'All men can fight, yes. Not all are riders. Some man must be the smith. Some speak to the animals. A few are Singers, like you.'
'Singers don't ride to war?' Oriana asked.
Anatoly looked perplexed. 'What does she ask?' he asked Diana in khush. 'I do not understand.'
'She asked if Singers don't ride to war because they're Singers.'
Now he looked confounded. 'Singers do whatever they wish,' he said, looking a bit suspicious, as if he thought he was being asked a trick question, 'as long as it does not offend the gods' laws.'
This brought another silence. 'I'm tired,' announced Diana, having endured enough gatherings for one evening. She stood up. Anatoly rose as well and bade polite farewells and they left and walked back through the drizzle to her tent.
'Are you really tired?' he asked once they were inside the shelter of the tent. 'If it is not fitting that I sit and drink tea with the Singers, then I will wait here for you.' He sat down and took off his boots and slid back onto the carpet, and watched her.
'Not at all! It's fitting that you sit and drink with them. With us. They just-don't know what to say to you, Anatoly. '' She knelt in front of him and ran her hands up the elaborate embroidery of his sleeves and hooked her hands behind his neck and rested her forehead against his.
He did not reply for a while. The soft hush of rain serenaded them. 'I do not know what to say to them,' he admitted. 'I am embarrassed that I almost see such sacred objects that only the gods-touched may behold.'
What was he talking about? Then she realized: he meant the slates, which Quinn had gathered and hidden away, so that he wouldn't discover that these khaja had magical tools-interdicted technology-in their possession. He didn't know what they were, only that he wasn't to see them; and he didn't even take offense at that. She sighed. He put his arms around her and tilted his head back and kissed her.
One thing led to another, as it so often does.
After all, they were still newly wed. Not quite seventy days, it had been, and of those days, thirty days entire at the beginning he had been gone, and of the rest, he might be gone for two nights or with her for ten, and during the day she only saw him in passing.
He was sweet. And she felt utterly safe with him.
She had to laugh a little, afterward, because he really wasn't anything like she had imagined he would be. She nestled in against him and sighed again, content.
'Diana,' he said, 'I am glad you sit beside Shura at supper because it is good that you come to love her, but I am sorry that Grandmother does not sit you beside her with the honor that a Singer ought to have.'
'I don't mind.'
He got that determined look on his face that reminded her that he was, after all, a young prince from a powerful family. ' 'It is not right. She does not yet wish to see that khaja may have Singers as well. The old ways are strong in her, but Tess Soerensen says to her envoys that we must bring new ways into the jaran as well.'
'She does?'
'It is difficult,' said Anatoly, 'like giving a new rider to an old horse. They must each learn the other's gaits.'
Diana chuckled and stretched out across him to rummage in her carry bag, searching for her journal. 'I like that. And Shura said something to me today that I want to write down, too.' She pulled out the journal and rolled back to her side, uncapping the pen, and made a note to ask Ginny about suggesting to a Singer that they make a jaran song out of some of Shakespeare's material.
Anatoly heaved himself up on one elbow and stared at her hand. 'What are you doing?' he asked.
'You've seen my journal before.'
'I have seen this book. But what are you doing?'
'I'm writing-'' She faltered.
But, of course, Anatoly was illiterate.
'These marks are letters and each letter makes a sound and you put the letters together into words and the words into sentences and-' She trailed off. She was not at all sure that he understood what she was talking about.
'But why do you do this?' he asked.
'Well, to remember things.'
' 'But how can these marks make you remember things? This paper could be burned or lost. In your mind, it is always there. It can't be lost.'
'But what if you don't know?'
'Then there is another person, a Singer, a healer, an Elder, who will know.''
'Well, there are other reasons.' Diana did not feel capable of attempting to explain, not right now.
He looked doubtful, as if he weren't sure he believed there were other reasons. 'Do all khaja do this, or only Singers?' Then he answered himself. 'Tess Soerensen writes. I have seen her do it. And Bakhtiian has learned. Perhaps I should learn.'
For some reason, that pleased her immensely. 'If you want to, Anatoly, then I'll teach you.'
'Well,' he said, as if he couldn't make up his mind. Then he closed his eyes. How tired he must be, having fought in a battle and then stayed up all night and another day. She smoothed his hair back from his face and he smiled without opening his eyes and shifted to snuggle in against her. Inadvertently pressing against her right arm so that she couldn't write. Oh, well. It wasn't that important. She watched him drift off to sleep and she let her own mind find peace in a prayer of silence, as comforting as the warmth of Anatoly's body alongside hers.
And then she recalled that word they had used. She eased away from him and extricated her slate out from under the neatly folded clothes in her other carry bag. Glanced back at him, to make sure he was still asleep.
Yadoshtmi. Not battle. The only translation she could find was: 'an annoying fly bite.'
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Tess ate little at supper and then excused herself abruptly and left for her own tent, not even wanting her husband's escort. Sonia watched Ilya stare after Tess, and she dismissed the rest of the family and took Ilya back into her private chamber. There he took off his boots, settled down on a pillow, and then proceeded to turn over and over again in his hands the book by the philosopher Bacon which she had taken to read.
She regarded him with amusement. This always happened to men when their wives were pregnant with the first child. 'I am sorry, Ilya, to tell you that most women eat poorly, sleep a great deal, and grow irritable when they are first pregnant.'
He glanced up at her. He did not want to admit that that was what he was worried about. 'I am not an idiot, Sonia,' he said, sounding as ill-tempered as if he himself were pregnant.
'No,' she agreed. 'But you're scared.'
She expected him to snap at her for saying it, but instead, he set the book down. 'It's true. What if the gods mean to take her from me?'
'Ilya! You must not speak so rashly about the gods. You are no more a Singer than I am, although we have both made long journeys and returned, to talk about what the gods mean to do.'
'But the gods granted me a vision.'
'That is true,' she said with reluctance and with pride. 'Perhaps I'm not sure what you ought to be called: not a Singer, and yet not simply a dyan either.''
He sighed.
'Mama.' It was Katerina. 'Mother Sakhalin has come to visit. What shall I do with her?'
'Ah. Chase everyone else away and bring her into the outer chamber. We will speak with her there. Come, Ilya.'
'Perhaps she wishes only to speak to you, Sonia.'
'If she wishes only to speak with me, then she will say so, Cousin. It is fitting that the dyan of this tribe sit with me to greet another etsana.'
She preceded him into the outer chamber and tidied it up a bit, throwing three pillows down in the center, on
