An earthly crown

CHAPTER FORTY

Trouble came in the guise of a woman. It always did, Jiroannes reflected. The guards snuck two whores into camp and he caught them at it. He was not sure whether the guards intended to pay the women or simply kill them afterward, but the women looked desperate enough, thin and dirty and ragged. One had a child with her, a wild-eyed little creature with weeping sores around its mouth and a red rash on its arms. Once, Jiroannes would have left his men to it. They deserved some reward for their months of service in these God-forsaken lands. Jiroannes had not touched Samae in twenty days, and already even the sight of the whores' scrawny thighs and grimy abdomens moved him to lust. The guards had gone much longer without women.

"Syrannus," he said as the whores straightened their clothes and the guards rebound their sashes, "chase the creatures away.''

"Yes, eminence. May I give them some food?"

"Give them food!"

"Eminence, in these lands, whores receive payment."

"Do what you wish. Don't bother me with it."

The next day, the guards mutinied. Politely, it was true, but they sent a delegation consisting of the captain and his two lieutenants to present their grievances to their master. This would never have happened in Vidiya.

Jiroannes received them on the carpet. Lal attended him, standing behind his chair with a large fan, which the boy worked up and down. Samae was out getting water from the river. She did the work Lal used to do, and the boy had quickly learned the more elaborate business of being a personal body servant.

''Your eminence.'' The captain knelt and bent to touch his forehead to the carpet.

"You may speak."

"Eminence, you must know that the jaran women will have nothing to do with us. They call us names, eminence, foul names, and scorn us, and there are none who will accept coin or cloth or food for lying with us. Now you forbid us congress with these women who are willing enough to come into our camp. This is unjust. The Everlasting God has also decreed, eminence, that it is improper for a man to pass more than ten days without knowing a woman, for fear he will succumb to baser lusts."

It was true, of course. Jiroannes sighed. "I will consider your grievances, captain. I will have an answer for them tomorrow.''

The captain touched his forehead to the carpet again, rose, bowed, and backed away. His escort backed away as well, until they were far enough away from the tent that they could without deliberate insult turn their backs on their master.

"What are you going to do, eminence?" asked Syrannus.

Jiroannes smoothed out his trousers. The hot, stifling air made him sweat, even with the turgid breeze stirred into life by Lal's tireless fanning. "I have no choice, Syrannus. I must take this matter before the jaran."

"Ah," said Syrannus, and nothing more.

Jiroannes sat, brooding. Smoke cast a pall over the air, adding to the stifling heat. Although the Vidiyan camp was now situated at the end of ambassadors' row, in the least desirable site, still the tents of the jaran army spread out beyond his camp. Farther, at the eye of the storm, a city bled smoke into the heavens. Jiroannes could see its wall from here, a distant line. He thought there might still be some fighting going on there, but he could not be sure. Now that Mitya was gone, Jiroannes had no inside source of information. For twenty days he and his party had drifted along in the wake of the army, moving at the right time, camping at the right time, and otherwise utterly at sea. He did not know the name of this city, or which general was in charge of this assault. The guards had heard a rumor that Bakhtiian was ill, that he was dead, that he had been witched by the Habakar priests and that his spirit had left his body to do battle in the Otherlands for this kingdom. It might be true, for all Jiroannes knew. He missed Mitya's information.

He missed Mitya's friendship.

What a strange thing it was, to think of having a friend. There had been other boys at the palace school whom he had liked, but one never trusted anyone at the palace. He sighed.

"Syrannus, you will attend me. Together with two of my guards." He rose. Lal dropped down to kneel behind the chair.

"Where are we going, eminence?"

"I don't know. We must find Bakhtiian, I suppose, or if he isn't here, then whomever is in charge." The two guards took their places at his back, and they walked together out of their huddle of tents. Syrannus went ahead to accost a pair of older jaran men who were repairing a shattered cart wheel. He spoke with them for a while and then returned to Jiroannes.

"Eminence, these men say that Mother Sakhalin is in charge of this camp."

"Mother Sakhalin? A woman?" Jiroannes sighed again, but these days he felt only mild shock at such tidings. "Where will we find her tent?"

"In the center of camp, eminence."

"Bakhtiian is not here, then?"

"Eminence, the men say that it is true that Bakhtiian was witched, that he lies as one dead up in the pass. They say that until he wakes again, the army will lay waste to the countryside."

Jiroannes shuddered. Fleetingly, he imagined this army trampling through the lush gardens of the Vidiyan palace, careless of the destruction they wrought to the fine architectural and decorative work that they certainly could never appreciate. But they could destroy it. It was easier to demolish than it was to build, especially for savages.

He hung his head and stared at the rings on his fingers. Topaz, that one, malachite, a thick band of plain gold, and a single diamond set in gold leaves bound with pewter. All along, it had been easier for him to scorn the jaran as the barbarians they definitely were than to try to understand them and build a bridge across which he and they could truly communicate.

"We will attend Mother Sakhalin," he said softly.

Syrannus looked surprised, but he bowed his head and led Jiroannes to the center of camp. In the jaran camp, in the late morning, things were fairly quiet. Dawn and late afternoon were busiest, what with milking and watering and meals. A couple of boys pushed a handcart filled with dry dung through camp. Crippled men repaired harness. Two older girls churned milk to butter. Little children ran here and there, attended by the elderly. If the besieged city on the horizon disturbed them they did not show it.

At the center of camp they found a ring of guards, but just a single ring, nothing as elaborate as the triple shield that had surrounded Bakhtiian's tent. They waited here while a messenger was sent in. Some time later a young jaran woman arrived to escort them. Jiroannes swallowed this insult with no change of expression and followed her in, Syrannus alone attending him now.

Mother Sakhalin held court in much the same way Bakhtiian did, but she was rather more ruthless, Jiroannes decided. He recognized her immediately: the ancient crone he had seen watching the mounted archers at practice, that fateful day, twenty days ago. He recalled now how scornfully he had thought of her then. Here she sat in judgment like a queen, seated on pillows on a dais with two other women, one very young and very pretty, one almost as old as the old woman, seated on either side of her. The escort motioned to Jiroannes to stand to one side. He stood and waited. Syrannus waited behind him.

A cluster of women and old men argued in front of the dais. As far as Jiroannes could tell, they haggled over grazing and watering rights. One tribe had watered its herd too early, and in revenge the other tribe had grazed its herds on fields reserved for the first tribe. The old woman presided over this dispute with an expression of deep disgust on her face, and in the end she stripped both tribes of their current rights and assigned them worse rights-the last to go down to the river? the stoniest patches of grazing land? — than they had previously owned.

"You see," said Jiroannes in a low voice to Syrannus, impressed despite himself, "that will teach them to bother her with such trivial matters."

A troop of horsemen rode in and dismounted, all but one of their number. This last, a dark-haired young man, remained seated on his horse as if he were somehow in disgrace. A girl armed with bow and arrows was called forward to stand in front of the queen. She threw herself down and began to plead in a high voice, but the queen silenced her with a wave of a hand.

"The punishment is exile," said Mother Sakhalin. She turned to the pretty young woman beside her. "Your dyan will strip him of all that binds him to your tribe."

"My dyan is not here," said the princess. Her thick black hair was bound back in four braids and overlaid with a rich headpiece whose jeweled links hung to her shoulders. She regarded the scene gravely. The audience hushed. Glancing around, Jiroannes realized that in the course of moments the number of people attending had doubled. Stillness hung over them. "But my brother will act for him in this matter. Anton?''

One of the jaran soldiers came forward. If he were this woman's brother, then surely he was a prince, but Jiroannes could see no difference between him and the other men by the way he dressed. He was much older than the princess. Perhaps he was a bastard child of an early concubine and thus not a legitimate heir to power. He inclined his head respectfully to the two women and then turned to the mounted man.

"You," he said to the man, "whom we once knew as Yevgeni Usova, you will dismount."

The man obeyed. His face was white but otherwise expressionless. The girl kneeling in front of the queen began to weep. His wife, perhaps?

The captain gestured to one of his men to lead the horse away. "This horse belongs to no man," he said. He drew the young man's saber from his sheath and handed it away as well. "This saber belongs to no man." Then he drew his own knife. He laid it along the collar of the young man's shirt and cut, down through the fabric. The silk did not cut easily, and it was messy work, but with a grim face and an unrelenting manner, the captain cut the shirt off the offender, piece by piece, and let it fall into the dust. The young man stood there, silent, unmoving, and the sun beat down on his pale body.

"This shirt belongs to no man."

On the dais, the queen watched without the slightest sign of mercy on her face. But the princess had averted her eyes, as if the sight pained her.

"Yevgeni Usova is dead to us," said the captain. He turned on his heel and walked back to his men. At this signal, all the watchers averted their eyes. Some actually physically turned away, to show their backs to the exiled young man. He hesitated, but only for one moment. The old crone glared at him. Her mouth was a tight line, her expression implacable. The man turned and, with his head high, he began to walk away into his exile.

"Yevgeni!" The girl sprang up from the ground in front of the queen. "I'm coming with you."

He stopped. He was close to Jiroannes now, and Jiroannes saw his face whiten at the girl's words. If before he had looked resigned, then now he looked terrified. He turned back. "No. I forbid it, Valye."

She cast a defiant glance toward the queen and ran over toward him. "I don't care. I'm coming with you."

"Valye!" This from the princess, who flung up her head. Her eyes looked haunted. "You have a place here. You know that. You must stay."

The girl stopped beside the man. She was young, very young, with dark brown eyes and black hair like his. All at once Jiroannes saw the resemblance: they had the same blunt nose and blunt chin and narrow foreheads, features that proclaimed them to be relatives. "I won't stay. It's death to send him out there with nothing, and you know it. At least with my bow we'll have a chance to stay alive."

"No," Yevgeni whispered harshly, under his breath. "At least I'll know you're safe."

The queen rose. She was not much taller standing than sitting, but her authority seemed to enlarge with the simple movement. "Valye Usova, your loyalty to your brother is commendable, but I forbid you to leave with him. He has condemned himself by his own choice. Let him go."

"Please, Valye," said the princess. "You know you must stay here. You know it's what your brother would want."

"No! No, I refuse. You all say one thing with your mouths, but you cover your eyes to stop from seeing what you know is true. You know what your own cousin is, Mother Veselov, and yet he still rides with the tribe."

"He was banished once," said the queen sternly.

"Then why isn't he here with the tribe where he's supposed to be? He's still up there!" The girl pointed up, to the northeast, toward the distant mountains. Her voice rose higher, and it broke as she spoke again. "You all know why he's there, but you all pretend you don't know. You all know that whatever Yevgeni might have done, he's done as well."

"Young woman, you go too far."

The girl spun to face the captain. "Anton, aside from this one thing, what fault has Yevgeni ever shown?" The older man only looked away and would not answer. "None. You know it's true. He's an exemplary rider."

"He rode with Dmitri Mikhailov," said the princess. "For that reason alone, he is untrustworthy."

"And so did your cousin!" cried the girl triumphantly. "But you acclaimed him dyan as soon as he returned. Yevgeni was loyal to the dyan he followed, always. He is now, too; he's loyal to Bakhtiian. But you're punishing him because he was Vasil's lover once. But now Vasil has Bakhtiian back-oh, yes, he told Yevgeni about that and Yevgeni told me, so don't think you can keep it a secret-so Yevgeni is nothing but an embarrassment to you all-"

"That is enough!" The queen stepped down from her dais and marched over the dusty ground to confront the girl. "You will be silent, or you will leave this camp forever."

The girl lifted her chin. Unshed tears sparkled in the sunlight.

"Please, Valye," begged the brother. "Please, for my sake, stay."

"I'm going." With monumental disdain and appalling rudeness, she turned her back deliberately and insultingly on the queen. "Come, Yevgeni, let's leave." She took him by the arm and he had no choice but to go with her. The crowd parted to let them through and then, once they were gone, burst into a wild roar of exclamation.

The queen marched back to her dais and, with assistance from the two princesses, clambered back on. She turned to survey the crowd imperiously. "Quiet," she said. In a circle radiating out from her presence the audience quieted, ring by ring, until all were silent again. She settled herself down on her pillow. Her eyes searched the crowd. Her gaze settled on Jiroannes. He flushed, sure suddenly that he was about to become the next victim, a fitting close to the disaster he had just witnessed.

"Ambassador. What brings you to my camp?"

For a moment he could not move. Syrannus poked him in the back, and he started and walked forward to kneel before her. It felt very strange to kneel before a woman, and yet, at this moment, it did not feel degrading.

"Madam," he began, not sure by what title to address her.

"You may call me Mother Sakhalin."

"Mother Sakhalin. I come to you because-" He faltered. Without Mitya, he had no one to practice khush with, and his facility with the language had suffered for it. But Syrannus was there, kneeling behind him, and using him as an interpreter, Jiroannes felt able to go on. "I arrived in your lands with twenty guardsmen, of whom one died of a fever at the last siege. They have complained to me recently that it is difficult for them to endure without the… comforts of women."

"It is difficult for any man to endure that," said the queen. A few people laughed, but the atmosphere remained somber, and Jiroannes had a fair idea now of why the young man Yevgeni had been exiled.

"But I know," Jiroannes continued, more carefully still, "that your justice is strict. There are women of these lands, of Habakar lands, who would-ah-come to my men, but I did not know if this is allowed within the laws of this camp."

The old queen considered him. The young princess stared at her hands and did not appear to be paying any attention to this conversation. "If these men do not have wives, then certainly it is unreasonable to deny them this comfort. Certainly jaran women are uninterested in khaja men. But as you are all khaja, there seems no reason that you can't deal together well enough."

"Then my guards may allow khaja women into their tents?"

She watched him. He felt the baleful intensity of her stare, and he felt that she meant to play some horrible trick on him that only she would find amusing. "It is also true that the khaja women here no longer have husbands. They may well desire to be married again. That is how I judge it, then. If these men wish to take wives, they may.'' She paused and skewered him with a bright, malevolent glare. "You will see that they are treated as a wife deserves, will you not?"

Kneeling here at her feet, what else could he say? "Assuredly, Mother Sakhalin. You are kind, wise, and generous."

She snorted. "You may go, ambassador. Now, Mother Grekov, did you say there was a dispute over the stud rights of that bay stallion?''

Thus dismissed, Jiroannes rose and went back to camp, his escort at his heels.

"What do you think, eminence?" Syrannus asked.

"I think the old woman is no fool," said Jiroannes. "She must know that men will go to all lengths to find women, if they're kept apart long enough. So she has given me a way to keep my men happy."

"I meant, eminence, about the young man they exiled."

"He was caught fornicating with a man, of course. Although I don't know why the other man wasn't exiled as well."

"But the girl, she said-"

"She was overwrought, Syrannus. We must not listen to rumor. In any case, he will die, sent out alone like that."

Syrannus sighed. They had reached their tents, now, and Jiroannes sank gratefully into his chair and accepted a cup of hot tea from Lal. "But, eminence, what if Bakhtiian dies?"

"Then we wait. If a successor emerges, we deal with him. If one does not, then we ride for home and hope we make it there without being killed. Tell my captain to attend me."

He sipped at the tea. It was spicy, and it scalded his tongue. Lal really was very good, better than Samae had ever been, about making everything just as he liked it. Already, without being asked, the boy had begun fanning him against the afternoon heat. He recognized all at once that Samae had rebelled against him constantly, in subtle ways, primarily by never acting until he ordered her to act, so that her obedience was never a thing of her choosing but always a matter of her being forced to endure his commands.

The captain arrived and touched his forehead to the carpet in front of Jiroannes. "Eminence, you sent for me."

"Captain." He explained the terms that Mother Sakhalin had set them.

"But, eminence, many of us have wives, proper Vidiyan wives, at home. These foreign women are good enough for whores, it's true, but they aren't our kind."

"Captain, I understand your reservations, but I am presenting you with a solution. Keep whores, but treat them as if they were wives and all will be well. I will see that you have enough rations to cover everyone."

"But, eminence, what about their husbands?"

Jiroannes tilted his head back. Smoke rose in the distance. He wondered if the city had fallen yet. "I doubt they have husbands left. I doubt there are any men left alive in this land. I expect, captain, that many women will be grateful for such shelter as you and your men can provide them."

"If they bring children, eminence?"

"As I said, captain, treat them as you would your own wives. As long as we do not antagonize the jaran, you may keep them here. Do you understand?" And because the captain was wise enough to have risen up through the ranks to his current command, he did.

"Are you hungry, eminence?" asked Lal.

"Why, yes, I am." At the outskirts of his little camp, Samae appeared, trudging under the weight of two full buckets hung from a pole slung over her shoulders. Her face was still, bearing no expression. Why had she refused her freedom? The question nagged at him. It had bothered him for twenty days, now, but he could think of no answer.

"Eminence, here are some delicacies I made," said Lal, breaking into Jiroannes's reverie. He knelt before Jiroannes's chair and held out a plate of chased pewter on which savory looking pastries were arranged in an artful pattern. "I hope they please you."

Jiroannes wrenched his gaze away from Samae. He accepted the food. "Thank you, Lal," he said. "These are very fine."

The boy beamed and padded away to fetch warm water and a cloth to wash his master's face and hands after he had finished.

At dawn, Jiroannes was woken by Lal. "Eminence. I beg pardon, eminence, but there are men here to see you."

Jiroannes started awake and sat up. It was dark in the tent. A man shouted outside, answered by a whoop. A troop of horses pounded past. The rush of fear that hit him astounded him. What had he done? Whom had he offended? Had his guards raped some woman? Did his people, with their fine, superior Vidiyan blood and upbringing, treat their wives in a manner repugnant to the jaran? But they had no wives here, and no women in camp, not yet.

Lal brought him a knee-length brocaded coat and helped him into it, then tied his turquoise sash around his waist in a casual style-not too formal, for this kind of meeting. Hands shaking, Jiroannes went outside. In the half-light of dawn, he recognized two of the riders: one was Anton, the brother of the princess. One was the brown-haired actor, the man who took the most demanding parts of the dance.

"Ambassador, I am Anton Veselov," said Veselov. "I beg your pardon for disturbing you at this hour, but we are conducting a search."

Jiroannes blanched. He thought wildly about what items he possessed that might get him executed. Lal appeared in the doorway of his tent, and immediately Jiroannes was convinced that they had come to accuse him of consorting with the boy, but no one remarked on the slave as he hurried off to wake Syrannus.

"One of the khaja Singers, the actors, has vanished. Perhaps you have seen him?"

The brown-haired actor chimed in. "His name is Hyacinth. He has bright yellow hair, and he's this tall." He used an expressive hand to measure a space above his own head. "Surely you were at the performance of the dream play. He played the spirit who causes so much mischief."

"I believe I know which you mean." Jiroannes discovered that his voice was shaking with relief. This matter had nothing to do with him at all.

"I do beg your pardon for disturbing you, ambassador," continued Anton Veselov, "but we're asking at every camp, to see if anyone heard anything last night."

"He stole some things, you see," added the actor. "From our camp.''

"And either he, or his confederates, stole horses as well."

"Ah," said Jiroannes, suddenly quite sure who his confederates had been. "No, I'm sorry, but I haven't seen or heard of him. But perhaps you'd like to question my people. They may have seen something I did not."

"Thank you," said Anton Veselov.

In the end, to Jiroannes's surprise, Syrannus provided them with the first scrap of information. The captain of the guards had asked Syrannus to ride with him down to the river, where a ragtag collection of refugees had gathered on a flat field next to an abandoned village, there to negotiate with the whores. While Syrannus had been waiting, with the unholy glare of distant fire and the luminous stars and the last gleam of the waning moon to attend him, he had seen three riders splash across the ford, riding north. At the time, he had thought nothing of it. Now, he recalled quite clearly that one had been a woman, and another very awkward in the saddle.