by Kate Elliott
She felt his attention shift away from her, and he broke away and grabbed for a saber. She dropped to her knees and picked up Vasil’s saber and rose to stand beside him.
“Bakhtiian!”
They both relaxed. “Niko,” he said. “I’m safe.” His gaze returned to her face, a look comprised of equal parts hunger and disbelief. From outside came a muffled command and the sound of horses riding away.
The tent flap was swept aside. Niko strode in, halting just past the entrance. Josef and Tasha screened the daylight behind him. “Ilya. Tess! Thank the gods!” His eyes shifted to the slumped form. “So Mikhailov didn’t get away.”
“Get rid of it,” said Ilya. Without a word, Josef and Tasha carried the body out.
“The battle is won, Mikhailov’s riders are dead or wounded. A few got away. We need some decision. There’s wounded to be considered, and the camp is already half struck. Anton Veselov thinks—”
“We’ll stay the night,” said Ilya. “There’s a fire to be built.”
“Yes,” agreed Niko, “but we can leave a few riders to watch over the pyre while the rest—”
“Niko,” said Tess. “Go away.”
An infinitesimal pause. Niko’s gaze came to rest on Tess. He began to speak, looking back at Ilya, but only a meaningless syllable came out. A longer pause as he watched Ilya, whose gaze had not strayed from Tess, some invisible line connecting them down which their gazes were impelled to travel.
“Yes,” said Niko. “I can see that I have overstayed my welcome.” Then he grinned and retreated quickly, pulling the tent flap shut as he left.
Outside, men called out, horses neighed, a woman sobbed. Already the first faint smell of ulyan reached them, but it was something far outside her, the sun seen from a brightly lit room. She felt him, a presence palpable as heat.
Into their silence, he said smoothly, “Where did you get that imperious tone of voice?”
“From you.” She set down the saber, picked up the lantern, and walked into the inner chamber. He followed her, halting where his boot came to rest against a pillow. The lantern limned him in light where he stood facing her.
“Tess,” he said softly. “You’re trembling.”
“How could you have been so stupid? I thought he killed you. You idiot. Why did you ride in here alone?”
“I took the chance that once they saw me, they would forget for just long enough that I had a jahar behind me.”
“My God, you’re arrogant.”
Even shaded as he was, she could see the intensity of his eyes. “Is that what you think of me?” he asked.
She felt an intangible swelling within her, a tangle of anger, of wild-eyed hope, of exultation. And she felt despair, knowing he would someday far too soon die. “You know what I think of you, damn you.”
If laughter could be noiseless, could be the set of a body changing, a stance, an arm shifted sideways, she would have said he laughed. At the same moment she became acutely aware of his body, of its sensuality of line, of the curve of his jaw, the cut of his trousers over his hips, the slight caressing lift of the fingers of the hand nearest her, like an enticement. One side of his mouth tugged up into a half-smile. “Gods, Tess,” he said, and everything about him changed. “How you hate it when I’m right.”
Four steps took him into her arms.
He was asleep when she woke. The lantern still burned. It was as silent as death outside. The dim glow on his face gave him a luminous tinge, as if their lovemaking had sparked some smoldering center within him that now flamed forth, investing him in light. She shifted to pillow her head on his shoulder. He woke.
“You’re all lit,” he murmured, gazing raptly at her. His hand brushed up to her cheek, tracing the line of her jaw, and then as if with a will of its own slid down to the soft rise of her breasts. “I love you.”
Tess smiled.
He kissed her.
They rolled, and their legs got tangled in a blanket. As he sat up to free them, he paused. With the swiftness of intimacy, she felt his attention focus away from her. From outside, she heard a cough and the murmur of words exchanged.
“Let me go check outside,” he said, standing. Divested of clothing, his body had a simplicity of line that illuminated the grace and slender power of his build.
Tess watched him walk, entirely unself-conscious of his own beauty, to the curtain. “You’re a very pleasing sight, my husband, but don’t you think you should put something on?”
He laughed and let her toss him a pair of trousers, which he slipped on. The cloth partition swayed as he pushed past it. She heard his footfalls on the rugs beyond.
Alone, she became suddenly aware that they were in Mikhailov’s tent—or his daughter’s tent, or his wife’s—did Mikhailov even have a wife? She sat up, pushing the blankets aside, and sorted through the clothing strewn in their haste across the rug, folding what she recognized and stacking it to one side. A sleeping pallet and pillows, and along one wall a pair of boots neither hers nor Ilya’s, together with a stoppered leather flask, a wooden bowl and two cups inlaid with bone and silver, and an old, faded weaving folded into a neat square; that was all. No other possessions, nothing marking what woman lived here, or why this tent had come into Mikhailov’s keeping.
Ilya was speaking with someone—two people now, she could tell by the voices. Each time he spoke, she turned toward the sound without at first realizing what she was doing. She shook her head, chuckling, and wrapped a blanket around herself and waited. Soon enough she heard him move across the outer chamber, heard him pause, and when he pushed aside the curtain it was with both sabers in one hand. He looked preoccupied. Then he saw her, and his entire expression changed. He sighed, set the sabers down, and embraced her. They fell back onto the pillows.
“Tess.” He shifted. “That was Niko. He tells me that—”
“Ilyakoria. I don’t care what Niko told you.”
He laughed, his lips cool on her skin. His hair, so lush and so dark, brushed her mouth. It smelled as if it had been freshened in rain, touched with the scent of almonds. “It’s true. I don’t either.” She kissed him, pressed her face against his neck, breathing him in.
Suddenly he drew back, cupping her face in his hands. “Tess. I know who you must be.” His eyes were brilliant with longing as he gazed at her, his expression so vulnerable that her heart ached with love for him. “You are the Sun’s Child.” She shook her head, not understanding him. “The Sun’s daughter, come from the heavens to visit the earth.”
Tears welled in her eyes, and she hugged him fiercely. “No, my love, no,” she whispered. “I’m just Tess. Oh, Ilya, I love you.”
He kissed the tears away, each one, carefully, thoroughly. “No more of those. I will stop complimenting you.”
“Oh?”
He smiled. “We don’t need words, Tess.” He kissed her.
And again.
Chapter Twenty-nine
“Now let life proceed, and let him desire marriage and a wife.”
—ANTIPHON THE SOPHIST
ILYA KISSED HER AWAKE. She put her hands up to embrace him, and realized that he had dressed. She sat up. Outside, a man sang in a rich tenor about a fair sweet girl who had kissed him by the river.
Ilya had pulled the curtain back just enough to let in the light that illuminated the outer chamber. She looked down at herself, naked, and then at him. “Somehow, I feel that you have me at a profound disadvantage.”
“Not at all.” He slid one hand smoothly and searchingly from her hip to her shoulder, letting it come to rest at last on the curve of her neck alongside the black necklace. He kissed her. “Who is more distracting?”
“You are. I was asleep.”
He laughed and stood up. “Come, my wife, it is late, and time to strike camp so we can leave.” He pulled her up to her feet. She kept hold of one of the blankets and let it drape around her, feeling a little shy, here in the morning. “If you don’t mind his help, Vladimir will assist y
ou in striking the tent.”
“I don’t mind his help, but Ilya, who does it belong to now that Mikhailov is dead? Or is it his daughter’s?”
Ilya picked up the weaving and shook it out. “This is a Mikhailov pattern, and Mikhailov’s mother was a famous weaver. He had no other kin, and his daughter is an Arkhanov, I believe.” He shrugged. “It is mine now.”
“Yours!”
He folded the weaving with reverence and lifted his gaze to her with perfect serenity. “Fairly won. In any case, Bakhtiian’s wife must have as great a tent as every etsana.”
“Perhaps you ought to consult with Bakhtiian’s wife first to see what she wants.”
“No, Tess. In this matter I will not compromise. I will no longer be compelled to take my meals at my aunt’s tent. And you, my wife, must be given the consequence you deserve.”
“What? As the only woman in the tribes whose consequence derives from her husband? What will your aunt say?”
“My aunt will say nothing. The jaran are mine now. Don’t you understand? Mikhailov was the last one who rode against me.” He crossed swiftly to her and embraced her, holding her. He sighed against her hair. “Forgive me, but I must ride out now. Vladimir will stay with you.”
“Stay with me?” But he kissed her and left, leaving her to stare as the curtain swayed from his passing and then stilled. She dressed in the jahar clothes Vasil had given her, belted on his saber, and went out. Vladimir sat with his back to the tent. She walked past him and ran to look down into the hollow, but even as she searched, she saw a group of about thirty riders start away, Ilya in their midst. Even though she might have shouted and gotten his attention, she refused to do anything so undignified. Below, women loaded the few wagons left to Mikhailov’s people. Children sat quietly on bundled pillows. Wounded men lay on the ground. Farther, beyond the hollow, lay a circle of wood and other fuel within which lay the bodies of the slain. Mercifully, it was too far away for her to recognize any of them.
“I thought they would have lit that already,” she said, turning back to Vladimir.
He shrugged, that peculiarly immature copy of Ilya. “It took them this long to gather it. They had to break up a few of the wagons, too.” He blinked. “That isn’t the shirt Ilya gave you.”
“No,” she said absently, watching.
The jahar had paused by the pyre. A single woman stood alone there, and it was she who threw on the torch. Flames caught, smoldered, and then licked and grew. Smoke rose. The riders reined their horses away and disappeared out onto the plains. The woman turned and trudged back into camp. The other women ignored the pyre, except perhaps to pause and glance its way. As if, Tess thought, their pain was already too much to bear.
She recognized now who the woman was, walking back through the hollow and still walking, up toward Tess and her father’s tent: It was Karolla.
“Vladi,” said Tess, wanting support, and Vladimir came and stood beside her.
Karolla stopped before her. For an instant she stared at Tess as if the sight of a woman in jahar clothing shocked her. She put a hand to her eyes, caught back a sob, then lowered her hand.
“I beg your pardon,” she said in her soft voice. “Do you need help with the tent?”
“Thank you,” Tess stammered. “But surely it is your tent.”
“I would not want it even if it was mine,” said Karolla fiercely. “It is Bakhtiian’s now.” She hesitated. “Perhaps you do not understand. This was my father’s mother’s tent, not my mother’s. In any case, I left the Arkhanov tribe and my mother when my father left them to ride against Ilya, so even if it were her tent, I would have no right to it. Those of us who left are no longer welcome there.”
There was a kind of bitter but practical fatalism about Karolla Arkhanov that made Tess very sad. “You must have loved your father very much,” she said softly. She found she could not look at Karolla, knowing she had made Ilya promise her that he would kill Mikhailov.
“I loved him,” said Karolla simply, “but I left because Vasil Veselov marked me.”
“Vasil marked you!”
Karolla’s smile was bittersweet. “Oh, I know I’m not a handsome woman. He only marked me to force my father to take him into his jahar. I knew he never loved me, but he has always been kind to me.” She flushed, and Tess could see very well that she loved her husband. She paused, and the color rose even higher in her cheeks, as if she was struggling. “Do you—do you know what happened to him?”
My God, she doesn’t even know, and she’s almost too proud to ask. “Yes. I saw him. He was wounded but alive. He got away safely, Karolla.”
“Thank you,” said Karolla. “There is one wagon left, for this tent. Shall we take it down?”
Tess could only obey. Vladimir remained silent, standing at her side, and then helping them strike the tent. He seemed less sullen, if not more thoughtful. After her own small tent, this one seemed huge and unwieldy, but she soon discovered how cunningly it was constructed, so that three people could strike it without difficulty.
As she was rolling up the last rug, Vladimir paused beside her. “Tess,” he said in a low, warning voice. She stood up.
Vera came up the rise toward them, holding a child in her arms and another by the hand. Golden-haired, gorgeous children: as soon as they came close enough, Tess knew whose they must be. The girl detached herself from Vera and ran to Karolla.
“Mama,” she said, and her face was streaked with tears, “when is Papa coming back?”
“Hush, child. Help me with these pillows, if you please. Can you throw them in the wagon?” The little girl did so, and Vera deposited the other child, younger and not obviously boy or girl, into the back of the wagon.
“Karolla,” said Vera, ignoring Tess and Vladimir completely, “Mother Yermolov says she will drive this wagon. I am going with the wounded.”
“As you wish, Vera,” said Karolla. Vera descended back to the line of wagons forming with its escort of riders. The familiar, acrid scent of ulyan wafted over them, borne by the breeze. “Well,” said Karolla, “if you do not mind, Terese Soerensen, may my children ride in this wagon?” The little girl had climbed in and sat huddled next to her sibling.
“No. I mean, you needn’t ask my permission.” The last thing she wanted was to have poor Karolla begging her for favors. “It isn’t as if—” She halted suddenly. “Vladi, how am I getting back to camp?”
Vladimir looked at her, puzzled. “What do you mean, Tess?”
“Did Ilya leave a horse for me?”
“Why would Ilya leave you a horse? There are women here, after all.”
“Ah,” said Tess. “Of course. Certainly I would go with the women. Naturally you must ride in the wagon as well, Karolla. I am sure Mother Orzhekov and Mother Veselov will treat you kindly when we reach camp, and make some place for you.”
Karolla glanced behind at her children—at Vasil’s children. “Do you think so?” she asked, suddenly looking far more tired than a woman so young ought to look. “Here is Mother Yermolov.”
Mother Yermolov trudged up the hill with a child and an adolescent girl in tow. She was old and wiry but hale, and she had the look of a woman who has outlived all of her children. She stopped and inclined her head respectfully to Tess, and then inspected the animals in the traces before climbing into the seat. Karolla and the adolescent helped the child into the wagon and got in after her.
“Well, Tess,” said Vladimir, “I’ll ride close by, in case you—well, Ilya said to stay close by you.”
“Thank you, Vladi,” she said, and was left standing, watching him go, while the women waited for her.
“Perhaps you will sit next to me,” said Mother Yermolov. “The rest are ready to go, and we must lead, of course.”
Given no choice, Tess climbed up beside her. “Thank you,” she said, determined to be gracious.
“I don’t envy you, my dear,” said Mother Yermolov, almost gruffly, and they started forward.
By the
time they had gone over the second hill, Tess hated the wagon. It was slow and clumsy, and every bump jolted horribly. Perhaps, just perhaps, it was better back among the pillows, but she could not bring herself to look back at Karolla or her beautiful children. She stared enviously at the riders, free as they ranged along the line. True to his word, Vladimir stayed beside her but it was impossible to talk to him, and she had nothing to say to him in any case. Vasil’s saber, stuck awkwardly to one side, rubbed into her thigh. The wagon lurched. Tess grabbed at the side and got a splinter thrust deep in her hand. Cursing, she pulled it out with her teeth.
“You are not accustomed to traveling this way,” said Mother Yermolov mildly. “Put your hands—yes, there, and there. That’s right.”
Behind, the adolescent girl was talking to Karolla.
“But Yevgeni wasn’t found, so he must have gotten away. He’ll find me again!”
Karolla murmured something indistinguishable.
“But is it true that she is Bakhtiian’s wife? That they lay together yesterday?”
“Valye, where are your manners?”
Valye lowered her voice but kept on. “It’s just it seems cruel to love with death all around.”
“Better to be loving than mourning.”
A pause, and then a whisper: “They say she comes from a great khaja city in the south, but she can’t. She’s so clean, and khaja are always filthy. Is it true she rode with Bakhtiian’s jahar? That’s what I’m going to do, Karolla. I’m going to learn how to fight, and then I can ride in jahar with my brother. When he comes back. I won’t go back to my aunt’s tribe. I hate her.”
“Valye,” said Karolla in a weary voice, “what choice do you have? She is your kin, your mother is dead, and though Yevgeni protected you this long, he is gone now. You’ve no one else.”