At last, cowed by Bakhtiian's stare, as fierce a pressure as the fires through which he had passed, the ambassador dipped to one knee.
'I am Jiroannes Arthebathes,' he said in queerly accented Rhuian, fluid and blurred on the consonants. 'I bring you greetings from your cousin the Great King of Vidiya, and these gifts, which he hopes you will graciously accept.' He gestured, and the servant struggled forward with the chest. Jiroannes's gaze flicked to Tess, and his eyes widened as he recognized her. Then he turned his attention back to his servant.
The chest was not just wooden, but cunningly carved and set with enameling and strips of gold into the wood. The servant opened the clasp and removed silver dishes, an amazingly lifelike bird made of bronze, two tiny jade horses, a collar of gold embossed with tiny human figures, a bolt of sheer white silk, and an arrow plated with gold and fletched with black feathers.
Bakhtiian looked them over impassively but did not touch them. Then he gestured, and the children, with proper solemnity, came forward and took away everything except the arrow. That Bakhtiian considered at length and in silence, and at last he lifted it up and leaned back to present the arrow to Elizaveta Sakhalin. 'The Great King must be complimenting your prowess in hunting, Mother Sakhalin,' he said. The old woman snorted, amused and skeptical, but she took the arrow and placed it over her knees.
Jiroannes looked outraged, and then he bowed his head to stare with seeming humility at the ground.
'You are welcome to our camp,' said Bakhtiian, at last addressing the young ambassador directly. 'I will send for you when it is time.' He glanced around, caught Aleksi's eye, and gestured for him to escort the ambassador away. Then he turned to talk to Niko, as if the affair was of no more interest to him.
Leading Jiroannes away by a roundabout route, Aleksi had leisure to wonder what the young man was thinking. Nadine joined him, the Vidiyan guard marching obediently at her back, and they conducted the silent ambassador back through camp to the distant envoys' precinct. From here, the noise of the celebration, now in full flower, reached the dark clot of tents only as faint music and fainter laughter, like a distant roar of a mountain cataract to a man trudging through the night on a desert track. Out in the deep plains, where winter met summer like a blast of snow hitting fire, where spring existed for a week, for a scant month at most, such extremes were commonplace. To these envoys, cast out to the fringe of camp, their lives dependent very much on the whim of the jaran, such contrasts must prove unsettling.
'Ilya was too lenient,' said Nadine to Aleksi as they left, walking back to the celebration. 'The man was insufferable. He was angry. He showed it in his back, in the way he stood. He showed too little respect.'
'Bakhtiian will make him wait. Then he'll get nervous.'
'It could be.' Nadine sounded peevish. 'He has a slave.'
'What is a slave?'
'Never mind. Look, the dancing has started.'
At the celebration, they were dancing on the ground around the two bonfires. The angel was dancing with Anatoly Sakhalin. He was, shyly and modestly, showing her the steps to one of the simpler partner dances. But most of the other actors were out dancing as well, partnered with jaran men and jaran women. The dance ended and another started. Aleksi saw Tess dancing with her husband. Sonia, of all people, had somehow persuaded Soerensen out, and it appeared that Soerensen was a quick learner and adept enough to dance well. The angel was still dancing with Anatoly Sakhalin.
'Someone had better talk to him,' said Nadine, voicing Aleksi's thoughts out loud.
'Surely his grandmother will speak to him,' said Aleksi. 'She's very pretty.'
'She's beautiful,' said Nadine. 'She is also khaja. Look how the other man, Marco Burckhardt, look how he glares at them.'
The dance ended. The angel strolled out of the ring of light with Sakhalin. She held her head cocked slightly to one side, looking at him with a provocative smile on her lips as he spoke to her. Surely she could not understand what he was saying. But perhaps the words did not matter.
A. moment later, before they could vanish into the gloom, Elizaveta Sakhalin appeared and called to her grandson. His head jerked up and he halted, hesitated visibly, and finally, reluctantly, slowly, he retreated to his grandmother's side. The angel watched him go and with an unfathomable shrug of her delicate shoulders, she walked on out into the night, alone.
'And that,' said Nadine, 'is that. Excuse me, Aleksi. I've a sudden urge to dance.' She broke away from him and strode straight toward the distant figure of Feodor Grekov.
Aleksi sighed and wandered on. He paused to watch Raysia Grekov where she sat on the now vacant wagon, playing simple songs for the amusement of a swarm of jaran men and two of the foreigners: Margaret O'Neill and the actor Gwyn Jones. The copper-haired foreign woman had her right hand on her belt buckle, and she kept toying with it, as if she was nervous. In contrast, her left hand held the bronze medallion around her throat with deliberate steadiness, canting the medallion's onyx eye so that it faced the singer. Beside Raysia, a young man played a low accompaniment on a drum. As Aleksi listened, he caught a fainter counterpoint, a vocal one, distant, whispering on the breeze. He lifted his chin and tilted his head, sounding for direction, and drifted out into the night.
Stars blazed above. Out beyond the awnings, the angel was cursing at Marco Burckhardt. Aleksi stopped stock-still, astonished. Burckhardt had his hands on her. He held her in a tight grip, one hand on each of her shoulders, and each time she spit words at him, he replied in an equally angry voice.
They were not married. Nor were they related by blood. If anything, Marco Burckhardt was as interested in her as Anatoly Sakhalin was. But no jaran man would stand by and see a woman handled like this, by a man who was neither husband nor brother.
Before Aleksi could come forward, before he could even speak to warn them, another figure burst onto the scene, materializing from the direction of the celebration. Diana gasped. Burckhardt whirled.
Anatoly Sakhalin drew his saber.
'No!' Diana cried in Rhuian. 'Don't hurt him!' She cast herself between the two men. There was silence. Diana took four steps forward. 'Anatoly, please, put away your sword.'
Anatoly lifted the saber to rest on her cheek. She froze, and her face went white from shock and fear. Marco shifted. In an instant, he would lunge-'
'Stop!' shouted Aleksi. He sprinted forward.
In that moment, with Marco hesitating, Anatoly marked Diana, cutting a line on her cheek diagonally from her cheekbone almost to her chin. Blood welled from the cut. Slowly, she lifted her hand to touch her skin. Lowering it, she stared at her fingers. They were covered with blood. She swayed. Then she collapsed to her knees.
Aleksi hit Marco broadside and slammed him backward before he could do something rash. A knife spun out of Marco's grip and Aleksi pounced and grabbed it before Marco could react.,
Anatoly had sheathed his saber. Now he stared at Diana with concern. He knelt beside her and put his good arm, comforting, firm, around her shoulders. At his touch, she screamed and scrambled away from him, panting.
'Damn you,' said Marco from the ground.
Aleksi offered him a hand. Surprised, Marco took it and let Aleksi pull him up. Marco took a step toward Diana, but Aleksi held him back. 'Don't go to her,' Aleksi said.
Anatoly climbed to his feet and fixed a threatening stare on Marco, keeping himself between Marco and Diana. He rested his good hand on his saber hilt.
'What do you mean?' Marco demanded. 'My God.'
'He's marked her,' Aleksi explained patiently.
'I can see that,' said Marco caustically. 'What kind of savages are you, anyway?'
'You're upset.' Aleksi put a hand on his shoulder just to make sure he didn't bolt. 'He's marked her for marriage. But I suppose you khaja don't do that.'
Diana threw her head up. 'What did you say?' she gasped. Left hand still pressed against her cheek, she rose unsteadily to her feet, flinched away from Anatoly's awkward offer of help, and circled him warily to come stand next to Marco. But when Marco reached toward her, she jerked away from him as well. 'What do you mean, he marked me for marriage?' she demanded of Aleksi.
'When a man chooses a woman, he marks her. To show he means to marry her.''
'That's barbaric,' said Marco.
'What about the woman's choice, then?' Diana asked.
Aleksi shook his head. 'But marriage is not a woman's choice. Someday you'll hear Raysia sing the tale of
