The Novels of the Jaran (68 page)

Two horseless men dueled, an eddy in the current rushing around them. Three women, a child sheltered between them, huddled against the wall of a tent. A sudden shove pitched Tess to her knees, and she ducked her head, flinging up her saber, as a horse galloped past. No blow came. Ten steps from her a man lay groaning. Blood bubbled from his mouth.

She struggled on. She felt as if she were fighting upstream. Her lungs stung. Riders galloped past. Men ran in twos and threes. Mikhailov’s daughter stared at her, pale-eyed, from the sanctity of a tent. She got a moment’s glimpse of Vladimir, mounted, cutting through a clump of horsemen, his saber tracing an intricate pattern through their midst. Beneath the shouting and the cries of the wounded, she heard the constant, anguished sobbing of a woman. A man cursed, shrill and fluent. There was a confusion of shouting: “Break right; fall back; Tasha, to me, to me.”

Then she was beyond the fighting. Mikhailov’s tent stood alone before her. With her saber leading, she charged up the hill. She could hear voices from inside the tent. A shout. She was almost there. Her breath came in ragged gasps.

A man cried out. Something hit the side of the tent. Then a saber, thrust with murderous force, ripped through the tent to gleam for a single, dull moment in the afternoon sun.

They seemed to be there a year, she and the bloodstained saber, frozen together. It was withdrawn. The form of a body slid down the inside of the tent wall.

Dead.

Far below, a man screamed in agony.

Tess flung herself to the entrance, jerked aside the frayed tent flap, saber raised. Shadows obscured the body slumped against the tent wall. A dark stain spread out on the light rug beneath the limp, tumbled form. The killer stood with his back to her, stiff with tension, arm pulled back as if for another strike, his fingers gripped to whiteness around the hilt.

She took a step. The flap rustled down behind her. He turned and without a break lunged toward her.

His movement halted as suddenly as if rope had brought him up short. The saber fell from his hand. She froze.

He said in the barest whisper: “Tess.”

She took a single step toward him. Another. With a slight, inarticulate cry, she dropped her saber and ran into him.

Even at this short distance, he had to take two steps backward to counterbalance the force of their meeting. He had no chance to say anything more because she was kissing him. At first randomly, a cheek, an eye, whatever presented itself, but when he regained his footing he pulled her tight against him and returned her kiss.

Reality existed where their bodies touched, and where they touched, it was as if they were melding, as earth dissolves into the sea and that, evaporating into air, kindles to fire. He murmured something indistinguishable and kissed her along the curve of her jaw to her neck, to her throat. She pulled his head back and kissed him on the mouth again. What other substance could there be in the world, at this moment, but him? And all of him fire.

She felt his attention shift away from her, and he broke away and grabbed for a saber. She dropped to her knees and picked up Vasil’s saber and rose to stand beside him.

“Bakhtiian!”

They both relaxed. “Niko,” he said. “I’m safe.” His gaze returned to her face, a look comprised of equal parts hunger and disbelief. From outside came a muffled command and the sound of horses riding away.

The tent flap was swept aside. Niko strode in, halting just past the entrance. Josef and Tasha screened the daylight behind him. “Ilya. Tess! Thank the gods!” His eyes shifted to the slumped form. “So Mikhailov didn’t get away.”

“Get rid of it,” said Ilya. Without a word, Josef and Tasha carried the body out.

“The battle is won, Mikhailov’s riders are dead or wounded. A few got away. We need some decision. There’s wounded to be considered, and the camp is already half struck. Anton Veselov thinks—”

“We’ll stay the night,” said Ilya. “There’s a fire to be built.”

“Yes,” agreed Niko, “but we can leave a few riders to watch over the pyre while the rest—”

“Niko,” said Tess. “Go away.”

An infinitesimal pause. Niko’s gaze came to rest on Tess. He began to speak, looking back at Ilya, but only a meaningless syllable came out. A longer pause as he watched Ilya, whose gaze had not strayed from Tess, some invisible line connecting them down which their gazes were impelled to travel.

“Yes,” said Niko. “I can see that I have overstayed my welcome.” Then he grinned and retreated quickly, pulling the tent flap shut as he left.

Outside, men called out, horses neighed, a woman sobbed. Already the first faint smell of ulyan reached them, but it was something far outside her, the sun seen from a brightly lit room. She felt
him,
a presence palpable as heat.

Into their silence, he said smoothly, “Where
did
you get that imperious tone of voice?”

“From you.” She set down the saber, picked up the lantern, and walked into the inner chamber. He followed her, halting where his boot came to rest against a pillow. The lantern limned him in light where he stood facing her.

“Tess,” he said softly. “You’re trembling.”

“How could you have been so stupid? I thought he killed you. You idiot. Why did you ride in here alone?”

“I took the chance that once they saw me, they would forget for just long enough that I had a jahar behind me.”

“My God, you’re arrogant.”

Even shaded as he was, she could see the intensity of his eyes. “Is that what you think of me?” he asked.

She felt an intangible swelling within her, a tangle of anger, of wild-eyed hope, of exultation. And she felt despair, knowing he would someday far too soon die. “You know what I think of you, damn you.”

If laughter could be noiseless, could be the set of a body changing, a stance, an arm shifted sideways, she would have said he laughed. At the same moment she became acutely aware of his body, of its sensuality of line, of the curve of his jaw, the cut of his trousers over his hips, the slight caressing lift of the fingers of the hand nearest her, like an enticement. One side of his mouth tugged up into a half-smile. “Gods, Tess,” he said, and everything about him changed. “How you hate it when I’m right.”

Four steps took him into her arms.

He was asleep when she woke. The lantern still burned. It was as silent as death outside. The dim glow on his face gave him a luminous tinge, as if their lovemaking had sparked some smoldering center within him that now flamed forth, investing him in light. She shifted to pillow her head on his shoulder. He woke.

“You’re all lit,” he murmured, gazing raptly at her. His hand brushed up to her cheek, tracing the line of her jaw, and then as if with a will of its own slid down to the soft rise of her breasts. “I love you.”

Tess smiled.

He kissed her.

They rolled, and their legs got tangled in a blanket. As he sat up to free them, he paused. With the swiftness of intimacy, she felt his attention focus away from her. From outside, she heard a cough and the murmur of words exchanged.

“Let me go check outside,” he said, standing. Divested of clothing, his body had a simplicity of line that illuminated the grace and slender power of his build.

Tess watched him walk, entirely unself-conscious of his own beauty, to the curtain. “You’re a very pleasing sight, my husband, but don’t you think you should put something on?”

He laughed and let her toss him a pair of trousers, which he slipped on. The cloth partition swayed as he pushed past it. She heard his footfalls on the rugs beyond.

Alone, she became suddenly aware that they were in Mikhailov’s tent—or his daughter’s tent, or his wife’s—did Mikhailov even have a wife? She sat up, pushing the blankets aside, and sorted through the clothing strewn in their haste across the rug, folding what she recognized and stacking it to one side. A sleeping pallet and pillows, and along one wall a pair of boots neither hers nor Ilya’s, together with a stoppered leather flask, a wooden bowl and two cups inlaid with bone and silver, and an old, faded weaving folded into a neat square; that was all. No other possessions, nothing marking what woman lived here, or why this tent had come into Mikhailov’s keeping.

Ilya was speaking with someone—two people now, she could tell by the voices. Each time
he
spoke, she turned toward the sound without at first realizing what she was doing. She shook her head, chuckling, and wrapped a blanket around herself and waited. Soon enough she heard him move across the outer chamber, heard him pause, and when he pushed aside the curtain it was with both sabers in one hand. He looked preoccupied. Then he saw her, and his entire expression changed. He sighed, set the sabers down, and embraced her. They fell back onto the pillows.

“Tess.” He shifted. “That was Niko. He tells me that—”

“Ilyakoria. I don’t care what Niko told you.”

He laughed, his lips cool on her skin. His hair, so lush and so dark, brushed her mouth. It smelled as if it had been freshened in rain, touched with the scent of almonds. “It’s true. I don’t either.” She kissed him, pressed her face against his neck, breathing him in.

Suddenly he drew back, cupping her face in his hands. “Tess. I know who you must be.” His eyes were brilliant with longing as he gazed at her, his expression so vulnerable that her heart ached with love for him. “You are the Sun’s Child.” She shook her head, not understanding him. “The Sun’s daughter, come from the heavens to visit the earth.”

Tears welled in her eyes, and she hugged him fiercely. “No, my love, no,” she whispered. “I’m just Tess. Oh, Ilya, I love you.”

He kissed the tears away, each one, carefully, thoroughly. “No more of those. I will stop complimenting you.”

“Oh?”

He smiled. “We don’t need words, Tess.” He kissed her.

And again.

Chapter Twenty-nine

“Now let life proceed, and let him desire marriage and a wife.”

—
ANTIPHON THE SOPHIST

I
LYA KISSED HER AWAKE.
She put her hands up to embrace him, and realized that he had dressed. She sat up. Outside, a man sang in a rich tenor about a fair sweet girl who had kissed him by the river.

Ilya had pulled the curtain back just enough to let in the light that illuminated the outer chamber. She looked down at herself, naked, and then at him. “Somehow, I feel that you have me at a profound disadvantage.”

“Not at all.” He slid one hand smoothly and searchingly from her hip to her shoulder, letting it come to rest at last on the curve of her neck alongside the black necklace. He kissed her. “Who is more distracting?”

“You are.
I
was asleep.”

He laughed and stood up. “Come, my wife, it is late, and time to strike camp so we can leave.” He pulled her up to her feet. She kept hold of one of the blankets and let it drape around her, feeling a little shy, here in the morning. “If you don’t mind his help, Vladimir will assist you in striking the tent.”

“I don’t mind his help, but Ilya, who does it belong to now that Mikhailov is dead? Or is it his daughter’s?”

Ilya picked up the weaving and shook it out. “This is a Mikhailov pattern, and Mikhailov’s mother was a famous weaver. He had no other kin, and his daughter is an Arkhanov, I believe.” He shrugged. “It is mine now.”

“Yours!”

He folded the weaving with reverence and lifted his gaze to her with perfect serenity. “Fairly won. In any case, Bakhtiian’s wife must have as great a tent as every etsana.”

“Perhaps you ought to consult with Bakhtiian’s wife first to see what she wants.”

“No, Tess. In this matter I will not compromise. I will no longer be compelled to take my meals at my aunt’s tent. And you, my wife, must be given the consequence you deserve.”

“What? As the only woman in the tribes whose consequence derives from her husband? What will your aunt say?”

“My aunt will say nothing. The jaran are mine now. Don’t you understand? Mikhailov was the last one who rode against me.” He crossed swiftly to her and embraced her, holding her. He sighed against her hair. “Forgive me, but I must ride out now. Vladimir will stay with you.”

“Stay with me?” But he kissed her and left, leaving her to stare as the curtain swayed from his passing and then stilled. She dressed in the jahar clothes Vasil had given her, belted on his saber, and went out. Vladimir sat with his back to the tent. She walked past him and ran to look down into the hollow, but even as she searched, she saw a group of about thirty riders start away, Ilya in their midst. Even though she might have shouted and gotten his attention, she refused to do anything so undignified. Below, women loaded the few wagons left to Mikhailov’s people. Children sat quietly on bundled pillows. Wounded men lay on the ground. Farther, beyond the hollow, lay a circle of wood and other fuel within which lay the bodies of the slain. Mercifully, it was too far away for her to recognize any of them.

“I thought they would have lit that already,” she said, turning back to Vladimir.

He shrugged, that peculiarly immature copy of Ilya. “It took them this long to gather it. They had to break up a few of the wagons, too.” He blinked. “That isn’t the shirt Ilya gave you.”

“No,” she said absently, watching.

The jahar had paused by the pyre. A single woman stood alone there, and it was she who threw on the torch. Flames caught, smoldered, and then licked and grew. Smoke rose. The riders reined their horses away and disappeared out onto the plains. The woman turned and trudged back into camp. The other women ignored the pyre, except perhaps to pause and glance its way. As if, Tess thought, their pain was already too much to bear.

She recognized now who the woman was, walking back through the hollow and still walking, up toward Tess and her father’s tent: It was Karolla.

“Vladi,” said Tess, wanting support, and Vladimir came and stood beside her.

Karolla stopped before her. For an instant she stared at Tess as if the sight of a woman in jahar clothing shocked her. She put a hand to her eyes, caught back a sob, then lowered her hand.