me through camp, Niko. With your wife.' She turned to greet the elderly woman in the group. 'Hello, Juli.' They kissed each other on the cheek like old friends. Juli responded with a jaran greeting. 'David? Are you coming with us?'
'It is my belief,' said Niko gently, 'that David ought to go with Bakhtiian and the prince.' David put a hand to his throat, lowered it, and swallowed. Niko looked him closely in the face and suppressed a grin. 'Perhaps not. Would you like to come with us?'
With vast relief, David said yes.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Sonia Orzhekov regarded the khaja Singers with trepidation. Six of them at once! Few things daunted her, raised as an etsana's daughter, cousin to Bakhtiian; there had been death aplenty in her family, but she came from a resilient line, and, the gods knew, there was no point in dwelling on things that had already come to pass. But Singers were touched by the gods, and everyone knew that they were a little crazy-not in a bad way, mind you, but that they looked at the world differently, that the gods spoke through them. Perhaps she should have brought Raysia Grekov with her, for Raysia was a Singer, and also daughter of the etsana of the Grekov tribe. Then, perhaps, Raysia could translate for her just as Sonia would translate for these women, these actors, as they walked through camp.
But even an etsana's daughter and a cousin of Bakhtiian could not command a Singer, or even summon one. Sonia examined the six women and reminded herself that they were, after all, khaja like Tess, from the country called Erthe, across the seas. Perhaps, like Tess, their gods were distant and silent gods, not so prone to speak through them at awkward times or to give them fits and starts and odd moments of reticence. Certainly they were neither timid nor shy, unlike most khaja women she had come across, unlike the women of Jeds.
'How is it that you are called Tess's sister?' asked the golden-haired one in a friendly manner, the one to whom Anatoly Sakhalin had given a necklace. Diana, that was it.
'My mother adopted her into our tribe, as her daughter, when she first came to us. I'll take you to meet my children.'
The one called Helen muttered something in their tongue to the handsome black-haired woman named Anahita.
'Oh, don't be rude, Helen,' whispered Anahita in Rhuian, but with such emphasis that Sonia wondered if she had intended that the whisper be heard.
Children of other tribes tagged along behind them as they walked slowly through camp. The children stared at the women. That was one thing about these khaja; they all of them looked different from the others, with skin ranging from pale to black, with eyes every color and shape, and so tall! They were all, except for Diana, as tall as men.
'You seem very young to have children,' said the one called Quinn.
Sonia chuckled. 'Tess said much the same thing to me, when she first came to us. If a woman waits too many years, then how can she have children at all?'
The coal-black Oriana elbowed Quinn in the side and hissed something at her in another language. Quinn flushed; she had a light complexion, easy to see the changes in, and with her odd red-brown shade of hair, Sonia reflected, it would be difficult to find dye for cloth that would look good on her. Still, she wore a fine tunic neither blue nor green but some shade in between, and it looked well.
'It's a beautiful weave,' Sonia said, nodding at the tunic. 'And a lovely color. Have you weavers in your mother's tent? Your mother's house, that is. Perhaps you could show us the secret of the color, if you're willing to give it up.'
The three younger women looked at each other, perplexed. Helen yawned. Anahita examined every man who came in sight and had obviously lost interest in the conversation. Sonia sighed.
Then, thank goodness, the woman with the funny eyes, Yomi, chimed in. 'I weave,' she said. 'Perhaps you could show me your looms.'
'How do you make dye for colors?' asked Diana quickly, and Sonia could not be sure whether she was truly interested or merely being polite. But then, with Singers, one never knew.
'This is all so quaint, and charming,' said Anahita suddenly, with a bright, false smile.
'I'm so pleased that it entertains you,' replied Sonia sarcastically, and then caught herself. But it had already been done. She had been impolite to a Singer.
Oriana snorted and clapped a hand over her mouth.
'Oh, shut up, Anahita,' said Quinn. 'Didn't your mother ever tell you to say something nice or nothing at all?'
'In which case she'd never speak,' muttered Helen.
'I'm going back to camp,' announced Anahita, and she gave them all a withering glare and stalked away.
Gods. Now she had offended a Singer. Sonia stopped walking and took in a breath to apologize to the others, though it was an unpardonable offense.
'I do apologize for her,' said Diana. 'I don't-we're not-I beg your pardon. That was terribly rude of her.'
'Patronizing little bitch,' said Quinn. 'I wish she hadn't come. And the rest of you do, too, only you won't admit it.'
'Girls,' said Yomi reasonably, 'that's enough. I beg your pardon, Sonia. We've had a long and sometimes trying journey together, and that rather puts people at odds after a while, don't you think?'
'We always travel,' said Sonia gently.
Yomi chuckled. 'Well, then, perhaps you can offer us some advice.'
'Was it not Democritus of your own country who said, 'Well-ordered behavior consists in obedience to the law, the ruler, and the woman wiser than oneself? Although in the text I read the words were written as, 'the man wiser,' but I can only suppose the scribe wrote the word wrong or meant it to be 'Elder.' '
'Who is Democritus?' whispered Quinn.
'I think he was a Greek philosopher,' muttered Diana.
'But of course,' added Sonia, 'it's also true that we have our own quarrels. As do any people, I suppose.'
Yomi smiled and wisely guided the conversation back to weaving. In this way they came to the Orzhekov encampment, where Ilya had arrived before them.
Tess stood between her husband and her brother, and Sonia was distracted from her guests by the striking way in which Tess seemed caught between the two men, not mediating but wavering. Oh, it looked very bad, indeed.
A woman must keep peace between her husband and her brother, not make it worse by letting each man pull her in a different direction. Ilya could never accept that Tess might hold her brother first in her heart, that Charles Soerensen had every right to expect his sister to cleave to him and to her mother's tent. But if Tess, khaja that she was, truly wished to stay with her husband and her husband's people, then she damned well ought to tell her brother so straight out and not leave poor Ilya hanging there never knowing what she intended to do. As for Charles Soerensen himself, Sonia simply could not tell if he loved his sister. But he would never have journeyed so far if he did not want her back very badly. For an instant Sonia wished that her mother was here. Irena Orzhekov would know what to do. Ilya deferred to many people, because he had good manners, but there were few who could make him stop dead in his tracks and change his mind. Mama is one. And I must become another.
'Bakhtiian is your cousin?' asked Diana into the silence, pulling Sonia back to the Singers with a wrench.
'His mother and my mother are sisters, yes.'
'And are they here also?' asked Yomi.
'His mother is dead.' Sonia paused one second, flicking her wrist out to deflect the notice of Grandmother Night. 'My mother remains out on the plains, the true plains, with the rest of our tribe.' She watched as Katya and Ivan and Kolia came running with their cousins to greet Ilya and Tess with hugs and questions. Tess introduced the children to her brother, and Sonia approved of the way in which the prince acknowledged each child in turn.
'Are they all yours?' asked Diana. 'What sweet-looking children!' Said with such honesty that Sonia felt at
