now and again, until you've gone?'
He wanted to ask about her husband, but he dared not. He wanted to ask, but he didn't want to know, and in any case, weren't jaran women free to take lovers if they wished to? He wanted her to stay. Tonight especially, after the horrible two days he had spent; for the comfort, yes, but for her more than anything, because he cared for her.
No, it was worse than that. He loved her, but he could not admit it, not to her, not to anyone; barely to himself. So wouldn't a clean break be easiest? Wouldn't it be harder, dragging it out like this, however many days or weeks they, spent with the army, with her, until he left for good?
Even as he sat there, torn, she scooted forward. As soon as she touched him, her fingers brushing up his arm to his shoulder and curving around to die base of his neck, to touch, each one separately, his four name braids, he spoke without meaning to.
'Yes.'
By the evening of the second day, Diana was relieved and more than relieved when Dr. Hierakis dismissed her from her duties and told her to go back to the Company camp and sleep. Two days and a night of an unremitting stream of casualties had worn her down to a thread.
Gwyn walked with her through camp, his right hand light on her elbow. 'This ash is disgusting,' he said, just to talk, she suspected, to have a normal conversation after hour upon hour of tending to bloodied and mutilated soldiers. Karkand lit the western horizon, a dull, ugly glow.
'Yes,' Diana agreed, playing into the part, 'it's terrible.'
'Hey! Wait for me!' Hal jogged up behind them, falling in beside Diana.
'Is there anyone else?' Diana asked.
'No,' said Hal. 'We're the only ones who can stomach it for that long. Why should they anyway, if they don't want to?'
'How can they not?' demanded Diana. 'How can they stand and watch when there's something they could be doing?'
'Di.' Hal hesitated.
At once, she knew he'd had news of Anatoly. 'What is it?'
'No, I just heard, from a rider-'
'Go on.'
'Just a rumor. It's probably not true.'
'Go on!'
'That Sakhalin led a charge in through the main gates of the city, and his jahar got caught behind the lines and massacred. But you know it's all confused. Half the army is still out in the city.'
Gwyn glanced toward the western horizon. 'Surely not in the city still.'
'I don't know. Goddess, I didn't want to tell you, but I thought you ought to know what people were saying. What the reports were.'
'Thank you,' said Diana grimly. But it was what she had expected all along. All day she had wailed for this news. She accepted it bleakly, without surprise. Gwyn's hand tightened on her elbow, and a moment later Hal closed in beside her and rested a hand on her back, so that it was as if they two supported her, the grieving widow. It was some comfort.
At camp, Owen and Ginny had called a meeting inside the big tent, although it was mild outside. Only inside the tents were they free from the constant fall of ash. Gwyn and Hal made a little shield around Diana that only Quinn was allowed to penetrate. Quinn sank down beside Diana and draped an arm over Diana's shoulders, and Diana sighed and leaned her head on Quinn's tunic.
Owen was all on fire. He was focused, and pacing.
'We have two important pieces of news,' said Ginny, after Yomi had called everyone to order. 'Charles Soerensen left Rhui abruptly, by shuttle, last night.'
Anahita, sitting in her usual sullen silence, flared to life. 'And he didn't offer to take us with him? The selfish bastard.'
'Anahita, shut up,' said Ginny mildly. 'So, the Company line is that he's dead, and that his sister is now prince. Owen and I just spoke with her in her camp. Poor thing. She'd ridden quite a ways, and her just having lost the baby.' She frowned, glanced at her son, and paused.
'We're starting a new experiment,' said Owen into her silence, in his fiercest voice, which Diana knew betokened some great roiling plan. 'I want your cooperation. I'm bringing a new actor into the troupe. A jaran man. I got a dispensation from less Soerensen to take him and his family off planet with us. I want to see how he adapts to theater, coming from the background that he does.'
'What?' Hal murmured, 'like a rat negotiating a maze? Dad, don't you think that's a little cruel?'
Owen blinked. 'Cruel? What curious words you use, Henry. Well, there's nothing for him here. He'll be crippled for life if he stays here. Why shouldn't he come with us? He'll be wonderful. It will take work, and you'll all have to be very generous for a while-'
'But who is it?' asked Quinn.
'It's Vasil Veselov, isn't it?' asked Diana. She looked at Gwyn, and he at her, and they both nodded, together.
'Hold on,' said Ginny. 'We haven't done with the first bit, yet. Tess Soerensen will be escorting us to a port, so that we and those of Soerensen's party who didn't leave with him can return to Jeds and thence to Earth. Oh, and Veselov's family will be joining us once we leave this area. He has a wife and two small children.'
'Ginny,' said Diana, 'did anyone ask Karelia if she wanted to leave the tribes?'
'Karolla? Who is Karolla?'
'She's Veselov's wife.'
Ginny shrugged. 'I don't know, but Tess said that she had cleared it all with the headwoman of the Veselov tribe. Let me see. Burckhardt left with Soerensen, or not with him precisely-never mind. Yomi, what other details do they need?'
Yomi discussed logistics for a while, but Diana could not concentrate. She felt a kind of numb relief that Marco Burckhardt was gone, insofar as she could feel anything. Mostly she felt hollow. Someone would come, tomorrow, the day after, a week from now, bringing Anatoly's body. Then she felt faint, sick with horror. What if they had already burned him? What if the jaran dead had just been left in Karkand, if Bakhtiian had used the city itself for the funeral pyre for his soldiers? She tried desperately to picture Anatoly exactly as she had last seen him, proud and confident as he rode away into battle, but she could not bring the image into focus.
'Di? Are you all right?' Quinn whispered.
'I just need some air,' she said, rising abruptly. 'No, I'll be fine. No one needs to come with me.'
'Let her go,' Gwyn said. She pushed past the others and out underneath the awning. At long last the wind was dying, though ash still pattered quietly onto the cloth above her, a light, shushing sound. What did it matter, anyway, if the ash fell on her? What if some fragment of it was his remains, come to touch her one final time? She headed out into it, walking back to her tent through the darkness.
And there he was, the rider, standing beside his horse outside her tent, waiting to give her the news of her husband's death. She hadn't expected the message so soon.
'There's no point in even washing,' he said, seeing her approach, 'under all this dirt. Of course, the khaja would pour filth down on us.' He took off his helmet, shook out his hair, and drew his fingers through the plume. 'Everything, just everything is covered with it. Grandmother is going to move her camp south. The winds are blowing north and east, so it ought to be clear a day's ride in that direction. And anyway, Bakhtiian will have to send part of his army south to Salkh soon enough, to my uncle.'
Diana stopped dead.
'Where did those boys go off to?' Anatoly continued. 'They were just here. Can you light the lantern?'
She could not speak.
'Oho, there they are. Viktor! You imp. Come get this damned stuff off me. Bring that lantern!' He laughed. 'Look at them. They grabbed some khaja shields. No, no, you idiots. You can't cut as if you're on horseback when you're on foot.'
The two boys panted up with a younger boy in tow. They threw down their shields and helped Anatoly out of his armor and stowed it under the shields to protect it from further ashfall. Then Anatoly took the lantern from them
