Jaran

CHAPTER TWELVE

"Why have you come back?" she cried in Rhuian. She clutched her cloak with both hands, pinning it closed at her chest. "You said you were going to the great temple of the goddess. You cannot have gotten there and back so soon."

A good three dozen or more men stared at her, and she suddenly doubted herself. She was utterly vulnerable to them except for the Chapalii knife belted over her underclothes, a weapon she had never used and was not certain she could use. How could she be sure Garii was the least bit trustworthy? Wind pulled up one corner of her cloak, revealing a glimpse of knee. As if it were a signal, the men's gazes flicked away one by one, and most of them colored as they looked at anything but her. Her hands gripped the cloth more tightly and she forced herself to breathe slowly. It had to work, it could still work, and yet it all rested on this: manners, custom.

A hurried consultation began among the leading rank of riders. She used its cover to look them over as surreptitiously as possible: like all jaran, most of these riders were light-haired and fair-complexioned with a sprinkling of darker ones throughout, but she recognized none of them, only the characteristic scarlet shirts boasting embroidered sleeves and collars and black trousers and boots that proclaimed these to be jahar riders.

Finally three of the men dismounted and walked slowly toward her. They kept their eyes averted. The grass made a low whispering sound as they passed through it. The first, a man of Bakhtiian's age, tall and very fair and unusually handsome even for a man of the jaran, glanced at her frequently but did not meet her gaze. The other two men were older. The man on the right had a sullen, angry expression, and he regarded her with the most direct gaze, suspicious of her. He looked like the kind of man who is suspicious of all people. The third man, in the middle, was the oldest, his fair hair silvering, his shoulders bowed, his expression that of a man harassed beyond all bearing. When the other two halted a decent two body-lengths from her, he came forward another three steps and stopped.

"Do you speak khush?" he asked.

Tess shrank back a step, feigning confusion.

"What is a woman doing out here on her own?" said the sullen man. "Do you think she's from that khaja town? She may recognize us."

The middle-aged man hunched his shoulders even more, frowning. "She may recognize you, Leotich. My men had nothing to do with that idiotic raid. Could you understand what she said, Vasil?" This to the blond.

An auspicious time to break in. "Who are you?" Tess asked in Rhuian. "You are not the men I talked to before."

Vasil tilted his head, thinking hard. "Something about men. But she speaks too quickly."

"But it is this-Rhu-an?"

"I think so."

Tess shrank further into her cloak and spoke very slowly and with precise enunciation. "Can you understand me?"

Vasil smiled suddenly. It lit his face like fire, and Tess caught herself staring at him even as he looked right at her, and he flushed and shifted his gaze. His eyes were a vivid, fiery blue. "I speak," he said hesitantly. "Little."

"Only a little?" She emphasized the disappointment in her tone, and then wondered if she was overdoing it. "The other man spoke Rhuian very well."

"Man?" Unconsciously, Vasil leaned toward her. Necklaces swung forward from his chest. "Other man? He speak?"

"Yes. He spoke like a native but he wore much the same clothes as you do. Is he one of you? Is he here with you?"

"I'm sure of it, Dmitri." Vasil looked triumphant. "A man who spoke with her in Rhuian. It has to be Bakhtiian." Leotich glared at her obliquely, lips tight.

"What else did she say?"

"I don't know."

Tess lowered her eyes, not wanting to seem too interested in a conversation she ought not to understand. She resisted the urge to glance at her belongings, at the copse behind, wondering if it all concealed her true purpose as well as she hoped. Wondering if it concealed Bakhtiian.

"I'll try again," said Vasil to Dmitri. He coughed, hesitated again. "Man," he said. "Other man." He sighed, frowned, concentrated, and then when she glanced up at him, he gave up and pointed to his scarlet shirt. "Is?"

"Yes, yes." Tess let her hold on her cloak slacken slightly. "Such clothes, red shirt, black trousers." She let one arm emerge to point at their clothing and then did risk a half turn to look behind her, where her traveling clothes-obviously foreign-lay drying on the bushes. The white-barked trees beyond stood stark, barely clothed with scant green in the sunlight. When she looked back, all three men were looking not at her, or her clothes, but at each other.

"It has to have been Ilya," said Vasil in a fierce undertone, almost exultant. "It has to."

"Don't get too excited," said Leotich to Vasil.

Vasil's head jerked back, one hand brushing his knife hilt. "Don't tempt me," he muttered.

"Vasil!" Standing between them, Dmitri lifted his chin, and that gesture alone convinced Tess that he was the man to be reckoned with. "Find out which direction."

Vasil returned his attention to the ground on Tess' left. "Other men. Where?"

"Other men! Yes, there were many others, and they were going, like me, to the great temple, but they would not take me with them."

"Many? Temple? Temple!" He grasped Dmitri by one arm. "Many of them, going to the old temple near the town."

"But Doroskayev said they were behind us." Leotich's frown made his eyes pinch together with suspicion. "How could they have gotten ahead of us? Why would they turn back?"

"Gods, man," said Dmitri. "Who knows why Bakhtiian does what he does? He may have gone past the temple and then gone back. He's a far more religious man than you are."

Leotich snorted in disgust.

"And since I obviously must remind you, he is escorting a party of khaja pilgrims. There is a reason to return to the temple. Perhaps he was forced to avoid it in the first place because of Doroskayev's idiocy."

Leotich's pale eyes focused on the other man, and he kicked at the grass, tearing a thin scar in the ground. "Doroskayev is the only one with any kind of plan. Whatever you may think of his raids, he always leaves Bakhtiian's name. Even if Bakhtiian eludes us, someday he'll come too close to khaja lands and they'll kill him for us, for revenge."

"Doroskayev is a fool." Dmitri's voice, sharp as the winter wind, froze them all. "He has played into Bakhtiian's hands, and I, by the gods, intend to tell him so when we meet up with his jahar. Bakhtiian says the khaja are a threat. Doroskayev will stir up a war and then they will be a threat. Don't you see? Now Bakhtiian can justify his work. Fool and idiot twice over."

Leotich's frown had turned into a scowl. "Doroskayev said Bakhtiian had a woman with him. How do we know she isn't some trick of Bakhtiian's, left here to throw us off the scent?"

Vasil flushed with anger. "You're no better than a khaja pig, Leotich. Bakhtiian would never put a woman in such danger."

"You'd know, wouldn't you," snarled Leotich.

Vasil put his hand on his saber. Leotich grinned, almost feral.

"Stop quarreling!" Dmitri's voice cracked over them. Tess huddled backward, cringing away from their angry voices, not entirely pretending fear. "Doroskayev!" His disgust for his ally was all too evident in his tone. "Since when do we believe everything Doroskayev says? None of his men saw a woman. Whatever else you may think, Leotich, I've studied Bakhtiian for years. I know him as I know my own brother, as only one enemy can know another. Bakhtiian would never devise such a ploy as this. Gods, Vasil, see if you can make the woman understand we mean her no harm.''

"Why would a woman be out here alone?" Leotich put in, uncowed by Dmitri's speech.

"Vasil?"

Vasil sighed, facing Tess again. "Temple," he said slowly, as if he knew that his pronunciation was terrible. "Men-temple. You-see?"

Tess untwisted one hand from her cloak, realizing that this was at last the real test: knowing nothing about khaja culture, she had to hope they knew even less. "I go to the temple." She pulled out her ankh necklace, holding it by the chain and displaying it to them as if it ought to mean something to them. Then, dropping it, she crossed herself, because it was the most pious gesture she could think of. More by accident than design, her cloak slipped again to reveal one pale thigh. With an exclamation, she yanked it tightly around her. The three men looked away.

"She's going to the temple," said Vasil in a low voice to Dmitri. He looked sidewise toward Tess. "You go? Temple?"

"Yes Yes "

"Men? Men go?"

"Men go to temple. Men go. To temple. To temple."

"I take it," said Dmitri dryly, "that they were going to the temple."

"Think straight, Mikhailov," snarled Leotich, jerking his head to one side. "It doesn't add up. How did they get ahead of us? How do we know it's the same group? And what about her? Why is she here?"

"You saw her necklace, the sign she made." Vasil took one step toward Leotich. The top of his saber pushed down the grass beside him. "She must be a pilgrim."

"Bakhtiian has pilgrims with him. She could be one of them."

"Why are you talking for so long?" asked Tess in a high, hurried voice that she did not have to feign. "Why don't you leave me and go on your way? Is it not penance enough that I must travel this barbaric land alone? Must I be threatened with savages as well?"

"You're frightening her," said Vasil.

"Frightening her!" Leotich took one aggressive step toward Tess. "Greater things are at stake here, Veselov. Doroskayev said-"

"I'm beginning to suspect you're a fool, too." Dmitri reached out and took hold of Leotich's sleeve with enough pressure that the man had no choice but to step back. "Karol Arkhanov saw those pilgrims. Eleven, he said, tall and very pale, all men. His word is good enough for me."

"My clothes are there," Tess broke in, desperate now for them to leave. Vasil, glancing at her, blushed and looked away when her gaze met his. "And here I am, surrounded by men." She took out her necklace again. "I am a pilgrim, a holy woman. What do you mean to do?"

"Come on," said Vasil. "We've frightened her enough. Let's go."

"I don't believe it," said Leotich. "I want to see what she's got on underneath that cloak." He put his hand on his knife and strode forward before the other men could react. Tess jerked back, twisting free of his grasping hand, and an involuntary cry escaped her. She stumbled back and fell to her knees.

Dmitri grabbed Leotich and yanked him up short. Vasil had his knife out, but he sheathed it again. Behind, the men in the jahar murmured, a swell of disbelief that faded as Leotich stood stiff and angry in Dmitri's grasp.

"Gods, man," said Dmitri. "You'll get a reputation no man could live down."

Tess sank down into the most abject huddle she could make, kneeling, and fumbled inside her cloak for the knife, palming it.

"No." Leotich wrenched free of Dmitri. "Maybe Doroskayev was mistaken. Maybe Bakhtiian didn't have a woman with his jahar. But let's ask Vasil. After all, he knows better than anyone else whether Bakhtiian would have any use for a woman.''

Vasil backhanded him, hard. Leotich lunged at Vasil, but the younger man caught his blow on an arm and slugged him. Dmitri stepped between them and grappled for their arms. The scuffle neared Tess, and she scuttled backward, hand clutching her knife beneath her cloak.

The movement brought them all up short, as if it had suddenly reminded them of her presence. Dmitri now had both of Leotich's wrists in his hands. "Sometimes I don't know what I brought you for." His voice was tight with contempt.

Leotich glared at him, pulling back. "We could at least split up. One to check out her story, the other to go on."

Dmitri let him go with a snort of disgust. "Splitting up is the stupidest thing a jahar can do. We'll catch him. Now get back to your horse." However nondescript a man he might appear, he had command. Leotich sulked away.

"So." He let his gaze come to rest on Vasil, and Tess could not interpret the expression with which he viewed the younger man. Vasil met his gaze without shame, but it was obvious that the younger man was still angry. "So, Vasil," Dmitri continued, ' 'I believe it was agreed that you might ride with my jahar if you kept your grievances to yourself."

"It will not happen again."

"Well, then, can you make her understand that we mean her no harm?"

Vasil glanced at Tess and lowered his eyes, a lock of pale hair falling carelessly across his cheek. Tess wondered, quite at random, what it would be like to push that lock of hair aside, what he, the sum of his particular pleasing parts, would be like as a lover. Lord, she was beginning to think like a jaran woman! He took one tentative step toward her.

"Go away! Go away!" she cried, shrinking back.

Vasil shrugged and looked at Dmitri.

"So be it. At least we can track Bakhtiian now. Come on." Dmitri turned away and walked back to the jahar. Vasil hesitated. He removed a necklace from around his neck and, crouching, laid it on the ground as slowly as if she were a wild animal.

"For you," he said in Rhuian. He mounted and they all left, riding back the way they had come, northeast, back toward the temple.

Her heart beat as hard as if she had been running all this time instead of talking. When they disappeared from view, she sank back on her heels. All of her breath gusted out. Her hand still gripped the knife. After a bit, she uncurled her fingers and sheathed it. They would never meet with Doroskayev, and suddenly she felt glad that the Chapalii had killed him. She moved forward and picked up the necklace, draping it across her palm, amberlike stones strung on bronze links. It lay cool and smooth in her hand. Rare. She smiled. A gift from a renegade.

"Although," she said aloud, "I suppose that depends on your point of view."

Then she realized that she was still half-naked, and that Bakhtiian was hidden somewhere behind her. She got up hastily and went back to her clothing. It was dry enough. She felt like an idiot, shielding herself with a tree trunk, wrestling her trousers and tunic on under her cloak, but at last she was dressed and could venture out without embarrassment. The grass by the water hole, where she knelt to drink, was brilliantly green, short and slippery and cool to the touch. Last night, she thought, smiling, it had seemed warm. The shifting leaves made patterns of light on her arms. She washed her face, put on her jewelry, and laced on her boots. She hesitated. What if they returned? She glanced across the copse of trees but she saw no sign of Bakhtiian. Surely he'd chosen to be as cautious as she had. Adjusting her tunic and her weapons, she hiked to the top of the rise.

The sun beat warmly on her face. At the top, she surveyed the plains around her. There, in the distance, riding northeast, was the enemy jahar. Out on the flat beyond she saw no sign at all of Bakhtiian's jahar. She seated herself on an outcropping of rock and waited, watching, until the enemy jahar vanished entirely from her sight. Then she walked down again.

Halfway down, she spied movement. Bakhtiian appeared, leading out the two horses. He saddled Myshla, and she reached him as he finished the last cinch and turned to saddle his own horse.

He looked up as she approached, pausing with one hand on the saddle. "By the gods, that was Dmitri Mikhailov's jahar.''

"You should be furious," said Tess, trying to sound contrite when she really felt like grinning. "I took a great chance.''

"There are no chances." He favored her again with that unreadable look. "You succeed or you fail. Battles are not won by men who refuse to take risks." It was quiet. Only the rustle of an animal in the undergrowth disturbed the sighing of the wind through the leaves. He returned to cinching up the saddle, the tarpan patient under his hands.

"Do you know, Bakhtiian, they were all good men."

He glanced at her. "How do you mean?"

"They were all modest." Now she grinned. She simply could not resist the urge.

His head tilted to one side and one eye narrowed, giving him a quizzical look. "Do you mean you-" He straightened, putting his hands on his hips. "The cloak, the clothes, a female alone. You did it all on purpose. You meant all along to embarrass them." He burst out laughing, full laughter, without restraint and yet not uncontrolled. Tess suddenly felt extremely flattered. He stopped laughing and favored her with a smile. "Gods, you're a dangerous woman. Using our own customs against us."

"No more dangerous than you, Bakhtiian."

"Perhaps." He finished with his horse while she packed up her saddlebags and tied her belongings on to Myshla. "So they're going back to the temple."

"How did you know?"

"I deduced it." He grinned. "Penance, indeed. I was also close enough to hear.''

"I never saw you!"

He blinked, guileless. "You weren't supposed to. Do I really speak Rhuian like a native?"

"You have an accent," she admitted, "but you speak Rhuian very, very well."

"Thank you," he said, and she thought the comment sincere. "We should go." But he paused with one hand on the saddle. "Vasil left something for you."

"Do you know them all? All the men who are riding against you?"

"Not all of them. Just the important ones, the ones whose grudge against me is so deep that they will not give it up unless they are dead." He waited.

She took off the necklace and handed it to him. He looked almost discomposed as he took it from her.

"This is precious." He turned the stones over in his hands, slipped them through his fingers as if their touch communicated some message to him. "Very rare. The stone comes from a princedom south of Jeds, and it is crafted by a master jewel-smith in the Tradesmen's Quarter."

' 'In Jeds? How would a jahar rider get a necklace from Jeds?"

But Bakhtiian's face had shuttered, and he gave her back the necklace without a word and mounted his horse. "We must go." He rode off without waiting for her, and she hastened to follow. They paused at the crest to gaze north and south, but there was no sign of men or horses, only the smooth, golden flow of grass spreading out on all sides. Tess gazed, watching ripples of wind stir the blanketing gold, and she felt-happy. Somehow, somewhere, she had developed an affection for this peculiarly same yet diverse land. Some movement of Bakhtiian's made her glance at him. He was watching her. When she met his gaze, he did not look away, but stranger still, he seemed, for an instant, shy.

"Will you call me Ilya?" His hands lay still on his horse's neck. His voice sounded as studied and calm as ever. She might have hallucinated that glimpse of shyness.

"If you will call me Tess."

"Perhaps-" He hesitated again, slowly put out a hand. "Clasp friends?"

"I'm not sure I understand."

"It is a mark of friendship. I give my honor into your hands, and you may call on it if you are in need. And your honor into my hands, the same. But it is not a gift to be lightly given or lightly used."

"No," she breathed, staring at him. Here, now, he was asking her to be not only his friend but his equal. "Of course." Her voice shook slightly. "Of course I will clasp friends with you. Ilya." She took his hand in hers.

"I am honored. Tess."

By evening, when they caught up with the others, she felt so pleased with herself that she engaged Cha Ishii in the meaningless, polite, but deviously complex formalities of Chapalii dinner conversation just to test her adroitness. When she tired of that, she collected her blankets and sat out alone, just breathing in the cool air and watching the moon. Behind she could hear the riders laughing, pausing, and laughing again as Bakhtiian told the story of her encounter, no doubt embellishing it with a great deal of exaggeration. After a bit they quieted, and she guessed that a serious council was taking place.

Sometime later Fedya found her. "Tess." He chuckled. "You're a marvel." She could see only the pale oval of his face in the moonlight as he settled down to sit beside her. The night bled all color from his shirt. "To fool Mikhailov. That is the marvel."

"Fedya, how well does Bakhtiian know these men?"

He shrugged. "Mikhailov has been riding against Ilya for years."

"What will they do next?"

He shrugged again, but it was a fatalistic gesture this time. "They'll find out you sent them wrong. We have to prepare."

An insect ran up her hand. She started, shuddering, and shook it off. "Prepare for what?" But even as she said it, she knew what he would reply. If Bakhtiian respected Mikhailov so much, then any battle against him would not fall out as easily as that night skirmish against Doroskayev and his men had. People died in real battles.

"They outnumber us, but we know where they are. We'll choose the ground and ambush them." Perhaps Fedya felt her shiver, though they were not touching. He put his hand on hers, a comforting gesture, but his skin felt cold. "Don't worry," he said softly. "You'll be safe. I promise it."

"Safe," she murmured, and she kissed him, wanting more comfort than that.