His conquering sword

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

Karolla gave birth to a healthy son the day after they sailed into Jeds. She named the child Anton. Her husband was too wracked by pain and the agony of the voyage to be aware of much beyond the fact that she had delivered the child. Diana also suspected that Dr. Hierakis had Vasil drugged, but she was not privy to the councils of the Prince of Jeds and her retinue.

They spent forty days in Jeds, and Diana had, thank the Goddess, no time to dwell on anything except work. Owen drove them through rehearsals and arranged a series of performances that included "The Jaran Diptych," as he and Ginny called the folktales. When Diana wasn't rehearsing, she took care of Valentin and Ilyana, who were not as overawed by Jeds as Diana had feared they might be. On the other hand, they had seen Hamrat and Karkand, so they knew now what a city was. Only in that small space of time between winding down from the night's performance or rehearsal and actually falling asleep did she have leisure to brood.

"Diana, my dear," said Dr. Hierakis one night, "whatever are you doing out here?"

Jeds had a mild climate, and even at midnight in winter, with the winds blowing in off the bay, Diana did not need a cloak to walk the battlements. Although a cloak might have lent more drama to her situation. "I can't sleep," she said as she turned to greet the doctor and her companion.

"Ah," said the doctor, and Diana wasn't sure whether to be annoyed or grateful for the tone of the word. "You haven't met Dr. Kinzer. She just arrived."

Dr. Kinzer was a heavyset woman with wicked blue eyes. Diana shook her hand reflexively. "How do you do?"

"Glad to get off that choppy bay," said Dr. Kinzer with a laugh. "I don't have sea legs."

"I'm afraid I don't know your connection here…" Diana trailed off, feeling stupid.

"Owen Zerentous brought me in to look at a trauma case. Spinal injury. Quite a mess, from the preliminary imaging I've seen."

"Oh," said Diana. "Owen brought you in to look at Vasil. Can you-fix him?"

Kinzer smiled easily. "I imagine so. I can only do a preliminary operation in these conditions, though. The reconstruction work will come later, on Earth."

"Dr. Kinzer," said Dr. Hierakis dryly, "is one of our foremost experts on spinal cord trauma. Owen is spending a good deal of credit on Vasil Veselov. I hope he appreciates it."

"Who, Owen? I'm sure he does, but then, when he's in the grip of an obsession like this one… oh, you meant Vasil."

Dr. Hierakis nodded. "Yes, I meant Vasil, who will probably never think but that he deserved it. Are you going to stay with the Company, Diana?"

"Of course!" The anger hit with the force of storm waters. "What point is there in anything if I don't stay with the Company? Oh, I know what you meant-if we tour out into Chapalii space, but as long as it's theater, what do I care? As long as I'm working, as long as we're touring, it doesn't matter where I am, and I'm used to Owen and Ginny, and we do marvelous work and-" She broke off, aware all at once of how strident her voice had become.

There was a pause,

"It's an odd view, in a way," said Dr. Kinzer kindly, walking over to the battlements. "I'm not used to the lack of lights. And it's remarkably quiet." Together, they listened.

Diana could hear the lap of the waters on the rocks below and not much else. A woman was singing in the palace, in a room that opened out onto the battlements. In a pleasant if rather thin voice, she sang the words to a jaran song, something cheerful and tender about a baby's laughter and a brand new foal.

"That's Svetlana," continued the doctor, as if aware that Diana would rather not think, much less talk. "She helps poor Karolla at night. What a pleasant, capable young woman she is. I'm so pleased, for Aleksi's sake." Then she paused and peered through the darkness at Diana. The moon gave pale light to her face, framing her dark curls against the night-gray of her skin. "I'm sorry, Diana."

Diana had taught herself to close up the instant she began to think of-anything but what was safe to think of. "Poor Karolla," Diana repeated. "What do you think of Jeds, Dr. Kinzer?"

"I really did just arrive. The palace is nice-what I've seen of it."

Again they lapsed into silence, and into their silence a voice called out from the darkness. "Cara? Are you out here?" It was Tess Soerensen. "Marco and Javier just got in, can you believe it? And here I thought they'd get here first!" Then, fainter, her voice floated out as she evidently turned her head and spoke in a different direction. "Yes, Marco, the Company is still here. They can't leave until Veselov is able to travel." The voice grew louder, and Diana heard footsteps as well, more than one set. "He almost died twice on the voyage here, and then there's the baby, too, now."

"You still haven't told me," said Marco Burckhardt, his voice clear and carrying on the night air, "how Baron Santer reacted when you arrived with your escort of savages."

Diana felt her blood run cold. "I don't want to see him!" she whispered, suddenly frantic.

Dr. Hierakis's hand settled fleetingly on Diana's arm and then the doctor moved away from her. "Here I am!" Dr. Hierakis called out cheerfully enough. "And Melissa Kinzer has arrived as well. But let's do go inside. I'm sure Missy has had enough sea air for the day, and if you've been on a ship, Marco, I can't imagine you want to stare at whitecaps any longer either. Was Javier horribly seasick?"

"Horribly," said Marco, and laughed. "Who's that out there?"

"Oh, one of the serving girls, frightened that she's going to lose her employment here because her father wants her to marry some old goat. She's better off in the prince's service, and she knows it. Tess, let's take some tea up to Svetlana. She's still awake with the baby."

Their voices receded. Diana stood alone again on the battlements. The sea beat on the rocks below. She buried her face in her hands and managed by sheer force of will not to cry.

The days passed, and Diana stayed busy. She did not see Marco again.

The night they premiered "The Daughter of the Sun," all the actors were aware of an additional buzz in the audience. It was annoying, as if the audience had their attention half on the stage and half somewhere else. At the Royal Court Theater, it had become the tradition that the lead actress visit the prince's box at the intermission if the prince was in attendance.

"When the first Charles commissioned and built the theater," explained Baron Santer as he escorted Diana in all her makeup and costume up the steep flight of private back stairs that led to the royal box, "he insisted on the tradition." The baron was an elderly gentleman who looked mild and had the eyes of a shark. "Some say the better to view every beautiful actress who played here. He was quite a ladies man."

"You knew him?" Diana asked politely, and then recalled with a jolt that the first Charles had been Marco.

"I was a young man, and I had the honor of counting myself his friend." He surveyed Diana in the dim light, and for an instant such a light came into his eyes that Diana hoped she wouldn't have to do anything drastic, like shove him down the stairs. "He would have approved of you," he finished, as if he thought she cared about his approval.

"I'm sure he would have," she replied glacially.

The baron bowed. Then he led her on by a private door into the prince's box, where Tess Soerensen sat with the Baroness Santer, a woman considerably younger than her husband, and Niko and Juli. Aleksi and a young captain of the Jedan militia stood on guard.

"Diana," said Tess, but did not rise to greet her. She merely extended her hand, and Diana knew the part expected of her here. She curtsied deeply and kissed Tess's hand, on the signet ring.

"Your highness," she murmured and glanced up in time to catch a spark of humor in Tess's face.

There came a knock on the public door. "Ah," said the Prince of Jeds. Diana noted for the first time that Tess held in her other hand a folded square of paper. Perfume wafted from it, a sweet, rich scent. "Show her in."

The captain went to the door and opened it. Baron Santer raised his eyebrows, and the Baroness hid her mouth behind her fan.

A woman swept in. At once, Diana realized that she, Diana, had not done justice to her own entrance into the box. A moment later, she realized that the audience had turned its attention here, and that it must have been this woman all along with whom the actors were competing.

"Your highness," said the woman, curtsying even more deeply than Diana had and thus displaying a generous amount of white bosom from her low cut gown. She kissed the signet ring, and then promptly destroyed the illusion by lifting her head and smiling straight at Tess Soerensen, meeting her eyes.

"So you're Mayana," said Tess.

"So you're Tess," said the famous courtesan, for it was indeed she. Even Diana and the other actors had heard of her. She was a legend in Jeds, and now, this close, Diana could see that she was gorgeous, but more by self-assurance and ready laughter than from physical beauty.

"How do you know who I am?" Tess asked.

"Ilyakoria writes me letters, of course. Didn't he tell you?"

Tess laughed. "I had hoped to meet you sooner," she said, "but the affairs of state… Still, I'm not surprised to find you here, at the performance of this particular tale."

Mayana bowed her head in acknowledgment, as if the comment was somehow a tribute to her. She had hair more bronze than gold in color, perfectly curled, and whereas the box itself was decorated in a spare Florentine style, the courtesan's gown was simply cut but floridly ornamented in a manner reminiscent of jaran embroidery, and yet the contrast was not unflattering to Mayana.

"Come to see me at the palace," said the prince.

"Is that a command, your highness?"

Tess smiled. "No, I ask it as any woman might ask another, whom she hopes will become her friend."

Baron Santer coughed into his hand. Through the sheer, painted fan, Diana saw the Baroness smirking. Or maybe not, because at that instant Mayana cast a sidewise glance at the Baroness and the two women's eyes met in some kind of communication: Diana could not be sure what.

The private door opened. "I beg your pardon," said Yomi, sticking her head through. "But I've got to call places for the second act. Diana?"

Diana curtsied again and made her exit.

Eighteen days later they made their farewells at court. Tess Soerensen sat on her throne and received them formally. She spoke with each of them, most briefly, Owen and Ginny longest, and when Diana knelt before her, she bent to take Diana's hands in her own.

"I hope, Diana, that you will keep well. I'm sorry about Anatoly."

Diana kept her gaze fixed on the pillow on which she knelt, on the sleek ship painted on the fabric and the eagle rising, wings elevated and displayed, emblazoned on the ship's sail, the heraldic device of the Jedan princely line. She could not bear to look at Tess, who had made a choice so different from her own. Who had been able to.

Tess sighed and released her hands. "Good luck, Diana." And let her go.

They boarded a sloop at the harbor and set sail out into the bay on a calm winter morning. The actors crowded the rail, waving and calling out to their admirers, to their friends and lovers from the jaran who had come this far with them, to Tess and Dr. Hierakis and Jo Singh, who were staying behind. David and Maggie and Rajiv, who had his arm around Quinn, lined the rail as well. Diana held the baby for Karolla while she helped her husband drink some water. Vasil looked strangely frail, but he had movement in his legs again. Dr. Kinzer had gone with the others to the rail to watch the city recede from their sight. Even the children had gone to look, everyone except the man too weak to move from his pallet, the baby too young to understand, and the two women who refused to look back at what they were leaving behind.

They sailed out through the islands and that evening put into the tiny fishermen's port on a windswept beach. Wagons met them, and a handful of Earth staffers, bearing torches. The mood of the actors was contagiously cheerful. They sang obscene drinking songs, and Oriana remarked that she missed Hyacinth's falsetto. Even Anahita smiled. Karolla, carrying the baby, trudged along behind the wagon on which her husband rode. Diana held onto Valentin's hand. Ilyana walked at her mother's side, staring wide-eyed around her.

The girl's eyes grew even wider when she saw the shuttle, its lean bulk gleaming silver in the little valley as the last tight faded away into the chalk hills. Dr. Kinzer had Vasil deeply drugged.

"What is that?" Yana asked. Her mother looked up, and faltered.

"It's an arrow," said Valentin.

"It's a ship," said Diana, "a ship like the one we sailed to Jeds on, only this one will take us even farther away, up there, into the heavens." She pointed to the sky, where even now stars came into view as night fell.

"But only the gods live in the heavens," said Yana reasonably, "and you can't be gods, because that woman died, the one who was a soldier. And the prince died. Gods can't die."

"Well," said Diana. She did not know what else to say.

"Come on! Come on!" called Owen impatiently from up ahead. "Let's get loaded up."

Yomi hurried back down along the line. "Di! Are you having any trouble? We've only got a short window here, so we must get everyone onboard quickly."

"Karolla." Diana took hold Karolla's free hand. "This will all seem very strange to you, but you must trust me. It's only there, up there in the heavens, that your husband can be made well again. It will be as if-he was never injured." Karolla looked down at the horrible scar disfiguring Vasil's face. He slept, unconscious of her stare, and Karolla brushed her fingers along the scar and then traced his lips, and then drew her hand away self-consciously. "You'll always be with us, Karolla. We're your tribe now."

"Yes," said Yomi, taking her cue, "and we need you, too, Karolla. We need a woman who can sew and weave and-cook and-there are many chores to be done, isn't that always so?"

"Here, I'll take Valentin on," said Gwyn, coming up. "Will you walk with me, little one?" Valentin thought about this and finally deigned to hold Gwyn's hand, although he would not stray more than ten steps from his mother.

"Your father and mother need you to be brave, little one," said Diana to Ilyana, and then Hal and Quinn trotted up.

"Here, Yana," said Hal. "I'll carry you on my shoulders, if you want."

"Can I help with anything?" Quinn asked.

Oriana and Joseph carried the litter on, bearing Vasil between them, and Karolla walked on one side and Dr. Kinzer on the other. Karolla glanced once round the passenger cabin and then sat where she was told and stared at her husband as Dr. Kinzer secured him into the larger of the two stress tanks. Valentin and Yana crept around the cabin and touched everything until at last they had to sit as well and strap in. The baby did not cry at all until the doctor took him and secured him in the smaller stress tank. Then he squawled mightily with that awful frantic infant wail through the entire lift-off and most of the trip from the surface into orbit. But at least his crying distracted his siblings and his mother from the other noises, from the pressures, and the odd sensations that surely disoriented them. At least his crying linked them to what they knew, what they were sure of-which was, that baby Anton was very very unhappy.

In orbit, the shuttle docked with a yacht sent out from Odys. Crossing the lock threshold, Diana felt as if her last physical link to Rhui had been severed. She had spent a year and a half on Rhui, and almost a year with the jaran. It seemed like a terribly long time; it seemed like no time at all. A deep sadness weighed her down, and yet, when she saw the gleaming, sterile passageway of Charles Soerensen's yacht, her spirits lifted. She was going home.

David loved the iris beds in Charles's greenhouse. He escaped from the inevitable commotion brought on by their arrival and fled to the quiet of the gardens. He sat on a bare patch of turf and just breathed in the scent of Earth. But he recalled the smell of the grass, whipped by the wind on the plains, and a whiff of smoke on the breeze wrenched him back to Karkand, that night after the siege when Nadine had come to his tent, her scent mingled with the smell of burning that had permeated the air. That night. Other nights.

David sighed. Then he heard voices, and there came Charles, leading a tour of the greenhouse for Owen and Ginny and several of the actors. Ah, well, one never could escape the world. One way or another, it always intruded. There was no point in dwelling on things that couldn't be changed. He got to his feet and went over to the others.

"Look," he said, by way of greeting. "Is that a group of Chapalli coming in? They look like protocol officers." He pointed toward the southwest entrance, beyond the vegetable flats.

"That was fast," said Charles. "If you'll excuse me," he said to his guests. "David?"

David went with him, circling the roses and the rhododendrons and crossing carefully through the neat lines of daffodils. They met the officials under the grape arbor.

"Tai Charles." The protocol officers bowed and folded their hands together. Behind them stood two Chapalii in mauve robes, three stewards, and a heavily veiled female ten steps back. Leaves curled down, framing them in green. It smelled of growing things here, heavy and rich.

"You have acted swiftly, as I ordered," said Charles, "to restore to me these members of my house."

One of the officials flushed red, the other blue. "Tai Charles." Blue faded from the official's skin, and he folded his hands into a different arrangement. "We have restored these of your retainers, as you ordered, but charges still endure on the protocol lists. As well, it is written that any ke who violates an interdiction must face the rite of extinction." Both protocol officials turned to look toward the veiled female.

David hissed softly on an exhalation.

"I will see that justice is done on the matter of the ke," said Charles. "As to the other, I order that all the charges be withdrawn."

This time, both officials flushed blue. "I beg your pardon, Tai-en, but only the Tai-en Naroshi may remove these charges from the notice of the Protocol Office, since he tendered them. If he does not wish to remove them, then they will be brought to the notice of the emperor."

"Ah," said Charles, expressionless. "I see. You may go-"

They had to go, of course. Charles watched them, and when they were out of earshot, he said. "An interesting legal concept, that he can define how I choose to interdict my own planet."

David shrugged. "Come now, Charles. Be fair. They did break the interdiction, you know."

A smile caught on Charles's lips and vanished. He turned to regard Hon Echido and his retinue. "Hon Echido. Your presence is welcome."

Echido bowed. "You are magnanimous, Tai-en. I will dispose of this nameless one immediately, so that you need not be bothered with such a trivial matter."

Dispose of the ke. It suddenly occurred to David that since the ke had no name to lose, she must therefore lose the only other thing she possessed: her life. She did not move, and he could see nothing of her under the veil. Was she glad of the thought of death? Resigned? Rebellious?

"I have other plans for this ke," said Charles, and he paused. "If she so wishes."

There was a long silence. The female stirred and was silent. Both Echido and the other merchant flushed green, the color of mortification.

"Nameless ones have no wishes, Tai-en," said Echido, and what his colorless voice could not betray, his skin did. David wondered if they had ever before encountered a Chapalii lord who cared what a ke wished for.

"Nevertheless," said Charles, "this ke has acted to serve my house, and I will not allow her to be killed unless she herself prefers death to exile. Good Lord, Rajiv would never forgive me, for one, and for the other, she's too good at what she does for us to lose her."

"What about Duke Naroshi?" asked David, suddenly fiercely glad that Charles could save one life, at least. It was a tiny victory, but a victory nonetheless.

"Hmm." No evidence showed on Charles's face that his flying in the face of Chapalii convention bothered him one whit. David could practically see the wheels beginning to turn in his head. "The Tai-en Naroshi and I will have to have a meeting."