Jaran

by Kate Elliott

  “I will protect you,” Aleksi muttered under his breath. He loved her fiercely, as only a brother can love a sister, the oldest bond between a man and a woman and the most important one. She had saved his life, had taken him into her tent, had given him the security he had not had since he was a tiny child. Perhaps her other brother, the khaja prince who lived far to the south, loved her more: Aleksi doubted it. Perhaps Bakhtiian loved her more, but it was pointless to measure oneself against Bakhtiian. Bakhtiian was not like other men. He belonged, not to himself, but to the jaran, to his people, and if his passions were greater than other men’s, so, too, were his burdens and his responsibilities.

  Bakhtiian moved. He walked, lithe as any predator, across the gap between his pillow and the semicircle of elders, and knelt in front of his aunt.

  “With your permission, my aunt,” he said. She did not speak, but simply placed her palm on his hair and withdrew it again. He rose and walked to the other end of the crescent, to kneel before the etsana of the eldest tribe, Elizaveta Sakhalin. He kept his eyes lowered, as befitted a modest man.

  The elderly woman regarded him evenly.

  At last, Bakhtiian spoke.

  “When Mother Sun sent her daughter to the earth, she sent with her ten sisters, and gifted them each with a tent and a name. The eldest was Sakhalin, then Arkhanov, Suvorin, Velinya, Raevsky, Vershinin, Grekov, Fedoseyev, and last the twins, Veselov and Orzhekov. Each sister had ten daughters, and each daughter ten daughters in turn, and thus the tribes of the jaran were born. This summer we begin our ride against the khaja lands.” Now he lifted his eyes to look directly at her, though she was his elder, and a woman. “Of the ten elder tribes, who will come with me?”

  Sakhalin rose. She was a tiny woman, well past her childbearing years, and strength radiated from her. She examined her nephew first, then each of the other nine etsanas and their warleaders in turn. Each man went forward and laid his saber in front of Bakhtiian’s pillow. Each woman unbound the horse-tail from her staff and bound it, in turn, to the staff resting beside Bakhtiian’s pillow. Nine sabers, ten horse-tails. The priests’ chanting droned on, a muted counterpoint. The standard atop the tent, a plain gold banner, fluttered wildly.

  “Bakhtiian,” Sakhalin said, which meant He-who-has-traveled-far. “All will come.” She raised him up and released him, and he walked back to the pillow and sank down onto it. He took the staff into his hands and held it, weighing its strength. Then he lifted his gaze to the endless blue sky.

  Sakhalin turned to survey the assembly. She stretched out her arms to the heavens. “Mother Sun and Father Wind be our witness,” she said, and though she did not seem to raise her voice, it carried effortlessly across the plateau. “All will come.”

  A great shout rose, shattering the stillness.

  “Ja-tar!” they cried. “To ride!”

  Elizaveta Sakhalin sat down, and a hush fell.

  Yaroslav Sakhalin rose, dyan of the eldest tribe, and he walked forward and took his saber from the ground and held it out. Its blade winked in the torchlight.

  “Where will you lead us?” Sakhalin asked.

  Bakhtiian did not answer. His gaze had taken on a distant cast, as if he were looking at something not there, some place, some person, some vision that only he could see.

  “Leave him,” said Elizaveta Sakhalin. “We must leave him here to talk to the gods.” It took half the night for them all to negotiate the narrow trail down to the camp below, leaving Bakhtiian alone above.

  A day passed and Bakhtiian did not come down from the height.

  Neither did he the next day.

  But at dawn on the third day, smoke rose from the hill, billowing up into the sky. “He’s offered the tent to the gods,” his aunt said approvingly. In orderly groups, elders and dyans, commanders and etsanas, gathered at the base where the path twisted up the hillside. Aleksi stuck close to Tess and so gained a vantage point right at the front.

  Soon enough they saw a single figure, red shirt, black trousers, black boots, a saber swaying at his hips, walking down the path. He gripped the horse-tail staff in his left hand. Seeing the crowd, he halted. First, he sought out his wife’s figure in the throng. He stared at her as if to make sure she was real and not a spirit. Aleksi could not otherwise read Bakhtiian’s expression. But then, Aleksi was never entirely sure of what Bakhtiian felt about anything, as if the sheer force of the emotions welling off Bakhtiian served to hide his true feelings.

  At last Bakhtiian lifted his gaze to stare at the assembly spread out, waiting for him. Here at the front, the elders, the women, the commanders, stood and watched. Farther back, many of the young men of the army had already mounted, holding their restless mounts tight reins.

  Bakhtiian’s face was lit, illuminated by the gods themselves, or by some trick of the morning sunlight, Aleksi could not be sure which. He raised the horse-tail staff and, with that small gesture, brought silence. Then he drew his saber.

  “West,” he said. So calmly did he raise the fire that would scorch the khaja earth. “West to the sea.”

  ACT ONE

  “HE THAT PLAYS THE king shall be welcome.”

  —SHAKESPEARE,

  Hamlet

  CHAPTER ONE

  “Look here my boys, see what a world of ground

  Lies westward from the midst of Cancer’s line,

  Unto the rising of this earthly globe,

  Whereas the sun declining from our sight, Begins the day with our antipodes…

  And from th’Antartique Pole, eastward behold

  As much more land, which never was descried,

  Wherein are rocks of pearl, that shine as bright

  As all the lamps that beautify the sky,

  And shall I die and this unconquered?”

  IN THE HUSH OF AUDIENCE and air alike, Diana moved quietly around to the back of the second balcony to watch the final minutes of the Company’s final performance on Earth. Tamburlaine the Great. Who, from a Scythian Shepheard by his rare and wonderful Conquests became a most puissant and mighty Monarch, And (for his tyranny, and terror in War) was termed, The Scourge of God. Divided into two Tragical Discourses. Somehow, the two plays seemed ironically appropriate for a repertory company that was about to leave the civilized worlds and spend a year on the last planet in known space where humans still lived in ignorance of their space-faring brothers and sisters.

  Next week the entire Company, together with Charles Soerensen and his party, would board a spaceliner that would take them to the Delta Pavonis system and the Interdicted world, Rhui. Owen and Ginny had founded the Bharentous Repertory Company in order to give themselves room to experiment with the theater they loved. This would be their greatest experiment fulfilled: bringing theater to unlettered savages who had not the slightest sheen of civilization to pollute their first experience of drama.

  Amyras knelt before his dying father Tamburlaine. “Heavens witness me, with what a broken heart And damned spirit I ascend this seat…”

  Diana sighed. Hal always overplayed this part, doubtless as revenge against his parents. But it didn’t matter. Gwyn played Tamburlaine so very finely that she never tired of watching him. She leaned her arms along the wood railing that set off the back row of seats from the balcony aisle and watched as Zenocrate’s transparent hearse was rolled in. Tamburlaine’s final speech: she let herself fall into it.

  “Now eyes, enjoy thy latest benefit…For Tamburlaine, the Scourge of God must die.” He died. Tears wet Diana’s cheeks. Another set of arms slid onto the railing and, startled, she glanced to that side.

  The man standing there smiled at her. He looked familiar and, in any case, she recognized the kind of smile he was giving her. Men enough, and a few women, came to the Green Room to court a pretty, golden-haired ingénue.

  Hal said Amyras’s final lines. The play ended. The audience rose, applauding enthusiastically, as the players came forward to make their bows.

  “Shouldn’t you be up there?
” asked the man casually.

  “You’re Marco Burckhardt!” exclaimed Diana. “I thought you looked familiar.”

  “Wit as well as beauty.” Marco placed his right hand over his heart and bowed to her. “I hope my reputation has not preceded my name.”

  Diana laughed. “‘Come, Sir, you’re our envoy—lead the way, and we’ll precede.’ And it’s appropriate, too, you know. You’ve been on Rhui. You’re coming with us, aren’t you?”

  “With Charles,” he agreed. He looked out over the house, over to one of the boxes where a sandy-haired man of middle height stood applauding with his companions and the rest of the audience. As if he were just any other playgoer. Which, of course, he emphatically was not.

  Marco swung his gaze back to Diana, and he smiled, deliberately, invitingly. “But now that I have met you, golden fair, I need no other inducement to travel so far.”

  Diana felt a little breathless. In his own way, Marco Burckhardt was a legend. “Is it true that you’ve explored most of the planet? Rhui, that is. All alone, and without any aids whatsoever? Not even a palm slate or a fletchette rifle or any modern weaponry? And by only the primitive transportation they have on planet? That you’ve almost been killed?”

  Marco chuckled. “I do carry an emergency transmitter, but I’ve never used it. And this scar—” He took her hand and lifted it to touch, like a caress, the pale line that wrapped halfway around his neck. “You have soft skin,” he murmured.

  Diana traced the smooth line of the scar, the sun-roughened skin on either side, and then lowered her hand back to the railing. “Is that the only one?” she asked, a little disappointed. Beyond, on the stage, Gwyn and Anahita—Tamburlaine and Zenocrate—came forward to take their final bows. A few in the audience were already filtering out of their seats. Charles Soerensen and his companions had not moved, which surprised her, since most VIPs left immediately and by a side entrance otherwise reserved for cast and crew.

  “Not the only one,” said Marco, “but I can’t show you the others in such a public place.”

  Diana smiled. “I’m almost convinced, but not quite. Is that the closest you’ve ever come to death?”

  Marco looked away from her, not into the distance, precisely, but at the stage, at Gwyn, in his armor and holding spear and sword, the Scythian shepherd turned conqueror. “No. I could run faster than the people chasing me, that time. The time I came closest to death, there was neither room nor opportunity to run. Did the Company deliberately choose this play as their final performance?”

  “What do you mean?” Gwyn and Anahita retreated into the wings, and the audience broke off their applause and burst into a stream of talk and movement. A few young men had rushed down to the stage, to try to bully or plead their way into the back, to court Anahita and Quinn and Oriana—and herself, of course—and a few to court Hyacinth. In his box, Charles Soerensen was entertaining visitors, as if he had the knack of turning any space into a sort of political Green Room. Conversation flowed over and around Diana and Marco, broken into snippets and phrases and abrupt scenes.

  “—there just aren’t many actors who can make the change from the vids to the theater successfully, though I’ll admit you’re right about Gwyn Jones. He was superb. But take their Zenocrate. Just a little overdone all around. I suppose they took her on for the publicity—”

  “—did you see Charles Soerensen? No, there, you fool. You didn’t know he’d be at the performance tonight? It was all over the net—”

  “—and Rico was in a rare fury, too, when he discovered the two of them kissing backstage. Imagine, he’d been boasting for the last year that he’d bed her, but nothing came of it. And then it turns out that his sister has been sleeping with her all along.”

  Diana laughed, and then clapped a hand over her mouth, stifling it. Marco raised one eyebrow and shifted his shoulder so that the two young men—dressed in the gaudy gold-threaded robes that were the most recent fashion at the universities—could not see her past his body.

  “It’s all right,” she murmured. “They won’t recognize me without my stage makeup.”

  “—and what do you suppose Soerensen is up to now, eh? He got the Chapalii merchant house, and what a coup that was, too. Just like laughing in the faces of those damned chameleons. And now he’s going off to that primitive world—what is it? Rhui, yes, that’s it. Something’s going on, I tell you. A man like Soerensen has deep plans. I’d wager my own children that we’ll see some kind of action soon against the Empire.”

  “Is it true?” asked Diana, watching Marco as he tracked this last speaker with his gaze out the balcony exit.

  “Is what true?”

  “That Soerensen’s sister is alive, and on Rhui.”

  His attention snapped back to her. “Where did you hear that?”

  “Oh, we all know it. In the Company. Even after the Protocol Office made the official announcement of her death, Soerensen never confirmed it or denied it. And he never adopted a new heir. Isn’t that his right, by Chapalii law? And anyway, why else would Soerensen let us travel to Rhui? He took so much trouble to restrict the planet from all outside contact to begin with. And why would he come along with us? Really, you must give us some credit for intelligence.”

  “Infinite credit, fair one. It sits beside your infinite beauty.”

  “Can beauty be infinite?”

  “Only in Keats. What else have you heard?”

  “About the sister? Nothing. About Rhui—well, we’re going to a city called Jeds, first. Soerensen styles himself Prince there, so we’ll be under his protection. Not that any of the natives will know where we’re really from. After some time there, then there’s a chance we’ll be going out into the bush, into the really primitive areas. Owen says that we might be traveling with nomads. Doesn’t that sound romantic?”

  Marco looked amused. “You aren’t scared, going off like this to be thrown in among savages? With no modern weaponry to protect yourself?”

  “Certainly not. This is the most exciting thing I’ve ever done. I’ve never had a moment’s danger in my life. I auditioned for the Company because I loved the risks Owen and Ginny were taking with theater, and with the traditions of theater. And this! Well, I suppose Jeds will be much like any city, only dirtier and primitive. But taking the theater out to these barbarian nomads—that’s going to be a real adventure!” She felt flushed, and she knew she was declaiming. But what did it matter? Non-actors always seemed to expect her to talk that way offstage as well as on, and it was true how she felt, and she felt it so deeply.

  Marco watched her, looking, perhaps, a little wistful. “I wish I’d known you when Charles and I started all this,” he said softly. “I think you would have come with me, the first of us to set foot on Rhui.”

  She stared, entranced by the green of his eyes. “I would have,” she said, sure that at this moment it was true. Though she knew he must be as old as her biological father, he did not look ten years older than her, an attractive man made handsome as much by the suppressed air of wildness about him as by any pretensions to beauty. A man who knew adventure, who knew real danger, who had felt death close at hand and looked it in the face. Her own life had been so—safe.

  “Goddess, you’re young,” he said, and broke the spell.

  Diana blushed, but she chuckled. “That’s put me in my place.” She laid a hand on the railing, a self-conscious pose, and looked down from this great height onto the stage. “Oh. That’s what you meant, isn’t it? About choosing these plays for our farewell performance. Tamburlaine was a nomad. Do you suppose the nomads we’re going to travel with have a Tamburlaine among them?”

  She said it lightly, but Marco’s lips pressed together, and his gaze shifted from her down to the distant figure that was Charles Soerensen. Soerensen was speaking easily with several people that even from this height Diana recognized, the Director of the Royal Academy, the prime minister of the Eurasian States, a respected vid journalist, the assistant stage manager, a
n usher—he was a university student majoring in xenobotany—who had once made a pass at her, and one of the clerks from the box office who had brought her two children to meet The Great Man. A sudden swirl of movement in the box steadied and stilled to reveal one of the tall, thin alien Chapalii. The creature bowed to Soerensen, offering him the delicate crystal wand in which the Chapalii conveyed important messages from one noble to another.

  “I must go,” said Marco. “May I escort you down?” He offered her his elbow, and Diana placed her fingers on his sleeve. The contact overwhelmed her, and she could suddenly think of nothing to say. Walking this close to him, down the carpeted stairwell that led to the lobby, she could not imagine why he should be interested in her at all, except, of course, that she was young, pretty, and blonde. This man had explored a wild and dangerous world, alone most of the time, and he was the confidant and right hand of the most important human alive.

  “Shall I introduce you?” Marco asked suddenly, and too late Diana realized she was being steered to the box from which Charles Soerensen had watched the play.

  How could she refuse? She calmed her suddenly erratic breathing by force of habit and let him lead her there.

  A cluster of people walked toward them down the corridor. A moment later they were swept into the retinue.

  “There you are, Marco,” said Soerensen. He held the crystal wand in his left hand. It shimmered and glinted under the hall lights.

  “Charles, I’ve brought one of the actors to meet you. This is Diana Brooke-Holt, of the repertory company.”

  “Ah.” Soerensen stopped. “M. Brooke-Holt. I’m honored to meet you.” He looked ordinary enough, but his stare was intense: Diana felt as if she were being recorded, measured, and filed away against future need.

  However much she wanted to collapse into a gibbering heap, she knew how to present a collected exterior. She extended her right hand, and he shook it. “The honor is mine,” she said, careful to give the words no earth-shattering sentiment, only simple politeness.