His Conquering Sword (42 page)

“You’re lying,” Tess snapped. “I asked you what you wanted, not what you think I want to hear. Do me the favor, Aleksi, of telling me the truth. I don’t like this.”

The cold edge of her anger shocked him into silence.

“Well?” she demanded.

He wrung his hands together. “I would like to get married,” he said under his breath.

“What?”

“I would like to get married to a kind, respectable woman, one I liked.”

“That’s settled then, Sonia,” she said in a curt voice. “Where is Josef? I have work to do.”

“Don’t you want to meet her first?” Sonia asked, looking affronted. “Know something about her and her family? See if you’ll get along?”

“Aleksi will make up his own mind. I don’t need to be involved.”

“Well!” Sonia rose and shook out her skirts. “I see that this is not the right time to discuss it. If you’ll excuse me.”

“What’s wrong with her?” Tess demanded as Sonia stalked away. Aleksi sighed and resigned himself to an unpleasant day. But at least she had agreed he might marry. That cheered him.

They sat outside for a while longer. Then, abruptly, Tess stood and went back into the doctor’s tent. Aleksi followed and found her seated at the table. She spoke three words in Anglais, and a latticework appeared above the tabletop. Tiny symbols spread out along the lattice, interwoven in a maze. With one hand tapping onto a screen and the other tapping impatiently on the smooth tabletop, Tess began to manipulate the symbols. She moved them around at a dizzying rate, muttering under her breath, speaking aloud sometimes in a strange, alien language.

“What are you doing?” Aleksi asked.

She did not even glance up at him. “Trying to figure out how the Chapalii language works. I thought I understood it pretty well, but now I see that I overlooked half of it. More than half, maybe. I hate it when a language doesn’t fall into place for me.” She pressed her lips together and laid a rainbow of colors over the lattice, shrank segments down and dragged them away to the edges, and began to build a new lattice in the middle. It reminded Aleksi of watching David ben Unbutu direct the building of a siege tower or a siege engine, only her architecture was more insubstantial.

The bells chimed, and Charles Soerensen walked in. He acknowledged Aleksi with a nod and then stood there and watched his sister for the longest time.

She grunted finally, annoyed with something, and looked up at him. “Oh. Hello.”

“Cara said you’re out of danger.”

“I suppose. I feel bloated. And my—” She broke off and crossed her arms over her chest. “Anyway, I’ve got some ideas here, but I don’t have enough information. I’d like to interview—well, just speak with—some female Chapalii. Do you think I never came across any before because they don’t move freely outside of Chapalii enclaves, or because my status as your heir made me an honorary male? If you’d treated me as your sister, not as your heir, would I have found access into their side of the culture? Is it even that separate, or is it somehow woven in with the male culture in ways we don’t understand? We still often think of the universe as dualistic and forget how simplistic that philosophy is. Especially when we’re dealing with what is alien to us.”

“Good questions,” said Charles. “I can’t answer them.”

“I should leave Rhui.” Tess stared into the floating pattern she had created. “I can’t do this here.”

A thrill of fear ran through Aleksi. But Tess had promised to take him with her. She meant that, didn’t she? He bit down on his tongue to stop himself asking her right here, right now. It wasn’t an auspicious time.

“I thought you were going to stay on Rhui and act as the information conduit here, for my saboteur network,” said Charles evenly.

“I’m sure you can make other arrangements. And it won’t work anyway. Aleksi is going to get married, so he won’t have a tent. I don’t have anywhere to hide the equipment I’ll need.”

Charles crossed the chamber and halted behind her, resting his hands on the back of her chair. She stood up at once and moved away from him. “But, Tess, I’ve been thinking about this. Ursula wants to stay, too. We’ll give her one of these large tents, and then there’ll be no problem with keeping any such equipment concealed.”

Aleksi didn’t like the way Tess was standing. Her back had a stubborn, angry line to it. She did not turn to look at her brother. “Ursula! By what right can she stay here? Isn’t that meddling a bit far with the interdiction?”

Charles sighed. “Tess. The interdiction is all shot to hell as it is.”

Now she spun. Her face was white. “What did you tell Ilya?”

“I told him the truth—”

She flushed red. “You told him the truth! You might as well have stuck the knife in his heart and killed him!”

“I told him the truth,” Charles repeated patiently, “in terms by which he could understand it. Tess, don’t you understand?” He twisted his head to regard the latticework glowing above the table, and he spoke two words. The latticework faded to black and out of black a sphere grew and formed, a blue ball laced with white wisps, like smoke or clouds, and muddy patches. “That is the planet you live on, Aleksi,” he said. “We call it Rhui, for no good reason except that it was the name of the first indigenous language any of us learned, who came here.”

The ball rotated slowly, floating in nothing. Aleksi reached out toward it. He felt a tingle as his hand neared its bright surface, but where his hand met the field, the field blurred and vanished until he withdrew his hand again.

“Tess,” said Charles softly. “I must sacrifice the interdiction in the end for the sake of the rebellion. It may take ten years. It may take one hundred. I don’t know whether the choice is right or wrong. I only know that I must do it.”

She did not reply. Aleksi watched her profile. Her face was taut, strained, and she looked angry, just so angry, not at Charles really, or at anyone. But maybe it was easier to be angry than to mourn her dead child.

“Tess,” Charles added in that same quiet, implacable voice, “I want you to stay here.”

She snorted. “You’ve changed your tune. That wasn’t what you came here for in the first place.”

Aleksi watched as the prince’s lips pulled up into a wry smile. “I didn’t get where I am today by refusing to alter my plans when it was necessary to. Even a river changes course from time to time.”

“That’s all very well, but I don’t want to stay anymore. I want to go—” She choked on a word, could not say it.

“Go home?” Charles asked.

“Go back. I want to go back to Earth. Oh, just leave me alone!” Her arms were pressed tight against her chest, and Aleksi saw that her tunic over her right breast was damp. She shifted her arms to hide the spreading stain.

“Let me go get Cara,” said the prince, and Aleksi was amazed to see him retreat from the engagement.

“I don’t want to see Cara!” Tess shouted after him.

The sphere floating above the table vanished, snapped into oblivion, as soon as the prince lifted the tent flap. Aleksi heard horses, and Soerensen paused half in and half out of the tent, squinting into the sun. “Thank the Goddess,” the prince murmured. “The cavalry arrives just in time.” He swept out. The entrance flap rang down behind him.

Tess stared into the shadowed corner.

Bells chimed. Looking travel-worn, Bakhtiian came in. “Tess?” He looked so tired that Aleksi was amazed he could stand up. He circled the table and stopped behind Tess. He rested his hands on her shoulders and leaned his head against hers.

“You smell,” she muttered.

He turned her around. “You’re all wet,” he said, sounding mystified, touching a finger to the front of her tunic. Then he said, “Oh,” in an altered voice as he realized what it was from.

Tess burst into tears, sobs that wracked her body.

Aleksi judged it prudent to leave.

Outside, the prince waited, listening. “Well,” Soerensen said, “she’s crying. That ought to help.”

“She must mourn the child,” said Aleksi, “before she can give it up.”

“Very wise,” agreed Soerensen.

Very wise,
thought Aleksi, a little perplexed by this praise. A sudden image of Anastasia’s face rose unbidden in his mind, her sharp brown eyes and narrow face, the stubborn quiver of her chin and the simple generosity of her smile, the sheer brutal strength with which she had driven them on. She was as clear to him across the gulf of years as the day he last saw her, as the day he left her empty on the grass and went on alone. Gods, he hated the pain of seeing her. Better not to think of her at all—

Soerensen cocked his head to one side, watching Aleksi.

But he had to think of her. He had chained her to himself for all these years. It was time to give her up.

Tears rose and he let them run silently down his cheeks, sure that Tess’s brother—who was by some strange link his own brother—would not judge him for his grief. And Charles Soerensen ducked his head and looked up again, and tears ran down his face as well.

“Oh, hell,” said Soerensen. “I hate this.”

And thus they stood together a while longer, not needing to say anything else.

At last Soerensen broke the silence. “Aleksi, do you think Tess meant it, about leaving Rhui?”

Aleksi considered the question for a while. The prince allowed him the silence in which to do so. “No. I don’t think so. That was just her grief talking. They can always have another child, can’t they?”

Soerensen blinked. Aleksi read, briefly, in the prince’s face that an idea had emerged. “Well,” said Soerensen, musing. “I wonder. I think I will go talk to Cara.”

Aleksi watched him walk away. He felt—gods!—he felt at peace with himself in a quiet way. Riders milled out beyond, but they dissipated quickly, returning to their own tents, to wash, to eat, to sleep; to prepare for the next battle, Aleksi strolled aimlessly out through camp, and soon enough he discovered that his path had taken him to the Veselov tribe. He hailed a passing child and sent the girl in to convey his greetings to Mother Veselov. The girl ran off, returning quickly with Mother Veselov’s request that Aleksi come in to see her.

He found Arina Veselov reclining on pillows in the outer chamber of her great tent. She was pale still, but she greeted him with a smile.

“Aleksi Soerensen,” she said, nodding as he sat down before her. “I am pleased to see you. What news of Tess? Is she well? How is she recovering?” She glanced at her own little son, who lay on a pillow at her feet, pushing himself up on his arms and grunting as he tried to crawl.

Aleksi gave her a report, drawing it out. Arina considered it all gravely, as well she might, since she had come close enough to losing her own son, another early child.

“Ah,” she said, lifting a hand to interrupt him. “Here is Svetlana. Yes, Lana, Lavrenti is ready for you.”

A young woman with pale blonde hair drawn back in four braids ducked inside the tent and knelt to pick up Lavrenti. The child gurgled and flopped down on his face and then pushed up again, scooting toward Svetlana. Aleksi watched her from under lowered lids. She had a bright face and an easy manner, and she paused long enough to examine Aleksi carefully before she scooped up the baby and carried him off outside. He knew he was blushing, but he tried to convince himself that Mother Veselov would not notice.

She coughed into her hand. He glanced up at her in time to see her hide a smile. “Svetlana is an industrious young woman,” said Mother Veselov casually, “good with children, and handsome, too, I think. She lost her baby this summer to a fever, but she has another child, a healthy girl of about four winters. She also has a younger brother and sister who came with her when their mother died last year. They’re both very strong, and the younger sister is a fine archer already. The brother is good with horses and fights well, although he isn’t old enough to ride with the army yet. They don’t come from an important family, it’s true, but their aunt is a good weaver and they have a cousin who’s risen to become a second in the Veselov jahar.”

“Oh,” said Aleksi, stricken to dumbness. He felt a pang, knowing he could never marry Raysia Grekov; but then he thought of the smile that had played on the lips of Svetlana Tagansky, as she had measured her prospective husband, and he felt that he might endure her company easily enough.

“Go on.” Mother Veselov waved him away. “Tell Tess that she must come to me, when she can, since I’m not allowed to walk yet.” She sighed, and Aleksi could see the ready sympathy on her face for Tess’s loss. “Go on,” she repeated. “You’ve seen what you came to see. May the gods watch over you in the battle tomorrow.”

He bowed his head and thanked her for her blessing. Outside, Svetlana Tagansky loitered under the awning. She smiled at him as he passed, and modestly, risking a glance straight at her, he smiled back. She had brilliant blue eyes, as fiercely bright as if fire lit them. A girl of about Kolia’s age hung at her skirts, and farther off, two adolescents, a girl and a boy, stood staring at him. Aleksi had a feeling that the sudden addition of a family, so many and so varied, might well help Tess get over her grief. Or at least, it would keep her too busy to dwell on it. Even the prospect of a difficult and perilous battle tomorrow could not ruin his good spirits.

V
ASIL LAY IN AN
agony of pain, some of it physical. He had to stop himself from touching his face again, reading with his fingers the evidence of the wound that had destroyed his beauty. He raised himself on his left arm and tried yet again to get his legs to work, but they did not. He could see them, lumps underneath the blanket, and he could feel them, feel their presence, but he could not get them to move at all. He had only the vaguest memories of the event that had brought him here, to this blanket on the ground under an awning, here at the hospital. He remembered only succumbing to an overwhelming impulse to stop the Habakar king from being rescued: If he, Vasil, could spare Ilya that insult, then surely Ilya would be beholden to him; surely Ilya would turn to him in gratitude. Dr. Hierakis came down the aisle of wounded toward him, kneeling beside each patient, speaking a few words, examining them. A man two blankets down from Vasil moaned, helpless against the pain assaulting him, and his young sister, who attended him day and night, dabbed a damp cloth on his brow and spoke softly to him. It was all she could do. Others cried only at night, when they thought the rest were sleeping. But really, the men here had it best: They had received some kind of surgery and were expected to recover, and most of them had a relative who helped nurse them until such time as they could be released to their tribe. Vasil suspected that under another awning lay men who simply waited to die. He suspected that he ought to have lain under that other awning, but that other forces, other people, had decreed that he lie here. A young healer had told him that Dr. Hierakis herself had performed the surgery that had saved his life.