Kate Elliott - Jaran

"You are feeling better."

"Yes," said Tess, realizing it was true. "I am."

After supper, Tess went alone to her tent and pulled out the tiny dagger and stared at it. She slid her thumb up the blade, felt it hum. The hilt peeled away. Charles needed to know that she was alive. She lifted it to her eye level so the intricate machinery could take her retinal scan. Then, with decision, she triggered the codes. Not the primary codes, the emergency alert, but the secondary pulse, tuned to her signature code, that said merely, I am safe. For five minutes it pulsed, silent to her ears, and then it stopped. She slid the transmitter back into its sheath and left it with her saber and her jahar clothes, safe in her tent.

That evening the two tribes held a dance in honor of Mother Veselov's wedding. Arina was carried out to the great fire, weighed down with so much finery that she actually shone. Kirill, allowed to see her for the first time since the day he had marked her, greeted her with a kiss far more intimate than was proper for so public a place, and he was chastised good-naturedly all evening by women and men both.

"Really, Kirill," said Tess, standing aside with him while they watched the dancing, "such an immodest display astonishes me in you." He laughed. He was very happy. "Why don't you just leave early?"

"Oh, I would if I could, Tess, but you know it isn't right. We have to stay here until the very end."

"Poor Kirill. Hello, Sonia."

"You will dance with me, Kirill," Sonia said.

"Sonia, I can't-"

"Not as you used to, no. But you'd better learn."

"Tess," pleaded Kirill, "save me."

"Forgive me," said Tess, "but I have urgent business elsewhere." She left him to his fate.

She walked a ways around the periphery and there, like a beacon, she saw him. Except that he was speaking with Vera Veselov, and Vera was leaning very close, her body canted toward him in a most intimate fashion. Tess stopped dead. It took her a moment to recognize the emotion that had taken hold of her. Arina, of course, shone with joy at this celebration, but Vera was as always the most striking woman present. Tess drew herself up and marched over to them.

"Oh, I beg your pardon, Vera," she said sweetly, "but my husband has promised me this dance."

Ilya looked startled. Vera smiled, but it was probably the most vicious smile Tess had ever seen. "No, I beg your pardon, Tess. I hope you enjoy the celebration." She turned on her heel and strode swiftly away.

"Had I promised you this dance?" Ilya asked.

"No. You were behaving most improperly, Bakhtiian."

"Was I?"

"Flirting like that? Yes, you were."

"But this is a celebration. One can allow a little immodesty at a celebration."

"Not that much," Tess muttered. "What did she want, anyway?''

"What do you suppose she wanted?"

"Yes, I suppose it would be easy enough to slip away and return to her tent. Everyone is here, after all."

"Yes, it would be," he agreed.

"What are you smiling at?"

"Your temper."

She did not like the way he was looking at her. "Well," she demanded, "are we going to dance?" -

Immediately, he drew back. "You know I prefer not to dance," he said stiffly.

"What, is it too undignified for you? But you dance very well, Bakhtiian, and I love to dance. Therefore, you will dance with me."

"As you command, my wife," he said meekly, and followed her out. He danced very well indeed, and she made him dance three dances with her before she agreed to pause. They walked off to the side, he with his hand lingering at her waist until, remembering himself, he shifted it selfconsciously to his belt.

"You look very lovely tonight," he said, not looking at her.

"Thank you." She smiled. His sudden shyness made her feel bolder. "But you know, I'm more comfortable in jahar clothes. I only wear these to please Mother Orzhekov."

"As you should," he said in a constrained voice.

"You don't approve of me fighting, do you, Ilya?"

"I have no right to dictate what you do as long as my aunt approves it."

"Your aunt doesn't approve it. Or, that is, I did not ask her permission."

He rounded on her. "You didn't ask her permission! Tess, I remind you that-"

"Don't lecture me. Yes, I am beholden to her hospitality. Yes, she took me in, for which I will always be grateful. But I am not jaran, Ilya, and as long as my behavior does not offend your gods, I will do what I think is best for myself."

"Even if it displeases my aunt?"

"Even if it displeases you. "

"I suggest," he said coldly, "that we either end this conversation now, before we make a spectacle of ourselves, or continue it elsewhere, where the entire camp cannot hear and see us."

She began to walk away from the crowd and the fire and he walked beside her. Their silence was not as much antagonistic as measuring. "Teach me saber," she said.

"What, right now?"

"Yes, right now. No, of course not right now. Tomorrow. The next day."

"I can't teach you, Tess."

"Because you don't want to?"

"Because I can't. Give me credit, please, for so much self knowledge. I would not teach you well or fairly."

"Well," she admitted, a little mollified, "Kirill said as much. Then let me ride in your jahar."

"You are not adept enough yet, nor experienced enough yet. Not for my jahar or for any dyan's jahar."

"If I learn enough to become so?"

"Most of these young men have been fighting with saber since they were boys, I might remind you."

"Am I that bad?"

"No," he said reluctantly. "You're rather good, for how few months you've been practicing. You have a certain gift, you're strong, and you work very hard."

It was quiet in the Veselov camp. The great fire burned with a roar alongside the beaten ground of the practice field, where now the dancing was being held. A man passed them, hurrying toward the celebration, and they saw a shape slip into a tent out at the edge of camp.

"Where are we going?" Ilya asked finally.

"I'm not sure." She looked up at the brilliant cast of stars above. Somewhere out there, worlds spun and ships traveled, spanning vast distances; Charles wove his plots, and the Chapalii wove other plots still. Her life, all of it, and yet this world was hers as well. She had done her duty to Charles-tracked the Chapalii and not only alerted him to their presence but discovered a relic of such value that she could not begin to measure it. "I'm not sure what I ought to do anymore, or what I can do, or whether or not Yuri was right.''

"Right about what?" he asked softly.

She stopped. They had walked about halfway through the Veselov camp, and the two great tents, one belonging to Arina and one to Vera, lay some fifty paces behind them. A low fire burned in the fire pit that separated the tents, illuminating the wedding ribbons woven up the tent poles that supported the awning of Arina's tent. And, Tess saw, a small pile of gear deposited on one corner of the rug: her new husband's possessions, to be moved inside by him this night.

"Oh, damn," said Tess in a low voice. "Look, there's Vera."

Vera stood just outside the entrance to her own tent, talking with a man Tess could not recognize from this distance. By the way she was gesticulating with her arms, Tess could guess that it was poor Petya, and that he was being scolded for some illusory offense.

"Tess," said Ilya as softly as he had spoken before but in an utterly changed voice, "where is your saber?"

"In my tent."

"Damn. Walk back to the fire."

"Ilya."

"That is Vasil. How he got into this camp I do not know, why Vera is sheltering him I do not care to guess, but there is going to be trouble any moment now. Go alert Josef and Tasha."

"Where are you going?"

He put one hand on his saber hilt. "To talk with him."