Come.' Hyacinth trailed passively after her. They went to the Company tent.
'Sit,' said Ginny sternly, pressing Hyacinth down into a chair. 'Now, what in hell happened, my boy?'
Hyacinth looked awful. His bright hair was mussed and tangled. Dirt streaked his chin. His left sleeve had a rip in it. He stared at his hands, which lay motionless in his lap. There was a long silence. At last Hyacinth spoke, his voice so low that Diana had to strain to hear him. 'I met this man. I liked him.'
'But, Hyacinth,' said Diana, 'by the way you talk, I thought you knew all about-I mean-' She faltered.
'I think what Diana is trying to say,' said Yomi, 'is how, if you're so experienced at this, did you get yourself into this mess?'
'Oh, Goddess,' said Ginny under her breath, 'what will Soerensen say when he hears of this? He was so insistent that we not break any taboos.'
'Go on, Hyacinth,' said Joseph gently. 'You may as well tell us the truth now, since I think you've done as much damage as you can by-'
'By lying?' Hyacinth flung his head back. 'Well, it's true, that I exaggerated. It's true I joked about sleeping my way through the camp, and sleeping with everyone, and, no, I never did. Oh, men looked at me in that way, a few of them, but they never did anything about it, except once, and then he was ashamed, and it was all so secret and quick and shameful that it was ugly instead of joyful, and it made me feel dirty since he clearly felt that way. Women propositioned me, lots of women, and they were fine and pleasant, those I went to. But you know I prefer men.'
'But then if you knew they thought it shameful, if you knew it was wrong as a cultural norm, then why did you go ahead this time?' Ginny asked, shaking her head. 'Why? We're in their culture, Hyacinth. We can't just tromp around in our seven-league boots and trample wherever we go.'
'If it was wrong? You know it's wrong, how they act. Punishing someone for what's only natural.' He was no longer sobbing, but tears leaked from his eyes again. 'Do you know what they're going to do to him? They're going to exile him. Ostracize him. You know what that means, don't you? He'll die.'
Diana stared. The truth was, she had never thought Hyacinth capable of thinking much about anything. He was a decent actor, with a chance to grow in time if he worked at it, but the rest of the time he was such a damned flighty, shallow, pretty boy that it was hard to take him seriously or even to believe that he could feel this deeply and understand this much.
Gwyn sighed. Yomi covered her eyes with a hand. Joseph shook his head.
'Then why did you do it?' demanded Ginny.
'I didn't know,' he said, anguished, and Diana believed him. 'I know they're savages, and I knew enough to know that the kind of primitive war they wage would be ugly-but you can learn to look the other way.''
'Oh, Goddess, maybe you can,' whispered Diana.
'But I thought because they're pretty open about their sexuality that they wouldn't be so harsh. I knew I had to be discreet. And it was my fault. He said I ought to leave, and I said-well, and then we fell asleep. And then it was morning.' He began to weep in earnest again. 'It isn't fair. His life has been hard enough. He and his sister were orphaned and sent to live with their aunt, but she didn't treat them well, and then he became an outlaw-I don't understand that part-and now they let him ride with the army again, but I think they'll be happy enough to see him go. It's a good excuse to get rid of him. He's worried about his sister.''
'Hyacinth,' asked Yomi slowly, 'how long has this been going on?'
He shrugged. 'A month? Right after that skirmish up in the hills we were caught in. Longer than that, I guess. A while.'
Yomi turned to Diana. 'Do you know anything about this?'
'No. It's not a subject I ever-discussed-with my husband. Or with anyone else, for that matter. Just with Hyacinth. But I thought he knew what he was doing!'
'You don't understand.' Hyacinth stood up. 'It's my fault. If we don't do something, he'll die.'
'What do you suggest we do?' asked Ginny quietly. 'We're traveling with them, Hyacinth, not the other way around. I remind you that we work under the duke's interdiction.'
'Tits!' swore Hyacinth. 'You know damn well we're breaking that interdiction anyway. All the plays. Theater. Everything. It's so much piss, if you ask me. We're influencing them just by being here-and his own sister is married to the king! I think it's for the better, too. They need to be civilized. Do you really approve of the way they kill? Slaughter wholesale? And now they're going to kill Yevgeni just because he loves men rather than women, as if that means anything.'
'They're not going to kill him!' Yomi exclaimed.
'Do you think he has a chance, sent out into hostile countryside alone?' Hyacinth sounded disgusted.
'You're dependent on the tribe, here,' said Diana softly. 'Everywhere, here, whether you're in hostile country or out on the plains.'
'Yevgeni said there used to be a tribe that was just men, just fighters, who had left their tribes because they-because they wanted that freedom. He was with a group of them when they came into the army, but he says that the last real group of them died.' His beautiful, mobile mouth twisted down into a bitter grimace. 'They died saving Bakhtiian's life. I told him that he should demand to see Bakhtiian. If men like that would save Bakhtiian, surely Bakhtiian owes them a favor, to save Yevgeni.'
'Hyacinth.' Gwyn shook his head. 'But custom has to be strict in a place like this, in a society like this. Isn't it true that they have to be rigid to survive? Isn't inflexibility necessary in a hostile environment?''
'I don't know,' said Hyacinth peevishly. 'I just know that Yevgeni trusts me, and I'm not just going to stand by and let him be exiled.'
This fierce declaration brought only silence.
'What precisely do you intend to do?' asked Yomi. 'I remind you that you are a member of this troupe, and bound by its rules as well.'
'I forbid you to interfere,' said Ginny.
Diana twisted her hands together. She had seen so much suffering in the last months. So much of it had been distant suffering, the suffering of strangers and it was true that it was easier to ignore it, to displace it, to thrust it aside; it disturbed her to know that she was learning to do that. Perhaps one had to learn to do that to survive, to make existence bearable, to make happiness tenable, in a world so full of pain. But if offered the chance to do one thing…
'I could go,' she said softly. 'I could talk to Arina. He must be from her tribe, or in her tribe's jahar, if she has jurisdiction. What did you say his name was, Hyacinth?'
The hope on his face was painful, the more so because Diana knew very well that her pleas had only the force of sentiment behind them, with no authority whatsoever. Unlike, say, Tess Soerensen, she had brought nothing to her marriage, no power, no ties, no value, and while it was possible that Mother Sakhalin had forgiven her for that, still, no one was likely to do Diana any favors for the sake of her connections.
'His name is Yevgeni Usova. His sister's name is Valye. She's one of the archers. He's so proud of that, that she's one of the women training to be mounted archers. She's really assigned to Anatoly Sakhalin's jahar, but he didn't take any women with him when he went because they were going so far into khaja territory, and they didn't want to risk it.' Diana felt sick, suddenly, feeling that she hadn't clearly understood how dangerous the mission Anatoly had undertaken was, but Hyacinth went blithely on, reminiscing about his boyfriend. 'So she was training with Kirill Zvertkov to begin with, so they remained with the Veselov tribe until Sakhalin gets back. But they didn't want to leave Yevgeni there, with the Veselov tribe, because he used to ride with Veselov. The cousin. Vasil, that's his name. They say he's very handsome, the cousin, and charismatic. I think Yevgeni is in love with him, though he never says as much to me. But he rode with him for three years, and longer, really, before that. But they let him stay because of Valye-he's the only family she has. Now what will she do? They won't trust her either, or she'll do something stupid like try to follow him into exile. She's sweet but not very smart. But she adores him. She worships him. Oh, Diana, do you think you can do something?'
'I'll try,' said Diana. 'With your permission, Ginny, of course.'
Ginny swore under her breath. 'What are we supposed to do? Take him in? Take him back to Earth with us? Like a pet dog?' Hyacinth went red. 'Oh, don't yell at me, young man. You've caused enough trouble. I want you to think clearly for a minute-if you can-about what it would be like for one of these people to be jerked out of the world they know and thrown headlong into ours. It won't be an easy transition, no more than it would be for us if we were really and truly abandoned here without any of the fail-safes and modelers and slates and medical supplies and
