Kate Elliott - Jaran

"Are you drunk?" she said, breathing hard. She strained away from him.

"Drunk?" His voice was low, intense. "I only now see things clearly.'' His pull was like the drag of the tide; she could not help but be drawn in.

"I don't know what you're talking about." She tried to twist her arms out of his grasp, but his hands were too strong.

"You rode down the Avenue with me," he whispered, his face lit by the moon and the wine. "You are my wife."

"You led me into it." He slipped his arms behind her back, enclosing her. The heat of his hands seared through the cloth into her flesh. His lips were parted, so that the line of his mouth seemed soft and yielding. "I didn't know." Her voice came out hoarse. "You know I didn't know. You knew then. You trapped me."

"Trapped you?" His voice was like the touch of soft fur. He held her so close that she could feel the beat of his heart. "Do I fill you with such aversion?"

He did not let her answer but kissed her. Such compulsion as this was impossible to resist. The world could have gone ablaze at that moment and she would never have noticed. All she felt was him. There was no cruelty in Ilya Bakhtiian-if she had not known that before, she knew it now when it could not possibly be disguised. But there was passion. Gods, yes, enough of that.

They were forced eventually to pause to catch their breath. Reason flooded back. She pushed away from him. His eyes opened, and his grip tightened.

"No," she said. "Let me go."

"No."

"Let me go, Ilya."

"I will not." They had reached an equilibrium of opposing forces, she retreating, he restraining. He let go of one wrist and with his free hand traced the hard ridge of her spine, all the way to her neck. He drew his hand over the swell of her shoulder and down, fingers a caress on her skin, around her collarbone to the hollow of her throat, and leaned forward to kiss her there, lightly. She couldn't control her breathing. She shut her eyes.

"Bakhtiian. I will not submit to treachery. Now let me go." She felt his breath brush her neck but she held herself rigid; clenched all her muscles like a fist. If she gave in now, she would never respect herself.

He drew away. Slowly, reluctantly, he relinquished his grip on her.

She spun away from him and ran. When she reached the little room the priests had given her, she flung herself on the bed and wept. Her throat still tingled where he had kissed her. Finally she fell into an uneasy sleep filled with vivid dreams in which Ilya Bakhtiian played all too large a part.

In the morning, as she walked down the hall before breakfast, he came out from a side hall. They both stopped.

"Forgive me." He looked pale and tired and subdued.

"It was no better than treachery, and I was wrong to force myself on you in that fashion when you were ignorant of the consequences. I cannot withdraw myself as your husband, not now, but I will no longer trouble you."

He bowed, as courtiers bowed in Jeds to the Prince, and limped away, leaving her to stare after him. She walked on in a daze to the eating hall. Yuri waved at her from his seat beside Mikhal. Kirill was sitting across from them, looking pale himself. She hesitated and then sat down beside Kirill and surveyed Yuri and Mikhal wearily.

"I thank you for your support last night."

"But Tess-" Yuri began.

"Spare me, please. Did Niko kick you or something?" Yuri flushed. "Well, it didn't work." She did not look at Kirill, but she felt him shift beside her. "I slept alone. Gods, I'm not even hungry. Excuse me." She rose.

"Do you want company?" asked Kirill in a low voice.

Mikhal began to object, but Yuri silenced him with a hand on his sleeve.

"If I wanted anyone's company, it would be yours, Kirill, but no, I-" She hesitated, seeing the Chapalii rise en masse and politely thank Mother Avdotya and then file out the door. She ought to go with them but she was not entirely sure it would be safe to go alone. She glanced at Kirill. His color was a little high but he looked composed and remarkably calm. Could she ask him to escort her? Would it be asking him to betray his loyalty to Bakhtiian? What if Cha Ishii took a jaran presence to mean that Bakhtiian was supporting her and not him and reneged on the payment for this journey? Whatever love existed between her and Kirill, his place in Bakhtiian's jahar was of far more value to him than her convenience.

"If you're going to spy on the khepellis," Kirill said suddenly, "then one of the jahar ought to go with you to make sure you don't do anything foolish enough to antagonize them. We can't afford to lose those horses, after all."

"I'll go," said Yuri. "No, I think you're right, Kirill, but I think Ilya would elect to send someone other than you."

"Bakhtiian knows the worth of my loyalty to him."

"I'm leaving," said Tess, and did so. Kirill caught up with her outside. "How was that settled?" she asked.

"I reminded Yuri that I am his senior and twice the scout he is as well."

"That was low of you."

"But true nevertheless. Tess, if you want to follow the pilgrims, they went that way not this way."

"Oh." She laughed. "Very lowering to think that Yuri is twice the scout I am. Yes, there they are. Cha Ishii."

Cha Ishii stopped, but he made a fleeting sign with his hand and the others went on while he waited. They vanished around a corner, leaving Tess to face him alone. Kirill stood silently at her back.

"Lady Terese." He bowed. She glanced at his belt and saw that he was not wearing his knife.

Dumb, my girl, that is what we play now. "The shrine is indeed beautiful, Cha Ishii," she continued in court Chapalii, "but I do not understand why you came so far under such brutal conditions merely to survey such an alien place." Humans had necessarily to learn to speak the language of their emperor but few had occasion or opportunity to master the complex symbology that made up the written tongue and governed the decorative arts. Few understood how interrelated they were. Perhaps he would actually believe she did not recognize this place as Chapalii.

Pink spread up his cheeks. "You could not be expected to, Lady Terese, though you had already discerned that we were not priests." He placed his hands in that arrangement known as Lord's Supplication. "If I may be allowed to acquaint you with our work?" She nodded, and he turned and conducted her into the most opulent sections of the palace. Kirill trailed three steps behind them. Ishii ignored him as thoroughly as he would ignore one of his own stewards. "We are, in fact, archaeologists." Color shifted in subtle patterns on his face.

"Indeed! Archaeologists. Why masquerade as priests, then?"

He clasped his hands behind his back. "In the Earth form I believe this word translates as 'the study of antiquity,' and it therefore demands some perspective of time and culture which these people cannot possess, being of a more primitive stamp. To their understanding, a religious expedition is comprehensible and not so far removed that our activities in systematic measurement cannot be construed as a form of worship."

"I understand your concern, but surely, Cha Ishii, you might have applied to the duke for permission to conduct your study." She smiled, enjoying this fencing, and glanced back at Kirill. He returned her gaze blandly since he could not understand a word they were saying.

"This did precipitate embarrassment, Lady Terese. It was deemed necessary to continue our investigations in secret because we feared that your brother would forbid the expedition."

"Was there such a pressing need to continue it?"

He directed her along a whitewashed hallway and thence into a magnificent salon decorated with a tile pattern on floor and ceiling and walls that, seeming to repeat, never quite repeated itself. ' 'We have been investigating the relics of this particular civilization for many years now.''