Jaran

Tess nodded.

'But now we can rest and take an easy pace to our next camp. You looked just awful last night though you look fine this morning.'

'How you flatter me.'

'It comes naturally from having four sisters. One learns how to keep on their good side.'

'Where is our next camp?'

'The first good site with forage we come to. We have to wait for Ilya.'

'Where did he go?'

'Back to the temple.'

A cloud shaded the sun. She shivered. 'You can't mean it.'

'What do you mean, I can't mean it? He took fresh horses and left as soon as he saw that Niko had everything in order. After they had argued, of course. Niko thought Josef should go back.'

'Last night? But we'd been riding for two and a half days.'

'Don't you think I know that? If Khani wasn't so damned stubborn she'd have gone dead lame from that stone, and we'd have killed her. Pavel say she'll be fine. But the chestnut-' He shook his head. 'Still, I could hardly keep my eyes open. Surely you know that Bakhtiian has nothing in common with such weak stuff as you or me. So off he went, fresh as a spring breeze, singing-' Tess giggled. 'Very well. He wasn't singing. You must want something to eat.'

'I'm starving.'

Yuri laid a hand on her shoulder before she could leave the shelter of the rock. 'Niko is going to give you a red shirt. I wasn't supposed to tell you, but I thought you'd rather be warned.'

Her face suddenly felt hot and it was not just due to the sun emerging from the clouds.

'I don't remember any woman being given a red shirt. It makes you-this story will be told everywhere, even after you-'

'After I what?'

He hung his head. 'After you leave us,' he said softly, but, being Yuri, he brightened immediately. 'That's so much later I can't even think of it.'

'Good. I don't know what you're talking about.' She took a step and paused, not quite willing yet to be fussed over-for knowing these riders, fussing it would be. The conical white tents caught her eye. Ishii sat outside one, alone. Rakii and Garii reclined on the rocks above, gambling to pass the time. Meanwhile all eight stewards were busy saddling horses and taking down the first two of the tents.

Had she really feared them so much? Like the khaja priest's terror at the possibility of sacrilege in the temple, the Chapalii's adherence to custom and hierarchy had protected her all along. She could spy on them because of her rank. Ishii would keep secrets from her because his mysterious liege outranked her. But Garii's allegiance puzzled her. Clearly he must be pledged to Ishii's house to have come on this expedition. As clearly, he had pledged himself personally to her in direct violation of his previous pledge, a breach of Chapalii custom that ought to brand him as something lower than a serial killer in her eyes. And yet, as a human, she wondered if perhaps he was just trying to better himself, hoping to attach himself to the household of a lord who outranked Ishii.

'Tess? Are you coming?'

She sighed and transferred her gaze from the Chapalii to the riders, who gathered in anticipation of her arrival. After staring death in the face, she could not imagine why she had ever really feared the Chapalii. Truly, they posed no greater threat than the threat this little presentation posed to her composure: it was her own resources being challenged. Death-real, stark, painful death, that Fedya had faced without flinching-was something else again.

'Tess.' Niko came forward to lead her over to the fire. 'We have something to present to you, which you have fairly earned.' Somehow Kirill had got hold of the shirt so that he got to give it to her along with a kiss on the cheek. Despite all this, she still found that she could receive it without blushing. Until Yuri said, 'But, Tess, that's exactly your color!' and everyone laughed. The sound echoed round the little vale, and she blushed and smiled and knew suddenly that she had gained a whole family of cousins and uncles-that gifted one tent and one mirror and one shirt, she now had a tribe, a place where she belonged simply for herself.

Unexpectedly, in the chaos that attended leaving, Garii brought her saddled tarpan.

'Lady Terese. Please allow me to offer you this service,' he said colorlessly, offering her the reins.

'I thank you, Hon Garii,' she said, accepting them. He flushed pink.

'If I may be permitted to ask a question?' She nodded again. 'These men have given you a shirt. Although my understanding may be incomplete, the gift itself seems to act as a symbol of your acceptance into their bonding unit. Perhaps you will be generous enough, Lady Terese, to enlighten me on this.'

'No, it is true enough, what you surmise.'

'And yet,' he hesitated, colors chasing themselves across his cheeks in a brief, muted display, 'they have offered you this not because you are Tai-endi, the heir of a duke, but because of acts you have yourself accomplished.'

'That is also true, Hon Garii.'

'This culture,' he said, 'is very different from my own.' He bowed, glanced back to where the Chapalii were readying their horses, and looked again at Tess. 'My family of Takokan has been pledged to that of the Hokokul lordship for only five hundred of your years, a great dishonor to my clan, for we had an impetuous ancestor who transferred his pledge away from the Warakul lordship when that lord used my ancestor's wife and daughters in an impolite fashion.'

'Hon Garii, why are you telling me this?'

For the first time, he looked her straight in the eye, without arrogance and yet without any shame either. 'Lady Terese, what has passed between us-has passed between us. I withhold from you none of my family's disgrace. I trust you to judge fairly.' He bowed and retreated, walking back to Cha Ishii and the other Chapalii.

What had passed between them? He could be referring to nothing but his offer of personal loyalty to her the night Doroskayev had died. An offer that would make him a pariah in his own culture should it become public. But given the protection of a duke's heir, would being a pariah even matter? No wonder opportunism was so reprehensible a trait in a culture whose hierarchy had not changed in centuries.

She sighed and rubbed her finger along the smooth red silk of her new shirt. Not even the Chapalii could ruin this day. She grinned and mounted and rode with Yuri. They took a slower pace for the sake of the horses, and it was fine weather for the sake of her equally fine mood.

At dusk on the second day they camped in a small, high-sided valley tinted with green, the ghost of summer still resisting autumn's pull. From one of the containing ridges the plateau could be seen, flat and yellowing. The sight of it was welcome. Two days passed uneventfully. In the early afternoon of the third, the watch on the trail let out a shrill yell, and soon Bakhtiian could be seen, slowly leading a string of fifteen horses, his black at the forefront, along the valley to the camp.

He looked terrible. The stallion no longer had any trace of glossy sheen to its coat, but it held its head up. A number of men ran to care for the horses. Vladimir took the black. Ilya washed first, and he went from there directly to his tent. That was the last anyone saw of him until morning. Everyone rose early the next day and lavished their energy on the horses, these relics of the arenabekh, yet always they kept an eye on Bakhtiian's tent. When he finally emerged, however, Niko and Josef and Tadheus greeted him first. Tess and Yuri sat on some boulders a bit above the camp, tossing stones at a cleft in the rock, watching the four men as they talked.

'How does he keep his looks?' Tess asked.

Yuri grinned and began to laugh, an infectious and utterly irresistible influence. 'I dare you to ask him that.'

Tess swallowed a giggle. 'Don't, Yuri. I will.'

Yuri put a hand over his mouth. Below, the stream shone, sparkling in the sunlight. 'I don't believe it.'

'Bakhtiian!' yelled Tess.

Yuri choked and held his stomach. 'Tess!' he squeaked.

Bakhtiian said something to his companions, detached himself, and walked toward them, his boots light on the moss and low grass. Yuri shook in silent mirth, tears seeping from his eyes.

'We were just wondering,' said Tess as Bakhtiian came up to them, 'how you manage to keep your looks, running around at the pace you do.' She had so far managed some semblance of seriousness, but a giggle escaped