His Conquering Sword Read Online Free PDF Page B

etsana, of course, or an etsana’s daughter. They mean him to stay with the camp. They’re going to send both the sister and the brother out to the plains for a few years and then decide. Do you think I should marry her?”
    “I’m flattered that you desire my opinion, Mitya,” said Jiroannes, thrilled, that the boy had come to him in such a confiding mood.
    “But you’re not jaran. You must think about these things differently than we do.”
    “A prince rarely marries to suit himself. Is that not also so with the jaran?”
    “My cousin married to suit himself,” muttered Mitya.
    “Your cousin? Oh, you mean Bakhtiian. But he married the sister of the Prince of Jeds. That was surely a wise match for him to make.”
    Mitya laughed. “You don’t know Ilya at all. That isn’t why he married her.”
    Well, Mitya was still young, and Jiroannes too delighted by his presence here to want to ruin the mood by disabusing the boy of his fantastical notions about Bakhtiian. Of course a king like Bakhtiian married where he found the most benefit for himself and his ambitions. Certainly for this upstart barbarian to marry the sister of the Prince of Jeds was a tactical victory of the highest order.
    “Do you want to marry the girl?” Jiroannes asked instead.
    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.