The Novels of the Jaran (296 page)

“I don’t know. Five years ago? Seven?”

“How old were you?” Katerina sounded appalled, and Jaelle shrank away from her touch, aware that she must not allow her affection for Katerina, and Katerina’s for her, to come between them and God’s judgment.

“I don’t know. Ten years old. Twelve. Thirteen, perhaps. That is the usual age for a girl to begin her courses, isn’t it?”

“Gods. You khaja
are
savages. And there was no child after that? After that one?”

I found out there were herbs that stop a woman from conceiving. Once I thought I got with child, so I took the seeds of the
torise
plant and was sick for weeks. If there was a child, it never came out. Perhaps God made me barren. It would be just.”

“What about this Lady, this Pilgrim, you speak of? Does she intend to punish you, too?”

“You must not speak of God and Our Lady that way.” Jaelle made the sign of severing, clutching her talisman knife in one hand. “It was just. Surely you must think so, too, Katerina.”

“It is true that it is a terrible act to kill a baby. But Aunt Tess says that our army has killed children simply by existing, by conquering and laying lands waste, by leaving children no food to eat over the winter. So is what you did worse than that? I don’t know. I killed Prince Janos, and I could have granted him mercy. Who am I to judge you?”

“
You
killed Prince Janos? But Lady Jadranka said that Princess Rusudani killed him.”

“Rusudani betrayed him. It was my hand that killed him.”

“I did not know you hated him so much.”

“I did not hate him,” said Katerina, her voice trembling for the first time. “But I had sworn that he would die for what he did to me. And because I swore before the gods, I had no choice.”

“I had no choice,” whispered Jaelle. “I would have died, too, if Kamarnos had not hired me. That is the truth. I chose to let the baby die so that I could live.”

Katerina sighed and, tentatively, put her arms around Jaelle. “I would be like a wife to you, like a husband to you, if you would let me, but I know you do not wish it. So it’s better that you marry Stefan. That way I know you will be safe.”

“But—”

“Do you wish to go out and see him now?”

“No. Yes. I don’t know.”

“If I were Mother Orzhekov, I would see what punishment the gods see fit to visit on you. I would let you lie with the man you wish to marry, with other men, and if the gods have forgiven you, they would show their mercy by letting you get pregnant. No woman in the tribes wants her son to marry a woman who cannot give him children. But if you conceive, then why not let you marry him? In the jaran, you will not be forced to behave so barbarously. You will become a jaran woman. It will be as if your other life is gone away. You will become a different woman, a woman who never has to make such a terrible choice, to live herself or die with her child.”

“How can I become a jaran woman if I do not pray to your gods? That I can never do.”

“Ah, gods, you khaja! No one says you must stop praying to your gods—”

“There is only one God—”

“But you speak of three. You speak of God, his son Hristain, and his daughter the Pilgrim. That is three. I can count.”

But Jaelle was too wrung out to launch into a dispute about the nature of God and the holy mystery of three being one. She rested her head on Katerina’s shoulder. “Is it true, that I might live with the tribes?”

“You must go back to Sarai with Stefan.”

“And you will come with us?”

“I don’t know,” said Katerina.

“I won’t wait any longer!” exclaimed Stefan from outside. A moment later he swept the tent flap aside and barged into the tent. “Jaelle, I don’t know what Katerina has been telling you, and it’s true that I’ll never distinguish myself in the army, but healers are as honored among my people as soldiers and…” Enough light showed through the flap that Jaelle caught the indignant look that he threw at Katerina. “Would you go away?”

“Your manners, Stefan,” she scolded, but she left the tent.

Stefan developed an alarming attack of shyness. “If you were a jaran woman, I would not ask,” he said, “but…but you will marry me, won’t you, Jaelle?”

She gathered up enough courage to look at him. “If your grandmother approves of me, of what I have been, then, yes, I will.” Exhausting her reserves, she clasped her hands nervously in front of her chest and waited.

He fidgeted a moment, bouncing on the toes of his boots. “Damn good manners, anyway!” he swore, and crossed the chamber and embraced her and kissed her. She was quick to respond.

Tess hid in her tent for the rest of the day. She curled up in her sleeping furs and just lay there. Her nerves were wrung out. She could not bear to face one more person. For the first time in her marriage, she was afraid that something had happened to irrevocably alter the man she had married.

At twilight, Ilya came into the outer chamber of the tent, calling for her in his usual autocratic way. She stirred, but then she heard Vasha’s voice.

“Will you stop and let me talk to you?” Vasha demanded.

“What about?” Ilya’s curt reply ought to have warned the young man.

“I am not happy about what you did in the hall.”

“I didn’t mean it. I meant to scare her off.”

“
I
mean it.”

“You mean what?”

“I mean to marry her.”

Ilya snorted. “Then you’d better have someone taste your food.”

“Father! Don’t you understand what an alliance with Mircassia will mean for us?”

“Why should I merely ally with Mircassia when I could have her outright?”

“How many battles would that take you? How many soldiers would you lose? This is a much better way. If you and Katya hadn’t been so stubbornly set on killing Janos—”

“Do not speak to me on that subject.”

“I will speak to you! You’re just angry that he held you prisoner. But he was a good man, he was intelligent, and he knew the worth of—”

“He raped Katerina, or have you forgiven him for that?”

For the first time, Vasha stumbled. “I don’t know. I think he didn’t mean to do…that he didn’t know…that he supposed that what he did was different than how Katya saw it. What are the laws in his country? Shouldn’t he be judged by them, and not by ours?”

“Most khaja laws are unjust.”

“Then expand just laws over all people, but do not throw out everything that is theirs. How do you expect to hold together an empire if you show no respect for the ways of the people you have conquered? If you don’t give them a stake in holding your empire together, then they will simply revolt at the first opportunity. You cannot hold all these lands together by force indefinitely. You must hold them together by other means.”

Ilya gave a bark of a laugh. “Now you sound like Tess.” Tess winced, hearing him, because he sounded angry.

But Vasha’s reply was calm. He sounded surer of himself than she had ever heard him. “Thank you. You could have given me no greater compliment. I had a great deal of time to think while I was Janos’s hostage, and—”

“And you still want to marry Rusudani?”

“I do. It is the wisest course, now that Janos is dead. I’ll ride to Mircassia with her.”

“Who said I meant to let her go to Mircassia? She’s worth more to me as a hostage.”

“Mircassia is worth more to us as an ally. You’re just being contrary. You know it’s true.”

There was a long silence. She heard little noises, Ilya pacing, Ilya unrolling a scroll, or at least she assumed that Ilya was the restless one, not Vasha. The furs in which she hid smelled musty. In the rains several days ago they had gotten damp and never been properly aired out.

“Then you’d better marry her before you go. Otherwise she’ll have you killed once you get there, if she finds a more suitable consort.”

“Father!”

“Do you approve of her killing her husband?”

“You would have killed him.”

“That was different. He ambushed my guard and took me prisoner. A woman does not betray her husband. Nor a husband, his wife.”

“He forced her to marry him.”

“Women have no choice in marriage. Gods, boy, I forced Tess to marry me.”

Now it was Vasha’s turn to snort. “You did not!”

“I did! By the gods.”

Tess sat up. She heard in his voice a touch of the old Ilya: smug and triumphant.

“I don’t believe it. Not of Tess. Of a jaran woman, perhaps.”

“Well…” More rustling. Ilya was shifting around again. She could practically hear the admission being dragged out of him, however reluctantly. “She didn’t accept it either and told me so.”

Tess heard the oddest sound: Vasha trying to suppress laughter.

“I suppose she did,” Vasha said finally. “That is why I can’t marry Rusudani out of hand. She must come to see that it is in her interest to marry me, to ally with the jaran.”

“Vasha.” Now Ilya’s voice changed, to something far more dangerous because it trembled on the edge of control. “Don’t be a fool. She doesn’t want you. She wants me. It is never wise for a man to marry a woman who sees him only as an obstacle in her way to what she truly wants. She will stay with the jaran as a hostage until her grandfather dies.”

When Vasha replied, his voice was so low that Tess had to strain to hear it. And was sorry she did. “What, are you like Janos? You want a wife
and
a well-born concubine? I won’t waste my time talking to you any more.”

The tent flap soughed down, closing behind him. There was silence in the outer chamber. Tess wrapped the furs more tightly around herself.

“Damn it,” said Ilya. A moment later a faint edge of light sprang into being around the curtain that separated the sleeping chamber from the outer chamber. “Nikita! Vladimir!”

It was Gennady Berezin who stuck his head in finally. “Yes, Cousin?” he asked in the formal style.

“Do you know where Tess is?”

“No. No one has seen her since this morning in the great hall.”

“Or if they have,” said Ilya sarcastically, “they’re not going to tell me.”

“Yes, Cousin,” said Berezin mildly, and by that Tess knew that he was protecting her.

“Then go out and see if you can find her, damn it. Send her here.”

“
Send
her here, Ilyakoria?”

“Ask her if she will deign to see me, then! Go!” Ilya kicked something—it could only be the table—swore, and fell to muttering to himself. Angels and blinding lights and a sword made in heaven… Tess had heard this before. She got up on her hands and knees and swayed forward, twitching aside the back lower corner of the curtain and peeking through. By the light of a single lantern, sitting in the middle of the table, she watched him. She felt an inexplicable reluctance to go out to him, to speak to him; what if he had been changed forever? He never talked to himself like this before. Finally his mumbling trailed away. He sat in the chair, one hand on the table, holding open a scroll which he was not looking at. He was staring at the tent entrance, as if he expected a visitor momentarily.

One came. She pushed aside the entrance flap and paused, letting it slide shut behind her. She pulled her shawl down and let it drape over her shoulders, letting her thick dark hair tumble down around her shoulders. She wore no jewels, nothing to adorn her except her youth and her pretty face and her position as King Barsauma’s acknowledged heir. She examined Ilya greedily. She practically licked her lips.

“What do you want?” Ilya snapped.

Tess flinched. She had never heard him be rude to a woman before.

Then, he recovered himself. “I beg your pardon,” he said, standing up.

“You want Mircassia,” she said, without moving.

“Yes.”

“Then put aside your wife and marry me instead. Mircassia will be yours.”

“Among the jaran, a man does not
put aside
his wife, my lady.”

“Jeds is nothing compared to Mircassia. A few ships, that is all. I am a more suitable consort for a man of your power and ambitions.”

He did not reply. They all knew it was true.

“An ambitious man would not hesitate. You served me faithfully enough while you were Prince Janos’s prisoner. I spared you from worse indignities.”

“I am not a lapdog, Princess Rusudani, an animal which I know khaja noblewomen like to pet and dandle and feed sweets to. Nor do I marry simply for the sake of land.”

“Do you expect me to believe that? That is the only reason anyone of our station marries. The Prince of Jeds must have seemed a valuable enough alliance ten years ago, however paltry it may seem now.”

“I invite you to leave, Princess.”

“No,” she said petulantly. “I am leaving on my own. I ride out tomorrow—”

“With what escort? How do you intend to break free of my army? You are under my control, Princess Rusudani. You will marry my son Vassily—”

“I will only marry in a ceremony in the true church!” But she sounded desperate now. She knew she had been outplayed.

“If that contents you. The boy is half khaja anyway; I doubt he will care. But be aware, Princess, that if he dies in mysterious circumstances, I will seek revenge.”

She paled, and her hands tightened into fists. She bit down on one pretty lip and a tear squeezed out of one eye. Ilya remained unmoved by this display of emotion. She wiped off the tear and straightened her shoulders. “So I am to be sold off again to a man? To your empire? As if I were a common slave? Is this how you treat the women of your people? I once thought otherwise.”

“This is how you expect to be treated. Janos was not a stupid man. You could have made a good marriage with him, but you chose to betray him instead.”

For the first time, Tess saw Rusudani flinch.

“If you choose to act as if you are only a pawn in a game of castles, then that is how you will be treated. If you choose to act as an etsana, wielding power wisely and with the gods-granted authority given to women, then you will be respected. Nikita! Vladi, damn you!”

“Yes, Bakhtiian.” Vladimir stuck his head in. His helmet gleamed in the lantern light. He glanced around the chamber and Tess had a good idea that he knew where she was, that she was spying.