"Well, think of the stars as lands. Well, no. Think of the stars as lanterns, and around some of these bright lanterns worlds like this one orbit. Earth is such a world, like Rhui, with lands and seas on it. We sail in ships from world to world."
"Is there water out there? Vast seas? Is that what the ships sail on?"
"Think of it as an ocean of night. If I had time, I'd show you some programs, a stellar map. But I don't. I'm due at the hospital. Do you know how soon Bakhtiian intends to start the main assault?"
"Oh, yes. It was just decided this afternoon. Day after next, at dawn."
"Ah. Then we've much to prepare for. Well, Aleksi, keep an eye on Tess for me. Keep well." She hesitated and then, to his astonishment, she kissed him on either cheek, in the formal way, and left. He sat for a moment, just staring. She had left some of her warmth with him. Surely Dr. Hierakis had no reason to be nice to him except simple kindness. Unless by winning him to her side she hoped to win Tess back to the prince. He sighed, gazing at the lantern that wasn't a lantern-was that how the sun looked? — and wished mightily that he knew how to see these maps for himself, to understand what kind of ship might sail the ocean between the worlds.
Outside, twilight had lowered down over camp. At last, he strolled back to the Orzhekov encampment, wondering what kind of a woman Sonia would find for him to marry.
The assault began as the first hint of light paled the eastern horizon. Aleksi stood beside Tess on the ramparts of the outer wall and watched as, far away along the inner walls, flaming arrows arched into Karkand. He watched as the artillery flung trails of fire and sparks over the walls. As the sun breached the horizon, the siege towers rumbled forward and battering rams rolled into place, their crews sheltered by stiff screens of hide.
"Oh, God." Tess sank into the chair that Mitya, who now stood up to the left in the height of a watchtower, had carried up onto the wall for her. Since the parapets on the outer walls faced outward, to protect the suburbs from an outside attack, these walls served as a good vantage point from which to observe the jaran attack on the inner city.
"Tess, you don't need to watch," said Aleksi. "You can go back to camp."
"No." She looked grim. "I need to watch. I won't turn my eyes away from this." She folded her hands over her abdomen, laced her fingers together, and an instant later unlaced them and stood up again. "Why couldn't you people just have stayed out on the plains where you belong? Why did I have to fall in love with Him, damn it? Why couldn't I have married a nice sweet jaran man like Kirill?"
"Couldn't you have married Kirill?"
"I'm not talking to you!" She shook her head. "I'm sorry, Aleksi. I just don't understand why we must always be blessed and cursed together."
"But if the gods only cursed us, then we would hate them. And if they only blessed us, then-well, then we'd care nothing for their laws because we'd respect nothing but our own pleasure."
She sank back into the chair. "Oof. Oh, I hate this." She took in a deep breath and let it out slowly, rubbing her belly. "It was meant to be a rhetorical question, but I suppose that answers it as well as anything does."
"And that is why you are blessed and cursed? Are there no wars on Earth?"
"There are no longer wars like this. That's something we learned at long last to stop. But Charles-well, in the end, what he's planning may well lead to the same kind of thing. Who am I to judge what I see here? "More nor less to others paying/Than by self offenses weighing." So I watch, though it hurts. But I refuse just to look the other way, knowing what I married into."
"Hurts?"
"All I can think of is all the people who are going to die, and the pain they'll suffer."
"Oh." Aleksi crouched down beside her chair. She rested a hand on his hair, and he leaned against her, melting into this sign of her affection.
In the distance, the first line of siege towers jolted into the walls. They sat too far away to see anything but a tiny blur of movement; dust rose-or was that the blur of arrows? — and smoke streamed up into the clear morning sky. To Aleksi's ears, the attack sounded like the distant roar of a cataract. Above, on the battlements, Mitya stared toward the conflagration. A small gold banner whipped in the wind above his head, snapping rhythmically. Next to him, his dark shadow, stood Vasha, the boy's gold shirt like an echo of the banner. Katerina and Galina had also come to watch, but the rest of the children had stayed with the camp.
"Well," added Aleksi after a while, "the gods send us to our fate. They sent you to Bakhtiian, after all."
She blanched and removed her hand.
"Tess? Are you well?" he demanded, alarmed.
"It's not that. It's true, what you say. We might as well have been sent by the gods to aid Bakhtiian in his victories. Look at the modifications David made to the catapults, changing them from the lever to the counterpoise system. Look at Cara's hospital. Gods, look at Ursula, advising him with all of her textbook knowledge."
"What is textbook? Has she fought in such wars before? Certainly she knows a great deal, and Bakhtiian listens to her advice."
"She's only studied war before now, but still, the breadth of her knowledge… it's inevitable that her knowledge, given to him, alters the balance of power."
"But then if it's true that the gods favor Bakhtiian, why should we be surprised that the jaran are always victorious?"
She only shook her head, but as much as if she agreed with his comment as disagreed. She stood up again and paced down the length of the wall toward the tower, turned, and returned to Aleksi. Their escort ranged out around the base of the tower: Anatoly Sakhalin's jahar, resplendent in their armor and red silk surcoats, lances gleaming in the first light of the sun. Behind the jahar lay fields and the jaran camp; between them and the inner walls stretched the now deserted suburbs, emptied out by the army.
"Aleksi, go ride to see him."
"To see who?"
"Ilya. I'm just restless. I just-feel strange; I'm afraid that something bad might happen to him today. Just go and make sure that he's well and then come back to me."
She needed him. Heartened, and yet disturbed by her mood, Aleksi examined her. Finally he rested a hand on her shoulder. "Very well. I'll go. Shall I send someone up to sit with you?"
"Mitya and the girls are close by. Go on." She smiled at him, grateful, and he felt content.
He left. Below, he mounted, reported to Sakhalin, and rode out. He circled the outermost walls, crossing a stretch of fields and bypassing a straggle of refugees thrown out of the suburbs, passed back into the outer city, and came at last to a rise overlooking the great main gates of the inner city. Here, Bakhtiian had stationed himself and his jahar. His gold banner lifted in the wind, stirring gently, and every rider's spear bore a pennon of gold silk. No one spoke here; they only watched, and the pennants fluttered and snapped in the breeze. These ranks of riders wore gold and red surcoats, richly embroidered; their burnished helmets bore a tuft of horsetail, and the harness of their gray horses was ornamented with tassels and gold braid.
At the height of the rise, two riders sat side by side looking out of place in the midst of such panoply because they were so plainly outfitted. Bakhtiian wore lamellar armor covered with a plain red surcoat, and his stallion was distinguished only by the fact that it was the only black in the troop. He sat with his helmet tucked under one arm and turned his head to address a comment to Charles Soerensen, who wore a heavy quilted coat, belted at the waist, and no other armor. They might have been any two kings, allied in conquest, watching over their latest victory.
As Aleksi rode up to them, he considered what Tess had said. Perhaps they were. Although Charles Soerensen had no army here, and apparently no great army in his city of Jeds, perhaps he commanded stronger forces than soldiers.