Kate Elliott - Jaran

Tess took in a breath and stood up. "You said that we rode together down the Avenue at sunset as if that meant something. That-the ceremony was completed. What is the Law of the Avenue?"

Mother Avdotya turned back calmly, as if she had expected this question all along and merely hastened its appearance by pretending to leave. She rested her right hand on the back of the chair. Her left still cupped the bowl of light. "The honored ceremony. It takes great presumption-that, certainly, Ilyakoria Bakhtiian does not lack-because this is a holy place. For a man and a woman to ride down the Avenue at sunset, if they are not kin, is to marry their souls in the sight of the gods."

Tess sat down. "But-but we're cousins."

"Cousins have been known to marry, although it is rare, and more rarely approved."

"But I thought a man married a woman by marking her with his saber and then there was a period of prohibitions laid on them, and if they passed through these without breaking any, they were married."

"Yes," Mother Avdotya agreed, "that is the way of the jaran, the way of the people. The Law of the Avenue is unique. I have served here forty years, and only once before, twenty-six years ago, did a man and a woman ride the avenue."

"What happened to them?"

"It was she who had instigated it, for no better reason than envy of another woman's husband. She was too afraid to be honest when it came time to approach the fountain. He lives here still as a priest, having dedicated himself to serve where she died."

"Oh," said Tess, amazed she could produce so profound an observation. "He didn't think I would be tested, did he?"

"That seems to be the only word to his credit in this entire business that I can find," replied Mother Avdotya, quite unsympathetically.

"After all," Tess muttered to herself, "he would have no victory if I were dead." Then, seeing that the priestess was watching her with unnerving keenness, she shook her head, trying to clear it of confusion. "Why is it that so few of the jaran marry this way? Because they might be killed?"

"I'm not sure you entirely understand. The mark weds a woman to a man as long as her flesh carries it, or he lives. And only that long. But those who marry by this road marry the other eternally, for as long as their souls are born back into this world."

"Do you mean he did it believing it would bind me to him forever?''

"You see, child, why it is such an unpardonable thing he has done, knowing as he did that you were ignorant of it."

"Oh, my God."

The light on the priestess' bowl cast a glow on her face, shadowing ridges, highlighting the white sheen of her hair. Tess pinched the coarse blanket up into little hummocks and smoothed it down again. What had Kirill said? Bakhtiian did not like to lose.

"Yuri tried to warn me that I was riding into an ambush."

"An unusual ambush."

"I didn't even know we were fighting a war." Suddenly exhausted, Tess sank her head to rest on her open hands. "Oh, God." She could see his face, that brilliant, passionate face. She felt overwhelmed and utterly bewildered. There burned like a safe beacon her love for Kirill, like a campfire or a hearth's fire, warm and welcoming and contained, no great blaze, but restful and heartwarming. Like her love for Yuri, whatever differences there might be in how she felt for each of them. But like a wildfire that rages over the grass, obliterating everything in its path, this had come to her.

"I will leave you now," said Mother Avdotya.

The old woman went so unobtrusively that Tess scarcely noticed her leaving: the scrape of a shoe, cloth brushing wood, the low snick of the closing door. It was very dim, the furniture only dark slabs. Tess raised her head and stared outside at the lines of trees moving in the wind, etched against the night sky and the dark mass of clouds gathering, hiding the stars. Oh, yes, she understood him very well now. Perhaps Yuri was right, perhaps there was no difference for him between love and conquest.

Now you are mine.

He had what he wanted. "A wife has certain obligations to her husband that he may demand if she is unwilling to give them to him freely." She had no doubt now what those obligations included. That she loved him-that he now knew that she loved him-well, that only added sweetness to the victory.

Outside, the moon emerged from a scattering of clouds. Tess rose and went to the window, staring out. This is not my world, she told herself. If he has married himself to you under his laws, then what of it? It does not bind you.

Only it was her world, in a sense. She was its heir. And the ties of love and hate, of desire and indifference, of loyalty and betrayal are the only and all of the ties that bind us. She paced the tiny room for half the night before she finally got herself to sleep.

Yeliana was younger than Tess expected; she looked about fourteen, with her heart-shaped face and solemn eyes.

"Mother Avdotya sent me," she explained, surveying Tess from the doorway. ' 'I will escort you first to bathe and then to our midday meal." Solemnity vanished for a moment and she grinned. "You slept very late. Once I was allowed to sleep so late, when I was quite ill."

Tess rubbed her eyes and glanced out the window, and rubbed her eyes again.

"And you may borrow a decent shift, if you wish," Yeliana added, seeing that Tess had slept in her clothes, "if you would like to wash your clothing as well."

"I would, thank you."

To Tess's delight, the bath consisted of a heated, circulating pool. Yeliana agreed that it was miraculous and informed Tess that Mother Avdotya thought hot springs whose source they had yet to find must lie under the palace. If Tess took a little too much time, seduced by this luxury, the girl did not complain. She even helped her wash her clothes and spread them out to dry. A white shift was produced, belted, and proclaimed decorous. Tess left her hair hanging loose to dry.

Yeliana led her to the eating hall, a wood-paneled room flooded with sunlight through four huge windows in one wall and furnished with long tables and benches. The priests had clustered at one end of the room, and they shifted as she entered, moving to sit. Amid all the white, she saw a brilliant spot of red. He sat between two men, head bowed.

As Yeliana guided Tess forward, Ilya glanced up toward them. His entire being froze.

Abruptly, he pushed himself up. The two priests on either side were on their feet, a hand on each of his shoulders, before he was halfway standing. He looked once to each side and sank back onto the bench. He did not look up again. The two men sat.

From another room, three men brought in platters of food. Tess ate earnestly, truly hungry, but she could not help but glance at Ilya at intervals. Like her, he had bathed; he had trimmed his hair and his beard, had probably washed at least his shirt, early enough so that it had had time to dry. He attended to his food with an assiduousness helped by the disapproval with which everyone treated him. It was a silent meal. When all had finished, three women took the dishes away. Everyone else stood.

"Mother Avdotya has asked that you stay here," Yeliana explained, "so that you do not unwittingly disturb any of us at our duties. The rest of your party will surely arrive soon."

Tess watched the priests leave. The hall was empty except for herself and Bakhtiian. He was gazing down at the table, one finger tracing patterns on the grain. Tess walked across the room to stare out one of the windows at the garden. But he followed her, stopping a few paces behind her.

"Tess." His voice was quiet, unsure.

"I have nothing to say to you."