Kate Elliott - Jaran

And so, deferring with strength, in the end he got Veselov to agree it could be done. Bakhtiian seemed different to her here. He showed none of that arrogance that came from having the assurance of admiration. He was tactful, respectful, even clever, slipping gracefully past a question meant, possibly, to offend him, making one grim fellow laugh, arguing carefully and with good humor to a conclusion favorable to himself. Perhaps charisma and craft, strength and obsession, were not all that made up a leader. Perhaps you could have all of these, and still lack the sheer instinct for leadership that made Bakhtiian-that made Charles-the kind of men they were.

"Yet you rode into khaja lands and came out unscathed," Veselov was saying. "I recall when Leo Vershinin took forty-five riders into those lands and-"

While Veselov went on, clearly beginning a long anecdote, Bakhtiian looked up across the fire directly at Tess, as if he had known she was watching him. Their eyes held a moment and dropped away together.

As soon as the anecdote ended, with Vershinin's jahar reduced to five men, Vera said, "Aunt?" Recalled to her duties, Mother Veselov excused all the women to prepare for the dance, now that twilight was lowering in on them. Arina approached Tess, but Vera swept her away and Arina retreated back to her mother's tent.

"Perhaps you would like to borrow some clothing?" Vera asked. "Some women's clothing, I mean."

"Oh, thank you. But I have some."

"Well, then, if you would like, I will walk you to your tent." Tess submitted to the escort and allowed Vera to lead her away to the other end of the camp, where her tent was pitched. "You know Bakhtiian well."

"We've ridden together a long way."

Vera put a long-fingered hand on Tess's forearm. It was dim enough that this gesture was neither public nor particularly intrusive. "You have also lain with him?"

Tess turned her head away, pretending to look at the distant field where a great fire was being prepared. Broad-skirted figures moved back and forth, snatches of singing and laughter and the high, unfamiliar music of women's voices punctuating the merriment within the camp. When she trusted herself, she turned back.

"No."

Vera's fingers lifted from her arm. "That's too bad. I would have liked to compare what you knew of him with what I know.''

There was a pause, as if some reply was expected. Tess could not speak.

Vera brushed her thick hair back with one hand, a graceful, practiced gesture that drew the eye to the faultless line of her jaw and chin. "There are only three men I ever hoped would mark me. One is dead now, the second loved another, for which I cannot begrudge him his choice, but Bakhtiian-he knew he could have had me, but he stood by while that boy marked me."

"Perhaps," Tess began, faltering, almost stuttering, "perhaps he knew that Petya wanted you more."

"Petya," said his wife, uttering his name so dispassionately as to betray her complete disregard for her husband, "is a blind child. He is five years younger than I am."

"I don't understand. Women take lovers, but men take wives."

"That," said the beauty bitterly, "is the way of the jaran. I will kill the woman he marks."

"Do you really think he will ever marry?"

"If you had lain with him, you would know. He is diarin. "

"What is that?"

Vera looked back toward the main cluster of tents. The men had gathered in groups by small fires to await the dancing. Her nose, which in her father and aunt was merely thin, gave her an aristocratic look of one to whom the world should surely do some obeisance. "You have been with men," she replied, turning back to Tess. "This is a woman's word. Diarin, a man who dishevels a woman's hair. Passionate in bed. But perhaps Vasilley will kill him after all, and then he cannot marry."

"Vasilley?"

"My brother. He rides with Dmitri Mikhailov."

Vasil. Vera's brother. This was delicate ground indeed. "Ah," said Tess, playing for time while she gathered her wits, "Do you want him to kill Bakhtiian?"

"I'm married to a man I do not want, and I want a man I cannot have. Why should anyone else have him?"

"If Petya dies," said Tess ungraciously, "you could have him."

"When he stood by, stood by, while Petya did this to me?'' Her fingers lifted to touch the white scar that marred the perfect beauty of her face.

"You would have the mark whether it was Bakhtiian or Petya or any man."

"No." The grip of Vera's fingers, closing on the sleeve of Tess's shirt, was strong. "There is one other way given to the jaran to marry, but it is only for the bravest, for the most exceptional." She tilted her head back to gaze up at the first spray of stars gracing the sky. ' 'Korokh.''

Korokh: one who reached for the wind, Yuri had said. Tess touched the priest-rune engraved on the hilt of her saber. It felt very cold. "For a man to choose a woman?"

"The quiet road," breathed Vera. Her lips stayed slightly parted. Her hair flowed down around her shoulders like strands of silk-she wore it as an unmarried girl might, not in the married woman's tight braids. "The four-times-covered road from tree to stone." Tess realized that it was very still, as if a hush had fallen in deference to Vera's show of passion. "I wanted that road. I wanted that, not this."

A sudden cheer and a swell of laughter interrupted them, the lighting of the great fire. Flames sparked up.

"But here, we'll be late. I'll let you go." She left.

Tess stared after her. A group of young men hurried past her toward the fire, laughing and jesting, and a musician began a racing beat on a drum.

Tess ran to her tent and debated, briefly, whether to give up this attempt to change in the dark, but change she did, feeling with peculiar hindsight that Nadezhda Martov had known quite well what she was about, gifting this foreign stranger with decent women's clothing. But whom was she trying to impress? That was the question that troubled her.

Coming out of her tent, she paused to try to get a glimpse of herself in her mirror. She was not sure that the beaded headdress over her braids was arranged correctly. She felt a presence come up beside her, and smelled a fleeting breath of cinnamon. She whirled.

"Cha Ishii!" He stood before her, straight, hands folded at his chest in 'Lord's Supplication.'

Unfolding his hands, he bowed. "Lady Terese, your most generous pardon, I beg of you, for this unexpected intrusion."

"You surprised me." She took one step back from him. "I did not expect to see you venturing out at this sort of-social occasion."

"Lady Terese." The color of his face was lost in darkness, no shade to his voice at all. "With greatest deference, I advise you to stay here with this tribe. Do not go with us in the morning. Please be so munificent as to believe me when I say I have no desire to see you come to any harm, even though you would have brought it on yourself should anything happen to you."

"What would happen? Why should I stay here? Cha Ishii!"

But he simply turned and walked away, to be hidden swiftly by the night. Tess gaped after him.

"Tess?" It was Arina, tentative as always. "I thought you might-oh, I don't know. Here, let me straighten that for you." She adjusted the headpiece. "There. Would you like company, to go out?''

"Yes, I would," said Tess, liking Arina very much, however much she wanted to dislike her.

It proved easy enough to lose herself in the festivities. She knew quite well that she ought not to dance more than the occasional dance with any of the riders of Bakhtiian's jahar, so she turned her attention to the riders of Veselov's tribe. She felt completely at ease as she flirted with them in the casual, straightforward manner that jaran women had. She danced twice with Petya because she felt sorry for him. Beneath the undeniably handsome exterior, beneath the self-effacing bashfulness devoid of conceit, beneath the quick, unpretentious smile and the delicate, pale blue of his eyes, Petya was desperately unhappy. She took Yuri aside to ask him about it.