'Soerensen doesn't do anything without a reason-that is, without a deeper reason. Humans have never been allowed to travel much outside of League space. Those of us who are allowed to might be able to find out things.'
'Oooh. Spies!'
'Sssh. This isn't a game, Di.'
'Sorry. But we're actors, not soldiers or diplomats.'
'Exactly.' Then he grinned. 'What better cover? And what better people to play roles?'
'No! You don't really think-?'
He shrugged. 'Maybe I'm wrong. One's thinking becomes a little warped after an extended stay in prison. Excuse me.' He rose and caught Ginny's arm before she walked outside, and they went out together, Gwyn shrugging his cloak on. A finger of cool, damp breeze brushed Diana's face and dissolved in the heat of the tent. An eddy of movement had trapped Marco between Oriana and Hal. He sidled past them toward the entrance. Diana jumped to her feet and pulled the flap aside for him, and followed him out.
'Thank you,' he said without looking at her. They stood under the awning. She slung on her cloak and hitched the hood up over her head. Rain drenched the ground. A wind threw mist under the awning, and out beyond the muddy canvas groundcloth on which they stood, the earth was soaked and weeping rivulets of water. 'The soil doesn't absorb the rain very well, does it?' asked Marco. Whether the rain beyond or her presence made him reluctant to leave the shelter of the awning, she did not know. He still didn't look at her. The clouds lowered dull and gray over them. The sheeting rain blurred the distant shapes of tents. Gwyn and Ginny stood talking under the awning of her and Owen's tent, stamping the mud off their boots and shaking water from their cloaks. Farther away, they saw Soerensen trudging through the rain into camp, his shoulders hunched, his pale hair slicked down against his head.
'It must be the rainy season,' said Diana, and then she laughed, because it was such a stupid comment.
'I must go.' He did not move.
'Marco. Are we going to become spies?'
He flung his head back, startled, and then he chuckled. He reached out and with one finger tilted her chin back and smoothed his finger over her lips. His skin was surprisingly warm. 'Only if you wish it, golden fair.' He traced her cheek and jaw with his hand and as abruptly closed the hand into a fist and drew it away from her face. 'Forgive me.'
'No.' She captured the hand in one of hers. 'There's nothing to forgive. It's true, you know, that I have a right here to take a lover if I wish to.' His eyes flared slightly as he watched her. 'How soon are we leaving?'
'I can't say. We could leave anytime. Two days. Ten. Twenty. But it will be soon.'
'And the Company will go with Soerensen?'
'Yes. What will you do, Diana?'
'What do you mean?'
'Well-' He did not try to free his hand, but she felt his fingers move within her grasp. 'Anatoly-'
'The Company is my life, Marco. If they go, I go with them. Or did you think I was like Tess Soerensen? That I meant to stay with the jaran?'
'I didn't think-I mean, I didn't know-it's not my business to ask, is it?'
She heard Hal and Ori at the entrance, and she dropped Marco's hand, but neither of them came out. 'Di!' called Hal from inside. 'Did you want some tea? Goddess, this weather is disgusting.'
'Come to my tent tonight,' said Diana quickly, in an undertone.
'Di! Where are you?' The tent flap rustled aside. Hal stuck his head out. 'Oh,' he said, and ducked inside again.
They stood in silence, serenaded by the incessant pounding of rain. One corner of the awning sagged down under an accumulating pool, and with a rush the balance tipped and a waterfall began a slow trickle out of the poof, flooded with a tearing splash, and emptied.
Diana sneezed. 'I beg your pardon! As if I would want to live like this for the rest of my life anyway!'
'Diana.' His voice was taut. 'Do you mean it?'
'I wouldn't say it if I didn't mean it!'
'I beg your pardon. I only-'
'I know what I said before. I know it was only six days ago. But it's over, Marco. I mean, what are we talking about now? We're talking about touring into Chapalii space! We're leaving Rhui. I can't hang on to here forever. I'll have to let go, I'll have to let him go.'
'You might be able to get a dispensation from Charles to let him come with you.' He said it reluctantly.
'Come with me? Do you think he'd want to?'
'I don't know. Diana, I'm not the best person to ask that of. I'm not exactly a disinterested party.'
'No, I'm sorry. That was cruel of me.'
'Not cruel.' He took in a breath and let it out. 'I would-' He broke off, shook his head, and started again. 'I would like to- Of course, I- Oh, Goddess, I'm making a hash of this. The answer is yes. Excuse me.' He jerked the thong of his hat up tight and strode out abruptly into the rain.
Diana stared after him. But it was just as well. Her chest had gone tight with a sudden pounding. She had asked him; he had said yes. And he was just as flustered as she was. She watched him slog away through the mud. A smaller figure, a child, ran toward them through the pelting rain, fair head bent under the onslaught. Marco paused as the child raced by him and then he trudged on in the direction Soerensen had disappeared. The child began a detour toward Diana's tent, but when Diana raised her hand, the figure halted, slipping in the mud, and jogged toward her.
It was one of the girls from the Veselov tribe. She halted outside the awning.
'Oh, here,' said Diana. 'Come underneath.'
The girl did so gratefully. 'Mother Veselov sent me,' she said after she'd caught her breath. Her hair was soaked through, but the rain slid off her long felt coat and dripped onto the ground. 'A messenger came in. From Anatoly Sakhalin's jahar. They'll be here today.'
Today.
Wind whipped a sheet of rain in under the cover of the awning, spraying Diana's face. She tugged her cloak around her. 'Haven't you anything to wear on your head?' she demanded.
'Oh, of course I do, but it was all so fast, Mother Veselov calling me in, and so I just ran. It'll dry. I don't mind.'
/ don't mind. They none of them complained about the hardships. It was one thing to live under these conditions for a short time; that was endurable. But to live under them always. Diana could not imagine how Tess Soerensen could choose to live here, year after year. Or how she could even want to have a child under these conditions. But then, she wasn't Tess Soerensen, and Anatoly, for all his undoubted charms, was nothing like flyakoria Bakhtiian.
'I don't know what to do,' said Diana in Anglais.
The girl smiled up at her, blinking drops of water off her pale eyelashes.
But it was worse just to stand here undecided. 'I'll go with you,' Diana said abruptly. They forged out into the rain. It hammered on her head, and soon enough she regretted that she hadn't thought to get the girl a hat. Mud slathered her boots. Few people moved about; wisely, they had chosen to stay in their tents.
'Mother Veselov said to take you to the Sakhalin encampment,' said the girl as they slogged along. 'Anyway, the jahar will have to report in to Bakhtiian before anything else.'
'And Anatoly will have to report in to his grandmother.'
'Well, of course!'
Halfway through camp, they found themselves caught in a swirl of movement along the avenue that led from the outskirts of the camp straight in to the central encampments. A troop of horsemen rode by. They were spattered with mud and drenched by the rain, windblown and yet impressive, unbowed by the weather. In better weather. Diana thought they would have formed a triumphal procession, but as it was, only a handful of jaran ventured out to watch them go by. Where had they come from?
She saw the prisoners all at once, three cloaked women and a small child riding on caparisoned horses. Riders surrounded them, but the prisoners paid no heed to their presence or even, seemingly, to the camp through which they rode. They looked thoroughly dispirited. The eldest woman's nose ran with mucus, streaking her face,
