It will fade. Here, now, bind my turban back up, and then you may attend me and the prince. And you may go to him tonight, if you wish it.'
Her gaze lifted to his face. She stared, eyes wide, and then recalled herself and averted her gaze. Her astonishment pleased him, and it fed his desire as well. Tomorrow night he would not go to Laissa's bed. Tomorrow night, perhaps, he would call for Samae to attend him once again. He sat down on the couch and let her minister to him. Was it his imagination, or did she perform her duties eagerly now, with a certain tenderness? He would find out more about her, who her parents were, why she had been sold into slavery, how she had come to learn the mysterious arts of the Tadeshi concubines, why she cried to see the actors perform their play. Quickly she performed her task and followed him outside, where she knelt in silence three paces behind him, eyes lowered, while Lal served tea and cakes to Jiroannes and Mitya. The two men chatted together, about the return of the Prince of Jeds, about the marriage of Bakhtiian's niece, about the siege of Karkand, about the relative merits of the weave of cloth from Habakar looms and how much the merchants trading this fine cloth to countries north and south ought to be taxed by the jaran on their profits.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
'I'm not welcome at this council, am I?'
Tess squatted down in front of the chest, lifted the lid, and rummaged inside. 'Ilya, in all fairness, why should you be?' She found the length of gold cloth she was looking for and drew it out. 'Charles wouldn't be welcome at your councils, either.'
'There might be a time when it was appropriate for him to attend.'
'There might be, it's true. I think I'll use this gold cloth to make a shirt for Vasha.'
'A shirt for who?'
'You remember him. Your son.'
'Tess, he is not-'
'Ilya.'
In the silence, he paced while she heaved herself to her feet and went to the table, to unroll the bolt there, smoothing her hand over the fabric. 'He's a good-looking boy,' Ilya conceded at last, 'and he seems well-mannered. Katya likes him.'
'Katerina has befriended him, yes. But then, she's a generous girl, like her mother.'
'Unlike me?'
Tess grinned suddenly and walked across to him. She took his hand. 'I know it was abrupt of me to adopt him like that. But he looked so bedraggled and so pathetic. He's so young. Was his mother dark-featured as well?'
Ilya nodded absently, attention on the entrance flap, not on her. Outside, they heard Katerina calling out: 'Vasha! Vasha! Come here!'
'But what are we going to do with him?' he asked at last.
'Raise him as our child.'
'Our child? But it goes against all our traditions… by no custom of the jaran would he ever come to me. Even so, we can never know if he is truly my child.'
'Do you doubt that he is? I don't. Oh, it's moving.'
He spread both hands over her belly and they just stood there. A smile caught on his lips and he closed his eyes. 'Yes, I feel it. Our child, Tess.' He sighed, content, and drew his hands up to enclose both her hands between his. 'Tess.' He hesitated, glanced toward the entrance, and then back at her. When he spoke, she could barely hear him. 'We traveled alongside their tribe for five months, and every night I slept in her tent. It was stupid of me, to show any woman such exclusive attention, but-'
'But?'
'Roskhel's tribe rode alongside ours for those same months, and I wanted away from my mother's tent. I hadn't a tent of my own, and anyway, Inessa was very pretty, so it was no hardship for me to lie with her every night. By the time we left them, she knew she was pregnant. Vasha is my child by the laws of Jeds, where such lines are followed through the man whose seed makes a woman pregnant. But we are not in Jeds. Nor do I rule there. By the laws of the jaran he is not my child, nor am I his father, except that I'm married to you, and that you adopted him as a foster-son.'
He released her abruptly. A moment later Katerina burst into the tent. 'Aunt Tess! Vasha, come here!'
The boy pushed through the opening hesitantly and halted right on the threshold as if he did not want to intrude, the heavy flap caught on his shoulders. Katerina grabbed his wrist and jerked him forward.
'Look. Vasha, show them!'
'Little one,' said Ilya sternly, 'he needn't show us anything he doesn't want to.' He turned a steady gaze on Vasha, and the boy stared up at him,
Oh, yes, the resemblance was strong enough that anyone might guess just by looking at them together that they were father and son. And Vasha had the eyes, the same fire there, burning. He stared at his father as much with awe as with apprehension. Ilya looked vexed. Finally,
Vasha uncurled his right hand to display a finely-carved bone clasp, the kind one would use to close a saddlebag or a pouch.
'By the gods,' Ilya murmured. He lifted it up and examined it. It was long and narrow, like a finger, curved, with a small hole at one end for a leather strip to lace through. He laughed out of sheer surprise. 'My father gave me this. He carved it for me, as a present, when my first cycle of years had passed. Do you see the eagle, here? How his wings curl and drape around the clasp, as if he's embracing the winds?' Katya hung on her uncle's arm, staring. Vasha did not move, did not even close his hand or withdraw it. 'Where did you get it?'
Vasha shrugged, dipping his chin down, staring at the carpet.
'Vasha! When I ask a question, I expect an answer.'
The boy mumbled something.
'Gods, boy! I'm not going to punish you for it. I thought I'd lost this years ago, but I see that your mother merely stole it from me.'
His gaze leapt up to Ilya. He glared. 'She did not! She said you gave it to her!'
'I never gave it to her! And it happened more than once, that she'd take things from me and tell people I'd given them to her-' His voice dropped suddenly, in the face of Vasha's humiliated anger. 'But perhaps I merely dropped it somewhere, and she found it and kept it to give to me again.'
'Only you never came back,' said the boy in a muted tone, looking down again.
'No, I never did. Well, here. I give it back to you, then.'
'To me!' His gaze flashed up to Ilya and down again.
'As my father gifted me with it, so do I gift it to you.'
'Oh,' said Katerina.
Vasha did not move. liya placed the clasp on the boy's palm and closed his fingers over it. 'Vasha, you are with us now. Let this be the seal between you and me, then, that… that we'll raise you as we would any son of ours.' Still Vasha did not speak. Ilya glanced at Tess. 'Well?' he demanded, as if she could help him.
'I have to go. Katya, I'm going to make a shirt for Vasha out of this cloth. Take it over to your mother and show it to her, please.'
'Of course, Aunt Tess.' Katya rolled up the cloth and hurried away.
Tess straightened her clothes over her belly. 'Give me a kiss, little one,' she said to Vasha. He started and came to kiss her, once on each cheek, in the formal way. She kissed him on the forehead as well, kissed Ilya on the cheek, and went to the entrance. There she paused on the threshold.
Ilya examined the boy as if he hadn't the least idea what to do with him. He coughed, glanced at Tess, and frowned. 'Well. Do you know how to ride, Vasha?'
'Of course I know how to ride! How do you think I got here? Oh, I beg your pardon, I'm sorry. That was ill- mannered of me. Yes, I know how to ride.'
Ilya sighed. He put out a hand as if to pat the boy on the shoulder, withdrew it, and then reached out again and awkwardly touched Vasha on the arm. 'You'll ride out with me today, then. We'll go find you a mount.'
