CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

As Far Above as Angels

Jaelle woke to the muffled sound of weeping. Sitting up, she was at first bewildered. As she shifted, she sank farther into the unimaginable luxury of a feather bed. A feather quilt slipped around her legs and hips. How had she come into such riches? Then she remembered. She heaved herself out of bed and slowly felt her way across the floor to the servant's bed, where Princess Katerina slept.

The coals glowed a dull red in the darkness.

"My lady ... Katherine ..." She said it softly, daringly, and reached out to touch the other woman's hair.

Katerina snuffled and stilled, caught a few sobs, and then began to cry in earnest. "I want to go home," she gulped out.

Jaelle stroked her hair. But the act made her nervous, because she liked it so much, sitting here close to Katerina, feeling her breath against her arm and the warmth of her body close to her own, separated only by their linen undershifts.

"I don't want to be a slave."

For some reason, Jaelle thought of her own mother, who had seemed content enough as a favored slave in a nobleman's house. She had been safe. Or had thought she was, Jaelle thought bitterly.

Except it was her daughter who had been sent away, not her. But her master could have sold her away at any time. "It is terrible to live on the sufferance of others," she said finally.

"You do understand," breathed Katerina, catching Jaelle's hand in a tight grip. She had strong hands. Jaelle could see her face only as a deeper shadow in the shadowed chamber, lit by the banked fire and a faint nimbus of light from the moon and the torchlit walls of the castle.

Jaelle tried to pull her hand away. "You should sleep in the lady's bed," she said, as she had said every night in the thirty days they had been here. "It isn't fitting that—"

"I hate that bed," said Katerina, but whether because it was truly too soft, as she claimed, or because it somehow represented her imprisonment to Janos, Jaelle did not know.

"May I get you something to drink?"

"No. Just stay with me here. Lie down with me here, Jaelle. I'm afraid."

"Afraid of what?" Jaelle did not want to lie down next to Katerina on the narrow bed. She, too, was afraid.

"I'm afraid of becoming a captive."

"You already are."

"Not in my heart."

"Do you care for Prince Janos?" The thought made Jaelle abruptly angry.

"No. But how long will I have the strength to hold against him, if I am held prisoner here for the rest of my days? I hate the khaja."

Jaelle heard Katerina's voice catch again, fighting off tears. She lay down beside her and put her arms around her. "I will be here," she said, and wondered at herself, that she might comfort a princess.

Katerina buried her face against Jaelle's neck and said nothing more, just held on to her. After a while, she fell asleep, but Jaelle could not sleep, not with Katerina so close. She had shared a bed with other women often enough, in inns along the caravan route, waiting for a new hire. It wasn't unknown for women to take lovers among themselves, as a salve against the impersonal attentions of the endless parade of men who used them and then discarded them when their destination was reached or they wanted a new face, as a way to get pleasure without the risk of pregnancy, as comfort against the hard world and the censure of both the church and decent folk. Jaelle's heart trembled within her; like a bird cupped in iron hands, she feared what it meant to love another person, whether it be Katerina or Stefan, what did it matter? She knew only that love was itself a kind of slavery. It bound you to others with chains as heavy as those wrought in the armorer's forge. She had survived this long by staying free.

For the first time in years she thought of the child. Lady forgive her, but she had been having her courses for not over a year herself when the child had caught in her; she was herself truly still a child.

She hadn't known what to do, not like now, with six winters of experience of the caravan roads behind her. Now she knew where to find the wisewomen from whom to purchase herbs and suppositories, who knew what to give a woman to drink and where to press so as to rid her of a pregnancy that would prove dangerous not just to her body but to her livelihood.

She had not known those things then. She had still been a slave at the mines, hauling water and dirt.

What kind of life was that for a child, for a child bearing a child? She had run away, only it was worse away, there being not even the pittance of bread and soup they gave the slaves, there being not even the surety of a roof over her head. Then the merchant had found her, begging on the streets not five days after the baby had been born, and had offered her employment, thinking her young and pretty, under the dirt. Thinking her childless.

For the first time in six years, held in arms that wanted nothing from her but comfort, she wept.

Katerina woke. "Jaelle. Shhh. What is it? What's wrong?" She kissed her on the cheeks, like a mother might kiss her child, taking onto herself the tears.

"God has marked me. I have sinned grievously. Ah, God, it never truly mattered to me before."

"What is sinned? What didn't matter?"

Jaelle bit down on her tongue and stifled her tears. She could not afford to be vulnerable. Katerina did not press her. She seemed content with Jaelle's presence. After a while, soothed by the warmth of the jaran woman's body next to hers, Jaelle fell back to sleep.

In the morning Katerina seemed oddly heartened. When Lady Jadranka made her morning visit, Katerina agreed to visit the church with her and receive the sacrament, more, Jaelle supposed, out of boredom than a true interest in salvation. Lady Jadranka had perhaps forgotten that Jaelle adhered to the anointed church, or perhaps she had simply never been told, but Jaelle was allowed to attend as well.

While Katerina was led forward to the main altar, Jaelle knelt before the altar of Our Lady Pilgrim in a side alcove, a forlorn and dark corner, a trifle dusty, here in the north where the false church reigned and the priests neglected Her worship. Jaelle folded her hands before her chest and prayed for forgiveness for her sins. Behind, she heard the priest droning the sacramental liturgy and she smelled like a starving woman the fragrant and holy perfume of the wine that is the blood of the sundered Lord and the freshly baked loaf that is His body made whole by the gift of God's mercy and by the grace of His Sister, the Pilgrim, ever exalted for the constancy of her faith. Her mouth watered, though she had eaten of bread that morning.

A person moved into the alcove beside her. To her surprise and chagrin, Princess Rusudani knelt beside her on the stone floor, hands clasped. For a long time the princess gazed at the pale visage of the Pilgrim, whose sloe eyes stared earnestly and forgivingly at her supplicants. Rusudani's lips moved soundlessly in a prayer. At the main altar, the priest and his deacons began the sonorous chant of the Bath of Healing, which even such heretics as these northerners could not omit from their service.

Though Jaelle took comfort in the presence of the Pilgrim, still, this northern church depressed her because it was so plain, without any bright images, and so dim. Candles flickered around the altar, illuminating the mystery of the Pilgrim's healing hands and Her serene expression, ever aloof from the world and yet ever bound to it in her wandering.

Jaelle shuddered. Bakhtiian had been on the trail of a heretic, a man who claimed that the Pilgrim wandered the world again and that angels had been sighted in the heavens, heralding the return of Hristain. Was it true? Or was this imprisonment their punishment for listening to the whispers of the Accursed One?

"Jaelle," said Rusudani suddenly in a low voice, "I do not know who else to ask, but I think you may have heard of such things in the life you led before." Her hands were not clasped but clenched before her, and her face was pale, lips thin with some overpowering emotion. "How may a woman bind a man to her?"

From the alcove, Jaelle could not see the main altar, where Katerina knelt with Lady Jadranka.

Had Rusudani fled from the confrontation? But she remembered the two women being friendly before.

There had been no antagonism between them while Rusudani traveled with the jaran. But Rusudani had not been married then, and Katerina had not been shut away to serve as Janos's mistress.

"I am not a wisewoman, to know of such charms," said Jaelle slowly, measuring her words, "but in any town there is always a herbwoman. There must be one such here."

"I dare not speak of this to Lady Jadranka."

"Of course not, my lady." Of course not, if Rusudani judged that for some reason Lady Jadranka had chosen to champion Katerina's cause with her son and Rusudani wished to keep his affections for herself. Yet, glancing at Rusudani, Jaelle noted that the princess wore a new gown and a wimple sewn of fine dyed linen in a blue that suited her eyes. Surely this finery came to her out of Lady Jadranka's charity. If Jadranka wished to press Katerina's suit, why would she dress her daughter-in-law in a gown that was sure to attract her son's eye? "You must tell one of your waiting women to go down into the town and ask for—"

"I cannot trust them. You must do it, Jaelle."

At what price? What if it hurt Katerina? But refusing might win Rusudani's enmity. If Jaelle helped Rusudani now, then if there was trouble she could hold this knowledge in reserve; the church frowned on the use of charms and sorcery, and Rusudani had just come out of the convent.

"God forgive me," Rusudani murmured, as if in response to Jaelle's thought. "I was pledged to wed Hristain, not any mortal man, though I had not yet taken my vows. I wished with my whole heart to serve only God. What is this that has taken hold of me? The pleasures of the flesh have seduced my body away from the contemplation of God's holy mystery, and now I yearn for the marriage bed with as much fervor as before I yearned for the sacrament. Why is God punishing me in this way? Have I faltered in my love for God in any way? Why has he visited me with this longing? I have done nothing wrong. I have not sinned. Yet when I see him, my hands tremble and my heart catches in my throat and in my mouth I taste the sweetness of honey poured as if from the lips of Hristain Himself. God forgive me."

She turned her eyes away from the Holy Pilgrim and gazed at Jaelle. Rusudani wore, on her face, such an expression of misery conjoined with joy that Jaelle felt pity for her. How had it come to this, that she, a common whore, might feel pity for a great lady, a princess, who was as far above her as the angels were above mortals? Except in this fashion, that all men were equal before God, who judged them by what He found in their hearts, that all were equal before the Holy Pilgrim, who succored each and every one who knelt before her, regardless of his station in life.

"I would help you if I could, but the princess Katerina and I are locked in Widow's Tower. By the order of Prince Janos."

"My husband fears that his father will take her away if he discovers that she is in captivity. But Janos is gone from here. Surely Princess Katerina must want something from the market? I will speak to Lady Jadranka about it. I will ask her to send you to the market in the town."

This did not sound like a woman who considered Katerina to be her rival. Jaelle was even more confused. Rusudani looked abruptly radiant.

Indeed, strangely enough, she was not looking at Jaelle at all. She was looking past her, out between two columns toward the doors of me church. There, Lady Jadranka ushered Katerina outside into the glare of the noonday sun. Her voice carried clearly.

"Where is your servant, Lady Katherine? Ah, here, I have sent for the priest of your own people, my lady. Of course I must hope that you will come to accept the Word of God, whose mercy alone can save, but I thought you might also like the offices of your own priest, so I have had him called in from the ditch work."

Jaelle recognized his silhouette against me bright sun. No priest she had ever seen stood like a warrior, even looking like he had just come from digging ditches, which, evidently, he had. She heard the gasp that escaped Rusudani's lips as she, too, gazed on the man who stood poised between the sun and the shadowed church. At that moment, Jaelle experienced a revelation. Rusudani was not in love with her husband. She was in love with Bakhtiian.

Vasha lay on his back and stared at the heavens. At one end of the clearing, near the hunting lodge, torches burned and men caroused. He heard their rough laughter and the counterpoint of higher women's voices, laughing in answer and calling out, all in the Yossian tongue. He understood a bit of it now, enough to ask for a few things from the serving man assigned to him. Enough to politely extricate himself from the attentions of the khaja women who had been invited into the camp to amuse the men.

He was not sure whether these women were whores, like Jaelle, or just common women from neighboring villages who had been given no choice and were now, most of them, making the best of it.

No doubt they would be paid handsomely. Or, he thought, hearing an echo of Tess's sarcastic descriptions of what she called "the rights of women in khaja lands," they would be paid by being left alone until the next time Janos and his men visited this lodge.

It was a dry, clear night with a bright moon, still early in the evening. He lay alone in the grass, able by now to ignore the ever-present guards who shadowed him. Suddenly a faint star caught his eye. It moved. Kept moving, a speck of light following a straight path through the heavens. Stunned, he watched it make its slow way through the veil of stars. Was this truly the track of an angel's wings?

"Prince Vasil'ii."

Vasha almost jumped, he was so startled. But it was only Prince Janos. A servant cast a cloak over the grass and Janos sat down on it.

"I fear our amusements tire you, Prince Vasil'ii. Are Yossian women so ugly that you scorn them? I have heard it said that jaran men have a taboo fixed on them, that they may not touch any women but their own. Are your women sorceresses, that they have punished you in this way? But it can't be true, can it, if Bakhtiian married the Jedan princess?"

"They are not ugly," Vasha replied, and then blushed, thinking of Rusudani, who was Yossian on her father's side. He sat up. "But it is not our custom to . .." He did not know how to phrase it, how to avoid insulting Janos. "It is not a man's place to be forward with a woman."

"Be forward with her?"

"To press himself on her. To ... well, that is a woman's place, to tell a man she is interested in him."

"But I thought you said women have no choice in marriage, by jaran custom."

"I'm not talking about marriage, although it's true what you say. I'm talking about taking lovers."

"Taking lovers!"

"I don't know what the khaja custom is in this matter, although Tess says that usually—" He broke off, not knowing how to phrase what Tess had said in such a way that it wouldn't offend Janos. Tess did not mince words when it came to customs she did not approve of, and she could go on at length about the way the khaja treated women and slaves and what she called "peasants." "But in the jaran, a woman is expected to take lovers as she pleases. It is not a man's place to ... uh ... approach a woman."

Janos did not reply immediately. Vasha craned his head back and searched the sky, but the moving star had vanished. Now he wondered if he had dreamed it.

"I don't understand what you're saying," said Janos finally, slowly. "A woman may take lovers?"

"Yes."

"But then how can a man know if her children are his? And how can a man be sure that the girl he takes to wife is a virgin?"

"What is a virgin? Oh, I remember what that is." Unable to help himself, Vasha chuckled, then clapped a hand over his mouth. "I beg your pardon. I just think khaja are very strange, sometimes."

But Janos did not seem amused. "Do you truly mean that jaran women, whether married or unmarried, may take lovers?"

"Yes."

"Barbarians!" Janos muttered under his breath. Then: "I beg your pardon, Prince Vasil'ii. This lack of modesty among your women must distress you, after you have seen how decorously women behave in our lands."

"Those women aren't behaving very decorously," Vasha pointed out, nodding toward the hunting lodge.

"They are peasants. They don't matter. I meant women of good breeding, like Princess Rusudani.

Like your cousin, Princess Katherine."

Vasha snorted. "Oh, I admit that Katya doesn't show off her lovers like other girls do, but I can hardly imagine that she wishes to become like a khaja woman." Abruptly, he was sorry he had said anything. Janos looked thunderstruck. The khaja prince shifted uneasily on the cloak, took a hank of cloth in one hand, and twisted it into a knot. He began to speak but stopped, seeming to reconsider his words.

"I wish to understand you, Prince Vasil'ii. It is a custom for most jaran women to take lovers while they are still unmarried?"

"Yes, and after they are married as well, but then usually only if their husband is riding out with the army. Of course a woman cannot be expected to wait for months at a time for comfort while he is gone. But it is always impolite to flaunt an affair in front of one's husband. If a woman refused to behave circumspectly in such a matter, then the etsana of the tribe would take her to task. Otherwise there might be strife between the wife and the husband, and perhaps between her family and his."

"But ... but how does a woman show a man that she is interested in him?"

"She tells him. She asks him to her tent, into her blankets. Dances with him. Gives him a gift. I don't know. There are a thousand ways. Just as there are a thousand ways a well-mannered man can show a woman that he is interested in her without being immodest."

Janos sat for a long time in silence, contemplating his hands by the light of the full moon. He had broad, sturdy hands, and the back of his left hand was scarred by an old wound, the slash of a knife, perhaps. Vasha looked back up at the sky, but the stars remained fixed in the great wheel of night. No angels flew.

"It is time to return to White Tower," Janos said abruptly. He stood up and called to his servant.

"Bring our horses. Tell my guards to saddle up and to bring lanterns. We are leaving now."

"Now?" Vasha asked, startled by this sudden change of subject.

"Yes. You will ride with me, of course."

"Of course. But what about—"

"Lord Belos can bring the rest tomorrow, when they have recovered. We are leaving now."

Vasha was not about to argue. His serving man brought his horse and his saddle bags. They left, but they made slow progress and once the moon had set they had to stop for the rest of the night in any case, hunkering down in blankets by the side of the path that served as a road through the forest.

Janos rode hard in the morning, more like a jaran man than a khaja prince, changing horses at noon and leading them on like a man driven forward by demons. It took two days more, but they reached White Tower on the afternoon of the second day, riding in through fresh embankments thrown up around the outer walls of the town. Still incomplete, the ditches and palisade swarmed with men hard at work under a pale autumn sky streaked with clouds.

Scarlet flashed. Vasha saw his father on the lip of a half-dug ditch. Vasha winced, to see him digging like a common slave. Although no member of the tribes shrank from honest work, this labor seemed demeaning. His wrists were loosely shackled, as were his legs: not enough to prevent him from working, but enough to constrain him against escape. Gods. Ilya surely chafed under such treatment.

Vasha reined his horse aside and made for his father. Shouts followed him, then Janos's voice, ordering the guards to stay back. By the time Vasha came up beside the ditch, Janos had come up next to him. The guards trailed behind, fanning out into a semicircle. But Ilya dug steadily, his back to them, pitching dirt into a small wheeled cart. He seemed deaf to the world.

"Father!" Vasha said in khush. "Father, speak to me."

At first he thought Ilya hadn't heard him, although how he could fail to hear him Vasha could not imagine, how he could fail to notice the guards and the presence of all those horses. Finally, stiffly, Ilya slacked off and turned slowly around. Looking up, he had to squint into the sun. His eyes registered Vasha and then he looked at Janos, and then away. Not insolently. Ilya never did things insolently; he was too powerful for that. Dismissively. He turned his back dismissively on Janos and went back to work. But Vasha could read as if like a book the muscles in his back, the choppiness of his movements: He was strung so tight with anger that he seemed about to burst from it. At that moment, Vladimir scrambled up out of the ditch, looking over the guards, marking the prince and where he sat mounted. He casually placed himself between Ilya and Janos and began to dig as well.

"Are your people all this insolent to their betters?" asked Janos. "How can you rule them, if this is so?"

Ilya stabbed at the earth with the shovel, chipping clumps of dirt that flew into the air.

Vasha gulped down a lump in his throat. "He is a priest, Prince Janos. It offends the gods to put him to this kind of work. I would advise you to let him return to serving Princess Rusudani and reading from the holy book."

"All able-bodied men have been set to work here."

"I don't see you digging, Prince Janos."

Janos was too surprised by this suggestion to respond.

"In any case," added Vasha, changing tactics, "it would please me. He is a holy man, what we call a Singer, and it pains me to see him working here in chains like a common slave."

"Very well. As a favor to you, Prince Vasil'ii. You may have one other to serve you, the young one. The rest must work out here."

"Thank you," replied Vasha, surprised in his turn.

Janos spoke to the guards, and an overseer was found to come unshackle Ilya. Vladimir stayed beside him, digging steadily so as not to arouse suspicion.

"Take him away and allow him to clean up," said Janos. Ilya was led away. He had not looked at Vasha once in all that time, nor at Janos, only at some point in the middle distance where nothing existed.

"Vladimir, you are well? Nikita and Mikhail? How are they treating you?" Vasha asked quickly, in khush, not knowing when he would get another chance.

"We are treated fairly enough, Vasha," said Vladimir without looking up, knowing better than to pause in his work. "They need us healthy to dig these defenses. They aren't fools. They know that the jaran will come sooner or later. But look to your father, Vasha. He is half mad."

"We must go," said Janos.

Vasha rode away with him, glancing back once to see Vladimir pitch a shovelful of dirt into the cart. From this angle he could see into the ditch, where a line of men worked planting stakes. A few women moved among them, hauling water in buckets. He thought he glimpsed red shirts down there, Nikita and Mikhail, but he could not be sure. Then it hit him. Vladimir had said: your father. In this extremity, without thinking, the rider had acknowledged their relationship. Vasha felt dizzy with joy.

"Are all your priests, your singers, as insolent as this one?" Janos asked suddenly, bringing Vasha back to earth.

"They are the chosen ones of the gods, Prince Janos. They are not insolent. But they serve the gods, not men. It would be as if ... an angel descended from the heavens and was chained. We treat our Singers, our priests, with respect. We honor them."

Janos laughed. "Then your priests are holier than ours, Prince Vasil'ii, for ours spend most of their time fighting over what benefices they may wrest from the king and what portion of the taxes they may siphon off from those levied on the merchants. A lord may buy an abbacy for a younger son, and a bishop may sire a son by his mistress and call him a nephew and thus favor him with gifts and a bishopric of his own."

They rode in under the gates and forged through the narrow streets, the guards clearing the way before them.

"But surely that is not true of all of them. Princess Rusudani seems sincere in her faith." At once, Vasha berated himself for speaking her name. It seemed that he could not have a conversation with Janos but that he would mention her. Surely Janos would notice and become suspicious.

"She is devout, it is true, but her place is in the world, not in the convent."

Vasha sighed. "When may I see my cousin?" he asked as they came into the forecourt and dismounted, giving their horses over to the hostlers.

"When it is safe to do so. You will attend me at supper, Prince Vasil'ii."

Then he was gone, surrounded by servants and the steward of his castle, come to greet him.

Beyond, Vasha saw Lady Jadranka appear with two serving women as escort. Janos turned aside to greet her. Four guardsmen escorted Vasha away to his tower. A bath was poured for him, and he luxuriated in it, getting out only when Stefan, covered with dirt, was let in.

"Here." Vasha jumped out of the huge tub, sloshing water on the floor. "You look awful. Take a bath."

Stefan did so gratefully while Vasha dried himself and a serving man brought in clean clothing—khaja clothing—and took away the other.

Vasha shut the door behind him and leaned against it. "Tell me everything."

"What is there to tell?" Stefan sighed and sank deeper into the water, up to his neck. His bent knees stuck out along the opposite side. "Ah, it's still warm. They're digging a third defensive perimeter. We are slaves, so we were sent out to aid them."

"Were you chained?"

"No, I was not. Only Ilya and Nikita, Ilya for resisting the overseer and Nikita for taking the whip in Ilya's place when the overseer struck at him."

"Oh, gods. Don't they know better, Vladimir and Nikita and Mikhail? If they show him too much preference, if they protect him too much, then the khaja will surely become suspicious. I have tried as well as I can to make them believe he is a priest, a holy man—"

"He is a holy man, Vasha, or have you forgotten that he is a Singer?"

"No, of course not. But—"

"Vasha, Bakhtiian is half mad. They have to protect him or he'll get himself killed. I think—" He faltered, grabbed the bar of soap floating in the by-now muddy water, and began to wash his hair.

"You think what!"

"I think he wants to get himself killed. He can't endure captivity. If he dies, he has to die in a fight."

"Oh, gods."

"And you? What of you?"

"We went hunting. Some man killed a boar with a spear and all the others congratulated him.

Others shot deer. I was not allowed a weapon, of course. They had birds that they had captured and tamed and bound by ropes tied to their feet. Janos offered to let me fly one, but I refused." He shuddered. "It was terrible to see, imprisoning hawks and eagles in such a way."

"Like your father," said Stefan. He rinsed his hair and stood up. Water sluiced down off him, and Vasha handed him a towel and rooted around in the chest to find him a clean set of clothing. Luckily he and Stefan had the same build, so that the clothes brought for Vasha fit Stefan as well. Stefan put on the breeches and knelt to wash his own clothes in the tub. "Have you seen Katya? Or ..." A betraying pause. "Jaelle?"

"No. Nor heard anything about them. I'm to go in to supper with Prince Janos tonight. I will ask him again, or perhaps I can ask his mother."

Stefan smiled slightly without looking up from his washing. "Perhaps you can ask Princess Rusudani."

Vasha kicked him halfheartedly, but he was too happy to see him to truly be angry at him for the remark. And he was too worried about his father.

"Bakhtiian saw Katya," said Stefan. "Lady Jadranka had him called in. That was five days ago. But he's said nothing of the interview. He hardly speaks at all."

"I will get him to talk."

"I hope you can. Will you send me down to the well, please, in case I might see Jaelle there? If only we had something to send to Katya, I might be allowed to deliver it."

"I'll ask tonight."

But he had no chance to ask. He was escorted to dinner at the great hall and placed at the high table, to Rusudani's left, two places away from Prince Janos. The envoy from Mircassia sat on Janos'

right, with Lady Jadranka beyond him. Vasha ate steadily while Janos remained immersed in conversation with the envoy and occasionally turned to address a question to his wife. Rusudani seemed preoccupied, glancing now and again toward the door that led into the inner ward and thence to the kitchens, from which the servers came and went with food and wine. She caught Vasha's eye once and immediately blushed prettily and stared at her plate. She was picking at her food, moving it around with her knife. Vasha recalled what Janos had said about the women of his people.

"I greet you in God's name, Princess Rusudani," he said haltingly in Yos.

Startled, like the deer he had seen flushed out of thickets in the forest hunt, she looked up at him, away toward her husband, who spoke earnestly with the envoy, and back at Vasha. "I hope you will something or other to my husband, Prince Vasil'ii," she said in a whisper. "I did it something or other your father."

He smiled blankly at her, transfixed by the mention of his father and by her beautiful eyes and sweet curve of her jaw. Remembered himself and looked down at his plate and the remains of a hank of meat.

"Do you understand me?" she asked slowly.

He shook his head. "Little. Only little."

She glanced toward her husband again before leaning further toward Vasha. She wore a faint scent like rose water. His pulse raced. When she spoke again, she spoke slowly, pausing between each word. "I spoke a something to save your father. Can you forgive me?"

"Yes!" Vasha was ecstatic that she had been thinking about him at least as much as to feel that she ought to apologize, he supposed for convincing Prince Janos that he, not Bakhtiian, was the valuable hostage.

"I hope," she added, "that Janos serves you with honor.''''

He wasn't quite sure about some of the words, but he assured her that it was so as much to see the grace of her smile as because Janos had, in fact, treated him well. Then, recalling his conversation with Janos about women and their lovers, he felt abashed and lowered his gaze away from her to stare at his trencher. Among the jaran, it wouldn't truly matter if Rusudani was married to another man. He might still hope she would take him as a lover. Now he understood why Tess said that marriage was a prison for women among the khaja. Which made him think of Katerina, locked in her tower.

"Princess Rusudani," he began.

A crash came from the anteroom. A man shouted, and they heard more shouts, some scuffling. The steward rushed out to the high table. He looked outraged.

"He something to pour wine for the high table, my lord. He threw the something against the wall.

I beg your pardon for the something. I will send him to something."

Rusudani came to life. In a low but determined voice, she ripped into the steward. Janos started to defend the steward, but Rusudani cut him off, saying something about her servant and the respect due to her. She rose. All those seated at the high table were by now silent, watching this altercation. Janos glanced toward the Mircassian envoy, then made a gesture with one hand to the steward, who escorted Rusudani out into the anteroom.

Janos leaned toward Vasha. "Your priest is refusing to serve wine at the table, Prince Vasil'ii. Is this also a task which is beneath his dignity? Even though he is a captive and a slave, on my sufferance? I could have him whipped and put in the dungeon for such disrespect."

"Among my people, Prince Janos, Singers are ruled only by the gods."

"You are no longer among your people, Prince Vasil'ii, and this man is too proud. You will speak with him. He must understand that whatever honor he receives among your people, here he is merely yet another servant. If he obeys, he might hope to better his position."

Vasha wanted to laugh, but not because he found Janos's words amusing. It was impossible.

Perhaps the young man known as Ilyakoria Orzhekov might once have been the kind of lad willing to endure such trials for the hope of future gain; the man who had earned the name Bakhtiian, he-who-has-traveled-far, would not. Stefan himself had said it: He would rather die than accept that another man ruled over him.

But there was no harm in using this opportunity. "It would be better for him to speak with my cousin Katerina."

Janos began to shake his head, then halted. Rusudani came out of the anteroom. Bakhtiian followed her, carrying a flask. His expression was a mask, frozen, and Vasha saw deep in his eyes a hint of the furious madness that raged within him. He was taut with it, strung so tightly that soon the pressure would break him.

"How is it that he will obey her and not me or my steward or my captains?" Janos asked.

"Because she is a woman, Prince Janos. All men must show the proper respect toward women."

And what man would not wish to make as beautiful a woman as Rusudani happy, thought Vasha, averting his gaze and staring down at his hands, embarrassed to be seated here in a place of honor while his father, a Singer chosen by the gods, ruler of the greatest empire he knew of, served wine at the table.

They retired to the solar after supper. Here Rusudani received the envoy and his letter for the first time. She read it carefully. No emotion troubled her even countenance, but her hands trembled slightly. Once she glanced at her husband. Once she glanced toward Bakhtiian, who stood near the door. Last, finishing the letter, she looked up briefly at Vasha. He was gratified by her attention.

The envoy indulged himself in some personal effusions toward Rusudani. Vasha found that he could follow the gist of the conversation: the king speaks fondly of her; he hopes she can hasten to the court; certain arrangements for her journey and for her arrival had been made, too complicated for Vasha to understand.

"How soon can you make ready to leave?" Janos asked.

Surprised, Rusudani looked to Lady Jadranka, but the older woman merely shook her head. "I have little enough in my possession, my lord," she replied softly. "How soon can an escort be made ready for me and those servants I choose to take with me?"

"I will escort you myself, of course, my lady. We will leave in three days."

"The prisoners?"

"I will leave Lady Katherine under my mother's care."

"Prince Vasil'ii will travel with us, then," she said with quiet authority.

So it was decided.

"I will make sure you come with me," Vasha said to Stefan when the guards returned him to his tower chamber.

"That's all very well, but what about Bakhtiian? What will happen to him? What if the army manages to trace us here only to find us gone?"

"We can't expect to be rescued. I have already spoken with Prince Janos about the possibility of an alliance."

Stefan stared, but any reply he might make was interrupted by the arrival of the khaja priest, the one who ministered to Lady Jadranka and her women. He wore a mask of disapproval as three guards dragged in Ilya, whose arms were bound behind his back.

"My lord," said the khaja priest in his stiff Taor. "Princess Rusudani entreats you to speak with this vassal and urge him to take heed of his life. He was whipped by Lord Belos for disobedience and then he struck at Lord Belos. It will not do, but Princess Rusudani hopes that God will see fit to bring this man to the true faith, so she asks you to intercede for him."

Forced to his knees in front of Vasha, Bakhtiian glared at the priest.

"I will speak with him," said Vasha. The khaja left. "Father! You'll get yourself killed if you keep on this way!"

"Untie me," snapped Ilya. Stefan began to unknot the rope. "You went hunting with Prince Janos.

What did you learn, of him, of the land hereabouts? Is there any news of the army?"

"No news of the army. Of the rest, I can fashion a map in the ashes for you to see. Of Janos...."

Vasha paused while Ilya stood up, shaking out his arms, and began to pace out the room. He had a welt on one cheek, red and swollen. "We are traveling to Mircassia. We leave in three days. Princess Rusudani is to be invested as the heir to King Barsauma, and Janos will be her consort. She is sympathetic to us, Father, and Janos's position at his father's court is not strong, so it will be in his interest to make a treaty with the jaran. That way—"

"Janos will get no treaty from the jaran."

Vasha flinched as though hit. "But Father, an alliance with Janos and through him with Rusudani and King Barsauma will allow us to direct our forces against Filis, and as well, once we are in Mircassia and the treaty is sealed—"

"By whose hand?"

"By mine, representing the jaran." He hunched his shoulders, expecting his father to scold him for his presumption or, worse, to laugh at him. But Ilya, strangely, said nothing. "After that, that might give us, or at least you, the opportunity to return to the jaran army, with a copy of the treaty."

Ilya stopped in the center of the chamber and turned a burning gaze on Vasha. He looked more than a little crazy. "Tess will come for me."

"Tess probably thinks you are dead."

"She will still come."

"Even if she does, the alliance still is wise. Imagine if Mircassia is our ally and not our enemy."

"What of Katerina?"

"She is to stay here under the protection of Lady Jadranka when we ride south."

Ilya snorted. "And what do you think of that, my boy?"

Stung, Vasha strode over to the window loop and strained to see Katerina's tower, but he could only see the stairs that wound up the parapet. "What ought I to think of it? She will be as safe as any of us are."

"You don't understand the khaja, Vasha. She is not safe at all. She has already been raped."

Speaking in khush, he switched to Rhuian, and it took Vasha a moment to understand the word.

"What do you mean?"

"What do you suppose I mean? Prince Janos raped her. He means to keep her as a mistress. She told me herself. I saw her once while you were out plotting treaties with the man who forced her."

"I didn't know!" Vasha cried, horrified. How could such a thing happen to a woman? How could Lady Jadranka have let it happen? How could Janos do such a thing ... but there his imagination failed him. He could not conceive of Janos, whom he liked, whom he had many reasons to like, forcing a woman. It was inexplicable. It was impossible. But if it was true ...

And yet . ..

Too overwhelmed to speak, nevertheless one thought intruded insistently into the chaos of his thoughts.

"But even if it's true," he muttered, bracing himself against the stone wall, "It still makes sense to make the alliance."

"Tess has taught you well," said Ilya bitterly, sarcastically. "That was truly spoken like a khaja."

And in the next breath: "She will come for me." Abruptly he sat down on the bed and began to talk to himself. "A bright light appeared from heaven and on this light he ascended. Father Wind knit a rope and Mother Sun cast a spark on it from out of her eye and glowing it reached down to the tents of the people, and up this rope climb those whom the gods have marked for their own. Farther he climbed than the angels, whose wings shone in the air with the glory of God's light and filled the heavens with the light of a thousand campfires. By this light you may know him."

Vasha sidled over to Stefan. "What's he doing?" he whispered.

Stefan put two fingers over his mouth and drew Vasha aside, away from Bakhtiian, but Ilya seemed to have forgotten they were there. "He began this about ten days ago, after he was beaten by the overseer, when Nikita tried to take the blows for him. He just goes on like this, as Singers do sometimes, speaking words that the gods have poured into them."

"As far above as angels, he surveyed the lands, and by this sign he recognized his fate, that the sword given him would carve from many lands one land for is it not said that where the gods touch the earth then must all rivers run like the wind and the few shall become the many and the blind shall see.

And out of this dispute did Mother Sun exile her only daughter to the earth and sent with her ten sisters who bore the ten tribes of the jaran. And the dyan of the first tribe fell in love with the daughter of the sun. She refused him, as any heaven-born creature must. He led his jahar into battle and fell to a grievous blow. Wounded unto death, he begged her for healing. Healing him, she loved him, and together they made a child."

Suddenly he leapt up and began to beat a fist against the wall, as if trying to batter it down, over and over again. Vasha jumped forward, to restrain him, but Stefan caught his arm and dragged him back.

"Let him alone. You must let him alone, Vasha. He'll just rage worse if you try to stop him."

So Vasha watched helplessly as his father bloodied his hands against the unyielding stone. After a while Ilya slumped down and sat staring at nothing.

"Father," Vasha said, bringing him water, but Ilya would not drink or even acknowledge his existence. "Father, if Tess comes, you must have the strength to leave this place." Ilya stirred. "Father.

Please."

And, finally, he drank.

Jaelle and Katerina watched from the tower the commotion caused by Prince Janos's arrival at White Tower. That evening, two servants brought a magnificent tray of food from the feasting that was, evidently, going on in the great hall.

"He will come to see you tomorrow or the next day," said Jaelle, feeling that she might broach this subject now with Katerina. "It would be prudent of you to greet him kindly."

"You think it would be prudent of me to allow him to lie with me, don't you?"

Jaelle hesitated.

Katerina touched her hand, her fingers tracing her knuckles. "You must tell me what you truly think, Jaelle. It does me no good if you are afraid to speak freely."

"What he has offered you is generous. You must make him write it down in a contract. That way you are protected if he ceases to love you. That is your great advantage, your only one."

"My only power is that this man desires me?" Katerina snorted. "That is a sad state of affairs." Her expression softened, and she clasped Jaelle's hand firmly in hers. "But that is all you have had, is it not?"

Surprised and abashed, Jaelle could only nod.

"Well," said Katerina, "I can endure anything, knowing you are my faithful friend." She leaned toward Jaelle, like a lover easing toward a kiss, and stared at her intently. Jaelle felt dizzy, felt a wash of unexpected heat flood her, but she did not know what to say only that she had to say something, for what if Katerina drew back, recoiling from her silence?

"I am," she said, her voice so faint it seemed to die into the air. "I am your faithful friend, Katerina."

Voices sounded on the stairs below. Katerina let go of Jaelle's hand and leapt to her feet.

Moments later, the door to the chamber was unlocked and swung open, and Prince Janos entered.

"I have come to play castles with you." He handed his cloak and gloves to a servant. A second man hurried forward and piled more wood on the fire so that it blazed up. Jaelle hastily cleared the tray away, but it was taken from her by a servant and she was left to watch while Janos sat down at the table and began to set out the pieces, pausing once to examine the knight whose features had been scraped away. He placed it on the board, making no comment. Servants brought wine and steadied the fire and fled. Finally, Katerina walked over to the table and sat down in the chair opposite Janos.

She was not afraid to look at him directly. Jaelle admired her for that.

"I have learned one thing," said Katerina, picking up the faceless knight and setting it back down, centering it precisely in its square. "That I cannot stop you. You may come here. I will play castles, since I am bored."

Now he looked up at her, searching her face, his gaze uncomfortably fixed on her. "And my other suit?"

"You did not ask before."

"I am asking now."

Her eyes were as blue as the winter ice. "By our laws, Prince Janos, a man who forces a woman is put to death. You are so marked now. I will never invite you to my bed, not now, not at any time, ever, from this day to the day I die."

"What if I married you? You would have no choice in that, would you, nor about lying with me in my bed?"

"You are already married."

"But if I was not," he pressed, "and I chose to marry you, then what?"

"Then you would be a fool for losing Princess Rusudani."

"But you would be mine."

Katerina shifted in her chair, looking, for once, at a loss for words. "I want to see my cousin," she said in a low voice.

"Become my mistress of your own free will, and this will not be denied you."

Katerina laughed, sharp and surprised. "Is this how khaja men court women?"

"It is your move," said Janos, indicating the pieces.

"You cannot defeat me, Prince Janos," she said softly, almost like a warning. But she moved a piece. "Your mother has treated me kindly. I would like to send my servant to the marketplace to buy her a gift, in thanks."

"With what will you buy this gift?"

She slipped a fine gold necklace off her neck, handling it as if it were the merest trinket. "She may take this to trade."

He hesitated, hand poised over a foot soldier. "Very well," he said, moving the piece one square forward. "She may go tomorrow."

"You will purchase a suitable gift for Lady Jadranka," said Katerina in the morning as she helped Jaelle on with a cloak, "perfume, perhaps, or a fine bolt of silk, if they have such a thing for sale here.

Then you must find a healer ... I don't know what the khaja call them. A woman or a man who can give you herbs, trefin or enefis, perhaps they know of others here, that will prevent a woman from conceiving. You must know of such things."

"I do."

"If there is coin left, then buy something for yourself."

"Good wool cloth," said Jaelle instantly. "Winter is coming on."

Katerina laughed and kissed Jaelle on the cheek. "You're very practical. My grandmother would like you." Abruptly she flushed and released her, and Jaelle, equally flustered, took a step back. "Go on. The guards are waiting."

In the chamber below, Lady Jadranka waited for her. "I had hoped to persuade my son to allow Lady Katherine to go on an outing, but I see that she has convinced him to let you go to the marketplace for her. I will go up."

Outside, Rusudani just happened to be crossing the courtyard with her ladies, heading for the chapel. She halted and approached Jaelle. "This is Lady Katherine's cloak," she said, fingering it.

Taken aback, Jaelle stood stiffly, but Rusudani nudged her gently, her hand hidden in the folds of the cloak, and passed her a little bag filled with coin. "I see that Lady Jadranka has persuaded Janos to let you out to the market."

Jaelle took refuge in silence, not sure anymore whose cause she was furthering. She had an idea that Katerina would not approve of her seeking out a love potion meant to work on Bakhtiian, and at the same time, she wondered if Rusudani understood Katerina's position in relation to her own; certainly she must know nothing about the troubling questions Prince Janos had asked about marriage last night.

The outer ward was alive with activity. It looked rather like the great courtyard of a caravansary when a large caravan was making preparations to set off. By the armorer's forge, she saw Stefan helping to hold a horse while it was shoed. Setting down a hoof, he looked up and saw her, and his face lit. Without meaning to, she smiled at him, forgot herself enough that she slowed down and received, for her lapse, a groping hand from one of her escorts.

"Move along," the man said, feeling for her breast.

She jerked forward away from his hands and resolutely looked forward, away from Stefan. "I am Princess Katherine's servant, and I am to be treated with respect," she said haughtily, and to her surprise the man moved away from her.

They went out through the gates and down into the town that lay at the foot of the castle. The guards remained civil to her, as if her reminder had refined her status in their eyes: no longer a common whore, she was now a serving woman important enough to be noticed by Lady Jadranka and Princess Rusudani. A servant whose complaints might conceivably be brought to the attention of the prince.

In the marketplace they shadowed her but left her alone to browse and bargain. She was ill-used to such luxury. She haggled over perfume, enjoying herself, and haggled further, in a kind of three-way bargaining with a perfumer and a neighboring jeweler, over the price of the necklace. In the end, she got the perfume, some coin, and, the greatest prize of the transaction, the direction of an herbwoman who was known to be discreet and reliable, and who knew a bit of the trade language.

On market day Mistress Kunane conducted her business from a stall in vegetable row. Bundles of herbs hung from her cart, fragrant even in the open air.

"I come from the castle for herbs to sweeten my lady's chamber," said Jaelle. Lowering her voice, she added, "and herbs for myself, to sweeten a man's heart."

Mistress Kunane did not reply at once. A robust woman, she eyed the guards fiercely, as if she intended to take a stick to them. They backed up four steps. Then, pinching off herbs into a cloth bag, she examined Jaelle's face and cloak and clean but mended gown. "A girl as pretty as you has everything she needs to draw a man to her."

"Alas, Mother, not every man loves with his eyes."

The herbwoman grunted, but she seemed amused. "You are a foreign woman. Did you come in with those foreigners that was brought in by the prince, God save him?"

"I am. I'm desperate for love of him, Mother."

"More likely it's your mistress, whoever she may be, who is wanting a man she ought not to be looking at. There's naught I can do for that."

"But you must, Mistress. What will I tell her otherwise?"

"Tell her that a man's heart is best left untouched. Is there aught else I can get you?"

By now Jaelle was feeling desperate. "But can't you give me something? I must have something to take back to her." Behind her, the guards were growing restive, trying to listen in. "There is another thing ... if I get with child I'll lose my position and the master will throw me out on the streets. ..." The lie came out easily, but soon as it was said aloud it took on a horrible significance. If I get with child.

She flushed, the heat like pinpricks along her cheeks.

"Tell me the truth," said Mistress Kunane. She took her walking stick and struck the nearest guard on the forearm. He yelped and jumped back, and the rest of the guards, startled as well but also chuckling at his discomfiture, moved away again.

"I am just a serving woman, Mother. I have been sent here to procure these things, one for a woman who will suffer needlessly if she gets with child, the other for ... I don't know what will happen if the other gets no satisfaction, whether she will blame me or go another way to get what she wants.

Please, Mistress."

"The holy church enjoins against love potions. I cannot help you, child, only give you sweet herbs to scent the body. As for the other—"

The great bell in the church tower tolled, drowning out the cheerful noise of the marketplace. Once, a second time, and a third, then a pause the length of three rings. And again. And again.

"Ten coppers for the lot," said Mistress Kunane. Jaelle scarcely had time to give a single silver coin into her hand before the guards grabbed her bodily and hustled her away. All around her, merchants closed their shops and windows were flung shut and bolted. The harmonious undertone of market day erupted into a frightful roar, as if a wave had burst onto a peaceful shore. The bell rang, and paused, and rang again, on and on.

"What is it? What's wrong?" Jaelle shouted, but the guards were intent on getting back into the castle and dragged her along, ignoring her questions. Once in the outer ward they simply left her to fight her own way through the surging crowd of servants that swamped the courtyard. By the armory, a growing knot of men formed, and Jaelle saw at once that the armorer's apprentices were passing out armor and weapons.

"Jaelle!" Stefan slipped an arm around her and steered her toward the inner ward. "They've forgotten all about me. Can you get me in to see Katya?"

"I don't know. I don't think so. What is happening?"

Then of course she knew. Stupidly, she had forgotten that it might come to this. His face was exultant, alight.

"They're coming," he said. "The army is coming."

"There he is!"

"You will not be abandoned," said Stefan just as the guards reached him. He did not fight as they dragged him away toward one of the towers, toward his prison, but his look struck her to the heart.

You will not be abandoned.

For a moment she thought that Janos's people might have forgotten her as well, but the truth was, she was no longer entirely insignificant, left to make her own way. One of the guards on the steps saw her before she could duck away and hide by acting busy, and yet she could not regret it when the door opened into the tower chamber and Katerina came running to her.

"What is happening?" Katerina asked.

"The army is coming."

Katerina laughed, fairly crowed, and kissed her with delight. Below, White Tower prepared for war.