Jaran

CHAPTER TEN

A cloud, trailing up from the horizon, hid the moon. She could not see his face, only the shadowed opacity of his form and a slash of darkness swinging out from his hip-his saber. Behind him, remote shapes moved by the far gleam of campfire. Tess sat down so precipitously that he almost dived for her, checking his movement just in time to make him seem high-strung and timorous.

"What do you want?" she demanded, too angry at herself, at the Chapalii, at him for startling her, for following her, to care how her words sounded now. Leave diplomacy to Charles.

He sank down beside her. "I don't understand you," he said, more conversational than accusing. "How can you claim that you are not a spy, and then be caught by the khepelli in the act of spying on them?"

The absurdity of the situation struck her suddenly, sitting here, brushed by the soft night breeze, being cross-examined by the light of the stars and the moon. She chuckled. He said nothing. "Oh, all right," she said, tired of trying to play this game. "I was spying on them, but I'm not a spy. "

"I fail to see how you can make that distinction."

"Intent. I really did get lost. I really was on my way to Jeds. I really was surprised to find the khepelli with you."

"You were surprised that khepelli trade on these coasts, that we knew their name. I have reason to believe that you didn't even know how far it was to Jeds, or how to get there, and I must admit that your real ignorance inclined me to believe your professed ignorance."

"Thank you. May I go now?"

He shifted, slightly, but he did not rise. "You know very well that because you are a woman, you may go any time you like. But as leader of this jahar, I will simply find another time and another place to continue this conversation. I have men who are beholden to me, and whom I have put in danger because of their loyalty to myself and my plans. If you are a danger to the jaran, then I promise you that I will find out."

"What danger could I be?"

"If your brother is a merchant powerful enough to be making treaties with the khepelli over lands so distant from his home and theirs, then I want to know what he intends."

"What about what they intend? The khepelli?"

The clouds, drifting, let moonlight filter out into the night again. Bakhtiian had a slight smile on his face, but Tess did not find the expression reassuring.

"Be assured that I keep my eye on the khepelli as well. When this expedition was first offered me, I did not take it, because I had not yet peace enough within the jaran to risk such a long journey.''

"What do you mean, when the expedition was first offered you?"

"Five years past, it was offered."

"Five years past! How long have the khepelli been trading on that coast?"

"You don't know?"

"I-" She stopped and clamped her mouth shut, realizing that to say anything now would be to risk too much. The wind, shifting, brought the faint, bittersweet perfume of ulyan.

"Cousin, you know too much about some things, and too little about others. I find that puzzling."

Tess wanted nothing more than to end this whole conversation now, because she knew that she was losing whatever skirmish was being fought here. But to go now was to acknowledge the rout. She would never do that. "Bakhtiian, you ought not to talk about people whose educations have been unusual."

He laughed. "You're trying to distract me. It's a good technique. Very well, I'll change the subject. I've heard stories that the khepelli control great powers, especially those like Ishii, who are priests. Do you believe they do?"

"No, I don't."

"Is it true?"

He had trapped her, and Tess cursed herself inwardly for letting him use language against her, of all people, who had been studying language all her life. But not studying war. And she knew she had no choice but to lie outright.

"Ah," said Bakhtiian, for whom her silence had been answer enough. "The dawn." He tilted his head, as if this new angle might allow him to understand her. "There are other stories, about a people who lived here long, long ago, who were driven away by war or by sickness or by drought, and fled under the hills, never to be seen again. Zayinu, the ancient ones. Why do the khepelli bow to you?"

Her heart skipped a beat. She swallowed her exclamation. He was a master at this game; she was far outmatched. "I must go." She stood hastily, choosing rout over surrender.

But he had stood. Before she could move away, he closed one hand around her right wrist and held her, not too tightly but firmly. "Oh, no," he said, the more powerful for his softness. "I will know this."

"Damn you. My brother is the Prince of Jeds."

Bakhtiian swore softly. "The Prince of Jeds. By the gods, I have seen him. You do not look alike. Why should I believe you?''

"Oh, for God's sake," she snapped, "because it is true."

"I rather think it is." He let her go. "Forgive me, I do not mean this as an insult, but you are not very skilled at dissembling."

"How can you be so sure?"

"You can't deceive me."

"Can anyone deceive you, Bakhtiian?"

He smiled softly. "I can't know that, can I?" In the distance, the campfire was doused suddenly, its broad glow shrinking to a few separate points of red.

"May I go now?" she asked sarcastically.

"Cousin, you don't need to ask my permission. Now, if you will excuse me." He gave her a curt, mocking bow and strode out into the darkness in the direction of the zhapolaya. For a vicious moment, Tess hoped one of the Chapalii would kill him as an intruder, but Bakhtiian would never be so clumsy as to let himself be seen, much less caught.

Unlike me. She emptied her lungs in a long sigh. A cool wind sprang up, and she shivered and rubbed at her eyes.

God, she was tired. How could the Chapalii have built a transmitter in the middle of this wilderness? Been trading here for at least five years, unnoticed, unseen? Yet on a primitive planet much could go undetected from what limited surveillance Charles could use, by his own regulations. Undoubtedly the unscheduled and illegal shuttle landing that had left her stranded had also been shielded from satellite surveillance. But if Charles was disseminating Newton and Aristotle, why should he shrink from breaking other regulations, as long as no one else knew about it? What if he knew the Chapalii were here, and was playing his own game with them in turn? What if Bakhtiian discovered too much?

"Lord, Tess," she muttered to herself, "there's nothing you can do about it now. Go to bed."***

On a windswept island in the archipelago that lies off the coast from Jeds, a technician sat at her console and monitored a conversation. She was deft. Filter here, delay there, a tweak in the right place, and no one could overhear, not even the Chapalii. Especially not the Chapalii. Luckily, those conversing had agreed with her to dispense with holo. She was not sure she could cover a holo transmission. Over such a vast distance, from a back room in the palace in Jeds to the wide chamber that Charles Soerensen used as his office on Odys, the technician had advised that a simple voice transmission, analog, with its delays and its static, might be so primitive that the Chapalii would not notice it at all. She watched three screens simultaneously, tweaked the volume, and let the conversation flow past her.

"No," a woman was saying-that was Dr. Hierakis, "Tess is not here. I received no message. Nothing. The scheduled shuttle came as usual, though not all the equipment I expected arrived on that flight."

They waited long minutes; then the reply: "Anything else?" That was Soerensen.

From the same pickup as the doctor came Marco Burckhardt's voice. "There was one discrepancy. Karima?"

The technician clicked her tongue against the roof of her mouth, activating her voice pickup. With her left hand, she pulled up a new screen, data, and a graph. "I ran back every slightest bit of tape from the Oshaki's visit, from the moment it came into orbit until it left again. We do have a trace of the cargo shuttle leaving the Oshaki, and the record of its landing on the island. Considerably more time elapsed from leaving the ship until landing than was necessary for the distance traveled, and there were no atmospheric conditions to warrant the delay.''

A long delay. "Any ideas?"

"No trace." Karima stared at the data from the shuttle's flight. "As well as I could trace the flight pattern, it conformed to the default route, although given where it detached from the Oshaki, one could model any number of north-continent landing points given their usual flight patterns."

"And they are so damned efficient," said Dr. Hierakis. "Always the shortest line between two points. It's the national religion, I think. It must have been deliberate."

Delay. "Karima, any indications of unauthorized landing? Has the station picked up any planetside communications?"

"None. Off here." She clicked off her pickup and concentrated on scrambling.

"Which doesn't say a hell of a lot," said Marco.

"Thank you, Karima. I'll want a model of the most likely interim landing points if the shuttle did indeed make an unauthorized landing. It's true, we've suspected Chapalii incursions in the past but never been able to prove anything. Damned chameleons. Marco, you were talking before about taking ship northward, up the north coast and into the inland sea.''

"Yes. I haven't explored that way yet."

"Make an itinerary that can overlap with points on Karima's model. Then hold tight. I'll be back to you. Cara, wasn't it the Keinaba trading consortium that the medical establishment first worked with on the aging breakthrough?"

"Yes, in fact, it was. Why do you mention that?"

Marco made some noise, but not speech.

"I've got a cat and mouse up here. Echido is clearly acting as emissary for his family, but he's being very circumspect. They want something, something very delicate."

"Not just transport rights to Tau?" Marco asked.

"Something much deeper. Something linked all the way back to Chapal, and possibly to the emperor himself."

"Do you want me to come back?" asked Marco.

"Not yet. Echido speaks Anglais."

Marco whistled.

Dr. Hierakis said, "Damned right they want something badly if he's bothered to learn human talk."

Even Karima paused for an instant in her scrambling, astounded by the thought of a Chapalii not of the serving ranks speaking Anglais.

"Keep searching. No further transmissions until I get word from Suzanne. Soerensen off."

Karima spread a burst of static over the Odys line and shut it down. "What do you think, Marco?" asked Dr. Hierakis, and then Karima shut down the Jeds line as well and went back to the trace of the cargo shuttle, running the pattern again and again.

Crawling out of her tent in the morning, Tess was first distracted by the smell of food cooking, and then by the acute fear that everyone knew about her and Fedya. But she heard no whispered comments. Fedya passed her as she saddled her remount, but he merely smiled quickly and went on. Beyond, the short grass on the sacred hill shone white under the early sun. The standing stone hulked black against the pale blue of the morning sky. If Bakhtiian had seen anything after leaving her the night before, he showed no sign of it now, eating his stew with relish and chatting and laughing with Niko and Josef and Tasha. The Chapalii stewards rolled up and folded their tents under Rakii's supervision. Ishii reclined on the ground while Garii wrote laboriously with a stylus to Ishii's dictation. She was too far away to hear what they were saying, and this morning she could not summon up the stubbornness to break in on their business.

"Good morning, Tess." Yuri led his saddled horse up to her. "Have you eaten already?"

"Yuri." She folded her arms, considering him, as she recalled what Bakhtiian had said the night before. Yuri raised his eyebrows questioningly. ' 'Have you ever repeated things I've said to you to Bakhtiian?"

Yuri flushed, but he did not look away from her. "The welfare of the jaran must be my first consideration. Surely you understand that.''

"But if you told him things I said in confidence, things I might otherwise not have said-"

"Gods! You don't think I've repeated anything… intimate that you said to me? Violated a sister's confidence!" He looked disgusted. "You'd think that of me?"

She laughed, and Yuri laughed with her. His flush faded. "I'm sorry. That was stupid of me. Of course you didn't."

"It's good to be stupid now and again. It isn't healthy to be right all the time. That's why I worry about Ilya."

"Easy enough. We'll have a contest to see who can catch him out first."

"What will be the prize?"

"Satisfaction, Yuri. Pure satisfaction."

"Tess! You're wicked!"

"No, merely practical. He sets himself too high, our Bakhtiian." And then, because she had been thinking about it all morning, because she didn't want anyone to know but had to tell someone, she hesitated. "There's something else. A secret." She crouched down. Following her lead, he knelt beside her, so close their sleeves and thighs brushed. The horses grazed placidly behind them. He put his hand to her knee. "About Fedya." Her voice slipped to a murmur.

"Tess! You didn't. You did! Hah!"

"Shh! Yuri!"

He lifted one hand to yank playfully at her braid. "By the gods, we'll make you jaran yet. Sonia said we would."

"Did she? When was this?"

An approaching horse interrupted them. "We are leaving," said Bakhtiian, far above them, his face and hair framed by the sky. Tess and Yuri stood hastily, brushing off their clothing. They exchanged furtive looks, stifled giggles, and Tess went with Bakhtiian.

Much later, they paused to water the horses.

"They had a light," said Bakhtiian. "Neither a torch or a candle. Can you explain this?"

"No," said Tess truthfully, meeting his gaze.

"I think they were worshiping the stone, or its god. I couldn't make out their rituals. It was too dark." An animal rustled through the grass. "I wouldn't care to be a god confined in a rock. Do you know if that is what they worship?"

"I don't know. But I do know that people worship many strange things in many strange ways. There is a people in my land-"

"In Jeds?"

"No, in the land overseas where I studied. They worship their god by abstaining from all earthly pleasures."

"All of them?" Bakhtiian looked like a boy being told a tale he did not believe but could not disbelieve. "Wouldn't they starve, or die of thirst?"

Tess looked away to hide her smile. "They eat and drink enough to stay alive, of course."

"Of course. Undoubtedly." He looked at her, eyes widening. Tess grinned. "You don't mean to say they don't-By the gods, what insanity."

"No." She blinked, straight-faced. "They are filled with the passion of God's divinity."

"But how tedious." They both laughed and, quite suddenly, he blushed and looked away from her. They rode on, but later he demanded that she explain how such a religion could exist after one generation.

Two days and four days and six and eight, and then, to vary it, she counted in threes: three days and six days and nine and twelve. It grew warmer and windy. The Chapalii remained polite, and she left them alone, for the moment. They set up their tents every night and packed them up at dawn, all as they had done before, but now the stewards occasionally unbent so far as to gamble with the riders: they taught each other a few simple games and played for ridiculous stakes-beads, needles, necklaces, trinkets. Tess could not see that one or the other ever had the advantage. However technologically superior the Chapalii might be, in these gambling games wit and luck were all that counted. Niko learned how to say 'good morning' and 'good evening' and 'the weather is fine today' in formal Chapalii, but when Garii requested that he be allowed to give Sibirin further lessons, Ishii refused, just as he refused when Garii asked to be allowed to scout with Bakhtiian and Tess.

And all the Chapalii came to listen when, for ten evenings running, Fedya sang for them the long epic tale of the first dyan Yuri Sakhalin and his feud with the demons of the hills and his love for the sun's daughter.

Tess now spoke khush with little hesitation. To relieve the monotony, Kirill pretended to be in love with her, which made everyone laugh; even the Chapalii could appreciate the humor of frustrated passion. Tess marveled that no one suspected her and Fedya. Yuri said simply, "Why should they look? Who would care, anyway?''

Bakhtiian told her more ancient stories: the coming of the people to the plains; the birth of the moon and the sun and the clouds and the wind. How mother sun and father wind gave birth to daughter earth and brother sky, to sister tent and son river. How aunt cloud and uncle moon gave birth to cousin grass and cousin rain. And they discussed Newton's universal theory of gravitation.

Tess wondered what Charles thought he was doing. She remembered his last visit to Earth, five years ago-and wasn't it five years ago that Bakhtiian claimed to have first met the Chapalii? She had been eighteen, Charles fifty-eight, looking no older than Bakhtiian did now. She took him to her favorite outdoor cafe"; it was summer in Prague, hot, but he drank coffee so she did as well, though she had never liked its bitter taste, though she wanted something cool. He sat across from her at the little cafe table, well-groomed, neatly dressed. She tended toward a diffident, sloppy casualness, and she sat warily, nervous, wondering if anyone would recognize them, dreading that always. Charles simply held his cup and mused, looking supremely relaxed. Though she was his only sister, though her first memory was of him taking her for a flitter ride, still she could never read past his surface, know his thoughts, tell his fears or his doubts, if indeed he had any. He spoke that day of his work in the Delta Pavonis system, of his efforts to keep Rhui preserved.

"I've seen records of too many civilizations ruined because a stronger, more forceful civilization swept in and destroyed them. Sometimes inadvertently. Sometimes on purpose. It's easy enough for us to say that the Rhuian natives are primitive, that it is our duty to raise them up to our level. But without respect for what they are, we will destroy them. That's the Chapaliian way, the paternalistic way they treat all of their client states. Like us." His voice was calm and serious, never intense or passionate, but always forceful. "When the Chapalii modernized Odys, they completely wiped out the old indigenous culture. Accidentally, of course. A by-product of civilization. All of the indigenes died."

"Aren't there some onasiu left?" she asked, eager to show off her knowledge.

"In arcologies. That doesn't count."

"No. No, of course not." She flushed and took a sip of the now lukewarm coffee to cover it.

"I won't let that happen to Rhui. Odys can remain my proper ducal capital, as the Office of Protocol once reminded me was necessary to a duke-" His grin was ironic. "-of my station." His sand-colored beard, trimmed almost to a point at the chin, emphasized the hollows of his cheeks. "How can I complain?"

"You're still alive," Tess said, because she knew he liked her sardonic sense of humor.

He laughed. "Yes, and in such a beautiful, modern, expensive place. But I wonder what Odysian mythology was like. They had no moon. Imagine that. Sun for god, and only the light of the stars at night." If one looked, this close, when he sat this still and in the glaring light of the summer sun, one could see faint lines at the corners of his gray-blue eyes. "How I wonder."

Then, of course, a journalist had found them, and they had been forced to retreat from such a public stage. Or had that been the time the proprietor had hidden them in the kitchens and, when the media had been sent away on a false trail, ensconced them merrily at his tables once again? "Whatever I can do for the next rebellion, for the long haul," the proprietor had said, and he was only half joking.

"But however much I loved the learning there," Bakhtiian was saying, "I never thought to stay there."

"To stay-in Jeds?" Tess stammered, caught out by her thoughts, unsure of what Bakhtiian had been saying before, of where this conversation had come from and where it was leading. They rode slowly, following the curve of the hills.

"There was too much to be done on the plains."

"With the jaran?"

"A people poor in reputation, unknown. How strange that I never knew that until I went so far away, and the people whom I met on my travels did not know who I was or from whence I came. Not a soul knew of the jaran." Watching him as he stared raptly out at the far horizon, at the sweep of grass and the soft curve of the land, Tess realized that however much Bakhtiian was like Charles in being a leader, he was utterly unlike him. Where Charles concealed his strength and his power, working quietly and in tiny steps, Bakhtiian radiated his. Where Charles masked his feelings so completely that no one, not even his sister, could read him, Bakhtiian projected all of his; even when you could not tell what he was thinking, you knew it was because he wanted you not to be able to tell what he was thinking.

"But they will know," Bakhtiian said at last, slowly, imbuing each word with potency. "Soon we will be spoken of even in Jeds." He glanced at her, gauging her reaction. "We are only now coming into our time of greatness."

"Measured against-?" It came out before she thought, but of course he did not-could not-understand her meaning: that measured against the vast reach of the Chapalii Empire, against the slow progress of Charles's plans, his campaign was trivial.

"How does one measure the good against the bad? My sister and her child died because of me. My parents died because of me. I know well enough that more of my people will die."

Tess gazed at the horizon of green grass and blue sky, so like Earth and yet so unlike, a subtle shifting of color and shade. She felt abashed. Of course his campaign was not trivial, not to him. Not to the people who would die.

"But still you persist," she said at last, thinking of Charles.

"Still."

They rode on in silence.

That night at campfire Fedya persuaded Bahktiian to sing. He was slightly embarrassed but not ill at ease. He sang without accompaniment. He had a clear baritone and he sang a man's song: days of riding, little rest, the hope of a woman's smile. He knew what suited his voice and kept to it. When he finished, he grinned and began another song. The men chuckled. This was a maiden's song, and a man of the jaran who sang a maiden's song did it to mock women, maidens in particular. He sang it well. Men laughed, wiping at their eyes. Tess hid her grin, glad she sat in the shadow.

"This is the night for the quiet ones to sing," said Yuri, looking at her.

"Yuri, you don't think I'm going to-"

"Of course, you must sing for us."

"Good Lord." Tess frowned at Yuri. "You'll be sorry for this." She stood up. "This is the only song in khush that Yuri has taught me," she lied. It was a man's song, about none of the women wanting to go off with him. She sang it straight-faced, managing to finish that way despite the laughter that erupted all around the fire.

"By the gods," said Yuri proudly, "you sang that well. You should sing more often."

"You should teach me suitable songs." She sat down.

Niko came over to them and crouched, still chuckling. "You are undoubtedly gifted, child. But I'm surprised at Yuri."

"At me?"

"At you, Yurinya. To teach a woman such a song-" He clucked disapprovingly. "Such indelicacy in a youth shocks me."

"But, Niko, I have four sisters."

"That is true," replied Niko sagely. "We cannot fight the gods, or women." He and Yuri sighed together.

"Of course," said Tess. "Blame it on the women." She glanced up to find Bakhtiian standing behind Niko. He caught Tess's eye, and he smiled. If it had not been so dark, she would have sworn he winked. "I suppose next you'll be saying that Sonia taught you that song and encouraged you to teach it to me."

"But she did," Yuri said guilelessly.

Tess laughed, and Yuri, who could never help but laugh with her, covered his face with his hands.

Niko contrived to look offended for a moment. "You see, I am vindicated."

Smiling, Bakhtiian crouched down between Niko and Tess. "I would be honored, Cousin, if you would agree to teach me some of the songs you know, from Jeds and other lands."

Tess caught in her breath, but she smiled at him. "Only if you will teach me jaran songs."

For an instant, she thought he drew back slightly, but then he shrugged and relaxed. "That could be arranged."

"I meant, of course," she added hastily, "only songs that it is appropriate for a man to teach a woman."

All four laughed, Yuri lowering his hands and cuffing Tess on the neck.

"Now, Tess," said a voice above them, "you don't suppose that Bakhtiian would ever do anything inappropriate, do you?''

All four looked up, startled. Kirill had surely chosen that direction to approach them from because the fire, behind him, made a halo about his form. The glow lit red highlights in the thick waves of his fair hair, shone through the angles of his elbows where they stood away from his body, and outlined his stance, easy, a little arrogant. He had his head cocked to the right and he smiled down at her. Nature had, unfortunately, endowed him with a smile as sweet as a girl's, one much at variance with the impudence in his eyes and his demeanor.

Bakhtiian stood up. He was no longer smiling.

"Hello, Kirill,' said Tess, because no one else was saying anything.

"I thought you were supposed to be on watch," said Yuri.

"Well, Yuri, you must have been mistaken."

The big fire sparked, flaming until a rider stamped it down to coals. "As I remember-" Bakhtiian folded his arms on his chest.

"Fedya!" called Niko.

Fedya wandered over. His glance went first to Bakhtiian before skipping briefly back to Kirill. He gave them all his quick, unpretentious smile as a greeting. "Tess," he said in a quiet voice, "I admired your singing."

"Thank you, Fedya."

"I admired your singing, too," said Kirill. "As well as the rest of you."

Tess flushed.

"Kirill." The lowness of Bakhtiian's voice made it more threatening. Yuri scrambled hastily to his feet.

"But it's true." Kirill spread his palms upward in front of himself with such an expression of innocence in the face of false accusation that Tess could not help but giggle. Niko coughed.

"The men in my jahar have manners, Kirill."

"Are you saying I don't, Bakhtiian?"

Bakhtiian's left hand moved to his saber hilt. Kirill's right hand brushed the sheath of his knife. Tess, caught in the middle, pushed herself back.

"You know, Ilya," said Niko quickly, "Fedya escaped without having to sing tonight.''

For a moment, all movement stopped. Bakhtiian's gaze moved to Niko. Some look Tess could not interpret passed between the two men.

"That is true, Niko." Bakhtiian settled back on his heels, his left hand dropping to hang by his thigh, and he transferred his gaze smoothly to Fedya. "You promised me once to teach me some more of your songs."

Kirill was playing with the embroidery on one of his sleeves, his fingers pale in the dim light.

"Did I?" Fedya asked. "I'm not sure I agreed to give them up so easily." His audacity amazed Tess.

"Well, I don't intend to start pleading," said Bakhtiian.

Fedya smiled. "My lute is over by the small fire. We could go now.''

"Yes. If you will excuse us." Bakhtiian nodded briefly at Tess, and he and Fedya left together. Tess sat forward with a long sigh, brushing off her palms.

Yuri rounded on Kirill. "You don't have any manners."

"Aren't you a little young to lecture me, Yuri?"

Yuri stiffened.

"I am not too young to lecture you," said Niko. "You provoke him deliberately."

"What of it?"

"Kirill, I will not bother to answer that question. But I will say that your conduct is not always well considered."

Kirill shrugged. "We're well away from the sacred hill. I have nothing to fear here."

"What does that have to do with it?" Tess asked, annoyed because there was some long-standing enmity here that she did not understand. Kirill and Bakhtiian were only five years apart in age, yet Kirill was clearly included with the youngest men of the jahar.

"On holy ground," said Niko, "the slightest misstep or misconduct, even accidental, may bring the wrath of the gods upon you. Even the khaja know this to be true. It is desecration."

"The priests scared me enough when I was little. I'm not going near such places," Kirill said, and he grinned when Niko chuckled. "Yes, I know, and you'd advise me not to, for my own safety."

"But what would happen?" asked Tess.

"It would be sacrilege," said Niko.

Tess did not reply. The big fire burned down to coals, a dull red speckled with black.

"Kirill! Ho!" Konstans strolled up. "Think to escape from your watch, do you? Nikita sent me. You're to relieve him."

Kirill gave Tess a long-suffering look as if in apology and left.

"I thought so," muttered Yuri.

"Niko." Tess lifted her hands to blow on them and then lowered them to her lap. "It isn't only misconduct at a holy place, is it?"

His hair seemed cast of starlight, a finer light than the coarse red of flames. "Sacrilege away from holy places is limited to those few actions that are repulsive to the gods and which flout without shame their few direct prohibitions. But at a holy place, many things we do gladly in normal life are offensive to the gods."

"At all holy places?"

"Not all. Only those the gods have left quiet. The shrine of Morava, for instance, is not quiet at all, and priests live there."

"What do you mean by quiet?"

"Left to the birds and the animals."

"The birds. Niko, what happened to the three men who tried to kill Bakhtiian at Sakhalin's tribe?"

"They were left for the birds."

"Ah." Tess decided she didn't really want to know. "So some things, like the man in your tribe who killed a bird, those things are always sacrilege?"

Niko considered her. "That shocks you." He nodded. "We have a story, Tess, of a hawk that warned the first tribe of jaran, who were camped against the mountains, of an avalanche, and saved them, and so saved the people."

"That's in the tale Fedya sang about the first dyan."

"Yes. Because of that hawk, all birds, who fly above and can therefore see farther, are sacred to the gods."

"Do you believe that story?"

"My child." Someone stirred the fire, covering most of the coals, killing their light. "If the people did not believe in one way, then there would be no jaran."

Tess could find nothing to say to that. The three of them sat in silence for a time. Tess finally rose and excused herself.

Her path led her near a small fire removed from the rest of the camp. She paused in the dark beyond it. Fedya and Bakhtiian sat there together, the light on their faces, Fedya bent over his lute. As she stood silently, watching, she heard Fedya sing a line and Bakhtiian sing it back to him. And she wondered, for there was something in this music not quite like the usual songs the jaran sang by the fire at night or with their tasks during the day. And she wondered at Bakhtiian, for his bearing as he sat beside Fedya gave to the younger man the status of an elder; she had seen Bakhtiian command the respectful attention of women and men twice his age. She stood for a long time, listening to the two voices, one a high, sweet tenor, one rich and full, but she did not approach them. It was late when she went to bed.