'Bring the woman slave here to us,' said Bakhtiian. 'As for these others. Zhensky, this time, I absolve you. I hope you have learned your lesson. Anatoly, you and your man will go to Mother Sakhalin, and you will accept whatever punishment she sees fit to burden you with, for your ill-advised conduct.''
They left. Jiroannes saw their boots pass him, but he did not dare look up to see their expressions, although he could not imagine they were anything but thrilled at their good fortune.
'As for the girl. By the gods, lift her up. It's indecent for a woman to grovel so. Here now, Qissa. Bring your father to me. We have need of merchants to serve us. What he has lost, we will restore to him and his family, so long as he remains loyal to us.' The girl was led away by the two women who had brought her in. 'Gods, I'm thirsty,' said Bakhtiian.
Jiroannes remained bent over in the dust, but he could smell the pungent aroma of fermented mare's milk, and of another, richer scent, something hot. The court waited. It was silent, except for the shuffling of feet, someone leaving, someone arriving, a messenger coming in with a dispatch which he recited in rapid khush to Bakhtiian. Jiroannes was too terrified to even attempt to understand it. He was going to die. He had flouted his uncle's direct order not to bring a woman in his party, and now he was going to die for it. Was the choice worth it, to have had a woman at his disposal all these months? By the Everlasting God, of course it was not. One year of continence was a small sacrifice compared to what he was going to pay now.
He was a fool, and a damned fool at that.
'Eminence,' said Syrannus in an undertone, crouching beside him. 'They have brought her. You must rise, eminence, or be thought a coward in your dying.'
It was true. At least he would die like a man. He rose. It was a little hard to straighten his legs, because they were numb from kneeling for so long. Samae came forward, her face still. She hesitated, glancing first at Jiroannes and then at Bakhtiian, and then at Bakhtiian's wife, as if she did not know where to give her obeisance. When she moved at last, to Jiroannes's surprise, she moved to kneel in front of him.
'Furthermore,' said Sonia clearly into the silence, 'he sent the girl to Mitya, who all unknowing thought she had come to his tent by her own will.' There was a gasp around the court, as if a heinous crime had just been compounded by something worse. 'More than once,' she added. 'I just discovered that this afternoon. I don't blame the boy.''
What method did they use to execute their prisoners? Was it slow? Quick? But hadn't the old crone said that prisoners ought to die quickly and bravely? The Great King's torturers were not so merciful. He had seen them at their work.
'Sonia,' said Bakhtiian in a low voice, 'because he is an envoy, I cannot kill him. By my own decree. But-' He forestalled her angry retort by raising a hand. 'If I send him home a failure and request a new envoy from the Vidiyan King, surely that will be enough to ruin him.'
Which it would. Disgraced, he would be condemned to the provinces and to a life of obscurity and poverty. Suddenly death did not seem so horrible an option.
'It will have to serve,' said Sonia through tight lips, her voice hoarse. 'What about the woman?'
'She will go free, of course. Syrannus.'
The old man started, shocked to be addressed by name by the great prince. 'Your eminence.' He knelt.
'You may address me as Bakhtiian.' He said it with a frown, as if the title of 'eminence' annoyed him. 'Tell the woman that she is free.'
Syrannus looked at Jiroannes. 'I am in no position to object!' muttered Jiroannes to the old man. Definitely, disgrace and dishonor was a worse fate than death.
Syrannus coughed. 'Samae.' He spoke in Vidyan. 'The prince has granted you your freedom. You are free.'
Samae said nothing. She remained kneeling at Jiroannes's feet, her hands folded in her lap.
There was a pause. No one moved.
Her stubbornness irritated Jiroannes. At least let this horrible episode end, which it could not until she left. 'You are free,' he snapped at her. 'Do you understand?'
She shook her head. She did not otherwise move.
'Can't she talk?' demanded Sonia. 'Is her tongue cut out, perhaps? I saw that done in Jeds. What are you asking her?'
'I have never heard her speak,' said Jiroannes, angry that this woman doubted his honesty. 'And she has a tongue. I know that well enough. I told her that she is free.' Then, to emphasize it, he said the words again to Samae, in Vidyan, in Rhuian and, haltingly, in khush.
Samae shook her head. She did not move.
'She seems to be refusing her freedom,' said Tess Soerensen.
'Gods!' exclaimed Sonia.
'I am tired,' said Bakhtiian, 'and I want to eat my supper. Go, all of you. Leave us in peace, if you please. Ambassador.''
Reflexively, Jiroannes knelt, thus bringing himself onto a level with Samae. The effect was unsettling. He was aware all at once that his clothes were stained and mussed from kneeling and that dirt mottled his hands and cuffs. He felt the coarseness of dirt streaking his forehead. He stared at Samae's profile and at the ragged lines of her short hair. Her face was expressionless. No muscle on her even twitched, although Jiroannes would have said that it was impossible for any human to sit so still.
'Ambassador. You will in future refrain from sending this woman to my cousin, unless she chooses of her own will to go to him.'
Jiroannes jerked his head up. 'You are allowing me to stay?'
'A slave is one who has no power. She has the power to choose to refuse her freedom and stay with you. The gods know, I like it little enough, but it is her choice, not mine. So be it. But be aware that the women of this tribe will be watching you closely. They will not be so lenient again. Do you understand?'
'I understand. You are generous, Bakhtiian, more generous than the-'
'You may go.'
Jiroannes left. But walking back to his camp, with Syrannus a step behind him to his left and the girl three steps behind him to his right, he felt, not elated, but burdened. Her presence evermore would be a reproach to him. Surely she could not have refused her freedom merely to afflict him with her constant attendance?
That evening he called Lal to help him undress. And though his blood was hot, stimulated by the fear and the tension of the day, he could not bring himself to summon Samae to his bed.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
The hills above Qurat had a torrid beauty dimmed and softened now in the cool light of dawn. Terraces angled down to the mudbrick walls of the city. Above the fields, parched trees and grasses grew along slopes alternately steep and gentle. Two riders negotiated a streambed dried out by the summer's heat and walked their horses at a sedate pace along a sere hillside. They rode alone, except for the three riders-one man, two women archers-riding about fifty paces behind them, and the ring of riders two hundred strong that circled them an arrow's shot away.
'It used to be,' said Bakhtiian, reining his stallion around a dead log, 'that I could take you out alone onto the grass and lie with you under the stars. Now-' He glanced to his left, where riders appeared and disappeared between distant trees, their red shirts a flag.
'When did we ever do that?' Tess asked. 'Grass is an uncomfortable bed, if you ask me, and in any case, by the time we married, you were already well on your way to needing an escort whenever you left camp.'
He smiled. 'No, you're quite right. It wasn't you. I was much younger and more impulsive. It must have been Inessa Kireyevsky.''
'More impulsive?'
He laughed.
'Kireyevsky,' she mused. 'I don't know that name.'
'The Kireyevsky tribe is one of the granddaughters of the Vershinin tribe. Inessa was the only daughter of
