Kate Elliott - His conquering sword

The comment puzzled Aleksi. "I beg your pardon, Marco, but she is Feodor Grekov's daughter. Perhaps no one has told you, but there is nothing more insulting you could ever say to a man, except to insult his mother or sister, of course. I thought even the khaja knew that."

The speed with which Burckhardt backed down surprised Aleksi. "No, you're right. But-how did she-? She ought to have died."

"Who ought to have died? Oh, you mean Nadine and the child, just like Tess almost did, with the early one? It's true that she was sick for months after the birth. Everyone thought she was going to die, even Feodor. Even Bakhtiian. Tess was the only one who thought she might live. Bakhtiian sat at her bedside for twenty days straight and served her with his own hands, until he saw that she would live. He and Varia Telyegin nursed her through it. Even Dr. Hierakis says that Varia Telyegin is a great healer. But the baby was always strong. Feodor got the baby a wet nurse and then they had the worst arguments when Nadine recovered and he wanted her to nurse the child herself. I've never seen Nadine so weak and subdued. I think she only said one ill-tempered thing a day for an entire season. She's much better now."

"Of course, it's none of my business," said Marco hastily, looking uncomfortable at hearing these revelations.

"Why should Nadine have died, though?" Aleksi insisted.

Marco dragged a hand back through his hair, looking like he was reminded of something he didn't want to think about. "Because blood half of the earth and half of the heavens doesn't mix easily," he replied curtly. "May we go see Tess now?"

So they climbed the butte, winding up the steep trail as the afternoon wind tore at their shirts. At each switchback, Marco paused and stared out at the view growing beyond and beneath them. From above, the spiral along which the camp was laid out showed clearly enough, although it was hard to distinguish the pattern from the ground. The southern mountains lay in a distant blue haze, tinged with pink from the sun's long rays.

"That's where Habakar lies, that way, isn't it?" Marco looked toward the distant south.

"Yes. Mitya is still there. They're building him a new city, west of Hamrat. The Princess Melatina and her brother have lived with Mother Orzhekov for six seasons now, and she's not nearly as shy as she used to be. The princess, that is."

They climbed on. West lay the sea, hidden from their view, where the sun set, and north and east past the rolling line of hills stretched the vast golden blur of the plains.

"East," said Marco, pausing to catch his breath. Already the eastern horizon dimmed to a dusky blue, shadowed and mysterious. "East, on the Golden Road. But, Aleksi." He paused. "What about Bakhtiian's son?"

Aleksi warded off the notice of Grandmother Night with a quick turn of his wrist. "Bakhtiian's son died."

"No. His other son. The one who's Katerina's age. Vasha. He must be Bakhtiian's son the same way Lara must be David's daughter."

Aleksi sighed. "Marco, you khaja always care so much which man's seed made which child on what woman. Vasha is Bakhtiian's son because Tess adopted him as her son, and Bakhtiian is her husband. Just as she adopted me as her brother."

"But-" The wind whipped at them, tearing their hair away from their eyes, stinging and sharp and hot.

"It's true enough, I suppose, that Vasha is Bakhtiian's son by khaja laws, too, and since his mother never married… well…" Aleksi shrugged. "It might even be true about David, by khaja laws, but still, Lara-"

"— is Feodor Grekov's daughter," said Marco. "I understand. I suppose it's better that David never hears about it. It would break his heart."

"But he isn't married to Nadine-" Aleksi broke off and trudged on after Marco, who had started on up again. The conversation was pointless in any case. The khaja were very strange, all except Tess, of course, and even she- Then he grinned. Tess and her brother and the khaja from Erthe were the strangest ones of all, because they had come down from the heavens.

They reached the summit and the wind skirled around them and then, as they crossed the flat ground scoured clean by years upon years of Father Wind's rough touch, died altogether. A single tent stood on the plateau, staked down. The gold banner at its height hung limply, stirred as the wind fluttered the cloth, and stilled again. Clouds shone pale in the sky above, touched orange in the west where they feathered the horizon.

Ilyakoria Bakhtiian knelt on the ground some twenty paces in front of the tent. His head was bent. Before him, in a semicircle, sat the ten etsanas and the ten dyans- well, only nine since Venedikt Grekov was still away on his expedition to Vidiya-listening intently. It was so quiet, with the sun's rays bathing the plateau in a rich golden light, that even from twenty paces away, where they halted, they could hear Bakhtiian's voice as he spoke.

"… and I said to Grandmother Night, "I will give to you that which I most love if you will make me dyan of all the tribes." And I sealed the bargain with the blood of a hawk."

Aleksi noticed, at once, that Bakhtiian wore no saber. He had disarmed himself. His horse-tail staff lay over the knees of Mother Sakhalin, and his own aunt had laid his saber on the pillow on which the dyan of her tribe- which was him, of course-would otherwise be seated. From the tent, he heard a muffled, steady drumbeat, and he heard Svetlana singing, and then laughter. Steam boiled up from two great copper pots set over a fire to one side of the tent. Vasha, who was getting all gangly and overgrown these days, sat in mute attendance on the fire.

"Afterward," Bakhtiian continued into the silence, not looking at the women and men who in their turn watched him with unnervingly intent gazes, "I thought that she had cheated me, but then I realized that she had held to her end of the bargain. Vasil was not the person whom I most loved. I was the one who tried to cheat Grandmother Night. I paid dearly enough for my presumption."

There they sat, in silence, Sakhalin, Arkhanov, Suvorin, Velinya, Raevsky, Vershinin, Grekov, Fedoseyev, and last, Veselov and Orzhekov. Arina Veselov sat on a. litter, since she had never regained enough strength to be able to walk very well. Her odd cousin sat next to her. Scars had obliterated the beauty of Vera's face; her riders called her a hard dyan but a fair one, and she was known to be ruthless and aloof. Yaroslav Sakhalin had ridden two thousand miles in twenty days to come here, and the others had come long distances as well. Irena Orzhekov regarded her nephew gravely. Alone of all of them, she did not look particularly surprised by his confession.

"And what," asked Mother Sakhalin, "did you pay, Ilyakoria Bakhtiian?"

He lifted his head to look directly at her. "These lives. The life of my mother, Alyona Orzhekov. The life of my father, Petre Sokolov. The life of my sister Natalia and of her son. Of my cousin Yurinya. Of the Prince of Jeds, Charles Soerensen, my wife's brother. The life of my son."

The wind picked up again. The gold banner stirred and fluttered and spread, like a last ray of the sun, out against the vast arch of the sky. "The lives of those who followed me, and died, not knowing of the bargain I had made and then hidden." He bent his head and ran his fingers up the embroidery on his shirt. His aunt watched him, her face stern. He looked up again, for the final time. "The life of the boy I once was, Ilyakoria Orzhekov."

Katerina ducked out of the tent and ran over to the pots. She dipped a kettle into water, whispered something to Vasha, glanced toward the assembly, and then hurried back inside. Very clearly, in the silence, they all heard a woman swear forcefully and fluidly. Anna Veselov hid her mouth behind a hand. Every gaze flashed toward the tent and then away. Every one but Bakhtiian's. His gaze did not stray from Mother Sakhalin's face.