by Kate Elliott
“I won’t,” said Valye, and subsided into silence.
The wagon lurched on.
“What will all these women do?” Tess asked Mother Yermolov finally.
“As Karolla said. They will go to their kinswomen.”
“They must all of them have lost fathers or brothers or husbands.”
“Or sons.” The old woman shrugged. “The men make war. We can do nothing about that. We have our own lives.”
Tess turned to stare at the column behind. Women and children sat in the wagons, many with wounded men cushioned in their laps or on pillows beside them. Somewhere a woman sang, a pure soprano—as sweet as Fedya’s voice and just as sorrowful. The escort rode alongside, up and down the line.
“And in the spring,” said Tess, “Bakhtiian will lead the jaran against the khaja and the settled lands.”
Mother Yermolov’s eyes had a glint about them, a spark, as if at some old joke only she knew. “Then I pity the khaja women who are mothers and sisters and wives.”
“But you were with Mikhailov. Do you now support Bakhtiian?”
“Mikhailov is dead. Bakhtiian killed him fairly. I hold no grudge against him. It is men’s business, after all.”
The wagons halted briefly at midday. Tess climbed down and decided, as soon as she felt earth beneath her boots, that she would walk the rest of the way. But though she had thought the wagons slow-moving, once they started again, she found them passing her. Even knowing who she was, women offered her a seat as their wagons passed her, but she shook her head and plodded grimly forward. The wagons passed her one by one until at last the final wagon rolled alongside and, gaining, moved ahead of her. Four bloodstained, unconscious men lay among pillows. One, young and black-haired, looked dead. Vera sat with them. Her gaze met Tess’s for an unmeasurable instant. Her face was white. Then Vera looked away as if she had not seen her. Tess walked on, letting the gap widen bit by bit in front of her. But then, it was impossible to lose their track in the grass, and in any case, Vladimir still rode over to the side, not too close now but never losing her from his sight.
A shout came from far ahead. Riders crested a distant ridge and poured down toward them. The lead wagon lurched over an intervening rise and was lost to Tess’s view. The others followed, one by one. A single rider cantered down the line.
“Niko!”
He pulled up beside her. “Tess! Why are you walking here?”
“Have you ever tried to ride in one of those things?”
“Ah, no.” He dismounted. “Well, I suppose when I was a child.”
“I can’t ride in those wagons.”
“Look. We’ve fallen behind.” He waved at Vladimir, and Vladi reined his horse forward and cantered away. “I’ll walk with you.” The grass brushed at their boots. Tess plucked a stem, peeling back the brittle leaves that embraced it. “Tess,” he said in an odd voice, “how did you get that shirt? Weren’t you in women’s clothing when you were taken from the camp? Oh, damn.” He led his horse away from her and moved the reins so that he could mount.
The comment was not directed to her. About a dozen riders had crested the near rise and rode down toward them. Ilya was riding Kriye. Tess had to look away from them because together they looked so handsome.
He dismounted. “Tess!” He was so transparently ecstatic that she couldn’t help smiling. “Tess. Why are you walking back here?” He stopped in front of her, so close that if she leaned forward she would touch him. His red shirt had a pungent, fresh scent, and his hair was slightly wild, mussed by the wind. She reached up and brushed a lock of hair away from his eyes. He seemed about to say something. Instead, he swayed into her, slid his hands up her arms, and kissed her fiercely.
After a bit, Tess opened her eyes. She broke off the kiss. “Ilya, everybody is watching.”
He whirled, separating himself from her so abruptly that she had to take a step back to maintain her balance. Yes, twelve men, with Niko; men from his jahar. They were all grinning. Only a few attempted to look away. Ilya took three steps toward them, halted, and fixed his stare on Niko.
“Sibirin! Don’t these men have anything to do?”
Niko swung up on his horse. “Yes, Bakhtiian. Of course they do.”
“Gods! Then see that they make themselves busy. Do you understand me?”
“Certainly, Ilya. Of course. We were just leaving.” They rode away.
Ilya muttered under his breath.
“Does that mean what I think it does?”
“Forgive me. Oh, Tess, it’s been such a long day.” He took a step back toward her, halted. His mouth thinned, and his voice dropped until it was so low she could barely hear him. “Where did you get those clothes?” He closed the distance between them and reached to touch the embroidery on the sleeve of the shirt. “This is Vasil’s. Where did you get this?”
“Vasil gave them to me. He cut me free when I was tied up in Mikhailov’s tent, and he gave me his saber.”
“What happened to him?” She could not interpret the expression in his voice.
“He—he was badly wounded and had no choice but to retreat.”
“You are lying to me. If I know Vasil, he ran.”
“He was wounded.”
“Are you defending him? What happened to the clothing Nadezhda Martov gifted you?”
“It’s in the wagon. With your tent.”
If he noticed her emphasis, he ignored it. “Is that how you treat things given you in friendship? Cloth of Martov’s dye and weave is precious, and I expect you to remember that. As soon as we get to camp you will take those clothes off. And that saber. Give them to Vera. I don’t care what you do with them but I will not have them in my tent.”
“You have no right to order me in this way. Whatever happened between you and Vasil has nothing to do with me.”
He was furious now. “It has everything to do with you. Why do you suppose he gave you that, knowing you would wear it? Knowing you are my wife? You will obey me in this.”
“I will not—” she began, enraged. And then she saw that she had plunged into a morass far beyond her knowledge, that her anger was solely for the way in which he so blithely and unthinkingly ordered her to do as he wished, while his—his anger spilled out from some old wound that had never healed. “I will not,” she said again, lowering her voice abruptly, “give anything to Vera. But I will ask his wife if she wants them.”
“His wife!” His expression changed so swiftly, through so many competing emotions, that she could put a name to no one of them.
“Yes. Perhaps you did not know. He marked Mikhailov’s daughter some years past. There are two children as well, a little girl and a younger one. A boy, I think.”
He controlled himself, and now she could not interpret his expression at all. “Why are you walking back here?” he asked again. “Mother Yermolov said you rode some distance in the wagon with her and then got out.”
“Ilya, you never asked me how I wanted to return to camp. You simply left.”
“But, of course—”
“—I would travel with the women? With Vera? With Karolla Arkhanov, whose father I begged you to kill? With children whose fathers and brothers are dead? Killed by your men? And them all knowing me as your wife. You never asked me.”
He regarded her in silence. His face was still. “Well, Tess,” he said finally, a little awkwardly, “will you ride with me back to camp?”
“I accept your apology,” said Tess. He swung onto Kriye and offered her his hand gravely. She laughed suddenly, unsteadily.
“Tess,” he said, immediately concerned. “What’s wrong?”
“Don’t you remember? When you found me on the hillside. Gods, it seems long ago.”
Though she expected him to, he did not smile. “I will never forget it.”
She took his hand and mounted behind him, wrapped her arms around his waist, and leaned her head against him. Then, smiling, she kissed him on the neck, once, twice.
“Sto
p that.”
Wind moved in the grass. She laughed into his hair. “Is something wrong, my husband?”
He urged Kriye forward and did not reply for a long while. She simply rested against him, content for now.
“There is one mare,” he said at last. “A beautiful creature though rather bad-tempered. But I think you can handle her.”
“Bad-tempered?”
“No, I chose the wrong word. She is high-spirited. She has mettle. Rather like—well, she’s a fine horse. She will be yours, if you wish her.”
“Rather like me, were you going to say? Thank you, Ilya. I thought you were going to stop complimenting me.”
“I will never stop complimenting you. And if you continue to complain about it, I will simply compliment you twice as often.”
“That sounds like a threat.”
“It is. Tess, two days ago you were about to tell me whether Yuri was right. Right about what?”
Tess shut her eyes, leaning against him, and thought of Yuri. Her sweet Yuri, gone now, but not lost to her as long as she remembered him. Though memory could never be a substitute for his presence. She tightened her arms around, Ilya. “It was the last thing he said to me, almost. He said that if I left for Jeds in the spring, I could still choose to come back, or I could stay a few years here and then go. He said that it didn’t have to be so final.”
They rode so long in silence that they came into sight of the line of wagons, and farther, the first outlying tents of the great camp ahead and the thin line of trees that marked the river.
He pulled Kriye up. She dismounted, and he swung down next to her. First he simply looked at her. The gods knew, she understood him well enough by now to know how difficult it was for him to accept that the world did not simply bend to his will, that what he chose might not always come to pass, that some decisions were not his to make.
Then he sighed. “Does it have to be final, Tess? Will you go and never come back?”
Tess just shook her head. She rested her hand on his cheek a moment, and then reached up to dishevel his hair. “You are, you know.”
“I am what?” he asked, suspicious.
“Diarin. I’m not leaving in the spring, Ilya. Though that doesn’t mean I can stay here forever.”
Something flashed in his eyes. “Well, then.” He drew his saber. “I’m tired of having to explain how it is you are my wife.”
Tess raised her chin. His blade came to rest on her cheekbone. With the lightest of movements he pulled it across her cheek. The cut stung. A thin line of blood welled up, and a few drops flowed like tears down her skin.
She drew Vasil’s saber.
“Tess.” He took a step backward. Slowly, deliberately, his eyes on her hand, he lowered his saber.
The brilliance of the sun lit his face. With her eyes fixed on the blade, her wrist unaccountably steady, she marked him swiftly and lightly, leaving a cut scarcely deeper than the one on her own cheek. He touched the mark with his free hand, staring down at the blood on his fingertips. Then he lifted his hand to brush his lips, tasting the blood.
“Well, my wife,” he said in a voice so calm that she could tell it covered some extreme emotion, “now we are doubly bound.” Then he smiled.
“You smug bastard, you’re pleased with yourself.”
“Of course I am. I have what I wanted.”
Tess could not help but laugh because he said it without the slightest conceit but rather as a simple statement of fact. “But I feel it only fair to warn you, Bakhtiian, that I am going to continue to practice saber.”
“If Bakhalo and Zvertkov agree to take you on, then I will not interfere. Tess, you’re laughing at me.”
“Only because you do not like it.”
“Don’t like you training for jahar?”
“No, don’t like it when people laugh at you. Shall we go into camp?”
“As you wish,” he replied, a little reserved, but then, Tess reflected, he would probably never truly grow used to people laughing at him, and he would certainly never like it.
As they approached the camp, Sonia came running to meet them. “Tess! Tess!” she called, bridging the distance by shouting. “You’ll never believe what happened! Vladimir just rode in and straight up to Elena’s mother’s tent, and marked her.”
“Marked Elena’s mother?”
“No, no, you fool, marked—” Sonia stopped short some ten strides from them. “Tess!” She stared. Her gaze shifted to Ilya and her entire expression underwent such an unmistakable change, she looked so utterly dumbfounded, that Tess laughed and Ilya actually smiled. Sonia found her voice. “Ilya!” Then lost it again.
“Come, Tess,” said Ilya coolly. “We have our tent to set up.”
They walked some ten paces before Sonia came to life. “Yes, you will need to set up your tent,” she said in the exact same tone her cousin had used, “because you’ll have to go into seclusion now. Elena will be furious, having to share her celebration with you.”
“Well,” said Tess apologetically, “I hope Elena won’t be too disappointed.”
“Then we can delay ours for a day,” said Ilya, “so she and Vladi can have a celebration for themselves. After all, we are already married.”
“Yes, but it isn’t the same as being marked.” Sonia blinked innocently. “Is it, Ilya?”
“Certainly not,” he agreed, but the glance he flashed Sonia bore a warning.
She grinned at him, unrepentant. “Don’t worry, Cousin. It won’t hurt your looks. I’m sure women will think you’re twice as handsome with a scar.”
He carried it off coolly enough, though, walking through the sprawl of the camp to his aunt’s tent, where Mother Yermolov had driven the wagon containing his tent. A number of people clustered here: the two etsanas, seated on their pillows beneath the awning of Mother Orzhekov’s tent, and some part of their families as well as a few of the refugees from Mikhailov’s camp.
There was a long moment of silence as everyone turned to stare. Mother Orzhekov raised one eyebrow eloquently. Arina hid her mouth behind her hand, trying not to look as young as she was. But Kirill, standing behind his wife, spoke first, of course. “Well, Tess,” he said, “are you trying to start a new fashion?” Most of the crowd laughed.
“Aunt,” said Ilya, “perhaps you will grant permission for my wife to pitch her tent next to yours.”
Irena nodded. “Of course, Nephew. Sonia, Stassi, Pavel, you may assist them.” Then she went back to her consultation with Arina, which clearly involved Mother Yermolov, Karolla Arkhanov and her children, and Vera, who stood beside her cousin, staring at nothing. Petya hovered nervously in the background.
Stassia’s husband Pavel led Kriye away. Ilya allowed Sonia and Stassia to help pitch the tent, and he even permitted them to help Tess strike her tent and carry her belongings to the rugs under their awning. No farther would he let them, and he and Tess spent what little time remained until supper arranging the interior of the great tent. It took rather longer than it might have, interrupted frequently by kisses.
Supper proved rather lively. He sat through it without speaking unless he was spoken to. Tess enjoyed herself thoroughly, and she could not help but laugh with Sonia when an unusually large number of men, including his entire jahar and others who had enough standing to invite themselves, came to watch him bid the ritual farewell to his newly-marked wife and then be escorted away.
“Sonia. Stassia. Kira. I charge you with Tess’s retreat.”
Tess’s seclusion was restrictive only in that she could not leave the tent. Lanterns were lit. Children ran in and out, jumping on the pillows and throwing the blankets around. Women filtered in, bringing gifts of food and drink for the coming days, and then left again. Arina arrived, kissed her, and left. Karolla Arkhanov came in, looking wary.
“I wish you blessings,” she said.
“I have something for you,” said Tess, and gave her Vasil’s clothing.
Karolla flushed and clutched these g
ifts against her chest. Then she looked down at her children. “Here, little one,” she said to the girl. “Here is your Papa’s shirt for you to keep until he comes back.”
Tess hesitated. “The baby, is that a boy?”
“Yes.” She flushed and hugged the little boy to her side.
“I think this will go to him, then, when he is old enough.” And she offered Karolla the saber. Karolla looked stunned, and she quickly took herself off.
“Well,” said Sonia, offering Tess some little sweet cakes that Arina had brought. “But I won’t ask.”
“Children.” Irena Orzhekov appeared at the entrance. “Tess and I will speak alone for a moment.”
Sonia and Stassia shepherded the children out. Mother Orzhekov sat on a pillow next to Tess, and Tess suddenly felt self-conscious, sitting here in a tent as large as the etsana’s, placed on a pillow beside her as an equal.
“I hope,” she said tentatively, “that you don’t think it presumptuous of me to have this tent, Mother Orzhekov.”
“My child,” said Irena, “that Bakhtiian has gifted you with this tent is his right, given what he has become. And in any case, I believe from what Sonia has told me that you come from an important family in your own right, in khaja lands.”
“That’s true,” Tess admitted. “But I feel a little overwhelmed here.”
“With my nephew?”
Tess smiled. “That wasn’t actually what I meant. I mean, having this tent, and everything that means. I don’t have any idea how to—except that I’ve worked beside your daughters, but to have my own tent—well, I’ve lived in a city all my life. I don’t know what to do.”
“You are still my daughter. I have daughters enough and grandchildren enough and other kin to share with you the work and the responsibility that this tent gives you. But you understand, Tess, that this is his tent, truly.”
“Oh, yes. I understand that.”
“Yet it must be yours as well. I trust that you have the strength to make it so.”
Tess thought about this a while. Irena allowed her the silence to do so. “Yes,” she said finally. “I do. Will you have some cakes?”
Irena smiled and took one. “You and I will deal very well together, Tess.”