The Sword Of Heaven - An Earthly Crown Part 9

Joseph sat with one arm around Oriana and the other around Quinn, talking quietly to them. Yomi just watched over them all.

"What do you think, Gwyn?" Hal asked Gwyn Jones.

Gwyn appeared to ponder the question, but Diana could see right away that he didn't care what Hal thought of the cavalier reaction of his parents to that horrible scene. "I think I've never seen someone handle a sword that well," he said softly.

"That young man is an artist."

Hal rolled his eyes in disgust, heaved himself to his feet, and went over to sit beside Quinn.

"I think he expected sympathy," said Diana.

Gwyn shrugged. "Di, I can't change what happened. Why dwell on it?"

"What do you mean, that he's an artist? Who?"

"The young man who did most of the fighting. He was brilliant."

"How would you know? Or do you mean to say those weren't simulated, all those fight scenes from the samurai interactives you did?''

Gwyn smiled, but not too much, since laughter would have been out of place.

"Not simulated at all. I got into those vids because I was a martial artist. I only got interested in acting afterward. And lo, came here."

"Are you sorry? After tonight?"

"No. Are you?"

She almost chuckled, had to stifle it. "That I'm an actor? Never. Coming here with Owen and Ginny?" She surveyed the common room: the slatted wood floors were warped from age and dampness, the smell of the stables permeated everything, and the food was pretty bad. "But look how respectfully he treated Charles Soerenson.

I can't think we 're in any danger. Not really.''

"Just the rest of this world, evidently," murmured Gwyn.

"Yes," Diana mused. She stood up. "I'm going outside."

He put a hand on her sleeve. "Diana, I'm not sure I'd do that. This isn't Earth, you know. Don't forget the testimony of the baron-I don't think it's safe for people to walk around by themselves at night."

But then the door opened, and Marco came in. He looked flushed from the night air. He found her immediately with his gaze. Ten meters between them, but it might as well have been one. She could feel him as if he already had his arms around her, as if they were already alone. The rush of feeling washed over her like a swoon.

Marco laid a hand on the door latch, opened it, and went back outside. She took a step toward the door.

"Have a pleasant night," said Gwyn.

She blushed, but she didn't look back. Her hand trembled as she lifted the latch, but she knew now that the die was cast. She slipped outside, and he was waiting for her. She stood there, in the cold night air, not one meter from him, but she did not move closer, because the antic.i.p.ation was sweet enough to savor.

"Diana," he said, his voice low and a little rough.

And she had the satisfaction of seeing that he shook, too; that he wanted her as much as she wanted him.

"Marco!" The voice shattered the finespun web of intimacy. It was like being slammed into a brick wall.

"Marco! d.a.m.n it!" Maggie jogged up to them. "Back to Charles, you idiot."

"Maggie, I'll thank you to stay out of my-"

"Your what? Your affairs?" Maggie looked so angry that Diana thought she might burst. "After what just happened that you can even think about-"

"Maggie, I didn't ask your opinion-"

"That's not what I meant." The narrow streets of Abala Port were empty but for two jaran hors.e.m.e.n riding patrol far down this street, menacing black shapes against the ramshackle angles of the buildings. "I meant that any person who thinks with their brain instead of their genitals would realize that this is not the time to-well, how can we know what the customs are among the jaran? Do you intend to take that chance?

And anyway, Charles wants you back right now.''

"Marco!" That was David's voice, from down the street.

"h.e.l.l," said Marco under his breath. He cast an anguished glance at Diana. "You have my profoundest apologies, golden fair," he said, and then he left, hurrying away down the street toward the inn where Soerensen and his group were staying. He pa.s.sed David without pausing to speak to him.

David stopped beside Maggie and Diana. "What was that all about?" Then he looked at Diana. Then he looked at Maggie. Diana wanted nothing more at that moment than to shrink into the ground and die. "Never mind," said David. "Listen, Mags, not Rajiv. Please. He gets up at dawn every morning. He'll say, 'But, David, should you not be putting your tools into better order?' "

"I always knew you only tented with me because I'm a slob," retorted Maggie, but there was so much anger still hanging on her that she sounded irritated, not amused. "I'm sorry, Diana. I really am. I really, really am."

"It's all right," said Diana in a small voice. Maybe the ground would open up and swallow her.

"We can't know what they consider a crime so serious that it warrants summary execution. So you see why I had to send Marco away?"

"I see why," Diana choked out. And she did, truly. They could not afford to offend their hosts, not now; probably, given the look on Bakhtiian's face as he killed that man, not ever. But every part of her that had been set spinning by Marco's entrance, by the promise of what was to come next, ached for release."Shall we go in?" asked Maggie, sounding impatient, or maybe she was just feeling embarra.s.sed for Diana.

"I'd better go back to Charles," said David. "Just don't put me in with Rajiv." He ran back into the night.

"Christ!" said Maggie with disgust. "Shall we get this over with?" She led the way. The heat of the fire blasted them as they came back into the common room.

Gwyn, seeing Diana, raised his eyebrows but did not comment.

"Owen, Ginny. The rest of you. Please, may I have your attention?" Maggie did not have the natural authority of, say, Suzanne Elia Arevalo, but her agitation lent her a snappish air, and, in any case, everyone in the company was desperate for some sort of distraction. They quieted and regarded her with the kind of attention that only actors-trained to listen-and lovers usually grant a speaker. "Charles Soerensen just sent me down here with a new decree. No more mixed rooming, unless you possess a legal marriage certificate. Girls with the girls. Boys with the boys. That sort of thing.

I've been sent to rea.s.sign places."

"Well, I don't mind boys with the boys," said Hyacinth.

"Oh, be quiet," snapped Quinn.

"I can't believe it!" Hal threw a look at his parents that he would have done better to save for a farce. "Have we retreated to the Dark Ages? Are a man and a woman rooming together automatically having s.e.xual relations as well? Will adulterers be stoned?"

"You may as well save your sarcasm for later, Henry," said Ginny mildly. Then a thought occurred to her, and she scribbled something down on her notepad.

"Well, obviously Ginny and I can continue to share a tent," said Owen, "as well as Yomi and Joseph, and Seshat and Dejhuti. No one would contest that, I think."

"I'm not going to share a tent with Helen just because we were married once,"

said Jean-Pierre.

Anahita let Hyacinth raise her up. She swept her beautiful black hair away from her face and back over her shoulder and gave a great sigh. "It's true," she said breathlessly, "that Gwyn and I aren't married, but we share a spiritual bond. Surely that should be enough."

"I'll tent with Jean-Pierre," said Gwyn.

''I don't want Hal," said Hyacinth.

"Thank the G.o.ddess," muttered Hal. "This is so stupid. Di and I have been rooming together forever."

"Gwyn! How can you say such a thing?" Anahita sagged back into Hyacinth's arms. She even managed to wipe a tear from her eye. "How can you reject me at a time like this?"

"I told you it was a mistake to come here," Helen said to Jean-Pierre. "Savages!""No more than you, my darling," replied Jean-Pierre with a sneer, which sent Helen into a full flood of scathing retort. Oriana flinched, jumped up, and went over to the counter to get something to drink.

"Please," said Yomi, in her best Stage Manager voice, "I know we're all upset, and with good reason, but we must help this run smoothly." For once it didn't work.

Arguments broke out all over.

Diana sat down, closed her eyes, and let the squabbling surge around her. The draft from the fireplace did not work efficiently, so smoke parched the air. Her throat was sore. But at least it all served to bring her back to earth. And they needed to squabble right now, to let off steam. After awhile Quinn sat down beside her and whispered into her ear.

"It's you and me, sweetheart. Ori and I tossed up, and she lost. She has to go room with that strange woman in Soerensen's party who's the military historian.

Ursula, that's it. And Hal is going off with Rajiv Caer Linn. He's some kind of computer modeling expert, I guess. Rebel Hal is thrilled he doesn't have to room with the actors, and Maggie thought it was funny because it left David ben Unbutu as the only person without a tentmate. And Hyacinth-"

"Oh, Quinn," said Diana, opening her eyes. "I don't really care who Hyacinth rooms with. Do you?"

Quinn laughed. It was the first honest laugh Diana had heard for hours, and it heartened her immensely. "Do you think it was a mistake to come here?" Quinn asked, serious again.

"Not one bit," said Diana. "That doesn't mean I'm not a little scared, but don't you think we can learn more here than we ever would playing for the same safe crowds on Earth?"

Quinn shuddered. "I don't know. Safe sounds very attractive to me right now.''

Diana shook her head stubbornly. "Not to me."

CHAPTER TEN.

"Most honored uncle," said Jiroannes Arthebathes into the clear chill of the night.

He waited, after those three words, for the pen of his personal secretary, Syrannus, to complete the required list of t.i.tles and honorifics with which a nephew was obliged to address a n.o.ble and powerful uncle in the Great King's court.

After some minutes, during which the careful scritching of his pen blended with the low popping of the fire, Syrannus paused and lifted his eyes. At his right hand burned a lantern, casting light over the parchment laid on a board across his knees.

The thin veins of his lined hands showed constricted and blue in the muted illumination. The lettering those elderly hands had produced was sinuously beautiful.

Jiroannes cast it a cursory glance, expecting nothing less. "Now some opening pleasantries, a synopsis of the journey since Eberge, with perhaps an anecdote or two but leave off at the difficult part."

As Syrannus began to write again, Jiroannes lifted one hand. His concubine padded forward and gave him a cup of bitter, hot tea before kneeling in silence behind his chair. When Syrannus at length finished, the younger man read the words and nodded. "Very well. Now." He sighed, twisting the ends of his mustache between thumb and forefinger. "How can I introduce this subject without offending him? 'I was shocked-' No. What impossible barbarians these jaran are. I suppose all their women go about unveiled and in men's clothing."

"Surely not, eminence," interposed Syrannus. "Do not forget that Her Most Benevolent Highness, the Princess Eriania, is allowed by Her Most Gracious Brother privileges which all other women would never desire. Perhaps these females also have an exalted position of some kind. Their boldness is indeed shameful and certainly humiliating for them, but they are discreet."

"Discreet? Not a word I would have chosen. If you mean they don't display themselves like the wh.o.r.es one sees at ports-that may be true, but this woman, Nadine Orzhekov, shows such a complete lack of true womanly modesty, of that humility which is proper in a female, that she disgusts me far more than any prost.i.tute. Samae. More tea." The concubine rose and took the cup away. "But perhaps we misinterpret Bakhtiian's motives. Perhaps he meant these two women to be an offering to me. Certainly the Orzhekov woman is not at all to my taste, but the other one-I have seen her gaze on me once or twice. Should I take that as an invitation? It would be a pleasant diversion from Samae, and she is certainly attractive-"

"Your eminence," hissed Syrannus, warning.

A figure appeared at the edge of the tent. At Syrannus's nod it moved forward into the light and resolved into a dark-haired young woman. "Your eminence," she said, but the tone mocked him.

Jiroannes eyed her with vast dislike. He had quickly ceased trying to spare her womanly virtue by not looking at her directly, since he was sure she had none. "To what do I owe the honor of this late visit?" he asked, neither rising nor honoring her with a t.i.tle.

Nadine Orzhekov gave the barest of smiles, and he had the satisfaction of knowing that the slight was not lost on her. "As commander of your escort, I feel it my duty to warn you-no, to inform you about some jaran customs that may seem strange to you."

"Indeed. Has some special occasion brought on this generosity?"

"Indeed," echoed Nadine. "I understand, your eminence, that you come from a society very different from ours. I even know a little about it, having read of Vidiya at the university in Jeds. Because of that knowledge, I have endured your rudeness to me, but if you persist in expecting the women of the jaran to act as Vidiyan women do, and in scorning them because they do not, I can a.s.sure you that Bakhtiian will have nothing to do with you or your mission. You had better learn to be polite, since I doubt you'll ever learn proper deference. Otherwise you will be sent home a failure."

She paused. Behind her, hidden by darkness, a musician played a melancholy tune on a high-pitched pipe.

Jiroannes, lips tight, said nothing. Syrannus looked shocked."I will venture a more personal observation," added Nadine, noting her speechless audience with what Jiroannes knew was malicious satisfaction, "because I'm not the only one to have noticed it. If I were you, I would not watch Terese Soerensen as if I were measuring her to see if she would fit in my bed."

It was too much to bear, such insolence. "Certainly I may look at whom I please!"

"In fact," she went on, ignoring his words as if they were a child's outburst, "you would be well served to moderate the way you look at jaran women in general. It isn't becoming in a man to stare." Then, having said it, she had the effrontery to grin.

"Are you quite finished?" he demanded.

She shrugged. "We have tribute to collect, so we must return to the main camp roundabout. We'll be some days before we arrive there." She hesitated as the concubine came back to the edge of the circle of light furnished by Syrannus's lantern.

Her dark eyes met Samae's almond-shaped ones for the barest instant, and then Samae placed the cup into Jiroannes's waiting hand and retreated to kneel behind his chair.

Nadine's mouth had pulled tight, and Jiroannes was gratified to see that she felt compelled for whatever reason to suppress her anger. He hoped the act caused her pain. "I thought," she said, her anger betrayed by the hoa.r.s.eness of her voice, "that a message was sent that you only bring men."

Jiroannes dismissed Samae's presence with an airy wave of his free hand. "She is dressed as a boy. Surely that will suffice."

"Only a fool would take her for a boy."

Now he stood. "And for what reason am I expected to answer to you?" A mere woman! "In any case, she is nothing. Only a slave, if you know what that is."

Her voice dropped, softening with an emotion he did not recognize. "I know what a slave is. Send her back to your lands, eminence. I will provide an escort for her.''

"No." It came out petulant, but he was furious by now. "I will not."

For a moment she stared, most brazenly and contemptuously, at him. Then she turned on her heel and left, without a word or a sign or the merest polite valediction.

His hands shook. He touched the tea to his lips, coughed, and threw it down so that the hot liquid spattered the rug.