Kate Elliott - His conquering sword

"Bakhtiian wept," said Aleksi in a low voice.

Her mouth pinched tight, but she showed no other emotion as they walked back to the doctor's tent. He brought a folding chair out for her and she sat. As soon as she sat down, Anatoly Sakhalin approached to pay his respects. Others filtered by, and eventually Sonia appeared and chased everyone else away.

"You're looking well," Sonia said carefully.

"Tm feeling well. Is there any news from the army?"

"None yet, that I know of. Aleksi, sit down. Tess, I've been giving some thought to Aleksi marrying. Indeed,

I've had my eye on a particular young woman for some time now. Her name is Svetlana Tagansky. She's from one of the Veselov granddaughter tribes, and her husband died in the fighting at Hazjan. She was brought in to wet-nurse Lavrenti while Arina was so weak-Svetlana lost her own infant to a fever-" Sonia broke off. "Oh, Tess." She laid a hand on Tess's arm, but Tess's expression remained blank. Her distraction worried Aleksi. Sonia exchanged a glance with him, but Aleksi could only shrug. Sonia withdrew her hand, looking troubled. "But I need your permission to approach her, Tess."

"Oh." Tess blinked. Aleksi wondered if she had heard a word that Sonia had said. He held his breath, hoping she would agree. "But Aleksi can't marry. He has to have his own tent." The disappointment felt sharp, but he said nothing.

"But men don't own their own tents. I would have thought you'd want him to get married and have a respectable wife."

Tess twisted around and regarded Aleksi. "What do you want, Aleksi?"

"Every man ought to be married," he said slowly, "if he can be."

"Yes, that's what the jaran say, but what do you want?"

Aleksi had a sudden feeling that Tess did not want him to get married. He didn't know what to do: tell her the truth and possibly offend her, or placate her with a lie? Like a wave, the memory of his nightmare washed over him. Tess was all he had; of course he must do what she wished. "Of… of course I don't care about being married," he stammered. "I'd much rather have my own tent-"

"You're lying," Tess snapped. "I asked you what you wanted, not what you think I want to hear. Do me the favor, Aleksi, of telling me the truth. I don't like this."

The cold edge of her anger shocked him into silence.

"Well?" she demanded.

He wrung his hands together. "I would like to get married," he said under his breath.

"What?"

"I would like to get married to a kind, respectable woman, one I liked."

"That's settled then, Sonia," she said in a curt voice. "Where is Josef? I have work to do."

"Don't you want to meet her first?" Sonia asked, looking affronted. "Know something about her and her family? See if you'll get along?"

"Aleksi will make up his own mind. I don't need to be involved."

"Well!" Sonia rose and shook out her skirts. "I see that this is not the right time to discuss it. If you'll excuse me."

"What's wrong with her?" Tess demanded as Sonia stalked away. Aleksi sighed and resigned himself to an unpleasant day. But at least she had agreed he might marry. That cheered him.

They sat outside for a while longer. Then, abruptly, Tess stood and went back into the doctor's tent. Aleksi followed and found her seated at the table. She spoke three words in Anglais, and a latticework appeared above the tabletop. Tiny symbols spread out along the lattice, interwoven in a maze. With one hand tapping onto a screen and the other tapping impatiently on the smooth tabletop, Tess began to manipulate the symbols. She moved them around at a dizzying rate, muttering under his breath, speaking aloud sometimes in a strange, alien language.

"What are you doing?" Aleksi asked.

She did not even glance up at him. "Trying to figure out how the Chapalii language works. I thought I understood it pretty well, but now I see that I overlooked half of it. More than half, maybe. I hate it when a language doesn't fall into place for me." She pressed her lips together and laid a rainbow of colors over the lattice, shrank segments down and dragged them away to the edges, and began to build a new lattice in the middle. It reminded Aleksi of watching David ben Unbutu direct the building of a siege tower or a siege engine, only her architecture was more insubstantial.

The bells chimed, and Charles Soerensen walked in. He acknowledged Aleksi with a nod and then stood there and watched his sister for the longest time.

She grunted finally, annoyed with something, and looked up at him. "Oh. Hello."

"Cara said you're out of danger."

"I suppose. I feel bloated. And my-" She broke off and crossed her arms over her chest. "Anyway, I've got some ideas here, but I don't have enough information. I'd like to interview-well, just speak with-some female Chapalii. Do you think I never came across any before because they don't move freely outside of Chapalii enclaves, or because my status as your heir made me an honorary male? If you'd treated me as your sister, not as your heir, would I have found access into their side of the culture? Is it even that separate, or is it somehow woven in with the male culture in ways we don't understand? We still often think of the universe as dualistic and forget how simplistic that philosophy is. Especially when we're dealing with what is alien to us."

"Good questions," said Charles. "I can't answer them."

"I should leave Rhui." Tess stared into the floating pattern she had created. "I can't do this here."

A thrill of fear ran through Aleksi. But Tess had promised to take him with her. She meant that, didn't she? He bit down on his tongue to stop himself asking her right here, right now. It wasn't an auspicious time.

"I thought you were going to stay on Rhui and act as the information conduit here, for my saboteur network," said Charles evenly.

"I'm sure you can make other arrangements. And it won't work anyway. Aleksi is going to get married, so he won't have a tent. I don't have anywhere to hide the equipment I'll need."

Charles crossed the chamber and halted behind her, resting his hands on the back of her chair. She stood up at once and moved away from him. "But, Tess, I've been thinking about this. Ursula wants to stay, too. We'll give her one of these large tents, and then there'll be no problem with keeping any such equipment concealed."

Aleksi didn't like the way Tess was standing. Her back had a stubborn, angry line to it. She did not turn to look at her brother. "Ursula! By what right can she stay here? Isn't that meddling a bit far with the interdiction?"

Charles sighed. "Tess. The interdiction is all shot to hell as it is."

Now she spun. Her face was white. "What did you tell Hya?"

"I told him the truth-"

She flushed red. "You told him the truth! You might as well have stuck the knife in his heart and killed him!"

"I told him the truth," Charles repeated patiently, "in terms by which he could understand it. Tess, don't you understand?" He twisted his head to regard the latticework glowing above the table, and he spoke two words. The latticework faded to black and out of black a sphere grew and formed, a blue ball laced with white wisps, like smoke or clouds, and muddy patches. "That is the planet you live on, Aleksi," he said. "We call it Rhui, for no good reason except that it was the name of the first indigenous language any of us learned, who came here."

The ball rotated slowly, floating in nothing. Aleksi reached out toward it. He felt a tingle as his hand neared its bright surface, but where his hand met the field, the field blurred and vanished until he withdrew his hand again.

"Tess," said Charles softly. "I must sacrifice the interdiction in the end for the sake of the rebellion. It may take ten years. It may take one hundred. I don't know whether the choice is right or wrong. I only know that I must do it."