The Law of Becoming: 4 (The Novels of the Jaran)

  “I had no choice,” whispered Jaelle. “I would have died, too, if Kamarnos had not hired me. That is the truth. I chose to let the baby die so that I could live.”

  Katerina sighed and, tentatively, put her arms around Jaelle. “I would be like a wife to you, like a husband to you, if you would let me, but I know you do not wish it. So it’s better that you marry Stefan. That way I know you will be safe.”

  “But—”

  “Do you wish to go out and see him now?”

  “No. Yes. I don’t know.”

  “If I were Mother Orzhekov, I would see what punishment the gods see fit to visit on you. I would let you lie with the man you wish to marry, with other men, and if the gods have forgiven you, they would show their mercy by letting you get pregnant. No woman in the tribes wants her son to marry a woman who cannot give him children. But if you conceive, then why not let you marry him? In the jaran, you will not be forced to behave so barbarously. You will become a jaran woman. It will be as if your other life is gone away. You will become a different woman, a woman who never has to make such a terrible choice, to live herself or die with her child.”

  “How can I become a jaran woman if I do not pray to your gods? That I can never do.”

  “Ah, gods, you khaja! No one says you must stop praying to your gods—”

  “There is only one God—”

  “But you speak of three. You speak of God, his son Hristain, and his daughter the Pilgrim. That is three. I can count.”

  But Jaelle was too wrung out to launch into a dispute about the nature of God and the holy mystery of three being one. She rested her head on Katerina’s shoulder. “Is it true, that I might live with the tribes?”

  “You must go back to Sarai with Stefan.”

  “And you will come with us?”

  “I don’t know,” said Katerina.

  “I won’t wait any longer!” exclaimed Stefan from outside. A moment later he swept the tent flap aside and barged into the tent. “Jaelle, I don’t know what Katerina has been telling you, and it’s true that I’ll never distinguish myself in the army, but healers are as honored among my people as soldiers and…” Enough light showed through the flap that Jaelle caught the indignant look that he threw at Katerina. “Would you go away?”

  “Your manners, Stefan,” she scolded, but she left the tent.

  Stefan developed an alarming attack of shyness. “If you were a jaran woman, I would not ask,” he said, “but…but you will marry me, won’t you, Jaelle?”

  She gathered up enough courage to look at him. “If your grandmother approves of me, of what I have been, then, yes, I will.” Exhausting her reserves, she clasped her hands nervously in front of her chest and waited.

  He fidgeted a moment, bouncing on the toes of his boots. “Damn good manners, anyway!” he swore, and crossed the chamber and embraced her and kissed her. She was quick to respond.

  Tess hid in her tent for the rest of the day. She curled up in her sleeping furs and just lay there. Her nerves were wrung out. She could not bear to face one more person. For the first time in her marriage, she was afraid that something had happened to irrevocably alter the man she had married.

  At twilight, Ilya came into the outer chamber of the tent, calling for her in his usual autocratic way. She stirred, but then she heard Vasha’s voice.

  “Will you stop and let me talk to you?” Vasha demanded.

  “What about?” Ilya’s curt reply ought to have warned the young man.

  “I am not happy about what you did in the hall.”

  “I didn’t mean it. I meant to scare her off.”

  “I mean it.”

  “You mean what?”

  “I mean to marry her.”

  Ilya snorted. “Then you’d better have someone taste your food.”

  “Father! Don’t you understand what an alliance with Mircassia will mean for us?”

  “Why should I merely ally with Mircassia when I could have her outright?”

  “How many battles would that take you? How many soldiers would you lose? This is a much better way. If you and Katya hadn’t been so stubbornly set on killing Janos—”

  “Do not speak to me on that subject.”

  “I will speak to you! You’re just angry that he held you prisoner. But he was a good man, he was intelligent, and he knew the worth of—”

  “He raped Katerina, or have you forgiven him for that?”

  For the first time, Vasha stumbled. “I don’t know. I think he didn’t mean to do…that he didn’t know…that he supposed that what he did was different than how Katya saw it. What are the laws in his country? Shouldn’t he be judged by them, and not by ours?”

  “Most khaja laws are unjust.”

  “Then expand just laws over all people, but do not throw out everything that is theirs. How do you expect to hold together an empire if you show no respect for the ways of the people you have conquered? If you don’t give them a stake in holding your empire together, then they will simply revolt at the first opportunity. You cannot hold all these lands together by force indefinitely. You must hold them together by other means.”

  Ilya gave a bark of a laugh. “Now you sound like Tess.” Tess winced, hearing him, because he sounded angry.

  But Vasha’s reply was calm. He sounded surer of himself than she had ever heard him. “Thank you. You could have given me no greater compliment. I had a great deal of time to think while I was Janos’s hostage, and—”

  “And you still want to marry Rusudani?”

  “I do. It is the wisest course, now that Janos is dead. I’ll ride to Mircassia with her.”

  “Who said I meant to let her go to Mircassia? She’s worth more to me as a hostage.”

  “Mircassia is worth more to us as an ally. You’re just being contrary. You know it’s true.”

  There was a long silence. She heard little noises, Ilya pacing, Ilya unrolling a scroll, or at least she assumed that Ilya was the restless one, not Vasha. The furs in which she hid smelled musty. In the rains several days ago they had gotten damp and never been properly aired out.

  “Then you’d better marry her before you go. Otherwise she’ll have you killed once you get there, if she finds a more suitable consort.”

  “Father!”

  “Do you approve of her killing her husband?”

  “You would have killed him.”

  “That was different. He ambushed my guard and took me prisoner. A woman does not betray her husband. Nor a husband, his wife.”

  “He forced her to marry him.”

  “Women have no choice in marriage. Gods, boy, I forced Tess to marry me.”

  Now it was Vasha’s turn to snort. “You did not!”

  “I did! By the gods.”

  Tess sat up. She heard in his voice a touch of the old Ilya: smug and triumphant.

  “I don’t believe it. Not of Tess. Of a jaran woman, perhaps.”

  “Well…” More rustling. Ilya was shifting around again. She could practically hear the admission being dragged out of him, however reluctantly. “She didn’t accept it either and told me so.”

  Tess heard the oddest sound: Vasha trying to suppress laughter.

  “I suppose she did,” Vasha said finally. “That is why I can’t marry Rusudani out of hand. She must come to see that it is in her interest to marry me, to ally with the jaran.”

  “Vasha.” Now Ilya’s voice changed, to something far more dangerous because it trembled on the edge of control. “Don’t be a fool. She doesn’t want you. She wants me. It is never wise for a man to marry a woman who sees him only as an obstacle in her way to what she truly wants. She will stay with the jaran as a hostage until her grandfather dies.”

  When Vasha replied, his voice was so low that Tess had to strain to hear it. And was sorry she did. “What, are you like Janos? You want a wife and a well-born concubine? I won’t waste my time talking to you any more.”

  The tent flap soughed down, closing behind him. There was sil
ence in the outer chamber. Tess wrapped the furs more tightly around herself.

  “Damn it,” said Ilya. A moment later a faint edge of light sprang into being around the curtain that separated the sleeping chamber from the outer chamber. “Nikita! Vladimir!”

  It was Gennady Berezin who stuck his head in finally. “Yes, Cousin?” he asked in the formal style.

  “Do you know where Tess is?”

  “No. No one has seen her since this morning in the great hall.”

  “Or if they have,” said Ilya sarcastically, “they’re not going to tell me.”

  “Yes, Cousin,” said Berezin mildly, and by that Tess knew that he was protecting her.

  “Then go out and see if you can find her, damn it. Send her here.”

  “Send her here, Ilyakoria?”

  “Ask her if she will deign to see me, then! Go!” Ilya kicked something—it could only be the table—swore, and fell to muttering to himself. Angels and blinding lights and a sword made in heaven… Tess had heard this before. She got up on her hands and knees and swayed forward, twitching aside the back lower corner of the curtain and peeking through. By the light of a single lantern, sitting in the middle of the table, she watched him. She felt an inexplicable reluctance to go out to him, to speak to him; what if he had been changed forever? He never talked to himself like this before. Finally his mumbling trailed away. He sat in the chair, one hand on the table, holding open a scroll which he was not looking at. He was staring at the tent entrance, as if he expected a visitor momentarily.

  One came. She pushed aside the entrance flap and paused, letting it slide shut behind her. She pulled her shawl down and let it drape over her shoulders, letting her thick dark hair tumble down around her shoulders. She wore no jewels, nothing to adorn her except her youth and her pretty face and her position as King Barsauma’s acknowledged heir. She examined Ilya greedily. She practically licked her lips.

  “What do you want?” Ilya snapped.

  Tess flinched. She had never heard him be rude to a woman before.

  Then, he recovered himself. “I beg your pardon,” he said, standing up.

  “You want Mircassia,” she said, without moving.

  “Yes.”

  “Then put aside your wife and marry me instead. Mircassia will be yours.”

  “Among the jaran, a man does not put aside his wife, my lady.”

  “Jeds is nothing compared to Mircassia. A few ships, that is all. I am a more suitable consort for a man of your power and ambitions.”

  He did not reply. They all knew it was true.

  “An ambitious man would not hesitate. You served me faithfully enough while you were Prince Janos’s prisoner. I spared you from worse indignities.”

  “I am not a lapdog, Princess Rusudani, an animal which I know khaja noblewomen like to pet and dandle and feed sweets to. Nor do I marry simply for the sake of land.”

  “Do you expect me to believe that? That is the only reason anyone of our station marries. The Prince of Jeds must have seemed a valuable enough alliance ten years ago, however paltry it may seem now.”

  “I invite you to leave, Princess.”

  “No,” she said petulantly. “I am leaving on my own. I ride out tomorrow—”

  “With what escort? How do you intend to break free of my army? You are under my control, Princess Rusudani. You will marry my son Vassily—”

  “I will only marry in a ceremony in the true church!” But she sounded desperate now. She knew she had been outplayed.

  “If that contents you. The boy is half khaja anyway; I doubt he will care. But be aware, Princess, that if he dies in mysterious circumstances, I will seek revenge.”

  She paled, and her hands tightened into fists. She bit down on one pretty lip and a tear squeezed out of one eye. Ilya remained unmoved by this display of emotion. She wiped off the tear and straightened her shoulders. “So I am to be sold off again to a man? To your empire? As if I were a common slave? Is this how you treat the women of your people? I once thought otherwise.”

  “This is how you expect to be treated. Janos was not a stupid man. You could have made a good marriage with him, but you chose to betray him instead.”

  For the first time, Tess saw Rusudani flinch.

  “If you choose to act as if you are only a pawn in a game of castles, then that is how you will be treated. If you choose to act as an etsana, wielding power wisely and with the gods-granted authority given to women, then you will be respected. Nikita! Vladi, damn you!”

  “Yes, Bakhtiian.” Vladimir stuck his head in. His helmet gleamed in the lantern light. He glanced around the chamber and Tess had a good idea that he knew where she was, that she was spying.

  “Take Princess Rusudani to a tent. Please remove her. Now. An escort of five thousand riders must be ready day after tomorrow to escort her to Mircassia, under the command of Vassily Kireyevsky.”

  “Under Vasha’s command?”

  “That’s what I said, damn it!”

  “Of course, Bakhtiian. And you—”

  “I will continue south to Yaroslav Sakhalin’s army. With them we will push on south toward Jeds. Is there any news of Kirill Zvertkov?”

  “I understand he was sent to the court of the king of Dushan to bring back Andrei Sakhalin. There is no news yet.”

  “Then go.”

  “Yes, Bakhtiian.”

  Rusudani went unresisting.

  Ilya began to pace. He looked like he meant to wear a trail in the carpet, and gods he looked exhausted. But Tess knew he would not sleep until he saw her. So she stood up, took in a breath, straightened her clothing, and—to spare his riders from his temper—went out through the back flap so that she could come in through the front entrance, as if she was just returning. Berezin nodded at her but said nothing.

  Ilya was still pacing, back to her. He turned and stopped dead. “Tess! Where were you? I’ve been looking…you’re avoiding me, aren’t you? You’re ashamed that I was stupid enough to let myself get ambushed, but I had to find out about the great blinding light sent from heaven. That was the angel… no, that was the other story. His wing was as bright as the strike of lightning. Except I suppose that the heretic is dead and burned by now while I was walled away in stone like any khaja slave. I had to—Kirill was with you, wasn’t he? That’s what they say. Are you already tired of me? Are you going to throw me over in favor of him? Ditches. I had to dig ditches. I don’t know if they meant to flood them with water, that would have been the best defense unless they built a palisade. Now that Arina is dead—”

  He was babbling. She walked over to him and he just grabbed hold of her as if he was afraid she would escape if he didn’t hold on to her. Arms around her, face buried against her hair, he kept talking, on and on, and she let him talk. She let the words brush past her without listening to them, knowing they would make no real sense.

  Because she saw now what had happened to him. Ilya could not abide, he could not sustain, the knowledge that another person controlled him, that he lay within a prison of another man’s making. It had driven him a little mad. Sonia had been right: For all his strength, for all his visionary luminosity, Ilya was fragile. She had been right to protect him all along, however horrible that might seem now. She herself had imprisoned him all these years, by walling him off from the knowledge of Earth, of her brother’s true position as Duke and as suzerain over Rhui and all its peoples, of the Chapalii Empire itself against which the jaran empire was like a nest of mice hidden in a drawer, a world self-contained and yet inconsequential. Ilya could not bear to be inconsequential.

  “Hush, Ilya, my heart,” she said finally.

  “Ah, gods,” he murmured in the tone of a man who has only now found the courage to confess his worst shame, “I had to obey their laws and their commands. That is what it means to become a slave. How could the gods punish me in this way? Oh, Tess, kill me rather than let it happen again.”

  It broke her heart to hear him. “Forgive me, Ilya,” sh
e whispered. “Forgive me.”

  He said nothing. She was not sure he had really heard her. He could not truly know what she was apologizing for, anyway, because she had made choices all along that imprisoned him. But she could no longer choose for him. He deserved the truth.

  Twelve years ago Ilya had married her in the jaran way, giving her no choice in the matter. But he had learned that it was her choice as well, that he could not make the choice for her. Tess smiled wryly, pulling him closer against her, feeling him sigh, feeling his breath against her ear and the strength of his arms around her back. It had taken her twelve years to learn the same lesson.

  He just stood there, holding her, as if he waited…for what? For a tangible sign that she still believed in him, respected him, found him worthy, even simply found him desirable.

  “I was so terrified when I thought I had lost you,” she said finally, “first to death, then to Princess—”

  “I hope you think I have better taste than that!” he retorted indignantly, pulling away from her.

  “Such as?”

  He turned his head away, refusing the bait. The flickering candlelight scored his face in light and shadow, like a painted mask. Not knowing what else to do, she kissed him. He shifted, just a little, against her, allowing himself to be coaxed. But he made her work at it. She kissed him again on the neck and moved up over the curve of his jaw to his cheek and his mouth, running one hand down his back and the other down his leg.

  Abruptly, with an impatient curse, he hoisted her up bodily, carried her into the inner chamber, and dumped her on the sleeping furs. She thought, fleetingly, about what words to use when she told him the truth, what evidence to present, how to do what she knew now she would have to do. Then he dropped down beside her, and she thrust all those bothersome thoughts aside. They could wait. This couldn’t.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  The Crossing of Borders

  PEOPLE TALKED, THEIR CONVERSATION like a stream flowing around him. Numb, he stared at his hands. He could not concentrate enough to understand the endless river of words.

  “M. Sakhalin, are you listening?”

  He jerked, startled out of his trance. “I beg your pardon,” he said, not sure who had addressed him. Had the person spoken again, he could not have distinguished that voice from any of the others. He looked around the oval table, marking the people who sat here: Charles Soerensen, Captain Emrys, Soerensen’s assistants Maggie O’Neill and Suzanne Elia Arevalo, a diplomat whose name he had forgotten, another man whose importance he could not recall. Usually his memory was keen. Now all he could think of was Diana’s face, the way it had closed away from him, shutting him out, rejecting him, exiling him.