But the next morning she felt ridiculously excited, so much so that Arina laughed at her. "You can't run today, you know. Ah, here is Niko."
"Now, Tess," said Niko, "if it hurts badly, you must tell me. Some discomfort I expect."
"Oh, thank you." She grinned. Niko took her on one side, Yeliana, being the taller of the two women, on the other, and they helped her stand up. She felt dizzy. When they let her go, she wondered for a moment if her legs would work, and then she took one step, and a second, and a third and all the way past Arina and pushed through the tent flap to go outside.
"Tess!" Niko said from behind her, but she ignored him. But the bright light hit her like a wash of pain and she staggered. And fell right into Kirill.
He clasped her tight with his good arm, hesitated, and then lowered her to the rug and let her go, stepping back all the way to the edge of the awning. Arina and Niko and Yeliana hurried out of the tent.
"Tess! I told you-"
"Oh, Niko, your face. No, I feel fine. I just lost my balance-" Then she saw that Kirill was looking anywhere but at her, and that Arina was staring at the rug. "I'm sorry, Niko," she finished, suddenly contrite.
"You will walk when and as much as I allow, young woman."
"Yes, Niko."
"Well, then. I'll allow you to walk back into the tent, and I'll see to your wounds. Then we will see." But in the end he let her walk twice more that day, once all the way around the great tent.
"Well, girl," he said that night, sounding satisfied as he examined the knife wound, "you'll keep this scar but I think you'll live."
In five days he allowed her to walk as far as the camp growing up downstream from the Veselov camp, a huddle of small tents belonging to young riders, come to join Bakhtiian. She went there every morning with Yeliana to watch Kirill training the young men. He had learned to compensate a little for his dead arm, but even so, he was clearly never going to fight or ride in a jahar again. He looked to her not so much older as more sober, as if his youth had finally bled away into the grass with the blood he had lost that terrible day. Every morning she walked, and watched, and then walked back to Arina's tent at midday. In the afternoon, she would sit beneath the awning and visitors would come. It embarrassed her, but she learned graciousness. It reminded her of Charles, of the way he received embassies and guests in Jeds, of the way conferences and media and smaller, quieter planning sessions came to him on Odys and Earth. Tasha brought her a pair of fine boots he had made for her. Aleksia Charnov gave her her dead brother's finely wrought dagger. Vera taught her how to lace beads together into headpieces. While Tess practiced this intricate work, Kirill and Arina would sit with her, and the three of them would carry on excruciatingly pleasant and polite conversations until Niko arrived to take her for her late afternoon walk.
' 'How many days has it been?'' Tess asked Niko one fine winter afternoon, with the sun shining high in the sky. It was chilly but not cold.
"Forty-one days. Tess, it is time you let him go-"
A shout came from the direction of the camp. He paused and stared back, and she paused as well. Kirill was walking after them.
He was flushed as he came up to them, and he kept his gaze fixedly on Niko. "Sibirin, there is news. Let me walk with Tess." Something communicated but not spoken passed between the two men.
"With Tess's permission," said Niko.
"Given," said Tess. Niko inclined his head and walked back to camp.
"What news, Kirill?" she asked, suddenly shy. Oh, God. Her heart raced. What if Ilya was back?
"Will you walk with me, Tess?" he asked. He rested his left hand on her elbow, as familiar with her now as he had always been before. She walked with him until they got as far as the river, and no one could see them.
"Do you want to sit down?" His color was high. He did not look at her.
"No, I'm fine." She followed him along the river. Water flowed and eddied along the bank.
"Tess. Tess. I can't say this."
"Kirill, I have always trusted you."
He sighed and stopped dead in his tracks to look directly at her. "I have to marry again, Tess. My mother has no daughters and no nieces to take care of her when she's old. And I only had one child."
"You have a child, Kirill?" She was astonished.
"Yes." He began walking again in silence, as if the subject was too painful to speak of. She waited him out, and at last he spoke again. "Little Jaroslav. His mother's kin took him, of course. I want children, Tess. Arina Veselov wants me." He stopped and turned to her. "I would be an etsana's husband. I can't fight anymore. What else am I to do?"
"Of course you must." Somehow she kept her voice steady. "I think you will be happy with her, Kirill. I like her very much."
"Yes, she has a good heart. But she is not you, Tess. Oh, gods, forgive me. I have no right to say that."
"Kirill, she will treat you better than I ever could." Then, because it was better than crying, she reached out and embraced him, burying her face in his hair.
He held her for a long moment with his one good arm. She felt his right arm, immobile in its sling, pressing against her chest like an inert object. The river ran heedlessly on behind them.
"Will you care, then," he asked softly, "if I love her?"
"Yes, I'll care. Kirill, I want you to love her. I want you to be happy."
He pushed her back. When he grinned, he looked almost like his old self again. "I daresay, my heart, that we will have a quieter life than you and Ilya."
She flushed. "What was your news, Kirill?"
"Didn't I tell you?" he asked innocently, and then he kissed her chastely on the cheek and turned to lead her back to camp. "No, it isn't what you think. Our tribe has come, Tess."
"Our tribe?"
"Yes."
It took her a long moment before his words developed meaning. Our tribe.
"Sonia!" she shrieked, and clapped her hands over her mouth.
"Don't run. Niko will have my other arm if I let you hurt yourself.''
She halted abruptly. "I can't go back. How can I face her?"
"Because of Yuri and Mikhal? Tess, she will need another sister very badly now. And anyway, it was a scout brought the news. They won't be here until tomorrow. Come, Tess. You have more courage than this."
She was terrified suddenly at having to face Sonia after so long. And worse, at having to face Ilya. Forty-one days. Soon enough he would return. All too soon. What could she possibly say to him? He would take every advantage of her; he could not help it. She recalled very clearly now how he had gotten her to acknowledge their marriage: "I promise you, my husband." But with Yuri's death, she felt drained of all the life and all the energy that had ever allowed her to face Bakhtiian on equal terms. Soon enough, going on like this, there would be nothing left of her but ashes.
"I have to go back to Charles," she whispered.
"What?" Kirill asked.
"Nothing." But she mentally kept up the litany as they walked back to camp, cycling round and round: / have to go back to Jeds. I have to go back to Charles. And at each pause, she could hear Yuri's voice: "Why does everything have to be so final, Tess?" Because things are final, Yuri, she said to him. Because people die and I don't want to go through this again. She clutched Kirill's arm more tightly, and he glanced at her, but mercifully he said nothing. She wiped away tears with the back of her hand. Because I'm afraid.
"Gods, Kirill, I can't go back there crying."
"Why not? You're a woman. And you lost your brother. Why shouldn't you cry? It's nothing to be ashamed of."
She smiled through her tears. "My sweet Kirill," she said, and then they came to camp and she relinquished her grip on him. Arina Veselov came to greet them, looking sober but not unhappy, and led Tess back to her tent, repeating the news Kirill had told her. Kirill followed them, but he walked next to Arina now not next to Tess.