as your wife. And by the gods, Ilya, as your wife, you have no authority over me whatsoever.'' She twisted her wrist in his hand and jerked herself free of his grip. But as she started away, he caught her arm. 'People are staring,' she snapped.
'Let them stare.' He flung his other arm around her waist and with no warning dragged her bodily backward and into the tent. Pressed this close against him, she could feel that he was shaking. Inside, two lanterns burned, casting a glow across the interior: the table and chair, khaja work, to one side, where she wrote; an empty bronze cauldron with a smaller cauldron nested inside; a small bronze stove with two handles; a wooden chest carved with stylized horses; a standing cabinet with hinged doors, another piece of khaja work; and the tapestry that concealed the sleeping area.
'One month it has been,' he said, his voice so low that Tess knew he was in a rage. 'You didn't even greet me.'
'My God. You're jealous.'
'You disobeyed my direct orders not to leave camp.'
'You refused to let me go to the coast with you, to meet Charles. Gods, Ilya, what did you expect me to do?' Standing this close to him, she felt her anger ebb. 'Did you really think I'd wait meekly for you to return?' For an instant, she thought he was going to smile. But to her surprise, he let go of her and strode over to the table, sitting down in the chair. He regarded her from this uncharacteristic seat, glowering at her. Fine, then, if he didn't want a truce. Tess was more than happy to continue the argument.
'You didn't tell me that your brother holds me in such contempt,' he said at last.
That took her off guard. 'What are you talking about?'
'What am I to think? He is a great prince, and he comes attended with a handful of assistants, only one of whom is a soldier-and she a woman-and, by the gods, a company of actors. Is this the kind of state he keeps? Does he think my power so trivial that he fears me not at all? What if I chose to kill him, claim Jeds for myself through my marriage with you, and march south? Oh, I know it's a long journey overland, through many khaja princedoms, and I would never attempt it with the army I have now-but what is ten years to me, Tess? If I kill him now, and consolidate my power here, what is to stop me from marching on Jeds and conquering all the lands between?'
Even when she knew an ambush was coming, she was never prepared for it, because he always attacked from an entirely different position than the one she expected. Damn him. What could she say? What should she say? What he read in her silence she didn't know. In any case, he went on.
' 'Why should he put himself in my power in this way? He doesn't fear me. Does he think I am incapable of desiring to have what is his? That my awe of Jeds is so great that I fear him? That your influence with me will stop me from harming him?''
'But why should you kill him?' Tess asked at last, her voice perfectly calm because she was still too surprised by this sudden confession to know what to make of it. 'What good would it do you?'
He stood up, pushing himself up with one hand on the table. It rocked slightly, and then he lifted his hand and crossed to Tess in five strides. 'Unless he never meant to come out on the plains at all,' he said quietly. 'We have nothing to negotiate. Jeds is too far away and I am young in my power. In time, certainly, but I can just as well ride north and east along the Golden Road. What if he brought no entourage because he never meant to leave his ship? If you had come with me to the coast, he could have put you on board the ship and sailed south.'
Which was perfectly true. Trust Ilya to have seen it. Trust Charles to have made the point clear without ever stating it aloud. And leaving her to deal with it. 'But what about the actors, then?' she asked, knowing the question was a flanking action.
'The actors,' said Ilya, with the merest quirk of a smile, 'are all mad, clearly. But like all entertainers, they must know they are welcome anywhere. Like all singers-of-tales, they are given both the favor and the protection of the gods. I will do them no harm.'
'And meanwhile, you have offered me a grave insult. How dare you have so little respect for my dignity that you would lead my horse as if I was a child and then drag me by main force back through camp like that?''
He looked taken aback by this direct attack. He looked a little embarrassed. 'Tess.' He placed his hands on her shoulders and slid them up to cup her face in his palms. He swayed toward her.
'Don't think this will work,' she murmured, and then she leaned into him and kissed him, running her hands from his belt up the smooth silken line of his back. The hard knot of his belt buckle pressed against her, and she had to shift her hips slightly to keep her saber hilt from tangling with his sheathed knife.
He broke off the kiss and sighed, gathering her into him, and kissed her along the line of her jaw up to her right ear. 'If he takes you away from me,' he whispered, as softly as an endearment, 'then I promise you that I will destroy Jeds.'
Tess stiffened in his embrace and slid her hands around to his chest, bracing herself away from him. He let go of her. 'What if I decide to leave of my own free will?'
So many expressions chased themselves across his features that it took her a moment to recognize the one that lay underneath all the others. He was afraid. Ilya was afraid of losing her.
He threw his arms around her, enclosing her, and yanked her tight against him. 'By the gods, I will stop you.'
'How?'
He did not answer in words. Words contained the least part of the language they spoke to one another. The heat of his hands burned on her skin. Tess traced the line of his beard, traced his lips, with her fingers. Her hands ranged down to the clasp of his belt, and she eased it away and let it drop onto the soft pile of carpets.
'Tess,' he said again, hesitant.
Tess got her hands under his shirt and slid them up, over his chest, teasing the nipples and then, when he was breathless, steering him backward through the curtain into the sleeping alcove. By shifting her foot, she tripped him, and he tumbled down onto the heap of silken pillows, pulling her with him. Astride him, she eased off his shirt, and let him unbuckle her belt and thrust it away. She captured his hands and pressed them against her.
'Promise me,' she said. 'Promise me you will not threaten my brother.'
'Damn you.' He was angry, still, but he was also laughing. 'It gains me nothing, now, to kill him, and you know it.'
'Then it costs you nothing to promise me. He is your ally, Ilya, you must believe that.'
He shifted his hips beneath her and used the toe of one boot to pry off the other. 'He cares nothing for me, Tess, except that I married you.'
'That isn't true.'
'Isn't it? Then tell me he would have come here, that he would even send an embassy to the jaran, if you weren't here.'
'Jeds is far away-'
'Gods, Tess,' he said, exasperated. With an expert twist, he freed his hands and flipped her over, so that he lay on top of her. He found the tip of her braid and undid it, loosening her hair until it lay free, spread out on the pillows.
'You haven't promised me yet,' she said stubbornly.
He sat back with a great sigh and took off his other boot. She lay still on the pillows, watching him in the soft light of the lanterns. He kept his black hair cut short, a fashion that had spread among his soldiers, and he was obsessive about keeping his beard neat and trimmed. Whether by accident or by design, the lantern light haloed him, giving him a haze of light, as if the gods had long since marked him as their own. Which they had, according to the beliefs of his own people.
'I promise you that I will not threaten your brother as long as you stay with me,' he said.
'Ilya!' It was her turn to be exasperated.
'We're negotiating, my wife. Now it is your turn to make a counteroffer.''
She sat up and took off her boots, and regarded him. Oh, she was still angry with him, but right now, it didn't matter. She laughed. 'I'll consider it. Now, my husband, I think it time to remind you that you have been gone for a month, and you have certain obligations to your wife that you have not yet fulfilled.'
'Most willingly,' he murmured. 'Gods, Tess, I missed you.' He sank down with her into the soft bed of pillows.
Later, lying quiet, she stroked his hair while he kissed her fingers, one by one.
'We'll make a child,' he said, and because it was habitual with him, it came out more an order than a request.
