'But the storm-'
'Cousin, we've been here a night and a day and a night, and most of this day. The storm has passed down the mountain. I expect we can leave in the morning.'
Tess slowly unwound herself from the confusion of waking and looked up at him. 'But your knee-Myshla! How is Myshla?'
'Still tender, but she's putting weight on the leg. She'll do. I need some fresh air and a chance to look at the weather. We also need more water. And I thought-' He hesitated. He had color in his face again, and this time she thought most of it natural. 'I thought you might like some privacy to attend to yourself.'
It was said so demurely that she had to laugh. 'Your manners are impeccable, Bakhtiian,' she said in Rhuian. 'You have my permission to go.'
After attending to herself and fussing over Myshla, she walked outside to comb her hair and to set the blankets out to air. She felt weak but not terribly so. A wind rose up from the plains, a touch of late-summer warmth in it. Sitting on a terraced boulder, she sang a jaran song. The sun warmed her hair and her face. Bakhtiian hobbled into view and sank down beside her on the boulder.
'You finally had such nice color in your face,' she said, 'but it's all gone again.'
'It really is better. Can you take the horses out?' She nodded. 'But do it quickly. There isn't much light left.'
'Bakhtiian. Everything you say is true. Doesn't it wear on you?''
He stood up. 'Cousin,' he said, reserved, 'I am not quite so good-natured as you think I might be.'
'But, Cousin, I have hope that you could be,' she said, laughing at him, and beat a hasty retreat to the horses.
She got back before the sun set, stabled the horses in their corner, and sat down by Bakhtiian's feet. 'I couldn't find anything dry for the fire. Lord, I'm tired. I'm starving.'
'We'll eat the last of the meat tonight.' He parceled it out. 'The weather should hold for two days yet. We'll catch the jahar by then.'
'Can you ride?'
'I have to ride or we'll never get out of here.' 'Well,' said Tess, too cheerfully. 'I remember sleeping in my brother's bed in Jeds when there were thunderstorms.'
'Oh, yes. I shared a tent with Natalia for many years.' With these expression of sibling felicity, they felt able to resume the sleeping arrangements of the previous nights. In the morning, she saddled Kriye and Bakhtiian's remount. They were out of the valley and down to the fork by mid-morning.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
“It is not possible to step into the same river twice.'
At the fork, Bakhtiian dismounted and rested his leg, his back against the thick-grained red rock, his bad knee propped upon the peeling trunk of the dead shrub. His breathing was shallow, but after a bit he mounted by himself and they went on. They emerged onto the plateau unexpectedly, rounding a corner into the midst of short, yellow grass. Behind rose the mountains. On the other three sides, only sky.
Tess turned to smile at Bakhtiian, blushing when she found his eyes on her. If he could still pass for an attractive man in her eyes after the past four days, as disheveled and worn as he was, with lines of pain enduring around his eyes and mouth, then she had only herself to blame. She remembered the feel of his face brushing her hair, his arm tightening around her-he had been asleep.
Kriye shied. Tess, calming him, felt hardly any transition from one state to the next as he settled.
'You're becoming a good rider,' said Bakhtiian.
'Thank you.'
'You have a hand for them. Your little mare is fond of you.' He glanced back at Myshla as they rode out onto the plateau. His left hand gripped the pommel, white-knuckled. 'She's a beautiful animal. Are you fond of her?'
Tess was inordinately fond of Myshla, a fondness intensified by Myshla's recognition that she, Tess, was her particular friend. But Tess thought of Jeds and looked away. 'I am not in the habit,' she said evenly, 'of becoming fond of things I will shortly have to part from.'
Silence, except for the constant drag of wind in grass.
'I understand you very well,' said Bakhtiian finally.
There was no more conversation. Late in the afternoon they agreed to camp, halting at a brush-lined stream.
'It's much milder tonight,' said Tess as she unsaddled Kriye.
'Yes. Here are your blankets.'
She did not sleep very well, but perhaps that was because the ground was hard. She woke at dawn, stiff. Bakhtiian was already awake, saddling Kriye, forced to stand very curiously in order to favor his injured leg.
'I'll saddle the horses,' said Tess, rolling up her blankets. He did not answer. She made a face at his back and went to wash in the stream. When she got back, he had saddled her remount as well. They mounted without speaking and rode on. Soon afterward they found a pyramid of flat-sided rocks, a khoen, at the crest of a rise.
'That's ours!'
Bakhtiian merely nodded. At midday they spotted a rider in red and black atop a far rise, and the rider saw them. It was Kirill. He cantered up and pulled his horse around to walk with theirs.
'I rescue you again, my heart.' He winked at her and flamboyantly blew her a kiss. Kriye waltzed away from the sudden movement, but Tess reined him back.
'You're a shocking flirt,' she said, laughing.
'Your manners, Kirill,' said Bakhtiian. 'Where are the others?'
Kirill grinned slyly at Tess and pulled his chin: old graybeard. Tess giggled.
'Well?'
'Against the hills,' said Kirill hastily. 'How did you hurt your leg?''
Bakhtiian briefly described the nature and getting of the injury.
'Oh. So it was an injury. We thought-' He faltered. Tess, twisting one of her bracelets, stared at her wrist. Bakhtiian turned his head to stare directly at the younger man. 'Ah, yes,' Kirill finished quickly. 'We thought you had gotten into trouble.'
'I don't know what else would have kept us out in such weather,' said Bakhtiian.
Kirill caught Tess's eye and mouthed the words, 'I do.'
Tess coughed, hiding her laughter, and then gave Kirill an abbreviated version of the last several days. Kirill engaged her in a lively discussion of how best to keep unconscious men on horses. Bakhtiian remained majestically silent.
'But Kirill, even tied to the saddle- Look! There it is!' She broke away from her two companions, Kriye stretching out into a gallop. The men gathered in the camp scattered, laughing, at her precipitous entrance. She rode almost through the camp before she got Kriye stopped. At first she was besieged by the curious, but Yuri finally escorted her away so that she could wash and change. Later, she walked with Yuri up the narrow valley at the mouth of which they were camped.
Tess took in a breath of cool air and pushed a branch away from her face. The sun shone overhead, though it was not a particularly warm day. 'You wouldn't know, with the weather as it is now, that we almost froze to death up there.''
'The worst of the storm went round us, but it was cold, and it rained. We had five fires. Tess.' He stopped at the foot of a shallow escarpment. Tufts of coarse grass dangled from its lip above his head. 'How did you manage not to freeze to death? I had your tent. Ilya mentioned a fire, but…'
She blushed. 'We managed,' she said stiffly.
