Jaran

believe.: I think you underestimate her, Niko. Only Vera and her father want Vera to take etsana. I think the rest of the tribe will support Arina, should it come to that.' 'She is too young to become etsana.' 'But they are the last of the family left. There is no older woman to take it unless they take it out of the family altogether. What that girl needs is a good, steady husband. If she is married, it will not seem so imprudent to make her etsana.'

Niko glanced at Ilya curiously. 'You sound as if you have someone in mind.'

'Kirill.'

'Kirill!'

'Yes. Kirill.'

'You're plotting, Ilya.'

'Niko. When Mother Sun sent her daughter to the earth, she sent with her ten sisters, and gifted them each a tent and a name. The eldest was Sakhalin, then Arkhanov, Suvorin, Velinya, Raevsky, Vershinin, Grekov, Fedoseyev, and last the twins, Veselov and Orzhekov. Each sister had ten daughters, and each daughter ten daughters in turn, and thus the tribes of the jaran were born. Next spring we will begin our ride against the khaja lands, and of the ten elder tribes, who will come without questioning me?'

'All of them,' said Niko. He paused. 'All but Veselov.'

'Arina Veselov wants Kirill. She told her mother, and her mother told me.'

'What does Kirill want?'

'Kirill knows his duty,' said Ilya stiffly. 'You said yourself that I ought to give him the responsibility he deserves.'

'I suggest,' said Niko in a carefully calm voice, 'that you let Kirill make his own choice in this matter. You already mean for Yuri to mark Konstantina Sakhalin…'

'How did you know about that?'

'I may be old, Ilya, but I am neither blind nor deaf to the way your mind works, or to the exaggerated sense of duty Yuri feels toward you. Not that he would make her a bad husband, mind you. Ilya, what happened that night at the shrine? Josef and Tasha and I gave you every opportunity.'

The fire popped and flamed, licking the base of the kettle. 'I do not wish to speak of it, Niko.'

'Ilyakoria, you are her husband.'

'Yes, I am her husband,' he said, rounding on Niko, 'and when Lord Ishii tried to kill her and she was forced to ask for my protection, did she ask me because I am her husband and she is my wife? No, Sibirin, she asked me on the honor we gave each other as friends. She does not want me.'

'Doesn't she?'

'Very well,' agreed Ilya sarcastically, 'perhaps she desires me, perhaps she even loves me, but she will not have me because I trapped her.'

'Trapped her?'

'Treachery, that is the other word she used.'

'Well,' said Niko, 'Tess does not mince words.'

'Gods,' said Ilya.

'So what will you do now?'

Ilya stared away, out to where the wind drew ripples in the dark, coursing waters of the river. The sun breached the eastern horizon. 'She is going back to Jeds. I will get my horses and then-you know what I mean to do.'

'And what about Tess?'

'What about her?'

'Are you going to just let her leave?'

Ilya's gaze fixed abruptly on the older man. 'I want her, Niko. I thought I would go to any length to get her, but now-now I see that if she does not want me, I must let her go'

Niko smiled, but gently, to take the sting out of the expression. 'You are learning humility, Ilyakoria.'

'Yes,' he said fiercely. 'And I hate it.'

Light spilled out, dusting with brightness the brilliant patterns woven into the walls of the gathered tents. 'My dear boy,' said Niko slowly, 'do you love her?'

'I married her!'

'Loving a woman and wanting a woman are not the same thing.'

Ilya simply stared at him, perplexed. 'Of course, to desire a woman only because she is pretty-'

'I am not speaking of anything so simple. Listen to me, my boy. When you came back from Jeds, you had found the path you were destined to ride, knowing that it would bring you fame that no other jaran had found before you. But the gods play this game with us, challenging us to strive for fame, and yet how many of us can ever hope to beat their players: the wind that never ceases, the deep earth, the rain that dissolves the ashes of the dead, the unbounded sky, and the silent stars. They play their game well. They have only to wait us out to win.'

The rising sun laced his pale hair with silver. 'Yet now and again, a man or a woman is born who has weapons against these opponents, one who can command quiet, who can see beyond death, one who can hold fire to the old ways and let them burn. You are such a man. You can change the jaran. You are changing them. You can leave this world with a name that will live forever. You can win that game.' He fell silent. Two women spoke in low voices from the etsana's tent, too far away for words to be distinguishable. From the farther edge of camp, a man hallooed, and a child yelped and laughed.

'But you will die in any case, Ilyakoria. What good is everlasting fame to a man if he dies unloved?'

A wind had come up. It touched Ilya's hair, stirring it like a whisper.

'Love, Ilya. That is what we who are mortal have been gifted, a gift never given and never known by the undying. The wind cannot love the plain, but I can love the plain, and I can love much more than that and be loved in return. Fame is something you want. A woman is someone you love.'

'I don't know,' said Ilya in a low voice, averting his gaze from Niko's keen one. 'I don't know what the difference is.'

Niko sighed and rested a hand on Ilya's shoulder. 'I don't envy you.'

Ilya laughed a little unsteadily, and then grinned at the older man. 'Was that meant to comfort me?'

'No, it was meant to keep you honest.'

'Then I will tell you this much.' His voice shook as he went on. 'I don't want her to leave.' He shut his eyes, struggling to keep his expression controlled. 'I don't want her to leave,' he repeated in a whisper, and then, as if the only way to keep his control was to keep talking, he went on. 'I remember the first time I saw her, and she told me in that elegant Rhuian she speaks that she wasn't going to harm me. Harm me! She could barely stand. Gods, how I wanted to laugh. But when the gods exacted that life, when it was done, I went after her. I don't know-I was afraid that she would think I was a barbarian, and then I was offended that she did. It was months before I began to wonder why I cared what she thought. And Sonia and my aunt! She walked into camp, alone, starving, with nothing but the clothes on her back, and they took her into the family. Do you know how long Vladi has been riding with the jahar, and still not accepted?'

'Vladi,' said Niko kindly, 'does not have Tess's ability to make friends.'

'Then my aunt gifted her with her own daughter's tent! And she rode out with us, and I knew it would be a day, two days, three days at most, before she gave up-and then those damned-they knew I wanted her gone and still Yuri and Mikhal and Kirill and the others helped her.'

'Until she could do it herself. She beat you fairly, Ilya.' Niko chuckled, seeing Ilya's expression. 'What, you aren't still mad about that, are you?'

'Damn her,' said Ilya with heat. 'I hate losing. Gods, though, I was impressed. She barely knew how to ride when we started. Do you suppose you know anyone as stubborn she is?'

'Yes,' said Niko innocently. 'I think I do.'

For an instant, Bakhtiian looked offended, and then he called Niko a very unsavory name that had once started a feud between two tribes that lasted three generations.

Niko laughed heartily. 'I like watching your face,' he said. 'But I'm curious. When did you decide that you had to marry her?'

'Do you know, I did something I had never done before-something I had never had to do before. I put myself in her way one evening, thinking-hoping-that she would ask me to lie with her. I thought she needed comfort. It was after we found those three butchered riders of Doroskayev's.