Her voice had a hollow unearthliness that made him nervous. He jerked his hand away from her hair. The wind picked up. Golden tassels danced and fluttered, spinning, along the awning. His sleeve quivered, like an animal shifting in sleep and then settling. "Why should you care, in any case," he asked, "that the jaran believe their gods are kind?"
She did not speak for a long while. At last, she lifted her head enough that he could see her pale cheeks and the dark slash of her mouth. The lantern light caught the glistening of tears on her cheeks, and tears welling in her eyes gave those eyes the brilliance of jewels. "Because they will learn otherwise," she whispered.
"But why-?" But he knew, to see her face, why she cared. She had lived long enough in Tadesh, perhaps even with her family, to learn their dances, the secret of which passed down only within their own race. Then, sold into slavery, she had sailed alone over the wide seas and come into a foreign country and been sold again, into the hands of a foreign master. Alone, at the mercy of her gods, it was no wonder he had never seen her smile. The only wonder was that he had never seen her cry before now. But she had never cared about him. He was only her master on this earth of clay. Probably she had never cared about anyone or anything in Vidiya; had not cared until she came to the jaran. Until she saw their women walking free. Until she was sent to the tent of a boy newly come to manhood,
"I will undertake to treat you more kindly," he said, wanting suddenly for her to think well of him. "It's too bad the jaran don't allow slaves in their camps, or I'd give you to Prince Mitya as a gift."
She gasped, harsh, as if he had hit her. Her hands moved frantically in a sign, warding him off. Or not him, perhaps, but the notice of her gods. She struck her forehead to the carpet once, twice, a third time, keening in a thin, muted voice, and then fell silent, and stilled.
Jiroannes stared at her, taken aback. "Go in to my tent," he said brusquely. "You'll attend me when I'm ready for bed."
With no expression on her face, she rose, bowed, and retreated into his tent. Jiroannes swore under his breath, flung the blanket off his legs, and stood up. Jat padded forward and eased it off the carpet, and briskly folded it up, and vanished back into the shadows. Jiroannes strode to the edge of the carpet. The tassels spun over his head, gold thread glinting and sparking in the lantern light. Beyond, the camp of the jaran army stretched on endlessly into the night. A few campfires burned, in his guards" encampment, along ambassador's row, and farther on, into the main camp. Stars glistened above, as unobtainable as Samae. He saw now that he would never be anything to her but her temporary master, to be suffered while she served out her penance, which could only end, for her, when she died. Perhaps he would give her to Mitya, or into Mitya's household. Perhaps he could explain the situation to Mother Sakhalin and ask her to advise him. Mitya would marry the Habakar princess, of course, but surely a man was allowed a secondary wife or a concubine. Surely some provision could be made for her. Yes, that was the right choice.
Determined, he spun and walked back across the carpet. The plush gave beneath his boots, and he had to step up, a little, inside his tent, where the carpets were piled five deep. A gauzy silk curtain screened off his bedchamber from the front portion of his tent, and as he crossed past his writing table, he saw a lantern shining through the fine silk, and movements silhouetted like the dancing of actors against the translucent fabric.
Like a play, he watched it unfold before him, at first in surprise and then in horror.
Samae knelt at the foot of his bed. Laissa, standing, extended her arm and offered the slave girl a cup. She said: "Drink this." Samae took the cup and drank it down without hesitation.
Jiroannes lunged forward and pushed past the beaded entrance into his bedchamber in time to see Samae drop the cup and clutch her throat, clawing at her neck. She gagged and gasped and choked, and her pale complexion faded to an obscene gray color. One hand groped out. She grasped at the drapery ringing the bed, but the fine silk fabric slipped through her fingers and she fell, retching, but all that emerged from her mouth was a hoarse, rattling sound.
She gasped and choked out three words. "He is safe." As she doubled over, the embroidered quilt caught on her bronze slave's bracelet and slid down off the bed, half over, half under her. She lay still. Her head lay cushioned on crumpled quilt. Against the fine white silk embroidered with red leopards and blue peacocks outlined in gold, her black hair made a stark line, like coarse, unraveled thread.
"She was stupid as well as ugly," said Laissa impassively. "You're better off without her."
Jiroannes could not make himself move. "What have you done?"
"Just so we understand each other, husband, I have poisoned her. I will supply you with concubines from now on, girls who are more suitable to our household. You will have to marry again, of course, but I expect mat you will include me in the negotiation for your secondary wives."
Samae's damask coat was the same peacock blue as the draperies that shrouded the bed. A lantern hung from each carved bed post, each one a cunningly wrought bronze bowl girdled with an elaborate screen through which the light shone.
"I could have you kilted for this!"
"This is commoner's behavior, these histrionics." Her voice was dispassionate. "I sought to provide you with a lesson. You will treat me with the respect I deserve. I ma this household now, and with my influence, you and I can attain eminence at court. I warned the jaran queen that you might prove difficult. Be assured that without my goodwill you won't leave this camp with the alliance your Great King so sorely desires. Why else would he send you so far?"
The truth was, Jiroannes was beginning to have doubts about Vidiya's army and its ability to hold off the jaran army, if things came to war. He suspected mat his future lay with the jaran, not with the Great King's court. But he wasn't going to let Laissa know that. "You're a fool, Laissa. I meant to give her-" He jerked his chin toward Samae's body. "-to the young prince."
"Find him another slave-girl, then. There's little enough to choose between mem."
The shadows stirred, down in the tunnel that linked his tent to hers. Jiroannes caught a glimpse, sliding away, of an observer: It was Lal. Maybe Lal had been trying to warn him all along. Maybe Lal had already thrown his lot in with her camp. She had stuffed the household full of retainers loyal to her; she controlled the kitchens; the guards" camp was by now probably riddled with her informants. She was a princess.
"I'll await you in my chambers," she said. "If you cared for the girl, and she for you, then I'm sorry for it. Had you gotten her with child, I'd have had to kill her anyway."
She eased her robes away from the corpse and turned and marched away down her tunnel, into her domain. She had sewn tiny bells around the hem of her veil and hood, perhaps in imitation of the jaran women, and they tinkled merrily as she vanished into the dark billowing hall. Lal hesitated, there in the shadows, and then followed her.
Jiroannes stared at the body. Samae had fallen on the cup-his last porcelain cup, shattered into bits under her shoulder. A hand lay limp on silk, stretched out as if tracing the golden line of a peacock's feathered glory.
Laissa was wrong, of course. Samae hadn't cared for him at all.
"He is safe." Samae had known it was poison. She had taken it willingly. The blessing for her, to go to Mitya, whom she cared for, would then become a curse to the prince; she had taken the poison to spare him.
It had been a long time since Jiroannes felt called upon to pray. He sank to his knees now and bent his chin to his chest and spread his hands on his thighs, palms open to God, and prayed a long reverent prayer of thanks to the Everlasting God, who judged His servants with more mercy than Samae's gods had judged her.