Jaran

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

They followed the narrow trail all day, hemmed in by high rock, then dismounted and walked their horses until the moon set. Tess slept huddled in her cloak, shivering, starting awake at intervals, but even so, Yuri woke her all too soon. The flush of dawn stained the sky, softening the darkness, and they went on.

The path curled through the heights, ascending and descending by turns. For one interminable stretch a fall of rock half obliterated the trail, and they dismounted and picked their way over the gray slivers that littered the ground. At midday Bakhtiian stopped them at a waterfall that fed a lawn of lush grass; the horses drank and grazed. Tess slumped against a rock, chewing on a strip of dry meat. She was glad of the rest at first, but as it stretched out she became afraid. What if the khaja soldiers were behind them? What if Keregin's men hadn't killed them all? What if more khaja had come hunting them? At last Bakhtiian called to them to mount, and they continued on. Still, they saw no sign of their jahar.

"Niko's driving them," said Bakhtiian when they halted by yet another stream. They rode again until the moon was gone, shadows staggering over the ground. Yuri's Kuhaylan mare went lame with a stone in its hoof. Mikhal's chestnut tarpan began to cough and wheeze.

Tess slept badly. When she woke at dawn, one of her calves had cramped. Her back ached. She limped. The path worsened and their pace slowed. Bakhtiian stopped them again at midday to water and graze the horses; Tess ate her food mechanically, without hunger. The shock she had had in the vale, the sudden appreciation of death, had drained her; she kept going now only because Myshla followed the other horses.

In the late afternoon they halted to let the horses breathe, a rough, tearing sound in the stillness. Tadheus, white-faced and sweating, was too exhausted to dismount by himself, but at least his wound was no longer bleeding. Konstans sat hunched and shaking on the ground. After a bit he rose and checked all the horses' hooves with unnerving thoroughness. Then he argued with Mikhal and Bakhtiian over whether to kill the chestnut, who was lagging badly. They decided to kill it.

Tess leaned against Myshla, not wanting to watch. She breathed in the mare's hot, dry smell as if it were tenacity. No matter how much of the thin air she gulped down, it was never enough.

"Here, Tess." It was Yuri, holding a cup of blood, still warm. "Drink."

Tess clutched Myshla's mane, feeling dizzy with revulsion. "I can't."

"Drink it."

Because it was an order, she obeyed.

"Thank the gods, Myshla and Khani are holding up so well," said Yuri, taking the empty cup from her. He rubbed Myshla's nose affectionately. "Ilya says he's never seen horses with the stamina of these khuhaylans. The khepellis must be the finest breeders of horses in all the lands. Come, Tess. We need your help." He left.

Tess went to relieve Mikhal, who was watching the horses, so he could go help with the slaughter. The horses stood, heads drooping, exhausted. Tasha dozed on the ground. Yuri's words bothered her: the Chapalii-and the Arabians they had given to Bakhtiian-who should have been doing the worst on this journey, were doing the best. Chapalii efficiency. The horses had to have been altered somehow. Yuri brought more blood, and she lifted Tasha up and helped him drink. After an interminable time, the men finished their work. They went on, leaving the chestnut's carcass to rot on the path behind. Yuri and Konstans stank of blood.

The moon rose, bright, throwing hallucinatory shadows on the rock walls that surrounded them. Tess held onto

Myshla's reins and stumbled along in Yuri's wake. This went on forever.

Eventually the path narrowed. Directly ahead rose a blind wall of stone blocking their trail. Somewhere in the rocks an animal called, mocking them. A shout carried back from Konstans, who rode at the fore. She could not see him. The sheer cliff loomed before her, impassable, huge, and she began to rein Myshla aside, for surely they must halt here, having no farther to go. But the path twisted sharply to the right between two hulking black boulders, angled back to the left, and she heard a laugh above her and looked up.

"Kirill!" At that moment she could have seen nothing more pleasing.

He stood on a small ledge, looking more then usually self-satisfied. "Tess. I could have spitted your four companions as they rode past, but I thought that if I did, I'd block the path with bodies and then you couldn't get through."

Tess laughed, spirits already lighter. "You're too good to me, Kirill. Where can I find a space large enough to sleep?"

"At my breast," said Kirill cheerfully, aware that Bakh-tiian had come up behind her and was listening.

"Wanton," said Tess.

"If you go on," he added, not a bit contrite, "it opens up and we've made a little camp."

She walked on. The path remained an arm's span wide for about one hundred paces. Shadowy forms, concealed at strategic intervals, greeted her. Where the path widened, Niko was waiting. He took Myshla's reins.

"Yuri says you're tired, child. Let me take the horse."

She merely stood after he left, her eyelids fluttering, her head sinking. A low humming filled her ears.

"Tess.'' Yuri took hold of her hand and led her to a small space away from the path. ' 'Sleep.'' He dumped her blanket and cloak on the ground and left. She slept.

The sun woke her. Its warmth on her face felt like the stroke of a hand, soft and comforting. Until it occurred to her that in this ravine the sun had to be very high to shine down on her; that they should still be here at this late hour of the morning was impossible. She sat up.

"I thought you'd never wake up."

Looking up, she saw Yuri smiling at her from where he perched on top of the boulder against which she slept.

"Why are we still here?" She got hastily to her feet and blinked in the brightness. Ahead, she saw the camp-the four Chapalii tents and one fire crowded in between the high walls. One scrubby, yellow-barked tree shaded the fire, and a few bushes clung to the slopes. "It must be midday."

"Ah, Tess," he said in Rhuian, "your perspicacity amazes me."

"Why, Yuri, your vocabulary is finally improving."

He grinned, then lifted his head and looked around, so remarkably like a lizard that Tess laughed. He slid down the rock to stand beside her, lowering his voice. "Ilya and Niko had a terrible argument last night. You were already asleep. Ilya was furious with himself for not sending everyone ahead up the trail to begin with, but Niko told Ilya that only a damn fool sent horsemen ahead on a trail that hadn't been scouted and that other circumstances had forced his hand. Well, it was a good thing the arenabekh came along when they did."

Tess nodded.

"But now we can rest and take an easy pace to our next camp. You looked just awful last night though you look fine this morning."

"How you flatter me."

"It comes naturally from having four sisters. One learns how to keep on their good side."

"Where is our next camp?"

"The first good site with forage we come to. We have to wait for Ilya."

"Where did he go?"

"Back to the temple."

A cloud shaded the sun. She shivered. "You can't mean it."

"What do you mean, I can't mean it? He took fresh horses and left as soon as he saw that Niko had everything in order. After they had argued, of course. Niko thought Josef should go back."

"Last night? But we'd been riding for two and a half days."

"Don't you think I know that? If Khani wasn't so damned stubborn she'd have gone dead lame from that stone, and we'd have killed her. Pavel say she'll be fine. But the chestnut-" He shook his head. "Still, I could hardly keep my eyes open. Surely you know that Bakhtiian has nothing in common with such weak stuff as you or me. So off he went, fresh as a spring breeze, singing-" Tess giggled. "Very well. He wasn't singing. You must want something to eat."

"I'm starving."

Yuri laid a hand on her shoulder before she could leave the shelter of the rock. "Niko is going to give you a red shirt. I wasn't supposed to tell you, but I thought you'd rather be warned."

Her face suddenly felt hot and it was not just due to the sun emerging from the clouds.

"I don't remember any woman being given a red shirt. It makes you-this story will be told everywhere, even after you-"

"After I what?"

He hung his head. "After you leave us," he said softly, but, being Yuri, he brightened immediately. "That's so much later I can't even think of it."

"Good. I don't know what you're talking about." She took a step and paused, not quite willing yet to be fussed over-for knowing these riders, fussing it would be. The conical white tents caught her eye. Ishii sat outside one, alone. Rakii and Garii reclined on the rocks above, gambling to pass the time. Meanwhile all eight stewards were busy saddling horses and taking down the first two of the tents.

Had she really feared them so much? Like the khaja priest's terror at the possibility of sacrilege in the temple, the Chapalii's adherence to custom and hierarchy had protected her all along. She could spy on them because of her rank. Ishii would keep secrets from her because his mysterious liege outranked her. But Garii's allegiance puzzled her. Clearly he must be pledged to Ishii's house to have come on this expedition. As clearly, he had pledged himself personally to her in direct violation of his previous pledge, a breach of Chapalii custom that ought to brand him as something lower than a serial killer in her eyes. And yet, as a human, she wondered if perhaps he was just trying to better himself, hoping to attach himself to the household of a lord who outranked Ishii.

"Tess? Are you coming?"

She sighed and transferred her gaze from the Chapalii to the riders, who gathered in anticipation of her arrival. After staring death in the face, she could not imagine why she had ever really feared the Chapalii. Truly, they posed no greater threat than the threat this little presentation posed to her composure: it was her own resources being challenged. Death-real, stark, painful death, that Fedya had faced without flinching-was something else again.

"Tess." Niko came forward to lead her over to the fire. "We have something to present to you, which you have fairly earned." Somehow Kirill had got hold of the shirt so that he got to give it to her along with a kiss on the cheek. Despite all this, she still found that she could receive it without blushing. Until Yuri said, "But, Tess, that's exactly your color!" and everyone laughed. The sound echoed round the little vale, and she blushed and smiled and knew suddenly that she had gained a whole family of cousins and uncles-that gifted one tent and one mirror and one shirt, she now had a tribe, a place where she belonged simply for herself.

Unexpectedly, in the chaos that attended leaving, Garii brought her saddled tarpan.

"Lady Terese. Please allow me to offer you this service," he said colorlessly, offering her the reins.

"I thank you, Hon Garii," she said, accepting them. He flushed pink.

"If I may be permitted to ask a question?" She nodded again. "These men have given you a shirt. Although my understanding may be incomplete, the gift itself seems to act as a symbol of your acceptance into their bonding unit. Perhaps you will be generous enough, Lady Terese, to enlighten me on this."

"No, it is true enough, what you surmise."

"And yet," he hesitated, colors chasing themselves across his cheeks in a brief, muted display, "they have offered you this not because you are Tai-endi, the heir of a duke, but because of acts you have yourself accomplished."

"That is also true, Hon Garii."

"This culture," he said, "is very different from my own." He bowed, glanced back to where the Chapalii were readying their horses, and looked again at Tess. "My family of Takokan has been pledged to that of the Hokokul lordship for only five hundred of your years, a great dishonor to my clan, for we had an impetuous ancestor who transferred his pledge away from the Warakul lordship when that lord used my ancestor's wife and daughters in an impolite fashion."

"Hon Garii, why are you telling me this?"

For the first time, he looked her straight in the eye, without arrogance and yet without any shame either. "Lady Terese, what has passed between us-has passed between us. I withhold from you none of my family's disgrace. I trust you to judge fairly." He bowed and retreated, walking back to Cha Ishii and the other Chapalii.

What had passed between them? He could be referring to nothing but his offer of personal loyalty to her the night Doroskayev had died. An offer that would make him a pariah in his own culture should it become public. But given the protection of a duke's heir, would being a pariah even matter? No wonder opportunism was so reprehensible a trait in a culture whose hierarchy had not changed in centuries.

She sighed and rubbed her finger along the smooth red silk of her new shirt. Not even the Chapalii could ruin this day. She grinned and mounted and rode with Yuri. They took a slower pace for the sake of the horses, and it was fine weather for the sake of her equally fine mood.

At dusk on the second day they camped in a small, high-sided valley tinted with green, the ghost of summer still resisting autumn's pull. From one of the containing ridges the plateau could be seen, flat and yellowing. The sight of it was welcome. Two days passed uneventfully. In the early afternoon of the third, the watch on the trail let out a shrill yell, and soon Bakhtiian could be seen, slowly leading a string of fifteen horses, his black at the forefront, along the valley to the camp.

He looked terrible. The stallion no longer had any trace of glossy sheen to its coat, but it held its head up. A number of men ran to care for the horses. Vladimir took the black. Ilya washed first, and he went from there directly to his tent. That was the last anyone saw of him until morning. Everyone rose early the next day and lavished their energy on the horses, these relics of the arenabekh, yet always they kept an eye on Bakhtiian's tent. When he finally emerged, however, Niko and Josef and Tadheus greeted him first. Tess and Yuri sat on some boulders a bit above the camp, tossing stones at a cleft in the rock, watching the four men as they talked.

"How does he keep his looks?" Tess asked.

Yuri grinned and began to laugh, an infectious and utterly irresistible influence. "I dare you to ask him that."

Tess swallowed a giggle. "Don't, Yuri. I will."

Yuri put a hand over his mouth. Below, the stream shone, sparkling in the sunlight. "I don't believe it."

"Bakhtiian!" yelled Tess.

Yuri choked and held his stomach. "Tess!" he squeaked.

Bakhtiian said something to his companions, detached himself, and walked toward them, his boots light on the moss and low grass. Yuri shook in silent mirth, tears seeping from his eyes.

"We were just wondering," said Tess as Bakhtiian came up to them, "how you manage to keep your looks, running around at the pace you do." She had so far managed some semblance of seriousness, but a giggle escaped from Yuri and she had to cough violently to stop herself from laughing. Bakhtiian stared at them for a moment, as if puzzled. He drew himself up very straight and advanced on them sternly. Yuri's glee vanished like a flake of snow on fire.

"Oh," he said, eyes widening. "I take it all back, Tess."

"All of it?" Bakhtiian halted in front of the young man, arms crossed.

"Help!" said Yuri faintly, but Tess started to laugh. Yuri stared at her in horror. Bakhtiian climbed up to sit on the rock, with Yuri between him and Tess. He wiped dust from his hands.

"Well," he said to Yuri, "it is my experience that when a woman shows interest in a man's looks, he'd best begin to pay attention."

"What!" Tess's laughter vanished. "I deny everything." She blushed.

"I keep my looks," said Bakhtiian with dignity, still looking at Yuri, "by not indulging in frivolity."

"He must have been a dull child," said Tess to Yuri.

"And a dull youth," said Yuri.

"And I fear he's becoming a dull man," finished Tess. She glanced surreptitiously at Bakhtiian. It might have been that he was blushing slightly, or perhaps only the brisk wind on his cheeks, but in any case he had found something in the camp that attracted his gaze.

"I don't really believe it," said Yuri to Bakhtiian. "You must have been the boy in the middle a hundred times before you were twenty."

"At the risk of destroying your very gratifying faith in me, Yuri, I must be honest with you. It pains me even now to remember how very thoroughly I was ignored by the girls when I was young."

"I don't believe it," said Yuri.

"It might even have partially influenced my decision to go to Jeds. And of course there was-" He paused and seemed to change his mind about something. "Nataliia," he finished.

"Of course." Yuri stared at Bakhtiian as though he had never seen him before. "Ilya, I-" He flushed. "I didn't mean to…"

Bakhtiian's gaze flashed past Yuri to Tess and immediately returned to Yuri. Tess suddenly got the impression that this entire conversation was between her and Bakhtiian, with Yuri serving simply as the intermediary. A small, rodentlike animal rushed across rock, paused to look at them, and ran on, disappearing into the tiny crevasse.

"Your sister Nataliia?" Tess asked.

"Yes," he answered, still looking at Yuri. He smiled slightly. "Growing the beard may have helped." He stroked the dark line of his beard absently.

"Men! You're all of you vain."

"We have to be," said Yuri, turning to Tess. "Since we live every moment of our lives subject to the whims of women."

"Do you?"

"Yes," said Yuri and Bakhtiian at the same moment.

Tess opened her mouth to reply, closed it, and shrugged.

"Ilya," said Yuri. "What did you find at the temple?"

Bakhtiian shut his eyes. The high ring of sabers startled Tess. Down in the camp, several men were practicing. "Nothing that I ever want you to see, Yurinya. So. We ride at dawn tomorrow.''

"That bad?" asked Yuri.

"Autumn also brings the early storms, here by the mountains. We're ten or fifteen days now from the shrine of Mo-rava. We have to reach the port before the ships stop sailing for the winter months."

"It must have been terrible," said Yuri to Tess.

"I brought you something," said Bakhtiian. A flat tone of metal from below, a curse, and laughter. "A gift from the dead. Run down to my tent and bring me the long leather sack. There is something for Tess, too."

"Of course!" Yuri scrambled off the rocks, dust spraying down after him, and ran down into camp.

"Where I come from," said Tess, resting her elbow on one knee and turning her head to look directly at Bakhtiian, "we call that contriving to get rid of someone without insulting them."

Bakhtiian smiled. "I believe it's called much the same thing everywhere. I want to apologize to you."

"For what?"

He stared down at his hands. Eyes lowered, he looked so incongruously modest that she had to smile. "At the temple. My behavior was… inexcusable. For a man to behave toward a woman in such a fashion is… shameful."

"Ilya! We did that to save lives."

He did not look up. The brown rodent ran out from the crevasse and halted on the next rock, its bright eyes fixed on them. "Please believe that I would never have done such a thing if I'd been thinking clearly, but I never think clearly when I'm in battle."

"No, you think quickly, and that is why you're a good commander.''

He glanced up at her. "You don't hold it against me?"

"Bakhtiian!" She slapped a hand down on her thigh. The little animal scrambled away. "Did you ever see a play in Jeds?" He nodded. "We were acting. It was a scene played out for that moment, nothing else."

"I learned well enough in Jeds how lightly they hold such violence." He studied his palms where they lay open in his lap. "This is not a thing that is ever spoken of between men and women, but should a jaran man ever try-may the gods forgive me for even thinking of such a thing-to force a woman, he would be dead the next instant. And no man would lift a hand to stop the women from executing their justice."

"There are many things I admire about the jaran, and that is one of them." She lowered her voice. "Ilya, you and I understand why it was done. Every man in this jahar understands." Reflexively, she smoothed the silky soft sleeve of the red shirt she now wore.

He shrugged conciliatorily and at last met her eyes. "You don't think I'm a demon?"

"No." She could not resist smiling. "Though I liked Keregin's suggestion that you called the arenabekh from-what did he say? — from the depths of your fire-scorched heart. Did they all die?"

"I hope so, since those who did not would have been taken prisoner by the khaja."

"And the horses?"

"Those too badly injured I killed. The others-" He gestured below, "-as you see, though not all will be able to keep our pace. Here is Yuri." And it occurred to Tess that Bakhtiian's own remount had not come back with him.

Bakhtiian jumped down from the rocks, took the bag from Yuri and, rolling down the edges, carefully lifted sabers out and placed them side by side on the ground.

"Gods!" exclaimed Yuri. Tess merely gaped. Light flashed from the blades.

"Spoils," said Ilya. "I thought they would rather we had them than the khaja. I couldn't carry many, so I took the ten best. And an eleventh, for myself." He looked at Tess. "Tobay. Do you remember? His saber is as good as his arm." He reached down. "Here, Yuri. This one for you."

"But, Ilya, it's beautiful." Yuri tested it, turning his arm, feeling its weight. "I can't possibly deserve it."

"Perhaps it will inspire you to practice as often as you should. This for Mikhal. Oh-" He laughed, picking up another by its ornate, jeweled hilt. "This for Vladi, of course." He replaced them one by one in the bag until there was only one left: a delicately curved thing that rang when he struck the blade with his nail. "Cousin," he said to Tess. "Our kinsman Yurinya did very poorly for you when he got you a saber. He must have applied to his most miserly cousin who could scarcely bring himself to begrudge you his third blade, and only a few men have two. That you have any aptitude for saber at all is incredible, considering how ill-balanced and ill-wrought that thing is. I suggest you take it off, cast it in the dirt, and forget you ever knew it." He held out the saber. She stared at it. When he put it into her hands, the metal cold on her fingers, she merely continued to stare, until she saw the mark.

"This is Keregin's saber. I remember this mark. Is it a rune? I can't take this."

"I think he would have been pleased to know you inherited it. It was the finest blade on the field. Yes, that is a rune on the hilt."

"What does it mean?"

Bakhtiian frowned. "It can't be explained in one word. It means, the soul that finds the wind that will bear it the highest and does not shrink from being borne. The soul that does not fear being swept up into the heavens. The soul kissed by the gods that rejoices in their cares. That hardly does it justice. Words are too poor."

"Excuse me," said Tess in a small voice. She turned and walked away from them, cradling the saber against her like a baby.

Bakhtiian stared after her, motionless, his back to the sun, his face shadowed.

"Ilya," said Yuri, "that was your old saber you gave me for Tess when we left the tribe."

Bakhtiian started and bent to hoist the bag, his face lit now as he turned into the sun. "Let's take these down," he said.

Tess spent the rest of the day with her saber, sharpening it, polishing it, turning it so that it flashed in the sun, convincing now this man, now that, to give her a short lesson in fighting. She slept with it that night and welcomed the dawn and their early departure because there was nothing more glorious to her at that moment than the feeling of her saber resting on her hip as she rode.

"I'd have brought you another," said Bakhtiian, "if I'd known you'd be so pleased with this one."

Tess reined Myshla past a slight irregularity of ground and laughed. "Gods! What would I do with two? There's enough to learn with one."

Bakhtiian smiled. "Watch yourself, or your brother won't recognize you when you reach Jeds."

"Why not?"

"You've begun to swear in khush. The outer trappings of an alien culture are easily assumed, but when the inner workings begin to touch your own, then you're in danger."

' 'In danger of what? Being consumed? Amnesia?''

"What is amnhesia?"

"Forgetting who you are."

He considered. Tumbled boulders obscured the sides of the path. Plants thrust up from every cleft and crack in the stone, reaching for the light. "There were times, in my three years in Jeds, when I felt confused as to who I was, but I was never in any danger of succumbing to that culture. I'm not very adaptable."

"But that's not true, Ilya. You are."

"Being able to understand alien ways, being able to accept the fact of them, is not necessarily adaptability. I am jaran heart and soul. Nothing will change that."

The path snaked up to the top of a ridge, where they halted. Far below Tess saw the golden sheet of the plateau. They sat for a moment in silence and simply looked. He had killed a man-long ago it seemed now-for transgressing the code of jaran religion, for nothing more than killing a bird, and yet he struggled to understand Newton and was compelled to ask what amnesia was, hearing it mentioned. It was as if half of him questioned incessantly and the other half never questioned at all.

"Perhaps," she replied at last. "But many people would not be able to understand enough of the inner workings of another people to know that, say, the religious strictures of the khaja would be strong enough to stop them at the temple when-"

"Please." Bakhtiian turned away from her, urging his black down the slope. "It is my disgrace that I acted as I did. It is also improper for a man and a woman to speak of such a thing."

"Forgive me," said Tess coldly, but the comment was addressed to his back. She followed him as they descended into a long valley. A thin layer of clouds trailed along the horizon. A snake moved sluggishly off the white-soiled path, leaving an elegant line in the dust. Here, deep in the valley, there were few sounds.

After a long while, he spoke. "Those clouds are no threat, but here in the hills, the weather can change very quickly."

Tess, still angry at his rejection of her and feeling humiliated that she had stupidly broached a subject that offended him, did not reply. Instead, she pretended she was studying the lay of the land. The trail forked below where a huge rock outcropping thrust up from the ground. One path ran on toward the plateau, but the other ran up the opposite ridge and disappeared over its crest. Even so, she was surprised when he pulled up next to the split in the path. In the shadow of the rock lay a dead shrub, scattered and brittle. Bakhtiian dismounted and stacked a triangular pile of rocks on an area of flat ground to one side of the fork.

"What message are you leaving?" she asked, irritated that he had not volunteered the information.

He glanced up at her. "These trails are too well worn. If the arenabekh knew about them, surely the khaja do, too. I want to scout the upper trail, see where it leads. But the jahar should go down. If we're attacked, better for us that we be in the open." He hesitated, frowned, and looked away. "We'll join them at nightfall. Of course."

"Of course." The sunlight stung her eyes. She shaded them with one hand.

"You can wait, if you wish, and ride with the jahar."

"No," said Tess, sure that he only wanted to be rid of her. "I'm curious to see where the trail leads."

He shrugged, and they went on. For a time they saw the second trail like a thread winding away beneath them before they topped the ridge. Beyond, the path dipped into a shallow, rocky canyon, climbing up the canyon's far slope in a series of gradual switchbacks. The sun rose steadily as they rode up to the far crest. Below them now lay a forested valley. Trees, touched orange and yellow on their leaves, stood in thick copses that thinned and dissipated into meadows and rock-littered open areas. Flashes of gray sheets of water showed here and there, streams and pools. It was nearing midday. In the distance, at the far end of the valley, smoke rose.

"Khaja," said Bakhtiian. "Some kind of settlement. Come on." They rode down. The light, broken by leaves and branches, made patterns on their faces and hands. Reaching the valley floor, they found a thick grove of trees and dismounted and led their horses in. Tess tied them on long reins to a sturdy pair of trees within reach of grass and water. Bakhtiian left.

So much vegetation. Scents blended here, damped down by shadow. Moss hung from branches.

He reappeared presently, surprising her, his approach had been so quiet. "I don't know. No doubt we'd be better off leaving, but I'd like to scout out that settlement. I can get there and back by mid-afternoon. We can still catch the jahar before the moon sets."

"You can get there and back?" Water pooled and murmured near her feet, slipping in and out of light as leaves swayed in the breeze. "I'm not staying here by myself." "Soerensen, I gave you the option of riding with the jahar. Now you can stay here with the horses. The settlement is at the other end of the valley, and not large, by the signs. You won't be found here."

"Did Keregin say something about how the khaja hereabout treat their women? How do you suppose they would treat me, Bakhtiian, if they found me here alone?"

He flushed and looked away from her. "Very well," he said in a tight voice. "The horses can protect themselves." He began to walk away, halted, and glanced back at her as she followed him. "But when we get close to the village, you'll stop where and when I tell you."

"Agreed."

But they had not gotten even a third of the way up the valley when Bakhtiian froze suddenly. Despite her efforts to move just as he did, Tess still made twice as much noise, shifting at the wrong moment, getting her hair caught in branches. When he stopped abruptly and put his hand back to warn her, she stiffened to a halt: following the line of his gaze, she saw the hunter.

The hunter could not have seen them yet, but he had certainly heard something. He turned his head this way and that, listening for further noise. Through the brown branches and fading green and yellow thickets their scarlet shirts would betray them. She dared not stir. She wanted to sneeze.

The hunter moved, shoulders twisting as he turned half round to look behind him. In a single movement, Bakhtiian stepped backward and pushed Tess down. She caught her weight on her hands and lowered herself to lie full on the ground. The leaves and moss smelled of moisture and rich soil. Bakhtiian lay beside her, barely breathing. His arm still lay across her back. His hand rested on her far shoulder. Her other shoulder pressed against his, her hand caught under his chest, party to the movement of his lungs, her hip and thigh warmed by his, her foot captured under his ankle.

The hunter whirled back, hearing the rustle. He checked his knife, drew an arrow from his quiver, and fitted it to his bow.

Bakhtiian's hand tightened on her shoulder, his thumb tracing the line of her shoulder blade through her shirt, up and down. A strange double awareness descended on her, an instant drawn out into eternity: the man tracking them; the weight of Ilya's arm on her back, the pressure of his fingers, the unintentional caress. Death stalked her in the guise of a black-haired, middle-aged khaja hunter. Desire had already trapped her, how long ago she did not know, only knowing now that her heart pounded so fiercely not just because she was afraid of being killed. If they had been alone, and this had been Fedya, the cushioning leaves would have been invitation enough-but Fedya had understood that some expressions could be left pure, that they need not become entangled in deeper concerns. Fedya had perhaps been a simpler man. Certainly his needs had been simple, and they had accorded with hers.

Nothing with Bakhtiian would be simple. Imagine that restless, penetrating intelligence focused on her. Imagine him, compulsively ambitious, driven, obsessed with conquest, discovering that the sister and heir of the Prince of Jeds-the greatest city he knew of-was interested, attracted, drawn to him.

The children of different worlds, there were so many things between them that could never be resolved. She had a duty to Charles, she had to leave, she could never tell Bakhtiian where she really came from, and she would live-however primitive Dr. Hierakis might claim the longevity treatments were-she would long outlive him. But they could be friends, surely, and to let the vagaries of physical attraction, the insidious compulsion of the loins, ruin that, ruin everything- Never! If I once gave way to him, I would burn like straw. She would not accept it. In that instant of drawn-out time, fear fought desire and won, and she fled, internally, seeking refuge with cold Reason, a friend of little comfort but great constitution.

Time started again. His hand moved, as cautious as the hunter, wandering to her neck. His fingers, light, smooth, brushed her skin. The hunter paused; Tess's hands tightened into fists; Bakhtiian drew his breath in sharply.

He rolled away from her, leapt to his feet, and dodged left through the undergrowth, making a great deal of noise.

The hunter dashed forward, pulled back his bow, and stopped. Nothing moved. Silence had fallen like a sudden fog. The hunter stared fixedly in the direction Bakhtiian had run. A twig snapped to Tess's right. The hunter's gaze swung: around, exploring. She saw Bakhtiian moving up behind him. The hunter began to swing back. Her hand found a pebble. She flung it as far as she could to her right. It clacked against twigs. A bird fluttered noisily up into the trees. The hunter whipped back, taking a step toward her. The rocky ground of a little meadow lay behind him. Bakhtiian moved to the edge of the trees.

The hunter took another step toward her, eyeing the trees above. She drew the Chapalii knife-but no, Ilya would see. She had to save it as a last resort. She found another rock and flipped it away. A dull thup as it struck the leaves of a nearby bush. The hunter's gaze shifted down, and down. Bakhtiian pushed himself away from the trees, sprinting for the hunter's back.

Stumbled. Fell, landing on one knee, his head thrown back. The hunter, bow drawn, whirled and aimed.

Tess jumped up, shouting, and dove for him, hand slipping on the knife. Twisting back, he shot at her. As she threw herself flat, conscious in a detached way of the nearness of the bow, the notched arrow, the jolt up her arms as she struck the earth, she saw a flash, heard a gasp of pain and, a second later, a grunt.

For a long moment she lay perfectly still. The heavy scent of moss and leaves drowned her. Dampness seeped into her palms and through the cloth of her trousers at her knees. Finally she raised her head slightly. The arrow lay a body's length away, its point slid under a clump of yellow lichen. There was no sound at all from the two men. She rolled onto her side and pushed herself up with one arm.

Bakhtiian stood in front of her, his face white, his saber bloody. Something in his stance was peculiar. He looked fierce, wild, with his hair mussed and his empty hand in a fist, but she was not scared. Instead she stared up at him, a sudden sinking in her heart, knowing without knowing why that the easy, cheerful friendship she had with Yuri was a thing she could never have with Bakhtiian. Something else waited; she felt it like a force between them. Behind him, leaves drifted down from the trees, shaken loose by the wind.

"If you've killed him," she said, "we'd better go."

He stared at her. "You could have been killed!" His eyes seemed black with anger, focused on her face.

"By God, Bakhtiian!" She could have struck him for belittling her in such a way. "I did what had to be done." He did not hold out a hand to help her up. She would not have taken it in any case.

She did not want to see the body. As she stood, she sheathed the knife and turned away, to go back the way they had come, to return to the horses, to leave this valley. A soft noise behind her stopped her.

"I can't walk." His voice was strained and thin.

She turned back, recognizing all at once the whiteness in his cheeks and the pinched line of his mouth: he was in pain. He was standing on one leg.

"My knee." It was hardly more than a whisper. His eyes shut. Shadow grew on the meadow. "I have to sit down," he said, almost apologetically.

She put out a hand and, using it for leverage, he lowered himself without putting any pressure on his injured knee, but he winced as he touched the ground. Beyond him, she saw the bloody corpse. A line of sunlight illuminated the open, staring eyes.

"Oh, God," said Tess.