better arrangements can be made.'
'We're not leaving the camp. To do so would insult the jaran. I would think you, of all people, would see the Idiocy in such a course. Or would you prefer I had not married you and merely cast you off to the tender mercies of your conquerors?'
What frightened Jiroannes about Laissa was how swiftly her personality had changed once the Habakar priests had sprinkled perfume and holy water over them and proclaimed them betrothed and married by the laws of their Almighty God. At his threat, she merely drew up her chin and stared scornfully at him.
'You would have been a fool to do so, and you're a fool to threaten me with it now. No merchant of my people would dare refuse to do business with me or with my husband's ministers. You will keep that in mind, I hope, if you wish to prosper in these lands. I think you're being unnecessarily sanguine about the possibility that these barbarians will hold on to their conquests. As Javani, it was one of my duties to study the records of my people, and let me assure you that barbarians have ridden through these lands before only to be chased out by our armies or by their own troubles back in the lands where they come from.'
He had thought the Habakar a civilized people. Marriage to Laissa had disabused him of this notion. Their noblewomen learned to read and write and were encouraged to study arts such as mathematics and philosophy and poetry that only men were suited to engage in, and any woman might conduct business in her own name, although it was true that she must be under a husband's or father's or brother's protection.
'Furthermore,' she continued relentlessly, 'whatever may become of these barbarians, you certainly won't impress them with the paltry retinue that attends you now. If you wish for respect, then you must show that you deserve it. Your guards' camp was a disgrace when I toured it five days ago, children running everywhere, sluttish women unsupervised and unkempt, and no priest to watch over them. I hope it is in better condition now because of my efforts, but do I receive thanks for that? Certainly not. You complain that I brought in a priest of my people to hold the hand of the Almighty God over those of us in this camp. You refuse me sufficient quarters, and then complain when I act to improve them. If you wish me to entertain jaran noblewomen, I certainly cannot do so in that cramped, colorless little tent that I had to share with my handmaiden. I have managed to enlarge the tent-'
She had, at that. Her tent, attached to his by a covered walkway so that she needn't leave its seclusion, was twice the size of his own, now, and warrened with little rooms for sleeping and primping and administering and one with a cot for her handmaiden.
'— but I need more tapestries for the walls and more carpets. There is a certain kind of carpet from the south, near Salkh, which I should like four of, if they can be got. And some couches for visitors, and I refuse to serve anyone, even a barbarian woman, that swill you call tea. Furthermore-'
'Enough!'
'It is not enough! Furthermore-'
He cuffed her across the cheek. She gasped, and that quickly raised her right hand and slapped him. The blow didn't hurt-she wasn't strong enough for that-but it stung. 'You dare strike me!'
Despite his anger, she didn't shrink back from him. 'The Almighty God teaches us that a woman must bow to her husband as the angels bow to God, but if he strikes her without justification, then she may strike back.'
'Without justification! A woman ought never to raise her voice to a man! Never! So has the Everlasting God proclaimed.'
'Then you are barbarians, as I thought. I encourage you to see how well you will prosper in Habakar lands without my assistance. I lived better than this before the jaran came, and had your guards not discovered my hiding place, I would have escaped and been treated among my own people as a woman of my station ought to be treated.
'Yet you were discovered, and if I judge rightly, you ought to have killed yourself rather than let yourself be dishonored.'
Her chin quivered. Silk trembled over the bridge of her nose, and her eyes flashed. 'So speaks the man who dishonored me. That is for the Almighty God to forgive, if He judges that I did not do my duty toward Him. Not for an unbeliever such as yourself.'
'I hope you realize what forbearance I am showing in allowing you to bring a priest into my camp at all. It is only my respect for Bakhtiian's proclamation that all priests must be tolerated.'
'It is only your respect for the power of Bakhtiian's army. It was, in any case, part of the marriage contract that you signed.'
A contract witnessed by the Habakar priests and signed by him and by Laissa. As if a woman's word was worth anything, although evidently it was to these people. Still, by birth as reckoned by Habakar standards she ranked far above him; in Vidiya, he could never have hoped for so advantageous a match: She was cousin to the reigning king and to the king's nephew who, rumor said, was now raising an army in the southlands, and also to the princess whom Mitya expected to marry. The bitter truth was, she treated him like the commoner she considered him to be; although his family was an old and honorable house, they were not nobility. That he had been allowed to study in the palace school for boys was due to his uncle's high standing as a Companion to the Great King, and the fact that his uncle had once saved the Great King's father's fife in a battle. And imagine, if Mitya became king here, then the king's wife and his own wife would be cousins!
'Well,' he said, quashing an urge to touch his cheek, where she had slapped him, 'I forbid any expedition to look for a villa within the walls, but if you need rugs and carpets, and silks for your wardrobe, you have my permission to send your steward out to the market.' Her steward. She had a regular army of attendants, more than he had brought, certainly. Yet it was true that in some ways she made his life easier. She had taken over much of the day-to-day administering of the camp, which was by rights a servant's job. Evidently she thought it a woman's duty, and indeed, the Everlasting God proclaimed that women were the servants of men, so perhaps it was fitting.
The tent flap stirred and Lal appeared. 'I beg your pardon, eminence. I thought to inquire if you had further orders for me before I left?'
Probably the boy had been listening outside. Jiroannes glanced at Laissa.
She bowed her head, but the show of humility did not fool him. 'I abide by your command, husband.'
'Lal, the mistress will direct you. Also, I mean to attend the performance this afternoon. Wife, you will accompany me. Although I'm sure you feel reluctant to leave your seclusion, I think it best that the jaran noblewomen see you with me again, out in the camp, so that they can be assured that we are fixed as man and wife.'
'As you wish.' She retreated to the door and glanced back-not at him, but at the still, silent form that was Samae, kneeling motionlessly, head bent submissively, at the foot of the couch. Then she was gone, Lal scurrying after her, into the women's quarters, a place that no man might follow Laissa into except her husband.
That sudden, lightning interest puzzled Jiroannes. Why should Laissa notice Samae? The girl now slept in the same tent as the two eunuchs, and now that he was married, Jiroannes had felt able to endure her touch again. He remained leery of bedding her so far, but he allowed her to massage him every day.
'Jat! Where is the boy, damn it? Samae, dress me.'
She did so without word or sign of what she thought of her new favor in his eyes. Perhaps Samae's exotic beauty interested Laissa. Vidiyan women had their own diversions within the women's quarters, and what they did to keep themselves occupied did not merit a man's concern, as long as they did their duty by bearing him sons of his own seed.
In the afternoon he walked beside Laissa's covered litter, borne by two guardsmen and two servants of her own people, to the ground where the Company performed. Lal and Samae and Syrannus walked in attendance on him, and four handmaidens as well as the interpreter accompanied Laissa, so that when they came to settle themselves in front of the platform, they made quite an unwieldy little group.
After so long with the jaran, Jiroannes had learned to recognize the various ranks within the jaran; today many of their nobles gathered to attend the performance. Evidently, this dance was being danced for the first time, and Bakhtiian himself, accompanied by the Prince of Jeds, meant to attend as well. Mother Sakhalin hurried up, and Laissa, no fool, eased herself out of the litter to greet the old woman. Except, to his horror, she did not offer greetings at all. Instead, she and the old woman began haggling over right of place.
'Wife,' he began, 'naturally we will move to a different-'
Two heads turned. Both women stared at him, most brazenly, and he realized that they were enjoying
