His conquering sword

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

He dreamed of a snow-swept landscape, of a single tree in a hollow, a scrap of cloth lying on the ground and a pathetic little fire burning but giving off no heat. His sister lay unmoving, pale gray, on the ground. For days she had tossed and turned in the grip of some demon, speaking words he could not understand. He had tried desperately to feed her with what little food he could gather from the winter-starved land, had tried to give her water, had tried to keep her warm. But at last the demon had drained her of life and now her last breath leaked out, too weak even to puff steam into the cold air. Her chest stopped moving, and her limbs went flaccid and, later, went stiff. He was alone in the wilderness.

"Don't leave me!" Aleksi gasped, and jerked up to find himself tangled in his own blankets, in his own tent. Sweat dampened him. The night air cooled his chest and back. He shivered. He forced himself to lie back down, but he could not sleep. At last, he rose and dressed and shrugged on a felt coat and walked outside. In the distance, he heard the arrhythmic thump of the artillery firing and the delayed crash of the missiles landing. In the four days since Bakhtiian had left, the noise had continued at such a constant rate that it was only now, in the predawn quiet of the camp, that Aleksi noticed it.

At Dr. Hierakis's tent, he hunkered down on his haunches just outside the awning and waited, knowing now that she had machines inside her tent that alerted her to his presence. Soon enough, the bells sounded as the doctor thrust aside the entrance flap and peered out.

"Aleksi! Why do you insist on sitting out there! You may come in without permission from me. I've told you time and again-and it would grant me some much-needed sleep." He rose and smiled sheepishly but did not reply, merely followed her into her tent. "You can hang your coat up over that hook." He did so gratefully. In her tent he was never too hot or too cold; it was as airy and comfortable as the great felt tents belonging to the etsanas. "Go on in," she added, impatiently. She lay down on a cot folded out beside the table. "Tess is asleep."

He went into the inner chamber. The counters gleamed softly in the light from the false lanterns. Tess slept, and beyond, on a black surface set within one countertop, colors pulsed in time to her breathing and her heartbeat. Feeling safe, Aleksi settled down on the floor beside her and rested his head against the couch on which she lay, and dozed.

"Aleksi? Where did you come from?"

He snapped his eyes open and looked up. Tess lay on her right side, gazing down at him. "I couldn't sleep," he said.

She sighed and reached down to touch him, but whether to reassure herself or him, Aleksi could not be sure. "What time is it?" she asked.

Since she had fallen under the sleep that the doctor called anesthesia, Tess had been obsessed with knowing the time of day. "I don't know. I came before dawn. Not too long after dawn by now, I'd judge."

"Then Jo should be coming in-" She stopped and they both listened, hearing the bells and then a conversation. A moment later the doctor came in to them.

"Color's good," she said cheerfully. "Readings good. We're going to take you off the system today. I hereby pronounce you Out of Danger."

"Insofar as any of us are out of danger," Tess murmured, and Cara shot her a sharp glance and then smiled wryly.

"A wise observation, my child. Jo will do the dirty work. I'm going to do my rounds at the hospital. Tess, I want you to stay with me today and tonight, and then tomorrow you can return to your tent. You can sit, you can walk a little bit-in fact I recommend it-but nothing more strenuous than that."

"I obey." Tess smiled. Aleksi was amazed at how strong she looked. Her face was still rounder than usual, and her skin was pulled taut and shiny on her arms, a little swollen, but the doctor dismissed that as water retention and said it would go away in a hand more of days.

Jo came in, and the doctor left. Soon enough, Jo had disengaged Tess from the couch. "Aleksi," Jo said, leading him over to the black screen, "I'm going back to the hospital. You see this pad here. I've coded it specially for you. If you press your right hand over this, it will send a signal to me and to Dr. Hierakis that one of us must return immediately. Only put your hand there if Tess somehow falls ill."

"I understand." He examined the pad with interest. It looked more like a kind of false skin, lacquered, except it looked slick as well. Jo left.

"I want to go outside," said Tess. Aleksi shadowed her, but her legs seemed steady enough. At once he saw where she was headed: to die remains of the funeral pyre that now lay as cold ashes and a few pieces of charred wood fifty paces out from the awning. Nervous, he walked with her, but when she stopped she simply surveyed the circle of ground dispassionately. There were, thank the gods, no bones; either someone had raked the coals or an early baby burned more completely then an adult. All at once Tess bent down and rummaged in the ashes. She held up a scrap of damask linen, smaller than her palm. The singed edges framed a single red rose. She stared at it for a long while and then closed her hand over it and turned away.

"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."

She did not reply. Aleksi watched her profile. Her face was taut, strained, and she looked angry, just so angry, not at Charles really, or at anyone. But maybe it was easier to be angry than to mourn her dead child.

"Tess," Charles added in that same quiet, implacable voice, "I want you to stay here."

She snorted. "You've changed your tune. That wasn't what you came here for in the first place."

Aleksi watched as the prince's lips pulled up into a wry smile. "I didn't get where I am today by refusing to alter my plans when it was necessary to. Even a river changes course from time to time."

"That's all very well, but I don't want to stay anymore. I want to go-" She choked on a word, could not say it

"Go home?" Charles asked.

"Go back. I want to go back to Earth. Oh, just leave me alone!" Her arms were pressed tight against her chest, and Aleksi saw that her tunic over her right breast was damp. She shifted her arms to hide the spreading stain.

"Let me go get Cara," said the prince, and Aleksi was amazed to see him retreat from the engagement.

"I don't want to see Cara!" Tess shouted after him.

The sphere floating above the table vanished, snapped into oblivion, as soon as the prince lifted the tent flap. Aleksi heard horses, and Soerensen paused half in and half out of the tent, squinting into the sun. "Thank the Goddess," the prince murmured. "The cavalry arrives just in time." He swept out. The entrance flap rang down behind him.

Tess stared into the shadowed corner.

Bells chimed. Looking travel-worn, Bakhtiian came in. "Tess?" He looked so tired that Aleksi was amazed he could stand up. He circled the table and stopped behind Tess. He rested his hands on her shoulders and leaned his head against hers.

"You smell," she muttered.

He turned her around. "You're all wet," he said, sounding mystified, touching a finger to the front of her tunic. Then he said, "Oh," in an altered voice as he realized what it was from.

Tess burst into tears, sobs that wracked her body.

Aleksi judged it prudent to leave.

Outside, the prince waited, listening. "Well," Soerensen said, "she's crying. That ought to help."

"She must mourn the child," said Aleksi, "before she can give it up."

"Very wise," agreed Soerensen.

Very wise, thought Aleksi, a little perplexed by this praise. A sudden image of Anastasia's face rose unbidden in his mind, her sharp brown eyes and narrow face, the stubborn quiver of her chin and the simple generosity of her smile, the sheer brutal strength with which she had driven them on. She was as clear to him across the gulf of years as the day he last saw her, as the day he left her empty on the grass and went on alone. Gods, he hated the pain of seeing her. Better not to think of her at all-

Soerensen cocked his head to one side, watching Aleksi.

But he had to think of her. He had chained her to himself for all these years. It was time to give her up.

Tears rose and he let them run silently down his cheeks, sure that Tess's brother-who was by some strange link his own brother-would not judge him for his grief. And Charles Soerensen ducked his head and looked up again, and tears ran down his face as well.

"Oh, hell," said Soerensen. "I hate this."

And thus they stood together a while longer, not needing to say anything else.

At last Soerensen broke the silence. "Aleksi, do you think Tess meant it, about leaving Rhui?"

Aleksi considered the question for a while. The prince allowed him the silence in which to do so. "No. I don't think so. That was just her grief talking. They can always have another child, can't they?"

Soerensen blinked. Aleksi read, briefly, in the prince's face that an idea had emerged. "Well," said Soerensen, musing. "I wonder. I think I will go talk to Cara."

Aleksi watched him walk away. He felt-gods! — he felt at peace with himself in a quiet way. Riders milled out beyond, but they dissipated quickly, returning to their own tents, to wash, to eat, to sleep; to prepare for the next battle. Aleksi strolled aimlessly out through camp, and soon enough he discovered that his path had taken him to the Veselov tribe. He hailed a passing child and sent the girl in to convey his greetings to Mother Veselov. The girl ran off, returning quickly with Mother Veselov's request that Aleksi come in to see her.

He found Anna Veselov reclining on pillows in the outer chamber of her great tent. She was pale still, but she greeted him with a smile.

"Aleksi Soerensen," she said, nodding as he sat down before her. "I am pleased to see you. What news of Tess? Is she well? How is she recovering?" She glanced at her own little son, who lay on a pillow at her feet, pushing himself up on his arms and grunting as he tried to crawl.

Aleksi gave her a report, drawing it out. Anna considered it all gravely, as well she might, since she had come close enough to losing her own son, another early child.

"Ah," she said, lifting a hand to interrupt him. "Here is Svetlana. Yes, Lana, Lavrenti is ready for you."

A young woman with pale blonde hair drawn back in four braids ducked inside the tent and knelt to pick up Lavrenti. The child gurgled and flopped down on his face and then pushed up again, scooting toward Svetlana. Aleksi watched her from under lowered lids. She had a bright face and an easy manner, and she paused long enough to examine Aleksi carefully before she scooped up the baby and carried him off outside. He knew he was blushing, but he tried to convince himself that Mother Veselov would not notice.

She coughed into her hand. He glanced up at her in time to see her hide a smile. "Svetlana is an industrious young woman," said Mother Veselov casually, "good with children, and handsome, too, I think. She lost her baby this summer to a fever, but she has another child, a healthy girl of about four winters. She also has a younger brother and sister who came with her when their mother died last year. They're both very strong, and the younger sister is a fine archer already. The brother is good with horses and fights well, although he isn't old enough to ride with the army yet. They don't come from an important family, it's true, but their aunt is a good weaver and they have a cousin who's risen to become a second in the Veselov jahar."

"Oh," said Aleksi, stricken to dumbness. He felt a pang, knowing he could never marry Raysia Grekov; but then he thought of the smile that had played on the lips of Svetlana Tagansky, as she had measured her prospective husband, and he felt that he might endure her company easily enough.

"Go on." Mother Veselov waved him away. "Tell Tess mat she must come to me, when she can, since I'm not allowed to walk yet." She sighed, and Aleksi could see the ready sympathy on her face for Tess's loss. "Go on," she repeated. "You've seen what you came to see. May the gods watch over you in the battle tomorrow."

He bowed his head and thanked her for her blessing. Outside, Svetlana Tagansky loitered under the awning-She smiled at him as he passed, and modestly, risking a glance straight at her, he smiled back. She had brilliant blue eyes, as fiercely bright as if fire lit them. A girl of about Kolia's age hung at her skirts, and farther off, two adolescents, a girl and a boy, stood staring at him. Aleksi had a feeling that the sudden addition of a family, so many and so varied, might well help Tess get over her grief. Or at least, it would keep her too busy to dwell on it. Even the prospect of a difficult and perilous battle tomorrow could not ruin his good spirits.