had been alone, and this had been Fedya, the cushioning leaves would have been invitation enough-but Fedya had understood that some expressions could be left pure, that they need not become entangled in deeper concerns. Fedya had perhaps been a simpler man. Certainly his needs had been simple, and they had accorded with hers.
Nothing with Bakhtiian would be simple. Imagine that restless, penetrating intelligence focused on her. Imagine him, compulsively ambitious, driven, obsessed with conquest, discovering that the sister and heir of the Prince of Jeds-the greatest city he knew of-was interested, attracted, drawn to him.
The children of different worlds, there were so many things between them that could never be resolved. She had a duty to Charles, she had to leave, she could never tell Bakhtiian where she really came from, and she would live-however primitive Dr. Hierakis might claim the longevity treatments were-she would long outlive him. But they could be friends, surely, and to let the vagaries of physical attraction, the insidious compulsion of the loins, ruin that, ruin everything- Never! If I once gave way to him, I would burn like straw. She would not accept it. In that instant of drawn-out time, fear fought desire and won, and she fled, internally, seeking refuge with cold Reason, a friend of little comfort but great constitution.
Time started again. His hand moved, as cautious as the hunter, wandering to her neck. His fingers, light, smooth, brushed her skin. The hunter paused; Tess's hands tightened into fists; Bakhtiian drew his breath in sharply.
He rolled away from her, leapt to his feet, and dodged left through the undergrowth, making a great deal of noise.
The hunter dashed forward, pulled back his bow, and stopped. Nothing moved. Silence had fallen like a sudden fog. The hunter stared fixedly in the direction Bakhtiian had run. A twig snapped to Tess's right. The hunter's gaze swung: around, exploring. She saw Bakhtiian moving up behind him. The hunter began to swing back. Her hand found a pebble. She flung it as far as she could to her right. It clacked against twigs. A bird fluttered noisily up into the trees. The hunter whipped back, taking a step toward her. The rocky ground of a little meadow lay behind him. Bakhtiian moved to the edge of the trees.
The hunter took another step toward her, eyeing the trees above. She drew the Chapalii knife-but no, Ilya would see. She had to save it as a last resort. She found another rock and flipped it away. A dull thup as it struck the leaves of a nearby bush. The hunter's gaze shifted down, and down. Bakhtiian pushed himself away from the trees, sprinting for the hunter's back.
Stumbled. Fell, landing on one knee, his head thrown back. The hunter, bow drawn, whirled and aimed.
Tess jumped up, shouting, and dove for him, hand slipping on the knife. Twisting back, he shot at her. As she threw herself flat, conscious in a detached way of the nearness of the bow, the notched arrow, the jolt up her arms as she struck the earth, she saw a flash, heard a gasp of pain and, a second later, a grunt.
For a long moment she lay perfectly still. The heavy scent of moss and leaves drowned her. Dampness seeped into her palms and through the cloth of her trousers at her knees. Finally she raised her head slightly. The arrow lay a body's length away, its point slid under a clump of yellow lichen. There was no sound at all from the two men. She rolled onto her side and pushed herself up with one arm.
Bakhtiian stood in front of her, his face white, his saber bloody. Something in his stance was peculiar. He looked fierce, wild, with his hair mussed and his empty hand in a fist, but she was not scared. Instead she stared up at him, a sudden sinking in her heart, knowing without knowing why that the easy, cheerful friendship she had with Yuri was a thing she could never have with Bakhtiian. Something else waited; she felt it like a force between them. Behind him, leaves drifted down from the trees, shaken loose by the wind.
'If you've killed him,' she said, 'we'd better go.'
He stared at her. 'You could have been killed!' His eyes seemed black with anger, focused on her face.
'By God, Bakhtiian!' She could have struck him for belittling her in such a way. 'I did what had to be done.' He did not hold out a hand to help her up. She would not have taken it in any case.
She did not want to see the body. As she stood, she sheathed the knife and turned away, to go back the way they had come, to return to the horses, to leave this valley. A soft noise behind her stopped her.
'I can't walk.' His voice was strained and thin.
She turned back, recognizing all at once the whiteness in his cheeks and the pinched line of his mouth: he was in pain. He was standing on one leg.
'My knee.' It was hardly more than a whisper. His eyes shut. Shadow grew on the meadow. 'I have to sit down,' he said, almost apologetically.
She put out a hand and, using it for leverage, he lowered himself without putting any pressure on his injured knee, but he winced as he touched the ground. Beyond him, she saw the bloody corpse. A line of sunlight illuminated the open, staring eyes.
'Oh, God,' said Tess.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
'Hollows, ditches, caves and gates.'
It was very still, as if all the animals had fled, only the whispering lilt of a distant stream like a muted counterpoint to the undertone of his ragged breathing. Branches clicked together in a rustle of wind. He sat against a slim tree trunk, eyes shut, face ashen. She collapsed to her knees beside him.
'Ilya?' Her voice shook.
For a long moment, as the vibration of her spoken word disappeared into the stillness, he did not move. Finally, he pulled his trouser leg out of his boots and probed his knee, his fingers as careful as an artist's. The blood drained from his face. He was so obviously on the edge of agony that it hurt her to watch him. His breath shuddered, stopped, and began again with forced evenness, but he finished and at last lifted his hands away and opened his eyes. They had a vacant, unseeing cast.
'Not broken.' Each syllable was distinct, as though it were hard for him to form them.
'Oh, Lord.' It came out of her like a sigh.
Abruptly his gaze sharpened on her. 'Can't you do anything?'
He might as well have slapped her. She stood up, spun away from him, and walked, hands clenched, over to the dead hunter.
The hunter could have been asleep on his side except for the spray of blood that spread out from his neck, soaking into dirt and moss. A tiny black bug crawled across one of his open eyes. She pressed the heels of her palms across her eyes. Bile rose in her throat.
She picked up all his weapons-bow, arrows, dagger-and set them down beside Bakhtiian. Took in a full breath and walked back to the hunter. First she stripped him of what clothing was not too drenched in blood to be unusable. Then she grabbed his ankles-almost dropped them because they were still warm, the skin soft, yielding under her fingers. She gagged, clenched her lips together. His toes were white; hair grew below the first joint, but the nails were reddish-brown and dirty, as if they were already decaying.
She dragged him downslope over the rough ground and into a dense thicket. Branches stung her back and head and arms. She shoved him down an incline, and he rolled farther into the vegetation, twigs snapping under his weight. Retreating, she did what she could to cover his path, picking up dead branches and sweeping the trail the body had left until she came back to the congealing blood and scattered clothes at the beginning. Dirt stuck to the soles of her boots. The heavy scent of blood permeated the air. She put her hand to her throat, swallowed once, and turned and ran upslope, sound scattering out from her feet, until she was out of earshot. Then she dropped to her knees and was sick.
The stream murmured nearby. Its gentle chorus brought her back to herself, and she rose, still trembling, and explored until she found it. The shock of bitterly cold water on her face made her think again.
She ran back to the clearing.
