Jaran

a quill and a tightly sealed pot of ink. Then he slipped his knife out of its sheath and turned the Newton open to the flyleaf. She could not bear to watch. In a moment, he said, 'Would you like me to wait outside?'

'No.' She came over to the table. He retreated to the bed with the precious book and sat cradling it in his hands while she bent down to compose the letter.

Charles. I am stranded on Rhui but am currently safe. The Chapalii have sent a clandestine expedition to Rhui which I stumbled across and followed: the Tai-en Mushai-yes, that one-once possessed this planet, and he left a palace and computer banks which contain all the information he gathered which led to the downfall of the First Empire. It really happened! I now possess in storage the contents of his files. I am traveling for Jeds now, but the Chapalii are still a threat to me. If something should happen to me, if you should receive this letter and I do not arrive in Jeds from the north by ship within a month or at most two, then look for the people called the jaran, who live on the northern plains, and specifically for a man named Ilyakoria Bakhtiian. They have sheltered me. Here she hesitated, and then simply signed her name.

She stood, blew on the fine, marbled paper now covered with her scrawl, and offered it to him. He took it.

'I will keep the relic until we meet at the coast.' He gathered up his quill and ink, packed everything neatly away into his saddlebags, and swung the packs onto the table. He did not look at her. She did not look at him.

'What will you tell the pilgrims?' she asked finally. 'Won't they be suspicious? I don't want you to lose your horses.'

'I'll tell them-' He paused. An odd note to his voice made her look up at him. Seeing her gaze, he smiled sardonically. 'I'll tell them that you married me and are now my wife and so will be staying here.'

'Don't tell them that!' He blinked away from her vehemence, his expression shuttered. 'I didn't mean…' How could she explain that the Chapalii would take such an explanation very seriously indeed, and that it would cause enormous, negative repercussions for Charles. 'I just meant because marriage is not a light thing for the khepellis, that-'

'Do you think it is a light thing for jaran?' he demanded. 'Don't insult me above everything else.'

'I only meant that my marriage, because of who I am, would be taken very seriously…' She broke off.

“And I am of so little importance to the Prince and these khepellis that my marriage is of no account at all? Except, of course, that I married you. '

Which was true, of course. She flushed. 'Damn it, Ilya. I never said that.''

He smiled slightly. 'Very well, then I will tell Lord Ishii that I don't trust you, that you have broken the laws of our tribe, and I have left you behind under guard until I can get them safely onto ship and return to deal with you later.' He said it with great satisfaction.

'Very well,' she echoed, and then, because there was nothing more to say, said nothing. Neither did he speak.

They stood a body's length apart, the table between them. She dropped her gaze to stare at the tiny striations in the floorboards, flowing dark into light, some blending one into the next, some utterly separate. They stood in this manner for so long that she began to wish that he would do anything, anything but stand there silently and look at her.

At last he swung his saddlebags up onto his shoulders and moved to the door. She looked up. He paused with his hand on the latch. 'Fare well, my wife,' he said softly.

'Fare well,' she murmured. Then he was gone. As if she had been pulled along behind, she went to the door and laid her head against the wood. What would she say to him when they met again at the coast? Twenty-five days seemed like an eternity.

From outside came the noise of horses, that familiar ring and call of leaving that she had grown so accustomed to, had even come to love. Leaving, traveling, arriving; always moving and yet, because your life and family journeyed with you, always staying in the same place. She hurried to the window and stood up on the bed to look out just in time to see riders, too far away to make out as individuals, mass and start forward away along a path that soon took them into the woods and out of her sight. But she stood still, long after sight and sound of them had faded, and stared out onto the cool of midday and the quiet oasis of the park.

A scratch at the door. She jumped down from the bed, but it was only Yuri.

'Tess.' He hugged her. Pulling back, he examined her face. 'Well,' he said, 'it's no use staying shut up in here. It's a beautiful day outside. Come on. Have you seen the sacred pool yet?'

She had not. So they rode there, the four riders, herself, and Yeliana, and had a little picnic. The sacred pool was really nothing more than a circular marble pool surrounded by pillars, sited in a lovely meadow. A few late- blooming bushes added romance to the setting. The men flirted charmingly with Yeliana, who was delighted to have so many good-looking young riders to practice on.

'There's only Andrey, who is young,' she whispered to Tess, 'and I've never liked him. He came here five years past to become a priest, but I think it was just because he's so ugly and sour-faced that none of the women wanted him. All the others are as old as the hills. I was sorry when Vladi left.' Then she smiled at something Konstans said and asked him about his wife and baby.

Tess stood and walked over to the edge of the pool, where Kirill stood alone, watching the water ripple in the sunlight. 'You're very quiet today.'

'Did you ask Bakhtiian to leave me in charge?' he asked.

'No. Josef and Tasha and Niko did.'

His face lit. 'Did they? By the gods.' His posture shifted, and he looked very pleased with the world. He grinned. 'Meet me here tonight, my heart, and I will show you how this pool has captured the moon.'

'Kirill.' She faltered, and set her lips for courage, and looked at him.

'You love him,' he said.

'Yes.'

'So much.'

'Yes.'

His expression was hard to read, compounded half of resignation and half of-something else. 'But Tess, you won't even lie with him. Isn't that cruel?'

'For me or for him?'

'For him, of course. What you do to yourself is your own business, although I must say-'

'I don't believe that you would scold me for that.'

'I don't hate Ilya, Tess, or wish him ill. I never have, even if I might envy him now for winning your love.'

'But I love you, too, Kirill.'

'Yes. You gifted me with your love, but you gifted him with your heart.''

'Kirill.'

'Oh, Tess. Don't cry, my heart. It doesn't matter. It was a fair race. I don't begrudge him winning it, and I don't blame you for choosing him.'

'I'm not choosing him. I'm going back to Jeds. And would you stop being so damned noble?'

He laughed shakily. 'All right,' he said violently. 'The truth is, I'd like to murder him. Slowly. Strangle him, maybe, or better yet-no, that's an ill-bred thing to say in front of a woman.'

She smiled and wiped a tear from her cheek. 'That's better.'

'I accept what I must, Tess. What other choice do I have?' He frowned and then left her to walk back to the others.

She remained by the pond. After a while Yuri came to join her. 'What were you and Kirill talking about?'

She shrugged.

'You don't want to go back to Jeds, do you?'

'What other choice do I have?' she asked.

'Well, / think-'

'Yuri, do you want to get thrown in the pond?'

'Certainly I do. What do you think?' He grinned. 'I want to go back to the shrine. It's getting dark, and I'm hungry. Are you coming?'

'Bakhtiian never accepts his circumstances,' she said in a low voice. 'He changes them.'

'What did you say?'

'Nothing, Yuri. I'm coming.'