Jaran

'Tai-en.'

Naroshi and his retinue went on, moving one step closer to the emperor's presence.

'Oh, Goddess,' said Suzanne again.

Hon Echido had flushed blue. 'I beg of you, Tai Charles, to indulge me in this. Has the Tai-endi Terese indeed died? I would be stricken to desolation were it so. She was kind to me.'

Charles examined Hon Echido, examined the Keinaba elders. He glanced at Suzanne, who lowered the cloth from her face. Drying tears streaked her face. She lifted a hand and wiped them away.

'My servants,' said Charles, and then he tapped off the translation program. 'Hon Echido,' he said in Anglais. 'Do you understand what it means to be allied to my house?'

Hon Echido bent his head, subservient. 'I understand. You are daiga, human, and will be always a barbarian, you and your kind.' His skin faded to orange, the color of peace. 'But we chose, we of Keinaba, to live rather than to die. Thus we have made our choice.'

'Then I will tell you this. The Tai-endi lives but it is better that we alone, of my house, know this.'

The three merchants studied him, knowing full well that such a declaration meant that their duke had chosen to enter the struggle, to vie for position within the emperor's sight, to begin the slow, intricate dance of time uncounted and years beyond years, the politic art, the only art granted to males: the art of intrigue.

'Oh dammit dammit my head hurts,' Tess muttered. She opened her eyes and shut them immediately. 'The light hurts. Ilya.' She was cradled against his chest. 'Why is everything moving so much?'

'Because we're riding,' he said, sounding amused.

'Who the hell are you?' she demanded, trying to push away from him. Her wrists and ankles were bound, and she was seated sidesaddle on his horse, held against him. 'Vasil!'

'I apologize for that blow to the head but there really was no way to get out of there without a hostage.' He smiled.

'Good Lord,' said Tess, getting a good look at him as her eyes adjusted to the light, 'you really are the handsomest man I've ever met.'

He laughed. 'Thank you. I will take the compliment in the spirit in which it was offered.'

'You bitch,' said a second voice. 'You aren't content with just one, are you?'

'Vera,' said Vasil, 'spite makes you ugly. Yevgeni, take her forward, please.'

Yevgeni grinned and urged his horse into a gallop. Vera clutched at his belt and her face went white but she kept yelling back at them, the words lost in the wind.

'Poor Yevgeni,' said Vasil. 'Our family has always been cursed with loving its face more than its heart. You two, go and keep him company, if you will.' The other men rode after Yevgeni. 'I hope your head isn't hurting too much.'

'I still have a headache. It seems to me that now that you're free of the camp, you can let me go.'

'Oh, no, Terese Soerensen, we're not free yet. So Ilya married you, did he?' He looked thoughtful. 'You rode down the Avenue together. He must love you very much.'

'He wants me,' said Tess, and then, because the tone of her voice reminded her of the venom in Vera's voice, she went on. 'Yes, he does love me. It's just taken me this long to really understand that.' She paused a moment, shading her eyes. All she could see was unending grass around them, and she had not the faintest idea where they might be or in what direction the camp lay. 'Why am I telling you this?'

'Because we are alike, you and I,' he said with perfect seriousness.

'Are we? In what way?'

'We both love Ilya. But he will never have me, and therefore he must die.'

'How like your sister you are,' she said bitterly, and suddenly wished he was not holding her so closely.

'Yes, I am,' he said cheerfully. 'It's a terrible thought, isn't it? I find her quite unbearable.'

'You could have killed him last night.'

Vasil shrugged. 'The truth is, I am a coward. I'll never be able to kill him with my own hand. That's why I ride with Mikhailov, to let him do it. But I see this subject is upsetting you. Shall we speak of something else?'

She turned her head away from him, staring out at the men riding ahead of them. 'I don't want to speak to you at all.'

They rode on in silence for a time. Her head ached, but when he paused long enough to give her some water to drink, the pain dulled to a throb.

'Can't you at least untie my ankles so I can ride more comfortably?' she asked at last.

'Certainly. I'll untie your ankles and your wrists if you will promise me on your husband's honor that you won't attempt to escape.'

'Damn you. I can't promise that.'

'I didn't think you would. Ilya holds his honor very high.'

She did not reply. They rode on, and she gauged by the sun that they were riding northeast. In early afternoon they rode into a hollow backed by a steep ridge. A copse of trees ringed a water hole at the base of the ridge, and beyond it lay a small, makeshift camp. One great tent was pitched on the far side, on a low rise above the others, twenty small tents scattered haphazardly below it. The inhabitants were mostly men, she saw as they paused on the crest of a rise to look down, but women and children were there as well.

Vasil and his companions made directly for the great tent. Dmitri Mikhailov stood outside, leaning on a crutch, watching them.

'Evidently you failed,' he said. 'Who is this? The khaja pilgrim? Why?'

'I wouldn't have failed!' Vera cried. 'I would have gotten him to come back with me but then she interrupted me!'

'He would never have gone with you,' said Tess. Her ankles were bound loosely enough that she could stand next to Vasil.

'Do you think so? Everyone knows you sleep in separate tents. You couldn't even get your own husband to lie with you.'

Tess was suddenly struck with a feeling of great pity for Vera, who had nothing left to her now but her own gall to succor her through the months and the years. 'I'm sorry,' she said.

Vera slapped her. Vasil grabbed his sister and wrenched her arm back so hard that Vera gasped with pain.

Mikhailov sighed. 'Must I put up with this? Karolla!'

A young woman about Tess's age emerged from the tent. 'Yes, Father?' Her gaze settled on Tess, and she looked surprised and curious at the same time. She bore an old, white scar of marriage on her cheek.

'Take this Veselov woman somewhere, anywhere, that is out of my sight.'

'Yes, Father.' Karolla looked at Vasil. Tess caught the infinitesimal nod that he gave her, as if it was his permission and not her father's that she sought. 'Well, you must be Vera. I'm sure you'd like to wash and get some food. Will you come with me?'

Vera gathered together the last shreds of her dignity and with a final, parting glance of sheer hatred-not for Tess but for her brother-she walked away with Karolla.

'You three,' said Mikhailov to the riders, 'please follow them and see that she makes no mischief. Now, Vasil, what happened?''

'As Vera said. Vera got us into camp easily enough but Bakhtiian would not go with her to her tent. It was luck that this woman and Bakhtiian came walking through camp-well, there wasn't time to fight him fairly, so I took her as hostage.'

'That is very well, Vasil, but how will this help us kill Bakhtiian? We are already driven into a corner, and now he will attack us with far superior forces.'

'But, Dmitri, she is his wife.'

'There is no mark.'

'By the Avenue.'

'Gods!' Dmitri looked at her for the first time as if her presence mattered to him. 'Is that true?'

Tess did not reply. Her cheek still stung from Vera's slap.

'Yes,' answered Vasil. 'Given the brief moments we had to get out of the camp alive, I did as well as I could. I told Bakhtiian that if he did not leave us alone, I would let Vera kill her.''

Mikhailov smiled, bitterly amused. 'Did you? Would Vera kill her?'