CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

A Taste of Betrayal

Guards took Vasha to the battlements and there he found Prince Janos surveying the army that, three days after the first alert, now surrounded the town and castle of White Tower. Staring at Janos's back, Vasha tried to imagine the khaja man forcing Katya, but he could not. Another khaja man, perhaps, but not Janos. Anyway, Katya would never let such a thing happen to her. Janos swung around, and Vasha was abruptly reminded of the bruises Janos had received before the hunting trip, as if he had fallen down ... or gotten in a fight.

Seeing Vasha, Janos beckoned him to the wall. "How can you advise me, Prince Vasil'ii?"

Rather than speak to him, Vasha stared down at the army laying siege below: tents set up outside of catapult range, the sheer number of horses, and farther back, at the limit of his vision, the sudden onset of industry where the engineers would be directing the building of siege engines, towers, and the other paraphernalia of war. As a strike force setting out to join Yaroslav Sakhalin's army, this group had no such weapons with them, but they knew how to build them, how to draft the local peasants to do the work under the supervision of soldiers. He knew this force, of course, knew the banners and recognized the colors: there, the red and gold of his father's personal guard, the half that had stayed with the army and thus not perished in the ambush; there, various tribal colors. But most startling, flying among the banners, was the eagle rising, wings elevated and displayed, the heraldic device of the Prince of Jeds. Tess had come for revenge.

"I can give you no advice," he said finally, miserably. "Those are my own people." He wanted to ask about Katya, but he dared not.

"I don't want to fight them. My defenses are strong, but as you can see they outnumber me. Is that banner not the banner of the Prince of Jeds? I would choose to negotiate. You know that is true. I can offer them an advantageous alliance. What can I send them as surety for my good will?"

Vasha almost said, 'the priest,' but discarded that idea. It was dangerous now to bring too much attention to Ilya. In any case, the army below would not be in a mood to negotiate. "Send an envoy.

That is all you can do. They will not grant you terms."

"You seem certain of that. I would send you, of course, but I must hold you in reserve. I hope you take no offense of it."

"I take none. But there is one thing ..." He met Janos's gaze. "Free Princess Katerina. That would show you mean well."

There it was, the knowledge in his eyes, that easy to see once you knew to look for it. Janos turned away from Vasha, hiding his expression, and Vasha was swamped with something like grief, a taste of betrayal. So it was true. Janos, decent to him, had raped Katerina. How could one man contain two such faces? And what of Katya, who was, Vasha supposed, never more to be spoken of between them? Janos looked out over the jaran army, the abandoned fields, and the clouds approaching from the east. Vasha felt the first spray of rain, a mist, dampening the stones.

"I will go down now," said Janos to his guards. "Prince Vasil'ii, you will attend me, I hope."

It was not a request. Clearly, Janos did not intend to give up any of his hostages. Nor, Vasha reflected wryly, would he have done any differently in the same situation. Except he would never, ever, force a woman to lie with him. Worst of all, following Janos down the narrow, slick steps, Vasha realized that he could not bring himself to hate the man, only the deed. And by thinking that, he might as well himself have betrayed Katya.

Tess sat under her awning and watched the khaja envoy approach her through the rain. She had sited her tent so that she could see the castle and the hastily-completed defensive works thrown up around the town. The rain gave them a blurred appearance, deceptively soft and welcoming. Because it was growing dark, and the lanterns threw light no farther than the square of her carpets, she did not realize until the envoy ducked under the awning that the man wore the badge of the Mircassian king.

"Why does a Dushan prince send a Mircassian envoy?" she asked, too impatient to waste time on the niceties.

The man bowed, gave his name and title, and looked, not surprisingly, a trifle nervous. "I had arrived at White Tower on other business," he said, recovering his smooth manners, "and volunteered to act as go-between. Prince Janos wishes to know why you have invaded his lands and surrounded his castle."

Tess scowled. "You may take this message back to Prince Janos. If he surrenders himself into my custody, I will spare the town and the castle and everyone who has taken refuge within the walls."

"Your highness—"

"I am not negotiating. Take that message back to him. I want a reply at dawn tomorrow." She gestured to one of the guards to escort him away. Given no choice, he went.

As soon as they were out of earshot, Gennady Berezin crouched down beside her. "You did not ask about hostages."

"Had I asked about them, Prince Janos would know that I knew that he had that power over me.

Now he must play that piece himself, in an attempt to counter my first attack."

"If he does not agree to surrender himself? In his position, I would not."

"I know nothing of Prince Janos, whether he is shrewd or foolish. I can only try to force his hand, make him show his full strength early rather than late."

The soldier waved toward the castle. "His position is strong. I am sure we outnumber him, but he is protected by a ditch, a moat, and stone walls."

"Perhaps by more than that. Princess Rusudani is the granddaughter of King Barsauma of Mircassia. A Mircassian envoy comes forward as a representative of Prince Janos. That suggests to me that Janos knows what he possesses, if indeed he possesses the princess. But where else would she have gone? She surely was captured at Urosh Monastery. And if he has jaran hostages as well—"

But there, having said it, she had to stop. Hope pierced her as painfully as any spear might; she felt it physically, she could not speak. She had not spoken Ilya's name in days, as if by speaking it she might somehow release it from the earth and lose him, lose any hope of him.

"We will wait," she said at last. "Prince Janos knows why we want him."

After delivering his message, the Mircassian envoy retreated to the hearth, warming his hands at the great fire as if within its halo of light and heat he might find safety. Except there was no safety to be had within White Tower. Vasha sat in a chair, idly fingering the game pieces, and watched Janos pace the length of the solar and back again. Katya had fought, of course—Vasha was sure of that—but Janos must have overpowered her. And then—but beyond that Vasha could not go. Just could not.

Janos looked preoccupied, grim, but not remotely like a man so monstrous that he would force a woman.

"Where is my wife?" Janos said suddenly. A servant scurried out. Sometime later Princess Rusudani swept in, attended by her women, by two guards, and by Bakhtiian. She looked cool and elegant except for two spots of color burning in her cheeks. Ilya held a copy of The Recitation in one hand and he stared fixedly at it, seeming not to see the room or Vasha.

"You will attend me," Janos said to her as she entered. She sat down in her chair and began to embroider, the other women arranging themselves around her. They were unnaturally quiet, as if fear kept them from speaking, and finally Rusudani nodded toward Ilya and he opened The Recitation and began to read aloud from it in a low voice.

Janos sat down opposite Vasha and set the pieces up for a game. "The Prince of Jeds refuses to negotiate," Janos said.

Ilya's voice faltered. Rusudani signed to him to set down the book, and she began to embroider again, head bowed over the fabric.

"The jaran will not negotiate, my lord," said Vasha.

"What would they do if I surrendered?"

"They will kill you." As Vasha said it, he looked up and saw Rusudani's gaze fixed on them. She glanced away at once, toward Ilya, who stared blindly at the open pages of the book. He was not reading but listening. "But they would also spare the town and all inside."

"Would you surrender yourself under such circumstances?"

"Do you intend to?"

"No. I simply wondered." He beckoned to the Mircassian envoy, and the man crossed the room to stand beside him. "At dawn you will go to the Prince of Jeds and inform her, graciously, that I hold Prince Vasil'ii and Princess Katherine, and that I am willing to enter into negotiations in return for her consideration of an alliance with Mircassia."

To Vasha's surprise, Rusudani stood up. "I am the heir to Mircassia," she said clearly. "Do you intend to negotiate without consulting me?"

Janos rose at once and went over to her. He took her hand and led her to the table. "You have been ten years in the convent, my lady. You have no experience in this. Lord Belos, bring Princess Rusudani some wine."

Her presence affected Vasha so strongly that he had to bow his head. From under his lashes he watched her drink, the curve of her lips on the rim of the glass, the slight movement of her throat. She was so close to him that he could easily have touched her, as Janos touched her, keeping one hand firmly on her as if to mark that she belonged to him. For even more than the hostages, Rusudani was the prize that could save Janos's life.

When she had finished drinking, she spoke, slowly enough that Vasha understood the gist of her words. "My lord husband, I would send the priest to the jaran as surety for your good faith. Give him to them to show that you mean to keep to any treaty you might agree to. Perhaps they will forgive you for ..." She broke off, found her voice again. "For the other. For what transpired at the monastery."

"No," said Janos flatly. "I would be a fool to give up even one. Lord Belos, see that the jaran priest and the others, the soldiers, are put in the dungeon. We may have a use for them later."

Color rose in Rusudani's cheeks. "They are my prisoners, not yours, to dispose of."

"Is it not said in The Recitation that a woman ought to be subject to the greater wisdom of a man?"

"Prince Vasil'ii, I appeal to you. Is such a thing said of women among the jaran?"

Her plea startled Vasha, and he stood as well, aware of how near she was. He did not look at her but at the pieces lined neatly up on the gameboard. "No, Princess Rusudani. A woman is subject to no man's authority, except—" He faltered, remembering his conversations with Janos. Remembering Katerina.

"Except her husband?" Janos asked softly.

"Except, at times, that of her husband," Vasha murmured.

Rusudani's hand moved into his field of vision and retreated, and he felt her shift, her movement like a wave against him.

"Lord Belos," said Janos, "see to your duty."

The steward bowed and left.

"All that you have," said Rusudani softly, "came to you through women. I trust you remember that."

"What I have, I intend to hold on to."

Vasha lifted his eyes and met Janos's gaze squarely. He had the sudden, appalling thought that Janos meant, not his mother's lands, not his wife's inheritance, but Katerina. Could it be that Janos loved Katerina? But how could a man both love and rape a woman? It was impossible. He must be either lover or rapist; he could not be both together.

Vasha risked a glance at Rusudani, so close to him now that if he leaned forward he could kiss her on the mouth, but she was not looking at her husband. She looked beyond him, at Lord Belos, who brought forward three guards to escort Bakhtiian away. Ilya merely rose and, book still clutched in his right hand, went with them, taut as any caged beast. Lord Belos followed him out.

"I will send for my mother to sit here with you," said Janos. "While we wait."

"No need," replied Rusudani. "I will retire to my chamber."

Janos watched her go. Vasha did not dare to. Finally, when the ladies had all left the solar, Janos sat down again, facing Vasha across the table. He looked restless but determined. "Shall we play?"

That night a footstep sounded in the stairwell, and a scratch came at the door. Jaelle swiftly slid out of Katerina's embrace and got up, pulling a cloak around her. A moment later the door opened.

Princess Rusudani slipped inside, holding a small lantern, and held two fingers up to her lips. Lowering them, she untied a small pouch from her gown and held it out toward Jaelle.

"Do not ask questions," she said in a low voice, glancing toward Katerina, who still slept, worn to exhaustion by her endless pacing on the day just passed. "In the morning you will go down to the gates and tell the guard who wears a blue ribbon tied at his belt that you have my leave to go down to the market. You will find the herbwoman and from her you will get a drink, herbs, whatever she might have, that will cause men to sleep, enough for at least twenty men. There is more than enough coin.

Get other herbs as well, the love potion if you can, or else that which whores take so that they will not conceive."

Jaelle glanced up at her, surprised that a convent-raised woman would know of such things, but Rusudani was in the grip of a passion and seemed oblivious to her.

"Tomorrow evening, after supper, I will come here with my attendants to visit Princess Katherine and to read from The Recitation. You will give me the herbs then. I will find some way to distract the others so that you may give them to me without them noticing."

"How did you get past the guards tonight, my lady?"

Rusudani's gaze did not leave Katerina, and Jaelle grew even more nervous. "Does she love him?"

Rusudani asked suddenly, ignoring Jaelle's question. "Does Princess Katherine love my husband? I am not blind. I know he has taken her as his concubine. He is not an ill-favored man, and he can be gracious, when he chooses to be."

Only the banked coals, a dull, somber red, and the flickering candle flame gave light to the room.

Rusudani's face glowed, shadowed and illuminated together by the flame from her lantern. The rest of the room was dim, unreal. Jaelle did not know what to say. In any case, Rusudani needed no reply, no acknowledgment. She went on.

"I hold no grudge against her. Like me, she was taken by force. I would only regret it if what I must do now will cause her pain." She turned, and her eyes were lost in shadow. "Take the pouch. Do as I say. We will meet again tomorrow night."

Then she was gone, closing and barring the door behind her, like a dream. So long did Jaelle stand there in the darkness, wondering if it had been a dream or a true visitation, that finally Katerina stirred from the bed, murmuring, and Jaelle jerked guiltily and went back to curl under the warmth of the covers. Reflexively, not truly awake, Katerina pressed against her and draped an arm over her, taking comfort in Jaelle's presence, as she always did now.

Did Katerina love Janos?

Jaelle felt Katerina's breath against her neck. No, she did not love him. Jaelle knew that to be true.

In some odd way he interested Katerina, appalled her, fascinated her; in a very obvious way he had earned her enmity. Katerina sighed and murmured words, formless in sleep but pure in tone. A lover's words. And there the words lay, once spoken, tangible things marking the quiet night chamber just as torches lit the parapets of the besieged city, so that the army outside would know that the forces inside were alert to the threat: She loves me.

Love is dangerous. Jaelle had only to reach out and touch the little pouch of coin that lay in the folds of the cloak. Whatever scheme Rusudani had concocted, it did not grow out of any love for her husband. But Jaelle knew that in the morning, she would go down to the castle gates and beg leave of the guardsman with the blue ribbon tied to his belt to go beyond, into the marketplace. Not for Rusudani. Once she would have said it was only for herself, to find the least opportunity to improve her lot, to put coin away for unlucky days, to give favors to others so that they might owe her one.

Now, she supposed she did it as much for Katerina and Stefan, in the hope that somehow, however unlikely it might seem, what Rusudani planned might help them. But by seeking to help them, she made herself vulnerable. And that frightened her.

At dawn, the Mircassian envoy again approached the tent of the Prince of Jeds.

"Where is Prince Janos?" Tess asked without preamble. She was exhausted. She had hardly slept.

Early on she had dreamed that Ilya had come back to her, as if from the dead, and after that she had been afraid to go to sleep again.

"Your highness." The envoy was sharp enough. Neither did he waste time in pleasantries. "Prince Janos offers you an alliance with Mircassia."

"How can he do so? Does he have King Barsauma's ear?"

"He has the king's heir. I can vouch for this, your highness. I was sent by King Barsauma to secure Princess Rusudani, to bring her back to Mircassia and invest her as the heir."

Caught despite herself, Tess indulged her curiosity, even though she knew that the least sign of interest weakened her position. "There is another heir, a young man, Barsauma's nephew."

"He has fled to Filis with his mother, your highness, now that he has been repudiated by the king.

Prince Janos has married Princess Rusudani. He can offer you an alliance with Mircassia."

"Surely Princess Rusudani could offer this herself. She is the heir."

"She is only a woman—" Flushing, the envoy broke off.

Tess smiled. "I understand the situation well enough, Lord Envoy. Tell me, since it seems obvious to me that Rusudani's consort will be the king in her stead, do you think Prince Janos will meet with King Barsauma's approval? It hardly serves me to make an alliance with a man who cannot fulfill its terms. You may tell me the truth, Lord Envoy. I grant you immunity, now, and whatever may happen next."

Startled, he glanced away from her, at the camp, at the jaran soldiers, a grim-looking lot, and at the castle, which gleamed white in the morning sun, proud but not impregnable. "He is not the prince King Barsauma would have chosen, your highness, but he is well enough. The king will not be disappointed."

And so, Tess thought, the jaran could have an alliance with Mircassia and be spared fighting that powerful kingdom at all. It was a shrewd offer. It was tempting.

But it was from the man who had killed Ilya in an ambush.

Tess stood up so abruptly that her chair tipped over. A soldier caught it before it could hit the carpet and set it upright again.

"We will begin our attack at dawn tomorrow," she said, one hand clenched, "if Prince Janos does not surrender himself to us by that time. Take that message back to him."

"Do not speak in haste, your highness," said the envoy, bolder now that she had granted him immunity. "Prince Janos holds two hostages. He is willing to trade them for an alliance."

Her heart skipped a beat. At first she could not force the words past her throat. "What hostages might I be interested in?"

He took an hour to reply, a second, a million years. Now would come the name. She waited, but he did not speak, and then at last when she thought she would freeze, would burn, would dissolve into nothing because she could not bear to wait one more instant to hear, his mouth moved. He spoke.

"Prince Vasil'ii and Princess Katherine, your highness."

At first, a spike of warmth, the unspoken reply: Thank God Vasha and Katya are alive. Then, she plunged into the darkest depths. Not Ilya, and any man whether shrewd or foolish would know enough to bargain for his own life with the life of Bakhtiian.

She wanted to turn and walk into her tent. She wanted to shut herself away and scream. But she could not.

"Are there others?"

"A few soldiers, your highness, servants, nothing more."

"How can Prince Janos prove that these hostages exist, and are alive? One of my own soldiers must go with you into the castle and identify them."

"I cannot agree to this without Prince Janos's permission, your highness."

He was stalling, of course. But Janos had played his strongest card, Tess was sure of it. She still had a fresh army. She could afford to wait one more day. "Tell him what I have said, then. Return to me at dawn tomorrow."

He bowed.

Even after he left, she did not retreat into her tent. Out here, in the daylight, under the eyes of the whole army, she had no choice but to stay composed, to look strong, to keep in control. She was afraid of what would happen if she was alone.

Jaelle left just after dawn to go down to the marketplace. It was easier than she had expected to get past the guards, who had either been bribed or cozened by Rusudani, and she was surprised to find the market in full spate, as though the people crammed within the town chose to pretend that no army sat outside the walls, waiting to break through. She found Mistress Kunane and her cart. This time, without the doubtful presence of guards, Mistress Kunane was eager to take an overgenerous payment of coin in return for the herbs Rusudani had asked for.

"It's for the little ones," Jaelle explained, slipping the bundle of herbs into the pouch she wore at her belt. "They cry all night, they're so frightened."

"Give it to them in wine," said Mistress Kunane, counting through the coin carefully. "That will make it work better."

Another customer came forward, and Jaelle escaped, relieved that the herbwoman was too busy to question her closely, as she had done last time.

Only one man could now be spared to stand guard outside Widow's Tower, and he was too preoccupied with his own thoughts to do more than take the coin she offered him when he let her back in.

"What does Rusudani want sleeping herbs for?" Katerina asked.

"I don't know."

Katerina looked thoughtful and went to stare out the slit window, where she could see the distant streaks that marked the enemy campfires.

At midday Jaelle heard the clatter of boots and armor on the stairs. The door opened to admit Prince Janos and a flock of guards. Katerina rose slowly. Then she gasped and took a step forward.

She spoke a word in khush.

Too late Jaelle saw the man surrounded by guards: a jaran soldier, his armor covered by a handsome red and gold surcoat. The next instant the guards had hustled him out, and the door thudded closed behind them, leaving Prince Janos alone with the two women.

"That was my uncle, Gennady Berezin," said Katerina, surprised into the confession.

Janos circled her at a careful distance, but she kept turning to face him. "He agreed to enter the castle in order to identify you and your cousin, to take news of you back to the Prince of Jeds."

"What of the other prisoners?"

Janos dismissed them with a wave of one hand. "They aren't important. They remain in the dungeon. You are the one who matters." He said it warily.

"Now what do you mean to do, Prince Janos?"

"Use your life to bargain for my own."

Katerina smiled bitterly. "It is worth so little to you?"

With two swift strides he closed the gap between them and grasped her hands in his. She began to pull back, then stilled, reading a new emotion in his face. "It is worth that much to me. More than you wish to understand." He struggled within himself, his voice thick with longing, for her. Jaelle stared, seeing him stripped away to nothing, naked, as if his desperate circumstance had brought him to reveal his weakness to the woman he evidently loved. Because it was always weakness in a man to reveal that he loved a woman. A man's desire for her was the only power a woman had. "If I had only been more patient...."

"It is too late for regrets, Prince Janos. You have condemned yourself."

Strange, Jaelle thought, that the woman, locked away, might seem more powerful at this moment than the man who had imprisoned her.

"Is there no hope for me?" he asked hoarsely.

She jerked her hands out of his. "I have my honor to uphold."

"It is no dishonor to a woman to be taken in war. You are mine, and I have used you more kindly than any other man would have."

"Than any khaja man, perhaps. Do not slander the men of my own people."

"But you are mine." He took hold of her shoulder with one hand and with the other caressed one of her braids, twining it through his fingers. "Is what the men of your people do when they marry, when they scar a woman's face, any better than forcing her? Had I done that to you, had I taken a blade and cut your face, would you have come willingly to my bed?"

Pale, she twisted out of his grasp, and he let go of her. "I would have no choice."

"Tell me how this is different, Katherine. We use different words, we have different customs, because we are what you call khaja, but for me to take you as my mistress is no different than for a jaran man to take you as his wife. You have as little choice in either."

Katerina crossed to the window seat, but she did not sit down. Her posture was stiff, her expression bleak. "I pray to the gods that my aunt may come soon," she said, and would not look at him as she said it.

"I fell into a rage," said Janos softly. "It will not happen again. I will not touch you again without your consent. Is that enough?"

Jaelle had to sit down, she was so astonished to hear him say it.

But Katerina only said, "No."

"I will draw up a contract—"

"I do not want your lands or your wealth."

"What do you want, then?" he asked, growing exasperated.

"I want to be free."

"Free to leave here and be scarred by a man of your own people?"

Now she turned. Her color was high. "Free even of that, Prince Janos. You are right enough, that I might as well be your mistress as another man's wife, but I will not be either!"

It was a clear, cold day outside, and harsh lines of light striped the chamber and the rug. Katerina's eyes were as cold as the sunlight, and Janos blazed, like the fire, answering her. "You will never forgive me for one night's anger."

"I can never forgive such a thing. Only a man would ask a woman to do so."

He moved. Amazed, Jaelle watched as he knelt before Katerina and lifted one of her hands to his lips, kissing it tenderly before he let it go. "I remain your servant, Princess Katherine. Always, and forever."

She looked taken aback. "Then I order you to let me go, to return to the army camped outside these walls."

He smiled wryly and stood up. "Only a woman would ask a man to do so. My castle is besieged, Princess Katherine. A man in my position does not divest himself of his most prized possession except in dire need. And I confess to you, my pale rose, that your beauty and your fierce soul will be out of my reach if I am dead."

While she stood, speechless and unmoving, he leaned into her and kissed her, then stepped back quickly, as if to avoid any blow she might throw at him. But she did not move. "No man will offer you what I do, Katherine, no man will cherish you as I will, nor will I cease my suit, so long as I live." He placed a hand over his heart and bowed, slightly, as any man ought to a princess, and left the chamber.

Dust trailed down the beams of light as the afternoon sun sank low enough to slant in through the arrowslits. The fire popped in the hearth, and Jaelle jumped, startled, and added another log to the fire.

"No man has ever spoken to me in that way before," said Katerina into the silence. Her voice trembled.

"He loves you," said Jaelle, although it was hard for her to say the words. "That is not a luxury often given to princes, or so it is said. A prince must marry for lands and alliances, a merchant for what connection it can bring him and his family. A slave cannot marry at all, except at his master's whim."

"I will never marry."

Jaelle made the sign of the knife. "Be careful what vows you make to God, Katerina. He might hold you to them."

But Katerina fixed her gaze on Jaelle, so searing a gaze that Jaelle froze, afraid to move. "Don't you understand? I don't want to marry. I don't care for men in that way, not truly." Her voice caught, but she lay a hand against the stone wall as if for support and went on. "Scorn me if you wish, but it is what I am. I could love you, Jaelle, but I will not burden you with what you do not want. I know you are fond of Stefan." She paused. "Now you know my secret. You may betray me if you wish."

Jaelle shut her eyes, then opened them, because it was cowardice not to look on Katerina, who had just offered her a glimpse of her inmost soul. "I will never betray you. I swear it, my lady."

"Could you love me?"

Jaelle flushed. "I do love you." It came out as a whisper. "But not, not as a woman loves a man. I cannot. I'm sorry."

To her surprise, Katerina's expression brightened. "Ah, gods, Jaelle, you have given me a precious gift, and I thank you for it."

After that, Katerina seemed calmer. That evening she received Princess Rusudani and Lady Jadranka with equanimity. She even agreed to read aloud from The Recitation that had been translated into Taor, and Rusudani took advantage of the rapt attention given to Katerina's reading to visit the screened-off chamber pot. Jaelle followed her, and there, trading places, she slipped the herbs into Rusudani's waiting hands.

"I will remember this," said Rusudani, and returned to the group seated so charmingly around Katerina.

Lady Jadranka lingered after the others had gone. "Lady Katherine," she said in her calm way, "I hope you will remember, when all this is over, that my son has treated you kindly."

"I am sorry, my lady," said Katerina, and would say no more. Lady Jadranka sighed and left, and the guards closed and barred the door behind her.

"Blow out the lantern," said Katerina, "so that our eyes may become accustomed to the dark."

"Why?"

"Because whatever Rusudani means to do, she will do it tonight. And I, for one, do not mean to be caught unsuspecting."

Gennady Berezin returned in late afternoon, none the worse for wear, and having seen but not spoken to Vasha and Katya. Too restless to sit still, Tess took a contingent of soldiers and rode a circuit of the walls.

White Tower was well placed, its west wall riding a bluff above a narrow river and the town growing out from its other sides. The docks lay within the great curve of the river out of which grew the bluff, but these river docks lay deserted now, abandoned because they bad been built outside the ring of walls.

"If I had built this castle," said Tess, "I would have carved a stairwell down to the river level from the castle, as a way to get supplies. Have you scouted out the land below the west wall?"

From here, just beyond catapult range and at the edge of the docks district, the castle loomed up into the heavens, a heavy slab limned by the light of the setting sun and by the sudden appearance of torches, like stars flickering to life.

One of the captains, an Arkhanov, replied. "We can't scout there during the day. Our men are well within archery range. And at night ... it's steep, and impossible to see."

Tess squinted at the sky. Clouds covered the east, drowning most of the sky, but a crescent moon lay just out of their reach. "As soon as there is the least bit of light, send men in. Try tonight, a preliminary expedition."

"Will you make an alliance?"

"If I do not, will Prince Janos kill his hostages? I must think about it. We will hold a council tomorrow."

In the last light of day, they rode back to camp. Tess ate mechanically, because she knew she ought to, but she was by now too tired to sleep. She sat in her chair under the awning until her hands got cold. But once inside the tent she felt choked, trapped, and so she grabbed a blanket and went outside again. She sat down again, nodded away into sleep, woke up with a start. Jumped to her feet.

The night guards looked at her, questioningly.

"Gods, I need to walk."

One of them fell into step beside her, and with his comforting presence, she walked through camp and out to the sentry line nearest the town. Here, in the concealing darkness of night, they stumbled across several interesting diversions, common enough in siegework: Among a contingent of Farisa Auxiliaries, they found two prostitutes from the town who had sneaked out to make a bit of coin.

"Send a man to follow them back in, as far as is safe" said Tess to the embarrassed captain. "See if we might be able to get a group of men inside the town that way."

A farmer was selling chickens, but he was not from the town; evidently he had been selling to the army for several days, coming in from the countryside. A robust herbwoman pushed a cart over the rough ground, peddling her wares, and in another jahar, farther on, the soldiers were good-naturedly trying to chase away a boy of about eleven years.

"He wants to hire himself out as a servant," said the captain. "We think he came from town, but we're not sure. There're some straw tents down there by the river banks, with a few khaja left in them, those that didn't run inside the walls. He might have come from there. No one wants the lad, poor thing. I don't suppose he has any family left, or he'd not be wanting to leave his home."

"Will anyone take him on?" Tess asked, feeling sorry for the scrawny child who lingered just within the glow of a fire. A soldier threw him a scrap of meat, and he wolfed it down.

"Just another mouth to feed," said the captain, "and who knows if he can even ride? We don't have any use for a khaja child like that."

"There's one more post beyond you?" Tess asked.

"One more, and then the river bank."

A sentry's voice broke the quiet. "Stanai!"

There was a general rustling all round as soldiers sprang up, and the captain and the night guard hustled Tess back a few steps. A male voice said, loudly, "Gods, another woman! Those khaja men must not truly be men if they keep their women so poorly satisfied that they all have to come out to us."

"Aye. You don't see jaran women running to them."

But the voices stilled. Tess craned her neck and finally stepped out around the captain to see what had caused the sudden hush. Two fires down, a woman scrambled up a bank and into the circle of light lent by burning timbers. She was no prostitute, not gowned that richly, with her hair discreetly covered with a shawl. In one hand she clutched a small book. With the other—

Tess's heart lurched. "Vladimir!" She said it loudly, but it came out a whisper. He looked like hell, but he was alive, setting the woman on her feet so that, as she turned to look behind her, Tess saw her face.

Princess Rusudani.

The sight galvanized Tess into action. She strode forward. "My lady! Princess Rusudani. What are you doing here?" What is Vladi doing here? Who else ... who else?

Rusudani shook out her skirts. Eyes drawn down by the action, Tess saw that the fabric was wet and muddy to the knees, as if she had slogged through stagnant water. But the khaja princess looked up without the least sign of distress at her disheveled appearance. Indeed, she looked positively triumphant.

"Your highness," she said, but as a challenge. In the last months she had learned to speak rough but serviceable Taor. "I come to make alliance with you."

"Your husband has already offered an alliance."

"I am not interested in what Prince Janos offers. He took me by force. I drugged the guards and the guards in the dungeon and these men fight the guards at the river stair. So I come to you, as God has willed. I want alliance with the jaran that is of my own making."

"There he is," said Vladi. "Stefan has him."

To Tess, seeing and hearing Vladimir was dreamlike. He didn't seem real. He couldn't be real.

Along with the others, he was dead.

"They whipped him last night," said Vladi matter-of-factly to Tess, as if to explain something she ought to understand, but she did not know what he was talking about. "Gods, the stubborn fool would always talk back. You must speak to him, Tess. No one else can. He isn't himself."

Tess was so disoriented that at first she did not see the man himself, only the two figures helping him up the bank. She thought the odd murmuring that flooded around and past her was the spill of the river, though its speech had not seemed so loud to her a minute before. But it came from the jaran soldiers, and it crested back, farther still, moving away into the camp like a wave that swept all before it. He came full into the firelight, and Nikita and Stefan, his escorts, dropped their arms away from him.

"In token of my good faith," said Rusudani clearly, almost as if she was gloating, her face shining in the firelight, "I release you."

She was not talking to Tess.

Ilya was alive.

Or at least a man who looked like him was. He had the same deep brown eyes, the same face, scored now with a grim expression, that Tess dreamed of every night, when she dreamed at all, when she was troubled by dreams.

He said, in Ilya's voice, "Mikhail waits at the river gate. Send twenty men, not more than thirty. Get them up the stairs quickly and inside the walls and they can open the gates. Ready the army. We strike now."

Then, and only then, he looked at her.

"Oh, gods," she said, because it was him. She staggered. The strength that had kept her going forward for the last many weeks drained out of her in one instant Her vision blurred, and she thought she was going to faint.

Limping, he crossed the gap between them, but only to put a hand on her arm, marking her. "Tess,"

he said. That was all.

He let go of her and limped over to Vladimir, giving him directions.

Tess stared, unable to take her eyes from him. Already, around her, around Ilya, around Rusudani, men moved. A group of them followed Vladimir off into the night, and others hurried off toward the main camp.

"He wanted to lead the raid himself," Nikita was saying to someone, "so I threatened to hamstring him if he wouldn't listen to reason. It was his crazy ideas that got us in this trouble in the first place."

Out of the buzz, Tess picked up, again, the slow song of the river, out of sight in the darkness. High up to her left, a handful of torches shimmered and blazed on the castle walls.

Rusudani placed a hand possessively on Ilya's arm, just above the elbow. "I hope you will show me to a place of safety, my lord."

Tess snapped to life. "Captain, show Princess Rusudani to my tent." Sheer, ugly jealousy coursed energy back through her, and she conceived a sudden and unconditional dislike for the khaja woman.

Rusudani caught her eye, and Tess knew instantly that for the first time in years, for the first time, perhaps, since Vera Veselov, she had just gained an adversary. Rusudani did not relinquish her grip on Ilya's arm. Just then, Gennady Berezin ran up and Rusudani was forced to step away so that the two men might embrace. Even so, Ilya stepped stiffly out of the embrace, distracted, looking again and again up at the castle.

"No," said Nikita, who did not stray from his side. "You are not going in."

"I must go in," said Ilya. Two welts marked his cheek, covering the mark of marriage. Tess felt like she was looking at a stranger. He had recognized her, but that was all. Something else held him, something stronger, something that she did not share in.

"Then with the main army," said Nikita in a weary voice, as if he had argued this once too often and was finally ready to give up the fight.

"You're not going in with the raiding party!" exclaimed Tess. "Not while I'm here to stop you."

"I must kill him," said Ilya, but not truly to her. "I have sworn it."

In the firelight, Rusudani smiled.

Beyond, behind, Tess heard the eerie rustling of thousands of men donning their armor in the middle of the night.