His Conquering Sword (55 page)

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 light 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 Chapalii 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.”

“O
N THIS DAY COMES
the Tai-en Mushai to Sorrowing Tower.”

Tess blinked twice, but she could not get the field of vision to narrow in. A wilderness of towers grew out beyond her eyes, and like a faint tracery beneath them she could see the parquet flooring of the minor audience hall in the palace in Jeds.

“Damn,” she muttered. The towers blurred and began to coalesce, and Tess chuckled and said, “Terminate.” A whitish haze spread over her vision and faded, and she looked out over the audience hall, empty now except for herself, Aleksi standing guard at the far door, and Cara sitting on the steps beside her, reading a book.

“Hmm?” Cara asked, looking up.

“It’s very disorienting,” said Tess. “Looking at two things at once.”

“Evidently that’s one reason that particular technology has never become widespread. See what you can do with it. It seemed the best solution to you needing access to a modeler without any awkward physical presence.”

“No, just me sitting and staring into space and muttering to myself while people wonder what I’m doing.”

Cara smiled. “They’ll think you’re wise, or mad.”

“Or both.” Tess jumped to her feet suddenly and paced over to the arched windows which looked out onto the loggia which in turn opened up onto the central courtyard. Beyond the courtyard lay the greater audience hall, with its elaborate arcade fronting the great avenue that led into Jeds proper. “Ah” she said, watching as two carriages escorted by twenty Jedan militia rolled up on the paved bricks below. A swallow-tailed pennon emblazoned with a falcon rising fluttered from the first carriage. “There is the baron, finally.” She practically ran back to the dais and threw herself into the prince’s seat. “What
are
you reading?” she demanded of Cara, who closed her book in a leisurely fashion, stood, and came to stand beside Tess.

“The new tract by Sister Casiara. She seems to be formulating a legalistic argument against slavery, of all things, based on the principle of the spiritual equality of man.”

“Good Lord,” said Tess mildly. The far doors swung open and four guardsmen entered, bowed, and retreated.

“But she is a bit of an iconoclast,” added Cara, “so I’m not sure if this argument will fire the church or Jedan society at large.”

Tess tapped one foot impatiently on the fired tile on which the prince’s throne sat; the tile lapped up against the low steps that led down to the parquet floor. It was stuffy in here, since the windows had not yet been opened for the summer, but Tess preferred the minor hall to the greater one since the huge mural celebrating the triumph of philosophy that decorated one wall of the greater hall made her feel as if Charles was watching her. Finally, a second set of guards appeared. They marched in and knelt before her, resplendent in polished breastplates embossed with the prince’s eagle. Behind them walked Baron Santer in his court robes, gray hair crowned by a soft cap, and behind him, a figure veiled from head to toe. Not even its hands showed.

“Your highness,” said the baron, bowing. He looked at her. Every time Tess looked in his eyes, she thought of some creature that had been dead and was now reanimated; his gaze was cold and flat, his expression bland. “I have delivered this emissary from the docks, as you desired me to do.”

It was a little test. They both knew it. She ran him through hoops these days, keeping him busy, reminding him that she now held power in Jeds. He had given over his regency gracefully enough, but she did not trust him.

“You may withdraw, Baron,” she said. “Attend me this evening.”

He bowed again and left. Tess dismissed the guards to the loggia beyond the doors. With mounting excitement, she regarded the veiled figure. “You are safe now,” she said finally, in formal Chapalii. “You may unveil.”

The ke stirred but did not remove her heavy veil. “Tai-endi.” Her voice had a strange sibilance, an eerie echoing quality, that sent pure thrilling shivers up and down Tess’s spine. A Chapalii female, at last. “Once already has this nameless one violated an interdiction. Only before another nameless one or a female am I allowed to reveal myself.”

“But I
am
a female!” said Tess, standing up.

“You are Tai-endi, heir to the Tai-en Charles,” replied the ke.

Tess sighed, exasperated. “And therefore I must be male. But I’m not—” She broke off and switched to Anglais. “Oh, hell, Cara, now what? How do I convince her?”

“Maybe you let her get her bearings, Tess. Like Yevgeni Usova, she has just been exiled to strange climes, away from everything she once knew. I’ll take her back to my quarters.
I’m
not burdened with a title.”

“Yes, Doctor,” said Tess. She turned back to the ke. “You may go with Cara Hierakis. She is a female, and in our lands, females do not go veiled in front of anyone.”