Children of other tribes tagged along behind them as they walked slowly through camp. The children stared at the women. That was one thing about these khaja; they all of them looked different from the others, with skin ranging from pale to black, with eyes every color and shape, and so tall! They were all, except for Diana, as tall as men.
"You seem very young to have children," said the one called Quinn.
Sonia chuckled. "Tess said much the same thing to me, when she first came to us. If a woman waits too many years, then how can she have children at all?"
The coal-black Oriana elbowed Quinn in the side and hissed something at her in another language. Quinn flushed; she had a light complexion, easy to see the changes in, and with her odd red-brown shade of hair, Sonia reflected, it would be difficult to find dye for cloth that would look good on her. Still, she wore a fine tunic neither blue nor green but some shade in between, and it looked well.
"It's a beautiful weave," Sonia said, nodding at the tunic. "And a lovely color. Have you weavers in your mother's tent? Your mother's house, that is. Perhaps you could show us the secret of the color, if you're willing to give it up."
The three younger women looked at each other, perplexed. Helen yawned. Anahita examined every man who came in sight and had obviously lost interest in the conversation. Sonia sighed.
Then, thank goodness, the woman with the funny eyes, Yomi, chimed in. "I weave," she said. "Perhaps you could show me your looms."
"How do you make dye for colors?" asked Diana quickly, and Sonia could not be sure whether she was truly interested or merely being polite. But then, with Singers, one never knew.
"This is all so quaint, and charming," said Anahita suddenly, with a bright, false smile.
"I'm so pleased that it entertains you," replied Sonia sarcastically, and then caught herself. But it had already been done. She had been impolite to a Singer.
Oriana snorted and clapped a hand over her mouth.
"Oh, shut up, Anahita," said Quinn. "Didn't your mother ever tell you to say something nice or nothing at all?"
"In which case she'd never speak," muttered Helen.
"I'm going back to camp," announced Anahita, and she gave them all a withering glare and stalked away.
Gods. Now she had offended a Singer. Sonia stopped walking and took in a breath to apologize to the others, though it was an unpardonable offense.
"I do apologize for her," said Diana. "I don't-we're not-I beg your pardon. That was terribly rude of her."
"Patronizing little bitch," said Quinn. "I wish she hadn't come. And the rest of you do, too, only you won't admit it."
"Girls," said Yomi reasonably, "that's enough. I beg your pardon, Sonia. We've had a long and sometimes trying journey together, and that rather puts people at odds after a while, don't you think?"
"We always travel," said Sonia gently.
Yomi chuckled. "Well, then, perhaps you can offer us some advice."
"Was it not Democritus of your own country who said, 'Well-ordered behavior consists in obedience to the law, the ruler, and the woman wiser than oneself? Although in the text I read the words were written as, 'the man wiser,' but I can only suppose the scribe wrote the word wrong or meant it to be 'Elder.' "
"Who is Democritus?" whispered Quinn.
"I think he was a Greek philosopher," muttered Diana.
"But of course," added Sonia, "it's also true that we have our own quarrels. As do any people, I suppose."
Yomi smiled and wisely guided the conversation back to weaving. In this way they came to the Orzhekov encampment, where Ilya had arrived before them.
Tess stood between her husband and her brother, and Sonia was distracted from her guests by the striking way in which Tess seemed caught between the two men, not mediating but wavering. Oh, it looked very bad, indeed.
A woman must keep peace between her husband and her brother, not make it worse by letting each man pull her in a different direction. Ilya could never accept that Tess might hold her brother first in her heart, that Charles Soerensen had every right to expect his sister to cleave to him and to her mother's tent. But if Tess, khaja that she was, truly wished to stay with her husband and her husband's people, then she damned well ought to tell her brother so straight out and not leave poor Ilya hanging there never knowing what she intended to do. As for Charles Soerensen himself, Sonia simply could not tell if he loved his sister. But he would never have journeyed so far if he did not want her back very badly. For an instant Sonia wished that her mother was here. Irena Orzhekov would know what to do. Ilya deferred to many people, because he had good manners, but there were few who could make him stop dead in his tracks and change his mind. Mama is one. And I must become another.
"Bakhtiian is your cousin?" asked Diana into the silence, pulling Sonia back to the Singers with a wrench.
"His mother and my mother are sisters, yes."
"And are they here also?" asked Yomi.
"His mother is dead." Sonia paused one second, flicking her wrist out to deflect the notice of Grandmother Night. "My mother remains out on the plains, the true plains, with the rest of our tribe." She watched as Katya and Ivan and Kolia came running with their cousins to greet Ilya and Tess with hugs and questions. Tess introduced the children to her brother, and Sonia approved of the way in which the prince acknowledged each child in turn.
"Are they all yours?" asked Diana. "What sweet-looking children!" Said with such honesty that Sonia felt at once that she liked this young Singer who had been blessed with beauty as well as song. "May we meet them?"
Ilya, seeing their party come up, guided his on. He had with him as well several others of the prince's party, including a man who stared in the most unseemly fashion at Diana as they left.
"There's Marco Burckhardt," said Quinn in an undertone, and Oriana said, "Oh, don't tease Diana."
Then Marco Burckhardt caught Sonia looking at him and he smiled at her as if to say that here was a man who could appreciate a mature and confident woman. Well! Clearly he was as impudent as Kirill Zvertkov, but then again, he was khaja, and khaja men did not have very good manners, on the whole. Still, he had a pleasant way of admiring a woman. Sonia watched him go, even as he hastily returned his attention to his party, which had gotten a ways ahead of him.
Leaving, he almost bumped into another man.
Both men halted. A glare flashed between them, like two stallions who accidentally cross paths, and then Marco hurried on after his own party. Which left the other man standing outside the awning of her tent. And just what was Anatoly Sakhalin doing in her camp?
Except she knew the answer. She watched Diana register his presence, watched the Singer's hand as it lifted to touch the golden necklace and then, self-consciously, dropped. She watched, with disgust, as Anatoly insinuated himself in with the children and thus was standing with them when she brought the Singers over to meet them.
' 'And these are the children of my family. Mitya and Galina are Kira's eldest two, and Katerina and Ivan and Kolia are my own. There are also four girls and two boys still with the tribe."
"You have more?" Quinn asked, looking astounded.
"No, just those eleven."
"You have eleven children?" asked Yomi.
"My sisters and I have eleven children, yes. Last I heard, Stassi was pregnant, so soon there will be twelve again."
"Oh my," said Yomi abruptly, "look at that loom."
Galina led her over to the loom, and at once the girl and the khaja woman became engrossed, though they could not speak any words to each other. Truly, weaving was a common language in and of itself.
Sonia looked back at the others. "Katya! Stop that! It doesn't come off. Show respect for a Singer."
"It's all right," said Oriana with a laugh, clearly not minding at all that the children were licking their fingers and rubbing at her skin. She crouched down and regarded them with a grave face. "It comes from being out in the sun too much."