An earthly crown

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Aleksi sat cross-legged on the table, watching Tess and Sonia where they knelt before the wooden chest.

"This one, then." Sonia draped a cloth-of-gold coat over her arms, displaying it for Tess to examine.

"No. Too gaudy."

"Tess, barbarians are impressed by gaudy things. Gold and riches. Surely this Vidiyan ambassador will recognize that this coat came from the Gray Eminence's lands across the sea and feel fear that such a prince sends gifts to Bakhtiian."

"But Sonia, Nadine brought that coat back from Jeds."

"He doesn't have to know that, does he? Here, what about-"

"No, those are my marriage clothes."

"Yes, and this shade of green does look particularly well on you. This, and the jade headdress. No, the golden one."

"Sonia, I-"

"Or should I go to your brother's encampment and ask if he has any of these ugly clothings the women of his people wear? Are you embarrassed of us, now that your own people have come?"

Tess hung her head and did not reply. Aleksi watched her face. Unlike her brother, Tess had an expressive face that showed emotion clearly. She was embarrassed, and this perplexed Aleksi. After all, if the gods meant for the jaran to rule all other peoples, then the jaran would do so. Why should Tess feel shame to be seen as one of the gods' chosen people?

"This is not the Tess I know," Sonia went on. "Of course Jeds is a fine city. Do you forget that I have been there? Perhaps they scorn us because we don't live in stone tents, but I will never forget how filthy everything was there. Although I admit," she added, in a placating tone of voice, "that everyone of your brother's party seems clean."

Tess clapped a hand over her mouth and her shoulders shook. She was laughing. "Oh, Sonia." She reached out and hugged the blonde woman. "I'm not ashamed of you. I just-" She hesitated, then shrugged. "I think too much."

"You worry too much," retorted Sonia. "These khaja don't teach their daughters to become women. You had no mother or aunt to give you a tent, but must live beholden to your brother and now your husband. Why do you think I stayed in Jeds only a year, though Ilya wanted me to stay longer? I know we have no university here, no books, no writing, but still, they are the barbarians, not us."

"But Sonia," said Aleksi, "the women of Soerensen's party aren't like other khaja women, any more than Tess is. They don't veil their faces when they see us and avert their eyes. They wear proper clothing, even if it is ugly, and they walk with pride and not fear.''

"That is true. But they're from another country, the country where Tess's mother was born."

"Erthe, " said Aleksi, trying the unfamiliar sound out on his tongue.

Tess leaned over the chest and lifted out the jade headpiece, weighing it in her hands. "Dr. Hierakis came from Erthe, as well as the acting company. Women are-well, women own their own tents there. But so do men."

"Yes, and from what you've told us, they don't seem nearly as barbaric as the people of Jeds." Sonia lifted out the gold headpiece and laid it down on the green tunic. "This looks better, Tess. I'd like to visit there someday.''

"It's a long voyage. A very long voyage." Tess placed the jade headdress back inside the chest and settled back on her heels. "No, you're right, Sonia. Even though I didn't precisely need my brother's consent to marry, still, I married without it."

"If you have the courage to make a decision, then you must learn to have the courage to stand by it. Perhaps Ilya's power doesn't seem so impressive to your brother now. In ten years, he will be happy to have such a brother by marriage. You must tell him you are thinking ahead. It is an advantageous alliance."

"For whom?"

"Come now, Tess. I have been to Jeds. I have ridden in the countryside and gone even as far as the city of Filis, where another prince rules. Your brother is rich and his merchants sail to the ends of the world, and he is a prince to be reckoned with, but Ilya's army is larger. Much larger. And it will grow." Sonia shook out the calf-length tunic and a pair of belled, striped trousers and then rummaged in the chest until she found a wide belt inlaid with cloissone" and gold. "Now, Aleksi. Out." Her own festival clothing lay draped over the chair, a tunic of vivid blue that matched her blue eyes and a headpiece of gold and gems. "We must dress. You might see if Galina needs a hand with the children."

Aleksi gave each woman a brotherly kiss on the cheek and retired from the fray. At Sonia's tent, her niece Galina sat with those few Orzhekov children who remained with the main army. Sonia had kept her three children with her, and Niko and Juli had two grandchildren with them. Other children, like Galina and her brother Mitya, were old enough to do adult work but not old enough yet to marry or to ride in the army.

' 'We saw the barbarians today.'' Galina greeted Aleksi with a kiss on the cheek. She looked much like her aunt and her mother, with a merry, round face, fair hair, and cerulean blue eyes. "Aunt Sonia brought five of them by. One of them had skin that was black. Really," she added, as if afraid that Aleksi wouldn't believe her. "Wasn't it, Katerina?"

"It was," agreed Katerina, Sonia's eleven-year-old daughter who, at two years younger than her cousin, was her shadow and champion. "We thought maybe she had painted it on, so we rubbed it, but it didn't come off."

"Then Aunt Sonia scolded you for being rude," finished Galina. "But the woman didn't mind. She was tall, too, taller than a man. And one of the other women had chestnut hair, like a horse has." She stifled a giggle under a hand. "And another one had funny eyes, like…" She grimaced, searching for a comparison.

"Like this," said seven-year-old Ivan, putting his index fingers on either side of his eyes and pulling the lids tight. All of the children burst into laughter.

"I liked her, though," said Katerina. "Her name was Yomi. She knows how to weave," she added, since this skill obviously placed the woman in a different, and superior, class from the others. "But they didn't have any men with them. Is it true their men act like women?"

"What do you mean?" asked Aleksi. "I escorted four of the men around the camp, and they seemed like men to me. They were very polite."

Katerina considered the question seriously, screwing her mouth up. She was a pretty girl, having inherited her looks from her grandfather, but she had as well the same vital intelligence that animated Sonia's otherwise undistinguished features. "They say khaja men use bows and arrows to fight other men with and that they haven't any manners toward women. And that they own their own tents, and they even say that the women don't own tents at all. How can that be?"

"You forgot the angel," said Mitya suddenly. He sat on a pillow at the back of the awning, too old to include himself in the younger children's activities but too young, at fifteen, to be an adult. Like most boys his age, he spent a small part of his day helping his grandmother, mother, or aunt and the rest of it with the adult men, doing chores, learning to fight, caring for the horses and the herds, and generally tagging along. Right now he was polishing one of Bakhtiian's sabers.

"What angel?" Aleksi asked. He knelt and helped four-year-old Kolia straighten his tunic and belt it with a girdle of gold plates.

"Anatoly Sakhalin's angel."

"Mitya," retorted Galina in a disdainful voice, "she is not Sakhalin's angel. And he showed bad manners, too, in following them around."

Aleksi settled down on his haunches, satisfied that he was about to get some good gossip. He loved these children, who had accepted him readily once they saw that the adults of their tribe acknowledged Tess's adoption of him. Although he had been Tess's brother for three years now, he still preferred the children's company to that of adults. They said what they thought, and they were not embarrassed by the fact that he had once been an orphan.

Like the foreign woman's coal-black skin, his peculiar status interested them more than it revolted them. "He followed Sonia and her party around camp?''

"Yes," said Galina. "That's what Aunt Sonia said. When they got here, he got Mitya to invite him in so that he could talk to her. She was very embarrassed by his behavior, as any woman would be. She flushed all red."

"Sonia did?" Aleksi asked, astounded.

"No, no," said Katerina. "The angel. Diana. But Sonia refused to translate for him so he just had to stand there. But he kept looking at her," she finished with disgust.

"He never looked at her straight," said Mitya.

"Oh," said Galina, "you're always defending him."

Mitya flushed at his little sister's superior tone of voice. "And why not? I want to ride in his jahar when I'm old enough. He's the best rider of all the young men."

"Mitya, everyone knows that Aleksi is the best rider. No one is as good with the saber as he is. Isn't that true, Aleksi?"

Aleksi grinned. "Anatoly is a good commander, and he deserves the command Bakhtiian gave him, though he's young to be granted such an honor."

"But you wouldn't ride in his jahar, would you?" asked Katerina, looking pleased with her sly question.

"Katya, I ride in Bakhtiian's own thousand. Why should I want to ride in anyone else's?" The girls laughed, and Mitya appeared mollified.

Sonia came out of Tess's tent. "Are you children still here?" she called. "Galina, Mitya, take them and go. Mother Sakhalin will have plenty for you to do before you start serving."

Galina and Katerina rounded up the little ones and marched them off. Mitya lingered. "Would you like to walk with me?" Aleksi asked the boy, and Mitya's face brightened, since this was clearly exactly what he had hoped for. The chance to stroll around camp beside the man everyone knew was the best saber fighter since the legendary Vyacheslav Mirsky, who had died of old age six years ago… Aleksi chuckled. Then he felt a pang of regret. He had never enjoyed such simple pleasures as a boy. No friends, no companions. Alone- He shut it off. No use thinking about it, no use remembering. He lived in the Orzhekov camp now. "Come on, then."

"Oh, wait," said Mitya. "Aunt Sonia," he called, "what shall I do with the saber?"

She had already gone back into Tess's tent, but came out again. "Here, give it to me." She took it, smiled at Aleksi with the warmth that she seemed to have an endless supply of, and carried the precious weapon back inside.

Aleksi walked on, and Mitya matched his pace to the older man's. Already he was Aleksi's height and would probably grow taller still. Now he was gangly and uncoordinated, coltish in an endearing way. It was a stage Aleksi had never gone through, so while he felt sympathy for the boy, he could not quite understand him. However awkward Mitya might be, he had time to grow and an enviable position to grow into. Grandson of Irena Orzhekov, who was etsana of the Orzhekov tribe, Mitya was thereby related to Ilyakoria Bakhtiian himself; his mother, Kira, and Ilya were cousins. The boy wore a golden torque around his neck and golden braces at his wrists and, like his little cousin Kolia, a belted girdle of golden plates. A heavy enough burden, Aleksi supposed, made doubly so by the fact that Mitya's father was a respected smith. It was no wonder that Mitya admired Anatoly Sakhalin, a young man with equally important relatives who had managed to gain respect on his own account and not simply because of whom he was related to.

They wandered through the late afternoon bustle of the camp. A child ran behind a wall of captured shields, hiding from her playmates. A blacksmith's forge smoked, and two soot-stained, sweating men pounded out lance heads. Their strokes beat out a rhythm to the late afternoon. Two adolescent boys repaired bridles, and they waved at Mitya as he walked by. A group of women turned carcasses on spits over four large fires. The smell of the meat was tantalizing. Fat dripped and blazed on the coals.

"He must be very powerful," Mitya said suddenly.

"Who?"

"The prince of Jeds. Tess's brother. The ambassadors that come to us have greater retinues, and they bring gifts. What is an actor, anyway?"

"I'm not sure," Aleksi admitted. "They tell stories, I think, but with their bodies, not with words and a song. Perhaps they will perform tonight."

But they did not. On the circle of ground separating the inner group of tents from the outer ring, blankets were laid and awnings set up in a great ring. At the southwest of this compass a single wagon sat upended and shorn of its wheels, covered with leather drawn tight with ropes and laden with pillows. Before it, on the ground, lay carpets under an awning of golden silk. Large square pillows embroidered with flying birds or galloping horses littered the carpets, seating for the feasters. Now, waiting, the pillows were empty, except for a single figure sitting under the center of the awning, writing painstakingly in a book. He glanced up and saw Aleksi and Mitya and beckoned them over.

'Mitya," he said, "surely Mother Sakhalin is expecting you." Mitya murmured a few unintelligible words and retreated. Bakhtiian watched the boy flee. "His father says he'll never be a blacksmith, so I hope he shows some promise for command. Here, Aleksi, sit down, if you please."

Even Bakhtiian's polite requests sounded like orders, but Aleksi was used to it. He sat down and nodded toward the book lying open on Bakhtiian's right knee. "You're writing." Aleksi could read, with effort, and he could make letters, but the gift of reading and writing with ease eluded him, though Tess encouraged him to practice every chance she got.

"Yes." Bakhtiian contemplated the open book, a page filled with neat lines in his precise script. His eyes moved over the last line, and Aleksi watched as his lips moved ever so slightly, forming the words he had written.

"That's Tess's book," said Aleksi abruptly, recognizing the pattern of marbling on the leather binding as Bakhtiian closed it.

"Yes. She began to record our campaign three years ago. I write in it as well. You see." He rifled through the pages. "It's almost filled. We'll have to start a second book." He glanced at Aleksi, looked away, out at the near ring of tents, where women and men and children prepared the feast, and then back at Aleksi again. "Is Tess still angry?" he asked.

Aleksi considered the question. Whatever else Bakhtiian might be, he was fair, and when he asked a question he wanted a straightforward answer whether or not that answer was flattering to himself. "I expect she's still angry at you. I wouldn't have advised that you try to keep her away from her brother while you showed him around camp."

Bakhtiian snorted. "And I did not, as it turned out. But perhaps it was for the best. Because she walked with us, he saw how well-loved she is and how much she has become jaran." Then he hesitated. His fingers played with the clasps on the book. "This David ben Unbutu-" He trailed off.

"She has said nothing of him."

"Ah," said Bakhtiian, meaning by that comment nothing Aleksi could fathom. Then he looked up, and his whole face changed expression. It lit, like a smoldering fire that bursts into flame. He smiled.

Aleksi glanced that way to see Tess and Sonia approaching. Sonia looked glorious, the brilliant blue of her tunic studded with beads of every color and gold plates lining the sleeves. Her headdress of gold and silver chains linked and braided over her blonde hair shifted as she walked. Golden crescent moons dangled to her shoulders; tiny bronze bells shook with her stride. The wealth gained in three summers of war adorned her, and she was by no means the vainest woman of the tribes. Beside her, Tess's wedding clothes looked subdued, although they had been rich enough at the time.

But Bakhtiian had eyes for no one but his wife. The force of his regard was both comprehensive and unnerving. A jaran man respected his wife; that went without saying. But to love her so openly, so entirely, so exclusively, that provoked criticism. It was not good manners. Except in Bakhtiian, who was beyond such criticism.

Bakhtiian rose and walked out to greet his wife. He took her hand and even, daringly, kissed her on the cheek, there in the open. Sonia raised her eyebrows, disapproving, but she said nothing.

"Aleksi." Bakhtiian released his wife's hand and turned to Aleksi as he strolled up. "If you could tell Mother Sakhalin that Tess and Sonia and I are going now to escort the prince here. Perhaps Raysia Grekov can be persuaded to sing."

Sonia chuckled. "Yes, and if any man can persuade Raysia to sing, it is you, Aleksi."

Aleksi's cheeks flamed with heat. How he hated it when anyone drew attention to him. Raysia Grekov was not just a singer, but a Singer, a shaman, a poet, touched by the gods with the gift of telling the old tales and singing new ones. That she admired his ability with the saber was a running joke: like to like, both touched by the gods. But she was the daughter of the etsana of the Grekov tribe, niece of their dyan, and while her cousin Feodor might hope to marry Bakhtiian's niece Nadine, with such relatives, she certainly could not look upon Aleksi as anything but a casual lover.

"Oh, don't tease him," said Tess, mercifully, and Aleksi escaped Sonia's scrutiny and went to find Mother Sakhalin.

He did not seek out Raysia Grekov, but by the time he returned to the feasting ground, the meal was well under way. Bakhtiian sat with Charles Soerensen to his right and Cara Hierakis to his left, honoring her, Aleksi noted, as if she were the consort of a prince as well as a great healer. Mother Sakhalin sat between Dr. Hierakis and Marco Burckhardt, and Sonia sat on the other side of Burckhardt, flirting with him outrageously. Tess sat on Charles's right, and next to her, Qures Tinjannat, the ambassador from the king of Habakar lands who also happened to be a philosopher. Next to him, Niko Sibirin, and so on, foreigner mixed in with jaran. The newest ambassador was not here, but, of course, he had not yet been formally received.

Aleksi prowled the back, sidestepping serious children bearing wooden platters mounted on broad bases that they set down in front of their elders. Young men from the army assisted. Aleksi steadied Kolia as the little boy stumbled over an uneven patch of ground; he was clutching a bronze cup filled with water, taking it to Bakhtiian.

"Yes," Bakhtiian was saying to Soerensen, "but when Sister Casiara wrote of the idea of precedence, she included the idea of legal precedence as well."

"You were establishing a legalistic precedence, then, when you wrote the letter to the coastal ports west of here and claimed that they had violated the peace by attacking a party of jaran?"

"My envoys." Bakhtiian nodded, took the cup from Kolia, and patted the little boy on his golden head before sending him away. "Envoys are sacrosanct. Is it not thus in all civilized countries?''

Soerensen smiled, received from Galina a platter heaped with steaming meats and a few precious slices of fruit, and set the platter carefully on the carpet. "This is a clever design." He unhooked the spoon that dangled from the platter's lip. "Since you have no tables. You're well-read, Bakhtiian. Whatever made you decide to travel to Jeds and study there?''

Aleksi crouched, watching the two men. They were alike, in many ways, and underneath the uneasy truce they seemed to be honoring, he thought that perhaps they actually respected one another.

Bakhtiian drew his gaze away from the other man and stared, as he often did when confronting his destiny, at the sky. Twilight lowered over them. Anatoly Sakhalin and Feodor Grekov led two lines of young men along the length of awnings, lighting lanterns at each pole. About thirty paces in front of Bakhtiian, out on the grass, Nadine supervised the building of two stacks of wood, side by side, twin bonfires.

"I desired to know the world," Bakhtiian said at last, glancing past Soerensen to Soerensen's sister, who was deep in conversation with the Habakar philosopher, "and I had heard that Jeds cradled the finest university, where one could learn."

"Know the world?" asked Soerensen, sounding curious and not at all accusatory. "Or conquer it?"

"If I know the world, then it will be mine."

Soerensen studied the other man. The prince had an ordinary face, similar to his sister's only in the high cheekbones and blunt chin, but like a well-made saber, his edge was clean and sharp. "You say that with conviction, but without avarice."

"I want only to lead my people to the destiny that the gods have granted us. Surely that is not so different from what you want for your people, for Jeds."

As the sky purpled to dusk, a single star appeared, the bright beacon of the evening star. Soerensen considered it, as if it contained some answer for him, and then regarded Bakhtiian with a steady gaze. "Not so different. I want to go to Morava. The place Tess visited when she first came here."

"It's north from here, out on the true plains. The ancient home of the khepelli. Is it true the khepelli wish to overrun these lands, to conquer them and drive we humans off them?"

"We humans? What has Tess told you of the Chapalii?" Soerensen pronounced it differently, but it was clearly the same word.

Bakhtiian's smile was tight and sardonic. "Tess has told me many things, Soerensen. Which of them I can believe, and which I cannot, I have not yet divined."

A chuckle escaped from Soerensen quite spontaneously. "My sympathies," he said, and the comment sounded sincere enough to Aleksi's ears.

"But it is true enough, is it not," continued Bakhtiian, pressing this point, "that the khepelli are zayinu. The ancient ones. I don't know the word in Rhuian. Not demons. Not spirits."

"Elves, " said Cara Hierakis from the other side, startling both men. "Of course. Ancient ones with powers unknown to humans." Then she said something in their foreign tongue to Soerensen.

"Can it be arranged?" asked Soerensen. "I must see Morava."

Bakhtiian's expression had shuttered, becoming opaque and unreadable. "Is that why you came? Are the khepelli so dangerous?"

"You know why I came," said Soerensen quietly. Neither man looked toward Tess. "But it is true that the khepelli are dangerous. To both of us."

"I will consider this," said Bakhtiian, and he turned to Dr. Hierakis and began to discuss wounds and medical procedures with her. Tess ceded her conversation with the philosopher to Niko and leaned toward her brother. They began to talk, rapidly and in their language. For a time, Aleksi listened. Tess had taught him Rhuian, but not the other tongue, the language of Erthe. He was beginning to be able to pick out words and meanings, but he could not string them together yet into meaningful sentences. But they were talking about the khepelli and the shrine of Morava, that much he could discern. Anatoly Sakhalin lit the lanterns directly in front of Bakhtiian and passed on, smiling at his grandmother, pausing before Sonia and glancing once, quickly and with dislike, toward Marco Burckhardt, then going on. Soon enough he would reach the carpets where the actors sat.

Aleksi snagged a platter of meat from Mitya and retreated to the solitude of the wagon to eat. Beyond, Raysia Grekov began to sing, accompanying herself on a bowed lute. She sang the tale of how the daughter of Mother Sun came down to the earth from Highest Heaven and how the legendary dyan Yuri Sakhalin fell in love with her and followed her into the heart of demon country.

"Where the rocks littered the earth, where the mountains touched the paths of father wind, there she bore the child. Where the heat of her mother's hands scorched the soil, where the demons swarmed at twilight, there she brought forth the child. He heard its cry on the wind, but he could not find them."

As Aleksi always did, he lost himself in her voice. She sang so sweetly, and with such power, that it was no wonder that the gods had drawn her up to Heaven once because of their desire to hear her sing. When they came to move the wagon, he jumped, startled, and kicked over the platter, spilling the scraps onto the grass.

"What are you doing there, Aleksi?" asked Nadine. "Here, give us a hand."

Standing, he saw that the world had changed. Raysia was still singing, and a knot of people clustered around her, sitting and kneeling: the actors, mostly, listening intently. Bakhtiian was standing off to one side, talking with Dr. Hierakis and Niko Sibirin. Charles Soerensen and Tess and the Habakar philosopher, together with Elizaveta Sakhalin, were off on the other side, leaving the central carpet clear.

Aleksi helped Nadine and a few of the men from her jahar hoist the wagon and carry it onto the carpet and set it down. Nadine tossed six pillows onto it and then, with reverent care, received the horse-tail standard which Mitya had brought from the camp and laid it on the pillow embroidered with birds that Bakhtiian always sat on.

"Shall I go get him, Uncle?" Nadine called to Bakhtiian.

"You're sounding cheerful," said Aleksi. "Who are you going to get?"

"Jiroannes Arthebathes," said Nadine. "May he rot in hell." She grinned.

Bakhtiian waited until Raysia Grekov had finished her song. Then he lifted a hand in assent, and Nadine hurried off, her soldiers at her heels.

Immediately the two bonfires were lit, and in their roar and glare, a sudden change transformed the scene. The older man and woman who headed the Company herded their actors off to one side, placing them behind a group of commanders who appeared from the right. Soerensen collected his party and retreated a discreet distance to the left. There they could watch but remain outside the action.

Bakhtiian helped Elizaveta Sakhalin up onto the overturned wagon and settled her onto one of the pillows. Sonia followed her, then Tess, then Niko Sibirin, and then old Mikhail Suvorin, the most senior of the dyans currently with the main army. Bakhtiian balanced the horse-tail staff across his knees. They waited. At last the ambassador and his party arrived, halting beyond the twin bonfires.

Aleksi saw the glitter of armor in the Vidiyan ambassador's retinue: his guard. There was a pause. Past the shifting height of fire he saw Nadine explaining something to an older man and a younger one. The younger one, dark and bearded and dressed in wildly colorful clothing, bore himself arrogantly, by which Aleksi deduced he was the ambassador. But his bearing melted a bit when Nadine gestured him forward. To pass between the two fires, to reach Bakhtiian.

The hesitation was checked. One of the guards transferred a small chest into the hands of the older foreigner, and thus burdened, the old man followed his master forward. The fire beat on them. Aleksi could see it by the way the ambassador leaned first away from the one fire and then away from the other, caught between both, purified by their raging heat, by the furnace pressure of their light. The old man staggered after him.

The softer glow of lanterns lit them when they halted before Bakhtiian. The old man dropped the chest more than set it down, and he knelt, head bowed, as if glad of the excuse to rest. The young one stood, looking angry and impressed together, and trying to hide it.

Bakhtiian regarded him evenly. From his seat on the wagon, he stared eye-to-eye with the ambassador. The very plainness of Bakhtiian's clothing, red shirt embroidered on the sleeves, black trousers and boots, merely added to his dignity, compared to the ambassador's gaudy costume. Some men did not need to display their power by displaying wealth. Like Soerensen, it occurred to Aleksi very suddenly. None of the prince's people wore gold, none wore weapons, and yet their bearing reeked of natural confidence.

At last, cowed by Bakhtiian's stare, as fierce a pressure as the fires through which he had passed, the ambassador dipped to one knee.

"I am Jiroannes Arthebathes," he said in queerly accented Rhuian, fluid and blurred on the consonants. "I bring you greetings from your cousin the Great King of Vidiya, and these gifts, which he hopes you will graciously accept." He gestured, and the servant struggled forward with the chest. Jiroannes's gaze flicked to Tess, and his eyes widened as he recognized her. Then he turned his attention back to his servant.

The chest was not just wooden, but cunningly carved and set with enameling and strips of gold into the wood. The servant opened the clasp and removed silver dishes, an amazingly lifelike bird made of bronze, two tiny jade horses, a collar of gold embossed with tiny human figures, a bolt of sheer white silk, and an arrow plated with gold and fletched with black feathers.

Bakhtiian looked them over impassively but did not touch them. Then he gestured, and the children, with proper solemnity, came forward and took away everything except the arrow. That Bakhtiian considered at length and in silence, and at last he lifted it up and leaned back to present the arrow to Elizaveta Sakhalin. "The Great King must be complimenting your prowess in hunting, Mother Sakhalin," he said. The old woman snorted, amused and skeptical, but she took the arrow and placed it over her knees.

Jiroannes looked outraged, and then he bowed his head to stare with seeming humility at the ground.

"You are welcome to our camp," said Bakhtiian, at last addressing the young ambassador directly. "I will send for you when it is time." He glanced around, caught Aleksi's eye, and gestured for him to escort the ambassador away. Then he turned to talk to Niko, as if the affair was of no more interest to him.

Leading Jiroannes away by a roundabout route, Aleksi had leisure to wonder what the young man was thinking. Nadine joined him, the Vidiyan guard marching obediently at her back, and they conducted the silent ambassador back through camp to the distant envoys' precinct. From here, the noise of the celebration, now in full flower, reached the dark clot of tents only as faint music and fainter laughter, like a distant roar of a mountain cataract to a man trudging through the night on a desert track. Out in the deep plains, where winter met summer like a blast of snow hitting fire, where spring existed for a week, for a scant month at most, such extremes were commonplace. To these envoys, cast out to the fringe of camp, their lives dependent very much on the whim of the jaran, such contrasts must prove unsettling.

"Ilya was too lenient," said Nadine to Aleksi as they left, walking back to the celebration. "The man was insufferable. He was angry. He showed it in his back, in the way he stood. He showed too little respect."

"Bakhtiian will make him wait. Then he'll get nervous."

"It could be." Nadine sounded peevish. "He has a slave."

"What is a slave?"

"Never mind. Look, the dancing has started."

At the celebration, they were dancing on the ground around the two bonfires. The angel was dancing with Anatoly Sakhalin. He was, shyly and modestly, showing her the steps to one of the simpler partner dances. But most of the other actors were out dancing as well, partnered with jaran men and jaran women. The dance ended and another started. Aleksi saw Tess dancing with her husband. Sonia, of all people, had somehow persuaded Soerensen out, and it appeared that Soerensen was a quick learner and adept enough to dance well. The angel was still dancing with Anatoly Sakhalin.

"Someone had better talk to him," said Nadine, voicing Aleksi's thoughts out loud.

"Surely his grandmother will speak to him," said Aleksi. "She's very pretty."

"She's beautiful," said Nadine. "She is also khaja. Look how the other man, Marco Burckhardt, look how he glares at them."

The dance ended. The angel strolled out of the ring of light with Sakhalin. She held her head cocked slightly to one side, looking at him with a provocative smile on her lips as he spoke to her. Surely she could not understand what he was saying. But perhaps the words did not matter.

A. moment later, before they could vanish into the gloom, Elizaveta Sakhalin appeared and called to her grandson. His head jerked up and he halted, hesitated visibly, and finally, reluctantly, slowly, he retreated to his grandmother's side. The angel watched him go and with an unfathomable shrug of her delicate shoulders, she walked on out into the night, alone.

"And that," said Nadine, "is that. Excuse me, Aleksi. I've a sudden urge to dance." She broke away from him and strode straight toward the distant figure of Feodor Grekov.

Aleksi sighed and wandered on. He paused to watch Raysia Grekov where she sat on the now vacant wagon, playing simple songs for the amusement of a swarm of jaran men and two of the foreigners: Margaret O'Neill and the actor Gwyn Jones. The copper-haired foreign woman had her right hand on her belt buckle, and she kept toying with it, as if she was nervous. In contrast, her left hand held the bronze medallion around her throat with deliberate steadiness, canting the medallion's onyx eye so that it faced the singer. Beside Raysia, a young man played a low accompaniment on a drum. As Aleksi listened, he caught a fainter counterpoint, a vocal one, distant, whispering on the breeze. He lifted his chin and tilted his head, sounding for direction, and drifted out into the night.

Stars blazed above. Out beyond the awnings, the angel was cursing at Marco Burckhardt. Aleksi stopped stock-still, astonished. Burckhardt had his hands on her. He held her in a tight grip, one hand on each of her shoulders, and each time she spit words at him, he replied in an equally angry voice.

They were not married. Nor were they related by blood. If anything, Marco Burckhardt was as interested in her as Anatoly Sakhalin was. But no jaran man would stand by and see a woman handled like this, by a man who was neither husband nor brother.

Before Aleksi could come forward, before he could even speak to warn them, another figure burst onto the scene, materializing from the direction of the celebration. Diana gasped. Burckhardt whirled.

Anatoly Sakhalin drew his saber.

"No!" Diana cried in Rhuian. "Don't hurt him!" She cast herself between the two men. There was silence. Diana took four steps forward. "Anatoly, please, put away your sword."

Anatoly lifted the saber to rest on her cheek. She froze, and her face went white from shock and fear. Marco shifted. In an instant, he would lunge-"

"Stop!" shouted Aleksi. He sprinted forward.

In that moment, with Marco hesitating, Anatoly marked Diana, cutting a line on her cheek diagonally from her cheekbone almost to her chin. Blood welled from the cut. Slowly, she lifted her hand to touch her skin. Lowering it, she stared at her fingers. They were covered with blood. She swayed. Then she collapsed to her knees.

Aleksi hit Marco broadside and slammed him backward before he could do something rash. A knife spun out of Marco's grip and Aleksi pounced and grabbed it before Marco could react.,

Anatoly had sheathed his saber. Now he stared at Diana with concern. He knelt beside her and put his good arm, comforting, firm, around her shoulders. At his touch, she screamed and scrambled away from him, panting.

"Damn you," said Marco from the ground.

Aleksi offered him a hand. Surprised, Marco took it and let Aleksi pull him up. Marco took a step toward Diana, but Aleksi held him back. "Don't go to her," Aleksi said.

Anatoly climbed to his feet and fixed a threatening stare on Marco, keeping himself between Marco and Diana. He rested his good hand on his saber hilt.

"What do you mean?" Marco demanded. "My God."

"He's marked her," Aleksi explained patiently.

"I can see that," said Marco caustically. "What kind of savages are you, anyway?"

"You're upset." Aleksi put a hand on his shoulder just to make sure he didn't bolt. "He's marked her for marriage. But I suppose you khaja don't do that."

Diana threw her head up. "What did you say?" she gasped. Left hand still pressed against her cheek, she rose unsteadily to her feet, flinched away from Anatoly's awkward offer of help, and circled him warily to come stand next to Marco. But when Marco reached toward her, she jerked away from him as well. "What do you mean, he marked me for marriage?" she demanded of Aleksi.

"When a man chooses a woman, he marks her. To show he means to marry her.''

"That's barbaric," said Marco.

"What about the woman's choice, then?" Diana asked.

Aleksi shook his head. "But marriage is not a woman's choice. Someday you'll hear Raysia sing the tale of Mekhala, and how horses came to the jaran. You see-" He hesitated, finding words in this foreign tongue of Rhuian and placing them together in a form that would make sense to these people. "-when Mekhala beseeched the wind spirit for the horses that would set her people, that would set the jaran, free, he agreed only on the condition that she marry him. But in those days, before the jaran had horses, women chose both lovers and husbands. And so the wind spirit said, 'I will give you horses, but you must give me the choice of your husbands, and a woman may never choose her husband again.' And the women agreed that this was a fair trade for the gift of horses. So that women may still choose their lovers, but no longer their husbands. But this was long ago, in the-" He faltered, running up against concepts he had no words for in Rhuian. "In the long ago time."

Marco looked appalled. Diana gaped, looking as if she was still in shock.

"Aleksi," said Anatoly in khush. "What are you telling her?"

What a fool. But, of course, Aleksi was not about to say that to Mother Sakhalin's grandson. "She didn't know what you were doing." He glanced at the other man, but Anatoly's expression showed only stubborn resolve. "She thought you were trying to kill her.''

Anatoly flushed, but he said nothing. He glared at Marco.

"But Tess Soerensen has a mark like this on her cheek," said Diana suddenly in a low voice. "And so does Bakhtiian. That means she is married to him." She glanced sidelong at Anatoly Sakhalin and then away. "So why can't I, if I love him?"

"God help us," Marco said. It was an oath Aleksi recognized, because Tess used it. "Diana, you can't begin to go along with this-"

"I can do what I want," said Diana emphatically. She tossed her hair out of her face and walked over to Anatoly. He started, looking at her, and she tilted his chin down and kissed him on the mouth.

Marco swore.

"What in hell is going on?" The first person to arrive from the direction of the celebration was Dr. Hierakis. "Diana, come here. Goddess help us, child, what has happened to you?" The doctor lifted a hand to trace the cut on Diana's cheek. A moment later Charles Soerensen appeared, and behind him, Tess and Bakhtiian.

"Oh, God," said Tess. Then in khush: "Anatoly, have you gone out of your mind?"

"This is your work, then?" Bakhtiian demanded.

Anatoly held his ground under that devastating stare. "Yes. I marked her."

"Gods. You will come with me, young man. We will see what your grandmother has to say about this."

Anatoly did not move. He was tense, but determined. "It is a man's choice, in marriage."

"She is not jaran, Anatoly," said Tess.

He glanced at her, and she smiled slightly, ironically, since neither was she jaran. Then he returned his gaze to Bakhtiian. "If she wishes to be rid of the marriage, she can do so, but I am content."

"Tess," said Charles in a calm voice, in Rhuian, "what is going on?"

"He wants to marry me," said Diana suddenly. "This is the way they get married."

"Ah," said Charles. He studied his sister a moment, and Tess flushed and lifted a hand to brush the scar on her cheek, then lowered it again self-consciously. "I understand this is sudden, Diana. Such an action is not binding on you."

"No," she said stubbornly. "I want to marry him."

Marco muttered something.

"Marco, really," said Dr. Hierakis in Rhuian. "There's no need for such language."

Burckhardt's hands were clenched into rigid fists, and he looked so angry that Aleksi wondered how long he could maintain his composure.

"That is your choice, of course," said Charles to Diana. If he was shocked by her pronouncement, he did not show it. "But surely, Bakhtiian, the matter can be waived for some days so that the young woman can think it over.''

"I don't need to think it over-"

"Diana," said Tess in a friendly but firm voice, "you will, by custom, have nine days to think it over. If you really want to go through with this, then you must go into seclusion for nine days, after which you will be reunited with this man and become husband and wife."

"Fine."

"What is she saying?" asked Anatoly in khush, a little desperately.

"You young fool," said Bakhtiian, also in khush. "Come along. I don't envy you the tongue-lashing you are about to receive from your grandmother. Perhaps I'll let Niko in on it as well. If your uncle Yaroslav was here…" He trailed off, letting the thought go unfinished. With a gesture, he indicated that Anatoly precede him. "Your grace," he said to Soerensen, "perhaps you would be part of this council as well."

"Of course. I'll follow in a moment." He nodded, and Bakhtiian left.

"Diana, Cara, perhaps you'll come with me," said Tess. She led the two women off on the long walk to the Soerensen enclave.

Aleksi, silent, did not move. By now the others had forgotten him. He had that gift, to stand so still, to draw so little attention to himself, that it was as if he was invisible.

"Marco," said Soerensen softly.

"Leave me alone." Marco did not even look at the other man. He was not looking at anything, exactly, but at some sight, some vision, some pain, that only he could see.

Soerensen sighed, but he honored the request, and left quietly.

Aleksi dared not move. He doesn't want me here. And Aleksi felt an odd feeling: He felt ashamed because he had intruded on another man's anguish.

Bells tinkled softly. A golden vision appeared out of the gloom: Sonia, laden with an ornamentation that lent grace to her features and a glow to her expression. A single glance she spared for Aleksi, a brief tilt of her chin in acknowledgment of his presence. Crescent moons spun and danced at her shoulders. She halted beside Marco Burckhardt and settled a hand on his sleeve.

"Come," she said. That was all. Without a word, he went with her. The bells faded.

But Aleksi still heard the bells. Distant, but growing louder. A shout came from the far ring of tents. Another shout followed, and a lantern, two lanterns, sprang to life. They bobbed and swayed, approaching over the grass. Two horses with two riders, but only the foremost rider rode upright. The second lay over his mount's neck, hugging it from exhaustion. Men on foot trailed after them, a group that swelled in size and volume.

Aleksi ran to meet them.

"Where is Bakhtiian?" shouted the lead rider. "Gods, man, there's been treachery from those khaja swine."

The man lying over the second horse looked unconscious. The horse was blown and scarcely in better condition than its rider, though it did not look wounded. A broad strip of bloodied cloth was wrapped around the rider's head, obscuring his face, and more cloth bound his ribs and his left thigh. He slipped. Aleksi grabbed him and steadied him on the horse.

Bakhtiian came running, Sibirin behind him. "Bring the horse up to the carpet," someone called, and they arrived there, a ragtag procession, at the same time Bakhtiian did.

Bakhtiian halted for one instant. A look of rage suffused his face. Then he came forward and tenderly swung the wounded man down from the horse, laying him on the pillows. The movement opened the wound in his thigh, but the blood leaking onto the fine embroidery did not seem to bother Bakhtiian.

"Josef! Niko, go get the healer. Dr. Hierakis. Grekov, see to the horse."

Now that the rider was lying on his back, Aleksi could see that it was indeed Josef Raevsky, Ilya's finest general, a man who could have been dyan of his own tribe but who gave it over into his brother's hands many years ago in order to pledge himself to Bakhtiian and Bakhtiian's cause. The worst blood stained the cloth bound over his eyes.

"Ilya." Raevsky had some life yet.

"Who did this? The rest of your party?"

"The Habakar king," Raevsky gasped. "Treachery. Honored us as envoys and then at the feast, fell on us." He panted. His face was gray. "Left me alive, to deliver this." His hand fluttered feebly. A crumpled scroll was tucked into the sheath of his saber. His saber-was gone.

Bakhtiian removed the scroll and unrolled it. Scanned it. His lips were pressed so tight that they had lost all color. His eyes burned. " 'So that you will understand that you must fear me, and set no foot on my ground, I have shown you my power. But because I am merciful as well as strong, I have left one alive to tell the tale.' "

Sibirin came up with Dr. Hierakis in tow, and Bakhtiian shifted aside to make room for her. She knelt beside Raevsky and stripped the cloth bandages away. Her face was intent, impassive.

"It looks like they burned the eyes out." She ran a finger down the bridge of Raevsky's nose. "How far did he come?"

Bakhtiian shrugged. "It's about ten days' ride to the border. Much much farther to the royal city.''

"Incredible," she said curtly. "Make me a litter to bear him to my tent. If you wish him to live, do it quickly." She rose. "I will be waiting there." And left, striding out into the darkness.

"Do as she says," said Bakhtiian. He stayed kneeling beside Raevsky until men came with a litter and bore him away. Then he rose. Glanced around, at the men waiting on his word. "You," he said to the rider who had come in with Raevsky. "What is your name?"

"Svyatoslav Zhulin, with Veselov's jahar."

"You will return south, then, with this message. I want Veselov and Yaroslav Sakhalin to drive into Habakar territory. Then the king will begin to understand that he must fear us." He glanced down at the pillow that rested against his boots, at the bright stain drying between the two birds of prey. "Then he will understand our power. Aleksi." His voice had the temper of the finest steel, decisive, cold, and sharp. "You will bring the Habakar philosopher to me. Now."

"Are you going to kill him?" someone asked, angry, wanting revenge.

"Of course not! We respect philosophers and envoys here. But I will inform him myself of this treachery. In the end, he may prove a valuable ally. Aleksi?"

Aleksi nodded and retreated, heading for the foreign envoys' enclave. Behind, he could hear Bakhtiian's crisp voice issuing more orders. The spring's campaign was beginning.