Then, without warning, she swore, a single word. Water gushed down her legs, staining her boots and the loose belled ends of her women's trousers.
Aleksi stared in horror. His fear for her paralyzed him. He could only stand and shake, clutching Tess by the arm. Mitya gasped. Katerina ran up beside them.
'Quick!' she exclaimed, surveying the situation with a comprehensive glance. 'Quick, you idiots! Get her on the litter. The baby's coming!'
ACT FIVE
'These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits and
Are melted into air, into thin air:
And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve…'
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Beyond, the battle raged. Charles Soerensen watched it without any pleasure, but he watched it nevertheless. 'If I were to die,' he said to his companion, 'and Tess inherit Jeds, then you would gain Jeds by more peaceful means than this.'
Ilyakoria Bakhtiian glanced at him, then back at the battle. The fighting was fierce over the ruins of the wail, but neither side gained ground. 'You would not have put yourself in my power if you thought I coveted Jeds, by whatever means I meant to use to get it. And I can't marry every princess. Nor would I want to.'
'There are other means than marriage.'
'There are, but with what power should I enforce them? The Great King of Vidiya will not grant me his throne simply because I ask him for it.'
'Do you want his throne?'
Bakhtiian still wore his helmet. He had not taken it off since the death of the Habakar king and the removal of the injured jaran soldiers. Out on the field before the gates, bodies littered the ground surrounding the smoldering remains of the scaffolding. 'I want an alliance with him.'
'For now. Who is to say what you will want later?'
Now Bakhtiian turned his head to look directly at Charles. 'Jeds is a rich city, with ships that sail to ports across the seas, and it boasts a fine university, but my army could ride across the extent of the lands Jeds calls her own in two days. How can you understand what I might want?'
'Because trade is as powerful as land. What makes these cities rich, here in Habakar? Not just fanning. Not just the metals and the crafts. Merchants caravan through here, and the governor of each city demands a toll, a tax, from each merchant. Jedan ships sail to more ports than you know of, and the more of that trade, the more of the seas, they control, the richer we become.'
'So it was to negotiate trading rights that you sent less over the seas. She was spying on the khepellis.'
'Is that what she told you?'
'I'm asking you.'
A messenger rode up, blue pennant snapping from his upraised lance. He reported to Kirill Zvertkov, who was stationed at the far left of the jahar. The two men spoke together, and then Zvertkov sent him away. Over the distance, the blond rider and Bakhtiian looked toward each other; Zvertkov lifted his spear once, twice, and a third time. A hundred riders split off from Bakhtiian's jahar and rode away after the messenger. Bakhtiian watched them go and then turned back to Soerensen.
'The Chapalii control the seas,' said Charles.
'They built Morava.'
'They built it, yes.'
'Do they want it back?'
'I don't know what lies in the mind of their emperor.'
'They are zayinu. It's true that they might not think like we do. I often didn't understand them, when I escorted their priests to the shrine. And if they want these lands-my lands?'
'If they want these lands back, they will take them.'
'They are so strong?'
Charles glanced up into the sky, but the clear blue was roiled by smoke and dust from the battle. He looked back down to regard Bakhtiian with an even gaze. 'They are stronger than you with your army and I with my ships.'
'Stronger than I with my army and you with your ships, if we had an alliance?'
'Ah,' said Charles. His lips quirked up, not quite into a smile. 'If we had an alliance. Don't we already?'
'Because of Tess? Quite the reverse, I thought.'
'But don't you see, Bakhtiian, that Tess links us. In the jaran, she is your wife and also the adopted daughter of your aunt who is, as I understand it, a powerful ruler in her own right. In.Jeds, she is my heir.'
'But in Jeds, if you had a child, that child would be your heir.'
'I won't have a child.'
'How can you know? You're still young-no older than me, I'd wager.'
'I cannot have a child.'
'I beg your pardon.'
'No pardon necessary. It's a simple fact. I can't have a child, because any child that I have would be killed.'
'Killed!' Bakhtiian looked astounded. Inside the city, a wooden tower built up against the walls collapsed in flames, and like an echo, a siege tower far to the right buckled and splintered and sagged into ruin. Men fell from its heights, or scrambled, screaming, from the wreckage. Smoke billowed up into the sky, obscuring the entire stretch of wall. The catapults kept up their fire, a constant, numbing harmony to the roar of battle.
'The children Tess has will be my heirs.'
Bakhtiian took off his helmet and shook out his hair in the breeze. The acrid scent of burning, the pall of dust, tinged the air. 'My children.'
'Exactly. So you see, Bakhtiian, that we are already allied by many forces, by our own ambitions, by the threat of the Chapalii, by the children Tess will bear, by your education at the university my father founded and I built.'
Bakhtiian considered in silence, and at last he spoke. 'There is one thing I've never understood. Tess said that when you're not in Jeds, you sail to Erthe. Your mother came from that country, and so do many of the people in your party. Tess went there to study. Do you rule there? Was your mother the queen? Is that why she-married your father, the Prince of Jeds?'
Charles shook his head. 'They do not govern on Earth as they do in Jeds or in Habakar lands. They rule, well, more like the jaran in the tribes: there is a council, and one woman or man who administers.'
'And you are that man.'
'Yes.'
'But also Prince of Jeds.'
