The Novels of the Jaran

by Kate Elliott

  She was out of sight of camp by now, and she slowed the mare to a halt and dismounted to lean against her shoulder. Zhashi nuzzled her cheek and then nosed at her belt, trying to pry her shirt loose.

  “Stop that, you miserable beast,” Tess said with affection. “I don’t have anything for you.” She rubbed Zhashi’s forehead with her knuckles and then found a tangled stretch of mane and combed it free with her fingers. Distracted, she fished in her pouch and brought out a length of ribbon, which she braided into Zhashi’s mane. Zhashi submitted to this attention with the patience of the vain.

  It was soothing work. The bitter truth was, she was still running away. She was still afraid to face Charles. And Ilya—

  “The other bitter truth is, Zhashi, that I love him too much. He’s been gone for a month, and when I saw him walking across to us, it was like seeing the sun rising. Lord, I sound like any love-sick adolescent. But he’s so beautiful.” Zhashi snorted in disgust and bent her head to rip up a clump of grass. “Oh, certainly not more beautiful than you, my dear. How could I ever have said such a thing?” Tess chuckled, then sobered, tying off the ribbon. “Oh, Zhash, I don’t know what to do.”

  Zhashi resumed grazing. The indistinct gold of the plain extended without interruption to the sharp line that separated grass and sky. Thin strings of cloud laced one half of the sky, trailing down below the horizon. The wind blew—the wind always blew here—whipping the tall grass into a frenzy. At the horizon, she could see the amorphous mass of a herd of horses, out grazing. The sun hung a handbreadth above the horizon, sinking, and the moon already shone, pale, in the deepening blue of the sky.

  She had to go back, of course. She mounted and headed back toward camp, back toward Charles’s encampment. An hour or two with Charles, then back to her own tent for the reunion with Ilya. That ought to satisfy both of them, as a beginning.

  But as she came into sight of camp, a rider intercepted her. It was Ilya. She considered for an instant trying to avoid him, but it was undignified, for one thing, and for the other, he could outride her without thinking about it, and he was mounted on his stallion, Kriye. She pulled up instead and waited.

  Kriye began to prance, showing off for Zhashi as Bakhtiian reined him in beside Tess. With a ruthless tug on the reins, Bakhtiian brought the black to an abrupt halt. “Damned horse,” Bakhtiian muttered. Then he looked up at her.

  More than any other feature, it was his eyes that Tess loved. They burned. They were lit, pervaded by an intensity that was perhaps, just perhaps, a little mad. Obsessed, at the very least, but no more so than Charles was obsessed. Charles just hid it better.

  “Tess.” His voice sounded hoarse. He reached out and took hold of her left hand, gripping it tightly.

  “Oh, Ilya,” she said impulsively. “I missed you.”

  From her hand, it was but a turn of the wrist for him to take hold of her reins and commandeer them for himself. Zhashi minced, objecting to this kidnapping. “You’re coming with me,” said Ilya, and started back for camp, leading Zhashi.

  “Damn you.” Tess went red. “Give me back my reins.”

  “You’re coming with me.”

  “I won’t have you leading me through camp like this.”

  He did not reply. His trail led away from the distant Soerensen enclave, around the fringe of tents. But she saw quickly enough what he was doing. Vladimir and Anatoly Sakhalin stood waiting at the edge of camp to receive the horses. Tess was damned if she’d make a scene in front of them. She dismounted, handed Zhashi over to Sakhalin, and hoped like hell that the chestnut mare would kick him.

  Then she relented. Seeing Anatoly’s arm in a sling reminded her too bitterly of Kirill Zvertkov, who had never regained use of his injured arm. “What happened?” she asked Anatoly.

  “Speared and trampled,” he said cheerfully. He wiggled the fingers of his left hand. “But you see, the prince’s healer says I’ll be free of this sling in a hand of days.”

  “Ah. Dr. Hierakis looked at you. I’m glad.” She smiled at the young man, whom she liked well enough, except for his doglike devotion to Bakhtiian. “But then again,” she remarked aloud, walking alongside Ilya into the darkening expanse of camp, “they’re all besotted with you.”

  He had a good grip on her wrist, but he walked so close to her that anyone passing them might not mark that he was forcing her to go along with him. “Not all of them,” he replied. “I’m sending Suvorin and his jahar to the coast. His sister’s son died in the battle. I’m keeping his son with my thousand, now.”

  “A hostage for Suvorin’s good behavior.”

  “It’s a great honor, to ride with my jahar.”

  “It’s a great honor to ride in any of the first rank jahars. Like Yaroslav Sakhalin’s jahar. Those that are allowed to, that is.”

  His fingers tightened convulsively on her wrist, but he did not rise to the bait. Fuming, Tess kept silent. They walked the rest of the way without saying one single word. At last they came to the clearing in the center of camp that housed her tent. Its colors had already gone dull in the deepening twilight. The golden banner of the army that graced its peak fluttered and sank in the dying wind. No one accosted them here, as if the camp had been emptied out before their arrival. Around the great tent in a crescent stood the other tents of the Orzhekov family, those who remained here with the army: Sonia’s tent, Nadine’s tent, Aleksi’s little tent and those of a few female cousins. At the very edge of the crescent stood the tent of Juli Danov and her husband Nikolai Sibirin, bridging the gap between the tents of the Orzhekov family and those surrounding the center of camp who were of the Orzhekov tribe. Beyond them, in the same kind of clusters, spread the tents of the other tribes of the first rank, Sakhalin and Grekov, Suvorin and Arkhanov, Velinya and Raevsky and Vershinin and Fedoseyev. And beyond them, their daughter tribes, and their daughters’ daughter tribes, the army of the jaran.

  Three figures waited under the awning of Tess’s tent. Ilya did not let go of her even after they crossed onto the carpet. “Out,” he said to the occupants.

  Sonia Orzhekov rose. Her blonde hair was braided with ribbons and beads, giving her a festive look, but her normally cheerful expression was stern. “Cousin,” she said to Ilya, “I expect better manners from you.”

  “I beg your pardon, cousin.” He bent at once and kissed her on either cheek, and for an instant his expression softened. “Where are the little ones?”

  “Well away,” said Sonia ominously.

  “Then,” he said stiffly, “if you please, I would like a word alone with my wife.”

  Sonia crossed over to Tess and gave her adopted sister a hug. “Well,” she said, “I’m glad to see you home safely, at any rate.” She flashed a glance back at Bakhtiian, but did not elaborate on her statement. “Come along, Aleksi.” Aleksi followed her away.

  Nadine rose as well, heading after them.

  “You’ll stay,” said Ilya abruptly. “I want your report.”

  Nadine halted and turned to face her uncle. “You don’t really want my report. You’re just exacting vengeance because I took Tess with me despite what you wanted.”

  “Orzhekov, you are a jahar leader because of your skill, not because you are my niece. I expect you to behave accordingly. Now, your report.”

  Like her uncle, Nadine had the ability to make her face go still, revealing no emotion. In a tight voice, she delivered her report of their journey.

  “And the ambassador?” Ilya asked. “Where is he now?”

  “I installed him in the northeastern corner with the other foreign embassies. May I make a suggestion?”

  “You may.”

  “When you receive him, I suggest you put the fear of the gods into him.”

  “Ah,” said Ilya, looking for an instant thoughtful rather than angry. “I understand. You may go.”

  “Thank you.” With a curt nod, Nadine left.

  “That certainly was both comprehensive and enlightening,” said Tess in Rhuian, drawling
slightly. “I have nothing to add to her edifying report. Now, I’ll join Nadine.” She did not move, however, because he still had hold of her wrist.

  In khush, without looking at her, he said: “I haven’t given you permission to leave.”

  “Haven’t you? I wasn’t aware that I required your permission to leave.”

  Now he turned. “I expressly told you not to leave camp.”

  “Yes, you did, and it finally occurred to me that since you won’t trust me as a soldier, then I might as well act as your wife. And by the gods, Ilya, as your wife, you have no authority over me whatsoever.” She twisted her wrist in his hand and jerked herself free of his grip. But as she started away, he caught her arm. “People are staring,” she snapped.

  “Let them stare.” He flung his other arm around her waist and with no warning dragged her bodily backward and into the tent. Pressed this close against him, she could feel that he was shaking. Inside, two lanterns burned, casting a glow across the interior: the table and chair, khaja work, to one side, where she wrote; an empty bronze cauldron with a smaller cauldron nested inside; a small bronze stove with two handles; a wooden chest carved with stylized horses; a standing cabinet with hinged doors, another piece of khaja work; and the tapestry that concealed the sleeping area.

  “One month it has been,” he said, his voice so low that Tess knew he was in a rage. “You didn’t even greet me.”

  “My God. You’re jealous.”

  “You disobeyed my direct orders not to leave camp.”

  “You refused to let me go to the coast with you, to meet Charles. Gods, Ilya, what did you expect me to do?” Standing this close to him, she felt her anger ebb. “Did you really think I’d wait meekly for you to return?” For an instant, she thought he was going to smile. But to her surprise, he let go of her and strode over to the table, sitting down in the chair. He regarded her from this uncharacteristic seat, glowering at her. Fine, then, if he didn’t want a truce. Tess was more than happy to continue the argument.

  “You didn’t tell me that your brother holds me in such contempt,” he said at last.

  That took her off guard. “What are you talking about?”

  “What am I to think? He is a great prince, and he comes attended with a handful of assistants, only one of whom is a soldier—and she a woman—and, by the gods, a company of actors. Is this the kind of state he keeps? Does he think my power so trivial that he fears me not at all? What if I chose to kill him, claim Jeds for myself through my marriage with you, and march south? Oh, I know it’s a long journey overland, through many khaja princedoms, and I would never attempt it with the army I have now—but what is ten years to me, Tess? If I kill him now, and consolidate my power here, what is to stop me from marching on Jeds and conquering all the lands between?”

  Even when she knew an ambush was coming, she was never prepared for it, because he always attacked from an entirely different position than the one she expected. Damn him. What could she say? What should she say? What he read in her silence she didn’t know. In any case, he went on.

  “Why should he put himself in my power in this way? He doesn’t fear me. Does he think I am incapable of desiring to have what is his? That my awe of Jeds is so great that I fear him? That your influence with me will stop me from harming him?”

  “But why should you kill him?” Tess asked at last, her voice perfectly calm because she was still too surprised by this sudden confession to know what to make of it. “What good would it do you?”

  He stood up, pushing himself up with one hand on the table. It rocked slightly, and then he lifted his hand and crossed to Tess in five strides. “Unless he never meant to come out on the plains at all,” he said quietly. “We have nothing to negotiate. Jeds is too far away and I am young in my power. In time, certainly, but I can just as well ride north and east along the Golden Road. What if he brought no entourage because he never meant to leave his ship? If you had come with me to the coast, he could have put you on board the ship and sailed south.”

  Which was perfectly true. Trust Ilya to have seen it. Trust Charles to have made the point clear without ever stating it aloud. And leaving her to deal with it. “But what about the actors, then?” she asked, knowing the question was a flanking action.

  “The actors,” said Ilya, with the merest quirk of a smile, “are all mad, clearly. But like all entertainers, they must know they are welcome anywhere. Like all singers-of-tales, they are given both the favor and the protection of the gods. I will do them no harm.”

  “And meanwhile, you have offered me a grave insult. How dare you have so little respect for my dignity that you would lead my horse as if I was a child and then drag me by main force back through camp like that?”

  He looked taken aback by this direct attack. He looked a little embarrassed. “Tess.” He placed his hands on her shoulders and slid them up to cup her face in his palms. He swayed toward her.

  “Don’t think this will work,” she murmured, and then she leaned into him and kissed him, running her hands from his belt up the smooth silken line of his back. The hard knot of his belt buckle pressed against her, and she had to shift her hips slightly to keep her saber hilt from tangling with his sheathed knife.

  He broke off the kiss and sighed, gathering her into him, and kissed her along the line of her jaw up to her right ear. “If he takes you away from me,” he whispered, as softly as an endearment, “then I promise you that I will destroy Jeds.”

  Tess stiffened in his embrace and slid her hands around to his chest, bracing herself away from him. He let go of her. “What if I decide to leave of my own free will?”

  So many expressions chased themselves across his features that it took her a moment to recognize the one that lay underneath all the others. He was afraid. Ilya was afraid of losing her.

  He threw his arms around her, enclosing her, and yanked her tight against him. “By the gods, I will stop you.”

  “How?”

  He did not answer in words. Words contained the least part of the language they spoke to one another. The heat of his hands burned on her skin. Tess traced the line of his beard, traced his lips, with her fingers. Her hands ranged down to the clasp of his belt, and she eased it away and let it drop onto the soft pile of carpets.

  “Tess,” he said again, hesitant.

  Tess got her hands under his shirt and slid them up, over his chest, teasing the nipples and then, when he was breathless, steering him backward through the curtain into the sleeping alcove. By shifting her foot, she tripped him, and he tumbled down onto the heap of silken pillows, pulling her with him. Astride him, she eased off his shirt, and let him unbuckle her belt and thrust it away. She captured his hands and pressed them against her.

  “Promise me,” she said. “Promise me you will not threaten my brother.”

  “Damn you.” He was angry, still, but he was also laughing. “It gains me nothing, now, to kill him, and you know it.”

  “Then it costs you nothing to promise me. He is your ally, Ilya, you must believe that.”

  He shifted his hips beneath her and used the toe of one boot to pry off the other. “He cares nothing for me, Tess, except that I married you.”

  “That isn’t true.”

  “Isn’t it? Then tell me he would have come here, that he would even send an embassy to the jaran, if you weren’t here.”

  “Jeds is far away—”

  “Gods, Tess,” he said, exasperated. With an expert twist, he freed his hands and flipped her over, so that he lay on top of her. He found the tip of her braid and undid it, loosening her hair until it lay free, spread out on the pillows.

  “You haven’t promised me yet,” she said stubbornly.

  He sat back with a great sigh and took off his other boot. She lay still on the pillows, watching him in the soft light of the lanterns. He kept his black hair cut short, a fashion that had spread among his soldiers, and he was obsessive about keeping his beard neat and trimmed. Whether by accident or by de
sign, the lantern light haloed him, giving him a haze of light, as if the gods had long since marked him as their own. Which they had, according to the beliefs of his own people.

  “I promise you that I will not threaten your brother as long as you stay with me,” he said.

  “Ilya!” It was her turn to be exasperated.

  “We’re negotiating, my wife. Now it is your turn to make a counteroffer.”

  She sat up and took off her boots, and regarded him. Oh, she was still angry with him, but right now, it didn’t matter. She laughed. “I’ll consider it. Now, my husband, I think it time to remind you that you have been gone for a month, and you have certain obligations to your wife that you have not yet fulfilled.”

  “Most willingly,” he murmured. “Gods, Tess, I missed you.” He sank down with her into the soft bed of pillows.

  Later, lying quiet, she stroked his hair while he kissed her fingers, one by one.

  “We’ll make a child,” he said, and because it was habitual with him, it came out more an order than a request. “Do you know, by the time Niko was my age he was a grandfather.” Then, content for now, he sighed and nestled his face against her neck, tangling himself in with her and, as he often did, he fell asleep immediately.

  A grandfather. The word looped over and over in her thoughts as she lay still, staring at him. Thirty-seven—not old at all. But here, if he lived another thirty years, it would be a miracle. Whereas she could expect to live another eighty or ninety years: the thought of living in a universe without him in it—she winced away from even thinking about it.

  She sought out the silver in his hair, but there was not enough yet to show up in the dim light, not enough to lighten his black hair. He had sun-weathered skin, but like all the jaran, the wrinkles came late and slowly. She traced the scar on his cheek—the scar of his marriage to her—and farther down, to one on his shoulder, along his chest to the flat line of his abdomen, to his hips. Easing out from under his arm, she pulled away from him and covered him with a thick quilt of fur. He slept, undisturbed by these attentions.