His conquering sword

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Vasil discovered that he could watch as many rehearsals as he wished, as long as he stood quietiy to one side. Sometimes Ilyana came with him, but the hours wore on her, and she fled back to camp, to her mother, to her chores, to the other children. The Company usually attracted an audience, but it shifted as the day passed; no one stayed as long as he did.

He watched. There, the tall, coal-black woman paced out a recurring movement, the same action over and over again. The young man with mud-colored skin tapped at his drums, finding a pulse, working it in with the scene being rehearsed in front of him. On the platform, five of the actors sang, with their bodies, a part of the old jaran tale of the Daughter of the Sun and the first dyan. The man, Owen Zerentous-Vasil thought of him as the dyan of the Company-measured their singing from the side, where he stood with his arms folded over his chest, squinting at the actors on the platform. Now and again he spoke, or they spoke or asked a question; after that the actors would pause, shift their stances, and go back through the same part again. But always, how they spoke, how they gestured, altered subtly at these times.

Diana shone. She had the art of shining. Of the other four, Vasil could only recall the name of the man called Gwyn Jones, because Gwyn Jones was the best singer of them all. They were all fine singers. Vasil could see that; he had seen it. Diana was particularly good. But Gwyn Jones thought so completely with his body that impulse and action became one gesture. And all trained to a pulse that the musician heard and transmitted back to them.

Owen Zerentous cocked his head to one side and abruptly turned to look at Vasil. Some thirty paces separated them, but Vasil felt that gaze beckon him. Zerentous lifted a hand. Clearly, he meant Vasil to come speak with him. Vasil walked over.

"I beg your pardon," said Zerentous politely but with a kind of detached presumption that Vasil would bow to his word, "you're Veselov, aren't you?" He didn't wait for an answer. "You've been interested in our work, I see. Perhaps you'd agree to help us for a moment."

"I'm not a Singer-" Vasil began, but Zerentous had already pulled his attention away from him.

"Diana, call him up to you as if to an audience."

Diana did not need to speak. She lifted a hand imperiously, as the Daughter of the Sun would do, should Vasil ever have the misfortune to meet her. The dyan who had fallen in love with the Sun's daughter had died an untimely death, of course; it was always dangerous to attract the attention of the gods. And yet, although the Daughter of the Sun beckoned him, she was also Diana. She was both. By such skill, by her ability to be both herself and the Sun's daughter, did she show her mastery of her art.

Vasil clambered up on to the platform and approached her, eyes lowered. Three paces from her he stopped. He gave her a glance sidelong, knowing he appeared to advantage with his eyes cast down, and then bent his head slightly, just slightly enough to show that he knew the respect due to a woman but without demeaning himself in any way, knowing his own power. They watched him, the actors and Zerentous, and whatever jaran audience lingered beyond. He enjoyed that they watched him.

"There," said Zerentous from the ground. "Did you get that, Gwyn? That's what you're missing. It's the modesty without losing the strength. Thank you, Veselov." Dismissed, Vasil retreated back down off the platform. "So, is it because she's a goddess that you approach her so humbly, or because she's a foreign woman?"

"She's a woman," replied Vasil, puzzled by the question. "Whether she's the Sun's daughter or a mortal woman makes no difference."

"Ah." Zerentous nodded, but the reaction mystified Vasil. "Run it again."

As Vasil watched, the actors sang again-no, they didn't actually sing, they played their parts. They acted. This time, Gwyn Jones imitated Vasil's own language of the body, his gestures, his stance, his lowered eyes, so expertly that Vasil was amazed.

"Better," said Zerentous. "But now make it your own, Gwyn."

They went on. After a bit, even standing so close, Vasil realized that they had forgotten him. Perhaps Zerentous was more like an etsana, truly, since an etsana often only noticed those of her people whom she had a special use for or those who shirked their duties. A dyan must know where each of his men rode, and where and how strongly they wielded their weapons that day. They called Zerentous a khaja word; director, that was it. Beyond, at the fringe of the Company camp, Ilyana appeared. She hopped impatiently, balancing first on one foot, then on the other, and when she saw that she had her father's attention, she beckoned to him. A summons.

He sighed and retreated. To one side of the platform, the tall woman paused and acknowledged his leaving with a nod of her head. Her notice heartened him. They had felt his presence. That was something.

"What is it, Yana?" He bent to kiss her.

"Mother Veselov wants to see you. Mama sent me to fetch you." She tilted her head back and examined him with that clear-eyed sight that characterized her. Vasil suspected that she knew very well the kind of man he was, but that she loved him anyway. "They're not pleased with you," she added by way of warning him.

"Oh?" That would have to be mended. It wouldn't take much time. He took her hand in his and they set off together, back toward the Veselov camp.

Yana shrugged. "You spend too much time here."

"Do you think so?"

She had a bright face, unscarred by sulkiness. Like her mother, she had learned to accept what life brought her; unlike her mother, she never seemed resigned to her fate, and she did not let the jars and jolting of life bother her. Where her little brother Valentin saw only the clouds, she saw the sun waiting to break through. Everyone liked her; she was, as she ought to be, a charming, brilliant child. "Well, it isn't so much what I think that matters, Papa, it's what Mother Veselov thinks."

"But / care what you think, little one."

They walked ten steps in silence. "Is it true that, a long time ago, that you and Bakhtiian-?" She faltered and gave him a sidewise glance, gauging his reaction.

Anger blazed up. How dare anyone disturb her with such rumors? But he did not let his anger show. "Who has said this?"

She shrugged again. "Sometimes I hear things. Once, someone teased Valentin with it, and Valentin just got angry and cried, so I had to protect him."

"What did you do?"

"I told him-the boy, not Valentin-that his mother was as ugly as an old cow, mat his father was as stupid as a khaja soldier, and then I gave him a bloody lip."

Amused, Vasil allowed himself a brief smile. "Well, I suppose that served the purpose, but really, Yana, outright insult is never as effective as more subtle methods. Who was the boy?"

She rolled her eyes. "I'm not going to tell you that! I can take care of myself. I always have, you know."

The words stung him. "Of course you can take care of yourself, but I'm here now, little one."

"Yes. But you might leave again."

He flinched. It hurt, the matter-of-fact way she spoke. He stopped her. "I won't leave you or your mother or Valentin. Ever again. I promise." He gripped her by the shoulders to make sure she understood. He could not bear for her not to believe in him. She had to.

For an instant he thought she looked skeptical, but it wasn't so. Like her mother, she must love him more than anyone else. She smiled her loyal little smile and stretched up to kiss him. "Yes, Father," she said.

At Arina's tent, he had to wait outside for a time, cooling his heels, before Arina's young sister admitted him. Karolla sat beside Anna, as she had for ten days now; Karolla had practically lived in Arina's great tent ever since Anna had been carried back to camp on a litter, after being wounded in that skirmish. These days she paid more attention to Anna than she did to her own husband, and every now and then, when he thought about it, he resented it.

Vasil knelt beside the etsana. Anna gestured with her right hand. Ilyana and Karolla left the tent, leaving Vasil alone with his cousin. She was as pale as the moon and scarcely more substantial than the high clouds that streak the sky on a summer's day. But he recognized the set of her mouth and settled down for a good scolding.

"Vasil, I am minded as etsana of this tribe to ask the Elders to reconsider your election as dyan. I have never heard any complaint about your actions as dyan, but in truth, these days, Anton is dyan in everything but name, and I refuse to allow you to continue to hold the honor if you don't also accept the responsibility."

He bowed his head. Gods, how he hated these discussions.

"Have you nothing to say?"

He stared at his hands, which lay clasped on his thighs. Then he wondered if, by turning his right hand palm up, underneath the shield of his left hand, the arrangement might express a different emotion. Except the fingers of his right hand stuck out then, from under the left. Perhaps if he curled the right hand into a fist, hidden under the looser curl of his left hand-

"You seem distracted, Vasil." Though soft, her voice was sharp.

"I beg your pardon." He lifted his gaze. She lay propped on pillows with her braided hair snaking down along the curve of her tunic almost to her waist. His dear cousin. She had always supported him. He was glad she had not died.

"I'll permit you a few days to consider," Anna added. "Come speak to me once you've made up your mind."

This was the time to insinuate himself into her good graces again; he knew it with every fiber of his being. But he wanted to go back and watch the acting. He nodded, allowed himself to be dismissed, and left the tent.

Karolla waited for him outside. "Well?" she demanded. Then she took hold of his arm and led him aside. "Vasil!

You've been infected by some madness. She's going to make Anton dyan again."

"What of it? I never wanted to be dyan."

"You did once. When you came back to the army."

"Oh, that-" He broke off. When he came back to the army, he had been sure that Hya would give in to him eventually, just as he always had before.

"Oh, that!" echoed Karolla scathingly. "She'll install her own brother as dyan instead of you. That's how far you've fallen. What will you do then? Become a common rider again?"

"A common rider? I think not."

"If not ride, then what? Why should Anna keep you in camp if you do nothing? Where will you go? Where will we go? You have no place here, Vasil, if you're not dyan. Or perhaps she'll take pity on you and allow you to ride in Kirill's new jahar, the one Bakhtiian is granting him. They say he's to ride south past the mountains and the great river, or east on the Golden Road, to discover which lands offer their submission freely to Bakhtiian and which must face his wrath."

He recoiled. "Ride under Kirill's command? Never."

"Then what? What, Vasil? Gods, you're of no use to anyone but yourself. You never think of anyone but yourself!"

"Karolla!" This was too much. Karolla could not doubt him. He grasped her hands and drew them up to his lips. "Never say so, my heart. You are-"

She wrenched herself away. "Don't embarrass me further by acting this way in public. What do you intend to do?" Quite suddenly, her eyes filled with tears, but she smothered them by wiping at her skin ruthlessly, so hard that it surely must hurt her. "Or do you still think Bakhtiian will take you in?11

Tess, pregnant, had a glow about her that made her look almost beautiful, and Vasil admired the way she moved with a rotund grace unimpaired by her swelling belly. Karolla, pregnant, simply developed blotchy skin, and she waddled already, often with one hand on her back.

Vasil folded his hands together and regarded his wife with what he hoped was a measured expression. "I won't do anything rash, Karolla. I promise you that. If I must speak with Bakhtiian, then I'll do so."

Immediately he saw that he had said the wrong thing. Her mouth puckered up. She bit at her knuckles. Then she spun and walked away from him. She rolled more, a rocking, ungainly gait. Valentin darted out from behind the screen of a tent and, throwing a single hostile glance back at his father, grabbed a handful of her skirt into a hand and clung to his mother, walking along beside her. Vasil knew he should go after them. Karolla always gave in to his coaxing. But right now he felt-empty more than anything.

He turned and walked back out to the edge of camp. A jahar riding in blocked his path. He stopped to let them by, and there, riding at her ease at the front of the line, sat his newly-widowed sister. She caught sight of him and as quickly, dismissively, her gaze flicked away again. Her fine, handsome face was disfigured forever by the mark of a marriage that no longer fettered her. Petya had died twelve days ago, of wounds suffered in the battle to halt the Karkand governor's flight. Vasil himself had supervised the burning of Petya's body, two days ride out from the besieged city, in marshland, his spirit sent back to the gods along with those of twenty other riders from the Veselov jahar. His saber and his clothes-those not ruined by blood-Vasil returned to the one of Petya's three sisters who traveled with the Orzhekov camp; she had wept copiously. Vera had not mourned with one single tear, not even beside the pyre. Without the least sign of grief, she had watched her husband's body burn. The next day, it was her arrow shot that had brought Karkand's governor down at last, mired as he was by that time in boggy ground, his horse blown, his last loyal followers dead or straggling behind him. But even then, she had shown no emotion except perhaps disappointment that the chase was over.

The jahar passed him, and he hurried away back across camp. But by the time he came to the Company's camp, they had finished for the day. Already the sun sank below the far rim of hills. A sudden, restless discontent seized

Vasil. Its grip, like a strong hand, clutched hard at his chest. He did not want to go back to his tribe. Nothing held him here. He had, indeed, no place, no place to go, no place where he truly belonged.

In time, his wandering led him on a spiraling path in to the heart of the camp, to the Orzhekov encampment. Guards challenged him. He used Tess's name like a talisman, and none barred his way.

By now it was dark. He hesitated, past the innermost ring of guards, and instead traced a route that led by discreet shadows and hidden lines of sight around to the back of Tess's tent. Out beyond, at Sonia Orzhekov's tent, laughter and talking and singing swelled out on the night air. Back here, silence reigned. He took his chance, and snuck in, ducking down, crawling, by the little back entrance that Tess had not sewn shut, despite her threat, past the tent wall, sliding out beyond the inner wall of heavy tapestries into the inner chamber of Tess's tent.

A lantern burned. By its light, Vasil saw Ilya seated beside his bed. Ilya twisted around to stare. Vasil settled into a crouch, waiting, waiting for the reaction, for the burning anger, for the sharp sweetness of Ilya's glance, on him.

Instead, Ilya rose gracefully to his feet and touched two fingers to his lips: silence. There, at his feet, lay Tess, deep asleep on her side, her hair spilled out on the pillows, her shoulders bare above the blankets. Ilya walked quietly around her and paused by the entrance flap that led to the outer chamber, then vanished behind it. Vasil had no choice but to follow him.

"What do you want?" asked Ilya in a reasonable tone when Vasil emerged into the outer chamber. He stood at his ease with one hand brushing the khaja table that crowded the far end of the space.

Vasil prowled the chamber, and Ilya let him, watching him as he touched each item: the carved chest, the cabinet, the table and chair, the nested bronze cauldrons and the bronze stove, a knife, the lush tapestries lining the walls, the two ceramic cups and bronze beaker set on the table. All of it, an odd intermingling of jaran and khaja; not one piece of it out of place by a fingerbreadth.

"You've nothing rich here." Vasil lifted one of the ceramic cups. In the dim light, he traced the simple floral pattern that twined around the cup.

"I don't need riches. Heaven has granted me its favor. The gold I leave for the tribes under my command."

Vasil pressed the cup against his own cheek, as if its ribboned surface, held so often by Ilya or by Tess, could whisper secrets to him. "I don't understand you." He said it softly, provocatively.

Standing mostly in shadow, still Ilya burned. Unlike the actors, who channeled light through them and shone with its reflected glow, Ilya was the light.

He regarded Vasil gravely, by no sign betraying the least dismay at Vasil's presence. "No. Years ago I thought you did, but now I wonder."

Vasil set down the cup. It made a hollow tap as it met the surface of the table. "You never doubted me before."

"I loved you once, Vasil, and never doubted you then because I never saw you clearly. I love you still, in that memory. But it is ended."

"Ended! For you, perhaps, or so you say now, when it's convenient for you to do so."

"We've had this discussion a hundred times. I see no point in continuing it now. It is ended."

"Then what was it you gave me, that night in this tent? That wasn't love?"

Ilya moved, coming around the table. He stopped not even a full arm's length from Vasil, and his closeness was like balm. He lifted a hand and brushed his fingers down Vasil's cheek. His touch was painfully sweet. Then, on an exhalation of breath, he leaned forward and kissed Vasil once, briefly, on the mouth. And pulled away, and stepped back.

"That is all it was, the memory of love. Eleven years ago, I gave you up because I thought I had to. I-" He broke off. "You don't understand what I did. If you knew- No, never mind that now. The gods have their own way of punishing our arrogance. Only you must understand, that I deliberately sacrificed you, Vasil, in the Year of the Hawk. That year."

The ceremony of exile. Ilya had spared him one thing alone, that day those many years ago, and that was the audience of the entire tribe. He and his aunt had performed the ceremony of exile in front of the men of the jahar. Vasil had always thought it the mark of Ilya's love, that Ilya had shielded him from the greater humiliation. Now he did not know what to think. He could not bear that Ilya could stand here and speak to him so evenly, so calmly. Gods, was it true? Did Ilya no longer love him? He discovered that his hands shook, and he closed them over the back of the chair to steady himself.

"I'm not sure you ever truly loved me, anyway," Ilya added, grinding dirt into the fresh wound. "Not as love is true, caring more for the other person, for who she is, in and of herself, than for what she brings you."

"By what right do you stand there and judge me? How can you know? Or is this by way of convincing yourself that you never truly loved me either?"

"No, I loved you. That memory at least is true."

"And by such scraps I must feed myself now? That is generous of you, Ilyakoria."

"Keep your voice down. I don't want to wake up Tess."

"Because you don't want her to find us here together?"

"No, because she's tired. Gods, Vasil, Tess would be the last person to condemn us for being here together. As you must know." Outside, a bell rang three times, softly. Ilya wrenched his gaze away from Vasil and listened for a moment, head cocked to one side. "Send them in," he said in a clear, cool voice.

Vasil knew an instant of such utter despair that he thought his legs would give out beneath him. Only his grip on the chair held him upright. It could be anyone, coming in to speak to Bakhtiian. Had Vasil been just another visitor-a dyan, a rider, any man from the tribes- Ilya would feel no embarrassment in being found with him in the privacy of his wife's tent. Another man might sit in conversation with Bakhtiian to all hours of the night, without it being the least bit improper. And if Ilya was now as willing to be found here alone with Vasil as he would be if his companion was Yaroslav Sakhalin or

Kirill Zvertkov or Niko Sibirin or Anton Veselov-gods, what if it was true? What if Ilya no longer loved him?

The entrance flap swept aside and two figures came in.

"Dina!" Ilya started forward, amazed, and embraced his niece. "Have you just ridden in? Where is the prince?"

"About two days behind us, with the pack train. I rode ahead. Uncle." She hesitated. She broke away from him and turned to look directly at Vasil. Her eyebrows lifted.

Under her scathing, skeptical gaze, Vasil flushed.

"Who is this?" demanded Bakhtiian.

"I see I've come at just the right time. Where is Tess?"

"Sleeping. Come here. What's your name?"

Out from behind Nadine emerged a boy. He looked to be a few years older than Ilyana. With his black hair and dark eyes and narrow chin, he bore a striking resemblance to Nadine Orzhekov. Except that Nadine was not old enough to have a child that age. And her mother and younger brother had both been killed the same year Ilya had exiled Vasil.

"Vasha, this is Bakhtiian. Pay your respects."

The boy's chin trembled, but he drew himself up bravely enough. "I'm Vassily Kireyevsky. My mother was Inessa Kireyevsky."

"Inessa Kireyevsky! Gods." For a moment, Ilya simply stared at the boy.

As well he might. It was hardly an auspicious introduction. Vasil remembered Inessa as a nasty, selfish little beast who had foolishly believed she could make Ilya love her more than he loved Vasil. For an instant, Ilya's gaze met Vasil's. Oh, yes, they both recalled those days well enough.

Ilya turned a piercing gaze on his niece. "Perhaps you can explain, Dina. Why are you traveling with Inessa Kireyevsky's son?"

"His mother is dead. Mother Kireyevsky gave the boy into my hands, and I promised-I promised to bring him to you, and to see that he was safe."

"Why?"

Vasil watched the boy, who watched Bakhtiian. More than watched. The boy stared greedily at Ilya from under lowered lashes, just as a man weak with thirst stares at a cup of water being borne up to him.

Nadine smiled, looking wickedly pleased with herself. She reminded Vasil much more of her grandmother than of her mother, her mother Nataliia had taken after Petre Sokolov, who was a mild-tempered, even-going man, rather than Alyona Orzhekov. Vasil had never liked Ilya's mother, and he didn't much like the look in Nadine's eyes now.

"They didn't want him. His mother never married."

"But how could she have a child, then?" asked Vasil, surprised. A moment later, he felt the movement behind him.

"Isn't Inessa Kireyevsky the one you lay with out on the grass, under the stars?"

Without turning, Ilya replied. "You've a good memory, my wife."

"For some things." Tess came forward. Her calves and feet were bare, but a silken robe of gold covered the rest of her. The fine sheen of the fabric caught the light, shimmering as she moved forward through the chamber. With her unbound brown hair falling over her shoulders and the high curve of her belly under the glistening silk, she looked doubly exotic and nothing at all like a jaran woman.

"You're the khaja princess," said the boy abruptly, jerking his gaze from Bakhtiian to her.

"Yes. What's your name again? Vasha?"

"Vassily Kireyevsky."

"Well met, Nadine." Nadine hurried forward, and the two women kissed.

"You look as big as a tent," said Nadine.

"Thank you. You look sly. If Inessa Kireyevsky never married, then whose child is he? How old are you, Vasha?"

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

"And you've no father? Did your mother never marry?"

He hung his head in shame. "My mother never married. That's why my cousins wished to be rid of me."

No wonder, reflected Vasil, a little disgusted. What place was there in a tribe for a child who had no father? The boy watched Ilya from under lowered eyelids, gauging his reaction.

"Inessa never married?" asked Ilya. "I find that hard to believe."

"Evidently it's true," said Nadine. She laid a hand on the boy's shoulder, a surprisingly protective gesture. "They didn't want him, Ilya, and they treated him poorly enough. I thought he'd be better off here. Especially since Inessa Kireyevsky claimed up until the day she died that you were the boy's father."

"How can I be his father? I never married her."

"Oh, my God," said Tess, sounding astonished and yet also enlightened. "Vasha, come here." Like a child used to obeying, the boy slid out from under Nadine's hand and walked over to Tess. Tess examined him in silence. And it was silent, ail of a sudden. Not one of them spoke. They scarcely seemed to breathe. After a bit, she tilted his chin back with one finger and frowned down at his slender face. "It could be. There's a strong enough resemblance, once you look for it."

"But, Tess-"

"Don't be stupid, Ilya. How many times must I tell you? If you lie with a woman, there's a chance you'll get her pregnant whether you're her husband or not." She lifted her hand to touch the boy's dark hair. "Vasha, do you know why your mother never married?"

He looked back over his shoulder, at Ilya. "Because she thought that Bakhtiian was coming back to marry her. But he never did. And she never wanted anyone else." Then he flushed, as if he expected a scolding for his presumption. Ilya wore no expression at all. Nadine smirked.

Tess sighed. "Well, it's possible. I'm beginning to think it's true. And anyway, I've been waiting for this."

"Waiting for this?" demanded Nadine. "What do you mean?"

"Surely this was inevitable?" Tess regarded the others, puzzled. "You don't think so?" Her hand traced a path down the boy's neck and came to rest on his shoulder. He seemed to melt into the shelter she offered him.

Vasil struggled to make sense of what Tess had said.

Certainly, a man might get his lover pregnant-it was possible, but it went against every custom of the jaran to consider that man the child's father; a woman's husband was the father of her children. So it was; so had it always been; so had the gods decreed at the beginning of the world.

Ilya made a sudden, choked noise in his throat. "Gods, I didn't think she meant it when she told me she was pregnant. What woman would want to get pregnant without a husband?"

"A woman who wanted you very badly. Is it just a coincidence that he's named Vassily?"

Ilya flushed. The dim light covered the stain to his skin, but his body, the sudden stiffness in his shoulders, the way his right hand curled around the edge of the table and then let go, transmitted the emotion in the gesture. "I thought she was joking," he said roughly. "How was I to know she meant it?"

Vasil let go of the chair, only to find that his hands ached, he had gripped it so hard for so long. "Do you mean to say that you told her to name the child after me?" he asked in a hoarse voice.

The boy flashed an astonished glance toward Vasil and then sidled farther into the shelter of Tess's arm.

"Be that as it may," said Tess, "I think you did the right thing, Dina. Vasha. Is that what you wish? To be our son?"

The boy gaped at her. Vasil scarcely knew what to think.

"Tess!" Ilya looked astounded. "We can't take him in. That's absurd. I'll raise no objection if Nadine wishes to foster him, but-"

"This isn't your choice to make, Ilya. Or perhaps I should say, you already made the choice. You lay with her. She bore a child."

"But, Tess-"

"Why should she lie? For all those years, why should she lie? Look at him. Gods, Ilya, just look at him. He's your son."

"But-"

"Not by jaran law, it's true. But by the laws of Jeds, whether bastard or not, this boy would be recognized as your son."

"This isn't Jeds, and neither are the laws of Jeds my laws."

"That may be, but by the laws of Jeds, and by the laws of Erthe, I acknowledge him as your son, and by that connection, as my son as well. And by the law of the jaran, by my stating it in front of witnesses, it becomes true."

As though felled by a bolt from heaven, the boy dropped to his knees in front of Tess and began to cry. Dya took a halting step toward them, stopped, took another step, and froze.

"You think it's true, don't you?" Vasil murmured, absorbing this knowledge from Ilya's face, which, the gods knew, he could read well enough. Yet how could it be true? And how could they take in a shamed child and yet reject him? A hand touched his elbow. He jumped, startled.

"I think we should go, don't you?" asked Nadine with a falsely sweet smile on her face. She took him with a firm grip on the elbow and gave him no choice but to go with her.

Outside, the two guards looked amazed to see him emerge with her, as well they might, since they hadn't seen him go in. She led Vasil past them without a word, on into the night.

"How can it be true?" he demanded of her.

"Veselov, just because the jaran have one set of laws doesn't mean that the khaja hold to the same set of laws. Gods, though, I didn't know what Tess would do. For all I knew, she'd want Vasha strangled."

"Then you believe it, that the boy is Ilya's son? Ilya never had any intention of marrying Inessa Kireyevsky."

"I suppose you'd know. What were you doing in there tonight, anyway?"

"That's none of your concern!"

Nadine snorted. "I could make it my concern, if I wanted to, but I don't. Well, go on, Veselov. Get. Go home. I don't think you need my escort."

Yes, definitely, Nadine Orzhekov reminded him of Ilya's mother, except that Nadine didn't seem to have the same ruthless ambition. Vasil hadn't been sorry when Alyona Orzhekov had been murdered; neither had he been surprised. Only, of course, the result of that awful massacre had been his own exile. Sometimes, when you wished too hard for something, you paid a bitter price.

Nadine left him standing there, just strode away, leaving him in the darkness. Stars blazed above, the lanterns of heaven. The moon hung low, as sharp as a saber's curve against the night sky. Far in the distance a scattering of lights marked the twin hills of the khaja city, torches raised on the battlements. For a long time, Vasil simply waited.

After a long while, the stars wheeling on their blind path above him, he realized that he might wait out here all night and through the day and on into night again, and the one person he most wished for would make no rendezvous with him, here or anywhere. Like a weight, the knowledge dragged at him. Like a sundering force, it severed forever the dream from the truth. Ilya would not ever again meet him as anything or anyone, except as Bakhtiian, Vasil thought that he might just as well die as live without hope.