An earthly crown

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

Diana would never have believed that she could sleep so soundly after living through a battle, but she did. She slept snuggled in between Quinn and Oriana, for comfort, under one of the wagons, for safety, and if she dreamed, she did not recall it in the morning. Anatoly spent all night on guard. In the morning they hitched up the wagons and went on as if nothing untoward had happened: nothing except the lingering ash of the funeral pyre and the mound of khaja dead. She was happy to leave it behind.

And yet, handling the reins of the wagon, she felt-not happy, not that, but valiant. She had seen the worst, she had run out into the line of fire with no weapon but only a shield to protect her, and she had saved lives. Terror had racked her, but she had done it anyway. And the worst terror hadn't been on her own account. The worst had been seeing Anatoly ride out of the protective square of wagons straight into the other army. Had she even breathed between the time of watching him ride away and seeing him return?

All day the wagons rolled on through a narrow valley whose heights rose in stark green relief against the hazy blue of the sky. In the late afternoon they drew up in a broad field that bordered a rushing stream, and the word came down the line that they were allowed to set up tents, for the sake of the wounded. Diana delivered her wagon to a Veselov girl and then walked back along the train to find the Company, to see if Owen intended to rehearse tonight. Although surely even Owen would allow them a break after what had happened yesterday.

She had to stop, though, to stare. Green still, the heights, ragged and steep and falling down to the fiat bed of the valley through which they rode. In the forty days since Anatoly had returned, their road had followed this kind of path: long valleys snaking along river bottoms through the hills and then a sudden ascent over a pass only to dip down again into another green valley. The heat grew stronger each day; perhaps the summer would soon bake the hills brown, but for now, it was beautiful. They had been harried a bit, but yesterday had been the first time a real skirmish had hit the train. Pockets of the basins were dense with cultivated fields and villages, but most of it seemed to be pastureland. The only city she had actually seen had been the ruined Farisa city, but Anatoly assured her that far greater cities, Habakar cities, lay ahead of them.

And there he came, leading his horse along the line of wagons, looking for her.

It was a little embarrassing, how quickly she smiled, seeing him. It was gratifying, how quickly he smiled, seeing her. He loved her. He said so every day, and she believed him. Because it was true. Because a Sakhalin prince had no cause to lie-that much she had learned about the jaran and their various tribes-and because Anatoly wasn't the kind of person who needed or wanted to lie.

He came up to her, glanced around, and thought better of kissing her in public where anyone could see. But his eyes kissed her by the very light that shone in them, and his smile promised more.

"My heart," she said in khush. "You must be tired."

"Not when I see you." Definitely promising more. "My grandmother wants to see you."

If she had actually tripped and fallen, the sudden plunge could not have jarred her more. "But I don't want to see your grandmother," she said without thinking. The old harridan practically haunted her, asking every other day at least about supper arrangements and where Diana's tent was sited in the Company camp. Making sure her precious grandson was being treated with the honor he deserved.

"Diana, I know you don't want to see Grandmother-"

"I have rehearsal tonight. I can't go."

It took him a moment to process that one through. They communicated in a hodgepodge of khush and Rhuian, each gaining more of the other every day, but they still stumbled now and again. He shook his head. "No rehearsal. I ask Mother Yomi. Before I find you."

"Today you asked?"

He nodded emphatically. "Now I asked. Diana, I know you don't want to see Grandmother. She doesn't respect you as she ought to. But this time, I think you should go"

Anatoly was impossible to fight with. He always gave enough ground that she could not stay angry with him, and yet, he always seemed to get what he wanted.

"Why?" she muttered, but already she knew, and he knew, that she was going to agree.

"We will eat. No one, not even Grandmother, can say that you did not act as a good woman in the yadoshtmi."

"Yadoshtmi. Is that a battle?"

"Battle." He thought about it. "No. It was a small thing. Not a battle."

Not a battle. All at once, she remembered being out beyond the wagons, she and Galina, dragging in a wounded jaran soldier, and she had looked to her left in time to see a man clawing at the arrow in his throat and reaching toward her in supplication, pleading, for what-mercy? death? healing? water? — she could not know. And they had gone on and just left him there. She gasped, it was so vivid, and covered her face with her hands, but that only made it worse, because then she saw vultures picking at the heap of khaja dead and heard the little girl sobbing over the body of her dead father.

Anatoly moved. He enclosed her in his arms and held her tight.

"I'm sorry," she mumbled, almost incoherent, because she knew that he would be scolded by his grandmother for such behavior in public should anyone report the scene.

He only shook his head against her hair. "It's no shame for you to feel deeply," he murmured into her ear.

"Because I'm a woman?" She said it with anger, because anger was the only place she had to turn to. But she knew him just well enough by now to hear that his silence was one of puzzlement, and that dragged her out of the memory and back to him. She tilted her head back.

He regarded her with a quizzical expression. "No. Because you're a Singer." He wiped away her tears with his fingers. Then he insisted she mount the horse and he led her back through camp, like a queen or a prisoner, she thought wryly, to his grandmother's tent.

Mother Sakhalin greeted Anatoly with a kiss on each cheek, fondly, and Diana with formidable civility. "You have acted bravely in the yadoshtmi," she said by way of sealing her greeting. "Now you will eat with us."

Not that Diana had any choice in the matter. Anatoly brushed his boot up against hers, a subtle reminder. "Mother Sakhalin," she said, and the tiny old woman fixed her eagle eye on Diana's face. No mercy there for the khaja wounded, Diana thought wildly at random, nor even for her own, those of her own people whom she deemed had crossed over the line of the jaran law. "I thank you for this offer of hospitality.'' She managed the polite phrase Anatoly had taught her, realized she had gotten it wrong, and braced herself for Mother Sakhalin's disapproval. But Mother Sakhalin merely regarded her a moment longer and then turned to go back inside her tent.

Inside it was huge. The public chamber was easily as large as the Company tent, and behind it, behind a bold tapestry of lions, lay the private chamber which must, judging by the circumference of the tent, be equally as large. Hordes of Sakhalin relatives waited there, seated on pillows and served by an exotic collection of their own children, older jaran men and women, and one old khaja man who looked utterly out of place. Diana could not help but watch him as the meal proceeded, but they treated him no differently than they did the others as far as she could see.

Anatoly sat beside his grandmother. Diana was placed farther down, between Anatoly's younger sister Shura and an old man, and they proved genial companions. They even took it in stride when she paused for a moment of silence to give thanks for the food. They paused with her.

After they had eaten for awhile, the old man, who was some kind of an uncle, took it upon himself to begin the conversation. "In the Orzhekov tribe," he said, "they say you are a Singer."

"I listened to the first song you sang, you and the others," added Shura, a girl of about sixteen who was not as pretty as her brother but equally self-possessed, "and I thought, maybe a Singer of our tribe could learn that tale-make it to a song. Do you understand?"

"Maybe you could make it to a song, Shura," said Diana, thinking it was a wonderful suggestion.

But Shura went red, and Diana was terrified: she had offended her. "I am not a Singer," Shura said, making a little warding gesture with one hand. "There has been no Singer born into the Sakhalin tribe since my grandmother's great-grandmother's time."

Not offended. Shura was scared. "I am the only actor in my family," Diana confessed. "These are beautiful tapestries. Who made them?"

With this safe subject, they managed to while out supper time discussing weaving and then the complex thread of relationships within the Sakhalin tribe: who was related to whom, and how, and which cousins had stayed on the plains with Konstantina Sakhalin, Mother Sakhalin's only living daughter, and which had come with Mother Sakhalin to attend the army. That was the oddest thing about Anatoly and Shura: They were in fact orphans. Both their mother-the eldest daughter of Mother Sakhalin-and their father-a Vershinin cousin-were dead, and they had also lost two siblings, and yet they weren't orphans at all except by the strict definition. The Sakhalin tribe was their family and within the tribe itself, this web of cousins and uncles and aunts was so interwoven that it was rather like a blanket that protects you against the cold night. No wonder Tess Soerensen, orphaned and left alone with only a much older sibling who was distracted by huge responsibilities, had fallen in love with the jaran.

"Shura likes you," said Anatoly when they left.

"I like Shura," she replied, and he looked pleased.

They walked back to the Company's encampment. The barest drizzle began, but it was scarcely enough to mist her hair. It was already twilight, and under the awning of the Company tent five actors sat out with lanterns hung around them, staring at slates set on their laps.

Diana put out a hand and stopped Anatoly. She coughed. Hal looked up, saw them, and at once Quinn leapt up to her feet, collected the slates, and took them inside the tent. She came out with Joseph, and he had tea. He beckoned them over.

"Come in, come in," he called. "Don't stand out there in the rain."

Diana cringed. It looked so patently obvious that they were hiding something from Anatoly. She glanced at him, but he simply waited patiently for her to move forward. So she went, and they sat down. Anatoly sat on the carpet; she could not get him to sit in a chair. Joseph offered Anatoly tea first and then poured for the others, and they all tasted it politely and stared at each other: Hal, Quinn, Oriana, Hyacinth, and Phillippe. Joseph retreated back into the tent.

"Where were you?" Quinn asked finally in Rhuian.

"We had supper with the Sakhalin family," said Diana.

Anatoly smiled. There was silence. Hyacinth eyed Anatoly out of the corner of his eye, admiring him, but for once he was on his best behavior and he did not do one outrageous thing.

"Well," said Hal. He looked at Oriana, Oriana looked at Quinn, Quinn looked at Phillippe. Phillippe shrugged and looked at Hyacinth.

"That was a terrible fight," said Hyacinth. "Yesterday."

"Fight? Oh. Yes, it is terrible thing that soldiers attack the women and children. But khaja have no honor-" Anatoly broke off, looking chagrined. "I beg your pardon. I do not mean you."

"We know that," said Quinn. "But it was still awful. It was awful to see it. I suppose that's why you train to be a soldier, so you can be used to fighting and not mind it so much. You must have always known that you would be a rider, a soldier.''

Anatoly digested this statement and then nodded. "Yes," he said calmly, "I have always known I would be a rider.''

"But don't all the men ride?" asked Hal. "Aren't all the men soldiers?"

"All men can fight, yes. Not all are riders. Some man must be the smith. Some speak to the animals. A few are Singers, like you."

"Singers don't ride to war?" Oriana asked.

Anatoly looked perplexed. "What does she ask?" he asked Diana in khush. "I do not understand."

"She asked if Singers don't ride to war because they're Singers."

Now he looked confounded. "Singers do whatever they wish," he said, looking a bit suspicious, as if he thought he was being asked a trick question, "as long as it does not offend the gods' laws."

This brought another silence. "I'm tired," announced Diana, having endured enough gatherings for one evening. She stood up. Anatoly rose as well and bade polite farewells and they left and walked back through the drizzle to her tent.

"Are you really tired?" he asked once they were inside the shelter of the tent. "If it is not fitting that I sit and drink tea with the Singers, then I will wait here for you." He sat down and took off his boots and slid back onto the carpet, and watched her.

"Not at all! It's fitting that you sit and drink with them. With us. They just-don't know what to say to you, Anatoly. '' She knelt in front of him and ran her hands up the elaborate embroidery of his sleeves and hooked her hands behind his neck and rested her forehead against his.

He did not reply for a while. The soft hush of rain serenaded them. "I do not know what to say to them," he admitted. "I am embarrassed that I almost see such sacred objects that only the gods-touched may behold."

What was he talking about? Then she realized: he meant the slates, which Quinn had gathered and hidden away, so that he wouldn't discover that these khaja had magical tools-interdicted technology-in their possession. He didn't know what they were, only that he wasn't to see them; and he didn't even take offense at that. She sighed. He put his arms around her and tilted his head back and kissed her.

One thing led to another, as it so often does.

After all, they were still newly wed. Not quite seventy days, it had been, and of those days, thirty days entire at the beginning he had been gone, and of the rest, he might be gone for two nights or with her for ten, and during the day she only saw him in passing.

He was sweet. And she felt utterly safe with him.

She had to laugh a little, afterward, because he really wasn't anything like she had imagined he would be. She nestled in against him and sighed again, content.

"Diana," he said, "I am glad you sit beside Shura at supper because it is good that you come to love her, but I am sorry that Grandmother does not sit you beside her with the honor that a Singer ought to have."

"I don't mind."

He got that determined look on his face that reminded her that he was, after all, a young prince from a powerful family. ' 'It is not right. She does not yet wish to see that khaja may have Singers as well. The old ways are strong in her, but Tess Soerensen says to her envoys that we must bring new ways into the jaran as well."

"She does?"

"It is difficult," said Anatoly, "like giving a new rider to an old horse. They must each learn the other's gaits."

Diana chuckled and stretched out across him to rummage in her carry bag, searching for her journal. "I like that. And Shura said something to me today that I want to write down, too." She pulled out the journal and rolled back to her side, uncapping the pen, and made a note to ask Ginny about suggesting to a Singer that they make a jaran song out of some of Shakespeare's material.

Anatoly heaved himself up on one elbow and stared at her hand. "What are you doing?" he asked.

"You've seen my journal before."

"I have seen this book. But what are you doing?"

"I'm writing-'" She faltered.

But, of course, Anatoly was illiterate.

"These marks are letters and each letter makes a sound and you put the letters together into words and the words into sentences and-" She trailed off. She was not at all sure that he understood what she was talking about.

"But why do you do this?" he asked.

"Well, to remember things."

' 'But how can these marks make you remember things? This paper could be burned or lost. In your mind, it is always there. It can't be lost."

"But what if you don't know?"

"Then there is another person, a Singer, a healer, an Elder, who will know.''

"Well, there are other reasons." Diana did not feel capable of attempting to explain, not right now.

He looked doubtful, as if he weren't sure he believed there were other reasons. "Do all khaja do this, or only Singers?" Then he answered himself. "Tess Soerensen writes. I have seen her do it. And Bakhtiian has learned. Perhaps I should learn."

For some reason, that pleased her immensely. "If you want to, Anatoly, then I'll teach you."

"Well," he said, as if he couldn't make up his mind. Then he closed his eyes. How tired he must be, having fought in a battle and then stayed up all night and another day. She smoothed his hair back from his face and he smiled without opening his eyes and shifted to snuggle in against her. Inadvertently pressing against her right arm so that she couldn't write. Oh, well. It wasn't that important. She watched him drift off to sleep and she let her own mind find peace in a prayer of silence, as comforting as the warmth of Anatoly's body alongside hers.

And then she recalled that word they had used. She eased away from him and extricated her slate out from under the neatly folded clothes in her other carry bag. Glanced back at him, to make sure he was still asleep.

Yadoshtmi. Not battle. The only translation she could find was: "an annoying fly bite."