Kate Elliott - An earthly crown

"He's afraid," she said softly. Tess did not reply. Perhaps she had not heard her. Perhaps she did not-or could not-understand what Nadine knew to be true. "Off the fields!" she shouted at two idiot stragglers, and she led them along a dirt track that wound in toward town.

Out in the fields, workers breaking the ground in preparation for the spring ploughing raised their caps to stare, while others scattered back across the furrowed earth to find safety in hovels and behind low carts. A string of watchers appeared on what still remained of the palisade of Basille.

Nadine regarded these signs pensively. "Poor things. They hadn't a chance, you know, when they brought out their pitiful army against Veselov's ten thousand with my jahar and Mirsky's jahar in reserve. After the first day they saw it was useless and negotiated a surrender. They would have done better to close their gates and try to wait out a siege. We weren't very good at sieges that first year."

Tess chuckled. "You spent one year too many in Jeds, Dina. Are you sorry for them, now?''

Nadine shrugged. "What the gods have brought them, they will have to endure. Still, it's true enough. One year too many in Jeds marks you, just like any good jaran woman is marked for marriage."

"Like you aren't." Tess touched the scar that ran diagonally from cheekbone to jaw on her left cheek.

Nadine smiled, unmarked. "Gods, it's no wonder he married you. He would never have married a jaran woman, not after the years he spent in Jeds. Sonia and Yuri-that's why they only spent a year there. They didn't want to be changed. Or couldn't be."

"Poor Yuri. It's probably just as well he died. He would have hated this. Three years of war-one battle after the next. So much killing. He would have hated it."

Nadine examined Tess reflectively-the hair and eyes no color ever seen in jaran-born; a good rider, for a khaja; and she could fight, it was true. Nadine recalled the cousin she had last seen years before, that gentle boy Yuri. It was true he had hated fighting-could do it, but hated it. Tess was good, probably better than Yuri had ever been, but she lacked the love of the art itself, she lacked the indifference to killing: and to be a truly good fighter one must have both of those traits in moderation, or one in excess. Good timing, and a fine eye for distance: those were Tess's skills.

Tess watched her, one lip quirked up in ironic salute. ' 'Judged and found wanting?''

"Your skills aren't at issue, Tess. Just remember, there are only five women I know of in Bakhtiian's army. Before you came, not one woman rode to battle. It's no dishonor to you to choose not to ride now.''

The set of Tess's mouth tightened. "It's not such a simple choice for me. It never was."

Nadine sighed. Poor Tess, always agonizing over what was the right thing to do. She changed the subject. "Would Yurinya have hated it? I never knew him that well. We weren't of an age, and anyway, he was so quiet."

"Unlike you."

"Judged and found wanting?" retorted Nadine. Tess grinned. "The entire coast subject to his uncle's authority? Half the southern kingdoms that border the plains? We ride into a town now that gives us tribute so that we'll never again attack them. One more season of campaigning and we'll either all be dead or we'll see the other half recognize us as their kind protectors, and we'll seal alliances with the Vidiyan Great King and the Habakar king, and-gods, Tess, and then we'll be free to ride north and east along the Golden Road."

"Yuri would have hated it," muttered Tess.

"Ilya is a fool," said Nadine. "He believes what he says, that it's our duty to conquer them so that all jaran will be safe from the khaja forever. Gods, what nonsense."

"Are you going to tell him?"

"Why bother? You're the only person I know of who has the slightest chance of changing his mind-even my mother couldn't have done it. We all know what happened to Vasil Veselov when he tried. But you could, Tess. Maybe. Are you going to try?"

Tess looked away. "How can I?" she asked in a low voice. "This is what makes him what he is."

Nadine had long ago made a pact with herself not to think too deeply about her uncle. She loved him; how could she not? She hated him, because it was his fault that her mother and little brother had died. And in between, tangling it all up, the harness of duty that constrained her, her duty to her family, and the memory of her mother-the most wonderful person in all the tribes-telling her that of all men, it is to your own brothers and your mother's brothers that you owe the deepest part of your affection.

"Good," she said, mocking herself more than Tess. "I wouldn't want you to change his mind about his wild sweep of conquest. Gods, I'd be bored if I didn't have this to do." And the specter of boredom, of having too much time to think, was the worst one of all. "Look. There's a party assembling at the main gate. The ambassador must have arrived before us. He'll have had time to worry." She lifted a hand to sign for the troop to spread out, leaving them room to maneuver. The horsemen shifted position with that absolute mastery of riding that each one had, having been practically bred and raised in the saddle. Feodor looked their way, and averted his gaze when he realized she had noticed him.

"He's in love with you, you know," said Tess suddenly.

"Our ambassador? He hasn't even met me, Tess. How can he be in love with me?"

"Feodor."

"Oh, him." She did not bother to look at him. "For a sweet, modest jaran man, he's a bit too obvious about it for my taste. And the gods know, after three years in Jeds I came to appreciate sweet, modest jaran men."

"Did you?"

Even the broken, pitiful walls of Basille reminded her enough of Jeds that she was stricken with a longing to return there-now, this instant. "Of course I did. I loved that city. I could easily have forsaken the plains for Jeds, except I'm too much jaran to live in a place where only one group of women can make advances to men-women who get paid to do so. Paid! It made me heartsick. They're barbarians, these khaja. I didn't want barbarians as my lovers. It's the only reason I came back." She meant the comment to be light; the force of it surprised even her. Tess, kind Tess, made no reply.

At the gates of Basille, a party had indeed gathered. As they neared, Nadine could distinguish between two styles of dress, and she saw that a certain, delicate distance separated two groups of people-a group of men dressed in plain, dull cloth, and a smaller group arrayed in golds and purples and jade greens made the more vivid by the muted garb of their neighbors.

"It appears," said Nadine in Rhuian, "that Basille's elders can scarcely wait to pass their visitors on to us." She lifted a hand and the jahar halted, a semicircle ringing the gate out of archer's range. She glanced at her riders and smiled. Solemn, austere, with an arrogance that frightened khaja everywhere. Why, jaran riders had such contempt for all khaja that they did not even bother to touch khaja women. Was that what khaja thought? She had often wondered, but never found the opportunity to ask.

"Grekov. Yermolov." Her voice carried clearly into the silence. "Will you attend?" And softer: "Tess?"

"Assuredly."

The four of them rode forward. The crowd at the gate watched, stilled either by fear or by anticipation.

"Lord," said Tess, "look there on the steps. Is that our ambassador? From the vast and fabled empire of Vidiya?"

Nadine shifted her gaze self-consciously from the blond head of Feodor Grekov, who had come up with Yermolov on her left, to the low stairway that led up to the night portal in an intact portion of the palisade. "Gods. He's young. And is that supposed to be his retinue-what, six besides himself? Only four hands of guardsmen? He can't be very important if that's the lot. Ilya won't be pleased if he thinks he's being snubbed."