The Novels of the Jaran (143 page)

Lal cleared the dishes away and brought hot tea, spiced to perfection. Mitya sipped cautiously at the aromatic liquid. “Are you married?” he asked suddenly.

“Not yet, but I hope to marry once I return to my country.”

“Whom will you marry?”

Jiroannes shrugged. “There are several women I have in mind. They must all be of good birth, of course. The Great King’s fourth cousin has a daughter, and with my uncle’s influence to favor my suit, I may be able to marry her.”

“But she is a Vidiyan woman. Of your own kind.”

Jiroannes thought now that he knew why Mitya had come to him, this evening. “Yes. But if an advantageous match with a woman of high birth from another kingdom presented itself, I would certainly accept it.”

“Even if it meant you couldn’t have the—the fourth cousin’s daughter?”

“Why should it prevent me from marrying her as well?”

They stared at each other in mutual incomprehension. Light dawned on Mitya’s face. “You mean it’s true, what Tess says, that you marry more than one woman? At the same time? Gods!”

“So did the Everlasting God ordain, that each man may marry as many women as he can support. Thus also may he guarantee that he has heirs to carry on after he dies.”

“Gods,” echoed Mitya. Then he flushed and stared down at his hands.

“You’re young to think of marrying.”

Mitya’s hands moved restlessly in his lap, twisting and wringing and lacing his fingers together and then pulling them apart. “Ilya wants me to marry the Habakar princess. Not now, of course, but when I’m old enough. In four winters it will be the Year of the Wolf, and I’ll be twenty years old and of age to ride in jahar. But then he wants me to become the dyan, the
governor,
of these lands, Habakar lands, with her as my—my etsana, I suppose.”

“Ah,” said Jiroannes, seeing that Bakhtiian had more than simple plunder on his mind. “Well, you must know, Mitya, that the Great King of Vidiya has a wife who is the daughter of the Elenti king, so it’s common enough for nobles to marry women of other races.”

Mitya looked skeptical. “Galina said she won’t marry the boy no matter what, even if they all agree to it.”

“The boy?”

“The prince. He’ll have to marry an etsana, of course, or an etsana’s daughter. They mean him to stay with the camp. They’re going to send both the sister and the brother out to the plains for a few years and then decide. Do you think I should marry her?”

“I’m flattered that you desire my opinion, Mitya,” said Jiroannes, thrilled, that the boy had come to him in such a confiding mood.

“But you’re not jaran. You must think about these things differently than we do.”

“A prince rarely marries to suit himself. Is that not also so with the jaran?”

“My cousin married to suit himself,” muttered Mitya.

“Your cousin? Oh, you mean Bakhtiian. But he married the sister of the Prince of Jeds. That was surely a wise match for him to make.”

Mitya laughed. “You don’t know Ilya at all. That isn’t why he married her.”

Well, Mitya was still young, and Jiroannes too delighted by his presence here to want to ruin the mood by disabusing the boy of his fantastical notions about Bakhtiian. Of course a king like Bakhtiian married where he found the most benefit for himself and his ambitions. Certainly for this upstart barbarian to marry the sister of the Prince of Jeds was a tactical victory of the highest order.

“Do you want to marry the girl?” Jiroannes asked instead.

Mitya shrugged. “I don’t know. I want to please Ilya. I want to do my duty to the jaran. He told me that until Nadine has a child, I’m his heir.” He made a face of comical relief. “Gods, I’m happy Dina got married. I don’t think I want to inherit, or at least, not everything.”

“You don’t want to be Bakhtiian in your turn?” Jiroannes was astonished.

“Of course I will do what Ilya asks of me.” Lal came by and refilled their cups with steaming hot tea, fresh-brewed and piquant. “But because my mother will become etsana in time, I never thought as a boy to dream about becoming dyan.”

“Now you must think again.”

“Yes,” replied Mitya, seeming as struck by Jiroannes’s simple comment as if it were the most profound revelation. He lapsed into a silence which Jiroannes nourished with a companionable silence of his own.

“You have many khaja women in your camp now,” said Mitya finally.

“Yes. My guardsmen have—married them.”

“Mitya considered this statement. “Do they have wives at home as well, then?”

“Well. Yes. Some of them do. Not all.”

“Ah.” Mitya lapsed into silence again. Lal brought more tea. It was dark by now. A cool breeze sprang up, rustling through the dagged fringe of the awning. The moon was up and near full, and its light spread a soft glow over the endless sprawl of tents. The boy looked up at Jiroannes and down again as swiftly. “What does it mean,” he asked softly, “when they say Samae is a
slave?
” He pronounced the Rhuian word awkwardly.

Jiroannes flushed, glad of the covering darkness. “I don’t know your language well enough to explain it. Perhaps Bakhtiian’s khaja wife can.”

“She did. Is what she said true?”

Jiroannes wondered if he had been cursed in a former life. “Perhaps. Probably.”

“But that’s barbaric,” said Mitya. “Only savages would hold to such a custom.”

“There are strict laws—” Jiroannes began.

“But if a woman or man of the jaran violates the gods’ laws, then they are put to death. That is just.”

“Don’t you have other laws as well? That a man or woman might break?”

“Yes.” Mitya frowned. “It’s true that Vera Veselov betrayed the sanctity of her tribe and was cast down from her high position to act as a servant to the Telyegin family, for so long as she may live. Although now she’s riding with the army, and is a good commander, they say. But still—”

“A slave is a servant,” said Jiroannes, grasping at this explanation. He so desperately did not want Mitya to leave with a disgust of him. “Many people in my country become slaves because they have violated our laws.”

Mitya appeared mollified. “That’s not so different.” He rose and handed the delicate cup carefully back to Lal. “I must go. Perhaps—I may visit another time?”

Jiroannes leapt to his feet and escorted Mitya out to the edge of the encampment. “Assuredly. I would welcome it.” And followed with other effusions, until the boy took his leave and walked out into the night, away into the jaran camp. Jiroannes returned to his chair and sank down into it with a sigh of contentment. Perhaps there was hope for this friendship after all.

“Eminence.” Lal touched his head to the carpet and waited for Jiroannes to notice him.

“You may speak.”

“Eminence, I beg your pardon for this indecent request, but the girl insisted I bring it to your attention.”

“The girl?” He thought for an instant the Habakar captive had importuned Lal. “Did you discover anything more about her?”

Lal was quick. “About the Javani? Nothing, eminence, except that it is a title, not her name. It is Samae who demanded I ask of you if you wish her to go to the young prince tonight.”

The young prince. Jiroannes could not for an instant imagine what Samae meant by this puzzling request. Then, of course, he knew exactly what she meant. The damned whore wanted to go to Mitya. In the four years he had owned her, she had never once come to him without being commanded to. Never. And now she begged for permission—no, for an order—to go to a damned barbarian. He felt a red rage building in him. How dare she make her first request of him now, she who had refused her freedom in order to stay his slave, and make it this? She mocked him. She preferred a half-grown boy to him, who had proven his manhood many times over, with her, with all his concubines, with the quickness of his intellect in the palace school, with his prowess on the hunt and even, once, in battle.

“Tell Samae that the women who run this camp have decreed that she may do what she wishes,” he snarled. He got to his feet in one sharp movement and stalked over to the entrance to his tent. “Send the Javani to me.”

Lal bowed with his hands crossed over his chest and scurried away. Jiroannes thrust the curtained entrance aside and strode into the seclusion of his tent. There he paced up and down, up and down, along the thick carpets that cushioned the interior. When the Javani came at last, she was still afraid of him, but her fear only whetted his appetite.

CHAPTER FOUR

D
EPRESSION HUNG OVER THE
Company’s camp like a miasmal fog. Each day they traveled with the wagon train farther on through the devastated Habakar lands. Each evening Owen drove them through rehearsals, rearranging parts to cover for Hyacinth’s absence, doubling lines, changing bits of stage direction, but there was no spark. Each day took them that much farther from the place where Hyacinth had left them and that much farther from any hope of seeing Hyacinth alive again.

Gwyn flung a tangle of ropes and stakes down onto the ground in disgust. “Who packed these?” he demanded of Diana as she unrolled the Company tent.

She glanced incuriously at the shapeless mass. “Phillippe.”

Gwyn shook his head, frowning. “At least he remains a professional with his music.”

“Oh, he’d never be that sloppy with music, Gwyn. You know that. There is a point beyond which one
can’t
go, as an artist.” She managed to draw a smile from him, which was astonishing, considering the mood everyone had been in since Hyacinth had fled over twenty days ago.

“Anahita is sick again.” He crouched and began the laborious task of unraveling the tangled skein. “She spent all day throwing up over the side of the wagon. Yomi took her to see Dr. Hierakis. Diana.” Hearing an odd note in his voice, she looked up at him. His gaze measured her. “You ought to ask Owen if you can take over the leading roles.”

“But—”

“Don’t protest that you don’t want them.”

“Of course I want them! But—”

“But—?”

“I’m too young. I’m not experienced enough.”

“You’re still young to the craft, it’s true, but you’re good enough, and you have more than enough room to grow. You have to make the leap. Otherwise you’ll never be anything but a supporting player. Is that what you want?”

She dropped her eyes away from his gaze, unwilling to let him see the extent of the sheer driven ambition in them. “No. You know it isn’t.”

“That’s why you must take advantage when the opportunity presents itself.”

“But it just seems—unethical, somehow.”

“This isn’t politics, Diana, it’s art.”

“Does that mean that simple standards of human decency don’t count for us, because we’re artists? That we’re beyond ethical considerations because art is a higher form of discourse? I don’t think so. Quite the reverse, I’d say.”

He laughed. “That’s not what I meant. I meant that in politics there may be times when it’s expedient to leave someone in power who’s become incompetent, because in a web like that, there are ways to circumvent the damage that person might do. But not on stage. Her work is suffering.”

It was true. Anahita’s work
was
suffering. Diana felt it impolite, as a junior member, to agree with Gwyn.

Gwyn added, “And that impacts on all of our work.”

“But to be fair, Gwyn, it’s not just her. We’re all suffering. I never imagined what a catastrophe it would be to lose an actor like this. Not to mention what a catastrophe it must be for Hyacinth, if he’s even still alive.”

“I can’t imagine anyone less suited to wilderness survival than Hyacinth. But he made the choice. Here, I’ve got this all in order now.”

While they raised the tent, Owen came by. “Diana.” He blinked owlishly at her as she struggled to lift the canvas up over the pole. “You’ll be taking over the leading roles starting tonight. We’ll have our first performance with you in that capacity as soon as the army halts for longer than a single night.”

If Diana had not been so well-trained, she would have let the entire edifice, balanced precariously between her and Gwyn, collapse on top of her. “Of course, Owen,” she said, her voice muffled by fabric. She wanted to ask about Anahita, but felt it impolite to do so. It might seem too much like crowing.

“How is Anahita?” Gwyn asked.

“Doctor says she has an ulcer, and some other unspecified complaints. She’s agreed to take supporting roles until her health is better.”

“She
agreed
to it?” Gwyn asked.

Owen wore his vague look. “She understands professional necessity. Rehearsal in thirty minutes, then, and I’ll need extra time with you afterward, Diana.” He left.

“I wish I’d been able to eavesdrop on
that
conversation,” said Gwyn. “I wonder what he threatened her with? Hyacinth’s fate?”

“Owen wouldn’t threaten anyone—” Diana trailed off, seeing that Gwyn was laughing at her.

“Di, the man is as ruthless as Bakhtiian when it comes to his domain. You’re being sentimental.”

“Goddess,” she swore. “The leading roles.” She fell silent. He honored her silence, and they finished setting up the tent without another word.

That evening, at their rehearsal on the flat square of ground in between the company tents—there not being time enough to set up the platform and screens—they walked through
King Lear,
which necessitated few changes except those Ginny wrote in as they worked. Ginny had already recast the play so that Seshat played Lear as an etsana, rather than Dejhuti playing him as the old king. Ginny had as well conflated the parts of the half brothers Edgar and Edmund with those of Goneril’s and Regan’s husbands. Diana played both Cordelia and the Fool. For whatever reason, rehearsal went well; Owen was pleased. For the first time since Hyacinth’s disappearance, the mood in camp felt optimistic.

Thirty days after Hyacinth’s disappearance, which was also twenty days after Bakhtiian’s return to the army, they came to a great river that wound through the land. There, like a vision on the other side of the river, Diana saw a city with gleaming white walls and silver towers and goats grazing peaceably outside the walls amid the sprawl of huts and hovels where, presumably, the poorest people lived. The city astonished her, all marble and colored tile, a romantic’s dream. Beyond the city, grain ripened in the sun, and farther still, orchards blanketed the gentle slopes of surrounding hills. This was a beautiful countryside, rich, fertile, and handsome. And yet, on this side of the river, the army arranged its camp on fields long since trampled and withered by the summer’s heat. She felt a sudden, sharp sympathy for the Habakar people and for their lands. What a horrible thing it was, to destroy such beauty. How had this piece survived? Had the jaran army been unable to cross the river?