Kirill's new jahar, the one Bakhtiian is granting him. They say he's to ride south past the mountains and the great river, or east on the Golden Road, to discover which lands offer their submission freely to Bakhtiian and which must face his wrath.'
He recoiled. 'Ride under Kirill's command? Never.'
'Then what? What, Vasil? Gods, you're of no use to anyone but yourself. You never think of anyone but yourself!'
'Karolla!' This was too much. Karolla could not doubt him. He grasped her hands and drew them up to his lips. 'Never say so, my heart. You are-'
She wrenched herself away. 'Don't embarrass me further by acting this way in public. What do you intend to do?' Quite suddenly, her eyes filled with tears, but she smothered them by wiping at her skin ruthlessly, so hard that it surely must hurt her. 'Or do you still think Bakhtiian will take you in?11
Tess, pregnant, had a glow about her that made her look almost beautiful, and Vasil admired the way she moved with a rotund grace unimpaired by her swelling belly. Karolla, pregnant, simply developed blotchy skin, and she waddled already, often with one hand on her back.
Vasil folded his hands together and regarded his wife with what he hoped was a measured expression. 'I won't do anything rash, Karolla. I promise you that. If I must speak with Bakhtiian, then I'll do so.'
Immediately he saw that he had said the wrong thing. Her mouth puckered up. She bit at her knuckles. Then she spun and walked away from him. She rolled more, a rocking, ungainly gait. Valentin darted out from behind the screen of a tent and, throwing a single hostile glance back at his father, grabbed a handful of her skirt into a hand and clung to his mother, walking along beside her. Vasil knew he should go after them. Karolla always gave in to his coaxing. But right now he felt-empty more than anything.
He turned and walked back out to the edge of camp. A jahar riding in blocked his path. He stopped to let them by, and there, riding at her ease at the front of the line, sat his newly-widowed sister. She caught sight of him and as quickly, dismissively, her gaze flicked away again. Her fine, handsome face was disfigured forever by the mark of a marriage that no longer fettered her. Petya had died twelve days ago, of wounds suffered in the battle to halt the Karkand governor's flight. Vasil himself had supervised the burning of Petya's body, two days ride out from the besieged city, in marshland, his spirit sent back to the gods along with those of twenty other riders from the Veselov jahar. His saber and his clothes-those not ruined by blood-Vasil returned to the one of Petya's three sisters who traveled with the Orzhekov camp; she had wept copiously. Vera had not mourned with one single tear, not even beside the pyre. Without the least sign of grief, she had watched her husband's body burn. The next day, it was her arrow shot that had brought Karkand's governor down at last, mired as he was by that time in boggy ground, his horse blown, his last loyal followers dead or straggling behind him. But even then, she had shown no emotion except perhaps disappointment that the chase was over.
The jahar passed him, and he hurried away back across camp. But by the time he came to the Company's camp, they had finished for the day. Already the sun sank below the far rim of hills. A sudden, restless discontent seized
Vasil. Its grip, like a strong hand, clutched hard at his chest. He did not want to go back to his tribe. Nothing held him here. He had, indeed, no place, no place to go, no place where he truly belonged.
In time, his wandering led him on a spiraling path in to the heart of the camp, to the Orzhekov encampment. Guards challenged him. He used Tess's name like a talisman, and none barred his way.
By now it was dark. He hesitated, past the innermost ring of guards, and instead traced a route that led by discreet shadows and hidden lines of sight around to the back of Tess's tent. Out beyond, at Sonia Orzhekov's tent, laughter and talking and singing swelled out on the night air. Back here, silence reigned. He took his chance, and snuck in, ducking down, crawling, by the little back entrance that Tess had not sewn shut, despite her threat, past the tent wall, sliding out beyond the inner wall of heavy tapestries into the inner chamber of Tess's tent.
A lantern burned. By its light, Vasil saw Ilya seated beside his bed. Ilya twisted around to stare. Vasil settled into a crouch, waiting, waiting for the reaction, for the burning anger, for the sharp sweetness of Ilya's glance, on him.
Instead, Ilya rose gracefully to his feet and touched two fingers to his lips: silence. There, at his feet, lay Tess, deep asleep on her side, her hair spilled out on the pillows, her shoulders bare above the blankets. Ilya walked quietly around her and paused by the entrance flap that led to the outer chamber, then vanished behind it. Vasil had no choice but to follow him.
'What do you want?' asked Ilya in a reasonable tone when Vasil emerged into the outer chamber. He stood at his ease with one hand brushing the khaja table that crowded the far end of the space.
Vasil prowled the chamber, and Ilya let him, watching him as he touched each item: the carved chest, the cabinet, the table and chair, the nested bronze cauldrons and the bronze stove, a knife, the lush tapestries lining the walls, the two ceramic cups and bronze beaker set on the table. All of it, an odd intermingling of jaran and khaja; not one piece of it out of place by a fingerbreadth.
'You've nothing rich here.' Vasil lifted one of the ceramic cups. In the dim light, he traced the simple floral pattern that twined around the cup.
'I don't need riches. Heaven has granted me its favor. The gold I leave for the tribes under my command.'
Vasil pressed the cup against his own cheek, as if its ribboned surface, held so often by Ilya or by Tess, could whisper secrets to him. 'I don't understand you.' He said it softly, provocatively.
Standing mostly in shadow, still Ilya burned. Unlike the actors, who channeled light through them and shone with its reflected glow, Ilya was the light.
He regarded Vasil gravely, by no sign betraying the least dismay at Vasil's presence. 'No. Years ago I thought you did, but now I wonder.'
Vasil set down the cup. It made a hollow tap as it met the surface of the table. 'You never doubted me before.'
'I loved you once, Vasil, and never doubted you then because I never saw you clearly. I love you still, in that memory. But it is ended.'
'Ended! For you, perhaps, or so you say now, when it's convenient for you to do so.'
'We've had this discussion a hundred times. I see no point in continuing it now. It is ended.'
'Then what was it you gave me, that night in this tent? That wasn't love?'
Ilya moved, coming around the table. He stopped not even a full arm's length from Vasil, and his closeness was like balm. He lifted a hand and brushed his fingers down Vasil's cheek. His touch was painfully sweet. Then, on an exhalation of breath, he leaned forward and kissed Vasil once, briefly, on the mouth. And pulled away, and stepped back.
'That is all it was, the memory of love. Eleven years ago, I gave you up because I thought I had to. I-' He broke off. 'You don't understand what I did. If you knew- No, never mind that now. The gods have their own way of punishing our arrogance. Only you must understand, that I deliberately sacrificed you, Vasil, in the Year of the Hawk. That year.'
The ceremony of exile. Ilya had spared him one thing alone, that day those many years ago, and that was the audience of the entire tribe. He and his aunt had performed the ceremony of exile in front of the men of the jahar. Vasil had always thought it the mark of Ilya's love, that Ilya had shielded him from the greater humiliation. Now he did not know what to think. He could not bear that Ilya could stand here and speak to him so evenly, so calmly. Gods, was it true? Did Ilya no longer love him? He discovered that his hands shook, and he closed them over the back of the chair to steady himself.
'I'm not sure you ever truly loved me, anyway,' Ilya added, grinding dirt into the fresh wound. 'Not as love is true, caring more for the other person, for who she is, in and of herself, than for what she brings you.'
'By what right do you stand there and judge me? How can you know? Or is this by way of convincing yourself that you never truly loved me either?'
'No, I loved you. That memory at least is true.'
'And by such scraps I must feed myself now? That is generous of you, Ilyakoria.'
'Keep your voice down. I don't want to wake up Tess.'
'Because you don't want her to find us here together?'
'No, because she's tired. Gods, Vasil, Tess would be the last person to condemn us for being here together. As you must know.' Outside, a bell rang three times, softly. Ilya wrenched his gaze away from Vasil and listened for
