by Kate Elliott
The others had already left camp, but by the single lantern left lit for their return, she saw a shadow blurring the deeper shadows on the stage, and she knew it was him, practicing, still practicing.
“Gwyn! Gwyn, I’ve got it.” She hopped up on the platform and he paused to listen to her. “It’s not just what Owen said, about showing the modesty without losing the strength. It’s about power contained. It’s about the promise of power unleashed. It’s as if, through her, you can reach your true power, just as somehow she can reach her true power through you, and the exchange is as much about that recognition of each other…” She lapsed into silence, puffing, out of breath, she was so excited. “Do you see what I’m trying to say?”
Gwyn considered. He never did rash things, not Gwyn. That remained one of his strengths, that he tread cautiously, that he considered, and when he did move, he placed his feet on the firmest ground. But he wasn’t afraid to take chances.
“Let’s try it,” he said.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
“HUSBAND!”
Jiroannes flinched at the sound of his bride’s voice. Samae jerked her hand away from his feet, which she had been massaging, and sank back to kneel at the foot of the couch. Jiroannes rose from his cushions and signaled to Lal to bring him a robe. As the boy tied the robe closed with a sash, she who had once been Javani entered through the enclosed walkway that now linked her tent with his. She wore the emerald silk peacock gown and a tiered gold headdress, like a conical cap, with an embroidered shawl draped from it down over her shoulders and a veil of silk covering her lower face. The silk was so sheer that he could see her expression through it; she wanted something. Again.”
“Wife.”
Her interpreter hovered anxiously three steps behind her.
“Husband, it is impossible that I continue to live in these vulgar conditions. I have sent my steward to find a suitable house within the suburbs, near the vegetable and fruit market. Meanwhile, my handmaiden has gone to purchase silks for my wardrobe. These peacocks are very pretty, I’m sure, but the quality of the weave is mediocre.”
“Those silks were woven and embroidered in the women’s quarters of my father’s house!”
“Then I see that we will have to import Habakar weavers as well as the perfumer and the three cooks I have been forced to engage in order to afford a decent quality of living in this household.”
“And how are we to travel with this city of retainers? And pay for them? Lal, go tell Syrannus to send guards after the steward and the girl. None of these orders can go through.”
Lal nodded and slipped out, leaving Jiroannes alone with his wife. He braced himself.
“The orders must go through! I demand it. It is insupportable that I live out here among these barbarians. There are decent houses lying empty within the outer walls, not what one of my birth expects, but they will do until better arrangements can be made.”
“We’re not leaving the camp. To do so would insult the jaran. I would think you, of all people, would see the idiocy in such a course. Or would you prefer I had not married you and merely cast you off to the tender mercies of your conquerors?”
What frightened Jiroannes about Laissa was how swiftly her personality had changed once the Habakar priests had sprinkled perfume and holy water over them and proclaimed them betrothed and married by the laws of their Almighty God. At his threat, she merely drew up her chin and stared scornfully at him.
“You would have been a fool to do so, and you’re a fool to threaten me with it now. No merchant of my people would dare refuse to do business with me or with my husband’s ministers. You will keep that in mind, I hope, if you wish to prosper in these lands. I think you’re being unnecessarily sanguine about the possibility that these barbarians will hold on to their conquests. As Javani, it was one of my duties to study the records of my people, and let me assure you that barbarians have ridden through these lands before only to be chased out by our armies or by their own troubles back in the lands where they come from.”
He had thought the Habakar a civilized people. Marriage to Laissa had disabused him of this notion. Their noblewomen learned to read and write and were encouraged to study arts such as mathematics and philosophy and poetry that only men were suited to engage in, and any woman might conduct business in her own name, although it was true that she must be under a husband’s or father’s or brother’s protection.
“Furthermore,” she continued relentlessly, “whatever may become of these barbarians, you certainly won’t impress them with the paltry retinue that attends you now. If you wish for respect, then you must show that you deserve it. Your guards’ camp was a disgrace when I toured it five days ago, children running everywhere, sluttish women unsupervised and unkempt, and no priest to watch over them. I hope it is in better condition now because of my efforts, but do I receive thanks for that? Certainly not. You complain that I brought in a priest of my people to hold the hand of the Almighty God over those of us in this camp. You refuse me sufficient quarters, and then complain when I act to improve them. If you wish me to entertain jaran noblewomen, I certainly cannot do so in that cramped, colorless little tent that I had to share with my handmaiden. I have managed to enlarge the tent—”
She had, at that. Her tent, attached to his by a covered walkway so that she needn’t leave its seclusion, was twice the size of his own, now, and warrened with little rooms for sleeping and primping and administering and one with a cot for her handmaiden.
“—but I need more tapestries for the walls and more carpets. There is a certain kind of carpet from the south, near Salkh, which I should like four of, if they can be got. And some couches for visitors, and I refuse to serve anyone, even a barbarian woman, that swill you call tea. Furthermore—”
“Enough!”
“It is not enough! Furthermore—”
He cuffed her across the cheek. She gasped, and that quickly raised her right hand and slapped him. The blow didn’t hurt—she wasn’t strong enough for that—but it stung. “You dare strike me!”
Despite his anger, she didn’t shrink back from him. “The Almighty God teaches us that a woman must bow to her husband as the angels bow to God, but if he strikes her without justification, then she may strike back.”
“Without justification! A woman ought never to raise her voice to a man! Never! So has the Everlasting God proclaimed.”
“Then you are barbarians, as I thought. I encourage you to see how well you will prosper in Habakar lands without my assistance. I lived better than this before the jaran came, and had your guards not discovered my hiding place, I would have escaped and been treated among my own people as a woman of my station ought to be treated.
“Yet you were discovered, and if I judge rightly, you ought to have killed yourself rather than let yourself be dishonored.”
Her chin quivered. Silk trembled over the bridge of her nose, and her eyes flashed. “So speaks the man who dishonored me. That is for the Almighty God to forgive, if He judges that I did not do my duty toward Him. Not for an unbeliever such as yourself.”
“I hope you realize what forbearance I am showing in allowing you to bring a priest into my camp at all. It is only my respect for Bakhtiian’s proclamation that all priests must be tolerated.”
“It is only your respect for the power of Bakhtiian’s army. It was, in any case, part of the marriage contract that you signed.”
A contract witnessed by the Habakar priests and signed by him and by Laissa. As if a woman’s word was worth anything, although evidently it was to these people. Still, by birth as reckoned by Habakar standards she ranked far above him; in Vidiya, he could never have hoped for so advantageous a match: She was cousin to the reigning king and to the king’s nephew who, rumor said, was now raising an army in the southlands, and also to the princess whom Mitya expected to marry. The bitter truth was, she treated him like the commoner she considered him to be; although his family was an old and honorable house, they were not nobility.
That he had been allowed to study in the palace school for boys was due to his uncle’s high standing as a Companion to the Great King, and the fact that his uncle had once saved the Great King’s father’s life in a battle. And imagine, if Mitya became king here, then the king’s wife and his own wife would be cousins!
“Well,” he said, quashing an urge to touch his cheek, where she had slapped him, “I forbid any expedition to look for a villa within the walls, but if you need rugs and carpets, and silks for your wardrobe, you have my permission to send your steward out to the market.” Her steward. She had a regular army of attendants, more than he had brought, certainly. Yet it was true that in some ways she made his life easier. She had taken over much of the day-to-day administering of the camp, which was by rights a servant’s job. Evidently she thought it a woman’s duty, and indeed, the Everlasting God proclaimed that women were the servants of men, so perhaps it was fitting.
The tent flap stirred and Lal appeared. “I beg your pardon, eminence. I thought to inquire if you had further orders for me before I left?”
Probably the boy had been listening outside. Jiroannes glanced at Laissa.
She bowed her head, but the show of humility did not fool him. “I abide by your command, husband.”
“Lal, the mistress will direct you. Also, I mean to attend the performance this afternoon. Wife, you will accompany me. Although I’m sure you feel reluctant to leave your seclusion, I think it best that the jaran noblewomen see you with me again, out in the camp, so that they can be assured that we are fixed as man and wife.”
“As you wish.” She retreated to the door and glanced back—not at him, but at the still, silent form that was Samae, kneeling motionlessly, head bent submissively, at the foot of the couch. Then she was gone, Lal scurrying after her, into the women’s quarters, a place that no man might follow Laissa into except her husband.
That sudden, lightning interest puzzled Jiroannes. Why should Laissa notice Samae? The girl now slept in the same tent as the two eunuchs, and now that he was married, Jiroannes had felt able to endure her touch again. He remained leery of bedding her so far, but he allowed her to massage him every day.
“Jat! Where is the boy, damn it? Samae, dress me.”
She did so without word or sign of what she thought of her new favor in his eyes. Perhaps Samae’s exotic beauty interested Laissa. Vidiyan women had their own diversions within the women’s quarters, and what they did to keep themselves occupied did not merit a man’s concern, as long as they did their duty by bearing him sons of his own seed.
In the afternoon he walked beside Laissa’s covered litter, borne by two guardsmen and two servants of her own people, to the ground where the Company performed. Lal and Samae and Syrannus walked in attendance on him, and four handmaidens as well as the interpreter accompanied Laissa, so that when they came to settle themselves in front of the platform, they made quite an unwieldy little group.
After so long with the jaran, Jiroannes had learned to recognize the various ranks within the jaran; today many of their nobles gathered to attend the performance. Evidently, this dance was being danced for the first time, and Bakhtiian himself, accompanied by the Prince of Jeds, meant to attend as well. Mother Sakhalin hurried up, and Laissa, no fool, eased herself out of the litter to greet the old woman. Except, to his horror, she did not offer greetings at all. Instead, she and the old woman began haggling over right of place.
“Wife,” he began, “naturally we will move to a different—”
Two heads turned. Both women stared at him, most brazenly, and he realized that they were enjoying themselves and that his opinion was not wanted. Fuming, he retreated to stand beside Syrannus.
“They’re all barbarians,” he muttered.
“Look, eminence, there is Bakhtiian. With his wife and the prince.”
Mother Sakhalin and Laissa finished their argument, and Mother Sakhalin moved away to intercept Bakhtiian.
“Husband, we will sit here, as I said.”
“But—”
“We are displacing one of the Ten Tribes, but the queen mother wishes them to learn a little humility on this occasion, so she has assented to our presence here. She also sees the expediency in honoring me as an ally in high favor. I hope you understand that this benefits your position as well.”
Jiroannes only grunted in reply. They settled down, Laissa within the litter, one flap thrown askew so that she could view the dancing platform as well as her husband. Her handmaidens knelt around her. Lal laid pillows on the ground for Jiroannes, and he settled there, Syrannus to his right and the two slaves seated between him and the litter. At the front of the audience, Bakhtiian sat down between his wife and the Prince of Jeds. Two girls helped Mother Sakhalin sit on a pillow to the right of the prince.
A man entered onto the platform, three small drums slung around his waist. He tapped on them, drawing out a rhythm by whose beat a woman entered. But not just any woman: this was Mother Sun, who sent her daughter to the earth. Mitya had told Jiroannes this story. Now, the actors danced it. It was as if they brought it to life: the daughter’s exile and the ten sisters she brought with her to be her companions, who bore the first tribes of the jaran; how she met the first dyan of the Sakhalin tribe; how they loved, how they parted. The Daughter of the Sun traveled away into dark lands, where she bore his child, and he followed her, but in the end, as is the fate of all mortal men, he died. And in the end, as must any child of the heavens, she returned to her home in the gods’ lands.
They danced well. Their audience sat with deep respect, in rapt silence. Syrannus sat with hands folded in his lap. Laissa, by her profile, was as busy surveying the ranks of the jaran as watching the performance. A tear trailed down Samae’s face.
A tear! Jiroannes stared at the slave-girl. A girl still, perhaps; she had been so young when his uncle had offered her to him at the marketplace that she had not yet begun her woman’s courses, although of course the merchant selling her had assured Jiroannes that she was a virgin. In five years, Jiroannes had never seen her cry. He had never seen her show any feelings at all, except once that flash of rebellion, as quickly stifled. Except once when he had thought she had smiled at Mitya. Except now, when a tear lined her cheek as she watched the performance.
What did he know about her? He knew more about Lal, who was a common boy, son of a tavernkeeper and a whore, sold into the palace service and lucky enough to gain a place in Jiroannes’s household, and who by dint of hard work and ambition had risen fast. Already Laissa considered him indispensable, and the boy was certainly clever and industrious. But Samae—she had come from Tadesh, the Gray Eminence’s lands across the sea. She had been taught the concubine’s arts there, while still a child—or she must have been, because she knew them, and where else could she have learned them? She danced finely. Perhaps she had once lived with such a company of dancers—of actors, that was their proper name—when she was a child; perhaps she remembered them; perhaps she mourned what she had lost.
Stirred by a feeling he did not entirely understand, Jiroannes reached out and patted her hand. She flinched and jerked away from him, startled, her eyes wide. As quickly, she pulled her hands in against her chest and bowed her head and sat as still as stone. Jiroannes drew away his hand and glanced up. Laissa watched him, watched Samae, through her sheer veil, and a moment later looked away.
Jiroannes grunted under his breath and returned his attention to the performance. Well, that would teach him to try to understand women. The Everlasting God enjoined men to rule women, not to understand them. Still, he could not help but wonder what Samae saw in the dance—in the play—to make her cry.
After the performance, Mitya trotted up, all flushed and cheerful. “That was very fine, wasn’t it!” he exclaimed. Then he recalled his manners and bowed his head before Laissa’s presence. She acknowledged him coolly and sent her interpreter to invite Mother Sakhalin to her tent for refreshments. The handmaidens closed up the litter and the guards bore
her away.
Mitya watched her go, bemused. “It’s a curious way to travel. She can’t see out, can she?”
“There are a few cunningly concealed slits in the fabric, but otherwise, no. In this fashion a woman can travel from one place to another, when she must, without exposing herself to the eyes of strangers.”
“Oh.” Mitya nodded, staring after the litter with a look of incomprehension on his face. “Well. It was very fine, what they did though, telling the tale like that.” He glanced at Samae, glanced away, and fixed his attention on Jiroannes.
“Perhaps you would like to return with me to my tent for refreshments:”
“Oh, certainly!”
In such charity they went, Syrannus behind them and the two slaves behind the old man. Under his own awning, Jiroannes seated Mitya on a pillow and excused himself to go inside for a moment so that Samae could re-bind his turban, which had loosened at the back. He sat on the couch and she unwound the cloth from his head. His hair fell down around his shoulders and down to his waist, and Samae lifted the ribboned strands and wound them back up in fresh linen. The quiet lent a kind of intimacy to their endeavor, contrasted to the bustle outside as Laissa’s servants prepared for the arrival of Mother Sakhalin.
“Samae,” he said, surprising himself more than her, perhaps, “what did you do as a child? Who were your parents?”
Her hands stilled. She tensed, not so much in fear but in astonishment, or anticipation, or anger. How could he tell? He knew so little of her. He felt the tiny movements of her fingers, caught half in his hair and half in the complex folds of cloth wound around his hair.
“Husband!” Laissa swept in. “Move aside, girl!” She cuffed Samae hard on the right cheek, carelessly, but her eyes glinted as she surveyed the slave’s retreat to the foot of the couch. “Come, come. I want you to greet Mother Sakhalin, and then you may retire to entertain the boy, the young prince. He is Bakhtiian’s nephew? No, his cousin’s son. How curious their customs are, but evidently he has no children by his own wives yet.”
