reunion.'
'Of course,' said Bakhtiian smoothly. 'Children.' He rounded them up ruthlessly. David noticed for the first time the boy, Vasha, among their numbers. The child stuck next to Sonia Orzhekov's daughter, Katerina, and he looked nervous. As well he might. What was he doing with the Orzhekov tribe? They trooped off, Bakhtiian herding them. A rider took his horse.
Tess lingered. 'Charles!'
'I know what I'm doing.'
'Well, you'd better fill me in.'
'I will, Tess. I have quite a bit to say to you, in fact, and I'll need you in on the council as well. Now go on.'
She hesitated. Then she looked at Cara, who had waited patiently through all this. Jo and Rajiv and Maggie had already retreated to the gear, sorting it out.
'It's true,' said Cara quietly, not without humor, 'that we might like a few moments to ourselves, little one.'
Tess threw up her hands in exasperation. 'You aren't going to do anything rash, are you?'
Charles blinked. 'Do I ever?'
'You're impossible. Hello, David.' Tess turned her back on her brother and came over to David, and kissed him.
'You're looking well.'
'Thank you. I'm feeling well. You're not looking bad yourself. Is it true mat you and Dina-oh, never mind. I'm sorry I mentioned it. I don't think Feodor Grekov is a good match for her, either. She doesn't respect him.' 'Tess, I'd realty prefer not to speak about it.' 'I'm sorry. Truly, I'm sorry, if you feel so strongly.' She rested a hand on his shoulder, companionably. 'And I have a rather urgent request for you.' 'For me?'
'Is it remotely possible that you can design-I don't know-within the limits of the interdiction, some kind of decent plumbing? Something you can teach the army engineers to build at every campsite? Something better than a ditch? Something not too difficult to build, not too time-consuming, but, God, I want something like the Company's necessary. I go over there every chance I get. And showers. Hot showers. Is there any chance you can devise-? It's not that they're dirty, the jaran. They're not. They're scrupulously clean in most ways. But still, the conditions…' 'And you pregnant.' 'Oh, tell me you understand.' 'Not about being pregnant, but I can sympathize,' 'Oh, David.' She hugged him, as well as she could given her girth. 'You're an angel.'
'I haven't promised to do anything yet.' 'But you will. You have to. You're an engineer, after all.'
At that inopportune moment, Cara paused beside them. 'And that reminds me, David, I need a better sanitation system for the hospital. Surely between that brain of yours and your modeler you can design-'
'Oy vey.' David flung up his hands palm out as if they could ward him, 'Let me breathe a moment. Let me set up the camp. Then I'll see. Cara, why don't you and Charles just go? I'll supervise the camp setup.'
'Will you? Thank you, David. It is good to see you, you know. Charles and Marco are going over to the Company later, to give them the news about Hyacinth. I'll see you tonight, then.' She and Charles left. Tess left. David got to work with the others, and with practiced ease, and the addition of Ursula, they set up the camp before nightfall.
After weeks journeying at an inhuman pace on horseback across the endless, changing landscape of Rhui, David found himself relieved to come to a temporary halt, even in the primitive conditions of a siege. Karkand rose before them, made tiny by distance, but real, there to be touched. The palace of Morava loomed in the back of his mind like an illusion, seen on the horizon, coming no closer.
'Here, you old slug,' said Maggie, jostling David where he sat, sore, tired, and grateful, in a chair, 'help me hang lanterns all around here. Don't forget that we're having a party tonight.'
'Goddess in Heaven.' David dragged himself up. Maggie paused to rub his shoulders, and he sighed and drooped.
'Now don't you sit down again, or I'll stop.' 'Don't stop. Why the actors? All that noise.' 'Who knows what lurks in the heart of Charles? You, better than I. He has a position as prince to maintain, you know. Aren't princes meant to give parties? I don't know.'
'It's true Charles is often at his best in a crowd. Better than me, certainly.'
'You shy thing.' She removed her hands from his back. 'Here, now, give me a hand.'
'Mags, you're an angel. Remind me never to ride that far that fast again. In fact, remind me never to travel any distance in anything other than a skimmer or a shuttle, would you?'
She snorted. 'What, you didn't think it was romantic?'
'Not to my thighs and my rump it wasn't.' They lit and hung lanterns at the four corners of the awning that thrust out in front of Charles's tent. Rajiv emerged from his tent and helped them. Jo and Ursula had gone to the hospital camp with the new equipment for Cara. As evening fell, Charles returned from his peregrinations, alone.
'Well?' asked David. 'Did you give Owen and Ginny the news? How did they take it?'
'They were relieved. Owen said, 'perhaps he'll be a better actor for the experience.' '
'No! He would. The man's a lunatic.'
'Oh, I don't know. He's not unlike me.'
'Or Cara, or any of you obsessive types. Where's Marco?'
Charles shrugged. 'Marco seemed distracted. I'm not sure whether we'll see him again tonight or not.'
'What, already off tomming it?'
'David, this time I'm beginning to wonder if there's more to it than that.'
'What? You're not serious?'
But David could see that Charles was, indeed, serious. David followed him inside his tent, where he removed two bottles of whiskey from his precious horde. Only one bottle remained. 'I don't know. Help me keep an eye on him, will you?'
David simply grunted in reply, too astonished by the thought of Marco seriously distracted by a woman to think of any words to express himself with. The tent flap swept aside behind them, and Tess and Cara walked in.
'So it's true?' Tess was saying to Cara in Anglais. 'I'm not surprised, I suppose, but still, to have it confirmed by your tests…'
'To have what confirmed?' asked Charles, turning around.
Cara glanced at Tess, as if for her permission to speak, but Tess went on. 'The boy, Vasha. He's Ilya's illegitimate son by a woman he knew years ago. Cara has confirmed it by comparing VNTR regions.'
'Vasha!' David gaped. 'So that's why he looked like Dina. But, Tess, I saw him with the other Orzhekov children-'
'Well, of course, I took him in! Poor child. His mother is dead and his relatives didn't want him, which is no surprise, considering what a disgrace it is to have no father.'
'But he has a-'
'Not by their laws. But because I adopted him as my son, then Ilya, who's his biological father, becomes his accepted father because Ilya is my husband.' Then she hesitated. 'Wasn't it the right thing to do?'
'I think so,' said Cara firmly.
Charles thought about it for a while. 'For the boy, certainly, I should think. Can he inherit?'
'Only through my line.'
'Ah. Of course.'
'But you know, Charles, the jaran have changed already, in little ways, since I've come to them. Who knows where it will stop? He's a very intense boy. Quiet, but that may just be the way he learned to survive. Time will tell how ambitious he is.'
'But what about your child, Tess?' David asked.
She blinked at him. A moment later understanding flooded her features, and she chuckled. 'What? I need to protect my children's inheritance rights by murdering him? How very Byzantine of you, David.' She hesitated, appeared about to say something more, then did not.
But, of course, Tess's children had three inheritances to choose from: Rhui, Earth, and the Empire. Although their ability to inherit Charles's position was problematic, to say the least. Tess caught his eye and for that instant
