"That is enough!" The queen stepped down from her dais and marched over the dusty ground to confront the girl. "You will be silent, or you will leave this camp forever."
The girl lifted her chin. Unshed tears sparkled in the sunlight.
"Please, Valye," begged the brother. "Please, for my sake, stay."
"I'm going." With monumental disdain and appalling rudeness, she turned her back deliberately and insultingly on the queen. "Come, Yevgeni, let's leave." She took him by the arm and he had no choice but to go with her. The crowd parted to let them through and then, once they were gone, burst into a wild roar of exclamation.
The queen marched back to her dais and, with assistance from the two princesses, clambered back on. She turned to survey the crowd imperiously. "Quiet," she said. In a circle radiating out from her presence the audience quieted, ring by ring, until all were silent again. She settled herself down on her pillow. Her eyes searched the crowd. Her gaze settled on Jiroannes. He flushed, sure suddenly that he was about to become the next victim, a fitting close to the disaster he had just witnessed.
"Ambassador. What brings you to my camp?"
For a moment he could not move. Syrannus poked him in the back, and he started and walked forward to kneel before her. It felt very strange to kneel before a woman, and yet, at this moment, it did not feel degrading.
"Madam," he began, not sure by what title to address her.
"You may call me Mother Sakhalin."
"Mother Sakhalin. I come to you because-" He faltered. Without Mitya, he had no one to practice khush with, and his facility with the language had suffered for it. But Syrannus was there, kneeling behind him, and using him as an interpreter, Jiroannes felt able to go on. "I arrived in your lands with twenty guardsmen, of whom one died of a fever at the last siege. They have complained to me recently that it is difficult for them to endure without the… comforts of women."
"It is difficult for any man to endure that," said the queen. A few people laughed, but the atmosphere remained somber, and Jiroannes had a fair idea now of why the young man Yevgeni had been exiled.
"But I know," Jiroannes continued, more carefully still, "that your justice is strict. There are women of these lands, of Habakar lands, who would-ah-come to my men, but I did not know if this is allowed within the laws of this camp."
The old queen considered him. The young princess stared at her hands and did not appear to be paying any attention to this conversation. "If these men do not have wives, then certainly it is unreasonable to deny them this comfort. Certainly jaran women are uninterested in khaja men. But as you are all khaja, there seems no reason that you can't deal together well enough."
"Then my guards may allow khaja women into their tents?"
She watched him. He felt the baleful intensity of her stare, and he felt that she meant to play some horrible trick on him that only she would find amusing. "It is also true that the khaja women here no longer have husbands. They may well desire to be married again. That is how I judge it, then. If these men wish to take wives, they may.'' She paused and skewered him with a bright, malevolent glare. "You will see that they are treated as a wife deserves, will you not?"
Kneeling here at her feet, what else could he say? "Assuredly, Mother Sakhalin. You are kind, wise, and generous."
She snorted. "You may go, ambassador. Now, Mother Grekov, did you say there was a dispute over the stud rights of that bay stallion?''
Thus dismissed, Jiroannes rose and went back to camp, his escort at his heels.
"What do you think, eminence?" Syrannus asked.
"I think the old woman is no fool," said Jiroannes. "She must know that men will go to all lengths to find women, if they're kept apart long enough. So she has given me a way to keep my men happy."
"I meant, eminence, about the young man they exiled."
"He was caught fornicating with a man, of course. Although I don't know why the other man wasn't exiled as well."
"But the girl, she said-"
"She was overwrought, Syrannus. We must not listen to rumor. In any case, he will die, sent out alone like that."
Syrannus sighed. They had reached their tents, now, and Jiroannes sank gratefully into his chair and accepted a cup of hot tea from Lal. "But, eminence, what if Bakhtiian dies?"
"Then we wait. If a successor emerges, we deal with him. If one does not, then we ride for home and hope we make it there without being killed. Tell my captain to attend me."
He sipped at the tea. It was spicy, and it scalded his tongue. Lal really was very good, better than Samae had ever been, about making everything just as he liked it. Already, without being asked, the boy had begun fanning him against the afternoon heat. He recognized all at once that Samae had rebelled against him constantly, in subtle ways, primarily by never acting until he ordered her to act, so that her obedience was never a thing of her choosing but always a matter of her being forced to endure his commands.
The captain arrived and touched his forehead to the carpet in front of Jiroannes. "Eminence, you sent for me."
"Captain." He explained the terms that Mother Sakhalin had set them.
"But, eminence, many of us have wives, proper Vidiyan wives, at home. These foreign women are good enough for whores, it's true, but they aren't our kind."
"Captain, I understand your reservations, but I am presenting you with a solution. Keep whores, but treat them as if they were wives and all will be well. I will see that you have enough rations to cover everyone."
"But, eminence, what about their husbands?"
Jiroannes tilted his head back. Smoke rose in the distance. He wondered if the city had fallen yet. "I doubt they have husbands left. I doubt there are any men left alive in this land. I expect, captain, that many women will be grateful for such shelter as you and your men can provide them."
"If they bring children, eminence?"
"As I said, captain, treat them as you would your own wives. As long as we do not antagonize the jaran, you may keep them here. Do you understand?" And because the captain was wise enough to have risen up through the ranks to his current command, he did.
"Are you hungry, eminence?" asked Lal.
"Why, yes, I am." At the outskirts of his little camp, Samae appeared, trudging under the weight of two full buckets hung from a pole slung over her shoulders. Her face was still, bearing no expression. Why had she refused her freedom? The question nagged at him. It had bothered him for twenty days, now, but he could think of no answer.
"Eminence, here are some delicacies I made," said Lal, breaking into Jiroannes's reverie. He knelt before Jiroannes's chair and held out a plate of chased pewter on which savory looking pastries were arranged in an artful pattern. "I hope they please you."
Jiroannes wrenched his gaze away from Samae. He accepted the food. "Thank you, Lal," he said. "These are very fine."
The boy beamed and padded away to fetch warm water and a cloth to wash his master's face and hands after he had finished.
At dawn, Jiroannes was woken by Lal. "Eminence. I beg pardon, eminence, but there are men here to see you."
Jiroannes started awake and sat up. It was dark in the tent. A man shouted outside, answered by a whoop. A troop of horses pounded past. The rush of fear that hit him astounded him. What had he done? Whom had he offended? Had his guards raped some woman? Did his people, with their fine, superior Vidiyan blood and upbringing, treat their wives in a manner repugnant to the jaran? But they had no wives here, and no women in camp, not yet.