Kate Elliott - Jaran

"I think he knows she'll never love him," Tess said.

"Love him! She doesn't even like him." They walked together to the periphery of the light, choosing solitude for their conversation. "I doubt if she ever lets him forget it."

"Can she really be so cruel?"

"Cruel? I don't know if I would call Vera Veselov cruel. I think she is so blind to anything but what she wants that she cares not in the least if she hurts someone who has gotten in her way. That family is far too handsome for its own good."

"Yes," said Tess, remembering Vasil. "And her brother is the most beautiful of the lot, if only because he isn't so arrogant."

"Ah, yes, Vasil," Yuri muttered. "I never could dislike him. But he's as single-minded as the rest, and as selfish, in his own way.''

"Somehow I detect a long history of association between your tribe and this one."

"Yes. It started in my great-grandmother's time when her uncle insulted the Veselov etsana by refusing to marry her sister. And then just when the feud was at its worst, his daughter and the sister's son ran off together, when it had all been arranged that they were to marry for alliances into other tribes."

"Is this a long story?" Tess chuckled and, seeing Kirill strolling by, made eyes at him.

Kirill stopped dead, took her hand, and kissed it. "You are more beautiful than the stars, my heart." He grinned at Yuri. "I will retreat before the wrath of the brother." And did so.

"Tess, stop that. Do you want everyone to know?"

"Maybe I do. Oh, Yuri, you know very well that if Kirill was to stop flirting with me altogether that would be as good as shouting it to the world."

"True enough. But I noticed he sat beside Mother Veselov tonight. Who has an unmarried daughter. Oho, Sister, what is this? You're jealous! Do you love Kirill?"

The question stopped her cold. She forgot to be angry or jealous. Did she love him? "Gods, Yuri," she said, and fell silent, unwilling to unravel the chaos that writhed through her heart.

"Yes," said Yuri finally, "it is a long story. And I'm sure that the Orzhekov tribe and the Veselov tribe have not done yet with hating and loving one another. Poor Petya." Poor Petya stood alone, watching as the dance swirled by him, never approached by any of the young women of his own tribe, though he was certainly one of the handsomest men there. "I've even heard her say in front of him that Ilya would have marked her if Petya hadn't charged in first."

"That can't be true."

"She doesn't care in the least how much she hurts him."

"No, that Ilya would have marked her."

"Ilya's a damned idiot sometimes, but he's not that stupid."

"She told me that she had only ever wished to marry three men."

"Yes, that's something else she tells everyone. The first was Khara Roskhel. He was darker than Ilya, twice as proud, but mean with it. He had that cruelty in him that Nature is afraid to give out to more than one man in each generation. He had better hands for the saber than our Vladimir. He was a plain-looking man, but he had a pull about him that made him seem as handsome as-as Petya. He supported Ilya at first but then he turned against him. No one knows why. His men killed Ilya's father and nephew, but they always said that Roskhel himself murdered Ilya's mother and sister." He shuddered. "But it's bad luck to speak of it. It was an ill-omened thing, all of it, that year."

"Gods," said Tess. "What happened to him?"

"Ilya killed him. He strangled him."

A woman let out a shrill yell as she was tossed into the air in the dance and caught again. Three pipes pierced above the clapping. Tess rubbed her throat with one hand, feeling the smooth skin and, under that, the ridge of her windpipe.

' 'The year after his family died Ilya was more dangerous than the mountains in winter."

Tess made a sound imitating laughter. "I'll bet. And the other one?"

"The other one? Oh, Vera's other love." He laughed. The firelight gleamed in his eyes. "You're wearing his saber."

"Keregin? I don't believe you."

"What greater catch for a girl than the man who leads the arenabekh? But he fell in love with her brother. Only everyone knew that Vasil-well, Keregin didn't pursue it. But he certainly never had an eye for her."

A shout and cheering ended the dance. Tess saw a swirl of bright hair, and Vera entered, dressed in such finery as to put all the other women there to shame.

"How old is she?"

"Twenty-five. She put off everyone, you see, by one scheme or another and stayed unmarried until she was twenty-three. Petya got her because she wasn't looking."

"Poor Petya," Tess echoed.

"You ought to make up to him."

"Yuri! I don't even know him, except to sit beside at supper. And he spent the entire time talking with you."

"He's shy. He was so happy to see me. I'm not sure he's made many friends here."

Without really thinking about it, they both looked around the circle for Petya. Saw him in a gap out at the farthest edge of the dark: two familiar figures standing close together and yet, by the set of their shoulders, at a great distance. The poor child was speaking with his wife and it was not a happy interview.

"Yurinya Orzhekov. I don't suppose you remember me." A young woman strode up and planted herself in front of Yuri. Her dark braid hung casually over one blue-clad shoulder down to the swell of her full breasts.

"I should never forget you, Aleksia," said Yuri in a muted voice, his eyes lowered.

Aleksia glanced at Tess and winked. "Have you forgotten how to dance, then?" She took his hand and led him away into the crowd of gathering dancers. Yuri neither looked up nor back.

Tess smiled and settled back to watch. Yuri took his place in the circle meekly enough. There, Mikhal partnered a dark-haired woman, and Petre and Nikita and Konstans stood up as well with young women whose cheeks were unmarred by the scar of marriage. Even Josef, looking amused, was being teased by a girl half his age. Beyond the dancing, Sergei Veselov conversed with Niko and Tadheus and, of all people, Arina Veselov. Past them, Kirill regaled a group of impressionable-looking young men with some exaggerated story. On around the circle, strange faces blended together until, like a sudden beacon brilliantly illuminating a dark shore-

Ilya. Leaning forward, shoulders straight, he was explaining something with his habitual intensity to an elderly man. They sat together on a blanket, off to one side. Two older women came by and paused to join the conversation. When they left, smiling, the elderly man rose with a polite nod and went with them. A boy, barely in his teens, halted tentatively at the edge of the blanket. Ilya, seeing him, beckoned him closer. They spoke. Another boy came by, then a girl, and then they, too, left. Alone on the blanket, Ilya bent his head as if he were tired. With one hand he rubbed his injured knee. Tess smiled to herself, feeling foolishly sorry for him, and made her way over to him.

She came out of the crowd on his left and paused at the edge of his blanket. He was still staring down, the firelight a glow on his forehead and eyes. Abruptly he glanced up, straight at her. For an instant he seemed startled. Then he smiled.

Tess stepped onto the blanket and sat down beside him. "How you must hate being injured when you could be dancing."

He did not even look at the dancers but kept his gaze on her face. "I'm perfectly happy," he said quietly. "Now."

It was impossible not to know what he meant. He was flirting with her. Flirting-gods, did Bakhtiian even engage in such frivolous activities as flirting? She did not know whether to laugh hysterically or to run. Bakhtiian simply watched her, drawing whatever conclusions he might from the expressions chasing themselves across her face.

"Yes," she said, choosing to misunderstand him. "It must be satisfying to win over a tribe formerly so hostile to your own."