The Novels of the Jaran (44 page)

“Yes.”

He came up beside her. “I’m sorry.”

“Are you through matchmaking now? Maybe you’ve learned your lesson.”

“I feel scorched,” he replied. “Gods. Don’t you start on me, too.”

“Listen. Let’s settle this right now. Of course I’m attracted to him. He’s that kind of man. But he’s a hard, cold, ambitious bastard—you said it yourself, so don’t try to disagree with me now—and he’ll never be able to care for anyone as much as he cares for himself and, well, to be fair, for this thing that drives him. He may well desire me. I have the honor, after all, of being the female in closest proximity to him.”

“Tess…”

“Let me finish. And, of course, I didn’t succumb instantly to his charm, which doubtless gives me a little originality.”

“You can spare me the sarcasm.”

“What did you mean, anyway, about a female not—”

“Never mind. Forget I said it. Please. I thought you were going to finish.”

She shrugged. “I’m done. Do you understand, Yuri? I would think you of all people would.”

But Yuri’s silence was mulish, not conciliatory in the least. “I know him better than you do,” he said in a soft, troubled voice. “You think he isn’t capable of really loving someone but he is. He’s slow to trust because he’s been hurt so badly before, because he’s been responsible for people he loved dying—for his own sister and nephew and parents—and he can’t forgive himself for it. Yet he can’t stop what he has to do either. But if he ever gives his heart to a woman, he will give it absolutely.”

“Then I wish her all my sympathy. He’ll burn her alive.”

“Not if she’s strong. Tess—”

“You’re damned stubborn, Yuri, and I’m not in a very good mood, or at least, I was, but I’m not anymore.”

But Yuri plunged onward with remarkable obstinacy. “There are times a brother’s advice is of uncounted value, my dear sister, however much their sisters dislike to hear it. Just ride carefully and, gods, don’t antagonize him now. If he decides he wants you—”

“You mean if I antagonize him he’ll decide he wants me in revenge? I don’t call that giving one’s heart absolutely.”

“You’re just not listening to me! It’s all the same thing with him. Oh, never mind. Next time you’re riding straight into an ambush don’t bother to expect a warning from me.” He whirled away from her and stalked down toward camp.

“Yuri!” She started after him. “Yuri.” He halted. “I don’t want to be angry with you.”

“Oh, were you angry with me? I thought I was angry with you.”

She put out her hand. “Truce?”

With reserve, he shook it. “Truce. Is it true about Kirill?”

“None of your business.” She grinned. “What do you think?”

“I was wondering why he was so polite to Kirill these past three days.” He laughed. “Kirill! Well, he did come in second in the—” He broke off.

“In the wagering?”

“How did you know?”

“Oh, I know a great many things. Actually, Kirill told me.”

“He’s subtle, is our Kirill. You’d never think it to watch him.”

“Subtle?
What does that mean?” That old, creeping, cluttering fear that she had somehow done something stupid, that she had allowed herself to be taken advantage of, reared its ugly form again, and then, laughing, she neatly squelched it. “Well, Yuri,” she said smugly, “subtle or not, I have no reason to complain.”

“How like a woman,” said Yuri with disgust, but they walked down to camp together quite companionably, and discussed whether Josef ought to be prevailed upon to tell a story or Mikhal to play his lute.

They rode through the hills the next day without incident. The next morning they came out onto the plain. Tess felt unburdened of a weight that she had not been aware she was carrying. She smiled at Bakhtiian, inquired politely about his injury, and was rewarded with a perfectly normal conversation about the recent debate in Jeds over the form of poetry most conducive to philosophy. Yuri was driven by this display of good fellowship to beg to be allowed to scout, if they meant to continue in this fashion. But once his reassuring presence vanished, they both grew self-conscious, and the dialogue trailed off into awkward sentences that even Niko’s late arrival could not repair.

That night she sat and sat and sat in her tent, but Kirill did not arrive. At last she bundled up in her cold, empty blankets and forced herself to sleep. To be awakened very late by Kirill.

“Forgive me, Tess,” he repeated at least three times as he stripped and snuggled in next to her. “Bakhtiian switched my and Mikhal’s watch just as Mikhal was about to go out. Do you suppose he suspects?”

“Who, Mikhal?”

“You’re teasing me.”

“My sweet Kirill, would I tease you?” He only laughed and hugged her a little more tightly. “He’s known all along.”

“What? How do you know?”

“Yuri knows, too.”

“Yuri! Begging your pardon, my heart, but Yuri is not my caliber at this business. I can’t imagine how he would have known unless you told him.”

“No, Bakhtiian told him. There’s nothing for it, Kirill. I have won the wager.”

“Well,” he said, resigned, “so you have. I was hoping you might.”

That morning it was a near thing that Kirill got out of her tent before the camp woke to dawn. And to unexpected news, as well. Yuri greeted her with it as she saddled Myshla.

“Tess! Tess! Have you heard? We’ve come across Veselov’s tribe! Josef just rode in.” His face shone with excitement.

“Veselov. Why is that name familiar?”

“The best of my friends from growing up is with Veselov now,” he rattled on, ignoring her comment. His voice rang clear in the still morning. “I haven’t seen Petya for two years.”

“For what possible reason would your Petya give up the opportunity to ride in Bakhtiian’s jahar?”

“Oh, they’ll all be Bakhtiian’s jahars soon enough. But Petya left us to marry—” He stopped abruptly and glanced uncertainly toward his cousin. Bakhtiian, who had evidently been looking at them, looked away. “Well,” Yuri continued in a lower voice, “you’ll meet her.”

They rode into the tribe itself at midday. It felt familiar, somehow, tents scattered haphazardly along the course of a shallow river. A goodly number of people had gathered just beyond the farthest rank of tents, and they waited, watching, as the jahar rode up. Bakhtiian halted them a hundred paces away, and they all dismounted.

“We wintered by them two years ago,” Yuri whispered to Tess as the two groups appraised each other in a silence broken only by isolated comments passed murmuring from a handful of individuals. “Tasha’s sister’s husband came from this tribe, and…and…” His color had gone high again as his eyes searched the gathered people. Their mood was, Tess thought, still one of measuring rather than welcome.

“Petya!” Yuri shouted, forgetting all protocol and modesty in sheer excitement. “Petya!”

He started forward suddenly. Like an echo, movement shifted as the tribe parted to let someone through. A young man burst out of the assembly and strode—half running—to meet Yuri right in the middle of the ground that separated the two groups. They hugged, two fair heads together, but where Yuri’s had a pale, dull cast like winter grass, Petya’s shone as brightly as if it had been gilded by the sun.

Some barrier dissolved between the groups. An older man stepped forward and hailed Bakhtiian. Ilya gave Kriye’s reins to Vladimir and left the jahar, limping across the open space, Niko and Josef and Tadheus a few steps behind. His careful progress lent him dignity, though, Tess considered wryly, it was probably not entirely unconscious. Others filtered forward, men to greet acquaintances and friends amongst the riders, women to observe and draw whatever conclusions they wished.

And three women walked directly toward Tess. Tess had time to examine them as they neared: one old; one young, dark, and pretty; and one—

Surely this was the “her” Yuri had spoken of.

She had that rare sum of parts that is called beauty. She was quite tall for a woman, almost as tall as Tess, and pleasantly slender. Her hair shone gold, and it hung to her waist, unbraided. She was cursed as well with truly blue eyes and full lips gracing an impossibly handsome face blemished only by the thin, white scar, running from cheekbone to jawbone, that was the mark of marriage. The three women halted in front of Tess, but it was the fair-haired beauty and Tess who did the assessing. Without rancor, both smiled.

“Welcome,” said the beauty. “I am Vera Veselov.”

“I’m Tess. Tess Soerensen.” Tess hesitated and glanced at the older woman, sure that this must be the etsana.

“Yes,” said Vera, as if this information was no surprise. “This is my aunt, Mother Veselov. Oh, and Arina, my cousin.” Arina smiled tremulously, looking as if she might like to say something but did not dare to. “She will be fine with me now, Aunt,” Vera finished, and thus dismissed, the etsana meekly withdrew, nodding once at Tess.

Arina loitered behind and, when Vera said nothing, ventured a few steps closer. But Vera was not actually paying any attention to Tess either. She was staring past Tess toward—Tess turned—Bakhtiian.

“He looks no different,” said Vera softly. She glanced at her husband, who still stood talking eagerly and with all the enthusiasm of youth to Yuri. What lay in that glance Tess could not read for it lasted only a moment. Then Vera looked again toward Bakhtiian. He stood talking easily with the older man who had first hailed him.

“Well, Tess Soerensen,” said Vera finally, breaking her gaze away from Bakhtiian. “You have ridden an unusual road for a woman.”

“Yes, I suppose I have.”

Vera smiled again and she had that rarest of things in a self-conscious beauty: a smile that enhanced her. “We will have a dance tonight. You must meet our young men.” A glance here again for Bakhtiian. “And tell us about your own. Oh, are you still here, Arina? Why don’t you take Tess along and have Petya take her horse and then show her where she can pitch her tent?” Without waiting for a reply, she nodded to Tess and walked away, straight across toward Bakhtiian and his companions.

Tess looked at Arina, who scarcely came up to her chin. Arina smiled. “Can you really use a saber?” Arina asked.

“A little.”

“Oh,” said Arina with such reserve that Tess wondered if she had offended her. “I always wanted to learn. I made my brother teach me when I was little, but then Vera said it was unbecoming in a woman to—” She flushed. “I beg your pardon. I didn’t mean—”

“No, I know what you meant,” said Tess kindly. “You are Mother Veselov’s daughter, then?”

“Yes. Here is my brother Anton.” She called to a burly, black-haired man who looked to be about twice her age.
“He
will take your horse.” A brief exchange, and Anton took Myshla from Tess with the greatest courtesy. “Vera oughtn’t to have offered Petya,” Arina muttered darkly, “but then, she’ll always do as
she
wishes, whether it is seemly or not.” She shot an expressive glance toward her cousin, who had insinuated herself into the group surrounding Bakhtiian.

“Who is the older man?” Tess asked.

“Who? That is my uncle, of course, Sergei Veselov. Vera’s father.”

Tess was finding the undercurrents in this tribe more and more interesting. “I beg your pardon for seeming stupid, Arina, but if he is her father, how can he have the same name? Who is her mother? And isn’t he—he must be the dyan of this tribe.”

Arina sighed and led Tess out of the chaos attending the arrival, over to a quiet corner where she helped her set up her tent. A few young women strayed by, pausing hopefully to watch, but Arina gestured them away with more authority than Tess would ever have guessed she would have based on first impressions.

“Cousins, of the same grandmother, through sisters. Everyone knows they oughtn’t to have married, but they never cared for anything but to please themselves. And they say,” she added, lowering her voice ominously, “that the children of cousins possess all their worst traits twice over. Six children they had before she died bearing the last one, and only two are still alive today. And look at them.”

“Ah,” said Tess, feeling terribly embarrassed.

Arina looked up at her with unexpected and acute understanding. “I’m sorry.” She smiled and again appeared like a perfectly harmless and unusually diffident young jaran woman, black-haired, petite, and charming. “What must you think of me? But I really hoped to get you aside to ask you about Kirill Zvertkov. I see he is with the jahar. Has he married again?”

Tess felt as if she had been slapped. She bent to busy herself unrolling her blankets, desperate to hide her reaction. “No.” She stuck her head into the tent to at least attempt to disguise the sound of her voice. All the while, her thoughts raced wildly.
Hoist with your own petard, my heart,
she said to herself,
and not a damned thing you can do about it because it would be the worst of ill-bred behavior, and you’re the guest here, not she.

“Oh,” said Arina, with a flash of that unexpected acuteness. “He’s your lover.”

Tess withdrew from the tent, blushing madly, and grasping for every shred of dignity and graciousness she could muster. “Well, yes,” she admitted. “I beg your pardon. I know it isn’t—isn’t seemly to be—” She trailed off, feeling like an idiot.

Arina sighed and suddenly looked very sad. “Is he going to marry you, do you think?” she asked, without anger or jealousy.

“No,” said Tess, feeling firm enough on that score. “I’m traveling south. I won’t be here past the winter.”

Arina brightened. “Oh, well, that’s all right, then. I can speak with Mama, who can speak with Bakhtiian, who can speak with Kirill. And then when we meet up with them again…” She hesitated. “If you’d rather I not approach him at all while you’re here—”

“No, no,” Tess lied, not wanting to get a bad reputation. “I couldn’t possibly be so selfish.”
Oh, yes, you could,
her heart muttered, but she found it impossible to dislike Arina Veselov, especially after her selfless offer to leave Kirill alone. Arina was playing fairly; by God, she would, too. After all, Kirill could damned well refuse her offer, couldn’t he?

“Arina!” Vera marched up to them, leading a trail of young women like a host of worshipers in her wake. “Are you keeping our guest to yourself? For shame. Here, girls, you see, she does have
brown
hair. I beg your pardon, Tess, but Aleksia refused to believe me. Come, we’ll show you the camp.” With no discernible expression on her face, Arina retreated to the background.