Earthly Crown

  In fact, it was clear that Elizaveta Sakhalin thought her grandson was marrying beneath himself, that he had fallen in love with a pretty face, marked Diana on a whim, and now was going to marry a woman who had nothing but her looks and her curious status as an actor to recommend her. And she had nothing. Diana stared at her hands as silence descended, and she realized it was true. To these people, she had no knowledge and no skills that made a woman valuable, and no family except the Company, here.

  “Well,” said Sonia apologetically, “Tess came from an important family in her own right. You mustn’t mind Mother Sakhalin’s disappointment, Diana. You must understand that the Sakhalin tribe is the Eldest of all jaran tribes, and she the headwoman of that tribe, so of course—”

  “So of course she expected her grandson to marry a woman of higher rank,” said Diana bitterly. If only they knew what an honor it had been for Diana to be accepted into the Bharentous Repertory Company, or how many actors she had beaten out for the place. It was absurd; millions of people knew her name, millions had seen her perform, on stage or watching through holo links, and this old woman, this barbarian of a tribe that didn’t even know the rest of the universe existed, thought she wasn’t good enough to marry her grandson.

  “Diana,” said Sonia firmly, taking one of Diana’s hands in her own, “I understand that actors are Singers, that they are gifted by the gods with their art. But Mother Sakhalin believes that jaran Singers are the only true Singers—that can’t be helped. Most jaran care nothing for khaja ways, and why should they? But I can see that you are a woman who thinks well of herself and has a position she is proud of. I have been in khaja lands, and I know you are a Singer. Still, you are not in your land now, and Mother Sakhalin is worried about her grandson. Who is, I might add—” She shifted her head so that she could wink at Diana without Sakhalin seeing, “—since she can’t understand me, her favorite grandchild. Make him happy, and she will come to love you.”

  A rush of gratitude overwhelmed Diana. Impulsively, she reached out and took Sonia’s other hand in hers. “I thought you came to try to talk me out of the marriage.”

  Sonia looked puzzled. “It is Anatoly’s choice, and while I might think that choice was rash, I cannot now interfere. Not even his grandmother can interfere.”

  “I…I thought—” Now she glanced at Mother Sakhalin’s stern face, and then away, because the old woman terrified her. “I thought perhaps Anatoly no longer wanted to marry me. That you came to tell me that. It isn’t—as if we know one another very well. He might have had second thoughts.”

  Sonia laughed and squeezed Diana’s hand reassuringly. “Men never have second thoughts. Anatoly, like most young men who have gotten what they want, has been infuriatingly well-mannered for the past nine days.”

  If the rug had been yanked out from under her feet, Diana could not have felt more unstable. It really was going to happen. “But I don’t know—that is, what is expected of a wife here? What do I do?”

  Sonia sighed and released Diana’s hands. “How like Tess you are. I begin to think you khaja women are hopeless. But perhaps that is because you have servants or slaves to do all the work for you.”

  “We don’t have slaves!” Diana broke off. She could not begin to imagine what these jaran women must do, every day, to keep their families fed and sheltered and clothed and healthy. Her world and their world barely intersected, and in their world, she was as ignorant as a baby. “I hope you will help me understand what things I need to do.” She hadn’t the faintest inkling of what she was getting into.

  Sonia shook her head. “You need a woman of the tribes to help you, to treat you as a sister. I can’t offer, because I have too many responsibilities as it is. But perhaps…” She turned to Sakhalin and the two women had a rapid conversation in khush. Diana could not understand a word they were saying, could not even recognize any of the khush words she had so laboriously learned from the program on Maggie’s slate. “That is settled, then,” said Sonia finally, nodding her head with a satisfied look on her face. Even Sakhalin looked mollified. “The tribes are moving. The main army leaves tomorrow, and our camp moves as well. We will meet up with Arina Veselov and her tribe, and I will ask her to take you in. That will do, I think. You’ll like Arina. I think you must be of an age, you two. She and her husband know Tess well, too, so they will understand about your khaja ways. But you’ll have to learn khush, although I believe Kirill has learned some Rhuian these past three years. Is that acceptable to you, Diana?”

  “To me, yes.” Pitched into this unknown sea, Diana was not sure she could swim. “But I’ll—you’ll—Arina Veselov will have to speak to Owen and Ginny first. I need their permission for any drastic change in my circumstances. I have my duties to the Company.”

  Sonia repeated this speech to Sakhalin, and the old woman voiced her approval of Diana’s deference to her elders. “Mother Sakhalin says that until we meet up with the Veselov tribe, you and Anatoly may consider the Sakhalin camp your own.”

  “But isn’t that his family? Wouldn’t he live there anyway?”

  Sonia cocked her head to one side. She wore her hair in four braids, each bright with ribbons woven in the hair, and her head was capped by a beaded net of gold that hung in strands down to frame her face. “When a man marries, he goes to his wife’s kin to live. Tomorrow, if you wish, you may move your tent into your people’s encampment, and Anatoly will move there as well.”

  Except that inside the encampment lay concealed the forbidden technology that they used every day. “But—”

  “Or you may wait, if you wish, and see what agreement you and Mother Yomi reach with Arina Veselov.” Sonia stood and shook out her skirts and helped Elizaveta Sakhalin to rise. Diana got hastily to her feet and went to hold the entrance flap aside. “If there is any wedding finery that you wish to borrow,” said Sonia, pausing before she left, “let me know.”

  “That much I think we can manage,” said Diana, and then realized how snappish she sounded. “But thank you.” She smiled sincerely at the other woman. Sonia smiled back. Sakhalin did not smile. The two women took their leave.

  Diana let the tent flap fall back into place, leaving her in the gloom of the tent. She sat down, then threw herself out along the pillows, and sighed. What was she doing here, anyway? What did she think she was doing? And here she was, stuck in the tent with nothing to do. Of course, she could walk out any time she wanted. She did not have to go through with the marriage. Everyone said as much; she knew as much. But when it came right down to it, she could not bring herself to hurt Anatoly by publicly repudiating the marriage in such a fashion, not when Sonia had just said that he still desired it. And she absolutely refused to give Marco Burckhardt the satisfaction of knowing that he was right.

  “Diana?” It was Joseph. “I brought some of your things. And a camplight for the tent. And some food.” The tent flap rustled aside and he stuck his head in. “Here you are.”

  “Bless you, Joseph. How kind you are.”

  He grinned. “I’ll send Anahita by later to help you with your makeup and costume.”

  “Monster.” She laughed, feeling suddenly heartened. “Don’t you dare. Go on, you must be busy back at camp.”

  “‘I go, I go; look how I go; Swifter than arrow from the Tartar’s bow.’ Lady knows, I’ve heard that line enough times.” He retreated to her applause.

  She ate a little and then took out her journal and wrote. “My dear Nana, I’m not sure how to explain this to you…”

  Quinn interrupted some time later. “Diana.” She crawled in. “What a gorgeous piece of weaving. Where did you get this? Oh, from his grandmother. My, my. Now there’s a formidable woman, even though she barely comes up to my shoulder. You must have charmed her.”

  “She doesn’t like me.”

  “Surely not.”

  “Well, I don’t know whether she likes me, but she certainly doesn’t approve of me. Did you bring everything?”

  “Mirror. K
it. Gown. Seshat sent baubles, for afterward—after the performance, for whatever they do for a ceremony. She thought you ought to sparkle, even though we don’t have the kind of gold they do. Those women do weight themselves down with it, don’t they?”

  Diana fingered the gold bead necklace that Anatoly had given her. “I suppose it’s a marker of status.” Which she sorely lacked. “Oh, well. Let’s get ready.”

  They were old hands at putting on makeup. That accomplished, they changed into the simple gowns that Joseph had designed to fit the greatest range of plays, using smaller accessories to give them character and place. It was dusk when they emerged from the tent and walked over to the encampment where the others had gathered.

  Yomi counted them off. “In two more minutes, Hyacinth will be late,” she proclaimed. One minute and fifty five seconds later, Hyacinth appeared. He had highlighted his eyes with black pencil and tied various odds and ends—scraps of material, beads, bracelets strung together—to his tunic to lend him an air of being subtly different from the rest, of being a spirit from that parallel world that intersects our own.

  Owen looked them over and nodded, satisfied. “I hope you are ready, because now we see.”

  “Where’s Ginny?”

  “She’s at the house already, helping the audience settle in.”

  They marched, a ragtag troop, through the quiet dusk of the jaran camp. The walk seemed to last forever to Diana, past the dark hulking tents, past smoldering campfires, toward the murmur of voices, toward the people gathered on the ring of empty ground in front of which their stage sat. She caught a glimpse of the audience as they came up behind the screens: a huge mass of bodies, uncountable, waiting for them rather like a predator waits for its prey. She recognized no individual faces; it was too dim for that. The stage was lit by lanterns. One screen without its fabric center had been set on stage, to form a doorway through which the players could pass from one scene, or one world, to the next. No other scenery existed, only the players and what they gave to their audience.

  Yomi called the five minute warning. Gwyn and Anahita shook out their tunics, preparing to enter. Joseph stood ready at stage left with their changes of costume, since they were doubling parts. Owen vanished around the stage to go sit in the house. The play began.

  Diana was aware of the audience only as an intent, listening beast, but the beast was theirs. The force of its concentration was like a pressure on them, faltering here and there when the scene passed its understanding, then snapping back, fixed and tangible.

  Though the night was cool, Gwyn was sweating from the exertion of playing two major roles. But he was magnificent, as always: his Theseus was martial and strong, his Oberon utterly unlike, ethereal and just slightly spiteful. Even the audience could not confuse the two, though they were played by the same man. As for Anahita—well—Diana had always thought she played Hippolyta too stridently and Titania as a hair-brained twit, but she was powerful, nevertheless.

  The lovers fled to another part of the forest. Love became confused, and then was righted at last. The audience did not laugh once, but their attention did not waver. Puck gave his final speech and extinguished half of the lanterns. Exit.

  Dead silence.

  Behind the screens, Diana looked at Hal and Hal looked at Gwyn and Gwyn shrugged. A rustling noise carried to them.

  “They’re all standing up,” said Yomi.

  Gwyn chuckled suddenly. “Who ever said they’d know how to applaud?” he asked. He wiped sweat from his forehead and shook the moisture off his hand.

  Owen appeared, looking intent and excited. “Di, where are you? Come on, come on.”

  “Come on where?” she asked, shrinking back.

  “The rest of you, too, up on the stage—this isn’t a bow, they won’t understand that—but don’t you see? We can cement the link. We can complete the circle in their minds. The masque of a wedding followed by an actual wedding. Come, Diana.”

  “Owen, wait,” said Joseph. With economical skill, he stripped the makeup from Di’s face and then adorned her with the costume jewelry Seshat had brought. “That will do. You may go.”

  Owen grabbed Diana’s wrist and dragged her away, back around the screens. By the time they got to the front, the other actors had filed onto the stage and formed themselves into a neat semicircle. The audience was standing, murmuring now, but Diana saw that their silence, their rise to their feet, was their way of showing respect for what had just been given them. A clot of people stood at the foot of the platform, but only one of them mattered. Her heart began to pound. He stared at her, and he looked nervous, worried even. Owen released her ten paces from Anatoly, and she halted.

  Anatoly wore the brilliant red shirt of the jaran riders, embroidered in a fantastic pattern down the sleeves and along the collar. Gold-studded epaulets shone on his shoulders. Gold braid lined the rim of his black boots. He wore two necklaces at his throat and gold bands on each wrist, and his saber’s hilt glinted in the lantern light. A belt of gold plates girdled his wrist. Then his grandmother stepped forward and addressed a long speech to Owen. It had the cadence of poetry.

  Tess Soerensen stepped forward into the gap between the two pairs. She turned to Owen. “Elizaveta Sakhalin presents to you her grandson, who, in accordance with the traditions of the people, has come to bow to the parents and the relatives of the bride and to ask to be taken in to your camp as husband to this woman. He brings with him a string of fine horses, he brings his armor and his weapons, and he brings his skill at fighting. To his bride he brings a new set of bow and arrows. His family brings these presents for the bride’s family: wine and milk, dry fruit, meat, and a silk scarf to bind your camps together. They bring also blessings to this young couple, for their happiness and well-being.” She paused, and then with an open hand gestured to Owen.

  He smiled. Diana realized abruptly that Owen had rehearsed this all along and simply not told her, or possibly anyone else, about it. He lifted a hand and Joseph appeared, bearing gifts in his hands: foodstuffs, clothing, a carved chess set. Diana felt cold and hot all at once, and because she did not know where else to look, she looked at Anatoly. His gaze, on her, was intense, and she clung to it as to a lifeline.

  “‘More strange than true,’” Owen began, and in his pleasant baritone, he reeled off the entire speech.

  Tess’s lips quirked up as he finished. “How am I supposed to translate that?” she asked.

  “In whatever way it is most appropriate.”

  Tess spoke at length, her phrases cadenced as Sakhalin’s had been, a ritual that was generations old. Gifts were brought forward and exchanged. Tess beckoned Diana forward, and then Anatoly, and then she retired. Anatoly put out his hands. Diana took them, clutched at them. They were warm and strong. Elizaveta Sakhalin and Owen came forward and bound the silk scarf around their clasped hands. More words were spoken. Then, sparking, a huge fire burst into flame out on the flat of ground beyond. Two drums beat out a rapid rhythm, and pipes came in with a melody. Under the concealing silk, Anatoly twined his fingers in with hers and stroked her palms with his thumbs. The caress lit fires all along her, and she swayed toward him, wanting nothing more at that moment than to be alone with him.

  “Anatoly,” said his grandmother, scolding. He stopped what he was doing, but his entire face lit with a smile, a smile that was meant for Diana only, intimate, exultant. Daring much, Diana tilted her head up and kissed him, briefly, on the lips. He whispered words into her ear, another caress, and then pushed back and unwound the scarf from around their hands and tied it around her waist like a belt. Then he turned and left her, walked over to his family and a moment later Sonia Orzhekov had taken him out to dance. Diana gaped after them.

  “Diana.” Appearing abruptly beside her, Bakhtiian bowed. His presence was as powerful as the fire’s. “It is traditional for a new bride to dance on her wedding night. I hope you will excuse my immodesty in asking you to dance.”

  “Of course,” she said, won
dering what on earth he meant. But it quickly became apparent to her that she was not meant to spend any time with Anatoly at all, during this celebration. She caught glimpses of him, dancing with other women, speaking with men out on the fringes of the celebration, glancing her way, once, his gaze catching on her, his smile, and then he was drawn away by someone else.

  The actors emerged, pale without their makeup, to congratulate her. She danced. She felt confused and disoriented, but she went from one instant to the next and tried not to think beyond that.

  “Well,” said Anahita, coming up beside her much later. “I see that Marco Burckhardt isn’t at the celebration. I haven’t seen him all day. What do you think of that?”

  “I think you’re just jealous he was never interested in you,” Diana snapped.

  “Bravo,” said Gwyn softly behind her as Anahita flounced away. “Congratulations, Diana.”

  “Thank you. Owen made a spectacle out of it, didn’t he?”

  “Owen can’t help himself. But I assure you that it was impressive.”

  “Did he have it rehearsed all along? How did he know to bring presents? Where did he get them? Why didn’t he tell me?”

  Gwyn chuckled. “I think you were part of the experiment. As for the rest, Owen always does his research. You ought to know that, Diana. If you hadn’t provided this wonderful opportunity for him, he’d have had to invent it. Ah, here comes your husband. I’ll leave you now.” He kissed her on the cheek and retreated.

  Anatoly strode toward her, looking purposeful. His grandmother and several members of his family walked at his heels. A moment later Owen and Ginny arrived, together with Yomi and Joseph.

  Yomi hugged Diana. “I hope you’re ready,” Yomi murmured. “We’ve come to escort you to your tent.”