threatening gesture, although there was no obvious weapon there. Cha Ishii raised a hand, and the other turned and went back into a tent.
“You gain nothing by insulting us, Lady Terese. I compliment you on your impressive and scholarly command of our language, but you cannot comprehend all of our culture. And whatever you may choose to believe about us, we have told these natives that we are a priest and his pious followers. It is a currency that they understand.”
“Pilgrims engage in pilgrimages. Where are you going on an unmapped, primitive planet?”
“The duke has satellite maps.”
“Geological maps, not geographical.”
“May I remind you again, Lady Terese, that if you endeavor to expose us to these natives, you will be forced to utterly overturn the duke’s Interdiction and meddle irreparably with their cultural development. We have merely asked for guidance and protection, offering horses as coinage, leaving no other trace of ourselves or our culture but our brief presence here. They believe us to be from an empire over the sea. It is a sufficient fiction to leave them unsuspecting. Any other, and you risk obliterating all the protections the duke has put in place.”
Instead of replying, she found herself listening. It was
a quiet land; the noises of the horses and the hushed voices of the men tending them, a soft scraping sound coming from inside one of the Chapalii tents, and the high whistle of a bird, that was all—no background noise at all, except the whisper of the breeze through the tall grass. Ishii had her, of course, had the right of it. She could not compound their transgression with a worse one of her own. Perhaps they could manage an entire journey and scarcely mark the cultures through which they traveled. It was possible.
“As well, Lady Terese,” he added softly, and presumptuously, hearing some kind of submission—or admission—in her silence, “I am aware, as you must be, that the duke has had a handful of men traveling and mapping this world for the last twenty years, for what you call anthropological reasons, and certainly for future resource exploitation, when such times come, as they undoubtedly will. One cannot sit forever on such wealth as this planet holds.”
Faced with her brother’s flouting of his own rules, she could scarcely claim to be righteous—after all, she had come to Rhui, and to this pass, with no one’s permission but her own. “Very well, Cha Ishii. There is some justice in your claims, although you will understand that I must report this infraction. Nevertheless, since I will be journeying with you, if you and your party behave appropriately, I will ask that the penalties be softened.”
“You are most gracious, Lady Terese.” He inclined his head to signal his obedience. She could read neither his tone nor his skin to give her a clue as to what he was thinking now. “If I may ask your indulgence, I have ablutions to perform.”
“You may.” She watched him bow and back away into the tent, followed by the two remaining Chapalii, and then she turned and walked back toward camp. His quick acquiescence made her uneasy, but what could he do now that she was here? Kill her? She dismissed the idea as quickly as it occurred—it was simply too alien and revolutionary an idea to the chapalii psyche as she knew it. Hierarchy was too ingrained for one of lower rank to consider doing harm to any person above him. She had only to wait and watch, listen and be patient. Eventually they would betray their true purpose for being here.
At the top of the rise she paused to look back, at the round, tall white tents of the Chapalii and then at the men examining the horses. She could not be sure any of them was Yuri. One man detached himself from the group. By his walk and his dark hair and by the single-minded purpose of his stride, she guessed it was Bakhtiian—coming to talk to her. She started forward as fast as she could at a walk, not wanting to seem to run. She had no desire whatsoever to talk with Bakhtiian, not yet. She had a story to get straight, facts to invent. More than anything, she had to absorb the Chapalii’s presence here and what this meant to herself and to her brother. If Charles were here, he would know what to do. But Charles wasn’t here. It was up to her. And I’m not the right person to be his heir. She wanted to glance back to see how close Bakhtiian was but she refused to let him know that she knew he was following her. Why can’t Charles see that? I don’t want this work.
Then what do you want? It was a mocking question, thought at herself, but the answer appeared unexpectedly, although it was the answer to a different question. Tess saw Sonia, walking at the edge of camp with a boy, midway in age between the babe-in-arms and the older girl, in reluctant tow. She saw Tess and halted, smiled, and then, looking past Tess, smiled broadly.
“Tess.” As soon as Tess was close enough, Sonia took the boy’s dirty hand and pressed it into Tess’s.
The boy, who had been wailing insincerely a moment before, snapped his mouth shut and gazed up in awe at Tess with eyes as blue as the summer sky. “You’re tall,” he said. “You’re as tall as my papa.”
Sonia chuckled. “Vania, your manners. Tess, is that Ilya I see? He looks quite angry.” She seemed quite cheerful. Tess did not have the nerve to turn around enough to see the contrast between Sonia’s fair, blonde prettiness and her cousin’s harsh, dark features.
“I don’t suppose you can hide me? I don’t want to talk to him right now.”
Sonia’s eyes widened in surprise. “Then don’t talk to him. But here, you just stay quiet.” Tess took a step back, turning, as Bakhtiian came up to them.
“I would like—” he began without preamble, ignoring Sonia.
“Well, Ilya, what is it you would like?” The curtness in Sonia’s tone shocked Tess. Yuri had practically slunk away from Bakhtiian’s anger.
Bakhtiian himself ceased speaking for three whole breaths together. “I beg your pardon, Sonia,” he said in a softer tone. “Cousin, perhaps you would allow me to speak with your companion, Terese Soerensen?”
“Well, Ilya, really, now that Mama has taken her in, you must approach Mama with that request, I think. Although Mama is out with the younger Kolenin girls today, since there was a herd of grazel seen by the scouts, so she’ll be gone until dark. But there will be supper in any case. Mama may be back by then.”
It was not difficult, Tess reflected, to see that Bakhtiian was seething with fury, having had something he wanted denied him. She tried very hard not to smile. Sonia was being very earnest, but a mocking and almost scolding tone still crept through.
“As you say, Sonia.” He gave a brusque bow. “Excuse me.” He left.
“But, Sonia,” said Tess when she realized she was still breathing, “he just ordered Yuri to do what he wanted him to do.”
“Yuri is a man. He cannot be so free with you.”
“Are there people I should not talk with? Or approach? I hope you will be honest with me, Sonia. I would not want to—offend—anyone.”
Sonia looked puzzled a moment, but then her expression cleared. “Of course, even while I speak Rhuian I forget you are of Jeds. Though Vania is right. You are taller than any woman of the tribes. You must remember that here, with us, because you are a woman you may speak with whomever you please. Now, kriye,” she said to her son, who had watched the proceedings with unblinking interest, “you will behave yourself with Tess.” He nodded and gripped his grimy hand more tightly around Tess’s fingers. “I wish he were always so well-behaved, but I am afraid that he takes after his uncle. But come, you will meet my sisters, and then this evening Mama will receive you into the family. Katerina and Stassia made welcome cakes just for the occasion.”
She led Tess away into the haven of women’s company, a haven that was comprehensive in providing both companionship and work. Sonia’s mother arrived with a pair of adolescent identical twin girls with bronze-gold hair. The girls struggled along in her wake, each with a slender antelope slung over her shoulders and a bow and quiver of arrows strapped onto her belt. Mother Orzhekov was a small, thin woman of vast energy, whose features were easily as stern as her nephew’s. She welcomed Tess with sober grace and invested her into the family, all without a particle of discomfiture at their lack of any common language. But by the end of the evening, Tess had learned perhaps fifty words of khush and could thank the matriarch in her own tongue, a feat which pleased the entire family immensely: Mother Orzhekov, her three grown daughters and their husbands and ten children, her dead daughter’s husband and two children, and her son, Yuri, two great-nephews, three grand-nieces and a half dozen assorted other family members.
Once accepted into the Orzhekov tent, Tess discovered quickly enough that her place in the tribe itself was established and unshakable. There was plenty of work for the women, but never too much because it was shared. If the men treated her with distant interest and an intense reserve, the women shamelessly enjoyed her company and monopolized her time. The children, of course, were always underfoot. Tess never had to be alone and never asked to be. However solitary she had lived at Univerzita Karlova in Prague, she had imposed it on herself because of her brother’s name and reputation. But what was the Chapaliian Empire to these people? They did not even know it existed. The Prince of Jeds was just a name; that Bakhtiian, Yuri, and Sonia had been to Jeds mattered little to anyone else, except as a curiosity. She felt free.
Seven days after her a
rrival she felt confident enough with her khush to venture out alone at dusk. She first took the short side trip to survey the Chapalii tents. The Chapalii stayed inside, mostly, and she did not yet want to attempt to bully her way into their most intimate territory—after seven days with the jaran, she had come to have a great respect for the sanctity of tent and family. But the corral with the Earth horses was close enough to serve as a good observation post, and it gave her a legitimate destination. The man on watch was Sonia’s husband Mikhal. He acknowledged her with a shy nod and strolled away, leaving her.
Tess leaned against the high side of one of the pair of wagons that formed the barrier and stared over it at the animals. She found it easy to pick out the Earth horses from the handful of native animals. What was the khush word for horse? Tarpan, that was it. The Kuhaylan Arabians were beautiful creatures by any measure, small, certainly, with delicate heads, huge eyes, and small, mobile ears, but there was strength in their line, in the elegant arch of their tails, and intelligence in their broad foreheads. No wonder these riders desired such stock.
The sun sank below the horizon and one bright star appeared in the darkening sky: the planet Odys. Charles was there, deeply involved in his work, ignorant of this trespass. She alone could warn him that Chapalii had invaded Rhui, yet there was so very much space between them. Surely he had gotten her letter, and had put in a message to Dr. Hierakis at the palace in Jeds—put in a message, only to discover that she had not arrived in Jeds. Her disappearance would simply be another burden laid on him.
The horses were quiet, but their movements spoke. They swished their tails. One stamped. Another snapped at a fly. Dappling the hillside beyond the corral, the mass of goatlike herd animals that provided milk and wool and meat for the tribe blanketed the grass. Something scuffed the ground behind her. She whirled.
“I beg your pardon,” said Bakhtiian. He did not look very sorry. The wind stirred his hair and rustled the folds of his shirt, more gray than red in the half light.
