by Kate Elliott
And she knew that it was worth it, this entire journey. Everything else aside, all the other joys and sorrows, everything she had learned and lost and become, this knowledge would be of priceless value to Charles. If spy she must be, spy she would become. She would leave here knowing why this palace existed and what the Chapalii were trying to hide.
“If you will wait here.” Tess sat obediently on a bench in a narrow hallway while the priestess disappeared inside a room. Two torches gave a glum light to the corridor, and she could see into several rooms, scarcely more than closets, that showed signs of habitation: A couch with an old stain on the cushions, a table with a cloth on it, a sandal forgotten in a corner.
The priestess returned and led Tess down a white-walled hallway into a bright room. Twelve white-robed men and women regarded her, unsmiling. Tess blinked, rubbing at her eyes. She could not make out the source of the light. Walls of luminous stone lined the chamber, and it was bare of furnishing or ornamentation except for a cylindrical fountain at the far end, about twelve meters from her. While the priests studied her, she studied the fountain. It was a clear, hollow structure, intricately carved to reveal six spouts curled within, releasing a fine spray of rainbows and water that trickled into a basin and thence into a drain in the floor.
“You have ridden down the Avenue at sunset, knowing but not knowing what the Laws are, with a man who is but is not your kin,” said the priestess. “Because your name is not known here, at this shrine where the gods’ breath still lies heavy over the earth, the gods must judge you. Drink from the fountain, child. Drink your fill.”
Tess looked around the circle of faces. They were all serious, dispassionate, yet none was unsympathetic. This was a test, but she could not connect it with what she knew of this culture or with Ilya’s distress. She walked up to the fountain and knelt, cupping her hands to get a handful of water from the basin, and sipped at it, a bare touch. Lowered her hands slightly to watch the priests. Lifted her hands. Before her lips touched the water again, her mouth stung.
She swore and jumped up. The water in her hands spilled onto the stone. She rubbed her hands roughly on her trousers.
“It burns!” She sat down, screwing up her face, trying to rub the stinging off of her lips. But if this was the gods’ drink, she had surely failed to meet with their approval. And the penalty for sacrilege—she stood up. They would not kill her without a fight.
But they were all smiling. And none of them was armed.
“You have a certain enthusiasm for the truth which is refreshing.” The priestess walked forward. “May I show you to a room for the night now?”
Tess did not move. “That was all? That was the test? I’m safe?”
“My child,” said the priestess, a little scoldingly, perhaps, “no violence is ever done in this shrine.”
“But the drink?”
“The water is poisonous. A sip does no harm, but were you dishonest or frightened, or greedy enough, you would have drunk your fill.”
“And died.”
The priestess shrugged.
“Does everyone who enters here whose name is—not known—have to pass this test?” she asked, suddenly curious about the Chapalii.
“No, only those who have transgressed the Law in some fashion.”
“But how did I—?”
“First, child, you may call me Mother Avdotya. Second, you may come with me to your room. There is much to do if pilgrims are expected, and no time for all of us to stay with you.”
Tess submitted. The hallway seemed very dark after the bright intensity of the fountain chamber. The priestess led her with her bowl of light down another hall, up stairs, and along a narrower corridor until they reached a room furnished with a single bed, a table, a chair, and a small window. And Myshla’s saddlebags.
“You may sleep here. Yeliana will come for you in the morning.”
Tess sat on the bed, hands folded in her lap. “May I ask some questions, Mother Avdotya?”
“Yes. You have earned that right.”
Tess sighed and decided to begin where the ground seemed safest. “How long has this shrine been here?”
“I do not know.”
“Who built it?”
“I do not know.”
“How does it stay so—clean? Are there many of you here?”
“Never more than twenty-seven. It remains pure by its own devices.”
“How does it stay light?”
“We have torches. The other lights come, perhaps, from the stone. I do not know.”
“Does anyone know?”
She chuckled. “Do you think I am the old half-wit they have sent to you to keep you ignorant?” Tess blushed. Out the window she saw only dark and stars and the skeletal outlines of trees. “No, child. I am Eldest here. That is why I went out to the Avenue, when it was seen that a sunset ride had begun.”
Tess could not yet bring herself to speak of the Avenue. “What will Bakhtiian do tonight?”
“He will remain outside. I hope it proves a cold night. I know from experience that stone is hard ground on which to kneel for so many hours, especially when the penitent does not know whether he has brought about another person’s death.” Tess winced away from the merciless chill in the old woman’s voice. “Now I will leave you. You have a great deal to think about.”
Tess took in a breath and stood up. “You said that we rode together down the Avenue at sunset as if that meant something. That—the ceremony was completed. What is the Law of the Avenue?”
Mother Avdotya turned back calmly, as if she had expected this question all along and merely hastened its appearance by pretending to leave. She rested her right hand on the back of the chair. Her left still cupped the bowl of light. “The honored ceremony. It takes great presumption—that, certainly, Ilyakoria Bakhtiian does not lack—because this is a holy place. For a man and a woman to ride down the Avenue at sunset, if they are not kin, is to marry their souls in the sight of the gods.”
Tess sat down. “But—but we’re cousins.”
“Cousins have been known to marry, although it is rare, and more rarely approved.”
“But I thought a man married a woman by marking her with his saber and then there was a period of prohibitions laid on them, and if they passed through these without breaking any, they were married.”
“Yes,” Mother Avdotya agreed, “that is the way of the jaran, the way of the people. The Law of the Avenue is unique. I have served here forty years, and only once before, twenty-six years ago, did a man and a woman ride the avenue.”
“What happened to them?”
“It was she who had instigated it, for no better reason than envy of another woman’s husband. She was too afraid to be honest when it came time to approach the fountain. He lives here still as a priest, having dedicated himself to serve where she died.”
“Oh,” said Tess, amazed she could produce so profound an observation. “He didn’t think I would be tested, did he?”
“That seems to be the only word to his credit in this entire business that I can find,” replied Mother Avdotya, quite unsympathetically.
“After all,” Tess muttered to herself, “he would have no victory if I were dead.” Then, seeing that the priestess was watching her with unnerving keenness, she shook her head, trying to clear it of confusion. “Why is it that so few of the jaran marry this way? Because they might be killed?”
“I’m not sure you entirely understand. The mark weds a woman to a man as long as her flesh carries it, or he lives. And only that long. But those who marry by this road marry the other eternally, for as long as their souls are born back into this world.”
“Do you mean he did it believing it would bind me to him forever?”
“You see, child, why it is such an unpardonable thing he has done, knowing as he did that you were ignorant of it.”
“Oh, my God.”
The light on the priestess’ bowl cast a glow on her face, shadowing ridges, highlighting
the white sheen of her hair. Tess pinched the coarse blanket up into little hummocks and smoothed it down again. What had Kirill said? Bakhtiian did not like to lose.
“Yuri tried to warn me that I was riding into an ambush.”
“An unusual ambush.”
“I didn’t even know we were fighting a war.” Suddenly exhausted, Tess sank her head to rest on her open hands. “Oh, God.” She could see his face, that brilliant, passionate face. She felt overwhelmed and utterly bewildered. There burned like a safe beacon her love for Kirill, like a campfire or a hearth’s fire, warm and welcoming and contained, no great blaze, but restful and heartwarming. Like her love for Yuri, whatever differences there might be in how she felt for each of them. But like a wildfire that rages over the grass, obliterating everything in its path, this had come to her.
“I will leave you now,” said Mother Avdotya.
The old woman went so unobtrusively that Tess scarcely noticed her leaving: the scrape of a shoe, cloth brushing wood, the low snick of the closing door. It was very dim, the furniture only dark slabs. Tess raised her head and stared outside at the lines of trees moving in the wind, etched against the night sky and the dark mass of clouds gathering, hiding the stars. Oh, yes, she understood him very well now. Perhaps Yuri was right, perhaps there was no difference for him between love and conquest.
Now you are mine.
He had what he wanted. “A wife has certain obligations to her husband that he may demand if she is unwilling to give them to him freely.” She had no doubt now what those obligations included. That she loved him—that he now knew that she loved him—well, that only added sweetness to the victory.
Outside, the moon emerged from a scattering of clouds. Tess rose and went to the window, staring out. This is not my world, she told herself. If he has married himself to you under his laws, then what of it? It does not bind you.
Only it was her world, in a sense. She was its heir. And the ties of love and hate, of desire and indifference, of loyalty and betrayal are the only and all of the ties that bind us. She paced the tiny room for half the night before she finally got herself to sleep.
Chapter Twenty-two
“Well, but I do these things under compulsion.”
—EPICHARMUS OF SYRACUSE
YELIANA WAS YOUNGER THAN Tess expected; she looked about fourteen, with her heart-shaped face and solemn eyes.
“Mother Avdotya sent me,” she explained, surveying Tess from the doorway. “I will escort you first to bathe and then to our midday meal.” Solemnity vanished for a moment and she grinned. “You slept very late. Once I was allowed to sleep so late, when I was quite ill.”
Tess rubbed her eyes and glanced out the window, and rubbed her eyes again.
“And you may borrow a decent shift, if you wish,” Yeliana added, seeing that Tess had slept in her clothes, “if you would like to wash your clothing as well.”
“I would, thank you.”
To Tess’s delight, the bath consisted of a heated, circulating pool. Yeliana agreed that it was miraculous and informed Tess that Mother Avdotya thought hot springs whose source they had yet to find must lie under the palace. If Tess took a little too much time, seduced by this luxury, the girl did not complain. She even helped her wash her clothes and spread them out to dry. A white shift was produced, belted, and proclaimed decorous. Tess left her hair hanging loose to dry.
Yeliana led her to the eating hall, a wood-paneled room flooded with sunlight through four huge windows in one wall and furnished with long tables and benches. The priests had clustered at one end of the room, and they shifted as she entered, moving to sit. Amid all the white, she saw a brilliant spot of red. He sat between two men, head bowed. As Yeliana guided Tess forward, Ilya glanced up toward them. His entire being froze.
Abruptly, he pushed himself up. The two priests on either side were on their feet, a hand on each of his shoulders, before he was halfway standing. He looked once to each side and sank back onto the bench. He did not look up again. The two men sat.
From another room, three men brought in platters of food. Tess ate earnestly, truly hungry, but she could not help but glance at Ilya at intervals. Like her, he had bathed; he had trimmed his hair and his beard, had probably washed at least his shirt, early enough so that it had had time to dry. He attended to his food with an assiduousness helped by the disapproval with which everyone treated him. It was a silent meal. When all had finished, three women took the dishes away. Everyone else stood.
“Mother Avdotya has asked that you stay here,” Yeliana explained, “so that you do not unwittingly disturb any of us at our duties. The rest of your party will surely arrive soon.”
Tess watched the priests leave. The hall was empty except for herself and Bakhtiian. He was gazing down at the table, one finger tracing patterns on the grain. Tess walked across the room to stare out one of the windows at the garden. But he followed her, stopping a few paces behind her.
“Tess.” His voice was quiet, unsure.
“I have nothing to say to you.”
“Tess, if I had known, if I had even suspected the risk to you, I would never—”
“Battles are not won by men who refuse to take risks.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“I’d rather not turn around to answer that question if you’re wearing your saber.”
“You needn’t address me in that tone, Tess. I’m perfectly aware that my actions yesterday were ill-advised.”
“Ill-advised! They weren’t advised by anyone but yourself. You could have gotten me killed!” She turned to see his expression but the light falling on his face only brought out that blend of radiance and severity that made him so striking.
“Gods,” breathed Ilya, as if he could not help himself. “White suits you.”
Warmth spread up her cheeks. “This almost gives me sympathy for Vera Veselov. Is this how men of the jaran revenge themselves on women who don’t want them? Forcing them to marry them? My God, I think it is. I know it is.” He went pale with anger but that only made her reckless. “What is it you really want, Ilya? Me, or Jeds?”
“How dare you. Whatever you may think of me, I have honor.”
“Do you mean that it would be wrong to deceive me into marrying you to gain what I possess but not wrong to deceive me in order to—to what? To humiliate me by forcing me to become your wife?”
“To humiliate you?”
“I suppose you thought I’d be flattered.”
He looked as if she had just slapped him. “Yes,” he said hoarsely, “and why shouldn’t I have thought that? How many women do you suppose wish they were standing where you are now?”
“If so many women want you, then why didn’t you pick one of them?”
“Because I wanted you.”
Tess went white. Said so baldly, the words terrified her. “It’s all war to you, isn’t it? You only wanted me because you thought I was something you couldn’t have.”
Silence fell between them. “I have heard enough,” he said in a low, unsteady voice.
“You’re afraid to hear any more.” She walked past him to the far corner, her head held high, knowing that she could have said nothing that would have hurt him more. Where had she gained such knowledge of him? A single drop of damp slid from one eye down along her nose to dissolve on her lips. She sat down on a bench and stared into the corner, determined to wait in stony and forbidding silence.
A moment later she heard voices. The door opened and a rush of feet and conversation entered.
“Well,” said Kirill’s voice above the rest. “It’s certainly cold in here.”
Tess brushed at her face with the back of one hand, stood and turned. Before anything, she noticed the distance between them—Bakhtiian still by the window, she in the corner farthest from him. No words could have spoken so clearly.
“Tess, what you are wearing?” Yuri asked, walking across the hall to her. Mikhal and Kirill followed him, leaving their four companio
ns—the youngest of the jahar riders—by the door. The rest of the jahar was evidently elsewhere. “You haven’t given yourself into the service of the gods, have you?”
Her cheeks felt hot. “No, I haven’t. One of the priestesses lent this to me while my clothes dry.” She kept her gaze fastened on Yuri, afraid to look at the others, at Bakhtiian, especially afraid to look at Kirill. “They have hot springs here.”
“Hot springs!” Mikhal stepped up beside Yuri, and by doing so the two men—her brother and her brother-in-law—made almost a barrier between her and Kirill. “Are all of us welcome to use them?”
Kirill chuckled and merely spoke to her over their shoulders. “My heart, whatever did he do?”
“How long ago did you get here?” asked Yuri suddenly.
“Yesterday.”
“You can’t have, Tess. You can’t possibly have ridden fast enough to swing all the way around west and not even Ilya would be mad enough to risk that impossible trail at night, down the west slope.”
“The west slope? But we came—” She stopped dead. What an idiot she was. There must be another path, the usual path, that led down into the valley.
A swift, almost imperceptible glance passed between Yuri and Mikhal. “The Avenue,” muttered Mikhal.
“When did you get here?” asked Kirill, his face pale.
Tess sat down on the bench.
Kirill pushed past Yuri and Mikhal and rested his hands on the table, staring at her. “It’s true, isn’t it? You came at sunset.”
“Kirill,” said Yuri in an undertone. By the door, Konstans and Petre and Mitenka and Nikita whispered together, watching them. Mikhal had turned to stare at Bakhtiian. Ilya seemed frozen by the window, his back to them all. “Kirill,” Yuri repeated. “Don’t make a fool of yourself.”
“Did you come willingly?” Kirill asked in an undertone. He did not move. “Ought I to wish you happy?”
Tess stood up. “You have no right, Kirill, to play out whatever old grudge you have against Bakhtiian over me. You have no right to question me in that tone. I thought you were different from him.” As she spoke, she saw—felt—Ilya move, like a shadow along the wall, noiseless as he limped toward the door. The young men moved aside uneasily to let him pass. “No, I didn’t go willingly. No, you ought not to wish me happy. But it was done. There, does that satisfy you?”