Jaran

CHAPTER TWENTY

Later in the night, it began to drizzle. Kirill stirred and sat up, waking her. "Where are you going?" she whispered. In the darkness, he had to struggle a bit to find and put on his clothing. "I'm leaving."

"But it's raining."

She felt him shrug. "What's a bit of rain? Tess, I am not so ill-bred as to flaunt my good fortune to the others by being found here in the morning."

"My, Kirill. Nobility suits you."

He leaned to kiss her. "Certainly it does. I also have to relieve Konstans on watch, my heart."

She laughed and let him leave.

In the morning, it continued to drizzle, but they rolled up their tents despite the damp and went on their way. Because Bakhtiian could not scout, Tess rode with Yuri at the fore of the main group, enjoying this novelty although not the rain.

" 'What's a bit of rain,' " she groused when they halted at midday. "How anyone can shrug off this miserable weather is beyond me."

"Why?" asked Yuri casually. "Did someone say that?"

She turned her head away to hide her expression from him. Behind them, Kirill was talking with Mikhal and seemed unaware of her. Composing her face, she said, "Yes, Kirill did."

Yuri wiped a bead of rain away from his right eye. "I've never heard Kirill complain about any hardship Bakhtiian has put us through."

"Just about Bakhtiian?" Tess glanced back to where Bakhtiian rode next to Niko. Ilya was looking at her. She jerked her gaze away and fixed it self-consciously on Yuri. "But he follows him."

"I remember when I was a boy, and Kirill was just old enough to ride in jahar, and Bakhtiian had started this great ride of his-and Kirill clung as close to Bakhtiian as Vladimir does now. He admired him. But Ilya changed, and Kirill grew up and became his own man. Somehow, I think they never forgave each other.''

"Forgave each other for what?"

"Kirill never forgave Ilya for casting aside all his old ties of friendship, for giving up everything for the path he chose to ride. Ilya never forgave Kirill for beginning to question him."

"You're being very wise today, Yuri."

He grinned. "Am I? Was there something you wanted to tell me, Tess? You have that look about you."

"No, I just hate this rain."

That he did not suspect was obvious. Yuri, of all people, would not hesitate to either congratulate her for finally behaving as a jaran woman ought, or, she supposed, censure her for heedlessly antagonizing Bakhtiian-not that it was any business of Bakhtiian's who she slept with, by God. And she had grown to know the riders in the jahar well enough by now to recognize the little signs that would show that they knew, and were amused, and teased Kirill. The signs that, had she known them those months before, would have shown her that the entire jahar knew about Fedya. Kirill, especially, would be teased relentlessly, in that subtle, merciless, but discreet way the riders used when there were women present. And Kirill, she realized with a sudden flash of insight, was well enough liked and well enough respected that no man in the jahar would begrudge him what he had fairly gained: her regard. Or at least, no man possibly but one.

Three days passed, riding. Three nights, she pitched her tent so that its entrance faced away from the others, out at the edge of the little camp, and Kirill crept in. Always in the best of humor, despite the damned rain. As well he might be. No one commented. It was beginning to look likely that he would win their wager.

"Gods," said Yuri to her as he helped her set up her tent that night, where they had camped at the edge of a range of hills. "If Bakhtiian has said ten words these past four days it's been out of my hearing."

"He's in pain. That he can ride all day amazes me."

"Does it? It shouldn't. He is Bakhtiian, after all. What he really needs is a woman to take pity on him and find a way to take his mind off that injured knee."

"Yuri. No, no, no, no, no."

"If you insist, but I still think-"

"Must we have this conversation every night? How did these damned blankets get damp?" She threw them inside and then thought of Kirill and smiled.

"What's wrong with you?" Yuri demanded. "You look awfully pleased with yourself."

"Oh, it's just the stars. I'd forgotten how I miss them at night, now that the clouds have cleared off and it's stopped raining." She stood up and stretched, relishing the delicate touch of the twilight air on her skin. "Niko says we've only a day's ride through these hills tomorrow and then we'll be back on the plains again."

"Yes." Yuri stood as well. "Gods, I'll be glad to be on the plains again." He hesitated and sighed. "Well, I'm off to set up Ilya's tent. Wish me luck."

"Can't Vladimir do it?"

"I'm Ilya's cousin, Tess. Mother would be furious if I let Vladimir interfere while Ilya can't do it himself."

"Well, then, Yuri, if you're so afraid of Ilya's bad temper, I'll go with you and help you."

"Oh, he won't say a word to me. That's why it's so bad. He just sits there. How he hates being beholden to others. Actually-" Yuri grinned- "I rather enjoy it in a way because he knows I know how he feels."

She laughed. "Why is it that the ones who look the sweetest hide the most malicious hearts?"

"Why, Sister, how should I know?"

He left, and she had a sudden urge to just walk, alone, and smell the air and gaze up at the sharp brilliance of stars above. She hiked up the nearby hill and settled herself on a rock that lay beneath three leafless trees grown up on the lee side of the hill. Rain, after all, wasn't such a bad thing as long as one's feet stayed dry, and hers had. And it was not so very rainy in this part of the world, or at least the jaran knew where to ride so as to stay out of it.

Below her, a few fires lay strewn like a cache of untidy jewels across a strip of land. She breathed in. Air like this no longer existed on Earth. All of her life on that distant planet seemed at that moment inconsequential. She had so utterly lacked confidence that her slightest movement caused her fear-that she was doing the wrong thing, that someone was watching, that she only mattered because of who her brother was; worst, that she would fail Charles somehow. To be honest, about her feelings, about any action she took-that was dangerous in the extreme. While here…

Sonia's family, for no reward whatsoever, had taken her in, had given her the initial mark of respectability that had allowed her to build a place for herself within the jaran. For she had built such a place. She knew the men of this jahar respected her. She knew that she could expect the same open friendship she had received from the women of both the Orzhekov and the Sakhalin families at any tribe they might meet, simply and purely because she was a woman. She had a family. She had a lover-one, by God, she had chosen herself, with confidence, with fondness, with a fair measure of real, artless love.

Certainly their technology was primitive, but their spirit was passionate and free. Bakhtiian claimed to be jaran to the core; if that were so, then the jaran, like the wind, could fill any form no matter its size and shape. They could adapt and hold firm. They could revere the quiet heart of the gods' mysteries on earth and still remain unquenchably curious. Like Kirill, they could be brash and diffident together. She smiled, then frowned, hearing familiar voices approaching her sanctuary.

Like Bakhtiian, they could be enthralling and utterly perilous. She shrank back into the protection of shadow and held still.

"Damn it, Ilya," Yuri was saying, "you'll just ruin your knee, walking around like this. You ought to be lying down."

"I'm not sleepy."

"I'm sure Josef is in the mood to tell a good tale. He always is. He knows a thousand we haven't heard yet."

"Yuri, leave me alone."

"I won't! Mother will have my head if I don't try to stop you hurting yourself for no good reason. What's wrong with you?"

Bakhtiian did not dignify this plea with a reply, but Tess heard his breathing, husky from pain, as he halted not ten paces from her on the other side of the trees.

"Very well, then, I'll tell you." Yuri's voice had a reckless tone to it that surprised her. "You won't admit to yourself that you're attracted to her. You certainly won't act on it."

"It is not a man's place to act."

"Yes, you'll hide behind that excuse, won't you, knowing very well that any man can find a hundred ways to let a woman know how he feels and win her over."

"As Kirill did?"

"Gods. Kirill is always flirting. You know it doesn't mean anything."

"How odd that I should then see him coming out of Soerensen's tent these four nights past."

Dead silence. "I don't believe you."

"I don't care whether you believe me or not."

"By the gods. Maybe I do believe you. I think you're jealous."

This silence was deeper and colder and lasted longer. "Yuri, leave me right now."

"No. You are attracted to her."

"Very well. It may be that I am suffering from certain desires that could, after all, be aroused by the close proximity of any woman. And satisfied by the same female, or another, whichever was closer."

Yuri gasped, a sound caught somewhere between horror and disbelief. His voice, when he finally spoke, had such a sarcastic edge to it that Tess flinched. "You bastard. But could a female satisfy them?"

"Yurinya." Bakhtiian's tone could have been chiseled, it was so hard. "I will thrash you to within a hand of your life if you ever say anything to me on that subject again."

Tess got an itch on her nose, stubborn and flaming, but she dared not move.

"Well, I say good for Kirill and be damned to you." Yuri strode away uphill, boots stamping through the grass. After a long pause, Bakhtiian began his slow, limping pace back down toward camp.

Tess lifted her hand slowly, rubbed her nose, and stood up. A breeze pushed through the trees and a few final drops of water scattered down from the branches onto her uncovered head. She ducked away, wiping at her hair with disgust. Heard footsteps. But it was only Yuri, returning.

"Yuri?"

"Tess! Where did you come from? Did you hear that?"

"Yes."

He came up beside her. "I'm sorry."

"Are you through matchmaking now? Maybe you've learned your lesson."

"I feel scorched," he replied. "Gods. Don't you start on me, too."

"Listen. Let's settle this right now. Of course I'm attracted to him. He's that kind of man. But he's a hard, cold, ambitious bastard-you said it yourself, so don't try to disagree with me now-and he'll never be able to care for anyone as much as he cares for himself and, well, to be fair, for this thing that drives him. He may well desire me. I have the honor, after all, of being the female in closest proximity to him."

"Tess…"

"Let me finish. And, of course, I didn't succumb instantly to his charm, which doubtless gives me a little originality."

"You can spare me the sarcasm."

"What did you mean, anyway, about a female not-"

"Never mind. Forget I said it. Please. I thought you were going to finish."

She shrugged. "I'm done. Do you understand, Yuri? I would think you of all people would."

But Yuri's silence was mulish, not conciliatory in the least. "I know him better than you do," he said in a soft, troubled voice. "You think he isn't capable of really loving someone but he is. He's slow to trust because he's been hurt so badly before, because he's been responsible for people he loved dying-for his own sister and nephew and parents-and he can't forgive himself for it. Yet he can't stop what he has to do either. But if he ever gives his heart to a woman, he will give it absolutely."

"Then I wish her all my sympathy. He'll burn her alive."

"Not if she's strong. Tess-"

"You're damned stubborn, Yuri, and I'm not in a very good mood, or at least, I was, but I'm not anymore."

But Yuri plunged onward with remarkable obstinacy. "There are times a brother's advice is of uncounted value, my dear sister, however much their sisters dislike to hear it. Just ride carefully and, gods, don't antagonize him now. If he decides he wants you-"

"You mean if I antagonize him he'll decide he wants me in revenge? I don't call that giving one's heart absolutely."

"You're just not listening to me! It's all the same thing with him. Oh, never mind. Next time you're riding straight into an ambush don't bother to expect a warning from me." He whirled away from her and stalked down toward camp.

"Yuri!" She started after him. "Yuri." He halted. "I don't want to be angry with you."

"Oh, were you angry with me? I thought I was angry with you."

She put out her hand. "Truce?"

With reserve, he shook it. "Truce. Is it true about Kirill?"

"None of your business." She grinned. "What do you think?"

"I was wondering why he was so polite to Kirill these past three days." He laughed. "Kirill! Well, he did come in second in the-" He broke off.

"In the wagering?"

"How did you know?"

"Oh, I know a great many things. Actually, Kirill told me."

"He's subtle, is our Kirill. You'd never think it to watch him."

"Subtle? What does that mean?" That old, creeping, cluttering fear that she had somehow done something stupid, that she had allowed herself to be taken advantage of, reared its ugly form again, and then, laughing, she neatly squelched it. "Well, Yuri," she said smugly, "subtle or not, I have no reason to complain."

"How like a woman," said Yuri with disgust, but they walked down to camp together quite companionably, and discussed whether Josef ought to be prevailed upon to tell a story or Mikhal to play his lute.

They rode through the hills the next day without incident. The next morning they came out onto the plain. Tess felt unburdened of a weight that she had not been aware she was carrying. She smiled at Bakhtiian, inquired politely about his injury, and was rewarded with a perfectly normal conversation about the recent debate in Jeds over the form of poetry most conducive to philosophy. Yuri was driven by this display of good fellowship to beg to be allowed to scout, if they meant to continue in this fashion. But once his reassuring presence vanished, they both grew self-conscious, and the dialogue trailed off into awkward sentences that even Niko's late arrival could not repair.

That night she sat and sat and sat in her tent, but Kirill did not arrive. At last she bundled up in her cold, empty blankets and forced herself to sleep. To be awakened very late by Kirill.

"Forgive me, Tess," he repeated at least three times as he stripped and snuggled in next to her. "Bakhtiian switched my and Mikhal's watch just as Mikhal was about to go out. Do you suppose he suspects?"

"Who, Mikhal?"

"You're teasing me."

"My sweet Kirill, would I tease you?" He only laughed and hugged her a little more tightly. "He's known all along."

"What? How do you know?"

"Yuri knows, too."

"Yuri! Begging your pardon, my heart, but Yuri is not my caliber at this business. I can't imagine how he would have known unless you told him."

"No, Bakhtiian told him. There's nothing for it, Kirill. I have won the wager."

"Well," he said, resigned, "so you have. I was hoping you might."

That morning it was a near thing that Kirill got out of her tent before the camp woke to dawn. And to unexpected news, as well. Yuri greeted her with it as she saddled Myshla.

"Tess! Tess! Have you heard? We've come across Veselov's tribe! Josef just rode in." His face shone with excitement.

"Veselov. Why is that name familiar?"

"The best of my friends from growing up is with Veselov now," he rattled on, ignoring her comment. His voice rang clear in the still morning. "I haven't seen Petya for two years."

"For what possible reason would your Petya give up the opportunity to ride in Bakhtiian's jahar?''

"Oh, they'll all be Bakhtiian's jahars soon enough. But Petya left us to marry-" He stopped abruptly and glanced uncertainly toward his cousin. Bakhtiian, who had evidently been looking at them, looked away. "Well," Yuri continued in a lower voice, "you'll meet her."

They rode into the tribe itself at midday. It felt familiar, somehow, tents scattered haphazardly along the course of a shallow river. A goodly number of people had gathered just beyond the farthest rank of tents, and they waited, watching, as the jahar rode up. Bakhtiian halted them a hundred paces away, and they all dismounted.

"We wintered by them two years ago," Yuri whispered to Tess as the two groups appraised each other in a silence broken only by isolated comments passed murmuring from a handful of individuals. "Tasha's sister's husband came from this tribe, and… and…" His color had gone high again as his eyes searched the gathered people. Their mood was, Tess thought, still one of measuring rather than welcome.

"Petya!" Yuri shouted, forgetting all protocol and modesty in sheer excitement. "Petya!"

He started forward suddenly. Like an echo, movement shifted as the tribe parted to let someone through. A young man burst out of the assembly and strode-half running-to meet Yuri right in the middle of the ground that separated the two groups. They hugged, two fair heads together, but where Yuri's had a pale, dull cast like winter grass, Petya's shone as brightly as if it had been gilded by the sun.

Some barrier dissolved between the groups. An older man stepped forward and hailed Bakhtiian. Ilya gave Kriye's reins to Vladimir and left the jahar, limping across the open space, Niko and Josef and Tadheus a few steps behind. His careful progress lent him dignity, though, Tess considered wryly, it was probably not entirely unconscious. Others filtered forward, men to greet acquaintances and friends amongst the riders, women to observe and draw whatever conclusions they wished.

And three women walked directly toward Tess. Tess had time to examine them as they neared: one old; one young, dark, and pretty; and one-

Surely this was the "her" Yuri had spoken of.

She had that rare sum of parts that is called beauty. She was quite tall for a woman, almost as tall as Tess, and pleasantly slender. Her hair shone gold, and it hung to her waist, unbraided. She was cursed as well with truly blue eyes and full lips gracing an impossibly handsome face blemished only by the thin, white scar, running from cheekbone to jawbone, that was the mark of marriage. The three women halted in front of Tess, but it was the fair-haired beauty and Tess who did the assessing. Without rancor, both smiled.

"Welcome," said the beauty. "I am Vera Veselov."

"I'm Tess. Tess Soerensen." Tess hesitated and glanced at the older woman, sure that this must be the etsana.

"Yes," said Vera, as if this information was no surprise. "This is my aunt, Mother Veselov. Oh, and Arina, my cousin." Arina smiled tremulously, looking as if she might like to say something but did not dare to. "She will be fine with me now, Aunt," Vera finished, and thus dismissed, the etsana meekly withdrew, nodding once at Tess.

Arina loitered behind and, when Vera said nothing, ventured a few steps closer. But Vera was not actually paying any attention to Tess either. She was staring past Tess toward-Tess turned-Bakhtiian.

"He looks no different," said Vera softly. She glanced at her husband, who still stood talking eagerly and with all the enthusiasm of youth to Yuri. What lay in that glance Tess could not read for it lasted only a moment. Then Vera looked again toward Bakhtiian. He stood talking easily with the older man who had first hailed him.

"Well, Tess Soerensen," said Vera finally, breaking her gaze away from Bakhtiian. "You have ridden an unusual road for a woman."

"Yes, I suppose I have."

Vera smiled again and she had that rarest of things in a self-conscious beauty: a smile that enhanced her. "We will have a dance tonight. You must meet our young men." A glance here again for Bakhtiian. "And tell us about your own. Oh, are you still here, Arina? Why don't you take Tess along and have Petya take her horse and then show her where she can pitch her tent?" Without waiting for a reply, she nodded to Tess and walked away, straight across toward Bakhtiian and his companions.

Tess looked at Arina, who scarcely came up to her chin. Arina smiled. "Can you really use a saber?" Arina asked.

"A little."

"Oh," said Arina with such reserve that Tess wondered if she had offended her. "I always wanted to learn. I made my brother teach me when I was little, but then Vera said it was unbecoming in a woman to-" She flushed. "I beg your pardon. I didn't mean-"

"No, I know what you meant," said Tess kindly. "You are Mother Veselov's daughter, then?"

"Yes. Here is my brother Anton." She called to a burly, black-haired man who looked to be about twice her age. "He will take your horse." A brief exchange, and Anton took Myshla from Tess with the greatest courtesy. "Vera oughtn't to have offered Petya," Arina muttered darkly, "but then, she'll always do as she wishes, whether it is seemly or not." She shot an expressive glance toward her cousin, who had insinuated herself into the group surrounding Bakhtiian.

"Who is the older man?" Tess asked.

"Who? That is my uncle, of course, Sergei Veselov. Vera’s father."

Tess was finding the undercurrents in this tribe more and more interesting. "I beg your pardon for seeming stupid, Arina, but if he is her father, how can he have the same name? Who is her mother? And isn't he-he must be the dyan of this tribe."

Arina sighed and led Tess out of the chaos attending the arrival, over to a quiet corner where she helped her set up her tent. A few young women strayed by, pausing hopefully to watch, but Arina gestured them away with more authority than Tess would ever have guessed she would have based on first impressions.

"Cousins, of the same grandmother, through sisters. Everyone knows they oughtn't to have married, but they never cared for anything but to please themselves. And they say," she added, lowering her voice ominously, "that the children of cousins possess all their worst traits twice over. Six children they had before she died bearing the last one, and only two are still alive today. And look at them.''

"Ah," said Tess, feeling terribly embarrassed.

Arina looked up at her with unexpected and acute understanding. "I'm sorry." She smiled and again appeared like a perfectly harmless and unusually diffident young jaran woman, black-haired, petite, and charming. "What must you think of me? But I really hoped to get you aside to ask you about Kirill Zvertkov. I see he is with the jahar. Has he married again?"

Tess felt as if she had been slapped. She bent to busy herself unrolling her blankets, desperate to hide her reaction. "No." She stuck her head into the tent to at least attempt to disguise the sound of her voice. All the while, her thoughts raced wildly. Hoist with your own petard, my heart, she said to herself, and not a damned thing you can do about it because it would be the worst of ill-bred behavior, and you 're the guest here, not she.

"Oh," said Arina, with a flash of that unexpected acuteness. "He's your lover."

Tess withdrew from the tent, blushing madly, and grasping for every shred of dignity and graciousness she could muster. "Well, yes," she admitted. "I beg your pardon. I know it isn't-isn't seemly to be-" She trailed off, feeling like an idiot.

Arina sighed and suddenly looked very sad. "Is he going to marry you, do you think?" she asked, without anger or jealousy.

"No," said Tess, feeling firm enough on that score. "I'm traveling south. I won't be here past the winter."

Arina brightened. "Oh, well, that's all right, then. I can speak with Mama, who can speak with Bakhtiian, who can speak with Kirill. And then when we meet up with them again…" She hesitated. "If you'd rather I not approach him at all while you're here-"

"No, no," Tess lied, not wanting to get a bad reputation. "I couldn't possibly be so selfish." Oh, yes, you could, her heart muttered, but she found it impossible to dislike Arina Veselov, especially after her selfless offer to leave Kirill alone. Arina was playing fairly; by God, she would, too. After all, Kirill could damned well refuse her offer, couldn't he?

"Arina!" Vera marched up to them, leading a trail of young women like a host of worshipers in her wake. "Are you keeping our guest to yourself? For shame. Here, girls, you see, she does have brown hair. I beg your pardon,

Tess, but Aleksia refused to believe me. Come, we'll show you the camp." With no discernible expression on her face, Arina retreated to the background.

The time until supper had all the tranquillity of a windstorm. They were a lively enough bunch and good company. They made sure that she was thoroughly bewildered as to what their names were, showed her the spot where they would hold the dancing, and besieged her with so many questions that she could only laugh. At last Vera took her to supper.

The estana's tent shared a fire with Vera's tent, and Tess saw immediately that the two tents were sited so as to receive equal standing. Indeed, it surprised her that so young a woman as Vera even possessed one of the great tents that usually housed a grandmother and her adult daughters and multitudinous kin. But Mother Veselov, though of the same fair-haired and slender stock as her cousin and niece, was utterly dwarfed by their personalities. She presided, as was proper, over the supper served by her daughter and son and his wife and assorted other relatives, but she never once spoke unless an opening was given her deliberately by Sergei Veselov or Vera. Besides three men who evidently acted as Veselov's lieutenants, and Tess, five of the men from Bakhtiian's jahar had been honored on this occasion. Bakh-tiian, of course, and Niko and Josef-Tadheus having gone to his sister's husband's kin-and Yuri, because he was Bakhtiian's cousin. And Kirill, who had astonishingly, and to Tess's great dismay, been seated next to Mother Veselov. The better to size him up, Tess thought uncharitably, but she had to concede that given such blatant provocation, Kirill behaved circumspectly and Arina, moving around him frequently, did not flirt with him at all.

Bakhtiian and Veselov spoke together mostly. Tess, placed across the fire, could not join in but only listen. Vera had, of course, placed herself on the other side of Bakhtiian and banished her young husband to Yuri's company, next to Tess. Yuri and Petya were reminiscing, oblivious to the others and, for that matter, to her.

"You have not yet explained to me, Bakhtiian," Sergei Veselov was saying, "how you intend to feed so many jahars, all gathered into one army."

"A fair enough question, Veselov," replied Bakhtiian smoothly, letting the hostility in Veselov's voice slip off him, "and one which I will return to you. Let us assume the situation. What would you do?"

And so, deferring with strength, in the end he got Veselov to agree it could be done. Bakhtiian seemed different to her here. He showed none of that arrogance that came from having the assurance of admiration. He was tactful, respectful, even clever, slipping gracefully past a question meant, possibly, to offend him, making one grim fellow laugh, arguing carefully and with good humor to a conclusion favorable to himself. Perhaps charisma and craft, strength and obsession, were not all that made up a leader. Perhaps you could have all of these, and still lack the sheer instinct for leadership that made Bakhtiian-that made Charles-the kind of men they were.

"Yet you rode into khaja lands and came out unscathed," Veselov was saying. "I recall when Leo Vershinin took forty-five riders into those lands and-"

While Veselov went on, clearly beginning a long anecdote, Bakhtiian looked up across the fire directly at Tess, as if he had known she was watching him. Their eyes held a moment and dropped away together.

As soon as the anecdote ended, with Vershinin's jahar reduced to five men, Vera said, "Aunt?" Recalled to her duties, Mother Veselov excused all the women to prepare for the dance, now that twilight was lowering in on them. Arina approached Tess, but Vera swept her away and Arina retreated back to her mother's tent.

"Perhaps you would like to borrow some clothing?" Vera asked. "Some women's clothing, I mean."

"Oh, thank you. But I have some."

"Well, then, if you would like, I will walk you to your tent." Tess submitted to the escort and allowed Vera to lead her away to the other end of the camp, where her tent was pitched. "You know Bakhtiian well."

"We've ridden together a long way."

Vera put a long-fingered hand on Tess's forearm. It was dim enough that this gesture was neither public nor particularly intrusive. "You have also lain with him?"

Tess turned her head away, pretending to look at the distant field where a great fire was being prepared. Broad-skirted figures moved back and forth, snatches of singing and laughter and the high, unfamiliar music of women's voices punctuating the merriment within the camp. When she trusted herself, she turned back.

"No."

Vera's fingers lifted from her arm. "That's too bad. I would have liked to compare what you knew of him with what I know.''

There was a pause, as if some reply was expected. Tess could not speak.

Vera brushed her thick hair back with one hand, a graceful, practiced gesture that drew the eye to the faultless line of her jaw and chin. "There are only three men I ever hoped would mark me. One is dead now, the second loved another, for which I cannot begrudge him his choice, but Bakhtiian-he knew he could have had me, but he stood by while that boy marked me."

"Perhaps," Tess began, faltering, almost stuttering, "perhaps he knew that Petya wanted you more."

"Petya," said his wife, uttering his name so dispassionately as to betray her complete disregard for her husband, "is a blind child. He is five years younger than I am."

"I don't understand. Women take lovers, but men take wives."

"That," said the beauty bitterly, "is the way of the jaran. I will kill the woman he marks."

"Do you really think he will ever marry?"

"If you had lain with him, you would know. He is diarin. "

"What is that?"

Vera looked back toward the main cluster of tents. The men had gathered in groups by small fires to await the dancing. Her nose, which in her father and aunt was merely thin, gave her an aristocratic look of one to whom the world should surely do some obeisance. "You have been with men," she replied, turning back to Tess. "This is a woman's word. Diarin, a man who dishevels a woman's hair. Passionate in bed. But perhaps Vasilley will kill him after all, and then he cannot marry."

"Vasilley?"

"My brother. He rides with Dmitri Mikhailov."

Vasil. Vera's brother. This was delicate ground indeed. "Ah," said Tess, playing for time while she gathered her wits, "Do you want him to kill Bakhtiian?"

"I'm married to a man I do not want, and I want a man I cannot have. Why should anyone else have him?"

"If Petya dies," said Tess ungraciously, "you could have him."

"When he stood by, stood by, while Petya did this to me?'' Her fingers lifted to touch the white scar that marred the perfect beauty of her face.

"You would have the mark whether it was Bakhtiian or Petya or any man."

"No." The grip of Vera's fingers, closing on the sleeve of Tess's shirt, was strong. "There is one other way given to the jaran to marry, but it is only for the bravest, for the most exceptional." She tilted her head back to gaze up at the first spray of stars gracing the sky. ' 'Korokh.''

Korokh: one who reached for the wind, Yuri had said. Tess touched the priest-rune engraved on the hilt of her saber. It felt very cold. "For a man to choose a woman?"

"The quiet road," breathed Vera. Her lips stayed slightly parted. Her hair flowed down around her shoulders like strands of silk-she wore it as an unmarried girl might, not in the married woman's tight braids. "The four-times-covered road from tree to stone." Tess realized that it was very still, as if a hush had fallen in deference to Vera's show of passion. "I wanted that road. I wanted that, not this."

A sudden cheer and a swell of laughter interrupted them, the lighting of the great fire. Flames sparked up.

"But here, we'll be late. I'll let you go." She left.

Tess stared after her. A group of young men hurried past her toward the fire, laughing and jesting, and a musician began a racing beat on a drum.

Tess ran to her tent and debated, briefly, whether to give up this attempt to change in the dark, but change she did, feeling with peculiar hindsight that Nadezhda Martov had known quite well what she was about, gifting this foreign stranger with decent women's clothing. But whom was she trying to impress? That was the question that troubled her.

Coming out of her tent, she paused to try to get a glimpse of herself in her mirror. She was not sure that the beaded headdress over her braids was arranged correctly. She felt a presence come up beside her, and smelled a fleeting breath of cinnamon. She whirled.

"Cha Ishii!" He stood before her, straight, hands folded at his chest in 'Lord's Supplication.'

Unfolding his hands, he bowed. "Lady Terese, your most generous pardon, I beg of you, for this unexpected intrusion."

"You surprised me." She took one step back from him. "I did not expect to see you venturing out at this sort of-social occasion."

"Lady Terese." The color of his face was lost in darkness, no shade to his voice at all. "With greatest deference, I advise you to stay here with this tribe. Do not go with us in the morning. Please be so munificent as to believe me when I say I have no desire to see you come to any harm, even though you would have brought it on yourself should anything happen to you."

"What would happen? Why should I stay here? Cha Ishii!"

But he simply turned and walked away, to be hidden swiftly by the night. Tess gaped after him.

"Tess?" It was Arina, tentative as always. "I thought you might-oh, I don't know. Here, let me straighten that for you." She adjusted the headpiece. "There. Would you like company, to go out?''

"Yes, I would," said Tess, liking Arina very much, however much she wanted to dislike her.

It proved easy enough to lose herself in the festivities. She knew quite well that she ought not to dance more than the occasional dance with any of the riders of Bakhtiian's jahar, so she turned her attention to the riders of Veselov's tribe. She felt completely at ease as she flirted with them in the casual, straightforward manner that jaran women had. She danced twice with Petya because she felt sorry for him. Beneath the undeniably handsome exterior, beneath the self-effacing bashfulness devoid of conceit, beneath the quick, unpretentious smile and the delicate, pale blue of his eyes, Petya was desperately unhappy. She took Yuri aside to ask him about it.

"I think he knows she'll never love him," Tess said.

"Love him! She doesn't even like him." They walked together to the periphery of the light, choosing solitude for their conversation. "I doubt if she ever lets him forget it."

"Can she really be so cruel?"

"Cruel? I don't know if I would call Vera Veselov cruel. I think she is so blind to anything but what she wants that she cares not in the least if she hurts someone who has gotten in her way. That family is far too handsome for its own good."

"Yes," said Tess, remembering Vasil. "And her brother is the most beautiful of the lot, if only because he isn't so arrogant."

"Ah, yes, Vasil," Yuri muttered. "I never could dislike him. But he's as single-minded as the rest, and as selfish, in his own way.''

"Somehow I detect a long history of association between your tribe and this one."

"Yes. It started in my great-grandmother's time when her uncle insulted the Veselov etsana by refusing to marry her sister. And then just when the feud was at its worst, his daughter and the sister's son ran off together, when it had all been arranged that they were to marry for alliances into other tribes."

"Is this a long story?" Tess chuckled and, seeing Kirill strolling by, made eyes at him.

Kirill stopped dead, took her hand, and kissed it. "You are more beautiful than the stars, my heart." He grinned at Yuri. "I will retreat before the wrath of the brother." And did so.

"Tess, stop that. Do you want everyone to know?"

"Maybe I do. Oh, Yuri, you know very well that if Kirill was to stop flirting with me altogether that would be as good as shouting it to the world."

"True enough. But I noticed he sat beside Mother Veselov tonight. Who has an unmarried daughter. Oho, Sister, what is this? You're jealous! Do you love Kirill?"

The question stopped her cold. She forgot to be angry or jealous. Did she love him? "Gods, Yuri," she said, and fell silent, unwilling to unravel the chaos that writhed through her heart.

"Yes," said Yuri finally, "it is a long story. And I'm sure that the Orzhekov tribe and the Veselov tribe have not done yet with hating and loving one another. Poor Petya." Poor Petya stood alone, watching as the dance swirled by him, never approached by any of the young women of his own tribe, though he was certainly one of the handsomest men there. "I've even heard her say in front of him that Ilya would have marked her if Petya hadn't charged in first."

"That can't be true."

"She doesn't care in the least how much she hurts him."

"No, that Ilya would have marked her."

"Ilya's a damned idiot sometimes, but he's not that stupid."

"She told me that she had only ever wished to marry three men."

"Yes, that's something else she tells everyone. The first was Khara Roskhel. He was darker than Ilya, twice as proud, but mean with it. He had that cruelty in him that Nature is afraid to give out to more than one man in each generation. He had better hands for the saber than our Vladimir. He was a plain-looking man, but he had a pull about him that made him seem as handsome as-as Petya. He supported Ilya at first but then he turned against him. No one knows why. His men killed Ilya's father and nephew, but they always said that Roskhel himself murdered Ilya's mother and sister." He shuddered. "But it's bad luck to speak of it. It was an ill-omened thing, all of it, that year."

"Gods," said Tess. "What happened to him?"

"Ilya killed him. He strangled him."

A woman let out a shrill yell as she was tossed into the air in the dance and caught again. Three pipes pierced above the clapping. Tess rubbed her throat with one hand, feeling the smooth skin and, under that, the ridge of her windpipe.

' 'The year after his family died Ilya was more dangerous than the mountains in winter."

Tess made a sound imitating laughter. "I'll bet. And the other one?"

"The other one? Oh, Vera's other love." He laughed. The firelight gleamed in his eyes. "You're wearing his saber."

"Keregin? I don't believe you."

"What greater catch for a girl than the man who leads the arenabekh? But he fell in love with her brother. Only everyone knew that Vasil-well, Keregin didn't pursue it. But he certainly never had an eye for her."

A shout and cheering ended the dance. Tess saw a swirl of bright hair, and Vera entered, dressed in such finery as to put all the other women there to shame.

"How old is she?"

"Twenty-five. She put off everyone, you see, by one scheme or another and stayed unmarried until she was twenty-three. Petya got her because she wasn't looking."

"Poor Petya," Tess echoed.

"You ought to make up to him."

"Yuri! I don't even know him, except to sit beside at supper. And he spent the entire time talking with you."

"He's shy. He was so happy to see me. I'm not sure he's made many friends here."

Without really thinking about it, they both looked around the circle for Petya. Saw him in a gap out at the farthest edge of the dark: two familiar figures standing close together and yet, by the set of their shoulders, at a great distance. The poor child was speaking with his wife and it was not a happy interview.

"Yurinya Orzhekov. I don't suppose you remember me." A young woman strode up and planted herself in front of Yuri. Her dark braid hung casually over one blue-clad shoulder down to the swell of her full breasts.

"I should never forget you, Aleksia," said Yuri in a muted voice, his eyes lowered.

Aleksia glanced at Tess and winked. "Have you forgotten how to dance, then?" She took his hand and led him away into the crowd of gathering dancers. Yuri neither looked up nor back.

Tess smiled and settled back to watch. Yuri took his place in the circle meekly enough. There, Mikhal partnered a dark-haired woman, and Petre and Nikita and Konstans stood up as well with young women whose cheeks were unmarred by the scar of marriage. Even Josef, looking amused, was being teased by a girl half his age. Beyond the dancing, Sergei Veselov conversed with Niko and Tadheus and, of all people, Arina Veselov. Past them, Kirill regaled a group of impressionable-looking young men with some exaggerated story. On around the circle, strange faces blended together until, like a sudden beacon brilliantly illuminating a dark shore-

Ilya. Leaning forward, shoulders straight, he was explaining something with his habitual intensity to an elderly man. They sat together on a blanket, off to one side. Two older women came by and paused to join the conversation. When they left, smiling, the elderly man rose with a polite nod and went with them. A boy, barely in his teens, halted tentatively at the edge of the blanket. Ilya, seeing him, beckoned him closer. They spoke. Another boy came by, then a girl, and then they, too, left. Alone on the blanket, Ilya bent his head as if he were tired. With one hand he rubbed his injured knee. Tess smiled to herself, feeling foolishly sorry for him, and made her way over to him.

She came out of the crowd on his left and paused at the edge of his blanket. He was still staring down, the firelight a glow on his forehead and eyes. Abruptly he glanced up, straight at her. For an instant he seemed startled. Then he smiled.

Tess stepped onto the blanket and sat down beside him. "How you must hate being injured when you could be dancing."

He did not even look at the dancers but kept his gaze on her face. "I'm perfectly happy," he said quietly. "Now."

It was impossible not to know what he meant. He was flirting with her. Flirting-gods, did Bakhtiian even engage in such frivolous activities as flirting? She did not know whether to laugh hysterically or to run. Bakhtiian simply watched her, drawing whatever conclusions he might from the expressions chasing themselves across her face.

"Yes," she said, choosing to misunderstand him. "It must be satisfying to win over a tribe formerly so hostile to your own."

"It always is," he said tonelessly.

She dredged for a more neutral topic and grasped at the only one she could recall from supper. "You let Veselov work out how to supply an army. How do you intend to do it?"

He took the cue. Perhaps, explaining, he was more conscientiously serious with her than he usually was. She let it pass. What he said was interesting enough, though she was no student of war as he quite clearly was. Then with a word and a warning pattern on his drum, the head drummer called out the next dance.

"This is my favorite dance. Please excuse me, Ilya." She scrambled to her feet and stared about desperately for the nearest available man whom she knew was a good dancer. There was Vladimir, but… ah, well, he already had a partner.

"You mean you wouldn't rather sit and talk with me?" asked Bakhtiian, but although his voice had the inflection of humor, he was not smiling.

"Of course I would," she said absently, and then she smiled brilliantly, catching Kirill's eye before Arina Veselov, coming out of the crowd next to him, could catch him for herself. "But I love this dance. I'll come back." And she ran over to Kirill and led him out.

It was a long dance, and the next was a line dance for women into which she was seduced by the combined persuasion of Arina and Aleksia. But when she had finished that, she felt guilty for having left him so abruptly, so she threaded her way back through the crowd to where he sat. Partway around the circle, halted by a passing clump of children, she saw over their heads that Bakhtiian was not alone.

Vera had braided her hair for this occasion only so that she could wear the glittering headdress of onyx and amethyst beads that set off her fine features so admirably. That was Tess's first thought. Her tunic was cut unusually low, displaying a good deal of fine, white throat and slender shoulders. Somehow she had spread out the skirts of her tunic so that a fold fell possessively over one leg of his trousers. Lower, a slim ankle showed, bare and delicate, resting next to one of his boots. Leaning forward, Vera said something. Ilya smiled. Tess turned and, seeing Yuri, walked over to him and asked him to dance.

When the dance had finished, she could not help just one surreptitious glance toward Bakhtiian. But the blanket lay empty, abandoned, crumpled at the edges as people walked over it and pushed it into folds.

"Oh, gods," said Yuri, "is that Petya out there?" Petya stood in the same place where he had had the argument with his wife, far enough away from the main group that no one remarked on his bowed shoulders, on his solitude.

"Tess." Kirill joined them. "So you've seen him. Listen, Tess, you ought to make up to him."

"I ought to make up to him!"

"Yes," Kirill said without blinking. "Anton Veselov told me that his cousin slapped Aleksia Charnov and bullied her for months after Charnov lay once with Petya. And Veselov never even lets Petya in her tent, except-well, now and then, Anton says, begging your pardon, Tess. But Petya never deserved to be made miserable. But you could make up to him. Vera Veselov can't do anything to you, and perhaps if the other young women see your example, they'll defy her a little. Ordering her aunt around as if she were etsana, and not her!"

"But Kirill!" Tess felt as if she had been betrayed.

"What a fine idea, Kirill," said Yuri. "We'd best leave Tess to work out what comes next.'' He grabbed the other man's arm and pulled him away. Kirill, looking puzzled, let himself be led, glancing once back at Tess with a shrug and, God help her, a complicitous grin. He didn't even care if she slept with another man!

Of course he didn't care. Of course he thought she had every right to sleep with any damned man she wanted.

A fresh-faced boy suddenly came up to her out of the whirl. "I beg your pardon," he said shyly. "Is this yours?" He handed her Bakhtiian's blanket, shaken out and neatly folded.

"Thank you." Tess gave him a smile, at which, satisfied, he took himself off. Holding the blanket, Tess marched over to Petya and persuaded him to go for a walk with her along the river.

He did not take much persuading. At first, strolling through the pale grass, stars a net of brightness above, the river a melodiously soft accompaniment, neither of them spoke much, except about commonplaces.

"Yuri doesn't think you're happy here," said Tess finally, realizing that Petya, who was very sweet, would never confide in her without prompting. "I'm his sister, you know. Mother Orzhekov gifted me with Anna Orzhekov's tent."

"I always liked Anna," said Petya. They walked, and the river rolled on alongside them. Then, as if it was impossible to conceal secrets from Yuri's sister, he began to talk.

Petya, Tess realized, was indeed sweet, ingenuous, and shy, and he was also a little shallow, having none of Yuri's unexpected depth. He had fallen in love with Vera Veselov and had marked her, as a man ought. After two years, he had at last deduced that she was angry with him but for what reason he was still not entirely sure, although he did acknowledge that she might well love Ilyakoria Bakhtiian.

"But Bakhtiian would never have marked her," he said naively, "so I can't understand why she would be angry with me about that."

He had formed no lasting friendships. None of the women approached him. Vera admitted him to her tent if she pleased, and banished him from there if it suited her. Altogether, he was miserable.

"But, Petya," said Tess, exasperated, "it isn't your fault."

"But surely there's more I can do to win her over. To make her love me."

Tess sighed and spread out the blanket. "Petya, sit down." He sat. She sat beside him. The moon had risen. Its narrow silhouette lay tangled in the rushing water, breaking, re-forming, and breaking again. "Petya," she began, and stopped. It would do no good to criticize Vera. "Haven't you any friends here?" she asked instead.

"Anton Veselov has always been kind to me," he admitted.

"I think you'd do well to cultivate Anton and Arina Veselov. After all, Arina will be etsana someday, not Vera."

"Yes, and Vera hates her."

"No doubt. Petya. I think-" He looked up at her, trusting and, as Yuri had said when speaking of Petya's wife's family, too handsome for his own good. Tess thought that Petya had probably had things much too easy growing up, with a sweet face like that. He had probably been a gorgeous, indulged child. She took in a breath. "Petya, I think that Vera would respect you more if you took a-a firmer hand with her." She tried not to wince as she said it, unsure of what ground she was on here in the jaran. "For instance, if you will pardon a sister's confidence, she hadn't any right to punish Aleksia Charnov for making up to you." Petya was silent. "I am sure," Tess continued, seeing that he was receptive to this elder-sister tone of voice, "that a husband ought to expect the same respect from his wife as she expects from him."

"It is true," he said in a low voice, "that a wife has certain obligations to her husband that he may demand if she is unwilling to give them to him freely."

Tess decided that to inquire into the scope of these obligations would be treading on too thin ice. "Well, then, I think you ought to stand up for yourself. Otherwise she will never forgive you."

"She may never forgive me whatever I do."

"That is true. But it's yourself you have to respect most of all, Petya."

He smiled, utterly guileless. "I hadn't thought of it like that. And it wasn't right, about Aleksia. Anton tried to tell me but I wouldn't listen. I could have put a stop to it." This realization hit him with some force, and he stopped speaking.

"Yes," said Tess, feeling that Petya had as much to absorb as he was capable of for one evening. "It's so late. Shall we go back?''

They strolled back in good charity with each other, and Petya told her about the pranks he and Yuri had played on the older boys, growing up. He left her at the edge of camp, and she devoutly hoped that he was not so fired up that he would charge straight over to his wife's tent because she knew very well who was in there with her. Bitch, she said to herself, and wandered out to watch the last coals of the great fire burn themselves down.

A pair of figures had come there before her, and she paused. "Sibirin, he is no longer my son," Sergei Veselov was saying in a cold voice, "and when Dmitri Mikhailov took him in, that is when I broke with Mikhailov."

Tess retreated and wandered back through camp, tired but not quite sleepy. Only to see Kirill, with that wonderful, provocative chuckle he had, emerge from Arina Veselov's little tent, pitched far behind her mother's. She stared, too shocked to move, and then, recalling herself, began to hurry away. But he was too quick for her and far too good a scout.

"Tess," he called in a whisper, and he jogged after her. She had to stop. He came up to her and, glancing round once to see that no one else was about, flung his arms around her and kissed her, laughing.

She pushed him away.

"Tess, what's wrong?" He looked utterly bewildered and a little hurt.

"I'm just tired," she said crossly. "Good night." She walked back to her tent and burrowed in under her blankets, throwing Bakhtiian's blanket outside. Knowing that Kirill had behaved as a jaran man ought did not make it easier to forgive him. Then, chastised by her own sense of justice, she reached outside and pulled the blanket back in again.

In the morning, Petya had gained so much in spirits that Vera actually looked twice at him as he helped Tess saddle Myshla, a task Vera had probably not ordered him to do.

When the time came for them to leave, Tess deliberately waited until everyone else had mounted before calling Petya back and, in front of the assembled jahar and the tribe, giving him the beautiful amber-beaded necklace that Vasil had given her.

"For luck," she said softly, and kissed him on the cheek.

He flushed bright red but he looked delighted. Vera, caught in the crowd, looked furious. Arina Veselov was smiling with malicious pleasure. And then Tess mounted Myshla, blinking innocently under all their gazes, and drew Myshla into line next to Yuri's mount. For good measure she caught Cha Ishii's eye and acknowledged him with a cool, defiant nod. Bakhtiian made polite farewells, and they left, immediately driven by Bakhtiian's command to an unrelenting pace that kept up until midday.

"Tess, Tess," said Yuri as they started out at a pace more reasonable for the horses after the break. "You're wicked, my dear sister. Oh, her face, her face when you did it."

"Serves her right, the bitch."

"Well, she wasn't deserted last night, was she?" He screwed up his face, looking disgusted. "Gods, Ilya hasn't said a word since we left. I hope he and Sergei Veselov didn't argue. They've never been easy together."

"Perhaps he misses her, Yuri."

"Oho, you're being nasty today, aren't you? Is it Kirill you're mad at, or is it Ilya? Or both of them?"

"You've gotten full of yourself."

He laughed. "I had a pleasant night, Tess. But please, don't argue with me. Petya looked so much better this morning. I don't know what you did-"

"I only talked with him."

"Still-"

"Yuri." Bakhtiian drew up beside them. "North scout. You and Kirill." Yuri opened his mouth, shut it, and rode away. Bakhtiian kept his horse even with Tess's. He rode at one with the animal, as always, but his back was so stiff that a board could have been nailed there to hold the shape. There was a tight, drawn edge to his mouth, dark smudges of sleeplessness under his eyes. He neither spoke nor looked at her.

They rode on for some time in this manner. Clipped, drying grass rustled under their horses' hooves. A golden brown haze marked the distant hills. His eyes remained fixed on some unmoving point situated just in front of Kriye's head. Now and again an irregularity in the ground interrupted the black's steady pace and she would see Bakhtiian's eyes tighten at the corners and his lips pale from the pain. Still he said nothing.

"Nice day, isn't it?" she asked finally.

His head turned. He fixed her with a stare so turbulent that she almost reined in Myshla to get away from him. "When my aunt gave you that tent," he said, his voice so level that a brimful glass would not have spilled a drop if set upon it, "she expected you would behave properly. If you persist in flaunting your flirtations, especially with married men, so that you lose whatever reputation you have, you will no longer have the right to call it your own."

"What I'm wondering," said Tess, smiling, "is who got the beauty and who got the beast last night. Why don't you come back when you've got something civil to say to me?''

Kriye shifted pace with a slight jolt. Bakhtiian's eyes went almost vacant. The moment passed, and he stared straight at her again.

"This is advice," he said tonelessly, "that you had better heed."

"Had I?" She flipped her braid back over her shoulder with all the blithe unconcern of a very popular girl confronted with the plainest and least interesting of her rivals. "Forgive me if I choose to consult with Sonia about such matters first."

He continued to stare at her, his eyes fixed on her face with the intensity of a panther which, hidden in the grass, watches its prey.

"You'd better say what you want right now, Bakhtiian, because I'm going to go find more congenial company."

His right hand tightened. Slowly, he moved it so that it came to rest on the hilt of his saber.

Her hand was on hers in an instant.

He opened his hand and reclosed it finger by finger around the hilt. "I don't give advice lightly."

"No one ever does." She had tried to keep her tone light and sarcastic. Now she simply lost her temper. "And how do you-by God! — how do you intend to make me heed your advice?"

She regretted it immediately. The color banished from his cheeks by her comments, he regarded her with the expression of a man who has that instant conceived a diabolical plan. He took his hand off his saber. Fear, receiving no answer to its knock, opened the door and walked in.

"By the gods," said Ilya. "I will." He turned his horse and cantered to the back of the group.