The Novels of the Jaran

by Kate Elliott

  “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 therefrom 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.