Jaran

by Kate Elliott

  “Tess. If Doroskayev’s riders are coming, we’d better teach you some more about saber.” Kirill grinned at her. What little diffidence he possessed had vanished after they had left the tribe. Tess sighed. Kirill lifted a hand to his chest, mocking her sigh. “The saber will keep you alive. You can’t enjoy lovers if you’re dead.”

  “Kirill!” Yuri exclaimed.

  Tess flushed, and was glad of the opportune appearance of Fedya. “We’re practicing over by the horses,” Fedya said, as if answering a question. “Konstans and Mitenka are waiting.”

  “Thank you, Fedya,” said Tess, and he smiled at her, as if knowing full well that she was thanking him for his intervention not the invitation. His smile had a wraithlike quality, shadowed by some unknown sorrow.

  They were camped in a spring-fed hollow in the low hills through which they rode. They came now into sight of the scatter of tents pitched outside a grove of scrub trees and beyond that the huddle of horses. Bakhtiian stood talking to Konstans and Mitenka. He looked up as the others arrived and moved to intercept Tess. Kirill paused deliberately as Bakhtiian approached them, but Yuri nudged him from behind and Fedya brushed his elbow and led him on over to Konstans.

  “I was wondering,” said Bakhtiian to Tess when the others were out of earshot, “about something you said today, when we were discussing the view held by the Gallio school that words can give no true account of the past.”

  “Bakhtiian, could we discuss this after dark?”

  “Of course. ‘The day for action; the night for contemplation.’” He nodded to her and left.

  “The Gallio school?” Yuri asked. “It must be something he learned at Jeds. I thought you scouted.”

  “Niko was with us. We talked about history.”

  “History?”

  “Niko is very knowledgeable.”

  “Niko reads books when he can get them. Ilya and Sonia brought books back with them from Jeds. Well, I did, too, but only because they wrote me a list.”

  “Ah. That explains Niko. He and I agreed, but Bakhtiian didn’t.” She chuckled. “We almost got into an argument.”

  “Who won?”

  “Yuri, no one wins that kind of argument.”

  Yuri rubbed one hand over his eyes. Smoke and the sweet scent of meat cooking carried to them on the breeze. “I never understood what they taught at University. Hah!” He whirled, saber out and up before he had completely turned to meet Konstans’ charge. The two sabers met and sounded, a crisp ring. Tess drew her saber.

  Laughing, Kirill walked over to her. “That’s right. Don’t retreat. But you’re too close to Yuri.” He put one hand lightly on her hip and gently pushed her two steps over. And grinned, near enough that she could see how very very blue his eyes were.

  “Thank you,” she said dryly, and shifted so that his hand slipped off her hip.

  “This much room,” he continued, unrepentant. “And cover—Fedya! Now if Fedya was to come in from this direction, you’d have to cover two angles.” Fedya, coming in from that direction, showed her how to parry a side-sweep. Beyond him, outside the ring formed by their little group, a lonely figure adorned with elaborate embroidered sleeves and draped with ornate necklaces watched the practice but did not join in.

  When the light faded, they went back to the fire. Dusk made shadows of the tents. The fire outlined groups of sitting and standing men. Sibirin waved to Tess, and she sat down beside him and rested her arms on her bent knees. Yuri brought her meat hot from the fire. She savored it, licking the juice from her fingers when she was done.

  “Sibirin, I believe that you promised today to tell me something of your youth, what life was like when you were a boy.”

  “Do you expect a man of my years to remember that far back?”

  “Yes, Sibirin, I do.”

  “Come now, girl. If I’m going to reveal my youth to you, you had better call me by my youthful name.”

  “Did you have a different name when you were young? Or did they speak a different language then, if it was so long ago?”

  He laughed, revealing deep lines at the corners of his eyes. “No. I’m not so old that I recall the time before we had horses. But you call the young men by their given names. If I tell you of the times when I was that age, then you must call me Niko.”

  “So if I was to tell you of how it might be for me when I’m older, could you call me Tess?”

  “Most things are possible if one decides they are.”

  “Please, no more philosophy. Tell me a story of adventure.”

  The smell of burning leather hung in the air and, above it, the faint, sweet odor of flowers. “Shall I tell you how I won my wife? She was niece of the etsana and sister to the dyan of another tribe. In those days the jaran were divided.”

  “Yes. Before—”

  “May I join you?” Bakhtiian stood before them, lit by the glow of the fire behind him. Somewhere, a horse whickered.

  “Niko is telling me how he won his wife. Now, Bakhtiian, we’ll see if his words give a true account of the past.”

  “But neither you nor I can judge that. We weren’t there.”

  Niko laughed. “Has the argument moved to a new discipline?”

  “It was not an argument, Niko. It was a discussion.” Bakhtiian settled into the usual seat of the jaran men: one leg bent and flat on the ground, the other perpendicular to the first and also bent, so that the arm could rest on the knee. He smiled at Sibirin. His smile was a rare thing, like the moon on a cloudy night. Tess had seen that he favored Niko alone with it with any regularity, but even with Niko he smiled infrequently. The smile faded slowly and Bakhtiian glanced at Tess. She looked quickly away.

  Niko smiled. “Yes, Juli was willful. By the gods, she still is. She was the youngest child in her family, which accounts for it.”

  Across the fire Mikhal picked out a tune on his lute. Bakhtiian laid a hand on Niko’s arm. “Fedya is singing.”

  Fedya’s high, sweet voice rose with the melody. The song matched his looks: sorrowing, mournful, arcane. No one spoke while he sang. After he finished, the lute kept up with cheerful tunes, and talk resumed.

  “Fedya always seems so sad,” said Tess in a quiet voice.

  “His wife died of a fever, two years ago—as did Kirill’s—but Fedya still mourns.” Niko glanced at Bakhtiian, who gazed, unmoving, toward Fedya.

  “So he hasn’t married again? Kirill has, hasn’t he?”

  “Not exactly. He tried to mark Maryeshka Kolenin.”

  Tess giggled. “Was he the one she—?”

  “Yes,” said Niko quickly. “But I expect Kirill will mark her next spring. She’ll want children soon. But Fedya, no. Women aren’t interested in a man who is sad.”

  “Why not?” Tess glanced to where Fedya sat with the younger men, part of the group but not of the conversation. His air of sadness made him somehow more attractive to her, just as, she thought, she trusted Yuri because he had been shy at first.

  “There’s no profit in being sad. Life is hard enough. Why lessen its joys by dwelling on its sorrows?”

  “The jaran fight against everything,” said Bakhtiian, surprising Tess because she had not thought he was listening. “Against each other, against the khaja, against the land, and their final fight is against death. Battle against death, but if the black wind blows up inside and one can no longer fight, then die honorably. Honor alone is worth winning. That alone denies death Her final victory.”

  “I wouldn’t want my entire life to rest solely on the way I died,” said Tess.

  “How else can you measure it?” Bakhtiian stared into the fire, his face illuminated by its light. “A man’s life has no sum until he is dead. He must make what he can while he lives, and he must live every moment as if he were to die the next.”

  “But isn’t it in how you live that you measure your life?” Tess said. “By doing everything as well as it can be done? By striving to find—to find excellence? Then life derives its own worth apart from deat
h. Then you can transcend the routine of existence by living superbly.”

  Niko stroked his silvering beard and shook his head. “Both of you ride the same path. Seeking honor is no different from striving for excellence. You are looking for something you can never quite find.” He held out his hands to catch the warmth of the fire. “What would you say if I told you that of all things given to us, love alone is worth having?”

  “That makes you dependent on others,” said Tess.

  “Each of us must struggle alone,” said Bakhtiian.

  Niko drew his hands back. “Should all people live as hermits, then?”

  “Niko, don’t misunderstand me,” said Bakhtiian. “Affection for others is a part of life, just as riding and breathing are a part of life.”

  “But no greater or lesser than these? That is cold, Ilyakoria.”

  “It’s too inconstant.” Tess wrapped her arms around her bent knees and gazed into the fire. “Duty is constant, not love.”

  “I did not claim that love is constant, or free of pain,” said Niko with a smile. “That is the risk you take.”

  “I no longer gamble,” said Bakhtiian, almost inaudibly.

  “If you believe that, Ilya, then you do not know yourself. You need only look at what you’ve done. Do you gamble, Tess?”

  “It depends on the game.”

  “All games are the same.”

  “No, they’re not.”

  “Hmph.” Sibirin rubbed a knee with one palm. Across the fire, Kirill and Mikhal and Fedya stood and left. “I was twenty when I met Juli. There was a gathering of tribes that year, but as usual, instead of binding ourselves together, the tribes only sought new feuds.”

  Bakhtiian looked up sharply. “I ended that. What a waste. It was an affront to the gods who gave us freedom.”

  “Well, I can’t disagree with that. Juli was seventeen. She had more bracelets on her ankles than any other girl in all the tribes, and she made sure everyone knew it. She was vain.”

  “Then why did you marry her?” Tess asked.

  “She was a beautiful girl.”

  “She is a beautiful woman,” said Bakhtiian.

  Niko brushed a strand of grass from one boot, but he smiled. “There was a dance. Of course, I was simply one face out of many, but she was, perhaps, bored with the lovers she had and she saw me: a new face, a face, I flatter myself, not altogether unappealing.”

  Tess laughed. “I expect you were quite handsome, Niko.”

  “Be careful, young woman. I’ll think you’re making up to me.”

  “I could never be so presumptuous. And anyway, I like your wife.”

  “What does that have to do with it?” asked Bakhtiian.

  “Oh, why, nothing.” The heat of the fire scalded her face. “In my country, a man and a woman who marry, marry with the understanding that they’ll be for each other—that they will never—that they’ll remain faithful—”

  “Faithful? What is that?”

  “That they will never lie with anyone else.”

  Niko and Bakhtiian exchanged glances. “How barbaric,” said Niko.

  Tess flushed and looked down at her feet.

  Niko coughed. “Yes. The dance. Juli came up to me, and we danced, and she took me aside. She assumed that I would become her lover. Who could refuse her? It angered me to be just one more man counted on her bracelets. Well, I was almost as proud as Ilya in those days.” Bakhtiian frowned, studying the fire. “Of course I wanted her. I had to choose, to walk away or to go with her, and I became so infuriated because each moment I desired her more and each moment I felt more humiliated that I drew my saber—without thinking—and marked her. We were both so surprised that at first we just stared. Then she beat me.”

  Tess gasped, half in laughter, her fingers touching her lips. “She did what?”

  “She beat me. Gave me two black eyes, cut my upper lip, and almost broke my arm.”

  “You can’t mean it. She can’t have been stronger than you?”

  “You don’t think I would raise my hand against a woman, do you?” He looked affronted, but at her shamefaced expression, he settled down. “But the mark can never be removed from a woman’s face. Ten days later they set the bans over us. She could have broken it then.”

  “Yes.” It was very still, with only the light of stars above, the low rustle of the horses beyond, and the thin, hard lines of grass beneath her. “Once the bans are set, you can’t break certain rules for nine days, and if you do, the marriage isn’t binding.”

  “And you may never see that person again,” added Niko. “We don’t enter into marriage lightly in the jaran. But Juli was too proud to be known as a girl who had broken the bans.”

  “So that is how you won her.”

  “Oh, no, child. That is how I married her. Winning her was an altogether different thing, and that took several years.”

  “Bakhtiian!” A rider called from the edge of the firelight.

  Bakhtiian stood. “Excuse me.” He vanished into the night.

  “Won her love, you mean?” Tess asked. “That took several years?”

  “Winning the love of a stubborn, proud woman, or man, can be as hard as winning fame or living superbly, and it is far more rewarding.”

  Tess looked away from him into the fire, but the fire only showed her Jacques’s arrogant, handsome face as he told her that their engagement was ended. “Is it? Then you’re only living your life for someone else.”

  “So young to be so bitter. My child, one can have both.”

  “Is that possible?”

  “Most things are possible, if one decides they are.”

  She rose. “I think I’ll go to bed.” Yuri was gone, so she strolled over to her tent, but the thought of crawling inside that closed space bothered her. She stared up. There were no clouds, and the moon had set. Stars burned above. Where Charles and her duty lived. The camp was silent. No light at all shone from the Chapalii tents. Somewhere an animal called and was answered. Tess stood still, breathing. The air smelled of grass and soil, and a breeze stirred her hair. Hills, low and dim, rose on all sides.

  She walked past the trees and up the near slope, disturbing a few insects. At the crest, she pressed down the knee-high grass and sat, staring up at the brilliant, familiar patterns above. She traced constellations, cluttered with fainter stars never seen from Earth’s bright skies, and then picked out the constellations Yuri had taught her: the Wagon’s Axle, the Horseman, the Tent.

  A slight noise interrupted the murmur of night sounds. Tess looked around. Nothing. Several insects chirruped, braving the silence. A sound, and the insects stopped again. She moved away from camp, crawling on her hands and knees back over the crest toward a cluster of rocks below. The sharp ends of grass poked into her palms and knees. Another noise. Breaking for the rocks, she ran right into him.

  He grabbed her and pulled her down behind the rocks, one hand over her mouth, the other pinning her arms to her stomach. “Damn it. What are you doing out here?”

  All her breath came out in a quick sigh. It was Bakhtiian.

  “Well?” His hand fell from her mouth.

  “Looking at the stars. ‘The night for contemplation.’”

  He said nothing, finally releasing her and rising to his knees. “Stay here. Don’t move or speak until I tell you. Do you understand?”

  “Yes. What’s wrong?”

  He was already gone.

  After a time, she began to think she was alone on the slope, but she did not move. How little she knew of these wild, alien plains. How blithely she assumed that she was safe here, fearing the Chapalii more than the barbarian lands themselves. She cupped her hands over her mouth and nose to muffle the sound of her breathing, feeling scared and foolish all at once: Like the maenads I’ve drunk the wine, and how I have to accept the madness.

  Chill settled into her flesh. Her sheathed saber pressed awkwardly against her thigh. A cold wind blew down from the higher lands, the ayakhov, the wind of th
e deep night. She shuddered, froze.

  Someone approached.

  A shadow appeared, pausing by the rocks. It must be Bakhtiian. She hardly dared look up, as if the white of her eyes would give her away. The shadow moved. It was not Bakhtiian. It was too graceless, too thick. Tall but not lean, and all the tall riders in Bakhtiian’s jahar were, like Bakhtiian, slender. He had said his enemies were following them. What an idiot she had been, not to appreciate what that meant.

  She held her breath, her nose pressed against the cloth of her glove. Feet scraped on the pebbled dirt between the rocks, hesitant steps, careful of the ground. A boot struck her leg. Her heart pounded wildly, but she did not move.

  “What?” This in khush.

  She barely had time to draw her knife and begin to roll before his full weight pinned her to the ground. The knife spun away, lost. He pressed a hand down hard over her mouth. The point of his saber pricked her calf. With his free hand he briefly explored her chest. She swore and tried to kick him.

  “By the gods,” he whispered. “Has Bakhtiian come to this? A woman!”

  Tess’s fingers, reaching, brushed the hilt of her knife. He relaxed, staring down at her in the dim light. She took a deep breath, held it.

  Exhaled. She heaved her left hip up, and at the same moment bit his arm. He started back. Her fingers closed on her knife, and as he shoved her back down, she thrust. The blade bit into his shoulder. With a curse, he wrenched the knife from her hand, twisting her wrist until she gasped at the pain.

  He called her a name, but she did not understand the word, only the intent. His weight on her stomach seemed enormous. She could barely see his face, could not make out his features except for some obstruction, a darkness at one eye. “But don’t worry about your good name,” he said contemptuously. “Having had Bakhtiian will just make you twice as popular.”