Elliott, Kate - Jaran 04 by Elliott Kate

Author:Elliott, Kate
Language: eng
Format: epub

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Under the Protection of the Gods

Vasha had not ridden in a wagon since he was a small child. With his wrists and ankles bound, he had no way of holding on, so he jolted along and now and again was slammed against the side of the wagon. Katerina sat against the backboard. The fetters on her wrists looked like massive iron

bracelets.

"Katya!" he whispered.

The bleak fury in her eyes troubled him. "We must kill him," she said in a low voice, accompanied by the steady tramp of Janos's infantry alongside the wagon, "to avenge the insult to our tribe."

"Sakhalin?"

"The khaja prince. Sakhalin will be brought before the tribes and given the sentence he deserves."

She spoke so calmly that Vasha could not bring himself to say: If his treason is ever discovered.

He glanced back, but the other captives were lost to view, fallen back among the infantry. Was his father even strong enough to stay mounted? He could see nothing, no sign of Kriye. Ahead, Princess Rusudani rode beside Prince Janos. He watched her, her blue scarf not quite concealing dark wisps of hair, her cloak fallen in folds over Misri's sleek back.

How could she have betrayed him like that? Except she hadn't betrayed him. She had done it to throw suspicion off Bakhtiian. He felt a stab of jealousy, remembering how she had looked at his father.

"Katya," he began, and stopped, realizing how foolish it was to even want to discuss such a thing, now that they were prisoners and his father, perhaps, dying. But Katya stared at nothing; she had not heard him.

So they jolted on. He dozed, woke, and found a way to brace himself in a corner so he wasn't jostled so badly. They stopped at midday, were given ale and bread and allowed to relieve themselves. Went on. At dusk the army halted, and Vasha watched from the wagon as four tents were thrown up. He saw Nikita and Mikhail and Stefan, under guard, hauling water in to one of the tents, but he did not see his father. After a while, guards hoisted them out of the wagon. Bound by chains, he hobbled along after Katya. It was by now too dark to see the other prisoners. He and Katya were put in a tent and left there, sitting on a rug.

"The prince will ransom us," said Katya suddenly.

"No. He must know he will get the blame for Bakhtiian's death. I think we are surety for his safety."

"It might be," she replied, musing, and Vasha was heartened by the life in her voice, "but even if Tess acknowledges you as Ilya's child, no one else truly does."

"But to the khaja I am," he said, and could not help but feel triumphant as he said it. To the khaja he mattered.

"That's true. Aunt Tess says that to the khaja in these parts, it is not what woman gave birth to a child but which man fathered it that matters. But how could you truly know?"

"Perhaps the women here do not take lovers once they are married.

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