Free His Conquering Sword by Kate Elliott Page A

Stalia told me they both would have died far sooner if it wasn’t for me. Perhaps it’s true. But as soon as they died the Mirskys drove me out.”
    “Isn’t there something about horse-stealing in here?”
    Aleksi considered his cup. It was metal, but the heat of the tea did not burn his hands where he cupped the round surface between his palms. An etching of fronds edged the rim and the base. Steam rose from the tea, caressing his face. But he had already trusted her with so much, and Tess, with everything. “Stalia and Vyacheslav had given me things: his saber, a beautiful blanket she had woven, the tent that belonged to her only daughter, who had long since died, their komis cups and flask, some other things. I overheard the etsana—their own cousin’s daughter!—speaking to her sons and daughters, saying that if they didn’t throw me out of camp immediately I’d try to steal everything in the tent and run off with it. So that night I took what I could carry, and stole a horse, and rode away. Oh,” here he glanced up at her, “I knew it was wrong. The penalty for stealing a horse is death, of course. But I couldn’t bear to lose every little thing they’d given me, because everyone else in the Mirsky tribe was so petty and small-minded.”
    “Where did you ride to, then?”
    “There was one jahar that would take men who didn’t belong anywhere else. The arenabekh. ”
    “The arenabekh. They were outlaws, weren’t they?”
    “Men who had left their tribes for one reason or another—for some crime, because they loved men more than women, because they no longer wanted to live with the tribes.”
    “Did you like it there?”
    “Not at all. How can any person love a tribe where there are no children?”
    “Wouldn’t someone like that boy who was exiled—with the actor—wouldn’t he seek out the arenabekh?”
    “He would, if he could find them. Keregin, their last dyan, led the arenabekh into a hopeless battle in order to save Bakhtiian’s life. But Tess would know about that. She was there.”
    “Was she, now? I haven’t heard this story yet.”
    “Well, but with the arenabekh gone, Yevgeni Usova has nowhere to go, if he’s even still alive.”
    “So there you were with the arenabekh.”
    “I stayed with them for almost two years, because there was nowhere else to go. Keregin was hard but fair, and he never treated me any differently from the others because I was an orphan—or a horse stealer. Then I heard about these training schools, where young men might go to train for jahar, and I thought I’d go and see if Kerchaniia Bakhalo, the man who ran one, would accept orphans. He did. When he discovered that Vyacheslav Mirsky himself had trained me—well—he never said as much, but I knew I was his favorite pupil. But then, I was a better fighter than the rest. It was the frog, you know. And after that, Bakhalo brought us to the great camp that was growing up around Bakhtiian.”
    “Where you met Tess.”
    At the mention of Tess’s name, he could not help but smile. “Yes. She trained with us. Although she was Bakhtiian’s wife, she never treated those of us who were orphans any different from the rest. Of course, she is khaja, which accounts for it.”
    “How did she come to adopt you as her brother?”
    “Every woman needs a brother, and hers had died—that was Yuri Orzhekov, Sonia’s younger brother. She and I always got along well, and we liked each other right away. We felt—” He thought about it, two outsiders working and training together, both with quick minds and ready laughter, detached and yet involved in the jaran camp. “—linked, somehow. But then the Mirskys rode into camp. They were well within their rights to kill me, of course. In fact, they were in the process of doing just that—”
    “How, in the Lady’s Name, were they doing that?”
    “Well, there were five of them, and they caught me in the dark coming out of a woman’s tent, and then they beat me