Kate Elliott - Jaran

It might have been dull, this riding day after day, week after week, across a land as routine as their daily tasks, but it was spring, and spring was a joy, and the life itself was new, like a language that needed learning. Tess could never resist the lure of an unknown tongue. The sky lifted far above. The land slipped by beneath horses' hooves. It rained once or twice, but it was no more than an inconvenience. Huge herds of antelopelike animals passed them, heading north in a frenzy of bawling and mewling, and on many days Fedya brought in a fresh kill. The other riders foraged for modhal, a tuber they mashed and shared equally between men and horses, and nekhal, a reedy grass whose shoots were edible. They mixed these with mare's milk and with the hard bread and dried meat brought from the tribe.

The Chapalii ate sparingly of this diet, and if they ate anything else in their tents at night, Tess was none the wiser.

So it was that when, one afternoon as Tess and Bakhtiian scouted the wake of a passing herd, they saw five women riding southward with their day's catch, Bakhtiian hailed the hunters and spoke with them while Tess hung back and watched.

"I know this tribe," he said when he returned. "We'll stop a few days with them.''

They returned immediately to the jahar. At the first good campsite, a small lake ringed with scrubby trees and a profusion of flowering bushes, Bakhtiian called a halt for the night.

"Why don't we just go on today if this tribe is so close?" Tess asked Yuri as they walked to the lake's edge. She batted away a swarm of insects, ducked her head as they returned, and retreated from the reedy shore.

Yuri laughed at her and strolled on. It had become the jahar witticism to call them dhal and khal, the twins, because they spent so much time together. Tess liked it because she saw in it an acceptance of her place in the jahar: she was one of them, not one of the pilgrims.

"There are courtesies," Yuri explained when she caught up with him, "when one tribe comes upon another. Some people might not observe them, but Bakhtiian is very traditional. Now they have warning to know we are coming." He grinned. "And Vladimir can polish his stones so his necklaces can gleam brighter and impress the young women."

"Poor Vladimir."

Yuri looked at her consideringly. "Have you ever really spoken with Vladimir?"

"No. I think he avoids me. But then, you and Kirill and the others scarcely make him welcome."

"A horse ridden too hard," said Yuri in khush, "is a horse ruined." He added, in Rhuian, "If Vladimir is not welcome, look to him, not to us. We'd better teach you to dance, Tess. There's sure to be a dance in Bakhtiian's honor. It would look odd if we kept you to ourselves. Though how much we can teach you in one afternoon…"

"I've danced before," said Tess, but the image that came to her, thinking of her folk dancing club at the university, was unwelcome: that night, when Jacques-so cowardly that he had to choose a public place, where pride constrained her from reacting with real emotion-had told her their engagement was over, broken, while they were dancing the last waltz of the evening.

"Are you all right?" Yuri touched her on the arm.

"No, I'm fine. Just hungry. Fedya didn't bring in a kill today, did he? He shouldn't be the only one who hunts. I want to practice archery while it's light. We can dance with a fire. I'm going to get good enough with the bow to do some hunting."

Yuri laughed at her vehemence. "You'll ruin my good name. Very well. But you have to get Sonia's bow. Meet me over there."

The minutes she spent fetching the bow and arrows gave her time to regain her composure. Damn Jacques, anyway; he wasn't worth agonizing over. But her anger carried over into her first course, and she shot poorly. Yuri sighed, fetched the arrows and readjusted the four ribbons tied for the target at varying heights around the tree trunk.

"You did better than that with Sonia," he chided.

While he shot, Tess watched the water birds as they paddled aimlessly back and forth on the pond and with no warning upended and dove under the surface, vanishing, without even a ripple, for so long that one's breath stopped until they suddenly resurfaced in a flurry of wings and water somewhere else. Submerged-that was the word that haunted her. She had been submerged in Charles's life since the day she was born. She had never been herself, but always his sister, his heir, doing his work.

"Three out of five," said Yuri proudly. "Let's see you match that." Returning with the arrows, he handed the bow to her. She aimed and hit.

"There. Is Doroskayev the only dyan riding against Bakhtiian?"

"He's one of the few left. Roskhel is dead now. Veselov-Ilya won him over. Zukhov, Boradin, Makhov. They're all dead, too. Boradin and Makhov died in the battle at the khayan-sarmiia. Ilya shouldn't have won that battle because they outnumbered him, but he did. Doroskayev only hates Ilya because he hates Ilya, if you see what I mean. But his tribe is small. There is one dyan left, Dmitri Mikhailov, who commands a jahar large enough and dangerous enough to threaten us. But we haven't seen him for two summers. I think he's given up."

Tess nocked another arrow and drew. "What about the tribal Elders? The women?"

"War is men's business."

"Meaning women are left to clean up." She shot, missing the tree entirely.

"It's your concentration." Yuri rested one hand on the back of his neck. She drew again, steadying herself. "Ilya could never have united the jaran without the approval of the Elders. After all, his own mother was the first Elder he had to convince, and if he could convince her, he could convince anyone." Tess shot and hit. "Do you know," Yuri added, "when a person stands so still, you see them best. Like your eyes. I never knew eyes could be the color of gorad leaves. Such a green."

Her fourth and fifth arrows hit true. Yuri shot and hit five times along the length of the tree. "You're better at this than you think," she said when he returned with the arrows.

"For a man. It comes of having four sisters. But I always liked archery better than saber."

"What's wrong with that?"

"Yuri!" Kirill called to them from the shore of the lake. He strode over and stopped to stare at the younger man. "You're not actually practicing that, are you?"

Yuri hastily handed the bow to Tess, who turned to face Kirill with one hand on her hip. ' 'If you practiced, we might eat fresh meat more often."

Kirill had a careless air about him that belied his authority among the younger men. "It isn't a man's weapon, but it's true, on such a long trip, we would eat better. I know." He smiled. "We'll have a contest."

"I don't like this," muttered Yuri.

But the young riders took quickly to the idea: ten shots each. Mikhal immediately took the lead, with seven midhits, but this was blamed on his willingness when courting Sonia to go hunting with her.

Eventually Bakhtiian came up. Tess, finishing, found herself with five mid-hits, third behind Mikhal and Yuri. "Do you want a turn?" she asked Bakhtiian, made bold by her success.

"Gods, contest with the rest of us, and with a woman's weapon?" asked Kirill.

Bakhtiian's face shuttered as he looked past Tess at Kirill. Birds landed on the lake, wings skittering. Kirill returned Bakhtiian's scrutiny with an even gaze. No one spoke.

"Very well." Bakhtiian accepted the bow from Tess. "I would never disparage a woman's prowess in archery, especially not if she had bow in hand. Not unless I had a very long head start.''

Everyone laughed except Kirill, who turned and left. Tess felt tension that she had not known was there leave her throat. Bakhtiian stood perfectly still, entirely concentrated. The dark waves of his hair matched his intense eyes and severe expression. With his arm drawn back, the curve of the bow framing him, he could have been the god of the hunt, caught forever in the instant before death. All ten shots hit between the middle ribbons.