by Kate Elliott
“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?”
A wind had come up. It touched Ilya’s hair, stirring it like a whisper.
“Love, Ilya. That is what we who are mortal have been gifted, a gift never given and never known by the undying. The wind cannot love the plain, but I can love the plain, and I can love much more than that and be loved in return. Fame is something you want. A woman is someone you love.”
“I don’t know,” said Ilya in a low voice, averting his gaze from Niko’s keen one. “I don’t know what the difference is.”
Niko sighed and rested a hand on Ilya’s shoulder. “I don’t envy you.”
Ilya laughed a little unsteadily, and then grinned at the older man. “Was that meant to comfort me?”
“No, it was meant to keep you honest.”
“Then I will tell you this much.” His voice shook as he went on. “I don’t want her to leave.” He shut his eyes, struggling to keep his expression controlled. “I don’t want her to leave,” he repeated in a whisper, and then, as if the only way to keep his control was to keep talking, he went on. “I remember the first time I saw her, and she told me in that elegant Rhuian she speaks that she wasn’t going to harm me. Harm me! She could barely stand. Gods, how I wanted to laugh. But when the gods exacted that life, when it was done, I went after her. I don’t know—I was afraid that she would think I was a barbarian, and then I was offended that she did. It was months before I began to wonder why I cared what she thought. And Sonia and my aunt! She walked into camp, alone, starving, with nothing but the clothes on her back, and they took her into the family. Do you know how long Vladi has been riding with the jahar, and still not accepted?”
“Vladi,” said Niko kindly, “does not have Tess’s ability to make friends.”
“Then my aunt gifted her with her own daughter’s tent! And she rode out with us, and I knew it would be a day, two days, three days at most, before she gave up—and then those damned—they knew I wanted her gone and still Yuri and Mikhal and Kirill and the others helped her.”
“Until she could do it herself. She beat you fairly, Ilya.” Niko chuckled, seeing Ilya’s expression. “What, you aren’t still mad about that, are you?”
“Damn her,” said Ilya with heat. “I hate losing. Gods, though, I was impressed. She barely knew how to ride when we started. Do you suppose you know anyone as stubborn as she is?”
“Yes,” said Niko innocently. “I think I do.”
For an instant, Bakhtiian looked offended, and then he called Niko a very unsavory name that had once started a feud between two tribes that lasted three generations.
Niko laughed heartily. “I like watching your face,” he said. “But I’m curious. When did you decide that you had to marry her?”
“Do you know, I did something I had never done before—something I had never had to do before. I put myself in her way one evening, thinking—hoping—that she would ask me to lie with her. I thought she needed comfort. It was after we found those three butchered riders of Doroskayev’s. That was when I discovered that she and Fedya—” He shrugged.
“It took you that long?”
“Where a woman slept had never before concerned me. But I’m glad she chose Fedya. He began making songs again before he died. For her. And I didn’t have time to learn them all.” He shook his head. “When we were up in the hills on that damned ill-fated scouting expedition…I know the exact moment. We
were down, the hunter stalking us, and my fingers touched her neck.”
He raised one hand to touch the single gold necklace at his throat. “I ran. I ran because it was so strong. But it wasn’t until we reached Veselov’s tribe, the night of the dance, that I could see it for what it really was. Tess came to talk to me because I couldn’t dance. When I saw her, I finally understood that I loved her.”
A woman hurried up to the etsana’s tent, spoke with someone inside, and hurried away again. Around them, the camp was waking up. Three children ran by, bound for the river.
Niko coughed. “Excuse me for saying so much, Ilya, but then why did you go off with that—” He glanced toward the other tent, still quiet. “That awful woman.”
Bakhtiian flushed. “Because Tess left me to go dance, just jumped up and left me, went straight to—” He broke off.
“Ah,” said Niko.
“And then in front of everyone she had the audacity to gift Petya with that necklace. And then, do you know what she said to me that day? She said, ‘I wonder who got the beauty and who got the beast.’ She said that. To me.”
“And that,” said Niko with awe, “is why you married her. By the gods.”
“Yes,” said Ilya sardonically, “how fortunate for me that the Avenue presented itself so conveniently. The gods have a strange humor, Niko. In trying to bind her, I bound only myself.”
“Oh, you bound her as well.”
“Perhaps. But in Jeds, our laws mean nothing.”
“Bitterness does not enhance you, Ilyakoria.”
“Here are Anton and Vladi,” said Ilya. At the same moment, Vera emerged from her tent, dressed in a bright blue tunic with a chain of silver bells around each ankle. She arrived beside Niko and Ilya a few steps before the two men, but her attention was all for Bakhtiian.
“You did not come to my tent last night,” she said in an undertone but not quietly enough that Niko could not overhear. “Three nights you have refused me, Bakhtiian.”
“I beg your pardon,” he said politely, and turned to greet Anton Veselov.
“There’s news,” said Veselov.
“Your mother?”