his heels. A moment later Owen and Ginny arrived, together with Yomi and Joseph.
Yomi hugged Diana. 'I hope you're ready,' Yomi murmured. 'We've come to escort you to your tent.'
All at once Diana could not move. In a few minutes, she would be alone with a man she barely knew, with a man she could scarcely even communicate with. She stood rooted to the ground. The others moved away, but she could not lift her feet, could not follow them. She had made a terrible, stupid mistake. She knew that now, knew it bitterly, and hated herself for knowing it.
Anatoly turned back. His eyes narrowed as he examined her. He put out his hand, offering it to her. Diana took in a big breath and laid her hand in his.
They walked through camp. No one spoke. The silence weighed on her, counterpointed by the music and singing coming from the celebration behind, which still played on. So she spoke:
'You that choose not by the view Chance as fair and choose as true! Since this fortune falls to you, Be content and seek no new. If you be well pleas'd with this And hold your fortune for your bliss, Turn you where your lady is And claim her with a loving kiss.'
Anatoly smiled and squeezed her hand. Joseph grinned. They left the jaran camp behind and came to her tent, set out in the middle, isolated, lonely. There Owen and Ginny kissed her, Yomi and Joseph hugged her, and they left. Anatoly's family left, leaving with them two sets of saddlebags, a rolled up blanket, a leather flask and two cups. Diana stood alone with her new husband in a gloom lit only by the single lantern set on the ground beside them. He did not move, but only watched her.
She hesitated, and then bent to pick up the lantern and pushed the entrance flap aside, and ducked into the tent. A moment later, he followed her in, carrying his worldly goods in his arms. He knelt and set them carefully in one corner, then rose.
She just stood there, the lantern heavy in her hand. His pale hair seemed lighter by contrast with the shadows in the tent. His lips moved, forming soundless words. Gently, he took the lantern from her and hung it from a loop on the center pole.
'Anatoly.' She dug for words, khush words, to speak to him, but they had all evaporated.
'Diana-' He said a whole sentence, but it was meaningless to her, nothing but sounds strung together.
They stood a moment in awkward silence. He lifted one hand to trace the scar on her cheek. His fingers slid to trace her lips, and she kissed them, and his other hand sought her hips, to draw her closer to him, and she slid one arm around his back and caught her other hand in his hair…
Then, as quickly as that, she discovered that in fact they did speak the same language.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
At the edge of the firelit glow cast by the roaring bonfire, Ilya Bakhtiian halted beside his wife where she stood in the gloom. Tess glanced up at him, then back out at the camp.
'They left, then?' asked Bakhtiian.
'Who, Anatoly and Diana? Yes.' She turned to face him, watching him as he watched her, measuring. Her lips quirked up. 'No stranger than you and I.'
'Perhaps. But I doubt it. She will leave him.' Once, he would have hesitated to touch her in public, since it was unseemly. Now he lifted his hands without the least self-consciousness to cup her face and stare at her, searching. 'I love you,' he said, and that was all, although it was a question.
'What would you do if I left?'
His lips drew out, tightening, and his face went taut. He dropped his hands from her face and grasped her hands instead. 'You will not. I forbid it.'
'You can't forbid it.'
'No.' The admission was shattering, wrung from him. 'I cannot. But if I could, I would.'
'The ambassador from Vidiya has a slave. A woman.'
Now she had gone too far. 'How dare you compare me to that pompous, overdressed boy?' he demanded. 'How dare you even suggest that I have made such a thing of you?''
'To make you think, damn you.'
'Then go. You are free to choose.' He was so angry that he was shaking. 'We ride south tomorrow. I can leave a jahar to take you to the coast with your brother, if that is what you wish. What I wish, you know well enough.'
'Oh, Ilya.' She embraced him suddenly. He was tense, stiff, but his anger could not sustain itself when she showed the least sign of her love for him. She felt him relax against her, and he sighed into her hair.
'Damn you,' he muttered.
'Come with me.'
'Where?' He drew his head back and frowned at her, suspicious.
She chuckled. 'No, not to Jeds. To see my brother, now.'
'Why?'
'To tell him the truth. That I don't intend to leave the jaran. Not now, at any rate. Not this year.'
He was still frowning. 'When, then?'
'When you die, damn you. Now stop bothering me and come with me.'
He laughed, surprised, and hugged her tightly. 'We have an old tale,' he whispered into her ear, 'about a woman who poisoned her husband because she wanted to marry another man.'
Tess smiled and pressed into him, returning the embrace. 'If you can find me another man to marry, then I'll consider it.' She broke free of his grasp and pushed him away. 'Now, you'll come with me, and you'll stay quiet while I talk with Charles.'
'Yes, my wife,' he said meekly, and he walked with her across camp to Soerensen's encampment. At the gap, they passed about fifty paces away from the little tent that sat on the grass between both camps. Bakhtiian fought down a smile and he stopped Tess with a hand on her shoulder, and bent and kissed her. The night shielded them. 'After,' he murmured, releasing her.
'Don't distract me. You don't know how hard it is for me to do this.'
Under the awning of Charles's tent, Marco Burckhardt sat with a thin tablet on his lap. Charles sat next to him, staring at something on his hand. Two lanterns lit the two men, one to either side of them, and from the slightly askew flap of Dr. Hierakis's tent, a steady glow could be seen coming from the interior. Then both men looked up, saw Tess, saw Bakhtiian, and Marco collected something from Charles's hand and took it and the slate back into the tent before Tess and Ilya reached the awning.
Charles stood up. Cara emerged from her tent, glanced at the converging lines, and walked over to stand next to Charles. Marco reappeared from the tent.
'They're hiding something from me,' Bakhtiian muttered, and he glanced at Tess to see what her reaction was. Tess flushed, but he could not see the color of her skin in the darkness, so she was safe.
'How long will the carousing go on?' Cara asked with a smile as she motioned them to come in under the awning.
Bakhtiian acknowledged her first, with a nod, and then Charles, and last Marco. 'As long as they wish. The army rides south tomorrow. They'll earn this celebration tonight.'
'The poor child won't have much of a honeymoon, then,' said Cara. 'But I saw that she was safely put to bed a little earlier. Where are you going, Marco?'
'Out to carouse,' he said curtly. He excused himself and left.
They watched him go. Charles's expression was unreadable. Cara shook her head. Bakhtiian arched his brows, looking puzzled. 'He doesn't seem like the kind of man Sonia would take to her bed.' He glanced at Charles, as if to gain corroboration from the other man, and Tess was struck by how clearly he treated Charles as an equal. There were many men, men of the jaran in particular, whom he treated with respect, but there was no question of where the ultimate authority lay. No question but here: Ilya did not defer to Charles-he did to women, of course; that was so deeply engrained in him that Tess doubted he would ever lose the habit-but neither did he attempt in the slightest to command him.
'Sonia likes a challenge,' said Tess.
