"Elliott, Kate - Jaran 03 - The Sword of Heaven 02 - His Conquering Sword 1.1" - читать интересную книгу автора (Elliott Kate)

Tess was wise enough simply to warm herself in the blaze, and vain enough to be gratified by it. She had heard what she had hoped to hear, and she knew him well enough by now to know he spoke the truth. Vasil was certainly more beautiful than she was, or could hope to be, but he was also the most self-centered person she had ever met. And she suspected that Vasil's attraction to Ilya was likely not so much to Ilya as a person, as Ilya, but to Ilya as the gods-touched child, to Bakhtiian, the man with fire in his heart and a vision at the heart of his spirit.
"Still," she asked suddenly, "if it was possible, would that tempt you? A triad marriage?"
He rolled his eyes and sat up, sighing with exasperation. "All you women ever think about is lying with men." He surveyed the remains of the bed with disgust and rose and set to work straightening out the blankets and placing the pillows back in their appointed spots.
"But would it?"
His lips twitched. "I don't know," he said at last, flinging the last stray pillow at her, which she caught. He picked up his boots and his belt and folded his clothes in exactly die same order and with the same precise corners that he always folded them. She admired him from this angle, the clean lines of his body, the length of thigh, his flat belly and what lay below, the curve of his shoulders, his lips, the dark shadow of his luxuriant hair, tipped with sweat. He was a little thin yet, from the sickness, but that would pass. He sank down beside her, cross-legged, and considered her with a frown. "Does it tempt you?"
She sat up as well and shrugged. "Not really. I wonder if there's anything there, in him, past his undoubted beauty. Tell me about him."
He considered her. After a moment he slid in under the blankets and covered them both up. She lay on her right side, angling one leg up over his legs. But her belly, not yet large enough to need a pillow for support, still needed something. She shifted and grimaced; he turned by degrees until she found a comfortable position. She sighed and slid her shoulder in under his arm and rested her head on his warm shoulder. He lay on his back, with one hand tucked under his head and the other curled up around her back, fingers delicate on her skin.
"I was a singularly unattractive boy," he said at last, musing. "I was awkward. I was a dreamer, and I had strange ideas and stranger curiosities. I was also afflicted withЧ" He sighed. She had one hand tucked down under her belly, knuckles brushing his hip; her other hand rested on his chest, so she felt the force of the sigh under her fingers. "Чvery sudden and very strong desires, that winter, and no girl in any tribe we met that season had the least interest in me. Why should they? I was odd, and ugly. Then Vasil arrived. We were both passionate in our youthful desires."
"What was yours? Or was it onlyЧ"
He chuckled. "No, no, it was both. The physical craving was strong enough, but never as strong as the other I wanted to know everything."
"Then what was Vasil's?"
"I suppose I was. Vasil was radiant. He was beautiful. Girls followed him. They asked him everything they never asked me. They paid him as much attention as they paid the young men who had made a name for themselves riding with the jahar. I don't know why he chose me."
"Perhaps he saw what you would become."
Silence shuttered them. Tess felt as if she could hear the sound of the blankets settling in around them, caving in with excruciating slowness to fill the empty space left by the curves and angles of their intertwined bodies.
"He believed in me when no one else did," said Ilya, almost wonderingly, as if that moment of revelation, of the adolescent boy revealing with reckless daring his wild vision only to find that his listener did not scorn or laugh but rather embraced him, had set its mark so fast and deep upon his spirit that it had branded him forever.
"Not even your father?"
"My father rode out a lot in those days. He was a Singer. The gods called him at strange times, on strange journeys."
"Your sister?"
"Natalia's first husband had just been killed in a feud with the Boradin tribe, while she was still pregnant with her first child."
"Was that Nadine?"
"Yes. Oh, Natalia was fond enough of me, and kind to me, considering what an embarrassment I must have been to her, but she was busy and preoccupied. Riders were already beginning to come round, to see what they could see of her, to ask if she was ready to marry again."
"But, Ilya, women have no choice in marriage."
He tilted his head to look directly at her. His lips quirked up. "Nor should they," he said, and grinned. Then he yelped, because she pinched him.
"That for you, and don't think I'll ever forgive you for taking me down the avenue without me knowing what it meant, either."
"Perhaps it was rashЧ"
"Perhaps!"
"But, by the gods, I'd do it again. Tess." He pressed her against him, as close as he might, and kissed her long and searchingly.
There came a cough. There stood Vasil, framed in the entrance by curtain and striped wall. "If you will talk about me, then I wish you'd do so in a language I can understand. And, Ilya, my love, I don't know how you can expect me to leave here unseen if you post guards at the entrance to your tent."
Ilya swore.
"Wait," said Tess in khush. "Ilya, it's true he can't get out by the front entrance without being seen. They all saw you come in here. You'll have to go out front and distract them with something, and he can sneak out the back."
"You have a back entrance?" Vasil asked, looking interested.
"Go on," said Tess, forestalling what Ilya was about to say, which she guessed would be ill-considered and rude. Vasil stared at him as he dressed, but he dressed quickly and pushed past the other man without the slightest sign of the affection he had shown earlier. A moment later, Tess heard voices outside, engaged in some kind of lively conversation. "Here," she said, standing up with a blanket pulled around her. She went to the back wall of the tent and twitched the woven inner wall aside to reveal the felt outer wall. Here, low along the ground, the felt wall overlapped itself and, drawing the extra layer aside, Tess revealed a gap in the fabric just large enough to crawl through. She knelt and peered out.
Vasil laid a hand on her bare shoulder. His fingers caressed the line of her neck. "Here, I'll look. I've done this before."
Tess made a noise in her throat and stood up, and away. "I have no doubt of it."
He hesitated, and bent to kiss her. Then he knelt and swayed forward. Paused, surveying his ground. A moment later he slid outside. Tess knelt and looked out after him, but he had already vanished into the gloom. She twitched the fabric back, let the inner wall fall into place, and called for Ilya. After a little bit, he came back in, swearing under his breath.
"Well, you can hardly blame him," she began.
"I can do what I like," he said peevishly. "He's so damned charming that it's easy to forget how much trouble he causes."
"I think I'd better sew that back entrance shut."
He cocked his head at her. "Probably." He stripped and snuggled in beside her. And sighed. "It was a stupid thing to do."
"What? Letting him get out of here unseen?"
"No." By the constraint in his voice, she could tell he was embarrassed. "WhatЧwe didЧtonight."
"No, it was the right thing to do. It never does any good to run away from what you're afraid of. I should know. I've done it often enough."
"What was I afraid of?"
"I don't know. But I don't think you're afraid of Vasil anymore."
His face rested against her hair. He stroked her along the line of her torso and down along her hips, and up again, and down, while he considered. "No," he replied, sounding surprised, "I don't think I am."
"So. Is there anything else you haven't told me?"
His hand stopped. "I've kept no more hidden from you," he said indignantly, "than you've kept hidden from me."
Shame overwhelmed Tess. Gods, he didn't know the tenth of it. Yet what could she say? There was nothing she could say.
"It wasn't Natalia they were asking, anyway," said Ilya, "it was my mother and my aunt. It's decent to observe a period of mourning before marrying again"
It took Tess a moment to recall where they had left off their other conversation: with his sister, Natalia. "But she did marry again?"