'Yuri is a man. He cannot be so free with you.'
'Are there people I should not talk with? Or approach? I hope you will be honest with me, Sonia. I would not want to-offend-anyone.''
Sonia looked puzzled a moment, but then her expression cleared. 'Of course, even while I speak Rhuian I forget you are of Jeds. Though Vania is right. You are taller than any woman of the tribes. You must remember that here, with us, because you are a woman you may speak with whomever you please. Now, kriye,' she said to her son, who had watched the proceedings with unblinking interest, 'you will behave yourself with Tess.' He nodded and gripped his grimy hand more tightly around Tess's fingers. 'I wish he were always so well-behaved, but I am afraid that he takes after his uncle. But come, you will meet my sisters, and then this evening Mama will receive you into the family.
Katerina and Stassia made welcome cakes just for the occasion.'
She led Tess away into the haven of women's company, haven that was comprehensive in providing both companionship and work. Sonia's mother arrived with a pair of adolescent identical twin girls with bronze-gold hair. The girls struggled along in her wake, each with a slender antelope slung over her shoulders and a bow and quiver of arrows strapped onto her belt. Mother Orzhekov was a small, thin woman of vast energy, whose features were easily as stern as her nephew's. She welcomed Tess with sober grace and invested her into the family, all without a particle of discomfiture at their lack of any common language. But by the end of the evening, Tess had learned perhaps fifty words of khush and could thank the matriarch in her own tongue, a feat which pleased the entire family immensely: Mother Orzhekov, her three grown daughters and their husbands and ten children, her dead daughter's husband and two children, and her son, Yuri, two great-nephews, three grand-nieces and a half dozen assorted other family members.
Once accepted into the Orzhekov tent, Tess discovered quickly enough that her place in the tribe itself was established and unshakable. There was plenty of work for the women, but never too much because it was shared. If the men treated her with distant interest and an intense reserve, the women shamelessly enjoyed her company and monopolized her time. The children, of course, were always underfoot. Tess never had to be alone and never asked to be. However solitary she had lived at Univerzita Karlova in Prague, she had imposed it on herself because of her brother's name and reputation. But what was the Chapaliian Empire to these people? They did not even know it existed. The Prince of Jeds was just a name; that Bakhtiian, Yuri, and Sonia had been to Jeds mattered little to anyone else, except as a curiosity. She felt free.
Seven days after her arrival she felt confident enough with her khush to venture out alone at dusk. She first took the short side trip to survey the Chapalii tents. The Chapalii stayed inside, mostly, and she did not yet want to attempt to bully her way into their most intimate territory-after seven days with the jaran, she had come to have a great respect for the sanctity of tent and family. But the corral with the Earth horses was close enough to serve as a good observation post, and it gave her a legitimate destination. The man on watch was Sonia's husband Mikhal. He acknowledged her with a shy nod and strolled away, leaving her.
Tess leaned against the high side of one of the pair of wagons that formed the barrier and stared over it at the animals. She found it easy to pick out the Earth horses from the handful of native animals. What was the khush word for horse? Tarpan, that was it. The Kuhaylan Arabians were beautiful creatures by any measure, small, certainly, with delicate heads, huge eyes, and small, mobile ears, but there was strength in their line, in the elegant arch of their tails, and intelligence in their broad foreheads. No wonder these riders desired such stock.
The sun sank below the horizon and one bright star appeared in the darkening sky: the planet Odys. Charles was there, deeply involved in his work, ignorant of this trespass. She alone could warn him that Chapalii had invaded Rhui, yet there was so very much space between them. Surely he had gotten her letter, and had put in a message to Dr. Hierakis at the palace in Jeds-put in a message, only to discover that she had not arrived in Jeds. Her disappearance would simply be another burden laid on him.
The horses were quiet, but their movements spoke. They swished their tails. One stamped. Another snapped at a fly. Dappling the hillside beyond the corral, the mass of goatlike herd animals that provided milk and wool and meat for the tribe blanketed the grass. Something scuffed the ground behind her. She whirled.
'I beg your pardon,' said Bakhtiian. He did not look very sorry. The wind stirred his hair and rustled the folds of his shirt, more gray than red in the half light.
'You didn't waste any time,' she replied, emboldened by seven days among forthright women. 'This is the first time I've been alone.'
'Indeed.'
'Was there something you wanted to know?' Seeing his expression, she could not restrain a smile. 'No, I don't mean that as facetiously as it sounds. They are beautiful animals, aren't they?'
'Yes, they are,' he said fervently, distracted by this comment. He leaned against the wagon an arm's length away from her and gazed with rapt intensity at the horses.:See the stallion-the gray-there. He alone is priceless. The black stallion is picketed out-' He gestured with a turn of his head. 'And mares-thirty-six here, another hundred at journey's end. It is not so long to travel, to receive such a prize.'
'How long a journey is it?'
He smiled, not at her. When he turned to look at her, the smile faded. 'Your employers have not kept you very well informed, I see. It seems of a piece with so negligently leaving you behind at the port. And being surprised that you had followed them so far.'
'Ah, well,' said Tess in khush, using a phrase she had learned from Yuri, 'the wind has a careless heart.'
'You learn quickly.'
'I like languages. What will you use these horses for?' It was a casual question, thrown out to distract him, so she was not prepared for the sudden change in his expression.
'To make war.' He did not smile. 'Now. You are no interpreter. Why are you here?'
She considered refusing to answer, but he was a dangerous man. It was better to choose her words carefully. 'I am here to travel with the priest and his party.'
'I do not think that they want you to travel with them.'
'But I will travel with them nevertheless. Do you intend to make me leave the tribe?'
'I have never had any such intention. I don't have time, now, to get you back to the port from which you can sail to Jeds. You will be safe with the tribe until we return.'
The implication of this reply took a moment to sink in. The breeze shifted, bringing the rich, musty scent of horses directly to her. 'Until who returns?'
'Ah. You thought the khepelli party was to be escorted by the entire tribe. But it is many months' journey to the shrine of Morava, where these holy men hope to find enlightenment. My jahar, my riders, will be their sole escort. We can move faster, and if there is trouble-Well, then, we are better able to deal with it. You, of course, will stay with the women.'
As if that settled the entire thing, he nodded and excused himself. He faded into the darkness, but she heard him exchange words with Mikhal a moment later, and then there was silence. She pushed away from the corral and walked slowly over to stare from a safe distance at the Chapalii tents. Two were dark, but one had a light on inside, a steady glow that she recognized as artificial. What other technology had they brought with them? She had not even brought an emergency transmitter, knowing she could rely on Dr. Hierakis once she reached Jeds.
She stood awhile, as the night air cooled around her, chilling her neck, and watched, until the light flicked out with unnatural suddenness. An animal chittered in the grass. Above, a brilliant spray of stars littered the night sky. She felt scared, suddenly, standing alone in unknown surroundings, caught out on a trackless plain, a solitary and untried force against whatever convoluted plans the Chapalii had made, were making even now, against her brother. The breeze tickled her cheeks. She sighed and walked back to camp, to the bright sanctuary of Sonia and her family.
CHAPTER FIVE
'Harmony consists of opposing tension.'
