Immediately both men looked chastened. Into their silence, bells sang softly and Ursula emerged from the doctor's tent. Kirill jumped to his feet.
"Anna?"
"She'll live," said Ursula curtly. "Tess, Cara needs you-Ah, Diana. You'd be much better. Can you come in?"
"Can I-?" Kirill faltered. "May I see her?"
"No. Diana?"
"Yes," said Diana hurriedly. "I'll come." She nodded at the others and escaped inside.
In the inner chamber, Dr. Hierakis leaned over the foot of the scan-bed and stared at a pulsing graph configured on a flat screen. "Tess," she said without looking up, "I want to look over the other wounded. Can you sit by-?" She glanced up. "Oh, hello, Diana. If you can spare the time, I'd be pleased to have you sit here and monitor her."
"Of course I can spare the time!" Diana hesitated, not sure how awful a scene she would discover. She edged closer, but Anna simply appeared to be deeply asleep. A stick transparent cap covered her hair, and her mouth gaped slightly open. A sheet draped her; warmth emanated from the bed on which she lay.
"Oh, there're no gaping wounds to see." Dr. Hierakis's attention had snapped back to the screen, but as usual she seemed able to read unvoiced thoughts. "All right and tight, and no scars except the ones they'd expect to see."
"What happened to her?"
"Spear or sword thrust shattered her rib cage and she got a bone chip in her heart. For one. Died twice on me, she did, but she'll be fine."
Diana crept forward and covered Anna's limp hand with her own. "Why did you bring her in here? If she'd been a man, you'd have let her die, wouldn't you?"
The doctor glanced up, surprised. She blinked. Without its frame of black curls, her face showed stark and strong in the soft light. "Why I suppose I would have. Probably ten men less badly wounded than her have died already, while I've been in here."
"Not to mention the Habakar soldiers."
The doctor snorted. "Don't mention them, please. I have enough on my conscience as it is. Though the jaran healers are saving ten times the number of wounded they would have before I came. Still." She pushed off from the bed and pulled off her surgery cap. Though her hair was bound back in a twist at the nape of her neck, stray wisps had escaped here and there, giving her an untidy appearance. "Goddess. Maybe I'm biased. It just tore at me, though, when they brought her in that way. That, and Kirill's face."
"Doctor! You'd let a man's looks sway you?"
The doctor laughed. "I meant his fear and grief. But, yes, frankly, I would. Why not? There's little enough joy, and far too much pain, in a world like this not to appreciate the beauty that comes your way. He has a kind heart, and kind hearts count for a great deal in my book." She peeled off gloves so sheer that Diana hadn't known she was wearing them. "She'll be out for eight more hours at least. I've got her under deep recovery. I'd like to keep her with me for another two days, and then I think she can be moved back to her camp. How long can you stay here?"
Diana hesitated. "I don't know. Rehearsals… Can Kirill come in and just look at her, at least?"
"Not today." The doctor ran a cool towel over her face and then scrubbed her hands under the sonic decontaminant shelf. "I don't have time to disguise the equipment, and I understand there're mobs of wounded and more expected. I'll tell Kirill to see to his children." She swept out.
Diana stood in silence, holding onto Anna's cool hand. At the foot of the couch, projecting up, a faint three-dimensional image of Arina's body rotated slowly in the air. Angry red pulsed around the heart and scored a half-dozen other places around her midsection. She did not stir, only breathed. Diana found a stool and sat down to watch over her.
After a long while, bells chimed and Tess entered. "Do you want anything?" Tess asked, regarding Arina pensively. "I can send Aleksi to keep watch-oh, hell-no, I can't. It wouldn't be proper. There's no one but the actors, you, and Ursula, and myself."
"Can you send Owen a message?"
"Better yet, I'll go myself and ask him to release you for two days. Will that be-?"
"No." Diana winced, thinking of rehearsals, thinking of the parts she had yet to master. Quinn and Oriana had divided her old parts between them, leaving an odd combination of secondary roles for Anahita to fill in, but Anahita had collapsed once onstage already so she could no longer be relied on. But this was Arina. "Yes. But could you bring my slate back, so I can study my parts? And a change of clothes?"
"Yes."
"What happened?"
Tess explained about a sortie and how the trailing edge of the battle had slammed against their surveying party and then charged on.
"Dr. Hierakis said there were lots of casualties."
"Many," said Tess grimly. "And many more to come." She left.
Diana did not understand what Tess had meant by that final comment until three days later, when the hospital was full of jaran injured, many of them from the Veselov tribe. The Veselov jahar had been hit hard by the battle and the pursuit. The doctor designated a stretcher for Arina that morning, and Kirill arrived breathless to walk beside his wife as they carried her back to her own camp. Arina was conscious but pale and weak. Diana walked on Anna's other side.
They walked in silence for awhile. At last, Kirill spoke. "Arina, Bakhtiian is going to give me my own command."
Diana winced. Arina had already expressed her fear that Kirill would want to ride in the army; this wasn't going to help her get better.
But Arina got a sudden spark of light in her eyes. Her voice, when she spoke, was faint but clear. "Your own command? Not just to ride in the army?
"My own command. My own army. We talked about it. There's much reconnaissance yet to be done. There's the Golden Road that runs east to be scouted, and the lands southwest from here, past the city the khaja call Parkilnous." He had warmed to his topic, but now he faltered and looked down at his wife in concern.
In the distance, Diana heard a rhythmic thump and whistle, thump and whistle, over and over and over and going on endlessly.
"What is that noise?" Diana asked when it became apparent to her that Arina had nothing to say about Kirill's good fortune-which, of course, must seem the worst of fortunes to Arina.
Kirill answered without looking up from his wife's face. He held her hand in his withered one, but Diana could see that the hand looked fleshier and the arm actually had some substance to it now, as if by constant exercise he meant to restore it to its former strength. "It's a catapult."
"Oh. What are they doing? Lobbing stones into the city for practice?"
"No. Heads. For a lesson."
It took Diana a full thirty strides to realize that he wasn't joking. She turned her face away and shuddered. Of course, she thought of Anatoly, sent out to bring the king's head to Bakhtiian. How did you separate a head from its shoulders? How difficult was it? Did it cause a terrible mess? Was there a lot of blood, or only if the victim was still alive? Or if the blade wasn't sharp enough?
"Diana, are you well? You're looking pale."
She started. "No, Kirill, I'm fine. Just worried about Arina."
Arina, on her pallet, smiled weakly. "I'll be well," she said. Her voice was breathless and wheezy, but determined. "Bakhtiian has honored you, Kirill," she said finally.
"You're content?"
"Your own command? Yes, I'm content."
She lapsed into silence. But her words shocked Diana. It hadn't been fear for Kirill's life that had caused Anna to speak so before, but only fear that he'd be just another rider. But make him a general in his own right, and then all was well. Goddess, she would never understand these people.
The whole tribe came out to meet them as the little party entered the Veselov encampment. They kept a respectful distance, but they wanted a glimpse of their etsana. At times like this, Diana was wrenched away from her view of Anna as a sweet girlfriend about her own age and forced to realize that Anna had considerable authority and extremely high status. It reminded her of Mother Sakhalin's disappointment in the common woman-a mere entertainer with a pretty face-whom her grandson had married. Anatoly should have married someone important, someone like Galina Orzhekov or a foreign princess, someone who wanted him to ride in the army, who was proud that he commanded his own jahar and was sent by Bakhtiian to perform important and dangerous deeds. She put a hand to her face, touching the scar that branded her left cheek. What was it Sonia had said, that a woman and a man are married as long as the scar marks the woman's face, or the man lives? And yet, on Earth, it would be a simple procedure to erase the scar forever.