by Kate Elliott
“Do you think it is a light thing for jaran?” he demanded. “Don’t insult me above everything else.”
“I only meant that my marriage, because of who I am, would be taken very seriously…” She broke off.
“And I am of so little importance to the Prince and these khepellis that my marriage is of no account at all? Except, of course, that I married you.”
Which was true, of course. She flushed. “Damn it, Ilya. I never said that.”
He smiled slightly. “Very well, then I will tell Lord Ishii that I don’t trust you, that you have broken the laws of our tribe, and I have left you behind under guard until I can get them safely onto ship and return to deal with you later.” He said it with great satisfaction.
“Very well,” she echoed, and then, because there was nothing more to say, said nothing. Neither did he speak. They stood a body’s length apart, the table between them. She dropped her gaze to stare at the tiny striatums in the floorboards, flowing dark into light, some blending one into the next, some utterly separate. They stood in this manner for so long that she began to wish that he would do anything, anything but stand there silently and look at her.
At last he swung his saddlebags up onto his shoulders and moved to the door. She looked up. He paused with his hand on the latch. “Fare well, my wife,” he said softly.
“Fare well,” she murmured. Then he was gone. As if she had been pulled along behind, she went to the door and laid her head against the wood. What would she say to him when they met again at the coast? Twenty-five days seemed like an eternity.
From outside came the noise of horses, that familiar ring and call of leaving that she had grown so accustomed to, had even come to love. Leaving, traveling, arriving; always moving and yet, because your life and family journeyed with you, always staying in the same place. She hurried to the window and stood up on the bed to look out just in time to see riders, too far away to make out as individuals, mass and start forward away along a path that soon took them into the woods and out of her sight. But she stood still, long after sight and sound of them had faded, and stared out onto the cool of midday and the quiet oasis of the park.
A scratch at the door. She jumped down from the bed, but it was only Yuri.
“Tess.” He hugged her. Pulling back, he examined her face. “Well,” he said, “it’s no use staying shut up in here. It’s a beautiful day outside. Come on. Have you seen the sacred pool yet?”
She had not. So they rode there, the four riders, herself, and Yeliana, and had a little picnic. The sacred pool was really nothing more than a circular marble pool surrounded by pillars, sited in a lovely meadow. A few late-blooming bushes added romance to the setting. The men flirted charmingly with Yeliana, who was delighted to have so many good-looking young riders to practice on.
“There’s only Andrey, who is young,” she whispered to Tess, “and I’ve never liked him. He came here five years past to become a priest, but I think it was just because he’s so ugly and sour-faced that none of the women wanted him. All the others are as old as the hills. I was sorry when Vladi left.” Then she smiled at something Konstans said and asked him about his wife and baby.
Tess stood and walked over to the edge of the pool, where Kirill stood alone, watching the water ripple in the sunlight. “You’re very quiet today.”
“Did you ask Bakhtiian to leave me in charge?” he asked.
“No. Josef and Tasha and Niko did.”
His face lit. “Did they? By the gods.” His posture shifted, and he looked very pleased with the world. He grinned. “Meet me here tonight, my heart, and I will show you how this pool has captured the moon.”
“Kirill.” She faltered, and set her lips for courage, and looked at him.
“You love him,” he said.
“Yes.”
“So much.”
“Yes.”
His expression was hard to read, compounded half of resignation and half of—something else. “But Tess, you won’t even lie with him. Isn’t that cruel?”
“For me or for him?”
“For him, of course. What you do to yourself is your own business, although I must say—”
“I don’t believe that you would scold me for that.”
“I don’t hate Ilya, Tess, or wish him ill. I never have, even if I might envy him now for winning your love.”
“But I love you, too, Kirill.”
“Yes. You gifted me with your love, but you gifted him with your heart.”
“Kirill.”
“Oh, Tess. Don’t cry, my heart. It doesn’t matter. It was a fair race. I don’t begrudge him winning it, and I don’t blame you for choosing him.”
“I’m not choosing him. I’m going back to Jeds. And would you stop being so damned noble?”
He laughed shakily. “All right,” he said violently. “The truth is, I’d like to murder him. Slowly. Strangle him, maybe, or better yet—no, that’s an ill-bred thing to say in front of a woman.”
She smiled and wiped a tear from her cheek. “That’s better.”
“I accept what I must, Tess. What other choice do I have?” He frowned and then left her to walk back to the others.
She remained by the pond. After a while Yuri came to join her. “What were you and Kirill talking about?”
She shrugged.
“You don’t want to go back to Jeds, do you?”
“What other choice do I have?” she asked.
“Well, I think—”
“Yuri, do you want to get thrown in the pond?”
“Certainly I do. What do you think?” He grinned. “I want to go back to the shrine. It’s getting dark, and I’m hungry. Are you coming?”
“Bakhtiian never accepts his circumstances,” she said in a low voice. “He changes them.”
“What did you say?”
“Nothing, Yuri. I’m coming.”
The weather remained fair for the next six days. They achieved a kind of equilibrium: in the mornings, Kirill insisted on a grueling practice session with saber, with the permission of Mother Avdotya, of course, and many of the male priests and even Yeliana came to watch. In the afternoons, some combination, always Tess and Yuri, often Kirill, and sometimes Mikhal and Konstans, would go riding in the great park that surrounded the shrine. Every night, Tess and Yeliana took a torch and a few candles and sneaked down to the hot springs to luxuriate there for a lazy, glorious hour.
The fifth night, Yeliana said out of the dark waters: “I will go with you.”
“Go with me? Where?” asked Tess.
“Go with you when you leave here.”
“But I can’t take you to Jeds.”
“Oh, I don’t want to go across the seas. But you rode with the men. Why shouldn’t I? I always envied Vladi that he left here. I never went because there was no place for me to go. I have no tent, no mother or aunt to gift me one. It is easier for a man. If he distinguishes himself in battle, then a woman might not set her brothers on him if he marked her. And there, he has a place in a tribe. But if I could learn to fight—”
“But, Yeliana—”
“You did it. Are you saying other women cannot?”
“No, but—”
“I hate it here,” she said without heat, simply as a fact. “I’m young enough. I can learn.”
“Well,” said Tess slowly, “you can go where Vladimir went—to Bakhalo’s jahar-ledest. If he’ll take you. I have an old saber I can give you. It isn’t a very good one, but—”
“A saber!” Yeliana’s excitement manifested itself in muffled splashing at her end of the baths. “My own saber!”
What have I started? Tess thought, and sighed.
The next morning, Yeliana appeared again at practice and Tess politely asked Kirill to show the girl the most basic strokes. Kirill raised his eyebrows, but he complied.
“Do you know what I think?” said Yuri at midday, when they sat resting under a tree. “I think she must be Vladi’s sister by the same parents.”
“Why? They don’t look so much alike.”
“No, but for the color of their hair and eyes. And she’s rather tall for a girl. But did you see her with those cuts? Oh, she’s very rough, and very new, but there’s a certain grace, a certain touch for the blade…I’ll never have it, no matter how many years I practice.”
“You’re not the hardest worker at saber, Yuri.”
“That’s true, but even if I were—it’s not in me.”
“No.” She smiled and settled her arm around his shoulders. “You have other gifts.”
“Yes, and whenever women say that, it’s never a compliment.”
Movement erupted at the distant doors that led into the shrine. A moment later, Mikhal came running up to them.
“Riders, coming in,” he said, and ran off again.
Tess and Yuri scrambled to their feet and followed him.
“Look!” cried Yuri. “It’s Petya!”
It was a small group—only eight young riders—but merry as they greeted the four men from Bakhtiian’s jahar. But Tess hung back. She could only watch, and after a few moments, even that was too much. She fled into the park and walked, just walked, out into the woods.
Midday slid into afternoon. Finally, she knew she had come far enough—except that nowhere would be far enough—and she turned back. The first shadings of dusk were beginning to color the park when she heard a horse blowing off to her right. She ran over and found herself looking out over the secluded meadow that sheltered the sacred pond. A man, leading two horses, stood by the pool, staring down into the water.
“Kirill.”
He spun. “Don’t ever go off like that! Anything could have happened to you! Damn it, what were you thinking? Yuri was half crazy, wondering where you had gone.”
“But I…I…” To her horror, she began to cry, and she collapsed onto her knees on the soft cushion of grass.
“Tess!” A moment later he enclosed her in his arms and held her to him. “What is it, my heart?”
“I don’t want to go,” she whispered into his shoulder. Tears stained his shirt.
“Then don’t go.”
“I have to.”
“Why?”
The question struck her to silence. She rested against him, comforted and warm. He shifted on the grass and she looked up at him, so near. He sighed, a long exhalation of breath, and pulled her gently down to lie with him on the grass.
“It’s cold,” she murmured.
“I brought blankets.”
“If Yuri is worried—”
“He knows where we are.” He kissed away her tears, one by one.
“But, Kirill, did Veselov only send eight riders?”
“Here.” He helped her up. “Your tent is over here. It will be warmer inside. Yes, for now. Petya says that Mikhailov’s jahar came up a few days after we left, and Sergei Veselov sent out the main force of his jahar to stay between Mikhailov and the Veselov tribe. But they swung north, so it’s no danger to us. But still, there were only a few riders left in camp when Ilya rode in. We’ll ride to meet the tribe and then Veselov will lend us more men once Mikhailov has swung clear.”
She crawled into her tent and found it rich with blankets. She laughed and nuzzled into them, then sobered. “But why should Mikhailov swing clear? What if he follows Ilya?”
Kirill shrugged. “Bakhtiian can solve his own problems. Do you want me to go?”
He sat so close to her that she could feel his breath on her cheek. Before she could answer, he embraced her suddenly and fervently. “Don’t ask me to go, Tess,” he said in a fierce whisper.
Tomorrow she would ask Yuri if it was really possible to love two men at the same time yet in such different ways. Tonight she simply pulled Kirill tight against her, not letting him go, because she knew that this was his way of saying farewell.
Chapter Twenty-five
“So far as depends on courage.”
—CRITIAS OF ATHENS
THE TENTS OF THE VESELOV tribe lay along the river’s bank in a haphazard line, strung out in clumps of family groups camped together. The two great tents, one belonging to the etsana and one to her niece, stood in the center of the long line. It was unusual this early to see a fire blazing in the fire pit dug between the two tents, but one was. Three scarlet-shirted men stood there, rubbing their hands by the warmth, watching the large kettle of water that rested over the flames. Dawn pinked the horizon but the sun was not yet up.
“Vladi,” said Niko. “Go find Anton Veselov and ask him how she is doing.” Vladimir nodded and walked away to the etsana’s tent. “That woman,” said Niko uncharitably, “never did a good thing in her life, and now with everything else, she has to fall ill. What if she dies? Little Arina ought to be etsana but that damned cousin of hers will wrest even that from her if she can.”
Ilya blew on his hands and glanced toward Vera Veselov’s tent, where nothing stirred. A woman emerged from the etsana’s tent, glanced at them, and walked with Vladimir toward the river. “Arina is young, just eighteen, I believe. But I think you underestimate her, Niko. Only Vera and her father want Vera to take etsana. I think the rest of the tribe will support Arina, should it come to that.”
“She is too young to become etsana.”
“But they are the last of the family left. There is no older woman to take it unless they take it out of the family altogether. What that girl needs is a good, steady husband. If she is married, it will not seem so imprudent to make her etsana.”
Niko glanced at Ilya curiously. “You sound as if you have someone in mind.”
“Kirill.”
“Kirill!”
“Yes. Kirill.”
“You’re plotting, Ilya.”
“Niko. When Mother Sun sent her daughter to the earth, she sent with her ten sisters, and gifted them each a tent and a name. The eldest was Sakhalin, then Arkhanov, Suvorin, Velinya, Raevsky, Vershinin, Grekov, Fedoseyev, and last the twins, Veselov and Orzhekov. Each sister had ten daughters, and each daughter ten daughters in turn, and thus the tribes of the jaran were born. Next spring we will begin our ride against the khaja lands, and of the ten elder tribes, who will come without questioning me?”
“All of them,” said Niko. He paused. “All but Veselov.”
“Arina Veselov wants Kirill. She told her mother, and her mother told me.”
“What does Kirill want?”
“Kirill knows his duty,” said Ilya stiffly. “You said yourself that I ought to give him the responsibility he deserves.”
“I suggest,” said Niko in a carefully calm voice, “that you let Kirill make his own choice in this matter. You already mean for Yuri to mark Konstantina Sakhalin…”
“How did you know about that?”
“I may be old, Ilya, but I am neither blind nor deaf to the way your mind works, or to the exaggerated sense of duty Yuri feels toward you. Not that he would make her a bad husband, mind you. Ilya, what happened that night at the shrine? Josef and Tasha and I gave you every opportunity.”
The fire popped and flamed, licking the base of the kettle. “I do not wish to speak of it, Niko.”
“Ilyakoria, you are her husband.”
“Yes, I am her husband,” he said, rounding on Niko, “and when Lord Ishii tried to kill her and she was forced to ask for my protection, did she ask me because I am her husband and she is my wife? No, Sibirin, she asked me on the honor we gave each other as friends. She does not want me.”
“Doesn’t she?”
“Very well,” agreed Ilya sarcastically, “perhaps she desires me, perhaps she even loves me, but she will not have me because I trapped her.”
“Trapped her?”
“Treachery, that is the other word she used.”
“Well,” said Niko, “Tess does not mince words.”
“Gods,” said Ilya.
“So what will you do now?”
Ilya stared away, out to where the wind drew ripples in the dark, coursing waters of the river.
The sun breached the eastern horizon. “She is going back to Jeds. I will get my horses and then—you know what I mean to do.”
“And what about Tess?”
“What about her?”
“Are you going to just let her leave?”
Ilya’s gaze fixed abruptly on the older man. “I want her, Niko. I thought I would go to any length to get her, but now—now I see that if she does not want me, I must let her go.”
Niko smiled, but gently, to take the sting out of the expression. “You are learning humility, Ilyakoria.”
“Yes,” he said fiercely. “And I hate it.”
Light spilled out, dusting with brightness the brilliant patterns woven into the walls of the gathered tents. “My dear boy,” said Niko slowly, “do you love her?”
“I married her!”
“Loving a woman and wanting a woman are not the same thing.”
Ilya simply stared at him, perplexed. “Of course, to desire a woman only because she is pretty—”
“I am not speaking of anything so simple. Listen to me, my boy. When you came back from Jeds, you had found the path you were destined to ride, knowing that it would bring you fame that no other jaran had found before you. But the gods play this game with us, challenging us to strive for fame, and yet how many of us can ever hope to beat their players: the wind that never ceases, the deep earth, the rain that dissolves the ashes of the dead, the unbounded sky, and the silent stars. They play their game well. They have only to wait us out to win.”
The rising sun laced his pale hair with silver. “Yet now and again, a man or a woman is born who has weapons against these opponents, one who can command quiet, who can see beyond death, one who can hold fire to the old ways and let them burn. You are such a man. You can change the jaran. You are changing them. You can leave this world with a name that will live forever. You can win that game.” He fell silent. Two women spoke in low voices from the etsana’s tent, too far away for words to be distinguishable. From the farther edge of camp, a man hallooed, and a child yelped and laughed.
“But you will die in any case, Ilyakoria. What good is everlasting fame to a man if he dies unloved?”