'Why was Nadine spared?' she asked suddenly. 'The rest were killed, even her brother, who couldn't have been very old. Why didn't they kill Nadine, too?'
He stiffened in her arms. 'She wasn't there,' he said hoarsely. 'She and my aunt's youngest daughter-the one who died-were like Katerina and Galina are now-as close as twins. She was with Anna, out doing chores, I suppose. Out getting water, probably.'
'What about Natalia's husband? Where was he?'
It took her a moment to realize why he had gone so hot so suddenly; he was sweating. 'With me, of course. With the jahar.'
'He rode with your jahar?' she asked stupidly.
'Of course he did. He married into the tribe, of course he rode with my jahar.''
'What happened to him?'
'He left,' he said curtly. 'I was glad to see him go. I hated him.'
'What was your mother like, Ilya?'
She didn't expect him to answer, but he did. 'Proud. Arrogant. Impulsive. Vain.'
Tess laughed a little. 'She sounds rather like you.'
'No,' he said softly, 'I am like her. She never liked me, not until I came back from Jeds.'
'That can't be true!'
'You never knew my mother,' he said bitterly.
'No, and I'm sorry I didn't.'
'Don't be. You wouldn't have liked her, and she'd have made your life miserable.'
'Ilya!' The force of his anger and pain stunned her. 'Didn't you like her?'
'I loved her.' He said it gratingly, as if he were ashamed of it.
She hesitated, but she had never found him in such a forthcoming-in such a vulnerable-mood before, so she went on. 'What about your father?'
He laughed. It was a fragile sound, brief enough, but it heartened her. 'My father was a strange man. He was an orphan. Did you know that? He was a Singer. He never said much. He never tried to counsel my mother, and she dearly needed counseling, sometimes. Not in all things. She negotiated with other tribes skillfully enough. They all said so, and it was true. But her own headstrong desires… those she never learned to control, and he never tried to help her. I'm not sure he cared. But he loved me. He only stayed because of me. He said the gods had told him that he would have a child who would have fire in his heart. He said the gods had told him that this child would change forever what the jaran were, that the gods would take the child on a long journey, a Singer's journey, to show him what he must do to bring the light of the gods' favor onto their chosen people.'
'And that child was you.'
'That child was me.' His words were slurred, now. 'And now I have gone on the Singer's journey twice, once in body, once in spirit. That makes me a Singer, like my father.'' He lay heavy on her, where an arm and leg were draped over her, and he sighed and shut his eyes again.
'Go to sleep, my heart.' She stroked his hair. A Singer. He was now a Singer. It seemed a doubly heavy burden to bear.
He slept soundly all that night. The next morning he insisted they start out down toward the Habakar heartlands. He rode a placid mare, but by mid-morning he was so exhausted that, given the choice between halting the train of wagons on the trail so that he could rest or riding in a wagon instead, he agreed to ride in a wagon. Tess sat next to him, one arm around him, propping him up. On his other side, Sonia drove. A constant stream of riders-women and men both-passed them, just to catch sight of him, just to see if it was true, that he had defeated the Habakar sorcery and come back victorious and alive.
By mid-afternoon he trembled as if with a palsy. Tess and Sonia overruled his objections and halted the wagons and made camp. He was so tired that Tess practically had to hand-feed him, and then he fell asleep before he could hold an audience. Vasil came by that evening.
'He's asleep,' she said. She sat under the awning in the cool evening breeze, reading by lantern light from Cara's bound volume of the complete works of Shakespeare.
'You look tired,' said Vasil. Without being asked, he sank down beside her. 'Karolla is pregnant, too.'
That startled her. 'A third child. You must be very pleased, Vasil.'
He smiled. 'I love my children. Is he really asleep?'
She closed the book and set it to one side. 'Vasil, what do you want? Or do you even know?'
All at once his expression lost its casual self-assurance. 'Oh, gods, I thought he was going to die. I couldn't have borne that. At least, even banished from him, I knew he yet lived.'
His vehemence shook her. 'Why did you come back? You must know that he can't see you, that it will never be acceptable.'
'I had no choice,' he muttered. He dropped his gaze away from her shyly, forcing her to stare at his profile. The lantern light softened him, giving him the lineament of an angel.
Tess sighed. She had long since discovered that she was susceptible to brash men who hid behind modesty. She leaned over and took his hand. 'Vasil.' Then she faltered. She did not know what she needed to say.
Daringly, he lifted her hand to his lips and kissed her knuckles, and then turned her hand over and kissed her palm once, twice, thrice. She shivered, and not from the cold. 'You'd better go,' she said, and was shocked to hear how husky her voice sounded.
Without a word, without looking at her, he placed her hand back in her lap and left.
'Oh, God,' she said to herself as she watched him walk away. As she watched him as any woman watches a man she is attracted to, measuring the set of his shoulders and the line of his hips and the promise of his hands. No wonder Sonia had warned her against him.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
Tess refused to go on the next day. Ilya raged at her, but she simply smiled and kissed him, and Sonia backed her up. So he rested. The day after, she agreed to go on only if he would ride in the wagon all day. Furious but trapped, he submitted.
That day they came down onto the Habakar plain, and scouts and patrols came by in increasing numbers just to get a look at him. The next day, and the next, and the next, he grew stronger in stages. They journeyed at a leisurely pace, attended by his jahar and visited by an ever-growing number of riders. Bakhtiian, they would say, pointing at him from a distance. Some came forward to pay their respects. He gave brief audiences in the evening. Tess always had to cut them short before he was ready to quit, but he was pushing himself constantly, and Cara shook her head and disapproved.
Tess was shocked at the wasteland the army had made of these lands. She could tell they had been rich, once, that they had been rich just a month before-before the jaran army had descended on them. They passed no village, no city, that was not torn by war or deserted. They passed no field that was not trampled into dust. Once they passed a pasture strewn with corpses rotting in the sun. Tess saw not one living person, except for the jaran. Ilya muttered to himself and that evening he sent messengers forward to prepare the main camp to receive him. He sent a messenger to Mother Sakhalin, asking that he and she hold an audience once he had arrived.
Riders lined the path of their train's progress, to watch him go by. The closer they came to the main camp, each day that passed, the more riders appeared along their route. Three more days passed. At midday on the fourth day-twelve days after he had emerged from his coma-they made their triumphal entrance to the main camp.
It was noisy, both the camp and their reception. Over the protests of almost everyone, Ilya mounted his black stallion and rode at the head of the procession, Tess on his left, Josef and Mitya on his right. Tess knew well enough that Josef's presence served to remind them all of why they were here in Habakar territory, and Mitya's to remind them that Bakhtiian had heirs. Vladimir, bearing the gold banner, rode behind, and after him came Bakhtiian's personal guard, the members of the Orzhekov jahar, resplendent in their armor. After them came Sonia, driving a cart in whose back sat the other Orzhekov children who were with the tribe. Then rode the rest of his jahar, followed by the wagon train and the rearguard.
The members of the camp and the army had assembled, making an avenue between them down which
