as cautious as she had. Adjusting her tunic and her weapons, she hiked to the top of the rise.
The sun beat warmly on her face. At the top, she surveyed the plains around her. There, in the distance, riding northeast, was the enemy jahar. Out on the flat beyond she saw no sign at all of Bakhtiian's jahar. She seated herself on an outcropping of rock and waited, watching, until the enemy jahar vanished entirely from her sight. Then she walked down again.
Halfway down, she spied movement. Bakhtiian appeared, leading out the two horses. He saddled Myshla, and she reached him as he finished the last cinch and turned to saddle his own horse.
He looked up as she approached, pausing with one hand on the saddle. 'By the gods, that was Dmitri Mikhailov's jahar.''
'You should be furious,' said Tess, trying to sound contrite when she really felt like grinning. 'I took a great chance.''
'There are no chances.' He favored her again with that unreadable look. 'You succeed or you fail. Battles are not won by men who refuse to take risks.' It was quiet. Only the rustle of an animal in the undergrowth disturbed the sighing of the wind through the leaves. He returned to cinching up the saddle, the tarpan patient under his hands.
'Do you know, Bakhtiian, they were all good men.'
He glanced at her. 'How do you mean?'
'They were all modest.' Now she grinned. She simply could not resist the urge.
His head tilted to one side and one eye narrowed, giving him a quizzical look. 'Do you mean you-' He straightened, putting his hands on his hips. 'The cloak, the clothes, a female alone. You did it all on purpose. You meant all along to embarrass them.' He burst out laughing, full laughter, without restraint and yet not uncontrolled. Tess suddenly felt extremely flattered. He stopped laughing and favored her with a smile. 'Gods, you're a dangerous woman. Using our own customs against us.'
'No more dangerous than you, Bakhtiian.'
'Perhaps.' He finished with his horse while she packed up her saddlebags and tied her belongings on to Myshla. 'So they're going back to the temple.'
'How did you know?'
'I deduced it.' He grinned. 'Penance, indeed. I was also close enough to hear.''
'I never saw you!'
He blinked, guileless. 'You weren't supposed to. Do I really speak Rhuian like a native?'
'You have an accent,' she admitted, 'but you speak Rhuian very, very well.'
'Thank you,' he said, and she thought the comment sincere. 'We should go.' But he paused with one hand on the saddle. 'Vasil left something for you.'
'Do you know them all? All the men who are riding against you?'
'Not all of them. Just the important ones, the ones whose grudge against me is so deep that they will not give it up unless they are dead.' He waited.
She took off the necklace and handed it to him. He looked almost discomposed as he took it from her.
'This is precious.' He turned the stones over in his hands, slipped them through his fingers as if their touch communicated some message to him. 'Very rare. The stone comes from a princedom south of Jeds, and it is crafted by a master jewel-smith in the Tradesmen's Quarter.'
' 'In Jeds? How would a jahar rider get a necklace from Jeds?'
But Bakhtiian's face had shuttered, and he gave her back the necklace without a word and mounted his horse. 'We must go.' He rode off without waiting for her, and she hastened to follow. They paused at the crest to gaze north and south, but there was no sign of men or horses, only the smooth, golden flow of grass spreading out on all sides. Tess gazed, watching ripples of wind stir the blanketing gold, and she felt-happy. Somehow, somewhere, she had developed an affection for this peculiarly same yet diverse land. Some movement of Bakhtiian's made her glance at him. He was watching her. When she met his gaze, he did not look away, but stranger still, he seemed, for an instant, shy.
'Will you call me Ilya?' His hands lay still on his horse's neck. His voice sounded as studied and calm as ever. She might have hallucinated that glimpse of shyness.
'If you will call me Tess.'
'Perhaps-' He hesitated again, slowly put out a hand. 'Clasp friends?'
'I'm not sure I understand.'
'It is a mark of friendship. I give my honor into your hands, and you may call on it if you are in need. And your honor into my hands, the same. But it is not a gift to be lightly given or lightly used.'
'No,' she breathed, staring at him. Here, now, he was asking her to be not only his friend but his equal. 'Of course.' Her voice shook slightly. 'Of course I will clasp friends with you. Ilya.' She took his hand in hers.
'I am honored. Tess.'
By evening, when they caught up with the others, she felt so pleased with herself that she engaged Cha Ishii in the meaningless, polite, but deviously complex formalities of Chapalii dinner conversation just to test her adroitness. When she tired of that, she collected her blankets and sat out alone, just breathing in the cool air and watching the moon. Behind she could hear the riders laughing, pausing, and laughing again as Bakhtiian told the story of her encounter, no doubt embellishing it with a great deal of exaggeration. After a bit they quieted, and she guessed that a serious council was taking place.
Sometime later Fedya found her. 'Tess.' He chuckled. 'You're a marvel.' She could see only the pale oval of his face in the moonlight as he settled down to sit beside her. The night bled all color from his shirt. 'To fool Mikhailov. That is the marvel.'
'Fedya, how well does Bakhtiian know these men?'
He shrugged. 'Mikhailov has been riding against Ilya for years.'
'What will they do next?'
He shrugged again, but it was a fatalistic gesture this time. 'They'll find out you sent them wrong. We have to prepare.'
An insect ran up her hand. She started, shuddering, and shook it off. 'Prepare for what?' But even as she said it, she knew what he would reply. If Bakhtiian respected Mikhailov so much, then any battle against him would not fall out as easily as that night skirmish against Doroskayev and his men had. People died in real battles.
'They outnumber us, but we know where they are. We'll choose the ground and ambush them.' Perhaps Fedya felt her shiver, though they were not touching. He put his hand on hers, a comforting gesture, but his skin felt cold. 'Don't worry,' he said softly. 'You'll be safe. I promise it.'
'Safe,' she murmured, and she kissed him, wanting more comfort than that.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
'Courage minimizes difficulties.'
They rode for six days, until they came to a range of rugged hills that severed the flat monotony of the plains like a knife. Here they halted, setting up the jahar's tents at the mouth of a canyon and the Chapalii tents what Tess judged to be about a kilometer away in a sheltered hollow. For two nights the riders slept in their tents. On the third, they slept in the scrub. Late on the afternoon of the fourth day, Fedya asked Tess if she would like to go hunting, and Tess, feeling nervous and jumpy, and knowing full well that she had seen no game in these hills, understood the invitation to be a smoke screen for his real intentions. She strapped on her quiver and rode out with him.
Their trail soon led to a rocky overhang close by, but well-hidden from, the Chapalii camp. Bushes and vines screened off the entrance from the casual eye. He pushed them aside and, ducking under the overhanging lip, she went in. Light filtered through the leaves, dappling the bed of moss and grass he had laid for them on the earth. The
