The Novels of the Jaran (60 page)

Ilya walked past the unconscious Tess and knelt beside Yuri. For a moment he simply rested his hand on Yuri’s pale brow. He gazed at Yuri’s face, so quiet in repose. A few tears slipped down his face to dissolve in his dark beard. Then he gathered his cousin into his arms and stood, and walked to his horse.

“Ilya,” said Niko, glancing up. “What are you doing? The fire hasn’t been built yet—”

Ilya winced as he put his weight full on his injured knee to swing Yuri’s body over the horse and mount up behind him. Yuri’s hair hung down, stirred into a semblance of life.

Anton and Vladimir stared at him, shocked. Kirill had his eyes shut.

“Ilyakoria,” began Niko. “He has earned his release—”

“Only to be separated from her?” Ilya replied harshly. “Didn’t you hear what she said?” Without waiting for Niko to reply, he reined Kriye away. “I’ll be back.” And rode out onto the plains, alone.

Chapter Twenty-six

“Of night, lonely, blind-eyed.”

—EMPEDOCLES OF AGRAGAS

T
ESS LIVED FOR A TIME
in gray oblivion. Pain throbbed through her, as constant as the pulse of her blood. She lay on her back, aware only of darkness, a thick dry coarseness against her hands and lips, a heavy, hot, sharp ache in her side. She thought someone was with her but perhaps it was just a dream. She wanted to scream and thrash about, anything, if only it would dispel the pain.

“Tess.”
His
voice, soft, uncertain.

Because she thought he was a hallucination, she lifted her hand to test his reality. Yes, he had a knee, a thigh, a hip, a chest—his hands caught hers, raising it to his face. His cheeks were damp. She moved her fingers on the soft coolness of his skin. He lowered her hand to his lips and kissed it repeatedly.

“You’re taking advantage of me,” she whispered.

“Tess! How do you feel?”

“Am I going to die?” she asked with a kind of vague hope.

“No, Tess. No. You must not die.”

“Oh, well,” she said, disappointed. She coughed, weakly, starting a spasm through her side so acute that gray surrounded her again.

“Tess. Don’t leave me!” It was as much a command as a plea. One of his hands moved to rest on her cheek. His fingers, cool and light, traced the line of her jaw.

“Where are the khepelli?” she asked, when she could talk again.

“We’re leaving this morning. I’m taking them to the coast. You won’t see your brother this winter, I fear.”

“But—” Memory came in fits and starts. “The letter I wrote—”

“It went with Josef. I have the relic. I’ll write another letter, by my own hand, explaining—” He broke off. “I will find someone trustworthy to carry it to Jeds. I promise you, Tess.”

“I believe you.”

A man moved at the entrance. “Bakhtiian? Your horse is ready.”

“A moment.” He smoothed back her hair from her temple. “Tess. Promise me you will live.”

“Why?” Bitter, this memory that overwhelmed her; more bitter than her pain. “Why should I live when Yuri died?” She began to cry, an agony, leaking from her like blood. She choked on a sob, and it hurt all through her, and she jerked, writhing, anything to free herself of it.

His hands pressed her shoulders down, and he held her there until she stopped fighting. “Because, my wife, you have other responsibilities,” he said coldly.

She stared up at him. How close he was. She could smell the faint salt odor of his sweat. Her hands followed the smooth cloth up his arms to his back and settled on the curve of his neck, pulling down. His hands slipped off her shoulders to the bedding on either side so that, as they kissed, none of his weight rested on her. It was a light kiss but lingering.

“Gods, woman,” he said unsteadily, breaking himself free gently and reluctantly, “if you use that kind of argument, you can persuade me to anything.”

“Kill Mikhailov,” she whispered.

“I have already promised to do that.”

“Yes,” she said, remembering, “you have. Oh, God. Yuri is gone.”

And then he bent until his lips brushed her cheek. “No,” he said, whispering, as if what he meant to impart to her was too important, or too sacrilegious, to say any louder, “he is not gone.” He drew back.

“But he’s dead—Ilya.” For a moment she saw him very clearly, even in the dimness of the tent. “You didn’t let them burn him.”

“He will come back to us, Tess,” he said simply.

She laughed, a weak, faint chuckle, because she did not believe him and yet she did.

“Tess, I must go. You have not yet promised me that you will live.”

She drew a long, shuddering breath and lifted a hand to touch his face again. The flickering lantern light made him seem darker than usual, shadows playing between the occasional glimpse of a tear. “You’ll plague me forever, won’t you?”

“Forever,” he promised.

“Gods, you will, too. I promise.”

“My husband,” he prompted.

“My husband,” she echoed.

“No, the whole thing.”

“I promise you, my husband. There, are you satisfied?”

“For now. Oh, Tess.” He sighed, and leaned down to kiss her once, twice, then her hands, her eyes, her cheeks, her forehead and, last, her lips once again.

From outside: “Ilya!”

He kissed her again, and then, taking the lantern with him, he left her in darkness.

She lay in a stupor for an eternity. Light flashed at the entrance to the tent, and a man knelt next to her.

“Tess, it is Niko. Can you sleep, my child?” His weathered hands stroked her face gently.

“It hurts. It never stops.”

“There, child. Let me tell you a story.” His voice did eventually soothe her, and she slept.

It was only a short respite. Niko washed her, gave her water to drink, after a time fed her a warm gruel. Speaking made her cough, so she did not speak, and she was too weak to attempt anything else. She hurt constantly. For long periods she simply stared into the darkness, and all she could see was Yuri lying dead in the grass.

She woke once from a shallow sleep and lay for what seemed like hours before she recognized the familiar sound serenading her: rain. A man dozed beside her, a steady, rhythmic sound. She reached out, touching him with the tips of her fingers. He woke abruptly and sat up.

“Tess?”

“Who is it? Where is Ilya? Why hasn’t Yuri come back?” She shook her head. “No. Don’t answer that.”

“Ilya has been gone three days, my child.”

“It’s raining.”

“Yes.” There was a note in his voice she could not recognize. “Yes, my child, it is. Are you warm enough?”

The rain sounded like pebbles being shaken in a distant tin. “My toes.”

He moved around out of her sight. She fell into a long, dreamless sleep. When she woke, she was thirsty, and he gave her water; after that she was hungry, and he fed her. She slept again.

A cool breeze on her face woke her. Someone had thrown up the tent flap. Light caught the outlines of her feet under blankets. The sides of the tent stirred, brushed by the wind. A dark figure sat outside, engaged in mending a shirt.

“Niko?”

The hands stilled. “Tess.” He crawled in to her. “How do you feel, my child?”

“I hurt. Where are we?”

“We are in your tent, here where—well, we will move you to Veselov’s tribe when you are safe to be moved. You had a very deep wound, young woman.”

“Am I lucky to be alive?”

“Yes, child. I should think you are. Now let me look at your wounds.”

As he reached for the blanket, she felt down along her body. She wore only her shirt.

“Niko.” He paused. “Niko, how long have I been lying here?”

“Five days.”

“Five days,” she said in a small voice. “You’ve had to do everything…Oh God, Niko, I’m so…”

“Embarrassed?” he supplied. “My dear girl, if you’re strong enough to feel embarrassed, then you are certainly going to recover. This is the best sign I could have looked for.”

“Don’t tease me.”

“I’m not. I have tended both men and women in my time for any number of illnesses and injuries, some far more intimate than yours. And I had six children. The human body holds no surprises for me.”

Tess laughed. “Damn, it hurts to laugh.”

“Well, hold this. This will hurt more. Cry if you wish.” He rolled her onto her side.

It did hurt more. She clutched at the belt he had given her, squeezing it until her hand ached. At last, at last, he let her down, but then he pulled up her shirt and examined her abdomen with great care, pushing and probing with excruciating gentleness.

“Well. Not as bad as I feared. Not quite so good as I hoped. But you will do, my child. You will do.”

“Can I move?”

“In a few days, we’ll see.”

“Unless I die of frustration before then. Niko, I don’t even remember getting hit.”

“You weren’t hit. That is, you have two saber cuts, one on your back and one on your thigh, but they’re healing neatly. No, you were stabbed with a knife. What man would do that to a woman, I cannot imagine.”

She shut her eyes. She saw things in a haze, blurred by pain and grief and blessed oblivion. “I don’t know. I don’t know. It wasn’t Mikhailov. And Vasil pulled him off me, whoever he was.”

“Vasil!”

“Yes, Vasil. Vera’s brother.”

“I know who Vasil is. Was he party to Yuri’s death?”

“No. No. He told Mikhailov to let Yuri go. It must have been Leotich.”

“Leotich. One of Doroskayev’s riders, I think. I might believe that he would—well, he’s dead, Tess. We found him on the field.”

“Who else?” she asked, not wanting to. “Who else died, Niko?”

“Come, child, let’s not speak of that now.”

“Tell me.”

“We had to put Myshla down, Tess. I’m sorry. Four riders from Mikhailov’s jahar. I don’t even know their names. Three from Veselov’s: Ivan Charnov, Matvey Stassov, and Leonid Telyegin. But perhaps you didn’t know them.”

“Who else, Niko? Oh, God, not Kirill?”

“No, Tess, no. Last I saw Kirill, he was badly hurt but alive. Konstans, too.”

“Not Mikhal? Oh, gods, what will I tell Sonia?” She began to cry.

“Tess. Tess. Don’t cry. It wasn’t your fault.”

“Yes, it was my fault, damn you, and you know it. If I hadn’t made Garii take me there, Ishii wouldn’t have found us, and he wouldn’t have killed Garii, and he wouldn’t have wanted to kill me, and then Ilya wouldn’t have made us wait and come after and we wouldn’t have run into Mikhailov and then Yuri wouldn’t be dead. And now Mikhal. It is my fault. It is my fault.” She began to sob, noisy, awkward, painful sobs that wracked her body.

Niko settled back and did nothing: Soon enough she exhausted herself and, with tears still seeping down her face, she fell asleep.

When she woke again, she was alone. She called out Niko’s name once, softly, but he did not answer. Well, it was all she deserved. As if the memory had been seared into her, she could see Yuri falling from his horse, ever so slowly. If she could only catch him, then perhaps he might live—but Yuri was dead. Mikhal was dead. The ache of her wound paled beside the ache of her loss.

Niko came then, but she would not speak to him and only mechanically obeyed his injunctions to eat and drink. After a while, having tried stories and songs and one-sided conversation, and even reading aloud from the volume of Casiara, he left.

It was better that way. Yuri would have cajoled her into crying, teased her, laughed her into it. She hated herself for not dying with him, hated herself more for wanting to live, a coward afraid of the dark. How could she ever face Sonia? Sonia, the one person with that same open confidence that Yuri had, whom she had deprived of a brother and a husband in a single swift stroke. Sonia would never look at her again with anything but loathing. And Ilya. He would know very well whose fault this was. Her thoughts wound down in this manner and left her in desolation.

It rained for hours, for days, perhaps; she neither knew nor cared. She submitted listlessly to Niko’s care.

“It’s clearing,” he said finally. She did not know whether it was morning or afternoon, only that where the flap lay askew a thin line of light lanced across the dark floor. She refused to ask how many days it had been. “Today we are moving you to Veselov’s tribe.”

She stared at the shadowed roof. Although he kept her scrupulously clean, still her back itched, a constant, damp prickling. Mold was surely growing in the blankets. The air was overpowering, dank. Her legs chafed where they rubbed the coarse bedding.

He sighed. “Your wounds are showing some progress, girl, but your spirits aren’t.”

He knelt close to her, filling all her space. Before his entrance she had been remembering Yuri demonstrating, to her immense delight, how
not
to use a saber, with Kirill acting as his willing and hilarious foil. “Why can’t you leave me alone?”

“To what? To die? I believe you promised Bakhtiian that you would live.”

“Did I?”

“Don’t you remember?”

“I don’t care.” And then, perhaps because his words had triggered it, she did remember. She flung an arm across her eyes so that she wouldn’t have to look at Niko. “He doesn’t care anyway. Why should he? I killed Yuri and Mikhal.”

“You are a difficult child. Why do you suppose Ilya wants you to live?”

“To torment me.”

“Tess, I am getting rather tired of you. I’m leaving now, and when I return, it will be to take you out of this tent and move you to Veselov’s tribe. Do you understand?”

“I don’t want to go.”

“You haven’t a choice.” He left.

She lowered her arm and stared at the canvas above her, recalling Ilya in all his moods and depressing herself further. Then, so soon it startled her, Niko threw the tent flap unceremoniously back. She had to cover her eyes with her hands until they could adjust to the unaccustomed light.

“Now. You are coming out. Here, Tasha, help me, please.”

They pulled her out on the blanket and bundled her onto one of the light wagons that the women used to transport their tents. It hurt, but not as much as the sight of Petya, with his damned beautiful face, without the slightest visible scar from the battle. And he was riding Yuri’s Khani. Tess was filled with such a vicious, burning wish that Petya could have died instead of Yuri that she was horrified at the depth of her own hatred.