consequences the execution might have had, it had no effect on the daily round of life: at dawn, the camp had been empty. Now it bustled with activity. A fair-haired young woman, weaving at a loom fastened at one end around her waist and at the other to an awning corner pole, paused in her work and smiled at Tess. At another tent, an elderly woman simply stopped scouring out a pot and stared at Tess. She called a question to Sonia, which the younger woman answered with a few words. The two toddlers at her skirts stared, wide-eyed but unafraid. Three men, standing next to hides pegged out over the ground, glanced up quickly at her and away before she could meet their eyes. Farther out, beyond the tents, children raced in from the fringes of the herds to stare at Tess and were chased back to shepherd again.
Sonia's tent was not actually Sonia's tent, but the one belonging to her mother. The smaller tents that Mother Orzhekov had gifted each of her four daughters with lay pitched around the large tent. Tess helped Sonia hang the wet clothes up along the tent-lines to dry and then was given a board and a knife and a slab of meat to cut into strips for stew. Yuri strolled up with a baby on his hip and with a look of relief deposited the child on Sonia's lap and turned to sit down beside Tess. He looked around rather furtively and, seeing no other young men in sight, drew his knife and helped her cut up the meat. Sonia took the baby away, and Tess and Yuri sat for some time in companionable silence.
Occasionally young men passed by, and Yuri would hide his knife under his leg and lean back as if he were relaxing.
'I do appreciate it, Yuri, but you don't have to help me,' said Tess after the third time he had hidden the knife, 'I wouldn't want you to get into trouble.'
'Oh, I don't mind. Now that I'm a rider it's supposed to be beneath my dignity to do anything but practice saber and whatever work Uncle Yakhov needs done with the herds.'
'But you helped Sonia with the baby.'
'Everyone cares for the children. And, of course, a man does what his family asks of him.'
'But I see men working at many things besides those who are out with the herds. Don't those men fight?'
'Every man can fight, Tess, but not every man rides in jahar. We're almost done anyway.' Three men appeared suddenly from around the back of the tent, but after one startled glance, Yuri simply returned to slicing meat. One was Bakhtiian. Beside him walked an older, silver-haired man, and two steps behind followed a fair, pretty young man who wore a profusion of necklaces in a multitude of colors that clashed with the garish embroidery decorating the sleeves and yoke of his scarlet shirt. Tassels of gold and silver braid hung from his boot tops. Tess could not help but stare. Except for a brief, piercing glance, Bakhtiian ignored them. The young man copied Bakhtiian. But the older man met Tess's eyes and inclined his head with a friendly smile before accompanying Bakhtiian on into camp.
'Who was that?' Tess asked.
'Who? Niko? Nikolai Sibirin. He's the eldest rider in jahar. You'll like him.'
'Who was the other one?'
'The other one? Oh.' Yuri shrugged dismissively. 'Vladimir. He isn't anybody. He's an orphan that Ilya took in, because he had a good hand for the saber.''
'He dresses-' She faltered.
'He'd like to be noticed. I suppose women might find him attractive.' By his tone, Tess could tell that if women did, their taste was inexplicable to Yuri. 'Sonia said that I should teach you khush, if you'd like.'
'Yes, I would,' Tess replied, realizing that Vladimir was a subject completely uninteresting to Yuri.
'Well, then, let's start with naming things. Damn.' He hid the knife.
Tess looked up. A young man sauntered toward them, saber swaying at his hips. He had blond hair, shot through with the red-gold of flames, and a light mustache above full lips. For an instant their gazes met. His head tilted to one side and, with the barest grin, he winked at her before looking as quickly away in a move both shy and flirtatious. Tess flushed.
'Trust Kirill,' said Yuri under his breath. He stood up. 'What do you want?'
'Really, Yurinya.' Kirill halted before them, not at all abashed by Yuri's tone. 'Don't you know Mikhal's waiting for you to relieve him?' With another sidewise glance at Tess, he spun and almost too casually strolled away.
Yuri squinted at the sun. 'Not yet, he isn't,' he muttered. He grinned suddenly, looking down at Tess. 'He did that just to get a close look at you.'
'I guess I'll take that as a compliment.'
'Kirill has no shame at all. If any other man were so forward, he would be run out of camp. I don't know how Kirill gets away with it.'
Tess bit down on her grin, hiding it. 'He's not unhandsome.'
'I suppose not,' Yuri agreed glumly. 'And he knows it.' Then his expression lightened. 'But Maryeshka Kolenin showed him, though, when he tried to marry her.'
Before Tess could ask for details of this intriguing event, Sonia came around the corner with the baby on one hip and a little girl holding on to her opposite hand. 'Yuri! Are you still here? Misha must be waiting for you to relieve him.'
'Not yet, ' exclaimed Yuri, completely exasperated now.
'Do you want me to come with you?' Tess asked.
The casual question brought much more of a reaction than she expected. Yuri blushed. 'No. You can't-'
'Yuri.' Sonia set the baby down on the rug and let go of the girl.
Yuri said nothing.
'I can't what?' Tess asked.
'Ilya said not to tell her-'
'Yuri,' said Sonia. She let out a sigh and dumped the cut meat into a gleaming copper pot. 'You might as well say. I never thought it was right not to tell Tess, and you've said too much as it is.' She exchanged a glance with Tess and set a woven bag filled with wet tubers down next to the rug, taking the board from Tess. Then she and her daughter turned their backs on Tess and Yuri and with a fresh knife cut up the vegetables, although the little girl peeked back frequently.
'What is it you weren't supposed to tell me?'
Yuri hesitated, glancing to the right, to the left, at Sonia, and finally back at Tess. 'About the khepelli.
'The khepelli?' Tess felt like all the heat had flooded out of her body into the ground and the air. The late afternoon breeze was chill and damp, presaging rain.
'They say you were on the same ship with them,' Yuri continued, apparently oblivious to her expression. 'When Ilya told them you were following us, they were very surprised. They said you must have followed them from the coast. They said that you were a-a spy-is that the right word?''
'You knew I was following your trail? And the Chapalii-khepelli-' The word, in his tongue, sounded strange and dangerous to her ears. '-they knew, too?'
Yuri's cheeks flushed pink.
Pretending not to listen, Sonia nevertheless said in a low voice, 'I call it dishonorable to leave a woman walking so long. How she made it alone from the coast I can't imagine. She might have died. It's a disgrace. And I told Ilya so myself.''
Yuri grinned, glancing up from under long lashes at Tess. 'She did, by the gods. You should have heard it.'
Tess was too coldly furious to respond to the grin. 'And just what do these khepelli say they're doing here, that I should want to spy on them? And risk my life like that while I'm at it?' Abruptly, before Yuri could answer, she stood up and wiped her hands on her trousers. 'No, don't bother to answer. Just take me to them.'
'I can't. Ilya would…' He trailed off, unable to express what Ilya would do.
'He wouldn't-it isn't-' Tess realized suddenly that she knew nothing at all about this culture, except that they practiced summary execution. 'He wouldn't kill you?'
Yuri sighed. 'Killing would probably be a mercy, compared to what he would say to me,' he replied, evidently having already forgotten the horrible act committed in front of his eyes that very morning. 'Ah, Tess, you've never been on the sharp end of his tongue.'
'Well, then, Sonia, will you take me?'
Without hesitation, Sonia met her gaze. 'I can't, Tess. This is men's business, not mine. But Yuri, on the
