Part 46 (1/2)

Vasil stared at her. Out here in the open, with the light on her face, she looked tired and drawn and yet still handsome enough that any man might be excused if he fell in love with her. But it was Bakhtiian who had married her. That was all that mattered. He smiled. Her face lit, absorbing the heat of his regard, and she smiled back. The brother arched an eyebrow. Vasil could not read him, and it bothered him that he couldn't tell whether the brother liked him or despised him.

”Aleksi and I are going riding,” Tess said. Her voice sounded rough from disuse.

”But I suppose-” She faltered. ”Well, Cara will be there.”

The thought of going any longer without seeing Ilya made Vasil ache. But he dropped his chin in feigned obedience. ”Of course, it's not proper-”

”Oh, go on,” she said impatiently, as he knew she would, because he had discovered that she was in fact impatient with the disapproval with which everyone else treated him. The jaran knew that his presence here was improper. He knew that his presence here was improper. He was like a reflection of Bakhtiian, but a reflection that showed what Bakhtiian might have become: corrupt and self-serving. He knew what they thought of him, and he did not blame them for thinking it. But the G.o.ds had made him this way. Was he to fight against what the G.o.ds had wrought? And anyway, Tess Soerensen rebelled against their strictures. She disliked their censure, and she favored him because he suffered under it. He allowed himself a broader smile, feeling that he had scored a triumph. She touched his arm, briefly, warmly, and then excused herself and left, escorted by the brother.

Two young men stood on either side of the awning, Vladimir the orphan and Konstans Barshai. They stared at him as he walked up to the tent, Vladimir with enmity, Konstans with curiosity. He gave Konstans a brief smile and ignored Vladimir. He paused on the carpet. A moment later the healer came out of the tent, rubbing her hands together briskly.

”Konstans, where did-?” She broke off, seeing Vasil. ”Ah, you're here. Well, I'll go in with you.”

Vasil followed her meekly. Now she was a strange one. He found her disconcerting. As far as he could tell, she did not care about him one way or the other, neither to disapprove or to sympathize. He was not altogether sure that she cared about Bakhtiian all that much either; like Aleksi, her loyalties lay with Tess Soerensen. She led him in through the outer chamber, with its khaja furniture and a single scarlet s.h.i.+rt lying on the table, a s.h.i.+rt whose sleeves and collar were embroidered with Ilya's distinctive pattern. Vasil wanted desperately to touch that s.h.i.+rt, but he did not dare stop. They went on, past the curtain, into the inner chamber.

There lay Ilya, looking thinner and paler and just as still. Fifteen days, it had been, and still his spirit wandered the heavens.

”Now,” said the healer, turning to view him. ”I can't leave you here alone with him. I hope you know that.”

He bowed his head, acceding to her judgment. Of course she could not trust him.

He had ridden for six years with the dyan who had tried his best to kill Bakhtiian. He had ridden as an outlaw these past three years.

Who was to say that he had truly given up his vow to see Ilya dead? The doctor settled down on a pillow and propped a book open on her knees.

”Can you read?” he asked, more to woo her than because he was interested.

She glanced up at him, as if she were surprised that he had addressed her. ”Yes.”

Her gaze dropped back down to her book.

”Ilya tried to teach me, when he first came back from Jeds,” Vasil continued.

”But it's so much easier to learn things by hearing them. I don't understand how those marks can speak.”

Her face sparked with sudden interest. ”Here,” she said. She turned the pages and then stopped. ”I'll read this aloud to you, and then you see how much you can repeat back to me. Hmm. I'll have to translate it into khush, so bear with me.” She spoke: ”He, who the sword of heaven will bear Should be as holy as severe; Pattern in himself to know, Grace to stand, and virtue go; More nor less to others paying Than by self offenses weighing. Shame to him whose cruel striking Kills for faults of his own liking!”Vasil felt the heat of shame rise to his cheeks. ”Are you mocking me?” he demanded.

She c.o.c.ked her head to look at him, measuring. ”Not at all. Should I be? I was thinking of someone else entirely.”

”You were thinking of Bakhtiian,” he said accusingly.

”No, in fact, I wasn't. Sit down, Veselov. You're looking rather peaked. Can you remember it?”

He snorted, disgusted. ”Of course,” he said, and reeled the speech off without effort.

”Here, let's try a longer one.” But he managed that as well, and a third, and she harrumphed and shut the book. ”Well, you have good memories, you jaran, which shouldn't surprise me, since you're not dependent on writing. Why are you here, Vasil?”

The question surprised him. ”Surely they have all told you?” he said bitterly.

”I've heard many things,” said the healer in her matter-of-fact voice, ”but I'm curious to hear what you would say, given the chance.”

Ilya's presence wore on him, standing here so close to him. He strayed over to the couch, half an eye on the healer, and just brushed Ilya's hand with his fingers. Ilya's skin was cool but not cold. The healer said nothing. Vasil slid his touch up to cup Ilya's wrist and just stood there, feeling the pulse of his blood, the throb of his heart.

He shut his eyes.

”I remember,” he said in a low voice, ”when I first saw him. Our tribes came together that year-it was one cycle plus two winters past my birth year-”

”So you were fourteen.”

”I must have been, I suppose. The Orzhekov girls all wanted to bed me. They even ignored some of the riders, the older men, because of me-but still, I grew into my beauty early. My mother always said so. She said there had never been a child as beautiful as I was.”

”It might even have been true,” said the healer in a low voice. Vasil could not tell if she was warming to him, or simply mocking him. But the memory dragged him on.

”But then I met Ilyakoria. He was born in the same year, the Year of the Eagle, but I was a summer's child and he winter's.”

”Was he a handsome boy?”

Vasil felt how his skin warmed Ilya's, as if his heat, his presence, and his tale, too, might draw Ilya back from the heavens if only he told it truthfully enough. ”No.”

He opened his eyes and grinned at the healer. She, too, was a handsome woman, not of feature but of dignity. ”He was one of those hopelessly unattractive boys that no girl ever looks at. And he knew it, and they knew it. But he had fire in his eyes and a vision in his heart. No one saw it there but me. Well.” He shrugged. ”Perhaps his father did, but his father rarely spoke. I think his mother was disappointed in him.''

”In her husband?”

”No. In Ilyakoria. But I had never met anyone like him. I loved him. He was like a blazing fire on a bitter cold night, that you cannot help but approach, to find warmth there.”

”Ah. And you were beautiful. Of course he would love you in return, at fourteen.”

”Of course.” Vasil studied her, but still she did not seem to be mocking him.

”And then?”

”Then when my tribe moved on, I stayed with the Orzhekov tribe.”

”That was allowed?”

”Much is allowed, if you're still a boy, and you're discreet. Girls, too.”

”Is that so?” A smile played on her lips and vanished. ”Is it, indeed?”

Vasil withdrew his hand from Ilya's wrist. ”Then he left for Jeds. I thought he was gone forever.” His shame and his fury and his despair still burned through him, as he remembered. ”I tried to find a woman to marry but I found that I could not forget Ilya, that no one, male or female, could replace Ilya in my heart. I hated him for that, all those long years that he was gone.” He had to pause, the force of emotion was so strong in him. He had forgotten how long these feelings had lain there, buried, hidden, festering.

The healer regarded him evenly, and he thought he felt a little sympathy from her. ”Then he came back.”

”Then he came back. I heard of his return many seasons later, and I left my tribe again to go to him. His own mother had already made him dyan of the Orzhekov tribe by the time I found him, so quickly had he worked. Like a Singer, he had left the jaran and returned to us G.o.ds-touched, except now everyone could see it, not just me.

They called him Bakhtiian, 'he who has traveled far.' They said he had a vision in his heart, and they all vowed to follow him. ”Without meaning to, he lifted a hand to trace the line of Ilya's brow, tenderly. He turned his hand over and ran the backs of his fingers down around Ilya's eyes and down the curve of his beard. Ilya's strong face was so wan and so lifeless. This was only the sh.e.l.l of Ilya, not Ilya at all, and yet Vasil could not imagine a sweeter sight. ”He let me join his jahar, because of what we had once been to each other, but there were other boys, other men, who loved him now, too.”