An earthly crown

CHAPTER ELEVEN

The first two days, heading away from the port with their escort, Diana endured the jolting of the wagons and watched, with careful interest, the landscape and the jaran riders. On the afternoon of the third day, when they halted for the night, she left Quinn to set up their tent and ventured out to patrol the outskirts of the ring of tents that marked out Soerensen's party.

Soon enough she came across a strange and remarkable sight. The great lord of the plains, conqueror of one kingdom, three princedoms, and uncounted lesser territories, sat in front of his small tent and embroidered a pattern onto the sleeve of a red shirt. At a tent pitched across from him, equally intent, sat another man, but David ben Unbutu held in his hand not a needle but a pencil. As the one stitched, the other sketched. Diana settled down beside David and observed.

Bakhtiian was a perfect subject, since he scarcely moved except for the shifting of his wrists and hands. Diana would have thought him oblivious to them, except for the one time she lifted her eyes to study him and found him staring directly at her. It was so disconcerting that she jerked back and David, startled, fudged a line on the sketch. But when Diana's eyes met Bakhtiian's, he averted his gaze immediately. Just like, she thought inconsequently, the shy heroine in a Victorian melodrama. The comparison struck her as so incongruous that she smiled.

"Are you admiring David or his drawing?" said a voice above her. "I wasn't aware that you actors had interests off the stage."

Diana did not look up for a moment, because she knew she was blushing. She waited, a beat, a second beat, for the heat to fade from her cheeks. Then she looked up over her shoulder. "Hello, Marco. In fact, I'm admiring David's subject."

Marco crouched beside Diana, and she could feel the heat, the weight, of his body next to hers. His sleeve brushed her arm. "You've caught exactly the set of his mouth, David," he said, studying the sketch from this vantage point.

David grunted, but did not otherwise reply.

"A passionate mouth," intoned Diana. "Made for kisses."

"Made for kisses?" Marco laughed abruptly, and she forced herself to look straight at him, to meet his gaze, feeling bold and breathless together. Thinking of what had almost come about between them. But Marco looked, if anything, a little annoyed. "Have you forgotten our little banquet at Abala Port? I find it hard to imagine a man responsible for so much violence and killing as kissing."

Evidently he was still angry about Soerensen's decree. "I haven't forgotten it. But it's not hard for me to imagine him, that flesh and blood person sitting there, kissing. It can be hard sometimes to separate an actor from a role offstage. Onstage it's impossible, or it should be. Do you suppose he's onstage or off right now?''

"Do you think it's a role, the great conqueror?"

"I don't know," said Diana. "I gave up a long time ago trying to decide whether we're ever ourselves or are only playing roles. And who could tell which the role was, the passionate kisser or the ruthless conqueror? Maybe they both are roles. Or maybe they're both true. Can't two contradictory things exist inside one person?"

"Are they necessarily contradictory?" Marco leaned forward again, examining the sketch. His shoulder brushed hers, and his hand caught itself, straying, on her thigh. "David, David, David. Have I ever told you how much I admire your ability to draw?'' David grinned and flashed a look toward Marco, there on the other side of Diana. As if he knew that Marco was using the entire episode as a way to cozy up to her.

Diana flushed, well aware of Marco's hand on her leg.

"Look at that," Marco continued, ignoring these undercurrents. Diana doubted he was unaware of them. "Like the pattern on the shirtsleeve. That kind of thing fascinates me. Those elements add depth to our understanding of a culture. Is this pattern symbolic? Individual? Related to a clan, if indeed these people have clans. Even the material of their tents has a pattern. Are the two related? There are so many things to record, and words can only record so much. Even Maggie's photography can't record everything. It misses that essence."

"Do I detect a note of disapproval for Maggie's photography?" David asked without looking up. "She's absurdly careful about it, and in any case, her equipment is all disguised." He examined his sketch and penciled in a few more lines of the interwoven spiral pattern embroidered on the sleeve of the shirt the great conqueror wore.

"This it an interdicted planet," Diana said.

Marco took his hand off her thigh, as if the comment made him remember prudence. "The truth is, I've never been able to risk anything covert, traveling the way I have these past years. And I've no hand for sketching, so I've missed recording much of what I've seen. Now I'm so accustomed to traveling that way that I never bothered to request any such equipment for this trip. I'm not sure I want to, anyway. What if one of the natives discovers it?"

"But, Marco," said Diana, "you traveling all that time broke the quarantine. Certainly the Bharentous Repertory Company having spent three months in Jeds and now coming out here is a contamination, isn't it?"

"Yes, it is."

"You don't approve, do you?" Diana fell silent and together they watched as David, with economy and grace, used a few simple lines to expand the pattern that flowed down the shirtsleeve in his sketch. "I think it's a road," she said suddenly. "A winding road."

"What is? The evolution of cultures?" Marco examined the sprawl of camp around them, the tidy expanse of tents losing color as the afternoon light deepened into dusk. "I suppose Charles would say so, that no culture is pure, that it is always adulterated by contact with any other culture, as it must be. That our contact with it, if we're careful and discreet, will be scarcely more contaminating than that. But I'm not sure I agree. There's a stronger force behind us. Broader knowledge. Won't that take its toll?" Sitting on his haunches, the deep tan of his skin set off by the blanched gold of his linen tunic, he appeared to Diana not much more civilized than the jaran riders themselves.

"I think she meant the pattern on his shirt," said David dryly. "Artist's fancy, I guess."

"How old do you suppose he is?" Diana asked.

"Who can tell?" said Marco. "Not too old, I'd judge."

"I never saw naturally aged people until Jeds," Diana confided.

"The commonplace made quaint," said Marco drily. He set his chin on a fist and pondered the distance.

Embarrassed, Diana turned her attention back to David and watched as he finished filling in the sleeve of the right arm. Across the camp rang a low, trembling sound, like a muffled gong being struck. The great conqueror did not even look up, but Marco rose.

"There's supper. Are you coming?"

David shook his head without looking up. "I just want to finish this while there's still light."

Diana was torn between accepting Marco's escort and her real fascination with watching David work. After all, it wouldn't do for Marco Burckhardt to think that she hung on his every word. "I'll be there in a bit. Save some for me."

He hesitated as if taken aback at her refusal. But he recovered quickly. "You have my word on it, golden fair." Marco left.

David sketched for a few minutes undisturbed. Red-shirted men moved back and forth between tents. Laughter swelled in a distant corner. A man's voice, a pleasant baritone, sang a simple song in a language she had identified as khush, the native tongue. Farther away, identifiable only because she knew the voice so well, Diana heard Henry Bharentous shouting at someone, but she could not make out his words. Prince Hal rebelling again. Beside her, David held the sketch out at arm's length to scrutinize it.

The model moved. Rose, lithe as any wild predator. Diana felt his movement. David lowered his sketch to see Bakhtiian walking straight toward them. David recoiled, nearly falling back down onto the ground, and almost dropped the sketch. Began to scramble to his feet.

"No," whispered Diana urgently. "Keep sitting, keep still. Stillness doesn't startle them."

She held her place, and David, looking ashen under his dark complexion, sat still beside her. Bakhtiian halted before them. There was a moment's uncomfortable silence. Then Bakhtiian crouched, far enough away from them that he couldn't touch either of them if he reached out. "I beg your pardon," he said in his perfect Rhuian. "We haven't been introduced. I am Ilyakoria Bakhtiian."

In the first instant, she realized that David had gotten the eyes wrong. This close, she saw the depth of the intensity, of the sheer, driven force in them. "I'm Diana Brooke-Holt," she said, and her voice spurred David on.

"David ben Unbutu." It came out in a rush. "I'm sorry. I should have asked your permission to draw you, but-" He hesitated.

"Here," said Diana, breaching the sudden silence. She took the pad out of David's hands. "It's very fine. Would you like to see it?"

Addressed by her, Bakhtiian lowered his eyes. "I was hoping I would be allowed to look at it." Crouched thus beside her, eyes cast almost bashfully to the ground, he seemed much less threatening.

She handed the pad to him. There was silence but for the distant sounds of the camp settling in to dusk and the impending night.

Diana rose, and David drew in a breath and rose as well. After a moment, Bakhtiian stood up. "You must know how good you are," he said finally, directly, to David. He gave the sketchbook back to David, holding it as if it was something he considered valuable. "You have great talent. Is this your profession?"

"No, I'm an engineer." David look taken aback by Bakhtiian's politeness.

"Ah-and you?" His gaze shifted for the briefest moment to Diana's face.

"I'm one of the actors in the repertory company." She faltered. "Do you know what that is?"

For a terrifying moment she thought she had offended him. The corner of his mouth tugged up, softening his expression. "Yes," he said gravely.

"You speak excellent Rhuian," she said impulsively.

"Thank you," he replied, still grave.

She had a brief hallucination that he was suppressing laughter, dismissed it.

He turned back to David, regarding him with obvious respect. "Perhaps you would be willing to undertake a commission."

"A commission!"

"That is the right word, isn't it?"

"Yes. I was just startled."

"Perhaps you would undertake a commission to draw my wife."

David's mouth dropped open. Diana pinched him in the leg. "I would be honored," he said in a constrained voice.

"The honor is mine," Bakhtiian replied, as formal and impeccable as if he were a noble of Jeds and not a man who had killed in cold blood. "When we've arrived at the main camp, we can discuss the arrangements further. Now, if you will excuse me." He inclined his head and left them.

David swore under his breath.

"Well," said Diana.

"In case you're wondering," said David, "the answer is no. I'm not brave. Not at all. Not one bit. And especially not after seeing him execute that man."

"But then why did you sit here and draw him? You must have known that would attract his attention."

"I know. I know. But I couldn't resist, seeing him sitting there. What an image." He examined the sketch with a frown.

" 'But, sure, he's proud; and yet his pride becomes him,' " murmured Diana.

David sighed and closed the sketchpad carefully. "Thanks for your support, by the way. Goddess, I hope his wife is a good subject. I'd hate to do anything that antagonized him. Shall we go eat?"