The smell of burning leather hung in the air and, above it, the faint, sweet odor of flowers. 'Shall I tell you how I won my wife? She was niece of the etsana and sister to the dyan of another tribe. In those days the jaran were divided.'
'Yes. Before-'
'May I join you?' Bakhtiian stood before them, lit by the glow of the fire behind him. Somewhere, a horse whickered.
'Niko is telling me how he won his wife. Now, Bakhtiian, we'll see if his words give a true account of the past.'
'But neither you nor I can judge that. We weren't there.''
Niko laughed. 'Has the argument moved to a new discipline?'
'It was not an argument, Niko. It was a discussion.' Bakhtiian settled into the usual seat of the jaran men: one leg bent and flat on the ground, the other perpendicular to the first and also bent, so that the arm could rest on the knee. He smiled at Sibirin. His smile was a rare thing, like the moon on a cloudy night. Tess had seen that he favored Niko alone with it with any regularity, but even with Niko he smiled infrequently. The smile faded slowly and Bakhtiian glanced at Tess. She looked quickly away.
Niko smiled. 'Yes, Juli was willful. By the gods, she still is. She was the youngest child in her family, which accounts for it.'
Across the fire Mikhal picked out a tune on his lute. Bakhtiian laid a hand on Niko's arm. 'Fedya is singing.'
Fedya's high, sweet voice rose with the melody. The song matched his looks: sorrowing, mournful, arcane. No one spoke while he sang. After he finished, the lute kept up with cheerful tunes, and talk resumed.
'Fedya always seems so sad,' said Tess in a quiet voice.
'His wife died of a fever, two years ago-as did Kirill's-but Fedya still mourns.' Niko glanced at Bakhtiian, who gazed, unmoving, toward Fedya.
'So he hasn't married again? Kirill has, hasn't he?'
'Not exactly. He tried to mark Maryeshka Kolenin.'
Tess giggled. 'Was he the one she-?'
'Yes,' said Niko quickly. 'But I expect Kirill will mark her next spring. She'll want children soon. But Fedya, no. Women aren't interested in a man who is sad.'
'Why not?' Tess glanced to where Fedya sat with the younger men, part of the group but not of the conversation. His air of sadness made him somehow more attractive to her, just as, she thought, she trusted Yuri because he had been shy at first.
'There's no profit in being sad. Life is hard enough. Why lessen its joys by dwelling on its sorrows?'
'The jaran fight against everything,' said Bakhtiian, surprising Tess because she had not thought he was listening. 'Against each other, against the khaja, against the land, and their final fight is against death. Battle against death, but if the black wind blows up inside and one can no longer fight, then die honorably. Honor alone is worth winning. That alone denies death Her final victory.'
'I wouldn't want my entire life to rest solely on the way I died,' said Tess.
'How else can you measure it?' Bakhtiian stared into the fire, his face illuminated by its light. 'A man's life has no sum until he is dead. He must make what he can while he lives, and he must live every moment as if he were to die the next.'
'But isn't it in how you live that you measure your life?' Tess said. 'By doing everything as well as it can be done? By striving to find-to find excellence? Then life derives its own worth apart from death. Then you can transcend the routine of existence by living superbly.'
Niko stroked his silvering beard and shook his head. 'Both of you ride the same path. Seeking honor is no different from striving for excellence. You are looking for something you can never quite find.' He held out his hands to catch the warmth of the fire. 'What would you say if I told you that of all things given to us, love alone is worth having?''
'That makes you dependent on others,' said Tess.
'Each of us must struggle alone,' said Bakhtiian.
Niko drew his hands back. 'Should all people live as hermits, then?'
'Niko, don't misunderstand me,' said Bakhtiian. 'Affection for others is a part of life, just as riding and breathing are a part of life.'
'But no greater or lesser than these? That is cold, Ilyakoria.'
'It's too inconstant.' Tess wrapped her arms around her bent knees and gazed into the fire. 'Duty is constant, not love.'
'I did not claim that love is constant, or free of pain,' said Niko with a smile. 'That is the risk you take.'
'I no longer gamble,' said Bakhtiian, almost inaudibly.
'If you believe that, Ilya, then you do not know yourself. You need only look at what you've done. Do you gamble, Tess?'
'It depends on the game.'
'All games are the same.'
'No, they're not.'
'Hmph.' Sibirin rubbed a knee with one palm. Across the fire, Kirill and Mikhal and Fedya stood and left. 'I was twenty when I met Juli. There was a gathering of tribes that year, but as usual, instead of binding ourselves together, the tribes only sought new feuds.'
Bakhtiian looked up sharply. 'I ended that. What a waste. It was an affront to the gods who gave us freedom.'
'Well, I can't disagree with that. Juli was seventeen. She had more bracelets on her ankles than any other girl in all the tribes, and she made sure everyone knew it. She was vain.'
'Then why did you marry her?' Tess asked.
'She was a beautiful girl.'
'She is a beautiful woman,' said Bakhtiian.
Niko brushed a strand of grass from one boot, but he smiled. 'There was a dance. Of course, I was simply one face out of many, but she was, perhaps, bored with the lovers she had and she saw me: a new face, a face, I flatter myself, not altogether unappealing.'
Tess laughed. 'I expect you were quite handsome, Niko.'
'Be careful, young woman. I'll think you're making up to me.'
'I could never be so presumptuous. And anyway, I like your wife.'
'What does that have to do with it?' asked Bakhtiian.
'Oh, why, nothing.' The heat of the fire scalded her face. 'In my country, a man and a woman who marry, marry with the understanding that they'll be for each other-that they will never-that they'll remain faithful-'
'Faithful? What is that?'
'That they will never lie with anyone else.'
Niko and Bakhtiian exchanged glances. 'How barbaric,' said Niko.
Tess flushed and looked down at her feet.
Niko coughed. 'Yes. The dance. Juli came up to me, and we danced, and she took me aside. She assumed that I would become her lover. Who could refuse her? It angered me to be just one more man counted on her bracelets. Well, I was almost as proud as Ilya in those days.' Bakhtiian frowned, studying the fire. 'Of course I wanted her. I had to choose, to walk away or to go with her, and I became so infuriated because each moment I desired her more and each moment I felt more humiliated that I drew my saber-without thinking-and marked her. We were both so surprised that at first we just stared. Then she beat me.'
Tess gasped, half in laughter, her fingers touching her lips. 'She did what?'
'She beat me. Gave me two black eyes, cut my upper lip, and almost broke my arm.'
'You can't mean it. She can't have been stronger than you?'
'You don't think I would raise my hand against a woman, do you?' He looked affronted, but at her shamefaced expression, he settled down. 'But the mark can never be removed from a woman's face. Ten days later they set the bans over us. She could have broken it then.'
'Yes.' It was very still, with only the light of stars above, the low rustle of the horses beyond, and the thin,
