Part 19 (1/2)
Diana rose to her feet, ruffling Kolia's hair absently. But she looked at Anatoly.
”What did he say?” she asked, and hearing her voice he glanced at her, and she smiled at him.
d.a.m.n it anyway. It would only encourage Anatoly, but Sonia did not dare refuse to answer a Singer's question. ”Anatoly wonders what you think of the camp,” she said in Rhuian. ”But he really has to go now.” And switched to khush. ”Go on, Anatoly.”
Bowing to her superior authority, he left, but reluctantly. Really, his grandmother had spoiled him; it was deplorable, and yet he was at an age when men are most likely to be brash. A boy would be overawed; an older man would know better. But at twice twelve years and just honored with a command of his own, he had come into the first flush of his power.
”Oh, dear,” said Diana quietly. Tentatively, she touched Sonia on the arm and then smiled and withdrew her hand. ”I hope I haven't done something that offends you. Or him.”
”Of course not! I must apologize for his behavior.” There are some things I will never understand about the khaja, Sonia thought, for all that I have read their books and lived with them. Singers who apologized, as if they could offend anyone but the G.o.ds! Women who acted with the modesty that was really only proper for men!
”Oh,” said Diana, bewildered. ”Perhaps Tess Soerensen can tell us more about your laws and ways of doing things.”
”A very fine idea,” agreed Sonia, and not just because Diana was a Singer. If these khaja were to travel a long way with the tribes, maybe it wasn't Raysia Grekov who needed to translate, maybe it was Tess, who had grown up in one land and embraced the other, who was the only one of all of them who truly stood halfway between. ”But I had hoped to show you the herds, if you'd like, or if you'd rather, other parts of the camp.”
”Oh, both, if it can be managed,” said Yomi, coming back with Galina. ”This is fascinating.”
So they went on. Soon enough Sonia saw Anatoly Sakhalin again. Diana saw him, too, and now and again her gaze would jump away from the group to seek him out. He dogged them all the rest of the morning, like any good scout, vanis.h.i.+ng when Sonia's attention was turned directly on him, coming closer when he could, never being so forward that she could in fairness castigate him. Still, she would definitely have to discuss his behavior with his grandmother.
CHAPTER NINETEEN.
Aleksi sat cross-legged on the table, watching Tess and Sonia where they knelt before the wooden chest.
”This one, then.” Sonia draped a cloth-of-gold coat over her arms, displaying it for Tess to examine.”No. Too gaudy.”
”Tess, barbarians are impressed by gaudy things. Gold and riches. Surely this Vidiyan amba.s.sador will recognize that this coat came from the Gray Eminence's lands across the sea and feel fear that such a prince sends gifts to Bakhtiian.”
”But Sonia, Nadine brought that coat back from Jeds.”
”He doesn't have to know that, does he? Here, what about-”
”No, those are my marriage clothes.”
”Yes, and this shade of green does look particularly well on you. This, and the jade headdress. No, the golden one.”
”Sonia, I-”
”Or should I go to your brother's encampment and ask if he has any of these ugly clothings the women of his people wear? Are you embarra.s.sed of us, now that your own people have come?”
Tess hung her head and did not reply. Aleksi watched her face. Unlike her brother, Tess had an expressive face that showed emotion clearly. She was embarra.s.sed, and this perplexed Aleksi. After all, if the G.o.ds meant for the jaran to rule all other peoples, then the jaran would do so. Why should Tess feel shame to be seen as one of the G.o.ds' chosen people?
”This is not the Tess I know,” Sonia went on. ”Of course Jeds is a fine city. Do you forget that I have been there? Perhaps they scorn us because we don't live in stone tents, but I will never forget how filthy everything was there. Although I admit,” she added, in a placating tone of voice, ”that everyone of your brother's party seems clean.”
Tess clapped a hand over her mouth and her shoulders shook. She was laughing.
”Oh, Sonia.” She reached out and hugged the blonde woman. ”I'm not ashamed of you. I just-” She hesitated, then shrugged. ”I think too much.”
”You worry too much,” retorted Sonia. ”These khaja don't teach their daughters to become women. You had no mother or aunt to give you a tent, but must live beholden to your brother and now your husband. Why do you think I stayed in Jeds only a year, though Ilya wanted me to stay longer? I know we have no university here, no books, no writing, but still, they are the barbarians, not us.”
”But Sonia,” said Aleksi, ”the women of Soerensen's party aren't like other khaja women, any more than Tess is. They don't veil their faces when they see us and avert their eyes. They wear proper clothing, even if it is ugly, and they walk with pride and not fear.''
”That is true. But they're from another country, the country where Tess's mother was born.”
”Erthe, ” said Aleksi, trying the unfamiliar sound out on his tongue.
Tess leaned over the chest and lifted out the jade headpiece, weighing it in her hands. ”Dr. Hierakis came from Erthe, as well as the acting company. Women are-well, women own their own tents there. But so do men.”
”Yes, and from what you've told us, they don't seem nearly as barbaric as the people of Jeds.” Sonia lifted out the gold headpiece and laid it down on the green tunic. ”This looks better, Tess. I'd like to visit there someday.''
”It's a long voyage. A very long voyage.” Tess placed the jade headdress back inside the chest and settled back on her heels. ”No, you're right, Sonia. Even though I didn't precisely need my brother's consent to marry, still, I married without it.”
”If you have the courage to make a decision, then you must learn to have the courage to stand by it. Perhaps Ilya's power doesn't seem so impressive to your brother now. In ten years, he will be happy to have such a brother by marriage. You must tell him you are thinking ahead. It is an advantageous alliance.”
”For whom?”
”Come now, Tess. I have been to Jeds. I have ridden in the countryside and gone even as far as the city of Filis, where another prince rules. Your brother is rich and his merchants sail to the ends of the world, and he is a prince to be reckoned with, but Ilya's army is larger. Much larger. And it will grow.” Sonia shook out the calf-length tunic and a pair of belled, striped trousers and then rummaged in the chest until she found a wide belt inlaid with cloissone” and gold. ”Now, Aleksi. Out.” Her own festival clothing lay draped over the chair, a tunic of vivid blue that matched her blue eyes and a headpiece of gold and gems. ”We must dress. You might see if Galina needs a hand with the children.”
Aleksi gave each woman a brotherly kiss on the cheek and retired from the fray.
At Sonia's tent, her niece Galina sat with those few Orzhekov children who remained with the main army. Sonia had kept her three children with her, and Niko and Juli had two grandchildren with them. Other children, like Galina and her brother Mitya, were old enough to do adult work but not old enough yet to marry or to ride in the army.
' 'We saw the barbarians today.'' Galina greeted Aleksi with a kiss on the cheek.
She looked much like her aunt and her mother, with a merry, round face, fair hair, and cerulean blue eyes. ”Aunt Sonia brought five of them by. One of them had skin that was black. Really,” she added, as if afraid that Aleksi wouldn't believe her. ”Wasn't it, Katerina?”
”It was,” agreed Katerina, Sonia's eleven-year-old daughter who, at two years younger than her cousin, was her shadow and champion. ”We thought maybe she had painted it on, so we rubbed it, but it didn't come off.”
”Then Aunt Sonia scolded you for being rude,” finished Galina. ”But the woman didn't mind. She was tall, too, taller than a man. And one of the other women had chestnut hair, like a horse has.” She stifled a giggle under a hand. ”And another one had funny eyes, like ...” She grimaced, searching for a comparison.
”Like this,” said seven-year-old Ivan, putting his index fingers on either side of his eyes and pulling the lids tight. All of the children burst into laughter.
”I liked her, though,” said Katerina. ”Her name was Yomi. She knows how to weave,” she added, since this skill obviously placed the woman in a different, and superior, cla.s.s from the others. ”But they didn't have any men with them. Is it true their men act like women?”
”What do you mean?” asked Aleksi. ”I escorted four of the men around the camp, and they seemed like men to me. They were very polite.”
Katerina considered the question seriously, s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g her mouth up. She was a pretty girl, having inherited her looks from her grandfather, but she had as well the same vital intelligence that animated Sonia's otherwise undistinguished features.
”They say khaja men use bows and arrows to fight other men with and that they haven't any manners toward women. And that they own their own tents, and they even say that the women don't own tents at all. How can that be?”
”You forgot the angel,” said Mitya suddenly. He sat on a pillow at the back of the awning, too old to include himself in the younger children's activities but too young, at fifteen, to be an adult. Like most boys his age, he spent a small part of his day helping his grandmother, mother, or aunt and the rest of it with the adult men, doing ch.o.r.es, learning to fight, caring for the horses and the herds, and generally tagging along. Right now he was polis.h.i.+ng one of Bakhtiian's sabers.
”What angel?” Aleksi asked. He knelt and helped four-year-old Kolia straighten his tunic and belt it with a girdle of gold plates.
”Anatoly Sakhalin's angel.”
”Mitya,” retorted Galina in a disdainful voice, ”she is not Sakhalin's angel. And he showed bad manners, too, in following them around.”