Kate Elliott - An earthly crown

"Go to sleep, my heart." She stroked his hair. A Singer. He was now a Singer. It seemed a doubly heavy burden to bear.

He slept soundly all that night. The next morning he insisted they start out down toward the Habakar heartlands. He rode a placid mare, but by mid-morning he was so exhausted that, given the choice between halting the train of wagons on the trail so that he could rest or riding in a wagon instead, he agreed to ride in a wagon. Tess sat next to him, one arm around him, propping him up. On his other side, Sonia drove. A constant stream of riders-women and men both-passed them, just to catch sight of him, just to see if it was true, that he had defeated the Habakar sorcery and come back victorious and alive.

By mid-afternoon he trembled as if with a palsy. Tess and Sonia overruled his objections and halted the wagons and made camp. He was so tired that Tess practically had to hand-feed him, and then he fell asleep before he could hold an audience. Vasil came by that evening.

"He's asleep," she said. She sat under the awning in the cool evening breeze, reading by lantern light from Cara's bound volume of the complete works of Shakespeare.

"You look tired," said Vasil. Without being asked, he sank down beside her. "Karolla is pregnant, too."

That startled her. "A third child. You must be very pleased, Vasil."

He smiled. "I love my children. Is he really asleep?"

She closed the book and set it to one side. "Vasil, what do you want? Or do you even know?"

All at once his expression lost its casual self-assurance. "Oh, gods, I thought he was going to die. I couldn't have borne that. At least, even banished from him, I knew he yet lived."

His vehemence shook her. "Why did you come back? You must know that he can't see you, that it will never be acceptable."

"I had no choice," he muttered. He dropped his gaze away from her shyly, forcing her to stare at his profile. The lantern light softened him, giving him the lineament of an angel.

Tess sighed. She had long since discovered that she was susceptible to brash men who hid behind modesty. She leaned over and took his hand. "Vasil." Then she faltered. She did not know what she needed to say.

Daringly, he lifted her hand to his lips and kissed her knuckles, and then turned her hand over and kissed her palm once, twice, thrice. She shivered, and not from the cold. "You'd better go," she said, and was shocked to hear how husky her voice sounded.

Without a word, without looking at her, he placed her hand back in her lap and left.

"Oh, God," she said to herself as she watched him walk away. As she watched him as any woman watches a man she is attracted to, measuring the set of his shoulders and the line of his hips and the promise of his hands. No wonder Sonia had warned her against him.

Tess refused to go on the next day. Ilya raged at her, but she simply smiled and kissed him, and Sonia backed her up. So he rested. The day after, she agreed to go on only if he would ride in the wagon all day. Furious but trapped, he submitted.

That day they came down onto the Habakar plain, and scouts and patrols came by in increasing numbers just to get a look at him. The next day, and the next, and the next, he grew stronger in stages. They journeyed at a leisurely pace, attended by his jahar and visited by an ever-growing number of riders. Bakhtiian, they would say, pointing at him from a distance. Some came forward to pay their respects. He gave brief audiences in the evening. Tess always had to cut them short before he was ready to quit, but he was pushing himself constantly, and Cara shook her head and disapproved.

Tess was shocked at the wasteland the army had made of these lands. She could tell they had been rich, once, that they had been rich just a month before-before the jaran army had descended on them. They passed no village, no city, that was not torn by war or deserted. They passed no field that was not trampled into dust. Once they passed a pasture strewn with corpses rotting in the sun. Tess saw not one living person, except for the jaran. Ilya muttered to himself and that evening he sent messengers forward to prepare the main camp to receive him. He sent a messenger to Mother Sakhalin, asking that he and she hold an audience once he had arrived.

Riders lined the path of their train's progress, to watch him go by. The closer they came to the main camp, each day that passed, the more riders appeared along their route. Three more days passed. At midday on the fourth day-twelve days after he had emerged from his coma-they made their triumphal entrance to the main camp.

It was noisy, both the camp and their reception. Over the protests of almost everyone, Ilya mounted his black stallion and rode at the head of the procession, Tess on his left, Josef and Mitya on his right. Tess knew well enough that Josef's presence served to remind them all of why they were here in Habakar territory, and Mitya's to remind them that Bakhtiian had heirs. Vladimir, bearing the gold banner, rode behind, and after him came Bakhtiian's personal guard, the members of the Orzhekov jahar, resplendent in their armor. After them came Sonia, driving a cart in whose back sat the other Orzhekov children who were with the tribe. Then rode the rest of his jahar, followed by the wagon train and the rearguard.

The members of the camp and the army had assembled, making an avenue between them down which Bakhtiian rode. The way was straight and clear through the huge camp, angling in to the center where lay the Sakhalin encampment and a broad empty field reserved for the Orzhekov tribe. Sonia had sent a wagon ahead in the night, with Aleksi and Ursula, containing the great tent. Now it stood alone in the center of the field. Ilya was glad enough to dismount and recline on the pillows lying there for his use. He was tired, but not as tired as he had been, and his face shone. Tess sank down beside him. They watched as the wagons trundled in and made their spiraling ring around the central tent. The camp grew up around them.

Mitya and Galina brought them food and drink. Ilya dozed a little. When he woke, he gazed at Tess with a quizzical look in his eyes.

"What is it?" she asked. She smiled. She felt deliriously happy. She had gambled, and it had paid off. It made her feel reckless. He looked stronger already. In another ten or twenty days, it would seem as if the entire episode had not happened at all.

"I haven't seen you wear jahar clothes since-" He shrugged. "Since I don't know when."

"Men's clothes don't fit a pregnant belly."

He smiled suddenly, "A child, Tess. Think of it."

"My bladder thinks of it constantly. We need better plumbing."

"What you wish, you shall have, my wife. But, ah, do you have any designs in mind?''

"I wish David was here. He's the engineer. He could design something simple and efficient."

His eyes narrowed. "David ben Unbutu. Tess." He hesitated.

"Yes?"

"Never mind." He shook his head. "I'm hungry."

"Still?"

But his expression changed, and an entirely new gleam lit his eyes as he examined her. "Just now." He reached out to take her hand, caught it up, and hastily dropped it again. "Tess. We'll go to our bed early tonight."

Demurely, she straightened out the folds in her tunic so that the brocade lay smooth over her crossed legs. "Whatever you say, my husband," she replied, smiling. "Are you sure you won't have some important audience to attend?"

"Quite sure." He propped himself up on one elbow. "There is Mother Sakhalin. You see, after I've seen her, then there's no one else I need see, no one but you." He got to his feet carefully and walked across to greet Mother Sakhalin and to escort her to a pillow next to him. She came attended by a huge retinue: etsanas, dyans, ambassadors, and even, to Tess's surprise, several members of the acting troupe.