"Oh, I don't think Ilya wants to be a philosopher," said Yuri lightly. He yawned, laying down his shirt, and let a hand rest on Tess's back. "He just doesn't like other people knowing something he doesn't."
Tess laughed. "That's unkind, Yuri."
"Do you think so? I don't. Ilya has no one to answer to. That means he must know everything. It would be enough to drive me mad. I think it's the reason Ilya is so harsh."
"Harsh? Maybe at first, but not lately-" She grinned. "With Kirill, yes."
"Well, Kirill deserves it."
"No, he doesn't!" She laughed again. "Maybe. But / like him. He's-he's Kirill. And you must admit that he's the only one of you who has the courage to make fun of Ilya at all."
"He's the only one stupid enough to do it in front of him."
"He's the only one who doesn't take Ilya as seriously as Ilya takes himself.''
Yuri picked up his embroidery. "I resent that. You never saw Ilya at his worst. When the mood was on him, he would come into camp and, like that, everyone walked everywhere on their toes to avoid his notice."
Tess giggled.
"He hasn't been bad at all this trip. I think he likes you."
"Likes me?" She found a perceptible crack in the stone fitting and traced it out as far as her hand could reach.
Yuri rubbed the light shadow of beard on his chin. "Did I leave my razor with you?" he asked, and then he went on, not waiting for her reply. "He likes Niko. I think he likes Vladimir, or at least is fond of him, and I know he likes Josef and Tasha and my mother, and Sonia, although he would never admit he likes Sonia. But you can never be sure who else he likes. I don't even know if he likes me, but I think he likes you."
"Oh." Tess brushed dirt out of the crack with her middle finger. "I like him. He's easy to talk to."
Now Yuri laughed. "If I'd heard anyone say that a year ago, I would have thought they were as mad as Yevich the Weaver."
"Who is Yevich the Weaver?"
"You don't know the story of Yevich the Weaver? By the gods, that will have to be settled."
The story of Yevich the Weaver took four evenings to tell as told by Josef, the best tale-teller in the jahar now that they no longer had Fedya to sing tales for them. By the time Yevich had gone mad twice and finally settled his score with the wind-maiden and her four brothers, they had ample provisions. They rode on and passed out of the tangled dark wood and into the feet of the mountains.
They traveled for a day up a series of terraces of scrubby grass linked by ridges of rock. The road had vanished entirely, and the ridges proved so devoid of paths that the riders were forced to dismount and lead their horses up each one. Now and again a drying riverbed offered easier passage and even water as they climbed from level to level through the ridges, until the last terrace spread out like a sea before them, a broad plateau brought up short by the mountains.
Tess stared. The air was so clear that it seemed only a thin sheet of glass between her and the mountains, which were surely close enough for her to touch, and yet so distant, lacking any detail, that their size alone awed her.
"Those are the children," said Bakhtiian, watching her. "The grandparents are farther in. It's said they are so high that one cannot see their tops."
"That would depend on where you were standing." She grinned. "Rather like a man's reputation, don't you think?"
"So awesome from a distance, so meager up close?"
"I thought it was the other way around. Small and insignificant from far off, but massive at its base."
"Weighed down by its own importance."
"A heavy burden," said Tess.
"Only to the man who has had it forced on him," said Bakhtiian, suddenly serious. "Fame is a light and welcome burden to the man who picks it up of his own will."
"I don't agree. Fame becomes a heavy burden either way.''
Bakhtiian raised one hand, like a teacher making a point. "But by choosing to carry it- Dismount!" She dismounted almost as quickly as he did. "Damn," he said to himself, and then to Tess, "Follow." A spur of rock jutted up, a solitary sentinel of the ridges that fell away behind it. Bushes and clinging grass patched the dark surface. They halted at its base. "Stir up the ground."
He took the horses around the rock while Tess trampled grass and scuffed dirt. "Good enough," he said, returning without the horses. He studied the spur for a moment and, choosing a path, began to climb.
Tess scrambled after him, her feet slipping on loose pebbles, her hands grabbing bare knobs of stone and long, sinuous roots. He halted at a small ledge, screened by bushes, and pulled Tess up after him, leaving his hand on her arm when she stood beside him. She could feel every point of pressure, however light, where his fingers touched her skin.
"You may as well sit, if you wish," he said. "They may not have seen us, but I know they saw the horses. This rock is the only cover, unless we wanted to risk breaking our necks by running down into the rough. Two against-I'd guess forty-two. We should go to ground."
She took the hint and sat. His hand released her, leaving a lingering tingle on her arm where he had held her. He remained standing.
"Who?" Tess asked. "Another jahar? I didn't see them."
"Another jahar, yes-" He hesitated, absently staring at his hand. "And no."
"If you thought these men really wanted to kill you, we wouldn't be sitting here."
Bakhtiian transferred his attention from his hand to the plateau. Grass and mountains, nothing else. "I just want to look at them before we exchange pleasantries."
"The weather is fine today, and my what a lovely horse that is?"
He looked down at her and smiled, a smile that lit the corners of his eyes. "The jaran have a tale of a woman who brought misfortune to her tribe because she was too curious."
She tilted her head. "Is that so? We have a story something like that."
"If two old moral tales won't teach you, I'll never be able to. What was the woman's name?"
"Pandora."
"Pandora. That's prettier than the woman's name in our story: Vlatagrebi."
"Poor thing, saddled with a bad reputation and a name like that."
"Then you'd rather be called Pandora than Vlatagrebi?"
"By whom?"
Bakhtiian leaned back against the rock face. A spray of dirt skidded down the face to settle behind his boots. He folded his arms over his chest. "By me. It's only fitting."
"We have a saying in our land: 'the pot calling the kettle black.' "
"The pot calls- Shameless woman. If I were a brave man I'd-" He checked himself.
"You'd what?"
"I take it back. I wouldn't."
"Who are they, Ilya?"
It took him a moment to answer because the smile that crept onto his face was the kind that arrives slowly and leaves reluctantly. "I surrender." He put his hands against the rock by his shoulders, palms up and open. "Arenabekh. The black riders."
"I saw nothing."
"You weren't looking. You were staring at the mountains."
"How could you tell they were these-arenabekh?"
"All in black."
"Is this a particular tribe?"
The wind rolled a single wilted leaf past his boot. "They have no tribe."
"No tribe? And they're riding, so they must all be men."
"They have renounced tribe, kin, women, any ties to order or custom or family."
"I thought my abstainers were severe."
"They don't necessarily abstain."
"They take lovers amongst themselves?"
He colored slightly. ' 'This is not a fit subject for a man and a woman to discuss."