and ordered them away. He went into the tent.
Diana could not move.
A moment later, he ducked out again. 'Diana?' He walked over to her. 'Come on.' He grabbed her hand and tugged her in, and she went. His grip was firm enough. He wasn't a ghost.
'Is there something for me to drink?' he asked as he tugged off his boots. 'I'm famished. I came straight from the field here, as soon as I could. I would have sent a message, but-oh, Diana, I'm sorry if you were worried. But you know I can't be hurt in battle. The gods sent you to me.'
This once, thank the Goddess, there was food and drink for him in the tent, although not, of course, anything as elaborate as his grandmother would have served him. But he was content.
He was content. She watched him eat. Obviously he was starving, but he ate neatly and efficiently. When he sighed, replete, and reclined on the carpet, smiling at her, she felt wretched.
'Diana?' His face changed at once. 'You've heard, then, haven't you? About the Prince of Jeds?'
'Yes,' she whispered.
'Who else? One of the Vershinin sons died. Anton Veselov is dead, too, and the amazing thing is that Mother Veselov asked that their cousin Vera be named dyan. But the Veselov riders demanded it! Evidently she took the staff of command out of her cousin's hand as he died and led them wisely enough through the rest of the battle. It was my men who brought the madwoman's body in. They found her up on the walls.'
'The madwoman?' She was too stupified by his presence to understand what he was talking about.
'The prince's soldier-'
'Ursula el Kawakami is dead?' The conversation seemed unreal to her. Anatoly was dead; it was impossible that he was here, now, not one meter from her, regarding her with his beautiful, expressive eyes.
'You hadn't heard? Diana.' He reached out and caught her wrist and drew her down beside him. He was warm and solid. She pressed her face against his chest. He smelled of smoke. 'It's all right, Diana. I know what you're thinking. The prince's entourage must return to Jeds, and your Company with them. I know that you have to go with them. Grandmother still thinks I married beneath me, but she doesn't understand that you're a Singer, that the gods have called you. How else could you be both yourself and the Daughter of the Sun? Or Mekhala, or Mekhala's sister, or the youngest daughter of the head woman? Or the mother who saves her child? So I understand that the greater honor is mine, for gaining you. But you don't need to worry, Diana. I know what we can do. I'll ask Bakhtiian to send me and my jahar to Jeds. Someone must protect his wife's possessions until she can come to claim them. Someone must act as regent. Grandmother likes the idea. It's an honor well due to our family. Then you and I can stay together, in Jeds.'
She tilted her head back. He looked so damnably optimistic, like they all did, because they thought that their gods had granted them the right to rule their world. And who was to say that it wasn't true? Certainly, Tess Soerensen and her brother had come down from the heavens and now even more than before were prepared to push the balance in favor of the jaran.
'But we're not going back to Jeds. We're going far away, far across the ocean, back to Erthe, where we came from. Anatoly.' Already she felt stripped to the bone with misery. It hurt to have to tell him, while he was holding her this close. He looked bewildered by her anguish. He was so sure there was some solution when there wasn't one and never could have been one. 'That journey can't be taken twice, Anatoly. Once I go, I can never come back.'
'But, Diana-'
'Oh, you could go with me, perhaps, if Tess Soerensen agreed, but you'd have to leave the tribes forever.' Her chest was so tight, her throat so choked with emotion, that she found herself breathing hard. She could not catch her breath. But she had to make him understand how final it was, that there was no hope. That she had no choice. 'You'd have to leave your jahar. You could never come back either. You're right, about the gods. They called me to be an actor. I can't turn away from that, no matter how much I might want to stay with you here.' She faltered, because his expression frightened her.
Suddenly he embraced her and held her hard against him. She tightened her arms around him and just hung on, for the longest time, forever.
'You mean it,' he said finally, but she could not see his face as they lay together on the carpet. 'There is nothing I can say, nothing I can suggest, that will change your mind. I can't come with you. You can't stay here. There's no hope even of finding a place between your land and mine, in Jeds.'
'No hope,' she whispered, wanting never to let him go-He broke free of her and gently pulled away from her grasp. Standing up, he pulled on his boots and sorted out his clothes from the chest and rolled them up in a blanket with a few odds and ends and his scraps of embroidery. She scrambled up to stand beside him. 'Anatoly-?' 'Then let it be a clean break, and a swift one.' He took her by the shoulders and kissed her once on each cheek, in the formal style. 'Good-bye, Diana. I will always love you. But you must do as the gods have called you to do, and so must I.' And he left.
All that night, all she did was walk from her tent to the main tent and back again; from her tent to the main tent and back again. Quinn came out and walked two circuits with her without speaking a word, and then left to go to bed. Later, in the middle of the night, Gwyn appeared and walked beside her for a time, and before dawn, Hal, from her tent to the main tent and back again.
At dawn, she took down her tent and stowed what she had brought from Earth in a single chest. Gwyn came over, and in the end he persuaded her to let him help carry the rolled-up tent and chest and pillows. They arrived at the Sakhalin encampment just in time: Mother Sakhalin was checking all the wagons. She turned, seeing Diana, and beckoned her over.
'Mother Sakhalin,' said Diana. She did not want to play this scene, but she had to. She made herself play it as if she was on the stage. 'Because I must leave the jaran, and your grandson, I thought it only right to return these things to you.' She risked a glance around and prayed that she would not see him. If she saw him, then everything would go for nothing. If she saw him, she would break down into tears and beg him to give up everything he knew and loved and come with her to Earth.
'Anatoly and his jahar rode out last night,' said Mother Sakhalin in a cold voice. 'With Bakhtiian's blessing. They rode south, to join up with my nephew's army.'
Ah, Goddess, he had meant what he said, that the clean, swift break was the best one. She felt sick to the very core of her heart. She did not know what to say, but Gwyn, good soul that he was, asked Mother Sakhalin in a polite voice which wagons the tent and chest and pillows ought to go in.
She pointed. 'In the jaran,' she said to Diana as Gwyn carried the other things away, 'a woman is married to a man for as long as the mark remains on her face, or he lives. What am I to tell my grandson?'
Diana felt crushed under the weight of Mother Sakhalin's withering stare. The old woman hated her, that was clear, for breaking her favorite grandchild's heart. And why shouldn't she hate her? Mother Sakhalin had known all along that Anatoly should never have married her.
'Tell him,' she said, and choked on the words, 'tell him that I love him still.' She meant to say more, but her voice failed.
Gwyn returned. He held in his hand a small, supple leather pouch. 'Di.' He faltered. 'These fell out of the pillows.' He opened the flap to show her the loot, the necklace, bracelet, and earrings that Anatoly had sent her.
'Those you must keep,' said Mother Sakhalin. 'I insist upon it. It would be rude beyond belief and forgiving to return them to him, who risked his life to gain them for you.'
'But-' Diana fished in the pouch and drew out one of the earrings. 'Give this to him. Please. To remember me by. So he'll have one, and I'll have one. I-' She cast an anguished glance at Gwyn, pleading for help.
But it was Mother Sakhalin who had mercy on her. 'Go on, then. We're leaving now. There's no more time for this. I'll take the earring and I'll see dial he gets it.' She took the earring and turned away, just like that.
'Come on, Di,' said Gwyn gently. 'We may as well go. I'm so sorry.'
And that was it. That was the end.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
