His Conquering Sword Read Online Free Page B

eunuch, he might aspire to the honor of tending to Jiroannes’ wives and the other women in the women’s quarter. Not that Jiroannes had wives yet, but in time he intended to marry often and well.
    “Lal, treat her as you would any woman of high station in your care, and see what you can discover about who and what she is. I would be—most—grateful for such information.”
    Lal dropped to his knees and touched his forehead to the carpet. “Your eminence, you honor me with this responsibility.” Then he jumped to his feet and hurried off to his tasks.
    Definitely ambitious. With Syrannus and four guardsmen attending him, Jiroannes walked through camp. As usual, the guardsmen stayed behind at the first circle of jaran guards while jaran men escorted Jiroannes to the flat triangle of ground where Bakhtiian sat invested in all his authority on a carpeted and silk-hung dais. His chief wife and a blinded man sat on pillows to his right. To his left sat Mother Sakhalin, an older man dressed as a rider whom Jiroannes did not recognize, and, surprisingly, Mitya.
    Jiroannes was brought forward. He made his bows; he was recognized. As he backed up, he caught Mitya staring at him. The boy flushed and averted his gaze, looking ashamed and uncomfortable. His aunt Sonia came forward from her station to one side and spoke to the boy for a few moments in a low voice. Mitya straightened his shoulders and drew himself up. What was he doing up there? Was it possible that Mitya was one of Bakhtiian’s heirs? Was Bakhtiian showing him off, or showing him preference? Jiroannes realized that he had not the slightest idea of who might or might not succeed Bakhtiian if Bakhtiian died, and this irritated him. But at least Bakhtiian looked hale, if a little pale about the lips. If Bakhtiian had indeed been ill, he looked no worse for the experience. Other ambassadors came forward in their turn and were recognized and dismissed to the audience.
    The afternoon dragged on as one embassy after the next appeared to entreat Bakhtiian for clemency: Habakar city-elders and Habakar governors and one furtive-looking Habakar prince with two wives and nine children surrendered one by one, begging nothing more than that they and what they offered into Bakhtiian’s hands be spared the destruction being visited on Habakar lands by Bakhtiian’s ruthless general Yaroslav Sakhalin. They pledged undying loyalty to his person; the Habakar prince offered him his eldest daughter—who looked all of twelve years old—to wife.
    The offer prompted a long exchange between Bakhtiian and his chief wife which Jiroannes was too far away to follow. Partway through it, Mitya’s head jerked up as if his name had been mentioned, and the boy wrung his hands in his lap and gazed sidelong at the Habakar girl and then away.
    It was hot and dusty. The sun burned through the silk of Jiroannes’s emerald green blouse and baked his back. Syrannus fanned him, but the tiny breeze gave no relief. Sweat trickled down in rivulets and streams on Habakar faces, on other foreign faces, dampening backs and arms, staining the rich fabric of their clothing. Awnings shielded all of the jaran sitting or standing in attendance, except for the guards. Of the foreigners, only the four interpreters stood under cover.
    The Habakar prince knelt in the dirt with his wives and children huddled behind him and the girl in question standing on display to one side with her gaze cast down. They did not veil their women here, so her face was plain for all to see. Her clothes were breathtakingly rich, and she was laden with jewelry that Jiroannes would have been proud to see his own wife wear. How had her father managed to get his family through the lines with his wealth intact? The girl kept glancing to one side, not at her father, but at the boy who knelt at his father’s right hand, the eldest of the brood, who looked to be about Mitya’s age.
    Mother Sakhalin had joined in the discussion up on the dais,