Jaran

'I think so. Gladly. Vera is not all show, Dmitri.'

'But would you let Vera kill her?'

Vasil shrugged. 'I don't know.'

'Well, send Yevgeni with a message: Tell Bakhtiian that if he gives himself into our hands, we will free his wife.'

'Will Bakhtiian believe you?'

'What is left us, Vasil? This is our last chance. We'll break camp and move, and when Bakhtiian comes, we must kill him. Put her in my tent.'

Vasil picked Tess up and carried her inside, depositing her on two threadbare pillows in the outer chamber. Mikhailov followed them in.

'Leave us,' he commanded. Vasil left without a word. Mikhailov lit a lantern and then twitched the entrance flap down with his free hand. The other hand still gripped his crutch. 'Yes,' he said, following her eyes to the crutch. 'You nearly cut my leg off. I'll have this hurt for the rest of my life.'

'Why do you want to kill him?' she asked. The lantern cast shadows high on the dim, sloping walls.

His mouth was an angled line, like the edge of shadow. 'I don't know that you can understand the complexities of the jaran. His reputation hurts mine. His greatness lessens all. His peace enslaves us to his will. He has great notions, our Bakhtiian, but he will kill us as surely as he saves us.'

'The old ways must give way before the new,' said Tess quietly. She had a sudden, fierce vision of Charles's face, still and shadowed, knowing as he must that in time, whether years or centuries, whether in his lifetime or his descendants', this sanctuary that was Rhui would be breached and flooded, its culture obliterated by the wave of progress brought down from the stars. 'But even if you kill Bakhtiian, it will still happen. You are a thousand tribes, and a thousand thousand families, and the lands of the khaja stretch all around you. Another man will come to the jaran, and he will lead them into war against the settled lands.'

Mikhailov limped over to her, grabbed her shoulders, and jerked her to her feet. He was very strong, and he could stand quite well without the crutch. 'Are you a prophet?' he asked, not mocking at all. 'Is that why Bakhtiian married you, a holy woman?'

'Oh, I'm many things, but not a prophet, I don't think. Let me go, Mikhailov, let me go free, and I'll see that your family and your riders are forgiven all this.'

'Not myself?' He smiled.

'No,' she said even more softly. 'You killed my brother.''

His eyes were a deep blue, deeper than any she had seen, almost green, like the sea. He muttered an oath and let her go. She fell in a heap onto the pillows.

'Even if what you say is true, I will be dead and burned. But I swore by the gods and by my honor that I would not let Bakhtiian destroy my people while I yet lived. And if your brother died, then only remember, that is the price every sister will pay for Bakhtiian's dreams.'

He blew out the lantern and left her in darkness. It was true, of course. Where Bakhtiian commanded, men died. It was true of Charles as well, and if he acted on the information she had given him in the Mushai's cylinder, many more, humans and Chapalii, would die. And, of course, he would act on that information. He had to.

'If there is no one to check him, then what will happen to him, and to us?' If she stayed, would Ilya return to the plains and live out his life in peace and quiet, for her? Almost she could laugh at the absurdity of it. Another man would come, another Bakhtiian, another Charles.

And yet together with them, fires would burn in the night and families would gather and bonds be forged based on duty and loyalty and love. A family would take in an orphan, friends would clasp hands, and a man and a woman would come to know and love one another. How could both these things, death and life, hatred and loyalty, killing and love, exist at the same time? There was no good answer. There never was.

She pulled up her knees and struggled to untie her ankles, but it was hard to see and her bonds were tight. A breath of wind stirred the tent, moving along the walls, and then abruptly light glared in on her and was as suddenly extinguished.

A hand caught her chin, and a man kissed her on the mouth. She rolled away from him. He laughed and lit a lantern.

'You have fire in you,' said Vasil. 'I can taste it.'

'How dare you!'

' 'Because I am more a part of Ilya than you can understand, Tess.' He knelt beside her and cut her loose with his knife. 'Here are some jahar clothes. You can probably get out of camp without being noticed. You can take the knife but not my saber, I fear. I'll need it.'

'Why? Turn around.' Obediently, he turned his back to her, and she slipped into the inner chamber and changed quickly, hooking the curtain back just enough that she could see him. 'Why?' she repeated, stripping off her tunic. 'You brought me here.'

'Yes, I brought you here. But now I see it was a mistake. I can't protect you. Mikhailov will let Vera kill you, or she will find a way to kill you in the confusion of the battle.'

'That still doesn't explain why.'

'You can't understand. So long as I thought Ilya had never and would never marry because he loved me, so long as I thought that he banished me from his jahar only because he wanted his war more than he wanted me and did it selfishly, knowing the jaran would never follow him believing there might be something between us, so long as that, I could want him dead. But he rode with you down the Avenue.' He laughed again. 'Why do you suppose it never occurred to me that he never really loved me except when we were boys, that he had simply not yet found a woman to match him? That he banished me because I forced him to make that choice?''

'I don't know. I don't think the answer is that easy.' She pulled on the black trousers. They fit her well enough, once the red shirt was tucked in and belted. 'And he would never give up his war for me either.''

'No, but you wouldn't ask him to.'

'Did you? My God, that took a lot of nerve.'

'Yes, but then, I'm very beautiful, you know.' He turned. 'Here is the knife.' He tossed it to her casually but not without malice. She caught it deftly. 'Cut out his heart, if it hasn't all burnt away by now. But leave a corner for me.'

'Thank you, Vasil.'

'Oh,' he said with a smile that made him look uncannily like his sister, 'I wish you joy of him. Go.'

She walked past him to the flap and thence out under the awning, not looking back. Men and women moved below, striking the camp. She walked swiftly over the crest of the rise and turned back along it toward the high ridge. Then she ran until she could break into the trees. She had no idea, really, what she ought to do, except that once Mikhailov left this camp, someone, some scout, even Bakhtiian's entire force, would track him here. And find her waiting. She hiked out of the trees, which gave scant cover, and scrambled up along a ridge of rock to the top of the height.

There she turned to survey Mikhailov's camp. Far below, Vasil walked through the camp. Karolla ran up to him and took his arm. He shifted to answer her, then froze, and his face lifted suddenly and he stared.

Beyond the hollow the sun spread like a flow of water from the crests of hills. Looking out along Vasil's line of sight, past the hill that marked the other end of the valley, Tess saw a solitary rider emerge on the lit swell of a far rise. He sat there for the space of ten heartbeats before a man shouted off to her right, and the other sentry left his post, running into camp. The rider urged his horse forward.

'Oh, God,' whispered Tess.

Men emerged from tents. Horses were saddled. Movement flooded toward the end of the valley where he was about to enter. Alone.

She should have stayed in the tent. At least she had a knife. She had never imagined he would ride in alone, just for her.

The sun illuminated Bakhtiian as he crested the last hill and came down the final slope. Men surrounded his horse. Four riders closed in around him. Mikhailov limped out from the crowd. Taking the horse's reins, he led Bakhtiian through the camp as if he were a king. It was very quiet.

Quietest of all when they drew up next to Vasil, who had not moved. Something communicated but not spoken passed between them, the dark man tall on his horse and the fair man staring up at him. Tess thought, that is how it has always been between them.