The Novels of the Jaran (120 page)

“Your eminence?”

He sighed and set aside the tablet and stylus that lay idle on his lap. He simply did not have anything to write to his uncle that he had not already set down in his last letter twenty days past, when the train had arrived at Qurat. As tedious as the army’s constant travel had been, sitting here in one place in these primitive conditions was worse. “Yes, Syrannus?”

“Eminence, if I might have your permission, I would like to send Samae out for water. Half of the guardsmen are down with the flux, and the others are engaged in various work. It would be convenient for me if Samae could go with Lal.”

“Lal? Who is Lal?”

“The slave-boy with the scar under his right eye, eminence. Of course I will send a guard along to escort her.”

Jiroannes sighed again and stretched his legs out, resting the heels of his supple boots on the thick carpet. The pillow on the seat of his chair slid beneath him; he braced his elbows on the carved arms. “Why are you bothering me with this?”

Syrannus hesitated, looking prim for a moment. “The girl has never been outside of this camp, eminence.”

“Great heavens, Syrannus, I should hope we have allowed her the seclusion which befits her female nature. What woman would want such freedom?” Then he stopped, because here in the jaran camp, however little they had to do with the jaran themselves on a daily basis, even he could see that the statement was ridiculous. He waved the problem away with his right hand. “Whatever you think best, Syrannus. I suppose there is no other choice.”

“If you think it wise, eminence. I only suggest it because of necessity.”

“Do what you wish.” Syrannus bowed and retreated. Because there was nothing else to do, Jiroannes picked up the tablet again. Then, with pleasure, he saw Mitya striding toward his tent. He rose with a smile to greet the boy. “Well met,” he said in khush. He bowed with just the right degree of condescension due a prince’s cousin, and Mitya echoed the movement, with a grin. He was really quite a likable boy, for a barbarian.

“Here,” said Mitya, “do you want to come see the drills? There’s a slope from which we can watch.”

Jiroannes had yet to see the jaran riders in action—he had never been near the scene of any of their battles—and in any case, he was bored. A guard saddled his gray gelding and he rode out with Mitya, with two guards as escort behind them. But it was not the jaran riders at all: not the men, at any rate. These were women riding complex drills and firing sheets of arrows at various targets. It was startling, but impressive.

A line of riders watched the maneuvers from a hillside above the flat field on which the archers and their mounts drilled. They greeted Mitya with enthusiasm, and Jiroannes with polite reserve, but shifted to make room for them.

One man, fair-haired and with his left arm in a sling, spoke to an unveiled old crone. By concentrating completely on their conversation, Jiroannes could follow much of it.

“Vera suggested we use prisoners as targets,” said the man.

“What a very khaja thing to do,” replied the old woman, showing so little respect for this young man’s words that Jiroannes was shocked. “If they must die, then let them die quickly and bravely. But then, I have never thought much of the Veselov family, excepting your wife, of course. If we wish these riders to practice on live quarry, a
birbas
would be much more effective. I do not approve of killing prisoners and I have told Bakhtiian so. There is no glory in killing unarmed men,”

“I am in agreement with you there, Mother Sakhalin,” replied the man. “But what are we to do with the khaja soldiers, then? If we leave them alive, they will strike at us again.”

The old woman turned to glance at Jiroannes, as if finding fault with his presence here, as if
she
had some say in whether or not he could move around camp. But seeing her full in the face, he recognized her suddenly: the old woman who had been sitting next to Bakhtiian that night he had been brought before the jaran prince for the first, and only, time. As much as it galled him to do so out here in public, he inclined his head respectfully toward her, acknowledging her gaze on him. She sniffed audibly and arched a skeptical eyebrow, and turned back to the man at her side.

“We will speak of such things later, Kirill,” she said. The group lapsed into silence again. A troop of riders arrived on the field and they began maneuvers as well, sometimes alone, sometimes coordinated with the women. Their dexterity and discipline were exemplary. Although Jiroannes hated to admit it, they rode in formation with more precision than the Great King’s own elite cavalry guards. But perhaps young Mitya had more than one motive in bringing him here; perhaps Bakhtiian had encouraged it, to show the Vidiyan ambassador how very formidable his armies were.

But Mitya’s motives seemed innocent enough. He cheerfully pointed out the captain of the unit, who was evidently the grandson of the old harridan, and gave a running commentary on the drill that Jiroannes understood perhaps half of. More people came to watch, on foot, an astonishing collection of sizes and coloring and shapes that Jiroannes immediately recognized as the acting troupe: the tall, black-skinned woman stood out anywhere, and the rest were as varied as the slaves owned by his uncle, who had a predilection for the exotic. Even after all these months with the jaran, he was still not used to seeing so many women with their faces naked. He watched the actors, distracted from the drilling below by the beautiful face of a golden-haired young woman. Were they slaves as well? Could he buy her? Or were they, like the Hinata dancers, dedicated to the god and thus sacrosanct?

“Here comes Sakhalin.” Mitya sounded disgusted. “It’s a little disgraceful, how he shows off that he has a khaja wife.”

A young man rode up from below. He stopped to pay his respects to the crone first, but left her quickly and rode over to the actors. The beautiful one rose to greet him, with a smile on her face.

“Do you say,” Jiroannes asked, “that these two are married?” He was astounded. But perhaps he had misunderstood the word. More and more, he saw that he understood very little about the jaran. That Bakhtiian had married the sister of the prince of Jeds—that was political expediency, and wise in a ruler. The Great King’s third wife was a daughter of the Elenti king. But if this young man was a prince of the jaran, how could he be married to a common entertainer?

“Yes,” agreed Mitya, “Mother Sakhalin was not pleased with the marriage, and Anatoly certainly did not consult her, as he should have. But she’s very sweet. Diana, that is.” He grinned slyly and glanced at the crone, who ignored the spectacle of her grandson publicly flirting with his wife. But soon enough the captain left to go back to his troop, and the actors left, and the crone left, and Jiroannes began to feel restless.

In the distance, a thin line of smoke rose from inside the high walls of Qurat. A sea of tents covered the ground all around the city, a billowing ocean. Beyond the tents, herds of horses grazed, and farther still, herds of other beasts, though these herds grew smaller every day as the forage gave out and they were slaughtered. A long line of khaja slaves trudged by, sacks of grain balanced across their shoulders.

“Oh,” said Mitya suddenly, “I was to tell you that you may have an audience this afternoon with Bakhtiian, if you wish it.”

If he wished it. Jiroannes flushed half with elation and half with annoyance. To the boy, an audience was evidently a trivial affair. “I am honored that Bakhtiian has deigned at last to hear my appeals for an audience. But if that is the case, then I must return and prepare.”

“We can just ride over now, if you’d like,” said the child naively.

“Certainly not! I beg your pardon, but I cannot appear like this.” He gestured at his clothing—a plain sash, not of the highest quality, and his second-best trousers, and he wore no gold at all, except for his ambassador’s ring.

Mitya shrugged. “Very well. I’ll ride back with you.”

They rode back across the huge expanse of the camp, which lay quiet under the midday sun. The fortress stood alone and isolated up at the edge of the hills. Jiroannes wondered how the city folk dared resist Bakhtiian, seeing how vast his army was and how no one had yet stood against him.

“Oh, look,” said Mitya as they neared the ivory and emerald flags that marked the Vidiyan camp, “there’s Aunt Sonia. What’s she doing at your camp?”

Six jaran women waited at the edge of his camp. No, they did not
wait:
two stood, four sat, while they watched Samae. Samae! As bold as you please, the slave girl demonstrated a Tadesh dance for them. Her lithe movements, her elegant carriage, gave her an air of nobility and of utter self-possession. Her face bore a mask of concentration, but also an expression of peace. Mitya cast down his eyes to stare at his saddle. He was blushing furiously.

One of the jaran women looked back over her shoulder, hearing the horses. Samae, attuned to the slightest distraction, glanced up and saw Jiroannes. At once she broke off her dance. Her face shuttered, and she dropped to her knees, bowed her head, and clasped her hands subserviently across her chest. Her shoulders hunched, just slightly, bracing for a blow. Beyond, under the awning of Jiroannes’s tent, Syrannus stood wringing his hands.

“Mitya!” One of the jaran women spoke. Her anger carried clearly in her tone, and she spun around, flashed an enraged glance up at Jiroannes, and gestured to the other women. “You will leave with us. Now.”

“Yes, Aunt Sonia.” So meekly, without even the courtesy of a good-bye, Mitya rode off with them. The boy’s head was bowed, and he cast one anguished glance back over his shoulder at Samae, but she continued to stare at the ground.

How dare the woman speak to him like that? Jiroannes dismounted. A guard ran up to relieve him of the gelding. He walked across to Samae and slapped her. She rocked back, absorbing the blow, but did not otherwise respond.

“How dare you perform in public like that? Without my permission? And for a group of shameless women, at that, and out where anyone could see you?” She said nothing, of course.

“Eminence.” It was Syrannus, still wringing his hands. He hurried out to Jiroannes. “I beg you—”

“Of course you warned me, Syrannus, but you should have had better sense than to even think of sending her out of camp, when you knew that something like this might happen. They will think I have no control whatsoever over my own slaves. How can they respect me?” Then, with a flash of irritation, he noticed that she still wore her coarse hair caught back in a braid. The black ends curled down over the collar of her tunic.

“Give me a knife,” he said to Syrannus.

“Eminence!”

“A knife!” That even Syrannus should begin to question him was the outside of enough.

Syrannus quailed before his anger and ran to fetch him a knife. “But, eminence, surely the girl has not deserved any punishment—?”

Jiroannes grabbed the braid and pulled it out, tight. He held the knife against the base of the braid. And Samae jerked away from him.

He was so shocked by her rebellion that he did not at first react. She had resisted him.
She
had resisted
him.

“Eminence,” Syrannus hissed. “People are watching.” For once, in the white heat of his anger, he remembered prudence. “You will come with me,” he said in a furious undertone. She obeyed submissively enough now and followed him into his tent. She stood silent and unmoving while he hacked off her hair, leaving it a ragged mess.

“Now,” he said. “I need my emerald sash and my best clothing. The brocaded boots.” While she dressed him, he called Syrannus in. “What else have we to bring as gifts? Something small but delicate. The spinning birds, perhaps? Yes.” Thus fortified, he left Samae to clean up the ruins of her hair and with Syrannus and four guards as escort, made his way to the center of camp, where Bakhtiian held audience.

Two soldiers stopped him outside the center ring of tents, and he waited for what seemed ages. Even then, allowed to proceed, he had to leave his own guards behind and go on alone, with only Syrannus as escort. The ground lay clear before Bakhtiian’s tent although a fair number of people, many of them jaran, some of them foreigners, stood along either side. An elderly man signed to Jiroannes to approach, and he walked forward and knelt about twenty steps out from the awning.

The prince sat on an overturned wagon, on a pillow, with his chief wife beside him. The austerity of Bakhtiian’s dress surprised Jiroannes, especially compared to that of his attendants, both male and female, who wore gold and riches in profusion and fine silk and brocaded clothing. Bakhtiian wore what any common rider wore: the red shirt, the black trousers and boots, with a plain-hilted saber at his belt and a wooden staff bound together with horse-tails across his knees. Deep in conversation with the woman Jiroannes recognized as Mitya’s “Aunt Sonia,” Bakhtiian ignored the ambassador. After a long while, the elderly man tapped Jiroannes’s leg and indicated to him that he should move to one side. So he was not going to be recognized, but he was being allowed to stay. After so long confined to his camp, Jiroannes felt that this, at least, was a small victory. He settled cross-legged on the ground to wait, uncomfortable without a chair to sit on. Syrannus stood behind him, holding the box with the mechanical birds.

A new foreigner was escorted in, a man in a gold surcoat with two unarmed soldiers in attendance as well as an elderly woman in a plain dress. Bakhtiian looked up. The man knelt before him.

“Bakhtiian.” So the envoy addressed him, with no other title than that, translated through the woman. “I come from His Majesty, Aronal-sur, King of Habakar and all its subject lands. His Majesty commands me to tell you that he is merciful, and disposed to be kind in this matter. He says this to you: Leave my kingdom and my lands, and I will trouble you no further.”

Bakhtiian said nothing. He simply sat, examining the envoy without the least sign of fear. With contempt, perhaps. The envoy shifted restlessly under the fierce gaze, looking nervous at first and then frightened.