"Please." Syrannus gestured for her to step onto the carpet. "If you will wait."

The old man looked nervous, and when he turned to hurry over to his master's chair, he wiped his hands on his black sash as if he were wiping sweat from his palms. The two men spoke together. Jiroannes handed Syrannus the parchment and the servant rolled it up carefully and called a second guardsman over to take it away.

The first guardsman shifted position, angling the lantern light to include a patch of ground before the chair.

Syrannus hurried back to Tess and gestured her forward. She crossed the outer carpet and inclined her head respectfully to Jiroannes. "May the Great King live many years, and his affairs prosper, and your fortunes follow his," she said, still in Vidyan.

Jiroannes hesitated. From what little Tess knew of Vidyan, she had now put him in a position from which he had either to greet her respectfully in return or else insult her deliberately.

At last, he spoke. "May your name dwell a thousand years in the heart of the Great King." He did not stand. Neither did she kneel. After a moment, he signed to Syrannus, and the old man brought a stool.

Tess sat. It was parity, of a sort. "I hope, your eminence, that you will forgive my speaking in Rhuian, since I do not speak your language well enough to converse in it."

"Where did you learn it? Surely you have not visited the Great King's lands?"

"No, to my sorrow I have not. But I always seek to learn new languages."

"Ah." He appeared satisfied that some piece of a puzzle known only to himself had just fallen into place. "You are an interpreter."

Tess suppressed her grin. "Yes," she agreed, realizing just then the best tack to take with him. "But I am also a khaja-a foreigner-traveling with the jaran. In this, you and I are alike. Originally, I came from Jeds."

Now he looked interested. "Jeds is a great city. The Great King has exchanged royal gifts with his cousin the prince of Jeds, and we have sent envoys there in the past. Indeed, a Jedan merchant admitted to the palace school taught me and the other young n.o.bles Rhuian, since the Great King deemed it an important language to learn for those of us aspiring to become envoys and amba.s.sadors."

"Perhaps, your eminence, you will kindly allow me to tell you a few things I have learned in my years with the jaran. I have every hope that your mission will succeed.

Certainly I hope to avoid war between Bakhtiian and your Great King."

He p.r.i.c.kled, definitely, but he did not dismiss her. "How did you come to be with the jaran?" he asked at last. "Are you a slave?"

For an instant, Tess allowed herself the pleasure of imagining how Nadine would react to such a remark, directed at any jaran woman. But then, Nadine would never make a good amba.s.sador. "Your eminence, I am married to Bakhtiian."

He blinked. In the cast of light from the lantern, his narrow face bore an almost demonic look, framed by the white cloth bound around his head and his pointed black beard.

But Jiroannes came from a polygamous culture. She could be any junior wife, of marginal importance, except perhaps that she was khaja and an interpreter.

"I beg your pardon, your eminence," Tess added. "I did not make myself clear. I am Bakhtiian's only wife. I am also the sister of the prince of Jeds."

There was silence; a long silence, as the poor boy absorbed the full meaning of her simple declaration. "Your grace," said Jiroannes at last, reluctantly but with a kind of fascinated horror. He stood up.

"Please, your eminence. Do sit down." He sat. She considered his chastened face.

Doubtless the knowledge that the Jedan prince had already deemed Bakhtiian and his jaran hordes dangerous enough to offer a marriage alliance to them made a formidable impact on the Vidiyan amba.s.sador. Not to mention insulting her by calling her a slave. Lord, he really was quite young, and probably as spoiled and self- absorbed and isolated a young n.o.ble as she herself had been, growing up as the only sibling of the great hero of humanity, Charles Soerensen.

"Your grace, I beg pardon for any rudeness you may have received on my behalf."

'' You are forgiven.''

"Certainly I would be honored to listen to your wisdom concerning these jaran barbarians."

How quickly they came to an accord, civilized cousins thrown in with the savages. Tess allowed herself a smile, and then she began, gently but firmly, to make him begin to understand how different things were with the jaran.

The slave-girl still knelt behind Jiroannes's chair. Could the girl understand Rhuian? She did not move. She might have been carved from stone, so still was she.

Tess realized that she wasn't particularly angry with Jiroannes for keeping a slave.

Disgusted. Resigned, knowing that the inst.i.tution could not be erased with a wave of her hand. One had to work slowly. That's what Charles would say. She winced internally. Who was acting like Charles now?

At last she took her leave. Jiroannes rose and bowed to her, then escorted her personally to the edge of the carpet. She walked out onto the gra.s.s with Aleksi and just stood there, breathing in the air. The wind brushed her hair. Stars filled the night sky, brilliant with promise. Over by Nadine's tent, the fire pit had long since smoldered into coals. On a far rise, an edge of darkness against the darker sky, the tiny figure of a scout blotted out stars. Horses stood scattered beyond the camp, some staked, some hobbled. A few tents had been set up, but most of the men slept on the ground, dark lumps wrapped in blankets.

"I love the plains," said Tess in a low voice, letting the sky and the sweep of ground envelop her. "It's so open here."

"Look there."

Tess followed the line of Aleksi's gaze to see a man pause beside Nadine's tent and then duck inside. "Grekov, again? He's in love with her. She'll never have him, though."

"But women have no choice in marriage," Aleksi objected.

"Jaran women don't, it's true. But Nadine is no longer truly jaran. Jeds marked her too well." Tess's gaze flicked over the Vidiyan encampment and halted on the slender form of the amba.s.sador, watching-what? But it was clear enough what he was watching. He, too, stared at Nadine Orzhekov's tent. A moment later his slave- girl approached him and knelt at his feet. He retreated inside his own tent. She followed.

"Sonia's not going to like this," Tess said, to no one in particular, to the stars, perhaps. And why should Sonia like it? That she would not was one of the reasons that Tess could love her so well.

"Aren't you going to sleep?" asked Aleksi.

She shook her head. "I can't sleep. I think I'll walk for a while."

"I'll walk with you, then."

And Tess was glad of his company.

The night wind came up, swelling and ebbing around them, sighing through the gra.s.s in waves. Above, stars shone. Men slept below. The deep silence that lay here was otherwise complete and, in its immensity, liberating.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN.

The first day, Yomi told the actors to stay within their little enclave of tents and on no account to venture out into the confusion of the jaran camp. Ever the slave driver, Owen led them in a round of exercises until midday and after lunch put them to work setting up the screens and the carpets and the portable platform at the edge of the enclave. He had chosen the s.p.a.ce carefully. The ground sloped up here, providing a natural amphitheater. He fussed over the placement of the screens, of the carpets, of the platform, until he drove all the actors crazy. Yomi finally sent them to supper.

Diana escaped to the enclave bordering the Company's cl.u.s.ter of tents, that of the Soerensen party. To her eye, Charles Soerensen's tent had also been set up carefully, facing the outskirts of the jaran camp as if inviting envoys to visit this acre of earth that he claimed as his by right of possession. Dr. Hierakis's large tent stood beside his, more a companion than an attendant, and behind them the smaller tents of his party formed a semicircle around the back, enclosing a patch of ground as a kind of private courtyard.

Here she found David and Maggie, crouching beside a fire pit dug into the earth."It's cold today," said Maggie as Diana came up, "but at least it didn't rain. h.e.l.lo there, Diana. I heard you all hooting and howling over yonder. What on earth were you doing?"

"Vocal exercises. I hope we didn't spook anyone." Diana glanced past the straight edge of Soerensen's tent toward the vast camp sprawled beyond.

"Oh, they already think the good doctor is some kind of otherworldly visitor.''

"Good Lord," muttered David.

"I didn't mean it like that," added Maggie. "Not literally, that is. She's been very careful to make sure that all the medicine she does is technologically within their limits. There's an entire conclave of old men and women in the doctor's tent right now. I gather that they were tremendously impressed by her healing skills after that battle five days ago."

Diana shivered. She knelt beside the fire and gratefully accepted a mug of hot tea from David. That afternoon and night seemed surreal to her now. She could almost believe it had never happened, except that they had had to repack the wagons and convey some of their goods on horseback in order to leave room in the wagons for the wounded who could not ride. "Gwyn said that only one man died on the trip here."

"Two, I think," said David. "But one of them Cara called a courtesy death. You acquitted yourself well, Diana, that night." He shuddered. "I couldn't have done what you did. I hate blood."

"Handsome necklace." Maggie reached out and traced her fingers over the gold beads. "I'll bet these are solid gold. Do you know what this is worth for the metal alone?" Diana blushed. Maggie grinned. "Ah, going native already, are you? I hear the young man who gave this to you is one of their n.o.bility. Or at least, of an important family. I'm not sure our concept of n.o.bility is quite the right word."

Diana studied the steam rising out of her mug. It rose into the air and dissipated, wafted into nothingness by the cold breeze. She had not seen Anatoly Sakhalin since that night, and by now he was probably swallowed up in the jaran camp. Never to be seen again. "It seems like once Bakhtiian and his army-his soldiers-got back to us, that we weren't allowed anything to do with the wounded. Except for Dr. Hierakis, of course."

"Can you blame them? We are foreigners, after all. Perhaps they have some kind of taboo. Or perhaps they just prefer to take care of their own. Why should they trust us?"

Marco ducked out from the back entrance to Soerensen's tent and glanced up.

Diana saw him register her presence, she even caught his eye, but he turned around and slipped back inside the tent. As if he was avoiding her. Which he was. Which he cursed well ought to. "Did you ever find out what the big fire was that they lit after we left?"

"Oh, you mean from the pond? A cremation pyre. They burn their dead."

David shuddered again. "Just heaped them on and burned them. Why did I come?

Or did I ask that already? ''Maggie laughed. "A thousand times. Don't repeat yourself, David, you'll get boring."

"I wonder what they think of us," Diana mused.

"They think you're an angel," said Maggie, and laughed again when Diana turned red. "Which seems ironic enough, when you think of it."

"When will we be allowed to go out into their camp?" David asked. "I'd like to do some drawing."

"I don't know," admitted Maggie, "but I imagine His Nibs is going to be cautious."

"Very cautious," echoed David. "What's going on out there?"

Diana rose with the other two and followed them out alongside Dr. Hierakis's tent. Under the awning of her tent, Dr. Hierakis sat cross-legged on a pillow surrounded by about twenty women and men of various ages, mostly elderly.

Diana stared. She had not yet seen a jaran woman. They looked, well, rather ordinary. They wore long tunics dyed in bright colors over striped trousers and soft leather boots. Some wore simple beaded headpieces draped over their braided hair; others wore a round fur cap shaped like the men's helmets. The men here wore gold or blue shirts, not red, and there was less embroidery on their shirts. A few men in the scarlet worn by the soldiers loitered in the background. One man was seated in the middle, his back to Diana and her companions, and he was clearly the object of the conversation: his shirt lay at his hips, revealing a handsome expanse of bare back. An older silver-haired jaran man was crouched beside him, drawing patterns on his shoulder that traced the line of his scars and injuries.

"Look," said Diana, nodding toward the silver-haired man. "He speaks Rhuian, too. If you listen to the interchange between him and Dr. Hierakis, you can tell he's translating for the others. I wonder where an old man like that learned Rhuian."

"Lady in Heaven," said David in a hushed voice. "It can't be." He sounded so odd that Diana turned to him in alarrn. But he was looking beyond her, beyond the gathering under the doctor's awning, beyond Soerensen's tent, toward the outskirts of the jaran camp.

Three jaran soldiers came cantering around the outer fringes of the vast encampment. An instant later, Diana realized that although they all were dressed in the red shirts and black trousers of the jaran soldier, two were female. The man was the one called Aleksi. Of the women, one had the black hair and olive complexion of those of the jaran who were dark, but the other had, not blonde hair and a fair complexion, but something in between. They pulled up thirty meters in front of Sorensen's tent and dismounted. The brown-haired woman was half a head taller than her female companion, as tall as the male, as tall as many of the jaran men; as tall as the women in Soerensen's party. She wore a saber at her belt and carried herself with the kind of unconscious authority of those who are used to an exalted position in life.

"Tess!" The exclamation came, unexpectedly, from Dr. Hierakis. She stood up abruptly, disrupting her conference.As if on cue, the entrance to Soerensen's tent swept aside and Soerensen walked out, deep in conversation with Marco. He took two steps, glanced toward the doctor and the more distant clump that was Diana and David and Maggie, and stopped. For a beat, he did nothing. Then he looked straight up, along the converging lines of their sight, at his sister.

"Charles!" The name burst out of Terese Soerensen as if by accident. She clapped her hands over her mouth in a gesture that looked utterly spontaneous and after a moment lowered them. She had the kind of stupid grin on her face that afflicts people who are overwhelmingly nervous and excited together. A few words pa.s.sed between her and her companions; then she ran forward and hugged her brother.

He, too, was smiling. They separated, and Tess turned to greet Marco. She laughed at him and slapped him with some amus.e.m.e.nt on the chest. He grinned.

Diana could not hear what they were saying. Dr. Hierakis waded around the sea of healers and put out her arms.

This time, Tess Soerensen's smile looked more confident and more genuine. She embraced Dr. Hierakis firmly, and her smile as they parted was easy and cheerful.

Skilled as Diana had become at reading body language, she could tell that the doctor's greeting was warmer than Charles Soerensen's; not more heartfelt, perhaps, but less constrained.

"My G.o.d, she's different," breathed David.

"Well well well," said Maggie.

"She's . . . she's ..."

"I'd never heard she was quite that handsome as a girl. I always heard she was shy, awkward, and headstrong. But then, I've never met her, and by the time I signed on with His Nibs, she was at university and then absconded to Rhui."

"Reserved, not shy," corrected David, still gaping. Tess Soerensen glanced their way, and her eyes rounded suddenly, recognizing David. She hesitated, then waved him over.

"Invited to the presence," said Maggie.

"d.a.m.n you, Mags. Come with me. I'm not doing this alone. You, too, Diana."

"Cold feet?" Maggie asked.

"You cold-hearted b.i.t.c.h. Mags, please."

Maggie chuckled. "Well, come on, then, Diana. Our womanly presence will support the poor besotted fool."

'' 'What pa.s.sion hangs these weights upon my tongue? I cannot speak to her, yet she urg'd conference.' "

"Lord," moaned David. But he straightened his shoulders and set off to cross the gap. Maggie followed, grabbing Diana by the wrist and tugging her along behind. The jaran healers sat quietly, patiently, and watched this little scene with interest. The silver-haired man smiled at Diana as she pa.s.sed. The next instant, she realized that the young man sitting in the center, just now struggling to get back into his shirt, was Anatoly Sakhalin. As his head emerged through the collar, he glanced up, saw her, and averted his gaze from her as swiftly as if her presence stung him. Maggie dragged her to a stop behind David, and she had to wrench her attention back to the matter at hand.

"David!" Tess Soerensen was saying. "What are you doing here? Did Charles drag you along?''

It took Diana a moment to figure out what was strange about her speech: the cadences of her Anglais were slightly altered, as if she had not spoken it for some time.

"I had sufficient inducements," replied David. "I'm interested in ancient engineering, after all. Tess, you haven't met Maggie O'Neill."

"Honored," said Tess Soerensen, shaking Maggie's hand.

"Likewise," replied Maggie with her usual aplomb. "I'm Charles's a.s.sistant, recorder, and official historian. This is one of the actors, Diana Brooke-Holt."

Diana smiled at Tess Soerensen. Tess had fine green eyes and a sincere smile, but nothing of her brother's quietly formidable bearing. "Honored," Diana said, feeling all at once that she might like this woman and not feeling at all overawed by her. "I understand you're doing linguistics fieldwork here, M. Soerensen."

"Tess, please." Soerensen blinked, looking confused for a moment. She glanced at her brother and immediately an expression of comprehension flashed over her features. "Of course," she said, sounding a little simpleminded. "My linguistics research. Of course. And you're one of the-actors?"

"The Bharentous Repertory Company," put in Dr. Hierakis. "Surely you've heard of them, Tess. They've come along to do some fieldwork themselves."

"Of course I've heard of them. I saw them in Berlin, performing the Mahabharata. I don't recall if you were with them then." She considered a moment and as if by habit glanced back toward her two jaran companions, still waiting fifty paces out. "Oh, h.e.l.l," she said under her breath.

Charles Soerensen was a quiet man, holding his power in reserve, h.o.a.rding it, concealing it from a power greater than his own-the power of the Chapalii Empire.