Tess rose and went to help Sonia and the children with the food. It was getting dark. Aleksi got up and lit the lanterns, hanging them around the tent poles so that they gave off a soft glow of light that penetrated out beyond the awning. Venedikt Grekov and his nephew Feodor came by with an intelligence report about the pass and the flight of the Habakar king. Sakhalin's jahar was hard on the king's heels and they had overtaken so many khaja soldiers that they had simply killed them rather than be burdened with prisoners. With Grekov also came his niece, Raysia. She offered to stay and sing for them.
Dr. Hierakis came back in time to eat with them, and she brought with her the stocky khaja woman Ursula, who was flush with accounts of the battle. Other members of the Orzhekov tribe came, Vladimir and Konstans and other riders-some with their wives and children, those who had them along-and Niko Sibirin and Juli Danov and their grandchildren. Everyone was in a fine humor, as well they might be.
Raysia sang. Between each song she looked long and hard at Aleksi before beginning her next piece. He was gratified by her attention, but worried by it, too. What if Raysia Grekov told her mother that she wanted Aleksi to marry her? A Singer did not have to concern herself with pleasing anyone but herself. The gods had touched her, everyone knew that, and with the gods' touch came not only great responsibilities and burdens but great freedom as well. Raysia was also an outsider, in a way. At the age of twelve her spirit had been borne away by the gods to visit their realms, and her body had lain for days, empty, in her mother's tent. When she returned, she was a Singer, her sight altered forever. She was shunned and feared by some, but respected by everyone, and she had the gift to see what was hidden from others. Aleksi sometimes wondered if he had been touched by the gods in that way, but the curse he had brought down first on his tribe and then on his beloved sister Anastasia was surely a punishment for his presumption. If Raysia Grekov wanted him, how could he refuse her, though it was properly a man's choice in marriage? He did not want to leave Tess, even to go to live with Raysia. He had lost Anastasia already, those many years ago. He did not intend to lose his new sister, Tess. It would be better not to marry, or perhaps to marry another orphan, one Tess and Bakhtiian and Sonia were willing to admit into the family. Valye Usova was a nice girl… but she would bring her brother Yevgeni with her, a brother whose loyalty was still suspect, since he had ridden with Vasil Veselov for so many years.
It was too painful to contemplate. Aleksi shut off these thoughts and tried to concentrate on the singing, but his heart was not in listening this night. Next to him, Tess shifted restlessly. She kept glancing over at Dr. Hierakis with a questioning gaze, and the doctor nodded each time, assuring her of something, Aleksi was not sure what. Bakhtiian listened keenly to the music, drank sparingly from the cup refilled by his wife, and spoke closely to Josef in the intervals between songs.
That night, after Aleksi had gone to bed, Raysia came to his tent and he let her in. Gods, but she was sweet. And yet, lying awake after she had gone, he knew that he could not leave Tess, and not just for his own sake.
In the morning a deputation emerged from Qurat to seek terms, but Bakhtiian refused to see them. Instead, he left Josef behind with the rearguard and the Veselov and Raevsky tribes, and told Josef to leave the Qurat envoys waiting for a few days and then strip the wealth from the city in return for its complete and utter submission to jaran rule. They broke camp and started up into the pass. Bakhtiian rode at the head of the army, next to his wife. He looked pale. At midday he called a halt and sat, just sat for a time, rubbing at his forehead with his hands. They camped along the road that night and set out again in the morning. This day Bakhtiian was clearly ill. Dark circles rimmed his eyes, and his skin had a mottled, pasty color. Once, and only once, Tess suggested he ride in a wagon. But he did switch mounts at midday, choosing a placid little bay mare for the rest of the day's ride instead of his restive stallion.
Late that afternoon they reached the summit, a broad, windy height. From here, Aleksi saw the hazy outlines of land far below, fields, a miniature city, and the endless spread of land out to the blue horizon. Up here it was clear and hot, and the wind buffeted Aleksi where he stood on an outcropping staring down, far down, to the Habakar lands. Smoke rose in patches scattered across the countryside. Evidently Sakhalin's army had already arrived.
He walked back to the front rank of wagons to find Sonia ordering that Tess's great tent be set up, although the rest of the army was on marching orders and sleeping under wagons or out in the open for the night. The cloth walls shook and rippled, torn by the heavy wind, and Aleksi ran over to help. It took fifteen people to battle the tent into place and secure it, and even then the wind boomed and tore at the walls. They could not set up the awning at all. The gold banner, raised on the center pole, snapped loudly in the gale.
Bakhtiian watched the proceedings from horseback. He was white and his hands shook, but he did not dismount until Tess came to lead him inside. Her face, too, was white, but with an agony of the heart not of the physical body. They disappeared inside the tent. Dr. Hierakis strode up soon after and went inside. Sonia followed her in and emerged moments later.
"Aleksi! Set up your tent just beside here, and don't leave camp."
"What's wrong with him?" Aleksi asked in a low voice, aware of people milling around, asking questions.
Sonia shrugged. "Vladimir says one of the Habakar priests cursed him. Perhaps it's witchcraft."
"Perhaps," said Aleksi. But what if it wasn't Habakar witchcraft? He had seen Dr. Hierakis at work, had seen that she knew how to heal wounds that even the finest jaran healers would have given up on. Everyone got sick, at times. Plagues might race through a tribe, and during the siege of Qurat, many of the jaran had gotten fevers. Children had died, as well as some of the men weakened by wounds. Why should Tess look so anguished? Bakhtiian was strong. There was no reason to think a simple fever would kill him. Unless this was not a simple fever.
Aleksi unsaddled his mare and hobbled her for the night, and set up his tent alongside Tess's. At dusk, the wind died down. Fires were built, but with night came the strong winds again, ripping at the camp, at the tents, at the fires. Most people hunkered down to wait it out. Dr. Hierakis emerged out of the tent, alone.
Aleksi lit a lantern, shielding the flame with his body until it steadied and then sliding the glass back into place, and he offered to escort her back to her wagons.
She shook her head. "You stay here. Galina is waiting-there she is."
"Bakhtiian?"
"He's ill. But he seems stable. I think he'll have a few rough days before he feels better.''
"Is it the river fever?"
She glanced at him, measuring, curious. "No, I don't think it's the river fever.''
"Ah," said Aleksi. "Neither did I."
The light spread a glow across her front, illuminating her face and the strong line of her jaw. Her black hair faded into darkness, and her plain tunic was washed gray. "You're a strange one. Sometimes I think you see more than we know you do."
"You speak khush very well now. You learned it quickly. The actors did, too. Have you noticed how many of their-what do they call them? Songs?''
"Plays."
"— plays that they've begun to say in khush?"
"No, I hadn't. I haven't seen any of their performances. Good night, Aleksi."
"Good night, Doctor."
She gave him a brusque but sympathetic nod and went off with Galina. Aleksi wondered how old she was. She did not look any older than, say, Bakhtiian, but she carried herself like an Elder. She carried herself like Mother Sakhalin or Niko Sibirin, and the Elders treated her like one of their own. Perhaps she, too, was a Singer, a gods-touched mortal, granted knowledge beyond her years. That might explain the Elders' respect for her, and her own strange way of carrying on, of looking at things from afar, of measuring and watching. Like he did.