The Novels of the Jaran (15 page)

Niko drew his hands back. “Should all people live as hermits, then?”

“Niko, don’t misunderstand me,” said Bakhtiian. “Affection for others is a part of life, just as riding and breathing are a part of life.”

“But no greater or lesser than these? That is cold, Ilyakoria.”

“It’s too inconstant.” Tess wrapped her arms around her bent knees and gazed into the fire. “Duty is constant, not love.”

“I did not claim that love is constant, or free of pain,” said Niko with a smile. “That is the risk you take.”

“I no longer gamble,” said Bakhtiian, almost inaudibly.

“If you believe that, Ilya, then you do not know yourself. You need only look at what you’ve done. Do you gamble, Tess?”

“It depends on the game.”

“All games are the same.”

“No, they’re not.”

“Hmph.” Sibirin rubbed a knee with one palm. Across the fire, Kirill and Mikhal and Fedya stood and left. “I was twenty when I met Juli. There was a gathering of tribes that year, but as usual, instead of binding ourselves together, the tribes only sought new feuds.”

Bakhtiian looked up sharply. “I ended that. What a waste. It was an affront to the gods who gave us freedom.”

“Well, I can’t disagree with that. Juli was seventeen. She had more bracelets on her ankles than any other girl in all the tribes, and she made sure everyone knew it. She was vain.”

“Then why did you marry her?” Tess asked.

“She was a beautiful girl.”

“She is a beautiful woman,” said Bakhtiian.

Niko brushed a strand of grass from one boot, but he smiled. “There was a dance. Of course, I was simply one face out of many, but she was, perhaps, bored with the lovers she had and she saw me: a new face, a face, I flatter myself, not altogether unappealing.”

Tess laughed. “I expect you were quite handsome, Niko.”

“Be careful, young woman. I’ll think you’re making up to me.”

“I could never be so presumptuous. And anyway, I like your wife.”

“What does that have to do with it?” asked Bakhtiian.

“Oh, why, nothing.” The heat of the fire scalded her face. “In my country, a man and a woman who marry, marry with the understanding that they’ll be for each other—that they will never—that they’ll remain faithful—”

“Faithful? What is that?”

“That they will never lie with anyone else.”

Niko and Bakhtiian exchanged glances. “How barbaric,” said Niko.

Tess flushed and looked down at her feet.

Niko coughed. “Yes. The dance. Juli came up to me, and we danced, and she took me aside. She assumed that I would become her lover. Who could refuse her? It angered me to be just one more man counted on her bracelets. Well, I was almost as proud as Ilya in those days.” Bakhtiian frowned, studying the fire. “Of course I wanted her. I had to choose, to walk away or to go with her, and I became so infuriated because each moment I desired her more and each moment I felt more humiliated that I drew my saber—without thinking—and marked her. We were both so surprised that at first we just stared. Then she beat me.”

Tess gasped, half in laughter, her fingers touching her lips. “She did what?”

“She beat me. Gave me two black eyes, cut my upper lip, and almost broke my arm.”

“You can’t mean it. She can’t have been stronger than you?”

“You don’t think I would raise my hand against a woman, do you?” He looked affronted, but at her shamefaced expression, he settled down. “But the mark can never be removed from a woman’s face. Ten days later they set the bans over us. She could have broken it then.”

“Yes.” It was very still, with only the light of stars above, the low rustle of the horses beyond, and the thin, hard lines of grass beneath her. “Once the bans are set, you can’t break certain rules for nine days, and if you do, the marriage isn’t binding.”

“And you may never see that person again,” added Niko. “We don’t enter into marriage lightly in the jaran. But Juli was too proud to be known as a girl who had broken the bans.”

“So that is how you won her.”

“Oh, no, child. That is how I married her. Winning her was an altogether different thing, and that took several years.”

“Bakhtiian!” A rider called from the edge of the firelight.

Bakhtiian stood. “Excuse me.” He vanished into the night.

“Won her love, you mean?” Tess asked. “That took several years?”

“Winning the love of a stubborn, proud woman, or man, can be as hard as winning fame or living superbly, and it is far more rewarding.”

Tess looked away from him into the fire, but the fire only showed her Jacques’s arrogant, handsome face as he told her that their engagement was ended. “Is it? Then you’re only living your life for someone else.”

“So young to be so bitter. My child, one can have both.”

“Is that possible?”

“Most things are possible, if one decides they are.”

She rose. “I think I’ll go to bed.” Yuri was gone, so she strolled over to her tent, but the thought of crawling inside that closed space bothered her. She stared up. There were no clouds, and the moon had set. Stars burned above. Where Charles and her duty lived. The camp was silent. No light at all shone from the Chapalii tents. Somewhere an animal called and was answered. Tess stood still, breathing. The air smelled of grass and soil, and a breeze stirred her hair. Hills, low and dim, rose on all sides.

She walked past the trees and up the near slope, disturbing a few insects. At the crest, she pressed down the knee-high grass and sat, staring up at the brilliant, familiar patterns above. She traced constellations, cluttered with fainter stars never seen from Earth’s bright skies, and then picked out the constellations Yuri had taught her: the Wagon’s Axle, the Horseman, the Tent.

A slight noise interrupted the murmur of night sounds. Tess looked around. Nothing. Several insects chirruped, braving the silence. A sound, and the insects stopped again. She moved away from camp, crawling on her hands and knees back over the crest toward a cluster of rocks below. The sharp ends of grass poked into her palms and knees. Another noise. Breaking for the rocks, she ran right into him.

He grabbed her and pulled her down behind the rocks, one hand over her mouth, the other pinning her arms to her stomach. “Damn it. What are you doing out here?”

All her breath came out in a quick sigh. It was Bakhtiian.

“Well?” His hand fell from her mouth.

“Looking at the stars. ‘The night for contemplation.’”

He said nothing, finally releasing her and rising to his knees. “Stay here. Don’t move or speak until I tell you. Do you understand?”

“Yes. What’s wrong?”

He was already gone.

After a time, she began to think she was alone on the slope, but she did not move. How little she knew of these wild, alien plains. How blithely she assumed that she was safe here, fearing the Chapalii more than the barbarian lands themselves. She cupped her hands over her mouth and nose to muffle the sound of her breathing, feeling scared and foolish all at once:
Like the maenads I’ve drunk the wine, and how I have to accept the madness.

Chill settled into her flesh. Her sheathed saber pressed awkwardly against her thigh. A cold wind blew down from the higher lands, the
ayakhov,
the wind of the deep night. She shuddered, froze.

Someone approached.

A shadow appeared, pausing by the rocks. It must be Bakhtiian. She hardly dared look up, as if the white of her eyes would give her away. The shadow moved. It was not Bakhtiian. It was too graceless, too thick. Tall but not lean, and all the tall riders in Bakhtiian’s jahar were, like Bakhtiian, slender. He had said his enemies were following them. What an idiot she had been, not to appreciate what that meant.

She held her breath, her nose pressed against the cloth of her glove. Feet scraped on the pebbled dirt between the rocks, hesitant steps, careful of the ground. A boot struck her leg. Her heart pounded wildly, but she did not move.

“What?” This in khush.

She barely had time to draw her knife and begin to roll before his full weight pinned her to the ground. The knife spun away, lost. He pressed a hand down hard over her mouth. The point of his saber pricked her calf. With his free hand he briefly explored her chest. She swore and tried to kick him.

“By the gods,” he whispered. “Has Bakhtiian come to this? A woman!”

Tess’s fingers, reaching, brushed the hilt of her knife. He relaxed, staring down at her in the dim light. She took a deep breath, held it.

Exhaled. She heaved her left hip up, and at the same moment bit his arm. He started back. Her fingers closed on her knife, and as he shoved her back down, she thrust. The blade bit into his shoulder. With a curse, he wrenched the knife from her hand, twisting her wrist until she gasped at the pain.

He called her a name, but she did not understand the word, only the intent. His weight on her stomach seemed enormous. She could barely see his face, could not make out his features except for some obstruction, a darkness at one eye. “But don’t worry about your good name,” he said contemptuously. “Having had Bakhtiian will just make you twice as popular.”

He jumped up and ran off, holding his shoulder, making no attempt to conceal himself. Tess was halfway to her feet, hand on her saber, before she remembered Bakhtiian’s warning. She swore and dropped back down to the ground. Lord, did she really think she could use a saber against one of these men? She shook with adrenaline.

After a time the trembling stopped. She was unharmed. She lifted her head to look around. A shape fled against the landscape, catching her eye. Two hunched figures ran up the far slope to disappear over the crest. Three forms detached themselves from the hill, just below the far crest, and ran down. From a trench in the dip, five figures rose to intercept them. A flash of metal, so brief that she was not sure she had seen it, and the sight of struggling, the more eerie for its quiet: a pained grunt, the thud of a weight hitting the ground, the thin, distinct tone of sabers touching now and now and—a pause—now.

Eight forms moved, but three were constrained and one limped. Silence descended for a time, overruled once by the sound of running feet and again by an assembly of sabers talking all at once, out of her sight, seeming sentient in the way their conversation varied, first fast, then slow, then a flurry and, last, a silence when the conversation ended. A quick staccato of words penetrated the stillness, then suddenly cut off.

Nothing stirred. Her back prickled as if several thousand insects crawled up and down it. She forced herself to breathe slowly, in and out, in and out.
Don’t think about it. Don’t be scared.
There was only the hushed wind and the mute stars and the coarse dust harsh against her skin.

She felt him there before she saw him, flat on his stomach where he slid in beside her. She gasped. Her hands clutched pebbles.

“Oh, God.” She shut her eyes and opened her hands. “You scared me.”

“By the gods. You stabbed him. You can sit up if you want to. We captured them all.”

“What did they want?”

“To kill me, of course.” Bakhtiian’s voice was calm.

She remembered, suddenly, violently, the man in his own tribe whom he had executed. “Are you going to kill them?” she asked, in a whisper, and she felt sick with apprehensive horror as she said it.

“Not this time. They’ll serve my cause better alive. For now. We’ll tie them up and leave them here.” He was still lying on his stomach. “Except Doroskayev.” He chuckled. “He’s the one you stabbed.”

“That’s a funny name. ‘Scar-sight’?”

“He got a bad wound some years ago to his right eye. Never forgave me for it.” Bakhtiian laughed. “A pretty piece of work with your knife. Yuri got it back for you.”

“I’m not hurt,” said Tess stiffly.

“Of course not. No jaran man would harm a woman. What a thought. I know they do in Jeds.”

“Oh, no. In Jeds, jaran men don’t hurt women either.”

Bakhtiian laughed again. Tess had never seen him so jolly. It made her nervous. There was a moment’s silence before he jumped to his feet. “By the gods, I’m tired.”

“Was anyone hurt, of ours?”

“Ours?” She could not see his face but felt his grin. “Ours, indeed.” He put out a hand and, when she took it, pulled her to her feet. She dropped his hand and brushed off her clothing. “Josef Raevsky got a wound in the thigh, but it isn’t serious. Kirill got a cut across the arm. By the gods, why are we standing here, woman?”

He set off for camp, Tess walking beside him.

“Bakhtiian.” They reached the crest and started down into the little camp, where a number of men lay tied up near the campfire, Bakhtiian’s riders clustered around them. Gazing down at the prisoners, Bakhtiian had the grin of a satisfied and well-fed predator. He looked at her. “What does this mean?” She said the name Doroskayev had called her.

He stopped quite short, and finally made a slight, coughing sound. “Forgive me. No man will ever explain that to you.”

“My God.” She smiled. “Then I’ll have to ask Sonia.”

“No woman ought to know that word,” said Bakhtiian sternly, “but if one does, then doubtless that one is Sonia.” They both laughed.

Descending to the camp, he guided her directly to her tent, avoiding the captives. “It will be better if those men never know you are with us. My riders will say nothing.”

“But Doroskayev saw me.”

“One does not always believe what Doroskayev says. And perhaps you now understand why you must always wear your saber, and keep it by your side when you sleep. Now, if you will excuse me.” He gave her a curt bow, but the gesture was not entirely mocking.

She watched him fade into the night, and then knelt to enter her tent. A closed, private refuge seemed suddenly desirable, and safe. A foot scuffed the grass. She jumped back and whirled. A Chapalii stood behind her, not five paces from her. He bowed, formal.

“Cha Ishii,” she began, and then realized abruptly that this was not Ishii at all.

“Lady Terese. I beg your pardon for this rash intrusion. Perhaps you will condescend to allow me to introduce myself.”

She stared for a moment, amazed by his audacity. By his inflections, he ranked as a merchant’s offspring, of that class one step below the nobility. Why had he come with Cha Ishii’s expedition? The last dregs of fear and adrenaline from the skirmish melted away, seared into oblivion by her need to know what Ishii was doing here, and what it meant to her brother. “You may.” She set her hands together, palm over palm, in that arrangement known as Imperial Patience.