Earthly Crown (66 page)

She hesitated. “He was caught with another man.”

Ilya went red with anger. “So Mother Sakhalin has yet to forgive me for Vasil. We will see about this. I suppose they’re the ones who stole the horses.” He struggled to his feet.

“Ilya, I don’t think—”

“By the gods,” he said, brushing her hand away, “I’ll lead the damned search party myself.”

“Ilya!” She jumped up. “Don’t be a fool. You idiot—!” But he stalked off. “Aleksi!” Aleksi appeared from around the corner of the tent, his hands grimed from greasing down an axle. “Send Mitya after him, damn it!” He nodded and obeyed.

Ilya did not come back that evening. Mitya did. What had passed between Bakhtiian and Mother Sakhalin he did not know, but Bakhtiian had ridden off to see the nearby city which had fallen. The last remnant of its city garrison was holed up in the citadel and in the neighboring temple, still fighting. Bakhtiian, Mitya said, had been in a rare foul mood and had ordered his jahar to ride out with him to end the siege once and for all.

Tess felt sick. Physically sick. Her abdomen cramped all evening. Cara fussed over her and made her drink lots of tea and ran a scan over her, but her signs remained positive. The next day dragged by. Ilya did not return. They received no news except that renewed fighting had begun at the city, spurred on by Bakhtiian’s arrival. Tess slept poorly. Another day dragged by; another night came. At Cara’s insistence she went to bed, but now her back ached. She dozed. Then, starting awake, she heard him walk quietly through the outer chamber and push the curtain aside to come in to her.

“Ilya? Ilya, please don’t be mad at me.”

He sank down beside her and reached, groping a little in the darkness, and found her face, and kissed her. “I’m not mad at you.”

It was not Ilya.

“Vasil!” She broke away from him. “Who gave you leave to come in here?”

“I heard that your back is hurting you.” With no more invitation that that, he slid the blanket down off her bare back and stroked his hands along the curve of her lower back while she lay on her side.

“That feels good.” Tess relaxed suddenly against his hands.

“I learned to do this for Karolla. Her back always aches her when she’s pregnant, especially when there’s a little one to be carried about. She said it helps.”

“It does help.” It did help. He worked without hurry, slowly, up her back to her shoulders and her neck. She sighed and shut her eyes—not that it mattered; it was pitch black, and he worked solely by touch—until he ran his hands over her shoulders and started down her front. “Vasil.”

“If you tell me to leave, I will leave,” he said, and she knew he was telling the truth. In this one matter, she was certain of it.

“Vasil, you shouldn’t be here.” His hands had retreated to her shoulders.

“I’m alone in a tent with a woman whose husband is gone. What is wrong with that?”

“Well, I didn’t invite you here, for one thing.”

“Yes, but I’m sure you would have, if only I’d put myself in your way this afternoon. I do beg your pardon for forgetting to do so.”

She chuckled. “Not convincing enough.”

“Your back hurts. Admit I’ve made you feel better.”

“You’ve made me feel better.”

“Do you like sleeping alone?” he asked, curious.

“No.”

“Well, then—”

“You have a wife,” said Tess. “Does she like to sleep alone?”

“She has children to share her pillows with.”

Tess laughed. “I’m not sure if this is any more convincing, but you’re certainly persistent.”

“Do you want me to leave?”

She knew she should say yes. She knew it very well. But she was cold, and lonely, and out of sorts, and, according to jaran custom, quite within her rights to entertain a lover in her husband’s absence. Indeed, Sonia thought her rather odd for not having taken any lovers since her marriage, but then, much was forgiven her because of her khaja birth and upbringing. “I don’t know,” she said at last, unwilling to say no, unwilling to say yes.

And then, of course, she heard voices outside and footsteps through the outer chamber.

“You bastard,” she said softly, “you knew he’d just come back tonight, didn’t you?”

The curtain swept aside and Ilya appeared there, holding a lantern. In the glow, Tess saw that Vasil was smiling.

The silence drew out so long that at last Tess sat up, drawing the blanket up to cover her breasts. The dim light made Ilya seem as pale as wax. He did not speak, he only stared. Vasil simply sat, a half smile frozen on his face. Tess watched them.

Ilya’s voice was low and sharp. “If you try to steal her from me, I promise you, Veselov, I will kill you. Get out.”

“I was not aware,” said Vasil, even softer, “that it was your tent to order me about in.
She
has not asked me to leave.”

Ilya did not take his gaze off Vasil, as if he feared that once he did so, some disaster would occur. “Tess, tell him to leave.”

“No,” said Tess. She saw how Ilya started, how his gaze leapt to her. He was astonished. “No,” she repeated, and drew in a breath to tell him—to tell him that she was tired of watching him run away from his fear, whatever his fear was, whatever he feared Vasil for. That she had to know, finally, what Vasil meant to him.

“Damn you,” he said. “Damn you.” But he wasn’t talking to her at all. He was talking to Vasil. “This is how you revenge yourself on me, isn’t it, Vasil? By stealing her love from me. Did you think I doubted that you could do it? Of course I did everything in my power to keep you away from her. But you waited until I was helpless, didn’t you? And now…” He was shaking, and Tess realized to her horror that he was about to start weeping from sheer, hopeless grief. “Grandmother Night is laughing at me. Gods, how bitter her bargains are. She means to take everything from me that I love except what I was willing to give to her in the first place.”

“Ilya,” Tess began, horrified that she had forced him to this. She started up to her feet.

“He’s drunk,” said Vasil, stopping her with his words. She sank back down. “He never goes on like this unless he’s drunk.”

“And he’d know,” said Ilya in a hostile voice. “You’d know, wouldn’t you, Vasil? You’ve seen me drunk often enough.”

“I’ve never seen you drunk,” said Tess. “Never.” Except once, when Dr. Hierakis had gotten him drunk—but she’d seen him more under the influence of anesthesia than alcohol.

Ilya took one step and then another, and Tess could not tell whether the steps were unsteady because he was indeed drunk or simply because he was exhausted. He fumbled with the lantern, hoisting it up to tie it to the thong dangling from the pole above. Vasil rose at once, to stand next to him, close to him, and took the lantern from his hands and deftly hung it up. Then he turned and caught Ilya’s face between his hands, and kissed him on the lips. For an instant, an hour, no more than two seconds, they kissed. Then Ilya twisted away from Vasil and stumbled over his own feet and collapsed beside Tess on the pillows.

A strange mood enveloped Tess, that outside this ring of light cast by the lantern nothing else existed.

“You
are
drunk,” she said finally, smelling the distinctive aroma of fermented milk on him.

Vasil towered above them. “Rough work, that battle?”

“Miserable,” said Ilya. He stared at his hands, whether because of what they had done at the battle or because he did not want to look at her and Vasil, Tess could not tell. “Five women were killed.”

“Women!” Vasil exclaimed.

“We had to bring in the archers. It would have been slaughter otherwise.”

“Did my dear sister fight, then? She’s been mad for it, ever since that skirmish.”

Ilya laughed harshly. “Gods, she’ll make a commander yet. She’s a terror on the field.”

“I’m not surprised.”

“A better fighter than you.”

“She’s a damned sight more vicious than I am. As you know.”

Ilya looked up at him. Was there the briefest softening of his expression? Tess could not be sure. “Vasil, you know damn well you can’t be found here.”

Vasil crouched, so they were all on a level. “Why not? You were gone, Tess was here. Why shouldn’t I have come in?”

Ilya rounded on Tess. “Did you invite him? Did you? I’m not sharing you with
him!”

“Ilya, why did you get drunk?” she asked, stupidly stuck on this one point.

He jerked his head away from her and stared at the far wall.

“Because he’s mad at you,” said Vasil. “And anyway, isn’t an ugly battle excuse enough to get drunk?”

“Aren’t all battles ugly?” Tess demanded.

“There were children in that citadel,” said Ilya under his breath. “Children. They slaughtered them, rather than let them fall into our hands. Gods. There was a baby, a tiny baby. And a pregnant woman.” He covered his face with his hands. He shuddered.

“Oh, Ilya.” Tess embraced him. The blanket fell down from her as she pressed against him. Almost as quickly, Vasil moved and crouched down on his other side, running a hand up Ilya’s arm, up his shoulder and neck, up to the luxuriant mass of his dark hair.

“No,” said Ilya. But he did not move away.

“You do love him,” said Tess, amazed by this revelation. Amazed that, faced with the truth, it no longer frightened her.

“You don’t understand,” Ilya said into his hands. “I love you, Tess.”

“I know you love me,” Tess said. And he trusted her. He trusted her to see this. She felt such a rush of confidence and joy that he must have felt it as well, because he sighed audibly and turned his face into her hair.

So close, across Ilya’s body, Vasil smiled at her, and she was struck by a second revelation—that she desired him in part because Ilya desired him. “You see,” Vasil said to her, “how much you and I are alike. I love him. You love him.”

“And
he
is gods-touched by a vision in his heart. This is all very well, Vasil, but the bitter truth is that no matter how he feels, he already chose his vision over you.”

“But I’m a respectable married man, now,” said Vasil. “So is he. There’s no reason we can’t live in the same camp. Not any more.”

“Stop discussing me as if I’m not here,” said Ilya into Tess’s hair. “Given the choice, you must know that I’d choose Tess over you without hesitation.”

“Did I ask you to make a choice?” asked Vasil.

Ilya went quite still.

“What are you suggesting, Vasil?” Tess asked, astonished and appalled and abruptly intrigued.

Vasil leaned close across Ilya and kissed her. It was a lingering kiss, and his hand slid caressingly up her bare back—except it wasn’t Vasil’s hand, there, on her back. It was Ilya’s.

“Do you want me to leave?” Vasil murmured.

“No,” said Tess, surprising herself, because it was the truth. Ilya said nothing. Neither did he move away from them. They took his silence for assent.

T
HE MONITOR IMPLANTED IN
David’s ear buzzed, stirring him out of his drowsy lassitude. The candle had burned out, leaving the little room in darkness. Even the high window, paned with a transparent substance stronger than glass, let through only the light of stars, not enough to illuminate anything more than dark shapes against darker background. The dark of the moon.

“Oh, hell, I’ve got to go,” he said, sitting up.

Nadine yawned and pulled her legs up so that he could scoot past her. “Umm,” she said, and fell silent, undisturbed by his nocturnal comings and goings. She ought to be used to them by now, he thought, glancing back at her as he struggled to get his clothes on. He swore as he got his trousers tangled up. He shook them free and tried again.

“David.” He felt more than saw that she raised herself on an elbow to peer at him. “You aren’t married. Do people think you ought to be?”

“No. I don’t think it’s any of their business, anyway. Do people think you ought to be married?”

“Of course.” Her tone was caustic. “I even have a suitor, who would mark me in a moment if he didn’t know that I’d cut him to ribbons if he tried.”

“You don’t like him?”

She shrugged. “I like Feodor well enough. He’s a pleasant lover. But he doesn’t care about Jeds or anything I learned there. He doesn’t care about maps. He doesn’t wonder about anything, he just rides in his uncle’s jahar and acquits himself well in battle, and is a good son to his mother and a good brother to his two sisters. He doesn’t have any imagination, David!”

“And you have enough for two people. A trait I’m rather fond of.” She smiled at him, and David grinned back. It was one of her great charms: he was fond of her, and she of him, and yet there was no possessiveness in their relationship. They shared what they shared while they shared it. Beyond that, they had their own lives. “But if you don’t want him, then what is there for people to complain of in your behavior?”

Her voice darkened to match the room. “Because women aren’t supposed to have any choice in marriage. Because every woman ought to be married, so that she can have children.”

“Do you want children?” He gave up trying to get his trousers on standing up because he couldn’t manage to keep his balance. He sat down and slid them on one leg at a time.

“No. I want to ride.”

“With the army?”

“I like the army. I’m a good commander, too. I’d rather explore, though, like Marco.”

“Like Marco!” He chuckled and stood up, fastening his belt on. “Yes, you and Marco would make a good team.”

“Thank you,” she said. “I admire him. He reminds me of Josef Raevsky, but perhaps you don’t know Josef.”

“No, I’m sorry. Listen, Dina, I have to go.”

“Why? I know the prince is expecting a party to arrive from the coast, but surely they won’t arrive until daylight. How can you know which day they’ll arrive, anyway?”

David sighed. He was growing annoyed with this constant slippery sliding he had to engage in to get around her tireless, curious questioning. It would have been easier if he’d never taken up with her, but he liked her, damn it, and as the days passed he found his irritation being directed more and more at Charles. Charles should never have proclaimed the interdiction if he didn’t mean to hold to it. Damned hypocrite. It wasn’t Charles who had to dance the delicate dance of truth and lie to avoid giving away privileged information, to avoid the betraying slip of the tongue, to avoid telling this stubborn, affectionate spitfire that her beloved uncle was unconscious and possibly dying.