His conquering sword

CHAPTER NINE

Nadine loved the breakneck pace of a courier's life. Through Habakar lands she raced, stopping at the staging posts set up along the northeast road that led back to the plains. Some nights she rode straight through, dozing in the saddle, her way lit by men bearing lanterns on either side. Some nights she slept in the comfort of a tent and went on at dawn. She loved the music of the bells that accompanied her at every instant, whether riding or walking, that chimed her awake in the morning and serenaded her to sleep at night with each slight movement of her shoulders or her chest.

In eight days, she crossed out of Habakar lands and onto the farthest southern edge of the plains. Five days later, she rode into a tribe at midday to receive the information that the Prince of Jeds and his party had passed by the morning before, headed south. Out here, on the grass, the wind raked over the tents and already the people wore heavy outer tunics against the chill. Women and children greeted her cheerfully; there were a few young men, so few that the old men seemed numerous in proportion. But Nadine enjoyed just walking through camp. She felt at home, at her ease, here in a tribe going about its life out on the plains. The etsana hurried up, advised of her arrival, and led her to the great tent at the center of camp. The elderly woman sat her down and fed her and offered her milk while the etsana's own grandson saddled a new horse for her.

"Ah, you are Bakhtiian's niece," said Mother Kireyevsky. "Natalia Orzhekov's daughter."

"I am." Nadine accepted a second cup of fermented milk from a dark-haired boy about Katerina's age.

"Your mother was a fine weaver. She had few rivals among all the tribes, although she was young to be so accomplished."

"Thank you," said Nadine politely but coolly. She didn't like to talk about her mother because the memory of her death was still too painful, and the ache of her loss had never dulled.

"We have sixty-eight men riding under Vershinin's command," continued Mother Kireyevsky, sliding easily off the subject of Nadine's mother. "Perhaps you have news of them."

Nadine was happy to indulge Mother Kireyevsky with such news of Vershinin's movements as she had. The Kireyevsky tribe was a granddaughter tribe and thus neither particularly important nor very large, but Nadine remembered them from her childhood, back from the golden days when her mother had still been alive. In any case, it was only common courtesy, and wise strategy, to give her a firsthand account of Bakhtiian and the army. Relatives filtered in and settled down to hear the news. The grandson brought a new horse, but Nadine felt she could spare a little time, since she was only turning to go back the way she came. Since Feodor Grekov was less than a day's ride away from her, now. She had no desire to hasten their meeting and what must inevitably come of their marriage.

"So, Vershinin and Grekov were sent to the khaja cities off to the west, to pull a circle all around the royal tent."

Mother Kireyevsky nodded. "Very wise of them. Like a birbas, where we circle the game and drive it in to the center. Vasha, bring more sweet cakes."

The boy shot a glance at Nadine before he trotted off. He had dark hair, as dark as her own, and deep brown eyes, and there was something familiar about him that nagged at her. "Is he also one of your grandchildren?" she asked. "He's a nice looking boy."

There was a silence. Mother Kireyevsky gestured, and the knot of relatives hurried away, leaving the etsana alone with Nadine. "You don't know who that is?" she asked.

"Should I?"

"That is Inessa Kireyevsky's only child." Nadine shook her head. "I don't know her." "Oh, but you do. Although I suppose you were only about Vasha's age the year that we rode beside your tribe for many months, so you might not recall. Certainly Bakhtiian would recall her."

"Would he?" Nadine felt suddenly that she was on the verge of an important discovery, rather like a mapmaker cresting a ridge to see virgin country beyond.

"Inessa Kireyevsky was my grandmother's sister's great-granddaughter. Inessa's mother was etsana before me, but when she died three years past, the elders refused to elect Inessa etsana and the position passed into our line of the family."

"Was she too young? Was there some other problem?" "She was young, it is true, but youth alone will not necessarily bar a woman from becoming etsana."

"No, Anna Veselov was very young when she became etsana. There was never any question with her."

The boy appeared, bearing a golden tray laden with sweet cakes. "Was Arina Veselov married?" asked Mother Kireyevsky. "Ah, well, married soon after; it comes to the same thing. Vasha, set those there. Then you will sit beside me." The boy obeyed. He sank down beside the etsana and folded his hands in his lap. He had a quiet, muted air about him, which he utterly spoiled an instant later by looking up at Nadine. His gaze was scorching in its intensity. "Vasha." He dropped his gaze and stared at his hands. "Inessa Kireyevsky was not married when her mother died, although by this time she had an eight-year-old child." "Ah. Her first husband had died, then." "She had no first husband. She never married." "But then how-" Nadine faltered. The boy's cheeks burned red, but he kept his gaze fastened on his hands. Well, she knew how; it was just astonishing for a jaran woman to bear a child without being married. The unmarried girls were so careful with the herbs that stopped them from conceiving, because, of course, it was shameful for a child not to have a father and a child's father was the man who was married to its mother.

"Yes," agreed Mother Kireyevsky. "You can see that Inessa was too stubborn and too impulsive to be given the authority of etsana. The man she wanted to marry did not marry her. The rest, she avoided or insulted or drove off in one fashion or the other until in the end they all shunned her. Luckily, she died the winter after her mother died."

The boy sat perfectly still through this recital, but his hands betrayed his distress, one clenched in a fist, one wrapped around it, like a shield.

"Leaving her son." Nadine pitied the boy, his mother torn from him, leaving him among relatives who clearly thought him a shameful reminder of his mother's disgraceful behavior.

"Leaving a boy with no father, dead or otherwise, and no closer relatives than distant cousins. That line was not strong."

"Why are you telling me this?" asked Nadine suddenly.

"Will you have another sweet cake?" Mother Kireyevsky asked. Nadine accepted, and the etsana placed the tray back on the carpet beside her pillow. "Inessa claimed to know who the child's father was. It was her last wish, as she lay dying of a fever, that the boy be sent to his father. The truth is, if it is at all possible that the child would be accepted as a servant, as a cousin, even, we would prefer to send him away. We would never have presumed… but when you came, today, I can only believe that it is a sign from the gods, that what Inessa wished ought indeed to happen."

Nadine knew what was coming. Now, when she looked at the boy, she understood why he seemed familiar to her, why his features struck such a deep chord.

Mother Kireyevsky cleared her throat, coughed, and spoke. "She claimed that his father was Ilyakoria Orzhekov."

"My uncle. Bakhtiian." The resemblance was striking, once you looked for it. The boy had Ilya's eyes and forehead and stubborn mouth, and the same sharp chin that she-his cousin! — had. Nadine stifled an urge to laugh. Gods, not just laugh, but crow. After what Ilya had done to her, forcing her to accept the marriage to Feodor

Grekov, ordering her to have children, well, by the gods, she would bring this little bit of mischief home for him to face. What a scandal! Nadine was delighted. "Of course he must return with me. I'm riding back to the army now, as you know. I will take responsibility for his well-being myself."

The boy's head jerked up and he stared at her. Nadine saw light spark in his eyes. Evidently he wished to be rid of his relatives as much as they wished to be rid of him.

Mother Kireyevsky eyed Nadine's clothing and her saber, and then her keen gaze came to rest on Nadine's cheek. "You are recently married yourself."

"Yes. I also command a jahar. You may be assured that the child is safe with me. What is his name? Vasha is short for-?"

"Vassily."

"Vassily!" Nadine was shocked right down to the core of her being. "How did he come by that name?"

To her surprise, the boy spoke in a gruff little voice. "My mama told me that that is the name he said to give me."

At once, Mother Kireyevsky cuffed Vasha across the cheek. "Don't mind him," she said hastily. "It's a story Inessa told the boy, that she told Bakhtiian that she was pregnant with a child by him, and he said that if it was a boy, to name it Vasil. As if any woman, even her, would do something so unseemly, and any man-especially not your uncle, of course-speak of such things so casually, even in jest. She told the boy many things, I'm afraid, and he's always been full of himself, thinking that he's the son of a great man. You needn't mind it. Of course Bakhtiian can't recognize him as his son-it's all quite ridiculous, of course, that an unmarried woman-of course he has no father, but we're grateful to you for taking him-"

"He looks like him," said Nadine, cutting across Mother Kireyevsky's comments, "as I'm sure you must know." She was beginning to dislike the woman. She was beginning to dislike Inessa Kireyevsky, too, and wondered if she would dislike the boy just as much. Although it was rather late for that, now that she had already agreed to take him. "But in any case, I must go. I'll need a horse for him and whatever things are his, or that he got from his mother."

Mother Kireyevsky stood and shook out her skirts briskly. "Oh, he'll travel very light. He's got nothing, really, just her tent and a few trinkets."

"He gave my mother a necklace," said the boy. "It's gold with round white stones. He brought it from over the seas. From a khaja city called Jeds." He said the word as if it was a talisman, a mark identifying him as the true prince, the heir, because what common boy of the tribes, of a granddaughter tribe like this one, would have any reason to know of Jeds?

"Go get your things, Vasha," said Mother Kireyevsky curtly. Now that she had what she wanted, she sped Nadine's leave-taking along as swiftly as if she feared that Nadine would change her mind and leave her with the unwanted child.

They rode out in silence. After a while, seeing that his seat on his horse was sturdy and that he was minded to be quiet and obedient, Nadine spoke to him.

"How old are you, Vasha?"

"I was born in the Year of the Hawk."

"Oh, gods," she murmured under her breath. The Year of the Hawk. The year her mother died; the year her brother and her grandparents died; the year Bakhtiian killed the man who had murdered them. The year Bakhtiian stood up before the assembled elders of the tribes-most of the tribes, in any case-and persuaded them that the vision the gods had given him was the vision the tribes ought to follow. Eleven years ago all this had taken place. In eleven years, much had changed. Everything had changed. Nadine felt a sudden misgiving, wondering how Ilya might treat a child who reminded him so bitterly of those days. Eleven years ago Ilya had banished Vasil from his jahar; he had seen his mother's younger sister invested as etsana of the Orzhekov tribe and had himself become the most powerful dyan in the jaran. Perhaps he didn't want to be reminded of what he had paid to bring his dreams to fruition.

"Is it true?" asked the boy suddenly. Nadine looked at him and saw the aching vulnerability of his expression. "Is he really my father? My mama always said so, but…" His face twisted with pain. "… but she lied, sometimes, when it suited her. She said it was true. She said he would have married her, but she never said why he didn't, so I don't think he ever would have. Only that she wanted him to. And then she always told me that he was going to come back for her. Every tribe we came to, she asked if they'd news, if he'd married. He never had, so she said he still meant to come back for her. Then after my grandmother died, the next summer we heard that he'd married a khaja princess. Mama fell sick and died. Both the healer and a Singer said she'd poisoned herself in her heart and the gods had been angry and made her die of it. No one wanted me after that."

Nadine stared amazed at him, until she realized that the stoic expression on his face as he recited this confession was his way of bracing to receive her disgust. Either he wanted it, or he was so used to being rejected that he wanted to get it out of the way early and go on from there.

"I think you're his son." Gods, what if she got his hopes up, only to have Ilya deny the connection? And yet, how could he deny it?

"How can I be?" demanded Vasha. "He wasn't married to my mother."

Nadine sighed. "I'll let him explain that," she said, calling herself coward as she did so. Gods, what was Tess going to say? Well, who knew with the khaja; they had different notions of propriety than the jaran did. Maybe Tess would want to have the boy strangled; maybe she would welcome him. Who could tell? But Nadine had promised that he would be safe, and she'd hold to that promise, no matter what. She rather liked his brusque cynicism, although it was sad to see it in a child. And anyway, Vassily Kireyevsky's presence made no difference to her problems. Bakhtiian still needed an heir, and he still expected Nadine to provide him with one.

So it was with a troubled heart that she and the boy rode into the prince's camp at dusk the next day. A scout from her jahar greeted her enthusiastically and directed her to a copse of trees around a spring, where the prince and his party had pitched their tents.

She saw David first. His face lit up. He had a charming smile, made more so by the interesting contrast of white teeth against his odd black skin. He lifted a hand and called a greeting to her. Others turned, the other members of the party. David strode over toward her, grinning with undisguised happiness-and then stopped. Pulled up like a horse brought up tight against the end of its rope. His smile vanished.

Feodor appeared from around the screen of trees, mounted. He reined his horse aside and waited for her. Once he would have flushed to see her; he would have turned his gaze away and cast sidelong glances at her in a way she found provocative and enchanting. Now he stared straight at her in a way that annoyed her, knowing that he had a perfect right to look her straight in the eye in so public a place, now that he was her husband.

She dismounted and walked first to greet the prince. Soerensen came to meet her, looking pleased to see her. She gave him the news of Bakhtiian's recovery, and he took it calmly enough. Nadine found him impossible to read. She would almost have thought that he already knew, though she couldn't imagine how he would have found out so quickly. Perhaps he'd had the news at the Kireyevsky tribe.

"Oh, and this is Vassily Kireyevsky," she said. "Vasha, please, you can dismount now. Come to me." The boy obeyed meekly enough. He stared at David's skin, recalled his manners, looked away only to glance at David again, and then turned his attention to the khaja prince. "This is the Prince of Jeds, Vasha. Make your greetings."

The boy made a creditable bow. "Well met," he said shyly. "I've heard of Jeds. It's a great khaja city, and it has a-" He faltered over the foreign word. "-a uyniversite. And craftsmen who make fine jewelry." The boy had good manners, Nadine was relieved to see. Ilya did not tolerate bad manners, so perhaps there was hope.

"Well met," replied the prince, looking amused. Nadine watched, impressed, as he asked the boy a few neutral questions about his age and the horse he'd ridden in on and managed not to ask anything the least controversial- like who his parents were, or why a child his age was riding with Nadine. Then, as neatly, the prince dismissed him into the care of his assistant, Maggie O'Neill. Vasha stared openmouthed at her red hair and followed her away as if mesmerized by her height and strange freckled coloring.

The prince regarded Nadine with interest and said not one more word on the matter. "You came back to us," he said instead, and mercifully did not glance toward her husband, who had dismounted and given his horse to one of her men to take away.

"Bakhtiian sent me to escort you back to the army," she said. "Tess is fine. She looked quite healthy when I left her." She shot a glance at David, who had inched forward next to Marco Burckhardt to listen in. "We've been making maps together."

Marco coughed into a hand. Nadine could tell he was hiding a smile, but she wasn't sure what he found amusing in the statement. David looked troubled.

"I'm pleased to hear about Tess, of course," said the prince without a flicker of emotion. "I hope you will let us offer you some tea and some supper."

Before she could reply, she felt Feodor come up beside her, right up next to her. "That would be most gracious of you," Feodor replied, "especially since we haven't had our wedding feast yet."

Every now and then, Nadine got so mad that she went blind with fury. Usually she had a strong enough rein on her self-control. Not now.

The shock of her anger, the sheer force of it, froze her for an instant. The world had gone dark, though a moment before she could see trees in the twilight and clouds roiling above, covering and uncovering stars. She felt the cool wind pull at her hair. She heard the prince murmur words and she felt more than knew that they had all retreated, leaving her atone with Feodor out beyond the trees. She heard a man ask a question, and a voice answering, but these were distant, distant from her.

Feodor's hand closed on her elbow.

She jerked away from the touch and swung wildly. Her palm connected with his cheek, the blow so hard across the cheek that he gasped with pain. He grabbed her arms. "Not out here in the open, by the gods," he hissed under his breath. "You won't shame our marriage by acting like this in public."

"How dare you speak for me!"

"I am your husband."

"Not by my choice."

"You have no choice in the matter, or did you think your journey to khaja lands made you different?"

Like light poured into a pitch-black room, her vision came back. She staggered, overwhelmed by the sudden shift, and he steadied her. This close, she saw the cleft in his chin, and the scar at the comer of his mouth, and the slight bump in his nose where it had been broken in a battle three years ago. She pulled back from him, but like all jaran men, his slightness disguised his true strength.

"Dina," he said more softly, "why are you fighting me? I never tried to mark you before, not as long as I thought you meant to stay in the army."

"I do mean to stay in the army. Bakhtiian promised me that he wouldn't take my command away from me." She could not keep the triumph from her voice. "And you know what Bakhtiian's promises are worth."

Feodor looked stunned by this information. Nadine rocked back, forward, broke out of his grip and took five swift steps away from him. Then halted. She was panting with anger, and her head pounded. Stars flashed in her eyes and she was afraid that she was going to go blind again.

"But Mother Sakhalin said-" he began.

"Mother Sakhalin does not rule me!"

Gods, he had a mulish streak in him. She recognized it now for what it was, masked under that sweet, modest exterior she had mistaken for his true self. His mouth turned down. His fine eyes glinted with anger. "Perhaps she doesn't," he said softly, "but I am now your husband. Keep your command if you will. I'd be a fool twice over to contest Bakhtiian if he's already given his word. But nevertheless, I remain your husband. You may wish to be rid of me, Dina, but even if I die, you won't be free. You must have a child. You know it's true. If not with me, then with another man."

"Is that what Mother Sakhalin told you?" she asked scathingly.

"You may think as little of me as you wish," he replied, still speaking in a low voice, "you may think me a fool, as it pleases you. Mother Sakhalin came to my uncle and my aunt and pointed out that Bakhtiian must have an heir, more than one, to be safe, and that you are his sister's daughter and thus by right the woman who should be mother to his heirs. That much she said, within my hearing. The rest I managed to work out for myself."

Nadine had never suspected that Feodor Grekov, quiet, mild, shy Feodor Grekov, was capable of sarcasm. The revelation so amazed her that the shadow growing over her sight receded, and she watched him straighten his shirtsleeve self-consciously and wipe a bead of moisture from the corner of his right eye. She shivered in the wind. She wasn't dressed for the plains, for the night and the chill wind that tore across the endless horizon. In Habakar lands, heat still smothered the day and lingered far into the night.

"I beg pardon for insulting you," she said, though it pained her to say it.

"That was hard won," he said, with a toss of his fair hair. "Does your head hurt you?"

The reversal confused her, not least because her head did indeed pound furiously. She pressed fingers against her left eye, wondering if it was possible that an invisible knife was being driven into the flesh there.

"You need to rest." He did not move any closer to her, but the tone with which he addressed her irritated her. "You know very well," he added before she could respond, "that I've seen this happen to you before. I've already set up your tent. You should go lie down."

"You set up my tent!"

He shrugged. "Well, you left it with me."

"I left it with the jahar. That's not the same."

"But it's our tent now, or at least, I have every right to share it with you. Say what you will, Dina, but I know what obligations you have toward me, now that you're my wife."

"I had no idea that you were such an officious, stubborn, stiff-necked bastard, Feodor Grekov. I'd never have taken you for a lover if I'd known." He smiled. He usually had a surprisingly winsome smile; this wasn't it. This smile was smug and cocksure, and Nadine didn't like it one bit. "The boy needs a place to sleep tonight. I'll have to take him into my tent. I'm the only one he knows here."

"I'll make sure he has a place to sleep, but it won't be in your tent. Who is he, anyway?"

"None of your business."

He shrugged, not deigning to argue with her over so trivial a matter. "Do you want to eat first, or go straight to bed?"

The throbbing in her head had subsided to a steady, agonizing pulse. She did not want to go straight to her tent, but she knew she could not manage conversation with so illustrious a personage as the Prince of Jeds, and she did not want to face David and the others in this condition. She was ashamed.

"I'll take you to the tent," he said when she did not reply. What choice did she have? He knew what his rights were, and her obligations. But to her surprise, he left her outside the tent. She crawled in and flung herself down on the floor and just lay there in the darkness. After a while, the pounding in her head diminished to a dull, roaring throb. After a while, Feodor returned with hot tea, and Vasha, and a lantern to light them. The boy thanked her and begged leave to spend the night in the tent of the khaja lady with hair the color of fire. The entire speech had a rehearsed sound to it. Nadine didn't know the child well enough to know whether he was happy with the arrangement or resigned to his fate.

"You'll ride with me tomorrow," she insisted. Vasha agreed. Feodor sent him away. After a moment, Feodor crawled into the tent, hooked the lantern along the center pole, and took off his boots.

"Drink your tea," he said. He turned. He had long, pale eyelashes that never showed unless the light struck him just right, and lantern light usually struck him so as to bring out his most attractive features. "Gods, Dina, don't refuse it just to spite me. It ought to make you feel better." He began to pull off his shirt, hesitated, and then shifted to pull off her boots instead. She let him. Then she sipped at her tea and he watched her, just watched her, until she had emptied the cup. She was not used to him watching her so closely, so openly. The sensation made her skin crawl. He moved, and she tensed, but he reached away from her and extinguished the lantern.

Darkness. She sighed and shut her eyes. "You will have children. I order you to." She could still hear Ilya's voice. Ilya was all that was left to her of her mother. Nataliia Orzhekov would have had many more children, and gladly, to help her beloved younger brother. Was her daughter going to do any less than she would have? Nadine knew her duty.

Feeder's hand came to rest on her brow. He stroked her forehead and the circle of bone around her left eye, and the pounding in her head faded to an ache. He was gentle, and patient, and tender. She ought to have guessed long ago, though, about that other side of his personality, the determined, brash side. He was bold enough once he got between her blankets. She would never have kept him for a lover for as long as she had if he hadn't been.

She sighed and her right hand strayed onto his thigh. He made a noise in his throat and all at once-well, all at once. The change was so sudden that she only realized then how firmly he had clamped down on his feelings before. He shook with emotion, and she could not get him to take his hands off of her for even a moment, so she had a damned hard time getting him out of his clothes and he was a little rough with hers.

She was still angry, afterward, but much calmer. "Feodor," she began in a low voice, and then: "Oh, here, move over, will you? My back is up against the tent wall."

He shifted, and she shifted, and he traced her earlobe and the line of her jaw and her lips. "Hmm?"

"Feodor, you can't speak like that to me, like you did out there, before. It just makes me furious. And it isn't right."

"I can speak to you however I wish. I'm your husband."

"Yes, as you're forever reminding me."

There was silence. "No," he said finally, so low that she had to strain to hear, "perhaps it's myself I'm reminding. Gods, I dreamed, but I never thought-" He broke off. He turned his face into her cheek and just breathed. She felt like she didn't know him at all. "Anyway," he said, his lips moving against her skin, "I'll bet your head doesn't hurt anymore."

"Oh, gods," said Nadine to the air. She settled in against him. He began to hum under his breath: He was happy. Nadine sighed and resigned herself to her fate.