Mitya shrugged, "I don't know. I want to please Ilya. I want to do my duty to the jaran. He told me that until Nadine has a child, I'm his heir." He made a face of comical relief. "Gods, I'm happy Dina got married. I don't think I want to inherit, or at least, not everything."
"You don't want to be Bakhtiian in your turn?" Jiroannes was astonished.
"Of course I will do what Ilya asks of me." Lal came by and refilled their cups with steaming hot tea, fresh-brewed and piquant. "But because my mother will become etsana in time, I never thought as a boy to dream about becoming dyan."
"Now you must think again."
"Yes," replied Mitya, seeming as struck by Jiroannes's simple comment as if it were the most profound revelation. He lapsed into a silence which Jiroannes nourished with a companionable silence of his own.
"You have many khaja women in your camp now," said Mitya finally.
"Yes. My guardsmen have-married them."
"Mitya considered this statement. "Do they have wives at home as well, then?"
"Well. Yes. Some of them do. Not all."
"Ah." Mitya lapsed into silence again. Lal brought more tea. It was dark by now. A cool breeze sprang up, rustling through the dagged fringe of the awning. The moon was up and near full, and its light spread a soft glow over the endless sprawl of tents. The boy looked up at Jiroannes and down again as swiftly. "What does it mean," he asked softly, "when they say Samae is a slave?" He pronounced the Rhuian word awkwardly.
Jiroannes flushed, glad of the covering darkness. "I don't know your language well enough to explain it. Perhaps Bakhtiian's khaja wife can."
"She did. Is what she said true?"
Jiroannes wondered if he had been cursed in a former life. "Perhaps. Probably."
"But that's barbaric," said Mitya. "Only savages would hold to such a custom."
"There are strict laws-" Jiroannes began.
"But if a woman or man of the jaran violates the gods" laws, then they are put to death. That is just."
"Don't you have other laws as well? That a man or woman might break?"
"Yes." Mitya frowned. "It's true that Vera Veselov betrayed the sanctity of her tribe and was cast down from her high position to act as a servant to the Telyegin family, for so long as she may live. Although now she's riding with the army, and is a good commander, they say. But still-"
"A slave is a servant," said Jiroannes, grasping at this explanation. He so desperately did not want Mitya to leave with a disgust of him. "Many people in my country become slaves because they have violated our laws."
Mitya appeared mollified. "That's not so different." He rose and handed the delicate cup carefully back to Lal. "I must go. Perhaps-I may visit another time?"
Jiroannes leapt to his feet and escorted Mitya out to the edge of the encampment. "Assuredly. I would welcome it." And followed with other effusions, until the boy took his leave and walked out into the night, away into the jaran camp. Jiroannes returned to his chair and sank down into it with a sigh of contentment. Perhaps there was hope for this friendship after all.
"Eminence." Lal touched his head to the carpet and waited for Jiroannes to notice him.
"You may speak."
"Eminence, I beg your pardon for this indecent request, but the girl insisted I bring it to your attention."
"The girl?" He thought for an instant the Habakar captive had importuned Lal. "Did you discover anything more about her?"
Lal was quick. "About the Javani? Nothing, eminence, except that it is a title, not her name. It is Samae who demanded I ask of you if you wish her to go to the young prince tonight."
The young prince. Jiroannes could not for an instant imagine what Samae meant by this puzzling request. Then, of course, he knew exactly what she meant. The damned whore wanted to go to Mitya. In the four years he had owned her, she had never once come to him without being commanded to. Never. And now she begged for permission-no, for an order-to go to a damned barbarian. He felt a red rage building in him. How dare she make her first request of him now, she who had refused her freedom in order to stay his slave, and make it this? She mocked him. She preferred a half-grown boy to him, who had proven his manhood many times over, with her, with all his concubines, with the quickness of his intellect in the palace school, with his prowess on the hunt and even, once, in battle.
"Tell Samae that the women who run this camp have decreed that she may do what she wishes," he snarled. He got to his feet in one sharp movement and stalked over to the entrance to his tent. "Send the Javani to me."
Lal bowed with his hands crossed over his chest and scurried away. Jiroannes thrust the curtained entrance aside and strode into the seclusion of his tent. There he paced up and down, up and down, along the thick carpets that cushioned the interior. When the Javani came at last, she was still afraid of him, but her fear only whetted his appetite.
CHAPTER FOUR
Depression hung over the Company's camp like a miasmal fog. Each day they traveled with the wagon train farther on through the devastated Habakar lands. Each evening Owen drove them through rehearsals, rearranging parts to cover for Hyacinth's absence, doubling lines, changing bits of stage direction, but there was no spark. Each day took them that much farther from the place where Hyacinth had left them and that much farther from any hope of seeing Hyacinth alive again.
Gwyn flung a tangle of ropes and stakes down onto the ground in disgust. "Who packed these?" he demanded of Diana as she unrolled the Company tent.
She glanced incuriously at the shapeless mass. "Phillippe."
Gwyn shook his head, frowning. "At least he remains a professional with his music."
"Oh, he'd never be that sloppy with music, Gwyn. You know that. There is a point beyond which one can't go, as an artist." She managed to draw a smile from him, which was astonishing, considering the mood everyone had been in since Hyacinth had fled over twenty days ago.
"Anahita is sick again." He crouched and began the laborious task of unraveling the tangled skein. "She spent all day throwing up over the side of the wagon. Yomi took her to see Dr. Hierakis. Diana." Hearing an odd note in his voice, she looked up at him. His gaze measured her. "You ought to ask Owen if you can take over the leading roles."
"But-"
"Don't protest that you don't want them."
"Of course I want them! But-"
"But-?"
"I'm too young. I'm not experienced enough."
"You're still young to the craft, it's true, but you're good enough, and you have more than enough room to grow. You have to make the leap. Otherwise you'll never be anything but a supporting player. Is that what you want?"
She dropped her eyes away from his gaze, unwilling to let him see the extent of the sheer driven ambition in them. "No. You know it isn't."
"That's why you must take advantage when the opportunity presents itself."
"But it just seems-unethical, somehow."
"This isn't politics, Diana, it's art."
"Does that mean that simple standards of human decency don't count for us, because we're artists? That we're beyond ethical considerations because art is a higher form of discourse? I don't think so. Quite the reverse, I'd say."
He laughed. "That's not what I meant. I meant that in politics there may be times when it's expedient to leave someone in power who's become incompetent, because in a web like that, there are ways to circumvent the damage that person might do. But not on stage. Her work is suffering."
It was true. Anahita's work was suffering. Diana felt it impolite, as a junior member, to agree with Gwyn.
Gwyn added, "And that impacts on all of our work."
"But to be fair, Gwyn, it's not just her. We're all suffering. I never imagined what a catastrophe it would be to lose an actor like this. Not to mention what a catastrophe it must be for Hyacinth, if he's even still alive."