What of the wounded? Where were they? Had Dr. Hierakis seen the performance or had she been too busy patching up torn bodies? And the poor city folk, those who were still alive, had no such medical recourse. They could only suffer, or die.
The dissonance felt so strong that it was physical, a stone in her stomach, bile in her throat. These jaran soldiers could avidly watch a performance and think nothing of the battle-or had it been a massacre? — fought only a day, an hour, before. And they could laugh.
One of the blond men made an expansive gesture and turned his head so far to the side that she could see him full in the face. She stopped stock-still, and first Quinn, then Dejhuti, bumped into her.
"Diana!"
She pushed past Hal and ran, heedless of Yomi calling after her, toward the three jaran men. "Anatoly!" she cried.
He halted and stared at her. A second later he averted his gaze. Even when she halted in front of him, he did not recognize her. He glanced at his companions, but they simply shrugged and looked bewildered.
"Anatoly! It's Diana."
He drew back. His double take was so theatrical that she almost laughed, except she could not, because he still did not understand who she was. Exasperated, she grabbed his right hand and pulled his fingers across her left cheek, smearing her makeup. He stared at the residue on his fingers, hesitated, and, more gently, rubbed more makeup from her face. He looked astounded. He was also drunk.
"Go," he said to his companions. "Get." They excused themselves unsteadily and stumbled off.
Diana looked back over her shoulder to the company, but Owen had already herded them on, acquiescing to her defection. She turned back to Anatoly. "When did you get back?" she demanded in Rhuian. "I didn't even know you were in camp, damn you!" He didn't look as if he had just been in a battle. His clothes were clean and his face newly shaved. She ran a hand along his jawline, but he captured it and drew it away.
"Not here," he said slowly in khush. "We go to our tent. I missed you, Diana." Then he grinned his wonderful, captivating grin, and gestured to himself, to his face, his clothes, the gleam of his saber hilt in the fading light. "This…" He considered, using his hands to emphasize his words. "My grandmother-she washed me. She told me to wash."
"Before you came to see me," said Diana, bemused, and repeated it haltingly in khush.
"You speak khush!" He looked delighted. He took her by the elbow and pulled her along with him, toward their camp. "You were-" The sentence was difficult for her to understand, except for the name of the character she had played. "I think-it is she, there, Mekhala's sister, talking to us."
"No. It was me."
"But it was not you. It was her." Clearly, he did not comprehend the distinction between acting a part and being a part. Diana chuckled; she had inadvertently achieved what actors in representational theater so valiantly strove for: her audience had believed her. Owen would be so pleased.
"I became her. I acted her. I don't-" She broke off, frustrated, but he merely smiled at her. His hand caressed her inner arm, and his breathing shifted, catching, and her breathing changed, too, getting unsteady, and it was still a long walk to their tent.
He sighed and slid his hand off her arm. "I missed you," he said again, with more fervor than before.
The faint perfume of smoke and burning tinged the air. "Anatoly. Do you… did you… fight?"
Anatoly's face lit up. He launched into a long explanation of something Bakhtiian had done-or said-and how that had led to something else and then the horses had done something and something about arrows and sabers; and all in all, Diana was relieved that she only understood a tenth of it.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Cara Hierakis surveyed her kingdom and was satisfied. Or as satisfied as she could be, given the circumstances. A wagon trundled in, bearing wounded, and three young women-hardly more than girls, really-looked over the wounded under the supervision of elderly Juli Danov and sent the injured men off in various directions to be cared for.
At the edge of the hospital encampment, next to her own tent, appeared a troop of about twenty riders. She recognized Bakhtiian easily from this distance: of all the riders, he alone wore little armor and no gold or other adornment. One city and three towns on this plateau had fallen to the jaran advance in the thirty days since they had arrived here, and the wealth looted from those cities was not hoarded but passed out into the army and the camp to adorn women and men and children. Bakhtiian swung down from his horse and walked across the camp toward her. At the same time, the implant embedded below her right ear pulsed; Charles was trying to reach her. Cara tied her wide-brimmed hat tighter at her chin and waited. The sun glared down. As spring slid into summer, it had grown hot here, hot in the day although still cool at night.
"Doctor." Bakhtiian halted before her, inclining his head with the respect and deference that Cara had not yet grown used to, not from him, at least. His personality was so strong and so forceful that these moments of modesty still surprised and amused her.
"Bakhtiian. Do you bring me news?"
He surveyed the encampment, the ordered busyness, the tents arrayed in neat rows and the pallets of wounded men convalescing in the sun. Cara had worried, at first, about finding enough attendants for the wounded beyond the healers and their apprentices. But for each wounded man brought in, a relative soon appeared to help nurse him.
"Are you sure, Doctor," asked Bakhtiian, "that there is nothing that I can offer you to show how grateful I am for this gift of healing you have brought us?''
"Give me? Whatever might you give me?"
His smile was tight and ironic. Cara saw at once that she had offended him. "Yes, I had wondered that, since we possess nothing, not even with the wealth of these khaja cities, that seems to interest you. Truly, Jeds is as far beyond us as we are beyond these sorry khaja farmers."
"Do you believe that?" Cara asked, startled. She could not read his expression.
"I stand helpless before you, Doctor. I have nothing you want, except for my wife, who was yours to begin with. While you-" He shrugged. "Sometimes I wonder if we have yet seen the tenth of your knowledge. I warn you, I want that knowledge."
"The better to conquer Jeds?"
His expression changed. Now he was amused. "I am not yet ready to contest with Charles Soerensen, Doctor. Be assured of that. Let me conquer this Habakar kingdom first, and consider what to do with the Great King of Vidiya, who is, they say, as powerful as the sun on her rising and as rich as the earth giving forth gold."
Cara could not help but smile. "Very polite of you, Bakhtiian, to give us fair warning."
He laughed and bowed to her as the courtiers did at Jeds. "My respect for you, Dr. Hierakis, is as boundless as the heavens."
"Your flattery is impressive as well. I thank you. Respect from you, Bakhtiian, is respect worth having. Where is Tess?"
"A city many days' ride from here, called Puranan, has sent an embassy to our camp. Tess and Josef Raevsky are speaking with them now, over the terms of surrender."
"You would give them terms?"
"Certainly. If they surrender, we will spare their lives."
"Ah." Cara examined the encampment again, wondering if Tess's influence might mitigate the suffering bound to be visited upon those poor innocent khaja who were unfortunate enough to live in the line of the jaran advance.
"I thought to ask, Doctor, if you would have time to escort me around your hospital?"
"No battles today? No fighting? We've gotten few enough casualties in today.''
"No, although there was a skirmish out to the northwest. Sakhalin's and Grekov's jahars are riding west now, to the city that lies at the base of the pass. This fortress controls the road that leads on into the heart of Habakar territory, and to the royal city.''