facilities, for one thing. Even Morava doesn't have facilities we humans can use.'
'Unless we bring Chapalii down onto Rhui.'
'Marco!' David threw up his hands. 'That's absurd. That would be breaking the interdiction all over again.'
'David, they've already been at Morava. We've established now that Charles has a merchant house allied with him, established on Rhuian terms, I mean. Why shouldn't they visit Morava?'
'Which still hasn't answered the question of where to centralize operations,' said Maggie.
'less,' said Charles quietly, 'you look like you have something to say.'
The answer stared her in the face. It answered both her problems. Neatly. Perfectly. Almost too perfectly. She already knew how to build matrices, and what Charles wanted built here was not that different from any language. She already led a jahar of envoys. A steady stream of visitors, envoys, ambassadors, merchants, and philosophers came and went from the camp of the jaran army. Tess could authorize their movement within the camp; she had the authority to receive them, or to send mem away, or to conduct her own missions, to send her own people to Jeds, to Morava, to anywhere she wanted. And the jaran moved, always. They never stayed in one place for long. She had allies within the jaran, and allies outside the jaran.
'Base it with me,' she said softly, surprising everyone but Charles. Tess doubted she could ever surprise Charles. 'Base it with the jaran.'
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Sonia regarded the gold cloth with some misgiving. Certainly Tess had every right to adopt the boy into her tent; indeed, Tess herself had gained a place with the jaran by the same means. But the truth was that this was not a simple adoption. Vassily Kireyevsky ought to have stayed with his mother's relatives. She faulted the Kireyevsky tribe for casting him off, but it wasn't unheard of that a family would rid itself of an unwanted child by giving it to a family who had need of a servant or even a child to adopt. But a child who had no father could not then be sent to the man who had, perhaps, sired him-as if it could ever be proven.
Sonia made a face and rolled the cloth up again. She disliked that Rhuian word, 'sired.' Oh, she did not doubt that Vasha was Ilya's son-by Jedan law-but this was not Jeds. Mother Sakhalin's warnings seemed apt now. If the jaran took one step too many off the path the gods had given them to ride, then they would no longer be jaran. And why should Tess care what happened to this child, anyway? In Jeds, Sonia had read of noblewomen who murdered their husband's or father's bastards. What did Tess expect to come of taking in this child?
She signed and set the cloth aside. Looking up, she saw two riders and their escort halt at the edge of camp. A strange sense-not quite of foreboding but of dislocation-swept her, seeing her cousin and the boy together. There was something very alike about them. She got to her feet and went to greet them.
'Hello, Ilya. Vasha.'
The boy stammered a greeting. He looked deeply embarrassed at having the luxury of handing over his reins to another man, who would tend to the horse for him; indeed, he looked embarrassed at having ridden such a handsome horse at all, since they had, of course, gone out on two of the khuhaylan Arabians.
'Go on, then,' said Sonia, taking pity on him, 'Katya is waiting for you. They're over there-' She waved toward her left, where Katya and Galina and a handful of other girls were practicing archery on the empty stretch of ground lying between the Orzhekov tents and the next tribe.
Vasha looked up at-Sonia could not quite bring herself to think, his father-Ilya, and Hya gave the slightest lift of his chin, which the boy took for permission. He ran off.
'Well,' said Sonia.
'It was not my choice!' Ilya exclaimed.
Sonia chuckled, resting a hand on his sleeve. 'Ilyakoria, I would never tax you with something that so obviously has Tess's mark about it.'
'I will never understand her,' muttered Ilya, sounding vastly irritated.
'You do hate that,' she agreed mildly. 'And you would never have married her if you did understand her. Come. You look thirsty.'
He also looked as if he wanted to talk. He walked with her and sat down under the awning of her tent. She brought komis for them both, and while they drank they watched the girls shoot.
'Vera Veselov wants every girl to ride for at least one season with the archers in the army,' said Sonia. 'I think she thinks of it as some kind of birbas, hunting the khaja as we hunt animals. Good training. But I and Mother Sakhalin and several other etsanas have argued against it. The experience will do some girls no good; others will prefer to ride for two years before it's time for them to marry. And there are women who have lost their husbands who have asked to join as well, but others who wish only to return to the plains. Right now we have enough volunteers, and we haven't even begun to draw young women from the tribes still out on the plains.'
'Right now,' said Ilya. 'But eventually the novelty will wear off, and then it will no longer be enough to have volunteers and a casual place alongside the rest of the army.' His eyes narrowed. 'Look.'
Galina had given Vasha her bow. He obviously had handled a bow before, although he did not have the skill of the girls.
'Will you stop him?' Sonia asked quietly.
Ilya glanced at her. 'How can I?'
The sun baked down on the children, but they appeared not to mind it. Their game interested them more.
'What will happen to him, Ilya?'
'I don't know. I scarcely know what to think of him.' He hesitated. His lips quirked up into a half-smile. 'I scarcely know what to think of myself. Am I a father or not? What do I do with such a child? What does Tess want me to do with him? Gods.' He grimaced. 'What does the child himself want? Or can he even know?'
The air lay still today, hot, oppressive, and crowding, as if it waited on some larger storm to break. But the sky remained blue, unsullied by clouds, and distant Karkand shimmered in the heat.
'Autumn will come soon enough,' commented Sonia, 'though I don't think it ever grows as cold here as it does on the plains.'
Ilya watched the boy out beyond as he shot another round and then gave the bow back to Galina. 'Sonia,' he said. Faltered. Began again. 'Sonia, don't you suppose that Aleksi should marry?'
The change of subject surprised her. 'Ilya! It would break Tess's heart if he left camp.' She regarded her cousin questioningly. Surely he understood his wife by now. 'And in any case, Tess rules him with an iron hand, however light it may seem to others. He wouldn't go.'
He shook his head. 'I didn't mean that he should leave. Surely some woman can be found who might come to us.'
'Ah,' she said, understanding him now. 'You think that if you bind Aleksi to camp as well, it will be yet another reason for Tess to stay.'
He flashed her a look so filled with indignation that she laughed. How he hated it when people saw past his words and his authority to his feelings. He knew better, however, than to snap at her. 'I don't-' he began, and stopped, because what she had said was true. He subsided into an offended silence that reminded her all at once of Nadine.
'liya,' she added, taking pity on him, 'be assured that for my own reasons I am keeping an eye out for a wife for Aleksi.'
He did not deign to reply, but she saw that her answer mollified him.
Shadows lengthened around them, and the children ended their game. Katya and Galina and Vasha ran over to the tent and swamped the silence with their laughter. The two girls threw themselves down, unconscious of any need for dignity around their formidable cousin. But Vasha moved cautiously, like a foal testing its legs, and with a touching, stiff gravity that made Sonia actually feel a little sorry for whatever he had endured before. Clearly he was proud. As clearly, his Kireyevsky relatives had punished him for his pride, for him to be so eery of it now.
Katya gave a great sigh and rolled over onto her back. 'You have to learn to read and write, Vasha. Doesn't he?' And she rolled her gaze over toward Ilya. Sonia sighed. Katya rode moods the way she rode horses; right now,
