His Conquering Sword (51 page)

But it was Mother Sakhalin who had mercy on her. “Go on, then. We’re leaving now. There’s no more time for this. I’ll take the earring and I’ll see that he gets it.” She took the earring and turned away, just like that.

“Come on, Di,” said Gwyn gently. “We may as well go. I’m so sorry.”

And that was it. That was the end.

T
HEY LAID URSULA’S BODY
, shrouded in a simple linen winding-cloth and topped by her beloved helmet and her torn, bloodied surcoat, on the pyre at the feet of the man she had followed here. It was fitting that Ursula be burned. She had died in battle, fighting for the jaran. As for the other corpse—well, Sonia hoped the gods would forgive them for the impiety.

He had, at least, been a soldier, and he had died fighting for his people—khaja though they might be; that ought to satisfy the gods. She only hoped his spirit would not take offense at the substitution. She had made sure that the necklace of gold beads he wore had been left with him, so that he might go to the heavens with something familiar and not just the shroud of the Prince of Jeds.

One of the actors sang a haunting song in farewell. David ben Unbutu spoke a long prayer. Most of them wept, even though Sonia did not think they had loved Ursula overmuch. More than anything, she thought they were simply shocked that Ursula had died. As if they thought that Ursula couldn’t die, that none of them could die. Sonia made a sign against Grandmother Night, for even contemplating such a blasphemous thought. Certainly they did not weep for the prince, All of them knew, as she knew, as Ilya knew, that Charles Soerensen had not died but simply given up Jeds in order to return to his mother’s homeland of Erthe.

Dry-eyed, Tess put the torch to the wood, and it caught. Farther off, ambassadors attended, and etsanas and dyans, out of respect for the dead prince, and behind them, farther still, a knot of soldiers, riders and a few Farisa auxiliaries, who attended out of respect for the woman who had led them. Karkand smoldered behind them and, in some places, still burned.

Flames leapt up the pyre and engulfed the two bodies. The scent of ulyan permeated the air. Tess moved back to stand beside Ilya, and Sonia went over to her and put an arm around her, supporting her. Tess still suffered from exhaustion; she had not yet gotten over her ride of two days past.

“Poor Ursula,” said Tess to the air. “I hope it was quick.”

They stood there for a while longer. The fire fanned heat over them in waves, and at last the smoke drove them back.

“We’ll go home,” said Sonia.

“Yes,” said Tess. Together, they walked a few paces. First Sonia halted, then Tess. Beyond, others moved away as well, seeing that the formal ceremony was over. The actors walked off en masse. The golden-haired Singer wept copiously, and three of the others surrounded her as guards might, fending off the world. Ambassadors trailed away. David and the remaining members of Soerensen’s party circled the pyre a final time and left without looking back.

“Are you coming?” asked Sonia, since Ilya had not moved.

“No,” he said, watching the flames. “Not yet.”

And it was true, Sonia reflected, that for Ilya this was a farewell to Charles Soerensen. He could hardly expect to see him again. Certainly Tess did not expect her brother to ever return, and even with the Jedan fleet, Sonia doubted that Ilya would ever have the opportunity or the means to sail across the vast oceans to a land as distant as Erthe.

“Given more time,” said Tess softly, “I think they would have become friends. At least, they understood each other.”

“Understanding,” said Sonia, “is truly one of the most precious gifts. You look tired, Tess.”

“I am.”

“Well, then, leave him here to do what he must.”

“It reminds me,” said Tess, and her voice cracked just a little, “of the baby.”

“If the gods are merciful,” said Sonia, “then they will grant you many children.”

“Are the gods merciful?” Tess asked, an odd note in her voice.

“The gods are just,” said Sonia, “and their justice is sometimes harsh, but it is their mercy which sustains us.”

Ilya still had not moved: The pyre seemed to fascinate him, or else it merely gave a focus for his thoughts—whatever they might be. Sonia drew Tess forward, and they left him there alone to say farewell.

B
AKHTIIAN HELD COURT IN
the ashes of Karkand.

“An impressive show,” said Laissa, drawing aside the curtain of her litter. She gazed out on the desolation that had once been the royal city of the kingdom of Habakar and at the white tent staked out and surrounded by carpets and, beyond the carpets, a flat stretch of ground that had once been a marketplace. Bakhtiian and his wife—now the Prince of Jeds—sat under the awning, elevated on a dais. One by one, they called embassies before them. One by one, embassies knelt at the base of the dais and gave gifts and were sent away with scrolls bound with gold braid, signed by the hand of Bakhtiian himself.

Six days after the final assault, the city lay stark and ruined under a clear sky. Karkand had seemed huge before, but burned and razed its endless fields of ash and shattered masonry and blackened walls and broken towers just seemed to stretch on and on and on. Yesterday it had rained, and the drizzle had chased the last pall of smoke from the air. It still smelled of smoke and ash and burnt things, here in the city, but a chilly dampness overlaid it. The cold season was sweeping down on Habakar.

“Why impressive?” asked Jiroannes, turning away from this depressing scene to look at his wife. Beneath her sheer veil she looked impossibly serene.

“Every ambassador who comes before Bakhtiian today will see this, and know that he and his people must fear Bakhtiian’s wrath. You would do well, Jiroannes, to consider wisely when it comes time to accept whatever treaty Bakhtiian offers to your Great King.”

“Your King as well, now that you are my wife,” he snapped.

“I may place my allegiance where I please,” she said, untroubled by his outburst, “since that is the right of every man or woman born into the House of the Lion and the Moon, the most noble of all royal lines of Habakar. Mother Sakhalin came to me last night and said that she and Bakhtiian had come to an agreement, that they would ask me and my cousin, who is father to the child Melatina—the girl who is to marry Prince Mitya—to act as regents in Habakar in concert with two jaran Elders until the young prince and his bride come of age.”

Jiroannes had a sudden sinking feeling that there was a great deal going on in the camp that he was not privy to. He had not seen Mitya for days and days, not since before Laissa had poisoned Samae. Did Bakhtiian truly think so little of the Great King of Vidiya that he would snub the King’s ambassador like this, and take this Habakar princess into his confidence and his trust? Did Bakhtiian’s intelligence net spread so wide that he knew that in truth the Great King did little more than hunt and luxuriate in the women’s quarters, overseeing not his lands and his army but the innumerable petty quarrels that erupted every day in the kennels and the harem? The Great King did not want to go to war. Indeed, Jiroannes doubted he was capable of leading an army, or even of presiding over one. His mother had poisoned or strangled all of his half brothers and male cousins, to leave him free of that sort of intrigue, but the Queen Mother was dead now, and upon her death he had banished all of the ministers she had so carefully chosen for him and installed his cronies, each and every one of them young princes and noblemen of similar dissipated habits to his own. His one living sibling, Her Highness the Princess Eriania, he indulged shamelessly, going so far as to let her ride out to the hunt with him and his entourage, and everyone knew she kept her own harem in imitation of the men, but for all that, she was more of a man than he was. Which man did Jiroannes respect more, Bakhtiian or the Great King? It was no contest.

“Thought becomes you,” said Laissa.

He hated her at that moment, for her mocking superiority and her patronizing way of talking to him.

“Jiroannes,” she said on a sigh, “you are scarcely more than a boy. It’s no wonder the young prince likes you. Don’t bridle up at me like that. You’re intelligent. Certainly you’re ambitious, or you would never have thought to marry me. Surely you and I can work together, rather than at odds, despite all the years there are between us and the difference in our stations. I must have a husband. Clearly, you need an older head than your own to guide your actions until you’ve grown a few years wiser than you are now.”

“How dare you address me in this impertinent fashion!” he demanded, and faltered, seeing that his anger did not frighten her anymore. She was secure. Oh, she might have to endure his attentions in the bed, but that lasted but a small part of each day. The servants obeyed her; the jaran honored her; she was free of her servitude to her God, although she still prayed three times each day with apparent piety.

Maybe Laissa was right.

“I will never care for your attentions in bed,” she added, as if she had read his mind, “but I will accept them as I must, and once I have borne you a healthy son, we can negotiate for secondary wives, and certainly choose a few pretty concubines for your pleasure.”

He did not trust her in this placating mood. Why should he, indeed, after what she had done to Samae? She could as easily poison him, he supposed, though he had Jat tasting all his food these days, before he ate anything. Of all his entourage, he trusted only Syrannus now. Even his guards showed a partiality for Laissa, because she had busied herself about their camp in her managing way, setting it all into an order that pleased her and presumably them as well.

She leaned out a little farther. A net woven with tiny jewels and silver thread covered her hair and from it draped the veil and a shawl of fine embroidered citron silk, falling down over her shoulders to her hips. Her robes slid around her, revealing the curve of a breast and then concealing it again as the fabric shifted and she bent forward.

“Syrannus,” she said. “Announce us. We will be seen now.”

We will be seen now.
As if she could simply dictate to Bakhtiian that he interrupt his business in order for her to come before him. As if they would not have to wait, just as the other ambassadors had always to do, as Jiroannes had always done; as embassies did now, shivering in their robes and cloaks as a damp wind blew, shuffling their feet in the black ash that coated the ground and their shoes. They all looked nervous. Well might they be nervous. Now that Bakhtiian had so thoroughly defeated the armies of powerful Habakar—though it was rumored that in the far south the Xiriki-khai province still held out against one of his generals—no one knew where he meant to turn his eyes and his sword next.

Syrannus padded back to them, escorted by one of Bakhtiian’s personal guard. “Bakhtiian sends his greetings, princess,” he said, “and hopes you will honor him with your presence.”

Astounded, Jiroannes could only follow silently in Laissa’s wake. Syrannus walked beside him. Mercifully, the old man kept his thoughts to himself.

They stepped off ash and onto the bright carpets surrounding the court. The gold banner rode on the wind at the top of a single column, standing to the left of the tent. At the center, raised on a dais draped with cloth embroidered with birds and horses, Bakhtiian and his wife sat on silk pillows. Mitya sat next to Bakhtiian, attended by his aunt, and next to Tess Soerensen sat Bakhtiian’s niece Nadine Orzhekov, looking as bad-tempered as always. A fair young man sat beside her; Jiroannes did not recognize him, but he was clearly a prince, prettily decked out in a beautifully embroidered shirt caught in at the waist with a belt of embossed gold plates, his neck wreathed in gold necklaces. Even the hilt and sheath of his saber were plated with gold.

To Jiroannes’s shock, Bakhtiian rose and stepped down from the dais to come forward and greet Laissa. “Your highness,” he said. A jaran woman came forward and offered Laissa a hand, to help her out of her litter. She accepted the hand gravely and climbed out gracefully enough, and thanked the woman, who then retreated.

“Where is Mother Sakhalin?” she asked. “I haven’t seen her for several days.”

“She has ridden south.”

“Ah.

“I hope, your highness, that you will sit beside Mitya.”

“I would be honored,” replied Laissa.

For one wild moment, Jiroannes had the improbable idea that she actually liked and respected these barbarians. But surely not. She was no fool, he knew that well enough, and she could see where her interests lay: with the jaran, of course.

Bakhtiian escorted her back to the dais and two women helped her up. Mitya sat with his head bowed, blushing faintly. Poor boy. Was she truly to be his regent? Jiroannes hoped Bakhtiian would employ a slave to taste the boy’s food. On the other hand, surely Laissa would not do anything so stupid. If she poisoned Mitya, she would have Bakhtiian’s wrath to face, and she herself could see right here, around her, how ruthless Bakhtiian was willing to be.

“Ambassador.”

Jiroannes started. Bakhtiian still stood there, regarding him with an amused expression on his face. On the level, Jiroannes was surprised to find that they were of equal height. Presiding over his court, riding out with his army, Bakhtiian seemed much—bigger.

“You will attend me now,” finished Bakhtiian. He returned to the dais. Jiroannes followed him forward and waited. “Ah, thank you, Kirill.” Bakhtiian took a scroll from one of his captains. He handed it to his wife, who unrolled it and smoothed it out. Jiroannes risked a glance at her. She was pale, but her face was set and strong, and she wore a signet ring on her middle left finger and a heavy gold chain around her neck.

“To my brother, the Great King of Vidiya,” said Bakhtiian, appearing to read from the scroll, “I send this message. By the power that Mother Sun and Father Wind have invested in us throughout our own realms and through the realms of the great world, let this be known: that we wish only to live in peace and to rejoice in the good things of life and to act for good, and that those who speak to us of war will find war, and those who speak to us of peace will find peace.