one hand he rubbed his injured knee. Tess smiled to herself, feeling foolishly sorry for him, and made her way over to him.
She came out of the crowd on his left and paused at the edge of his blanket. He was still staring down, the firelight a glow on his forehead and eyes. Abruptly he glanced up, straight at her. For an instant he seemed startled. Then he smiled.
Tess stepped onto the blanket and sat down beside him. 'How you must hate being injured when you could be dancing.'
He did not even look at the dancers but kept his gaze on her face. 'I'm perfectly happy,' he said quietly. 'Now.'
It was impossible not to know what he meant. He was flirting with her. Flirting-gods, did Bakhtiian even engage in such frivolous activities as flirting? She did not know whether to laugh hysterically or to run. Bakhtiian simply watched her, drawing whatever conclusions he might from the expressions chasing themselves across her face.
'Yes,' she said, choosing to misunderstand him. 'It must be satisfying to win over a tribe formerly so hostile to your own.'
'It always is,' he said tonelessly.
She dredged for a more neutral topic and grasped at the only one she could recall from supper. 'You let Veselov work out how to supply an army. How do you intend to do it?'
He took the cue. Perhaps, explaining, he was more conscientiously serious with her than he usually was. She let it pass. What he said was interesting enough, though she was no student of war as he quite clearly was. Then with a word and a warning pattern on his drum, the head drummer called out the next dance.
'This is my favorite dance. Please excuse me, Ilya.' She scrambled to her feet and stared about desperately for the nearest available man whom she knew was a good dancer. There was Vladimir, but… ah, well, he already had a partner.
'You mean you wouldn't rather sit and talk with me?' asked Bakhtiian, but although his voice had the inflection of humor, he was not smiling.
'Of course I would,' she said absently, and then she smiled brilliantly, catching Kirill's eye before Arina Veselov, coming out of the crowd next to him, could catch him for herself. 'But I love this dance. I'll come back.' And she ran over to Kirill and led him out.
It was a long dance, and the next was a line dance for women into which she was seduced by the combined persuasion of Arina and Aleksia. But when she had finished that, she felt guilty for having left him so abruptly, so she threaded her way back through the crowd to where he sat. Partway around the circle, halted by a passing clump of children, she saw over their heads that Bakhtiian was not alone.
Vera had braided her hair for this occasion only so that she could wear the glittering headdress of onyx and amethyst beads that set off her fine features so admirably. That was Tess's first thought. Her tunic was cut unusually low, displaying a good deal of fine, white throat and slender shoulders. Somehow she had spread out the skirts of her tunic so that a fold fell possessively over one leg of his trousers. Lower, a slim ankle showed, bare and delicate, resting next to one of his boots. Leaning forward, Vera said something. Ilya smiled. Tess turned and, seeing Yuri, walked over to him and asked him to dance.
When the dance had finished, she could not help just one surreptitious glance toward Bakhtiian. But the blanket lay empty, abandoned, crumpled at the edges as people walked over it and pushed it into folds.
'Oh, gods,' said Yuri, 'is that Petya out there?' Petya stood in the same place where he had had the argument with his wife, far enough away from the main group that no one remarked on his bowed shoulders, on his solitude.
'Tess.' Kirill joined them. 'So you've seen him. Listen, Tess, you ought to make up to him.'
'I ought to make up to him!'
'Yes,' Kirill said without blinking. 'Anton Veselov told me that his cousin slapped Aleksia Charnov and bullied her for months after Charnov lay once with Petya. And Veselov never even lets Petya in her tent, except-well, now and then, Anton says, begging your pardon, Tess. But Petya never deserved to be made miserable. But you could make up to him. Vera Veselov can't do anything to you, and perhaps if the other young women see your example, they'll defy her a little. Ordering her aunt around as if she were etsana, and not her!'
'But Kirill!' Tess felt as if she had been betrayed.
'What a fine idea, Kirill,' said Yuri. 'We'd best leave Tess to work out what comes next.'' He grabbed the other man's arm and pulled him away. Kirill, looking puzzled, let himself be led, glancing once back at Tess with a shrug and, God help her, a complicitous grin. He didn't even care if she slept with another man!
Of course he didn't care. Of course he thought she had every right to sleep with any damned man she wanted.
A fresh-faced boy suddenly came up to her out of the whirl. 'I beg your pardon,' he said shyly. 'Is this yours?' He handed her Bakhtiian's blanket, shaken out and neatly folded.
'Thank you.' Tess gave him a smile, at which, satisfied, he took himself off. Holding the blanket, Tess marched over to Petya and persuaded him to go for a walk with her along the river.
He did not take much persuading. At first, strolling through the pale grass, stars a net of brightness above, the river a melodiously soft accompaniment, neither of them spoke much, except about commonplaces.
'Yuri doesn't think you're happy here,' said Tess finally, realizing that Petya, who was very sweet, would never confide in her without prompting. 'I'm his sister, you know. Mother Orzhekov gifted me with Anna Orzhekov's tent.'
'I always liked Anna,' said Petya. They walked, and the river rolled on alongside them. Then, as if it was impossible to conceal secrets from Yuri's sister, he began to talk.
Petya, Tess realized, was indeed sweet, ingenuous, and shy, and he was also a little shallow, having none of Yuri's unexpected depth. He had fallen in love with Vera Veselov and had marked her, as a man ought. After two years, he had at last deduced that she was angry with him but for what reason he was still not entirely sure, although he did acknowledge that she might well love Ilyakoria Bakhtiian.
'But Bakhtiian would never have marked her,' he said naively, 'so I can't understand why she would be angry with me about that.'
He had formed no lasting friendships. None of the women approached him. Vera admitted him to her tent if she pleased, and banished him from there if it suited her. Altogether, he was miserable.
'But, Petya,' said Tess, exasperated, 'it isn't your fault.'
'But surely there's more I can do to win her over. To make her love me.'
Tess sighed and spread out the blanket. 'Petya, sit down.' He sat. She sat beside him. The moon had risen. Its narrow silhouette lay tangled in the rushing water, breaking, re-forming, and breaking again. 'Petya,' she began, and stopped. It would do no good to criticize Vera. 'Haven't you any friends here?' she asked instead.
'Anton Veselov has always been kind to me,' he admitted.
'I think you'd do well to cultivate Anton and Arina Veselov. After all, Arina will be etsana someday, not Vera.'
'Yes, and Vera hates her.'
'No doubt. Petya. I think-' He looked up at her, trusting and, as Yuri had said when speaking of Petya's wife's family, too handsome for his own good. Tess thought that Petya had probably had things much too easy growing up, with a sweet face like that. He had probably been a gorgeous, indulged child. She took in a breath. 'Petya, I think that Vera would respect you more if you took a-a firmer hand with her.' She tried not to wince as she said it, unsure of what ground she was on here in the jaran. 'For instance, if you will pardon a sister's confidence, she hadn't any right to punish Aleksia Charnov for making up to you.' Petya was silent. 'I am sure,' Tess continued, seeing that he was receptive to this elder-sister tone of voice, 'that a husband ought to expect the same respect from his wife as she expects from him.'
'It is true,' he said in a low voice, 'that a wife has certain obligations to her husband that he may demand if she is unwilling to give them to him freely.'
Tess decided that to inquire into the scope of these obligations would be treading on too thin ice. 'Well, then, I think you ought to stand up for yourself. Otherwise she will never forgive you.'
'She may never forgive me whatever I do.'
'That is true. But it's yourself you have to respect most of all, Petya.'
