Kate Elliott - Jaran

She found the Chapalii past the copse, hidden by a rise. They had gathered in a tight clump in the declivity made by the joining of two rises. On her hands and knees, pausing just behind the crest, she could make out all eleven figures, shadowed by the moon. A tiny blue-white light gleamed softly from within their ranks. The night lay still around her. No breeze stirred the air. Voices drifted up to her, phrases broken by pauses and replies.

"… identified two previous… unsure whether the duke… Keinaba… constant surveillance… insufficient evidence to believe…"

A communication. They were communicating-with whom? A Chapalii ship? But none stayed in orbit around Rhui. How far could they transmit? How far did this conspiracy reach? She pulled the little knife Garii had given her from her belt, and hunkered down even more to conceal herself from them as she stared at it. White lights speckled the hilt. She hadn't a clue how to operate it, and either Garii had purposefully left her ignorant or he had simply not thought he needed to tell her. Tess stuck it back in her belt and lifted herself up carefully to watch again. The scene had not changed.

Wind moved the grass above them. Startled, Tess looked in that direction. In the instant before she really saw, she realized that a man was creeping down on them, was halfway down the hill opposite. Light-haired? Had Nikita followed her? But this man was stocky. My God! She stood up. Fedya must have come after her.

At that same moment one of the Chapalii said something, a slight cry. As if in sudden panic, another of the aliens whirled and crouched. Light streaked out soundlessly toward the man on the hill. He seemed to leap backward, half-rising. The thin line of light cut out through the night again, and the man fell, tumbling down the slope to land at the feet of the aliens. Tess cried out and ran down to him.

Ishii's voice. "Do not shoot her, you imbeciles."

She stopped short, facing four knives. Red beads of light shone sharply at their hilts. Armed. Lethal.

"Let me go to him." Her voice broke on the edge of a sob.

"Let her go," said Ishii. A path formed for her.

She stumbled past them, collapsing on her knees beside the body. The second shot had opened up his abdomen, a cleaner cut than those endured by Doroskayev's men, half cauterized by heat. Blood seeped onto the grass. "Oh, God, Fedya," she cried, reaching out to touch his shoulder.

Her touch jostled his head, and it rolled, back, staring at her, one eye strangely shut. One eye scarred shut. It was not Fedya at all, but Doroskayev. She jerked her hands back. The Chapalii clustered around her.

Ishii stood above her, seeming almost to touch the sky. "How fortunate that it is not one of Bakhtiian's men. For a moment I feared that my man's rashness would be irreparable, but now I see he may have done Bakhtiian a service.'' Tess stood up slowly, still shaking. "Excuse my impertinence in speaking without your leave, Lady Terese, but I saw that this situation needed a male's firmness. Please allow me to assure you again that we have never wished to do you any harm. You have only to say the word, and the suspicions that have grown between us shall be laid to rest." He clasped his hands in that arrangement known as Lord's Supplication.

Tess stared at him. She shook. She did not dare look down at the body. She had not the slightest idea what to do with her hands. Ishii could have let his men kill her, could have buried her, and who would have known? Standing alone among them, their only witness the moon and the stars, she could not imagine any human set against her in such a delicate dance showing such forbearance. She outranked him; she was heir to a Chapalii dukedom; she was sacrosanct. Ishii gazed back at her. The moon washed his face so pale it seemed almost translucent. Like the plains beyond, the Chapalii mind had many aspects that seemed unchanging to an alien. Lost in that careful game of diplomacy and treachery that Charles and the Chapalii played with each other; lost on these uncharted plains of Rhui; the two circumstances of her life seemed very similar right now.

"Truce," she said.

"You honor us, Lady Terese." He bowed, and the others echoed the bow as befitted their stations. Straightening, he turned to his men. "Cut away the sod carefully. We must inter him so that there is no trace. Perhaps, Lady Terese, you will indulge us by identifying this man. He was, I think, one of Bakhtiian's enemies?"

"Yes."

Emboldened by her passivity, Ishii went on. "Perhaps you will permit me to allow Hon Garii to escort you back to camp? You need not stay for the interment. I understand very well that females have heightened sensibilities."

They moved away from her, preparing a grave. Trapped beneath the earth. Had Doroskayev deserved such a fate? She walked past them, stumbling slightly in the darkness. Garii followed her, unasked. At the base of the hill, she stopped. He stopped behind her. Without turning around she put her hand on her knife.

"How do I use this?" she whispered.

He did not reply immediately. When she tilted her hand to see him, she saw that he had glanced back to where dark figures worked just beyond the crest of the rise.

"If I may be permitted to speak, I have attuned it to human use, Lady Terese," he said at last. "The heat of your thumb, pressed over the third and second lights, causes the beam to activate. Forgive me. A thousand thousand pardons be granted me that I did not realize you needed instruction in this gift."

"You are pardoned," she said automatically.

"I am yours, Tai-endi," he said, the formal response, and he bowed, as liegeman to his liege.

"Go," she said hastily, abruptly afraid that she had acknowledged something far deeper than she realized. "Ishii will be watching."

"As you command." He retreated back up the hill.

/ am yours. Lord, Tess, you've gotten yourself into it now. The wording had been precise and formal: the bond of servant to master, not any slight thing bound by a wage or a common goal, but true fealty. Surely Garii was already bonded to Ishii's family, and such bonds lasted until death, and beyond death into the next generations.

Light flashed, a brief, searing pulse, and she started and hurried away toward the copse and the spring. Bodies on grass. They should leave him to rot. She would have been left out there, months ago, walking on the plains. A body could lie a hundred years in such space-By the spring, someone waited for her, sitting on a low rock. She broke into a jog, remembering how she thought they had killed him.

"Fedya," she said. Stopped. It was Bakhtiian. A blanket and his cloak lay, folded neatly, on the rock beside him.

"Did you catch a glimpse of our mysterious escort?" he said with a slight smile, but his tone was serious and his eyes met hers. One of his hands rested casually on his blanket. "But if he eluded Josef, he could elude anyone."

For a long moment she could not speak. "I'm sorry," she said finally. "I just had to be alone. I'm modest."

"All good women are."

"And good men?"

"Even more so," he answered, not a trace of humor in his voice. There was a pause. "We're extending our sentry ring tonight," he said at last. "If you feel crowded in your tent, it would be safe, tonight, for you to sleep outside of camp."

"I know."

Blanket and cloak tucked under one arm, he stood up so that they faced one another on a level. "I understand that you have sustained a shock."

"Oh, hell," said Tess under her breath, putting one hand to her face to stop the sudden flow of tears. Bakhtiian took one step toward her. Footsteps rustled in the grass.

"Tess?" He came up beside her, bedroll in one hand, cloak slung over his shoulders. "Ilya!" Now he was startled.

There was a very long silence.