An earthly crown

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

At the edge of the firelit glow cast by the roaring bonfire, Ilya Bakhtiian halted beside his wife where she stood in the gloom. Tess glanced up at him, then back out at the camp.

"They left, then?" asked Bakhtiian.

"Who, Anatoly and Diana? Yes." She turned to face him, watching him as he watched her, measuring. Her lips quirked up. "No stranger than you and I."

"Perhaps. But I doubt it. She will leave him." Once, he would have hesitated to touch her in public, since it was unseemly. Now he lifted his hands without the least self-consciousness to cup her face and stare at her, searching. "I love you," he said, and that was all, although it was a question.

"What would you do if I left?"

His lips drew out, tightening, and his face went taut. He dropped his hands from her face and grasped her hands instead. "You will not. I forbid it."

"You can't forbid it."

"No." The admission was shattering, wrung from him. "I cannot. But if I could, I would."

"The ambassador from Vidiya has a slave. A woman."

Now she had gone too far. "How dare you compare me to that pompous, overdressed boy?" he demanded. "How dare you even suggest that I have made such a thing of you?''

"To make you think, damn you."

"Then go. You are free to choose." He was so angry that he was shaking. "We ride south tomorrow. I can leave a jahar to take you to the coast with your brother, if that is what you wish. What I wish, you know well enough."

"Oh, Ilya." She embraced him suddenly. He was tense, stiff, but his anger could not sustain itself when she showed the least sign of her love for him. She felt him relax against her, and he sighed into her hair.

"Damn you," he muttered.

"Come with me."

"Where?" He drew his head back and frowned at her, suspicious.

She chuckled. "No, not to Jeds. To see my brother, now."

"Why?"

"To tell him the truth. That I don't intend to leave the jaran. Not now, at any rate. Not this year."

He was still frowning. "When, then?"

"When you die, damn you. Now stop bothering me and come with me."

He laughed, surprised, and hugged her tightly. "We have an old tale," he whispered into her ear, "about a woman who poisoned her husband because she wanted to marry another man."

Tess smiled and pressed into him, returning the embrace. "If you can find me another man to marry, then I'll consider it." She broke free of his grasp and pushed him away. "Now, you'll come with me, and you'll stay quiet while I talk with Charles."

"Yes, my wife," he said meekly, and he walked with her across camp to Soerensen's encampment. At the gap, they passed about fifty paces away from the little tent that sat on the grass between both camps. Bakhtiian fought down a smile and he stopped Tess with a hand on her shoulder, and bent and kissed her. The night shielded them. "After," he murmured, releasing her.

"Don't distract me. You don't know how hard it is for me to do this."

Under the awning of Charles's tent, Marco Burckhardt sat with a thin tablet on his lap. Charles sat next to him, staring at something on his hand. Two lanterns lit the two men, one to either side of them, and from the slightly askew flap of Dr. Hierakis's tent, a steady glow could be seen coming from the interior. Then both men looked up, saw Tess, saw Bakhtiian, and Marco collected something from Charles's hand and took it and the slate back into the tent before Tess and Ilya reached the awning.

Charles stood up. Cara emerged from her tent, glanced at the converging lines, and walked over to stand next to Charles. Marco reappeared from the tent.

"They're hiding something from me," Bakhtiian muttered, and he glanced at Tess to see what her reaction was. Tess flushed, but he could not see the color of her skin in the darkness, so she was safe.

"How long will the carousing go on?" Cara asked with a smile as she motioned them to come in under the awning.

Bakhtiian acknowledged her first, with a nod, and then Charles, and last Marco. "As long as they wish. The army rides south tomorrow. They'll earn this celebration tonight."

"The poor child won't have much of a honeymoon, then," said Cara. "But I saw that she was safely put to bed a little earlier. Where are you going, Marco?"

"Out to carouse," he said curtly. He excused himself and left.

They watched him go. Charles's expression was unreadable. Cara shook her head. Bakhtiian arched his brows, looking puzzled. "He doesn't seem like the kind of man Sonia would take to her bed." He glanced at Charles, as if to gain corroboration from the other man, and Tess was struck by how clearly he treated Charles as an equal. There were many men, men of the jaran in particular, whom he treated with respect, but there was no question of where the ultimate authority lay. No question but here: Ilya did not defer to Charles-he did to women, of course; that was so deeply engrained in him that Tess doubted he would ever lose the habit-but neither did he attempt in the slightest to command him.

"Sonia likes a challenge," said Tess.

"Is that where he's been at night?" Charles asked. "I had wondered."

"And you didn't ask?" Tess spoke the words and an instant later realized how sarcastic they sounded. "I have to talk to you," she said quickly, to cover her embarrassment and to get it over with. This was something best done quickly, before she lost her nerve. Somehow, seeing Anatoly and Diana escorted off into the night to their tent had made her determined to talk to Charles now, however much she wanted to put it off.

"Please sit," said Charles. Cara and Tess sat down next to each other, in chairs. Ilya hesitated. "I have pillows," said Charles suddenly, "and something I brought for you from Jeds." He vanished into the tent, emerging with two large pillows and a velvet bag. He tossed the pillows onto the ground so that the two men could sit side by side and on the same level.

Ilya's lips twitched, and then he smiled. "Well done," he said, and sat down. Charles sat down beside him, opened the velvet bag, and drew out two objects: a book and a clock.

He gave Ilya the clock first. It had a simple design, a white unnumbered face framed with mahogany; a spring door in the back opened to reveal the mechanical workings.

"This is different," Ilya said, "than the clocks I saw in Jeds."

"The lines and hands mark out the hours of the day."

"Like a khaja wall marks out land," said Ilya, glancing up at Tess. Then, turning back to Charles, "Its simplicity lends it beauty.''

Charles offered him the book and, of course, he took it. Ilya never could resist a book. He ran his hands along the leather binding in a way that was almost amorous, and then turned it to the title page and then to the text. He gave a short bark of laughter. " 'Being convinced that the human intellect makes its own difficulties-' " He closed the book and handed it up to Tess. "True enough words," he said to Charles.

"The New Organon. Francis Bacon," read Tess. "Charles!" Both men looked up at her expectantly. She stroked one arm of her chair, tracing the patterns in its carved wood with her fingers. "Charles," she said again, and lapsed into silence. A book and a clock-the one by a philosopher who had helped develop the scientific method, the other, well, Ilya himself had compared a device that measures time in artificial increments to the walls that interrupt the natural flow of the land. These were the worst weapons Charles could have brought; and he knew it, and she knew it.

Cara rescued them from the uncomfortable silence. The doctor leaned down to rummage in a cloth bag crumpled at the base of her chair and drew out a mass of yarn, and began to knit.

Ilya's face lit with interest. "That is like weaving. May I ask what it is you're doing?"

"It's called knitting. The women of your people don't knit? Who did the marvelous embroidery on your shirt?"

He tilted his head to one side, looking pleased and a little shy. "I did."

"You did?" Cara laughed. "Well. That ought to teach me not to make unwarranted assumptions. What were you going to say, Tess? Would you like something to drink? Some Scotch, perhaps?"

"I don't think so-"

"Certainly." Ilya cut across her refusal. "We would be honored." He shot her an admonishing glance. Sharing food and drink was one of the two fundamental courtesies that bound the jaran tribes together.

"Perhaps you'd like to come with me," said Cara, to Ilya.

"No. I want Ilya to stay here." His presence was both the spur and the anchor, forcing her to go forward, keeping her stable. She clutched the book in both hands. "And you, too, Cara. It's no long speech. It's very little, really, it's very simple. I'm not going back."

Charles rested his elbows on his knees and leaned forward. "You're not going back where?"

"To Jeds, with you, when you go back. When you leave." She burned with heat. She knew it, could feel the flush on her face, could feel her pulse pounding. "It's only fair to tell you, so you don't keep thinking… that maybe I will. That I'm going back. I know that's what you came for. But I can't go. Not now."

"Why is that?" Charles's voice was cool, neutral.

Ilya sat straight, his chin lifted in triumph, and he looked at Tess, not at his rival, as if, having won, he could now dismiss him.

Why did she have to defend herself like this? And why must she do it so damned badly? "Because I love him," she said in Anglais.

"Love is a compelling reason," said Charles in Rhuian, and Ilya shifted his gaze to Charles. "But alone it is not always sufficient. I think it isn't all that is keeping you here."

"What do you mean by that?" demanded Ilya. Whatever ease had existed between the two men at the beginning of the conversation vanished, evaporating in the heat of Ilya's question.

"Ilya," said Tess.

"I'm getting the Scotch," said Cara, "and I expect you two to behave yourselves until I get back." She rose and strode off to her tent.

Charles raised his eyebrows. His gaze caught on Bakhtiian's, and a moment later the two men smiled stiffly at each other.

"Serves you right," muttered Tess. Cara returned with the bottle of Scotch and four sturdy glass tumblers. Ilya held up the one she gave him and turned it, watching the light splinter and catch in the crystal.

"This is beautiful." He lowered the glass so that Cara could pour a splash of the liquor into it. With the others, he lifted it and drank. Tess lowered her glass and watched him, saw his eyes round at the potency of the alcohol. He choked back a cough and took another sip, cautiously this time.

Cara chuckled. "Now," she said, "you will come with me, Bakhtiian. I have a few things to show you, and some questions to ask about your army's medical logistics."

Ilya looked at Tess, and she sighed and nodded. He rose and obediently followed Dr. Hierakis.

"It's an interesting culture," said Charles, watching them go. "And rather admirable, in its way."

"Yes, well," she replied sarcastically, "Francis Bacon will soon put an end to that."

"You don't approve?"

"He'll never use the clock. They just don't think that way.''

"Doubtless," said Charles, sounding sardonic in his turn, "in the Great Chain of Philosophic Being, their culture ranks far above our own."

Stung, she tossed the book with purposeful disregard onto Ilya's pillow. It landed next to the clock. "You know it's ridiculous to compare cultures in that fashion.''

He looked serious all at once, and Tess did not know what to make of his expression. "Tess, I have faith in you that you would not have stayed with the jaran if they were savages."

But his sympathy made her feel worse. She curled her hands around the tumbler and stared at the Scotch, swirling it around in the glass. "They're killing a lot of people, Charles. Lots of people. Hordes of them."

"As will I, if I lead another rebellion against the Chapalii Empire. That's my choice, isn't it?"

Tess set the glass down on the rug. She could hear Cara talking softly behind her, and Ilya's softer replies. "Charles." She wrapped her fingers together, unwound them, and let them fall to her lap. "You made a choice to make a cause the center of your life. I can't live that way. Someday I'll come to the end of my life and when I look back, I know what measure I'll make of how well I lived. That measure is in the lives I lived beside."

"But someone must live for the cause. Or else we remain slaves. Well-treated slaves, it is true, but slaves nevertheless."

"You're right, of course. I never said I wouldn't do my part. But you've given up everything else for your work and I can't-I won't-do that. Otherwise my life is a desert-nothing." She hesitated, not wanting to hurt him, to judge him, but he merely watched her, unfathomable. "If anything of me lives on after I'm dead, it will be my linguistics work, and, I hope, children as well."

"You've thought about this a great deal."

She steepled her hands and rested her lips on her thumbs, then raised her head to look at him again. "I've torn at myself. Half of me says that I must give myself entirely to your work, that it's my duty to you, my duty to humanity, that's most important. It's a litany that runs through my head. But what use would it be for me to sacrifice myself for that? I'm not a leader. I'm not like you. Or like Ilya, for that matter. I don't want to be a leader, I'm not cut out to be one. I can contribute in other ways. I will. But I won't give up my family to do so." She said it with passion, and only a moment later realized how it must sound to him.

"As I've given up mine?" he asked, and she could not tell if he was hurt, angry, or amused.

"I don't fault you, Charles. I never said that. You're doing what you have to do. I don't think there's anything else you could do. Like Cara-her research is the heart of her life. Everything else is a hobby."

"Including me?"

Tess bent down to pick up the tumbler and drained it in one gulp. The heat of it seared her throat, but the burning gave her courage. "Including you. That knife cuts both ways. It's why the two of you are so well-matched."

Now Charles did smile, and Tess relaxed slightly. "I see my baby sister has grown up."

"I'm a little older. Not much."

"And yet, you married a man who has dedicated his life in the same way I have dedicated mine."

"Yes." Her smile was sardonic. "The prince's sister must marry a prince. There was another man I fell in love with, another man of the jaran, but I would never have married him. Once I met Ilya…" She shrugged. "In the end, I suppose it was inevitable."

"How old is he?"

"By their calendar, which runs in twelve year cycles, he's thirty-seven." She gave an ironic nod toward the clock. "However accurate their time-keeping is."

"But, nevertheless, well into the prime of his life. He'll die, Tess."

It was like being slapped. All she could do was try to hit back. "Are you willing to wait him out? Knowing he'll die soon enough and then you can get me back?"

"I meant," he said mildly, "that he'll die sooner than you will, barring any accidents. Much sooner."

She twisted her hands together and glanced back at Dr. Hierakis's tent. Cara and Ilya stood talking together outside the tent, and as if he felt her gaze, Ilya turned their way, looking at her as he always looked at her, so intently, so intimately, that her own feelings rose fiercely to meet his across the gap. With an effort, she turned back to Charles. "Don't you think I know that?" she asked bitterly. "Don't you think I remember that every damn morning? And every night, after he's fallen asleep?"

"I'm sorry," said Charles, but whether for her pain or for the specter of Ilya's premature death, by their standards, she could not be sure.

Cara and Ilya returned. "But surely you'll ride with the army," Ilya was saying. "There is so much more you can teach my healers."

"I don't know. Charles?" Cara sat down again, but Ilya remained standing.

"I need to go to the shrine of Morava," said Charles.

Ilya's gaze flicked from Charles to Tess and back to Charles. "I can send a small jahar with you, if you wish to ride north now. Then you can follow us south, if you will, or return to the coast and sail back to Jeds, if that is your desire."

"I need to take Tess with me to the shrine."

"That is impossible."

Charles stood up. "Of course it is not impossible. I need her to translate."

"I remind you that you are in my camp." Ilya's voice dropped and its very mildness was threatening.

Charles smiled.

Tess had a horrible premonition that Charles was about to say something rash-something like, / remind you that you are on my planet-and she jumped to her feet and placed herself between the two men. "Stop it. Damn you two, stop it. I'll make my own choice. Sit down."

Neither sat. No one spoke. Tess did not know what to say, so she simply stood there, feeling the force of them one on each side. Like Jiroannes through the bonfires, she felt the pressure of their attention on her, the force of their equally strong personalities brought to bear on her, and she was caught in the middle. If she had ever thought for an instant that these two men could compromise, then she had been sorely mistaken.

"Someone's coming," said Cara.

Ilya turned. A man ran toward them. He halted beyond the carpet, outside the awning's overhang. "Bakhtiian. A messenger has come in from Sakhalin."

"I'll come." Ilya nodded at Dr. Hierakis. "Doctor. If you'll excuse me."

"Of course."

"Tess?" He put out his hand.

She did not move. "I'm not done here yet. I'll come along in a while."

He froze, tensing, then jerked himself around and strode off with the soldier, vanishing into the darkness.

"Tess," said Charles, "sometimes I think I would be doing you a service simply to take you forcibly out of here."

"Don't you dare! You're no better than him, you're just a damned sight cooler about it. And if you're so damned righteous, then why are you flouting your own interdiction laws?''

"I beg your pardon?"

"Francis Bacon. Or had you forgotten so quickly? And you let the Bharentous Repertory Company come here. However much you claim to be preserving Rhuian cultures, you're already corrupting them."

Charles blinked, looking surprised at the vehemence of her attack. "Tess, inevitably Rhui's interdiction will be lifted. In a cautious way, I'm trying to prepare for that."

"Gods, you've already thought about it. You're doing it on purpose. Do you have a timetable set, too? When do the sea gates open?'' She was so angry that tears came to her eyes.

His voice cooled to a chill. "If I hadn't intervened, Rhui would have been raped. Which do you prefer? Quick and ugly, or giving them a chance to meet the change on their own terms?''

"Oh, hell," said Tess, wiping at her eyes. "I'm sorry.''

"Charles." Cara stood up. "I want to talk to Tess a bit, alone, and take a few tests. If you'll excuse us."

He muttered a word under his breath, then turned and stalked into his tent.

"That's one thing that always encourages me about humanity," said Cara, taking Tess's arm and leading her across to her tent, "that in the midst of all our nobility we can be so incredibly foolish. And petty. And otherwise damned asses."

"Thank you."

Cara snorted, amused. "The comment wasn't actually meant for you, my dear." She guided Tess into the tent and snapped her fingers. A light flicked on, hidden in the ceiling. Cara pushed through into the back compartment of the tent, where a diagnostic table stood next to a counter laid out in neat lines with a field laboratory, a lacework of metal and plastine and glass. "Now. We have some serious discussing to do, my girl, and I need to do a full diagnostic on you. Sit."

Tess sat obediently on the table. "Cara, is it too late? Can you give Ilya treatments to make him live longer?"

Cara turned from the counter and regarded Tess. Something lit in her face and was, as quickly, smothered. "Ah," she said, and turned back without replying, busying herself with the equipment.

"But can you?" Tess demanded.

"I've had to relearn a good deal about the human life span, a great deal we've forgotten these last one hundred years, now that we live out a full one hundred twenty years, all of us. Did you know, Tess, that with their year being longer than ours, Rhuians normally live longer lives than Earth humans did before the advent of decent medicine in the twenty-first century? I once thought they were some kind of amazing parallel evolution.''

"But the cylinder I got at the shrine of Morava-"

"Yes. It proved that they are descendants of Earth, brought thousands of years ago from Earth to Rhui by the Chapalii duke, the Tai-en Mushai, to populate this planet. One wonders if he killed off some developing intelligent indigenes in order to make room for our kind. But in any case, he altered the humans he brought. He made them more-efficient.''

"But they still age more rapidly than we do."

"Indeed. Bakhtiian can expect to live another thirty or forty years, all else being equal, but you can expect to live another ninety, and you won't age appreciably for a long long time. As in the old folktales of elves and humans, we would seem eternally young to them."

"Then you're saying there's nothing you can do?" Her voice caught with fear and grief.

"This planet, and whatever the Mushai's engineers did to them, has altered their chemistry from ours. The techniques given us to extend our lives might work for them, but they might not. It would be… experimental, Tess. Risks go together with experiments."

"Oh, God. But I'm so scared of losing him. Or of him getting old while I'm still young."

"There is another question. Ought I to interfere? It would clearly breach the interdiction."

"Which Charles has already breached."

"Yes. But knowledge works slowly, and Bakhtiian, my dear, may well change the face of this continent very quickly indeed. How long do we want it to go on?"

"It doesn't matter, does it?" Tess asked bitterly. "Either way, we play god. Either way, we choose for Rhui."

"That is the burden of greater knowledge. But there are two other factors, Tess. One only Charles knows of, and now you: there are clues, here on Rhui, that there may be a way to alter the human life span, to extend it past the one hundred twenty years given us by the Chapalii, to double it or more. I intend to break the code. I believe that I'm close to doing so. In fact, with your cooperation, I need some subjects from the jaran, although I've had some luck studying them since I arrived here."

"The wounded," said Tess under her breath. "God, that's cold, Cara."

"If I save them as well, why not let them benefit all of us? Lie down, I'm going to take some blood and run the scanner over you." Tess lay down. "I want Bakhtiian. Perhaps I'll make you a trade: let me examine him, take tissue and blood from him, and I'll see what I can do about some kind of basic serum to retard his aging." Her expression grew distant. "And if I can manage it," she said, more to herself than to anyone, "it will mean I possess Rhui's code."

It was an odd, unsettling experience, to see Cara wear the look that Ilya wore when he contemplated lands he did not yet control.

"But don't answer me now," added Cara, crashing back to earth. "I can't quantify the risks for you, only say that there will be risks. I can't predict how his chemistry will react. You'll feel a pinch here; that's the needle. Now breathe normally and lie still."

Tess shut her eyes. A low hum filled her ears. A breath of air puffed on her face and drifted down over her body, followed by the slight tingle of some kind of pressure and field. "I'll risk it. I have to. Though I don't know how you can study Ilya without betraying all this."

"Shhh. Don't move. Tess." Her voice lowered, becoming grave. "There's a more serious problem. Why did you remove your implant? To get pregnant, I know. But it's too risky. I have four recorded deaths, three many years ago and one recent, of women who died in childbirth from a reaction to the-well, once it was an Earth woman who got pregnant by a Rhuian male and died, in the others it was the opposite. It's an antigenic reaction to blood types and antibodies that no longer mesh well. I don't want you to get pregnant, Tess. No, one more minute."

The silence drew out.

"There, we're done."

Tess pushed herself up. "But Cara-"

"No, I have no recorded instances of women who survived cross breeding."

"What about the children?"

"In one instance the child lived, because I arrived immediately after birth."

"Then there must be-"

"Tess, as soon as a woman gets pregnant, she is inundated with hormonal changes. My research shows that the risk is immediate and acute. I suppose-" She broke off.

"What?"

"You did start puberty here, on Rhui. That might-"

"That might what? God, Cara, you must know how badly Ilya wants children."

"What about what you want?"

Tess hung her head, and her voice shook. "I want something of him, after he's dead. But that's only part of it. I never thought about children before. There was never any urgency in it. But I want children with him, Cara. Can't you understand that?"

"Since I have no children of my own?"

"I didn't mean it as an accusation."

Cara finished transferring blood from one tube to another and pressed a few buttons, and then came to sit on the table beside Tess. She put an arm around Tess, and Tess felt safe with her. Tess trusted her. "Tess, I will study the matter. When did you take the implant out?"

"Three months ago."

"That should give us time. It usually takes a year until ovulation resumes. Meanwhile, I want you to take some of this rather primitive birth control method I have with me. Goddess, child, I will take no chances with you. Do you understand that?"

"But, Cara-"

"No. No chances with you. I'll run a fuller test on you once I've gone through these preliminary results, and once I do a study of Bakhtiian, I'll see if I can make any kind of prediction based on blood type and other factors. That's as far as I'll go, Tess. If you won't promise me now to use this contraception, then I will forcibly insert an implant in you where you can't dig it out. Do you understand me?"

There was no compromise in Cara's voice, and little enough hope. Tess's throat felt all choked, and a moment later she felt the rush of tears. She buried her face in her hands to cover the tears, to hide them. She squeezed her eyes, as if that could stop them, but the devastation she felt was stronger than her self-control.

"Oh, Tess." Cara wrapped both arms around her and held her as if she were a child. "I'm sorry."

A foot scuffed at the entrance. "Cara? Tess?" It was Charles. Tess looked up in time to see him push the inner hanging aside and stand there in the gap, watching her. "Ah. You've told her about the dangers of pregnancy, haven't you?''

"You're glad of this, aren't you?" Tess broke out of Cara's embrace and jumped to her feet. "Well, it doesn't matter. I won't leave him anyway."

Charles stiffened. "I hope you think better of me than that."

Tess stared at him, smitten with the sudden and astonishing realization that he actually cared what she thought of him. That it mattered to him.

A beep sounded, low and brief, from the counter behind them.

"What the hell?" muttered Cara. She slipped off the table and hurried around to the counter.

"I'm sorry, Charles," said Tess slowly. "I didn't mean it. You aren't petty."

"Thank you." He chuckled. "But don't overestimate me, Tess. Sainthood is a heavy burden to bear. However, I don't think my pettiness extends to that." He hesitated. "Knowing what it means to you."

The words came hard to him. She could hear that and it touched her that he would open up to her like this.

"Charles," she began tentatively, "I know-we've always been far apart in years, but-"

"Oh. Shit." Cara turned. In the glare of artificial light, she looked grim, angry, and scared. "Damn you, girl. What have you done?"

Tess looked at Charles, but he simply shrugged, puzzled. "What have I done?" she asked.

"This alters things considerably," said Cara. "Clearly, whatever else may happen, I'm not leaving your side for the next nine months."

Tess went white and sank down onto the table, clutching at the edge with her hands to steady herself.

"What's going on?" asked Charles. An instant later, his face altered as the realization hit him. "But surely, if it's so dangerous-Cara!'' The expression of helplessness on his face looked totally out of place. "Perhaps a surgical abortion-"

"No!" yelled Tess, even as she realized she might have no choice.

Cara shook her head. "No. We'd still have an antigenic reaction to deal with."

"She's all I have left, Cara," he said, his voice so low that Tess barely heard him. She didn't know how to respond; Charles wasn't supposed to be so vulnerable.

"I'm well aware of that, Charles," said Cara coolly, as if she were offended. "I think it would be safer if I instead applied my skills and some testing to bring her safely to term."

The vulnerability in Charles's expression vanished, smoothing into the mask worn by a duke in the Empire. "Very well," he said, and he left the tent.