Earthly Crown (51 page)

“She says that she can find another husband, God willing, and that He may also provide her with more children, but for the brother there is no substitute.”

To Jiroannes’s surprise, Bakhtiian laughed. “It’s quite true, what she says. For her wisdom, I will spare all their lives.” The woman broke out sobbing all over again, and the men cast themselves to the ground in gratitude. “Gods,” said Bakhtiian, looking uncomfortable, “take them away. And fine them for the calves. What is it, Anatoly?”

Yes, it was he, the handsome young prince with the golden-haired foreign beauty for a wife. But his aspect was quite altered now from what Jiroannes had seen this morning. He strode in looking grim, with a phalanx of armed men walking behind him, escorting a dark-haired jaran man who went pale and flushed by turns. Behind them, escorted by two women, one foreign, one jaran, walked a very young foreign woman. The girl wore Habakar clothing, a shabby gown laced with coils of bronze sewn into an overskirt, and she was pretty, for her kind, if one ignored the terror on her face.

The one called Anatoly halted before Bakhtiian. He bowed his head. “I am ashamed that I bring this matter before you, that one of my own men has brought this disgrace on our jahar. I ask that you punish me as you would him.” Bakhtiian raised his eyebrows, looking curious, and nodded at Anatoly to continue. “The woman accuses him of robbery, and of—” he hesitated, clearly reluctant to say what came next, “—of
forcing
her.”

Jiroannes could not help but smile. What could a woman expect? She was probably a whore trying to get revenge for not being paid. Surely she understood that a conquering army did not expect to pay for conquered women’s services.

“Bring him forward.” Bakhtiian spoke quietly, but the anger in his voice radiated like fire, scorching. The man came forward and dropped to his knees in front of the prince. “What is your name?”

“Grigory Zhensky.”

“You have ridden with the army for—?”

“Four years, Bakhtiian. First with Yaroslav Sakhalin, and now with Anatoly Sakhalin.”

“What do you have to say for yourself?”

“Bakhtiian.” The man threw his head back and looked up at his prince. “I would never force a woman.” He said it with distaste, and he looked anguished enough. Jiroannes was utterly confused. What were these men talking about, and apologizing for? “She came to me two nights past, and asked if I wanted to lie with her. There’s been nothing said—no orders have come down the line that we aren’t to touch any khaja women—I thought since she came to me that—” He faltered and lapsed into silence.

Bakhtiian sighed. He glanced at his wife. She shook her head. Then, as if to bewilder Jiroannes even more,
she
spoke. “Bring the woman forward.” The woman came forward and knelt in the dirt, shivering. “What is your name?” Tess Soerensen asked, kindly enough. “Can you tell me what happened?”

The woman spoke through the translator. “I am Qissa, daughter of the merchant Oldrai. It is true that I came to this man and offered him my—my favors; but he took them and then refused to pay me. By the merchant’s code, which I learned at my father’s knee, this is robbery, to take goods without paying for them. And to cast me aside then, that is—”

The girl spoke the word easily enough, but the translator faltered. “To force a woman. I do not know this word in your tongue, Bakhtiian. I beg you will forgive my ignorance.”

“You are forgiven,” said Bakhtiian’s wife. “There is no word in khush for forcing a woman against her will.” But the translator shook her head, not understanding her, and Tess Soerensen sighed and returned her attention to the Habakar girl. “You’re a bold thing. Most women would account themselves lucky to be alive. Why did you bring this case forward?”

The girl clasped her hands so tightly in front of herself that her knuckles faded to white. She looked very young, younger than Mitya. She shuddered convulsively, but she managed to speak. “I have young brothers and sisters. My family lost everything, and now we have nothing to feed them with. So I…we could think of no other way—” She faltered and suddenly, as if fear seized her, she cast herself onto the ground and just lay there, awaiting her fate. The two young riders looked enormously embarrassed; ashamed, even.

“Gods,” said Bakhtiian. He cast a glance at his wife, as if expecting her to untangle the situation.

She switched abruptly to Rhuian, and though her voice was low, Jiroannes could still hear her. He leaned forward, listening avidly. “This is what you get, Ilya, when you bring two cultures together. They will misunderstand each other, and if you can’t control it, then you will earn chaos.”

“Then what do you suggest I do? It is by right a woman’s matter, and should be directed to Mother Sakhalin.”

“Who, if she is wise, will throw it right back to you. It is all very well to hold jaran to jaran laws, and to let the khaja hold to khaja laws, but what will you hold them to when they mix? As they will.”

The principals waited, the two young men with resignation, the girl—well, who could know what she was thinking, with her face hidden in the dirt? And Jiroannes experienced a revelation: Bakhtiian was listening to his wife because he respected her opinion and might well act on it. Like an epiphany, or the climax of sex, it all poured out, all the little hints, the strange behavior, the things he had observed and ignored, all these months he had been with the jaran, and he saw now how thoroughly he had misunderstood them. They were worse than barbarians. As in the ancient tale where the Devil turned the world upside down, forcing people to wear their clothing inside-out, soldiers to till and farmers to fight, women to rule and men to serve them, they were an abomination.

“Where is the Vidiyan ambassador?” Bakhtiian asked.

Syrannus had to nudge Jiroannes in the back before he reacted. Jolted out of his thoughts, he started up and stumbled over his own feet before recovering himself. Savages they might be, but his duty demanded that he deal wisely with them. And after all, Mitya was jaran. With dignity, he drew himself up and walked forward and, fastidiously, stepped around the prostrate girl to kneel on one knee before the prince.

“What should I do, ambassador?” Bakhtiian asked. “The man acted rightly, and yet the woman was wronged. The woman acted out of necessity, and with good faith for the exchange, and yet falsely accused the man.”

Jiroannes realized that his hands trembled. Thank the Everlasting God that the long dagged sleeves of his bloused tunic covered his hands to the knuckles.

Then a woman hissed between her teeth. She stood just behind Bakhtiian’s wife, and it took a moment for Jiroannes to recognize her, all decked out in finery: it was indeed Mitya’s Aunt Sonia. “You ask this one to judge?” she demanded of Bakhtiian. “When he is the worst offender of all? He keeps a woman as a slave in our camp!”

Bakhtiian smiled, but Jiroannes did not find the expression reassuring. “By his wisdom, so shall we know him. Ambassador, know this before you judge: by jaran custom, false accusation is akin to treason, and the punishment for a first offense is to be stripped of all rank and possessions and given into another family’s camp, to act as their servant. As for the other—well—it is women’s jurisdiction. Sonia, what would the punishment be for forcing a woman?”

Sonia smiled viciously. “Death.”

Bakhtiian placed his hands on his staff, where they rested quietly, and he waited.

Jiroannes knew fear, stark fear, in that instant. A slave knew only his master’s coercion, having no power of his own. The conclusion was obvious, read both by simple reasoning and by the triumphant and angry look on Sonia’s face: under jaran custom, to lie with a woman slave was the same as raping her.

Here, kneeling alone before Bakhtiian, the power of the Great King seemed so distant as to be inconsequential. Jiroannes cast himself on both knees and bent his forehead down until it touched the dirt. No one struck him dead, so he lifted his head, although he did not raise his eyes,

“I would counsel mercy, great lord, by reason of their ignorance.”

Sonia hissed again, to show her displeasure.

“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?