Part 33 (1/2)
Gwyn glanced back at the bushes, which were silent now. He lowered his voice.
”Her work is suffering.”
”Everybody's work is suffering.”
”No. Be honest, Di. We're tired, we're displaced, and I can see the fatigue and a little fear in Quinn and, say, Phillippe. But even Hal is doing his usual best. It's only Anahita who can't stay the course. Tell me the truth. What do you think of the work you're doing now?”
Diana looked at Arina, feeling guilty about leaving the other woman out of the conversation, but Arina merely nodded at her, gave her the reins back, and clambered down from the wagon to walk back along the line to the wagon which held her two children. Diana shrugged and pulled the reins taut. ”I think I'm stretching my technique. I think I'm learning.”
”So do I. So do the rest, however grumpy we might be about these conditions.
Anahita shouldn't be here.”
”You've never liked her.”
”That's true. You should be playing her roles, Diana.”
Guilt and joy warred within her. Gwyn Jones was courting her. G.o.ddess, of course she was ambitious. She would not have gotten so far so fast unless she was driven. ”I know exactly how I would play Zenocrate,” she said pa.s.sionately, and then blushed.
He chuckled. ”Now that you've seen Tess Soerensen? Do you suppose Owen will let us play Tamburlaine here?”
”Do you want to take the risk?”
”I don't know. You've spoken with Bakhtiian more than I have. Do you think he'd take offense at it?”
Up and down the line, oxen bawled. A horse neighed. A man shouted in khush, and Arina Veselov trudged back along the line, carrying her infant son bundled in her arms. A young man in soldier's red and black rode past, his bay mare kicking up dust.
”I don't know,” said Diana. ”He might, but maybe he wouldn't. Here, Arina, give me Lavrenti.” This last in her halting khush. Arina handed the baby up to Diana and climbed back up onto the seat. Under the beaded design of her bodice were hidden ties, and Arina undid the front right side of her blouse to reveal a swollen breast.
Diana handed the baby back and Arina settled Lavrenti against herself. He snuffled for a moment, half asleep, and then abruptly his eyes popped open and he latched on and sucked noisily.”Oh, look!” cried Diana. ”Look how well he's eating!” Arina smiled and cradled him a little closer. Ahead, wagons lurched forward and the line began to move again, painfully slow. Diana adjusted the reins, a little nervous.
”They let you drive?” asked Gwyn, standing back from the wagon.
”A little. On the straight stretches. It's better than just sitting here.”
Anahita appeared from out of the bushes, looking wan and angry. ”Gwyn?
Gwyn! Where are you?” Her voice was shrill, and for an instant Diana felt sorry for her. ”d.a.m.n you, Gwyn. The little s.l.u.t can take care of herself. I told you-” Gwyn shrugged his apology and hurried back to her.
”That one,” said Arina, ”is full of herself.”
The wagon ahead of theirs jerked forward and Diana clucked at her oxen and flicked the reins up and down and braced for the jolt, and then they were rolling again, up the pa.s.s.
That night they camped along the road. Most of them slept in the wagons, and because Mira was fretful, Diana took the little girl back with her to the Company's camp so that she wouldn't disturb her brother's sleep. In the morning Mira had a raging fever. Diana commandeered two of the young men attached to the Veselov tribe, and they carried Mira and Diana on their horses up to the front of the train, to Dr. Hierakis.
”What's this? h.e.l.lo, Diana. Ah, a fever. Come inside.” It was not much past dawn. The front wagons were being hitched and readied to go. The doctor took Diana and Mira up onto one of her wagons, which had a roof and walls. ”Oh, h.e.l.l, she's not old enough to tell her parents what really happened. I'll just check with real instruments.” She brought out a scanner. Mira watched with wide-eyed interest as the doctor moved it around. ”Well, it's nothing unusual, a bad ear infection, but I'm sure it hurts like h.e.l.l. Get this timed-released capsule into a piece of-of something, bread, sweet, whatever she'll eat. It'll release antibiotics over a ten-day course.”
”I shouldn't be doing this, should I? Giving her this special treatment? Bringing her to you?''
The doctor shrugged. ”I happen to believe that it's criminal to let people suffer when we could prevent it.”
”But-”
The doctor waved her out of the wagon. ”Go on. Leave. I don't want to hear the whole litany about the fundamental hypocrisy of our presence here. How's the baby?”
”He seems stronger. He's eating.”
”The G.o.ddess is merciful.”
Holding Mira in her arms, Diana paused at the back of the wagon. ”Doctor, why did you stay? With us, I mean? I thought you would go with M. Soerensen.”
”Very romantic of you, I'm sure, my dear, but remember that Charles and I are used to spending more time apart than together. Such is the nature of our work. Now get. We're leaving.”
The next day they pa.s.sed some kind of threshold. Suddenly the streams along the roadbed ran a different way-along with them, and not back the way they came. They had reached the summit. That night at dusk they creaked down onto a plateau, a miraculous place of flat ground and real vegetation. From the height, coming down, Diana saw thousands of fires burning all the way to the horizon, echoing the stars above. At the farthest edge of the horizon, a greater fire burned, spilling smoke and light into the lowering night.
In the morning, they traveled only until mid-morning and then set up camp near a river. An order came down the line to slaughter a tenth of the herd animals. That night Owen decided to give the first performance of the folktale, followed by the Brecht, as an interlude during the feasting.
The mood in the camp was triumphant and yet antic.i.p.atory. Diana could tell some event had happened that was gratifying to the jaran, but she was not sure what it was, and it had been days since anyone in the Company had had any contact with Tess Soerensen or any of the handful of jaran who spoke Rhuian. But Owen sent them along to the feasting ground to a.s.semble the platform, and no one stopped them or even commented particularly on their industry.
”We're part of the army,” said Diana to Hyacinth and Hal as they lifted one segment of the floor up onto the base and secured it with pegs. ”They've accepted us.”
”The court jesters,” said Hal. He sniffed hard and then wiped his nose on his sleeve. ”This air is wreaking havoc with my sinuses. I think the doctor has forgotten us.”
”Go home then,” said Hyacinth haughtily.
”As if I could. I don't want to anyway. Do you?”
”What? I haven't even slept through a tenth of the camp yet. I've decided that when we get back to Earth I'm going to get a grant to produce an interactive holie called, Thrust In Among The Savages or Discretion is the Better Part of Amour.”
”You're disgusting,” said Hal, laughing.
Diana snorted. ”Sure to go down in the annals of literature with that awful holie Quinn acted in two years ago, that historical romance about the early computer industry-”
”What?” asked Hyacinth. ”Access To Love? That wasn't so bad. At least they researched it accurately. Hal, could you stop laughing and come help me?”
”Hyacinth, how can you say so?” Diana helped them hoist the last segment of floor. ”The dialogue was atrocious, and the acting was worse. Quinn was the only decent actor in the piece, except for that man who played her secretary.” They dropped the floor into place and slid the pegs in.
Yomi jogged up. ”Curtain in two hours. Owen wants as much of the light as possible. Eat your dinner first. Wait, first slide that screen one meter to the right ...”
When all was settled to Yomi's satisfaction, they returned to their encampment. Diana ate sparingly and then layered her clothing for her double role: a skirt and blouse for the sister of the heroine of the folktale-Anahita took the role of the heroine Mekhala, of course-and a s.h.i.+ft underneath for Grusha in The Caucasian Chalk Circle. She paced out her entrances and exits and some of her scenes on the ground, walking her stage directions, pausing to murmur the lines under her breath, and walking on. After a bit, Owen gathered up the Company and led them over together.
Somehow Owen had arranged on such short notice to give a command performance. The house was huge, seated in precise disorder out from the platform.
People stood farther back, too far, really, to hear anything, and the open air would in any case suck the volume from the actors' voices, although Joseph had cunningly constructed the screens with chambered skeins that deflected the sound out into the audience.
Owen did not introduce them. Phillippe came out in stiff red and gold robes and struck first a bell, then a pattern on his drums, and then the bell again. The tone rang loudly and held long-but Diana knew it was augmented by a few tricky electronics built into a strip wound around the inside lip of the cup. The house stilled. Seshat led the women in-all but Quinn, who played one of the wind demons-mourning for their servitude to the khaja. This was the story of the girl Mekhala, who brought freedom to the jaran by trading her own freedom for the gift of horses.