If he wished it. Jiroannes flushed half with elation and half with annoyance. To the boy, an audience was evidently a trivial affair. 'I am honored that Bakhtiian has deigned at last to hear my appeals for an audience. But if that is the case, then I must return and prepare.'
'We can just ride over now, if you'd like,' said the child naively.
'Certainly not! I beg your pardon, but I cannot appear like this.' He gestured at his clothing-a plain sash, not of the highest quality, and his second-best trousers, and he wore no gold at all, except for his ambassador's ring.
Mitya shrugged. 'Very well. I'll ride back with you.'
They rode back across the huge expanse of the camp, which lay quiet under the midday sun. The fortress stood alone and isolated up at the edge of the hills. Jiroannes wondered how the city folk dared resist Bakhtiian, seeing how vast his army was and how no one had yet stood against him.
'Oh, look,' said Mitya as they neared the ivory and emerald flags that marked the Vidiyan camp, 'there's Aunt Sonia. What's she doing at your camp?'
Six jaran women waited at the edge of his camp. No, they did not wait: two stood, four sat, while they watched Samae. Samae! As bold as you please, the slave girl demonstrated a Tadesh dance for them. Her lithe movements, her elegant carriage, gave her an air of nobility and of utter self-possession. Her face bore a mask of concentration, but also an expression of peace. Mitya cast down his eyes to stare at his saddle. He was blushing furiously.
One of the jaran women looked back over her shoulder, hearing the horses. Samae, attuned to the slightest distraction, glanced up and saw Jiroannes. At once she broke off her dance. Her face shuttered, and she dropped to her knees, bowed her head, and clasped her hands subserviently across her chest. Her shoulders hunched, just slightly, bracing for a blow. Beyond, under the awning of Jiroannes's tent, Syrannus stood wringing his hands.
'Mitya!' One of the jaran women spoke. Her anger carried clearly in her tone, and she spun around, flashed an enraged glance up at Jiroannes, and gestured to the other women. 'You will leave with us. Now.'
'Yes, Aunt Sonia.' So meekly, without even the courtesy of a good-bye, Mitya rode off with them. The boy's head was bowed, and he cast one anguished glance back over his shoulder at Samae, but she continued to stare at the ground.
How dare the woman speak to him like that? Jiroannes dismounted. A guard ran up to relieve him of the gelding. He walked across to Samae and slapped her. She rocked back, absorbing the blow, but did not otherwise respond.
'How dare you perform in public like that? Without my permission? And for a group of shameless women, at that, and out where anyone could see you?' She said nothing, of course.
'Eminence.' It was Syrannus, still wringing his hands. He hurried out to Jiroannes. 'I beg you-'
'Of course you warned me, Syrannus, but you should have had better sense than to even think of sending her out of camp, when you knew that something like this might happen. They will think I have no control whatsoever over my own slaves. How can they respect me?' Then, with a flash of irritation, he noticed that she still wore her coarse hair caught back in a braid. The black ends curled down over the collar of her tunic.
'Give me a knife,' he said to Syrannus.
'Eminence!'
'A knife!' That even Syrannus should begin to question him was the outside of enough.
Syrannus quailed before his anger and ran to fetch him a knife. 'But, eminence, surely the girl has not deserved any punishment-?'
Jiroannes grabbed the braid and pulled it out, tight. He held the knife against the base of the braid. And Samae jerked away from him.
He was so shocked by her rebellion that he did not at first react. She had resisted him. She had resisted him.
'Eminence,' Syrannus hissed. 'People are watching.' For once, in the white heat of his anger, he remembered prudence. 'You will come with me,' he said in a furious undertone. She obeyed submissively enough now and followed him into his tent. She stood silent and unmoving while he hacked off her hair, leaving it a ragged mess.
'Now,' he said. 'I need my emerald sash and my best clothing. The brocaded boots.' While she dressed him, he called Syrannus in. 'What else have we to bring as gifts? Something small but delicate. The spinning birds, perhaps? Yes.' Thus fortified, he left Samae to clean up the ruins of her hair and with Syrannus and four guards as escort, made his way to the center of camp, where Bakhtiian held audience.
Two soldiers stopped him outside the center ring of tents, and he waited for what seemed ages. Even then, allowed to proceed, he had to leave his own guards behind and go on alone, with only Syrannus as escort. The ground lay clear before Bakhtiian's tent although a fair number of people, many of them jaran, some of them foreigners, stood along either side. An elderly man signed to Jiroannes to approach, and he walked forward and knelt about twenty steps out from the awning.
The prince sat on an overturned wagon, on a pillow, with his chief wife beside him. The austerity of Bakhtiian's dress surprised Jiroannes, especially compared to that of his attendants, both male and female, who wore gold and riches in profusion and fine silk and brocaded clothing. Bakhtiian wore what any common rider wore: the red shirt, the black trousers and boots, with a plain-hilted saber at his belt and a wooden staff bound together with horse-tails across his knees. Deep in conversation with the woman Jiroannes recognized as Mitya's 'Aunt Sonia,' Bakhtiian ignored the ambassador. After a long while, the elderly man tapped Jiroannes's leg and indicated to him that he should move to one side. So he was not going to be recognized, but he was being allowed to stay. After so long confined to his camp, Jiroannes felt that this, at least, was a small victory. He settled crosslegged on the ground to wait, uncomfortable without a chair to sit on. Syrannus stood behind him, holding the box with the mechanical birds.
A new foreigner was escorted in, a man in a gold surcoat with two unarmed soldiers in attendance as well as an elderly woman in a plain dress. Bakhtiian looked up. The man knelt before him.
'Bakhtiian.' So the envoy addressed him, with no other title than that, translated through the woman. 'I come from His Majesty, Aronal-sur, King of Habakar and all its subject lands. His Majesty commands me to tell you that he is merciful, and disposed to be kind in this matter. He says this to you: Leave my kingdom and my lands, and I will trouble you no further.'
Bakhtiian said nothing. He simply sat, examining the envoy without the least sign of fear. With contempt, perhaps. The envoy shifted restlessly under the fierce gaze, looking nervous at first and then frightened.
'Indeed,' said Bakhtiian at last, in such a low voice that Jiroannes had to strain to hear him, 'the king will trouble us no further once he is dead. He made war on us by his own actions. Does he not know that our gods make easy what was difficult? That they make near, what was far? I know what my power is, and soon he shall regret that he angered me. Go. Do not come before me again, unless it is to serve me.'
Red in the face, the envoy retreated in disorder. A new deputation was brought in, a trio of men dressed in similar robes. Habakar priests, they were, with a complaint:. evidently a Farisa wisewoman had come into Habakar territories with the jaran army and was even now proselytizing her religion among the peasants, especially the women. Surely Bakhtiian would not let this outrage continue?
'I have brought this Farisa wisewoman here as well.' Bakhtiian beckoned forward a plain but intense woman of indeterminate years. Then he sat back and, with the barest glint of a smile on his face, he listened as the priests and the wisewoman argued doctrine. Each side appealed to him at intervals, they with righteousness, she with rather more desperation, but he refused to intervene. His wife rose and left, escorted by Mitya's aunt. When she returned a little while later, the debaters were still going at it.
'Enough,' said Bakhtiian after seeing that his wife was settled in comfortably. 'You will never agree, so I will make a decision. You will not interfere with each other just as I will not interfere with you unless you violate our laws. But I will say this.' He leaned forward and directed his stern gaze on the three priests. 'You suggest to me that I have this woman whipped for her presumption. For your presumption, I order you whipped. If you ever suggest such a practice again, I will have you killed. Take them off.'
They were led off. And if the Habakar priests looked startled, the Farisa woman looked more startled still.
The elders of the city of Puranan came forward with five chests of tribute. A party of envoys from another city begged clemency for their citizens and offered to surrender. Three men-one no older than Mitya-were dragged
