The Sword Of Heaven - An Earthly Crown Part 25

"How long will the carousing go on?" Cara asked with a smile as she motioned them to come in under the awning.

Bakhtiian acknowledged her first, with a nod, and then Charles, and last Marco.

"As long as they wish. The army rides south tomorrow. They'll earn this celebration tonight."

"The poor child won't have much of a honeymoon, then," said Cara. "But I saw that she was safely put to bed a little earlier. Where are you going, Marco?"

"Out to carouse," he said curtly. He excused himself and left.

They watched him go. Charles's expression was unreadable. Cara shook her head.

Bakhtiian arched his brows, looking puzzled. "He doesn't seem like the kind of man Sonia would take to her bed." He glanced at Charles, as if to gain corroboration from the other man, and Tess was struck by how clearly he treated Charles as an equal.

There were many men, men of the jaran in particular, whom he treated with respect, but there was no question of where the ultimate authority lay. No question but here: Ilya did not defer to Charles-he did to women, of course; that was so deeply engrained in him that Tess doubted he would ever lose the habit-but neither did he attempt in the slightest to command him.

"Sonia likes a challenge," said Tess.

"Is that where he's been at night?" Charles asked. "I had wondered."

"And you didn't ask?" Tess spoke the words and an instant later realized how sarcastic they sounded. "I have to talk to you," she said quickly, to cover her embarra.s.sment and to get it over with. This was something best done quickly, before she lost her nerve. Somehow, seeing Anatoly and Diana escorted off into the night to their tent had made her determined to talk to Charles now, however much she wanted to put it off.

"Please sit," said Charles. Cara and Tess sat down next to each other, in chairs.

Ilya hesitated. "I have pillows," said Charles suddenly, "and something I brought for you from Jeds." He vanished into the tent, emerging with two large pillows and a velvet bag. He tossed the pillows onto the ground so that the two men could sit side by side and on the same level.

Ilya's lips twitched, and then he smiled. "Well done," he said, and sat down.

Charles sat down beside him, opened the velvet bag, and drew out two objects: a book and a clock.

He gave Ilya the clock first. It had a simple design, a white unnumbered face framed with mahogany; a spring door in the back opened to reveal the mechanical workings.

"This is different," Ilya said, "than the clocks I saw in Jeds."

"The lines and hands mark out the hours of the day."

"Like a khaja wall marks out land," said Ilya, glancing up at Tess. Then, turning back to Charles, "Its simplicity lends it beauty.''

Charles offered him the book and, of course, he took it. Ilya never could resist a book. He ran his hands along the leather binding in a way that was almost amorous, and then turned it to the t.i.tle page and then to the text. He gave a short bark of laughter. " 'Being convinced that the human intellect makes its own difficulties-' "

He closed the book and handed it up to Tess. "True enough words," he said to Charles.

"The New Organon. Francis Bacon," read Tess. "Charles!" Both men looked up at her expectantly. She stroked one arm of her chair, tracing the patterns in its carved wood with her fingers. "Charles," she said again, and lapsed into silence. A book and a clock-the one by a philosopher who had helped develop the scientific method, the other, well, Ilya himself had compared a device that measures time in artificial increments to the walls that interrupt the natural flow of the land. These were the worst weapons Charles could have brought; and he knew it, and she knew it.

Cara rescued them from the uncomfortable silence. The doctor leaned down to rummage in a cloth bag crumpled at the base of her chair and drew out a ma.s.s of yarn, and began to knit.

Ilya's face lit with interest. "That is like weaving. May I ask what it is you're doing?"

"It's called knitting. The women of your people don't knit? Who did the marvelous embroidery on your s.h.i.+rt?"

He tilted his head to one side, looking pleased and a little shy. "I did."

"You did?" Cara laughed. "Well. That ought to teach me not to make unwarranted a.s.sumptions. What were you going to say, Tess? Would you like something to drink?

Some Scotch, perhaps?""I don't think so-"

"Certainly." Ilya cut across her refusal. "We would be honored." He shot her an admonis.h.i.+ng glance. Sharing food and drink was one of the two fundamental courtesies that bound the jaran tribes together.

"Perhaps you'd like to come with me," said Cara, to Ilya.

"No. I want Ilya to stay here." His presence was both the spur and the anchor, forcing her to go forward, keeping her stable. She clutched the book in both hands.

"And you, too, Cara. It's no long speech. It's very little, really, it's very simple. I'm not going back."

Charles rested his elbows on his knees and leaned forward. "You're not going back where?"

"To Jeds, with you, when you go back. When you leave." She burned with heat.

She knew it, could feel the flush on her face, could feel her pulse pounding. "It's only fair to tell you, so you don't keep thinking . . . that maybe I will. That I'm going back.

I know that's what you came for. But I can't go. Not now."

"Why is that?" Charles's voice was cool, neutral.

Ilya sat straight, his chin lifted in triumph, and he looked at Tess, not at his rival, as if, having won, he could now dismiss him.

Why did she have to defend herself like this? And why must she do it so d.a.m.ned badly? "Because I love him," she said in Anglais.

"Love is a compelling reason," said Charles in Rhuian, and Ilya s.h.i.+fted his gaze to Charles. "But alone it is not always sufficient. I think it isn't all that is keeping you here."

"What do you mean by that?" demanded Ilya. Whatever ease had existed between the two men at the beginning of the conversation vanished, evaporating in the heat of Ilya's question.

"Ilya," said Tess.

"I'm getting the Scotch," said Cara, "and I expect you two to behave yourselves until I get back." She rose and strode off to her tent.

Charles raised his eyebrows. His gaze caught on Bakhtiian's, and a moment later the two men smiled stiffly at each other.

"Serves you right," muttered Tess. Cara returned with the bottle of Scotch and four st.u.r.dy gla.s.s tumblers. Ilya held up the one she gave him and turned it, watching the light splinter and catch in the crystal.

"This is beautiful." He lowered the gla.s.s so that Cara could pour a splash of the liquor into it. With the others, he lifted it and drank. Tess lowered her gla.s.s and watched him, saw his eyes round at the potency of the alcohol. He choked back a cough and took another sip, cautiously this time.

Cara chuckled. "Now," she said, "you will come with me, Bakhtiian. I have a few things to show you, and some questions to ask about your army's medical logistics."

Ilya looked at Tess, and she sighed and nodded. He rose and obediently followed Dr. Hierakis.

"It's an interesting culture," said Charles, watching them go. "And rather admirable, in its way."

"Yes, well," she replied sarcastically, "Francis Bacon will soon put an end to that."

"You don't approve?"

"He'll never use the clock. They just don't think that way.''

"Doubtless," said Charles, sounding sardonic in his turn, "in the Great Chain of Philosophic Being, their culture ranks far above our own."

Stung, she tossed the book with purposeful disregard onto Ilya's pillow. It landed next to the clock. "You know it's ridiculous to compare cultures in that fas.h.i.+on.''

He looked serious all at once, and Tess did not know what to make of his expression. "Tess, I have faith in you that you would not have stayed with the jaran if they were savages."

But his sympathy made her feel worse. She curled her hands around the tumbler and stared at the Scotch, swirling it around in the gla.s.s. "They're killing a lot of people, Charles. Lots of people. Hordes of them."

"As will I, if I lead another rebellion against the Chapalii Empire. That's my choice, isn't it?"

Tess set the gla.s.s down on the rug. She could hear Cara talking softly behind her, and Ilya's softer replies. "Charles." She wrapped her fingers together, unwound them, and let them fall to her lap. "You made a choice to make a cause the center of your life. I can't live that way. Someday I'll come to the end of my life and when I look back, I know what measure I'll make of how well I lived. That measure is in the lives I lived beside."

"But someone must live for the cause. Or else we remain slaves. Well-treated slaves, it is true, but slaves nevertheless."

"You're right, of course. I never said I wouldn't do my part. But you've given up everything else for your work and I can't-I won't-do that. Otherwise my life is a desert-nothing." She hesitated, not wanting to hurt him, to judge him, but he merely watched her, unfathomable. "If anything of me lives on after I'm dead, it will be my linguistics work, and, I hope, children as well."

"You've thought about this a great deal."

She steepled her hands and rested her lips on her thumbs, then raised her head to look at him again. "I've torn at myself. Half of me says that I must give myself entirely to your work, that it's my duty to you, my duty to humanity, that's most important. It's a litany that runs through my head. But what use would it be for me to sacrifice myself for that? I'm not a leader. I'm not like you. Or like Ilya, for that matter. I don't want to be a leader, I'm not cut out to be one. I can contribute in other ways. I will. But I won't give up my family to do so." She said it with pa.s.sion, and only a moment later realized how it must sound to him.

"As I've given up mine?" he asked, and she could not tell if he was hurt, angry, or amused.

"I don't fault you, Charles. I never said that. You're doing what you have to do. I don't think there's anything else you could do. Like Cara-her research is the heart of her life. Everything else is a hobby."

"Including me?"

Tess bent down to pick up the tumbler and drained it in one gulp. The heat of it seared her throat, but the burning gave her courage. "Including you. That knife cuts both ways. It's why the two of you are so well-matched."

Now Charles did smile, and Tess relaxed slightly. "I see my baby sister has grown up."

"I'm a little older. Not much."

"And yet, you married a man who has dedicated his life in the same way I have dedicated mine."

"Yes." Her smile was sardonic. "The prince's sister must marry a prince. There was another man I fell in love with, another man of the jaran, but I would never have married him. Once I met Ilya ..." She shrugged. "In the end, I suppose it was inevitable."

"How old is he?"

"By their calendar, which runs in twelve year cycles, he's thirty-seven." She gave an ironic nod toward the clock. "However accurate their time-keeping is."

"But, nevertheless, well into the prime of his life. He'll die, Tess."

It was like being slapped. All she could do was try to hit back. "Are you willing to wait him out? Knowing he'll die soon enough and then you can get me back?"

"I meant," he said mildly, "that he'll die sooner than you will, barring any accidents. Much sooner."

She twisted her hands together and glanced back at Dr. Hierakis's tent. Cara and Ilya stood talking together outside the tent, and as if he felt her gaze, Ilya turned their way, looking at her as he always looked at her, so intently, so intimately, that her own feelings rose fiercely to meet his across the gap. With an effort, she turned back to Charles. "Don't you think I know that?" she asked bitterly. "Don't you think I remember that every d.a.m.n morning? And every night, after he's fallen asleep?"

"I'm sorry," said Charles, but whether for her pain or for the specter of Ilya's premature death, by their standards, she could not be sure.

Cara and Ilya returned. "But surely you'll ride with the army," Ilya was saying.

"There is so much more you can teach my healers.""I don't know. Charles?" Cara sat down again, but Ilya remained standing.

"I need to go to the shrine of Morava," said Charles.

Ilya's gaze flicked from Charles to Tess and back to Charles. "I can send a small jahar with you, if you wish to ride north now. Then you can follow us south, if you will, or return to the coast and sail back to Jeds, if that is your desire."

"I need to take Tess with me to the shrine."

"That is impossible."

Charles stood up. "Of course it is not impossible. I need her to translate."

"I remind you that you are in my camp." Ilya's voice dropped and its very mildness was threatening.

Charles smiled.

Tess had a horrible premonition that Charles was about to say something rash- something like, / remind you that you are on my planet-and she jumped to her feet and placed herself between the two men. "Stop it. d.a.m.n you two, stop it. I'll make my own choice. Sit down."

Neither sat. No one spoke. Tess did not know what to say, so she simply stood there, feeling the force of them one on each side. Like Jiroannes through the bonfires, she felt the pressure of their attention on her, the force of their equally strong personalities brought to bear on her, and she was caught in the middle. If she had ever thought for an instant that these two men could compromise, then she had been sorely mistaken.

"Someone's coming," said Cara.

Ilya turned. A man ran toward them. He halted beyond the carpet, outside the awning's overhang. "Bakhtiian. A messenger has come in from Sakhalin."

"I'll come." Ilya nodded at Dr. Hierakis. "Doctor. If you'll excuse me."

"Of course."

"Tess?" He put out his hand.

She did not move. "I'm not done here yet. I'll come along in a while."

He froze, tensing, then jerked himself around and strode off with the soldier, vanis.h.i.+ng into the darkness.

"Tess," said Charles, "sometimes I think I would be doing you a service simply to take you forcibly out of here."

"Don't you dare! You're no better than him, you're just a d.a.m.ned sight cooler about it. And if you're so d.a.m.ned righteous, then why are you flouting your own interdiction laws?''

"I beg your pardon?""Francis Bacon. Or had you forgotten so quickly? And you let the Bharentous Repertory Company come here. However much you claim to be preserving Rhuian cultures, you're already corrupting them."

Charles blinked, looking surprised at the vehemence of her attack. "Tess, inevitably Rhui's interdiction will be lifted. In a cautious way, I'm trying to prepare for that."

"G.o.ds, you've already thought about it. You're doing it on purpose. Do you have a timetable set, too? When do the sea gates open?'' She was so angry that tears came to her eyes.