by Kate Elliott
As though felled by a bolt from heaven, the boy dropped to his knees in front of Tess and began to cry. Ilya took a halting step toward them, stopped, took another step, and froze.
“You think it’s true, don’t you?” Vasil murmured, absorbing this knowledge from Ilya’s face, which, the gods knew, he could read well enough. Yet how could it be true? And how could they take in a shamed child and yet reject him? A hand touched his elbow. He jumped, startled.
“I think we should go, don’t you?” asked Nadine with a falsely sweet smile on her face. She took him with a firm grip on the elbow and gave him no choice but to go with her.
Outside, the two guards looked amazed to see him emerge with her, as well they might, since they hadn’t seen him go in. She led Vasil past them without a word, on into the night.
“How can it be true?” he demanded of her.
“Veselov, just because the jaran have one set of laws doesn’t mean that the khaja hold to the same set of laws. Gods, though, I didn’t know what Tess would do. For all I knew, she’d want Vasha strangled.”
“Then you believe it, that the boy is Ilya’s son? Ilya never had any intention of marrying Inessa Kireyevsky.”
“I suppose you’d know. What were you doing in there tonight, anyway?”
“That’s none of your concern!”
Nadine snorted. “I could make it my concern, if I wanted to, but I don’t. Well, go on, Veselov. Get. Go home. I don’t think you need my escort.”
Yes, definitely, Nadine Orzhekov reminded him of Ilya’s mother, except that Nadine didn’t seem to have the same ruthless ambition. Vasil hadn’t been sorry when Alyona Orzhekov had been murdered; neither had he been surprised. Only, of course, the result of that awful massacre had been his own exile. Sometimes, when you wished too hard for something, you paid a bitter price.
Nadine left him standing there, just strode away, leaving him in the darkness. Stars blazed above, the lanterns of heaven. The moon hung low, as sharp as a saber’s curve against the night sky. Far in the distance a scattering of lights marked the twin hills of the khaja city, torches raised on the battlements. For a long time, Vasil simply waited.
After a long while, the stars wheeling on their blind path above him, he realized that he might wait out here all night and through the day and on into night again, and the one person he most wished for would make no rendezvous with him, here or anywhere. Like a weight, the knowledge dragged at him. Like a sundering force, it severed forever the dream from the truth. Ilya would not ever again meet him as anything or anyone, except as Bakhtiian. Vasil thought that he might just as well die as live without hope.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
OUT ON THE PLAINS, the jaran army had not seemed so threatening to David. But now he had ridden along its wake; he had seen the Habakar countryside devastated by its passing. Here on a ridge looking far down at the broad fertile valley that harbored the city of Karkand, the tents of the jaran camp covered the lands surrounding the city like some ominous stain. Like an amoeba engulfing its prey. Like a gloved hand crushing a delicate flower within its fist.
“Pretty impressive,” said Maggie, sitting astride her horse next to him. “You look philosophical.”
“I’m waxing poetic. What in hell are we doing here anyway, Mags? This is insane.”
“David.” She hesitated. “Are you sure you’re—coping well with Nadine’s marriage? You’ve seemed rather moody since it happened, and you’re usually pretty even-tempered. It’s one of your wonderful qualities.”
“Thank you.” Luckily, Charles called the party forward at that moment, and the distraction served to get Maggie off his back. They rode down into the valley, under lowering clouds, only to find a welcoming committee. A group of about one hundred riders waited for them beyond the outskirts of the camp. A gold banner danced in the rising wind. Bakhtiian rode out to greet Charles, Tess on his left, Cara and Ursula on his right. Charles took it all coolly enough. He smiled at Tess. He nodded at Ursula. He met Cara’s gaze, and whatever they read of each other satisfied them both.
Then Charles allowed Bakhtiian to escort him to a site suitable to a prince of his eminence. Bakhtiian had evidently set aside a prime bit of land for this purpose just outside the main camp but close to both the hospital encampment and the Bharentous Repertory Company. An awning awaited them, as well as children from the Orzhekov tribe bearing food and drink. Bakhtiian dismounted and went at once to assist Tess from her horse. Charles dismounted. David and the rest of his party followed his lead.
Out of the swirl of activity, Tess created order. Pillows appeared. Riders took command of the pack train, unloading the animals. The change in Tess amazed David. Her entire shape had altered, of course, though she didn’t look awkward with it but really rather beautiful. She approached Charles and hugged him, and then stepped back. Charles actually broke; he actually grinned and rested his right hand, tentatively, on her abdomen. He shook his head, still smiling, and removed his hand.
“Oh, thank you,” retorted Tess, although Charles had not spoken a word. “Laugh at me.” She slid a hand over her pregnant belly, stroking it. The gesture looked habitual.
“No, no,” said Charles, “you look very—”
“Very rotund? Very fecund? Very abundant? I feel like a ship. No, a ship is too agile. I feel like a barge. Cara assures me that with two months to go, I’m nowhere close to being big yet.” She kissed Charles on either cheek, in the jaran style, her hands on his shoulders. “But I’m glad to see you.”
She looked glad to see him. Charles looked pleased. Pleased! Charles, who rarely showed any emotion anymore. David had never seen the two of them look so at ease with each other, not since Tess was a child and their parents were still alive. Evidently, pregnancy agreed with Tess.
Evidently, it agreed with Bakhtiian as well. He chatted easily with Cara and Marco, letting Tess and Charles have their little reunion in what privacy such a public place could afford. Perhaps he believed that now that his wife was pregnant with his child, there was no risk that she would ever leave him.
In Anglais, Charles gave Tess a brief account of Hyacinth. Then he turned away from Tess to address Bakhtiian. “I’m pleased to see you as well, Bakhtiian. There are matters I think you and I need to discuss.”
What the hell? What game was Charles playing now?
Tess blinked. Cara arched her eyebrows. Marco frowned. Bakhtiian took it coolly enough. “I trust,” he replied, “that you had a fruitful expedition to Morava. My niece tells me that a party of khepelli traders traveled all the way in from the coast to meet you there.”
“Yes. I’ve managed to take one of their trading houses under my protection. With their help, I learned a few things that might be of interest to you as well, and might prove to be of benefit to both of us.”
“Charles,” began Tess. She looked white. She looked terrified.
“But,” said Charles, “I’d like to have a few words with Owen and Ginny first, and perhaps the rest of the afternoon with Cara. We’ll need some time to set up our camp as well. And tonight, a small celebration of our reunion.”
“Of course,” said Bakhtiian smoothly. “Children.” He rounded them up ruthlessly. David noticed for the first time the boy, Vasha, among their numbers. The child stuck next to Sonia Orzhekov’s daughter, Katerina, and he looked nervous. As well he might. What was he doing with the Orzhekov tribe? They trooped off, Bakhtiian herding them. A rider took his horse.
Tess lingered. “Charles!”
“I know what I’m doing.”
“Well, you’d better fill me in.”
“I will, Tess. I have quite a bit to say to you, in fact, and I’ll need you in on the council as well. Now go on.”
She hesitated. Then she looked at Cara, who had waited patiently through all this. Jo and Rajiv and Maggie had already retreated to the gear, sorting it out.
“It’s true,” said Cara quietly, not without humor, “that we might like a few moments to ourselves, little
one.”
Tess threw up her hands in exasperation. “You aren’t going to do anything rash, are you?”
Charles blinked. “Do I ever?”
“You’re impossible. Hello, David.” Tess turned her back on her brother and came over to David, and kissed him.
“You’re looking well.”
“Thank you. I’m feeling well. You’re not looking bad yourself. Is it true that you and Dina—oh, never mind. I’m sorry I mentioned it. I don’t think Feodor Grekov is a good match for her, either. She doesn’t respect him.”
“Tess, I’d really prefer not to speak about it.”
“I’m sorry. Truly, I’m sorry, if you feel so strongly.” She rested a hand on his shoulder, companionably. “And I have a rather urgent request for you.”
“For me?”
“Is it remotely possible that you can design—I don’t know—within the limits of the interdiction, some kind of “decent plumbing? Something you can teach the army engineers to build at every campsite? Something better than a ditch? Something not too difficult to build, not too time-consuming, but, God, I want something like the Company’s necessary. I go over there every chance I get. And showers. Hot showers. Is there any chance you can devise—? It’s not that they’re dirty, the jaran. They’re not. They’re scrupulously clean in most ways. But still, the conditions …”
“And you pregnant.”
“Oh, tell me you understand.”
“Not about being pregnant, but I can sympathize.”
“Oh, David.” She hugged him, as well as she could given her girth. “You’re an angel.”
“I haven’t promised to do anything yet.”
“But you will. You have to. You’re an engineer, after all.”
At that inopportune moment, Cara paused beside them. “And that reminds me, David, I need a better sanitation system for the hospital. Surely between that brain of yours and your modeler you can design—”
“Oy vey.” David flung up his hands palm out as if they could ward him. “Let me breathe a moment. Let me set up the camp. Then I’ll see. Cara, why don’t you and Charles just go? I’ll supervise the camp setup.”
“Will you? Thank you, David. It is good to see you, you know. Charles and Marco are going over to the Company later, to give them the news about Hyacinth. I’ll see you tonight, then.” She and Charles left. Tess left. David got to work with the others, and with practiced ease, and the addition of Ursula, they set up the camp before nightfall.
After weeks journeying at an inhuman pace on horseback across the endless, changing landscape of Rhui, David found himself relieved to come to a temporary halt, even in the primitive conditions of a siege. Karkand rose before them, made tiny by distance, but real, there to be touched. The palace of Morava loomed in the back of his mind like an illusion, seen on the horizon, coming no closer.
“Here, you old slug,” said Maggie, jostling David where he sat, sore, tired, and grateful, in a chair, “help me hang lanterns all around here. Don’t forget that we’re having a party tonight.”
“Goddess in Heaven.” David dragged himself up. Maggie paused to rub his shoulders, and he sighed and drooped.
“Now don’t you sit down again, or I’ll stop.”
“Don’t stop. Why the actors? All that noise.”
“Who knows what lurks in the heart of Charles? You, better than I. He has a position as prince to maintain, you know. Aren’t princes meant to give parties? I don’t know.”
“It’s true Charles is often at his best in a crowd. Better than me, certainly.”
“You shy thing.” She removed her hands from his back. “Here, now, give me a hand.”
“Mags, you’re an angel. Remind me never to ride that far that fast again. In fact, remind me never to travel any distance in anything other than a skimmer or a shuttle, would you?”
She snorted. “What, you didn’t think it was romantic?”
“Not to my thighs and my rump it wasn’t.” They lit and hung lanterns at the four corners of the awning that thrust out in front of Charles’s tent. Rajiv emerged from his tent and helped them. Jo and Ursula had gone to the hospital camp with the new equipment for Cara. As evening fell, Charles returned from his peregrinations, alone.
“Well?” asked David. “Did you give Owen and Ginny the news? How did they take it?”
“They were relieved. Owen said, ‘perhaps he’ll be a better actor for the experience.’”
“No! He would. The man’s a lunatic.”
“Oh, I don’t know. He’s not unlike me.”
“Or Cara, or any of you obsessive types. Where’s Marco?”
Charles shrugged. “Marco seemed distracted. I’m not sure whether we’ll see him again tonight or not”
“What, already off tomming it?”
“David, this time I’m beginning to wonder if there’s more to it than that.”
“What? You’re not serious?”
But David could see that Charles was, indeed, serious. David followed him inside his tent, where he removed two bottles of whiskey from his precious horde. Only one bottle remained. “I don’t know. Help me keep an eye on him, will you?”
David simply grunted in reply, too astonished by the thought of Marco seriously distracted by a woman to think of any words to express himself with. The tent flap swept aside behind them, and Tess and Cara walked in.
“So it’s true?” Tess was saying to Cara in Anglais. “I’m not surprised, I suppose, but still, to have it confirmed by your tests…”
“To have what confirmed?” asked Charles, turning around.
Cara glanced at Tess, as if for her permission to speak, but Tess went on. “The boy, Vasha. He’s Ilya’s illegitimate son by a woman he knew years ago. Cara has confirmed it by comparing VNTR regions.”
“Vasha!” David gaped. “So that’s why he looked like Dina. But, Tess, I saw him with the other Orzhekov children—”
“Well, of course, I took him in! Poor child. His mother is dead and his relatives didn’t want him, which is no surprise, considering what a disgrace it is to have no father.”
“But he has a—”
“Not by their laws. But because I adopted him as my son, then Ilya, who’s his biological father, becomes his accepted father because Ilya is my husband.” Then she hesitated. “Wasn’t it the right thing to do?”
“I think so,” said Cara firmly.
Charles thought about it for a while. “For the boy, certainly, I should think. Can he inherit?”
“Only through my line.”
“Ah. Of course.”
“But you know, Charles, the jaran have changed already, in little ways, since I’ve come to them. Who knows where it will stop? He’s a very intense boy. Quiet, but that may just be the way he learned to survive. Time will tell how ambitious he is.”
“But what about your child, Tess?” David asked.
She blinked at him. A moment later understanding flooded her features, and she chuckled. “What? I need to protect my children’s inheritance rights by murdering him? How very Byzantine of you, David.” She hesitated, appeared about to say something more, then did not.
But, of course, Tess’s children had three inheritances to choose from: Rhui, Earth, and the Empire. Although their ability to inherit Charles’s position was problematic, to say the least. Tess caught his eye and for that instant they spoke without words. David did not envy her her dilemma and yet he could not feel sorry for her either, not really, since she had not only chosen her own fate but seemed content with it.
She turned to Charles. “What happened at Morava?”
Charles unfolded a canvas chair. “Sit down. David, can you go outside and head off any inquiries for—what?—ten minutes? I want Tess and Cara to hear the basics now, so they can think about it before our council. Which I’d like to hold—oh, not tomorrow. The day after.”
David nodded and retreated. He paused by the entrance to listen.
“…and we do have the resources. We
have Rhui entire.”
“But the interdiction?”
“Will hold. It could take decades for us to process the information and to put a plan into place. The underlying structure, the foundation, has to be as strong as—as bedrock. It has to be invulnerable. So in a sense, Rhui is safer this way—”
“For now.”
“How long do you really think the interdiction can stay in place? I can only hold off the inevitable for so long.”
“No, you’re right. I’m just being selfish. What about the dates on the Mushai, again? My God, Charles, I realize now that I must have learned simply one line of their language, that I was learning—what?—the male language, or something. It’s like turning a corner in a hallway only to find that you’ve stepped into a whole ’nother world. Don’t you realize that I’m perfectly placed to learn both the male and the female side, if that is in fact how their culture is structured?”
“Oh, yes,” said Charles in his cool voice. “I realize it.”
David slipped outside. Almost ran into Bakhtiian, who stood a meter from the entrance, listening. David choked back an exclamation.
“I beg your pardon,” said Bakhtiian in a tone so colorless that a Chapalii lord would have been envious of it. “Is Tess—?” Then he hesitated, because if one listened, one could hear her voice as she spoke with Charles. But, of course, she spoke in a language Bakhtiian did not understand. “I hope,” he added, looking David straight in the face, “that you will find time to attend me in the morning. I have some requests to make of you.”
“Of course. If you’ll excuse me.” David retreated as quickly as he could. Goddess, what did Bakhtiian want of him? Was he still holding a grudge against him because he thought David had slept with his wife? And yet, faced with such an order—even though it was phrased as a request—David dared not disobey.
The actors arrived in a flurry of sound and movement. David retreated into the safety of their company, but he was sorry to note that Diana had not come over for the party. The evening passed in a blur of conversation, and he went to bed early.
