His Conquering Sword (27 page)

“Jat! Where is the boy, damn it? Samae, dress me.”

She did so without word or sign of what she thought of her new favor in his eyes. Perhaps Samae’s exotic beauty interested Laissa. Vidiyan women had their own diversions within the women’s quarters, and what they did to keep themselves occupied did not merit a man’s concern, as long as they did their duty by bearing him sons of his own seed.

In the afternoon he walked beside Laissa’s covered litter, borne by two guardsmen and two servants of her own people, to the ground where the Company performed. Lal and Samae and Syrannus walked in attendance on him, and four handmaidens as well as the interpreter accompanied Laissa, so that when they came to settle themselves in front of the platform, they made quite an unwieldy little group.

After so long with the jaran, Jiroannes had learned to recognize the various ranks within the jaran; today many of their nobles gathered to attend the performance. Evidently, this dance was being danced for the first time, and Bakhtiian himself, accompanied by the Prince of Jeds, meant to attend as well. Mother Sakhalin hurried up, and Laissa, no fool, eased herself out of the litter to greet the old woman. Except, to his horror, she did not offer greetings at all. Instead, she and the old woman began haggling over right of place.

“Wife,” he began, “naturally we will move to a different—”

Two heads turned. Both women stared at him, most brazenly, and he realized that they were enjoying themselves and that his opinion was not wanted. Fuming, he retreated to stand beside Syrannus.

“They’re all barbarians,” he muttered.

“Look, eminence, there is Bakhtiian. With his wife and the prince.”

Mother Sakhalin and Laissa finished their argument, and Mother Sakhalin moved away to intercept Bakhtiian.

“Husband, we will sit here, as I said.”

“But—”

“We are displacing one of the Ten Tribes, but the queen mother wishes them to learn a little humility on this occasion, so she has assented to our presence here. She also sees the expediency in honoring me as an ally in high favor. I hope you understand that this benefits your position as well.”

Jiroannes only grunted in reply. They settled down, Laissa within the litter, one flap thrown askew so that she could view the dancing platform as well as her husband. Her handmaidens knelt around her. Lal laid pillows on the ground for Jiroannes, and he settled there, Syrannus to his right and the two slaves seated between him and the litter. At the front of the audience, Bakhtiian sat down between his wife and the Prince of Jeds. Two girls helped Mother Sakhalin sit on a pillow to the right of the prince.

A man entered onto the platform, three small drums slung around his waist. He tapped on them, drawing out a rhythm by whose beat a woman entered. But not just any woman: this was Mother Sun, who sent her daughter to the earth. Mitya had told Jiroannes this story. Now, the actors danced it. It was as if they brought it to life: the daughter’s exile and the ten sisters she brought with her to be her companions, who bore the first tribes of the jaran; how she met the first dyan of the Sakhalin tribe; how they loved, how they parted. The Daughter of the Sun traveled away into dark lands, where she bore his child, and he followed her, but in the end, as is the fate of all mortal men, he died. And in the end, as must any child of the heavens, she returned to her home in the gods’ lands.

They danced well. Their audience sat with deep respect, in rapt silence. Syrannus sat with hands folded in his lap. Laissa, by her profile, was as busy surveying the ranks of the jaran as watching the performance. A tear trailed down Samae’s face.

A tear! Jiroannes stared at the slave-girl. A girl still, perhaps; she had been so young when his uncle had offered her to him at the marketplace that she had not yet begun her woman’s courses, although of course the merchant selling her had assured Jiroannes that she was a virgin. In five years, Jiroannes had never seen her cry. He had never seen her show any feelings at all, except once that flash of rebellion, as quickly stifled. Except once when he had thought she had smiled at Mitya. Except now, when a tear lined her cheek as she watched the performance.

What did he know about her? He knew more about Lal, who was a common boy, son of a tavernkeeper and a whore, sold into the palace service and lucky enough to gain a place in Jiroannes’s household, and who by dint of hard work and ambition had risen fast. Already Laissa considered him indispensable, and the boy was certainly clever and industrious. But Samae—she had come from Tadesh, the Gray Eminence’s lands across the sea. She had been taught the concubine’s arts there, while still a child—or she must have been, because she knew them, and where else could she have learned them? She danced finely. Perhaps she had once lived with such a company of dancers—of
actors,
that was their proper name—when she was a child; perhaps she remembered them; perhaps she mourned what she had lost.

Stirred by a feeling he did not entirely understand, Jiroannes reached out and patted her hand. She flinched and jerked away from him, startled, her eyes wide. As quickly, she pulled her hands in against her chest and bowed her head and sat as still as stone. Jiroannes drew away his hand and glanced up. Laissa watched him, watched Samae, through her sheer veil, and a moment later looked away.

Jiroannes grunted under his breath and returned his attention to the performance. Well, that would teach him to try to understand women. The Everlasting God enjoined men to rule women, not to understand them. Still, he could not help but wonder what Samae saw in the dance—in the
play
—to make her cry.

After the performance, Mitya trotted up, all flushed and cheerful. “That was very fine, wasn’t it!” he exclaimed. Then he recalled his manners and bowed his head before Laissa’s presence. She acknowledged him coolly and sent her interpreter to invite Mother Sakhalin to her tent for refreshments. The handmaidens closed up the litter and the guards bore her away.

Mitya watched her go, bemused. “It’s a curious way to travel. She can’t see out, can she?”

“There are a few cunningly concealed slits in the fabric, but otherwise, no. In this fashion a woman can travel from one place to another, when she must, without exposing herself to the eyes of strangers.”

“Oh.” Mitya nodded, staring after the litter with a look of incomprehension on his face. “Well. It
was
very fine, what they did though, telling the tale like that.” He glanced at Samae, glanced away, and fixed his attention on Jiroannes.

“Perhaps you would like to return with me to my tent for refreshments:”

“Oh, certainly!”

In such charity they went, Syrannus behind them and the two slaves behind the old man. Under his own awning, Jiroannes seated Mitya on a pillow and excused himself to go inside for a moment so that Samae could re-bind his turban, which had loosened at the back. He sat on the couch and she unwound the cloth from his head. His hair fell down around his shoulders and down to his waist, and Samae lifted the ribboned strands and wound them back up in fresh linen. The quiet lent a kind of intimacy to their endeavor, contrasted to the bustle outside as Laissa’s servants prepared for the arrival of Mother Sakhalin.

“Samae,” he said, surprising himself more than her, perhaps, “what did you do as a child? Who were your parents?”

Her hands stilled. She tensed, not so much in fear but in astonishment, or anticipation, or anger. How could he tell? He knew so little of her. He felt the tiny movements of her fingers, caught half in his hair and half in the complex folds of cloth wound around his hair.

“Husband!” Laissa swept in. “Move aside, girl!” She cuffed Samae hard on the right cheek, carelessly, but her eyes glinted as she surveyed the slave’s retreat to the foot of the couch. “Come, come. I want you to greet Mother Sakhalin, and then you may retire to entertain the boy, the young prince. He is Bakhtiian’s nephew? No, his cousin’s son. How curious their customs are, but evidently he has no children by his own wives yet.”

Jiroannes rose, the cloth tumbled in his hands. “It is a grave insult to interrupt a man with his hair unbound. Apologize instantly.”

She took a step back, retreating from his anger. It reminded him of those first days, when she had been in his power entirely, when she had groveled before him. “I beg your pardon, husband. I was not aware—”

“Then you will learn. The Everlasting God commands us never to cut our hair and to conceal it from the eyes of strangers, just as we conceal the beauty and worth of our wives from those who might covet them. Do you understand?”

She bowed her head submissively. He clenched one hand into a fist and opened it. Her fear lent her a sudden attraction, and he felt the immediate, full force of desire. But he had a guest outside. “You may go.” She turned to retreat, for once not answering back. “Wife.” At his clipped tone, she froze and looked back over her shoulder. “I will punish my own slaves, when they deserve it. It is not your place to lay hands on them. Do you understand?”

Her gaze shifted past him, seeking Samae, and then darted back. “I understand,” she replied in a low voice.

“I will entertain my own guest. How you choose to entertain women is no concern of mine. Be sure that they are gone by full dark, however, as I mean to come to your bed tonight, and I expect you to be waiting for me.”

She dropped her gaze to stare at the carpet, and he saw that the prospect frightened her. This power he still held over her, who had been virgin and protected by her God from the appetites of men for so many years. Invested as Javani in the year she began her woman’s courses, by the reckoning of her people she had reigned as priestess for over sixteen years before the jaran had burned the holy temple. Another woman would have borne many children in the intervening span and been aged and withered by the burdens of womanhood, but Laissa had remained young, her flesh unmarked by God’s punishing Hand. So had the Everlasting God decreed, that women bear children as a punishment for their weak natures. Jiroannes intended to get many children on her.

She ducked her head and padded away into the safety of her own chambers.

“Samae.” He said it softly. “Let me see your face.” She did not move. He walked over to her and lifted her chin. Red stained her pale skin, where Laissa had hit her. Jiroannes smoothed his fingers over her cheek. “Never mind it. It will fade. Here, now, bind my turban back up, and then you may attend me and the prince. And you may go to him tonight, if you wish it.”

Her gaze lifted to his face. She stared, eyes wide, and then recalled herself and averted her gaze. Her astonishment pleased him, and it fed his desire as well. Tomorrow night he would not go to Laissa’s bed. Tomorrow night, perhaps, he would call for Samae to attend him once again. He sat down on the couch and let her minister to him. Was it his imagination, or did she perform her duties eagerly now, with a certain tenderness? He would find out more about her, who her parents were, why she had been sold into slavery, how she had come to learn the mysterious arts of the Tadeshi concubines, why she cried to see the actors perform their play. Quickly she performed her task and followed him outside, where she knelt in silence three paces behind him, eyes lowered, while Lal served tea and cakes to Jiroannes and Mitya. The two men chatted together, about the return of the Prince of Jeds, about the marriage of Bakhtiian’s niece, about the siege of Karkand, about the relative merits of the weave of cloth from Habakar looms and how much the merchants trading this fine cloth to countries north and south ought to be taxed by the jaran on their profits.

“I
’M NOT WELCOME AT
this council, am I?”

Tess squatted down in front of the chest, lifted the lid, and rummaged inside. “Ilya, in all fairness, why should you be?” She found the length of gold cloth she was looking for and drew it out. “Charles wouldn’t be welcome at your councils, either.”

“There might be a time when it was appropriate for him to attend.”

“There might be, it’s true. I think I’ll use this gold cloth to make a shirt for Vasha.”

“A shirt for who?”

“You remember him. Your son.”

“Tess, he is
not
—”

“Ilya.”

In the silence, he paced while she heaved herself to her feet and went to the table, to unroll the bolt there, smoothing her hand over the fabric. “He’s a good-looking boy,” Ilya conceded at last, “and he seems well-mannered. Katya likes him.”

“Katerina has befriended him, yes. But then, she’s a generous girl, like her mother.”

“Unlike me?”

Tess grinned suddenly and walked across to him. She took his hand. “I know it was abrupt of me to adopt him like that. But he looked so bedraggled and so pathetic. He’s so young. Was his mother dark-featured as well?”

Ilya nodded absently, attention on the entrance flap, not on her. Outside, they heard Katerina calling out: “Vasha! Vasha! Come here!”

“But what are we going to do with him?” he asked at last.

“Raise him as our child.”

“Our
child? But it goes against all our traditions … by no custom of the jaran would he ever come to me. Even so, we can never know if he is truly my child.”

“Do you doubt that he is? I don’t. Oh, it’s moving.”

He spread both hands over her belly and they just stood there. A smile caught on his lips and he closed his eyes. “Yes, I feel it. Our child, Tess.” He sighed, content, and drew his hands up to enclose both her hands between his. “Tess.” He hesitated, glanced toward the entrance, and then back at her. When he spoke, she could barely hear him. “We traveled alongside their tribe for five months, and every night I slept in her tent. It was stupid of me, to show any woman such exclusive attention, but—”

“But?”

“Roskhel’s tribe rode alongside ours for those same months, and I wanted away from my mother’s tent. I hadn’t a tent of my own, and anyway, Inessa was very pretty, so it was no hardship for me to lie with her every night. By the time we left them, she knew she was pregnant. Vasha is my child by the laws of Jeds, where such lines are followed through the man whose seed makes a woman pregnant. But we are not in Jeds. Nor do I rule there. By the laws of the jaran he is not my child, nor am I his father, except that I’m married to you, and that you adopted him as a foster-son.”