"Thank you. So reassuring." Tess slid her hands away from her eyes and flinched, even though the only light in the tent came through the open flap. "Lord, how late is it?"
"It's early. Just after dawn."
She wiggled out of the bag, pausing to let him unseal it for her, and got herself up on her knees. Considered. "Well, the damage isn't too bad. My head pounds, but I don't feel sick to my stomach."
"Small favors. Tess." He hesitated, wanting to ask her if it was true, and instead sealed up the sleeping pouch and rolled it up into a neat cylinder.
"Plumbing," said Tess suddenly, not appearing to notice his unease. "Civilized plumbing. That's what I remember from last night. Where is it?" She clambered out of the tent and stood. David hurried out behind her. "That's what I miss more than anything. And hot showers. They're remarkably clean, you know, the jaran, and practical about it, but still…"
She went on, but David did not hear her next words. She had her back to her brother's tent. She could not see the little embassy that waited outside Charles's awning. But the embassy could see Tess and David.
Eight people. All jaran. Three soldiers whose faces David recalled from the journey from the coast. The silver-haired man who had been at the healer's conference yesterday. Three women, two young, one elderly. And Bakhtiian.
Who had just seen Tess and David emerge from the same tent.
"What's wrong, David?" Tess asked. She turned.
David was calculating ground. About twenty meters separated Bakhtiian from him. How quickly could a man cover that ground?
"Oh," said Tess. "That's right. The tour. Of course you don't want to miss it. Here, wait a minute." She trotted off to the necessary.
David would have stared after her. He was appalled that she would desert him. But he had to keep his eye on the group. He had to keep his eye on Bakhtiian. A man who practiced summary execution for rape… Perhaps they hadn't noticed. But they had. Of course they had. Even now, while they waited for Charles to come out, different individuals within the group glanced over at him and away. One of the women grinned. But Bakhtiian was not looking at him. Perhaps by some astounding piece of good luck, Bakhtiian had not noticed.
Tess jogged back up to him. "Are they still there? Oh, good. Come on." She dragged him over to Charles's tent.
Charles had just come outside, with Cara and Marco, and the actors had gathered in a clump, looking excited. Ursula, Jo, Maggie, and Rajiv waited as well.
"I have brought with me," Bakhtiian was saying to Charles, "as many of my people as speak Rhuian, so that we can have sufficient translators. Six in all. That includes Tess, of course. If you prefer to go as a single group, that is acceptable."
"Did you have another suggestion?" Charles asked politely.
Bakhtiian nodded. "A large group does not see as much as a small group. If you divide your party into six groups, each to go with a translator, then you can move quietly and with more ease through the camp."
And by splitting them up, David thought, he could isolate the man he thought had just slept with his wife. He began to wipe his hands on his trousers, realized that would make him look nervous, and stopped. He'd stay in camp-but then he would be isolated, and easy prey.
Next to him, Tess said under her breath: "He's showing off. He's going to let the jaran charm Charles and the rest of you. Which they'll do, given the chance to meet them as individuals. He'd never do this for any other foreign embassy. Those get full state, to cow them into submission."
"— and I would be honored to escort you personally," Bakhtiian finished, still speaking to Charles.
"The honor is mine," replied Charles smoothly. "And the others?"
As smoothly, without any fanfare, Bakhtiian transferred his gaze from Charles to David. If a look had the physical edge of a saber, if a wish, an emotion, could manifest instantaneously into an act, then David ben Unbutu would have been dead at that moment. He knew it without a doubt.
Bakhtiian looked away. "As you wish," he said graciously to Charles.
"The bastard," muttered Tess. "Still trying to keep Charles and me apart. Excuse me, David." She stalked off to stand next to Charles.
The silver-haired man appeared next to David at the same time Cara Hierakis did. "I am Nikolai Sibirin," he said, in serviceable Rhuian. "We have not been introduced."
David cast a pleading glance at Cara.
"This is David ben Unbutu," said Cara, who already seemed on casual terms with this elderly jaran man. "Niko, I don't know your customs, but I can assure you that Tess was only sleeping in David's tent because she was drunk."
Niko considered David. "Whatever mood she may have been in, I do wish you hadn't been so hasty, young man. Still, please allow me to apologize for Ilya's behavior. He thinks he doesn't show his emotions, but he can't help it. Of course he has no right to be angry, so if you humor him, he'll calm down eventually."
"No right to be angry?" David asked in a small voice.
"But Charles-er, Soerensen-the prince said they are married."
The old man smiled abruptly. "Of course. You khaja are barbarians. Sometimes I forget that. Jaran women may lie with whomever they wish. It is none of men's business."
"But-" David began, utterly confused.
"David," said Cara in Anglais, "leave well enough alone." She turned to Niko. "I had hoped that you might show me through camp, Niko. With your wife." She turned to greet the elderly woman in the group. "Hello, Juli." They kissed each other on the cheek like old friends. Juli responded with a jaran greeting. "David? Are you coming with us?"
"It is my belief," said Niko gently, "that David ought to go with Bakhtiian and the prince." David put a hand to his throat, lowered it, and swallowed. Niko looked him closely in the face and suppressed a grin. "Perhaps not. Would you like to come with us?"
With vast relief, David said yes.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Sonia Orzhekov regarded the khaja Singers with trepidation. Six of them at once! Few things daunted her, raised as an etsana's daughter, cousin to Bakhtiian; there had been death aplenty in her family, but she came from a resilient line, and, the gods knew, there was no point in dwelling on things that had already come to pass. But Singers were touched by the gods, and everyone knew that they were a little crazy-not in a bad way, mind you, but that they looked at the world differently, that the gods spoke through them. Perhaps she should have brought Raysia Grekov with her, for Raysia was a Singer, and also daughter of the etsana of the Grekov tribe. Then, perhaps, Raysia could translate for her just as Sonia would translate for these women, these actors, as they walked through camp.
But even an etsana's daughter and a cousin of Bakhtiian could not command a Singer, or even summon one. Sonia examined the six women and reminded herself that they were, after all, khaja like Tess, from the country called Erthe, across the seas. Perhaps, like Tess, their gods were distant and silent gods, not so prone to speak through them at awkward times or to give them fits and starts and odd moments of reticence. Certainly they were neither timid nor shy, unlike most khaja women she had come across, unlike the women of Jeds.
"How is it that you are called Tess's sister?" asked the golden-haired one in a friendly manner, the one to whom Anatoly Sakhalin had given a necklace. Diana, that was it.
"My mother adopted her into our tribe, as her daughter, when she first came to us. I'll take you to meet my children."
The one called Helen muttered something in their tongue to the handsome black-haired woman named Anahita.
"Oh, don't be rude, Helen," whispered Anahita in Rhuian, but with such emphasis that Sonia wondered if she had intended that the whisper be heard.