Jaran

by Kate Elliott

  “What, right now?”

  “Yes, right now. No, of course not right now. Tomorrow. The next day.”

  “I can’t teach you, Tess.”

  “Because you don’t want to?”

  “Because I can’t. Give me credit, please, for so much self knowledge. I would not teach you well or fairly.”

  “Well,” she admitted, a little mollified, “Kirill said as much. Then let me ride in your jahar.”

  “You are not adept enough yet, nor experienced enough yet. Not for my jahar or for any dyan’s jahar.”

  “If I learn enough to become so?”

  “Most of these young men have been fighting with saber since they were boys, I might remind you.”

  “Am I that bad?”

  “No,” he said reluctantly. “You’re rather good, for how few months you’ve been practicing. You have a certain gift, you’re strong, and you work very hard.”

  It was quiet in the Veselov camp. The great fire burned with a roar alongside the beaten ground of the practice field, where now the dancing was being held. A man passed them, hurrying toward the celebration, and they saw a shape slip into a tent out at the edge of camp.

  “Where are we going?” Ilya asked finally.

  “I’m not sure.” She looked up at the brilliant cast of stars above. Somewhere out there, worlds spun and ships traveled, spanning vast distances; Charles wove his plots, and the Chapalii wove other plots still. Her life, all of it, and yet this world was hers as well. She had done her duty to Charles—tracked the Chapalii and not only alerted him to their presence but discovered a relic of such value that she could not begin to measure it. “I’m not sure what I ought to do anymore, or what I can do, or whether or not Yuri was right.”

  “Right about what?” he asked softly.

  She stopped. They had walked about halfway through the Veselov camp, and the two great tents, one belonging to Arina and one to Vera, lay some fifty paces behind them. A low fire burned in the fire pit that separated the tents, illuminating the wedding ribbons woven up the tent poles that supported the awning of Arina’s tent. And, Tess saw, a small pile of gear deposited on one corner of the rug: her new husband’s possessions, to be moved inside by him this night.

  “Oh, damn,” said Tess in a low voice. “Look, there’s Vera.”

  Vera stood just outside the entrance to her own tent, talking with a man Tess could not recognize from this distance. By the way she was gesticulating with her arms, Tess could guess that it was poor Petya, and that he was being scolded for some illusory offense.

  “Tess,” said Ilya as softly as he had spoken before but in an utterly changed voice, “where is your saber?”

  “In my tent.”

  “Damn. Walk back to the fire.”

  “Ilya.”

  “That is Vasil. How he got into this camp I do not know, why Vera is sheltering him I do not care to guess, but there is going to be trouble any moment now. Go alert Josef and Tasha.”

  “Where are you going?”

  He put one hand on his saber hilt. “To talk with him.”

  She laid both hands on his chest. “No. Don’t be a fool. Don’t you remember when Doroskayev sent men into Sakhalin’s camp to kill you? What if Vasil isn’t alone? Let’s walk back to the fire together, now.”

  But it was already too late. Vera’s companion had stepped past her and it was obvious that, even over such distance and in the darkness, Vasil and Ilya were looking at each other. The flap leading into Vera’s tent swept aside, and three men rushed out, sabers drawn.

  “Stahar linaya!” Ilya cried. He drew his saber. “Tess! Back to the fire.”

  She stepped away from him. The three men closed, slowing now to split around him, and Ilya edged away from her. Vasil had not moved. Tess ran for Vera’s tent.

  “Damn you!” Vera was shrieking. “Go kill him! You coward, go kill him!”

  Vasil backhanded her so hard she fell to the rug. She began to sob. “You’re a fool, Vera. He will never love you. But who is this?” He sidestepped Tess’s rush neatly, tripped her, and then pinned her to the ground. “The khaja pilgrim. How interesting.”

  Behind, she heard the ring of sabers and a distant—too distant—shout. “Give me your saber,” she said to Vasil from the ground, “and I’ll speak for you, and maybe they’ll spare your life.”

  “He rode with her down the Avenue,” Vera gasped out between sobs. “I want him dead.”

  “Vera. Shut up. Get the horses.” Then, moving before she realized he meant to, Vasil lifted Tess up and pinned her to him. “They’ll never spare my life, and I don’t plan on giving it up. Retreat to me!” he cried.

  Horses snorted and pawed beside them. Vera stood at their heads, clutching their reins. Tears streamed down her face. “You are a coward,” she gasped. “You’re afraid to kill him. You’ve always loved him more than you ever loved me.”

  “Forgive me,” said Vasil, and in the instant before she realized he was speaking to her, Tess got her head turned enough to see Vasil’s three men sprinting back toward them, Ilya at their heels. Farther, much farther back, cries of alarm and shouts and commotion stirred the camp. Then she saw the flash of Vasil’s knife, and a hard knob struck her temple.

  Charles Soerensen sat in an anteroom of the imperial palace. Indeed, the only city left on the homeworld of Chapal was the imperial palace.

  It had taken him five days from his arrival on Paladia Major to get dispensation to enter imperial space, and five days on Chapal to get this far, seven doors away from audience with the emperor. Suzanne sat next to him, decently swathed in scholar’s robes; she was his best interpreter—best except for his own missing sister, of course—but very few females were allowed into the imperial presence. Across from them, on benches grown from crystal, sat Hon Echido and two elder members of Keinaba, those who would partake of the rite of loyalty with Charles in the emperor’s presence.

  If the emperor allowed it. Charles allowed himself a smile, a brief one, secure that Chapalii did not interpret facial tics as meaningful of emotion or thought. For all he knew, it would take him five months to get past those last seven doors, and even then he did not know if the Keinaba dispensation would still be in force. But, like water working past a dam in a stream, eventually he would find his way past each obstacle. Eventually, one way or the other, he would get the key that would allow the next rebellion to succeed.

  The far door—the door leading back away from the emperor’s presence—opened, and Tai Naroshi Toraokii entered with his retinue. The near door opened, revealing a lord in the silver livery of the imperial house. Tai Naroshi paused in front of Charles. Charles did not rise.

  “Tai-en.” Naroshi inclined his head.

  “Tai-en.” Charles inclined his head in turn. “The translation program works very well. Your artisans are efficient.”

  “I am gratified that you find them so. I express my grief with your family at this time.”

  Charles glanced at Suzanne, wondering if the program was not working. She blinked twice: the words were correct. “Your concern is generous, Tai-en,” Charles replied.

  “Perhaps you will adopt a proper male heir now. I would be honored, Tai-en, if you would consider my sister, who is an architect of great renown, for the design of your sister’s mausoleum. She would certainly design a fitting and magnificent structure of unparalleled beauty.”

  One of his retinue had flushed blue. Charles stared at Naroshi, both of them equally impassive.

  Suzanne pulled the loose drape of her hood over her face. “Oh, Goddess,” she said in a stifled voice.

  “Tai-en,” said Charles at last. “Are you telling me that my sister is dead?”

  If Naroshi was surprised by Charles’s ignorance, or by his directness, he showed no sign of it. “This one of mine, who is named Cha Ishii Hokokul, has brought me this news. Are you telling me, Tai Charles, that you have not heard it yet?”

  The far door swept aside and Tomaszio strode in, followe
d by a lord in imperial silver who was flushed green with disapproval. Charles stood up. The lord halted, facing two dukes, and let Tomaszio proceed alone.

  “This is just in,” said Tomaszio in Ophiuchi-Sei. “Goddess, I’m sorry to disturb you here, Charles, but it’s code red from Odys.”

  Charles took the palm-sized bullet and just stood for a moment. Suzanne still held the cloth across her face. Keinaba watched. Naroshi and his retinue watched. The one called Cha Ishii watched, skin fading to a neutral white.

  Charles pressed his thumb to the pad, and the bullet peeled open. It was not even scrambled, the message, just two bites. One bore Marco’s signature code, and it read: Tess found the key. The other, the unique signature code of his only sibling, his heir, twined into the secondary pulse of an emergency transmitter’s beacon and flatcoded to be sent on to him: I am safe.

  Without a word Charles nodded to Tomaszio, dismissing him, and handed the bullet to Suzanne, who lowered the cloth enough to read it and then with a suppressed gasp pulled the cloth back over her face again. She pressed the fail-safe on the tube, and the casing and contents dissolved in her hand.

  “Your sympathy is well-taken, Tai-en,” said Charles. He sat down.

  “Tai Naroshi Toraokii.” The lord at the near door spoke, and he bowed to the precise degree. “I beg you to allow me to admit you into the next antechamber.”

  Naroshi inclined his head to Charles. “Tai-en.”

  “Tai-en.”

  Naroshi and his retinue went on, moving one step closer to the emperor’s presence.

  “Oh, Goddess,” said Suzanne again.

  Hon Echido had flushed blue. “I beg of you, Tai Charles, to indulge me in this. Has the Tai-endi Terese indeed died? I would be stricken to desolation were it so. She was kind to me.”

  Charles examined Hon Echido, examined the Keinaba elders. He glanced at Suzanne, who lowered the cloth from her face. Drying tears streaked her face. She lifted a hand and wiped them away.

  “My servants,” said Charles, and then he tapped off the translation program. “Hon Echido,” he said in Anglais. “Do you understand what it means to be allied to my house?”

  Hon Echido bent his head, subservient. “I understand. You are daiga, human, and will be always a barbarian, you and your kind.” His skin faded to orange, the color of peace. “But we chose, we of Keinaba, to live rather than to die. Thus we have made our choice.”

  “Then I will tell you this. The Tai-endi lives but it is better that we alone, of my house, know this.”

  The three merchants studied him, knowing full well that such a declaration meant that their duke had chosen to enter the struggle, to vie for position within the emperor’s sight, to begin the slow, intricate dance of time uncounted and years beyond years, the politic art, the only art granted to males: the art of intrigue.

  “Oh dammit dammit my head hurts,” Tess muttered. She opened her eyes and shut them immediately. “The light hurts. Ilya.” She was cradled against his chest. “Why is everything moving so much?”

  “Because we’re riding,” he said, sounding amused.

  “Who the hell are you?” she demanded, trying to push away from him. Her wrists and ankles were bound, and she was seated sidesaddle on his horse, held against him. “Vasil!”

  “I apologize for that blow to the head but there really was no way to get out of there without a hostage.” He smiled.

  “Good Lord,” said Tess, getting a good look at him as her eyes adjusted to the light, “you really are the handsomest man I’ve ever met.”

  He laughed. “Thank you. I will take the compliment in the spirit in which it was offered.”

  “You bitch,” said a second voice. “You aren’t content with just one, are you?”

  “Vera,” said Vasil, “spite makes you ugly. Yevgeni, take her forward, please.”

  Yevgeni grinned and urged his horse into a gallop. Vera clutched at his belt and her face went white but she kept yelling back at them, the words lost in the wind.

  “Poor Yevgeni,” said Vasil. “Our family has always been cursed with loving its face more than its heart. You two, go and keep him company, if you will.” The other men rode after Yevgeni. “I hope your head isn’t hurting too much.”

  “I still have a headache. It seems to me that now that you’re free of the camp, you can let me go.”

  “Oh, no, Terese Soerensen, we’re not free yet. So Ilya married you, did he?” He looked thoughtful. “You rode down the Avenue together. He must love you very much.”

  “He wants me,” said Tess, and then, because the tone of her voice reminded her of the venom in Vera’s voice, she went on. “Yes, he does love me. It’s just taken me this long to really understand that.” She paused a moment, shading her eyes. All she could see was unending grass around them, and she had not the faintest idea where they might be or in what direction the camp lay. “Why am I telling you this?”

  “Because we are alike, you and I,” he said with perfect seriousness.

  “Are we? In what way?”

  “We both love Ilya. But he will never have me, and therefore he must die.”

  “How like your sister you are,” she said bitterly, and suddenly wished he was not holding her so closely.

  “Yes, I am,” he said cheerfully. “It’s a terrible thought, isn’t it? I find her quite unbearable.”

  “You could have killed him last night.”

  Vasil shrugged. “The truth is, I am a coward. I’ll never be able to kill him with my own hand. That’s why I ride with Mikhailov, to let him do it. But I see this subject is upsetting you. Shall we speak of something else?”

  She turned her head away from him, staring out at the men riding ahead of them. “I don’t want to speak to you at all.”

  They rode on in silence for a time. Her head ached, but when he paused long enough to give her some water to drink, the pain dulled to a throb.

  “Can’t you at least untie my ankles so I can ride more comfortably?” she asked at last.

  “Certainly. I’ll untie your ankles and your wrists if you will promise me on your husband’s honor that you won’t attempt to escape.”

  “Damn you. I can’t promise that.”

  “I didn’t think you would. Ilya holds his honor very high.”

  She did not reply. They rode on, and she gauged by the sun that they were riding northeast. In early afternoon they rode into a hollow backed by a steep ridge. A copse of trees ringed a water hole at the base of the ridge, and beyond it lay a small, makeshift camp. One great tent was pitched on the far side, on a low rise above the others, twenty small tents scattered haphazardly below it. The inhabitants were mostly men, she saw as they paused on the crest of a rise to look down, but women and children were there as well.

  Vasil and his companions made directly for the great tent. Dmitri Mikhailov stood outside, leaning on a crutch, watching them.

  “Evidently you failed,” he said. “Who is this? The khaja pilgrim? Why?”

  “I wouldn’t have failed!” Vera cried. “I would have gotten him to come back with me but then she interrupted me!”

  “He would never have gone with you,” said Tess. Her ankles were bound loosely enough that she could stand next to Vasil.

  “Do you think so? Everyone knows you sleep in separate tents. You couldn’t even get your own husband to lie with you.”

  Tess was suddenly struck with a feeling of great pity for Vera, who had nothing left to her now but her own gall to succor her through the months and the years. “I’m sorry,” she said.

  Vera slapped her. Vasil grabbed his sister and wrenched her arm back so hard that Vera gasped with pain.

  Mikhailov sighed. “Must I put up with this? Karolla!”

  A young woman about Tess’s age emerged from the tent. “Yes, Father?” Her gaze settled on Tess, and she looked surprised and curious at the same time. She bore an old, white scar of marriage on her cheek.

  “Take this Veselov woman somewhere, anywhere, th
at is out of my sight.”

  “Yes, Father.” Karolla looked at Vasil. Tess caught the infinitesimal nod that he gave her, as if it was his permission and not her father’s that she sought. “Well, you must be Vera. I’m sure you’d like to wash and get some food. Will you come with me?”

  Vera gathered together the last shreds of her dignity and with a final, parting glance of sheer hatred—not for Tess but for her brother—she walked away with Karolla.

  “You three,” said Mikhailov to the riders, “please follow them and see that she makes no mischief. Now, Vasil, what happened?”

  “As Vera said. Vera got us into camp easily enough but Bakhtiian would not go with her to her tent. It was luck that this woman and Bakhtiian came walking through camp—well, there wasn’t time to fight him fairly, so I took her as hostage.”

  “That is very well, Vasil, but how will this help us kill Bakhtiian? We are already driven into a corner, and now he will attack us with far superior forces.”

  “But, Dmitri, she is his wife.”

  “There is no mark.”

  “By the Avenue.”

  “Gods!” Dmitri looked at her for the first time as if her presence mattered to him. “Is that true?”

  Tess did not reply. Her cheek still stung from Vera’s slap.

  “Yes,” answered Vasil. “Given the brief moments we had to get out of the camp alive, I did as well as I could. I told Bakhtiian that if he did not leave us alone, I would let Vera kill her.”

  Mikhailov smiled, bitterly amused. “Did you? Would Vera kill her?”

  “I think so. Gladly. Vera is not all show, Dmitri.”

  “But would you let Vera kill her?”

  Vasil shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  “Well, send Yevgeni with a message: Tell Bakhtiian that if he gives himself into our hands, we will free his wife.”

  “Will Bakhtiian believe you?”

  “What is left us, Vasil? This is our last chance. We’ll break camp and move, and when Bakhtiian comes, we must kill him. Put her in my tent.”

  Vasil picked Tess up and carried her inside, depositing her on two threadbare pillows in the outer chamber. Mikhailov followed them in.