An earthly crown

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

"Do you think you can save the baby?" Tess asked. She sat in front of a low table that seemed to be made of burnished black wood. But the field projected above the wood belied that illusion: a screen of three dimensions on which Tess manipulated words into a matrix by which a person ignorant of khush could learn the language quickly.

Cara Hierakis sat at a separate console, running analyses of blood samples. "I'm not equipped to run a hospital here. The fact that the baby has survived a month is hopeful. The lungs are the greatest risk, and it shows no severe signs of respiratory distress. It's small and weak. It needs to be kept warm; it needs food-they're doing that now. If I could design an enhanced formula… but I'm not equipped for that." She turned in her chair to regard Tess. "Now do you see why I suggested to Charles that we take you back to Jeds?"

Tess stared into the matrix, shifting colors, floating words. Her shoulders tensed, and she did not look around at Cara. "You have to test Ilya."

"That's true. The more I know, the better placed I'll be to act correctly when the time comes. As it will."

"You said yourself that as far as you know the reaction doesn't set in until after delivery."

"As far as I know."

"You also said that you're equipped to give a blood transfusion here."

"I'm equipped for a rough field surgery, yes." Now Tess could hear a certain amusement creeping into Cara's voice. "Let me see if I can reel off the rest of the list. The other baby lived, which implies that it's a medical problem that can be overcome. I took blood from most of Charles's party before they rode north, thus supplying me with a bank. Bakhtiian would make a fuss, and he doesn't yet know you're pregnant anyway."

"Can't know, Cara. Not for another month or two."

"Yes, it must be hard for them to diagnose the condition any earlier than ten or twelve weeks' gestation. But what you're really saying, Tess, is that you've weighed the odds and are choosing to believe that I can pull you through under these conditions."

"I believe in you, Cara. And anyway, you told me that the woman who bore the child who's now living almost survived."

"Yes. If I'd reached her an hour earlier, I would have saved her as well as the baby.''

Now Tess did turn. In the artificial lights illuminating the interior of the tent, the sharp planes of Cara's face were softened. "Who got her pregnant, anyway? You never told me."

"None of your business, my dear. But he was no more foolish than you've been. Don't you people stop to consider that life grown on other planets is bound to have certain subtle and possibly lethal differences?"

Tess chuckled. "But they're so like us. And they did come from Earth originally.''

Cara smiled suddenly. "That was well done, Tess. Getting that Chapalii cylinder to Charles, with the heart of the Tai-en Mushai's private data banks encoded into it."

Warmth filled Tess at Cara's words. "Praise from you is rare, indeed. I love having this modeler at my disposal. Besides this matrix, I'm running several programs off the early language data base and seeing if I can find the evolutionary links between Rhuian languages and Earth languages. But my time is so limited."

"Which I remind you has been your choice all along. You are welcome to return to Jeds any time. Which you won't do. Be that as it may." Cara rose and came over to stand beside Tess, resting a hand on Tess's shoulder and peering at her matrix, which rotated slowly on the screen in front of them. "If we can only coordinate our research… I can't yet prove that the Chapalii genetically engineered the humans they transferred from Earth to Rhui, although I know they did."

"How do you know?"

"If you study the history of disease and mortality among humans, which I've done, and then compare the Rhuian humans to Earth models, the Rhuians are too healthy and too long-lived given similar conditions."

"The human mechanism must seem horribly inefficient to the Chapalii," Tess mused. "Naturally they'd tinker with it.''

"So speaks the woman who understands them so well. I can't give more than a rough estimate of how long ago it happened. Not less than 5,000, not more than 40,000 years ago. I can't prove it until I understand how they did it."

"And once you understand how they did it-"

"Then their knowledge is my knowledge. I think I'm close to a serum that could well double the human life span."

"Double it? Lord, what would we do with doubled life spans?"

"That's not my question. Nor my answer to give. But surely you can find some clues in your language research on the time frame involved."

"Which would also give us insight into the history of the Chapalii Empire, insight that we're denied by the Chapalii Protocol Office. Philology wasn't my specialty, but I'll do my best."

"When do you think that matrix will be done? Translation takes up far too much time for me. There's a lot more basic information I can give the jaran healers on fundamental medical principles, and I'd like to communicate straight to them."

Tess played with the screen, dividing it into three discrete parts and spinning one until a series of pathways arcing away toward an unseen horizon filled one side of the field. "A full-blown matrix would take months to construct, under better conditions than these. What I'm doing is a series of trees. They each contain a finite set, and instead of gaining the language pretty much entire, you simply accelerate the learning curve of what would otherwise be unenhanced acquisition. So you seem to be learning it quickly, and efficiently, but not too damn quickly."

"So they won't become suspicious when we all turn around one day speaking fluent khush? Very neat."

"Cara." Tess glanced up at the older woman. "Why can't Charles see that I'm not the right person to be his heir?"

Cara patted her on the shoulder and walked back to her console. "Charles thinks strategically, Tess, not tactically. Other than that, I can't tell you what's in his mind." From outside, a bell rang once, then twice. "Ah. We have a visitor. Close off the back half, Tess. I'll go see who it is."

Tess spoke two words and the field over the table vanished, leaving only the smooth black surface. Then she drew closed the curtain that screened off the back section of Cara's tent-and the equipment laid out there-and tied it shut. A moment later, the entrance flap to the tent was twitched aside-it, too, tinkled, sewn all along its edge with warning bells-and Cara ducked back inside followed by-

"Ilya!" Tess grinned stupidly and threw her arms around him and kissed him soundly on the lips. "I thought you were days ahead of us."

He glanced at Cara, who watched them with a smile, and disengaged himself from his wife. He frowned. "Has Vasil been bothering you?" he demanded.

Tess blinked. The question surprised her, as did his obvious anger. But she had to think back to recall how much she had seen Vasil over the past days. "I saw him tonight," she began. His expression clouded. She went on hastily. "But only because we went over to the Veselov camp to see Arina and Kirill, and the baby.''

"Ah." A pained expression chased the anger off his face. "They have two children already. And Vladi and Elena have a child."

"Ilya." Tess glanced at Cara and then back at her husband. She took his hand between hers and held it tightly. "I feel sure that we will have a child soon, too. Kirill and Arina's new baby isn't strong. It was born early. They may well lose it."

Then he looked ashamed, as if by being jealous of their fortune in having two children where he had none, he had brought misfortune on them. "I hadn't heard. I'll go visit them tonight before I leave."

"You're riding south again tonight?" She lifted one hand to brush a smear of dirt from his face. He had a rather travel-worn look about him, as if he had not rested much during the seven days since she had seen him last. His hair was mussed, and the usually trim line of his beard had grown a little ragged. "Why did you come back?"

"I need more interpreters. I need you."

"I'm not part of the army, Bakhtiian," she said stiffly. "Or had you forgotten that?"

His gaze flicked to Cara and then back to Tess. "Excuse me," he said to Cara. In khush he said, "I do not intend to argue with you in front of another person, Tess. I won't let you ride with Yaroslav Sakhalin's jahar. Not so far away from me."

"And?" she demanded, not feeling much like compromising.

"If you'll excuse me." Cara slipped out of the tent. The bells chimed behind her and then stilled.

"Something your brother said to me-about envoys. Why not have a-a jahar of envoys? Diplomats, that's the Rhuian word. Anatoly Sakhalin has married a khaja wife, so I'll put him in command of half the jahar, of those who are primarily fighters, young men who will also learn how to communicate and deal with the khaja. Eventually, we will need governors from their ranks. We'll have to be careful to make sure they marry well, marry a woman who can also learn about khaja ways and who will be willing to live among khaja for some time. That's where you and Josef come in."

"Josef and I? Josef Raevsky?"

"Yes. You know he'll never fight again. How can he, blinded? But with his knowledge-and yours-you two will be my other commanders of this jahar."

"Me?" Tess sank down into the chair that conveniently caught her knees when they sagged beneath her. "Did Charles put you up to this?"

"I would be a fool not to use your skills."

"And keep me out of battle." But somehow, knowing that she was pregnant made her less anxious to prove herself in war. Not to lose her fighting skills, not at all, but the sense of urgency that she had felt before about putting them to the test was eased. And she did have other skills… "I don't know," she said reluctantly. "I might be good at that."

"You already are, in camp. Now you will be my right hand as well as my heart."

"I don't know," she repeated, but vaguely, already thinking about what she and Josef could do, building a kind of diplomatic corps for the jaran, to create-what? To create an empire. She did not doubt for a moment that Ilya could-that he would-forge one, the empire of the jaran. She could be instrumental in seeing not only that it would last and remain stable, but that it would hold to the rule of just law, a better rule, perhaps, than that many of the khaja lands bowed to now. Perhaps. Damn Charles, anyway. Certainly she could see his hand in this. He was grooming her to succeed him, by any means he could.

Ilya smiled brilliantly. "Then you will."

Tess had to laugh, because Ilya was so transparently pleased that his little scheme had worked: he could give her a place in his army and give her authority of her own without putting her in the line of fire. She lifted a finger. "But. I want Aleksi."

"Aleksi! Give up one of my finest fighters-?"

"He's lost in your jahar, Ilya, and he's unlikely to get a command of his own, even if he wanted one. But if he's mine, and he chooses a select group of young riders to be my escort, then I'll have the protection an envoy deserves, and a group of riders that Josef and I can call on at need."

"Hmm. Kirill has such a group of young riders. Misfits, most of them, like Aleksi. I'll give them to you. Now, Sonia has agreed to take Josef into our camp, and little Ivan will serve as his eyes. It's another five days to the mountains at this pace. You and Josef can discuss your plans. When I see you there, you'll tell me what you and Josef have decided." He had been angry when he arrived, but Tess could detect no anger in him now, as if the emotion had evaporated once he had a new outlet for his energy. He paced to the inside curtain, and Tess jumped to her feet. If he even twitched it back a handsbreadth, and saw what lay within…

But he twirled and strode back toward the entrance. He would never invade the private space of another person's tent. He was jaran, after all. He bent, kissed Tess, and with no further word left the tent. Tess caught the flap before it could fall. The bells shuddered and faded.

"Well." From outside, Cara watched Ilya stride away into the night. "What was that all about? Why did he ride back here?"

Tess stepped out beside her and let the tent flap chime closed behind. "There's the obvious answer. A jahar of envoys. You know, Cara, that damned education of his is going to make him a rather different breed of barbarian conqueror. But I don't think that's the complete answer, and I can't put the rest of the puzzle together yet."

Six days brought the huge ungainly mass of the jaran camp into a broad valley at the foot of the mountains. A few fields had survived the invasion, but not many, Tess noted. She rode out with Aleksi, who had come back to take his place at her side, to view the burned city and the refugee town growing up all makeshift and scattered within the city's half-ruined walls. They picked their way along the streets, the troop of fifty riders that Aleksi now commanded in neat lines behind them.

It had rained for the last two days, although this day was clear, and mud spattered their horses' legs and choked the entry ways of the hovels built out of what wood and brick remained to the refugees. Mercifully, Tess saw no corpses and no men, either, but many women and hordes of children. A girl with sunken eyes and a swollen belly clutched a rag doll and stared as they rode past her. Two boys picked through the litter of a burned house, seeking treasure. They glanced over their shoulders at the riders, but hunger or familiarity had made them apathetic and they simply went on with their digging.

A thin young woman holding a thin baby looked up at them and then away. Tess wondered if she had tried to sell her body, to trade herself for food for the child, only to find herself scorned and ignored. What else could such a woman do, except scavenge in the ruins? But Tess had seen women working out in the fields; surely some kind of government still existed here.

"Let's go back," she said. They rode back past the row of tents Cara had appropriated for a hospital. Tess waved at Niko and Juli and rode on into the main camp. Aleksi took her mare, and she walked alone to the very center, where she found Ilya scolding Yaroslav Sakhalin's second-in-command.

"Of course we don't want to leave soldiers behind to regroup and attack us again, but it does us no good to kill all the farmers as well. Yes, the ones who sow the ground. Who is to supply our army once we reach lands where there isn't enough pasture for our herds? In future, farmers as well as artisans are to be spared. Otherwise, you did well. Now, all of this take on to Sakhalin, and tell him to send his nephew back to me. The Habakar general and his son?" Ilya looked up, saw Tess, and beckoned her over. "Yes, I will see Veselov now. You may go." The man signed his obedience and hurried away.

"What general?" Tess asked. Ilya sat on a pillow below an awning strung out before her tent. "You're looking angry again. I'm beginning to see a pattern here. This has something to do with Vasil, doesn't it?"

"Would you sit down, please?" Since he sounded so irritated, she complied, though she didn't feel much like sitting at the moment after being on horseback all morning. "What can I do, Tess? If I wish to keep the loyalty of my people, then I must abide by our traditions. If I abide by our traditions, then I must accept him as dyan of his tribe."

"Then accept it, Ilya, and send him somewhere far away. To the coast, as you did Suvorin."

"I don't trust him."

"Then keep him close by, so you can keep an eye on him."

"That's worse."

"Why?"

His hands lay in tight fists, one on each knee, and he sat so straight that the line of embroidery on the sleeves of his shirt stretched unbroken by wrinkles or folds from shoulder to wrist. His saber rested on the ground to his left, hilt by his knee, and his horse-tail staff lay to his right, propped up on its wooden stand. "There he is. Stay by me."

Vasil approached, flanked by men from the Veselov jahar. They escorted three men, a bedraggled-looking older man, a scarred, upright soldier, and a boy dressed in a rich surcoat who looked to be about Mitya's age.

Vasil made a great show of halting before Ilya and beckoning the prisoners forward. Ilya neither moved nor reacted. He was so tense that Tess had to stifle an urge to place a reassuring hand on his thigh.

"I present these prisoners to you, Bakhtiian, as proof of my worthiness to succeed my father as dyan of the Veselov tribe. This is the Habakar nobleman Yalik anSiyal and his son Qushid anYalik. This captain fought courageously in defense of the boy and for his valor we spared his life."

Ilya examined the prisoners. He did not look at Vasil at all, although Vasil gazed raptly on him. The general abased himself and a moment later the boy did as well. The captain knelt, but no farther did he bend.

"Very well," Ilya said to the air. "I accept them. You are dismissed." Vasil did not move. A few of the Veselov soldiers shifted nervously. "You are dismissed," repeated Ilya in a cold voice.

Tess caught Vasil's eye and nodded her head. Faced with her command, he had no choice but to go. The prisoners remained behind. Once Vasil vanished from sight, Ilya's shoulders relaxed.

"Konstans. Take them away."

"What should I do with them, Bakhtiian?"

"Gods. Confine them somewhere. I'll deal with them later."

"Ilya, I make this suggestion." Tess examined the boy. "It's children his age we can make the best use of. We should start a school, teach him khush. He can act as an interpreter."

The tension brought by Vasil evaporated completely as Ilya considered her words. "He's about Mitya's age. If we make enough links between their people and ours, then when we rule them, we'll rule the better for it. He is yours, Tess."

"Mine!"

"It's your school to establish, as an envoy."

She laughed. "Very well. And leave the brave captain as his bodyguard, perhaps. I don't know what you want to do with the father."

"He fled the field, according to Sakhalin," said Ilya. "Deserted his army."

"Ilya."

He glanced at her. "It would be more merciful to kill him, I suppose. I'll give him to Mother Sakhalin as a servant. Konstans? Ah, here comes the embassy."

Konstans led the prisoners away.

"What embassy?" Tess saw a troop of about twenty horsemen coming through camp, but then they parted to reveal a ragged group of women in their midst. Khaja women. "Their men all dead or gone," said Tess softly. "Who is left to plead but the women?"

Ilya's gaze flashed her way, but he said nothing. Half the riders dismounted and herded the women forward, careful to keep themselves between the foremost woman and Bakhtiian himself. They let the embassy kneel some twenty paces from the awning. All of the women abased themselves, lowering their foreheads to the ground: all but one. She knelt at the front of the group, and she wore golden armbands and a rich golden surcoat. She bowed her head, but proudly, and it was she who spoke.

"I am named Viaka, daughter of Headman Karst of the Farisa people. We come, we women, to beg mercy of you." Her khush was halting, but even when she begged mercy, she did it without meekness.

"How have you learned khush?" Ilya asked. His eyes narrowed, and he examined the surcoat intently.

"A man of your people taught me." She flushed, a stain along her dark skin.

Ilya stood up. "You say you are a woman of the Farisa people, yet you wear a Habakar nobleman's cloth."

"It was given-" Her head jerked up, and she looked angry and defensive, as if she were afraid he would take it from her. "Fair spoils for my help."

'I command the spoils in this army," he said, his voice low but so threatening that the woman collapsed in fear onto the ground, abasing herself with the others.

"Forgive me," she said into the dirt.

"Who gave it to you?" he demanded.

"A rider. His name was Vasil."

Ilya swore under his breath. "Of course," he muttered. "Of course it would be Vasil." He turned on his heel and stalked back inside the tent.

No one moved for a moment. Some of the other women glanced up, terrified and yet desperately wanting to know what was going on. Viaka stayed prone in the mud. One of the women had a pack on her back that wiggled suddenly: a baby. Tess sighed. Someone had to dispose of them.

"Come now," she said briskly. "It was ill done, and I think, Viaka, daughter of Headman Karst, that you'd do best to simply give all your spoils back to me. Yes, starting with the tunic. That's right. There you are, Aleksi. Take the coat from her, and the armbands." All the women looked up, gaping at the sight of a woman giving orders and a man taking them from her. "Now. What have you come here for?'' Tess was not sure what to expect. Would they ask for blankets? Medicine? Food for their children? Passage to somewhere else?

Viaka, stripped down to a dirty tunic and drab skirt, was too humiliated and frightened to speak. An older woman finally raised her head, regarding Tess with an expression composed mostly of terror and with little enough hope. She spoke in a voice roughened by privation and whatever horrors she might have seen in recent days.

After she finished, Viaka lifted her mouth a handsbreadth from the ground and spoke just loud enough for Tess to hear. "We ask that you spare our lives."

And that was all.

Tess was shocked, down to the core of her being. "Of course you won't be harmed!" she exclaimed, but even as she said it she knew that the harm was already done-that those who survived the summer would have to last out next winter. Perhaps in a year, next spring, those left might hope to build anew. ' 'If you build faithfully and-pay the tribute due to the jaran, then Bakhtiian will treat you justly. Have you-where are your men?''

No one answered her at first. Perhaps they took her silence for a threat, since at last one spoke. "Those of our men the Habakar did not kill are in hiding, princess."

"They've nothing to fear from us!" Tess exclaimed, and then she wondered if it was true.

"Ilya," Tess said that night after they had gone to bed. A single lantern burned, hanging from the center pole. "Who burned the city?"

"The Habakar general, the one taken prisoner. The Farisa ruled here before them, and once we struck into the country the Habakar rulers were willing to devastate the land rather than lose it. The Farisa people are eager to embrace our rule, having suffered under the rule of the Habakar King since their grandparents' time. Or at least, that's what the scouts and some of the artisans left from the city tell us. I have it in mind to recruit Farisa men for an auxiliary unit of foot-soldiers. Infantry. We'll need infantry when we besiege the Habakar cities."

' 'Would you burn a city to the ground like they did?'' The sight of the devastated city and the children picking through its ruins still haunted her.

"If necessary." He said it casually and turned to pull his shirt off over his head. He held a sleeve out in the dim light, examining a fraying edge on the embroidery. "Damn," he said to himself, and he rummaged in his saddlebags to find a needle and yarn to repair the damage.

Light and shadow mixed on his torso, blending him to a pale, sheeny gray. His hair seemed darker even than the shadows, and his saber hilt gleamed, caught at just the right angle by the lantern's glow. Tess propped her chin on her hands and watched him, and he smiled without looking up at her, knowing that she watched him. He was precise with his needlework, pulling out the frayed threads and winding new ones in among them, strengthening the pattern. He was equally precise in finishing off the ends and rolling the needles and yarn back up in their cloth bag and replacing it in the saddlebags.

"Haven't you anything better to do than watch me?" he asked.

She chuckled, and stood, and stripped. "Gods, it's cold." She covered herself with the blankets and fur, and quickly enough he slid in beside her. She yelped. "Your hands are cold!"

He laughed.

A wind stirred the tent. It was a slight shudder, and then Tess heard the distinct sound of a footfall, soft, on the carpet in the outer chamber.

"Kolia, is that you?" said Ilya sternly, but he grinned and shook his head at Tess, who sat up. "Haven't I told you-?"

The hanging parted, and Vasil stepped through into the inner chamber. "Oh, I beg your pardon," he said cheerfully. He looked at Tess, but only briefly and without a trace of lascivious interest in her nakedness. All avid, his gaze fastened on Ilya. "I could join you," he offered.

Tess was so astounded by Vasil's audacity that she gaped at him and did not even attempt to cover herself up. It took her that long to register Ilya's stillness. An instant later, he was out from under the blankets with his saber drawn. Vasil stared at him, drinking in the sight, frozen, unheeding.

All at once Tess realized that Ilya was taking a step forward. One step-it registered, as if at a slower pace than she usually thought, and yet all their movements were slow: Ilya was going to kill him. Right now. No mercy.

She dove in front of him and Ilya had to sidestep to avoid her. He cursed. She jumped to her feet and slapped Vasil across the face as hard as she could. Vasil came back to himself with a snap, and in the instant when his attention was not quite off Ilya and not quite on her, she shoved him backward, back through the slit in the hanging, back into the outer chamber.

"And stay out, you damned interfering bastard!" she yelled, hoping that Aleksi would hear.

A moment later, Aleksi's voice came from outside. "Tess?"

"Escort him back to his camp, Aleksi." Her voice shook because she was now breathing so hard, panting. Adrenaline raced through her. Her hands trembled. "Don't tell anyone." Vasil, damn him, hesitated. He gazed at the curtain as if wondering whether to risk going back in, or if Ilya might come out. "Out," she said, "or I'll kill you myself." She grabbed a knife from a sheath hanging along one wall and held it up. "Or don't you believe I could do it? Or better yet, scar that pretty face of yours."

Vasil's gaze leapt to her. He smiled. "You're glorious, my sweet. Especially with no clothes on."

"Get out."

He got out.

Tess spun and went back into the inner chamber. Ilya sat on the floor, saber cast away to one side of the chamber, his face buried in his hands. Tess knelt beside him and embraced him, wrapping her arms around him.

"Ilya? Can you believe he-?" She broke off her laugh. "Ilya!" She might as well not have been there, for all he responded to her. As if he could not bear to look at the chamber, at what he had almost done. "My sweet love, he's gone. I chased him off by threatening to cut up that handsome face of his, which would have served him right and probably made all of our lives a bit easier. But I didn't think it was a good idea to kill him. He's shameless, it's true, but I don't think he's worth killing." She faltered. "Ilya?"

Oh, God, this ran deep. The old wound had just reopened, except-she could see it now-it had never truly healed. So ugly a wound that Ilya would kill to keep it closed.

A worse thought hit her. Was it hatred that had made him want to strike? Or was it fear, that what Vasil so obviously wanted he wanted too and was not, by jaran laws, allowed to have. / don't want to know. But she had to know.

"Ilya," she whispered. Broke off. You and Vasil were lovers once, weren't you? She could not make herself ask it, not about a person who was that much more beautiful than she ever would be, not about a person he might still love more than he had ever loved her.

"Ilya," she said, and her voice shook on his name. "Come to bed. Please?"

But he would not answer her, nor did he sleep that night.