Ilya was speaking with someone-two people now, she could tell by the voices. Each time he spoke, she turned toward the sound without at first realizing what she was doing. She shook her head, chuckling, and wrapped a blanket around herself and waited. Soon enough she heard him move across the outer chamber, heard him pause, and when he pushed aside the curtain it was with both sabers in one hand. He looked preoccupied. Then he saw her, and his entire expression changed. He sighed, set the sabers down, and embraced her. They fell back onto the pillows.
"Tess." He shifted. "That was Niko. He tells me that-"
"Ilyakoria. I don't care what Niko told you."
He laughed, his lips cool on her skin. His hair, so lush and so dark, brushed her mouth. It smelled as if it had been freshened in rain, touched with the scent of almonds. "It's true. I don't either." She kissed him, pressed her face against his neck, breathing him in.
Suddenly he drew back, cupping her face in his hands. "Tess. I know who you must be." His eyes were brilliant with longing as he gazed at her, his expression so vulnerable that her heart ached with love for him. "You are the Sun's Child." She shook her head, not understanding him. "The Sun's daughter, come from the heavens to visit the earth."
Tears welled in her eyes, and she hugged him fiercely. "No, my love, no," she whispered. "I'm just Tess. Oh, Ilya, I love you."
He kissed the tears away, each one, carefully, thoroughly. "No more of those. I will stop complimenting you."
"Oh?"
He smiled. "We don't need words, Tess." He kissed her.
And again.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
"Now let life proceed, and let him desire marriage and a wife."
Ilya kissed her awake. She put her hands up to embrace him, and realized that he had dressed. She sat up. Outside, a man sang in a rich tenor about a fair sweet girl who had kissed him by the river.
Ilya had pulled the curtain back just enough to let in the light that illuminated the outer chamber. She looked down at herself, naked, and then at him. "Somehow, I feel that you have me at a profound disadvantage."
"Not at all." He slid one hand smoothly and searchingly from her hip to her shoulder, letting it come to rest at last on the curve of her neck alongside the black necklace. He kissed her. "Who is more distracting?"
"You are. / was asleep."
He laughed and stood up. "Come, my wife, it is late, and time to strike camp so we can leave." He pulled her up to her feet. She kept hold of one of the blankets and let it drape around her, feeling a little shy, here in the morning. "If you don't mind his help, Vladimir will assist you in striking the tent."
"I don't mind his help, but Ilya, who does it belong to now that Mikhailov is dead? Or is it his daughter's?''
Ilya picked up the weaving and shook it out. "This is a Mikhailov pattern, and Mikhailov's mother was a famous weaver. He had no other kin, and his daughter is an Arkhanov, I believe." He shrugged. "It is mine now."
"Yours!".
He folded the weaving with reverence and lifted his gaze to her with perfect serenity. "Fairly won. In any case, Bakhtiian's wife must have as great a tent as every etsana."
"Perhaps you ought to consult with Bakhtiian's wife first to see what she wants."
"No, Tess. In this matter I will not compromise. I will no longer be compelled to take my meals at my aunt's tent. And you, my wife, must be given the consequence you deserve."
"What? As the only woman in the tribes whose consequence derives from her husband? What will your aunt say?"
"My aunt will say nothing. The jaran are mine now. Don't you understand? Mikhailov was the last one who rode against me." He crossed swiftly to her and embraced her, holding her. He sighed against her hair. "Forgive me, but I must ride out now. Vladimir will stay with you."
"Stay with me?" But he kissed her and left, leaving her to stare as the curtain swayed from his passing and then stilled. She dressed in the jahar clothes Vasil had given her, belted on his saber, and went out. Vladimir sat with his back to the tent. She walked past him and ran to look down into the hollow, but even as she searched, she saw a group of about thirty riders start away, Ilya in their midst. Even though she might have shouted and gotten his attention, she refused to do anything so undignified. Below, women loaded the few wagons left to Mikhailov's people. Children sat quietly on bundled pillows. Wounded men lay on the ground. Farther, beyond the hollow, lay a circle of wood and other fuel within which lay the bodies of the slain. Mercifully, it was too far away for her to recognize any of them.
"I thought they would have lit that already," she said, turning back to Vladimir.
He shrugged, that peculiarly immature copy of Ilya. "It took them this long to gather it. They had to break up a few of the wagons, too." He blinked. "That isn't the shirt Ilya gave you."
"No," she said absently, watching.
The jahar had paused by the pyre. A single woman stood alone there, and it was she who threw on the torch. Flames caught, smoldered, and then licked and grew. Smoke rose. The riders reined their horses away and disappeared out onto the plains. The woman turned and trudged back into camp. The other women ignored the pyre, except perhaps to pause and glance its way. As if, Tess thought, their pain was already too much to bear.
She recognized now who the woman was, walking back through the hollow and still walking, up toward Tess and her father's tent: It was Karolla.
"Vladi," said Tess, wanting support, and Vladimir came and stood beside her.
Karolla stopped before her. For an instant she stared at Tess as if the sight of a woman in jahar clothing shocked her. She put a hand to her eyes, caught back a sob, then lowered her hand.
"I beg your pardon," she said in her soft voice. "Do you need help with the tent?"
"Thank you," Tess stammered. "But surely it is your tent."
"I would not want it even if it was mine," said Karolla fiercely. "It is Bakhtiian's now." She hesitated. "Perhaps you do not understand. This was my father's mother's tent, not my mother's. In any case, I left the Arkhanov tribe and my mother when my father left them to ride against Ilya, so even if it were her tent, I would have no right to it. Those of us who left are no longer welcome there."
There was a kind of bitter but practical fatalism about Karolla Arkhanov that made Tess very sad. "You must have loved your father very much," she said softly. She found she could not look at Karolla, knowing she had made Ilya promise her that he would kill Mikhailov.
"I loved him," said Karolla simply, "but I left because Vasil Veselov marked me."
"Vasil marked you!"
Karolla's smile was bittersweet. "Oh, I know I'm not a handsome woman. He only marked me to force my father to take him into his jahar. I knew he never loved me, but he has always been kind to me." She flushed, and Tess could see very well that she loved her husband. She paused, and the color rose even higher in her cheeks, as if she was struggling. "Do you-do you know what happened to him?"
My God, she doesn't even know, and she's almost too proud to ask. "Yes. I saw him. He was wounded but alive. He got away safely, Karolla."
"Thank you," said Karolla. "There is one wagon left, for this tent. Shall we take it down?"
Tess could only obey. Vladimir remained silent, standing at her side, and then helping them strike the tent. He seemed less sullen, if not more thoughtful. After her own small tent, this one seemed huge and unwieldy, but she soon discovered how cunningly it was constructed, so that three people could strike it without difficulty.
As she was rolling up the last rug, Vladimir paused beside her. "Tess," he said in a low, warning voice. She stood up.